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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Wings of the Wind, by Credo Harris
+
+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: Wings of the Wind
+
+Author: Credo Harris
+
+Release Date: December 6, 2009 [EBook #30618]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WINGS OF THE WIND ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Garcia, Odessa Paige Turner and the
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
+(This file was produced from images generously made
+available by The Kentuckiana Digital Library)
+
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Note:
+
+Inconsistencies in the hyphenation and variations in spelling have been
+retained as in the original.
+
+
+
+
+
+  WINGS OF THE
+    WIND
+
+  BY
+
+  CREDO HARRIS
+
+  _Author of_
+  "TOBY," "SUNLIGHT PATCH,"
+  "WHERE THE SOULS OF MEN ARE CALLING,"
+  ETC.
+
+
+  BOSTON
+  SMALL, MAYNARD & COMPANY
+  PUBLISHERS
+
+
+
+
+  Copyright, 1920
+  BY SMALL, MAYNARD & COMPANY
+  (INCORPORATED)
+
+
+
+
+  TO
+  S. THRUSTON BALLARD
+  WITH WHOM THE AUTHOR HAS SHARED
+  MANY A PLEASANT CAMP-FIRE
+  THIS BOOK IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED
+
+
+
+
+  CONTENTS
+
+
+  CHAPTER                                PAGE
+
+      I. "TO ADVENTURE AND ROMANCE!"       9
+
+     II. THE MYSTERIOUS MONSIEUR          16
+
+    III. THE GIRL IN THE CAFÉ             29
+
+     IV. NIRVANA                          43
+
+      V. "TO THE VERY END!"               54
+
+     VI. A VOICE FROM THE WATER           70
+
+    VII. A BOMB AND A DISCOVERY           80
+
+   VIII. THE CHASE BEGINS                 94
+
+     IX. A SHOT FROM THE DARK            104
+
+      X. A SILENT ENEMY                  117
+
+     XI. A STRANGE FIND                  129
+
+    XII. THE HURRICANE                   140
+
+   XIII. ON TO DEATH RIVER!              153
+
+    XIV. SMILAX BRINGS NEWS              161
+
+     XV. EFAW KOTEE'S DEN                174
+
+    XVI. THE CAVE MAN SETS FORTH         190
+
+   XVII. THE RESCUE                      202
+
+  XVIII. DOLORIA                         212
+
+    XIX. ENLIGHTENING A PRINCESS         228
+
+     XX. SLEEPING BENEATH GOD'S TENT     238
+
+    XXI. PLANTING A MEMORY               249
+
+   XXII. I LOVE YOU                      266
+
+  XXIII. THE ATTACK                      275
+
+   XXIV. GERMAN CRUELTY                  289
+
+    XXV. A FLYING THRONE                 304
+
+   XXVI. A TREASURE BOX                  319
+
+  XXVII. THE FINAL HOCUS-POCUS           330
+
+
+
+
+
+WINGS OF THE WIND
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+"TO ADVENTURE AND ROMANCE!"
+
+
+At last out of khaki, and dressed in conventional evening clothes, I
+felt as if I were indeed writing the first words of another story on the
+unmarred page of the incoming year. As I entered the library my mother,
+forgetting that it was I who owed her deference, came forward with
+outstretched arms and a sound in her voice like that of doves at nesting
+time. Dad's welcome was heartier, even though his eyes were dimmed with
+happy tears. And old Bilkins, our solemn, irreproachable butler, grinned
+benignly as he stood waiting to announce dinner. What a wealth of
+affection I had to be grateful for!
+
+I did not lack gratitude, but with the old year touching the heels of
+the new, and Time commanding me to get in step, my return to civil life
+held few inducements. Instead of a superabundance of cheer, I had
+brought from France jumpy nerves and a body lean with over
+training--natural results of physical exhaustion coupled with the mental
+reaction that must inevitably follow a year and a half of highly
+imaginative living.
+
+But there was another aspect less tangible, perhaps more permanent--and
+all members of combat divisions will understand exactly what I mean.
+When America picked up the gauntlet, an active conscience jerked me from
+a tuneful life and drove me out to war--for whether men are driven by
+conscience, or a government draft board, makes no difference in the
+effect upon those who come through. Time after time, for eighteen
+months, I made my regular trips into hell--into a hell more revolting
+than mid-Victorian evangelists ever pictured to spellbound, quaking
+sinners. Never in this world had there been a parallel to the naked
+dangers and nauseous discomforts of that western front; never so
+prolonged an agony of head-splitting noises, lacerations of human flesh,
+smells that turned the body sick, blasphemies that made the soul grow
+hard, frenzied efforts to kill, and above all a spirit, fanatical, that
+urged each man to bear more, kill more, because he was a Crusader for
+the right.
+
+Into this red crucible I had plunged, and now emerged--remolded. In one
+brief year and a half I had lived my life, dreamed the undreamable,
+accomplished the unaccomplishable. Much had gone from me, yet much had
+come--and it was this which had come that distorted my vision of future
+days; making them drab, making my fellows who had not taken the plunge
+seem purposeless and immature. Either they were out of tune, or I
+was--and I thought, of course, that they were. What freshness could I
+bring to an existence of peace when my gears would not mesh with its
+humdrum machinery!
+
+My mother, ever quick to detect the workings of my mind as well as the
+variations of my body, had noticed these changes when I disembarked the
+previous week, and had become obsessed with the idea that I stood
+tottering on the brink of abysmal wretchedness. So, while I was marking
+time the few days at camp until the hour of demobilization, she summoned
+into hasty conference my father, our family doctor, and the select near
+relatives whose advice was a matter of habit rather than value, to
+devise means of leading me out of myself.
+
+This, I afterward learned, had been a weighty conference, resulting in
+the conclusion that I must have complete rest and diversion. But as my
+more recent letters home had expressed a determination to rush headlong
+into business--as a sort of fatuous panacea for jumpy nerves, no
+doubt--and since the conferees possessed an intimate knowledge of the
+mulish streak that coursed through my blood, their plans were laid
+behind my back with the greatest secrecy. Therefore, when entering the
+library this last night in December and hurrying to my mother's arms, I
+had no suspicion that I was being drawn into a very agreeable trap,
+gilded by my father's abundant generosity.
+
+We sat late after dinner. Somewhere in the hall Bilkins hovered with
+glasses and tray to be on hand when the whistles began their screaming.
+In twenty years he had not omitted this New Year's Eve ceremony.
+
+"Your wound never troubles you?" my mother asked, her solicitation over
+a scratch I had received ten months before not disguising a light of
+pride that charmed me.
+
+"I've forgotten it, Mater. Never amounted to anything."
+
+"Still, you did leave some blood on French soil," Dad spoke up, for this
+conceit appealed to him.
+
+"Enough to grow an ugly rose, perhaps," I admitted.
+
+"I'll bet you grew pretty ones on the cheeks of those French girls," he
+chuckled.
+
+"Pretty ones don't grow any more, on cheeks or anywhere else," I
+doggedly replied. "Materialism's the keynote now--that's why I'm going
+back to work, at once."
+
+"Oh," the Mater laughed, "don't think of your father's stupid office,
+yet!"
+
+"There's nothing left to think of," I grumbled.
+
+"Isn't there?" he exclaimed. "What'd you say if Gates has the yacht in
+commission, and you take a run down to Miami----"
+
+"Or open the cottage, if you'd rather," she excitedly interrupted him.
+"I hadn't intended leaving New York this winter, but will chaperon a
+house party if you like!"
+
+"Fiddlesticks! Cruise, by all means," he spoke with good-natured
+emphasis. "Get another fellow, and go after adventures and romances and
+that kind of thing! Go after 'em hammer and tongs! By George, that's
+what I'd do if I were a boy, and had the chance!"
+
+They waited, rather expectantly.
+
+"Cruising's all right," I said, without enthusiasm. "But it's a waste of
+time to go after romance and adventure. They died with the war."
+
+"Ho!--they did, did they?" he laughed in mock derision. "What's become
+of your imagination--your vaporings? You used to be full of it!" And the
+Mater supported him by exclaiming:
+
+"Why, Jack Bronx! And I used to call you my Pantheist! Don't tell me
+your second sight for discovering the beautiful in things has failed
+you!"
+
+"It got put out by mustard gas, maybe," I murmured, remembering with
+bitterness some of the fellows who had been with me.
+
+What was romance here to the colorful, high-tensioned thing I had seen
+in devastated areas where loves of all gradations were torn and
+scattered and trampled into the earth like chaff! Fretfully I told them
+this.
+
+They exchanged glances, yet she continued in coaxing vein:
+
+"You're such a big baby to've been such a big soldier! Don't you know
+that romance is always just over the hill, hand in hand with
+adventure--both lonely for someone to play with? Wars can't kill them!
+It's after wars, when a nation is wounded, that they become priceless!"
+
+"By George, that's right," Dad cried. "Come to think of it, that's
+exactly right! And Gates has the same crew of six--men you've always
+known! Even that rascal, Pete, cooks better 'n ever! The _Whim_, you
+can't deny, is the smartest ninety-six foot schooner yacht that sails! I
+say again that if I had the chance I'd turn her free on whatever magic
+course the wings of the wind would take her! That I would--by George!"
+
+And there was a note of deep appeal in the Mater's voice as she asked:
+
+"Why not get that boy you wrote so much about--Tommy what's-his-name,
+the Southerner? I like him!"
+
+This plan, which I now saw had been so carefully prepared--fruit of the
+secret conference--was but one in the million or so of others throughout
+America nurtured and matured by the brave army of fathers, mothers,
+wives, sisters, daughters, who stayed at home and gave their all,
+waiting with alternate hopes and fears, looking with prayerful eyes to
+the day that would bring a certain one back into their arms. What
+difference if some plans were elaborate and some as modest as a flower?
+Who would dare distinguish between the cruise on a private yacht and the
+cake endearingly made in a hot little kitchen for the husky lad just
+returned from overseas? Each was its own best expression of pride and
+love. Each said in its tenderest way: "Well done, my own!"
+
+A lump came into my throat.
+
+"It's rather decent of a fellow to have two such corking forbears," I
+murmured.
+
+The Mater turned her gentle eyes to the fire, and Dad, clearing his
+throat in a blustering way--though he was not at all a blustering
+man--replied:
+
+"Perhaps it's rather decent of us to have a son who--er, I mean,
+who--well, er----"
+
+"A cruise hits me right," I exclaimed, hurriedly coming to his rescue,
+for neither of us wanted a scene. "And I'll wire Tommy Davis, Mater--the
+chap you mentioned. He's a corking fellow! I didn't write you how the
+battalion started calling him 'Rebel' till he closed up half a dozen
+eyes, did I? You see, in the beginning, when we were rookies, the
+sergeant had us up in formation to get our names, and when he came to
+Tommy that innocent drawled: 'Mr. Thomas Jefferson Davis, suh, of
+Loui'ville, Jefferson county, Kentucky, suh.' You could have heard a pin
+drop. The sergeant, as hard-boiled as they come, stood perfectly still
+and let a cold eye bore into him for half a minute, then gasped: 'Gawd!
+What a wicked little rebel!'"
+
+They laughed.
+
+"Why didn't you bring him home with you?"
+
+"Same reason he couldn't take me home with him. There were people
+waiting, and turkey, and--but he won't want to go," I added. "He's crazy
+about a girl down there!"
+
+"Fiddlesticks," my father chuckled. "Any normal fellow'll want to
+cruise! I'll wire him myself--this very night!"
+
+Bilkins entered with the tray, wishing us a happy new year. Outside the
+whistles were beginning to blow. After we had pledged each other, and
+drunk to 1919, the Mater, a light of challenge in her eyes, looked at me
+and gave another toast:
+
+"To a cruise and an adventure, Jack!"
+
+"To romance," Dad cried, gallantly raising her fingers to his lips.
+
+There was no use being a wet blanket, so with a laugh I said:
+
+"To adventure and romance!--Mater, if they're still on earth I'll bring
+them home to you!"
+
+I knew it was a very silly toast, but let it go to please them--for why
+disillusion those who believe in the actuality of nonexistence?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+THE MYSTERIOUS MONSIEUR
+
+
+Ten days later Tommy and I--and Bilkins, whom I had begged of my father
+at the eleventh hour--stepped off the train at Miami, stretched our arms
+and breathed deep breaths of balmy air. Gates, his ruddy face an augury
+of good cheer, was there to meet us, and as he started off well laden
+with a portion of our bags, Tommy whispered:
+
+"Reminds me of the old chap in that picture 'The Fisherman's Daughter'!"
+
+The description did fit Gates like an old glove, yet his most dominant
+characteristic was an unfailing loyalty to our family and an honest
+bluntness, both of which had become as generally recognized as his skill
+in handling the _Whim_--"the smartest schooner yacht," he would have
+told you on a two-minute acquaintanceship, "that ever tasted salt."
+
+"We might open the cottage for a few days, Gates," I said, as we were
+getting into the motor.
+
+"Bless you, sir," he replied, caressing a weather-beaten chin with thumb
+and finger, "the _Whim_'s been tugging at her cable mighty fretful this
+parst fortnight! The crew hoped you'd be coming aboard at once, sir.
+Fact is, we're wanting to be told how you and Mr. Thomas, here, licked
+those Germans."
+
+"Angels of the Marne protect me," Tommy groaned. "Gates, I wouldn't
+resurrect those scraps for the Kaiser's scalp!"
+
+"Yes, he will," I promised, smiling at the old fellow's look of
+disappointment. "He'll probably talk you to death, though; that's the
+only trouble."
+
+"I'll tell you what," Tommy said, "we'll chuck the cottage idea and go
+aboard; then tonight, Gates, you pipe the crew--if that's the nautical
+term--whereupon I'll hold a two-hour inquest over our deceased war, on
+condition that we bury the subject forever more. We came down here to
+lose the last eighteen months of our lives, Gates, not keep 'em green.
+Maybe you don't know it, but we're after the big adventure!"
+
+His eyes twinkled as he said this, and his face was lighted by a rare
+smile that no one possessed more engagingly than Tommy. While he treated
+the probability of an adventure with tolerant amusement, such was his
+inherent love of it and so developed was his capacity for
+"playing-true," that he sometimes made me think almost anything might
+turn up. I was quite unaware that my mother had written him, or that he,
+in return, had promised to keep her fully advised of my improvement--a
+state which was already beginning.
+
+"I carn't see how you help talking of it, sir--all that gas, and liquid
+fire, and bursting shells," Gates stared at him in perplexity.
+
+"It's an effort, but I refuse to turn phonograph like some of the old
+timers--not that I love 'em any less for it, Lord knows!" Then he began
+to laugh, and turned to me, adding: "One of the first things I did after
+getting home was to drop in on a very dear gentleman who's been a friend
+of our family since the Ark. He came at me with open arms, crying:
+'Well, Thomas, sit right down and tell me about your experiences!' I
+side-tracked that--for I hate the word. We didn't go over for
+_experiences_! But he wouldn't be denied. 'Try to think,' he commanded.
+'Why, Thomas, old as I am, I remember when Stonewall Jackson struck that
+brilliant blow----' and you can shoot me for a spy, Jack, if he didn't
+keep me there five hours while he fought the entire Civil War! No
+sir-ee! After tonight, never again!"
+
+But Tommy's talk, to which the crew listened in rapt attention, consumed
+nearer six than two, or even five hours. These men were hungry for
+authentic first-hand information--being too old to have sought it for
+themselves.
+
+It must not be inferred that the _Whim's_ crew consisted of the ancient
+and decrepit. More than once my father had said that if ever he should
+get in a tight place there was no band of six he would rather have at
+his back than this one headed by Gates; nor did he except Pete, the
+prince of cooks. Yet who, by the wildest stretch of fancy, could have
+contemplated tight places or dangers as the trim yacht rode peacefully
+at anchor an eighth of a mile off our dock at smiling Miami? To every
+man aboard such things as death and the shedding of blood had ceased
+with the armistice, and Gates would have taken his oath, were it asked
+of him, that our course pointed only toward laughing waters, blue skies,
+and emerald shore-lines.
+
+Early next morning we were under way when Tommy pounded on my stateroom
+door, challenging me to a dip overboard. There was a glorious joy in his
+voice, as far reaching as reveille, that found response in the cockles
+of my heart. Gates, never happier than when standing beneath stretched
+canvas, hove-to as he saw us dash stark naked up the companionway stairs
+and clear the rail head-first, but he laid by only while we had our
+splash and continued the course southward the moment our hands grasped
+the gangway.
+
+"We're cruising, not swimming," he said bluntly, as we reached the deck.
+"But I'll say this," he called after us, "you're both in about as fine
+condition as men get to be. I'll give _that_ to the Army!" Which was
+true, except for the fact that I might have been pronounced overtrained.
+Tommy and I were as hard as nails, our skin glowed like satin--but,
+better than this, his spirit was quick with the love of living, charged
+with a contagion that had already begun to touch my own.
+
+Half an hour later he mumbled through a crumbling biscuit:
+
+"If Pete ever cooked better grub than this it was in a previous
+incarnation!"
+
+"Man achieves his greatest triumph but once in life," I admitted. "It's
+self-evident."
+
+One loses track of time while sailing in south Florida waters. There is
+a lassitude that laughs at clocks; the lotus floats over the waves even
+as over the land, and a poetic languor steals into the soul breeding an
+indifference to hours and days--wretched things, at best, that were only
+meant for slaves! Neither of us realized our passing into Barnes Sound,
+and saw only that the _Whim_, sails gracefully drawing, cut the water as
+cleanly as a knife.
+
+Another day passed during which we shot at sharks, or trawled, or lay on
+deck smoking and occasionally gazing over the side at displays of fish
+and flora twenty feet beneath us. But upon the third morning I asked:
+
+"Where are we bound, Gates?"
+
+"Mr. Thomas says Key West, sir, and then Havana."
+
+"Mr. Thomas, indeed," I laughed, for it was exactly like Tommy to take
+over the command of a ship, or anything else that struck his fancy.
+
+Before leaving Miami he had received a twenty page letter from the
+Bluegrass region of Kentucky which threw him into a state of such
+volatile ineptitude that I was well satisfied to let him give what
+orders he would, sending us to the world's end for all I cared. In a
+very large measure Tommy's happiness was my own, as I knew that mine
+would always be dear to him.
+
+During our most trying hours in France, thoughts of this wonderful girl,
+whose name was Nell, unfailingly kept his spirits high. In moments of
+confidence that come to pals on the eve of battle I saw that some day
+they might be eternal "buddies"--certainly if he had his way; and toward
+this achievement he had been, since graduating from the University of
+Virginia, directing every effort to build up a stock farm which his
+family had more or less indifferently carried for generations. Next to
+winning Nell, his greatest ambition was to raise a Derby
+winner--according to him a more notable feat than being President.
+
+The sixth of April, 1917, had caught him with a promising string of
+yearlings, each an aristocrat in the equine world of blue-bloods, each a
+hope for that most classic of American races. But he had thrown these
+upon the hands of a trainer and submerged his personal interests six
+hours after Congress declared war. At the same moment, indeed, all of
+Kentucky was turning to a greater tradition than that of "horses and
+whiskey"; and, by the time the draft became operative, the board of one
+county searched it from end to end without finding a man to
+register--because those in the fighting age, married or single, with
+dependents or otherwise, had previously rushed to the Colors. This, and
+the fact that his state, with three others, headed the nation with the
+highest percentage in physical examinations, added luster to the shield
+of his old Commonwealth--though he roundly insisted that 'twas not
+Kentucky's manhood, but her womanhood, who deserved the credit. After
+our cruise he was going back to the thoroughbreds, now within a few
+months of the required Derby age; and of course I had promised to be on
+hand at Churchill Downs when his colors flashed past the grandstand.
+
+Late in the afternoon the _Whim_ docked at Key West and, while Gates was
+ashore arranging for our clearance, Tommy and I ambled up town in search
+of daily papers. We were seated in the office of a rather seedy hotel
+when its proprietor approached, saying:
+
+"'Scuse me, gents,--are you from that boat down there?"
+
+I answered in the affirmative.
+
+"Going to Havana?"
+
+This, too, I admitted.
+
+"Well, there's a feller by the desk who missed the steamer, and he
+hoped--er----"
+
+"We'd take him over," Tommy supplied the halting words. "Where is he?"
+
+Turning, we easily distinguished the man by his timid glances in our
+direction.
+
+"Whiz-bang," Tommy whispered. "What the deuce would you call it, Jack?"
+
+Except for his age, that might have been sixty, he was most comical to
+look upon--in stature short and round, suggesting kinship with a gnome.
+His head seemed too large for the body, yet this might have been because
+it carried a plenteous shock of straw-colored hair, with mustache and
+beard to match. He was attired in "knickers" and pleated jacket, that
+looked as if he'd slept in them, and his fat legs were knock-kneed. On
+the floor about his feet lay almost every conceivable type and age of
+traveling bag, with the inevitable camera.
+
+"What's his name?" Tommy asked, not that that would have made any
+difference if his passport were in order.
+
+"Registered as 'Monsieur Dragot, of Roumania,'" the proprietor answered.
+
+"Roumania!" Tommy looked at me. "Let's go meet him, Jack."
+
+Monsieur Dragot turned out to be the original singed cat, for assuredly
+he possessed more attractive qualities inside than were exteriorly
+visible, and from a first shyness that did not lack charm he expanded
+briskly. After visiting a "dry" café, to seal this fortunate
+acquaintanceship--as he insisted upon calling it--he warmed up to us and
+we to him, with the result that his bags were soon carried down and
+stowed in our spare stateroom. Leaving him there, we went on deck.
+
+"Dragot," Tommy mused. "Speaks with a slight accent, but I can't make
+out what!"
+
+"Roumanian, possibly," I suggested, "as he comes from there."
+
+"You rather excel yourself," he smiled. "Registering from Roumania,
+however, isn't prima facie evidence that he's a Roumanian."
+
+"He's a clever little talker, all the same."
+
+"Right O! Too clever. I'm wondering if we aren't a pair of chumps to
+take him."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"He may be a crook, for all we know. Did you notice what he said about
+holding a commission from Azuria, and then hurrying to explain that
+Azuria isn't on the ordinary maps--just a wee bit of a kingdom up in the
+Carpathians, yet in the confines of Roumania? I call that fishy!"
+
+"Not entirely so, Tommy. When you said it might now be turning into a
+republic, did you notice how proudly he declared that the descendants of
+Basil the Wolf couldn't be humbled?--that, situated in Moldavia, and
+escaping the ravages of the Bulgarian army, they were stronger today
+than ever?"
+
+"Sounds like raving, sonny. Who the dickens is Basil the Wolf? No, Jack,
+that doesn't tell us anything."
+
+"It tells us he couldn't have been inspired like that unless the place
+and people were real to him!"
+
+"Well, pirate or priest," Tommy laughed, "he'll do if he waltzes us up
+to the big adventure. You're about fit enough to tackle one now!" During
+the past forty-eight hours he had openly rejoiced with Gates at my
+improvement and tried, with the indifferent success of an unbeliever, to
+play up at top speed that silly idea of an approaching adventure.
+
+We had strolled aft, and now stopped to watch a tall Jamaica negro--or
+so we thought him to be--asking Gates for a place in the crew. His
+clothing was too scant to hide the great muscles beneath, and Tommy
+touched my arm, saying:
+
+"There's a specimen for you!"
+
+Had he been cast in bronze a critic might have said that the sculptor,
+by over-idealizing masculine perfection, had made the waist too small,
+the hips too slender, for the powerful chest and shoulders; the wrists
+and ankles might have been thought too delicate as terminals for the
+massive sinews leading into them. He smiled continually, and spoke in a
+soft, almost timid voice.
+
+"I like that big fellow," I said. Perhaps I had been well called a
+pantheist, having always extravagantly admired the perfect in form or
+face or the wide outdoors.
+
+Feeling my interests he turned from Gates, looking at me with dog-like
+pathetic trustfulness. Among the things he told us briefly--for the crew
+stood ready to cast off--was that he once followed the sea, but in more
+recent years lived by fishing up sponges and at times supplying shark
+meat to the poorer quarter of Key West. The carcass of a water fowl tied
+to his boat, while he occupied himself with sponges, would sometimes
+attract a shark; then he would strip, take a knife in his teeth, and
+dive.
+
+I glanced at Gates, but saw no incredulity in his face.
+
+In another hour, at nearly dusk, Key West had grown small and finally
+sank below the horizon, leaving only its three skeleton-like towers
+standing against the sky--standing erect with all nerves strained,
+watch-dogs of the darkening sea; ears cocked, to catch a distressed cry
+from some waif out in the mysterious night.
+
+Looking back along our wake I imagined the big black man standing as we
+had left him on the dock, gazing after us with patient regret; and I was
+glad to have given him the handful of coins at parting, little dreaming
+how many times that loaf upon the water would come floating in to me.
+
+Monsieur Dragot revealed himself more and more to our astonished eyes as
+we sat that night on deck. He had been a professor in the University of
+Bucharest, and hinted at an intimate entente with the reigning house of
+Azuria. Besides being versed in many sciences, including medicine, he
+spoke seven languages and read several others. But these things were
+drawn from him by Tommy's artful questions, rather than being said in
+boastfulness. Indeed, Monsieur was charmingly, almost touchily, modest.
+Of his business in Havana he gave no hint, yet this happened to be the
+one piece of information that Tommy seemed most possessed to find out.
+
+"You'll be in Cuba long, Monsieur?" he asked.
+
+"No one can say. A day, a week, a month, a year--it is an elusive search
+I follow, my young friends. May I call you that?"
+
+We bowed, and I deferentially suggested:
+
+"If we can help you in any way?----"
+
+"It is the beautiful spirit of America," he sighed, "to help those in
+distress, yet there is nothing to do but watch--watch. For you have not
+yet been here long enough to see a child in these waters--no?"
+
+Tommy, perhaps because he came from the South and was on more or less
+friendly terms with superstitions, glanced over the rail as if an infant
+might be floating around almost anywhere. Our strange guest's mysterious
+hints were, indeed, rather conducive to creeps.
+
+Then, without further comment, he arose, tossed his cigar overboard, ran
+his fingers through his mass of hair, and went below.
+
+"What d'you suppose he meant?" I asked, in a guarded voice.
+
+"Simple enough," Tommy whispered. "He's got apartments to let
+upstairs."
+
+"Get out, man," I laughed. "That chap has more sense than either of us!"
+
+"Then he'd better come across with some of it. You remember the freckled
+lad at Soissons who got fuzzy-headed from too much concussion? Well, he
+saw children around everywhere, too! It's a sure sign, Jack!" But now he
+laughed, adding: "Oh, I suppose our little Roumanian's all right,
+only----"
+
+He was interrupted by Monsieur, himself, who emerged from the
+companionway door.
+
+"I come again," he smiled apologetically, "because tomorrow our journeys
+part, and I have shown scant consideration for your kindness."
+
+"It's we who feel the obligation," Tommy murmured. "Now, if we could
+only help you find the child--supposing, of course, that's what you're
+watching for!"
+
+Monsieur gave a deep sigh, appearing to be quite overcome by a secret
+grief; but after a moment he looked at us, asking ingenuously:
+
+"You think my behavior unusual?"
+
+"Well, since you make a point of it," I laughed, and hesitated.
+
+"I see, I see! But, my young friends, you must take my word that I
+cannot tell you much." He drew us nearer. "This I may say: that, after
+Roumania dropped out of the war, the new Chancellor of Azuria wired
+imploringly for me to leave my classes at the University and come to
+him--because for years I have advised with Azurian statesmen, frequently
+going on special missions. By the recent death of the old Chancellor a
+certain paper came to light. This was a secret agent's report sent from
+Havana in 1914----I may not divulge its contents. But for the war it
+would have been followed up at once. Whether the same hopes exist
+now--well, I am here to discover. Ah, my young friends," his voice
+trembled, "much depends upon this! I must--I must find the child if it
+lives!"
+
+Tommy's eyes grew round.
+
+"I can say no more," Monsieur added. "Accept my thanks and gratitude for
+the help you have given me. And now--_bon soir_."
+
+He bowed, backing himself toward the stairs as though leaving a royal
+presence, doing it so easily, so naturally, that we did not even smile.
+When he had quite disappeared we turned and faced each other.
+
+"What do you think now?" I asked.
+
+"I think he's a treasure," Tommy cried. His face had lighted with a new
+excitement. "If we want any fun on this trip, don't let him get out of
+our sight! Stick to him! I won't deny he has a screw loose, but----"
+
+"That makes it all the better," I laughed, adding: "Looks like the
+Mater's toast might come true, after all, doesn't it!"--for I had
+described our New Year's Eve to Tommy.
+
+"Sonny, I've a hunch we won't even have to tiptoe over the hill to find
+adventures with him around! He's their regular hanging-out place!"
+
+Gates came up, and seemed vastly amused when we told him of our hopes.
+
+"He doesn't look like much of an adventurer, sir, but he's certainly a
+change from the great run of people I've met. Still, I carn't see how
+we're going to keep him against his will!"
+
+"Neither can I, Tommy."
+
+"Use a little persuasion."
+
+"But suppose he won't persuade?"
+
+"What's the use of crossing bridges," Tommy grinned. "If he won't
+persuade, then sit on his head--anything, I don't care! The main thing
+is--keep him!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+THE GIRL IN THE CAFÉ
+
+
+Next morning began the conversion, or rather the persuasion, of Monsieur
+Dragot to remain a while longer with the _Whim_. Pete started off with
+another triumphant breakfast and before our guest had gone far with it
+his face was agleam with pleasure. Tommy and I put ourselves out to be
+agreeable, telling him jokes that sometimes registered but frequently
+did not. Yet we were on most affable terms when, stuffed to repletion,
+we leaned back and lighted cigarettes.
+
+"Professor," Tommy suggested, "I think if you stay with us you'll have a
+better chance to find that child!"
+
+Our guest beamed agreeably at the appelative, then looked toward me.
+
+"I'm sure of it," I said. "We've nowhere to go but anywhere, and that
+ought to fall in with your plans."
+
+"_Pardieu_, you overwhelm me! You mean I may sail about with you,
+searching?"
+
+"Nothing simpler," I assured him. "We've rather taken a fancy to you,
+haven't we, Tommy?"
+
+"Double it," Tommy laughed. "We agreed last night that you looked like a
+million-dollar bill to us!"
+
+"Oh, my boys," Monsieur sputtered with embarrassment and pleasure, "you
+disarm my power to thank you--see, I blush!"
+
+"Damned if he isn't," Tommy grinned at me. "What d'you know about this
+little gezabo, anyhow!"
+
+Monsieur's face grew more composed as he showed his interest in a new
+word.
+
+"You say--gazebo?" he asked, blandly. "Is that not a belvedere?"
+
+"Gazebo is, yes; but I said gezabo--that's you!"
+
+"Your American Indian language?"
+
+"Sure thing. Pure talk. If you're interested in Indians, stick around.
+Why not get the Havana police to help us hunt the kiddie?"--I had known
+that before long Tommy would be using a first personal pronoun.
+
+"Bah! They are of no value! But even I have small hope of finding her.
+The report was written nearly six years ago, and she has been gone
+upwards of twenty years."
+
+"So it's a she," Tommy looked over at me and nodded. "Well, nearly six
+years, and upwards of twenty, plus what she was when she left home,
+leads me to believe the lady's almost old enough to take care of
+herself!"
+
+Monsieur considered this a great joke, exclaiming:
+
+"It is not so much as that! She is but three--to me, always three! Yet,
+as you say, I might better find her with you than anywhere! A despairing
+search, my boys!"
+
+Tommy's eyes were twinkling as he murmured sympathetically:
+
+"If it's a three-year-old you want, there's a place in Havana called
+'Casa de Beneficencia Maternidad,' where furtive-eyed damsels leave
+kiddies at twilight, ring the doorbell, and beat it. You might pick up
+one there, as a last resort."
+
+"But--but," Monsieur began to sputter, when I threw an orange at Tommy,
+explaining to our agitated guest that he was a cut-up devoid of ideas,
+really an intellectual outcast.
+
+"Well," he cried, seeming to exude pleasure, "I will stay with you a
+while, eh? Maybe we can teach him something--this cut-upping Tommy of
+yours!"
+
+He had fallen in with our scheme most agreeably, and later Tommy
+confided to me that he was glad we wouldn't have to sit on the old
+fellow's head.
+
+Passing that afternoon beneath Morro Castle, the _Whim_ tacked prettily
+through the entrance of Havana harbor and in another scant two miles
+dropped anchor.
+
+Havana Bay is a dancing sheet of water, as bright as the skies and
+hardly less contagious than the city's laughter. But when one drops
+anchor and then hoists it up, one recoils from the black and slimy mud
+those blue waves hide; and this circumstance, slight as it may seem,
+held a potent influence on our future.
+
+Riding nearby was another yacht, in size and design very much like the
+_Whim_, except that her rigging had an old-fashioned cut. Her masts were
+checked with age and, where our craft showed polished brass, she long
+ago had resorted to white paint. At the same time, she gave the
+impression of aristocracy--broken-down aristocracy, if you choose. No
+bunting fluttered at her masthead, no country's emblem waved over her
+taffrail, and the only hint of nationality or ownership was a rather
+badly painted word _Orchid_ on her name plate. Taken altogether, she was
+rather difficult to place.
+
+These signs of poverty would have passed unobserved by us, had we not in
+coming to anchor swung between her moorings and the Machina wharf. Not
+that it made any serious difference, Gates explained, nor were we
+impertinently near, but it just missed being the scrupulously polite
+thing to have done--and Gates was a stickler on matters of yacht
+etiquette. So he felt uncomfortable about it, while at the same time
+being reluctant to hoist anchor and foul our decks with the bottom of
+Havana Bay. To be on the safe side he determined to megaphone apologies
+and consult her wishes. Twice he hailed, receiving no answer. Two
+sailors were seated forward playing cards--a surlier pair of ruffians
+would have been hard to find--but neither of them so much as glanced up.
+
+"Let the professor try in Spanish," Tommy said.
+
+Monsieur took the megaphone and did so, but with no better success. Then
+to our profound admiration he called in half a dozen languages; finally
+growling: "Lascars, likely!"--and proceeded to hail in something he
+afterwards explained was Lascar gibberish. All of which failed to
+attract the surly pair who played at cards.
+
+"Now you might try Airedale and Pekinese," Tommy suggested, but this was
+lost on the serious little man. Yet he did call in another strangely
+sounding tongue, then with a sigh laid the megaphone down, saying:
+
+"They must be stuffies!"
+
+"Dummies, sir, dummies," Tommy corrected. "Nice people don't say
+stuffies, ever!"
+
+"Your Tommy does so much cut-upping, eh!" he smiled at me. I had noticed
+that when preoccupied or excited the idioms of his various languages got
+tumbled into a rather hopeless potpourri.
+
+Quarantine and customs were passed in the leisurely fashion of Cuban
+officials, and Monsieur asked to be sent immediately ashore, promising
+to return at sundown. There was a man, the secret agent, he explained,
+who held important information.
+
+"I'll have the launch for you at Machina wharf, sir," Gates told him,
+but he refused to consider this, declaring that he could hire any of the
+boatmen thereabout to bring him out.
+
+"He's that considerate, sir," Gates later confided to me. "But I carn't
+make head nor tail of him. Bilkins says he went in to lay out his
+clothes, and the things he's got stuck in those bags would astonish
+you!"
+
+Nearing six o'clock a skiff drew alongside, being propelled by one
+oar--a method much in vogue with Havana harbormen--and when Monsieur
+came aboard we saw at once evidences of disappointment. His arms hung
+listlessly, and his large head drooped forward as if at last its weight
+had proven too great for the squat body.
+
+"What's wrong?" I asked.
+
+"How do you know there is anything wrong, my boy Jack?"
+
+"You look so killingly happy," Tommy said, joining us.
+
+Monsieur's pale eyes stared for a moment, then blinked several times
+before he murmured:
+
+"The man I went to see is dead--murdered, just after he mailed that
+report. So I have no information. These police called it suicide because
+a knife lay in his hand. Bah! I could place a knife in the hand of any
+man I kill!"
+
+"Was he a friend of yours?"
+
+"No. I have never seen him. But he knew something!"
+
+"He evidently knew too much," Tommy suggested.
+
+"You speak true, my boy. It seems to be a dangerous thing here to know
+too much of certain matters!"
+
+"Well," I laughed, trying to put a heartiness in my voice and drive away
+his depression, "let's go ashore for dinner! Then the Opera--and
+afterwards another bite where the high life eats? What-say, Professor?"
+
+As it turned out, however, neither the dinner, nor all of Tommy's
+banter, nor Madame Butterfly sung in Spanish (as if it could!) succeeded
+in restoring Monsieur to a normal temper.
+
+"We've simply got to make him laugh," I whispered to Tommy. "It's a
+matter of principle now!"
+
+"Then wait till we have supper, and get him soused," my confederate
+cautiously replied. "That'll do it. But you'd better not drink much," he
+added. "How are the nerves this evening?"
+
+"I've almost forgotten them," I answered.
+
+But Tommy was persistent at times. Unknown to me he was now preparing a
+report to wire the Mater.
+
+"Sleeping better?" he asked.
+
+"Lots."
+
+"Lying to me?"
+
+"A little," I laughed outright. "But honestly I'm in heaps better
+shape!"
+
+"Oh, I've seen you improving from day to day, but we want to put it over
+right. So don't hit the asphalt too hard tonight."
+
+And in all justice to myself and my friendship to Tommy I really did not
+intend to. What place was it that some one said is paved with good
+intentions?
+
+Leaving the Opera House we mixed with the laughing tide that flowed
+along the Prado, and by the merest chance--destinies of nations, much
+less our own, sometimes rest upon a merest chance--dropped in for supper
+at a fashionable place patronized by those who wish to see the brightest
+of Havana life. There were other places, of course, that might have
+offered quite as much, but this one happened to be on the route we had
+taken.
+
+Midnight passed, but still we lingered, seated on the latticed balcony
+that encircles an inner court where cabaret features are
+held--suggestive of a bull ring. One rather piquant Spanish girl,
+playing her accompaniment on a guitar, gazed softly up at Tommy while
+singing about some wonderful Nirvana, an enchanted island that floated
+in a sea of love. It was a pretty song, even if more intense than
+temperate, and pleased with it he tossed her a coin; whereupon she
+tilted her chin and raised a shoulder, asking in the universal language
+of cabarets if she should not come up and drink a health with the
+_imperioso Seńor_. But he, whose heart was beating against a twenty-page
+letter from a nymph in the Bluegrass region of Kentucky, laughed a
+negative, this time throwing her a flower that she kissed lightly and
+put in her hair.
+
+We had supped well, the mandolins were now tinkling, incessantly, and
+this, mingled with the silvery tones of glasses touched in eager
+pledges, created an ensemble of sounds dear to the heart of every true
+Bohemian. Effects were good here. The ceilings and walls of our balcony
+were lighted by vari-colored electric bulbs artfully placed amidst
+growing vines that drooped in festoons above the tables, producing a
+fairy-like enchantment. And, indeed, the café proved to be a mart not
+only of enchantments but entertainments, including a popular gambling
+salon.
+
+At last, in desperation seeing that Monsieur refused to be cheered,
+Tommy sprang up, saying:
+
+"Come, gezabo, let's court Dame Roulette! Join us, Jack?"
+
+This I declined, and watched them move off arm in arm. But a strange
+thing arrested my attention for, as they preceded down the corridor, I
+saw a man in yachting clothes--the uniform of a captain--draw quickly
+back into an alcove as if wanting to escape discovery. When they had
+passed he looked out, more fearfully than curiously, and after a moment
+of indecision slowly followed them. Urged by a suspicion that this was
+in some way associated with the professor, I arose and also followed.
+Yet upon reaching the salon the stranger was nowhere to be seen. Tommy
+and Monsieur were each buying a stack of chips, the place seemed quiet
+and orderly, so without being observed I returned to my table.
+
+Now left alone I leaned back, idly twisting the stem of my glass,
+looking over the sea of merry people who made a picture that quickened
+interest. For I am particularly fond of sitting apart and watching an
+assemblage of handsomely groomed men and women laughing, talking and
+making love. I like to guess whether fears or tears or desperate courage
+hide behind their gayety; whether the rapidly wagging tongues are
+uttering inanities or planning naughty things; whether the love-making
+will stop with coffee and liqueur, or, lighted by them, burn into
+eternity.
+
+All phases of human banality and human enigma seemed to be represented.
+There were languid beauties of the Latin type whose drooping eyes might
+have expressed _ennui_, passion, pride--anything, in fact, that one's
+humor chose to fancy; the blonde by adoption was there, with heavy
+ear-rings of jet, whose habit was that of looking slant-wise through her
+cigarette smoke and raising one black, though carefully plucked,
+eyebrow; also there were a few American women, by far the most smartly
+dressed. Great was the throb of life in this discreet and fashionable
+café. I felt its tremendous emphasis, and was content.
+
+Then, quite without warning, I caught my breath as my glance fell upon a
+girl dining with an old chap but three tables away. Among the habitués
+of the Ritzes of two continents there could not have been found another
+like her, for never had I beheld a face as exquisite--and I've seen
+many. It possessed a beauty that left me helpless--yet there was an
+indefinable sadness in it that might have suggested a haunting fear.
+
+One of the lights among the vines hung close to her, and I could see
+these things. Even could I see the color of her eyes, deep purple
+eyes--the tone the wild iris takes at twilight. When she leaned one way
+I might have thought the rich abundance of her hair contained spun
+copper or deep red gold, and again I would have sworn it matched the
+mellow brown of chestnuts; in all forming an arrangement of waves, each
+refusing to stay in place yet never really getting out of order, each
+coquetting with a subtle mischief that found an echo in her lips. Her
+neck and shoulders were of that perfection that men realize but can not
+analyze; and her mouth, laughing or in repose, was maddening.
+
+And there was an added charm quite apart from hair and eyes and lips.
+This I had never before seen in any face. Animation? Yes, and more.
+Interest in the life about her? Assuredly, to a very marked degree.
+Wildness? That was it!--a wildness, subtly blended with refinement, that
+found expression in every quick look; as if someone had put a fawn there
+from the forest and it was trying, half humorously, half confidently, to
+keep itself from running away in fright. It was this glory of wildness
+that she typified which made my cheeks grow hot with watching.
+
+But who has ever made a picture worthy of his dreams! How, then, can I
+describe this girl, when painter, sculptor, writer--all--would miserably
+fail at attempting to portray a beauty whereon imagination might gaze in
+frank amazement and admit itself surpassed! Here, indeed, was all the
+vital, colorful magnetism of a type that men are quick to die for!
+
+Her gown--yet how can man describe a woman's gown? It was a very rich
+affair and added to the picture. But this I did observe distinctly, that
+in revealing her arms and shoulders there was no slightest hint of that
+abandonment of _décolleté_ which denotes the approach of feminine
+despair, nor was the color in her cheeks a result of anything less pure
+than the kiss of air and sunshine.
+
+Her _vis-ŕ-vis_, almost too old to have been her father, was one of
+those whose nationality is difficult to place. His hair, mustache and
+Vandyke beard were gray; he was tall, thin, and perhaps seventy-five
+years old. His complexion impressed one most unpleasantly because of its
+sallow, almost yellow, hue; and although I had not yet had a full-face
+view of him I intuitively knew that his teeth were long and thin and
+yellow. A slight palsy never let his head be still, as if some
+persistent agent were making him deny, eternally deny, an inarticulate
+accusation--as accusations of the conscience perforce must be.
+
+Despite his grumpy silence he showed an air of repressed excitement,
+sending frequent, shifty glances over the room; and that he possessed
+the temper of a fiend I did not doubt after seeing him turn upon the
+waiter for some trifling omission and reduce that usually placid
+individual to a state of amazed incapacity. Then a quick, really a
+pitiful, look of terror came into the girl's eyes as she shrank back in
+her chair. It lasted but a second before she was again making herself
+agreeable--acting, of course--and I wanted to cross to him and demand:
+"Why is this lady afraid?"
+
+I hated the man; at first sight I loathed him. It was one of those
+antipathies sometimes observed in dogs that see each other from a
+distance--hair up and teeth bared. The feeling is spontaneous,
+unpredictable, and the usual result is fight.
+
+Up to this time she had not seen me, or even known of my insignificant
+existence; but suddenly, as though it were a sally of banter whose blade
+he parried in the nick of time, her laughter-bathed eyes darted past him
+and squarely met my own; her lips sobered into a half parted expression
+of interest and, some strange thought--perhaps unbidden--coming into her
+mind, sent the blood surging to her cheeks. As quickly as this happened
+it had gone, and again she seemed to be absorbing the attention of her
+_vis-ŕ-vis_.
+
+Once, years ago in the Dolomites, I thoughtlessly struck my staff upon a
+piece of rock when, lo, a wonderful tone arose therefrom. And the memory
+of that rich, unbidden sound was re-awakened now as the contact of our
+glances stirred something which thrilled me with a maddening sense of
+harmony. As an E string vibrates when another E is struck somewhere near
+to it, so my being vibrated with each tilt of her head, each movement of
+her lips. Yet however much I conjured the magnet of my will to make her
+look again, she successfully, if coquettishly, resisted.
+
+The Spanish waiter came up softly to refill my glass; an attention I
+permitted, murmuring happily:
+
+"Right, kiddo! Stay me with flagons, comfort me with champagne, for my
+heart is faint with love!"--only Solomon didn't sing it quite like
+that, the fickle old dog, nor did my waiter understand me, which was
+just as well.
+
+Engrossed with watching her I saw a new look come into her face as she
+quickly whispered something across the table. Her _vis-ŕ-vis_ turned
+impatiently as a man approached them, who to my surprise was the yacht
+captain--the fellow who had apparently followed Tommy and Monsieur. He
+was a well-built blond, with a bullet-shaped head, high cheek bones and
+deep set eyes--pig eyes. His right cheek bore several scars which,
+considering his type, strongly suggested a German of University dueling
+experiences. So I looked on him with a livelier suspicion, even as she
+seemed to be doing.
+
+In an undertone he now said something that brought the old man to his
+feet. With fear written on their faces they talked for several minutes,
+during which the blond jerked his head once or twice toward the gambling
+rooms. The girl had leaned forward watching them intently. Then with a
+peremptory order the old one sent him away and sank back into his chair;
+but a moment later, clutching the tablecloth, he spoke a few words that
+made her recoil in evident horror.
+
+I did not know what to do or what to think, so I merely watched with
+every sense alert. I saw him call the waiter for his settlement, I saw
+him take out a large roll of money and with trembling fingers peel off
+the outside bill--a new and crinkly fifty-dollar note. I saw the girl
+idly marking on the winecard with a small gold pencil, though her eyes
+were veiling an intense excitement; and when the waiter returned with a
+pile of change which the old man began to count, I saw her furtively
+slip the winecard to her lap. A moment later it fell to the floor as she
+arose to leave.
+
+Together they started toward the exit, but having taken a few steps she
+left him with a brief word and returned, presumably for her glove.
+Partially free from his eternal vigilance, she raised her eyes without
+dissimulation and looked quickly, appealingly into mine; then down at
+her hand, on which she leaned, whose fingers were unfolding from a
+little ball of paper. Again into my eyes she looked--a look of infinite
+appeal.
+
+Across the void from her world to my own she was signaling--trying to
+tell me what?--and frantically my fancy sprang to translate the message.
+But as the man, with growing agitation, had been watching narrowly
+throughout this--a condition of which I felt sure she must be acutely
+aware--I dared not make the slightest sign. Yet she seemed to understand
+and, joining him, they passed out.
+
+I pounced upon that crumpled ball of paper and was back in my chair
+unfolding it with nervous fingers. Feverishly pressing out the creases I
+saw that it was, indeed, a corner torn from the winecard, and written
+upon it--nothing. Absolutely nothing!
+
+Perhaps I should have laughed, but as a matter of fact I cursed. Deep in
+my soul I cursed. Her little joke, her pretty bit of acting, had left a
+stinging sense of loss. As suddenly as this ruthless comet swept into my
+orbit it had swung out and on; for one delicious moment we had touched
+across the infinite, but now my harmony was shattered, the strings of my
+harp were snapped, curled up, and could not be made to play again.
+
+But the Spanish girl was playing her guitar, once more singing her
+impassioned song of the enchanted island in its sea of love, which made
+me pity myself so much that I permitted the waiter again to fill my
+glass. What a wondrous adventure this night might have brought!
+
+Such thoughts wore not to be profaned by the companionship of Tommy and
+Monsieur, so I slipped away, hailed a cab and alighted at the Machina
+wharf. The boatman there, whom I aroused to take me out, was one of the
+most stupid fellows I've ever encountered. At any rate, someone was
+stupid.
+
+Going aboard the yacht I stood for a moment listening to the lonely
+sweep of his oar sculling shoreward through the murky night. Over the
+castellated walls of La Cabańa raced low, angry clouds. Was it a storm
+brewing, or had some supernal madness touched the night?
+
+The watch forward called in a guarded voice: "All right, sir?" to which
+I answered, "All right," then went cautiously across deck and crept down
+the companionway stairs. The cabin was dark so I felt for my stateroom,
+passed in and closed the door. Somehow my fingers could not locate the
+light jet, but what matter? In three minutes I had undressed and was
+fast asleep.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+NIRVANA
+
+
+A pleasant sense of motion came over me that suggested cradling waves,
+and I was sleepily wondering why we had gone out on a day that portended
+storms, when a tapping at my stateroom door was followed by someone
+whispering:
+
+"Aren't you ever going to get up, you lazy old dear?"
+
+It was a girl's voice.
+
+Gradually and cautiously I drew the sheet about my chin, feeling no
+little confused to have a girl five feet away whispering pet names at me
+through a thin partition.
+
+"Aren't you?" she repeated, more sweetly imperious.
+
+"You bet," I stammered.
+
+"Then do hurry! It's almost ten, and I've been waiting such a long
+time!"
+
+Whereupon I heard her moving off, pressing her hands against the panels
+for steadiness, and there struck me as having been an endearing pathos
+in the way she said: "such a long time!"
+
+This was, no doubt, some of Tommy's doing. He had invited friends aboard
+for luncheon, and was now daring one of them to play this joke. But my
+glance turned to the room, to its equipment and toilette articles which
+were large and curiously shaped, and the numbing truth crept into my
+brain that the stupid boatman had put me on the wrong yacht.
+
+I had known some tight places in France, but this one simply squeezed me
+all over. There was nothing for it, of course, but go out and
+explain--yet how could a chap appear at noon draped in a sheet! The
+situation confused me, but I decided to search the wardrobe, of my
+unknown host, to borrow his razor, appropriate a new toothbrush that
+should be found in a box somewhere, and select flannels and linens in
+keeping with the hour. Still balanced between confusion and panic I must
+have done these things because, fittingly attired though with no very
+good fit, I opened my door, stepped softly along the passageway, and
+entered the cabin.
+
+On a wide couch built in at one side a girl lay reading. Her head was
+toward me, but as I advanced she arose with a low cry of gladness,
+saying:
+
+"So you're here at last----!" then with a little gasp drew back, facing
+me in the most entrancing attitude of bewilderment.
+
+It was the girl who had left that ball of paper!
+
+The sea, always my friend, at this moment did a rather decent thing; it
+gave the yacht a firm but gentle lurch and sent us into each other's
+arms. Perhaps nothing else in all the world of chances could so
+effectively have broken the ice between us, for we were laughing as I
+helped her back to the couch; and, as our eyes met, again we laughed.
+
+"I didn't know," she said, "that Father brought a guest aboard last
+night!"
+
+"Awkward of him, wasn't it?" I stammered, sparring for time.
+
+"One is apt to be awkward in weather like this," she graciously
+admitted.
+
+"You don't know how profoundly aware I am of--of how terribly true that
+is," I stumbled along. "Is he on deck?" For, oh, if I could only get to
+see him five minutes alone!
+
+"No, he's unusually lazy this morning; but I've called, him, the old
+dear!"
+
+A chill crept up my spine--crept up, crept down, and then criss-crossed.
+But she must know of her mistake before we had gone so far that putting
+me ashore would be a serious inconvenience--for I knew he would put me
+ashore at the nearest point, if not, indeed, set me adrift in an open
+boat. Therefore I suggested:
+
+"Wouldn't it be a good idea to call him again? It's rather important!"
+
+"Oh, you think we shouldn't have gone out in a storm like this? I've
+been dreadfully uneasy!"
+
+"No danger at all," I declared, with affected indifference, adding: "The
+weather isn't half as rough as 'the old dear' will be, take my word for
+it!"
+
+A shadow of mystification passed over her wonderful face, yet she smiled
+with well-bred tolerance, saying:
+
+"You are quite droll."
+
+"Drollery is the brother of good fellowship," I replied, helping her
+across the reeling cabin. As I had feared, she went directly to my room
+where the door had swung back showing an empty bunk.
+
+"Why, he's up, after all," she glanced over her shoulder at me.
+
+"I believe he is," I idiotically affirmed.
+
+"But where?"--this more to herself.
+
+"Hiding, maybe," I ventured, taking a facetious squint about.
+
+"Hiding?" she asked, in mild surprise.
+
+"Er--playing a trick on us! He's a funny old dog at tricks!"
+
+"Funny old dog?" She drew slightly away from me. "Do you mean my father,
+Mr.--er?"
+
+"Jack," I prompted, more than ever embarrassed and wishing the ocean
+would come up and swallow me; for I realized, alas, that my gods, by
+whom I was reasonably well remembered in so far as concerned physique,
+had been shamelessly remiss in their bestowal of brains.
+
+"Jack?" she slowly repeated. "What an odd name!"
+
+This made me feel queer.
+
+"Where do you live," I asked, "that you think it's an odd name? The
+States are crawling with Jacks! It's even the Democratic emblem!"
+
+Her perplexity was fast approaching alarm when we heard a muffled report
+above, followed by a trembling of the yacht. Someone called an order
+that sounded far away in the wind.
+
+"Hold tight," I said, "while I see if anything's wrong!"
+
+But I did not leave her side, knowing exactly what had happened. We had
+snapped our mainsheet, that was all; letting the boom swing out and
+putting us in the trough of the waves where we might expect a few wobbly
+minutes until the sailors could work in a new line. There was no danger
+and I reassured her at once, but she merely asked:
+
+"Was my father on deck?"
+
+"I didn't look," I answered, wondering why she thought I knew.
+
+"Won't you see?" Her patience was becoming exhausted.
+
+"I'm crazy to. But first let me help you back--you can't make it
+alone!"
+
+"Oh, yes, I can," she murmured. "I always make things alone!"
+
+I tried to fathom the meaning of this, but gave it up and started to go
+on deck. If I could take her father off to one side and explain, well
+and good. He would perhaps sympathize with my mistake when he understood
+that it was partially the result of a desire to fill Monsieur with
+spirits. Considering this, I spoiled everything by asking:
+
+"What does he look like?"
+
+"My father?" she gasped, in a wondering way.
+
+"No--yes--certainly not! I mean--oh, this is intolerable! I don't know
+your father, never saw him in my life--unless he was the one with you
+last night when you drove me frantic with that ball of paper trick! But
+what you did has nothing to do with my being here. I've not wilfully
+followed. A stupid boatman mistook your yacht for my own when I was--I
+mean to say, when I was too engrossed with the memory of you to notice
+his mistake."
+
+From alarm her look gave way to wonderment, then almost to mirth. It was
+a hard place for a girl to be in, and I expected her to leave me now,
+find the old chap and promptly have me hanged to a yard-arm. The fact
+that there are no yard-arms on schooner yachts made no difference. And I
+do believe she was considering that when a sailor passed us, looking
+enough like Tommy to have been his twin brother.
+
+"Jack," she said to him, "tell Mr. Graham to come below!"
+
+The fellow saluted and left, and I stared at her in surprise, saying:
+
+"Then my name can't seem very odd to you, Miss Graham!"
+
+She was regarding me as though trying to discover what kind of a species
+I was that had got on her father's yacht, when the sailor came back
+followed by a husky brute in uniform. Intuitively I stiffened to meet
+the crisis, but even at this eleventh hour a respite came.
+
+"He ain't aboard," the other Jack whispered, and the captain--for the
+burly one was only the captain, after all--saluted, saying:
+
+"I've just now found out, ma'am, he ain't aboard!"
+
+"Not aboard? What do you mean?"
+
+"After bringing you on last night he went ashore again to get a little
+ball of paper, but told me to sail the minute he returned. I don't
+understand it, ma'am, for later the watch woke me to say Mr. Graham had
+come."
+
+"Good Lord," I groaned. "It was I, and not your father, who answered the
+watch."
+
+For several minutes we stared blankly into each other's faces, but it
+was she who broke the deadly silence.
+
+"We must hurry back," she calmly told him, adding with a nervous catch
+in her breath: "What a joke on Daddy!"
+
+"A scream of a joke," I muttered, "----one he'll roar over till
+God-knows-when!"
+
+"We can't go back, Miss Sylvia," the captain now said. "When our
+mainsheet parted the boom gybed so hard that it opened a seam. It may
+hold on this tack, and it may not, but we'd sink if the weather hit us
+on the other side. So I'm making for Key West."
+
+A suspicious quiver played over her lips as the big fellow turned and
+went upstairs, and I began to hate myself rather cordially.
+
+"Do you happen to have that--that ball of paper?" she asked, when the
+threatened storm of tears had been controlled.
+
+"No, I threw it down."
+
+A look of terror came into her eyes as she gasped:
+
+"Then he'll find it!"
+
+"It won't matter if he does! You hadn't written anything on it!"
+
+"Did you look on both sides of it?"
+
+"I--I think so; of course, I must have. Did you write on the other
+side?"
+
+"I don't know which the other side is that you refer to," she answered
+with some show of anger. "There were two sides, you know. Still, it
+can't much matter now whether it had any sides or not."
+
+This was very perplexing, the words no more so than the way she looked
+at me while pronouncing them. Yet I hardly thought it should give her as
+much concern as our leaky boat. The storm had grown worse, and more than
+once she glanced anxiously at the portholes whose glass, over half the
+time, were submerged by swirls of greenish water.
+
+"It'll turn out all right," I said, gently. "And you mustn't be afraid
+of this storm."
+
+"I'm not afraid!"
+
+"Yes, you are," I tenderly persisted, "but your skipper looks like a man
+who'll bring us through."
+
+"Your concern is most flattering," she frigidly replied. "But fear of
+storms, and distress over the unhappiness one may be causing others, are
+quite different phases of emotion."
+
+"I stand corrected and rebuked," I humbly acknowledged. "Yet I want you
+to know that my concern springs from a deeper source than flattery. I
+want honestly to assure you----"
+
+"Of course, there's less danger here than in port," she continued in the
+same icy tone, utterly ignoring me, "for here, at least, we can't be
+boarded at night by irresponsible people."
+
+I winced.
+
+"By people who drink," she added.
+
+I winced again, for I seemed to be getting the winces now, and couldn't
+stop.
+
+"That isn't fair, Miss Graham! Circumstances are against me, but you
+might suspend judgment till you know me better!"
+
+"The circumstances require no further evidence," she said, with supreme
+indifference.
+
+"But circumstantial evidence," I felt pleased at turning her phrase,
+"often wears the cap and bells, instead of the wig and gown!"
+
+"I'm discovering that," she murmured, and added with a touch of sarcasm:
+"The knack of making a catch phrase is often very agreeable, but
+presupposes no presence of an idea."
+
+Now I thought this most unkind of her, because I had been quite set up
+by my retort; so, arising with as much dignity as the waves would
+permit, I buttoned my coat, remarking:
+
+"Then I'll go on deck, and leave you."
+
+The coat was tight and, while fastening it, I felt something in an inner
+pocket press against my side. There are few impulses more natural than
+to investigate anything that has a curious feel in one's pocket, so
+thrusting in my hand I brought forth a small round frame of brass, made
+in the imitation of a porthole, encircling her photograph. This would
+not have happened had I remembered being in her father's clothes, but
+it was done, and I stood looking first at the picture and then at her.
+
+"Give it to me," she cried.
+
+"I don't see why," I temporized, not at all loath at having this chance
+for revenge.
+
+"It's mine," she imperiously announced.
+
+"It may be a picture of you, but, as you perceive, not at this moment
+your picture," and my eyes lowered again and lingered on it, for it was
+indeed a wonderful likeness, moving me strangely by its amazing beauty.
+The frame, too, gave it added charm, as she seemed really to be looking
+out of a porthole.
+
+"Give that to me this instant," she said, with such a show of passion
+that I passively surrendered it, and started to walk away. Yet some
+cruel power held my feet. I tried again to move, but could not.
+
+Overhead the men were working desperately at the pumps to keep us
+afloat. One of them left his place and passed us, whispering:
+
+"It's no use--we're gone!"
+
+The cabin was in twilight as I again turned to her. She had crawled to
+the far corner of the couch, and lay staring at the ceiling--waiting.
+Here in this dismal room, alone and facing death with a courage amazing
+to behold, she made a picture which so stirred me that despite earlier
+wounded feelings I went to her side. The little hands were cold and
+inert when I took them, but her fingers tightened ever so gently.
+
+"Did he say we're going down?" she quietly asked, without turning her
+head.
+
+"Yes," I answered--though both of us spoke in whispers.
+
+"I'm sorry to have been unkind," she said, withdrawing one of her hands
+and laying it on the back of my own--for Death is a great leveler of
+conventions.
+
+The pathetic resignation in her voice brought hot tears to my eyes and,
+raising her fingers to my lips, I murmured:
+
+"You're the sweetest angel I ever knew!"
+
+For a long time we sat in the gathering darkness, holding to each other
+as two little children lost in the night. Finally I heard her whisper:
+
+"Why am I not afraid--now?"
+
+I turned and looked down at her; down into those eyes gazing back at me
+through a magnetizing moisture that drew my face nearer, nearer.
+
+"Because," I said, "we've found something which outlives death!"
+
+"Yes," she whispered, as her arms moved sweetly up around my neck--but
+the next instant they held me off, as she gasped: "Look! Look! The end
+is here!"
+
+Quite a foot of water was swashing back and forth over the cabin floor,
+while a steady stream poured down the companionway stairs. Yes, the end
+was here!
+
+"Take this," she hurriedly pressed into my hand the round brass frame
+that held her picture--the frame fashioned after a porthole. "Keep
+it--then come to me! Swear!"
+
+"I swear," I gasped. "But where shall I find you? In what strange land
+will you be?"
+
+Her eyes were wide with a frightened look that even in our extremity
+gave the lie to fear. Through parted, expectant lips a trembling sigh of
+inexpressible sweetness seemed to carry her answer; it was brought by
+the mystery of her look, by the clasp of our senses--for I know she did
+not speak a word:
+
+    "I'll wait beneath the palms on one of many, many islands,
+    Set as emerald jewels in an ever-changing sea;
+    My hammock swings beside a pool of purling, crystal water
+    Whisp'ring to the shadows of a lonely Arcady;
+    The Spanish moss hangs solemn in long streamers from the cypress,
+    The paths are soft and noiseless with dead needles of the pine,
+    The nights are still and fragrant, and I'll wait----
+
+Ah!" she broke the measure with a despairing cry and struggled to get
+from my arms, as another voice, far away but familiar, began to call my
+name. Then slowly my eyes opened and beheld Bilkins looking down at me,
+in my own stateroom, where my clothes were lying as I had thrown them
+off the night before.
+
+"I've called you twice, sir," he was saying. "It's almost ten o'clock,
+and I'm afraid your bath is cold."
+
+"I want it cold," I murmured, staring up at him. "God, Bilkins, I've had
+a most extraordinary dream!"
+
+"If it's bad don't tell it before breakfast, sir, whatever you do! Just
+hold on a minute, and I'll bring your tray right in!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+"TO THE VERY END!"
+
+
+I dressed hurriedly, wanting to be on deck and get a more searching view
+of the yacht near which we had anchored. Stepping out into the cockpit,
+therefore, I looked hungrily toward her mooring place, but it was
+vacant.
+
+"Where has she gone?" I asked Tommy, who was the only one about.
+
+"The etiquette of this yacht requires its owner first to say 'good
+morning' when he comes up at break of day," he grinned at me accusingly.
+"The little professor won eight hundred dollars from the proud Castilian
+last night--I hope Dame Fortune was as kind to you!"
+
+"She was diverting," I admitted. "Where's Monsieur now?"
+
+"'Sleep. We didn't turn in till an unholy hour. He got up at seven from
+force of habit, fussed around a while, took some pictures of the
+neighborhood and developed them, but by that time the poor old door-mat
+couldn't keep his eyes open. Do you know he wept all the way home last
+night, telling me how good we were to him?"
+
+We laughed.
+
+"But, Tommy, where's the yacht that was over there yesterday?"
+
+"Her? Oh, she cleared this morning--and listen to me, boy, if you want
+to see a dream just cast your eye on that last film of Monsieur's!"
+
+See a dream! Great heavens, if I wanted to see a dream!
+
+He led the way aft to a ribbon of freshly developed film hanging from
+the boom to dry and, as I gingerly raised it to the light, he went on to
+explain:
+
+"It was boorish of him, but I'm to blame. We were standing forward after
+breakfast snapping the harbor when that yacht weighed anchor and swung
+across our bow less than thirty feet off; and, Jack, with the prettiest
+girl I ever saw--barring Nell--looking out at us through a porthole.
+'Shoot her,' I whispered. So he swung his camera and shot, and she gave
+a darling little gasp and ducked."
+
+I had come to the last negative and there, with the porthole in exact
+imitation of the round brass frame, was the same beautiful face of the
+same beautiful girl I'd left in that wondrous dream!
+
+"Sylvia Graham," I cried.
+
+"The devil," Tommy straightened up. "Graham's the chap who owns that
+boat! Gates found it out this morning, but how did you know?"
+
+My eyes were glued to the negative.
+
+"They cleared for Key West, Tommy?"
+
+"So Gates said. Has he told you?"
+
+"I haven't seen him since yesterday," I murmured, still unable to look
+away from that strip of gelatine which held the image of my world.
+
+"He didn't know anything about it yesterday, either," Tommy announced,
+and I felt him regarding me in some slight amusement, as though he
+thought I had a secret up my sleeve that I was trying to keep from him.
+"What's the cute little idea, son? I've told you where she cleared for,
+now clear me up!"
+
+"Tommy," I let the film swing back and caught him by the shoulders,
+"Miss Graham's father carries a photograph like that in the inside
+pocket of a white flannel coat which hangs behind his stateroom door!"
+
+He looked me up and down, this time more seriously, and murmured:
+
+"Whiz-bang!--but you must have been heroically decorated last night!
+Still, I can't see that it hurt you much, for you look about twice as
+fit as when we left Miami."
+
+"I'll bet I didn't drink an ounce more than you, or Monsieur," I
+declared. "The facts of the matter are, Tommy, that there's a lot mighty
+curious about this picture!"
+
+"Really?" he grinned. "You go below and take something with a dash of
+bitters in it."
+
+"Dry up," I snapped. "I tell you I'm going to catch up with that yacht
+if we have to follow her around the world!"
+
+He gave a low whistle, saying with good-natured tolerance:
+
+"Looks like the big adventure's on the wing, doesn't it! Well, I don't
+mind chasing the old tub, or doing any other damphule thing in reason,
+but what's the game? Put me next! When was this earthquake that loosened
+all your little rivets? Speak up, son--I'm your _padre_!"
+
+"It's hard to explain," I turned again to the negative, feeling too
+serious for his asinine humor. "But I'll honestly try to before night.
+This girl needs me. I don't know why or how, but she does. What's more,
+I'm going to find her. It's the most unheard-of situation, old man."
+
+"I'd be ashamed to belittle a situation like this by the mere term
+'unheard-of,'" he now laughed outright. "Anyhow, she doesn't need you at
+present quite as much as you need scientific attention--and I hear the
+professor moving around!"
+
+Stepping to the companionway door he bawled some nonsense to our guest
+about bringing up his medicine chest and a rope, then turned back to me.
+
+"You see, Jack, I consider this to be serious. As long as I've known you
+that lady in the porthole is the first female you've ever thought of
+with any sign of, what I might call, _ardeur_. Where you met her is your
+business, but how you're going to get her must naturally concern us all.
+Hence Monsieur to consult with!"
+
+We could hear Monsieur's grunts and wheezes before he appeared, and on
+catching sight of me he actually skipped to us. It was a grotesque
+exhibition that made me burst out laughing. His hair was tousled, his
+eyes were half closed, and he looked about as much like a scrambled egg
+as anything I could think of.
+
+"We lost you last night," he cried. "You ran away from us?"
+
+"He was poisoned," Tommy blandly answered, "and now his heart's kind of
+upside-down and twisty."
+
+"Upside-down and twisty?" he gasped.
+
+"Tommy doesn't mean it's anything dangerous, just an affection; a kind
+of--a kind of----"
+
+"A kind of affectionate affection," Tommy put in. "You see, he was stung
+there, and it itches, and he can't scratch it."
+
+"Stung on the heart? _Sacré nomme!_" The old fellow clasped his head in
+both hands and stared at us.
+
+"You fascinating little ass," Tommy murmured, "did you ever hear of
+love?"
+
+"Love?" the professor's face beamed into twice its usual breadth. "You,
+my boy Jack? Is she a Spanish mademoiselle?"
+
+"Good Lord, whoever heard of a Spanish mademoiselle! No, Jack says that
+she's a lady in need, who lives in the pocket of her father's white
+serge coat that hangs behind his stateroom door; and she's in a helluva
+lot of trouble, but Jack doesn't know where else she is, so we're going
+to comb out the universe and find her! Get the idea?"
+
+"I will drink some coffee," he stammered, and disappeared.
+
+Tommy and I decided that we must be after the _Orchid_ without losing a
+minute, as there was still a chance of drawing in sight of her before
+she could leave Key West. Yet I first had a mission to fulfill at the
+café, nor did I confide this at once to him lest he brand me a total
+wreck. I knew that he was delighted at the prospect of this bizarre
+chase, however chimeric it might seem to him, for he possessed the
+faculty of "playing-true" even in the veriest of fairy-tales. So for the
+moment I let the other matter rest, not realizing at the time that he
+had read more of it in my face than I meant to show.
+
+Gates, also, had caught the excitement and was waiting with the launch
+to push off; and thus, while he concluded official duties at the port, I
+entered the café--in the present unfriendly light a changed place from
+the night before. As luck would have it, my own waiter was the first man
+I saw.
+
+"Do you remember finding a small piece of crumpled paper on my table
+last night?" I asked.
+
+"_Si_, Seńor; the mad _caballero_ came for it."
+
+"Did he get it?"
+
+"But, no, Seńor," the waiter lowered his voice. "Yet he came near to,
+being much angry, and calling you--pardon me!"
+
+"Well, what? What, man?"
+
+He still hesitated, so I carelessly took out my wallet. It's amazing,
+the power of a wallet!
+
+"He demanded the paper of our _maître d'hôtel_, saying you, Seńor, were
+a pig of a detective--and as we admire the detective not at all,
+everyone searched for it. But I had seen other things, Seńor," he smiled
+knowingly.
+
+"You have it?"
+
+"_Si, si,_--but not so loud! Could I give it to the old one? Even a poor
+waiter may sometimes observe! _Mas vale saber que haber, Seńor_," he
+shrugged and smiled as the ancient proverb slipped from his tongue.
+
+"You've a mighty level head on you, kid," I agreed; a metaphor he may or
+may not have understood. There was no doubt in my mind that his words,
+"wisdom is better than wealth," were never more aptly spoken.
+
+"I saw it after you left, Seńor, and put it away--so! The mad
+_caballero_ soon came--he was not happy. We searched the floor, and all
+the time he was shaking his head and mumbling that Mademoiselle had
+confessed to writing it--and to a detective! He was quite crazy. Ah,
+with what care and sympathy did I help him, Seńor, and how generously
+did he reward my careful search!"
+
+He shrugged and smiled, then drew the paper from his pocket, and I
+slipped it into mine--passing him back another kind of paper that he
+slipped into his with a grateful bow.
+
+"Do you know who the man is, or if that was his daughter?"
+
+"No, Seńor. I have seen them, but can not remember where. Carlos served
+their table--but Carlos is stupid," he shrugged compassionately.
+
+The moment my cab turned the first corner I feverishly took out that
+precious paper. Sure enough, on one side were marks _I_ had not seen,
+but the pencilling was very faint--having had the soft tablecloth for a
+desk, perhaps--and showed only a meandering line, curving in and out
+through a group of dots. From every angle I studied it, coming to two
+conclusions: first, that it could mean nothing; and second, that I must
+have imbibed more freely than I thought to have overlooked this.
+
+But now I saw, fainter than the dots, something that resembled written
+words. They were so obscure, indeed, that although the light was
+excellent my jostling cab made it impossible for me to decipher them.
+Telling the driver to stop, I bent over again, and laboriously read:
+
+"I am on Mr. Graham's yacht in great da----"
+
+At this place, as I looked back upon last night, the old chap had
+indicated his wish to leave, and she, tearing off a corner, had let the
+wine card slip to the floor. It explained the broken word, the sudden
+interruption; and this much was not a dream, neither was the disturbing
+message in my hands--for what else but "danger" could the "da" mean?
+
+All was ready to weigh anchor when I stepped aboard, and when we were
+outside the harbor, drawing nicely toward the north, Tommy came up
+grumbling.
+
+"This mystery's getting heavy," he said. "Put us wise!"
+
+So I pushed him into a chair, and called the professor and Gates; then
+when the four of us were comfortably settled, the cushions fitting our
+shoulders, our pipes alight, our spirits glowing with that exhilaration
+which a yacht can bring as she lays over and cuts the waves, I told the
+story from beginning to end--sparing Sylvia where I should.
+
+For some minutes they smoked with their eyes downcast. Then Monsieur
+looked up in his mild way, asking:
+
+"May I see the paper?"
+
+I passed it to him and we drew together, studying it.
+
+"This is the most singular part of the affair," he said, leaning back,
+"because it first came to you in fact, although the man's returning for
+it was told in the dream--and later verified. The dots and line mean
+nothing, perhaps, but that interrupted message!--ah, truly it spells
+danger! What danger? She spoke of no danger in the dream?"
+
+Now, it may seem strange or not, but I had begun to lose track of the
+places where the dream came in and where they left off. The actual was
+so woven with the unreal that I had to stop and consider this question.
+The paper episode, the vividness with which Sylvia had appeared to me,
+the brass frame made in the imitation of a porthole, and the camera's
+film, all contributed to a confusion not unshared by my three friends.
+
+"It's a darned funny coincidence," said Tommy, in an awed voice. "But,
+Jack, you don't think more seriously of it, do you?"
+
+"Would we be chasing these people if I didn't?" I temporized with
+another question.
+
+He seemed to be troubled, glancing toward the thoughtful professor as
+if expecting him to speak, and when this was not forthcoming he asked
+again:
+
+"Well, friend gezabo, what do you think?"
+
+The little scientist lowered his pipe, sighed and impressively answered:
+
+"It is not given to all men to see this invisible agency at work."
+
+The profoundly solemn way he said this made Tommy's eyes grow round.
+Ghost and mystery tales imparted during his childhood by black mammies
+and other negro servants had endowed him with a considerable amount of
+superstition that not infrequently prevailed against his better
+judgment. So now, when the erudite Monsieur treated my experience with
+reverence, even introducing an element of mysticism, Tommy wavered.
+
+"Whiz-bang! You don't really believe that spooky stuff, do you?"
+
+"To my knowledge," Monsieur answered, "I have seen one case. You have
+heard me speak of Azuria. Well, many years ago a friend of mine,
+daughter of our King Christopher, fell to worrying about her cousin, a
+profligate who divided his time between the palace and Paris. As a
+punishment for various escapades the King had curtailed his allowance to
+a mere pittance, yet he seemed in spite of this to have as much money as
+before. It was this fact that worried my friend--the fear of a scandal.
+
+"One night she dreamed that her child, a girl of nearly three, was being
+kidnaped. She arose in her sleep to follow, walking the length of the
+palace, and awoke to find herself in the cousin's room--standing,
+indeed, behind his chair as he bent beneath a shaded lamp earnestly
+working on a plate for spurious money. Instantly she threatened to
+expose him to the King.
+
+"Well, to shorten a long story, that night he did actually kidnap the
+child, leaving a note to my friend in which he suggested a compromise.
+But there was no compromise with villainy in her make-up. The old King
+was much affected. Yet there were things in the air at that time,
+delicate situations of state, which demanded consideration. The
+kidnaping, if made public, would have produced a most disquieting effect
+in certain quarters. Our treaty with a powerful state had just been
+signed, based on the little princess' betrothal--you see? Therefore, her
+disappearance must be kept a secret for a while, so the police of the
+world were not notified. But that night ten men--a few of them loyal
+subjects and the others paid agents--left the capital. Thus a relentless
+search began, being carried to the ends of the world. A noted rogue,
+that fellow was--yet, strange to say, in earlier life a man of parts, an
+esthetic, an artist and musician of great ability; but _mon Dieu_, what
+a scoundrel!"
+
+"Where did they find the little princess?" Tommy asked, after a pause.
+
+"She was never found," he answered softly. "Word once came that she had
+died; again that she lived--but this I begin to doubt. So her mother
+reigns as regent, and in sorrow. Old Christopher had two daughters, the
+younger of whom----" but he stopped in confusion, his face turning very
+red. Later I remembered this.
+
+We fell into a silence, a mutual sympathy for the bereaved lady who had
+been so wronged. At last Tommy asked:
+
+"Do you cross your heart that Jack's dream was anything like the one she
+had?"
+
+"Dream?" Monsieur ran his fingers through his shock of hair. "Who can
+say? Was she dreaming, or did she see a vision? If a vision, why did it
+mislead by urging her into the very step that brought disaster? That
+scoundrel might never have considered kidnaping the child had the mother
+remained unsuspicious of his occupation! Yet visions are sent to warn
+against, not to court dangers. Again, some hold that he happened to be
+contemplating this step as a means of escape should discovery come, and
+so it was his thought transmitted to her."
+
+"For goodness sake talk sense," I cried. "What difference does it make
+whether they were dreams or nightmares, or how much the cousin was
+thinking! What we want to know is where does my dream come in!"
+
+He looked so hurt that I apologized by saying his fairy talk had sent me
+off my head. Small wonder, for when our guest attempted to explain a
+theory he proceeded on the assumption that we were as well versed in it
+as himself. Anyway, we smoothed him down and now, looking at us
+solemnly, he said:
+
+"Latter-day English-speaking psychologists to the contrary
+notwithstanding, we know in the East that souls do travel abroad; that
+they will speak, one to another, while our bodies sleep--while we are
+steeped in that mysterious period of mimic death which leads us so
+uncannily near their twilight zone! Some men hold that our dreams are
+vagaries, as a puff of air or a passing breeze; others that they are
+unfulfilled desires; still others that they are the impress made by
+another soul upon the subliminal part of us, that leaves to our active
+senses but imperfectly translatable hieroglyphics. Does that show you
+nothing?"
+
+"Well," I temporized, "I can't say it shows me much. How about you,
+Tommy?"
+
+"Smell a little smoke, but don't see any bright light yet. Elucidate,
+professor!"
+
+He sighed, giving us a look of pity, I thought.
+
+"If I call to a man, and the space is great, my voice may fail before
+reaching him. Yet if it hangs its vibrations on a puff of air, a passing
+breeze that blows in his direction, he hears me! So does the soul employ
+the passing breeze--by which I mean the capricious thing called
+dreaming--to enter our consciousness that might not otherwise be
+reached. The impossibility is to say which is which--that is, which is
+the unfulfilled desire, which is but the capricious passing breeze, and
+which is the message from another! If in the dark an uneducated fellow
+sits at a piano he might play several lovely chords, yet while they
+sounded well there would be no intelligence behind them. Such is the
+chance dream! But a master-player could produce a rhapsody, expressing
+to one who listened hope, love, desire, warning--everything. Such is the
+harmonious blending of soul and soul in sleep! And how can we tell which
+is which?"
+
+He paused and gazed out at the water, and I saw in his face the
+peculiarly wistful expression that so often accompanies thoughts which
+are both elusive and far away. The index finger of his right hand was
+slightly raised, indicating a subconscious impulse to point upward.
+Slowly turning back to us, he said in a tone of solemnity that lingers
+with me even now, a year later, as I write of it:
+
+"In the Psalms we find these merciful words: 'He giveth His beloved
+sleep.' Yet they are but an imperfect translation of the original, which
+reads: 'He giveth _to_ His beloved _in_ sleep.' Do you not see here a
+greater meaning? Do your minds not at once grasp the corollary?"
+
+"Then you mean," Tommy asked, "that every dream is intended to express
+something?"
+
+"I will not go quite that far, although there are men highly practiced
+in the science of psycho-analytical research who stoutly affirm it. Ah,
+the great difficulty is in drawing the line--in determining which dreams
+are but passing breezes and which are sent to us upon the wings of
+angels!"
+
+"You've studied those things," I ventured. "Which was mine?"
+
+"Study!" he cried, with a fine degree of scorn. "Yes, we study! We
+gather around the brink of a black well and steep ourselves in thought;
+we wrinkle our brows and tear our beards. Cries one: 'I know what is
+down there!' Another turns to him: 'You lie!' A third challenges: 'Prove
+yourselves!' And thus do professors, students, psychologists, churchmen,
+laymen, infidels, and fools, gather about the pit! This much for study,"
+he snapped his finger. "Unless a man have faith, he is in darkness to
+the end of his days!"
+
+"All the same, I believe someone tried to warn the princess," Tommy
+insisted. "And it couldn't have been anything less than a master-player
+that got off that rhapsody to Jack last night!" There was a note of
+teasing in this that the others did not detect.
+
+"Well, Mr. Thomas, you're wrong, sir." Gates, who had been listening
+attentively, now uncrossed his legs and spoke. "There isn't a single
+curious thing in Mr. Jack's dream. Anyone can see how it came
+about--with my apologies to you, sir," he bowed to Monsieur.
+
+We laughed, because Gates had not impressed us as being much of a
+psychologist, and Tommy said:
+
+"If you explain how he knew what Graham's name was, I'll listen."
+
+"Why, sir, he saw it on the paper the night before--for it was there, as
+sure as you live, and he says he looked at the paper. The only thing is,
+he didn't know he saw it--being a little gone in his cups, as you might
+say. But he did see it, and it soaked into his head, waiting till arfter
+he got to sleep before stirring around."
+
+"That's my first clear idea," Tommy's face brightened; and Gates, thus
+encouraged, added:
+
+"The reason he dreamed the old man went ashore for the paper was because
+he saw the lady being watched when she came back to her table--and I'll
+venture he thought right then that the old one was about to come back,
+too, and see what she was doing. Didn't you, sir?"
+
+"I believe I did," I murmured.
+
+"So that stuck in his mind and came out the wrong way, just like dreams
+sometimes will. As for the photograph and brass frame--why, Mr. Thomas,
+you and the professor took on so about that picture when he'd developed
+it that Mr. Jack could have heard you in his sleep, and got that part of
+his dream from what you said!"
+
+"It does fit, doesn't it," Tommy cried. "And, Jack, the poetry Sylvia
+breathed at you--wasn't it about the same thing our little Spanish girl
+sang?"
+
+"It had the same general idea," I admitted.
+
+"There you are, sir," Gates announced, with a satisfied air. "So there
+isn't a thing unusual about your dream, arfter all. It's as reasonable
+as the general run."
+
+Monsieur did not relish having his big occult smoke blown away in this
+fashion; he looked at us with rather a sickish expression, as a boy
+might have if someone stuck a pin in his toy balloon. But it was such a
+relief to get back to practicalities that we let him sulk.
+
+"Jack," Tommy asked, "do you think her real name is Sylvia?"
+
+"Yes; I'm sure of that, anyhow!"
+
+"How're you sure of it?"
+
+"It fits her so absolutely," I answered with decision.
+
+"But Revenge would fit her, too, wouldn't it? That's sweet," he grinned.
+
+"Or Constancy," the professor smiled, for once becoming inspired as he
+threw off his grouch.
+
+"Try Ignorance!" This again from Tommy, who made an attempt to look
+blissful and only succeeded in making himself ridiculous, I thought.
+
+Old Gates now stretched, cocked an eye up at the weather and, in a
+drawl, asked:
+
+"Would it be supposing a great deal, sir, to suggest that the lady might
+be named Much-Learning?"
+
+Whereupon we laughed uproariously, and Tommy slapped him on the knee,
+exclaiming:
+
+"Papa Gates, you've hit it! Truly, she hath made us mad!"
+
+"All the same," I cried, arising and laughing down at them, "there's one
+thing you can't explain away! The big adventure's come at last!--the
+wildest chase----"
+
+"Love chase," Tommy interposed.
+
+"Chase," I repeated, "that man ever started! Are you fellows game enough
+to see it through--to the very end?"
+
+"_Are_ we?" Tommy yelled, springing to his feet. "To the very end! What
+say, Gates?--Professor?"
+
+"To the very end, sir," the old skipper's face beamed happily.
+
+"Why, yes, my boys," Monsieur declared. "To the very
+end,--_certainement!_"
+
+And Gates must have confided this to the crew, for later, as I passed
+the mate, that worthy gave his forelock a pull and whispered:
+
+"To the very end, sir!"
+
+It pleased me immensely.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+A VOICE FROM THE WATER
+
+
+A perfect tropical night crept down on us, with the sky a deep and
+velvety blue, and the stars low enough to touch. Brilliant
+phosphorescence dashed from our bow and a silvery streak trailed in our
+wake emphasizing the enchantment as the _Whim_ rose, leaned, and dipped
+over the bosom of the breathing Gulf. So, also, were my hopes; now up,
+now down, on the breast of another fickle monster. Love and the sea!
+Have they not always been counterparts? Do they not span the known and
+unknown in each man's world, carrying some in safety--others destroying?
+
+It must have been nine o'clock when the forward watch called and,
+springing to the rail, peering through the darkness, we saw down upon
+the horizon the fixed white eye and three red sectors of the Key West
+light.
+
+"A good run, Gates."
+
+"Nothing of our size can beat it, sir."
+
+"You think the _Orchid_ will be in harbor?"
+
+"I carn't say, sir. She had six hours' start of us, and could have
+left."
+
+"How long do we lay off this burg?" Tommy asked, sauntering up.
+
+"That depends. If the mysterious yacht's here we'll stay till something
+happens."
+
+"And if she isn't," he nudged the professor, "we'll comb out the
+universe. You get that, don't you? A nice fat job, I'll say it is!
+How'll we know which way to start? Gates, couldn't you get a peep at her
+papers in the port?" But the skipper solemnly shook his head, saying:
+
+"It carn't be done, sir."
+
+"Well, Jack, when customs are finished we'll take the launch and comb
+out the harbor, anyhow! She'll be anchored nearby, like as not."
+
+Not caring to tie up at the dock we chose a berth far enough out to
+escape the electric glare ashore, and had hardly swung-to when Gates was
+off in his gig to clear our papers. The port officials were astir and
+accommodatingly looked us over without loss of time, for the skipper had
+mentioned our wish to leave whenever the spirit moved us. Those, indeed,
+had been his identical words, and I wondered if they were
+prophetic--whenever the spirit moved us!
+
+They were a nice pair of fellows, those American officers, and before
+going into business--a mere formality in our case--we gathered in the
+cockpit for a long straw and a bowl of ice. The occasion was more
+agreeable for possessing that sense of aloofness one feels at being on
+the edge, yet safely beyond the reach, of a little city's night
+diversions and excitements.
+
+"I suppose you've nothing dutiable," one said, knowing we had left
+Havana unexpectedly soon.
+
+"Nothing," Tommy volunteered.
+
+"But, yes," Monsieur exclaimed. "I shall declare!"
+
+"About the only thing he brought away was a wad of money from a roulette
+game," I laughed.
+
+"Ah, I surprise you," he cried, in high good humor, ducking below; and
+was soon heard struggling up the stairs, crying: "Give me help!"
+
+Into our hands then he began thrusting packages of cigars; packages
+containing a dozen boxes each, until the cockpit looked like moving day
+in a tobacco shop. Behind the last of these, he came.
+
+"Oh, _lŕ lŕ_," Tommy's jaw dropped. "Where did you tie up with this
+stuff? We've been together all the time!"
+
+"Not all the time," the professor chuckled. "Before you were awake this
+morning I was in town for camera supplies, and brought back, also, much
+of that most genial and ameliorating of influences exerted upon us in
+life--cigars! How much do I pay?"
+
+"How many have you?"
+
+"Ten thousand."
+
+"Ten thousand cigars!" We stared at him.
+
+"That's a lot of ameliorating influence," one of the officers laughed.
+"But, in spite of it, I'll have to charge you on nine thousand, nine
+hundred--unless a hundred belong to each of your friends. Everyone's
+entitled to bring in a hundred free."
+
+"A hundred are mine," Tommy spoke up at once. "I haven't won cigars so
+fast, ever! Jack, you for a hundred. Gates, you, too. Colonel," he
+turned to the officer--out of the Army he scattered the titles of
+Colonel, Judge, Governor and Parson with a free hand--"suppose you all
+take a hundred each. It'll be a whole lot cheaper for Sir Walter, here!"
+
+The professor was giggling.
+
+"They have cost me nothing," he cried, "for last night I have won almost
+a thousand dollars at that wretched place--see, here is plenty with
+which to pay!"
+
+And a fortunate thing it was that he had, being called on for something
+in the neighborhood of three hundred dollars.
+
+The officer--Hardwick, by name--and his associate were good fellows, as
+I have said. They had greeted us as congenial spirits and, probably on
+this account, I noticed some embarrassment on his part when he leaned
+into the light and slowly looked over the money Monsieur had given him.
+The rest of us were conversing in a more or less distrait fashion till
+this unpleasant duty should be finished, when he took an electric torch
+from his pocket and flashed it on one of the bills; then on another, and
+so through the lot. Hesitatingly he touched Monsieur's arm, asking:
+
+"Is this the money you won last night?"
+
+"That? It is just as they paid me."
+
+A moment of silence, then:
+
+"I'm sorry to tell you, but these two fifty-dollar bills are
+counterfeits."
+
+There ensued an absolute hush, and before my eyes arose the vision of
+Sylvia's father paying his supper check with a crisp fifty.
+
+"Counterfeit," the professor mused, putting out a hand for them and
+moving nearer the light. "Strange! Just today I was speaking of a
+counterfeiter!" And Tommy, in an awed voice, asked:
+
+"You don't think it's more dreams?"
+
+The officials, I rather suspected, were beginning to look at us askance.
+Our various attitudes at this discovery were scarcely in accordance with
+the usually accepted actions of innocent people; on the contrary, with
+but a grain of imagination, we might be branded as a trio of rascals
+trying to stall out of a tight place. My apprehension was more confirmed
+when Hardwick, a shade less cordial, said:
+
+"As a United States official, I should like to hear your views about
+these."
+
+Now Tommy looked across at me and I saw that he was awake. Monsieur, on
+the other hand, remained blissfully indifferent that anything might be
+out of the ordinary--except, of course, being loaded with a hundred
+dollars of bad money, which does not happen every day.
+
+"My counterfeiter?" he smiled innocently. "Yes, he could have done
+these. His plates are all but perfect. And these bills--you will admit
+they almost fooled you!" Whereupon he laughed.
+
+Tommy fidgeted, saying:
+
+"Have a care, gezabo, or you'll be sending us to the rock pile!"
+
+"My friend is cut-upping," Monsieur beamed on the official, but met with
+no more hearty response than the dry acquiescence:
+
+"I've no doubt of it. But suppose you tell me more of your other
+friend--the counterfeiter!"
+
+"Friend? _My_ friend?" Monsieur's face now became the picture of horror.
+"I was telling these boys of one who disappeared years ago, and
+afterwards the police showed me some plates found in his rooms! _My_
+friend!"
+
+Hardwick began to laugh.
+
+"Please accept my apologies, but, really, for the moment----"
+
+"Don't mention it," Tommy interrupted him, handing across a newly opened
+box of cigars. "I understand you--the professor couldn't!"
+
+Returning to the important subject, Hardwick said:
+
+"Whoever put these out is probably in Cuba. You got them at the
+café----?"
+
+"Quite so," Monsieur exclaimed, warming up with the notion of doing
+detective work. "I was playing roulette--but, pardon me, you have
+heard."
+
+"Do you remember any one around the table who showed new-looking bills?"
+
+"No. We were the only ones playing, and but a few were looking on."
+
+"The restaurant was crowded," Tommy said, "and connects with the
+gambling rooms. Mightn't they send money back and forth if needed?"
+
+"Quite probable."
+
+In the silence that followed I started twice to tell him that Sylvia's
+father had used a new bill of that denomination, yet the words would not
+come. It seemed a sneaky thing to do, after she had turned to me for
+help. Yet, if she were in danger, what quicker way to safety than arrest
+the old vulture who had her in his power? So I said:
+
+"Mr. Hardwick, last night in that restaurant I saw a man----" but this
+time something stopped my words. It was a voice, a girl's voice,
+beautiful with an impassioned ring of protest, that cried from some
+place near us on the water:
+
+"It isn't fair!"
+
+It isn't fair! Oh, the just and pleading accusation of that cry! I
+sprang up, loudly calling her name:
+
+"Sylvia!"
+
+There was not a breath of sound. Those with whom I had been conversing
+were as mute as graven images, but in the black pall just beyond our
+taffrail drifted the magnetic presence toward which every nerve and
+fiber of my body pointed;--pointed, aye, tugged and wrestled with my
+poor flesh to be free! Yet, silence; all silence. No sound, no vision,
+no anything to guide me, other than my flashing brain and thumping heart
+which spoke of her.
+
+I saw one of our sailors staring at the water with strange owlish eyes,
+and yelled at him:
+
+"Into the gig, man!"
+
+But this was frustrated before he moved, for some black shadow, showing
+vaguely, glided out from beneath our rail and disappeared. I could not
+be sure that I saw it, but the sailor did because he crossed himself.
+
+"It ain't no use--now, sir," he managed to say.
+
+My own eyes were trying to follow the eerie, silent thing which had
+passed so spookily into the night, leaving the merest suggestion of
+phosphorescence after it. Then an arm slipped affectionately about my
+shoulders, and I felt that Tommy was also standing by, looking along the
+trail of deadened sound. His face showed excitement, but he whispered
+steadily enough:
+
+"Come and sit down."
+
+Indeed, now that the thing had disappeared, I felt like an ass; and,
+resuming my seat, attempted to make the best of it.
+
+"Really," I laughed, "you fellows mustn't judge a man too critically.
+There was something in the voice of that young lady which took me off my
+guard, and recalled--well, it recalled what you've all probably had
+recalled by one means or another, at some time or other, during
+your--er--lives." And I gave a weakish smile, waving my hand toward any
+old thing in sight by way of saying: "You know, old chaps, how just that
+one girl plays the devil with a fellow, sometimes!"
+
+But the government officials received this in a different spirit than
+that which I had hoped to arouse. They looked at me with a gravity most
+disquieting, and Hardwick, suspicion written in every line of his face,
+asked:
+
+"Is the young lady a member of your party?"
+
+"Heavens, no," I answered quickly. "Oh, no," I vigorously repeated. "We
+don't know her, at all--none of us!"
+
+An ominous silence followed this emphatic denial, and I could actually
+_feel_ him making up his mind about us. It was an awful moment. At last
+Tommy flecked the ash from his cigar and, with great deliberation,
+asked:
+
+"Colonel, do you believe in ghosts?"
+
+"If you're serious," Hardwick snapped, "I certainly do not!"
+
+"I'm serious, all right," Tommy purred, and I knew, from the unusually
+soft quality of his voice, that, indeed, he was--"for, if you don't
+believe in ghosts, you believe we're a bunch of damn crooks--oh, yes you
+do!--and I may say that if you don't, you're a damn fool. _Now_ you see
+how serious I am, and how serious this affair is! This man was telling
+the exact truth when he said that none of us have ever heard that voice.
+If we actually did hear it just now, the coincidence that brought a
+small boat past us at this time of night, and prompted some woman in it
+to speak when and what she did, is more inexplicable to me than you
+think it is to you--because you've made up your mind to understand it. I
+can, however, understand how any sweet voice on a night like this might
+make my friend skid off his usually sane and normal track, because----"
+he hesitated, adding slowly: "Hardwick, I can't go into my friend's
+private affairs, but I wish to tell you that he's had a hell of a jolt,
+and on account of a memory--a memory, Hardwick--we're at Key West
+tonight. I trust, sir, that you won't misjudge, but rather fit these
+fragments and supply the needed others; for I know that your
+appreciation of--er--things is too delicate to allow me to proceed."
+
+Be it noted that Tommy did tell but the simple truth; and, what is
+more, he told it with such sincerity that, in a large measure, our
+embarrassment became shifted over to our guests. Personally, I felt like
+a howling ass to be staked out and exhibited as somebody's jilted Romeo,
+but this was a welcome compromise; thrice welcome, since Hardwick's next
+words showed that he had forgotten, or dismissed, the prelude to my
+burst of confidence about "a man in the restaurant," for arising he
+said:
+
+"Well, we've kept you longer than we should. If this gentleman will give
+my government good money for its revenue we'll bid you _bon voyage_. I
+suppose there's no objection to my keeping those?" He pointed to the
+spurious bills.
+
+"I have paid dearly for them," the professor remonstrated.
+
+"I'm sorry, but you won't lose any more than you've already lost--nor
+gain more, as you won't think of using them!"
+
+"Why should I not use them? I will use them--_certainement!_"
+
+"Be explicit, or forever hold your peace," Tommy laughed. "Can't you see
+the man reaching for his handcuffs?"
+
+But Monsieur, thoroughly aroused, waved the crisp bills with a great
+show of indignation, crying:
+
+"If there is a way to run this cheat to earth I, alone, will know it!
+Then you will want me to be telling you! For my own pleasure I have made
+a study of counterfeiters and their methods. Perhaps it may surprise you
+to learn that the police of Europe come to Bucharest and consult with
+me, eh? Thus, if I may also help you, I must retain my bills!"
+
+We laughed, although I felt tremendously proud of the professor, having
+had no idea he was such a wonder; and Hardwick said, bowing:
+
+"Then help yourself so I, also, may be helped. But let me take one for
+my government and, when you finish with the other, mail it to me with
+your report. I shall appreciate your assistance, really."
+
+Monsieur was delighted.
+
+They left us then, and again we settled about the cockpit; each waiting
+for one of the others to begin. My own thoughts were like a whirlwind,
+and my ears strained with listening toward the black Gulf--listening for
+a voice, or the unnamable noise of the gods knew what, that might float
+to me across the water. I think Tommy half expected me to suggest that
+we take one of the small boats, and went to his room to put on darker
+clothes. In a few minutes Monsieur yawned and followed him--though I
+rather suspected that his yawn was caused more by nervousness than the
+want of sleep. A moment later Gates, standing near the wheel, softly
+called my name, so I arose and went to him.
+
+It must be remembered that Gates was absolutely dependable. There were
+no frills about the old skipper, he shared not one superstitious
+sentiment in common with Tommy, and it is extremely doubtful if he knew
+the sensation of fear; therefore, when I saw his face, I was astonished,
+and in alarm asked:
+
+"Are you ill?"
+
+"No, sir, but I'm sore upset. Please come a bit more aft, sir."
+
+Taking a few steps till we were abaft the traveler, he turned and
+whispered:
+
+"Mr. Jack, someone's been trying to blow us up!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+A BOMB AND A DISCOVERY
+
+
+It seemed that either Gates or I must be out of our senses.
+
+"Blow us up!" I gasped, staring at him.
+
+"As sure as you're born, sir! 'Twas about the time you called over the
+rail. A little before that, as you gentlemen were talking, I heard a
+small boat. She came near, and she came up sneaking. First I thought it
+might be a sponge fisher with more curiosity than manners, but as she
+didn't start on again I begun to cock my ear. Then something gave a rub
+against our rudder post. I didn't like it. I was sitting back there,
+anyhow, so just got to my hands and knees, and peeped over."
+
+"Why didn't you challenge?"
+
+"Because there's been strange doings these twenty-four hours parst, and
+I knew your affairs might be taking a serious turn. I thought you'd be
+wanting to know their play, 'stead of scaring 'em off. So I peeped and
+listened. With my eyes getting fair used to the dark I made out a dinghy
+with four men, and think they'd bent a line about our rudder post, for
+the for'ard man seemed to be working at us silent and farst. The middle
+one had the oars, ready to pull away. In the stern sheets sat the one I
+guessed was boss and, kind of squatting down in front of him, was a lad.
+To tell the truth, sir, I felt squirmy, for those night-hawks were up to
+something mysterious."
+
+"Wait a minute, Gates--did you recognize them?"
+
+"Not me, sir. As I was saying, the fellow aft now parssed up a bundle to
+the for'ard chap, who took it gingerly and began farstening it on to us
+somewhere--I couldn't see. The young lad leaned over and looked at it,
+then he up and sings out: 'It ain't fair!'"
+
+"Yes, yes," I caught him by the shoulders. "Go on, Gates!"
+
+"Mind out this thing under my coat," he warned. "Well, sir, the one that
+was boss made a grab for him--Lor', how he did jerk him!--and the others
+froze like stone. They stayed that way while you were calling, then the
+dinghy glided off--the one aft still holding his hand over the lad's
+mouth and kind of choking him with the other."
+
+My blood was fairly steaming, and I cried out what was uppermost in my
+mind:
+
+"That wasn't a lad, Gates! It was a girl!"
+
+His jaw dropped and he stared at me, but slowly shook his head.
+
+"No, sir, it warn't a girl, or the fellow wouldn't have handled her so
+rough. Besides, sir, he wore--the lad, I mean--a jacket and cap like you
+or me."
+
+"That doesn't mean anything. I tell you it was a girl--I'm sure of it!"
+
+"Well, sir, you're wrong; for when they got out five fathom or so they
+stopped--to listen, maybe. You were back in the cockpit by then, and I
+guess the fellow must have let up on the young-un; for, all at once,
+he--the lad, I mean--raked a match along the gunnel, for to take a
+smoke, d'you see! My word, but the way he was grabbed this time would
+have shocked you. I couldn't see it, but you could hear the youngster
+gurgling. That shows it warn't a girl, sir!"
+
+"What shows it? Because you think she wanted to smoke? Girls do, Gates!"
+
+"They do that, sir, and I'm not gainsaying it; but they do it sociable,
+arfter dinner, setting 'round the cockpit, as you might say. It's seldom
+any of 'em has such a mortal craving for tobacco as to have to take a
+suck at a little cigarette every time a man chokes her by the throat. My
+word, no! It's the male sex that wants the weed under those
+conditions--not a girl, sir!"
+
+But I was seeing an entirely different version of the affair, so far as
+the smoking went; and Gates would have seen it, too, if he hadn't been
+so excited. She had not wanted to smoke, at all, but to signal us! I
+knew it! I was never more sure of anything in all creation!
+
+"And besides, sir," Gates now added, "no one would push his fingers into
+a girl's throat like----"
+
+"Stop," I cried, for I could not listen to more of this. If ever I
+wanted to kill it was then. I wanted to get my own fingers on that
+scoundrel's throat as he had dared touch hers; and in my heart I swore
+by all the gods, by all the stars and moons and other things in the
+heavens and under the sea, that I would strangle out his miserable life
+by inches, or leave my bones to bleach on the shore of her unknown
+island. Wherever it was, I would find it; wherever she was, I would find
+her!--and God help him when he came my way! It was a classy oath, and I
+felt a lot better for it.
+
+"Now, sir," Gates's voice began to tremble with passion as he held up a
+black thing that had been tucked under his coat, "this invention I took
+off our rudder post when I rowed 'round to see what they'd been up to.
+It's a dirty bomb, fixed to start us off for Davy Jones's Locker
+sometime tonight, sir!"
+
+"You're sure it can't start us off now?" I asked, taking it from his
+hands.
+
+"Not lest you get too familiar, sir. I've disconnected the clock part of
+it."
+
+"Have you any idea what those men looked like?"
+
+He solemnly shook his head.
+
+"You can't guess who they were, or why they wanted to blow us up?" I
+persisted. "Shall we notify the port, or what?"
+
+He stood a while silent before answering.
+
+"Mr. Jack, God knows who they are. It was too dark for me to get any
+satisfying squint at 'em; but I never saw 'em before--that I know. Three
+things are sure: they're either lunatics, or they've taken us for some
+mortal enemy, or----"
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Or I'm wrong in those two guesses, sir."
+
+"But you think they're from the _Orchid_, don't you?"
+
+"On another guess, I'd swear it, sir."
+
+"And you're positive you never saw the yacht till yesterday--in any
+port?"
+
+"Never, sir. I even made inquiry about her in Havana before we cleared
+to-day--that is, without exciting comment. A one-eyed stevedore said she
+drops in there maybe once or twice a year, but he didn't know from
+where. _I've_ never seen her, and I've sailed close to thirty year most
+everywhere in these waters during winter seasons!"
+
+"Well, I'm stumped," I admitted. "Let's take this to the professor and
+see what he makes of it." So we went down together.
+
+Monsieur, in his stateroom, sat bent over his counterfeit bill when I
+quietly shoved the bomb in front of him. He sprang up with a broadside
+of expletives that in the sunlight would have cast a wondrous rainbow.
+It was a way with the little professor, and we had learned to keep
+respectfully distant during such periods of effervescing energy.
+
+"Tied to our rudder post," I told him.
+
+He seemed to grasp the entire situation at once. I have never known such
+a genius for corraling facts! In an instant his mind apparently galloped
+completely around the boundary of our discovery, and then circled in.
+
+"You have made it harmless," was his first oral observation.
+
+"Gates did, yes; he disconnected the clock-work."
+
+"It is quickly made, and crude," he mused, turning it over in his hands,
+"but the work of one who is not a novice. Give me the other part!--um!
+Very pretty, very pretty, indeed!" Then he looked up, calling: "My boy
+Tommy, come! We are to see what we shall see!"
+
+"See what?" Tommy sauntered in; but as we explained the situation he
+looked positively hopeful. For the chief quality in Tommy that made him
+so likable was his abiding love of danger. He would rather flirt with
+death than a ravishing coquette--though I will not deny his preference
+to play the pair.
+
+"Oh, boy!" he now chuckled, giving my arm a squeeze.
+
+As we gathered about the table, Monsieur took a knife and began to press
+its blade into the covering of the bomb, saying:
+
+"I have known the builder of one of these to leave his tracks inside,
+trusting the explosion to obliterate them. But sometimes the machine
+does not go off."
+
+"Let's hope this'll be one of those times," Tommy murmured, "or we'll
+pretty well leave our tracks all over the Gulf. Don't use any bad
+judgment, Professor. Centuries are looking down at you!"
+
+"I shall try not," he smiled, pushing the blade deeper and giving a
+gentle twist.
+
+"I should say he ought to be doing that ashore, sir," Gates whispered.
+"Lor' knows this is no place----"
+
+But Monsieur was speaking again.
+
+"The gentleman who left it with us may have used bad judgment by not
+exploding it himself. So much the worse for him. Steady!" he grunted,
+peeling off another slice of the wrapper. "Yet, if criminals did not
+sometimes use bad judgment, a sorry plight would be ours, eh? Moreover,
+it is natural that they use bad judgment, for, being criminals, their
+judgment is bad--primarily bad, or they would not be criminals."
+
+"Please work without your tongue or talk without your hands," I said,
+with a touch of irritation. "That thing's nervous for undivided
+attention!"
+
+The professor may not have heard, and in a monotone continued:
+
+"The man who made it knew his business; therefore he is a student of
+this type of explosives; therefore a police agent, a--what you
+call--crank like myself, or a destroying criminal--that is, an
+anarchist. Therefore he is the last named, since neither of the others
+would want to blow up a gentleman's yacht. It seems clear to you?" he
+asked, without raising his eyes; but none of us cared to divert his
+attention by answering.
+
+By now Monsieur had peeled off several pieces of the wrapper, and was
+sprawled over the table with a powerful magnifying lens. For some time
+he minutely studied them, finally squinting closely at a particular one
+and beginning to show increased excitement. Arising and pushing by us,
+he went to his many boxes and returned with a small glass-stoppered
+bottle. It must have contained an acid; at any rate, he touched a drop
+of it to a piece of the inner wrapping, then bent over to watch results.
+Finally, with very bright eyes, he looked up announcing in a voice of
+triumph:
+
+"This paper is the kind they use for printing money on!"
+
+We stared at him, but he volunteered nothing further, having again bent
+over his search. For several minutes we watched in silence. Then he sat
+up with a snap, as a steel spring might be released.
+
+"The man who made this bomb made my counterfeit bank note," he cried.
+
+Tommy and I jumped.
+
+"Just so," he continued eagerly. "The bomb is a hurried affair,
+impromptu, constructed of materials happening to be at hand when needed.
+That necessity, we assume, arose within the last few hours, since we
+have been in these waters but shortly. Here is a piece of the wrapper.
+You make nothing of it, yet to my experienced knowledge I see the
+identical paper on which my money is printed. The counterfeiter,
+possessing a good resisting paper and suddenly desiring to make a bomb,
+employs it. So much for so much! Now we have him a bomb-maker and a
+counterfeiter;--then we shall eliminate the anarchist!"
+
+"Why?" I asked.
+
+"Because a counterfeiter of such skill--and this engraving is the work
+of a master--implies long and intense application; therefore a secluded
+life rather than one of following the red flag. Moreover, an anarchist
+would be tempted into this risk, such as tried upon us, only to destroy
+someone of great importance--which I may conclude no one of us is. And
+irrespective of these reasons counterfeiters do not sympathize with
+anarchy. The psychology of each must be diametric, for if there is no
+government to make money there is no money to counterfeit. So the
+anarchist in our case lacks motive, but the other finds it if he
+suspects us of knowing his secret. So much for so much. Do we know any
+counterfeiter's secret? No. Then a final theory: the placer of this bomb
+has mistaken us for an enemy--he thinks we are whom we are not!"
+
+"That's what I said," Gates interposed.
+
+"But he does suspect us of knowing it," Tommy exclaimed, "or why did he
+tell the waiter Jack was a detective?"
+
+The professor, obviously disappointed, turned again to the bomb that was
+fast reaching a state of _déshabille_--if bombs can be said to reach
+that state.
+
+"You assume this to be the work of people on that yacht," he said, with
+a touch of annoyance. "Can you sustain that theory?"
+
+"Why, of course, sir," Gates declared.
+
+"A mere presumption, _mon Capitaine!_"
+
+"But the voice," I challenged. "Don't you suppose I recognized it?"
+
+"Tut-tut, my boy Jack! You have never actually heard the lady's voice!"
+And as this was true I had nothing further to offer; but he brightened
+up, adding: "We shall now go to the stomach of the bomb, if only to
+enjoy ourselves."
+
+"You've a curious idea of fun," I grunted.
+
+"Just go easy," Tommy said. "She may be ticklish."
+
+"Why not sink the wicked thing at once, sir," Gates urged. "We've seen
+enough now to keep us awake nights, and I haven't any craving to look at
+its stomach, Lor' knows I haven't!"
+
+But the professor would not listen. Already he had recommenced the
+exploration, gingerly removing some wires wrapped about the explosive
+center, while we almost held our breaths lest he touch the wrong thing.
+Once he smiled, and murmured: "_Le capitaine_ is right--it was made on
+the _Orchid_!" Yet he did not stop work for this, and soon brought to
+view two half sticks of dynamite, one of them ingeniously capped.
+Leaning above this now, with his elbows on the table and his head in his
+hands, he sank into a profound study, then startled us by giving a snort
+and springing up, jostling the table so violently that the dynamite slid
+gracefully toward the edge. Most happily Tommy grabbed it in time.
+
+"Lor', sir, 'twas a close shave," Gates whispered, wiping his forehead.
+
+But Monsieur remained blissfully unconscious of the mess so narrowly
+averted. He was staring, breathing heavily, blinking and thinking. As
+though walking in his sleep he again went to his mysterious bags, took
+out something and began to study it through the lens. Then with a yell
+he rushed at me, hugged me, kissed me on the cheek, held me off, and
+hugged me again, crying over and over:
+
+"I am right--I am right--I am right!"
+
+He now caromed from me and in the same manner embraced Tommy, and after
+this he tackled Gates. But Gates did not understand the continental
+fashion of masculine salutations, and sternly disengaged himself,
+saying:
+
+"You carn't be right, sir! I don't know what's the matter, but it's easy
+to see you carn't just be right!"
+
+"_Sacré bleu!_" Monsieur stepped back, actually weeping with happiness.
+"What stupid idiots we are! Can't you see?"
+
+"I can see one," Tommy grinned at him sweetly.
+
+"Ah, but look!" He thrust before us the thing he had taken from the bag.
+It was that precious kodak film of Sylvia. "Look!" he cried. "You say
+she is near to twenty--he, to seventy-five! But, more than all, I see
+with my lens that here is the breathing likeness of the mother! Where
+are your eyes, my boys? _Ciel_, must I tell you? She is the kidnaped
+princess of Azuria!"
+
+You who read may have surmised this; so might we, had we been reading
+instead of making history. The human mind that leans above a printed
+page possesses a more concentrated grasp of facts than the human atoms
+who run over the earth collecting them. So I caught my breath and simply
+stared, too dazed to speak. It seemed as though something had given me a
+surprising whack that sent a thousand sparks before my eyes. But then
+slowly the whole structure began to unfold. Each step of evidence we had
+picked up since the memorable night but twenty-four hours ago, now took
+its place as the panorama--not flawless, but with inviting
+possibilities,--and passed across my brain.
+
+It was very late when we pushed back from the table. In its center were
+the counterfeit bill, the magnifying glass, parts of the thoroughly
+dissected bomb, several pages of writing pad with the professor's
+deductions; and by these were some of Gates' charts, the paper I had
+procured from the waiter, and another page containing those mystic
+sentences Sylvia had spoken for finding her island--because I thought it
+fair to her that this should be laid before my friends, especially as
+she had only said them in a dream.
+
+Strangely enough the professor was willing to admit them to his scheme
+of carrying on our pursuit--a chase which he now seemed determined to
+direct--when even Tommy, the superstitious Tommy, declared they would
+throw us off the track a thousand miles. I could think of no plan, for
+altogether it did seem like combing out the universe for two human
+atoms.
+
+"We have one sure way, of course," the professor leaned wearily back.
+"Keep the _Orchid_ in sight. If we do this till she reaches her lair,
+all is well."
+
+"I wouldn't doubt she sailed, sir, right arfter placing the bomb," Gates
+ventured.
+
+"Then we can't keep her in sight," said Tommy dolefully.
+
+"Do not thwart me," the little fellow cried, with a sudden flare of
+anger that made us smile in spite of the serious work at hand.
+
+"We'd better go ashore first," I suggested, "and get authority to
+capture her. The government can deputize us by sending along an
+officer."
+
+"Authority!" Monsieur puffed out his cheeks and snapped his finger.
+"That for your government's authority! I have the authority with me!"
+
+"You!" I exclaimed.
+
+"_Certainement!_ I was one of those true friends who left the palace
+years ago, with the old King's authority in my pocket! It is in that bag
+now! It is absolute--absolute!--protecting me against anything I may do
+in effecting her rescue and return. It is by far more powerful than
+anything your government could give us! A King's order makes the police
+of the world my underlings! Besides that, she is my special charge, and
+no power this side of Azuria can abrogate my authority over her!"
+
+A cold hand wrapped its fingers about my heart. The hopelessness of our
+search would have been depressing enough had it not contained the spice
+of chase, but to feel that it might be fruitful only to have her
+snatched off into a world as unknown, as impossible to me as this far
+off kingdom, was crazing. To me it would be like seeing her transported
+from one star to another, while I remained on earth to gaze my eyes out
+and eat my heart out with endless longing.
+
+"Her mother is regent, you say?" Tommy asked, intuitively sympathizing
+with my state of mind.
+
+"Yes. In Roumania a woman may not ascend the throne alone, but in
+Azuria, where the Ruman blood has never mixed, she may act as regent if
+her heir is a girl too young to marry. But now," he clapped his hands
+joyfully, "we can complete the alliance with a neighboring prince--and,
+ah, what joy there will be!"
+
+"You've got to catch her first," Tommy said, not without a trace of
+spite. "Even if we get near enough to see him, at all, he can see us,
+too; then lead us off the track till night and make a run for base."
+
+"So he will, my boy Tommy. And if his lair is to the west, he will
+doubtless lead us to the east. But we must sail at dawn--then we shall
+see what we shall see!"
+
+"Good night," I said, abruptly kicking back my chair.
+
+Thus our meeting broke up; Gates going first to sink the dynamite and
+then leave orders for all canvas to be stretched at peep o' day. Tommy
+came on deck with me, and we stood a while looking into the black water.
+Off in the town, in a side street near the wharf where sailors'
+amusement halls are clustered, some tipsy fellow was bawling a love song
+at the top of his voice. He seemed to be the only thing awake in Key
+West at this hour. When the song, or his voice, gave out the silence
+settled heavier than before. A ship's bell, far over the water, began to
+strike, and we counted five mellow strokes: one-one, one-one, one!
+
+"Half-past two," Tommy whispered, "I wonder what Nell's doing!"
+
+"Dreaming of you, no doubt," I tried to laugh. "Maybe you and she are
+wrecked on a desert island at this blissful moment."
+
+"I wish we were," he murmured, without looking around. "And you and
+Sylvia, too!"
+
+"Cut it," I growled. "She's a princess, Tommy, and that puts the kibosh
+on my dreams."
+
+"Nell's a princess, too," he said gently, "and I still hang on. Tilt up
+your chin, Jack, and things'll squeeze through for us! We'll ship the
+old counterfeiter to prison, or kill him, and then----"
+
+"And then," I said bitterly, turning to go below, "Princess Sylvia goes
+to the arms of some popinjay prince!"
+
+But I had taken only a step when his hand fell on my shoulder like a
+piece of steel and whirled me around. There was nothing gentle in his
+voice this time as he sharply commanded:
+
+"Look at me, you damn slacker, and let's see if I'm talking to the man I
+fought the Boche with!"
+
+I must have appeared rather well indignant with him, for he gave a low,
+reassured laugh, adding:
+
+"That's better. Now I want to say, once and for all--and I swear it on
+each of these stars, both for myself and Nell--that if we catch up with
+Princess Sylvia, and you let her be taken away, I'll punch your face
+into a jolly good pulp, so help me old Kentucky! Good _night_!"
+
+"If you're man enough to do it," I yelled after him.
+
+Fine old Tommy! I believe I loved him then better than ever before.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+THE CHASE BEGINS
+
+
+I slept like a log and was awake, anxious to turn out, at the peep of
+dawn. But Gates was ahead of me when I reached the deck. Our anchor had
+just been hoisted, and every sail was set, though nearly limp with a
+negligible breeze.
+
+"What news?" I asked.
+
+"Nothing, sir; leastwise nothing of the _Orchid_. She's gone."
+
+"We expected that. Any idea which way?"
+
+"I talked to a sponge fisher who came by a while back, sir, and he said
+a schooner yacht sailed about midnight, or maybe later; north, he said.
+But she carn't have got far, as there hasn't been hardly any air
+stirring all night till this little one now. If it wasn't so heavy off
+there we might see her, I farncy. The mate's aloft, sir."
+
+I looked up and saw him steadily sweeping the distance with his
+binoculars; but, as Gates had said, the horizon in all directions was
+heavy, and in such weather our search, indeed, seemed next to useless.
+With the world a playground, how could we find this vagrant yacht.
+
+Then I let my eyes rest on the tinted east, marvelling at what a
+curiously beautiful, dangerously sweet old world this is. The sky and
+water were beginning to be touched by the first faint tones of rose, the
+dawn was bringing its enchantment to this marriage-time of the black
+and white. Over in the Key West barracks a bugler would soon be blowing
+reveille; down in the sleeping town stumpy little street cars would
+squeak from their sheds and clang their discordant gongs through the
+narrow thoroughfares. But farther yet to the northeast, in the Florida I
+best knew and loved, a whooping crane would startle the solitude with
+its uncanny cry, the alligators would croak their guttural grunts at
+waking time, while, here and there in the shadowy forest, the whine of a
+skulking panther would strike terror to the hearts of gentler things.
+Ah, the trackless wilderness of dreamy Florida, where nature moves on
+padded foot and silent wing!
+
+Gates had hoisted even the topmast- and maintopmast-staysails, but these
+did not help much; and when Tommy and Monsieur appeared half an hour
+later they were in wretched humors at the way matters stood. The only
+slight hope we nursed had been one cry of "Sail-ho!" from the mate, but
+he could not tell what kind of a craft had rested on his lens, because
+she was almost at once swallowed by the distant bank of mist. At last,
+with a squint into the southwest, Gates prophesied that something worth
+while would be coming before long, and with this crumb of comfort,
+seasoned by his promise to call if anything appeared, we half-heartedly
+went down to breakfast.
+
+Healthy man is ever cheered by breakfast, especially if Pete has
+prepared it, and gradually our departed spirits came lumbering back. I
+remembered Tommy's promise of the night before to mutilate my
+countenance on certain conditions, and began to laugh. Then he laughed,
+doubtless because I had, and pretty soon Monsieur showed signs of
+warming up.
+
+"This is what my boy Tommy would call hot-stuffie, eh?" he cried. "To
+be chasing a scoundrel who has kidnaped a Princess is fun, you think
+so?"
+
+"And such a princess," Tommy rapturously exclaimed. "Eyes more deep than
+the mysteries of twilight shadows in a woodland pool!--oval cheeks more
+damask than the rose which steals its fragrance from her hair!--lips
+whose Cupid's bow----"
+
+"Here," I good-naturedly protested. "Don't make her so wonderful! You
+won't have an adjective left for the beautiful Bluegrass flower!"
+
+"But isn't she wonderful?--I challenge you, isn't she perfect?"
+
+"That is a perilous assertion," Monsieur chuckled, "since there is a
+Persian proverb that 'to be perfect is to be damned.'"
+
+"Well, she'd rather be damned than ugly, if I know anything about
+girls--and I do!" Tommy declared. "Isn't that right, gezabo?"
+
+"Isn't what right? That you know so much about girls? Bah! It is a young
+rooster's foolish talk! Woman, my boy, is as the law of
+gravity--difficult to understand, and I may add difficult to disobey.
+But to comprehend her she must first be stripped----"
+
+"Why, you wicked old thing," Tommy, in mock astonishment, gasped at him.
+
+"You do not let me finish," he blushingly protested. "What I mean is
+stripped of her inexplicable----"
+
+"Oh, come off," his tormentor burst out laughing. "That's as transparent
+as a girl buying cigarettes for her brother! I didn't know you were so
+curious."
+
+"Please--you shame me! I am curious of nothing, and you will someday
+learn that curiosity is the root of tragedy."
+
+"There's an epigram worthy of you: 'Curiosity is the root of
+tragedy'--and the blossom of delight!"
+
+"I said nothing of delight," the professor blushed. "I said tragedy!
+And--ah, I see! You are cut-upping! I will not talk. Your conscience
+should hurt you!"
+
+"Not conscience, old fellow! The wages of conscience is _ennui_, and the
+gods know how I hate that. Give me your epigrams on delight and love,
+and the Princess of Azuria!"
+
+"Love! Bah!" Monsieur now stormed in disgust. "A mythical invention of
+diseased minds to explain away our follies!"
+
+"Wait till she hears that," Tommy warned, "and your head's as good as in
+the sawdust. I hope to heaven she makes me her lord high executioner,
+and darned if I don't lop it off with a single whack!"
+
+"And I hope you have a chance to tell her, so smart!"
+
+"I'll have a chance, all right, never you fear. I'm the only one who
+will, for after you're disposed of, and Jack has gone moony, this
+expedition will need a clear thinker. There's where your uncle Tom comes
+in."
+
+"He understands himself so well," the professor indulgently smiled.
+
+"It requires no concentration, really," I murmured.
+
+"Ah, Mr. Brutus," Tommy grinned at me over a fork-load of buckwheat
+cakes, "can it be your cooling blade I feel?"
+
+"It is; and you'll get it in the neck, good and properly, if you don't
+leave me out of your silly nonsense," I warned.
+
+"Here's a touchy one for you, gezabo! Yachting with royalty the other
+night made him too good for us."
+
+"You close up," I growled.
+
+After a few minutes devoted to breakfast, he asked:
+
+"Are princesses like other people, I wonder? Jack ought to be put wise,
+so he'll know how to behave when we get her aboard."
+
+"Why, yes, my boy Tommy," Monsieur answered, taking him seriously, of
+course. "They are the same as other young ladies, except more highly
+cultured, more of education, more of that--what you call--indefinable
+chasteness."
+
+"Indefinable chasteness," he puckered his lips and repeated the phrase
+in a ruminating way. "D'you know, a philosopher once told me that if
+ever I heard an old lady call a girl anything like that, to put the
+young one down for a kissable, artful little flirt; for in this present
+day of ours, he said, woman understands everything on God's green
+earth--except the mind of her succeeding generation."
+
+"But I am no old lady," the professor bristled.
+
+"Sail-ho!" came the far off voice of the mate from his perch aloft.
+
+We held our breaths, intently listening.
+
+"Where away?" Gates called, and I could picture him: legs apart, head
+thrown back, hands cupped around his lips.
+
+"Dead ahead, sir," came the answer: "I got a better look at her this
+time, and she's a schooner yacht like us!"
+
+We bounded from the table and dashed up the companionway stairs out into
+the cockpit. The old skipper was laughing gleefully, and our spirits
+were as high as the masthead.
+
+"We're on the right track, Mr. Jack," he cried. "Just wait till arfter a
+breeze springs up--she won't stay so far ahead!"
+
+But the breeze did not pick up and we continued to poke along at about
+six knots, hardly consoled by the knowledge that she was doing no
+better. Time seemed to be creeping on its hands and knees. The _Orchid_,
+if such were the yacht ahead of us, continued beyond the fringe of mist,
+now mixed with a fine drizzle, showing herself at rare intervals which
+served to keep us from going astray.
+
+The slickers of the crew were dripping and shiny, and we, too, soon
+looked like a flock of wet, disgruntled hens. To add to my discomfiture
+the professor brought up a newspaper and began consulting the shipping
+news, blandly telling us that if we captured the princess within
+forty-eight hours he could have her in Azuria in twenty days. I was glad
+when the paper got so wet that he had to throw it overboard.
+
+At luncheon we could not help being downcast, largely owing to the
+drizzle which, aboard a yacht, is indeed a spirit breaker. The few
+sporadic attempts we made at cheer did not get very far. But after a
+little, happening to glance at Tommy, I saw a look in his face that put
+me on my guard for something. There was no hoax about this, no
+"cut-upping."
+
+"Our conversation was interrupted this morning," he said, in answer to
+my unspoken question. "There were things I wanted to talk about--for
+instance, what'll we do when we catch up?"
+
+I had thought of this a hundred times without finding a very definite
+solution, as my fancies refused to reach beyond the moment I should
+stand face to face with Sylvia. But, after a fashion, I made answer:
+
+"We'll hand the scoundrel over to the law, I suppose, and take the
+Princess----"
+
+"That's just it," he interrupted me. "Take her where? That's the point
+I want to make." His voice was almost purring now--a sign with him of
+deadly earnestness. He was continuing: "Suppose she has a perfectly good
+home where she is! Suppose she doesn't see the virtues in our
+interference that we see! How do we know the man's a scoundrel, anyway?"
+
+"Bah!" Monsieur cried. "She wrote a message of danger! The man tried to
+blow us up! He made bad money that I have here!"--whereupon he thumped
+his breastpocket half a dozen times. "How do we know? _Pardieu_, I tell
+you!"
+
+"She wrote the message," Tommy admitted, "but everything else you say is
+guess. Even suppose you're right about it, where are our warrants? Where
+are the sworn officers to serve them?"
+
+"I have told you that I have the authority, the absolute authority!"
+
+"Oh, that doesn't amount to a damn," Tommy replied with supreme
+indifference, and for a moment I feared Monsieur was going to have a
+stroke of apoplexy. "Don't you see that we must possess proofs? And then
+we've got to board his yacht, don't we? Is he going to take a siesta
+while we stroll over the old tub? Your authority, gezabo, is a scrap of
+paper unless, first, he's the man who kidnapped your princess, and
+second, we can lay our hands on him. Now try to think!"
+
+"Think! There is nothing to think--only to do! You speak as a child! We
+must take that girl to her throne, to her rightful heritage! By every
+law of conscience, justice and humanity, there is nothing left for us to
+do! Absolutely we must obey!"
+
+A silence fell upon Tommy and me. I saw him moisten his lips and dart
+the professor a quick glance. I knew how inherently strong that little
+fellow was in his loyalty, but had not been prepared for such an appeal
+as this. Conscience, humanity, justice! He was calling on my manhood to
+send her back to Azuria, out of my arms, out of my life. And she would
+go; I felt it, I knew it. I realized now that Tommy, in preambling up to
+this point, intended to settle it once and for all. And I realized how
+much farther his clear vision had penetrated the situation than my own
+poor addled mind.
+
+Leaning forward, he said in the same soft voice--though Monsieur did not
+recognize the deadly purpose behind it:
+
+"Professor, if you seriously want to see Azuria again I think we'd
+better arrange this thing, somehow. You came here to look for a
+princess; Jack came--pardon me, Jack, but it's unavoidable--for a
+sweetheart. Every man to his trade, you know!"
+
+"Yes, and if I find Her Serene Highness I shall most certainly restore
+her to----"
+
+"You'll most certainly do nothing of the kind," Tommy interrupted him.
+"You see, old fellow, we couldn't trust her to you--it wouldn't be fair.
+The fact is, you've been acting mighty queerly of late, saying all kinds
+of strange things!"
+
+A puzzled look came into the professor's eyes as he glanced at me and
+then back at Tommy, who now leaned confidentially nearer.
+
+"Do you realize," he soothingly continued, "that you thought someone was
+trying to blow up our yacht?"
+
+"Trying to blow it up? Did I not have the bomb in my hands?"
+
+"He still believes it, Jack," Tommy sighed. "There's nothing to be done,
+I reckon, but take him back to Key West. They've a pretty fair hospital
+there."
+
+Monsieur's face turned so livid and looked so weird in its frame of
+straw-colored hair that I began to think all the hospitals on earth
+could not save him. Sputtering, he appealed to me:
+
+"The truth, my boy Jack--he is cut-upping?"
+
+But Tommy was saying:
+
+"We're awfully sorry, you dear old manatou; we'll miss you, take my word
+for it."
+
+"You boys dare do this," he sprang to his feet, too angry for further
+protest.
+
+"Sit down, sir," Tommy spoke now in a different tone. "Of course, I
+don't believe it, nor does Jack; but others will if we take you to the
+Key West hospital tied up in ropes and say you've got that blowing-up
+bug in your bonnet. Get the point?"
+
+"I get no points," he furiously pounded the table.
+
+"Well, here it is, and its name is Compromise! Either compromise, or the
+wow-wow house. We won't force the issue; you must decide nicely, without
+being pressed one way or the other. But these are the facts: you're
+sailing on an American yacht; Jack's the owner, Gates is captain, I'm
+the boss. We're hoping to overhaul the _Orchid_, board her, capture the
+princess, and all that. Then for one entire week Jack's to have an
+uninterrupted tęte-ŕ-tęte while you make yourself invisible. Come along
+if you want to and turn the old rascal over to your consul when we get
+home, plead with the princess after Jack's week is up, recover a hundred
+good bucks for your bad ones--but he has to have his chance first, and
+we sign articles of agreement _right now_!"
+
+"Children," he cried, with a great show of disgust. "Should you return
+to Key West, how would you ever find the _Orchid_ again! Ah-ha, you have
+tripped yourselves!"
+
+"Not on your life, we haven't. We'll keep on now and locate her hiding
+place, then deliver you to a guardian, and come back."
+
+The professor thought a moment, breathing fast and blinking.
+
+"What are those bucks you spoke about?" he asked.
+
+"Bucks? Hell, man, they're beans, bones--the things you won at
+roulette!"
+
+"I won no such things at roulette," he gravely shook his head, adding
+slowly: "So I must agree, eh? _Tres-bien!_ Yet I warn you that she will
+go back with me in spite of all my boy Jack can say in a week, or a
+year. It is inevitable--she can not possibly disobey! Come! You win for
+the moment, so we will drink, standing together for Azuria!"
+
+"Standing for your grandmother," Tommy laughed. "No, you jolly old
+filbert, we stand for Jack and Sylvia, and don't you forget it! We'll
+use your vaunted authority, too, when the time comes to make that
+scoundrel surrender. Now let's get our arsenal in shape!"
+
+Monsieur approved of this, entering into it with a boyish spirit, and
+for a long time we went over rifles and automatics, showing him their
+virtues, explaining the accuracy of their range, occasionally throwing
+one up to the shoulder and taking a quick aim over the sights, as
+fellows will who find them good companions.
+
+"I'll lay you odds, Professor, that the barrels of some of this hardware
+get hot before night," Tommy said.
+
+"Ah, I will not bet on such bloody business. You think we fight today?"
+
+"Two to one on it," he answered; then giving my shoulder a slap that
+felt like the kick of a mule, he cried:
+
+"So romance and adventure died with the war, did they? Oh, _baby_, what
+a shame!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+A SHOT FROM THE DARK
+
+
+During the first few hours of the afternoon we had looked on deck
+several times, but felt better satisfied to remain below, out of the
+drizzle. Now the captain's big voice rumbled some kind of good news, and
+each of us made a dash for the stairs.
+
+Even as we piled out into the cockpit the mate gave a yell and sailors
+sprang to haul down the topmast-and main-topmast-staysails. Off in the
+southwest, which had been leaden from horizon to meridian showing no
+distinction of water and sky, appeared a spot of light, a glow, growing
+rapidly brighter. Before it the misty rain was being wiped as if by
+magic from the air.
+
+Looking toward the northward I beheld the other yacht standing out in
+bold relief upon a blacker, more dismal background. She was beautiful at
+that moment--her sides and sails unnaturally whitened against the gloom,
+suggesting a cameo set on a piece of slate. Our blocks began to creak,
+sails bulged into huge scoops, masts tilted majestically, and the
+_Whim_, freed from her enforced idleness, bounded in response.
+
+"Wind!" Tommy shouted, his arms held skyward. "Aphrodite, sweet and
+mighty, send a gale before the nighty!"
+
+"But," Monsieur looked at him reprovingly, "Aphrodite is not goddess of
+the wind!"
+
+"Who said she was?" he innocently asked.
+
+"You conjure her for the gale--bah!"
+
+"That's because she rhymes with nighty, gezabo! When my Muse sings, to
+hell with mythology! Come join the clouds--you're sordid!"
+
+"These have been sordid clouds," the little fellow laughed. "I would
+rather join you in other, but a more genial, wet."
+
+"Gates, how long before we catch her?" I called.
+
+"I carn't measure her speed yet, sir, but should say we won't be far
+behind in an hour and a harf."
+
+"Then," Tommy announced, "we'll go below and drink to the safety of our
+sweet Princess--for, unless I'm greatly mistaken, this day will see the
+finish of one good yacht! Give over the wheel and join us, Captain!"
+
+It was a hilarious four that touched glasses in the cabin, and after
+Gates went above we set to work in good earnest on our arms and
+cartridge belts. Having seen that each piece worked perfectly we
+followed him up, and the sight which greeted our eyes made us laugh for
+joy.
+
+How we accomplished it only Gates could have told, but now in the late
+afternoon light the _Orchid_ seemed to be less than half her former
+distance. Looking over the rail at the flying water I felt a great pride
+in my father's craft, for she fairly skimmed along. Monsieur began at
+once to hug the captain, and this time the old skipper did not mind--at
+least, he permitted it.
+
+There was, of course, some concern along with our happiness; first of
+importance being the declining day that held scarcely more than an hour
+of light. Had it been otherwise, had the blessing of good sailing
+weather come to us earlier, we might have held an immediate council of
+war; but this for the present could be left. It was a profound
+disappointment, though, and showed in our strained silence. Gates stood
+at my elbow.
+
+"How'll we find her in the morning--if we don't catch up pretty soon?" I
+asked.
+
+"I was thinking of that, sir. Now, as she sees we can sail circles
+around her with a good breeze, she won't hold the same course, and can
+give us a mighty slip during the night. We're almost in----" he
+hesitated, and again ventured: "We're almost in close enough to send a
+shot across her bows, sir, if you wish to bring her about!"
+
+Tommy, overhearing, let out a yell of joy. The old skipper's suggestion
+electrified us all, particularly myself, for it promised that he would
+see this affair through at any and all costs--and I had been
+apprehensive regarding the attitude of Gates, lest his love for me, or
+for the _Whim_, cause him to balk short of the danger line. So, hastily
+imploring Monsieur to hug him again, I dashed below for one of the
+rifles. This arm was a neat high-power sporting model, but I thought it
+might persuade our kidnaper to look around.
+
+Coming up, however, I found that another plan had been adopted. Gates
+and Tommy were busily unlacing the canvas cover from our brass cannon.
+While it was only used for signaling, it could make a stunning racket.
+Bilkins was holding a box of blank shells, each containing somewhere
+near twenty drams of black powder. As I approached, Tommy was excitedly
+arguing with Gates who, this time, seemed to demur.
+
+"It's not of the _Orchid_ I'm thinking, sir," he turned appealingly to
+me, "but ourselves! Miss Nancy--as Mr. Thomas calls this young howitzer,
+here,--won't stand much fooling. She warn't built for it, and if we go
+pressing her too hard she'll bust a stay--which is the same, sir, as
+sending harf of us to the sick-bay!"
+
+"What I want to do," Tommy explained, "is load her up with sinkers and
+truck like that, and touch her off right! Just a blank won't tell those
+devils anything, but if we pepper 'em with a hat full of old junk
+they'll haul-to in a jiffy!"
+
+"Surest thing in the world," I cried. "Suppose she does bust a stay,
+Gates! We can huddle in the cockpit and fire her with a long
+lanyard--then let her bust!"
+
+"That's easy, sir," he still remonstrated, "but suppose Miss Sylvia's
+looking out a porthole and stops one of the sinkers!"
+
+The thought of it made me shiver. Tommy, however, his enthusiasm
+undampened, acquiesced at once, saying:
+
+"Righto, Gates! Blank it is! Cartridge, Bilkins! I'm ready--say when!"
+
+"Wait! Let's get a bit closer, sir," Gates urged.
+
+Several minutes passed. We were only four hundred yards from the
+_Orchid_ now and cutting down the space. She stood off our starboard
+quarter and, although a great deal more obscure in the gathering dusk,
+her cabin lights came on changing the portholes to a line of golden
+disks. Then another solitary light appeared, being carried aft by a
+sailor who fastened it to the taffrail. It was the stern lantern being
+swung out for the night, and I could not help smiling at this delightful
+display of audacity, deliberately to put up that tell-tale beacon, right
+in our faces, as it were.
+
+"It's a good bluff," Gates chuckled, "but they don't intend leaving it
+there for long, sir. I'd say we'd better fire now, Mr. Thomas, and when
+they stop we'll have a little chat with 'em."
+
+Tommy sprang up and pulled the string, and our eyes were dazzled, our
+ears jarred, with a perfectly glorious explosion that lighted up the sea
+for a hundred yards.
+
+"Whiz-bang!" Tommy yelled. "I wish I had this thing in Kentucky! It'd
+work wonders for the Democrats!"
+
+Nothing happened aboard the _Orchid_. She did not vary her course an
+inch. The sailor at the helm had given a frantic jump when Miss Nancy
+went off, but resumed his place evidently aware that no missiles had
+been fired.
+
+"Load her up again," I urged. "Let's keep on till they get mad!"
+
+Bilkins passed out the shells and the piece was loaded and fired, loaded
+and fired, till we seemed surely to have waked old Nep himself. I do not
+know how many rounds we shot but it must have continued for some time,
+thoroughly engrossing us. Now suddenly the stern light went out, and
+immediately afterwards the portholes, losing their glow, became as
+nothing. The tropical night, always swift in coming, had fallen more
+stealthily than we realized, and the yacht melted into darkness.
+
+"_Sacré bleu!_" Monsieur raged--for the night was overcast and as black
+as sin.
+
+But Gates was already stripping the searchlight of its cover. When he
+had swung open the big lens Tommy struck a match, which blew out. His
+second was blown out by a hiss of air that preceded the flow of gas, and
+the professor jumbled matters by trying his hand. But these efforts
+scarcely took more time than the telling, and when the powerful streak
+of light finally pierced the darkness the very first thing it showed us
+was a white sail.
+
+"I shouldn't have worried about night catching us, sir, if I'd thought
+of this before," Gates laughed. "And there's plenty of extra acetylene
+tanks, too, so she carn't get away now!"
+
+"You'll have to haul down some sail, though," I replied, seeing that the
+_Orchid_ lay nearly abeam of us.
+
+"No quicker said than done, sir."
+
+He went to direct this, while we held our light squarely on the fleeing
+outlaw. Nobody was astir about her deck; indeed, so undisturbed did she
+appear that the sailor standing statue-like at her wheel might have been
+the only living thing aboard.
+
+I breathed fast with thinking that maybe Sylvia might come up, and my
+senses were so alert, my mind, eyes, ears so intently reaching toward
+her, that now I heard what was indeed a most unexpected sound: a piano.
+Grasping Tommy's arm I whispered this to him, and he nodded, saying in a
+low tone:
+
+"Yes, I hear it plainly. Reminds me of Monsieur's master musician
+playing a rhapsody in the dark, d'you remember? Listen! Gods, it's '_De
+puis le jour_,' from Louise!" Yet in the next breath he added: "Cheerful
+girl you have, Jack,--she's switched off from her love song to Chopin's
+funeral march!"
+
+I dolefully smiled to myself, not at the funeral march but at the
+realization that dreams are only dreams and nothing more, that Gates's
+common sense had come nearer hitting the mark than all of our
+professor's psychology; for I had seen no piano in that cabin, and five
+minutes ago I would have sworn its interior was as well known to me as
+the _Whim_. But an instant later my smile had given way to a cry of
+rage, as a little streak of fire spat from one of the portholes and the
+big lens of our searchlight, with a bang, shattered into a thousand
+pieces.
+
+"The nerve of it," Tommy yelled, violently shaking his hand that had
+been resting on the brass frame. "Damn his hide, he nearly shot off my
+finger!"
+
+"Are you hit?" I asked quickly.
+
+"Hell, no; but my hand feels like a pincushion! Say, he knows how to
+shoot, though! I'll give him that much!"
+
+"Those people are prepared for all that comes, I tell you," Monsieur
+vigorously nodded his head. "They must even have violet spectacles for
+looking into search-lights, else that fellow's eyes could not have stood
+the glare."
+
+Again the _Orchid_ was invisible. For a moment I thought that out of the
+dark sky my gods were derisively mocking me; but it was a human sound, a
+long, triumphant laugh, doubtless from the coarse-throated creature who
+had made the lucky shot.
+
+Gates, fearing we might answer it in kind, came forward to counsel
+silence, at the same time sending a sailor for the megaphone and
+ordering another to extinguish our own lights. With his knife he then
+hastily cut the megaphone in half, keeping the large end whose openings
+now tapered from about eight inch to eighteen inch diameters. As we
+stood, not understanding what he meant to do, I heard across the water a
+rattling of blocks and knew the _Orchid_, free of pursuit, was changing
+her course. Gates cocked his head and listened, then whispered to the
+mate who went back and changed the _Whim's_ course.
+
+"Now, Mr. Jack," he said, in a guarded tone, "we're behind her, and
+dark, too; so keep all hands as quiet as mice, sir! Take the wheel and
+steer as I signal from under my coat with this electric torch, like
+this: one long, means put your helm up a point, two long means two
+points; but a short flash means down a point, two short down two
+points. D'you understand, sir? We've got to keep close to her, or
+daylight'll find her gone! I'm going out on the bowsprit and, with this
+piece of megaphone to help, think I can follow by sound. They're apt to
+make some noise, believing themselves safe. And their blocks are bound
+to rattle when they change their course--which they'll be doing before
+long as we're both headed for the coast of Florida, twenty-five or
+thirty miles off. Now go back quiet, sir, and watch for my lights."
+
+God bless old Gates, I said to myself.
+
+Till well into the night that indefatigable sea dog sat astride the
+bowsprit with the crude sound magnifier over his ear, while I, alert and
+watchful, gripped the wheel as though I were driving a speed boat. In
+the beginning he had sent a few signals, and we jockied this way and
+that, but after perhaps an hour we settled down to another straight
+course--though I could not tell how near we were, or if we were sailing
+right, or if they suspected us.
+
+Tommy had come aft to keep me company, and now asked in a whisper:
+
+"What do you think about that piano?"
+
+"I think she played like an angel."
+
+"Son, you don't get the point. What do you think about changing suddenly
+from that exquisite Charpentier love song to a funeral march--just
+before the rifle went off?"
+
+"You don't mean she was signaling?" I asked in surprise, for the idea
+knocked me a little bit silly.
+
+"I mean just that; of course, she was signaling, and taking a big
+chance, too. You may put your own construction on the first piece she
+played, but the instant she saw what they were up to she sent us the
+flash. The only trouble about it was that we weren't anywhere near as
+quick."
+
+"But look here," I said, alarmed by another thought, "suppose she meant
+it would be _her_ funeral march if we keep up the pursuit?"
+
+Tommy considered this.
+
+"I reckon not," he finally replied. "They might threaten us with her
+death if we don't turn back, but there'd be no reason to kill her
+otherwise. No, she saw them preparing to shoot--which you can't deny
+that they did, jolly good and well."
+
+"She's a queen," I murmured.
+
+"Queen! That girl must be a royal straight flush in hearts, and if it
+weren't for Nell I'd adore her to the tips of my teeth!"
+
+At midnight I sent the mate to relieve Gates and gave the wheel to a
+likely sailor, and after making sure they understood the signals we went
+below for a bite to eat. Although the day of suspense had been wearing,
+my brain was too active to permit much thought of sleep; but finally
+Gates nodded, awoke with a jerk, and started off to bed. He had had no
+easy time of it on the bowsprit, good old Gates!
+
+Tommy and I talked in low tones while the professor sat to one side,
+humped over and buried in thought. He was a strange looking spectacle
+when buried in thought. His countenance then became all wrinkles, with a
+kind of turned-up nubbin in the middle that I knew to be a nose, only
+because I'd previously seen it--otherwise it might have been almost
+anything that one does not expect to find in the center of a man's face.
+Tommy regarded him a moment in silence.
+
+"Monsieur," he whispered, "come join this confab. We're up against the
+real thing in the morning, and may as well begin to lay pipe. The old
+catamount who shot out our searchlight won't have any more regard for
+our personal lights, let's keep that in mind. What's more, he has a real
+excuse now, because we fired those blanks at him which he'll find it
+convenient to say weren't blanks. So the business is coming off to a
+certainty. What's your idea?"
+
+"My idea?"
+
+"I meant to be that flattering, yes. What do you think we'll be up
+against when ordering the _Orchid_ to surrender?"
+
+"I do not know; but something we are not expecting, you may be sure," he
+dolefully answered.
+
+"That sort of gloom won't get us anywhere," Tommy retorted. "Try another
+thought!"
+
+"It gets us very far! If we expect to experience what we are not
+expecting, then we are expecting it! How can we be surprised when we are
+prepared for the thing we are not prepared for? It is obvious. That is
+my idea."
+
+"Then you ought to keep it in a less fragile place. Try still another,
+gezabo!"
+
+But he was inclined to pout now, and would neither talk nor listen to
+our entreaties.
+
+"Well," he exclaimed at last, with a superior smile as he struck the
+table smartly, "I will tell you this: I have nothing more to say!"
+
+It was a lot of preparation for a mighty small result, I thought, and
+Tommy smiled at the childish gentleman, murmuring sweetly:
+
+"If you really mean that, and stick to it, pray accept my
+congratulations upon having reached the height of conversational charm.
+Now, Jack, let's plan!"
+
+But Monsieur, while unwilling to talk, was also unwilling to be
+ignored. I think he wanted to be coaxed. People get that way, sometimes.
+So he petulantly exclaimed:
+
+"You think I am what you call an old crank!"
+
+"No I don't, honest!" Tommy gave me a wink. "Even if I did, it's a
+compliment in America to be called a crank, because cranks make things
+move. Now help us out, like a good sport. By this time tomorrow you'll
+be shot to pieces, for all we know."
+
+He said it solemnly, but his humorous mouth showed how much he wanted to
+laugh. I believe Tommy would have walked to the gallows joking with his
+executioner. That infectious smile, sometimes the flash of his teeth,
+but always a snap in his honest gray eyes, were invariably quickened by
+the imminence of danger. I knew Tommy; therefore I also knew that
+beneath his jocose raillery were nerves stretched to concert pitch that
+meant music for whoever stood in his way tomorrow.
+
+The professor sat up straighter and blinked at him.
+
+"Why do you say I get shot to pieces?"
+
+"Why not? The fellow'd be a fool to sit by and let us go aboard--and
+we've got to go aboard!"
+
+"It is nonsense! You want my advice? Then leave him alone!"
+
+I think that Tommy's eyes narrowed slightly. I know that my teeth
+clenched at this evidence of quitting; yet what could we expect from a
+chap who did nothing but teach in a University?
+
+"You won't be in any danger," I said, arising. "We'll manage all right.
+Come on, Tommy!"
+
+"You will not manage--that is just it," he angrily retorted. "You two
+boys will strut about like roosters showing what good fighters you are,
+and get blown up through the insides! Have I not seen it often? Bah!"
+He ran his hands through his hair. "Why is it, when brains are as easily
+cultivated as biceps, that young bloods think only of a strong arm! You
+stay in the cabin and leave the man to me; then I will take him before
+your eyes, and nobody get hurt!"
+
+"I don't think we quite understand!"
+
+"Of course! But there are no ladies on the _Orchid_ whom I desire to
+charm, therefore I will be rational. Your _Capitaine_ Gates will lower a
+boat, we row to the scoundrel's yacht, I present my authority, he
+surrenders, and we bring him back. There is no bloodshed, and my two
+young friends who are disposed to ridicule me will not get hurt!"
+
+Tommy flushed, and I felt uncommonly like a pup.
+
+"But suppose he won't come?--suppose he begins to fight?"--we asked
+these questions simultaneously. They were quite unnecessary, for the man
+would not come and, moreover, he would fight; but Monsieur's earnestness
+and visionary assumption had completely disarmed us.
+
+"In that case, your Gates and I will shoot him," he answered, as a
+matter of course. "Such grizzly alternatives must sometimes be the means
+of peace and harmony."
+
+Some might at times have called him an idiot, and on occasions I have
+found myself wondering if he possessed a scintilla of common sense, but
+no one after this could call him a coward. He would have gone
+single-handed to the _Orchid_ with the same beautiful faith that a wee
+child would crawl into the kennel of a vicious dog. It was not in
+Monsieur to consider that anyone would dare disobey his Azurian
+authority.
+
+"Gezabo," Tommy said tenderly, "I'm going to lock you up tomorrow, for
+if anyone so much as rumples your noble topknot I'll cut him to
+ribbons--so'll Jack. Now kick us, and go to bed. We've been a pair of
+braying asses, and you're a sure-nuff Prince!"
+
+And, although I thought that Tommy had done most of the braying, I was
+willing to let it go at that. A lack of discriminating accuracy on his
+part might have been pardoned when we were faced by issues of so much
+greater portent. The dawn was but six hours off, and with it would
+come--what?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+A SILENT ENEMY
+
+
+Bilkins rushed into my room at daylight announcing perfect weather and
+the _Orchid_ sailing some twelve miles astern of us. While dressing I
+wondered how she could have fallen so far behind, but assumed that our
+men on watch must finally have lost her. As this seemed to be a
+reasonable explanation, since the later the night the more probability
+of her company having settled down and become quiet, I dismissed these
+speculations of no consequence for a feeling of thankfulness that she
+had not escaped us.
+
+Gates was on his way to call me when I came out, and one look at his
+broad smile required no further augury of good news.
+
+"We're arfter her hard, sir," he said, "and have been drawing up farst
+this hour gone. We'll be in hailing distance in another two hours, or
+less."
+
+"There's a good wind?"
+
+"Fair, sir. The mate, who's aloft, says that for some reason she's
+hauled down everything but mains'l and jib, and carn't be making any
+speed to speak of. Still, she's going along. We've quite some canvas
+set. He says there was noise enough to follow till about five bells of
+the morning watch; then she grew so still he wondered if she'd sunk.
+You'd better have breakfast, sir, for we'll be on her, as I say, in two
+hours or less."
+
+This was Tommy's idea when I met him with Monsieur in the cabin, but
+Tommy was always ready for breakfast. They had become reconciled--or,
+perhaps, I ought to say the professor seemed to have forgiven both of us
+handsomely. Gates sat down with us for there was much to talk about. In
+fact, the professor, in his uncontrollable and passionate appetite for
+grapefruit, had scarcely extruded a spray of its juice in our
+direction--the usual evidence with us that breakfast had seriously
+begun--when the question of how we should board the _Orchid_ was raised.
+The old skipper listened to my plan, then to Tommy's, and after these he
+turned to our little scientist, who waved a hand with no small degree of
+impatience, saying:
+
+"One is visionary, the other is crazy. One wants to blow her out of the
+water--with what? The other wants to do something no one can
+understand--and why? But they both agree upon killing everyone on board
+except a privileged lady. It is school-boy tomfoolery!"
+
+"Tomfoolery your grandmother," Tommy flared up. "What do you suggest
+that's any better--the utopian scheme you sprung on us last night?"
+
+"How do you know we have to board her?" Monsieur thrust half a biscuit
+in his mouth and took a long drink of coffee. "I have been thinking
+since; I have been on deck, and observed. There is wind, and we are
+catching up. Off there," he pointed toward something the cabin walls
+prevented us from seeing, "is land; low, gray-blue land. Now it can be
+done with cattle, but can it be done with yachts?"
+
+"Can what be done?" we asked.
+
+"We shall sail out, head her back, and drive her into the land until she
+sticks!"
+
+Never having heard of such a silly idea I looked at Gates, who was
+chuckling.
+
+"Oh, it might be done, sir," he laughed, "if she stood close enough to
+the islands. We might jockey her that way, foul her a bit, and make her
+go aground--or fight. But, Lor' bless you, she's sailing straight west
+across the Gulf, with nothing but a thousand miles of good water between
+her and the mouth of the Rio Grande!"
+
+"Get in front--butt her around," Monsieur cried. "If she does not like
+it, then let her, as you suggest, fight!"
+
+"Well, you've said something at last," Tommy grinned. "How about it,
+Gates? And, by the way, what are those islands you spoke of? We're
+looking for a certain
+
+    '----one of many, many islands
+    Set like emerald jewels in an ever changing sea.'"
+
+Though with his sincerity there was also the bantering tone of the
+unbeliever here.
+
+"It's the Ponce de Leon Bay, sir, with the Ten Thousand Islands--and I'd
+say there're all of ten thousand, or quite harf, anyway."
+
+With his fork he quickly drew on the tablecloth a sketch of southwestern
+Florida, outlining the waters northeast of Cape Sable and with little
+jabs indicating the island area which extends up and down the coast, as
+well as into Whitewater Bay. Gates was used to doing this kind of thing
+and he did it well, with the result that we got a very clear idea of
+what he meant. No one knew the exact number of islands, he said, because
+they had never been charted. Government surveys had been considered
+useless, in all probability; and, of private interests, there were none.
+No boat, except perhaps at rare intervals a very small craft of
+adventurous spirit, ever tried to enter--but, as to that, twenty small
+boats might spend a month's playing in that maze and never meet. The
+mainland, for many miles in all directions, was without habitation, and
+these conditions had isolated this entire section as completely as
+though it were in the heart of a South American jungle.
+
+Difficult as it was to believe that on the "Playground Peninsula" of
+eastern United States an unsurveyed primeval wilderness of perhaps three
+thousand square miles had remained absolutely detached from inquisitive
+civilization, I was soon to learn that Gates had not in any way
+exaggerated. It was there; it is there today in the same unbroken
+solitude, for any to see who will.
+
+"Why didn't she duck in there and hide last night?" I asked, coming out
+of the charmed spell his description had cast over me.
+
+"She daren't, sir. Nothing but a dinghy, or the like of that, has ever
+gone in very far. Leastwise, I don't think so. The islands are just a
+lot of oyster-shell bars covered with sand and overgrown with red
+mangrove trees. I've been told the channel between 'em sometimes isn't
+more'n a foot deep; but in other places there may be good water. What I
+mean to say is that they're not charted, and I doubt if any man living
+could find his way through 'em the same way twice. They lay in a bunch
+stretching about forty miles north and south, and maybe fifteen or
+twenty through. Some are good sized--we'll say a mile long--but others
+run down to the size of the _Whim_. Oh, he wouldn't dare to run in
+there, sir! Now we might try to tease him close to 'em and crowd him
+some way, as the professor says--or let him do the other thing!"
+
+"That sounds like some plan," Tommy sprang to his feet. "We'll tease
+him, all right, if we shoot fast enough!"
+
+"But they must be let to begin that shooting first," Monsieur insisted.
+
+"I'd like to know why?" Tommy turned to him.
+
+"Why? What right have we to come and start such a business?"
+
+"What right have we to crowd her out of the ocean?" Tommy answered with
+another question. "What right have they to blow us up?--or steal a
+girl?--or counterfeit our money?--or darn near shoot my finger off and
+then laugh at me? To hell with rights! We've got more than that
+scoundrel has, if we haven't any!"
+
+Gates got up with an oath.
+
+"Yes," he said, "and shoot out my searchlight! No, Professor, I'd say
+the shooting's already begun. But they won't stand for too much fooling,
+not if I know anything!"
+
+"Oh, well," Monsieur sighed, "give me the gun."
+
+"Give him Miss Nancy," Tommy laughed. "Now, fellows, suppose a couple of
+us entrench on top of the cabin, to get the advantage of altitude--the
+superiority of position, as it were--and command their decks!"
+
+"You'll need a fair protection, sir, as they'll be shooting from the
+portholes," Gates said. "And we carn't fire back at the portholes
+because of the lady!"
+
+"Righto! But the man at their wheel's our meat, and anyone else who
+comes to take his place. Minus a steersman they're helpless; and then,
+Gates, if we can run alongside and batten down (is that what you call
+it?) their hatches, they're ours."
+
+"Suppose they send the Princess out, herself, to steer?" Monsieur asked.
+
+The suggestion gave me a turn.
+
+"Still, they may not think of that," he continued, "and our two shooters
+may command their decks quite easily. It is good. If a man comes out to
+steer you will shoot him till he runs downstairs again, then we go
+aboard and sail home. Yes, it is a good plan."
+
+"Shoot him till he runs downstairs!" Tommy gasped. "What d'you think
+we're going to do--just spank him with lead?"
+
+"I'll say that professor is in a clarss by himself, sir," Gates turned
+to me, chuckling.
+
+The next half hour was a busy one. Our sailors, singing with happiness,
+brought up from the cuddy rolls of extra sails that were lowered
+overboard for a good wetting, then mauled into a neat rifle pit on the
+cabin roof--as snug as I'd want anywhere, and quite able to stop
+high-power bullets. Gates then showed another bit of generalship that
+called anew for Monsieur's nods of approval. Since our own helmsman
+would be as much exposed as the man on the _Orchid_--whom we intended to
+"shoot until he ran downstairs"--the mate brought up some line, bent it
+several times around the wheel drum, passed it through newly fastened
+blocks, and let it run into the cockpit. By this arrangement he could
+lie on the floor, as safe as you please, and steer according to orders
+sung up by the old skipper who, stationed below with a shaving
+mirror--suggesting a trench periscope--would take his bearings without
+showing any portion of his face. It was a nice piece of work.
+
+"One carn't be too cautious, sir," he explained. "Harf our chance of
+coming out ahead is being ready beforehand, and harf our satisfaction is
+to keep from having any burials at sea--which are gruesome things, any
+way you take 'em, sir."
+
+Bilkins had acted as armorer and laid out rifles, bandoliers bulging
+with filled clips, and a few automatic revolvers; then in a low tone he
+said to me:
+
+"I'll never go back, sir, if anything happens to you today."
+
+"Yes, you will," I replied, touched by his show of devotion. "You'll
+have to tell them why it happened. But don't be a raincrow. We'll come
+through."
+
+Gates now sent the men to stations for we were within a half a mile of
+the _Orchid_. Then Tommy stepped into our rifle pit and laid down. I
+followed. Quietly each of us beat a crease in the soaked canvas through
+which we could fire without showing too much head.
+
+The mate, crouched below, tried his new steering device as Gates sang up
+an order, and swore a jovial oath at the ease with which the _Whim_
+responded. Within his reach was an automatic, and he looked the very
+picture of contentment.
+
+Along the side of my rifle barrel now resting in the crease I took a
+good look at the _Orchid_ sailing with apparent unconcern but a short
+way out from us, but I could picture the activity and hatred seething
+below her deck. I wondered what Sylvia might be thinking about all this;
+if she associated our pursuit by the slightest imaginative thread with a
+fellow who impolitely stared at her in a Havana café, yet to whom she
+had been willing to cry: "I am in danger!" Presumptuous fallacy! Then
+other thoughts began to race through my brain. Now that we were face to
+face with action, how were we going to come out? Had I a right to
+imperil those who were sailing with me? Was it not my duty, even at this
+eleventh hour, to order the _Whim_ back?
+
+I turned to Tommy, saying:
+
+"You didn't ship for this kind of thing, old man. If anything happens to
+you I'll feel like the devil."
+
+"So'll I," he grinned. "Don't bother about how you'll feel if anything
+happens to _me_; keep those regrets for the moment a hot pill
+investigates your own honorable insides, Mr. Jackass! I wouldn't miss
+this party for a million dollar bill. Settle down, now. Gates is
+pointing closer." Then, peeping along his rifle, he crooned one of our
+regimental paraphrases: "Stick your head up, Fritzy-Fritz, while I plug
+you in the gizzard," adding: "I don't see anyone at their wheel!"
+
+I took another squint and, just as he had said, their deck was
+deserted--not a man in sight.
+
+"What d'you make of it?" I asked.
+
+"Get down," he warned. "Don't forget that anyone who could center our
+searchlight, as some crafty boy did last night, won't have much trouble
+peeling a scalp at three hundred yards! They've probably made a steering
+rig like ours, that's all. The first thing we know bally hell will spit
+out of those portholes, if my guess counts! Beats a trench raid, doesn't
+it, old man?"
+
+"All hollow," I agreed. "We've got 'em this trip!"
+
+"We have unless they carry a ten-pounder--in which case we'll take a
+bath. Freeze close, buddie!"
+
+Nearer and nearer we drew, but no bally hell came from her. She showed
+absolutely no sign of anyone, not even a pile of canvas or a box that
+might hide a sharp-shooter. That, then, was the old counterfeiter's
+ruse: to tempt us into taking the initiative when, more than likely, he
+was ready with the probable ten-pounder to sink us. Still, it felt
+rather snug to be lying there elbow to elbow with Tommy.
+
+Gates had steered so close by this time that any skipper on the other
+yacht, not endowed with stupendous nerve, would certainly have gone
+about; for we had maneuvered to get the right of way, and a collision
+would have been entirely the _Orchid's_ fault. But no one ran out, nor
+did her course change, and at the very last minute Gates called an order
+that brought us off a few points.
+
+We were now sailing parallel, not more than ten fathoms apart, and could
+have thrown a biscuit on her deck. I glanced out the corner of my eye at
+Tommy. His cheek rested snugly against the stock of his rifle and his
+finger stroked the trigger, I thought affectionately.
+
+Had either of us been more conversant with nautical matters we would
+have noticed something that Gates now came crawling up to tell us. He
+did this without being much exposed, by creeping along until abreast of
+us and then projecting himself, headfirst or any other way, into our
+midst. It was an active accomplishment for one of Gates's years.
+
+"D'you see what they've done?" he excitedly asked. "That wheel, there,
+is lashed over; they've paid out the mains'l enough to starboard, and
+set the jib properly to port. That's why the fores'l isn't up!"
+
+"What of it?"
+
+"Why, sir, she'll sail that way all day in a wind like this, and nobody
+have to touch her! They knew we'd be popping at their helmsman, and they
+fixed it so we carn't! Now it's our turn to start something!"
+
+"Then start it," Tommy said. "Run alongside and we'll climb over!"
+
+"Mr. Thomas," he demurred, "that's rank piracy, unless we're the law. I
+wouldn't say no, understand, if there warn't some other way. But if we
+try it they'll have every right to shoot us down--which they can easy
+do, being hid and ready!"
+
+"You forget, Gates, they haven't a right on earth. They don't want to
+face the law with the best justification ever known--they'd be mortally
+afraid to!"
+
+"Then they wouldn't be any less particular about shooting us," the old
+skipper replied.
+
+There was no denying that Tommy had impaled himself upon his own point;
+not that he cared a hang whether they began shooting or not, but the
+anxiety of Gates caused him to temporize, and he said:
+
+"Bluff it! Sing across that we're the U. S. A. ordering 'em to stop. Say
+it strong enough to make us believe it, too, Gates--so we'll feel
+self-righteous when the scrap comes!"
+
+Gates grinned and, cupping his hands, shouted:
+
+"_Orchid_, ahoy! This yacht's chartered by the U. S. Secret Service, and
+you're ordered to come about! Delay one minute and we blow you out of
+the water!"
+
+"Accomplished old liar," Tommy chuckled. "See anything?"
+
+Gates, so earnest was he in this rôle of Uncle Sam, had his watch out,
+marking off the seconds. When the sixtieth had ticked he called again,
+in a more ferocious tone:
+
+"Time's up, but I'll give you harf a minute longer! This is the larst
+word!"
+
+"Now," said Tommy, having waited the thirty seconds which brought no
+response, "let's see you make good! Will you fire a torpedo, or one of
+the fifteen-inch guns?"
+
+But Gates was seeing no humor in the situation; neither was I; neither
+was Tommy, if the truth were known. Our position was in a sense
+desperate. We had bluffed and the bluff had been called. Five minutes
+ago we might have turned back, but such a course now would make us
+laughing-stocks even to ourselves. And there was Sylvia. What sort of a
+quitter would she think me!
+
+I saw that someone had to board that yacht, even though such a course,
+almost to a certainty, meant a test of the professor's surgical skill--a
+skill we knew he possessed along with his other attainments. But I could
+not--I simply would not--risk any of our fellows on an undertaking so
+hazardous. Conscious, however, of Tommy's utter pig-headedness I saw the
+futility of merely asking him to stay behind; so my mind became
+instantly made up and, turning to Gates, I sharply asked:
+
+"Who commands here?"
+
+"Why, I'm the captain, sir," he answered, surprised at my tone.
+
+"But whose orders are absolute?"
+
+"Yours, Mr. Jack, sir."
+
+"Then take this man below and keep him there while you run your rail
+alongside the _Orchid_. Nobody follows me until I call, or shoot. Be
+lively, Captain!"
+
+He looked his horror, but stiffly saluted, saying "Come" to Tommy who
+had turned white with anger and murderously glared at me.
+
+"Do you mean this dirty trick?" he asked, and I did not meet his eyes
+when admitting it.
+
+In a few minutes he and Gates were safely in the cabin--Gates having
+dived nimbly out of our canvas fort; while Tommy, oozing rage, had
+walked erect, shaking his fist at the _Orchid_ and calling me pretty
+much every kind of a lizard that crawls the earth.
+
+Perhaps the mad that this aroused was good for me. I had charged into an
+enemy's face once or twice under a certain amount of unpleasant fire and
+most uncomfortable sensations. A fellow's _savoir faire_ is far from
+being faultless on such occasions, but if he's mad--damn mad--he gets
+along rather well, and Tommy's insulting words turned the trick for me.
+
+We had luffed a bit to let the _Orchid_ draw out ahead, and now all I
+seemed to see was her slowly nearing rail; twenty feet away, fifteen,
+ten. My rifle had been laid aside, and I felt to see that my automatic
+was snugly nested in its holster. Five feet, four, three--we were about
+to touch! With a bound I cleared my shelter just as the rails were
+within spanning distance, and vaulted over.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+A STRANGE FIND
+
+
+My feet had no more than touched the new deck when I became electrified
+with a glorious feeling of possession, of mastery. Immediately I seemed
+to know just what to do, where to go; and my first move was another
+headlong rush at the companionway door, bursting it in with a kick and
+springing quickly aside--ready, listening; being for the time shielded
+from a fusillade of expected shots. And, because these were not
+forthcoming, I felt momentarily confused.
+
+Yet in times of white hot action it is impulse that succeeds. This door
+ahead of me was the only way below, except perhaps a hatch, offering
+greater danger, somewhere forward; it was the only way, therefore,
+through which Sylvia might be brought up to safety. She was now below,
+and I would reach her if it were my last journey! Three bounds down the
+stairs took me into the cabin, my pistol forward, my nerves on
+hair-trigger, ready for anything that moved.
+
+Silence!--that sickish silence which permeates places of death! No human
+sound could be detected--no sound of any kind, except an uncanny
+creaking beneath the floor where the old masts rested in their steps,
+and a gentle swish of water outside the hull.
+
+There were two doors from the cabin, each opening into a separate,
+though parallel, passageway that doubtless led forward to about the same
+general arrangements we had on the _Whim_--one past three staterooms,
+through a galley and into the sailors' quarters; the other, also past a
+stateroom or two, but opening to the ice-box room and galley. Both of
+these doors now swung slightly ajar, at a suspicious angle that almost
+without doubt told me where the men were crouched, and this rendered my
+position so inexcusably exposed that swift and vigorous action was the
+only choice. With finger tightening on the trigger I dashed at the
+nearer of these, giving it a kick that sent it banging against the wall.
+The passageway was empty, and thus encouraged I rushed the other door.
+Here, again, no foe had lain in ambush.
+
+I was crouched now, sheltered by a strip of paneled wall between the two
+doorways. The staterooms on one side must come next, and after them the
+galley, with the forecastle beyond, and even beyond this, perhaps, some
+kind of a cuddy.
+
+Where the men were hiding God only knew, but hiding they were with
+cocked weapons, firmly gripped knives at some point of vantage that had
+been carefully chosen--as they expected nothing less than half our crew.
+I could almost feel their nearness; so alert were my senses that I
+fancied I could smell their sweaty clothes.
+
+Again action spelled success and, marking the first stateroom, I bounded
+into it covering the interior with a quick sweep of my automatic.
+Nothing! From this I sprang to the second room, showing myself in the
+passageway only long enough to cover the space. This, also, was empty.
+
+A third was on this side before the galley should be reached. By my
+tactics of quick rushes I had doubtless made too fleeting a target to
+draw their fire, so I dashed at this third door. It was closed but
+yielded to my shoulder. As I entered, and became instantaneously aware
+that it contained no foe, my nerves were fired by the sound of rushing
+feet behind me.
+
+Trapped! At such a time a man will ask an awful price for his life--when
+he is trapped by merciless villains to whom quarter is an unknown
+tongue! Springing behind the door, keeping only my pistol hand and eye
+beyond its thin partition, I waited with leveled weapon, ready to drop
+the first man who came in sight. He did not keep me long in suspense. It
+was Gates, while behind him pressed several anxious faces.
+
+"Thank God, sir, you're not killed," he shouted.
+
+I was glad to see him, there's no denying it!
+
+"Mr. Thomas said he heard you call, so we came a-biling, sir!"
+
+My mind was working rather fast; indeed, it seemed to be thinking at the
+rate of a thousand miles a minute--clear thinking, too--so even before
+Gates spoke the second time I had seen through Tommy's ruse. Bless his
+old scalp, I was a dog not to have taken him in the first place, now
+that things were nearer equal. But I said hastily:
+
+"Look sharp, Gates, I haven't been farther than here! They're in the
+galley!--I'm rushing it!"
+
+So I splintered the door and charged through, with the others tripping
+over my heels. Then my revolver swung across and covered a crouching
+form.
+
+"Hands up," I commanded.
+
+Although darker here, we could see a huge, partially clothed figure on
+the floor, reclining very much as The Wounded Gladiator. Leaning above
+him, with an arm passed beneath his shoulders, was another man.
+
+"Hands up, you fool," I called again, ready to fire at the first
+suspicious move. The man lowered his burden and turned. It was Tommy.
+
+"You'll forgive me, Jack," he grinned. "We thought I heard you call--and
+that was to be the signal, you know!"
+
+We thought I heard you call!
+
+"I know about that, you prince of liars. Who's this? But hold
+him!--we're going on through!"
+
+"You needn't," he said. "I took a speedy trip down the other passageway
+while Gates went to you. There isn't a soul on board, except this poor
+devil who's got a crack on the bean."
+
+"It isn't possible," I cried. For, indeed, it was not possible, and we
+hurried forward, leaving him as he was.
+
+But a two-minute search revealed the truth of Tommy's words. There was
+not a sign of anyone. The yacht was as absolutely deserted as if it had
+been sailed by spirits--except, of course, the wretch in Tommy's charge.
+
+"You're sure we've looked everywhere, Gates?" I asked, stunned at the
+disappearance of Sylvia and mystified by the whole affair.
+
+"Everywhere, sir. To tell the truth, Mr. Jack, a minute ago it was as
+complete a mystery as I ever saw. But I understand it now. They've taken
+to the small boats and escaped, sir. They've just sailed in close to
+shore and done that during the night, sir; and all morning we've been
+chasing a boat with nobody on it. I should have noticed the small boats
+gone, if I hadn't been so sure the people were here."
+
+I leaned against the wall too utterly disappointed to move, vaguely
+wondering if this were another dream from which I should awake and find
+the _Orchid_ sailing out ahead of us. But it was no dream. In dreams
+one can not always know that one is dreaming, but there is never a
+doubt of knowing when one is awake.
+
+"They couldn't be under the floor?" I asked, absurdly clinging to a
+straw of hope that Sylvia might be there.
+
+"Lor' bless you, no, sir! I tell you, Mr. Jack, they just sailed as
+close as they dared to those islands, and skipped--the hull pack of 'em;
+first having headed the _Orchid_ out as we found her. That's why
+everything was so quiet the larst part of the night--there warn't anyone
+here to _make_ a noise!"
+
+Passing back to the galley we saw half our crew, in a circle, looking
+down at the wounded man.
+
+"Who is it, Tommy?" I asked. "Not the old scoundrel himself, by any good
+luck?"
+
+"Stranger yet," he said, waving the others back and standing up, "It's
+your black giant of the Key West docks!"
+
+"How the devil did he get here?" I cried, pushing between the men and
+also looking down at him. "How did he get here?" I asked again, but
+Tommy had gone.
+
+Someone had put a cushion under his head. His eyes were open, gazing up
+with their former gentle expression; more sad now, I fancied, since the
+great human machine he had controlled was wounded.
+
+"How did he get here?" I repeated my general question, this time
+straight at him.
+
+His lips moved with a curious, rather horrible, inarticulate sound, and
+his glance swept our crew as though in search of a face. Then he seemed
+to give it up, and passed a hand slowly over his forehead. I was about
+to order him carried on deck when Tommy called through the galley
+portlight:
+
+"Fetch your wounded, Jack! The professor's here with his outfit!"
+
+As our men stooped to obey the big fellow surprised us by quietly
+arising; and, when cushions had been arranged in a shaded place above,
+he laid on them as obediently as a docile mastiff. Monsieur, very much
+in his element, became busy at once.
+
+The _Whim_ and the _Orchid_ were still at grips--or rather were it more
+correct to say the _Orchid_ was in the _Whim's_ grip. Lines had been
+passed through the chocks of each, sails had been hauled down, and both
+yachts rode inertly side by side.
+
+The part of our crew that had stayed behind to attend these matters now
+came over the rail like monkeys, grinning broadly and crowding up to
+shake hands with me--a wholly uncalled for proceeding which charmed me,
+nevertheless.
+
+"Lie on your face," I heard Monsieur saying to the big black. He had
+become excessively busy and his fingers were feeling everywhere over the
+man's cranium, yet as tenderly as a woman's. "What struck you?" he
+asked.
+
+"I've told you he can't talk," Tommy, who was also kneeling by him,
+explained.
+
+"And I did not ask you," the professor snapped. "What if he can not! May
+I not see him make the effort?"
+
+"But what's the use of having the poor beggar make the effort when you
+know he can't put it over? Why not get down to cases and cure him,
+instead of monkeying?"
+
+"Down to cases! Cure him!" Monsieur sputtered. "How great a surgeon are
+you to direct me in this impertinent manner?"
+
+Really, he was quite a great deal put out.
+
+"You fellows cut it," I interposed. "While you're squabbling the chap
+might click it, and then what?"
+
+"I'm not squabbling," Tommy looked up earnestly. "I'm only saying it's a
+rotten shame to put a _blessé_ through a lot of unnecessary paces that
+hurt him, and I stick to it! But go ahead, professor!"
+
+"I shall go ahead, have no fear of it! You think me cruel--but see: if I
+am aware something is wrong with a machine, how better to find out what
+than by trying to make it run?"
+
+He turned again to his examination, while Tommy lit a cigarette and sat
+nearby, looking on. At last Monsieur gave a sigh, indicating that his
+diagnosis was ready. I waited until he, too, had lit a cigarette, then
+asked:
+
+"Well, doctor, how serious?"
+
+"Perhaps not serious, as there is no fracture. He has suffered a
+concussion over the third frontal convolution, resulting in an
+aphasia--aphemia we are sure of, and doubtless also agraphia----"
+
+"Hold on! This isn't the University of Bucharest," Tommy cried. "If you
+insist on telling us, instead of putting this man to bed where he ought
+to be, tell it nursery-fashion!"
+
+"Already I have said it for children," he witheringly replied.
+
+"Then God help 'em!" This in a whisper from Gates, but with no thought
+of levity.
+
+"Go ahead and cure the man," I implored. "We couldn't understand you,
+anyhow."
+
+"But, yes, you will understand--I desire it! This blow has produced the
+aphemia. If he were not illiterate we could, by asking him to write, say
+if agraphia also is present. But he can not write, therefore we do not
+know whether he can or not; so, therefore, we only know that he can not
+speak."
+
+"You know he can't write, too--you just said so!"
+
+"Exactly, my boy Tommy, you have the correct idea. Yet we do not know it
+by the test."
+
+"I begin to see what he's driving at, Jack. He knows he can't write
+because it's a known fact, but he doesn't know it by the scientifically
+known test known to him--and that's agraphia. If it isn't, it's near
+enough. Now, he knows he can talk because we all know he can, but no one
+knows it at present because he can't--and that's aphemia. Do I get you,
+Professor?"
+
+"Yes, as you say, you get me. The motor area has suffered a concussion;
+perhaps a slight hemorrhage, perhaps not. It may pass in a few days, or
+longer. We will keep him quiet, with ice bags to the head and blood
+pressure low, and see what we shall see. A hundred years ago they would
+have bled him and made him well. But we shall see!"
+
+"If he'd got well a hundred years ago by being bled, why not now?" I
+asked.
+
+"He'd be too old now," Tommy whispered; but the professor, not hearing
+this, looked at me as though I had committed an unpardonable breach of
+etiquette, and again witheringly replied:
+
+"We have more advanced methods."
+
+Having thus been put in my place, he ordered his patient taken aboard
+the _Whim_ and ran ahead to superintend the construction of a bed.
+Scientists are a curious lot, Tommy says, but I doubt if there is
+another like the professor. I hope not, for the sake of the sciences.
+But let that pass. In half an hour the big black was resting easily in
+the midst of paraphernalia especially designed, and Bilkins had been
+assigned the place as nurse.
+
+I fancied, when this latter suggestion came up, that our old servant
+might not readily take to it. With twenty years of his life spent as
+major domo and general valet in my father's household, a sudden
+transformation into trained nurse for a dusky African must,
+peradventure, have been a shock.
+
+But in this I was mistaken. The last forty hours of common peril, of a
+central interest, had lifted Bilkins from that pettiness usually
+burdensome in servants of his type. He was, as a matter of fact,
+cheerfully alert to take the job, accepting it with the same enthusiasm
+that Gates, and later the mate, had straddled the bowsprit. So I
+realized that Bilkins had doffed the uniform of servitude to put on one
+that fit a man. True, indeed, there is no such potent melting-pot as
+common peril! It had been the same in France--banker, lawyer, merchant,
+beggar-man, thief, perhaps--all one. Common peril, common necessity!--O
+thou molders of men!
+
+When everything had been arranged, and a sailor put at our ice machine
+to supply packs for the wounded man's head, Tommy, the professor and I
+climbed back aboard the _Orchid_, this time to give her a thorough
+search. We held to the hope that there might be a note, or little clue,
+from the girl whose extremity had once led her to send the other
+message. Monsieur thought this most probable, and our hopes ran high.
+
+Beginning with a writing desk in the cabin, we examined the book shelves
+and every nook and corner, then passed to the staterooms. These gave the
+same impression of having been swept clean--cupboards, presses, all were
+empty. Only in one drawer, delicately scented, was there a single
+item--a hairpin. Here, then, must be Sylvia's room, but otherwise it
+was devoid of any article. Equally unproductive did we find the galley,
+the crew's quarters, and a small cuddy forward.
+
+Monsieur sat down and pursed his lips.
+
+"They have anticipated our intention," he said, thoughtfully. "Doubtless
+the things were emptied into sheets, then either weighted and sunk, or
+taken in the boats. But she must have exerted her ingenuity. There
+absolutely must be some word left for us. Wait!"
+
+Hurrying to the _Whim_ he returned with his lens, while from the mate he
+had borrowed a caliper, a two-foot rule and a sail needle.
+
+"Now we shall search scientifically," he cried. "Remember, that as no
+personal belonging remains, even the books being gone, we must infer
+they made a great effort to destroy everything that would leave a clue.
+They suspected the girl, too, and that made them doubly careful. What
+would she do then? Exactly as we would do--hide her message so the
+others could not discover it! Now, my boy Jack, you take the sail needle
+and probe cushions, pillows and mattresses! My boy Tommy, take my lens
+and look for places where the glue has been disturbed on furniture
+joints; I will measure the desk, piano, panels--everything--for a secret
+hiding place!"
+
+"Well, I'll be darned," Tommy grinned. "You're some cop, professor!"
+
+When each of us had finished and reported failure, Monsieur did not seem
+at all discouraged.
+
+"Now we go to the second phase," he said. "Keep in mind, whenever you
+search for anything, that it may be under your nose. That is the place
+to look, not off at the clouds--and nothing is too insignificant to
+escape investigation. For see: I can write on a very thin piece of
+paper, roll it into a string, thread it into a bodkin, and weave it into
+a rug, curtain, quilt, and so forth; or press it lengthwise into a crack
+in the floor. A favorite way is to tie it to a real piece of string, and
+throw them carelessly into a wastebasket, thus making them appear to
+have been cut from a bundle. But there are a thousand ways! Now we
+proceed with this. Later we probe down gas jets, water spouts and
+outlets, empty lamp reservoirs, unscrew the backs of mirrors, search key
+holes, unravel carpets----"
+
+"Heavens," I cried, seeing that in his zeal for doing this
+professionally he was making himself absurd; and Tommy burst into a
+hearty laugh, saying:
+
+"Gezabo, there isn't a girl in a million who'd think of those places,
+and if she did she wouldn't credit us with enough sense to find 'em.
+Call off your bloodhounds! There's no message for us, that's a cinch!
+Let's get busy at once on something practical!"
+
+"That's what I say," I chipped in. "It's only eleven o'clock, and we
+have eight good hours of daylight. Let's go back and call Gates for a
+conference, without losing a minute!"
+
+"You may be right," he sighed, "but--well, let us go, as you say. With
+eight hours of light we can accomplish everything. Today may bring
+success!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+THE HURRICANE
+
+
+Tommy's spirits were sky high. While treating our situation seriously he
+found in every phase of it some new sense of humor, whereas the
+professor looked on with grim purpose. Gates occupied rather a neutral
+ground, I think, perhaps alternately leaning one way and the other. But
+I was gripped by a single idea, a deep and growing love for this
+fugitive girl to whom I had never spoken, who I did not know, but had
+sworn to rescue.
+
+As we climbed back to the _Whim_ and summoned Gates it was understood
+that haste meant everything. Yet we could not very well move before
+knowing whither the outlaw crew had gone. That they made for Florida
+was, of course, self-evident, but where upon that vast stretch of coast?
+Would they entrench and wait? Were they even now watching with
+binoculars from a pine tree top to discover our next move, or had they
+set out at once for the security of the Everglades, the prairies, or the
+forests? Any of those trackless vastnesses to the eastward might hide a
+battalion of men for months; therefore, in case they had run, what hope
+of finding them?
+
+These and other facts I put before my friends while they listened in
+glum silence--indeed, with hardly a move except the pipes carried
+mechanically to their lips or down. Tommy's brier was empty, but his
+teeth were tight upon the stem and I saw the muscles of his jaws
+working, as though grinding up my conclusions.
+
+"So that's how it stands," I said, at last. "Personally I lean to the
+Ten Thousand Islands. Gates tells us the location is unexplored; it
+offers ten thousand hiding places and, in the circumstances, they
+couldn't ask for anything better."
+
+Monsieur stretched back in his chair and blew out a volume of smoke,
+adding:
+
+"It is the Islands, of course. And I think there is little doubt what
+they did after landing. They did not start inland. They feel secure
+where they are, and there they will remain to watch us. It may also be
+their lair, their home, for they must have a home ashore somewhere! _Mon
+Capitaine_, you know with certainty there is not a channel deep enough
+for our yacht?"
+
+"I never heard of one," Gates answered. "Of course, there might be; only
+I never heard of it."
+
+"If there were, why did they abandon the _Orchid_?" Tommy asked.
+
+"It will bear looking into," the professor mused. "Now, that paper with
+the dots and rambling line! Could it represent a chart to their
+stronghold?"
+
+"From what I saw in it, as a sea-faring man," Gates answered, "the
+bearings on that paper didn't tell enough. No one could sail in new
+water without a plainer chart than that. No, sir, if it means anything
+at all, I'd say it meant something else."
+
+"We're wasting a lot of golden time here," I said. "What if there is a
+channel, and what if the paper does mark the entrance to it! That
+doesn't get us anywhere. How could we tell which were the right two
+islands to go between, when there're thousands of 'em on the water and
+less than fifty on the paper, and not even a landmark of any kind
+indicated! As Gates says, it isn't plain enough."
+
+Monsieur seemed to be unconvinced, and Tommy began to laugh at him,
+saying:
+
+"Gates would be an idiot to sail into a lot of treacherous oyster bars
+guided by that poor excuse of a thing! Sylvia drew it for a subterfuge,
+anyhow, not a chart. I've got the right dope, so listen: Those crooks
+are ashore watching us right now--it's a cinch they are, because any of
+us, placed in their position, would be doing the same. Now if we sail in
+and push things, they'll run off and we couldn't find 'em
+again--probably never. So let's divide our crew and sail both yachts
+straight out across the Gulf--like we're going home. Then they'll think
+we've given up the chase and be off their guard. But when we get over
+the horizon we'll make a circle back, and after dark anchor in some cove
+north of this island area--if Gates knows a good one. From that point,
+being well hid and unsuspected, we'll conduct operations by land as we
+think best. How about it?"
+
+It was the most sensible thing I could see, and said so. The others
+quite enthusiastically agreed, and in a few minutes the two yachts were
+sailing prettily westward. Lower and lower sank the Ten Thousand
+Islands, and sometime after we finished luncheon a sailor aloft reported
+them gone. Then with a will we changed our course and began the big
+circle back.
+
+Gates had been making observations. His chart showed a cove about ten
+miles north of the island area, but too shallow for the _Whim_. Yet ten
+miles farther north of that was another inlet with fairly good water.
+Some thought this would be the logical place to anchor, while others
+insisted it was too far from operations.
+
+"We might establish an outpost in the little cove," I said, at last,
+"making a camp there and keeping the launch with us, while the _Whim_
+stays in the larger cove as a base to fall back on in case of
+necessity."
+
+"The launch won't do," Tommy corrected. "In a quiet place like that its
+put-put could be heard for miles. Paddles, oars or sails for these still
+waters, Jack!"
+
+He was right. Moreover, one of our small boats did have a center-board,
+thwart and portable mast, so that obstacle was easily crossed.
+
+"Now," he continued, "I approve of Jack's plan, and suggest that tonight
+we slip into Big Cove--hereinafter to be so called--and anchor the
+_Orchid_. Then with a whole crew we'll sail down outside of Little Cove,
+land provisions, ammunition, and stuff like that for the scouting party.
+After this the _Whim_ goes back and waits alongside the _Orchid_. The
+thing now is to decide on signals. Who knows the Morse?"
+
+Gates answered promptly that he did; but I did not, so Tommy wrote the
+alphabet on a card, saying:
+
+"You've this afternoon to memorize it, and tonight I'll drill you. It'll
+do between ourselves, Jack, if we get separated. But how shall we reach
+you, Gates? Have you any black powder for smoke balls?"
+
+"Lor' bless you, sir, we've only what's in a few shells belonging to
+Miss Nancy. It would take a fair sized keg to signal that far, sir!"
+
+I will not recount the hours I walked back and forth along the deck,
+with a flag in one hand and Tommy's card in the other, making what to
+the uninitiated would have seemed a perfectly ridiculous spectacle. But
+I had got quite well along, and was standing near the foremast
+wig-wagging a message to an imaginary pair of violet eyes--for man can
+be silly and serious at one and the same time--when a little puff of hot
+air struck my face. It was the second puff of this kind I had noticed.
+Gates now came up and joined me.
+
+"There's a howl of something coming, sir," he said. "I've had suspicions
+of it all day, but now the barometer's touched bottom."
+
+"The sky's clear," I suggested.
+
+He laughed, though without humor.
+
+"A sky isn't always clear because there're no clouds in it, Mr. Jack."
+
+"But what do you expect, Gates? We don't have storms at this season!"
+
+"You're right, sir. But once in a long while there'll be a howler, and
+that's what the barometer is trying to tell us now. As we have only harf
+a crew on each yacht I think we'd better make a bee-line in. 'Twill take
+us twenty miles north of where we were, and those fellows carn't see
+us."
+
+I never disputed conditions of weather with Gates, so the course was
+changed and we started on our run to land, which he thought might be
+reached by dark. In this he was right, for as the sun, like a strangely
+weird greenish ball, touched the horizon our prow, leading the _Orchid_
+by half a mile, entered the protecting waters of Big Cove.
+
+Just at this moment Bilkins dashed up from the cabin, looking scared and
+yelling:
+
+"He won't stay quiet, sirs; I can't make him!"
+
+We would have thought a delirium had seized the big black had not he
+then appeared from the same doorway, regarding us with an air of
+rationality. I have never seen a smile more broad, or more expressive of
+relief. It simply radiated happiness, and Tommy, staring at him, began
+to hum a song that had cheered us many a time in the trenches.
+
+"By Jingo, Tommy," I cried, "we'll name him that!"
+
+And thus he was christened Smiles--which, however, through some fatuous
+process of fabrication so soon grew to Smilax, that as Smilax he shall
+henceforth be known.
+
+The frown of displeasure that had gathered on Monsieur's brow fled as
+the fellow spoke. For he did speak, telling in his own style that the
+concussion had been a mere bagatelle, that his faculties had returned
+quite unimpaired after their brief absence, and that he was hungry but
+ready to serve us. What he did actually say to express this--to which
+the professor would have devoted five whole minutes of scientific
+phrasing--was:
+
+"Me well."
+
+Monsieur sprang forward and imperiously commanded him to sit facing the
+western glow. He then proceeded to squint closely into the patient
+fellow's eyes, he felt of his head, his pulse, and looked at his tongue.
+At last he stood back, pondering with an air of deep solemnity.
+
+"It is true," he sighed. "The man is well."
+
+"You look like we ought to put the flag at half-mast," I said. "What's
+the objection to a little snicker?"
+
+"I do not understand," he murmured, ignoring this flippancy, "how he got
+well so soon."
+
+"Of all the funereal old bugs!" Tommy began to laugh at him. "If you
+ever doctored me, gezabo, and I happened to recover, darned if I
+wouldn't turn around and die out of pity for you! Come here, Smilax, I
+want to ask some questions!"
+
+The result of Tommy's probing showed that late the previous afternoon,
+while this negro was fishing sponges, the _Orchid_ deliberately ran him
+down. She would not have stopped, but luckily he grasped the bowsprit
+stays and climbed aboard of her. Here he was met and roundly cursed by
+angry men who were, for a while, at least, in favor of throwing him
+back. He had seen the _Whim_ following. No, he had not seen a lady. Yes,
+he had heard strange music that, with our shooting at them, decided him
+to swim off to us during the night.
+
+To Tommy's further questioning we learned that he knew nothing of the
+Ten Thousand Islands except through hearsay. As to his wound the recital
+was brief: he had been put to work wrapping up many things in old sails;
+two men came into the galley and stood by while he finished the last
+bundle, then one of them who wore a cap like--he pointed to
+Gates--stepped behind him, something crashed upon his head, and that was
+all.
+
+Tommy drew in his breath with a sharp hiss, saying:
+
+"That's a cold blooded bunch!"
+
+"They're on those islands, sir," Gates cried. "I just feel it!"
+
+The mate and his half of the crew had come aboard after making the
+_Orchid_ snug for whatever weather the increasing sultriness portended,
+while Tommy took Smilax forward to coach him in the manipulation of an
+automatic revolver--for this modern arm puzzled the big negro who was,
+however, nicely skilled in the use of older models.
+
+That something brewed in the way of a storm did not require a barometer
+or the eye of a seaman to determine, so I insisted upon speeding up
+preparations for the landing force. This met the approval of all, since
+the skipper thought it likely that we could be put ashore and the _Whim_
+get well on her way back to Big Cove before the disturbance came.
+
+While we ate a hasty supper, therefore, Bilkins saw that the things we
+should want were stored in the small boat: food, ammunition, canvas for
+a lean-to, matches, utensils of sundry kinds--in fact, the necessaries.
+He had attended to my camping outfits before, and possessed a genius for
+knowing what to include. Only when this was under way, and the mate had
+thrice assured Gates of his ability to navigate the _Whim_ on her
+ticklish course down the coast, did the old captain feel satisfied to
+join us at table.
+
+He brought with him a large chart that he pinned to the wall and,
+nodding to it as he tucked a napkin under his chin, said:
+
+"You should take that, sir. It shows scarce more'n the shore line, but
+the shore's where you'll be, and not far inland. Here's Little Cove," he
+touched the spot with his fork. "In harf an hour we'll lay outside it,
+not being able to get in, and there we'll anchor to put you off. Who'll
+you be taking with you, sir?"
+
+"Tommy and I thought we'd make a sort of reconnoissance first, and
+Bilkins says he wants to go as cook," I answered. "In a day or two,
+weather permitting, we'll sail the small boat up to Big Cove for a
+council of war."
+
+"Well, sir," he said, shaking his head, "just go slow, that's all I
+arsk. Don't start anything. There's no use two young fellows kicking up
+a racket without their friends, that's what I say. So just poke around,
+but keep out of sight; learn all you want, but don't start anything. If
+you carn't learn it all, be satisfied with harf; then the rest of us
+will take that and make a whole of it in no time. Am I right,
+Professor?"
+
+"You are right, _mon Capitaine_, if they will mind you. But will they? A
+chance comes for to--what my boy Tommy calls plug--that old sinner, and
+so they will jump to a fight. Fight! Bah! How many fools give a life for
+one who cannot give a reason!"
+
+"There's reason enough here," Tommy laughed. "But we'll promise to be
+careful, if that satisfies you."
+
+When at last we dropped anchor half a mile outside the entrance of
+Little Cove our deck became active. I went off first with the supplies
+to choose a spot where they should be stored, although in such a black
+night this might have been left haphazard to the men. But one never
+believes, on occasions so momentous as pitching camp, that others know a
+jot about it but oneself--to this there are practically no exceptions.
+
+While being rowed shoreward I noticed that the wind had quite died down,
+leaving a suffocation in the air that is difficult to explain; but I've
+felt something like it on a sultry summer day when the sky is black with
+slowly advancing clouds, when the birds have become too awed to chirp
+and every leaf in the trees hangs motionless. It is in these suspenses
+of unpleasant expectation, when at any moment the heavens will open with
+a hissing smash of fire and nature be turned to fury, that one breathes
+heavily. There is no other feeling like it, except the drag of torturing
+minutes before being called to make a speech, or to be whistled over the
+top into No Man's Land.
+
+Our prow grated on the sand and in silence we began to unload. Back from
+the sloping beach grew a fringe of small machineel trees and palms; the
+beach and they, as well as I could judge, forming a kind of
+amphitheater to the water.
+
+My men wanted to raise the canvas into a make-shift tent before
+returning for the second load, but I thought better of this and had them
+leave it as it was, wrapped about our guns and stowed with the other
+things beneath the palms. Until daylight showed how well our position
+might be screened from the islands, it were a short sighted business to
+stretch a tell-tale piece of white duck that could be seen for miles.
+
+Already there were eerie whisperings of some disturbance in the sky.
+From the black forest far behind us could be detected faint restless
+noises, as if a myriad agitated spirits were scurrying hither and
+thither whipping their wings against the branches. Something more than
+an ordinary man's size blow was coming out of the southeast, so I
+tumbled the crew into their boat, charging them to pull right heartily
+and bring back Tommy, at least, before too late.
+
+They must have got close to the _Whim_ when a force, as sudden as it was
+at the moment unexpected, almost lifted me off my feet. Indeed, had I
+not possessed the presence of mind to fall flat upon the beach I should
+have gone kittering. In half a second the heavens were cluttered not
+only with screaming and tumbling winds but branches of large trees
+driven along as straws. I dug my toes and fingers into the sand,
+flattening out for dear life. Close upon the head of this hurricane came
+the deluge of rain, cloudburst after cloudburst. Then lightning was
+unchained, veritable shocks of fire, and no thunder out of hell could
+have been more appalling.
+
+For perhaps a minute I had not been given a chance to think of the small
+boat, or the _Whim_, but struggling to raise my head I stared through
+the inky space eagerly awaiting the next flash. It came almost at once,
+bringing into image the Cove as if a million green calcium lights were
+focused there. This was but for an instant, yet such is the peculiar
+effect of lightning that in the following blackness each detail of the
+scene remained photographed upon my retinć. I saw the turbulent waters
+apparently sweeping, as a mill race, out to sea; I saw a lone palm, that
+had formerly stood in dignified solitude upon a nearby point of land,
+now bent in the wildest agony, its leafy top resembling an umbrella
+turned inside out. I saw the _Whim_, greenish white in a greenish foam,
+heeled over till her masts were all but on the waves and her mainsail,
+half torn from its boom, snapping in the wind. In this fashion she was
+being driven at breakneck speed across the Gulf. I thought--I tried to
+think--that I had seen a small boat being dragged behind. Surely my men
+had reached her!
+
+But another flash, and still another, brought no greater assurance of
+this. Each showed the yacht farther away, more blurred by rain, until
+the distance became too great for me to make her out at all.
+
+And then another sky-splitting flame photographed a sight that made my
+blood congeal. I got but an instantaneous glimpse of it from the corner
+of my eye before the world became wrapped again in darkness--but
+something had been there, some huge, horrible monster was rising out of
+the water and waddling toward me. I had seen two long dripping arms, or
+feelers, extending in my direction. Crouched, with my nerves on fire, I
+waited. The rifles and revolvers were wrapped in the canvas and could
+not be reached in time; there was nothing to do but wait till this
+thing touched me.
+
+It seemed an age before the heavens split again, and then I gave a yell
+wilder than the lashing rain, a yell of joy; for, staggering up the
+beach was Smilax, true to his name with a grin so broad that the
+greenish glare flickered on his teeth.
+
+His sense of direction was either extremely acute or he possessed the
+eyes of a cat, for in the following darkness I felt a hand grasp my
+shoulder and push me toward the trees. Obediently I yielded. Then above
+the storm I heard him tearing leaves from the smaller palms until, by
+overlapping them against some bushes so they would be held by the wind,
+he constructed a lean-to--in the circumstances a most creditable
+achievement--beneath which I crawled.
+
+The rain drumming upon this shelter made conversation an effort, but in
+half an hour the storm had all but blown itself to pieces and then I let
+fly a string of questions--the first being of our small boat.
+
+He told me, in his taciturn way, that her crew had made safe just in
+time. As they scrambled aboard the hurricane struck. The mate, knowing
+with laudatory foresight that the masts were in danger of destruction,
+had rushed forward and chopped the anchor cable. Even that had not saved
+the mainsail from being torn away.
+
+As to the fate of our yacht neither he nor I felt much concern. I knew
+her to be a staunch craft, handled by able seamen, and felt that she
+would come out on top even if upon the coast of Mexico. Then, with a
+simplicity that deeply touched me, he added that as she was about to be
+blown off for an absence of, perhaps, some days, and he realized that I
+would be in need of help, he dived overboard.
+
+"But," I cried, remembering the anger of that seething water, "you took
+your life in your hands!"
+
+"Me swim all over," came his quiet reply; but whether he meant all over
+the world, or all over as might apply to his personal self, was left in
+doubt.
+
+Anyway, I do not believe there is another man living who could have
+breasted that hurricane-lashed sea for such a distance. I could judge
+something of what it cost him by the way he had gasped for breath--and
+since then I have seen him finish a fifteen-mile run, breathing little
+faster than normally. This gives an idea of his task that night, and the
+risk he took--and the indifference with which he took it; yet about his
+stupendous strength I can not write, but only marvel.
+
+Wet clothes are not conducive to sleep, but I was thoroughly tired,
+healthily drowsy. There were more questions to be asked, plans to be
+discussed, but my gods descended; and, lo, when I looked again the sun
+was shining in all its glory.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+ON TO DEATH RIVER!
+
+
+Some day I shall write an ode, not to sleep but to the pleasure of
+awaking when the sleep has been deep and dreamless, when the day is
+ushered in by smiling skies, a laughing earth, and a forest of joyous
+songsters. More especially beautiful is the face of nature after a
+storm-swept night, for then, indeed, the blinking dawn itself reflects
+the gratitude of mundane things for their deliverance. In the forest one
+hears a water-drip--aftermath of rains; a gentle, almost noiseless fall
+of crystal drop on crystal drop tapping the loamy soil, and imagination
+sings in whatsoever key the soul is tuned.
+
+But with what reaches of farther imaginings do we greet the day, and how
+variously! Our eyes do not require a visual picture of the lone wild
+turkey on his cypress roost to know that he is ruffling his feathers,
+craning his neck inquisitively downward in all directions, before
+chancing to descend to earth and breakfast; nor need we see the panther
+skulking from his lair to know that he has stopped to lick his paw and
+pass it over his face--the feline morning ablution. Each creature has a
+particular mode of resurrection after its hours of mimic death; and so
+I, on a bed of whatsoever it may be, yawn hideously and stretch my arms
+and grumble: O, Lord, how I hate to get up! Indeed, how variously do we
+greet the day!
+
+Smilax had opened our duffle and hung out several things to air. But
+the provisions, ammunition, matches and--glory be!--my tobacco, had been
+packed in tins and were dry. I could not say as much for the clothes I
+wore, and quickly stripped them off to hang before the fire he was
+building.
+
+As these and the coffee pot were steaming I walked to the beach and
+followed it to a westernmost point, being curious to see if from there
+we could get a glimpse of the islands, and also if our camp were
+securely hidden from anyone passing the entrance of the Cove. Most of
+all, of course, did I want to search the horizon, and for several
+minutes stood beneath the solitary palm that had resumed its majesty. So
+white was the sand, sloping from a violet-tinted fringe of sea-grape
+stalks to the lapping waves, so green and sparkling, yet so drowsy, was
+the Gulf, that I could not realize, were my present nudeness less
+constantly a reminder, that since the setting sun these peaceful things
+had been lashed with a devil's fury. No sail showed anywhere; only the
+palm and I seemed to be alone in this balmy wilderness. But my faith in
+Gates whispered that the _Whim_ was safe. Looking back, I realized also
+that our camp lay well concealed; to the south the islands were cut off
+by an opposite strip of land; eastward and northward stretched primeval
+forests, swamps and prairies for half a hundred miles. I seemed to be
+the only human animal upon the earth.
+
+A hungry osprey circling in the sky dropped as a plummet, struck the
+water and, after a momentary struggle, arose with his fish, ingeniously
+holding it head-foremost to facilitate flight. From another point now
+came a scream, well known to me, and I turned to see an eagle
+approaching with tremendous speed. Here before my eyes was to be
+committed "an overt act of piracy" that has for untold centuries caused
+a strained relationship between these birds. By feints at darting, but
+with no real intention to harm, he drove the osprey upward--for in
+aerial combats amongst the feathered tribes advantage lies in the higher
+altitude, and the hawk excitedly strove for this while the eagle coolly
+permitted it. In such a manner the fight was carried skyward until the
+combatants looked small. Then it entered its second, and last, phase.
+
+Quite master of the situation the eagle now rose to the upper plane and
+began his attack from above, whereupon to save itself the hawk released
+its fish and took to flight--which was, of course, exactly what the
+eagle wished. Here was his opportunity for the spectacular. Diving
+straight downward--first, however, increasing his speed with two swift
+strokes of his powerful wings which then became set in a half curve--he
+overtook the falling breakfast in mid air, seized it, swung gracefully
+outward and disappeared over the forest.
+
+Shame, thought I, that our National Bird, secure from discovery at
+Washington, should be practising this thoroughly un-American
+might-makes-right business! Yet through my being came a sympathetic
+whisper. I had never felt it while in contact with other people, but
+here I was stripped as a savage--alone with the woods and the ocean. If
+the Florida peninsula had been formed when my ancestors went naked, one
+of them might have loitered near this very spot, and I smiled as I
+wondered if he, too, had been planning to carry off some female from her
+watchful tribe!
+
+It was good to be in the wilderness, good to be savage, good to be
+unclothed beneath God's high heaven and know that by my muscle and my
+cunning I was king. No ordinary king who went about with a jeweled
+crown upon his head could ever feel this exuberance of being, and in
+pure delight I plunged into the water.
+
+Out, out and out I swam, joyously diving for handsfull of shells that I
+held aloft as a pagan offering to the gods. I put in bursts of speed,
+then rested on my back upon the cradling waves, watching the streaks of
+feathery clouds that stretched across the sky--streamers, flying far
+behind the tempest. And then, with tingling blood, I would flip my body
+and swim down, down for more shells. I was King of the great
+out-of-doors; a reincarnated primordial monster, holding high carnival
+with the elements!
+
+Smilax, having come in search of me and seeing my head far from shore,
+followed at once. It was then, as he approached, that I received my
+first disillusionment of being king by the right of muscle, because he
+sped through the water as an oiled torpedo, putting to shame my skill
+that had been somewhat thought of in the Athletic Club tank at home.
+Almost immediately followed my second jolt, as he glanced over his
+shoulder, saying:
+
+"Lookout, maybe whole lot shark!"
+
+King or no king, I went shoreward like a scared cat. Anyone could have
+had my crown then for the mere trouble of picking it up. Curiously,
+there flashed into my mind a game I used to play as a youngster:
+What-Would-You-Rather-Be-Eaten-Up-By! We boys would pompously answer
+lions, puffing ourselves out bravely and pretending we didn't care, but
+I remembered one little girl who aroused our contemptuous laughter by
+answering "goldfish." And now, after all these years, for the first time
+I found myself marveling at her sagacity. Indeed, she was off and on in
+my thoughts until I had clothed myself in dry garments and partaken of
+a grown man's breakfast; after which I dropped into a state of
+retrospective contentment, divided between the annoyances that beset
+kings, Azurian princesses, and the culinary skill of Smilax.
+
+That ebony giant of strength was not aware of my mission here, nor,
+indeed, of anything that had passed aboard the _Whim_, so when he had
+cleaned the dishes I lit my pipe and called to him. It seemed but fair
+that he should know the dangers of our expedition before joining it. His
+perception was quicker than his speech, and more than once he
+anticipated my narrative with some word suitable to its climax.
+
+"We get lady," he said, at last.
+
+"After a while," I corrected. "Just now we're to see where she is, how
+she's guarded, and how many guards there are. But we're not to start
+anything till the others get back. You don't happen to know this
+country, I suppose?"
+
+"Not right here; but two day walk there," he pointed a little east of
+north, "yes, good. Mother live with Seminole one time, over there."
+
+"I thought you were from Jamaica," I said; for, indeed, we had got that
+impression.
+
+"No, me nigger raised by Seminoles. Been to Jamaica on ship, heap time."
+
+"Then you speak Seminole?"
+
+"Some," he answered, modestly.
+
+I should have recognized in his way of talking, which was neither
+Jamaica nor American negro, the Seminole influence. Now this further
+light upon his past accounted for the many ways he had shown himself a
+woodsman; things that had astonished and pleased me, since I had not
+looked for them in a seafaring man who later became a fisher of
+sponges. It brought me a feeling of greater assurance for the task ahead
+of us, because Smilax, with an Indian training added to his stupendous
+strength, would be scout, warrior, pack-horse, all in one; really, an
+invaluable asset.
+
+The chart that should have come in the second boat--with Tommy, alas,
+and Bilkins--was missing, but I remembered pretty well the lay of the
+land and knew that the island area began only a short distance south of
+our Cove. This I discussed with Smilax, who added light by his general
+knowledge--hearsay, for the most part. Yet when I suggested leaving our
+things cached where they were while we made a reconnoissance, he
+strenuously objected.
+
+"Lady maybe fifteen, twenty, mile 'way," he said. "We take camp 'long."
+
+"That's very well if you take it," I laughed, "but I've no idea of
+lugging that stuff half over Florida. Why not carry the things we need?"
+
+"Maybe need all," he answered, then smiled: "Camp light."
+
+At this he arose with a subtle power that reminded me of a huge black
+leopard and began making our things into a pack. Never had I seen,
+anywhere from Newfoundland to the Rockies, a bundle of duffle more
+skillfully arranged, and I said with no small degree of admiration:
+
+"I'd take off my hat to you, Smilax, if the storm hadn't blown it away!"
+
+He grinned, feeling the praise if not understanding its medium; then
+asked:
+
+"We go now?"
+
+"Let's wait half an hour to see if the _Whim_ comes in sight," I told
+him. "There's a lot to talk over, anyway, before we start. For one
+thing, if we get separated how shall we find each other?"
+
+"If you lose me, you hunt good place to wait, and wait. Me find you."
+
+For some time we discussed other details. Finally I asked:
+
+"How far down in those islands do you think they are?"
+
+He was sitting with his knees drawn up, his arms crossed upon them, and
+now let his forehead, too, rest there in meditation.
+
+"One place," he slowly answered, "no white hunter ever get. Injuns know
+it, but 'fraid to go 'cause evil spirit live there--near mouth of river
+Seminole call Il-lit; in white man tongue, mean Death. Me think maybe
+find 'em there."
+
+"Death river's a good place for that old scoundrel to hang out," I
+agreed. "How far?"
+
+"Maybe fifteen mile, maybe ten, maybe twenty; no can say. We see."
+
+"By the way, Smilax, how do you say 'damn old scoundrel' in Seminole?"
+
+He raised his head and appreciatively grinned, answering:
+
+"Hal-wak esta-had-kee, mean 'bad white man.'"
+
+"That's neither bad nor short enough. What else?"
+
+"Host-cope-e-taw, mean thief."
+
+"Good but too long. I want something I can remember; to christen him,
+understand? What's your shortest word?"
+
+"Shee."
+
+"That's more like it. What's 'shee' mean?"
+
+"Feathers."
+
+"But, hell, Smilax," I burst out laughing, "there'd be no sense in
+calling him feathers!"
+
+"Efaw," he said again, "mean dog; kotee, toad; chesshe, rat. Maybe him
+dog-toad-rat!"
+
+"That only begins to be him," I declared, with the same glorious
+contempt for pronouns. "In the prospective waters of Death river I
+christen him Efaw Kotee, the dog-toad!"--But in my heart I offered an
+apology to the canine family, many of whose sons and daughters have been
+among my most loyal friends.
+
+"We go; maybe find him," the black giant grinned again, bending backward
+to get his shoulders beneath the ropes and then straightening up as
+though two, and not two hundred, pounds of weight came with him.
+
+I walked quickly out to the point and took one more look, a searching,
+lingering look across the green water. Nowhere was the _Whim_, nowhere
+even a speck of sail or any other craft. Except for a pelican of sober
+mien, rising and falling with the waves, the Gulf seemed barren of any
+life. But something told me that the yacht was safe.
+
+A scrub jay, in a near-by thicket of mangroves, mocked my solitude with
+a raucous note; yet it gave me heart, for I saw in it the call of the
+land and knew that thoughts of the _Whim_ must be put aside. So I went
+back to Smilax, and together we strode through the fringe of palms into
+a shadowy jungle; our faces set toward a mysterious place, unknown to
+us, where Death river meets the sea.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+SMILAX BRINGS NEWS
+
+
+Intuitively I dropped behind and walked at the heels of Smilax who, as
+if he were treading a well-defined trail instead of unknown jungle land,
+moved with a free stride that challenged my endurance. Clinging vines
+pulled at my clothes as things alive, causing both noise and annoyance.
+Silence was a virtue on our present expedition.
+
+After an hour of this we came to a cypress swamp, and for several miles
+waded through water ankle-deep although on a bottom of firm sand. Hardly
+any undergrowth was here, but in all directions stood gray, dismal
+cypress trees, coarsely buttressed at the water's edge and tapering to
+slender tips. Draped in long streamers of Spanish moss which were
+delicately swayed by an almost imperceptible current of air, this was a
+ghoulish place--suggesting a rookery for shrouded spirits which perched
+along the bonelike branches awaiting their resurrection. Here, too, upon
+some convenient root of these gray ancients--perhaps the longest lived
+of our southern trees--lay coiled the dozing moccasin. And from this
+grim place we merged once more into the jungle where my clothes again
+became the prey of clawing things.
+
+But Smilax, never faltering, moved with the ease of a shadow. At last,
+by watching him I, too, came to learn his secret and was charmed to find
+that it made my pace both quiet and swift. Indeed, I took great care to
+practice this silent trail walking--a knack that can be acquired only by
+the closest observation; for a hundred books could not teach a hundredth
+part as much as a ten-mile hike at the heels of a trained woodsman when
+he is trying to go noiselessly. Finally he turned and looked at me,
+saying:
+
+"You do good now."
+
+Noon brought us to a higher country whose beauty could not be surpassed.
+Dark and cool it was, even dismal without bringing depression. The
+mid-day suns of a hundred years must have been tempered to the aisles of
+this wild cathedral by venerable specimens of mahogany and black olive
+trees; and, where the branches of these did not touch, rose the
+slenderer red ironwood. The mahoganies, alone, stood as a proof that we
+were entering a region which had escaped the eyes of white man for--how
+long? It was even seventy years ago that bands of wood pirates, known as
+"the mahogany cutters," invaded southern Florida from the Bahamas and
+ruthlessly pillaged this desirable wood for foreign markets; so here, at
+least, was a spot that had remained undiscovered, where perhaps a white
+foot had never trod.
+
+Charmed as I was, a greater enchantment awaited, when the next few steps
+brought me to a pool; a pool of crystal transparency, though dark for
+reflecting the black bowl of earth in which it lay. Without a ripple it
+nestled close against the roots of a golden-fig tree--an unfruitful
+parasitic giant of squat stature and tremendous girth; while, pendant
+from one gnarled out-reaching branch, and almost touching the
+mirror-like surface into which it looked, hung a solitary streamer of
+Spanish moss.
+
+One might have fancied that this pure water slept in the tranquillity of
+being forever blessed by a gaunt old friar, the gray sleeve of whose
+cowl hung from an arm perpetually outstretched in silent benediction.
+Around the bank, and leaning their purple flowers above the more purple
+depths, grew a fringe of wild iris; while sprinkled at random farther
+out were a few blooms of "bonnet"--the yellow water-lily of southern
+ponds. And then, in a darker nook, erect and motionless upon one leg, a
+pink flamingo stood. I caught my breath in amazement at the beauty of
+this place!
+
+To me it possessed a soul; and the soul, arms, that were amorously held
+out, inviting, pleading. This was the spot, and not by the green waves,
+to strip my mind of culture, to tear a club from nature's forest and do
+battle for existence! Here, in the very birthplace of silence where I
+could smell the loam of untouched wilderness, would be the haunt of my
+re-created, or pre-created, self. Throughout the days I would hunt--and
+slay; in the nights I would sleep among the branches. But there would
+come dawns and sunsets when in some corner of this wild temple I would
+raise a pagan altar, light a tiny wish-wood flame, and conjure the
+forest's soul of many arms to reach across the earth, bringing me a
+living, breathing Psyche with iris-colored eyes to gaze into the limpid
+pool!
+
+In the contemplation of such an Eden I had forgotten Smilax, who now
+shattered my illusion by swinging down the pack and saying, as he turned
+to me:
+
+"We eat."
+
+O, mundane worm, that he could think of food while my spirit was
+communing with our common ancestor! However, without much reluctance, I
+arrived at his point of view when, filling my pipe, I stretched out to
+watch his savory preparations. And now to my surprise, but increasing
+admiration for his woodcraft, he raised a hand as I was about to strike
+the match.
+
+"Wait," he said. "Wind wrong; maybe some one smell; me go see."
+
+"Never mind," I protested, wanting to spare him additional work after
+the amount he had already accomplished. "I don't care about smoking."
+
+"Cook fire smell," he said, rather pityingly that I should have
+overlooked this obvious fact. "Me go see; get good wood." Then, grinning
+broadly, he added: "Maybe Efaw Kotee somewhere."
+
+I knew that if he went for wood he must mean buttonwood, because there
+was no end of other kinds about; but buttonwood is the only fuel in
+Florida--dry mangrove being a close second--that, burning slowly like
+charcoal, is both very hot and smokeless, and he was evidently taking no
+chances. I knew, too, that he would have to go far toward the coast for
+it, since only on tidewater shores may it be found; and with a pleasant
+feeling of excitement I wondered if he would also bring back news
+of--her; some sign, a thin line of smoke above the trees! It was not the
+excitement of battle, or a skirmish; no, it was the approaching reality
+of a dream that had gripped me with soft fingers since the moment I
+entered this forest. Since my eyes had rested on that pool, my heart had
+called afresh for her. The arms of the place were about me.
+
+Softly I arose and went back to it. The pink flamingo was there, but as
+I approached, nearer this time, he gave signs of uneasiness and at last
+clumsily took wing for some other sanctuary where his solitude might be
+untroubled by strange beings.
+
+Standing on the flowery bank, I looked deep into the water. No fish,
+nor life of any kind, disturbed its sweet serenity. So like her soul, I
+thought, was the soul of this! Yet could her soul be undisturbed? Was it
+not, indeed, turbulent with apprehensions? Did it--I asked the question
+eagerly--did it sometimes hope that I would come? And something in the
+water answered yes. So I picked a blossom of the iris--that had taken
+its color from her eyes--and put it carefully away. By the spirit of her
+glance, by the unspoken message of this place, I swore--oh, why put down
+here all I swore? Men have stood beside solemn pools before, and women,
+too. Those who commune in the woods think more sublimely than they
+speak, so I can not speak now, in written words, my immeasurable
+longing.
+
+Soon Smilax, grinning broadly, emerged from the shadows.
+
+"All right," he said. "You smoke; me cook."
+
+"Did you see anything? How far did you go?" I asked, and he answered in
+the curious way he had of dealing with one question at a time.
+
+"No see signs of Efaw Kotee. Long way."
+
+While the combined aroma of bacon and coffee was for the moment throwing
+its cloak of materialism about the romance of my forest, I asked again:
+
+"Why are we heading so far inland, when they must be somewhere along the
+coast?"
+
+"Best go this way. All right; you smoke."
+
+I was smoking, but that seemed to be his way of telling me to put my
+mind at rest. Yet I persisted with another question:
+
+"How do you know we haven't passed them already?"
+
+"Me know," he grinned. "All right; you smoke."
+
+He was a funny cuss, but I let it go at that.
+
+Biscuits, bacon and coffee might properly be called the Woodsmen's
+Ambrosia, but it is not a feast over which man is inclined to loiter,
+and Smilax was soon re-wrapping the pack.
+
+Up to this time I had walked practically empty handed, yet now I
+conscientiously rebelled, insisting that a share of the load must rest
+upon my shoulders. But here he showed himself as obdurate as a mule
+until, arbitrarily, I strapped on our second automatic, took out our
+second rifle, and filled my pockets with extra cartridges. He raised no
+objection to this; he even approved it. We were getting down into the
+Death river country and ready fire-arms made agreeable companions.
+Furthermore, at his direction I tied the rather goodly supply of
+buttonwood into a bundle and swung it to my back.
+
+Toward evening we saw on our left evidences of open country and bore in
+that direction, for when one has walked many hours in the shadows of
+interlocking branches it is as natural to be drawn toward a spot of
+sunlight as it would be to approach an open window after having been
+confined in a dismal room. So we bore in that direction and came to the
+edge of a vast prairie stretching before us as a sea of lifeless grass.
+
+Except for a gray line on its horizon, marking, I afterward learned, the
+boundary of the Great Cypress Swamp, there was but a single break on
+this expansive waste. That was a rich growth of trees about two miles
+out, to the southeast of us; an oasis, it would have been called in the
+Sahara, but in the Florida prairies known as an "island." Whether this
+term of "island" finds origin in the similarity of these verdant places
+to real islands, seeming as they do to float upon an inland sea of
+grass, or whether because, being of higher ground, they actually become
+islands during rainy seasons when much of the prairie land is inundated,
+the native "cracker" is unable to explain. At any rate, fanned by the
+prairie breeze, they afford agreeable shelter where, in perfect
+seclusion, one may look out upon the surrounding country for great
+distances.
+
+"We camp there," Smilax nodded.
+
+"A good place," I affirmed.
+
+"You stay hide," he said again. "Me find out if nobody 'round to see us
+go."
+
+"Why can't I look with you?" I asked, wanting to study more of his
+methods, but he squelched me by answering:
+
+"You look whole lot; no see anything."
+
+I would have given him a good piece of my mind had he not suddenly
+disappeared; returning soon with his usual smile and saying:
+
+"Come."
+
+Single file, as before, we pushed into the breast-high grass, and the
+walking was easy. Once we crossed a patch of oozy turf from which arose
+a score of jack-snipe; again we skirted a drying pond whose boggy edges
+were the hunting ground of marsh hens. Yet other trails could be read
+here: deer, wildcat, raccoon, and innumerable wee things. And here, too,
+around the "bonnet" leaves, the silent moccasin lay coiled, so it was
+well to step with caution in a place like this.
+
+A wound by the cotton-mouth moccasin, if treated properly, may not
+result in death. Like other viperine bites, however, it so affects the
+surrounding flesh that blood poisoning may follow days after the first
+crisis has been passed. Yet, even with this two-fold menace lurking in
+its fangs, it is not the most feared of Florida snakes. Preëminent in
+that capacity stands the diamond-back rattler, largest of the world's
+venomous species and second to none in point of deadliness. Smilax
+insisted--on I do not know what authority--that more dangerous than
+either of these is the beautiful little coral snake, _elaps fulvius_,
+whose victim becomes ravingly insane and invariably dies. That he
+possessed some uncanny knowledge of the creature must be admitted
+because of its close relationship to the Cobra-de-Capello, of Asiatic
+fame, whose poison, we know, flies directly to the nerve centers and
+almost entirely ignores the tissue. Four days later I had good reason to
+remember this.
+
+"Are there many snakes hereabouts?" I asked.
+
+"Winter, not much; summer, heap."
+
+However, at that very moment he held his hand back to stop me, then
+beckoned me forward.
+
+"Look!" He was pointing tensely ahead of us, moving his arm leftward and
+indicating a circle of perhaps thirty feet in diameter.
+
+Whatever it was, I could see the tops of the grass shake as their stems
+were slightly jostled by this unknown creature's progress, which
+continued with incredible speed and was circling back toward us. Then,
+with a slightly swishing sound as its body glided through the dry grass,
+that friend of Florida woodsmen--the king snake--passed before our feet
+like a brownish-green streak.
+
+"Rattler! You watch!" Smilax whispered. His eyes were wide with
+interest, for it is not permitted many men to see a duel between these
+mortal enemies.
+
+Somewhere directly ahead of us a diamond-back rattlesnake must have
+awaited the attack he sensed, though we could not yet see him. Time
+after time the king snake swept by in front of us, decreasing the
+circles and, I thought, increasing his speed. After each revolution we
+stepped in a little nearer, being careful not to interfere with his
+course nor distract his attention from the serious business at hand.
+
+Soon the viper became visible. His flat head, elevated a few inches
+above his heavy coil, turned anxiously with the sounds in the grass. He
+knew what was coming, I think, but did not rattle until the king had
+reduced the circles about him to a diameter of six or seven feet. Then
+he became electrified. The rattles sounded viciously, and his head began
+an ominous swaying motion, out and in, as he searched for a vital spot
+at which to strike.
+
+The king, although keeping just outside the danger line, was also
+watching for an opportunity. He may have realized his immunity to
+poisons, yet did not care unnecessarily to suffer the laceration of
+fangs. Rather did he choose to rely upon the further protective gifts
+that nature had given him: length and strength, speed and agility, and a
+skin that blended elusively with the ground colors; therefore, revolving
+in these smaller circles, he seemed to make almost a continuous line,
+without beginning or end, and the rattler was at a loss to act. Now,
+profiting by a moment when the venomous eyes were turned away, he darted
+in and caught the viper close up behind its head. Wrapping himself about
+the squirming body he ruthlessly straightened out. We heard the
+vertebrae being torn until his victim lay crushed and stretched into a
+helpless mass.
+
+For several minutes the sleek avenger remained perfectly quiet. Then,
+uncoiling warily but not releasing the hold with his teeth, he worked
+his body aside. Last of all he dropped the head and drew suspiciously
+back as if alert for a sign of life. Of course, there was none, and
+soon he glided into the grass, not seeming to have noticed us at all.
+
+"Whew!" I said, taking a deep breath. "I wish we had king snakes around
+us all the time!"
+
+"Heap good friend," Smilax grinned, stooping to cut off the rattles that
+were large and perfect.
+
+"I thought you said there weren't any snakes out in winter!"
+
+"Not much; maybe no see any for long time."
+
+He told me now as we proceeded across the prairie that the Seminole
+Reservation lay about fifty miles north of us, and I wondered what our
+chances would be of getting a squad of "braves," should the _Whim_ not
+show up and we found ourselves on the eve of a fight against rather big
+odds. It was worth keeping in mind.
+
+The "island," when we reached it, was by far the largest I had ever
+seen, and proved to be an ideal place to camp. High pines and stately
+palms grew here in great profusion, while there also might be found a
+sprinkling of hardwoods; and yet in some parts there was enough sunlight
+to permit the growth of really luxurious grass, as trim as if it had
+been cut by the hand of man. Smilax, pointing to a number of tracks I
+had not observed, said the deer kept it short by grazing. One's first
+impression here was of a well-kept park, intersected by green avenues
+that stretched beneath the best specimens of trees which a landscape
+architect had carefully planned to leave standing. But there were wilder
+portions; perhaps three acres of heavy jungle. About midway, festooned
+with vines, was the pool I had hoped to find, of quite good size and
+cool. It, like the other that had entranced me, nourished a few stalks
+of iris, but there was no "bonnet" or other place on its closely cropped
+bank for the wily moccasin.
+
+"My private bath," I declared, feeling at this sundown hour the call
+strong within me.
+
+Smilax had remained behind. His reconnoissance as we entered the prairie
+must be completed by another as we emerged from it; and I had left him
+standing behind the trees looking back across our trail, searching for
+any distant movement. At last he came up, saying:
+
+"All right; you smoke."
+
+"I don't want to smoke," I laughed. "I want to get in that pool, if we
+can find another supply of drinking water."
+
+"No need um," he grinned. "Big spring come up there," he pointed toward
+the farther end. "Me know island now; been here one time."
+
+I afterwards saw that he referred to one of those unique springs,
+occasionally to be found in Florida--a transparent water of bluish
+tinge, bubbling up through the bottom of its deep, self-made reservoir;
+keeping the sand in a subdued state of agitation, and bringing pleasure
+to the eye of man.
+
+By the spirit of Pan, my pool felt good after the long day's hike!
+
+The wind had changed with the waning afternoon and now blew gently from
+the southwest, promising a period of fair weather. It gave us, also, the
+advantage of greater freedom in noises; for, when living in the wild,
+one comes to realize how potent a carrier, or muffler, of noises is the
+wind. A fire at night, or smoke by day, may be tempered with human
+ingenuity, but nature bandies the sound waves with her breath.
+
+I dined in the elegance of simplicity, and Smilax extinguished our small
+fire of buttonwood. Leaning my back against a stalwart pine, I watched
+the shadows stealing through our avenue of trees. Somewhere above my
+head a whistling owl, one of those lovable little feathered cavaliers
+that showers his mate with unstinted adulation, fluttered and courted.
+Later the mournful call of a whooping crane floated across the prairie.
+
+I heard these things in a lazy, contented way, but my thoughts were on
+another island--a real island surrounded by water, where waves lapped
+the beach and two eyes, that had given color to the iris, watched for
+deliverance. Then with a jerk I sat up. Smilax had turned his head to
+listen, and in his attitude dwelt a note of agitation.
+
+"What is it?" I whispered; for surely I had heard a sound that did not
+belong to these creatures living in the forest about us.
+
+He raised his hand to caution silence. Then came the sound again,
+slowly: one--two--three--four--
+
+"Axe," he said, his eyes shining as beads and his finger pointing into
+the southwest from where the breeze was coming. "You wait; me go see."
+
+"I'll go, too," I announced.
+
+"No; maybe make too much noise. Smilax go."
+
+"Who d'you suppose it is that close to us?" I excitedly asked. "Not
+them, surely?"
+
+He looked at me with grave eyes and answered:
+
+"No can say; maybe hunters find way in here. You smoke; me go see."
+
+Yet his sudden gravity left little doubt in my mind of what, at least,
+he suspected; for he well knew that hunters did not find their way into
+this unsurveyed wilderness! Then, too, there was something in the
+stillness of the night that seemed to portend great things. The leaves
+transmitted their restlessness to my yawning nerves, as iron dust
+springs to a magnet.
+
+Intending to wave good luck as he melted into the darkness, without
+being observed I walked silently behind him to the prairie's edge; but
+there he stopped, opened his arms, raised his face to the sky, standing
+motionless. And a great peace came over me, for I saw that, in the
+simple way of the old-time Seminoles who invariably turned to their
+Great Spirit on the eve of hopes or fears or dangers, Smilax was
+praying.
+
+Religion is the poetry of the savages' existence. Alas, that we are
+civilized! He does not spend his nights poring over The Laws and The
+Prophets, and his days peppering a neighbor across the head with a
+new-born creed. No, he puts an abiding faith in some Great Spirit, be it
+the sun, the moon, the stars; or fashioned of stone, or clay, or wood.
+But his soul looks into the Infinite as his physical sight, less far
+reaching, feasts upon the Symbol. And what does he lose? He loses the
+privilege of bickering with evangelists; he loses the acid frequently to
+be found in church organization--the feeling of pity or contempt of one
+denomination for another, each of which stands upon the Holy Rock
+searching for motes and waving a princely disregard to beams. And,
+because he remains benighted and in darkness, he also loses doubt;
+wherefore, as a trusting child, he touches the hand of God.
+
+I had long since finished my second pipe when Smilax returned. He came
+out of the darkness as he had gone into it, with the stealth of a
+panther, and was close to me before I knew it. But a striking change had
+taken place in him. His breathing was fast, though not from exertion,
+and pointing back he hurriedly whispered:
+
+"Efaw Kotee there! Lady, too! Me see!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+EFAW KOTEE'S DEN
+
+
+Sylvia there! I bounded up as though some one had sent a galvanic
+current through my body, exclaiming:
+
+"Good Lord! How far, Smilax? Come quick, let's go!"
+
+He answered each of my exclamations in sequence, a peculiarity he had:
+
+"Yes, Lord good. Two mile, maybe some more. Plenty time, we go back
+soon."
+
+"But we couldn't have heard that axe two miles," I said incredulously.
+
+"Still night, when wind on prairie right; yes, sometime."
+
+"How are they camped? How many are there? Come, man, don't keep me
+waiting!"
+
+He drew himself up to full height and, with one arm pointing toward the
+southwest, spoke deliberately as if realizing his importance, seeming to
+choose his words--seeming, rather, to grope for them.
+
+"Over there forest is little strip thick, maybe half mile; then come
+water--Gulf. Me know um is Gulf; taste and find um salt. Close by shore
+big island, close by um little island. More island all 'round. Too dark
+to see much, but Efaw Kotee live on big island. Many cabin. On little
+island Lady live. One cabin. She come to door and me get good look, for
+light in cabin. Old woman live with her; Injun squaw; me know by way she
+walk. Before day we go hide in good place on shore. Watch all day and
+see. Must watch all day, or they see us if we leave 'fore dark. Now you
+smoke; then we go 'sleep l'il while."
+
+Sleep! How could I sleep while she was within three miles of me,
+surrounded by ten or a dozen devils the combined virtues of whom would
+not fill a gnat's eye! Of course, she had lived in this situation for
+years, but I had not heard of it until very recently, and that makes a
+world of difference.
+
+But after we got back to camp and I had stretched out on my blanket to
+let the telescope of my fancies pierce the realm of hopes, sleep did
+come. I would not have believed it, but it did; for soon I realized that
+some one was shaking my arm, while a voice said over and over:
+
+"Time we go; time we go!"
+
+It was yet night when I opened my eyes, but Smilax had lit a small
+buttonwood fire and breakfast was waiting. While I stumbled to the pool
+to drive the cobwebs from my brain he took the canteens and filled them
+at the spring; for, in the all-day strain ahead of us--and few things
+are more trying than to lie concealed and watch from the gray of dawn
+till the black of night--we should need a liberal supply of water.
+
+"Shall we take rifles?" I asked, when everything was ready and each of
+us had our snack of food.
+
+"No," he answered. "Too hard to crawl like snake. They no see us to-day.
+We take l'il crack-crack."
+
+"Little crack-crack" meant an automatic revolver, greatly admired by
+Smilax and, since Tommy's coaching, handled by him with no mean skill.
+So I swung one of these to the small of my back, into position when we
+should begin crawling, and handed him the other; whereupon, without
+further ado, we traversed the "island" and melted into the prairie.
+Forty minutes later Smilax moving slowly and cautiously ahead, entered
+the narrow strip of forest. Another ten minutes, and we got to our hands
+and knees. In this way we proceeded perhaps a hundred yards when,
+putting his lips close to my ear, he whispered:
+
+"We hide here; come still like snake."
+
+I put out my hand and felt the ragged edge of saw-palmetto, then slipped
+in behind him, moving scarcely more than a yard a minute. Heaven help
+us, I thought, if we had to lie on that torturous stuff for fifteen
+hours! But Smilax was equal to every occasion. When we reached the far
+side of the patch, leaving only a fringe of leaves to shield us from
+those we came to watch, he worked a while with his hands, then
+whispered: "Now lay down." Lo, the uncomfortable roots had been pressed
+in other directions and the soft sand received my body. He remained,
+however, long enough on his knees to make sure that none of the fronds
+had been twisted out of line, else uncompromising daylight might show
+our enemy that all here was not right.
+
+The night remained very still and impenetrably black, though I think
+that Smilax could see a little with his extraordinary catlike sight.
+Then came a first sleepy bird note. The day, at last, was on the wing!
+
+When from obscurity the saw-tooth stems took shape before my eyes and
+the distance receded farther, I saw that we were near the edge of a
+steep bank. Perhaps twelve feet below us lay the water, as a mirror on
+which some one has breathed. A mist hung over it--and in that gossamer
+shroud a little island floated whereon my Sylvia dwelt--where now she
+slept.
+
+A minute later the forest awoke with bird life; dawn came rapidly.
+Islands took shape, trees stepped out from their obscurity and small
+details drew into focus. First I sought her home and could hardly take
+my eyes from it. Low and rambling, it stood two hundred feet away,
+nestled in a most inviting shade of splendid trees. Flowers and climbing
+vines were everywhere, touched with the rich coloring of poinsettia and
+bougainvillea--although this very approach of day began to close the
+fragrant moon-flowers and spelled death to the night-blooming cereus.
+The walls of her bungalow seemed to be tinted red, varying to purple,
+which gave a strange yet most pleasing effect in the setting of
+blossoms. Not till later did I learn that this was the rare Cat's Claw
+wood, nowhere to be found but in southern Florida.
+
+On the larger island, not over a hundred feet from us, were perhaps ten
+buildings of about the same size and plan, and presumably sleeping
+quarters. But in their midst stood a structure of some pretensions that
+we afterwards knew to be a dining hall. Quite off in the background were
+two small bungalows whose air denoted quality, but the roof of one had
+been fitted with a skylight which gave me the impression that here Efaw
+Kotee worked his trade at counterfeiting. Still beyond this was a tower
+rising above the low trees, perhaps intended for a lighthouse, although
+there had been no light burning when we came. But these were at best
+surmises that arranged themselves in my mind while noting everything in
+sight and awaiting a further sign of life.
+
+Soon a hinge squeaked. A man stepped from one of the smaller huts,
+looked at the sky, yawned and stretched. A second appeared from another
+hut, walked away and came back with an armful of wood that he took into
+the dining hall. As they passed there was scarcely a nod of greeting. A
+surly pair, I thought. After this smoke issued from the chimney, and
+other men, one by one from other huts, came dribbling out into the day,
+until altogether we had counted seven. The six now before us, after
+make-shift splashes in the basins beside their doors, went as the chap
+with the wood had gone; and shortly we heard sounds of knives and forks
+rattling on china.
+
+It was at this moment that a thin line of smoke arose from the chimney
+of Sylvia's bungalow. Longingly I watched it; tingling to my finger tips
+I blessed it. A side door opened, but it was an Indian woman who emerged
+with two pails and walked back of the house--doubtless to a tank of rain
+water, because she returned with them full and went in, taking care to
+close the door softly. The deference of her manner, the affection with
+which she apparently guarded her mistress' sleep, strongly appealed to
+me, and I knew that the Indian woman would be my friend.
+
+The next move came again from the dining hall when a swarthy fellow
+emerged wiping his mouth upon his sleeve. His hair was long and black,
+reaching below his shoulders. With a rifle nested in the hollow of his
+arm he disappeared toward the tower, and Smilax whispered:
+
+"Him Injun."
+
+Now to our surprise some one appeared to be looking down from the tower,
+and a few minutes later the Indian was seen above the mangroves climbing
+up to him. There must have been strips spiked crosswise to one of the
+uprights, making a kind of ladder.
+
+"So that's a watch tower," I said cautiously. "And he makes eight."
+
+Smilax nodded.
+
+The fellows talked a while, then the one who had been relieved came
+down, going for his breakfast.
+
+"What do you think of it?" I whispered.
+
+"No see him before," Smilax looked grave. "Maybe one up in tree 'round
+here."
+
+"Gee, you think so?" It was not a comforting suggestion.
+
+"No, maybe not," he answered, after a moment of thought. "They no look
+for us by land; all by water. We all right. Look! Efaw Kotee have
+breakfast!"
+
+Two men left the dining hall, each bearing a tray of food, and we
+watched until they entered the rather exclusive house next to the work
+shop. This without doubt was the old scoundrel's headquarters, but why
+did he have two trays? Could by any chance Sylvia be kept beneath the
+same roof with him? Had Smilax been mistaken? The weight of my automatic
+felt good just then.
+
+When they came out, empty handed, one turned toward the watch tower but
+the other went for still a third tray. This, which he carried with an
+air of deference, was covered by a white cloth. He came to the boats
+across from us and got into a punt, balancing his tray across the bow
+while he paddled, standing, toward the little island. Now I became more
+than ever tense, and perhaps I moved, for Smilax pressed my arm in
+caution.
+
+As the punt touched at the landing platform below Sylvia's house the
+fellow did not get out, but gave the call of an ibis--a weird,
+beautifully mystic call that is rarely heard and almost impossible to
+imitate. Smilax appreciated this, for he grunted: "Good."
+
+The door opened and the Indian woman looked out.
+
+"Hey, there, Echochee," he said. "I got a present from the boss."
+
+She slammed the door, and I do not know when in my life I was ever so
+charmed by this simple act.
+
+"Then you go to hell," he drawled. "But I tell yer this: the boss said
+if no one come down to git it, for me to leave it in yer parler."
+
+While Echochee had slammed the door she was evidently listening; for now
+she came out again, a picture of fury, crying:
+
+"Don't you put foot here!"
+
+"Then come an' git it," he carelessly replied.
+
+She hesitated.
+
+"Lay um down, then go back. Me get um."
+
+"Naw, old hatchet-face. Jest come on down an' git it yer own se'f, or
+I'll bring it up."
+
+"My Lady no let any one come here," she warned. "You go back quick!"
+
+"That's all right 'bout yer Lady, but the boss says fer me to hand this
+right in myse'f, an' what the boss says--goes! Yer git that, don't yer?
+So come on down an' git this, an' that'll make two things yer git," he
+laughed boisterously, adding: "It's a weddin' present, an' if yer don't
+git a move on maybe the boss'll come his own se'f!"
+
+I could see from the woman's face that she was in a towering rage, but
+she went--lithely as a girl, for all her years--to the landing.
+
+"That's what I call sense, old hatchet-face," he sneered, stepping
+gingerly over the seat--for a punt is a tippy thing--and holding the
+tray out to her.
+
+With a snarl she jerked it from his hands, raised it quickly and brought
+it down on his head. Of course, the cloth and everything beneath it went
+scattering to the winds, while he tumbled backward into the water. Not
+content, she picked up several of the various fruits the tray had held
+and began to pepper him with such good aim that he hastily and profanely
+splashed back to the other shore. Then the tray, its cover, and the
+spilled fruits not already used in the form of ammunition, were
+contemptuously tossed in his direction. After this she tied the punt as
+though nothing had happened, went back into the house and closed the
+door. Smilax was shaking with silent delight.
+
+"Bully," I whispered.
+
+"Good," he said. "Look--water not much deep. We 'member that." Though at
+the time I did not see how this held any advantage for us, being
+distinctly of less protection for Sylvia.
+
+The man dragged himself up the oozy bank, cursing roundly, and started
+post-haste for Efaw Kotee's bungalow. We could hear the water sloshing
+in his shoes, and knew that he was quite as uncomfortable in mind as in
+body. He did not go upon the porch, but stood below, hat in hand,
+calling. Then I saw the old chief--the same man who had paid his supper
+check with a new fifty-dollar bill. Smilax squeezed my arm, saying:
+
+"Him boss on yacht."
+
+I felt well satisfied at this identification, which was the first
+definite assurance that the owner of the _Orchid_ and my neighbor in the
+café were one and the same. He came out scowling, listened unmoved to
+the fellow's recital and turned back without a word, while the aggrieved
+one walked sulkily to his quarters.
+
+But soon Efaw Kotee reappeared, this time with another man, and Smilax
+became excited.
+
+"Look," he whispered. "Him name Jess. Him bust Smilax head!"
+
+It was the fellow who had drawn back when Tommy and Monsieur went to the
+gambling rooms, but now without his uniform he seemed coarser and more
+cruel.
+
+"That makes ten, all told," I whispered.
+
+"Whole lot," was the black's only comment.
+
+They came slowly, talking in low tones. At the water's edge across from
+us they halted and Jess, pointing to the punt, said something whereupon
+the older man's face turned dark with anger.
+
+"Echochee!" he called.
+
+No answer; the door of Sylvia's dwelling remained closed.
+
+"Echochee," he called again, and his voice grated hatefully on my
+nerves, "bring that punt over here!"
+
+Then the door did open, I thought reluctantly, and the Indian woman came
+out.
+
+"What you want?" she asked.
+
+"Say: 'What you want, _Master_!'" he yelled at her.
+
+"Why I say that?" she asked, a dull fire of hatred kindling in her eyes.
+
+"Because it's so," he thundered, stamping the ground in fury while his
+palsied head shook more noticeably.
+
+"You lie," she replied. "You no master of my Lady or me, any more. We go
+to Great Spirit any time now."
+
+A chill ran over me. What, in God's name, did she mean? Was Sylvia
+dying? Again Smilax touched my arm to caution prudence.
+
+Efaw Kotee was, I think, trying to control himself, yet his long arms
+and veiny hands were swinging, pendulum-like, to and fro across his
+body. It was an uncanny indication of anger, suggesting rather a beast
+than a human being. The captain was standing silent, with his arms
+folded.
+
+"Echochee," said the chief, "bring us that punt. We must see your Lady."
+
+"My Lady see no one."
+
+"I want that punt," he bellowed at her.
+
+"You got plenty punt; me go in house," she replied stoically.
+
+There were, indeed, three or four punts tied to the shore near by.
+
+"Hold on, there," he commanded, "or it'll go bad for you! I want that
+punt, there, understand?"
+
+"Then get that punt there," she said indifferently.
+
+"You damned old hag," he screamed, now quite beside himself, "one of
+your rotten tribe's in that lookout tower, d'you understand? If you
+don't bring that punt across I'll have him crucified before your eyes!
+Hear me, hag?"
+
+"All right," she said quietly. "Him no 'count; do him good."
+
+She turned back to pass through the door, but was stopped by some one
+coming out. Sylvia! Never more beautiful than now! Echochee put up both
+arms to stop her and I noticed--for in tense moments one's eyes retain
+some of the most insignificant details--how incongruously her brown old
+bony fingers sank into the dainty folds of her lady's morning gown. But
+Sylvia would not be stopped. She placed a hand on the woman's shoulder
+and spoke a few hurried words, then raised her head and looked
+imperiously at the men, saying:
+
+"You shan't hurt any one because Echochee obeys me. Is the punt all you
+want?"
+
+Jess moved uneasily, but there was no trace of embarrassment in the
+bearing of Efaw Kotee.
+
+"No, it's not! We want to cross to you!"
+
+"No one comes on this island," she said.
+
+"I've had enough of your nonsense," the old fellow cried. "I believe yet
+you steered that bunch of pups after us, in spite of hell I believe it;
+but, whether you did or didn't, I've had enough of bowing and scraping
+like a nigger, and begging to be allowed to go over there! Enough, I
+tell you!"
+
+"Then don't try any more," she indifferently replied, turning to go in;
+but he checked her with another threat--and by the way she flinched I
+knew that he meant it.
+
+"If you go in that door till I'm through," he bellowed, "that crucifying
+comes off in ten minutes--right on this spot where you can hear the
+beggar squeal!"
+
+She stopped and looked at him, and I realized that we had come in the
+nick of time for some great crisis which was enveloping her.
+
+"Now, see here," he continued, in a calmer voice, "you've kept this up
+since yesterday morning, and it's unreasonable. Why don't you let us
+come over and have a talk? I've been a good father to you! You've had
+everything you want--and just bought six trunks full of clothes in
+Havana last week! Why do you keep us--keep me--away?"
+
+While absorbedly listening, I was struck by the oddity of a girl in this
+wilderness buying six trunks full of clothes; but it then occurred to me
+that Efaw Kotee would encourage extravagant buying of all things, when
+the _Orchid_ visited a city, in order that he might get bona fide change
+for his spurious bills. At least there was good reason for her gown to
+be modern, smart, and becoming, as Havana's best Americanized shops are
+quite continental.
+
+"I keep you away," she answered icily, "because you're planning to
+marry me to an unprincipled scoundrel."
+
+"A what?" Jess yelled.
+
+"Shut up!" the old one snapped at him.
+
+"An unprincipled scoundrel," she answered evenly, "who's as loathsome as
+an ape. And I shan't be married to that kind of thing, or any one else.
+You've had my warning. If you, or he, or any of your beastly men come to
+this island, you'll get only my dead body. And Echochee, dear soul, is
+going with me. What's more, if you start any tortures, we'll die before
+witnessing them."
+
+"Then, by God," he screamed, "you and your damned hag'll begin to starve
+from this day! With no more provisions sent over we'll see who obeys me!
+And in three more days if you don't come to your senses I'll crucify an
+offering to your dead body--head down on the spot I stand!" He had been
+raving, but now his tone quickly changed to one of whining entreaty, as
+he added: "I hope you understand how it pains your dear old father to
+threaten you, my child!"
+
+It was so maudlin an exhibition that I wondered if he were sane.
+
+"Dear old father," she repeated, giving a short laugh of contempt.
+
+I did not know how much of this was real and how much acting on her
+part, although it did seem genuine enough when she could not be looking
+for relief. Yet, as she stood there calmly mistress of herself while
+Efaw Kotee writhed beneath her scorn, I was reminded of an angler who
+had hooked an ungainly fish--she with intellect at one end, he at the
+other representing brute strength, fear, cunning; both connected by a
+barely visible thread that in this case was not a line, but Fate. For
+another moment she let him writhe, then turned and went in.
+
+Jess laughed.
+
+"Shut up, you clown," the old chief turned on him.
+
+"Clown yourself," the captain snarled. "I'll have you know I won't take
+any of your lip!"
+
+"Then I back out of our bargain, that's all!"
+
+"If you say that again I'll twist off your palsied head with these two
+hands," Jess held them under Efaw Kotee's nose and wriggled his fingers,
+until the old man shrank back, cowering. "The men'll follow me when I
+tell 'em you play double, an' you know it! You swine, I'm sick of this
+place! I'm going to take my share of the stuff, an' the girl, an' clear
+out! It's been fifteen years since we raised these cabins--more'n that!
+An' what have we got? Plenty of the slickest money ever printed--an' the
+other stuff, too--an' you afraid to take a chance. Three times I've
+stopped a mutiny for you, an' you'd be dead an' buried if I hadn't. Then
+came this last when things went wrong. You say the girl peached, but
+'tween you an' me I say you tried to turn State's evidence--don't deny
+anything," he held up his hand when the other would have interrupted.
+"That's passed now. But I've agreed to forget it, to keep the mutinies
+stopped for keeps--by marrying the girl. You agreed, too. Now you talk
+of backing out. Is killing too good for you?"
+
+"I don't want to, Jess; I don't, honest," Efaw Kotee said, with a whine.
+"But you see yourself how she is! If we rush the place, day or night,
+she'll kill herself. Tell me what to do, and I'll do it!"
+
+"You've done about all you can for a while," Jess grumbled, adding: "If
+she don't run away."
+
+"Where'd she run to?" the other sneered.
+
+"Well, some kind friend might show her!"
+
+"You're crazy," the chief contemptuously exclaimed.
+
+"Crazy or not, you just see that she doesn't. Then, if starving three
+days doesn't bring her, maybe crucifying _you_ head down might do the
+trick."
+
+"Wha--what d'you mean?" The old fellow sprang around and stared at him,
+seeming to have grown hollow and gray.
+
+"Oh, nothing," Jess grinned. "Just a little idea I had--worth keeping in
+mind, though. It might be healthy for you to see she can't run off,
+that's all."
+
+Efaw Kotee looked at the captain suspiciously, and said:
+
+"I'll guarantee she doesn't run off--and your other little ideas aren't
+pleasant. Let's go back and have a drink."
+
+When they had entered the bungalow a silence fell over the settlement. I
+did not see a man anywhere. But I drew a long breath of relief because
+Sylvia was for a little while safe, even while I raged at the
+realization of her danger. My body was cramped, and cautiously I
+stretched my legs. Smilax had not moved.
+
+"It looks like we got here just in time," I whispered. "But what shall
+we do?"
+
+He relaxed then, and slowly answered:
+
+"Me think 'while. Echochee good old woman; always kind to l'il black
+boy."
+
+"You know her?" I could hardly have hoped for that stroke of luck.
+
+"Me know all Seminole; not many left. 'Echochee' mean what white man say
+'li'l deer.' She old woman when me l'il black boy in Reservation. Me
+think 'while; you, too."
+
+Schemes of every wild kind, daring and impossible plans of rescue,
+raced through my brain; seeming reasonable enough at the time, but
+Smilax quickly found the flaws in each until I had exhausted my supply.
+Finally he spoke, and I knew that he spoke with judgment.
+
+"To-night," he said, "we watch and see if they put out guard. Maybe they
+do, after what Jess said 'bout Lady run off. When dark come, me swim to
+l'il island and give owl call--two times, then stop soft in middle. Long
+'go in Injun village that mean: 'panther, come quick, gun,' Echochee
+will hear and 'member. Good. Then we talk and fix all up. First we see
+if Efaw Kotee put out guard."
+
+This was so different, so tame, to the brilliant, suicidal dashes into
+the thick of rescue and glory--and doubtless destruction--as my plans
+ran, that I almost felt ashamed. Smilax could neither read nor write;
+his vocabulary might have been held in the hollow of one's hand, but in
+many respects he was the sanest creature I ever met.
+
+"Do you suppose Echochee will trust us to get them away?" I whispered.
+
+"If Lady say come, she come," he answered.
+
+This set me thinking, and I decided to write a note that Smilax could
+deliver. Sylvia might then feel assured that she was not being abducted
+by a negro whom Echochee had known only in childhood. But, on second
+thought, I wondered if she would risk escape with an unknown white man;
+if she would not rather face the supreme issue, once and for all, than
+perhaps be forced into it later by an over-zealous stranger! In her
+distracted state of mind I feared she would find the rescue too
+precarious--too easily offering the same danger that beset her now, and
+lacking her present weapon of defense. Yet if she refused to come--what
+then? I could always rush the camp, if but to die with her. Having gone
+over these possibilities, I whispered to Smilax:
+
+"She'll come easier if she doesn't know I'm here. Echochee will remember
+you, and reassure her. You might tell Echochee that you were hunting
+this way and saw her beat the chap over the head with the tray.
+Understand? After that you saw the rest and realized how much trouble
+she was in. How about it?"
+
+"Good," he grunted. "That good. To-night me tell Echochee get ready, and
+to-morrow night we run 'way--maybe to Reservation. But we come by camp
+and find you; then all work 'round to yacht. Good."
+
+"Well," I demurred, "that isn't the way I meant, for I intend to stay
+here and help. Some of those devils might get busy!"
+
+"That good, too. Now we eat; then you go sleep."
+
+While tackling our rations we discussed the plan again and again. I did
+not want to leave Sylvia another night within the grasp of those fiends,
+but Smilax insisted; explaining that she was practically safe for three
+days, at any rate. Of course, each twenty-four hours would make her and
+Echochee weaker from starvation and, as they would need strength, we
+dared not wait too long. Immediate help from the _Whim_ was all but a
+forlorn hope. The rescue had come suddenly up to us, and it must be met
+without a thought of failure.
+
+But as the tiresome afternoon wore on without further incidents to keep
+us aroused, my fancies drifted from rescues to the rescued; and after a
+while I whispered:
+
+"I'll take that nap now,"--scarcely hearing him reply:
+
+"Good."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+THE CAVE MAN SETS FORTH
+
+
+Close to my ear I heard a warning: "Sh!"--at the same time feeling a
+hand squeeze my arm. It was dusk. While I slept the shadows had
+lengthened and blended into those soft gray tones of twilight that give
+mystery to forests of the South. Cautiously I raised my head and,
+following the tense stare of Smilax, saw the cause of his agitation.
+
+Three men were standing on the larger island, at the spot where Efaw
+Kotee and Jess had stood, and one held a piece of coiled rope tied to a
+grappling hook. They were whispering and chuckling. Then he with the
+iron hook began to swing it back and forth, finally letting it fly
+across the water into the punt, whereupon they chuckled again. Now they
+began to haul in the line at a lively rate, doubtless fearing that
+Echochee, aroused by the noise, would rush out and frustrate them. But
+the house remained quiet, even dark; and, since the boat's painter was
+of slim material, there could be only one result when they gave a hard
+pull--the punt was theirs.
+
+This procedure disturbed Smilax, no less myself. There was deviltry
+afoot, yet hardly a plan for capturing the girl as other punts were
+available. But the next moment we breathed easier, for the men broke
+into a boisterous laugh, and one called:
+
+"Ole hatchet-face, yo're done out-punted this time!"
+
+Another, bending over and slapping his thigh in mirthful ecstasy,
+guffawed:
+
+"Bill says she's done out-_punted_," whereupon they again laughed, and a
+third called:
+
+"This here busts yo' chance of makin' a git-away to-night, yer ole
+she-devil! The chief's on to yer, he is!"
+
+"They expect an escape," I whispered.
+
+Smilax nodded. His face was grave.
+
+Then came a most exasperating moment, when I hugged the ground so close
+that my body felt no thicker than a playing card. The men, each picking
+up a rifle, stepped into the punt and paddled to our side. Two of them
+climbed the bank, one going about a hundred yards to our left, and the
+other, passing within ten feet of us, went the opposite way. We could
+not follow him with our eyes but knew, by counting his steps, that he
+stopped at about an equal distance. Then the punt glided back and
+disappeared behind the little island. Guards! Sentinels! We were
+trapped, as well as those whom we had come to save!
+
+The firm fingers of Smilax had never left my arm, a continuous caution
+for silence that I minded well. Ten minutes passed, and the trees had
+all but lost their shapes. In another ten minutes the night wholly
+enveloped us, and then the black man moved so that his lips were at my
+ear, while he barely whispered:
+
+"Me go; noise in camp will help. You wait still like dead; me come back
+soon."
+
+I did not attempt to answer, for there was nothing to say. Flanked by
+the two sentinels, I was pretty sure to wait, and wait like dead, too.
+He began to move then, yet he did not seem to move. But as I
+watched--more with my senses than my eyes--I knew that he had worked his
+head and shoulders out of our shelter, and was edging himself along at
+the rate of perhaps a foot a minute. Soon I realized that he had
+entirely gone; that, free of the saw-palmetto--a most difficult stuff in
+which to move silently--he was topping the bank. I could imagine how he
+glided now, alligator fashion, head downward to the water; and I could
+almost feel the moment he slid noiselessly into it. I waited for the owl
+call--"two times, then stop soft in middle."
+
+And now an electric torch flashed where the sentry on my right was
+posted, and I froze, wondering if it were directed at Smilax. But no
+challenge came. In a very short interval it flashed again, and the
+fellow called in military style:
+
+"Post one, seven o'clock, and all's well!"
+
+The voice at my left took it up:
+
+"Post two, seven o'clock, and all's well!"
+
+From somewhere beyond Sylvia's island the third guard called post three,
+and silence followed. I was glad to find that they called their posts.
+It told us that there were only three, and gave a very fair idea of
+their positions. Of course, we could not hope, with this military
+precaution, to have one of them fall asleep at a convenient moment.
+Especially would this not happen with a newly placed guard--and these
+fellows were on watch to-night for the first time, else we would have
+seen them, or they us, when we came that morning. Smilax, also, would
+have discovered them the night before. Sylvia and Echochee, therefore,
+had just come under suspicion of intending to escape--and we were in the
+nick of time, although I felt staggered by the job ahead of us.
+
+After another wait the fellow at post one again flashed his torch--on
+his watch, no doubt, because from time to time there were other flashes
+and, after the last of these, he called half-past seven. That was good
+for us, too--the half hours! Eight o'clock came, then half after, then
+nine. The lights in the camp had been extinguished. A real owl hooted
+mournfully somewhere back in the forest. I was waiting for post one to
+be called again when a voice, not twelve inches from my face, whispered:
+
+"All right; come; slow like me. When you think you can no go more slow,
+then go two times as slow."
+
+Had it not been for that last piece of advice I might have made a mess
+of things, but by moving at first scarcely more than an inch a minute,
+by distributing my feeling sense to every part of my body, detecting the
+slightest pull at my clothing, the merest contact with any little twig
+that might traitorously snap--in fact, by almost wishing myself along--I
+came at last free of the palmettoes and lay beside him. From there our
+progress was easier, and shortly we got to our hands and knees.
+
+After following in this manner for two hundred yards Smilax stopped and
+sat down.
+
+"You do good," he said. "Wait; me go back."
+
+"What for?" I asked, in surprise. "Tell me what Echochee said?"
+
+"After 'while," he answered. "Me go fix pine needles where we crawl out;
+then take look at all's-well-men. You wait."
+
+I should never have thought about obliterating our trail in the pine
+needles, yet now saw that it was a very necessary thing to do, for men
+can not crawl on their stomachs without mussing the ground if it is at
+all soft. In the morning those fellows would see our tracks leading from
+the palmetto patch and, to a certainty, be waiting for us when we
+returned.
+
+He was back sooner than I expected, and we took a good swinging pace to
+camp. Not till he had made a mere handful of fire and warmed over some
+coffee (gods of good things, how delicious it was!) and I had lighted my
+pipe (O, goddess Nicotine, what a pipe!) would he speak. Then suddenly
+he said:
+
+"We no lay out to-morrow."
+
+"Why?" I asked, quickly alarmed that Sylvia had refused to come.
+
+"No use. When men on guard call, we find 'em easy. No much palmetto; we
+slip up good."
+
+I laughed; not at what he said, but because to laugh was irresistible.
+My nerves were just a little drunk on relaxation.
+
+"Come across with what Echochee said," I told him.
+
+He grinned and nodded.
+
+"Echochee know me. Me no call like owl, for 'fraid all's-well-men no be
+fooled; so crawl close and scratch on wall. She come to place inside,
+then me put mouth to crack and say in Seminole: 'Echochee, me
+Tachachobee.' She squat down by crack and whisper back: 'You lie. What
+your father name?' Me say: 'Black boy got no father; Echochee friend,
+Wanona, squaw of Kittimee, raise him.' Then she ask back quick: 'How
+many pickaninny Kittimee and Wanona had?' Me say: 'Boy child.' She
+whisper quicker: 'What wigwam stood in morning shadow to Kittimee?' Me
+say: 'Echochee wigwam.' She say: 'Who next?' Me say: 'Pattawa, him shoot
+long gun.' She wait 'while, and say: 'If you Tachachobee, what scar you
+got on left leg?' Me say: 'No scar on left leg, scar on right leg; four
+teeth of Pawpawloochee spotted dog what wildcat kill.' She know then me
+tell no lie, and unlock door and come out, and take my hand. 'You big
+man now, Tachachobee,' she say. 'Me got big man job, Echochee,' me say,
+and tell her how me take 'em 'way."
+
+I was charmed with the way Echochee had put Smilax through the third
+degree, so to speak, because it proved that Sylvia had a shrewd
+protector; one who would at least not be outmatched except by
+force--and, judging from the tray episode, even force would have to be
+considerable.
+
+"She go in," Smilax continued, "and tell Lady, then Lady come out and
+say: 'Good. We be ready. How we know when you come?' And me tell her
+this, Mister Jack, so you listen for you have to do um. Me say: 'You
+hear men call what time?' She say she do. Me say: 'You hear 'em call
+all's well?' She say she do, and me say: 'When you hear one call
+all's-er-well, unlock door for me come quick.'"
+
+"You want me to call all's-er-well, instead of all's-well? Is that the
+idea?"
+
+"Good. We slip up on guard; you take man at One, me man at Two; we kill
+'em quick and make no noise. Man at Three far off; him no count. Me wait
+then till time for next call. If me hear all's-er-well, me know you no
+dead, and go in water. Then you come quick and quiet to place where Two
+is dead and make call for him. Then Three will answer; we no care 'bout
+Three. If me take long, and come time for 'nother call, you do um same
+as first. Soon we be over."
+
+"You won't have a punt," I suggested.
+
+"No need um; water so," he drew his hand across his waist. "Tote Lady,
+then Echochee."
+
+"She doesn't know I'm to be there?"
+
+"No; plenty time."
+
+That night I slept heavily, as a man who has regained the bloom of
+health, and awoke with the rosy dawn. A few fiery bars shot across the
+sky, which the trees, brush and grass reflected. Red, everywhere red;
+and I thought how much more red the night would be after Smilax and I
+had silenced Posts One and Two. I raised my head and looked for him. The
+fire was burning, our breakfast was cooking. He had doubtless gone to
+the spring for water, so I rolled out of my lean-to and started to the
+pool; but stopped, listening.
+
+Somewhere ahead of me I heard his voice, deep and musical, droning a
+weird kind of chant that seemed to be utterly everlasting. It was not
+loud, but rather like a deep organ note that carries a long distance. In
+a while he came nearer, walking unconcernedly with his face to the sky.
+Over and over and over the chant continued; truly a sort of world
+without end.
+
+"Do you know the second verse?" I cheerily asked, as he was about to
+pass.
+
+He stopped, swung around, and showed his teeth in a smile that was as
+free from worry as the day.
+
+"Me sing askabee," he explained. "Enemy go down when me sing askabee."
+
+"Then pray continue, by all means," I said hurriedly, "Maybe after
+breakfast we can manage to knock out a duet."
+
+"We build fort after breakfast," he replied, unmindful of my banter.
+"Breakfast 'bout ready. Get wet quick and come back soon." It's a wonder
+he hadn't told me to smoke.
+
+On the southern and western edge of our "island"--thus being nearest
+Efaw Kotee's settlement--were a lot of fallen palms; trees that many
+years ago had been killed by fire and now lay partially rotted. The best
+of these Smilax had planned to make into a fort; not an elaborate
+affair, but a shoulder-high hollow square, around which was to be built
+another hollow square, a three foot space between their walls to be
+filled with sand. It was a good idea, and would stop a Krag or modern
+Springfield bullet with ease.
+
+We worked on this till noon; he trimming, lifting and placing the
+logs--and elephants have never swung teak more splendidly--while I, with
+our jointed camp spade, filled in the sand. The use of an axe could not
+possibly betray our position as Efaw Kotee had been betrayed, because
+the breeze continued from him to us, and also for the equally good
+reason that the bite of an axe in soggy palmetto does not sound with
+anything like the ring that is caused by hardwood. So our walls grew,
+being fitted with nice precision that gave them more than enough
+strength to sustain the filling of sand--which, in turn, was kept from
+sifting through the interstices by a double lining of palm leaves.
+
+After an early luncheon we went back to add a few finishing touches, and
+then stood off admiring it.
+
+"Oughtn't we put in a stock of provisions?" I asked.
+
+"No stay long 'nough in there to get much hungry," Smilax shook his
+head. "One night and they pull um down and got us. Good to keep 'em off
+in daytime; after dark we run in grass."
+
+There was something in what he said.
+
+With the approach of evening a curious calm came over me. Perhaps it was
+the nearness of action, perhaps because I had accustomed myself to the
+thought that before another dawn I must deliberately slip upon a fellow
+man and destroy him. In France, with a battle raging, men lost their
+identity, and if--or when--we killed one, we rarely knew it. But in this
+peaceful country it seemed a more murderous thing to do. Yet perhaps
+the truest reason why my nerves had turned to steel was the dominating
+thought of Sylvia.
+
+Twice I rehearsed before Smilax what I was to do. I stood apart and
+called: "Post One, nine o'clock, and all's-er-well!" to let him judge if
+my voice differed materially from the one we heard last night. This was
+most important, as the suspicion of the guard at post Three must not be
+aroused. I then called the next post in an altered voice, and felt well
+pleased when Smilax said the tones were near enough to pass.
+
+It was an uncanny rehearsal, this imitating the voices of those whom we
+should have made forever silent, but if there existed anywhere on earth
+a justification for the taking of human life it rested with Smilax and
+me. We were not killers, but defenders; we did not go so much to destroy
+as to save. Our way was the only way to rescue a helpless girl and a
+faithful old woman from destruction. Two men, or two hundred, made no
+difference now; I would kill all, or any number, who stood in the way of
+that beloved girl's safety.
+
+We looked over our firearms. I had given him Tommy's "l'il crack-crack"
+which, with my own, were the only weapons we intended to take--I mean
+the only explosive weapons, for Smilax carried his long, keen-edged
+hunting knife, a thing he was never without; and I, likewise, strapped
+on my own. After this we went about putting the camp in order; building
+a shelter tent by the spring for Sylvia and an adjacent lean-to for
+Echochee. Joyfully I robbed myself of bedding, arranged comfortable
+shake-downs with moss and leaves of the cabbage palm, and did everything
+conceivable to make the place attractive.
+
+I had demurred at first about coming back here for a day or two;
+wanting, instead, to travel as speedily as possible to Big Cove, where
+the _Whim_--and if not the _Whim_, at least the _Orchid_--would be at
+our disposal. But he showed me the futility of this. In the first place,
+that was exactly what Efaw Kotee would be suspecting when the escape
+became known. The dead sentries, certain to be discovered when they
+failed to call the next half hour, would reveal the story of outside
+help, so the pursuit would be swift and directly up the coast--swifter,
+indeed, than she might be able to travel.
+
+"Why shouldn't they think we'd taken her off in a small boat," I asked,
+"and escaped through the islands?"
+
+"Then Efaw Kotee want to know why kill guard on mainland."
+
+"That's so. But, Smilax, suppose we hide the guards?"
+
+He thought a moment over this, but finally shook his head.
+
+"No good. Then Efaw Kotee say guard run off with Lady, so he come back
+'cross prairie same as up and down shore. That make our chance ve'y bad.
+No. They find men dead, then hunt quick through forest up beach; maybe
+down beach. After 'while, maybe they find sign where me and you camp in
+L'il Cove; then they know small boat been there and gone. Then they come
+home mad, and when all quiet we make big circle to _Whim_. Some day we
+come back; maybe kill 'em all. Me want Jess; him crack Smilax head. That
+good plan; you smoke."
+
+I lay on the ground and smiled. Kill 'em all! Gods, but I was going back
+into the primitive by leaps and bounds! I wondered if that girl would
+trust herself to me, were she to know!
+
+"Me big fool," Smilax suddenly cried, smashing a fist into the palm of
+his hand.
+
+"What's the matter?" I sat up, asking.
+
+"Me ought to be in L'il Cove and make fresh signs. Me big fool!"
+
+It would have been a cute move, but now too late, and I told him so.
+
+"No too late," he sprang up. "Three hour more sun."
+
+"But, Smilax, it took us the best part of a day to come here! You can't
+do it!"
+
+"Me go short way back, and fast." He pointed to the western sky, at an
+angle of about twenty degrees above the horizon, asking: "When night
+come you see big star there?"
+
+I nodded. It was Jupiter or Venus, I didn't know which; but it was large
+and beautiful, and I had seen it many evenings.
+
+"When um touch top of trees you start. Me meet you on far side of
+prairie."
+
+Feeling to see if his weapons were securely holstered he was off without
+another word to make signs in the sand at Little Cove that would look as
+though this very afternoon a landing party had been there, and I
+wondered if real Indians could possess the foresight of this big negro.
+In amazement I watched him growing smaller and smaller across the sea of
+grass; going north-by-northwest now, and not the way we came. The
+prairie in this direction must have extended five miles before it met
+the forest, and as long as my eyes could follow him he was jogging at a
+good free trot. By this more direct route he had perhaps ten or twelve
+miles to go each way; and his return would be at night, lighted by a
+partial moon. I knew that he would make it, and be at our meeting place
+when I arrived, but how he could possibly do so was in a realm beyond my
+comprehension.
+
+When the evening star sank and touched the forest I quietly left our
+camp. The night air was delightfully mellow, but my soul, my nerves, my
+determination were as cold as the long blade of my knife. In our present
+days of railroads, telegraphs and institutions of learning I was merely
+a chap setting out to take a girl from a den of rogues; but in this
+night-bathed Florida wilderness civilization had been stripped to the
+bone. I was a man going forth to steal a female--I had come from my lair
+at dusk, set off with a snarl on my lips and a firm grip upon my stone
+axe; so completely dominated by this feeling that human pawns who might
+stand in the way would be of no more consequence than ants.
+
+From the lighter prairie I cautiously approached the black shadows of
+the forest, made impenetrably dark by a network of branches and a mat of
+leaves which no ray from the half grown moon could pierce. As I was
+about to enter Smilax arose from the ground in front of me.
+
+"Good," he whispered. "We rest li'l while; then go fix 'em."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+THE RESCUE
+
+
+We lay in silence till at last, faintly, came the call of post one. I
+listened, trying to catch the quality of his voice, knowing I soon
+should have to imitate it. To the call of the next man I also listened.
+The third did not concern us more than to know he was on duty. No others
+called, so the guard had not been strengthened. These voices seemed to
+arouse Smilax, for he raised himself up on one elbow, whispering:
+
+"What time they say?"
+
+"Ten o'clock," I answered.
+
+"Good. We fix 'em 'leven; come."
+
+So the game was on! I followed silently--and savagely; for, as I have
+said, the human pawns who stood between me and my maid held no more
+value than the ants.
+
+For about ten minutes our progress went reasonably well, then Smilax
+slowed to a pace of extreme caution and finally sank to his hands and
+knees. In this manner we crawled a few hundred yards farther.
+
+"Here your place," he put his lips close to my ear and whispered. "First
+man not ve'y far; straight. You find out when he call once more, or
+flash light. Watch when Two man call so you know where go next. No let
+'em call 'leven. Good. Me go now." And he was off like a snake to take
+up a position behind post two.
+
+I felt about me and, finding the ground clear of any growth that might
+produce a noise, moved stealthily forward, still on my hands and knees;
+but, after each step, pausing and feeling ahead until my fingers seemed
+to have grown as long and sensitive as antennć. In this way I must have
+gone another two hundred feet when I saw a glimmer of white light. It
+was the electric torch, and I knew the sentry must be looking at his
+watch.
+
+Fleeting as it had been it showed me that between us lay a patch of
+saw-palmetto, and this was awkward as I could get no idea of its depth.
+But since he did not call the post I knew that he would soon be taking
+another look at the time, and kept warily on, my eyes alert to ascertain
+the dimensions of that patch the instant his torch should flare. For I
+must crawl around it; to go through would be impossible. Smilax could
+have achieved it, but Smilax was a wonder.
+
+The light showed again. I was within fifty feet of the patch now and saw
+with a feeling of relief that it ended almost at the spot where my man
+stood, or sat, or whatever he was doing. Still, the time had not come
+for him to call the half hour, when I should be able to advance more
+rapidly during the few seconds that his voice would make him insensible
+to other slight sounds. Inch by inch, almost holding my breath, I
+crawled. The pine needles let me slide along as though on a greased
+floor. My left hand touched a saw-toothed stem, so I veered slightly to
+the right, getting closer, all the while closer.
+
+At the next flash I heard him clear his throat--that had ever
+been his prelude to a call--and by the time his sing-song
+"Post-one-half-past-ten-and-all's-well" ended I had made good
+progress. Now, close up behind the point of palmettoes which acted
+as a screen but was too sparse to offer interference, I realized
+that he could be not more than ten feet away; and this was the best
+I could hope to do, surely as close as I dared get.
+
+But ten feet was too great a space to be crossed at a bound before he
+might utter one cry that would alarm the camp. One cry, even half a cry,
+meant ruin to us. It was not enough that this sentry die; he must die
+without having uttered the merest sound. I determined, therefore, to
+wait until his senses became focused, his breathing centered, on the
+eleven o'clock call; for, so occupied, his mind would be a fraction of a
+second slower in responding to an outside thought which came unawares to
+him than if he were standing on the alert for sounds. This seemed to be
+good psychology. When he cleared his throat to call eleven, therefore, I
+would spring--and the gods be with me!
+
+I own that for a little while my heart did pound unmercifully, but with
+even less mercy I willed it to be calm. For the moment I almost
+regretted having come so near, because it seemed preposterous to suppose
+that he would not discover me. I could distinctly hear the slightest
+move he made--but it must be remembered that I was listening to him,
+whereas he did not suspect my existence. Once he knocked the dead ashes
+from his pipe against the heel of his boot; then I thought he was
+getting ready for a smoke, and soon after this he struck a match.
+
+As the flame, sheltered by his two hands held cup-wise, flickered above
+the bowl I got a look at him. He impressed me as being a well put up
+fellow of considerable strength, who would not be conquered without
+trouble. But never have I seen a face present a pantomime of more brutal
+indifference. It was seamed with lines of cruelty; the coarse lips were
+hideously puckered about the pipe stem; his eyes drooped in bestial
+satisfaction as he sucked at it. While he was getting the light, thus
+creating a noise in his own ears that would drown a slighter noise from
+me, I took the opportunity to arrange my position somewhat, and now felt
+satisfied. With clean ground beneath me, with only a thin screen of
+palmetto leaves between us, how better could I have planned!
+
+Minutes sped, and my senses seemed to have accumulated into a little
+ball between my eyes. I may have trembled; I know that my nerves were
+stretched to the very highest fighting pitch, they were in tune with my
+determination. The next half hour would decide the salvation or
+destruction of the girl I loved.
+
+The electric torch flashed on a silver watch in his huge, dirty hand. I
+held my breath, ready--but he did not call. Again I had to will my heart
+to stop its sudden thumping; again I settled down to wait--though with
+my legs crouched and my fingers resting on the sand, as I had "set" many
+a time for a hundred yard dash. All I needed now was the word "Go!"
+
+More minutes sped. At last he moved, and I guessed that he was reaching
+into his pocket for the torch. It flashed, shining on the silver watch
+as before. I heard the cover snap to with a click of finality; he
+cleared his throat--and I bounded into the air.
+
+He had no time to cry out before my fingers locked upon his throat as
+jaws of iron. He staggered and caught my wrists, but did not immediately
+begin the frantic struggle I expected. His rifle fell to the soft earth
+with hardly a sound and, like a dead weight, he crumpled up; falling so
+quickly that I nearly came down on top of him.
+
+At first, suspecting this might be a ruse to break my grip, I squeezed
+the tighter, holding his head up as far as my knees and shaking it with
+the savageness that a terrier would shake a rat. There was no room for
+compromises here. Grimly believing him to be beyond the point of giving
+an alarm, I was not prepared for an attack when he came to life with an
+energy born of desperation, wrapped his arms about my legs and with
+tremendous strength jerked me forward, at the same instant striking me
+in the back with his knee. Thus, to keep from pitching over his head, I
+involuntarily lost my hold--the last of all things I would have done!
+
+Yet the effect to so violent a choking seemed for the moment to have
+paralyzed his power to call, and swiftly, as a darting hawk, I made
+another grab for the throat that must at all costs be silenced. He had
+covered it with his own hands and I could not pry away his fingers.
+Again and again I tried, and now, with growing strength, he caught my
+wrists and held them. Maddened by the specter of failure, I heard him
+drawing in a labored breath that I knew would come out in a hideous
+yell.
+
+Success lay upon the fraction of a second. In a frenzy jerking one of my
+hands free, and throwing the full weight of my body across his face to
+momentarily smother the outcry, I twisted around, drew my knife, and
+plunged it deep into his side. There was a convulsive tremor, and
+silence. Yet, as the king snake had done, I also drew back warily,
+listening. It had been enough.
+
+Springing up, and trying to calm my breathing, I called:
+
+"Post one, 'leven o'clock, and all's-er-well!"
+
+The last word had no more than been pronounced when I was moving
+swiftly, silently on post number two. True to his intention, Smilax had
+prepared the way.
+
+"Post two, 'leven o'clock, and all's-er-well!" I called in an altered
+voice.
+
+The sentry at post three, doubtless having a vein of humor or finding
+any variation of his tedious duty agreeable, dwelt in his turn long and
+almost lovingly over the "er-well," making it sound "e-e-er-well."
+
+"How you like that?" he called, in a guarded tone, and receiving no
+answer, laughed: "Then go ter hell with yer perlite manners."
+
+A few minutes elapsed before I was conscious of a movement in the water,
+slight, barely distinguishable. But my eyes had grown more and more
+accustomed to the darkness and I thought that I made out something
+coming toward the shore. Creeping a little forward and listening, I felt
+that it was Smilax carrying Sylvia, and became certain of this when
+someone was deposited there who began cautiously to climb the bank.
+Smilax, evidently, had turned back for Echochee. But along this section
+of the mainland the bank was steep, and the climber came with
+difficulty--once slipping and making what I thought to be an awful
+racket. Even the humorous sentry on post three heard it and,
+providentially unsuspicious, called:
+
+"Yer ain't bit yerse'f, have yer?"
+
+I made no answer to this, trusting him to be satisfied with his own wit.
+Yet now, following a most natural impulse, forgetting in our extreme
+peril that Sylvia was unaware of my presence, I leaned above the top and
+reached down to her; when, to my utter consternation, she gave a
+piercing scream of terror. Quick as a flash the sentry at post three
+yelled and fired his gun, and the sleeping camp became a bedlam of
+cursing men.
+
+"For God's sake," I whispered--but Smilax had turned back to us and was
+beside her.
+
+"Him friend," he said, hurriedly. "Only friend we got! Go with him
+quick! Me get Echochee!"
+
+While saying this he was pushing her up to me, at the same time holding
+out a bag, or kind of traveling case, that she had dropped. I seized it
+with one hand, and her arm with the other.
+
+"Quick; go to camp," Smilax was saying. "Me get Echochee and give 'em
+chase up coast. Be back soon; you wait there."
+
+He had taken to the water again and was making for the Indian woman, who
+I thought had started out to meet him. So I knew he would rescue her, as
+surely as he was six and a half feet of muscle and endurance. The camp
+had become thoroughly aroused by now, and lights were everywhere. Hoping
+to reassure Sylvia, I whispered as Smilax would have spoken:
+
+"Me friend; come quick!"
+
+Above the confusion we could hear the voice of Efaw Kotee bellowing:
+
+"Get the punts, you fools! Which way is she?"
+
+"On the mainland," someone yelled.
+
+"Then catch her," he bellowed again, with a string of blasphemous oaths.
+
+This decided her, and she whispered wildly:
+
+"Hurry! Take me where Tachachobee said!"
+
+We dashed through the forest, I leading, she close behind. Nor had we
+any time to spare, for before we had gone a hundred yards two quick
+shots rang out. It was "li'l crack-crack" speaking, I felt sure of it.
+
+Shots answered rapidly in threes and fours. The automatic spoke again,
+this time farther to the north, drawing more shots from the angry
+pursuers; but I knew that among trees so thick and in darkness so
+impenetrable Smilax and Echochee ran little chance of being hit. At the
+prairie, made vaguely lighter by a hazy, half grown moon, we crouched in
+the grass and waited.
+
+You have never, I suppose, been afraid to breathe, flattened against a
+wall, or huddled in a shadowy place, listening to the growls and grunts
+and sniffs of the man-beast hunting you? No, of course not.
+
+Men were now tearing through the forest like a herd of stampeded horses,
+shooting, yelling, cursing, while at brief intervals the automatic told
+them which way to go. Farther and farther the chase went, all the time
+following the coast and leading away from us till, after twenty minutes,
+the yells were hardly discernible and the shots sounded like faint
+little pops of a nursery gun. But they were as rapid as ever, telling us
+that the pursuit had in no way diminished. Smilax, undoubtedly master of
+the situation, would lead them on and on; either close by Big Cove so
+those aboard the _Whim_--had she made harbor--could take a hand, or
+finally lose them somewhere in the treacherous Everglades. Then he would
+came back for us. I felt no great uncertainty for Smilax and Echochee.
+
+I now straightened up--taking care that she should not see my face--and
+listened to satisfy myself that no one had stayed behind to be roaming
+in the forest near us, then whispered:
+
+"Come!"
+
+In silence, she following, we crossed the two mile space, and I drew a
+deep breath of thankfulness when we at last stepped beneath the black
+trees of my "island."
+
+I knew that she had taken me for a Seminole--at least, the probability
+seemed to be strong in that direction. The darkness again was too
+intense for her to see my features, and, since I had been fairly
+successful in speaking the choppy English of the Indian, I determined to
+continue the deception until morning. For she had become somewhat
+accustomed to the "trusted friend" by now, whereas re-introductions at
+this hour would be exceedingly awkward, if not quite disastrous to her
+peace of mind. So, without a halt, I walked on through the trees until
+we came to her tent. At the door of this I put down her bag, then
+stepped back and for a second at arm's length flashed my electric torch
+on it, again being careful to keep my face in shadow.
+
+"You safe here," I said. "Tachachobee make this camp for you. Me and him
+camp little way off. To-night me watch to see when him and Echochee
+come. No one find you; you sleep well. Tachachobee good man; me and him
+friends. You no be 'fraid."
+
+"Thank you," she said wearily. Ah, how tired her voice did seem!
+
+"There water; good to drink. You hungry?" I asked.
+
+"No, thank you,--what is your name?"
+
+This was a poser, for I had not thought up a name. But, of course, Jack
+came first into my mind, so I answered:
+
+"Jackachobee."
+
+"No, thank you, Jackachobee," she said, "I'm not hungry."
+
+"You want gun?" I asked again.
+
+"I have one," she answered.
+
+"Good. Then you sleep; no one find you here. In morning take time; when
+ready for breakfast walk back this way a hundred steps and whistle like
+plover. Then me come and show you way. Sleep good."
+
+Thus, feeling very well satisfied with my Indian impersonation--which,
+nevertheless, had its faults--I left her; turning and going to the fort,
+there choosing a place where I could keep guard all night against
+possible danger.
+
+Long and earnestly did I listen for some sound of the chase, but the
+night had grown absolutely still except for a soft breeze rustling the
+palm fronds above my head and the prairie grass in front of me. Yet I
+felt secure in the belief that Smilax had not been taken. Without
+question, he and Echochee were still in flight, heading toward some safe
+refuge; coaxing, by shot or cry, the furious pack that tore hopefully
+after them. I knew that my vigil here was unnecessary--that with all
+senses focused on the chase no straggler would by any chance be coming
+this far out into the prairie--but I had told Sylvia it would be kept.
+
+As I sat there, joyous over the conquest we had made, but more supremely
+happy because she was safe and near me, thinking tumultuous things which
+were a credit to mankind, hoping hopes that man has never realized, I
+raised my face to the sky and thanked God.
+
+Creature of incongruities! I thanked God for putting her safely into my
+keeping, when my fingers had not yet been washed after their bath in a
+fellow creature's blood! The cave man had gone abroad at dusk to find a
+mate, and human pawns who stood in his way had been of no more
+consequence than ants!
+
+Thus it has always been for the women we love. Thus it should be.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+DOLORIA
+
+
+With the first glimpse of dawn I arose and faced the East; my arms out,
+my palms up, and across them my rifle as a kind of offering to the day.
+I do not know why I did this--this spontaneous though semi-pagan
+act--except that on my "island," and in my power, slept the girl I
+loved; she whom I had stolen from her watchful tribe, whom I would have
+as mate. By all the laws of the wilderness she was mine, and I wanted to
+tell someone, to challenge the wild, that these arms and hands and this
+rifle would protect her till the end.
+
+A thin mist hung low upon the prairie, a faint tint of salmon touched
+the sky, and to my lips sprang the words of that inspiring "Salutation
+of the Dawn" which found expression in the Orient many thousands of
+years ago:
+
+        _Listen to the Exhortation of the Dawn!
+                Look to this Day!
+        For it is life, the very life of life.
+        In its brief course lie all the verities
+        And realities of your existence:
+                The glory of action,
+                The bliss of growth,
+                The splendor of beauty:
+        For yesterday is but a dream,
+        And tomorrow is only a vision;
+        But today well-lived makes
+        Every yesterday a dream of happiness,
+        And every tomorrow a vision of hope.
+        Look well, therefore, to this Day!_
+
+Then, as the light increased and the mist began to dissolve, I swept the
+prairie in all directions for a sign of enemies. Everywhere was peace.
+
+Assured that Efaw Kotee would never find us here I turned and went to my
+lean-to--to the place my lean-to had been before we moved it beside the
+spring--gathered up my knick-knacks and repaired to the pool, emerging
+half an hour later a more presentable man. After this I built a small
+fire of buttonwood and set about preparing breakfast.
+
+But this proved to be a perplexing ordeal. Bilkins had packed in a lot
+of stuff that he might have manipulated, though to me it was worse than
+Greek. Of course, I could cook up coffee and bacon--the kind of meal
+Smilax and I were used to--but Sylvia must never be subjected to that!
+And it would be insane of me to go out on the prairie after snipe! There
+was nothing for it but prepare a dainty concoction from what we had, so,
+wishing heartily that Bilkins had come off in the small boat with me, I
+dived into our stores on a tour of inspection.
+
+Tea!--who wanted tea for breakfast! A pot of butter!--appropriate
+enough, though it might have been fresher. A can of beans!--worse than
+tea. A can of finnan haddie came after this, and several cans that only
+Bilkins could have understood. But in the end I carried a number of them
+to the fire and had a general opening, arranged them in a row, and began
+to cook. The chief trouble was that I did not know which should be done
+thoroughly and which merely warmed up. Anyway, I emptied something,
+inviting if unpronounceable, into the skillet and as it began to sizzle
+it smelt really good. So I crouched lower, stirring vigorously to keep
+it from scorching, and thought of the surprise it would be to her--for,
+to be quite frank, it was a surprise to me!
+
+Then a voice at my back, making me forget the sizzling stuff, the fire,
+the breakfast, said with a note of extreme anxiety:
+
+"Good morning, Jackachobee! Oughtn't Echochee be here by this time? You
+don't think any thing's happened to her, do you? I can't whistle like a
+plover and had to come to breakfast unannounced. I hope it's ready.
+You've seen nothing of those men?"
+
+I did not move under this rapid fire of questions and statements. To the
+contrary, I lowered my head and was afraid to move; afraid to face the
+rebuke, or the fear, or whatever it would be, that might naturally
+follow her discovery of my deception. But more potent than this dread
+was the thrill of joy I felt in knowing that she stood close behind me;
+that when I turned I should see her there, face to face. Yet the very
+thought of turning again started the chill of apprehension. Without
+doubt she would wither me like a parched leaf for having played so silly
+a part as Indian. I began vigorously to stir the stuff in my skillet
+which now had stuck to the bottom and was smelling like the very old
+devil. Of course, my face would have been red, anyway--leaning over the
+fire as I was!
+
+"Are you keeping anything from me?" she cried, I thought on the verge of
+"nerves," so hesitating no longer I arose and turned to her.
+
+"Oh!" she gasped, drawing back and putting one hand to her breast--while
+the other, I noticed, fell mechanically to the butt of a revolver swung
+to her waist. Her eyes were wide with surprise, as her lips were parted
+in fear and utter wonderment. Truly, she was the incarnation of girlhood
+standing at bay!
+
+I had known her beauty; I had been astounded by it in the Havana café,
+in my dream, in the little kodak film of Monsieur's, and last, when she
+stood in her doorway less than forty-eight hours before. But here was
+something that transcended all that I had previously seen in her.
+Perhaps the young sun, golden in the morning atmosphere, cast the spell
+as it sought out spun-copper strands amongst her waves of hair; perhaps
+the days of anxiety, terminating in a night of unfearful sleep, had put
+the dew, the mystery, in her eyes; or it may have been the color,
+smouldering beneath the attractive tan on her cheeks and tinting her
+pure throat, that held me charmed; or the indefinable spirit of wildness
+that showed through a natural poise. I saw, too, in a hazy kind of way,
+a most bewitching costume--at least, admirably suited to her: a waist of
+olive-drab, not unlike our service shirts but of delicate material, open
+at the throat and fitting her snugly; quite a short skirt to match, and
+laced tan boots.
+
+"Please don't shoot," I said, trying to smile.
+
+"Where is Jackachobee?" she demanded.
+
+"I'm Jackachobee."
+
+"But you're not an Indian!"
+
+"No, but I really am the friend Tachachobee told you of."
+
+I could see that she was growing more alarmed, and now spoke frankly,
+saying:
+
+"I pretended to be a Seminole last night because explanations would have
+taken time; and I thought, too, that you'd feel safer with a good Indian
+because he's easier to boss than a white man."
+
+Her eyes narrowed, subtly suggesting that she might take this as a
+challenge. At last, having looked me over--but not once removing her
+hand from the revolver butt--she said, with a little pucker between her
+eyebrows:
+
+"I've seen you somewhere. Were you ever in our--in that place over
+there?"
+
+Now, of course, I could hardly expect her to see a resemblance between a
+chap wearing breeches and puttees in a Florida wilderness and the
+dinner-jacketed yachtsman who dined near her table off yonder in Havana.
+It would be asking a great deal--although I did feel disappointed.
+
+"No," I answered, "I haven't been in that settlement; but I watched it
+from a hiding place all of day before yesterday. You see, I've come two
+hundred miles to take you away from it."
+
+"You've come to--to take _me_?" she slowly asked, and I thought the
+color began to smoulder again; while from her eyes flashed a look that
+might have been a struggle between gratitude, resentment and fear.
+Wanting only the first to prevail I continued hastily:
+
+"Yes; I followed ever since you wrote that you were in danger, and I've
+sworn not to return to my yacht without you."
+
+"Oh!" she gasped, stepping back and staring at me through the swiftly
+changing lights of her awakening. "Surely," she caught her breath again,
+"surely you're not the--you _can't_ be!"
+
+"I am," I smiled, holding out my hand. "The man you gave the paper ball
+to."
+
+Impulsively she clasped it in both of her own, swaying slightly toward
+me and looking her gratitude through eyes brim-full of tears--but the
+angels be my witness that spoken words have never been so eloquent!
+Then she began to laugh--a little wildly, a little hysterically--so I
+said:
+
+"It's all right--you're safe here, absolutely! I watched last night and
+there wasn't the slightest sign of anyone. You see, Smilax--that's
+Tachachobee, but we call him Smilax because he smiles--well, he and
+Echochee purposely led those fellows up the coast, and they'll keep on
+leading them any-old-where until it's safe to join us here. It's been
+carefully planned out. However, I'll tell you everything
+after--after----" I looked ruefully at the shriveled black stuff now
+incinerated on the bottom of my skillet, adding: "but there isn't going
+to be any after; it's all burned up!"
+
+She had pluckily taken herself in hand by now and, following my dejected
+stare, cried:
+
+"Is _that_ our breakfast? Heavens, what a calamity! But show me where
+the things are and I'll cook another!"
+
+"You'll soil your fingers," I hesitatingly protested.
+
+"Soil my fingers! Of course, I will; but there's no scarcity of water,
+nor of my appetite, either--and we can't possibly eat what you cook!"
+
+"Oh, I don't know," I said, just a little touchily. "I'm a pretty good
+sort of a cook, I am!" Often have I noticed how the majority of men get
+touchy about their cooking.
+
+"The evidence is convincing," she laughed. "Where do you keep your
+stores? Hurry, please do, if you don't want a fainting woman on your
+hands. I'm starved!"
+
+Now I saw that some of this was being put on; that it was the slackening
+of tightly pulled nerves; so I encouraged her as far as I dared without
+being suspected, knowing that it is best to open all vents when one's
+feelings have been dangerously pent up. As to my ability to cook!--why,
+there were extenuating circumstances governing this breakfast that
+should have excused it. Some day I'd surprise her.
+
+I changed that idea quickly enough when she took charge, however, for in
+ten minutes there were two or three things sizzling and sending out an
+aroma that might have brought Epicurus himself back to life. What's
+more, she did not seem to be worrying over them; she did not even seem
+particular about stirring them, nor did she burn her fingers, nor get
+red in the face and hot, nor suffer any of those agonies that I had
+supposed were a necessary part of culinary science.
+
+"You're a wonder," I exclaimed. "Darned if I've ever seen such a swell
+cook!"
+
+"Thank you, sir," she tossed her head and mimicked. "I'm glad I please,
+sir."
+
+"Like your new place?" I asked, gravely.
+
+"I've seen worse, sir."
+
+"Like your new master, too?" I ventured.
+
+"Marster, is it!" She sent me a look with which there was a most
+fetching little curve at the corners of her lips that she seemed unable
+to control. "I'll 'ave you understand that queens of the kitchen know no
+marster!"
+
+"But you won't be in the kitchen all the time."
+
+"That I will," she replied. "In the woods, all the world's a kitchen!"
+
+"I rather wish it was," I sighed, looking toward the savory skillet and
+coffee pot; whereupon she gave the brightest of laughs, telling me to
+set the table as things were about ready.
+
+But Smilax and I had never bothered about a table. We did not even
+possess a cloth, or napkin, or anything like that. So I cut some palm
+leaves, arranging them on the ground; then ransacked the duffle for a
+small kit of aluminum plates and cups, with also knives and forks.
+Neither had Smilax and I deigned to use this kit, principally because
+our meals had been taken on the move. At best palm leaves do not make a
+good table, as their ridges cause the dishes to wobble; so in the end we
+spread our steaming feast upon the grass.
+
+My word, but that was a breakfast! I don't remember what we had, but it
+did taste good. When it was over, right down to the last crumb--for she
+had complained of starvation, too--I looked across at her, saying:
+
+"If I can move, at all, and you're willing to go slowly, I'd like to
+show you over your new possessions!"
+
+"Right away? Mercy no," she stood up, brushing her skirt. "I'm going to
+get a cigarette, and you're going to wash the dishes!"
+
+"But Smilax washes the dishes," I protested.
+
+"And he may be thirty miles from here," she announced.
+
+"Will you come back and watch me?"
+
+"I will if you want me to," she laughed, "but you'll look awfully
+silly."
+
+"Then you needn't," I agreed, less reluctantly, "and I'll call in half
+an hour. By the way, I've deeded you all the 'island' east of those two
+big pines. The other side is mine."
+
+"Thanks. I'll take possession at once." And she left me for her spring
+and bailiwick and cigarette--although I never saw her smoking one
+before, or after. In a few minutes I heard her calling and,
+straightening up with some feeling of alarm, answered:
+
+"What's wrong?"
+
+"Nothing; only don't forget to use very hot water!"
+
+Later we walked to the south-western edge of the "island," so she could
+see how it stood in relation to Efaw Kotee's settlement; and I showed
+her the fort, purposely exaggerating its ability to withstand a siege
+and minimizing its chances of having to do so. We sat down there upon
+the turf, where the breeze and shade were refreshing. It was a fortunate
+location, also, for keeping an eye on the prairie.
+
+"Have you named this beautiful place of yours?" she asked.
+
+"No; we merely call it the 'island,' after the native fashion. Will you
+name it for me--for us? It's half yours, you know."
+
+"Let's call it----" she thought a moment, "oh, let's call it The Oasis;
+for that's cool and comfortable and suggests safety from all sorts of
+things!"
+
+"The Oasis it is, and we'll put it on the map some day, see if we
+don't!"
+
+After a while I told her pretty much everything from the beginning of
+our cruise: of Tommy, Monsieur, and Gates, of Smilax, of seeing her in
+Havana. I scrupulously avoided any mention of having been bowled over by
+her beauty, or of the dream, and was inclined to treat the paper ball
+episode with a laugh; but here she interrupted me, saying:
+
+"But I was very serious, really, and scared almost to death. You surely
+know I must have been to 've done it! The whole thing came so
+suddenly--like a frightful storm!"
+
+"Then you hadn't always been at outs with him--or forbidden him to cross
+to your little island?" I asked.
+
+"Mercy, no--that is, not my father. The other men, of course, were on a
+footing of servants--to me, at any rate. It was only after we got home
+two days ago, after Echochee and I were alone again, that I kept them
+away by--by threatening----"
+
+"Don't say what--it hurts me," I interrupted her quickly. "I saw your
+wonderful courage from our hiding place."
+
+"Everyone was quite friendly up to the time we reached Havana," she
+continued, in a rather forced, even voice. "We were there three days
+before your yacht came--though I didn't know it was yours until
+today--and that afternoon I'd been up in the Prado with Echochee doing a
+lot of shopping. We always bought every conceivable thing on those
+semi-yearly trips. Well, when we got back on board my father rather
+balked about taking me off again to dinner, but I held him to it because
+he'd previously promised. I think that he had grown so sensate to
+dangers that he felt one then, but couldn't locate it."
+
+"Because we were anchored so close to you?"
+
+"I don't really know. But it was something. It wasn't a pleasant dinner
+from the outset, because I resented his devilish mood and was disgusted
+with him for being afraid. That doesn't sound very nice," she added,
+half apologetically, "but, you know, there had always been something
+subtly antagonistic within me that--oh, I can't express it, but I'd
+never felt very close to him, ever since I can remember. It was largely
+my fault, I suppose. But I'd had glimpses of his frightfully cruel
+nature. Then Echochee, who came to nurse me when I was little, always
+hated him, and I adored her--so, of course, her influence counted. You
+really think she's coming through all right?"
+
+"Downright sure of it," I declared, in solemn earnest. After a few
+moments of silence, I asked gently: "Do you mind telling me more?"
+
+She gave a slight start as though the question had brought her from some
+deep thought, but smiled, saying:
+
+"Certainly, I don't. When your two friends left you in the café my
+father became terribly excited. I asked him what on earth was the
+trouble--but smiling, for that was a subterfuge he always demanded of me
+in public places--and he whispered that he thought the shorter man was a
+police agent from his lost republic."
+
+"Lost republic?"
+
+"Yes. You see, my father had been its President--in South America, you
+know--until the revolution compelled us to fly." This was said
+resignedly.
+
+"Oh," I murmured. "When was that?"
+
+"Years ago. I just remember being carried off one night in a great
+hurry."
+
+"Tell me the rest about Havana?" I asked, trying to appear calm.
+
+"It's all rather awful," she sighed. "I hadn't noticed your friends more
+than to get a glimpse of them as they left, but saw you alone at the
+table. Pretty soon our captain, Jess,"--she may have given a slight
+shudder, I wasn't sure--"came up and verified my father's suspicions,
+and then I thought he surely would lose his mind. I was already becoming
+frightened, especially as the creature, Jess, impertinently leered at
+me, and my father didn't knock him down for it. He had never dared look
+at me before, except most deferentially, and suddenly I felt that I was
+nearing something awful. I can't explain it. It just came to me all of a
+sudden, you know, with desperate certainty, and--and I wanted to run
+away."
+
+"Were you trying to tell me that?"
+
+She flushed, but answered steadily:
+
+"Yes. I thought you looked like a man who'd help a girl out of a mean
+place."
+
+"By Jove, that's the biggest compliment I've ever had!"
+
+"I only had a chance to write a little," she ignored my outburst, "but
+hoped you'd guess and tell your friend, the police agent."
+
+"I didn't guess that," I admitted, somewhat crestfallen. "But we knew
+you were in danger."
+
+"I should never have left that café if I'd known more myself, then," she
+said, tensely. "I'd have stood up and called to you--to every man
+there!"
+
+"And I'd have brought you out in spite of hell," I cried. "Don't tell me
+there was anything much worse!"
+
+Her cheeks were still aflame with anger, but she smiled, saying in a
+lower tone:
+
+"Nothing worse than threats. When we got aboard the yacht my father came
+to me and said, point-blank before those men, that--that--oh, I can't!"
+She buried her face in her hands--and it was all I could do to keep from
+putting my arms about her and whispering that everything was now all
+right. But she had started out to tell me, and was determined to see it
+through. "He said that he'd promised our captain, that creature Jess,
+that I should--should----"
+
+"Never mind," I murmured. "I know about it--he said you'd have to marry
+the scoundrel."
+
+"Oh," she exclaimed. "I'd never heard anything so cold-blooded and
+damnable in all my life! The creature stood leering at me over his
+shoulder, and I knew he'd been using threats because my father,
+himself, was almost paralyzed with fear. And then I lost my head--in
+blind rage, I suppose. I must have talked like a common fish woman, but
+my one desire was to see them cringe. So I told about leaving the
+message for you, pretending to 've written a great deal more--twisting
+the knife all I knew how, and being thoroughly catty. It must have been
+a disgusting exhibition," she gave a sigh of despair, as if for that
+uncontrollable outburst of temper.
+
+"I hope you rubbed it in good," I growled.
+
+"Well, I didn't, because my father became so insane with fear that he
+actually struck me, and rushed ashore in the frantic hope that you might
+not have seen my message. He would have killed you had he met you then.
+It was in those few minutes that the little love I ever had for him
+turned to loathing--and that's a frightful thing to say about one's
+father, so I hope you won't remember it."
+
+"We have a very mutual respect for each other in loathing that
+gentleman," I announced. "But tell me quickly--were you safe after
+that?"
+
+"Oh, yes, for I began to temporize. Echochee wanted to kill them, of
+course--that being her only solution. But I hoped we might manage to
+escape if they could be put off a few days."
+
+"And you were in the small boat when they tied on the bomb?"
+
+"Heavens, yes. But I'd no idea it was your yacht, even then--although I
+thought I recognized your friends taking pictures the morning we left
+Havana, and was about to call to them when my father, always suspicious,
+burst into my room."
+
+"It must have been hellish," I growled.
+
+"It was all of that. And especially as always before he'd tried to be
+kind--at least, he was extremely deferential. That night at Key West he
+and the captain left in a small boat, and when they came back I was
+ordered into it. I think he must have been crazy, really, for he said
+that he was going to show me what they did to traitors--that was my new
+name then, you know--and shoved a package of something in my face. The
+captain cursed him for it--and I'd never before heard him treated with
+the slightest disrespect, but when I found out what the thing was I
+hoped it would blow up and destroy us all. I only thank God that it
+didn't go off and kill--my rescuer," she murmured.
+
+"Then you did call that it wasn't fair?"
+
+"I had to protest! Oh, but he was a demon then," she added, and I
+clenched my fists, remembering what Gates had said. "But he used to be
+kind," she added, sadly, "and I ought to remember him for that, don't
+you suppose so? We have a wonderful library on the islands, and when I
+was very young he began my education. Do you know," she looked up, "I
+still remember my first lesson in grammar? He taught me by the days!"
+
+"Quite a remarkable thing, that, to remember so far back," I smiled,
+whereupon she made a little grimace. "How do you mean--by the days?"
+
+"I was taught a tomorrow, not alone because I could recognize today but
+because I remembered yesterday, and was shown how these were the past,
+present, and future tenses of our lives; that the present participle is
+Living, and the infinitive is----"
+
+"To love?" I suggested.
+
+"To live," she said evenly, and I bit my tongue. "He made me study
+awfully hard, but I rather liked it as there wasn't much else to do
+except play with Echochee, and she became tiresome occasionally. Later
+he started me at the piano, and the violin, and I loved to work after
+that. For he's quite a remarkable musician, really! I suppose our
+library must have a thousand books, and I've read nearly all of
+them--besides stacks of the modern ones we always brought from our
+semi-annual cruises 'to the world'--as he used to call those trips.
+Don't you simply adore Blasco?"
+
+"I suppose you mean Ibańez," I said, rather pleased at being able to air
+this familiarity with literary personages.
+
+"Ibańez, then," she casually agreed, "if you prefer calling him by his
+mother's name."--And, not knowing upon what hazy path this would lead
+me, I laughingly admitted:
+
+"Well, I've only tackled one of his things, and haven't even finished
+that yet." Adding, with perhaps a slightly malicious desire to bring her
+superior knowledge to bay: "You read him in the original, I suppose?"
+
+"Not freely enough to be quite relaxing. But on our cruise last summer
+we got a very good translation in French--really, much better than the
+English, I think."
+
+Again I laughed, as a light entered my muddled outlook because of this
+astonishing information that accounted for much I had not been able to
+reconcile with her isolated life. From the moment she had mimicked the
+cook I had been kept in a state of wonderment. I had felt her
+superiority; I had marveled at the cultivation that clung about her as a
+royal robe. Now it was explained. Music, literature, languages!
+
+"That night you protested about the bomb," I asked, "did you hear me
+call?"
+
+Could it have been that some of the animation left her face as she
+answered slowly:
+
+"Oh, was it you? I heard someone call to a person named Sylvia."
+
+"But--isn't that your name?"
+
+"Oh," she laughed, "I haven't nearly so pretty a name as that!"
+
+I was crazy to be the judge, but asked, instead:
+
+"Did your--father ever explain why he was afraid of detectives?"
+
+"Nothing more than that he was fearfully hunted and persecuted. When I
+was almost a baby he had to run away because of a political plot. He
+escaped with me after," her voice lowered, "my mother had been killed by
+the revolutionists, and we've been hiding here ever since, awaiting the
+message that will bring him back to be President again; although while
+the other party is in power its agents would arrest him--and it's been
+in power for years. Do you know," she looked at me frankly, "I've never
+forgiven him for letting them kill my mother! Throughout all of my
+childhood I used to hold indignation meetings with myself and consign
+him to every imaginable punishment--both for that, and running away
+without avenging her."
+
+She was quiet then. This news of the South American republic showed what
+an accomplished liar old Efaw Kotee could be. Very plausible, indeed,
+and an adequate excuse for keeping her in a potential prison.
+
+"I fear that I've been terribly outspoken," she said at last, with a
+wistful expression that held both laughter and apology.
+
+"You've been wonderful," I whispered, deliberately turning away my head
+and gazing out across the prairie. I could not have met her eyes just
+then.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+ENLIGHTENING A PRINCESS
+
+
+As gently as I could, after I felt that my voice might be trusted not to
+betray itself, I told her of Monsieur Dragot's deductions, who we
+thought she really was--not the daughter of that old scoundrel, at all.
+I let her see the record of his crimes, her mother's discovery of the
+plates, the kidnaping, and, unless something most recent and unexpected
+had happened, the queen regent of Azuria was waiting at this minute for
+the little princess to return.
+
+She had been sitting very still, like a child with parted lips
+enchantingly absorbed by a fairy tale. When I finished she turned her
+wondering eyes to mine, and gasped:
+
+"It can't be true!"
+
+"I think it is," I said. "I mean that it is so far as Monsieur can judge
+from the threads of evidence he holds, and what you've told me makes his
+theory more convincing."
+
+"Oh--and I've called this man Father for so long! You don't suppose he
+still might be, somehow?"
+
+"There's no somehow about it," I had to smile at this question. "He
+either is, or isn't; in the same indefeasible sense that white isn't
+black."
+
+"I didn't mean that he might be just partly, of course," she said so
+quietly and seriously that I burst out laughing. "But it's awfully hard
+to understand, all at once! That must account for the subtle antagonism
+I felt for him. It really accounts for so much!--for the way he
+encouraged me to spend money, heaps and heaps of it! Why, I've
+everything I can think of--from Havana, New Orleans and Vera Cruz!"
+
+"He wanted you to spend his large bills so he could get good money in
+change," I suggested.
+
+"That's obvious now, but suppose I'd been arrested and sent to prison!"
+
+"I won't suppose anything of the kind," I declared, so vigorously that
+she laughed.
+
+"I do feel like a thief, though," she added soberly. "Why, everything I
+possess has been bought fraudulently."
+
+"You couldn't help it! Chuck 'em away, if it'll make you feel better!"
+
+"I can't chuck 'em all away," and this time we both laughed.
+
+"You can as soon as we reach New York, and--and----" But as I did not
+know how to finish this, I stopped; for what had been in my mind was:
+"When you and I share all I own!"--and, of course, that wouldn't have
+done to say aloud.
+
+For perhaps a minute she, also, was silent. Then she turned, with the
+frankest, sweetest manner I have ever seen, and said in a voice of
+mellifluent charm:
+
+"Do you know that you've been just awfully splendid?"
+
+I knew that my face got very red, but I tried to answer casually enough:
+
+"The splendid things were done by Tommy, Gates, Smilax, and the other
+fellows. You'll like Tommy, and Monsieur knows--did I tell you he knows
+your mother?"
+
+"Don't," she whispered. "You make me feel like I'm being led into a new
+world, with new people, and new customs, and new things!" Now her eyes
+widened as if making a discovery, as she added: "My fa----, that is, Mr.
+Graham, must actually have recognized Monsieur Dragot!"
+
+"There's no other deduction," I agreed. "Our case is proved almost
+beyond a doubt. Don't call that fellow your father again, or even Mr.
+Graham. Smilax and I have a name we'll share with you."
+
+"What?"
+
+"Efaw Kotee."
+
+Her laughter rippled through the wood, as she cried:
+
+"How perfectly lovely! I know what it means!"
+
+"Then you speak Seminole, Miss--Miss--but you say it isn't Sylvia?"
+
+An expression of happy mischief in her face made it adorable.
+
+"No, it isn't Sylvia. It's Doloria--you see, my life has been sad!"
+
+"One wouldn't say so to look at you now. And I think Doloria's a
+thousand times prettier than Sylvia! Doloria! Just Doloria--like that?"
+For I wanted an excuse to keep on saying it.
+
+"I--I suppose so," she hesitated. "Of course, it's always had Graham
+after it, but--what did your Monsieur Dragot say my last name was?"
+
+"He didn't say."
+
+"Then I haven't any."
+
+"Oh, well, you needn't bother about that. Any time it gets lonesome you
+can hitch on Bronx--that is, I mean, only in case, you know."
+
+I could have bitten out my tongue for this! I don't know what fiends
+possessed me to be such an unmitigated ass! It was as unfair as
+poison--an insult to the only precepts I have ever genuinely felt proud
+of: the code of playing fair. Before I could pretend to have been making
+a silly joke she brushed away my contrition by asking:
+
+"Why Bronx? What does that mean?"
+
+Glory be! I had forgotten that she could not know my name! But now I had
+to deny myself, cast my birthright to the winds, or else let her see
+that I was a miserable cad who could not be trusted as protector to a
+girl thrown upon his care.
+
+And, on the other hand, it was decidedly repulsive to tell a
+lie--especially to her who seemed by her magnetic gaze to challenge the
+truth right out of a fellow. But conscience is, after all, only a name
+for our hidden prosecutor, judge and jury, and our sentences are light
+or heavy depending upon how many witnesses we can persuade to perjure
+themselves. No man lives who has not at some time used bribery in the
+mythical court room of his heart. Among women, of course, it is the
+accepted mode of legal procedure; and this gave me hope to believe that
+she might be somewhat forgiving when she found me out.
+
+"Why Bronx?" she was asking again.
+
+"Oh," I laughed, "it's a usual name in my part of the country, that's
+all--like Smith, and Jones."
+
+I thought this would satisfy, but it gave her another thought, instead.
+
+"Your name isn't Jackachobee, of course?"
+
+"As far as Jack, yes. Every one calls me Jack."
+
+A little while before this my cigarette case had fallen, to the ground
+by us. She had picked it up, and was even now turning it idly between
+her fingers.
+
+"I see it here," she said, looking more closely at the monogram. "'J.
+B.' What does the B stand for, Mr.--Mr. Jack?"
+
+"Brown," I answered desperately, and could feel every ancestor of a long
+and honorable line of Bronxes turning over in their graves. For I detest
+Brown. It's a good name, an exceptionally fine and distinguished name,
+the name not only of dear relatives but of very good friends. Yet it
+just so happened that at this particular moment I detested it--or was it
+the lie behind it? So to repair my self-esteem I blurted somewhat
+incoherently: "Bangs!"--having known a rather decent chap named Bangs.
+
+"Is it spelled with a hyphen?" she glanced up rather quizzically.
+"Brown-Bangs?"
+
+Her mind seemed to have flown lightly beyond me, anticipating the extent
+of my confusion, for the smile about her mouth, while enigmatic,
+suggested--enticingly suggested--mischief.
+
+"Of course," I answered. "Brown-Bangs; Brown-Bangs!" And I wondered how
+many witnesses I should have to bribe now! I wished that in the first
+place I had said: "It would be unfair to tell you what isn't so, and
+dangerous to tell you what is!" But she would have guessed the truth by
+that, to a certainty. Sinners always find comfort in good resolutions,
+so I resolved to be more circumspect in the future. A gentleman's duty
+in my position was to be over circumspect; very much over circumspect,
+indeed!
+
+Somewhat indifferently she laid the cigarette case back upon the ground,
+happening to put it near a little vine with lavender flowers, shaped
+like pon-pons; and in doing this it also happened that one of its tiny
+briars clung to her hand.
+
+"Watch," she cried, gaily leaning forward. "Watch the leaves! We call
+this the 'shame-face vine,' because whenever it sticks any one every
+leaf on that particular stem is overcome with remorse!"
+
+To my amazement the nine delicate leaves on the offending stem began to
+hang their heads and curl up, for all the world expressive of deep
+humility. It was another of the million or so lessons to be found in
+Nature for any one who sees with the right kind of eyes. Of course, I
+could have hung my head for that lie about the Browns, although curling
+up--at least, after the manner of the shame-face vine--would have
+required a contortionist.
+
+"A well named little weed," I laughed. "But what wouldn't be penitent
+after hurting such a pretty hand!"
+
+"I was just wondering," she said, ignoring this banality--for which in
+my heart I thanked her--"if there are weeds that show embarrassment for
+people who tell fibs?"
+
+Now there was no possible way for her to have learned my name!
+
+"You don't think there was any fibbing when I said you were a
+sure-'nough princess, do you?"
+
+"Oh, please, let's not talk of that again," she entreated. "I don't want
+to be a princess just yet, because it's still very satisfying to have
+been taken away from that awful place. I'm so humbly thankful to you,"
+she almost whispered, "that just Cinderella without the slipper will
+suit me nicely."
+
+Beloved of the gods! If she wasn't at that moment princess, queen and
+all the royal families made into one!
+
+"But I must tell you this much," I insisted gently, "and then we won't
+speak of it again until you wish. Monsieur says your mother is only
+Regent until you come; that your destiny is marked out for you, that by
+every law of God and man you've got to go back and take up the Cross
+where you left it seventeen years ago,--that you're booked to marry a
+Prince, I think. And he's armed with an iron-bound authority to take
+you. He says you've no possible escape--though, of course, you won't
+want any. I have to tell you this," I continued more hastily, for it was
+an extremely difficult thing to say, "because I'm only an ordinary kind
+of American chap, as bad as the worst and as good as the best, but your
+court in Azuria would have forty duck fits if it knew we were playing
+together in the woods without a chaperone. Suppose you make me your
+Chancellor, or something like that--chancellor of your Oasian
+possessions! Then I can report for orders and escort you about with all
+propriety, and we can talk and laugh occasionally without having some
+big soldier stick me in the back with his halberd."
+
+She had been listening attentively, gravely, to everything I said until
+this last, when she burst into a scream of laughter, rocking herself to
+and fro in a transport of merriment.
+
+"You're the funniest thing I ever saw!--but so be it, Mr. Jack
+Brown-Bangs, et cetera, et cetera! I make you my Royal Chancellor,
+responsible for the welfare of our Oasis!"
+
+"And for the protection of Your Serenity," I bowed, really feeling as if
+I'd been knighted.
+
+"Thank you," she said gravely. "I couldn't ask for a braver protector.
+But, Chancellor," she looked at me with serious eyes, "why did you say I
+must take up my Cross? It sounded like such a direful prophecy."
+
+My lips refused to speak. As a matter of fact, I had been thinking more
+about my own Cross; how I should have to carry it after she went away
+until my heart broke beneath its cruel weight.
+
+"That was a careless way of meaning something else," I tried to answer
+lightly.
+
+"You shouldn't say evasive things. It leads to speaking with two
+tongues, which Echochee has taught me is wrong."
+
+"Well, it couldn't be a direful prophecy, anyhow, when your mother and
+your throne are waiting just around the corner, as it were. The direful
+part of your life has passed, and most appropriately your name has
+changed from Doloria to Princess--though, of the two, I prefer Doloria."
+
+"When it means sorrow?"
+
+"It only means sorrow to those you leave. You've paid dearly enough to
+find nothing but happiness now for the rest of your life. It's written
+in the sky."
+
+"You're a comforting Chancellor," she was still looking at me calmly,
+"and I'm already beginning to forget." And gently she laid her hand on
+the back of my own which rested between us.
+
+My blood bounded with an unreasoning pleasure, yet her movement had been
+neither temperamental nor sentimental; it was instinctive--one of those
+honest impulses that knows no sex. Did she realize, by some divine
+insight, that this frankness, this absence of finical conventions, this
+whole-hearted camaraderie, would hold me more sternly to my path of duty
+than anything else she might have done? Did the instinct of her sex
+whisper that each man's heart, however light and worldly, is the
+possessor of a trusty loadstone which draws the best of him to a woman's
+aid when her honor is placed unreservedly into his hands? This speaks,
+of course, of men and not of human beasts; still, a woman is not put to
+the peril of looking into the heart of a human beast to discover that he
+is a beast--she can read it, without glasses, in his face!
+
+"Shall we look over the rest of your estate?" I asked. And I kept the
+hand until she had been helped up, then released it naturally as we
+started on the tour of inspection.
+
+We finally came to my pool, and I asked her advice in choosing a nearby
+spot where I should build a lean-to; since our kitchen site, that until
+now had been the location of my bailiwick, was by right of conquest
+hers, a place where she should be able to approach without the
+precaution of whistling like a plover--a thing she couldn't do, anyway!
+So we marked a spot and started on, taking some time to encircle the
+pool that, was rather large and, upon this side, densely fringed with a
+riot of tropical vines and jungle stuff. Yet, when we had gone but a
+little way, she stopped, looked vaguely troubled, and said:
+
+"You won't be as near to me here as you were at the kitchen. I was so
+tired last night that I didn't think very much about those men, because
+our servants were leading them off. But don't you think it's possible
+that some of them might wander back here on their way home?"
+
+"There's hardly one chance in a thousand," I assured her.
+
+"I know. But that one chance would be dreadful if--if----" she stopped,
+and added wistfully: "I _would_ like to feel in the nights that you are
+nearer to me!"
+
+I turned to look at something else--at anything but her! Yet if my eyes
+required a subterfuge my heart did not, and it thrilled as if some wild
+musicians were tugging at its strings making them sound impassioned
+harmonies. But, even as I stood swayed by the madness of the moment, I
+felt that a great, an unseen, presence had pinned a decoration upon my
+honor--not because it had already proved itself, but in order that it
+might do so.
+
+We therefore stopped and chose a new place on the side nearer her
+spring, and that being settled--a most important selection, we pretended
+it to be--she looked up at me, crying happily:
+
+"After luncheon I'll come and help you build it!--and then you'll cut a
+path straight from my tent to yours so, should there be any danger, I
+can run to you without stumbling!"
+
+For another moment, with eyes closed, I visualized my new decoration.
+
+Luncheon, I thought, was even an improvement over breakfast. Nor did I
+take so long to wash the dishes afterwards.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+SLEEPING BENEATH GOD'S TENT
+
+
+That afternoon we built the lean-to. I had had some fair ideas about
+building a lean-to, but Doloria was in possession of a practical
+knowledge gathered on camping trips that she and Echochee had made--for
+these, I judged, constituted one of her chief recreations since
+childhood. She knew how to twist ropes of bark for tying the poles, and
+how to interlay the palm fronds so they would neither leak nor be lifted
+by the wind. She took the keenest pleasure in it, too, and I can safely
+say that never in my life have I enjoyed building anything as much as
+that lean-to. When it was finished I stepped back and, in a burst of
+admiration, cried:
+
+"It's a palace? I can't ever get along without you!"
+
+A wave of color came into her face, as instantaneous as I believe it was
+unexpected, though she said in a matter of fact tone:
+
+"There are other little things to be done, but we'll finish them
+to-morrow."
+
+"It's already the coziest place in the world," I insisted. "Now I'm
+going to cut that path, and then we'll have----" but I checked myself
+and looked at her in some concern. She had worked over hard for me--I
+had not realized it while we were busy; so now I begged: "Won't you let
+me cook the dinner? I'm afraid you're about dead!"
+
+"Oh, really I'm not. But I'm hungry and so are you, and----" a little
+curve came into the corners of her mouth that was very tantalizing, "I
+think I'd better cook it."
+
+"I was hoping you would," I admitted shamelessly, "even if you are
+tired."
+
+"Purely a selfish decision on my part, I assure you," she smiled. "I
+haven't forgotten the breakfast you attempted."
+
+"Very well. I'll cut you a nice straight path for a nice big feed!"
+
+"And don't leave anything in it, will you, Chancellor! It would be
+dreadful to come running to you in the dark, and stumble and--and bump
+my nose!"
+
+"Dreadful!" I cried. "It would be the end of the world!"
+
+"Or the end of you," she laughed. "Now get to work, and then you can
+build the kitchen fire. Don't you think we might have dinner a little
+earlier to-night?"
+
+With this she left me; but how sweetly confidential and domestic that
+had sounded: "Don't you think we might have dinner a little earlier
+to-night?"
+
+I found her again, sitting on a fallen log and gazing wistfully across
+the prairie toward the east, not back in the direction of Efaw Kotee's
+den, and I felt that she was thinking of Azuria--her Azuria. What
+visions its existence must have opened to her, whose life had been
+always passionate after dreams and utterly bored with realities! Yet
+what were her dreams?
+
+She saw me and arose slowly, passing one hand across her eyes as if
+brushing away the fancies; then I watched an expression almost of
+tenderness as she came up to me.
+
+"It isn't quite fair to interrupt," I said, "when you were having such
+a peaceful time of it; but the fire's ready, and our supply of
+buttonwood shrinks."
+
+"Was I having such a peaceful time of it?" she asked, wonderingly.
+"Perhaps it might have been if I knew Echochee and your man are safe.
+Anyway, I'm glad the fire's ready; I've been expecting you to call me."
+
+"I wish I could give you the same assurance about them that I feel
+myself. Try to think I'm right, won't you?"
+
+"Yes, really I will, good Chancellor," she smiled.
+
+On the way back we passed my pool, where she kneeled ingenuously to
+bathe her hands and arms, as chastely innocent as a mermaid.
+
+"Have you such a thing as a towel?" she laughed. "Mine are in the tent!"
+
+I got it, and walked slowly on. And I realized again, what I had once
+before noted, that overly refined proprieties--I do not mean proprieties
+of the essential kind--cannot endure between man and maid cast alone in
+a wilderness. They become frail, insipid; and mar, rather than perfect,
+the harmony of existence. Contraversely, their absence adds a deeper
+luster, strikes the tuning-fork that hums with the true note of life.
+Sorry the man who does not feel a sympathetic vibration! A woman is not
+exactly at her best when bathing her face above a porcelain bowl, and to
+be the constant, daily witness of such ablutions would, in my limited
+experience, engender a slight unrest among the tuneful Nine. Yet let her
+gracefully lean above a woodland pool, roll back her sleeves and open
+the collar of her shooting shirt, and she becomes a personification of
+glory to him who waits near the fire he has built for their evening
+meal. But she must have looked danger in the face with him, slept near
+him beneath the stars; knowing, should she be affrighted in the night,
+that her call will bring his reassuring answer, but also knowing that
+the voice is all that will ever come unbidden to her side. And thus is
+the Cave-man in him gloriously aroused to guard her from Nature's wild,
+while the poetry of their intercourse guards her from himself. What more
+beautiful existence than to live alone in a forest with the girl you
+love!
+
+I thought that after dinner it might be well to sit again beside the
+fort where we could watch the prairie. There is a comforting sense of
+security that comes to one at nightfall when one has looked in all
+directions and found all things well. So for a while she left me to the
+orgy of washing dishes, but when I had turned the last plate top down
+upon our kitchen log to dry, I saw her returning.
+
+She came humming a tune, a catchy tune--I recognized it at once--that
+the mandolins had tinkled in the Havana café, and from the mischievous
+curves about the corners of her mouth I knew that her mood was adorable.
+So I caught up the tune, whistling softly, and crossed to her holding
+out my hands.
+
+"It's a corking fox-trot," I said, for the moment stopping our
+orchestra. "Let's dance it!"
+
+But she drew back, laughing outright.
+
+"I don't know how!"
+
+"Don't dance?" I must have looked my amazement, for she answered:
+
+"I've often danced, all alone, when I just couldn't help it; but there
+hasn't been any one to teach me your kind!"
+
+"I will," I cried delightedly. "We'll begin with that fox-trot!"
+
+"We'd look awfully silly," she replied. "Besides, the name of your dance
+is atrocious."
+
+I felt rather thankful that I hadn't suggested the shimmy.
+
+"That may get you out of it now," I announced, "but when we reach the
+yacht I'm going to teach you ten hours a day. Understand?--ten hours a
+day!"
+
+Again came the tantalizing expression, as she daintily caught her skirt
+and made me a royal curtsey, saying:
+
+"It's beyond all measure charming of you, Chancellor. But shall I be so
+difficult?"
+
+"Don't joke about a wonderful prospect," I answered. "You're difficult
+because of your grace, not the lack of it--if that's what you mean!" But
+from her indifferent way of dismissing the subject I judged it was not
+what she had meant, at all.
+
+The sun must have set while we were encircling my pool. Then we passed
+on into a still denser growth, following a crooked path that led to the
+fort--entering a mysterious shadow-land that twilights have the trick of
+producing when overhead foliage shuts out the afterglow and the serene
+forest gloom is painted in tones of gray. The soft earth we trod was
+dark, and the water lay phantom-like in its black bowl. Except for the
+few times I held aside a swinging wildwood vine for her to pass, we
+might have been two drifting spirits--so quietly did we move, and so
+unknowingly were we affected by the hour, the place.
+
+At the edge of our forest, where that long ago prairie fire had blighted
+a grove of palm trees that subsequently fell upon each other like an
+entangled pile of jackstraws, she took my hand to get across and, freed
+from the clinging shadows, we ran out beneath the sky--then gasped in
+amazement at its splendor.
+
+It was not a sunset, not an afterglow in the usual sense of afterglows,
+but a sky of deep, smouldering red equally distributed from horizon to
+horizon; as though everywhere below the world a conflagration raged. I
+could not at first speak for the grandeur of it, and when I turned to
+her words were again checked by the look upon her face. For this dull,
+permeating glow--this enchantment from the heavens--touched her brow,
+her cheeks, her parted lips, with a light that aroused in me a thousand
+devils and a thousand gods; it lingered over her hair as if striving to
+concentrate itself into a halo there; and in her eyes that gazed afar
+were suggested the awakening of deeper fires, of wilder mysteries.
+
+"God, what a sky," I at last exclaimed, through sheer panic at the
+imminence of crying aloud my love for her.
+
+"What a sky, O God," she whispered, delicately turning my profane
+outburst to a sigh of thankfulness.
+
+But, better than she, I knew the meaning of that sky. I knew that down
+over the western edge of the world blazed a huge funeral pyre on which
+my past was being changed to harmless ashes; while in the east flames
+were already lighted beneath the on-coming crucible of destiny, from
+whose purifying heat a new love arose. Farther into obscurity would sink
+the one; up and on would come the other; and so the sky was now roseate
+unto its zenith, reflecting the glory of these miracles. I followed the
+look of her eyes and saw, high against the red, a lone crane flying
+majestically homeward to the seclusion of his swamp; and it typified my
+own belated heart that, without questioning the whence or why,
+unerringly obeyed a silent voice which called it to another sanctuary.
+
+I wanted to tell her this, but dared not. And so we stood, spellbound,
+while the night brought out the blue--and the young moon changed from
+red to silver--and the stars came down to take their places. Then slowly
+we passed on and sat by the fort, leaning our backs against it; in
+meditation looking across the prairie that had become so changed a place
+to us.
+
+The night grew sweet with the purity of untouched wilderness as,
+shoulder to shoulder, we sat talking in low tones of Smilax and
+Echochee. She had wondered about them no few times that day, and now I,
+too, felt some concern. Yet the Everglades lay far eastward and, for any
+reason giving up Big Cove, I knew he would plunge as deeply into it as
+his pursuers dared follow. To-morrow would be time enough to worry, I
+assured her, so we talked about Monsieur, the Azurian throne, and--I
+could not help it--of another Chancellor who would build her kitchen
+fires. But I tried to keep all bitterness from my words. In the vague
+light I could see that her face was serious, and very tender. Then for a
+time we sat without speaking.
+
+Perhaps it was the place, the charm; perhaps a magic was working
+stronger than I knew; but words came to my lips that I stubbornly
+refused to speak. I fought against them; they, too, fought with grim
+insistence; so as a compromise, looking straight ahead and pretending to
+jest even while I accused, I said:
+
+"You've been listening!"
+
+"Listening?" Her eyes opened prettily, alert as they always were to
+parry banter with banter.
+
+"Yes, listening--at the keyhole like a common gossip. A nice pastime for
+a Princess, surely!"
+
+"At the--keyhole?" She was proceeding warily now; her mind, as in a game
+of hide-and-seek, was on tiptoe, in expectation of discovering me at
+every step.
+
+"Yes," I repeated. "And you heard my heart admitting that it's
+happy--to've found something it was hungry for."
+
+For the briefest instant I thought a tremor ran through her shoulder, as
+if a little chilly sensation had rippled her nerves. But it was a silly
+idea, because she lightly replied:
+
+"Corn cakes, maybe. It ought to feel quite stuffed after the seven you
+had for dinner."
+
+"Six," I corrected.
+
+"Seven," she insisted.
+
+"But I know!"
+
+"So do I," she laughed, "that you stole one from my plate when you
+thought I wasn't looking."
+
+"I needed that one."
+
+"I never doubted it," she agreed.
+
+Wild words again sprang to my lips, but this time I ruthlessly strangled
+them. Yet I wanted to say: "I took from you because you stole from me!"
+And I wanted to ask--O, shades of suffering Dante, how I longed to
+ask!--if her dear heart were hungering, too, that she should have needed
+my own to feed it!--if that were her excuse for thievery!
+
+But already I had overstepped my resolution, although not feeling
+desperately contrite about it after the sleight-of-hand way that a
+declaration of love had been changed into the accusation of filching a
+corn cake. Yet it had been a narrow escape and I thanked my gods for the
+chance of pulling up, of again getting the right perspective.
+
+To tell her anything at all before Echochee came would be the act of an
+utterly selfish cad, for if she did not want my love--and there was
+little enough reason to suppose that she did--her position would be
+intolerable. In such an eventuality never again could we sit beside the
+fort on nights like this, no longer would she want a cleared path
+leading to her bailiwick. We would be as two estranged creatures doomed
+to live near yet apart; each a daily witness of the other's unhappiness;
+neither able by word or deed to give relief. Ah, I was glad she did not
+even suspect that I cared a whit for her! I lit my pipe and in moody
+silence smoked.
+
+A pipe stem is a safe thing for man to grip his teeth upon when silence
+is a virtue. Here in our forest I was master, the undisputed superior
+force; and I wondered with a fascinating wonder how that ancestor, who
+climbed down from his tree at nightfall, would have been greeting her! I
+visualized his cunning face, now peering at me through the ages, leering
+at me with bared tusks, bidding me take what was my own by right of
+might! I felt the savage splendor of it. The wildness of this place, its
+solitude, its distance from mankind, supported me. The cry of a night
+bird out on the prairie told that it, too, was preying, or being preyed
+upon; and, as if being stirred by this, a panther sent his wail across
+the night. I listened for a mate to answer, but she did not. A large,
+whitish moth flying out of the shadows passed clumsily within a few
+inches of my face, its wings swishing as a bird's; and it, too, was
+without a mate.
+
+Then, as in the following silence I continued to listen, some far off
+words came back to me. They came as the scent of lavender comes when
+rain is pattering on the shingles, and some one opens the old trunk
+that, ever since you can remember, has stood back under the rafters of
+the sloping roof; the hallowed old trunk where a veil of yellowing lace
+is stored--a piece of white satin, a blue or gray faded uniform, and
+maybe a wee shoe, and a lock of hair. Every one who has leaned above
+that trunk--and thank God they are legion!--has also listened to a voice
+coming faintly through the past. And so words out of a lesser past now
+came to me, as they were meant to be written on a torn wine card: "I am
+in danger!"
+
+She had been in danger of a brute, and had offered the safety of her
+keeping to me. And the vision of my savage ancestor, though retreating
+sullenly, faded into nothing. Then I felt her body press against me
+softly and, looking down, I saw that she had fallen asleep, with her
+head--precious, trusting thing--resting against my shoulder.
+
+For an hour I sat motionless, fearing to awake her. Finally one of my
+legs went to sleep, and soon my other leg. Yet it was a welcome
+discomfort because endured for her. And I suppose the numbness must
+eventually have crept the length of my body, for, I, too, slept;
+awaking, I did not know how much later, to find her gone.
+
+Then I stumbled back to my lean-to, but did not go inside. This was not
+the night, nor mine the mood, to shut high heaven from my eyes, my
+thoughts, the lambent flame of my love? So I chose the open, and lay on
+my back gazing up into the silhouetted palm fronds, catching glimpses of
+a star that here or there peeped through at me, steeping my thoughts in
+solitude.
+
+For it was that hushed hour of betwixt and between, when crickets,
+tree-toads and other little creatures of the darkness have wearied
+themselves to rest; yet also before the daylight life has stirred from
+its own deep sleep. The silent hour, this is; the one hour in the round
+of time when nature seems to be absolutely poised in breathless space;
+when the pendulum of night hangs dead, and dawn is still a great way
+over the hill. I shared its mysticism, feeling also a rich contentment
+that she, too, was lying near me somewhere in this same solitude;
+dreaming, with her cheek upon her arm; her hair kissed by the same dew
+that cooled my face. I could not, of course, reach out my hand and touch
+her, but the path led straight; and along this now my heart went
+begging--impoverished rascal! He went on tiptoe, begging; while I
+continued to watch for the elusive star, and my soul looked into the
+level eyes of God.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+PLANTING A MEMORY
+
+
+A searching look next morning over the prairie revealed no sign of
+enemies, or of Smilax. Somewhat thoughtful over his continued absence I
+went to the kitchen and laid the fire, but did not light it because our
+stock of buttonwood had become reduced to a few small sticks and scraps
+that would scarcely more than cook one meal, and the use of other woods
+might at this time be an unwise experiment. So with an eye to prudence I
+withheld the match until Her Serene Highness should arrive.
+
+When she did not come nor answer to my call, I set out to see what might
+have detained her, conscious of a vague dread yet not seriously giving
+in to it; but, after visiting the fort, this grew into an unreasoning
+fear, and I began to run. It seemed so easy now to understand how some
+of Efaw Kotee's henchmen could have discovered us, slipped up during the
+night and overpowered her! What had been a remote possibility yesterday,
+to-day grew into a certainty. With this obsession torturing me I dashed
+across the Oasis, finally coming out of the forest at its extreme
+eastern tip.
+
+Then I saw her but a few yards away. Perhaps the brisk wind, rustling
+the palms and prairie grass, drowned the noise of my impetuous rush, for
+she did not turn.
+
+Her face was toward the east, looking above an orange sun that still
+clung to the horizon. Instinctively I felt that she was thinking of
+Azuria, that the pictures of it which I had drawn were recrossing before
+her dreamy vision, forming a panorama of splendor that called more
+surely than in March the Canadian flats call the Southern water bird.
+This gave her eyes, her uplifted face, her slightly parted lips, a new
+glory, and I involuntarily exclaimed:
+
+"Doloria of the Golden Dawn!"
+
+She knew then that I was there and, without turning, reached back one
+hand to me. Impulsively I took it, raised it to my lips, but afraid to
+hold it longer I stepped aside as if awaiting her commands. When I had
+done that she looked over her shoulder, gave a little sigh, and said
+sweetly:
+
+"Chancellor, I wish you'd convince me that our people are safe, and then
+help me settle a grave question of state!"
+
+"I think they'll be coming to-day, and----"
+
+"Oh, I hope so!" she clasped her hands.
+
+"As for the state question," I continued, "I'll settle it quickly, if
+you'll let me."
+
+"No, I'm afraid you can't! No, Chancellor," she gave a little laugh,
+"you can't be trusted to settle that, at all!" Then firmly, almost
+severely, putting back into its place a wave of hair that had been
+coquetting with the breeze, she asked: "Is the fire ready?"
+
+"Ready to light," I answered. "I came to find you."
+
+"Then let's go, for it isn't good to ponder over questions of state
+before breakfast."
+
+"What is it?" I asked, as we turned back. "Why won't you trust me to
+settle it?"
+
+Another laugh, more full of pathos, was my answer; nor would she speak
+again--because of some mischief in her mind, I believed--until,
+preparing the ambrosial corncakes, she rather abruptly exclaimed:
+
+"I wonder if you deserve any breakfast this morning?"
+
+"Why?" I cried, in feigned alarm.
+
+"Because of your impoliteness."
+
+"My impoliteness was doubtless the need of breakfast. But when was I
+impolite? I don't remember, honest!"
+
+"Of course, you don't; how could you," she went on rather indifferently.
+"Were you not such a capable Chancellor I might be more offended. I am
+tryingly stupid at times, but to be in the very middle of a sentence and
+discover that the man I'm talking to is fast asleep, is humiliating, to
+say the least."
+
+Did she think there was a chance of putting over that atrocious yarn on
+me--of bluffing me into an admission that I had been the first to fall
+asleep?
+
+"You may be right," I said, with the utmost gravity, "but I did it only
+in justice to you. You were talking, true enough, but in _your_ sleep;
+saying things that--well, no gentleman could have remained awake, in the
+circumstances."
+
+"I didn't," she cried, darting me a look of uncertainty. "Echochee says
+I never do!"
+
+"Echochee wasn't here last night," I casually replied, poking the coals
+of her fire closer. "I hope you understand that I didn't listen
+intentionally; for, of course, you'd never have told me all those
+things----"
+
+"Stop it," she commanded; and, when I had stopped, there was an ominous
+silence.
+
+But I would not look at her and indifferently pretended to be busy. I
+confess that I was deriving a purely masculine enjoyment out of this,
+and intended to push my counter bluff so vigorously that she would be
+driven to admit her own. Therefore, after I thought the silence had
+become sufficiently impressive, I yielded to an impulse that many men
+find irresistible--I made an egregious ass of myself.
+
+"Lots of people," said I, sliding out upon thin ice with the braggadocio
+of him who rocks the boat, "chatter like magpies when dozing in an
+uncomfortable position. Police recognize this, and often arrange a
+suspect's cell so he'll have to sleep sitting up, then they listen and
+take down his inmost thoughts. That's the way you chattered last night."
+
+"Chattered!" she caught her breath.
+
+"Yes; just rippled along, you know, telling everything you've been
+thinking these last couple of days. Some of it was rather interesting.
+Shall I poke up the fire again?"
+
+"Rather interesting!" She sprang around and faced me with blazing eyes,
+the picture of embarrassment and fury. "You consider the things I've
+been thinking the last couple of days 'rather interesting!' Oh," she
+cried, dashing the pan of corn meal batter to the ground, "you're
+damnable--I hate you!" There was a whirl of a skirt, the twinkle of a
+little booted foot, and, by Jove, she had gone flying off like the wind;
+while I, feeling about the size of a june-bug, stood first on one leg
+and then the other, wondering what the devil she had been thinking these
+last couple of days.
+
+Now, when a fellow has made a blatant ass of himself, I hold that the
+quickest road to salvation is "own up and shut up." If he's forgiven,
+life may flow on as formerly. If he isn't, he has recourse to the pose
+of having been grossly misunderstood, and eventually work himself into
+quite a creditable reproduction of a martyred nobleman. If he's good at
+that kind of thing, a girl will grow sorry and forgive him in spite of
+herself. I got this from Tommy, one day, and Tommy knows a lot about
+women--really, an awful lot.
+
+But the most detestable part of my present muddle was that I had hurt
+her--I, who would have bartered my life to shield her from hurts!
+Feeling thoroughly contrite I went quickly in pursuit, looking ahead and
+on both sides for a glimpse of the dress that meant the world to me.
+Regardless of boundaries, regardless of everything but to implore an
+instant forgiveness at whatever cost, I rushed impetuously on, calling
+her name.
+
+Then I came up with her at the side of the bubbling spring. She was
+lying prone upon the bank, her face buried in her arms that were crossed
+beneath it. And, having found her, I could not advance. Something about
+the lovely grace of her body held me enthralled. Furthermore, I had no
+right to be here; I was an interloper, a prowler! There were but two
+things to do, and do at once, to wit, make myself humble and scarce.
+
+"Doloria," I said.
+
+She did not move, perhaps she had not heard, so I kneeled and took one
+of her hands, whereupon she sprang to her feet looking at me strangely,
+wildly.
+
+"You've no right here," she cried. "You've broken faith!"
+
+"No, please no," I said quickly. "I'm too desperate to care where I am
+when you're angry! Since you called me damnable--said you hated me--the
+world's turned black; so I'm not deliberately trespassing--only lost,
+because you've taken away your smile!"
+
+"_You_ took it away," she retorted. "You'd murder any girl's smile by
+such--brutality!"
+
+"Brutality!" I gasped.
+
+"Truthfulness," she stamped her foot.
+
+"But I wasn't truthful," I hurried to tell her. "I lied like the devil
+to call your bluff--wanted to make you own up because--well, you'd lied
+a little, too! I never dreamed my joke would hurt you. Great God," I now
+cried passionately, "to think of hurting you who are my life and breath
+and----" I caught myself, stopping short and looking at her; then slowly
+adding: "You didn't say a word in your sleep, I swear it. It was
+beautiful of you to trust me that way, and--and if you'll rescue our
+breakfast I'll never be such an idiot again."
+
+She had partly turned away at my impassioned outburst, but the assurance
+I gave that Somnus had been dumb brought a hint of the fascinating curve
+to her lips. Yet her eyes still expressed doubt, and I was growing
+desperate enough even to humor her incredulity, hoping thereby to
+discover another road to favor, when she asked:
+
+"You're not just saying that?"
+
+"On my honor it's true--every word! I'm sorry, Princess!"
+
+Again she turned away her face, looking across the spring and murmuring,
+as though to someone there:
+
+"It's because he's hungry, I suppose,"--then whirled and held out both
+hands to me, in that sweet way of hers. "It's I who am cruel,
+Chancellor. Come, poor man, I'll feed you; you look as glum as
+Pharaoh--was Pharaoh glum? I'll beat you to the kitchen!" And she
+bounded away, almost before the challenge had been given.
+
+Straight she sped with astonishing swiftness, skimming over fallen logs,
+darting this way and that through festoons of vines, with the grace of a
+frightened doe. In freedom of motion she was as some wild thing of
+forest birth, suggesting the spirits of the wind, the dappled sunlight,
+the dancing waters; yet never lacking an ineffable refinement that added
+both charm and mystery.
+
+Each of us was breathing fast when, shoulder to shoulder, we reached the
+fire, she claiming the race without the slightest show of embarrassment.
+
+"But I was holding back," I said, finding combativeness a very fair
+outlet to pursue, and adding: "You had the start, too!"
+
+"In a race any one has the start who's able to get it," she asserted.
+"Besides, I set the pace, and all you had to do was follow. I slowed up
+toward the end, anyway."
+
+The impertinence of it!
+
+"You slowed up because you had to! And I don't believe you were angry a
+while ago, either!"
+
+"Don't you?" she asked, slowly.
+
+"Not so very," I compromised, seeing the danger signal. "I think you
+were just making a jolly chump of me, that's all. I don't so much mind
+making one of myself, but it's rotten having other people do it for me!"
+
+"I suppose," she said indifferently, raising her arms to tuck in a lock
+of hair, "that if it's worthwhile making the distinction, you might be
+allowed a choice."
+
+For the pure deviltry of this remark I looked around for something to
+throw at her, and then saw our fire--a tragic picture of dead ashes
+which the wind was blowing over a now cold skillet.
+
+"See," I cried, "what our family row has led to! Fire out, breakfast
+ruined, and here I am due at the office in half an hour!"
+
+"Oh, Jack," she looked at me gravely, putting an end to our banter--and
+for the first time calling me Jack, though I believe she did it
+unconsciously--"haven't we any more buttonwood? This is serious, isn't
+it!"
+
+"Not so very, perhaps. We can try another kind."
+
+"Will it be safe?" she asked, uncertainly.
+
+"With a small fire of very dry hardwood, and this rising wind, what
+little smoke there is won't hold together long enough to be seen."
+
+"But it'll blow right toward their camp! The wind's changed since
+yesterday!"
+
+"That's more than two miles off, and they're probably still after
+Smilax. I'll make a very small fire."
+
+This, indeed, seemed to work well enough, and by the time a new
+breakfast was ready our uncertainties had become shadows of no
+consequence.
+
+"But you _do_ know I was angry, don't you?" she asked, out of a clear
+sky, with an unexpectedness that made me throw back my head and laugh.
+
+"You bet I do! And you beat me in the race, too; and you're the best
+cook on our block!"
+
+"It seems to be the same old story," she smiled, with affected sorrow,
+"that food must always be the price of masculine tractability. Ah, the
+long drawn out tragedy of woman's existence, that she must forever be
+stuffing man with things to eat, as reptiles are stuffed, to keep him
+facile!"
+
+"You fail to observe, my little snake charmer," I replied, "that you
+omitted to say good things to eat. I'm never facile after Smilax feeds
+me."--Though I owe Smilax an apology for this!
+
+"He must have run great risks of being bitten."
+
+"Oh, no; I'm not the biting kind of snake! I'm a constrictor--I hug!"
+
+"Mercy!" She gave a little gasp, then, turned and went indifferently
+toward the spring.
+
+Whistling happily I finished the dishes. But I finished them with the
+promise of a better cleansing next time, and soon was calling her.
+
+She came to me humming the song I had been whistling--an unconscious bit
+of flattery on her part, but it added to my pleasure. There is, after
+all, so much to be gained by hitching your wagon to a star, that I tried
+to believe she deliberately intended it. I would have hitched up oftener
+to that same star, except for the fact that stars sometimes get hot and
+furious at too many liberties, and switch their tails and kick the
+wagons of well-meaning people to smithereens. That it may be better to
+have had a stellar joy-ride and be sent to hell for speeding than keep
+your boots forever in the clay, I will neither affirm nor deny; but the
+prudent man hitcheth to the moon!
+
+As we went toward the fort she turned to me, asking:
+
+"Don't you think they should have been here sooner? Do you fear anything
+you won't tell me?" Her eyes were anxious, and I saw how insistent this
+worry had been.
+
+"Everything depends on how far Smilax had to go," I answered. "He'd
+never dream of coming back until the men gave up--and they might chase
+him half across the state! So a few extra days doesn't mean anything.
+They can't catch him, that's certain; and he and Echochee'll only stay
+away as long as they're pursued. They'll come through, I believe it
+sincerely; and your Chancellor, sweet Princess, will guard you with his
+life--with ten lives, if he had them."
+
+"I know that," she murmured, "and shan't worry if you tell me not to."
+
+"Then cheer up! Smilax is a past-master of the swamps and woods, take my
+word for it!"
+
+"I really suppose Echochee knows a great deal about them, too," she
+said, after a pause, "for when she was sixteen she had to leave the
+Reservation with her husband and hide him in the Everglades. She learned
+a great deal, then."
+
+"Why did she have to do that?"
+
+"He'd fought and killed another Indian, and the officers were expected.
+But in the fight he received a cut that made him blind. For ten years
+Echochee fed and clothed him, hunting alligators and watching her chance
+of slipping the skins to a market. By extreme stinting she finally saved
+enough to 'buy him loose'--her optimistic way of saying 'pay a lawyer
+for his defense.' Think, after being outcasts all that time, of leading
+a blind husband through half a hundred miles of wilderness, with the
+savings of ten years to wager on a chance of having him cleared!"
+
+"I hope he was," I declared.
+
+"In a sense he was, yes. He knew where she kept the money, and while she
+was in the lawyer's office persuading him to take the case, her husband
+stole it and sneaked away."
+
+I uttered a cry at this hideous ingratitude, and she glanced at me,
+gravely adding:
+
+"Then he got drunk and was run over by a train; so, in a sense, Echochee
+freed him, after all."
+
+"Oh, the magnanimous courage of a woman's devotion!" I stopped and
+looked at her. "It's always the same, irrespective of tribe and nation.
+She's dauntless, world-defying, utterly self-sacrificing. I hope to
+God, Doloria, that you won't be among those who squeeze their hearts
+dry! You've lived away from the world and may not know how plentiful
+these are; but no day passes without its toll of some woman being
+silently crucified in her losing fight to save a besotted biped--the
+lord of her earthly temple. It's only by a streak of luck when their
+stage is cleared, as Echochee's was!"
+
+"That may be all right for clearing the stage," she murmured, "but it
+doesn't heal the hearts of those who were made to suffer."
+
+I had not fathomed the penetration of her sympathy, being satisfied, man
+like, to let a swift revenge wipe the slate. She seemed to be
+contemplating what I had said, and when she again spoke her voice was
+tender as though it had come unbidden from a wistful reverie.
+
+"I suppose you're right, Jack. The world I've known, only through books,
+must be full of such cruelties. I rather dread having to go into it. It
+seems a pity that I can't always live in--in----" then, with a smile,
+she asked: "Do you ever dream? I don't mean when you're asleep, but
+awake--wide awake?"
+
+"I rather think I'm dreaming now," I admitted, for a great contentment
+had fallen about us as we walked beneath the solemn trees.
+
+The silence that followed was again stirred by her voice, saying:
+
+"You mustn't think me childish, but I've always had a secret gateway to
+a place--my Secret world--where everything is make-believe, and nothing
+can be but truth and beauty. Often when Echochee was tiresome, or I was
+tired, I used to slip away and go there."
+
+"I wish you'd take me--won't you?"
+
+"Oh, I can't," she quickly answered, stooping for a flower in our path,
+holding it in both hands and leaning her face above it.
+
+"Yes," at last I said, "I've a place like that; but I don't know whether
+I live there in make-believe, or throwing off the make-believe we have
+to wear in the world you're going to, I live honestly with myself. If
+you won't take me to yours, sometime maybe you'll come to mine!"
+
+Now, I had no intention of making love to her. We were talking only
+about secret worlds and day-dreams.
+
+"I'm afraid it might be difficult," she answered, dropping the flower
+and walking a shade more slowly. "Our lives--yours and mine--are cast
+along such opposite lines, it seems!"
+
+"That's what Secret worlds are for," I told her, "----that, no matter
+how far apart we are, our spirits may come and meet; live again, as
+we've lived here; be happy again--as I've been." I turned, saying with a
+laugh that was meant to convey an impression of insouciance--yet failing
+rather miserably: "These two big pines here, Princess, actually make the
+gateway to my pool--which is, in fact, my Secret world, because you
+helped me build my home there. So, you see, it wouldn't be very
+difficult, as you were about to enter without knowing it. Oh, I wish I
+could tell you more about it!" And I then became silent, too helplessly
+afraid to go on.
+
+A brighter color had come into her throat and cheeks, but she was
+smiling whimsically as she said:
+
+"Then we must go around--find another path to the fort--mustn't we!"
+
+She had stopped before me, poised delicately, almost swaying; and for
+several seconds our eyes, that must have been charged with some
+untranslatable excitement, held fast. Mine would not let go, and hers I
+believe could not. Her hands, idly at her sides, were turned palms
+forward, unconsciously suggestive of supplication.
+
+"Do you know what you remind me of when you stand that way?" I asked.
+
+"No," She looked away now, laughing lightly--though it was more subtly
+than suddenly done. "What?"
+
+"Of a fairy that's flown from a butterfly moon, just alighting at my
+threshold and asking to come in."
+
+"Wouldn't a fairy be unseemly forward to come to a young man's threshold
+and ask admittance?"
+
+"Not admittance, but admission--to my dreams, where nothing is real but
+you and beauty."
+
+"Dreams are for the old, the young shall see visions!--isn't there a
+quotation like that?" she asked, smiling.
+
+"You're not playing fair," I laughed--for I was afraid not to laugh,
+wanting desperately to say that I was seeing the vision now that would
+be my dream forever!
+
+"I'll play fair if I know the rules," she also laughed. "You haven't
+told them to me!"
+
+"We'll make them up as we go along!"
+
+"But what are we going to play?"
+
+"Make-believe," I eagerly cried. "That we're exploring our Secret world
+where we'll come after,"--there was no laugh in my voice now--"you've
+gone to Azuria, and I'm here alone."
+
+She gave my face a quick, searching look.
+
+"And we only have to pass between these two big trees?" she asked, half
+lightly, half timidly.
+
+"Only through that gateway, and we're in our world!"
+
+"Why should I go, I wonder?" The question was whispered, almost
+unconsciously, and catching the tone of it I also whispered:
+
+"To plant a memory, Doloria, that will grow and bloom as long as we
+live; where each of us may come--when we're lonely."
+
+What forces, intangible, supernal, were at work here no man can tell.
+Philosophers stumble, fools blunder, and the truth dances on ahead
+through Life's woodland of mysteries--one instant revealing itself in a
+golden shaft of sunlight, hiding the next with smothered laughter in the
+black shadow of a fern, while seekers after it tramp past in grumbling
+blindness.
+
+At this moment our wood seemed rich with mystic presage. Pleadingly my
+hands went out to her, and trustfully she put hers into them. Slowly I
+backed between the two big trees, our eyes held as two charmed beings.
+Everything about me called to her, everything in her urged compliance;
+and I knew, as did she, that something strange was happening. Yet when I
+halted she did not falter, but came on, bravely, sweetly, into my arms.
+
+That she should have done this was as inevitable as it was gloriously
+true. We could no more have continued to stroll side by side through our
+Oasis, commenting on the seasons, sometimes rapturous over a sunset or
+the call of a bird, than we could have rubbed a lamp and brought the
+_Whim_ sailing to us over the sea of grass. Static existences only
+prevail with static people, and there was too much surgingly dynamic
+about this twenty year old girl to have encouraged it here. I say, too,
+with candor that any man of twenty-six whose blood is red is--with the
+great out-of-doors abetting--not insulated for or against currents.
+Throw these two alone in a primitive world where their tent is the sky,
+and a spark must eventually jump across the gradually lessening
+distance. It is thus that wild things mate--and their mating is
+incorruptible.
+
+But now as my arms tightened and my face leaned to hers, she gave a half
+fearful cry and sprang tremblingly back, pressing both hands to her
+breast, breathing quickly and staring at me with wide eyes.
+
+"Chancellor," she gasped, "this is madness, don't you know it?"
+
+The quick alarm in her voice sobered me and I answered "Yes," for there
+was nothing else to say. And a moment later when, in an even tone and at
+a conventional distance, she suggested: "Shall we go on to the fort?" I
+did not reply, but walked mutely at her side.
+
+Our contact had been too instantaneous for me to collect myself at once,
+and I wondered how she was managing to do so--or if she were bluffing.
+For this sudden serene-mindedness she now displayed was quite too
+enigmatic for my comprehension.
+
+"We planted the memory that will be mine forever," I whispered, trying
+to see her face which she kept partially hid by keeping half a step
+ahead of me. "I'll never forget our----"
+
+"Oh," she cried, on the verge of tears, I thought, "don't ever speak to
+me of it again--ever!"
+
+"It's nothing we ought to regret--it wasn't your fault," I
+persisted,----
+
+"That's just it--it was my fault, it was," she interrupted passionately,
+and somehow her hand found mine and pressed it. Was there ever any one
+more square? "I knew we were going to--do that, and I didn't try to stop
+it. You'll think that I'm--I'm----"
+
+"The most glorious girl who ever lived," I cried, taking full possession
+of her hand now.
+
+"Won't you please be honest?" she asked, quite seriously. "I am; and I
+give you my word I'd never have done it if it hadn't seemed so real--I
+mean, our planting the memory."
+
+She turned then, and to my relief she was half smiling. For an instant
+the longing to hold her again showed in my face, but she stopped me with
+a look. This time it was done with the intention of stopping me, and I
+stopped. Yet the smile had not left her face as she said, in a tone of
+sweet confidence:
+
+"Let's be above-the-board-honest with each other in all things, Jack; it
+makes for long friendships, Echochee says--and there's nothing finer,
+anyhow, than to freely admit a mistake. So it wasn't your fault any more
+than mine; we've both been very naughty spirits, and we mustn't be
+again." She paused, adding: "After all, I suppose it does make our
+secret world just a little----"
+
+I waited, and when she did not continue, asked:
+
+"A little what?"
+
+Still she hesitated.
+
+"Be honest," I warned.
+
+She smiled again, looking at me frankly.
+
+"Well, a little sweeter, to feel that we're equally to blame; that
+that's why we can't ever go there again."
+
+"Eden up-to-date?" I laughed.
+
+"Y-yes, I suppose so; and the flaming sword has smote us, so we have to
+be circumspect forever and ever."
+
+"But Eve wasn't! The flaming sword didn't phaze her a minute!"
+
+"I've had lots of time to improve on Eve," she replied archly.
+
+"That's God's truth," I cried.
+
+A rippling laugh burst from her lips--a ringing, happy laugh that was
+heard, I swear, in listening heaven. She seemed obsessed by a strange
+excitement--perhaps like my own, that sprang from a deep, inordinate
+sense of pleasure.
+
+We were getting on toward the fort, walking inside the edge of our Oasis
+near that place where the fallen palms lay in a confused tangle. I had
+her hand and was helping her over this network of logs when she suddenly
+sprang before me with dazzling quickness; facing outward, and holding
+back her arms to keep me in check.
+
+It was an act instinctive of protection, yet scarcely had I time to
+wonder at it when a whining, crackling sound, that might have come from
+anywhere, dashed past our heads. Men who have heard a high-power bullet
+splitting the air do not forget the sound, which is as quickly
+recognized a second time as the rattling of a diamond-back.
+
+Immediately following it came the crack of a rifle, and guided by this I
+saw, above the prairie grass four hundred yards away, the head and
+shoulders of a man. At that instant he fired again.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+I LOVE YOU
+
+
+To be transported instantly from the essence of happiness to the brink
+of tragedy--and a tragedy wherein the whole of one's world goes
+tottering--engenders a confusion of mind that for a moment leaves one
+helpless. And thus it was that the second bullet flashed by us before I
+sufficiently gathered my wits to act, to realize that some returning
+member of Efaw Kotee's band had stumbled on our little paradise.
+
+I caught Doloria and swung her behind me, at the same time drawing my
+automatic and sending two quick shots, aimed high, toward the scoundrel
+who was making ready to try his hand again. Almost at once he
+disappeared, though I knew he had not been hit for it was extremely
+doubtful if, at that range, a revolver bullet could reach him at all.
+For the sake of caution he was merely crouching in the grass, and
+waiting.
+
+Then I became swept by an inordinate anger; a natural enough feeling in
+a man whose life has been sneakingly attempted, but let a life that is a
+million times more precious than his own be so fired upon and he will
+pass the limit of human rage. With an oath I pushed her down into a
+niche of temporary safety, saying:
+
+"Stay there till I come back!"
+
+Immediately I began to scramble over the network of fallen logs; my
+intention being to reach the high grass and, dropping to my hands and
+knees, crawl out to meet him--as, in all probability, he was now
+crawling toward us. But before I got free of the entanglements she had
+sprung after me and caught my arm, crying:
+
+"It's insane for you to go out there--with only your automatic against
+his rifle! Come back!"
+
+"Go back yourself," I said sternly, shaking off her grasp. "Crouch in
+the hole, as I told you! Quick!"
+
+"I won't--unless you do, too! For the love of God--he'll _kill_ you!"
+This last she screamed, frantically catching hold of me again as the man
+fired a third shot and we felt the breath of his bullet on our faces.
+
+Both of us knew that this was no time for argument, and she began
+tugging at my belt like a wild thing, bracing herself to keep me back
+and showing no disposition to obey. So without ceremony I picked her up
+intending to shove her down between the logs.
+
+"You shan't," she gasped. "He'll kill you if you go--if you don't he'll
+leave!"
+
+But I was too terrified for her sake to listen--too determined that the
+fellow should not get back and tell his gang.
+
+"Do as I say," I commanded, giving her a shake.
+
+She had stopped speaking and was desperately using her strength. I,
+also, had grown desperate. Our position was too unwarrantably exposed to
+tolerate this further, and urgently I began to pry open her fingers
+when, by some twist of her own or awkwardness on my part, I slipped and
+fell out backwards into a deep, narrow slit between the logs, drawing
+her down with me and wedging my shoulders as if they were held in a
+vise.
+
+It might have been a serious fall--for her, I mean--had not
+providentially she landed atop of me; but now, trying to arise, I found
+that I had measured neither her strength of purpose nor of muscle. Her
+determination had not been cooled by this mishap, rather had it become
+more aroused with the consciousness of her advantage; for, in answer to
+my first movement, she caught my cheeks and passionately shook me. Her
+eyes, scarcely half a foot away, stared down into mine with a
+frightened, pleading, commanding look. They were open wider than usual,
+giving the impression that this was the first test of physical encounter
+she had ever experienced.
+
+"You're safe here!--you shan't move!" she was whispering wildly.
+
+"I must," I declared. "He's got to be stopped, I tell you!"
+
+I did not want to hurt her, yet at all hazards that man had to be
+killed, and I began really to struggle.
+
+"No--no!" she panted, pushing down my partially raised head with a jolt
+that made me see stars. For she was fighting this time, with the
+ferocity of a tigress, and I, held by her weight, found the task of
+freeing myself no easy one. I tried working loose one shoulder, growling
+between my teeth:
+
+"I _will_ get out of here!"
+
+"You won't--you won't!" She reiterated this as if sheer force of mind
+could make me yield. And then her hair, uncoiling, fell softly over my
+face and closed my eyes.
+
+There is a mesmeric force about the human hair, a woman's hair, resting
+on a man's upturned face--although I do not mean this in a sentimental
+sense. It is a natural law; as a wild bird can be put into a state of
+mimic sleep by laying it on its back and pressing its eyes with
+feathers.
+
+The frenzy of Doloria's clutching fingers that still held my cheeks,
+and the pressure of her body whose excited breathing wedged me even
+tighter down between the logs, had been to us no more than incidents in
+the desperate struggle we were making, each for the other's safety. But,
+blinded by her hair, for the moment I desisted and, taking quick
+advantage of this, she whispered:
+
+"If you've any wish to please me, listen! I know those men by
+heart--each is an arrant coward when alone. So he won't crawl closer. By
+the time he brings the others back we'll be inside the fort!"
+
+"That's just it," I retorted. "The fort's no good at night--they'll rush
+it! He's got to be stopped, Doloria!"
+
+"Jack, do this for me, please?" she begged. Her lips were very near. "If
+we have to die, we will--but I can't see you go out on that prairie
+alone--I simply can't!" And I grew still.
+
+Soon I felt her hands upon my chest as she pushed herself up to look
+over the logs. By this movement the blindfold was partially lifted and I
+could see her--her body curved backward, as a mermaid that raises itself
+at arm's length upon the shore. Her lips were parted, her eyes were
+steady and level as they gazed searchingly across the sea of grass--as
+many a nymph, no doubt, hiding from a company of swashbuckling gnomes,
+must have peeped out to see if her glade were safe before venturing from
+the wood. In another moment she had left me and run a few steps toward
+the prairie, crying:
+
+"Look! He's 'way, 'way off!"
+
+"I can't look," I called after her. "You've put me here for life!"
+
+Indeed, I was so completely held that the first result of my twisting
+seemed only to make me lose ground. She came back, this time laughing
+without control--but I knew the sign; my nerves, too, had recently been
+drunk on relaxation from a strain. Tucking up her hair with a few quick
+movements she held down both hands to me and, after more squirming, I
+worked myself out. But our enemy had by this time disappeared.
+
+"If that fellow's back, the others are, too," I said, with some display
+of temper. "You've made the very devil of a mess!"
+
+"I suppose I have," she looked demurely away. There was nothing of the
+tigress, nothing of the willful little fighter, now.
+
+"The consequence is," I continued, "that we have to decide between two
+darned slim chances, for they'll be coming back within an hour. We can
+stay here, or run for it! What do you think?" But as she remained
+silent, gazing across the prairie, I kept irritably on: "If it's run, we
+can't reach the forests north, south or east without being seen--and you
+know what a fight in the open means against such odds. We might hide in
+the grass and travel at night, but if their woodcraft's worth a hang
+they'll read our trail on this kind of ground like an electric sign.
+There's an Indian in their crowd, too. If we stay, the fort'll keep
+them off till night--and there's always a hope of Smilax turning up.
+They mightn't rush us after dark, either."
+
+I could see that the fort was our best chance, but still I wanted her
+opinion. Something about the way she stood, having no word to say,
+rather awed me, and going softly I looked around at her face. Her cheeks
+were wet and her lips were trembling with convulsive sobs. Oh, how I
+hated myself then!
+
+"Good God," I cried, throwing my arms about her, "see what I've done!"
+
+But she put her palms against my shoulders and held me off, saying
+brokenly:
+
+"You haven't done anything."
+
+"I have," I cried again. "I've hurt you--hurt the one I love most in all
+the world!"
+
+"Don't," she said, more startled now than at any time when she had been
+facing a greater danger. "Quick! Please--let's get the things we need
+for the fort!" And she sprang away from me, running toward the pool.
+
+In a very few minutes we were back with the rifles, an ample supply of
+cartridges, our canteens, and a blanket I had brought in case we decided
+to slip away at night. Helping her over the parapet I followed, and we
+stood looking intently for a sign of foes, but the waving grass spoke
+only of a brisk wind. It might be a half an hour before Efaw Kotee's
+band could get within range of us. Twice I whispered her name, but she
+would not answer, so I turned her around until she had to face me.
+
+"I have the right to speak now," I said gently, "because this may be the
+last of things. The next few hours will decide. You understand, don't
+you, and know that my words are their own excuse?"
+
+There was a serious, calm mystery in her look that answered mine with
+simple courage, as she whispered:
+
+"Yes, I understand."
+
+"We can't die," I drew her close to me, "because I love you--I love
+you!"
+
+For a quick moment, and then gone, a light shone in her eyes--as though
+some fire raging below had been swept through the entirety of her being.
+Her fingers that had been clutching my shoulders relaxed, and very
+softly her arms crept around my neck, as she murmured: "No more than I
+do you!"
+
+It might have been a minute or a year that we drifted in a rapturously
+agonizing kiss; but slowly her eyes opened, her lips sighed and,
+touching them to my cheek, she whispered my name over and over again.
+
+"We'll win to-day," I cried, giving the prairie a searching look above
+her head, "and after that there's a kingdom waiting for you here!"
+
+"I can feel it beating," she whispered adorably. "But if we----" She
+could not say it, but let her moist lips cling to mine as if challenging
+Death to part us.
+
+Who dares measure time when Cupid perches on the clock! 'Twas a wise
+providence that gave severe St. Gregory the making of our calendar, and
+not St. Anthony, else some minutes might be spun to days, and hours
+squeezed to the fraction of a second.
+
+But the ever present danger had not at any time quite ceased to pierce
+the mist of our paradise. She knew I was keeping a careful watch, even
+while I held her. Now she drew away, and crossed her arms upon the
+parapet.
+
+"When things begin to happen," I said, "you must sit on the ground. I
+won't risk your lovely head above the wall!"
+
+"Why?" she asked. "Aren't two rifles better than one?"
+
+"Yes," I admitted, "but I can't shoot unless you're safe."
+
+"Then don't think of me, at all, for I promise to do whatever you say.
+Look," she pointed suddenly. "There they are!--I believe every one of
+them! Oh, I wonder if they've killed Echochee!"
+
+I, too, wondered; for surely here was the gang that had pursued
+them--quite a mile out on the prairie, to be sure, but unquestionably
+Efaw Kotee's band, showing as a black smudge above the grass. Whether
+this pack of human wolves had lost the trail of Smilax I would not try
+to guess, for it was enough to know that they had found our own.
+
+They were still too far off to be counted, but I felt that Doloria had
+been right in saying every man of them. That would mean eight if Jess
+and the old chief were along, furious devils demanding their revenge,
+mad to surround us and take their own good time about placing a shot
+where it would do the work. It was only fair that she should know the
+odds, so I put my arm around her, saying:
+
+"When they get nearer, they'll scatter out. Some will stay in front,
+hiding in the grass and shooting enough to keep us busy, and others will
+circle to the trees behind us. It's going to be a close call,
+sweetheart, but they'll never get in while I'm up."
+
+"I know that," she answered gently. "We may as well be brave and speak
+of it with indifference; it's easier that way; so I want to tell you
+that if you--you----" but her voice did choke, yet she raised her chin
+and calmly finished, "are killed, I'll follow right away. It's
+infinitely preferable to being taken," she hastily added, seeing my look
+of horror. "So wait for me just a little while, and I'll catch up with
+you."
+
+Was there ever such courage! Looking back into her eyes I saw a light
+that by its own vital force was self-translated, requiring no words, nor
+the sight of her fingers grasping the handle of that small revolver at
+her waist, to tell of her determination. In spite of myself I shuddered;
+yet she was so calm, so wonderful in her abiding faith of catching up
+with me on that Long Trail that knows no turning back, that my heart,
+too, burned with a flame more enduring than the love of mortals. Without
+a word I took the small revolver from her hand, and in its place put
+mine of larger, more reliable, caliber. Understanding, she looked
+gratefully up at me, her eyes filling with tears even as she smiled and
+whispered:
+
+"Now I can do it without being afraid."
+
+"By the God above us," I groaned in my agony, "you'll never have to! For
+your sake I'll beat off twice that many men!"
+
+"Then don't think of it again, my ferocious, terrible Chancellor," she
+laughed a little--but I knew, with a sob tearing at my throat, that her
+playful mood, intended as a tonic for my nerves, was the bravest thing
+she had yet done. "Look, Jack! They're doing something!"
+
+"They're spreading out," I said, tensely.
+
+Her excitement suddenly died. In its place came a pathetic look of
+wistfulness as she raised her face to mine and, with a quick sob,
+whispered:
+
+"Oh, very own mine, try to let me cook your dinner again to-night?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+THE ATTACK
+
+
+When after this I looked across the parapet I was as a man of highly
+tempered steel. The compact mass had begun to disintegrate, spreading in
+both directions until their flanks must have been an eighth of a mile
+apart. Then they advanced.
+
+On a guess I judged their line to be quite fifteen hundred yards away
+because each unit looked about the size of a pea; and, as these
+represented the upper halves of men, the distance was too great to open
+fire. So I raised my sight to a thousand yards and waited. My nerves
+were steady with a purpose deep-set in me, for I was about to shoot for
+the greatest trophy of my life, so when the line had advanced a third of
+the way I took careful aim, and fired. A second passed; then my target
+disappeared.
+
+"Is he hit or hiding?" Doloria asked excitedly, adding with a little
+gasp: "He's hit, for some are going to him--see?"
+
+"I believe he is," I agreed, taking another careful aim at one who had
+not started to his comrade's assistance. He, too, disappeared, and
+immediately afterwards all of them ducked from view.
+
+"That's awkward," I growled. "They'll do some crawling up, now!"
+
+"They won't dare come close after that," she cried, "for I know you hit
+one!" Yet this might have been what Echochee would have called
+"good-medicine-talk," and while standing ready I warned her not to be
+too sure, as both men might have dropped only for safety.
+
+It will not seem strange that we both felt some disappointment over the
+probability of this, if one stops to consider what lurked in the other
+side of the scales for us.
+
+Heads soon began to bob up nearer, now accompanied by quickly fired
+shots, and I ordered Doloria to the ground. But with relief I noticed
+that these shots went wild, many times hitting too far away to be heard
+at all, so our position obviously was as yet undiscovered. The morning
+sun shone directly in the men's eyes, while the protective coloration of
+our fort blended most elusively into the background of somber forest.
+
+At the bobbing heads I continued to fire with what quickness I could,
+sometimes sending a second, third and fourth shot purposely low to probe
+the grass where it seemed that a man might be crouching. I could not
+reasonably have expected to register a hit by this, but it kept them in
+check, and that was our chief concern. From the beginning I realized
+that if they got near enough to rush us the night would close over a
+very silent little fort.
+
+Suddenly Doloria gave a cry that froze my blood, for I thought it meant
+an attack from the rear.
+
+"Quick--quick! Your matches! Oh, not to have thought of it before!" But
+this last was added while I dug into my pockets for the precious box.
+
+"You can't do it," I exclaimed.
+
+"I can! Keep them down, and I'll crawl! They won't see me!"
+
+There was wisdom here, and I yielded. Nimbly she climbed the wall,
+dropped to her hands and knees, and crawled to the prairie. In another
+minute a string of smoke appeared; then with a bunch of grass alight
+she flew from place to place, stooping as she ran, and leaving in her
+wake a trail of fire. Almost as quickly she was back at my side,
+breathing fast.
+
+"You glorious genius, we'll win out yet," I yelled.
+
+The grass was dry and tall and thick, and the wind was blowing smartly.
+Fire asks for no better playground, and with incredible swiftness a wall
+of flame sprang up, crackling and roaring as it spread out fan-wise.
+
+She knew, as did I, that the men would back-fire. But while this would
+save them from the flames it would at the same time remove their cover,
+and my rifle could then have a whole man to bite at instead of merely
+his head and shoulders, or less. They would have no alternative now but
+to come forward quickly or retreat. I think Doloria realized that
+anything might be about to happen, for she laid the other rifle in
+position on the parapet, rather casually asking:
+
+"Will it matter if I stand on the canteens? They raise me just high
+enough!"
+
+Why should she not be given a chance to fight for her life--at least,
+until they located our point of concealment and began to concentrate
+their fire on it. That this would inevitably happen might be a matter of
+minutes, but until then I thought she had every right to stay. There's
+no denying, too, that I knew her value.
+
+What was going on behind the wall of racing flame we could not tell. But
+now it rose majestically, leapt skyward and sank to insignificance. The
+back-fire had met our own; they had gripped, flared up, and died.
+Likewise were our forces about to clash, and perhaps burn out with the
+heat of human passion.
+
+Staring through the smoke we counted seven men running to the rear. They
+well enough knew the danger of being without cover, and were intending
+first to get beyond our range and then bring the fight back by some
+other means. Shooting fast I heard Doloria give several quick gasps of
+excitement as I knocked up the ash dust close to them, and although,
+their number was not reduced we gained a feeling of greater security to
+find the fort more impregnable than I had prophesied.
+
+But our budding hope lasted about as long as it took us to conceive it.
+One of the fellows suddenly changed his direction, waving as he ran, and
+the others dashed after him. Then we, too, saw the discovery he had
+made, and it filled me with a sense of desperation.
+
+This was a long, low line of green, indicating a ditch, or slough, edged
+with saw-palmettoes and bay bushes, that began at some indefinite
+northwestward point and diagonally crossed the prairie until it passed
+around our Oasis scarcely more than a hundred feet away. Heretofore,
+completely hidden by the tall grass, I had had no idea of its existence,
+and neither had the men, until Doloria's torch changed the prairie to a
+charred waste. In reality it was the outlet from our spring, and I knew
+that it must be fairly wide because the fire had not jumped it.
+
+To Efaw Kotee's band it offered both an immediate cover and a place from
+which to carry on the fight; moreover, by following it toward us, they
+could reach the Oasis and eventually creep up behind so near that a
+well-directed shot in my head would be only a question of persistence
+and time.
+
+Doloria must have understood this, and for the first time she began to
+fire, yet at nearly a thousand yards, when one's target not only moves
+but looks small and black upon a blackened background, and is made
+further elusive by a haze of smoke, only luck can hit it. Still we
+played that luck to the last card, until one by one the men made safe
+and disappeared. Then she laid her rifle on the parapet, and I think
+took a long breath. For a moment neither of us spoke, each being afraid
+of saying too much, perhaps.
+
+Beginning to fill the magazine, she finally announced:
+
+"They're seven, Jack. You hit that first one, a while ago."
+
+"No," I replied, "or we'd see him on the ground now. He merely ducked,
+like the others."
+
+"But there were eight the night I escaped!"
+
+"Then Smilax got one during the chase--which shows that he and Echochee
+haven't been killed." But during this our eyes never left the ditch and
+our rifles were ready to blaze away at the first sign of movement.
+
+"Why?" she asked.
+
+"Because if he had to make a last stand there wouldn't be as many as
+seven men here now." And I firmly believed it, knowing how savagely our
+two servants would account for themselves. I think she agreed with me.
+
+An ominous silence lay about us. I felt sure that the scoundrels were
+crawling up along the ditch, and told her this. She nodded. Minutes
+passed.
+
+At one point, about two hundred yards out, there was a spot where the
+saw-palmettoes and bay bushes thinned to almost nothing. Sooner or later
+the enemy would have to cross this, and I watched it without blinking
+because it would offer our best--if not, indeed, last--chance to hold
+them. So when finally a stooping figure showed itself I opened a
+vigorous fire. He drew back, or fell back, and the silence again
+enveloped us, to be shattered an instant later by a fusillade of shots
+that made the air thick with crackling whines. The location of our fort
+was known.
+
+"Down, down!" I yelled.
+
+"I am," she answered, obeying as the best of soldiers. "I'll load for
+you!"
+
+We were being showered with lead by now, and between the wasplike things
+speeding overhead and their "sput-sput" as they hit the logs, I dared
+expose no more than my eyes and forehead while emptying rifle after
+rifle. In the fleeting movement of handing one down and taking the other
+I saw Doloria sitting near my feet, with several opened boxes of
+cartridges on the ground beside her. We had plenty of ammunition, so I
+did not wait for human targets but fired rapidly into every probable
+place of concealment--just hoping.
+
+This must have begun to touch them up, for one now made a dash across
+the open space and dived into good cover, from which he started an
+instant reply to me. There had been only time for a quick shot at him,
+as the opening was scarcely ten feet wide. Another tried and made it,
+but the third stumbled. Whether he accidentally fell or was wounded, I
+had no way of knowing, yet he was able, at least, to continue the fight
+because there seemed to be no let up in their volume of fire. Then, to
+my chagrin, a fourth got across, and, following him, the last three
+tried together--successfully.
+
+In the best of conditions these men would have been very hard to hit,
+yet I offer no excuses. My aim, of course, had greatly suffered.
+Disregard for the nicest accuracy in marksmanship may be expected when
+an enemy is pouring a hundred shots a minute at a certain point, and you
+happen to be that point.
+
+Again their rifles became silent. There seemed, indeed, no reason to
+keep them speaking, as the road to the Oasis was clear. When the trees
+back of us should be reached more shots would ring out, closer, always
+getting closer; eventually would come the hand-to-hand fight, and
+then--forgetfulness. Yet I swore with a burning rage in my heart that
+whoever of those fiends were left to gloat over their victory would
+remember until their dying day the price I had collected for it.
+
+"Where are they?" Doloria asked, in a voice that trembled slightly. The
+strain of waiting below was greater than that of seeing what went on
+outside.
+
+Grimly I told her how matters stood with us, and we, also, became
+silent.
+
+The next move appeared in the direction of our kitchen, when several
+shadowy forms began to dart from tree to tree. The same plan was being
+adopted as that which they had used at the ditch: one man, his advance
+covered by a hot fire from the others, would stoop and run forward to a
+previously selected place, then a second, third, and so on, each
+beginning to shoot from the new position, as he got to it. These tactics
+might successfully be repeated until the last barrier of trees, not more
+than twenty yards from us, was gained. But now a fellow showed himself a
+moment too long and I thought I dropped him, because a howl of rage went
+up from his mates.
+
+I was keeping the two rifles very busy by this time, and Doloria could
+scarcely load one before the other was being passed to her. Each side
+had resorted to the expediency of rising, firing and ducking down again.
+They were too near for me to risk an inch of head for more than the
+necessary fraction of a second, and sometimes, in my haste, I aimed at
+nothing at all. A vigorous fire, whether effective or not, would hold
+off their rush. But when I peeped over the next time a rifle, protruding
+from around a tree, showed me that one, at least, had reached the
+nearest point of cover. I banged at it and ducked, as several shots
+whizzed over me. It was rather discouraging work, this of being forced
+to keep down! Another brief silence on their part was suggestive of a
+new move, and I felt sure that they were preparing for a charge.
+
+Calling this to Doloria, I began to bob up at different places along the
+wall, trying in a frenzy to check them, and for the moment was
+successful. Then I heard her give a cry, as a bullet split the stock of
+the rifle she was loading.
+
+"Some one's in a tree shooting down at us! Look out!" she called,
+rolling over to get beneath the nearer wall.
+
+Upon hearing this I gave up trying to dodge, and stood to the parapet
+determined to drop as many as possible before being dropped myself; for
+if their number were materially reduced she might be able, as a last
+resort, to come off victor with the automatic. And spurred by this
+intention I faced them so resolutely that they were compelled to hug
+their cover. But a second shot from the tree, slanting downward, struck
+the surface of the sand filling we had used between our walls; it hit a
+few inches directly in front of my face, knocking up a shower of grit
+that, for the moment, completely blinded me.
+
+I must have wheeled around with my arm across my eyes, because the men
+believed that I'd been done for, and with a triumphant howl started
+forward. Doloria, too, thought the end had come, and gave one despairing
+cry that I shall remember if I live a thousand years. Through my
+blurred vision I got a glimpse of her face, a blending of courage and
+horror and purpose, as she raised the automatic to her temple.
+
+And then by some divine insight I sprang and snatched it away. The howls
+of triumph had ceased; no leering enemy appeared above our parapet. The
+smart in my eyes was passing enough for me to see four of them running
+southward across the prairie with the speed of deer, and suddenly I knew
+that, without realizing it, I had just been hearing other rifle shots.
+Whirling about, I saw emerging from a near-by point in the ditch several
+figures, shouting and waving their hats.
+
+"Tommy," I yelled, "Gates, Echochee, Smilax!" I did not name them all,
+but turned quickly as Doloria flew into my arms. "We're saved,
+sweetheart! The dice have rolled for us!"
+
+She was crying a little, clinging to my neck, talking fast, but saying
+only one thing. And although Tommy afterwards declared that for a time
+there was such a silence in the fort that he believed we had been
+killed, I consider this but one of his verbal extravagances; for it
+seemed only a second after he waved before we were on the parapet waving
+back to him.
+
+Yet, in the midst of my wildest cheer I stopped. It stuck in my throat,
+it dried up as the fountain of my gladness seemed suddenly to have gone
+dry, and I looked at her. There must have been a great pain in my
+eyes--not physical, for that was transient and had passed--because she
+touched them, whispering:
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"See what I'm cheering for," I answered huskily. "Our escape only means
+death to our dreams--it's good-bye to the Oasis!"
+
+"Why?" she asked, her face turning slightly pale.
+
+"Because the minute those people get here you won't be my Doloria of the
+Golden Dawn any more, but Princess Doloria of Azuria!"
+
+She caught hold of my sleeve and gasped, a little hysterically:
+
+"But, Jack, suppose I don't _want_ to be Princess Doloria!"
+
+Our friends had covered half the distance, and I hurriedly said:
+
+"You can't help yourself! You don't know the power that man, Dragot,
+has! Will you run off with me to-night?" For I could not dismiss the
+obsession that Monsieur would prevail. "He came especially armed with
+government orders to find you and take you back. And I'm only afraid
+your heart's too straight to refuse him, even if you could, when he puts
+it up to your conscience! Oh, Doloria--please don't cry!"
+
+"I won't," she answered tremulously, "if you stop talking that way!"
+
+I was sorry, and quickly told her that everything would come out all
+right--that my love was stronger than all the powers of all the
+governments under the sun. Then I helped her down on the prairie side,
+for the others were nearly up to us, approaching with bared heads. There
+was a fantastic note in our situation that deeply affected me. What
+could have been more bizarre than an Azurian princess holding court upon
+the edge of a Florida prairie? This, emphasized by our escape from
+death, added color to the fabric of unreality whose warp was romance,
+and whose woof was the mystifying surge of human impulses. So my
+vacillating spirits rebounded to the pinnacle of happiness and, raising
+my hand, I announced in a loud voice:
+
+"Gentlemen, Her Serene Highness, Doloria, Princess of Azuria!"
+
+Except for Echochee, they stopped and in frank amazement gazed at her.
+Flushed by the excitements that had made this day memorable, she was
+indeed the most adorable sovereign before whom knights had e'er sworn
+fealty. But the old Indian woman, with an undisguised croon of delight,
+went straight to her side, folded her in aged, brown arms of iron, and
+faced the waiting men with a look of defiance. She did not comprehend
+all that was passing, but distinctly wanted it understood that no one
+should touch her child.
+
+After that they were all about her, even Bilkins and the two sailors
+asking to shake hands and hear from her own lips the story of what had
+happened. She recognized Gates as "the splendid captain who found the
+bomb," and he blushed like a little boy. Monsieur, of course, could not
+bring himself to treat her with anything less than royal deference, so
+he kneeled and kissed her hand. I saw her look at the back of it when he
+arose, and then search his face--he had left a tear which she seemed
+unwilling to brush off. Tommy, not content with one hand, took both; and
+these he shook until she burst out laughing. As a matter of fact, we
+were all laughing a few degrees immoderately. Then, without warning, the
+strain became too much. Her eyes suddenly filled, her lips began to
+tremble. Turning impulsively, she put an arm across Echochee's shoulders
+and together they walked toward the spring, leaving us silent.
+
+Old Gates rubbed his chin and looked up at the sky, saying huskily:
+
+"My word, it's going to rain!" And, although there was no cloud in
+sight, Tommy said he thought so, too.
+
+Thus the spell was broken and, with a more dismal duty to be performed,
+we sent for Smilax to bring the camp spade--leaving Monsieur to find
+Doloria and talk with her, for I had excused him from the contract Tommy
+made aboard the _Whim_, wanting to remove uncertainties as soon as
+possible.
+
+Gates entered a careful record in his notebook of identification marks
+on the three men we found dead. Our joint statement would be sufficient
+for the law in such a case as this, especially as Monsieur knew there
+was a price on Efaw Kotee's head, and doubtless on the heads of all who
+served him.
+
+When Smilax approached the last man he pointed down with grim
+satisfaction, saying:
+
+"Him bust black boy's head!"
+
+It was Jess, who would have bullied the old chief into giving up my
+princess! Well, our account was closed. But of Efaw Kotee there was no
+clue. I felt sure he was not among those who escaped, simply because he
+could not have run so fast; and Smilax was certain he did not follow
+with the chase.
+
+Our gruesome task finished, we turned back. For the moment I wanted to
+be alone, with my thoughts, my happiness, my uncertainty of Monsieur's
+power of persuasion, my heaviness of spirit caused by the work behind
+us. But Tommy ran up and slipped his arm through mine, saying with
+exaggerated carelessness:
+
+"I'm glad that crescendo of horrors is over--if you'll allow a kind of
+musical term; but I've got music in my soul to-day."
+
+"It's a funny time for music," I grumbled, "--except funeral marches."
+
+"By the way, did you find out about that other funeral march?"
+
+"No, I forgot," I confessed. "Don't bother me, Tommy; I feel like the
+devil."
+
+"I know it," he gave my arm a squeeze--for Tommy possessed that
+characteristic making for a community of mind and spirit that did not
+wait for explanations. "I know it," he repeated, "but you _look_ a whole
+lot better--really like your old self! Now, what's the trouble? If
+you're worrying about the ruins we created back there, cut it out! I'm
+not bothered over the one or two I might have got! Fact is, nobody knows
+which of us hit which, anyway. So what is it? I'm not asking, merely
+insisting!"
+
+So I told him pretty much everything, as one chum can to another.
+
+"You mean she may listen to the little gezabo and go back?" he asked.
+
+"I mean just that. She will if she thinks it has a bigger claim on her.
+I know how square she is!"
+
+"Besides being square," he said thoughtfully, "there's also something in
+the make-up of woman that I've never understood: her apparent hankering
+after sacrifice. When it comes to a show-down between heart and
+conscience, she'll follow the conscience ten to one--if she's straight.
+Look at it," he swept his arm toward the prairie, as if innumerable
+instances were in sight of us. "See the sweet-faced old ladies who never
+wrote 'Mrs.' before their names--not that they've missed anything, God
+knows, but just look at 'em! All because some over-finicky parent didn't
+approve, no doubt! And see the heart starvation stamped on 'daughter's'
+face, because 'father' was nearly bankrupt and she _did_ write 'Mrs.' to
+save him! Taking them in retrospect, it's a question if the thing they
+called sacrifice wasn't plain damn foolishness. Why, hell, Jack, d'you
+mean to say that the professor and his musty European customs--oh, I
+can't be profane enough!--the English language is trifling and
+inadequate! But I'm going to take a hand in this courtship, myself!"
+
+"For a gregarious animal, Tommy, you're something of a wonder," I began
+to laugh, because it was like myrrh and frankincense blown upon my
+doubts and fears to hear him talk.
+
+We went quietly on after this. Our boots made no noise in the soft
+earth, and thus silently we approached the fort; then halted. For on the
+farther side, hidden by the walls, a man was speaking in tones of
+earnestness, yet at that very instant a voice interrupted him.
+
+"I wish you wouldn't persist in talking now," it said irritably, "I'm
+too unhappy over the lives which most have been lost, and----"
+
+"But Your Serenity must realize that lives are nothing. The new destiny
+that----"
+
+"Oh, I know what you'd say," the voice cried. "But don't give me any
+more arguments, for Heaven's sake! They're utterly useless and, besides,
+you might convince me!"
+
+Softly we tiptoed away and, when at a safe distance I stopped to rub my
+arm where Tommy's fingers had been digging into it, he whispered:
+
+"That didn't sound sacrificy, did it?"
+
+"The old fellow hasn't struck his pace, yet," I answered doubtfully.
+
+"Well," Tommy looked back toward the fort, "the pressure's high enough
+for one day. She needs another rescuing. You go and speed up the grub."
+
+So, whistling the Charpentier love song, he left me.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+GERMAN CRUELTY
+
+
+At the kitchen fire Echochee was busily preparing food for a company now
+swelled to ten, and Smilax had dropped in rank to an assistant. I saw
+from her activity that this was not a fortunate moment to interrupt, yet
+there are some few things in life more important than a well-turned
+meal, and I therefore advanced, wishing to speak in the presence of our
+two sailors who hovered near with lips that all but drewled in
+anticipation of the feast.
+
+"I want to remind each of you," I said, "not to tell the princess that
+any one was killed. Let it go that a few were scratched, and the rest
+got away. You get the idea? I don't want her shocked."
+
+My men understood at once, but Echochee, never taking her eyes from the
+sizzling skillets, asked:
+
+"What you mean--'shocked'?"
+
+"I mean horrified, terrified--sorry," I answered, rather put to it how
+else to explain.
+
+"Ugh! She already sorry; cry some, say ve'y bad. Me say ve'y good. She
+all right now. You through?"
+
+And, since I was through, she gave another grunt, leaving me with the
+suspicion that she thought I was a very small boy.
+
+When finally the others came in sight Doloria walked at the side of
+Tommy, while Monsieur followed in some discomfiture of mind. His hair
+was tousled, and his eyes were thoughtful. From this, and the grin on
+Tommy's face, I judged that all was not going well for him and, in a
+more happy frame of mind, I went out to meet them.
+
+"Mr. Davis has been telling me a strange story," she smiled at me.
+
+"He's full of strange stories," I warned her. "Don't take him
+seriously--ever!"
+
+"But I know he was serious this time--weren't you?" The corners of her
+mouth were tell-tales of merriment as she turned to him.
+
+"Shall we let Jack in on it?" he asked, the grin on his face widening.
+
+"Do you think we'd better?" She was laughing outright now, with an
+alluring spirit of confidence; so I knew that she approved my estimate
+of Tommy and had taken him into her heart as for many years he had lived
+in mine.
+
+But women always loved Tommy--perhaps because he loved them. If some
+far-reaching providence had not endowed him with a well-developed sense
+of honor to go hand in hand with his attractiveness, more girls would
+have looked after him through tears than toward him with gladness.
+Whatever his loves and secret affairs, he always played above the board
+and never cheated; so they could trust him if he won, and pet him if he
+lost. Taken altogether, he was rather a lucky beggar, who learned early
+in life that the golden key which unlocks a woman's heart is
+Secrecy--and this they seemed to know by some divine, or devilish,
+insight.
+
+Before he now had a chance to answer her question, Monsieur caught up
+with us.
+
+"Ah, my boy Jack," he grasped my hands, forgetting his ill humor to
+beam on me. "For lack of opportunity I have not expressed my gratitude!
+Azuria is your debtor! I, who have the authority, say it!"
+
+"Thank you," I replied, "but that debt was cancelled early this morning
+when its Princess saved me from assassination."
+
+"Good Lord," Tommy cried, in despair, "he's spilled the beans! Jack, you
+bone-head, we----"
+
+"Be quiet, sir," she commanded, turning beautifully pink and giving me
+ten thousand messages in a single look.
+
+"Then come on," Tommy said, beginning to draw her away by the hand,
+"let's go off and think up another!"
+
+"My boy Tommy," the professor sternly reproved him, "she is of royal
+blood!"
+
+"You said something that time," he imperturbably replied. "Come on,
+Princess!" And laughingly she went with him.
+
+"_Pardieu_," the old fellow pulled at his beard, "that sex is like a
+cyclone--the nearer I get the faster I am twisted! But just as her
+mother was at that age--yes, quite!" He sighed.
+
+"Is she going back with you?" I asked, feeling a malicious joy in the
+question after the last look she gave me.
+
+"_Certainement_, there is no other way! Thus far I have not tried to
+persuade her, but merely presented a few minor facts. Yes, she will go."
+
+I confess that my malicious joy sank somewhat.
+
+"You are a gentleman," he continued, "and that presupposes a delicate
+sense of honor. I know how you feel toward her--yet would you have her
+remain with you if she one day regretted it? Great things rest on her
+return, I assure you. Let us start even! You have had two days to
+persuade her your way; let me have two days to persuade her mine! After
+that, we fight in the open--you and I!"
+
+There was something straightforward in his appeal that impressed me. I
+had had two days, and it would be giving her destiny, those great things
+he spoke of, a square deal to comply. I had misgivings, of course, but
+these were overruled by--why deny it?--the masculine conceit that
+becomes assertive after a few feminine favors. At any rate, it was a
+fair sporting proposition, and I said:
+
+"All right, for two days--provided I explain to her how we made this
+bargain."
+
+He smiled and hugged me as of yore, crying:
+
+"Almost you would make me sorry when I win! So we fight to the last
+ditch, eh?"
+
+"To the last ditch," I smiled, shaking hands with him.
+
+But hardly had the agreement been sealed before I regretted it. Tommy's
+dissertation on sacrifice worried me. And yet, what man with red blood
+and two wide-open eyes in his heart would have refused to play the cards
+Monsieur thus honestly laid out? It would be unfair to Doloria's future
+if I pugnaciously held to the advantage these few days had brought; for
+it is one thing to start in an open race with men, and run and burst
+your heart to be first across the goal which means a woman's arms, but
+quite another to take her unawares in a wilderness and, upon the spot,
+claim her before she knows what the surrender may involve. In years to
+follow a time might come when she would look at me through
+shadows--shadows that grow dark with perplexity over some irrevocable
+step--and I did not want to sow a seed to ripen into one of these. It is
+distracting enough for a man to bury his existing ghosts, but sheer
+madness deliberately to raise a crop of new ones.
+
+In this case I did not so much fear a race with other men in forms of
+rivals. I had reached my goal, her arms, and nothing could undo that.
+But her conscience--who dares claim the conscience of another! For two
+days, then, Monsieur could fight it out alone with her, and if his
+arguments prevailed--well, I would set about destroying them.
+
+After luncheon, with a brevity that she must have understood meant
+torture, I explained the compact, saying that I could ask for no more
+promises until two days had passed; and when she would have replied that
+her promise had been given I warned her that Monsieur had not even begun
+to show his power. She seemed a little frightened at this and, but for
+the sterling mark indubitably pressed upon her sense of right, I think
+she might have consented to fly from him.
+
+"For two days, then, I'm not to see you," she said simply.
+
+"No," I cried. "But for two days I can't tell you how I love you; how
+you're the very breath of my life, the control of my brain and body and
+soul, how I'll finally win you against everything! I'll see you, and be
+with you, but for two long, weary, interminable days I can't tell you
+that!"
+
+"Mightn't you," she smiled, a wee bit naughtily, "remind me each morning
+of those things you must not tell me during the two long, weary,
+interminable days? Then you wouldn't be so likely to forget, and break
+your contract."
+
+"Temptress! I wish we'd walked to the fort!" For, while we stood out of
+hearing, we were still in sight of the others.
+
+"So do I," she laughed now, her eyes expressive of a most fascinating
+wickedness, a daredeviltry born of the knowledge that the proximity of
+outsiders made her safe. Tommy says that girls often take this unfair
+advantage of a fellow. Then Monsieur, believing the time for
+explanations should be up, came toward us.
+
+At three o'clock our cavalcade started across the prairie for Efaw
+Kotee's settlement. Tommy and Monsieur were keen to see it, and
+especially was the latter keyed up to ransack the place for proofs and
+information. Smilax led, keeping away from the graves. Doloria had made
+no reference to casualties, accepting them as an unfortunate necessity,
+and only once asked about the old chief's fate.
+
+I looked back at the Oasis growing small behind us and a great sorrow
+came over me. It was not easy to leave the place where I had found such
+happiness, the place sacred to our vows, our first dwelling together
+beneath God's tent! It lay green and peaceful, but now upon a blackened
+sea. And, like that flame-swept land, so was my flame-swept heart; the
+fire of a resistless passion had passed over it, leaving amid the ashes
+one spot of beauty. She, also, had stopped to look at it and, as she
+turned away, our eyes met.
+
+When we approached the islands I went forward with Tommy and Smilax,
+leaving Gates to command the rear guard composed of his two sailors,
+Bilkins and Monsieur. Echochee, supremely content to have found Doloria,
+remained at her side.
+
+Four of the attacking party had escaped and might well have returned to
+their houses. We favored the theory, too, that Efaw Kotee had remained
+there, expecting his band to capture us; so, if the fugitives were with
+him, they could by now have prepared a formidable resistance. We
+therefore went warily up to a certain point and waited while Smilax
+crawled forward to reconnoiter.
+
+He returned saying that three punts were on our side, from which he
+believed the men had not come back but were still putting as much
+distance between themselves and us as possible. Tommy thought the punts
+might mean a trap and, although Smilax shook his head in doubt at this,
+we brought up one of the sailors to cover our crossing in case of an
+attack. Then, scrambling down the steep bank, in less than a minute we
+stood upon the island stronghold. No shot had been fired, no sign of
+life existed anywhere. Running to the nearest cabin we hastily searched
+it, and ran to the next, and in this way came finally to the old chief's
+bungalow. Here we halted, as if some horrible magic had turned us to
+stone.
+
+Efaw Kotee, naked to the waist, a few dried smears of blood around his
+mouth, was there to meet us. His lips munched the air, as a very old man
+who interminably chews on nothing, and his chest rose convulsively, then
+rested several seconds before renewing its struggle for breath. He was
+repulsive beyond all human description; for, stretched as an animal skin
+to dry, legs and arms pulled wide apart with buckskin thongs, he had
+been fastened head down on the wall beside his door. Yet this was not
+all. Hanging at the end of a string--in fact, now resting inertly
+against his cheek--was the scarlet, black and yellow ringed body of a
+coral snake, the deadly elaps. Its head had been severed and lay upon
+the floor directly underneath.
+
+In a flash I read the story: a duel of teeth between this captive
+reptile and the semi-crucified man; the one in anger wounding, the other
+snapping in his frenzy to sever that venomous head--his only means of
+escape from it. From the way the thongs had cut into his wrists and
+ankles I knew the struggle had been wild, yet much of this may have come
+from the insanity later kindled by the poison. But that period of
+torment now had passed. Strength was exhausted, and life dangled by the
+merest thread.
+
+I heard Tommy draw in his breath. With a shiver Smilax turned away.
+Better than we he understood what the old man had endured. Together we
+cut the pitiable victim down, carried him inside and laid him on a kind
+of divan.
+
+"Who did this?" Tommy kneeled and called in a loud voice close to his
+ear, hoping to reach a consciousness that had receded far into the
+shadows.
+
+"I know who did it," I interrupted. "Quick! While there's time let me
+ask something we're not so sure about!" And, taking Tommy's place, I
+called: "Is Doloria the princess of Azuria?"
+
+It was so obviously my duty to see that she learned the truth from one
+who knew, that I may be forgiven this apparent disregard for the
+sufferer in our hands. But he showed no sign of having heard, although I
+called again and again in a more commanding voice. His mouth had not
+munched the air since we put him down, and Tommy, listening for a heart
+beat, looked up quietly, saying:
+
+"Must have died on the way in."
+
+"If we'd only come an hour ago," I exclaimed.
+
+"No," Smilax shook his head, "him only squeal ve'y bad for last twelve
+hour. Me reckon some men come back last night; say he plan Lady
+run-'way; tie him up; tie on snake. No, him no talk hour ago. Coral
+snake bite make him ve'y crazy bad."
+
+Tommy had arisen and was walking softly back and forth across the room.
+Finally he stopped, saying over his shoulder:
+
+"I'll give odds there's more in this old desk than he could have told in
+a week! Here's a safe, too, stuck back in an alcove, that looks like it
+might hold a ton! You won't have any trouble finding out things!"
+
+I had not yet noticed the room, but now looked with interest at these
+places that promised to reveal so much. The room itself was large and
+expressive of luxury, without being luxuriously furnished. The
+fireplace, mantel, and furniture were of a good, home-made mission type,
+constructed from gyminda, Florida's nearest approach to ebony; but the
+floor was covered with really beautiful rugs. Around the walls were
+built-in book shelves, mantel high, filled with the volumes Doloria had
+told me of. The piano was there, not an up-right as we had found on the
+_Orchid_, but a handsome grand, bearing one of the best names. A violin
+case lay upon it, while near by was a music stand. Altogether, these
+living quarters of Efaw Kotee showed a taste I would have expected.
+Instinctively I crossed to the desk, but Tommy stopped me, saying:
+
+"Not while that's in here, old fellow," he jerked his head toward the
+divan. "In no other circumstances would he take it from us lying down,
+and it's kind of rubbing it in, don't you think so?"
+
+"If you feel that way about it," I agreed. "But to rob a girl of
+seventeen years or so of life isn't a crime that merits much sympathy."
+
+"I reckon he pretty well paid up for it during last night and to-day,"
+he said softly.
+
+"Whether he did or not, I don't owe him anything," I retorted, in no
+charitable vein, that I hope was caused by our excitement and excessive
+strain.
+
+"You owe him a dog-gone lot," Tommy emphatically replied. "Look at those
+books, at that piano, at what is suggested by the violin case, at the
+refinement of this room--and then picture what might have been here!
+Take another view, and consider what a fine chance you'd have had to
+meet her if that old codger hadn't turned scamp off there in Azuria!
+Anyway, we've got to clean up the signs of this butchery before she
+comes."
+
+In an adjoining room we laid Efaw Kotee upon his own bed. The sheet that
+Tommy got out of a press to spread over him was, I noticed, of beautiful
+linen, and I felt softened toward the uncouth frame which, in this
+wilderness, had still demanded the refinements of life.
+
+Locking the door, we passed back to the living room and thence to the
+landing where, at our direction, the sailor signaled Gates to bring up
+his waiting party. As Doloria once more stepped upon the island I saw
+her eyes grow moist with tears.
+
+We told her that the chief had been found dying, that now he was dead
+and the place deserted; but after she and Echochee had been rowed across
+to their own home and the two sailors posted to guard against a possible
+return of the outlaws, Monsieur and Gates accompanied us to the place of
+awful murder where we explained what we had found.
+
+Monsieur passed into the smaller room, but came out shaking his head and
+murmuring:
+
+"The face is much changed, yet I recognize enough to feel reasonably
+sure it is he."
+
+More positive proofs came when, with breathless interest, we went
+through the contents of the desk, taking things out in order and putting
+them aside after minute examination. The first of these was a seal, and
+the professor, bending over it, uttered a cry of surprise:
+
+"The royal seal of Azuria! What deviltry could he have been
+contemplating when he stole this!"
+
+Then came a blank sheet of note paper, stamped with a gold peak,
+surmounted by a gold crown and three lavender ostrich plumes--the
+Azurian royal crest. These two things alone were strong pieces of
+evidence for the professor's sanguine expectation. There was nothing
+further of importance, so we turned to the safe which seemed impassively
+challenging us to get at its secrets, for the door stood fastened and
+the combination was unknown.
+
+Monsieur kneeled, placed his ear against it, and began slowly to turn
+the knob, listening intently for the little metal hammers, or tumblers,
+of the lock to fall clicking into place.
+
+"I never supposed he knew enough for that," Tommy whispered. "It's a
+regular crook's way!"
+
+At last, very much disgusted, he gave up after explaining that he could
+have succeeded in an hour or so, but preferred to use dynamite because
+it was quicker.
+
+"Undoubtedly it's quicker," Tommy said, "but unless you've cracked safes
+that way before, we may as well say good-bye to the bungalow!"
+
+Gates thought that the door, being of ancient pattern, might yield to a
+sledge, and Smilax went in search of one. Finding none of sufficient
+size, he returned with an anvil, swinging it by its spike. I remember
+the muscles of his arm that held it, the poise of his body as he raised
+it above his head and gathered every ounce of power to hurl it upon the
+combination knob. It made a superb picture of primordial man pitted
+against the sciences. After each resounding blow we tried to throw the
+lever, and at last the battered door swung out.
+
+Here was a find worth coming far to see--packages upon packages of
+greenbacks, all counterfeit, but they made a show, nevertheless. There
+were also plates for printing francs, pounds and rubles, as well as
+those from which the American bills had been made. While Monsieur was
+studying one of these more carefully, Tommy reached past him and drew
+out a large bundle wrapped in heavy brown paper, securely tied and
+sealed. He cut the strings and opened it, then gave a whistle of
+surprise, asking:
+
+"Are these counterfeit, too?"
+
+"_Mon Dieu_, no!" the old fellow gasped, and I, also, caught my breath;
+for in the bundle were hundreds of unregistered French bonds, of the
+highest denomination.
+
+Opening one, I looked at the last coupon, announcing that it bore a date
+of about seventeen years ago, whereupon Monsieur cried:
+
+"Ah, I see it! This accounts for the royal seal we found! Here, at last,
+is the perpetrator of that grand swindle, lying peacefully behind the
+door and not caring what we discover! But he has taken his rue with the
+spoils!--he dared not enjoy these because of the lees he saw in the
+pleasure cup!"
+
+"Chop that off," Tommy told him. "If you've an inspiration about this
+stuff, come across with it!"
+
+"Ah-ha, that man--that _capitaine_ Jess! His name is Karl Schartzmann, a
+shrewd, rascally German who vanished after the _coup d'état_!"
+
+"What swindle, Monsieur?--what _coup d'état_? Whom do these belong to?"
+I was really losing patience; and Tommy murmured:
+
+"Jack, didn't it strike you that only a German mind could have conceived
+that revenge on Efaw Kotee?"
+
+"It was certainly true to German form," I admitted, without reluctance.
+
+"The Bank of France!--who else?" Monsieur was saying. "As one of the
+trusted, I know! Listen: the dead man behind us, and the one called
+Jess, with our Azurian consul in Paris--all scoundrels--hatched a
+swindle to sell, through forged state authority and a farcical secret
+diplomacy, a portion of Azuria to France. This, you may remember, came
+near upsetting the Balkans in 1903. Their crafty scheme lay ready to be
+sprung when Efaw Kotee--we will call him that--had to kidnap the
+princess in self-defense. From that time but fragmentary facts came
+dribbling in from secret agents, as follows:
+
+"First: Two weeks after the kidnaping a foreigner bought a schooner
+yacht in New York, fitted it up with great masses of household effects,
+and sailed, his papers designating Guayra, Venezuela.
+
+"Second: Still two weeks later Karl Schartzmann and our consul in Paris
+transferred the secret bill of sale and left with their arms full of
+bonds. When France discovered the fraud they were well away.
+
+"Third: Still two weeks later a schooner yacht, afterward supposed to be
+the one bought in New York, dropped anchor at Guayra and stayed until
+two men, arriving by steamer, went aboard; whereupon she sailed.
+
+"This is all we definitely discovered, except that before sailing crafty
+inquiries were made into extradition treaties between France and South
+American countries--and found, in every instance, to be unfriendly to
+swindlers.
+
+"I now see how it was with them. Fearing everywhere the press of
+France's vengeance, shunning telegraph wires, they were driven to the
+solitude of these islands where, as solitude has a way of treating the
+criminal mind, their shyness grew to fear, their fear to terror. They
+did not dare go out except at rare intervals, nor dared they realize on
+the bonds. It is clear to me at last!"
+
+It was also clear to me, at last inerrantly clear, that Doloria and the
+little princess were the same.
+
+"Whew!" Tommy gave a whistle. "I feel as woozy as an old warped mirror!
+Did France offer a reward for this stuff?"
+
+"_Certainement!_ And you drew it out!--it is yours, my boy!"
+
+"Like hell it is," he laughed. "I move it goes as prize money to Smilax,
+Echochee, and the crew!"
+
+Late that evening we buried Efaw Kotee under the mangroves, and did not
+tell Doloria. No one knows, who has never seen it, the desolation of
+laying a shrouded figure in a mangrove-covered oyster bar at twilight,
+where water follows each slushy lift of the spade! I feared for her to
+witness it, and therefore, Tommy reading the service, the old chief was
+buried without a woman's sympathy. But, in a measure, he had our own. He
+held a claim on it for having faced a certain responsibility to Doloria;
+for having, with the skill of a master, developed the talents God had
+given her; for having kept her from growing up like a weed.
+
+At ten o'clock that night when, by prearrangement, Tommy and I paddled
+across to bring Monsieur back from the little island, she was standing
+with him on the landing. The moon was nearing full, bathing her in a
+silvery light, and I saw from the droop of her body that she was tired.
+
+"Good night," I said, arising in the punt and putting out my hand.
+
+"Good night," she murmured wearily; but her fingers were cold and did
+not answer the pressure of my own. I had touched Efaw Kotee's hand only
+a few hours before, and it had been cold with the same inert, mysterious
+coldness. I shivered.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+A FLYING THRONE
+
+
+Early next morning Monsieur was taken to the little island, and I felt
+that his interview would be long and solemn--perhaps stormy. I hoped so.
+He came back for luncheon and immediately left again, having given us no
+intimation of his progress. I did not know what Doloria might be
+suffering from these visits, but they made me so abominably restive that
+during the afternoon I took a pine and crossed to the mainland,
+half-heartedly intending to look for deer. It was nearly sundown when I
+returned.
+
+"We're packing, sir," said the sailor who tied my punt.
+
+"Packing? Why?"
+
+"Orders, sir."
+
+Without loss of time I hunted up Tommy, finding him and Bilkins busy at
+carpentry.
+
+"What's in the wind?" I brusquely demanded, forgetting that Tommy was
+rather particular about the way people addressed him.
+
+"Rain," he imperturbably replied; or did he mean reign, and was
+employing a vulgar pun to apprize me of Doloria's decision! So I
+delivered a ten-second philippic on the poverty of some intellects,
+whereupon he left off working and regarded me with amusement.
+
+"Fact is, Lord Chesterfield, I don't know what's in the wind," he said,
+"but we're leaving for Little Cove to-morrow at dawn. Bilkins and I are
+making a portable throne--in other words, a chair suspended from poles
+so Doloria won't have to walk. Professor came over about five o'clock in
+a rattling hurry and splendid humor. He's packing Efaw Kotee's effects
+now. Smilax left two hours ago with orders for the _Whim_ to be there
+and take us off. Add it up for yourself."
+
+"Orders," I angrily exclaimed, for this impertinence on the part of
+Monsieur was going too far. "He settles with me, that's all!--and the
+_Whim_ stays in Big Cove till I send for her!"
+
+He grinned, then whistled softly.
+
+"So there's no use knicking my knuckles any more on this portable
+throne?"
+
+"Not the slightest," I told him.
+
+"Love's first tiff," he sighed, laying down the hammer and beginning to
+fill his pipe.
+
+"Love's what?"
+
+"Tootsie-wootsie tiff, I believe I said"--this between puffs as the
+match flared high and low over the bowl. "You understand, of course,
+that Doloria gave the order."
+
+"Confound you, why didn't you say so! What's happened? Did a message
+come?"
+
+"Sure." He stopped smoking and looked at me. "A big limousine drove up
+with a note and flowers."
+
+"Be serious," I thundered. "This isn't any time to joke!"
+
+"When you talk about a paucity of intellect," he laughed softly, "it's a
+wonder you don't bite yourself."
+
+"Oh, Tommy, please let up; I'm sorry, honest--I'm wretched, too!"
+
+His manner changed then. Putting his arm through mine, he led me
+outside, going toward our landing.
+
+"This is just the time to joke, old man," he said, when we reached it.
+"She made up her mind to leave, _pronto_! Why? Conscience said obey
+Monsieur, but heart said nixy! What's to do then? Start home quick, of
+course, before little heart gives old conscience the solar plexus!
+That's how I size it up!"
+
+"But I don't see anything to joke about," I said gloomily.
+
+"Well, let me shuffle again--now take a look! When Smilax left with her
+order, I sent a note to the mate, telling him to bring both yachts down.
+Then we'll have to split the crew, and in the mix-up I'll see that you
+and she get on the _Whim_, while Monsieur sails on----But I see you get
+me! If you can't stifle her conscience before we reach Miami, you're a
+mud-hen."
+
+"Great guns," I whispered, grabbing him by the arms, "we might sail----"
+
+"All over the Gulf," he chuckled, giving me a push toward the water.
+"There's your Hellespont, son, as sure as Leander was a gentleman! Cross
+it now and tell her it's all right about that order!"
+
+"My two days aren't up yet; I'm bound."
+
+"That's nothing. Wait!"
+
+He was off to the old chief's bungalow and reappeared with Monsieur,
+whose broad smile was anything but reassuring.
+
+"You wish to relieve her uncertainty about that order?" he asked, coming
+up. "Certainly, my boy Jack, go and say what you please."
+
+"What I please?" I asked pointedly.
+
+"Why not what you please? She goes with me to Azuria--we have arranged
+it. You could not dissuade her now. Even could you, she knows she can
+not resist my authority. Yes, go and say what you like."
+
+He was laughing by this time, at his success rather than my
+discomfiture, but Tommy saw that I was making little distinction between
+the two and wisely led him away.
+
+As I stepped upon the little island Echochee came down to meet me.
+
+"How's your Lady?" I asked.
+
+"You go see," she answered in a low voice, pointing to the open door.
+
+As I entered the commodious living room Doloria looked up, but did not
+smile. She was reclining on a _chaise-longue_, beneath a shaded lamp
+whose rays still blended with the light of a dying afterglow. Her
+hunting costume had been discarded for a flimsy kind of an exquisite
+thing of blue--hardly a dress, although it had a lot of lace and seemed
+to fit her perfectly. It was open at the throat like some dresses, and
+the sleeves fell away from her arms; but I had seen one instinctive
+movement she made to pull it closer which might have indicated
+embarrassment.
+
+"I've come with Monsieur's permission," I said, bowing over her hand.
+
+"With Monsieur's permission," she repeated after me. "We seem to do
+nothing but with Monsieur's permission."
+
+I saw that she was nervous and very much upset, so replied as gently as
+I could:
+
+"But this visit involved my promise, otherwise I wouldn't have asked
+him. I want to tell you that it's all right about the yacht--your
+sending for her, I mean. She'll be on hand to-morrow."
+
+"Thanks, Chancellor." Her tone had changed to one of complete weariness.
+"Now leave me, please."
+
+"Leave you," I exclaimed. "I'll do nothing of the kind! The two-day ban
+is off, and Monsieur has told me I can say anything I please!"
+
+"And having his permission to say anything you please, did you rehearse
+it before him, too?"
+
+This left me helpless, fervently wishing I'd had more of Tommy's
+experience with girls' moods. He knew a lot about them, and would have
+understood just what to do. But I felt suddenly enraged--not at her, but
+at everything, and cried:
+
+"I don't give a damn for him or his permission! He shan't take you
+away!"
+
+For the first time she smiled, and held out her hands to me, saying:
+
+"That's good-medicine-talk, Jack. I like it even if it won't cure me.
+Say it again--that you don't give a damn for him!"
+
+I would have said something in an entirely different way had not
+Echochee been moving about the next room, but I kneeled, leaning over
+her, keeping her hand and whispering:
+
+"He shan't dominate our lives! You're going back with me--don't you know
+you are?"
+
+"Don't make me sorry you came, Jack," she said softly. "I must go with
+him. So let's talk of other things and keep our last evening here from
+being a horror."
+
+"I've got to talk about it, as I've got to breathe and think and move
+and love you! It's all one! It's my existence, and if you went away it
+would be like tearing me to pieces!"
+
+"Oh, but don't you see that I must," she cried despairingly. "I didn't
+close my eyes all night, thinking, thinking, thinking! It was agony.
+It's agony now. But my decision's been through the fire, Jack, and I
+know I'm right!"
+
+"No decision counts for anything against all you mean to me!"
+
+"Oh, Jack, I'm so sorry!" she moaned, looking at me without
+dissimulation and letting me see that her face was marked by a solemnity
+and tragedy that wrung my heart. "God," she whispered, putting her hand
+to my forehead, "how I suffer while I see your tortured eyes!"
+
+"Then out of sorrow, pity, tell me what the fellow said," I implored,
+nearly beside myself. "Let me know the strength of your duty, so my own
+strength can have a chance. It isn't fair to make a beggar of me when I
+might be fighting for happiness! Let me see his weapons so I can strike
+back; then, if I lose, I'll lose standing up--and the future," I added,
+less impetuously, "isn't so gray to the man who loses standing up."
+
+She had turned away with a quick gesture of anguish and seemed to be
+crying, but when she looked at me again there were no signs of tears.
+
+"He says others have demands and rights, and the many must outweigh the
+few."
+
+"That depends on the greatness of each side's claims," I began, when she
+interrupted by continuing:
+
+"My conscience decided that--it had no choice; every claim has been
+weighed--accurately." Her voice trembled a little, and I thought she was
+trying to make it harsh. "He said that you and I were thrown out from
+separate spheres, opposite poles. By chance our orbits happened to
+cross, and you rendered me this tremendous service. But it was only a
+part of the foreordination--only to make my path easier to a greater
+duty ahead, a greater destiny to be fulfilled. Now this commands--he
+says. The call of my birthright has come, and I must answer. He says
+that neither of us will mind it in a little while, as memories
+pa--pass." She wavered at last, and again turned away her face.
+
+"But you don't believe that stuff?" I cried.
+
+"Oh, his words are so unanswerable--when he speaks them! Then he has the
+authority to command me!"
+
+"They're not unanswerable," I said hotly. "_You_ haven't weighed our
+happiness against this unknown voice of your people, your birthright--he
+did it for you! His cold logic read the scales--not your heart or your
+conscience! He's built a wall around you like a cistern, and you can't
+see out. If it was ordained for us to face death, then by the same law
+we've got to face life! Sweetheart, don't you see what I mean?"
+
+"I've seen all that from the beginning, dear," she murmured, putting one
+hand on my hair and stroking it. "But nothing can prevail against what
+you call his cold logic. He's certain that he's right, and he has the
+power to make me go."
+
+"Oh, if I only had the brains to out-argue him!" My voice choked, and I
+bowed my head in her lap.
+
+For a while we were silent. Her hand continued to stroke my hair, and
+soon her fingers strayed to my temple and gently pressed it--as if she
+knew that my head burned and ached, and wanted to make it well.
+
+"You don't have to argue, always my own," I heard her whisper. "There's
+something stronger than words pleading for you."
+
+I looked up quietly, saying:
+
+"Let's run away to-night! Let's have another rescue, and go back to our
+Oasis----" But she stopped me by putting her hand over my mouth,
+although she was breathing fast and the color had flown to her cheeks.
+
+"Don't, don't," she gasped. "I've thought of that so many times!"
+
+"To-night," I begged. "You know I'll always make you happy?"
+
+"Happy?" Her eyes, half closed, held mine with a look that did not try
+to hide its longing. "There'd be no happiness on earth like that of
+being entirely yours at our Oasis!"
+
+"Then, sweetheart----"
+
+"No, Jack," she now sat straighter. "I was dreaming. Besides, he'd
+follow with every officer in Florida. Don't you understand, dear, that
+he has the _right_? I'm helpless to refuse! I can't--possibly! It's
+simply awful, but it's got to be."
+
+Yet I believed that she had been on the point of yielding, and was about
+to urge still further when Monsieur's voice, speaking to Echochee,
+brought me to my feet.
+
+"Well, my boy Jack," he exclaimed, entering with a cheeriness I found
+detestable, "we shall leave her now, eh? She has packing to do, and must
+get early to rest."
+
+His protectorate seemed to brook no opposition, and an angry retort
+sprang to my lips which remained unspoken when I saw the pallor of
+Doloria's face.
+
+"Yes," she said, without animation, "I must pack. See you to-morrow--on
+the march."
+
+So, ignoring him, I passed out. But a better humor came to me as I
+thought of Tommy's scheme about the _Orchid_, and coming upon Echochee
+at the landing I asked--lightly for her benefit, yet quite seriously for
+myself:
+
+"Is there any magic in your tribe that can bring a troubled princess
+sleep and pleasant dreams?"
+
+I knew that she was searching my face with her black little eyes that
+glistened like a snake's, as she answered slowly:
+
+"Injun maiden find plenty good dream when her head lay on breast of
+sleeping brave."
+
+"I didn't mean just that," I stammered, feeling my cheeks grow hot. For,
+albeit, Doloria had slept part of a night with her head against my
+shoulder when we fared alone in the purity of our wilderness, now, since
+others of the world were touching elbows with us, Echochee's words
+knocked me rather into a self-conscious heap. But such is the bitter
+tithe we must toss into the maw of civilization which, despite its
+multitude of admitted blessings, breeds also the false! And I stepped
+into the punt wishing that this daughter of our oldest American family
+could be divinely appointed arbiter of our customs.
+
+Smilax returned with word that both yachts would be at Little Cove, and
+one by one the lights in our camp went out. But I sat late at Efaw
+Kotee's desk writing a ten-page telegram and a fifty-page letter to my
+father. Both of these I would despatch from Key West--the wire telling
+him to bring the Mater to Miami where the letter would await them; and I
+urged them both, as they loved me, to pick up a certain darling of the
+gods named Nell. Only I made it stronger and more explicit than that,
+and knew they would comply if such a thing were humanly possible. But
+this pet scheme I intended to keep from Tommy. It would repay him for
+his masterly scheme of sailing both yachts homeward.
+
+The next morning after an early breakfast our cavalcade set forth, each
+man carrying a pack except the two sailors on whose shoulders rested the
+poles of Doloria's chair. But in this chair sat a very sad little
+princess--this morning particularly, as she was leaving a nominal home
+for a new and mystifying adventure. Whatever else Efaw Kotee had been to
+her, at least he stood in her memory of father; and however irrevocably
+she may have turned against him, the very fact that she found it
+necessary to do so was a grievous disappointment.
+
+All that had passed. Strangers had come, and in a few days she was being
+borne to the other half of the world. To her mother!--what did she know
+of a mother? To a throne!--but with an unknown prince to rule beside
+her? And these were entirely apart from the longings she might leave on
+this side of the world. Surely, if she needed sympathy at any time it
+was now as the march began.
+
+Although Monsieur had taken a position close to her, and evidently meant
+to keep it, before we had gone very far I fell in alongside with them,
+asking:
+
+"How do you find the march? Tiring?"
+
+"Oh, no, not in Tommy's flying throne, as he calls it,"--and in an
+undertone she added: "I wish it were the only throne I had to occupy."
+
+But the professor, overhearing this--for little escaped him now--cleared
+his throat and stepped nearer.
+
+"She is mistaken, my boy Jack," he said suavely. "The march is quite
+fatiguing, and I must insist that she conserve her strength. There will
+be no more conversation."
+
+Taken aback by this, I was on the point of giving him a jolly good
+blowing up, but her ready acquiescence caused me to desist. Really, I
+began to wonder if he had her hypnotized; and, furious--indeed, quite a
+good deal hurt--by the cool way she obeyed him and began to ignore me, I
+marched grimly ahead.
+
+As, three hours later, we neared the cove I saw Tommy sauntering back.
+His manner seemed an augury of trouble, and I hurried on to him, asking:
+
+"What's happened?"
+
+"The _Orchid_ isn't there," he turned and fell into step with me. "While
+getting her out of Big Cove she fouled on a bar. She's still on it, poor
+dear. So Monsieur sails with us, after all."
+
+For several minutes I stood still in my tracks and swore, stopping only
+when Doloria's chair came in sight.
+
+"I'm glad you got that out of your system," Tommy grinned. "Now get busy
+on a new line of attack. We've only three more days, and you'll have to
+work fast. Surprise her, upset her, then cinch her before she knows
+what's what. That's the way!" And he hurried back to pay his respects.
+
+The mate and his fellows, even to Pete the cook, escorted us happily
+down to the small boats. They were honestly glad, and made no pretense
+of disguising their admiration for Doloria, to the increasing wrath of
+Echochee.
+
+If ever the men of my own boat crew were on their mettle it was when
+they sat with oars straight up while I helped her into the gig and took
+my place at her side--for this was an honor I could not yield to
+Monsieur, etiquette demanding that, when going aboard, the owner must be
+her personal escort. With a nod to them they snapped into stroke and we
+shot away, leaving the old fellow much disgruntled.
+
+At the top of the gangway she hesitated in pretty wonderment before
+stepping on deck, for the _Whim_ was a smart craft and our sailors had
+not been idle these few days past.
+
+"Everything's so unreal," she murmured. "My house of cards has come
+tumbling down about my ears, until I think it must be a dreadful dream."
+
+"To be transported to a sure-enough throne is certainly dreamlike," I
+said, arranging the cushions in a chair. "But I hardly think you'll find
+anything dreadful about it."
+
+"You don't?" she asked pointedly.
+
+"No," I answered. "The dreadful part's for me."
+
+I knew this was not true, or only partially true, but considered it
+justifiable after Tommy's warning--and Tommy knew a lot about women. I
+remembered him saying once that a girl's determination could be changed
+in two ways: by opposition, and by coöperation. I had tried opposition,
+so now I would pretend to fall resignedly in with Monsieur's plan,
+taking it for granted that her future promised nothing but idyllic
+happiness, that memories would pass, and all that kind of thing. I would
+become an enigma to her--for this, also, had been one of Tommy's diverse
+methods of success. Some day, confessing how my triumph had been
+achieved, we both would laugh over it, and then she would have to admit
+that Tommy was not the only one who knew a thing or two about women.
+
+So reasoning, I started in at once. For a while she stared at me, her
+eyes growing wider and wider. Then she arose and went to the rail,
+remarking coolly:
+
+"Please signal to have Echochee and Monsieur Dragot brought out at
+once." And that was the only thing she would say.
+
+To hell with what Tommy knew about women! She would not so much as look
+at me again, and when that wretched old rag of a shriveled-up squaw,
+incarnate fiend of a watchful guardian, arrived my princess retired to
+her stateroom, nor did she appear again the entire day. What Tommy knew
+about women, indeed!
+
+The rest of us lunched in moody silence, except Monsieur who grew
+loquacious to the point of making himself an ass. He was not on the
+crest of popularity, anyway. Previously, in order to give Doloria more
+freedom, Tommy and I decided to sleep on deck and use Gates's quarters
+for a dressing room. But when this proposition was also opened to the
+professor he flatly refused to join with us. The truth of the matter was
+that he had determined upon a plan--singularly popular among
+pedagogues--of watchful waiting; he had made up his mind that Doloria
+and I should not see each other again except in his presence. He may
+have told her this--I rather suspected it.
+
+As we sat in the cockpit smoking, he became down-right obnoxious by
+excessive jocularity. It can be disgustingly overdone. Believing that
+his triumph was assured, he sputtered and giggled with small regard for
+my presence, and the farther he went the madder I got. Despite his
+former protestations of fair play, I now began to nurse a suspicion of
+this befousled little gimcrack; but I'd not thought that Tommy would
+grow a distemper of any magnitude until the professor, rubbing his
+hands, announced:
+
+"_Mon Capitaine_ says we do not sail for an hour. Let us take a small
+boat and fish around the mangroves! Maybe a snapper, eh?--or a
+sheep's-head!"
+
+I was silent. Tommy puffed indifferently at his pipe.
+
+"Come," he cried again. "Let us make a fishing party!"
+
+"The trouble with fishing parties is," Tommy drawled, "that there's
+always some damn fool along who wants to fish."--Which was, I think, not
+only the best thing Tommy ever said but, in the circumstances, the best
+that could have been said.
+
+The professor sat down again rather suddenly and blinked at us.
+
+"So! Then we do not fish," he murmured, and after another thoughtful
+pause went below.
+
+"I don't suppose we ought to insult him," I suggested, not intending any
+one to think I meant it.
+
+"I don't care what we do to him," Tommy savagely retorted. "All the good
+you've got out of this cruise will go to the bow-wows. I won't have it,
+I tell you! Let's chuck him overboard!"
+
+"Chuck over your grouch," I laughed, although his proposition interested
+me.
+
+"Oh, I haven't any grouch," he turned away; but swung back, asking: "Are
+you going to give up?"
+
+"Most certainly not!"
+
+"Then why don't you get busy?"
+
+"Get busy! D'you expect me to go downstairs and drag her out of her
+room?"
+
+"Yes--do anything! She isn't staying there from choice!" (But I knew
+better than that.) "If I slug the gezabo you might ask her up. Shall I?"
+
+"Show an idea, man! You know she wouldn't see me!"
+
+"What if she wouldn't! Bring her out, anyhow! Good Lord, Jack, if you're
+an example of lovers up North, then I say God pity Yankee girls!"
+
+"Well, what would you do, Mr. Know-so-much?" I asked, my temper blowing
+up. "If she told you she'd stayed awake nights fighting it out and
+reached the conclusion, absolutely and without peradventure of changing
+her mind, that her destiny's in Azuria, what would you do then--you who
+know such a hell of a lot about women?" I just had to say that; it kept
+irritating me.
+
+"I don't claim any knowledge of the genus," he said, looking mildly at
+the horizon--and wanting to laugh, I thought. "But a modicum of brain
+would show you she hasn't thought it out, at all. How could she in
+forty-eight hours, being confronted for the first time in her life with
+the two most glowing things in a girl's fancy--love or a throne? She's
+dazzled, not decided."
+
+"She's worse," I growled. "She's hurt--that's one reason she won't come
+up! And allow me to say that what you know about women wouldn't fill a
+gnat's eye!" I seemed to be hypped on this, and couldn't get away from
+it.
+
+"Well, if you've spilled the beans you'll have to pick 'em up pretty
+quick, for we'll be home in three days. Just be sure you don't intimate
+that Azuria can be less than a perfect hell to her, for that would ruin
+your chances forever!" And with this parting injunction, that drove
+terror to my heart, he walked aft to join Gates.
+
+Going to the companionway door, I peered into the cabin. The wretched
+Dragot, bedecked in smoking jacket and spectacles, looking uncommonly
+like a monkey, I thought, was lounging behind a book. He knew that the
+nearer uncertainty approaches a certainty the more fatal will be the
+result of its upsetting; that, whereas a scheme jumbled in its infancy
+may recover, the slightest maladjustment on the threshold of success
+often spells irrevocable ruin. He was taking no chances.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+A TREASURE BOX
+
+
+Late that afternoon we got under way, setting our course for Key West.
+But it was a glum company aboard. The Princess remained in her
+stateroom; Tommy's grouch for Monsieur had grown out of all proportion,
+so the professor's gay mood lost much of its bloom; Echochee, whenever
+she left her mistress, scowled at us as though we were pirates; Gates,
+knowing that my plans had become miserably pied, grumbled over trifles;
+Bilkins sniffled, and the mate walked about with curses fairly bristling
+from him like pin-feathers. Heaven knows how wretched I was! If a group
+of people were ever out of tune, we had struck the original discord. Of
+us all, the cook maintained both equanimity and cuisine in perfect
+taste, else I hesitate to think what might have been the fate of the
+good yacht, _Whim_.
+
+Sometime during the night we reached Key West, and early next morning
+Gates called me to go ashore. I had requested this. There were the
+telegram and letter to be sent; and candy, flowers, fruits, magazines,
+souvenirs, and anything suitable I might find, to lay at Doloria's
+shrine. Had it not been for the stubbornness of a fellow who insisted
+that he was under contract, I would have had a moving picture show
+aboard for her.
+
+By eight o'clock we were again away, sailing lazily eastward before a
+light breeze. Three days of this inert weather, or possibly less, should
+bring us to Miami. There Monsieur had expressed his intention of wiring
+the Roumanian, or some other, consul; then he would entrain with my
+little Princess, and--well, that would be the end.
+
+All that day we poked along. Surreptitiously I had sent several notes
+down by Bilkins, but the only reply they got was an angry negative shake
+of Echochee's head. The old Indian would divulge nothing beyond the fact
+that her Lady was well. I then thought of knocking at Doloria's door to
+get a word with her, but the professor, always in the cabin on guard,
+sat where he could frustrate any such plan. He had stayed there the
+previous night until a late hour, and was back at his post quite an hour
+before breakfast.
+
+She did not appear at luncheon, nor during the long and wearisome
+afternoon.
+
+The next day was a counterpart of its forerunner, except that it got
+more on my nerves. I had pegged through it in the hope that she might at
+least dine with us--for this was to be our last dinner on the _Whim_,
+Gates saying we would land about the following noon. But, happening upon
+Echochee and asking her this, she almost snapped my head off in saying
+that her mistress had no such intention.
+
+Growing more desperate as the afternoon waned, I tried again to approach
+Doloria's stateroom from the far end of the passageway, but Monsieur,
+glancing over his book, arose and came toward me. The expression in his
+face plainly said that if I attempted to force him aside he would
+command her to keep her door locked--and I knew that she would obey.
+Therefore, ready to abandon hope, I wandered up and sought a secluded
+place along the rail where, unobserved by steersman and forward watch, I
+could swear a little, and look more glum, and feel quite natural. It
+was here that Tommy passed me on his way to the cabin.
+
+"Time for dinner," he said, stopping and laying down something that had
+been under his arm.
+
+"Don't want any dinner," I growled.
+
+His face, for the first time in three days, broke into a beatific smile,
+and for a moment I was disposed to punch it, thinking, of course, that
+he meant to guy me. But he saw this intention and sprang back, holding
+his palms outward in an attitude of alert protest; yet the smile
+continued, now to be followed by a low, pleased laugh.
+
+"Don't get mad," he gurgled. "I'm not laughing at you--only at things."
+
+"In the circumstances I consider that personal," I glared at him.
+
+"Well, you needn't, honest! To-night I'm presenting the gezabo with a
+treasure box, and had really intended asking you to keep away from
+dinner. That's why I'm laughing--your unintentional acquiescence is a
+good omen!"
+
+"Treasure box of what?" I demanded, knowing this was some of his
+tomfoolishness, and irritated that he should have any heart for it.
+
+"Keep your head down," he winked good-humoredly. "You'll know soon
+enough."
+
+"Tommy," I now excitedly caught him by the arms, "you've got a scheme!
+What is it, old man? Tell me quick!" I shook him happily, for there was
+something about his mysterious air that began to inspire me with hope.
+
+"Very simple, son; very simple," he chuckled. "Surprisingly simple, and
+that's why it'll get across. You sit in the cockpit and observe without
+being observed, but I'll need your help in one thing: when you see me
+get up and walk around my chair, you beat it, _pronto_, for this very
+spot where we are now--and wait here. Understand? It's a nice secluded
+spot, so you just wait till I come."
+
+"Yes, but----"
+
+"Never mind! Just do what your Uncle Tom says. Now it's dinner time and
+I reckon Monsieur's starved--he always is! So I'll take my treasure
+box--oh, by the way, you're not supposed to be in the cockpit, so don't
+stir around!"
+
+As he picked the thing up I saw that it was a little iron safe about ten
+inches square--everybody knows the kind. Although small, it was heavy
+and quite complete, possessing a combination lock of no small merit. In
+the captain's quarters that Tommy and I now used as a dressing room I
+had noticed a safe similar to this, and asked if it were the same,
+whereupon he laughed, saying:
+
+"Yes. Gates keeps his pipes in it, but I got him to flip the combination
+on 'em for to-night. Well, here goes!" And a few minutes later as he
+descended the stairs, I, with repressed excitement, stepped back to the
+cockpit, taking a chair where I could see without being seen.
+
+The dinner had scarcely begun when Monsieur, looking about, asked:
+
+"Where's my boy Jack?"
+
+"Where's Jack?" Tommy repeated, in a voice unnecessarily loud, I
+thought. "Didn't you know about Jack? Why, he's in bad shape--maybe die,
+for all I know!"
+
+I must say that the professor looked genuinely concerned, and would have
+left at once to doctor me had not Tommy sternly interposed. Across the
+carpeted floor of the dim passageway that led past the staterooms I now
+saw a thin streak of light, as if some one had quietly opened a door an
+inch or so. Since this happened to come from Doloria's room, I suspected
+the Indian woman of listening.
+
+"Don't you go near him or he'll jump overboard, I tell you," Tommy was
+saying. "He wouldn't let you, and you couldn't help him, anyhow; no one
+can, poor old Jack! When the Princess stopped speaking to him, and he
+saw the game was up,--well, his heart kind of broke!"
+
+"_Pardieu_, I am sorry--I am sorry," the professor shook his head.
+
+"Don't let's talk about it," Tommy replied, as dolefully as the loud
+tone would permit. "I can't look at his suffering--really I can't! It
+almost kills me! And there's no remedy, now!" And, when finally the
+conversation had been diverted to other channels, the streak of light
+disappeared.
+
+Sometime later Tommy, with, a fine show of indifference, said over his
+demitasse:
+
+"By the way, if we land to-morrow this is your last chance to open that
+treasure box."
+
+"Treasure box?"
+
+"Yes, the little safe I found tucked down in Efaw Kotee's trunk. Jack
+and I intended to tackle it to-night, but since he's knocked out I've
+lost interest."
+
+"I had not heard of this," the professor cried, his eyes sparkling with
+all manner of hope and enthusiasm.
+
+"Oh, you heard of it, but just forgot. Anyhow, here it is." He lifted it
+from the floor and placed it on the table. "You're welcome to its
+secrets; I'm satisfied to get home with a whole skin." Whereupon he
+reached for a recent Key West newspaper, tilted back his chair and
+settled down to read.
+
+Monsieur's fingers closed feverishly around the little safe as though it
+might have held the secret of perpetual youth. After examining it
+minutely, he sprawled over and prepared to open it by listening for the
+little metal tumblers to fall into their notches while he slowly turned
+the combination knob. Tommy, I guessed at once, had neatly anticipated
+this after seeing him try it on the big safe in Efaw Kotee's house and
+hearing his boast that he could have accomplished it in time. Now, just
+as he got his ear flattened to the iron door and was almost choking for
+breath in an agony of listening, the newspaper began to rustle.
+
+"It gets my goat," Tommy irritably exclaimed, "to have a front-page
+story carried to the inside, where half the time I can't find it!"
+
+Monsieur, raising his head, politely waited for the noise to cease, as
+no one could hear the delicate sounds he sought with a newspaper
+carrying on that way about his head. Yet, when quiet had been once more
+restored and he was ready to try again, Tommy began another hunt for
+news.
+
+"Think you can work it?" he casually asked, over his shoulder.
+
+"I--I might, with less noise," the professor suggested.
+
+"Hope my paper doesn't bother you. This is the only place I have to read
+since I gave up my room, you know."
+
+Several times more, as Monsieur was holding his breath momentarily
+expecting the mystery of the combination to dissolve, the paper seemed
+to be stricken with an ague, till at last, hugging the safe to his
+chest, he indignantly stalked down the passageway and slammed the door
+of his room after him.
+
+Tommy now arose and walked around his chair, and as I was leaving for my
+appointed place I saw him start on tiptoe in the direction of Doloria's
+stateroom.
+
+Ten minutes later he appeared in the cockpit, helped her to the deck,
+and together they approached. Yet as they drew near the place I was
+standing she stopped, looking at me in pretty surprise, but came forward
+again with hands outstretched, saying:
+
+"Oh, Jack, I thought you were terribly, dangerously ill!" And before I
+could reply Tommy was gurgling, with a fatuous grin:
+
+"Why, hullo, Jack! I see you're up!"
+
+"Are you better?" she asked, letting her hands rest in mine.
+
+"D'you know," here Tommy interposed, not giving me a chance to answer,
+"that old whiz-bang devil told Doloria that if she spoke to you, or
+answered your notes, he'd have you jailed for interfering with a foreign
+country's accredited agent? Sure, he did! He stuffed her poor little
+head full of trumped-up international law that hadn't a grain of truth
+in it--to scare her, see? She was afraid to budge!"
+
+"He did that?" I cried.
+
+"Oh, yes, but it doesn't matter now," she said hurriedly. "Are you
+really better?"
+
+"Dear me, dear me"--it was Tommy again--"I've come up without my
+cigarettes! You'll excuse me?" He bowed to her, and left without
+awaiting the royal consent.
+
+The silence was a trifle awkward when he went, and our eyes seemed to be
+glued to the spot where he disappeared; but now I turned to her.
+
+"I suppose Echochee was listening to his conversation with Monsieur, and
+told you. Tommy's full of ideas, but this is his masterpiece because it
+unlocked your prison."
+
+"It was I who listened--purposely," she said, without a trace of
+embarrassment, but laughed a little strangely as she asked: "You weren't
+ill, at all?"
+
+"Yes, I honestly was--with unhappiness; but not as near dead as he
+pretended."
+
+"And you're in no danger by talking to me?"
+
+"The greatest danger--but not from man-made prisons."
+
+"Oh, it feels so good to be up in this fresh air," she said
+irrelevantly, raising her face to the sky and taking a deep breath.
+
+"He was a scoundrel to keep you shut in down there," I declared; and
+then she told me of the old fellow's fabrications, really such atrocious
+lies that for a while I was undecided whether to thrash him or laugh. As
+it turned out, I laughed; because she did.
+
+She had moved to the rail and rested her arms on it, leaning over and
+looking pensively down at the water. I, also, went to stand by her, but,
+in turning, my eyes happened to glance through one of the cabin
+portlights at Tommy. He was seated comfortably in a deep chair,
+Doloria's box of candy stood on the table within easy reach, the
+newspaper was in his hands, a cigarette hung from his lips, and Echochee
+was just bringing him the basket of fruit I had taken so much care at
+Key West to have made attractive.
+
+"Picture of Tommy hurrying down for his cigarettes," I whispered. "Peep
+at him!"
+
+As she leaned forward and the light fell on her serious face, the
+attractive curves of mischief, always so maddening, touched the corners
+of her mouth.
+
+"Isn't he a dear," she murmured. "And there's nothing in the safe but
+the captain's old pipes?"
+
+"That's all. Tommy's waiting to soothe the professor when he makes that
+discovery, and keep him from coming on deck."
+
+She laughed guardedly, but there was no great spirit of fun in either of
+us, and again we turned back to our contemplation of the water, for a
+long time looking down at it in moody silence. I instinctively felt that
+she had not altered her decision.
+
+In the distance off our starboard bow a hairlike line of slowly
+brightening silver, forerunner of the climbing moon, touched the far
+horizon. It resembled a shining lake upon a great dark waste, and I told
+her it was my love trying to light my life that had turned to night
+without her.
+
+I know we were subdued by the witchery that comes with watching for the
+moon, because when its dome appeared her fingers gently tightened on my
+sleeve; nor did we speak until it stood serenely balanced upon the
+world's edge, sending to our feet a silvery pathway that twinkled on the
+waves. And then, by the merest accident of our position as the yacht
+changed its course among the keys, two far-off pine trees, appearing to
+move out side by side across the sea, stopped in the center of the moon.
+She caught her breath at the unusual beauty of this. That sigh from her,
+and the mystic night, all but drove me mad. My senses swayed with the
+throb of some vast indwelling orchestra.
+
+"Let's take the silvery path," I whispered, putting my arms about her.
+"Look, it leads to the gate of our Secret world, where we first found
+happiness!"
+
+"Oh, dear Jack," she pleaded--but I would not be stopped, and words
+stumbled over each other in my agony to persuade her.
+
+"It's Fate--your destiny! I can't change it, neither can you! It spoke
+to us beneath our two big pines on the Oasis; it's speaking
+to-night--saying you shall never leave me!"
+
+"Oh, but Jack, that's so impossible! He'll _make_ me go!"
+
+I saw the glitter of tears upon her cheeks, and answered fiercely:
+
+"He can't, when I love you as I do!"--and whispered over and over:
+"Sweetheart, sweetheart, I love you!"
+
+She had not moved. The moon, by this time high enough to have mustered
+its forces, frosted the yacht into the semblance of a dream-ship, and we
+might, indeed, have been sailing upon some phantom lake in fairyland. My
+eyes were pleading for hers until she raised them--and then they could
+not turn away. Held and blended by a mesmeric force, they began to give
+and answer question for question, secret for secret. I saw the quick
+pulsations in her throat, which seemed to be beating in my veins,
+instead.
+
+"Oh, Jack," she whispered, laughing tremulously, with a subdued madness
+that was made for such a night as this, "let me go back to Echochee!"
+
+But I could only answer as I had before:
+
+"I love you--I love you!"
+
+"Darling, darling Jack," she begged, taking my cheeks in her palms, "you
+mustn't--you really mustn't! Let me go, dear!--Oh, I believe my throne
+is--is tottering!"
+
+"And my reason with it!" I cried, drawing her quickly, passionately, up
+to me.
+
+For a long time a silvery yacht glided across a silvery sea, while in
+far-off Azuria a throne did totter and fall; but ten thousand loyal
+subjects smiled in their sleep that night at a strangely happy dream,
+wherein their little Princess was pressing upon the lips of an unknown
+beggar the seal of her eternal sovereignty.
+
+When again we thought of the moon it had climbed surprisingly high,
+making our shadow on the spotless deck seem like a black rug beneath our
+feet.
+
+"Is it awfully late?" she whispered.
+
+"The moon's still up, sweetheart," I said.
+
+"Is it, dear?" she murmured, adorably sighing her contentment at this
+evidence that the night must yet be very young, indeed.
+
+And, finally, when moving stealthily like two happy thieves we went down
+into the cabin, she blew a kiss to the sleeping Thomas Jefferson Davis,
+then gave both hands impulsively to me, and disappeared into her room.
+After the door had closed, and I felt she would not open it again, I
+shook Tommy's shoulder. He blinked at me, mumbling:
+
+"Must have been asleep."
+
+"Must have been," I grinned down at him.
+
+And, when he saw my grin, he sat straight up and grinned back at me--for
+it is in this way that men sometimes understand each other.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+THE FINAL HOCUS-POCUS
+
+
+Doloria breakfasted in her room, but from the galley I sent a note on
+her tray, among other important things saying that I was about to break
+the news to Monsieur. In her reply, surreptitiously delivered by
+Echochee, who was smiling, she wrote--among still more important
+things--"for Heaven's sake, break it into tiny little pieces!" With this
+in mind, although having no idea how I should succeed, I came up by way
+of the fo'castle and walked aft to where Tommy and he were smoking.
+
+The open safe and three or four pipes belonging to Gates lay on the
+floor between them, while the old skipper who had taken the wheel was
+silently convulsed with laughter as he watched the puzzled expression on
+Monsieur's face and the innocence on Tommy's. My opportunity seeming
+favorable, I said:
+
+"Professor, last night the Princess decided to give up Azuria. She's
+promised to stay here and rule me; so I'm giving notice that neither
+you, nor any one else, can take her."
+
+He listened to this with more tolerance than surprise, giving Tommy a
+look that implied his distress to see my prostration taking the form of
+hallucinations. But Tommy added:
+
+"It's on the square. Jack's put one over, and all he asks is your
+blessing. Give it like a good sport, and, we'll drink their health."
+
+"You are cut-upping," he gasped, staring with wide eyes--that
+perceptibly narrowed as he glanced down at the pipes.
+
+"Call it what you please," Tommy imperturbably replied, though I knew
+that he was not at all sure of his ground, "but the Princess and Jack
+are going to be married, and I rather fancy I'm to be best man. It would
+be right decent of you, as the special emissary plenipotentiary
+extraordinary fat-and-hairy agent from Azuria, to give the bride away.
+I'm only suggesting it."
+
+But the professor was on his feet, sputtering and waving his arms in a
+torrent of rage.
+
+"It shall not be, it shall not be!" he cried. Then suddenly he began to
+laugh, looking at us with a superior air of cunning that made my flesh
+creep. "Why, you are as pigmies with your childish schemes! You suppose
+I have gone this far without arranging everything to circumvent you, or
+anything you could do? Bah!"
+
+"Circumvent till you're black in the face, you beloved old rag doll,"
+Tommy gave a mirthless chuckle, "but the Princess doesn't go back with
+you--and that's a cinch. She's going home with me, to visit my sister.
+Don't you try to follow her, either, for I'm giving it to you straight
+that you'd last about seventeen seconds in Kentucky. Yes, Professor, I'd
+say that in Jefferson county seventeen seconds would be a right
+venerable age for you!"
+
+"That shows what small children you are," he laughed contemptuously.
+"The minute we touch land I order the first police to arrest her--and on
+my authority he will not dare refuse! She is still a subject of Azuria,
+and not of age according to its laws! Then I will lay the matter with
+our representatives in Washington, and your President, fearing to
+disturb the consummation of his League of Nations, will return her, of
+course! This for your threats!" He snapped his finger at us and began to
+fill his pipe.
+
+Who'd ever have thought the League of Nations would treat me that way?
+Tommy saw murder rising in my heart and gave me a warning look. Yet I
+could see from his puckered forehead that he was pretty well up against
+a stone wall. Our only hope of success, so far as my mentality could
+work it out, was instantaneous manslaughter.
+
+Finally, amid a complete silence and under the professor's supercilious
+smile, Tommy got up and went below. Had I tried to enter the cabin, the
+old fellow would have followed me.
+
+A sailor passed aft and whispered to Gates, who surrendered the wheel,
+went forward and disappeared. Ten minutes later he came back and took a
+seat near us; affecting to be at his ease, but making a very poor go at
+it. Soon after him came Tommy, carrying open in his hands a large book,
+calf-bound and old. For on the cabin shelves my father kept a lot of
+truck in the way of old books that no one ever read. I saw, also, that
+Tommy and Gates had reached an understanding.
+
+Of course, I was bursting to know what those conspirators had up their
+sleeves. Tommy stood in the middle of the cockpit, looking serious and
+thoughtful. Now, in an impressive voice, he said:
+
+"Monsieur, Gates has been good enough to get out his copy of American
+Marine Law, pertaining to the obligations and powers of captains of
+American vessels sailing upon salt water. Perhaps, after this brief
+preamble, it would be tautological for me to continue with what your
+overly acute mind must have by this time grasped; nevertheless, you
+will pardon me if I read you a paragraph, that goes as follows: 'In
+cases of emergency, where it is evident that a vessel can not in the
+required time reach a port wherein there may with certainty be found a
+civil officer of the United States of America, or the captain of such
+vessel in any other circumstances deems the request of the principals a
+proper one and of sufficient warrant, he is thereby, and is hereby,
+endowed with the right to perform the ceremony of marriage according to
+the civil code of said United States, and such ceremony, properly
+attested by two witnesses, shall constitute the bonds of holy matrimony
+before the world.'"
+
+At the beginning of this Monsieur had sprung up, but before Tommy
+concluded he again sank into his chair, breathing fast and blinking.
+
+"Gates," Tommy asked, "do you consider the request of these principals a
+proper one and of sufficient warrant?"
+
+"I do, sir," Gates answered.
+
+"You consider that the emergency in every way justifies you to perform
+this ceremony of marriage?"
+
+"I do, sir."
+
+"Then, Jack," he turned to me, "suppose we say high noon. It's a
+fashionable hour, and gives you a little while to primp up."
+
+I gasped at him, unable to believe my ears; but before I could speak
+Monsieur was again raving.
+
+"It shall not!" he yelled. "I say it shall not; for now I, too, play a
+card!" And drawing from his pocket a paper, discolored by wear and age,
+he flourished it in our faces, crying: "By this authority I claim her as
+my ward; both of us Azurians; and in the name of my country I forbid the
+marriage!"
+
+"Gates," Tommy asked, without batting an eye at Monsieur's grandiloquent
+outburst--which seemed to me the absolute frustration of our plan, "we
+don't know this man. He's a tramp we picked up at Key West. Do you
+recognize his credentials, or would you say they're forgeries?"
+
+"They look like forgeries to me, Mr. Thomas," the old skipper answered
+at once, not being within ten feet of Monsieur and his paper. "If I'm
+mistaken, sir, I'll apologize when we get ashore, but I carn't see any
+reason why the ceremony shouldn't take place at high noon. If that's too
+early, Mr. Jack, we can sail back to Key West--or New Oreleans."
+
+"But my authority," the professor cried, seeming on the verge of
+apoplexy.
+
+Tommy closed the calf-bound book and tossed it over to me, then turned
+Monsieur good-naturedly around and pointed to the Stars and Stripes
+flying at our main peak.
+
+"While you're on this yacht, my friend," he laughed, "that's the
+authority, and _don't you forget it_!"
+
+I glanced at the volume of Marine Law he had tossed to me. It was
+_Gibbon's_ DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE!
+
+Monsieur's beard began to twitch curiously. I thought at first he was
+really intending to make the best of things, but suddenly two great
+tears squeezed from his eyes and rolled lumberingly over his cheeks;
+then, as an unbridled torrential storm breaks in the tropics, he threw
+himself face down upon the cushions and wept--piteously.
+
+Tommy and I were thunderstruck. It gives one a weird feeling to see a
+man shaken with grief. I was helpless and, there's no denying it, just
+a little remorseful. As quick in sympathy as he was in resource, Tommy
+crossed and put a hand on the old fellow's shoulder, saying gently:
+
+"Buck up, Professor. This kind of thing won't do, you know!"
+
+Then my surprise was most complete. Sitting now, face buried in his
+hands, he brokenly told a story that at times brought tears to our own
+eyes.
+
+When he finished I had visualized a scene begun more than thirty years
+ago in the Royal Palace of Azuria: an honorable young doctor, Court
+physician, voluntarily surrendering his appointment because he loved the
+King's younger daughter--Doloria's aunt; the old ruler's searching eyes
+that sympathized even while they censured--the aged hand that pressed
+with understanding even while it took the proffered resignation. Then
+the young doctor's quick departure; his plunge into the Universities,
+trusting absorption of the sciences to act as a panacea for his grief.
+Years later his return to Azuria; their pure love still burning, though
+unexpressed. At last the kidnaping; the quick preparations for pursuit;
+and finally the girl, herself, sweet with many confessions, bringing in
+her own hands the old King's "authority"--this paper before us--which
+commanded him to return the little Princess by any means he could, his
+reward being the fulfillment of his heart's desire.
+
+"And now," he moaned, rocking to and fro, "after seventeen years of
+searching, I have won only to lose!"
+
+Truly, I was touched. Tommy turned quickly away and blinked at the
+horizon. Yet neither of us knew that all of this time Doloria had been
+standing in the companionway door. She now crossed swiftly and sat by
+the weeping man, impulsively drawing his grizzled head to her shoulder
+as a mother might have comforted a hurt child. But toward me her face
+was turned, and I saw that her startled eyes spoke into mine the
+entreating message which distracted her--telling me that we must
+acknowledge this claim of Monsieur's poor heart before our own could
+ever be happy; asking me what to do, since his title to happiness came
+first. Yet all that her lips spoke was the trembling whisper:
+
+"Oh, Jack!"
+
+But he, with a new determination, sat quickly upright. The warmth of a
+woman's sympathetic arms upon a life that had been without comfort, the
+quick intuition that she was pleading for him at a great cost to
+herself, stirred the fineness of his nature, and he cried:
+
+"Never! I have lived this long, and this long suffered, enough to know
+the irony of that royal barrier! Your aunt and I, dear child, are
+passing toward the shadows of life, while you and my boy Jack are just
+starting out. Your happiness shall not be cindered upon a false altar--I
+swear it!"
+
+"Good old boy," Tommy murmured. "Do you mean that, honest?"
+
+"_Pardieu_, have I not sworn it?"
+
+"And you wouldn't try to muddy the water again if I confessed that our
+Marine Law was a hocus-pocus?"
+
+"What is that hocus-pocus?"
+
+"A no-such-a-thing."
+
+"_Sacré bleu_! I see! Pipes and iron safes and hocus-pocus! But I do not
+care!" He turned to Doloria and, taking one of her hands, said: "You,
+_mon ami_, shall find your heart's best desire. It is I who say it!--I,
+who have the authority!" The way he clung to that authority was really
+pathetic.
+
+"It occurs to me, Monsieur," Tommy crossed and looked down at them--and
+I saw that Doloria read in his eyes the sadness of one who must remain
+outside while others pass through to happiness--"that you, too, can find
+your heart's best desire. Jack and our sweet Princess will be leaving
+for Azuria as soon as passports are procurable. Now, the day they
+arrive, you might be moseying about the railroad station, borrow her for
+an hour, and personally conduct her to the palace. The late lamented
+King's royal authority contained no stipulation about the missing child
+being returned in a state of single blessedness, therefore the reward is
+yours. Add that up, and see if it doesn't spell Eureka!"
+
+Doloria turned to Monsieur with a glorious smile and, being nearest,
+received the first hug as the light of Tommy's reasoning burst upon him.
+Then he bounded up and hugged me; but Gates and Tommy ran away, the
+cowards, yet did a lot of laughing from a distance. And now the forward
+watch called something, at the same time pointing off our port bow. Low
+upon the water lay Miami.
+
+Excitedly we took turns focusing the binoculars on it, and after a
+little as we drew fairly near Tommy, with a puzzled look, asked:
+
+"Who are those people on your Colonel's dock?"
+
+"My father, maybe. I wired him to come."
+
+"Boy, I mean the petticoats! Look at 'em--there're two!"
+
+"Can you make out their faces?" I asked, having a good time all to
+myself; for here was my chance to return an obligation in the matter of
+courtships which, if not cancelled, would furnish the versatile Tommy
+with an anecdote I should never outlive.
+
+"Not yet," he mumbled, squinting more closely.
+
+"One's probably the Mater," I suggested.
+
+"I hope so," he smiled, lowering the binoculars. "What was the toast you
+gave her, Jack?--'if romance and adventure are alive I'll bring them
+home to you!'--wasn't that it?"
+
+"Yes, and we sailed out on that quest only seventeen days ago. It seems
+incredible, doesn't it!"
+
+"It sure does," he chuckled, once more raising the glasses. "You've put
+on seventeen pounds, too,--besides a special chunk of 120, or
+thereabouts, which you gained the night of the rescue. That's some
+record, boy! See here," he asked quickly, "who the deuce are those
+people, anyway! One has a mighty familiar look!" And I could hardly keep
+from laughing as I answered:
+
+"I think the Mater went by Louisville and picked up Nell----"
+
+"Good Lord, I _see_ her," he yelled, so instantly and irrepressibly
+delirious with joy that he let my binoculars fall overboard, the chump.
+
+But now I saw that Doloria--which was the other name for romance and
+adventure--had slipped away from Monsieur; she had gone forward and, all
+alone, was leaning against the foremast, gazing dreamily at this new
+world and these new people who waited to take her to their hearts. So I
+forgot Tommy, God bless him!--he may have known a little about women,
+after all!
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Wings of the Wind, by Credo Harris
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WINGS OF THE WIND ***
+
+***** This file should be named 30618-8.txt or 30618-8.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
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+
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+(This file was produced from images generously made
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+
+
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+    <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" />
+    <title>
+
+      The Project Gutenberg eBook of Wings of the Wind, by Credo Harris
+    </title>
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+
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+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Wings of the Wind, by Credo Harris
+
+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: Wings of the Wind
+
+Author: Credo Harris
+
+Release Date: December 6, 2009 [EBook #30618]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WINGS OF THE WIND ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Garcia, Odessa Paige Turner and the
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
+(This file was produced from images generously made
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+
+
+
+<h1><big> WINGS OF THE<br />
+WIND</big><br />
+<small>BY</small><br />
+CREDO HARRIS</h1>
+
+
+<p class="center">  <i>Author of</i><br />
+  "TOBY," "SUNLIGHT PATCH,"<br />
+  "WHERE THE SOULS OF MEN ARE CALLING,"<br />
+  ETC.</p>
+
+
+<p class="center">  BOSTON<br />
+  SMALL, MAYNARD &amp; COMPANY<br />
+  PUBLISHERS</p>
+
+
+
+
+<p class="center">  Copyright, 1920<br />
+  <span class="smcap">By</span> SMALL, MAYNARD &amp; COMPANY<br />
+  (INCORPORATED)</p>
+
+
+
+
+<p class="center">  TO<br />
+  S. THRUSTON BALLARD<br />
+  WITH WHOM THE AUTHOR HAS SHARED<br />
+  MANY A PLEASANT CAMP-FIRE<br />
+  THIS BOOK IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED<br />
+</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<h2><a name="CONTENTS" id="CONTENTS"></a>CONTENTS</h2>
+
+<table summary="Table of Contents" width="75%">
+<tr><th class="right">CHAP.</th>
+<th>&nbsp;</th>
+<th class="right">PAGE</th></tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="cnum">I.</td> <td><b>"<span class="smcap">To Adventure and Romance</span>!"</b></td><td class="pnum"><a href="#Page_9">9</a></td></tr>
+<tr> <td class="cnum">II.</td> <td><b><span class="smcap">The Mysterious Monsieur</span></b></td> <td class="pnum"><a href="#Page_16">16</a></td></tr>
+<tr> <td class="cnum">III.</td> <td><b><span class="smcap">The Girl in the Caf&eacute;</span></b></td><td class="pnum"><a href="#Page_29">29</a></td></tr>
+<tr> <td class="cnum">IV.</td> <td><b><span class="smcap">Nirvana</span></b></td><td class="pnum"><a href="#Page_43">43</a></td></tr>
+<tr> <td class="cnum">V.</td> <td><b>"<span class="smcap">To the Very End</span>!"</b></td><td class="pnum"><a href="#Page_54">54</a></td></tr>
+<tr> <td class="cnum">VI.</td> <td><b><span class="smcap">A Voice from the Water</span></b></td><td class="pnum"><a href="#Page_70">70</a></td></tr>
+<tr> <td class="cnum">VII.</td> <td><b><span class="smcap">A Bomb and a Discovery</span></b></td> <td class="pnum"><a href="#Page_80">80</a></td></tr>
+<tr> <td class="cnum">VIII.</td> <td><b><span class="smcap">The Chase Begins</span></b></td> <td class="pnum"><a href="#Page_94">94</a></td></tr>
+<tr> <td class="cnum">IX.</td> <td><b><span class="smcap">A Shot from the Dark</span></b></td> <td class="pnum"><a href="#Page_104">104</a></td></tr>
+<tr> <td class="cnum">X.</td> <td><b><span class="smcap">A Silent Enemy</span></b></td> <td class="pnum"><a href="#Page_117">117</a></td></tr>
+<tr> <td class="cnum">XI.</td> <td><b><span class="smcap">A Strange Find</span></b></td>                        <td class="pnum"><a href="#Page_129">129</a></td></tr>
+<tr> <td class="cnum">XII.</td> <td><b><span class="smcap">The Hurricane</span></b></td>      <td class="pnum"><a href="#Page_140">140</a></td></tr>
+<tr> <td class="cnum">XIII.</td> <td><b><span class="smcap">On to Death River</span>!</b></td>      <td class="pnum"><a href="#Page_153">153</a></td></tr>
+<tr> <td class="cnum">XIV.</td> <td><b><span class="smcap">Smilax Brings News</span></b></td>      <td class="pnum"><a href="#Page_161">161</a></td></tr>
+<tr> <td class="cnum">XV.</td> <td><b><span class="smcap">Efaw Kotee's Den</span></b></td>      <td class="pnum"><a href="#Page_174">174</a></td></tr>
+<tr> <td class="cnum">XVI.</td> <td><b><span class="smcap">The Cave Man Sets Forth</span></b></td>      <td class="pnum"><a href="#Page_190">190</a></td></tr>
+<tr> <td class="cnum">XVII.</td> <td><b><span class="smcap">The Rescue</span></b></td>      <td class="pnum"><a href="#Page_202">202</a></td></tr>
+<tr> <td class="cnum">XVIII.</td> <td><b><span class="smcap">Doloria</span></b></td>      <td class="pnum"><a href="#Page_212">212</a></td></tr>
+<tr> <td class="cnum">XIX.</td> <td><b><span class="smcap">Enlightening a Princess</span></b></td>      <td class="pnum"><a href="#Page_228">228</a></td></tr>
+<tr> <td class="cnum">XX.</td> <td><b><span class="smcap">Sleeping Beneath God's Tent</span></b></td>      <td class="pnum"><a href="#Page_238">238</a></td></tr>
+<tr> <td class="cnum">XXI.</td> <td><b><span class="smcap">Planting a Memory</span></b></td>      <td class="pnum"><a href="#Page_249">249</a></td></tr>
+<tr> <td class="cnum">XXII.</td> <td><b><span class="smcap">I Love You</span></b></td>      <td class="pnum"><a href="#Page_266">266</a></td></tr>
+<tr> <td class="cnum">XXIII.</td> <td><b><span class="smcap">The Attack</span></b></td>      <td class="pnum"><a href="#Page_275">275</a></td></tr>
+<tr> <td class="cnum">XXIV.</td> <td><b><span class="smcap">German Cruelty</span></b></td>      <td class="pnum"><a href="#Page_289">289</a></td></tr>
+<tr> <td class="cnum">XXV.</td> <td><b><span class="smcap">A Flying Throne</span></b></td>      <td class="pnum"><a href="#Page_304">304</a></td></tr>
+<tr> <td class="cnum">XXVI.</td> <td><b><span class="smcap">A Treasure Box</span></b></td>      <td class="pnum"><a href="#Page_319">319</a></td></tr>
+<tr> <td class="cnum">XXVII.</td> <td><b><span class="smcap">The Final Hocus-Pocus</span></b></td>      <td class="pnum"><a href="#Page_330">330</a></td></tr>
+</table>
+
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+
+<h2><a name="WINGS_OF_THE_WIND" id="WINGS_OF_THE_WIND"></a>WINGS OF THE WIND</h2>
+
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I</h2>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[9]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2>"TO ADVENTURE AND ROMANCE!"</h2>
+
+
+<p>At last out of khaki, and dressed in conventional
+evening clothes, I felt as if I were indeed writing the
+first words of another story on the unmarred page of
+the incoming year. As I entered the library my mother,
+forgetting that it was I who owed her deference, came
+forward with outstretched arms and a sound in her
+voice like that of doves at nesting time. Dad's welcome
+was heartier, even though his eyes were dimmed with
+happy tears. And old Bilkins, our solemn, irreproachable
+butler, grinned benignly as he stood waiting to
+announce dinner. What a wealth of affection I had to
+be grateful for!</p>
+
+<p>I did not lack gratitude, but with the old year touching
+the heels of the new, and Time commanding me to
+get in step, my return to civil life held few inducements.
+Instead of a superabundance of cheer, I had brought
+from France jumpy nerves and a body lean with over
+training&mdash;natural results of physical exhaustion coupled
+with the mental reaction that must inevitably follow a
+year and a half of highly imaginative living.</p>
+
+<p>But there was another aspect less tangible, perhaps
+more permanent&mdash;and all members of combat divisions<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[10]</a></span>
+will understand exactly what I mean. When America
+picked up the gauntlet, an active conscience jerked me
+from a tuneful life and drove me out to war&mdash;for
+whether men are driven by conscience, or a government
+draft board, makes no difference in the effect upon those
+who come through. Time after time, for eighteen
+months, I made my regular trips into hell&mdash;into a hell
+more revolting than mid-Victorian evangelists ever pictured
+to spellbound, quaking sinners. Never in this
+world had there been a parallel to the naked dangers
+and nauseous discomforts of that western front; never
+so prolonged an agony of head-splitting noises, lacerations
+of human flesh, smells that turned the body sick,
+blasphemies that made the soul grow hard, frenzied
+efforts to kill, and above all a spirit, fanatical, that
+urged each man to bear more, kill more, because he was
+a Crusader for the right.</p>
+
+<p>Into this red crucible I had plunged, and now emerged&mdash;remolded.
+In one brief year and a half I had lived
+my life, dreamed the undreamable, accomplished the
+unaccomplishable. Much had gone from me, yet much
+had come&mdash;and it was this which had come that distorted
+my vision of future days; making them drab,
+making my fellows who had not taken the plunge seem
+purposeless and immature. Either they were out of
+tune, or I was&mdash;and I thought, of course, that they
+were. What freshness could I bring to an existence of
+peace when my gears would not mesh with its humdrum
+machinery!</p>
+
+<p>My mother, ever quick to detect the workings of my
+mind as well as the variations of my body, had noticed
+these changes when I disembarked the previous week,
+and had become obsessed with the idea that I stood tottering
+on the brink of abysmal wretchedness. So, while<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</a></span>
+I was marking time the few days at camp until the hour
+of demobilization, she summoned into hasty conference
+my father, our family doctor, and the select near relatives
+whose advice was a matter of habit rather than
+value, to devise means of leading me out of myself.</p>
+
+<p>This, I afterward learned, had been a weighty conference,
+resulting in the conclusion that I must have complete
+rest and diversion. But as my more recent letters
+home had expressed a determination to rush headlong
+into business&mdash;as a sort of fatuous panacea for jumpy
+nerves, no doubt&mdash;and since the conferees possessed an
+intimate knowledge of the mulish streak that coursed
+through my blood, their plans were laid behind my back
+with the greatest secrecy. Therefore, when entering the
+library this last night in December and hurrying to my
+mother's arms, I had no suspicion that I was being
+drawn into a very agreeable trap, gilded by my father's
+abundant generosity.</p>
+
+<p>We sat late after dinner. Somewhere in the hall Bilkins
+hovered with glasses and tray to be on hand when
+the whistles began their screaming. In twenty years
+he had not omitted this New Year's Eve ceremony.</p>
+
+<p>"Your wound never troubles you?" my mother asked,
+her solicitation over a scratch I had received ten months
+before not disguising a light of pride that charmed me.</p>
+
+<p>"I've forgotten it, Mater. Never amounted to anything."</p>
+
+<p>"Still, you did leave some blood on French soil," Dad
+spoke up, for this conceit appealed to him.</p>
+
+<p>"Enough to grow an ugly rose, perhaps," I admitted.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll bet you grew pretty ones on the cheeks of those
+French girls," he chuckled.</p>
+
+<p>"Pretty ones don't grow any more, on cheeks or anywhere
+else," I doggedly replied. "Materialism's the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[12]</a></span>
+keynote now&mdash;that's why I'm going back to work, at
+once."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh," the Mater laughed, "don't think of your
+father's stupid office, yet!"</p>
+
+<p>"There's nothing left to think of," I grumbled.</p>
+
+<p>"Isn't there?" he exclaimed. "What'd you say if
+Gates has the yacht in commission, and you take a run
+down to Miami&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Or open the cottage, if you'd rather," she excitedly
+interrupted him. "I hadn't intended leaving New York
+this winter, but will chaperon a house party if you
+like!"</p>
+
+<p>"Fiddlesticks! Cruise, by all means," he spoke with
+good-natured emphasis. "Get another fellow, and go
+after adventures and romances and that kind of thing!
+Go after 'em hammer and tongs! By George, that's
+what I'd do if I were a boy, and had the chance!"</p>
+
+<p>They waited, rather expectantly.</p>
+
+<p>"Cruising's all right," I said, without enthusiasm.
+"But it's a waste of time to go after romance and adventure.
+They died with the war."</p>
+
+<p>"Ho!&mdash;they did, did they?" he laughed in mock derision.
+"What's become of your imagination&mdash;your
+vaporings? You used to be full of it!" And the Mater
+supported him by exclaiming:</p>
+
+<p>"Why, Jack Bronx! And I used to call you my
+Pantheist! Don't tell me your second sight for discovering
+the beautiful in things has failed you!"</p>
+
+<p>"It got put out by mustard gas, maybe," I murmured,
+remembering with bitterness some of the fellows
+who had been with me.</p>
+
+<p>What was romance here to the colorful, high-tensioned
+thing I had seen in devastated areas where loves of all<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</a></span>
+gradations were torn and scattered and trampled into
+the earth like chaff! Fretfully I told them this.</p>
+
+<p>They exchanged glances, yet she continued in coaxing
+vein:</p>
+
+<p>"You're such a big baby to've been such a big soldier!
+Don't you know that romance is always just over
+the hill, hand in hand with adventure&mdash;both lonely for
+someone to play with? Wars can't kill them! It's after
+wars, when a nation is wounded, that they become priceless!"</p>
+
+<p>"By George, that's right," Dad cried. "Come to
+think of it, that's exactly right! And Gates has the
+same crew of six&mdash;men you've always known! Even
+that rascal, Pete, cooks better 'n ever! The <i>Whim</i>, you
+can't deny, is the smartest ninety-six foot schooner
+yacht that sails! I say again that if I had the chance
+I'd turn her free on whatever magic course the wings of
+the wind would take her! That I would&mdash;by George!"</p>
+
+<p>And there was a note of deep appeal in the Mater's
+voice as she asked:</p>
+
+<p>"Why not get that boy you wrote so much about&mdash;Tommy
+what's-his-name, the Southerner? I like him!"</p>
+
+<p>This plan, which I now saw had been so carefully prepared&mdash;fruit
+of the secret conference&mdash;was but one in
+the million or so of others throughout America nurtured
+and matured by the brave army of fathers, mothers,
+wives, sisters, daughters, who stayed at home and gave
+their all, waiting with alternate hopes and fears, looking
+with prayerful eyes to the day that would bring a certain
+one back into their arms. What difference if some
+plans were elaborate and some as modest as a flower?
+Who would dare distinguish between the cruise on a
+private yacht and the cake endearingly made in a hot
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</a></span>little kitchen for the husky lad just returned from overseas?
+Each was its own best expression of pride and
+love. Each said in its tenderest way: "Well done, my
+own!"</p>
+
+<p>A lump came into my throat.</p>
+
+<p>"It's rather decent of a fellow to have two such corking
+forbears," I murmured.</p>
+
+<p>The Mater turned her gentle eyes to the fire, and Dad,
+clearing his throat in a blustering way&mdash;though he was
+not at all a blustering man&mdash;replied:</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps it's rather decent of us to have a son who&mdash;er,
+I mean, who&mdash;well, er&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"A cruise hits me right," I exclaimed, hurriedly
+coming to his rescue, for neither of us wanted a scene.
+"And I'll wire Tommy Davis, Mater&mdash;the chap you
+mentioned. He's a corking fellow! I didn't write you
+how the battalion started calling him 'Rebel' till he
+closed up half a dozen eyes, did I? You see, in the beginning,
+when we were rookies, the sergeant had us up
+in formation to get our names, and when he came to
+Tommy that innocent drawled: 'Mr. Thomas Jefferson
+Davis, suh, of Loui'ville, Jefferson county, Kentucky,
+suh.' You could have heard a pin drop. The sergeant,
+as hard-boiled as they come, stood perfectly still and
+let a cold eye bore into him for half a minute, then
+gasped: 'Gawd! What a wicked little rebel!'"</p>
+
+<p>They laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"Why didn't you bring him home with you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Same reason he couldn't take me home with him.
+There were people waiting, and turkey, and&mdash;but he
+won't want to go," I added. "He's crazy about a girl
+down there!"</p>
+
+<p>"Fiddlesticks," my father chuckled. "Any normal
+fellow'll want to cruise! I'll wire him myself&mdash;this
+very night!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Bilkins entered with the tray, wishing us a happy
+new year. Outside the whistles were beginning to blow.
+After we had pledged each other, and drunk to 1919,
+the Mater, a light of challenge in her eyes, looked at me
+and gave another toast:</p>
+
+<p>"To a cruise and an adventure, Jack!"</p>
+
+<p>"To romance," Dad cried, gallantly raising her fingers
+to his lips.</p>
+
+<p>There was no use being a wet blanket, so with a laugh
+I said:</p>
+
+<p>"To adventure and romance!&mdash;Mater, if they're still
+on earth I'll bring them home to you!"</p>
+
+<p>I knew it was a very silly toast, but let it go to please
+them&mdash;for why disillusion those who believe in the actuality
+of nonexistence?</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II</h2>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2>THE MYSTERIOUS MONSIEUR</h2>
+
+
+<p>Ten days later Tommy and I&mdash;and Bilkins, whom I
+had begged of my father at the eleventh hour&mdash;stepped
+off the train at Miami, stretched our arms and breathed
+deep breaths of balmy air. Gates, his ruddy face an
+augury of good cheer, was there to meet us, and as he
+started off well laden with a portion of our bags, Tommy
+whispered:</p>
+
+<p>"Reminds me of the old chap in that picture 'The
+Fisherman's Daughter'!"</p>
+
+<p>The description did fit Gates like an old glove, yet
+his most dominant characteristic was an unfailing loyalty
+to our family and an honest bluntness, both of
+which had become as generally recognized as his skill
+in handling the <i>Whim</i>&mdash;"the smartest schooner yacht,"
+he would have told you on a two-minute acquaintanceship,
+"that ever tasted salt."</p>
+
+<p>"We might open the cottage for a few days, Gates,"
+I said, as we were getting into the motor.</p>
+
+<p>"Bless you, sir," he replied, caressing a weather-beaten
+chin with thumb and finger, "the <i>Whim</i>'s been
+tugging at her cable mighty fretful this parst fortnight!
+The crew hoped you'd be coming aboard at once, sir.
+Fact is, we're wanting to be told how you and Mr.
+Thomas, here, licked those Germans."</p>
+
+<p>"Angels of the Marne protect me," Tommy groaned.
+"Gates, I wouldn't resurrect those scraps for the Kaiser's
+scalp!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Yes, he will," I promised, smiling at the old fellow's
+look of disappointment. "He'll probably talk you to
+death, though; that's the only trouble."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll tell you what," Tommy said, "we'll chuck the
+cottage idea and go aboard; then tonight, Gates, you
+pipe the crew&mdash;if that's the nautical term&mdash;whereupon
+I'll hold a two-hour inquest over our deceased war, on
+condition that we bury the subject forever more. We
+came down here to lose the last eighteen months of
+our lives, Gates, not keep 'em green. Maybe you don't
+know it, but we're after the big adventure!"</p>
+
+<p>His eyes twinkled as he said this, and his face was
+lighted by a rare smile that no one possessed more
+engagingly than Tommy. While he treated the probability
+of an adventure with tolerant amusement, such
+was his inherent love of it and so developed was his capacity
+for "playing-true," that he sometimes made
+me think almost anything might turn up. I was quite
+unaware that my mother had written him, or that he,
+in return, had promised to keep her fully advised of
+my improvement&mdash;a state which was already beginning.</p>
+
+<p>"I carn't see how you help talking of it, sir&mdash;all that
+gas, and liquid fire, and bursting shells," Gates stared
+at him in perplexity.</p>
+
+<p>"It's an effort, but I refuse to turn phonograph like
+some of the old timers&mdash;not that I love 'em any less
+for it, Lord knows!" Then he began to laugh, and
+turned to me, adding: "One of the first things I did
+after getting home was to drop in on a very dear gentleman
+who's been a friend of our family since the
+Ark. He came at me with open arms, crying: 'Well,
+Thomas, sit right down and tell me about your experiences!'
+I side-tracked that&mdash;for I hate the word.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</a></span>
+We didn't go over for <i>experiences</i>! But he wouldn't
+be denied. 'Try to think,' he commanded. 'Why,
+Thomas, old as I am, I remember when Stonewall Jackson
+struck that brilliant blow&mdash;&mdash;' and you can shoot
+me for a spy, Jack, if he didn't keep me there five hours
+while he fought the entire Civil War! No sir-ee! After
+tonight, never again!"</p>
+
+<p>But Tommy's talk, to which the crew listened in rapt
+attention, consumed nearer six than two, or even five
+hours. These men were hungry for authentic first-hand
+information&mdash;being too old to have sought it for
+themselves.</p>
+
+<p>It must not be inferred that the <i>Whim's</i> crew consisted
+of the ancient and decrepit. More than once
+my father had said that if ever he should get in a
+tight place there was no band of six he would rather
+have at his back than this one headed by Gates; nor
+did he except Pete, the prince of cooks. Yet who, by
+the wildest stretch of fancy, could have contemplated
+tight places or dangers as the trim yacht rode peacefully
+at anchor an eighth of a mile off our dock at smiling
+Miami? To every man aboard such things as death
+and the shedding of blood had ceased with the armistice,
+and Gates would have taken his oath, were it asked of
+him, that our course pointed only toward laughing waters,
+blue skies, and emerald shore-lines.</p>
+
+<p>Early next morning we were under way when Tommy
+pounded on my stateroom door, challenging me to a dip
+overboard. There was a glorious joy in his voice,
+as far reaching as reveille, that found response in
+the cockles of my heart. Gates, never happier than
+when standing beneath stretched canvas, hove-to as
+he saw us dash stark naked up the companionway
+stairs and clear the rail head-first, but he laid by only<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span>
+while we had our splash and continued the course southward
+the moment our hands grasped the gangway.</p>
+
+<p>"We're cruising, not swimming," he said bluntly,
+as we reached the deck. "But I'll say this," he called
+after us, "you're both in about as fine condition as men
+get to be. I'll give <i>that</i> to the Army!" Which was
+true, except for the fact that I might have been pronounced
+overtrained. Tommy and I were as hard as
+nails, our skin glowed like satin&mdash;but, better than this,
+his spirit was quick with the love of living, charged
+with a contagion that had already begun to touch my
+own.</p>
+
+<p>Half an hour later he mumbled through a crumbling
+biscuit:</p>
+
+<p>"If Pete ever cooked better grub than this it was
+in a previous incarnation!"</p>
+
+<p>"Man achieves his greatest triumph but once in
+life," I admitted. "It's self-evident."</p>
+
+<p>One loses track of time while sailing in south Florida
+waters. There is a lassitude that laughs at clocks; the
+lotus floats over the waves even as over the land, and a
+poetic languor steals into the soul breeding an indifference
+to hours and days&mdash;wretched things, at best, that
+were only meant for slaves! Neither of us realized our
+passing into Barnes Sound, and saw only that the
+<i>Whim</i>, sails gracefully drawing, cut the water as cleanly
+as a knife.</p>
+
+<p>Another day passed during which we shot at sharks,
+or trawled, or lay on deck smoking and occasionally
+gazing over the side at displays of fish and flora twenty
+feet beneath us. But upon the third morning I asked:</p>
+
+<p>"Where are we bound, Gates?"</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Thomas says Key West, sir, and then Havana."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Thomas, indeed," I laughed, for it was exactly
+like Tommy to take over the command of a ship, or
+anything else that struck his fancy.</p>
+
+<p>Before leaving Miami he had received a twenty page
+letter from the Bluegrass region of Kentucky which
+threw him into a state of such volatile ineptitude that
+I was well satisfied to let him give what orders he would,
+sending us to the world's end for all I cared. In a very
+large measure Tommy's happiness was my own, as I
+knew that mine would always be dear to him.</p>
+
+<p>During our most trying hours in France, thoughts
+of this wonderful girl, whose name was Nell, unfailingly
+kept his spirits high. In moments of confidence that
+come to pals on the eve of battle I saw that some day
+they might be eternal "buddies"&mdash;certainly if he had
+his way; and toward this achievement he had been,
+since graduating from the University of Virginia, directing
+every effort to build up a stock farm which his
+family had more or less indifferently carried for generations.
+Next to winning Nell, his greatest ambition
+was to raise a Derby winner&mdash;according to him a more
+notable feat than being President.</p>
+
+<p>The sixth of April, 1917, had caught him with a promising
+string of yearlings, each an aristocrat in the equine
+world of blue-bloods, each a hope for that most classic
+of American races. But he had thrown these upon the
+hands of a trainer and submerged his personal interests
+six hours after Congress declared war. At the same
+moment, indeed, all of Kentucky was turning to a
+greater tradition than that of "horses and whiskey";
+and, by the time the draft became operative, the board
+of one county searched it from end to end without finding
+a man to register&mdash;because those in the fighting age,
+married or single, with dependents or otherwise, had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span>
+previously rushed to the Colors. This, and the fact
+that his state, with three others, headed the nation
+with the highest percentage in physical examinations,
+added luster to the shield of his old Commonwealth&mdash;though
+he roundly insisted that 'twas not Kentucky's
+manhood, but her womanhood, who deserved the credit.
+After our cruise he was going back to the thoroughbreds,
+now within a few months of the required Derby
+age; and of course I had promised to be on hand at
+Churchill Downs when his colors flashed past the grandstand.</p>
+
+<p>Late in the afternoon the <i>Whim</i> docked at Key West
+and, while Gates was ashore arranging for our clearance,
+Tommy and I ambled up town in search of daily
+papers. We were seated in the office of a rather seedy
+hotel when its proprietor approached, saying:</p>
+
+<p>"'Scuse me, gents,&mdash;are you from that boat down
+there?"</p>
+
+<p>I answered in the affirmative.</p>
+
+<p>"Going to Havana?"</p>
+
+<p>This, too, I admitted.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, there's a feller by the desk who missed the
+steamer, and he hoped&mdash;er&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"We'd take him over," Tommy supplied the halting
+words. "Where is he?"</p>
+
+<p>Turning, we easily distinguished the man by his
+timid glances in our direction.</p>
+
+<p>"Whiz-bang," Tommy whispered. "What the deuce
+would you call it, Jack?"</p>
+
+<p>Except for his age, that might have been sixty, he
+was most comical to look upon&mdash;in stature short and
+round, suggesting kinship with a gnome. His head
+seemed too large for the body, yet this might have been
+because it carried a plenteous shock of straw-colored<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span>
+hair, with mustache and beard to match. He was attired
+in "knickers" and pleated jacket, that looked
+as if he'd slept in them, and his fat legs were knock-kneed.
+On the floor about his feet lay almost every
+conceivable type and age of traveling bag, with the inevitable
+camera.</p>
+
+<p>"What's his name?" Tommy asked, not that that
+would have made any difference if his passport were in
+order.</p>
+
+<p>"Registered as 'Monsieur Dragot, of Roumania,'"
+the proprietor answered.</p>
+
+<p>"Roumania!" Tommy looked at me. "Let's go meet
+him, Jack."</p>
+
+<p>Monsieur Dragot turned out to be the original singed
+cat, for assuredly he possessed more attractive qualities
+inside than were exteriorly visible, and from a first
+shyness that did not lack charm he expanded briskly.
+After visiting a "dry" caf&eacute;, to seal this fortunate acquaintanceship&mdash;as
+he insisted upon calling it&mdash;he
+warmed up to us and we to him, with the result that
+his bags were soon carried down and stowed in our spare
+stateroom. Leaving him there, we went on deck.</p>
+
+<p>"Dragot," Tommy mused. "Speaks with a slight
+accent, but I can't make out what!"</p>
+
+<p>"Roumanian, possibly," I suggested, "as he comes
+from there."</p>
+
+<p>"You rather excel yourself," he smiled. "Registering
+from Roumania, however, isn't prima facie evidence
+that he's a Roumanian."</p>
+
+<p>"He's a clever little talker, all the same."</p>
+
+<p>"Right O! Too clever. I'm wondering if we aren't
+a pair of chumps to take him."</p>
+
+<p>"Why?"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span></p><p>"He may be a crook, for all we know. Did you notice
+what he said about holding a commission from
+Azuria, and then hurrying to explain that Azuria isn't
+on the ordinary maps&mdash;just a wee bit of a kingdom up in
+the Carpathians, yet in the confines of Roumania? I
+call that fishy!"</p>
+
+<p>"Not entirely so, Tommy. When you said it might
+now be turning into a republic, did you notice how
+proudly he declared that the descendants of Basil the
+Wolf couldn't be humbled?&mdash;that, situated in Moldavia,
+and escaping the ravages of the Bulgarian army, they
+were stronger today than ever?"</p>
+
+<p>"Sounds like raving, sonny. Who the dickens is
+Basil the Wolf? No, Jack, that doesn't tell us anything."</p>
+
+<p>"It tells us he couldn't have been inspired like that
+unless the place and people were real to him!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, pirate or priest," Tommy laughed, "he'll do
+if he waltzes us up to the big adventure. You're about
+fit enough to tackle one now!" During the past forty-eight
+hours he had openly rejoiced with Gates at my
+improvement and tried, with the indifferent success of
+an unbeliever, to play up at top speed that silly idea
+of an approaching adventure.</p>
+
+<p>We had strolled aft, and now stopped to watch a tall
+Jamaica negro&mdash;or so we thought him to be&mdash;asking
+Gates for a place in the crew. His clothing was too
+scant to hide the great muscles beneath, and Tommy
+touched my arm, saying:</p>
+
+<p>"There's a specimen for you!"</p>
+
+<p>Had he been cast in bronze a critic might have said
+that the sculptor, by over-idealizing masculine perfection,
+had made the waist too small, the hips too slender,
+for the powerful chest and shoulders; the wrists and
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</a></span>ankles might have been thought too delicate as terminals
+for the massive sinews leading into them. He
+smiled continually, and spoke in a soft, almost timid
+voice.</p>
+
+<p>"I like that big fellow," I said. Perhaps I had been
+well called a pantheist, having always extravagantly
+admired the perfect in form or face or the wide outdoors.</p>
+
+<p>Feeling my interests he turned from Gates, looking at
+me with dog-like pathetic trustfulness. Among the
+things he told us briefly&mdash;for the crew stood ready to
+cast off&mdash;was that he once followed the sea, but in
+more recent years lived by fishing up sponges and at
+times supplying shark meat to the poorer quarter of
+Key West. The carcass of a water fowl tied to his
+boat, while he occupied himself with sponges, would
+sometimes attract a shark; then he would strip, take
+a knife in his teeth, and dive.</p>
+
+<p>I glanced at Gates, but saw no incredulity in his
+face.</p>
+
+<p>In another hour, at nearly dusk, Key West had grown
+small and finally sank below the horizon, leaving only
+its three skeleton-like towers standing against the sky&mdash;standing
+erect with all nerves strained, watch-dogs of
+the darkening sea; ears cocked, to catch a distressed
+cry from some waif out in the mysterious night.</p>
+
+<p>Looking back along our wake I imagined the big black
+man standing as we had left him on the dock, gazing
+after us with patient regret; and I was glad to have
+given him the handful of coins at parting, little dreaming
+how many times that loaf upon the water would
+come floating in to me.</p>
+
+<p>Monsieur Dragot revealed himself more and more
+to our astonished eyes as we sat that night on deck.
+He had been a professor in the University of Bucharest,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</a></span>
+and hinted at an intimate entente with the reigning
+house of Azuria. Besides being versed in many sciences,
+including medicine, he spoke seven languages and read
+several others. But these things were drawn from him
+by Tommy's artful questions, rather than being said
+in boastfulness. Indeed, Monsieur was charmingly, almost
+touchily, modest. Of his business in Havana he
+gave no hint, yet this happened to be the one piece of
+information that Tommy seemed most possessed to find
+out.</p>
+
+<p>"You'll be in Cuba long, Monsieur?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"No one can say. A day, a week, a month, a year&mdash;it
+is an elusive search I follow, my young friends.
+May I call you that?"</p>
+
+<p>We bowed, and I deferentially suggested:</p>
+
+<p>"If we can help you in any way?&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"It is the beautiful spirit of America," he sighed,
+"to help those in distress, yet there is nothing to do
+but watch&mdash;watch. For you have not yet been here
+long enough to see a child in these waters&mdash;no?"</p>
+
+<p>Tommy, perhaps because he came from the South
+and was on more or less friendly terms with superstitions,
+glanced over the rail as if an infant might be
+floating around almost anywhere. Our strange guest's
+mysterious hints were, indeed, rather conducive to
+creeps.</p>
+
+<p>Then, without further comment, he arose, tossed his
+cigar overboard, ran his fingers through his mass of
+hair, and went below.</p>
+
+<p>"What d'you suppose he meant?" I asked, in a
+guarded voice.</p>
+
+<p>"Simple enough," Tommy whispered. "He's got
+apartments to let upstairs."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Get out, man," I laughed. "That chap has more
+sense than either of us!"</p>
+
+<p>"Then he'd better come across with some of it. You
+remember the freckled lad at Soissons who got fuzzy-headed
+from too much concussion? Well, he saw children
+around everywhere, too! It's a sure sign, Jack!"
+But now he laughed, adding: "Oh, I suppose our little
+Roumanian's all right, only&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>He was interrupted by Monsieur, himself, who
+emerged from the companionway door.</p>
+
+<p>"I come again," he smiled apologetically, "because
+tomorrow our journeys part, and I have shown scant
+consideration for your kindness."</p>
+
+<p>"It's we who feel the obligation," Tommy murmured.
+"Now, if we could only help you find the child&mdash;supposing,
+of course, that's what you're watching for!"</p>
+
+<p>Monsieur gave a deep sigh, appearing to be quite
+overcome by a secret grief; but after a moment he
+looked at us, asking ingenuously:</p>
+
+<p>"You think my behavior unusual?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, since you make a point of it," I laughed, and
+hesitated.</p>
+
+<p>"I see, I see! But, my young friends, you must take
+my word that I cannot tell you much." He drew us
+nearer. "This I may say: that, after Roumania dropped
+out of the war, the new Chancellor of Azuria wired
+imploringly for me to leave my classes at the University
+and come to him&mdash;because for years I have
+advised with Azurian statesmen, frequently going on
+special missions. By the recent death of the old Chancellor
+a certain paper came to light. This was a secret
+agent's report sent from Havana in 1914&mdash;&mdash;I may
+not divulge its contents. But for the war it would
+have been followed up at once. Whether the same<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span>
+hopes exist now&mdash;well, I am here to discover. Ah,
+my young friends," his voice trembled, "much depends
+upon this! I must&mdash;I must find the child if it
+lives!"</p>
+
+<p>Tommy's eyes grew round.</p>
+
+<p>"I can say no more," Monsieur added. "Accept my
+thanks and gratitude for the help you have given me.
+And now&mdash;<i>bon soir</i>."</p>
+
+<p>He bowed, backing himself toward the stairs as
+though leaving a royal presence, doing it so easily, so
+naturally, that we did not even smile. When he had
+quite disappeared we turned and faced each other.</p>
+
+<p>"What do you think now?" I asked.</p>
+
+<p>"I think he's a treasure," Tommy cried. His face
+had lighted with a new excitement. "If we want any
+fun on this trip, don't let him get out of our sight!
+Stick to him! I won't deny he has a screw loose,
+but&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"That makes it all the better," I laughed, adding:
+"Looks like the Mater's toast might come true, after
+all, doesn't it!"&mdash;for I had described our New Year's
+Eve to Tommy.</p>
+
+<p>"Sonny, I've a hunch we won't even have to tiptoe
+over the hill to find adventures with him around!
+He's their regular hanging-out place!"</p>
+
+<p>Gates came up, and seemed vastly amused when we
+told him of our hopes.</p>
+
+<p>"He doesn't look like much of an adventurer, sir, but
+he's certainly a change from the great run of people
+I've met. Still, I carn't see how we're going to keep
+him against his will!"</p>
+
+<p>"Neither can I, Tommy."</p>
+
+<p>"Use a little persuasion."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"But suppose he won't persuade?"</p>
+
+<p>"What's the use of crossing bridges," Tommy
+grinned. "If he won't persuade, then sit on his head&mdash;anything,
+I don't care! The main thing is&mdash;keep him!"</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III</h2>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2>THE GIRL IN THE CAF&Eacute;</h2>
+
+
+<p>Next morning began the conversion, or rather the
+persuasion, of Monsieur Dragot to remain a while longer
+with the <i>Whim</i>. Pete started off with another triumphant
+breakfast and before our guest had gone far
+with it his face was agleam with pleasure. Tommy
+and I put ourselves out to be agreeable, telling him
+jokes that sometimes registered but frequently did not.
+Yet we were on most affable terms when, stuffed to repletion,
+we leaned back and lighted cigarettes.</p>
+
+<p>"Professor," Tommy suggested, "I think if you stay
+with us you'll have a better chance to find that child!"</p>
+
+<p>Our guest beamed agreeably at the appelative, then
+looked toward me.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm sure of it," I said. "We've nowhere to go
+but anywhere, and that ought to fall in with your
+plans."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Pardieu</i>, you overwhelm me! You mean I may
+sail about with you, searching?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing simpler," I assured him. "We've rather
+taken a fancy to you, haven't we, Tommy?"</p>
+
+<p>"Double it," Tommy laughed. "We agreed last
+night that you looked like a million-dollar bill to us!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, my boys," Monsieur sputtered with embarrassment
+and pleasure, "you disarm my power to thank
+you&mdash;see, I blush!"</p>
+
+<p>"Damned if he isn't," Tommy grinned at me. "What
+d'you know about this little gezabo, anyhow!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Monsieur's face grew more composed as he showed
+his interest in a new word.</p>
+
+<p>"You say&mdash;gazebo?" he asked, blandly. "Is that not
+a belvedere?"</p>
+
+<p>"Gazebo is, yes; but I said gezabo&mdash;that's you!"</p>
+
+<p>"Your American Indian language?"</p>
+
+<p>"Sure thing. Pure talk. If you're interested in
+Indians, stick around. Why not get the Havana police
+to help us hunt the kiddie?"&mdash;I had known that before
+long Tommy would be using a first personal pronoun.</p>
+
+<p>"Bah! They are of no value! But even I have
+small hope of finding her. The report was written
+nearly six years ago, and she has been gone upwards
+of twenty years."</p>
+
+<p>"So it's a she," Tommy looked over at me and
+nodded. "Well, nearly six years, and upwards of
+twenty, plus what she was when she left home, leads
+me to believe the lady's almost old enough to take care
+of herself!"</p>
+
+<p>Monsieur considered this a great joke, exclaiming:</p>
+
+<p>"It is not so much as that! She is but three&mdash;to me,
+always three! Yet, as you say, I might better find her
+with you than anywhere! A despairing search, my
+boys!"</p>
+
+<p>Tommy's eyes were twinkling as he murmured sympathetically:</p>
+
+<p>"If it's a three-year-old you want, there's a place
+in Havana called 'Casa de Beneficencia Maternidad,'
+where furtive-eyed damsels leave kiddies at twilight,
+ring the doorbell, and beat it. You might pick up one
+there, as a last resort."</p>
+
+<p>"But&mdash;but," Monsieur began to sputter, when I
+threw an orange at Tommy, explaining to our agitated<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</a></span>
+guest that he was a cut-up devoid of ideas, really an
+intellectual outcast.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," he cried, seeming to exude pleasure, "I
+will stay with you a while, eh? Maybe we can teach
+him something&mdash;this cut-upping Tommy of yours!"</p>
+
+<p>He had fallen in with our scheme most agreeably, and
+later Tommy confided to me that he was glad we
+wouldn't have to sit on the old fellow's head.</p>
+
+<p>Passing that afternoon beneath Morro Castle, the
+<i>Whim</i> tacked prettily through the entrance of Havana
+harbor and in another scant two miles dropped anchor.</p>
+
+<p>Havana Bay is a dancing sheet of water, as bright as
+the skies and hardly less contagious than the city's
+laughter. But when one drops anchor and then hoists
+it up, one recoils from the black and slimy mud those
+blue waves hide; and this circumstance, slight as it may
+seem, held a potent influence on our future.</p>
+
+<p>Riding nearby was another yacht, in size and design
+very much like the <i>Whim</i>, except that her rigging had
+an old-fashioned cut. Her masts were checked with
+age and, where our craft showed polished brass, she
+long ago had resorted to white paint. At the same time,
+she gave the impression of aristocracy&mdash;broken-down
+aristocracy, if you choose. No bunting fluttered at her
+masthead, no country's emblem waved over her taffrail,
+and the only hint of nationality or ownership was a
+rather badly painted word <i>Orchid</i> on her name plate.
+Taken altogether, she was rather difficult to place.</p>
+
+<p>These signs of poverty would have passed unobserved
+by us, had we not in coming to anchor swung between
+her moorings and the Machina wharf. Not that it made
+any serious difference, Gates explained, nor were we
+impertinently near, but it just missed being the scrupulously
+polite thing to have done&mdash;and Gates was a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</a></span>
+stickler on matters of yacht etiquette. So he felt uncomfortable
+about it, while at the same time being
+reluctant to hoist anchor and foul our decks with the
+bottom of Havana Bay. To be on the safe side he determined
+to megaphone apologies and consult her wishes.
+Twice he hailed, receiving no answer. Two sailors were
+seated forward playing cards&mdash;a surlier pair of ruffians
+would have been hard to find&mdash;but neither of them so
+much as glanced up.</p>
+
+<p>"Let the professor try in Spanish," Tommy said.</p>
+
+<p>Monsieur took the megaphone and did so, but with no
+better success. Then to our profound admiration he
+called in half a dozen languages; finally growling:
+"Lascars, likely!"&mdash;and proceeded to hail in something
+he afterwards explained was Lascar gibberish. All of
+which failed to attract the surly pair who played at
+cards.</p>
+
+<p>"Now you might try Airedale and Pekinese," Tommy
+suggested, but this was lost on the serious little man.
+Yet he did call in another strangely sounding tongue,
+then with a sigh laid the megaphone down, saying:</p>
+
+<p>"They must be stuffies!"</p>
+
+<p>"Dummies, sir, dummies," Tommy corrected. "Nice
+people don't say stuffies, ever!"</p>
+
+<p>"Your Tommy does so much cut-upping, eh!" he
+smiled at me. I had noticed that when preoccupied or
+excited the idioms of his various languages got tumbled
+into a rather hopeless potpourri.</p>
+
+<p>Quarantine and customs were passed in the leisurely
+fashion of Cuban officials, and Monsieur asked to be
+sent immediately ashore, promising to return at sundown.
+There was a man, the secret agent, he explained,
+who held important information.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll have the launch for you at Machina wharf, sir,"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</a></span>
+Gates told him, but he refused to consider this, declaring
+that he could hire any of the boatmen thereabout to
+bring him out.</p>
+
+<p>"He's that considerate, sir," Gates later confided to
+me. "But I carn't make head nor tail of him. Bilkins
+says he went in to lay out his clothes, and the things
+he's got stuck in those bags would astonish you!"</p>
+
+<p>Nearing six o'clock a skiff drew alongside, being propelled
+by one oar&mdash;a method much in vogue with
+Havana harbormen&mdash;and when Monsieur came aboard
+we saw at once evidences of disappointment. His arms
+hung listlessly, and his large head drooped forward as
+if at last its weight had proven too great for the squat
+body.</p>
+
+<p>"What's wrong?" I asked.</p>
+
+<p>"How do you know there is anything wrong, my boy
+Jack?"</p>
+
+<p>"You look so killingly happy," Tommy said, joining
+us.</p>
+
+<p>Monsieur's pale eyes stared for a moment, then
+blinked several times before he murmured:</p>
+
+<p>"The man I went to see is dead&mdash;murdered, just
+after he mailed that report. So I have no information.
+These police called it suicide because a knife lay in his
+hand. Bah! I could place a knife in the hand of any
+man I kill!"</p>
+
+<p>"Was he a friend of yours?"</p>
+
+<p>"No. I have never seen him. But he knew something!"</p>
+
+<p>"He evidently knew too much," Tommy suggested.</p>
+
+<p>"You speak true, my boy. It seems to be a dangerous
+thing here to know too much of certain matters!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well," I laughed, trying to put a heartiness in my
+voice and drive away his depression, "let's go ashore for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</a></span>
+dinner! Then the Opera&mdash;and afterwards another bite
+where the high life eats? What-say, Professor?"</p>
+
+<p>As it turned out, however, neither the dinner, nor all
+of Tommy's banter, nor Madame Butterfly sung in
+Spanish (as if it could!) succeeded in restoring Monsieur
+to a normal temper.</p>
+
+<p>"We've simply got to make him laugh," I whispered
+to Tommy. "It's a matter of principle now!"</p>
+
+<p>"Then wait till we have supper, and get him soused,"
+my confederate cautiously replied. "That'll do it. But
+you'd better not drink much," he added. "How are
+the nerves this evening?"</p>
+
+<p>"I've almost forgotten them," I answered.</p>
+
+<p>But Tommy was persistent at times. Unknown to
+me he was now preparing a report to wire the Mater.</p>
+
+<p>"Sleeping better?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Lots."</p>
+
+<p>"Lying to me?"</p>
+
+<p>"A little," I laughed outright. "But honestly I'm
+in heaps better shape!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I've seen you improving from day to day, but
+we want to put it over right. So don't hit the asphalt
+too hard tonight."</p>
+
+<p>And in all justice to myself and my friendship to
+Tommy I really did not intend to. What place was it
+that some one said is paved with good intentions?</p>
+
+<p>Leaving the Opera House we mixed with the laughing
+tide that flowed along the Prado, and by the merest
+chance&mdash;destinies of nations, much less our own, sometimes
+rest upon a merest chance&mdash;dropped in for supper
+at a fashionable place patronized by those who wish
+to see the brightest of Havana life. There were other
+places, of course, that might have offered quite as much,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</a></span>
+but this one happened to be on the route we had
+taken.</p>
+
+<p>Midnight passed, but still we lingered, seated on the
+latticed balcony that encircles an inner court where
+cabaret features are held&mdash;suggestive of a bull ring.
+One rather piquant Spanish girl, playing her accompaniment
+on a guitar, gazed softly up at Tommy while
+singing about some wonderful Nirvana, an enchanted
+island that floated in a sea of love. It was a pretty
+song, even if more intense than temperate, and pleased
+with it he tossed her a coin; whereupon she tilted her
+chin and raised a shoulder, asking in the universal
+language of cabarets if she should not come up and
+drink a health with the <i>imperioso Se&ntilde;or</i>. But he, whose
+heart was beating against a twenty-page letter from a
+nymph in the Bluegrass region of Kentucky, laughed a
+negative, this time throwing her a flower that she kissed
+lightly and put in her hair.</p>
+
+<p>We had supped well, the mandolins were now tinkling,
+incessantly, and this, mingled with the silvery tones of
+glasses touched in eager pledges, created an ensemble
+of sounds dear to the heart of every true Bohemian.
+Effects were good here. The ceilings and walls of our
+balcony were lighted by vari-colored electric bulbs artfully
+placed amidst growing vines that drooped in festoons
+above the tables, producing a fairy-like enchantment.
+And, indeed, the caf&eacute; proved to be a mart not
+only of enchantments but entertainments, including a
+popular gambling salon.</p>
+
+<p>At last, in desperation seeing that Monsieur refused to
+be cheered, Tommy sprang up, saying:</p>
+
+<p>"Come, gezabo, let's court Dame Roulette! Join us,
+Jack?"</p>
+
+<p>This I declined, and watched them move off arm in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[36]</a></span>
+arm. But a strange thing arrested my attention for,
+as they preceded down the corridor, I saw a man in
+yachting clothes&mdash;the uniform of a captain&mdash;draw
+quickly back into an alcove as if wanting to escape
+discovery. When they had passed he looked out, more
+fearfully than curiously, and after a moment of indecision
+slowly followed them. Urged by a suspicion that
+this was in some way associated with the professor, I
+arose and also followed. Yet upon reaching the salon
+the stranger was nowhere to be seen. Tommy and
+Monsieur were each buying a stack of chips, the place
+seemed quiet and orderly, so without being observed I
+returned to my table.</p>
+
+<p>Now left alone I leaned back, idly twisting the stem
+of my glass, looking over the sea of merry people who
+made a picture that quickened interest. For I am
+particularly fond of sitting apart and watching an
+assemblage of handsomely groomed men and women
+laughing, talking and making love. I like to guess
+whether fears or tears or desperate courage hide behind
+their gayety; whether the rapidly wagging tongues are
+uttering inanities or planning naughty things; whether
+the love-making will stop with coffee and liqueur, or,
+lighted by them, burn into eternity.</p>
+
+<p>All phases of human banality and human enigma
+seemed to be represented. There were languid beauties
+of the Latin type whose drooping eyes might
+have expressed <i>ennui</i>, passion, pride&mdash;anything, in fact,
+that one's humor chose to fancy; the blonde by adoption
+was there, with heavy ear-rings of jet, whose habit
+was that of looking slant-wise through her cigarette
+smoke and raising one black, though carefully plucked,
+eyebrow; also there were a few American women, by far
+the most smartly dressed. Great was the throb of life<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</a></span>
+in this discreet and fashionable caf&eacute;. I felt its tremendous
+emphasis, and was content.</p>
+
+<p>Then, quite without warning, I caught my breath
+as my glance fell upon a girl dining with an old chap
+but three tables away. Among the habitu&eacute;s of the
+Ritzes of two continents there could not have been found
+another like her, for never had I beheld a face as
+exquisite&mdash;and I've seen many. It possessed a beauty
+that left me helpless&mdash;yet there was an indefinable sadness
+in it that might have suggested a haunting fear.</p>
+
+<p>One of the lights among the vines hung close to her,
+and I could see these things. Even could I see the color
+of her eyes, deep purple eyes&mdash;the tone the wild iris
+takes at twilight. When she leaned one way I might
+have thought the rich abundance of her hair contained
+spun copper or deep red gold, and again I would have
+sworn it matched the mellow brown of chestnuts; in all
+forming an arrangement of waves, each refusing to stay
+in place yet never really getting out of order, each coquetting
+with a subtle mischief that found an echo
+in her lips. Her neck and shoulders were of that perfection
+that men realize but can not analyze; and her
+mouth, laughing or in repose, was maddening.</p>
+
+<p>And there was an added charm quite apart from hair
+and eyes and lips. This I had never before seen in
+any face. Animation? Yes, and more. Interest in the
+life about her? Assuredly, to a very marked degree.
+Wildness? That was it!&mdash;a wildness, subtly blended
+with refinement, that found expression in every quick
+look; as if someone had put a fawn there from the forest
+and it was trying, half humorously, half confidently,
+to keep itself from running away in fright. It was this
+glory of wildness that she typified which made my
+cheeks grow hot with watching.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>But who has ever made a picture worthy of his
+dreams! How, then, can I describe this girl, when
+painter, sculptor, writer&mdash;all&mdash;would miserably fail at
+attempting to portray a beauty whereon imagination
+might gaze in frank amazement and admit itself surpassed!
+Here, indeed, was all the vital, colorful magnetism
+of a type that men are quick to die for!</p>
+
+<p>Her gown&mdash;yet how can man describe a woman's
+gown? It was a very rich affair and added to the picture.
+But this I did observe distinctly, that in revealing
+her arms and shoulders there was no slightest hint of
+that abandonment of <i>d&eacute;collet&eacute;</i> which denotes the approach
+of feminine despair, nor was the color in her
+cheeks a result of anything less pure than the kiss of
+air and sunshine.</p>
+
+<p>Her <i>vis-&agrave;-vis</i>, almost too old to have been her father,
+was one of those whose nationality is difficult to place.
+His hair, mustache and Vandyke beard were gray;
+he was tall, thin, and perhaps seventy-five years old.
+His complexion impressed one most unpleasantly because
+of its sallow, almost yellow, hue; and although
+I had not yet had a full-face view of him I intuitively
+knew that his teeth were long and thin and yellow.
+A slight palsy never let his head be still, as if some
+persistent agent were making him deny, eternally deny,
+an inarticulate accusation&mdash;as accusations of the conscience
+perforce must be.</p>
+
+<p>Despite his grumpy silence he showed an air of repressed
+excitement, sending frequent, shifty glances
+over the room; and that he possessed the temper of a
+fiend I did not doubt after seeing him turn upon the
+waiter for some trifling omission and reduce that usually
+placid individual to a state of amazed incapacity. Then
+a quick, really a pitiful, look of terror came into the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</a></span>
+girl's eyes as she shrank back in her chair. It lasted
+but a second before she was again making herself agreeable&mdash;acting,
+of course&mdash;and I wanted to cross to him
+and demand: "Why is this lady afraid?"</p>
+
+<p>I hated the man; at first sight I loathed him. It was
+one of those antipathies sometimes observed in dogs
+that see each other from a distance&mdash;hair up and teeth
+bared. The feeling is spontaneous, unpredictable, and
+the usual result is fight.</p>
+
+<p>Up to this time she had not seen me, or even known
+of my insignificant existence; but suddenly, as though
+it were a sally of banter whose blade he parried in the
+nick of time, her laughter-bathed eyes darted past him
+and squarely met my own; her lips sobered into a half
+parted expression of interest and, some strange thought&mdash;perhaps
+unbidden&mdash;coming into her mind, sent the
+blood surging to her cheeks. As quickly as this happened
+it had gone, and again she seemed to be absorbing
+the attention of her <i>vis-&agrave;-vis</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Once, years ago in the Dolomites, I thoughtlessly
+struck my staff upon a piece of rock when, lo, a wonderful
+tone arose therefrom. And the memory of that
+rich, unbidden sound was re-awakened now as the
+contact of our glances stirred something which thrilled
+me with a maddening sense of harmony. As an E string
+vibrates when another E is struck somewhere near to it,
+so my being vibrated with each tilt of her head, each
+movement of her lips. Yet however much I conjured
+the magnet of my will to make her look again, she successfully,
+if coquettishly, resisted.</p>
+
+<p>The Spanish waiter came up softly to refill my glass;
+an attention I permitted, murmuring happily:</p>
+
+<p>"Right, kiddo! Stay me with flagons, comfort me
+with champagne, for my heart is faint with love!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</a></span>&mdash;only
+Solomon didn't sing it quite like that, the fickle old
+dog, nor did my waiter understand me, which was just
+as well.</p>
+
+<p>Engrossed with watching her I saw a new look come
+into her face as she quickly whispered something
+across the table. Her <i>vis-&agrave;-vis</i> turned impatiently as a
+man approached them, who to my surprise was the yacht
+captain&mdash;the fellow who had apparently followed Tommy
+and Monsieur. He was a well-built blond, with
+a bullet-shaped head, high cheek bones and deep set
+eyes&mdash;pig eyes. His right cheek bore several scars
+which, considering his type, strongly suggested a German
+of University dueling experiences. So I looked on
+him with a livelier suspicion, even as she seemed to
+be doing.</p>
+
+<p>In an undertone he now said something that brought
+the old man to his feet. With fear written on their
+faces they talked for several minutes, during which the
+blond jerked his head once or twice toward the gambling
+rooms. The girl had leaned forward watching
+them intently. Then with a peremptory order the old
+one sent him away and sank back into his chair; but a
+moment later, clutching the tablecloth, he spoke a few
+words that made her recoil in evident horror.</p>
+
+<p>I did not know what to do or what to think, so I
+merely watched with every sense alert. I saw him call
+the waiter for his settlement, I saw him take out a
+large roll of money and with trembling fingers peel off
+the outside bill&mdash;a new and crinkly fifty-dollar note.
+I saw the girl idly marking on the winecard with a
+small gold pencil, though her eyes were veiling an
+intense excitement; and when the waiter returned with
+a pile of change which the old man began to count, I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</a></span>
+saw her furtively slip the winecard to her lap. A moment
+later it fell to the floor as she arose to leave.</p>
+
+<p>Together they started toward the exit, but having
+taken a few steps she left him with a brief word and returned,
+presumably for her glove. Partially free from
+his eternal vigilance, she raised her eyes without dissimulation
+and looked quickly, appealingly into mine;
+then down at her hand, on which she leaned, whose
+fingers were unfolding from a little ball of paper. Again
+into my eyes she looked&mdash;a look of infinite appeal.</p>
+
+<p>Across the void from her world to my own she was
+signaling&mdash;trying to tell me what?&mdash;and frantically my
+fancy sprang to translate the message. But as the man,
+with growing agitation, had been watching narrowly
+throughout this&mdash;a condition of which I felt sure she
+must be acutely aware&mdash;I dared not make the slightest
+sign. Yet she seemed to understand and, joining him,
+they passed out.</p>
+
+<p>I pounced upon that crumpled ball of paper and was
+back in my chair unfolding it with nervous fingers.
+Feverishly pressing out the creases I saw that it was,
+indeed, a corner torn from the winecard, and written
+upon it&mdash;nothing. Absolutely nothing!</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps I should have laughed, but as a matter of
+fact I cursed. Deep in my soul I cursed. Her little
+joke, her pretty bit of acting, had left a stinging sense
+of loss. As suddenly as this ruthless comet swept into
+my orbit it had swung out and on; for one delicious moment
+we had touched across the infinite, but now my
+harmony was shattered, the strings of my harp were
+snapped, curled up, and could not be made to play
+again.</p>
+
+<p>But the Spanish girl was playing her guitar, once
+more singing her impassioned song of the enchanted<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</a></span>
+island in its sea of love, which made me pity myself so
+much that I permitted the waiter again to fill my
+glass. What a wondrous adventure this night might
+have brought!</p>
+
+<p>Such thoughts wore not to be profaned by the companionship
+of Tommy and Monsieur, so I slipped away,
+hailed a cab and alighted at the Machina wharf. The
+boatman there, whom I aroused to take me out, was
+one of the most stupid fellows I've ever encountered.
+At any rate, someone was stupid.</p>
+
+<p>Going aboard the yacht I stood for a moment listening
+to the lonely sweep of his oar sculling shoreward
+through the murky night. Over the castellated walls
+of La Caba&ntilde;a raced low, angry clouds. Was it a storm
+brewing, or had some supernal madness touched the
+night?</p>
+
+<p>The watch forward called in a guarded voice: "All
+right, sir?" to which I answered, "All right," then
+went cautiously across deck and crept down the companionway
+stairs. The cabin was dark so I felt for my
+stateroom, passed in and closed the door. Somehow
+my fingers could not locate the light jet, but what matter?
+In three minutes I had undressed and was fast
+asleep.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV</h2>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2>NIRVANA</h2>
+
+
+<p>A pleasant sense of motion came over me that suggested
+cradling waves, and I was sleepily wondering
+why we had gone out on a day that portended storms,
+when a tapping at my stateroom door was followed by
+someone whispering:</p>
+
+<p>"Aren't you ever going to get up, you lazy old dear?"</p>
+
+<p>It was a girl's voice.</p>
+
+<p>Gradually and cautiously I drew the sheet about my
+chin, feeling no little confused to have a girl five feet
+away whispering pet names at me through a thin partition.</p>
+
+<p>"Aren't you?" she repeated, more sweetly imperious.</p>
+
+<p>"You bet," I stammered.</p>
+
+<p>"Then do hurry! It's almost ten, and I've been
+waiting such a long time!"</p>
+
+<p>Whereupon I heard her moving off, pressing her
+hands against the panels for steadiness, and there struck
+me as having been an endearing pathos in the way she
+said: "such a long time!"</p>
+
+<p>This was, no doubt, some of Tommy's doing. He
+had invited friends aboard for luncheon, and was now
+daring one of them to play this joke. But my glance
+turned to the room, to its equipment and toilette articles
+which were large and curiously shaped, and the
+numbing truth crept into my brain that the stupid boatman
+had put me on the wrong yacht.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>I had known some tight places in France, but this
+one simply squeezed me all over. There was nothing
+for it, of course, but go out and explain&mdash;yet how could
+a chap appear at noon draped in a sheet! The situation
+confused me, but I decided to search the wardrobe,
+of my unknown host, to borrow his razor, appropriate
+a new toothbrush that should be found in a box somewhere,
+and select flannels and linens in keeping with
+the hour. Still balanced between confusion and panic
+I must have done these things because, fittingly attired
+though with no very good fit, I opened my door, stepped
+softly along the passageway, and entered the cabin.</p>
+
+<p>On a wide couch built in at one side a girl lay reading.
+Her head was toward me, but as I advanced she
+arose with a low cry of gladness, saying:</p>
+
+<p>"So you're here at last&mdash;&mdash;!" then with a little gasp
+drew back, facing me in the most entrancing attitude of
+bewilderment.</p>
+
+<p>It was the girl who had left that ball of paper!</p>
+
+<p>The sea, always my friend, at this moment did a
+rather decent thing; it gave the yacht a firm but gentle
+lurch and sent us into each other's arms. Perhaps
+nothing else in all the world of chances could so effectively
+have broken the ice between us, for we were
+laughing as I helped her back to the couch; and, as our
+eyes met, again we laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't know," she said, "that Father brought a
+guest aboard last night!"</p>
+
+<p>"Awkward of him, wasn't it?" I stammered, sparring
+for time.</p>
+
+<p>"One is apt to be awkward in weather like this," she
+graciously admitted.</p>
+
+<p>"You don't know how profoundly aware I am of&mdash;of
+how terribly true that is," I stumbled along. "Is he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</a></span>
+on deck?" For, oh, if I could only get to see him five
+minutes alone!</p>
+
+<p>"No, he's unusually lazy this morning; but I've
+called, him, the old dear!"</p>
+
+<p>A chill crept up my spine&mdash;crept up, crept down, and
+then criss-crossed. But she must know of her mistake
+before we had gone so far that putting me ashore would
+be a serious inconvenience&mdash;for I knew he would put
+me ashore at the nearest point, if not, indeed, set me
+adrift in an open boat. Therefore I suggested:</p>
+
+<p>"Wouldn't it be a good idea to call him again?
+It's rather important!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, you think we shouldn't have gone out in a storm
+like this? I've been dreadfully uneasy!"</p>
+
+<p>"No danger at all," I declared, with affected indifference,
+adding: "The weather isn't half as rough
+as 'the old dear' will be, take my word for it!"</p>
+
+<p>A shadow of mystification passed over her wonderful
+face, yet she smiled with well-bred tolerance, saying:</p>
+
+<p>"You are quite droll."</p>
+
+<p>"Drollery is the brother of good fellowship," I replied,
+helping her across the reeling cabin. As I had
+feared, she went directly to my room where the door
+had swung back showing an empty bunk.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, he's up, after all," she glanced over her
+shoulder at me.</p>
+
+<p>"I believe he is," I idiotically affirmed.</p>
+
+<p>"But where?"&mdash;this more to herself.</p>
+
+<p>"Hiding, maybe," I ventured, taking a facetious
+squint about.</p>
+
+<p>"Hiding?" she asked, in mild surprise.</p>
+
+<p>"Er&mdash;playing a trick on us! He's a funny old dog
+at tricks!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Funny old dog?" She drew slightly away from me.
+"Do you mean my father, Mr.&mdash;er?"</p>
+
+<p>"Jack," I prompted, more than ever embarrassed and
+wishing the ocean would come up and swallow me;
+for I realized, alas, that my gods, by whom I was reasonably
+well remembered in so far as concerned
+physique, had been shamelessly remiss in their bestowal
+of brains.</p>
+
+<p>"Jack?" she slowly repeated. "What an odd name!"</p>
+
+<p>This made me feel queer.</p>
+
+<p>"Where do you live," I asked, "that you think it's
+an odd name? The States are crawling with Jacks!
+It's even the Democratic emblem!"</p>
+
+<p>Her perplexity was fast approaching alarm when we
+heard a muffled report above, followed by a trembling
+of the yacht. Someone called an order that sounded
+far away in the wind.</p>
+
+<p>"Hold tight," I said, "while I see if anything's
+wrong!"</p>
+
+<p>But I did not leave her side, knowing exactly what
+had happened. We had snapped our mainsheet, that
+was all; letting the boom swing out and putting us in
+the trough of the waves where we might expect a few
+wobbly minutes until the sailors could work in a new
+line. There was no danger and I reassured her at
+once, but she merely asked:</p>
+
+<p>"Was my father on deck?"</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't look," I answered, wondering why she
+thought I knew.</p>
+
+<p>"Won't you see?" Her patience was becoming exhausted.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm crazy to. But first let me help you back&mdash;you
+can't make it alone!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes, I can," she murmured. "I always make
+things alone!"</p>
+
+<p>I tried to fathom the meaning of this, but gave it up
+and started to go on deck. If I could take her father
+off to one side and explain, well and good. He would
+perhaps sympathize with my mistake when he understood
+that it was partially the result of a desire to fill
+Monsieur with spirits. Considering this, I spoiled everything
+by asking:</p>
+
+<p>"What does he look like?"</p>
+
+<p>"My father?" she gasped, in a wondering way.</p>
+
+<p>"No&mdash;yes&mdash;certainly not! I mean&mdash;oh, this is intolerable!
+I don't know your father, never saw him in
+my life&mdash;unless he was the one with you last night
+when you drove me frantic with that ball of paper
+trick! But what you did has nothing to do with my
+being here. I've not wilfully followed. A stupid boatman
+mistook your yacht for my own when I was&mdash;I
+mean to say, when I was too engrossed with the memory
+of you to notice his mistake."</p>
+
+<p>From alarm her look gave way to wonderment, then
+almost to mirth. It was a hard place for a girl to be
+in, and I expected her to leave me now, find the old
+chap and promptly have me hanged to a yard-arm. The
+fact that there are no yard-arms on schooner yachts
+made no difference. And I do believe she was considering
+that when a sailor passed us, looking enough like
+Tommy to have been his twin brother.</p>
+
+<p>"Jack," she said to him, "tell Mr. Graham to come
+below!"</p>
+
+<p>The fellow saluted and left, and I stared at her in
+surprise, saying:</p>
+
+<p>"Then my name can't seem very odd to you, Miss
+Graham!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>She was regarding me as though trying to discover
+what kind of a species I was that had got on her
+father's yacht, when the sailor came back followed by
+a husky brute in uniform. Intuitively I stiffened to
+meet the crisis, but even at this eleventh hour a respite
+came.</p>
+
+<p>"He ain't aboard," the other Jack whispered, and the
+captain&mdash;for the burly one was only the captain, after
+all&mdash;saluted, saying:</p>
+
+<p>"I've just now found out, ma'am, he ain't aboard!"</p>
+
+<p>"Not aboard? What do you mean?"</p>
+
+<p>"After bringing you on last night he went ashore
+again to get a little ball of paper, but told me to sail
+the minute he returned. I don't understand it, ma'am,
+for later the watch woke me to say Mr. Graham had
+come."</p>
+
+<p>"Good Lord," I groaned. "It was I, and not your
+father, who answered the watch."</p>
+
+<p>For several minutes we stared blankly into each
+other's faces, but it was she who broke the deadly silence.</p>
+
+<p>"We must hurry back," she calmly told him, adding
+with a nervous catch in her breath: "What a joke on
+Daddy!"</p>
+
+<p>"A scream of a joke," I muttered, "&mdash;&mdash;one he'll
+roar over till God-knows-when!"</p>
+
+<p>"We can't go back, Miss Sylvia," the captain now
+said. "When our mainsheet parted the boom gybed so
+hard that it opened a seam. It may hold on this tack,
+and it may not, but we'd sink if the weather hit us on
+the other side. So I'm making for Key West."</p>
+
+<p>A suspicious quiver played over her lips as the big
+fellow turned and went upstairs, and I began to hate
+myself rather cordially.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Do you happen to have that&mdash;that ball of paper?"
+she asked, when the threatened storm of tears had been
+controlled.</p>
+
+<p>"No, I threw it down."</p>
+
+<p>A look of terror came into her eyes as she gasped:</p>
+
+<p>"Then he'll find it!"</p>
+
+<p>"It won't matter if he does! You hadn't written
+anything on it!"</p>
+
+<p>"Did you look on both sides of it?"</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;I think so; of course, I must have. Did you
+write on the other side?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know which the other side is that you refer
+to," she answered with some show of anger. "There
+were two sides, you know. Still, it can't much matter
+now whether it had any sides or not."</p>
+
+<p>This was very perplexing, the words no more so than
+the way she looked at me while pronouncing them. Yet
+I hardly thought it should give her as much concern
+as our leaky boat. The storm had grown worse, and
+more than once she glanced anxiously at the portholes
+whose glass, over half the time, were submerged by
+swirls of greenish water.</p>
+
+<p>"It'll turn out all right," I said, gently. "And you
+mustn't be afraid of this storm."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm not afraid!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, you are," I tenderly persisted, "but your
+skipper looks like a man who'll bring us through."</p>
+
+<p>"Your concern is most flattering," she frigidly replied.
+"But fear of storms, and distress over the unhappiness
+one may be causing others, are quite different
+phases of emotion."</p>
+
+<p>"I stand corrected and rebuked," I humbly acknowledged.
+"Yet I want you to know that my concern<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</a></span>
+springs from a deeper source than flattery. I want
+honestly to assure you&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course, there's less danger here than in port,"
+she continued in the same icy tone, utterly ignoring
+me, "for here, at least, we can't be boarded at night
+by irresponsible people."</p>
+
+<p>I winced.</p>
+
+<p>"By people who drink," she added.</p>
+
+<p>I winced again, for I seemed to be getting the winces
+now, and couldn't stop.</p>
+
+<p>"That isn't fair, Miss Graham! Circumstances are
+against me, but you might suspend judgment till you
+know me better!"</p>
+
+<p>"The circumstances require no further evidence," she
+said, with supreme indifference.</p>
+
+<p>"But circumstantial evidence," I felt pleased at
+turning her phrase, "often wears the cap and bells, instead
+of the wig and gown!"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm discovering that," she murmured, and added
+with a touch of sarcasm: "The knack of making
+a catch phrase is often very agreeable, but presupposes
+no presence of an idea."</p>
+
+<p>Now I thought this most unkind of her, because I
+had been quite set up by my retort; so, arising with as
+much dignity as the waves would permit, I buttoned
+my coat, remarking:</p>
+
+<p>"Then I'll go on deck, and leave you."</p>
+
+<p>The coat was tight and, while fastening it, I felt
+something in an inner pocket press against my side.
+There are few impulses more natural than to investigate
+anything that has a curious feel in one's pocket,
+so thrusting in my hand I brought forth a small round
+frame of brass, made in the imitation of a porthole, encircling
+her photograph. This would not have happened<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</a></span>
+had I remembered being in her father's clothes, but
+it was done, and I stood looking first at the picture and
+then at her.</p>
+
+<p>"Give it to me," she cried.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't see why," I temporized, not at all loath at
+having this chance for revenge.</p>
+
+<p>"It's mine," she imperiously announced.</p>
+
+<p>"It may be a picture of you, but, as you perceive, not
+at this moment your picture," and my eyes lowered
+again and lingered on it, for it was indeed a wonderful
+likeness, moving me strangely by its amazing beauty.
+The frame, too, gave it added charm, as she seemed
+really to be looking out of a porthole.</p>
+
+<p>"Give that to me this instant," she said, with such a
+show of passion that I passively surrendered it, and
+started to walk away. Yet some cruel power held my
+feet. I tried again to move, but could not.</p>
+
+<p>Overhead the men were working desperately at the
+pumps to keep us afloat. One of them left his place and
+passed us, whispering:</p>
+
+<p>"It's no use&mdash;we're gone!"</p>
+
+<p>The cabin was in twilight as I again turned to her.
+She had crawled to the far corner of the couch, and
+lay staring at the ceiling&mdash;waiting. Here in this dismal
+room, alone and facing death with a courage amazing
+to behold, she made a picture which so stirred me
+that despite earlier wounded feelings I went to her
+side. The little hands were cold and inert when I took
+them, but her fingers tightened ever so gently.</p>
+
+<p>"Did he say we're going down?" she quietly asked,
+without turning her head.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," I answered&mdash;though both of us spoke in
+whispers.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</a></span></p><p>"I'm sorry to have been unkind," she said, withdrawing
+one of her hands and laying it on the back of
+my own&mdash;for Death is a great leveler of conventions.</p>
+
+<p>The pathetic resignation in her voice brought hot
+tears to my eyes and, raising her fingers to my lips, I
+murmured:</p>
+
+<p>"You're the sweetest angel I ever knew!"</p>
+
+<p>For a long time we sat in the gathering darkness,
+holding to each other as two little children lost in the
+night. Finally I heard her whisper:</p>
+
+<p>"Why am I not afraid&mdash;now?"</p>
+
+<p>I turned and looked down at her; down into those
+eyes gazing back at me through a magnetizing moisture
+that drew my face nearer, nearer.</p>
+
+<p>"Because," I said, "we've found something which
+outlives death!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," she whispered, as her arms moved sweetly up
+around my neck&mdash;but the next instant they held me
+off, as she gasped: "Look! Look! The end is here!"</p>
+
+<p>Quite a foot of water was swashing back and forth
+over the cabin floor, while a steady stream poured down
+the companionway stairs. Yes, the end was here!</p>
+
+<p>"Take this," she hurriedly pressed into my hand the
+round brass frame that held her picture&mdash;the frame
+fashioned after a porthole. "Keep it&mdash;then come to
+me! Swear!"</p>
+
+<p>"I swear," I gasped. "But where shall I find you?
+In what strange land will you be?"</p>
+
+<p>Her eyes were wide with a frightened look that even
+in our extremity gave the lie to fear. Through parted,
+expectant lips a trembling sigh of inexpressible sweetness
+seemed to carry her answer; it was brought by the
+mystery of her look, by the clasp of our senses&mdash;for I
+know she did not speak a word:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[53]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"I'll wait beneath the palms on one of many, many islands,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Set as emerald jewels in an ever-changing sea;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">My hammock swings beside a pool of purling, crystal water<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Whisp'ring to the shadows of a lonely Arcady;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The Spanish moss hangs solemn in long streamers from the cypress,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The paths are soft and noiseless with dead needles of the pine,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The nights are still and fragrant, and I'll wait&mdash;&mdash;<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Ah!" she broke
+the measure with a despairing cry and struggled to get
+from my arms, as another voice, far away but familiar,
+began to call my name. Then slowly my eyes opened
+and beheld Bilkins looking down at me, in my own
+stateroom, where my clothes were lying as I had thrown
+them off the night before.</p>
+
+<p>"I've called you twice, sir," he was saying. "It's
+almost ten o'clock, and I'm afraid your bath is cold."</p>
+
+<p>"I want it cold," I murmured, staring up at him.
+"God, Bilkins, I've had a most extraordinary dream!"</p>
+
+<p>"If it's bad don't tell it before breakfast, sir, whatever
+you do! Just hold on a minute, and I'll bring
+your tray right in!"</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V</h2>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[54]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2>"TO THE VERY END!"</h2>
+
+
+<p>I dressed hurriedly, wanting to be on deck and get a
+more searching view of the yacht near which we had
+anchored. Stepping out into the cockpit, therefore, I
+looked hungrily toward her mooring place, but it was
+vacant.</p>
+
+<p>"Where has she gone?" I asked Tommy, who was the
+only one about.</p>
+
+<p>"The etiquette of this yacht requires its owner first
+to say 'good morning' when he comes up at break of
+day," he grinned at me accusingly. "The little professor
+won eight hundred dollars from the proud Castilian
+last night&mdash;I hope Dame Fortune was as kind to
+you!"</p>
+
+<p>"She was diverting," I admitted. "Where's Monsieur
+now?"</p>
+
+<p>"'Sleep. We didn't turn in till an unholy hour. He
+got up at seven from force of habit, fussed around a
+while, took some pictures of the neighborhood and developed
+them, but by that time the poor old door-mat
+couldn't keep his eyes open. Do you know he wept
+all the way home last night, telling me how good we
+were to him?"</p>
+
+<p>We laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"But, Tommy, where's the yacht that was over there
+yesterday?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Her? Oh, she cleared this morning&mdash;and listen to
+me, boy, if you want to see a dream just cast your eye
+on that last film of Monsieur's!"</p>
+
+<p>See a dream! Great heavens, if I wanted to see a
+dream!</p>
+
+<p>He led the way aft to a ribbon of freshly developed
+film hanging from the boom to dry and, as I gingerly
+raised it to the light, he went on to explain:</p>
+
+<p>"It was boorish of him, but I'm to blame. We were
+standing forward after breakfast snapping the harbor
+when that yacht weighed anchor and swung across our
+bow less than thirty feet off; and, Jack, with the prettiest
+girl I ever saw&mdash;barring Nell&mdash;looking out at us
+through a porthole. 'Shoot her,' I whispered. So he
+swung his camera and shot, and she gave a darling little
+gasp and ducked."</p>
+
+<p>I had come to the last negative and there, with the
+porthole in exact imitation of the round brass frame,
+was the same beautiful face of the same beautiful girl
+I'd left in that wondrous dream!</p>
+
+<p>"Sylvia Graham," I cried.</p>
+
+<p>"The devil," Tommy straightened up. "Graham's
+the chap who owns that boat! Gates found it out this
+morning, but how did you know?"</p>
+
+<p>My eyes were glued to the negative.</p>
+
+<p>"They cleared for Key West, Tommy?"</p>
+
+<p>"So Gates said. Has he told you?"</p>
+
+<p>"I haven't seen him since yesterday," I murmured,
+still unable to look away from that strip of gelatine
+which held the image of my world.</p>
+
+<p>"He didn't know anything about it yesterday,
+either," Tommy announced, and I felt him regarding
+me in some slight amusement, as though he thought
+I had a secret up my sleeve that I was trying to keep<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[56]</a></span>
+from him. "What's the cute little idea, son? I've told
+you where she cleared for, now clear me up!"</p>
+
+<p>"Tommy," I let the film swing back and caught him
+by the shoulders, "Miss Graham's father carries a
+photograph like that in the inside pocket of a white
+flannel coat which hangs behind his stateroom door!"</p>
+
+<p>He looked me up and down, this time more seriously,
+and murmured:</p>
+
+<p>"Whiz-bang!&mdash;but you must have been heroically
+decorated last night! Still, I can't see that it hurt you
+much, for you look about twice as fit as when we left
+Miami."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll bet I didn't drink an ounce more than you,
+or Monsieur," I declared. "The facts of the matter
+are, Tommy, that there's a lot mighty curious about
+this picture!"</p>
+
+<p>"Really?" he grinned. "You go below and take
+something with a dash of bitters in it."</p>
+
+<p>"Dry up," I snapped. "I tell you I'm going to
+catch up with that yacht if we have to follow her around
+the world!"</p>
+
+<p>He gave a low whistle, saying with good-natured tolerance:</p>
+
+<p>"Looks like the big adventure's on the wing, doesn't
+it! Well, I don't mind chasing the old tub, or doing
+any other damphule thing in reason, but what's the
+game? Put me next! When was this earthquake that
+loosened all your little rivets? Speak up, son&mdash;I'm
+your <i>padre</i>!"</p>
+
+<p>"It's hard to explain," I turned again to the negative,
+feeling too serious for his asinine humor. "But
+I'll honestly try to before night. This girl needs me.
+I don't know why or how, but she does. What's more,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[57]</a></span>
+I'm going to find her. It's the most unheard-of situation,
+old man."</p>
+
+<p>"I'd be ashamed to belittle a situation like this by
+the mere term 'unheard-of,'" he now laughed outright.
+"Anyhow, she doesn't need you at present
+quite as much as you need scientific attention&mdash;and I
+hear the professor moving around!"</p>
+
+<p>Stepping to the companionway door he bawled some
+nonsense to our guest about bringing up his medicine
+chest and a rope, then turned back to me.</p>
+
+<p>"You see, Jack, I consider this to be serious. As
+long as I've known you that lady in the porthole is the
+first female you've ever thought of with any sign of,
+what I might call, <i>ardeur</i>. Where you met her is your
+business, but how you're going to get her must naturally
+concern us all. Hence Monsieur to consult with!"</p>
+
+<p>We could hear Monsieur's grunts and wheezes before
+he appeared, and on catching sight of me he actually
+skipped to us. It was a grotesque exhibition that made
+me burst out laughing. His hair was tousled, his eyes
+were half closed, and he looked about as much like a
+scrambled egg as anything I could think of.</p>
+
+<p>"We lost you last night," he cried. "You ran away
+from us?"</p>
+
+<p>"He was poisoned," Tommy blandly answered, "and
+now his heart's kind of upside-down and twisty."</p>
+
+<p>"Upside-down and twisty?" he gasped.</p>
+
+<p>"Tommy doesn't mean it's anything dangerous, just
+an affection; a kind of&mdash;a kind of&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"A kind of affectionate affection," Tommy put in.
+"You see, he was stung there, and it itches, and he
+can't scratch it."</p>
+
+<p>"Stung on the heart? <i>Sacr&eacute; nomme!</i>" The old fellow
+clasped his head in both hands and stared at us.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[58]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"You fascinating little ass," Tommy murmured, "did
+you ever hear of love?"</p>
+
+<p>"Love?" the professor's face beamed into twice
+its usual breadth. "You, my boy Jack? Is she a
+Spanish mademoiselle?"</p>
+
+<p>"Good Lord, whoever heard of a Spanish mademoiselle!
+No, Jack says that she's a lady in need, who
+lives in the pocket of her father's white serge coat that
+hangs behind his stateroom door; and she's in a helluva
+lot of trouble, but Jack doesn't know where else she
+is, so we're going to comb out the universe and find
+her! Get the idea?"</p>
+
+<p>"I will drink some coffee," he stammered, and disappeared.</p>
+
+<p>Tommy and I decided that we must be after the
+<i>Orchid</i> without losing a minute, as there was still a
+chance of drawing in sight of her before she could leave
+Key West. Yet I first had a mission to fulfill at the
+caf&eacute;, nor did I confide this at once to him lest he brand
+me a total wreck. I knew that he was delighted at the
+prospect of this bizarre chase, however chimeric it
+might seem to him, for he possessed the faculty of
+"playing-true" even in the veriest of fairy-tales. So
+for the moment I let the other matter rest, not realizing
+at the time that he had read more of it in my face than
+I meant to show.</p>
+
+<p>Gates, also, had caught the excitement and was waiting
+with the launch to push off; and thus, while he
+concluded official duties at the port, I entered the
+caf&eacute;&mdash;in the present unfriendly light a changed place
+from the night before. As luck would have it, my own
+waiter was the first man I saw.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you remember finding a small piece of crumpled
+paper on my table last night?" I asked.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[59]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"<i>Si</i>, Se&ntilde;or; the mad <i>caballero</i> came for it."</p>
+
+<p>"Did he get it?"</p>
+
+<p>"But, no, Se&ntilde;or," the waiter lowered his voice. "Yet
+he came near to, being much angry, and calling you&mdash;pardon
+me!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, what? What, man?"</p>
+
+<p>He still hesitated, so I carelessly took out my wallet.
+It's amazing, the power of a wallet!</p>
+
+<p>"He demanded the paper of our <i>ma&icirc;tre d'h&ocirc;tel</i>, saying
+you, Se&ntilde;or, were a pig of a detective&mdash;and as we
+admire the detective not at all, everyone searched for
+it. But I had seen other things, Se&ntilde;or," he smiled
+knowingly.</p>
+
+<p>"You have it?"</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Si, si,</i>&mdash;but not so loud! Could I give it to the old
+one? Even a poor waiter may sometimes observe! <i>Mas
+vale saber que haber, Se&ntilde;or</i>," he shrugged and smiled
+as the ancient proverb slipped from his tongue.</p>
+
+<p>"You've a mighty level head on you, kid," I agreed;
+a metaphor he may or may not have understood. There
+was no doubt in my mind that his words, "wisdom is
+better than wealth," were never more aptly spoken.</p>
+
+<p>"I saw it after you left, Se&ntilde;or, and put it away&mdash;so!
+The mad <i>caballero</i> soon came&mdash;he was not happy.
+We searched the floor, and all the time he was shaking
+his head and mumbling that Mademoiselle had confessed
+to writing it&mdash;and to a detective! He was quite
+crazy. Ah, with what care and sympathy did I help
+him, Se&ntilde;or, and how generously did he reward my careful
+search!"</p>
+
+<p>He shrugged and smiled, then drew the paper from
+his pocket, and I slipped it into mine&mdash;passing him
+back another kind of paper that he slipped into his
+with a grateful bow.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[60]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Do you know who the man is, or if that was his
+daughter?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, Se&ntilde;or. I have seen them, but can not remember
+where. Carlos served their table&mdash;but Carlos is
+stupid," he shrugged compassionately.</p>
+
+<p>The moment my cab turned the first corner I feverishly
+took out that precious paper. Sure enough, on
+one side were marks <i>I</i> had not seen, but the pencilling
+was very faint&mdash;having had the soft tablecloth for a
+desk, perhaps&mdash;and showed only a meandering line,
+curving in and out through a group of dots. From
+every angle I studied it, coming to two conclusions:
+first, that it could mean nothing; and second, that I
+must have imbibed more freely than I thought to have
+overlooked this.</p>
+
+<p>But now I saw, fainter than the dots, something that
+resembled written words. They were so obscure, indeed,
+that although the light was excellent my jostling
+cab made it impossible for me to decipher them. Telling
+the driver to stop, I bent over again, and laboriously
+read:</p>
+
+<p>"I am on Mr. Graham's yacht in great da&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>At this place, as I looked back upon last night, the
+old chap had indicated his wish to leave, and she, tearing
+off a corner, had let the wine card slip to the floor.
+It explained the broken word, the sudden interruption;
+and this much was not a dream, neither was the
+disturbing message in my hands&mdash;for what else but
+"danger" could the "da" mean?</p>
+
+<p>All was ready to weigh anchor when I stepped aboard,
+and when we were outside the harbor, drawing nicely
+toward the north, Tommy came up grumbling.</p>
+
+<p>"This mystery's getting heavy," he said. "Put us
+wise!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[61]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>So I pushed him into a chair, and called the professor
+and Gates; then when the four of us were comfortably
+settled, the cushions fitting our shoulders, our pipes
+alight, our spirits glowing with that exhilaration which
+a yacht can bring as she lays over and cuts the waves,
+I told the story from beginning to end&mdash;sparing Sylvia
+where I should.</p>
+
+<p>For some minutes they smoked with their eyes downcast.
+Then Monsieur looked up in his mild way, asking:</p>
+
+<p>"May I see the paper?"</p>
+
+<p>I passed it to him and we drew together, studying
+it.</p>
+
+<p>"This is the most singular part of the affair," he
+said, leaning back, "because it first came to you in
+fact, although the man's returning for it was told in
+the dream&mdash;and later verified. The dots and line mean
+nothing, perhaps, but that interrupted message!&mdash;ah,
+truly it spells danger! What danger? She spoke of no
+danger in the dream?"</p>
+
+<p>Now, it may seem strange or not, but I had begun to
+lose track of the places where the dream came in and
+where they left off. The actual was so woven with the
+unreal that I had to stop and consider this question.
+The paper episode, the vividness with which Sylvia
+had appeared to me, the brass frame made in the imitation
+of a porthole, and the camera's film, all contributed
+to a confusion not unshared by my three friends.</p>
+
+<p>"It's a darned funny coincidence," said Tommy, in
+an awed voice. "But, Jack, you don't think more seriously
+of it, do you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Would we be chasing these people if I didn't?" I
+temporized with another question.</p>
+
+<p>He seemed to be troubled, glancing toward the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[62]</a></span>
+thoughtful professor as if expecting him to speak, and
+when this was not forthcoming he asked again:</p>
+
+<p>"Well, friend gezabo, what do you think?"</p>
+
+<p>The little scientist lowered his pipe, sighed and impressively
+answered:</p>
+
+<p>"It is not given to all men to see this invisible agency
+at work."</p>
+
+<p>The profoundly solemn way he said this made Tommy's
+eyes grow round. Ghost and mystery tales imparted
+during his childhood by black mammies and
+other negro servants had endowed him with a considerable
+amount of superstition that not infrequently
+prevailed against his better judgment. So now, when
+the erudite Monsieur treated my experience with reverence,
+even introducing an element of mysticism, Tommy
+wavered.</p>
+
+<p>"Whiz-bang! You don't really believe that spooky
+stuff, do you?"</p>
+
+<p>"To my knowledge," Monsieur answered, "I have
+seen one case. You have heard me speak of Azuria.
+Well, many years ago a friend of mine, daughter of
+our King Christopher, fell to worrying about her cousin,
+a profligate who divided his time between the palace
+and Paris. As a punishment for various escapades the
+King had curtailed his allowance to a mere pittance, yet
+he seemed in spite of this to have as much money
+as before. It was this fact that worried my friend&mdash;the
+fear of a scandal.</p>
+
+<p>"One night she dreamed that her child, a girl of
+nearly three, was being kidnaped. She arose in her
+sleep to follow, walking the length of the palace, and
+awoke to find herself in the cousin's room&mdash;standing,
+indeed, behind his chair as he bent beneath a shaded<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[63]</a></span>
+lamp earnestly working on a plate for spurious money.
+Instantly she threatened to expose him to the King.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, to shorten a long story, that night he did
+actually kidnap the child, leaving a note to my friend
+in which he suggested a compromise. But there was
+no compromise with villainy in her make-up. The old
+King was much affected. Yet there were things in the
+air at that time, delicate situations of state, which demanded
+consideration. The kidnaping, if made public,
+would have produced a most disquieting effect in
+certain quarters. Our treaty with a powerful state had
+just been signed, based on the little princess' betrothal&mdash;you
+see? Therefore, her disappearance must be kept
+a secret for a while, so the police of the world were not
+notified. But that night ten men&mdash;a few of them loyal
+subjects and the others paid agents&mdash;left the capital.
+Thus a relentless search began, being carried to the
+ends of the world. A noted rogue, that fellow was&mdash;yet,
+strange to say, in earlier life a man of parts,
+an esthetic, an artist and musician of great ability; but
+<i>mon Dieu</i>, what a scoundrel!"</p>
+
+<p>"Where did they find the little princess?" Tommy
+asked, after a pause.</p>
+
+<p>"She was never found," he answered softly. "Word
+once came that she had died; again that she lived&mdash;but
+this I begin to doubt. So her mother reigns as regent,
+and in sorrow. Old Christopher had two daughters,
+the younger of whom&mdash;&mdash;" but he stopped in confusion,
+his face turning very red. Later I remembered this.</p>
+
+<p>We fell into a silence, a mutual sympathy for the
+bereaved lady who had been so wronged. At last
+Tommy asked:</p>
+
+<p>"Do you cross your heart that Jack's dream was
+anything like the one she had?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[64]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Dream?" Monsieur ran his fingers through his
+shock of hair. "Who can say? Was she dreaming, or
+did she see a vision? If a vision, why did it mislead
+by urging her into the very step that brought disaster?
+That scoundrel might never have considered kidnaping
+the child had the mother remained unsuspicious of his
+occupation! Yet visions are sent to warn against, not
+to court dangers. Again, some hold that he happened
+to be contemplating this step as a means of escape
+should discovery come, and so it was his thought transmitted
+to her."</p>
+
+<p>"For goodness sake talk sense," I cried. "What difference
+does it make whether they were dreams or
+nightmares, or how much the cousin was thinking!
+What we want to know is where does my dream come
+in!"</p>
+
+<p>He looked so hurt that I apologized by saying his
+fairy talk had sent me off my head. Small wonder,
+for when our guest attempted to explain a theory he
+proceeded on the assumption that we were as well versed
+in it as himself. Anyway, we smoothed him down and
+now, looking at us solemnly, he said:</p>
+
+<p>"Latter-day English-speaking psychologists to the
+contrary notwithstanding, we know in the East that
+souls do travel abroad; that they will speak, one to
+another, while our bodies sleep&mdash;while we are steeped
+in that mysterious period of mimic death which leads
+us so uncannily near their twilight zone! Some men
+hold that our dreams are vagaries, as a puff of air or a
+passing breeze; others that they are unfulfilled desires;
+still others that they are the impress made by another
+soul upon the subliminal part of us, that leaves to our
+active senses but imperfectly translatable hieroglyphics.
+Does that show you nothing?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[65]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Well," I temporized, "I can't say it shows me
+much. How about you, Tommy?"</p>
+
+<p>"Smell a little smoke, but don't see any bright light
+yet. Elucidate, professor!"</p>
+
+<p>He sighed, giving us a look of pity, I thought.</p>
+
+<p>"If I call to a man, and the space is great, my
+voice may fail before reaching him. Yet if it hangs its
+vibrations on a puff of air, a passing breeze that blows in
+his direction, he hears me! So does the soul employ the
+passing breeze&mdash;by which I mean the capricious thing
+called dreaming&mdash;to enter our consciousness that might
+not otherwise be reached. The impossibility is to say
+which is which&mdash;that is, which is the unfulfilled desire,
+which is but the capricious passing breeze, and which
+is the message from another! If in the dark an uneducated
+fellow sits at a piano he might play several
+lovely chords, yet while they sounded well there would
+be no intelligence behind them. Such is the chance
+dream! But a master-player could produce a rhapsody,
+expressing to one who listened hope, love, desire, warning&mdash;everything.
+Such is the harmonious blending of
+soul and soul in sleep! And how can we tell which is
+which?"</p>
+
+<p>He paused and gazed out at the water, and I saw in
+his face the peculiarly wistful expression that so often
+accompanies thoughts which are both elusive and far
+away. The index finger of his right hand was slightly
+raised, indicating a subconscious impulse to point upward.
+Slowly turning back to us, he said in a tone
+of solemnity that lingers with me even now, a year
+later, as I write of it:</p>
+
+<p>"In the Psalms we find these merciful words: 'He
+giveth His beloved sleep.' Yet they are but an imperfect
+translation of the original, which reads: 'He<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[66]</a></span>
+giveth <i>to</i> His beloved <i>in</i> sleep.' Do you not see here a
+greater meaning? Do your minds not at once grasp the
+corollary?"</p>
+
+<p>"Then you mean," Tommy asked, "that every dream
+is intended to express something?"</p>
+
+<p>"I will not go quite that far, although there are men
+highly practiced in the science of psycho-analytical research
+who stoutly affirm it. Ah, the great difficulty is
+in drawing the line&mdash;in determining which dreams are
+but passing breezes and which are sent to us upon the
+wings of angels!"</p>
+
+<p>"You've studied those things," I ventured. "Which
+was mine?"</p>
+
+<p>"Study!" he cried, with a fine degree of scorn. "Yes,
+we study! We gather around the brink of a black well
+and steep ourselves in thought; we wrinkle our brows
+and tear our beards. Cries one: 'I know what is down
+there!' Another turns to him: 'You lie!' A third challenges:
+'Prove yourselves!' And thus do professors,
+students, psychologists, churchmen, laymen, infidels, and
+fools, gather about the pit! This much for study," he
+snapped his finger. "Unless a man have faith, he is
+in darkness to the end of his days!"</p>
+
+<p>"All the same, I believe someone tried to warn the
+princess," Tommy insisted. "And it couldn't have
+been anything less than a master-player that got off
+that rhapsody to Jack last night!" There was a note
+of teasing in this that the others did not detect.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Mr. Thomas, you're wrong, sir." Gates, who
+had been listening attentively, now uncrossed his legs
+and spoke. "There isn't a single curious thing in Mr.
+Jack's dream. Anyone can see how it came about&mdash;with
+my apologies to you, sir," he bowed to Monsieur.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[67]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>We laughed, because Gates had not impressed us as
+being much of a psychologist, and Tommy said:</p>
+
+<p>"If you explain how he knew what Graham's name
+was, I'll listen."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, sir, he saw it on the paper the night before&mdash;for
+it was there, as sure as you live, and he says he
+looked at the paper. The only thing is, he didn't know
+he saw it&mdash;being a little gone in his cups, as you might
+say. But he did see it, and it soaked into his head,
+waiting till arfter he got to sleep before stirring
+around."</p>
+
+<p>"That's my first clear idea," Tommy's face brightened;
+and Gates, thus encouraged, added:</p>
+
+<p>"The reason he dreamed the old man went ashore for
+the paper was because he saw the lady being watched
+when she came back to her table&mdash;and I'll venture he
+thought right then that the old one was about to come
+back, too, and see what she was doing. Didn't you,
+sir?"</p>
+
+<p>"I believe I did," I murmured.</p>
+
+<p>"So that stuck in his mind and came out the wrong
+way, just like dreams sometimes will. As for the photograph
+and brass frame&mdash;why, Mr. Thomas, you and the
+professor took on so about that picture when he'd developed
+it that Mr. Jack could have heard you in his
+sleep, and got that part of his dream from what you
+said!"</p>
+
+<p>"It does fit, doesn't it," Tommy cried. "And, Jack,
+the poetry Sylvia breathed at you&mdash;wasn't it about the
+same thing our little Spanish girl sang?"</p>
+
+<p>"It had the same general idea," I admitted.</p>
+
+<p>"There you are, sir," Gates announced, with a satisfied
+air. "So there isn't a thing unusual about your<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[68]</a></span>
+dream, arfter all. It's as reasonable as the general
+run."</p>
+
+<p>Monsieur did not relish having his big occult smoke
+blown away in this fashion; he looked at us with rather
+a sickish expression, as a boy might have if someone
+stuck a pin in his toy balloon. But it was such a relief
+to get back to practicalities that we let him sulk.</p>
+
+<p>"Jack," Tommy asked, "do you think her real name
+is Sylvia?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; I'm sure of that, anyhow!"</p>
+
+<p>"How're you sure of it?"</p>
+
+<p>"It fits her so absolutely," I answered with decision.</p>
+
+<p>"But Revenge would fit her, too, wouldn't it? That's
+sweet," he grinned.</p>
+
+<p>"Or Constancy," the professor smiled, for once becoming
+inspired as he threw off his grouch.</p>
+
+<p>"Try Ignorance!" This again from Tommy, who
+made an attempt to look blissful and only succeeded in
+making himself ridiculous, I thought.</p>
+
+<p>Old Gates now stretched, cocked an eye up at the
+weather and, in a drawl, asked:</p>
+
+<p>"Would it be supposing a great deal, sir, to suggest
+that the lady might be named Much-Learning?"</p>
+
+<p>Whereupon we laughed uproariously, and Tommy
+slapped him on the knee, exclaiming:</p>
+
+<p>"Papa Gates, you've hit it! Truly, she hath made
+us mad!"</p>
+
+<p>"All the same," I cried, arising and laughing down at
+them, "there's one thing you can't explain away! The
+big adventure's come at last!&mdash;the wildest chase&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Love chase," Tommy interposed.</p>
+
+<p>"Chase," I repeated, "that man ever started! Are
+you fellows game enough to see it through&mdash;to the very
+end?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[69]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"<i>Are</i> we?" Tommy yelled, springing to his feet.
+"To the very end! What say, Gates?&mdash;Professor?"</p>
+
+<p>"To the very end, sir," the old skipper's face beamed
+happily.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, yes, my boys," Monsieur declared. "To the
+very end,&mdash;<i>certainement!</i>"</p>
+
+<p>And Gates must have confided this to the crew, for
+later, as I passed the mate, that worthy gave his forelock
+a pull and whispered:</p>
+
+<p>"To the very end, sir!"</p>
+
+<p>It pleased me immensely.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI</h2>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[70]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2>A VOICE FROM THE WATER</h2>
+
+
+<p>A perfect tropical night crept down on us, with the
+sky a deep and velvety blue, and the stars low enough
+to touch. Brilliant phosphorescence dashed from our
+bow and a silvery streak trailed in our wake emphasizing
+the enchantment as the <i>Whim</i> rose, leaned, and
+dipped over the bosom of the breathing Gulf. So, also,
+were my hopes; now up, now down, on the breast of
+another fickle monster. Love and the sea! Have they
+not always been counterparts? Do they not span the
+known and unknown in each man's world, carrying some
+in safety&mdash;others destroying?</p>
+
+<p>It must have been nine o'clock when the forward
+watch called and, springing to the rail, peering through
+the darkness, we saw down upon the horizon the fixed
+white eye and three red sectors of the Key West light.</p>
+
+<p>"A good run, Gates."</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing of our size can beat it, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"You think the <i>Orchid</i> will be in harbor?"</p>
+
+<p>"I carn't say, sir. She had six hours' start of us,
+and could have left."</p>
+
+<p>"How long do we lay off this burg?" Tommy asked,
+sauntering up.</p>
+
+<p>"That depends. If the mysterious yacht's here we'll
+stay till something happens."</p>
+
+<p>"And if she isn't," he nudged the professor, "we'll
+comb out the universe. You get that, don't you? A<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[71]</a></span>
+nice fat job, I'll say it is! How'll we know which way
+to start? Gates, couldn't you get a peep at her papers
+in the port?" But the skipper solemnly shook his
+head, saying:</p>
+
+<p>"It carn't be done, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Jack, when customs are finished we'll take the
+launch and comb out the harbor, anyhow! She'll be
+anchored nearby, like as not."</p>
+
+<p>Not caring to tie up at the dock we chose a berth far
+enough out to escape the electric glare ashore, and had
+hardly swung-to when Gates was off in his gig to clear
+our papers. The port officials were astir and accommodatingly
+looked us over without loss of time, for the
+skipper had mentioned our wish to leave whenever the
+spirit moved us. Those, indeed, had been his identical
+words, and I wondered if they were prophetic&mdash;whenever
+the spirit moved us!</p>
+
+<p>They were a nice pair of fellows, those American officers,
+and before going into business&mdash;a mere formality
+in our case&mdash;we gathered in the cockpit for a long straw
+and a bowl of ice. The occasion was more agreeable
+for possessing that sense of aloofness one feels at being
+on the edge, yet safely beyond the reach, of a little
+city's night diversions and excitements.</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose you've nothing dutiable," one said, knowing
+we had left Havana unexpectedly soon.</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing," Tommy volunteered.</p>
+
+<p>"But, yes," Monsieur exclaimed. "I shall declare!"</p>
+
+<p>"About the only thing he brought away was a wad
+of money from a roulette game," I laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, I surprise you," he cried, in high good humor,
+ducking below; and was soon heard struggling up the
+stairs, crying: "Give me help!"</p>
+
+<p>Into our hands then he began thrusting packages of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[72]</a></span>
+cigars; packages containing a dozen boxes each, until
+the cockpit looked like moving day in a tobacco shop.
+Behind the last of these, he came.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, <i>l&agrave; l&agrave;</i>," Tommy's jaw dropped. "Where did
+you tie up with this stuff? We've been together all the
+time!"</p>
+
+<p>"Not all the time," the professor chuckled. "Before
+you were awake this morning I was in town for camera
+supplies, and brought back, also, much of that most
+genial and ameliorating of influences exerted upon us
+in life&mdash;cigars! How much do I pay?"</p>
+
+<p>"How many have you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ten thousand."</p>
+
+<p>"Ten thousand cigars!" We stared at him.</p>
+
+<p>"That's a lot of ameliorating influence," one of the
+officers laughed. "But, in spite of it, I'll have to charge
+you on nine thousand, nine hundred&mdash;unless a hundred
+belong to each of your friends. Everyone's entitled to
+bring in a hundred free."</p>
+
+<p>"A hundred are mine," Tommy spoke up at once. "I
+haven't won cigars so fast, ever! Jack, you for a hundred.
+Gates, you, too. Colonel," he turned to the officer&mdash;out
+of the Army he scattered the titles of Colonel,
+Judge, Governor and Parson with a free hand&mdash;"suppose
+you all take a hundred each. It'll be a whole lot
+cheaper for Sir Walter, here!"</p>
+
+<p>The professor was giggling.</p>
+
+<p>"They have cost me nothing," he cried, "for last
+night I have won almost a thousand dollars at that
+wretched place&mdash;see, here is plenty with which to pay!"</p>
+
+<p>And a fortunate thing it was that he had, being called
+on for something in the neighborhood of three hundred
+dollars.</p>
+
+<p>The officer&mdash;Hardwick, by name&mdash;and his associate<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[73]</a></span>
+were good fellows, as I have said. They had greeted
+us as congenial spirits and, probably on this account,
+I noticed some embarrassment on his part when he
+leaned into the light and slowly looked over the money
+Monsieur had given him. The rest of us were conversing
+in a more or less distrait fashion till this unpleasant
+duty should be finished, when he took an electric torch
+from his pocket and flashed it on one of the bills; then
+on another, and so through the lot. Hesitatingly he
+touched Monsieur's arm, asking:</p>
+
+<p>"Is this the money you won last night?"</p>
+
+<p>"That? It is just as they paid me."</p>
+
+<p>A moment of silence, then:</p>
+
+<p>"I'm sorry to tell you, but these two fifty-dollar bills
+are counterfeits."</p>
+
+<p>There ensued an absolute hush, and before my eyes
+arose the vision of Sylvia's father paying his supper
+check with a crisp fifty.</p>
+
+<p>"Counterfeit," the professor mused, putting out a
+hand for them and moving nearer the light. "Strange!
+Just today I was speaking of a counterfeiter!" And
+Tommy, in an awed voice, asked:</p>
+
+<p>"You don't think it's more dreams?"</p>
+
+<p>The officials, I rather suspected, were beginning to
+look at us askance. Our various attitudes at this discovery
+were scarcely in accordance with the usually accepted
+actions of innocent people; on the contrary,
+with but a grain of imagination, we might be branded
+as a trio of rascals trying to stall out of a tight place.
+My apprehension was more confirmed when Hardwick,
+a shade less cordial, said:</p>
+
+<p>"As a United States official, I should like to hear
+your views about these."</p>
+
+<p>Now Tommy looked across at me and I saw that he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[74]</a></span>
+was awake. Monsieur, on the other hand, remained blissfully
+indifferent that anything might be out of the
+ordinary&mdash;except, of course, being loaded with a hundred
+dollars of bad money, which does not happen
+every day.</p>
+
+<p>"My counterfeiter?" he smiled innocently. "Yes,
+he could have done these. His plates are all but perfect.
+And these bills&mdash;you will admit they almost
+fooled you!" Whereupon he laughed.</p>
+
+<p>Tommy fidgeted, saying:</p>
+
+<p>"Have a care, gezabo, or you'll be sending us to the
+rock pile!"</p>
+
+<p>"My friend is cut-upping," Monsieur beamed on the
+official, but met with no more hearty response than the
+dry acquiescence:</p>
+
+<p>"I've no doubt of it. But suppose you tell me more
+of your other friend&mdash;the counterfeiter!"</p>
+
+<p>"Friend? <i>My</i> friend?" Monsieur's face now became
+the picture of horror. "I was telling these boys of
+one who disappeared years ago, and afterwards the police
+showed me some plates found in his rooms! <i>My</i>
+friend!"</p>
+
+<p>Hardwick began to laugh.</p>
+
+<p>"Please accept my apologies, but, really, for the
+moment&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Don't mention it," Tommy interrupted him, handing
+across a newly opened box of cigars. "I understand
+you&mdash;the professor couldn't!"</p>
+
+<p>Returning to the important subject, Hardwick said:</p>
+
+<p>"Whoever put these out is probably in Cuba. You
+got them at the caf&eacute;&mdash;&mdash;?"</p>
+
+<p>"Quite so," Monsieur exclaimed, warming up with
+the notion of doing detective work. "I was playing
+roulette&mdash;but, pardon me, you have heard."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[75]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Do you remember any one around the table who
+showed new-looking bills?"</p>
+
+<p>"No. We were the only ones playing, and but a few
+were looking on."</p>
+
+<p>"The restaurant was crowded," Tommy said, "and
+connects with the gambling rooms. Mightn't they send
+money back and forth if needed?"</p>
+
+<p>"Quite probable."</p>
+
+<p>In the silence that followed I started twice to tell him
+that Sylvia's father had used a new bill of that denomination,
+yet the words would not come. It seemed
+a sneaky thing to do, after she had turned to me for
+help. Yet, if she were in danger, what quicker way to
+safety than arrest the old vulture who had her in his
+power? So I said:</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Hardwick, last night in that restaurant I saw a
+man&mdash;&mdash;" but this time something stopped my words.
+It was a voice, a girl's voice, beautiful with an impassioned
+ring of protest, that cried from some place near
+us on the water:</p>
+
+<p>"It isn't fair!"</p>
+
+<p>It isn't fair! Oh, the just and pleading accusation
+of that cry! I sprang up, loudly calling her name:</p>
+
+<p>"Sylvia!"</p>
+
+<p>There was not a breath of sound. Those with whom
+I had been conversing were as mute as graven images,
+but in the black pall just beyond our taffrail drifted the
+magnetic presence toward which every nerve and fiber
+of my body pointed;&mdash;pointed, aye, tugged and wrestled
+with my poor flesh to be free! Yet, silence; all silence.
+No sound, no vision, no anything to guide me, other
+than my flashing brain and thumping heart which spoke
+of her.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[76]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>I saw one of our sailors staring at the water with
+strange owlish eyes, and yelled at him:</p>
+
+<p>"Into the gig, man!"</p>
+
+<p>But this was frustrated before he moved, for some
+black shadow, showing vaguely, glided out from beneath
+our rail and disappeared. I could not be sure that I
+saw it, but the sailor did because he crossed himself.</p>
+
+<p>"It ain't no use&mdash;now, sir," he managed to say.</p>
+
+<p>My own eyes were trying to follow the eerie, silent
+thing which had passed so spookily into the night, leaving
+the merest suggestion of phosphorescence after it.
+Then an arm slipped affectionately about my shoulders,
+and I felt that Tommy was also standing by, looking
+along the trail of deadened sound. His face showed
+excitement, but he whispered steadily enough:</p>
+
+<p>"Come and sit down."</p>
+
+<p>Indeed, now that the thing had disappeared, I felt
+like an ass; and, resuming my seat, attempted to make
+the best of it.</p>
+
+<p>"Really," I laughed, "you fellows mustn't judge a
+man too critically. There was something in the voice
+of that young lady which took me off my guard, and
+recalled&mdash;well, it recalled what you've all probably had
+recalled by one means or another, at some time or
+other, during your&mdash;er&mdash;lives." And I gave a weakish
+smile, waving my hand toward any old thing in sight
+by way of saying: "You know, old chaps, how just that
+one girl plays the devil with a fellow, sometimes!"</p>
+
+<p>But the government officials received this in a different
+spirit than that which I had hoped to arouse. They
+looked at me with a gravity most disquieting, and Hardwick,
+suspicion written in every line of his face, asked:</p>
+
+<p>"Is the young lady a member of your party?"</p>
+
+<p>"Heavens, no," I answered quickly. "Oh, no," I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[77]</a></span>
+vigorously repeated. "We don't know her, at all&mdash;none
+of us!"</p>
+
+<p>An ominous silence followed this emphatic denial, and
+I could actually <i>feel</i> him making up his mind about us.
+It was an awful moment. At last Tommy flecked the
+ash from his cigar and, with great deliberation, asked:</p>
+
+<p>"Colonel, do you believe in ghosts?"</p>
+
+<p>"If you're serious," Hardwick snapped, "I certainly
+do not!"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm serious, all right," Tommy purred, and I knew,
+from the unusually soft quality of his voice, that, indeed,
+he was&mdash;"for, if you don't believe in ghosts, you
+believe we're a bunch of damn crooks&mdash;oh, yes you do!&mdash;and
+I may say that if you don't, you're a damn fool.
+<i>Now</i> you see how serious I am, and how serious this
+affair is! This man was telling the exact truth when
+he said that none of us have ever heard that voice.
+If we actually did hear it just now, the coincidence
+that brought a small boat past us at this time of night,
+and prompted some woman in it to speak when and
+what she did, is more inexplicable to me than you think
+it is to you&mdash;because you've made up your mind to
+understand it. I can, however, understand how any
+sweet voice on a night like this might make my friend
+skid off his usually sane and normal track, because&mdash;&mdash;"
+he hesitated, adding slowly: "Hardwick, I can't go into
+my friend's private affairs, but I wish to tell you that
+he's had a hell of a jolt, and on account of a memory&mdash;a
+memory, Hardwick&mdash;we're at Key West tonight. I
+trust, sir, that you won't misjudge, but rather fit these
+fragments and supply the needed others; for I know
+that your appreciation of&mdash;er&mdash;things is too delicate
+to allow me to proceed."</p>
+
+<p>Be it noted that Tommy did tell but the simple truth;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[78]</a></span>
+and, what is more, he told it with such sincerity that, in
+a large measure, our embarrassment became shifted over
+to our guests. Personally, I felt like a howling ass to
+be staked out and exhibited as somebody's jilted Romeo,
+but this was a welcome compromise; thrice welcome,
+since Hardwick's next words showed that he had forgotten,
+or dismissed, the prelude to my burst of confidence
+about "a man in the restaurant," for arising he
+said:</p>
+
+<p>"Well, we've kept you longer than we should. If
+this gentleman will give my government good money
+for its revenue we'll bid you <i>bon voyage</i>. I suppose
+there's no objection to my keeping those?" He pointed
+to the spurious bills.</p>
+
+<p>"I have paid dearly for them," the professor remonstrated.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm sorry, but you won't lose any more than you've
+already lost&mdash;nor gain more, as you won't think of using
+them!"</p>
+
+<p>"Why should I not use them? I will use them&mdash;<i>certainement!</i>"</p>
+
+<p>"Be explicit, or forever hold your peace," Tommy
+laughed. "Can't you see the man reaching for his
+handcuffs?"</p>
+
+<p>But Monsieur, thoroughly aroused, waved the crisp
+bills with a great show of indignation, crying:</p>
+
+<p>"If there is a way to run this cheat to earth I, alone,
+will know it! Then you will want me to be telling you!
+For my own pleasure I have made a study of counterfeiters
+and their methods. Perhaps it may surprise you
+to learn that the police of Europe come to Bucharest
+and consult with me, eh? Thus, if I may also help
+you, I must retain my bills!"</p>
+
+<p>We laughed, although I felt tremendously proud of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[79]</a></span>
+the professor, having had no idea he was such a wonder;
+and Hardwick said, bowing:</p>
+
+<p>"Then help yourself so I, also, may be helped. But
+let me take one for my government and, when you finish
+with the other, mail it to me with your report.
+I shall appreciate your assistance, really."</p>
+
+<p>Monsieur was delighted.</p>
+
+<p>They left us then, and again we settled about the
+cockpit; each waiting for one of the others to begin.
+My own thoughts were like a whirlwind, and my ears
+strained with listening toward the black Gulf&mdash;listening
+for a voice, or the unnamable noise of the gods knew
+what, that might float to me across the water. I think
+Tommy half expected me to suggest that we take one of
+the small boats, and went to his room to put on darker
+clothes. In a few minutes Monsieur yawned and followed
+him&mdash;though I rather suspected that his yawn
+was caused more by nervousness than the want of sleep.
+A moment later Gates, standing near the wheel, softly
+called my name, so I arose and went to him.</p>
+
+<p>It must be remembered that Gates was absolutely dependable.
+There were no frills about the old skipper,
+he shared not one superstitious sentiment in common
+with Tommy, and it is extremely doubtful if he knew the
+sensation of fear; therefore, when I saw his face, I was
+astonished, and in alarm asked:</p>
+
+<p>"Are you ill?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, sir, but I'm sore upset. Please come a bit more
+aft, sir."</p>
+
+<p>Taking a few steps till we were abaft the traveler,
+he turned and whispered:</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Jack, someone's been trying to blow us up!"</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII</h2>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[80]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2>A BOMB AND A DISCOVERY</h2>
+
+
+<p>It seemed that either Gates or I must be out of our
+senses.</p>
+
+<p>"Blow us up!" I gasped, staring at him.</p>
+
+<p>"As sure as you're born, sir! 'Twas about the time
+you called over the rail. A little before that, as you
+gentlemen were talking, I heard a small boat. She
+came near, and she came up sneaking. First I thought
+it might be a sponge fisher with more curiosity than
+manners, but as she didn't start on again I begun to
+cock my ear. Then something gave a rub against our
+rudder post. I didn't like it. I was sitting back there,
+anyhow, so just got to my hands and knees, and peeped
+over."</p>
+
+<p>"Why didn't you challenge?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because there's been strange doings these twenty-four
+hours parst, and I knew your affairs might be
+taking a serious turn. I thought you'd be wanting
+to know their play, 'stead of scaring 'em off. So I
+peeped and listened. With my eyes getting fair used to
+the dark I made out a dinghy with four men, and think
+they'd bent a line about our rudder post, for the for'ard
+man seemed to be working at us silent and farst. The
+middle one had the oars, ready to pull away. In the
+stern sheets sat the one I guessed was boss and, kind
+of squatting down in front of him, was a lad. To
+tell the truth, sir, I felt squirmy, for those night-hawks
+were up to something mysterious."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[81]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Wait a minute, Gates&mdash;did you recognize them?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not me, sir. As I was saying, the fellow aft now
+parssed up a bundle to the for'ard chap, who took it
+gingerly and began farstening it on to us somewhere&mdash;I
+couldn't see. The young lad leaned over and looked
+at it, then he up and sings out: 'It ain't fair!'"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, yes," I caught him by the shoulders. "Go on,
+Gates!"</p>
+
+<p>"Mind out this thing under my coat," he warned.
+"Well, sir, the one that was boss made a grab for
+him&mdash;Lor', how he did jerk him!&mdash;and the others froze
+like stone. They stayed that way while you were calling,
+then the dinghy glided off&mdash;the one aft still holding
+his hand over the lad's mouth and kind of choking him
+with the other."</p>
+
+<p>My blood was fairly steaming, and I cried out what
+was uppermost in my mind:</p>
+
+<p>"That wasn't a lad, Gates! It was a girl!"</p>
+
+<p>His jaw dropped and he stared at me, but slowly shook
+his head.</p>
+
+<p>"No, sir, it warn't a girl, or the fellow wouldn't
+have handled her so rough. Besides, sir, he wore&mdash;the
+lad, I mean&mdash;a jacket and cap like you or me."</p>
+
+<p>"That doesn't mean anything. I tell you it was a girl&mdash;I'm
+sure of it!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, sir, you're wrong; for when they got out five
+fathom or so they stopped&mdash;to listen, maybe. You were
+back in the cockpit by then, and I guess the fellow must
+have let up on the young-un; for, all at once, he&mdash;the
+lad, I mean&mdash;raked a match along the gunnel, for to take
+a smoke, d'you see! My word, but the way he was
+grabbed this time would have shocked you. I couldn't
+see it, but you could hear the youngster gurgling. That
+shows it warn't a girl, sir!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[82]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"What shows it? Because you think she wanted to
+smoke? Girls do, Gates!"</p>
+
+<p>"They do that, sir, and I'm not gainsaying it; but
+they do it sociable, arfter dinner, setting 'round the
+cockpit, as you might say. It's seldom any of 'em has
+such a mortal craving for tobacco as to have to take
+a suck at a little cigarette every time a man chokes her
+by the throat. My word, no! It's the male sex that
+wants the weed under those conditions&mdash;not a girl,
+sir!"</p>
+
+<p>But I was seeing an entirely different version of the
+affair, so far as the smoking went; and Gates would have
+seen it, too, if he hadn't been so excited. She had not
+wanted to smoke, at all, but to signal us! I knew it! I
+was never more sure of anything in all creation!</p>
+
+<p>"And besides, sir," Gates now added, "no one would
+push his fingers into a girl's throat like&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Stop," I cried, for I could not listen to more of
+this. If ever I wanted to kill it was then. I wanted to
+get my own fingers on that scoundrel's throat as he
+had dared touch hers; and in my heart I swore by all
+the gods, by all the stars and moons and other things in
+the heavens and under the sea, that I would strangle out
+his miserable life by inches, or leave my bones to bleach
+on the shore of her unknown island. Wherever it was,
+I would find it; wherever she was, I would find her!&mdash;and
+God help him when he came my way! It was a
+classy oath, and I felt a lot better for it.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, sir," Gates's voice began to tremble with passion
+as he held up a black thing that had been tucked
+under his coat, "this invention I took off our rudder
+post when I rowed 'round to see what they'd been up
+to. It's a dirty bomb, fixed to start us off for Davy
+Jones's Locker sometime tonight, sir!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[83]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"You're sure it can't start us off now?" I asked,
+taking it from his hands.</p>
+
+<p>"Not lest you get too familiar, sir. I've disconnected
+the clock part of it."</p>
+
+<p>"Have you any idea what those men looked like?"</p>
+
+<p>He solemnly shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>"You can't guess who they were, or why they wanted
+to blow us up?" I persisted. "Shall we notify the port,
+or what?"</p>
+
+<p>He stood a while silent before answering.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Jack, God knows who they are. It was too dark
+for me to get any satisfying squint at 'em; but I never
+saw 'em before&mdash;that I know. Three things are sure:
+they're either lunatics, or they've taken us for some
+mortal enemy, or&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Well?"</p>
+
+<p>"Or I'm wrong in those two guesses, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"But you think they're from the <i>Orchid</i>, don't you?"</p>
+
+<p>"On another guess, I'd swear it, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"And you're positive you never saw the yacht till
+yesterday&mdash;in any port?"</p>
+
+<p>"Never, sir. I even made inquiry about her in Havana
+before we cleared to-day&mdash;that is, without exciting
+comment. A one-eyed stevedore said she drops in there
+maybe once or twice a year, but he didn't know from
+where. <i>I've</i> never seen her, and I've sailed close to
+thirty year most everywhere in these waters during
+winter seasons!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I'm stumped," I admitted. "Let's take this
+to the professor and see what he makes of it." So
+we went down together.</p>
+
+<p>Monsieur, in his stateroom, sat bent over his counterfeit
+bill when I quietly shoved the bomb in front of
+him. He sprang up with a broadside of expletives that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[84]</a></span>
+in the sunlight would have cast a wondrous rainbow.
+It was a way with the little professor, and we had
+learned to keep respectfully distant during such periods
+of effervescing energy.</p>
+
+<p>"Tied to our rudder post," I told him.</p>
+
+<p>He seemed to grasp the entire situation at once. I
+have never known such a genius for corraling facts! In
+an instant his mind apparently galloped completely
+around the boundary of our discovery, and then circled
+in.</p>
+
+<p>"You have made it harmless," was his first oral observation.</p>
+
+<p>"Gates did, yes; he disconnected the clock-work."</p>
+
+<p>"It is quickly made, and crude," he mused, turning it
+over in his hands, "but the work of one who is not a
+novice. Give me the other part!&mdash;um! Very pretty,
+very pretty, indeed!" Then he looked up, calling: "My
+boy Tommy, come! We are to see what we shall see!"</p>
+
+<p>"See what?" Tommy sauntered in; but as we explained
+the situation he looked positively hopeful. For
+the chief quality in Tommy that made him so likable
+was his abiding love of danger. He would rather flirt
+with death than a ravishing coquette&mdash;though I will
+not deny his preference to play the pair.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, boy!" he now chuckled, giving my arm a
+squeeze.</p>
+
+<p>As we gathered about the table, Monsieur took a
+knife and began to press its blade into the covering of
+the bomb, saying:</p>
+
+<p>"I have known the builder of one of these to leave
+his tracks inside, trusting the explosion to obliterate
+them. But sometimes the machine does not go off."</p>
+
+<p>"Let's hope this'll be one of those times," Tommy
+murmured, "or we'll pretty well leave our tracks all<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[85]</a></span>
+over the Gulf. Don't use any bad judgment, Professor.
+Centuries are looking down at you!"</p>
+
+<p>"I shall try not," he smiled, pushing the blade deeper
+and giving a gentle twist.</p>
+
+<p>"I should say he ought to be doing that ashore, sir,"
+Gates whispered. "Lor' knows this is no place&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>But Monsieur was speaking again.</p>
+
+<p>"The gentleman who left it with us may have used
+bad judgment by not exploding it himself. So much
+the worse for him. Steady!" he grunted, peeling off
+another slice of the wrapper. "Yet, if criminals did
+not sometimes use bad judgment, a sorry plight would
+be ours, eh? Moreover, it is natural that they use
+bad judgment, for, being criminals, their judgment is
+bad&mdash;primarily bad, or they would not be criminals."</p>
+
+<p>"Please work without your tongue or talk without
+your hands," I said, with a touch of irritation. "That
+thing's nervous for undivided attention!"</p>
+
+<p>The professor may not have heard, and in a monotone
+continued:</p>
+
+<p>"The man who made it knew his business; therefore
+he is a student of this type of explosives; therefore a
+police agent, a&mdash;what you call&mdash;crank like myself, or a
+destroying criminal&mdash;that is, an anarchist. Therefore
+he is the last named, since neither of the others would
+want to blow up a gentleman's yacht. It seems clear to
+you?" he asked, without raising his eyes; but none of
+us cared to divert his attention by answering.</p>
+
+<p>By now Monsieur had peeled off several pieces of
+the wrapper, and was sprawled over the table with a
+powerful magnifying lens. For some time he minutely
+studied them, finally squinting closely at a particular
+one and beginning to show increased excitement. Arising
+and pushing by us, he went to his many boxes and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[86]</a></span>
+returned with a small glass-stoppered bottle. It must
+have contained an acid; at any rate, he touched a drop
+of it to a piece of the inner wrapping, then bent over to
+watch results. Finally, with very bright eyes, he looked
+up announcing in a voice of triumph:</p>
+
+<p>"This paper is the kind they use for printing money
+on!"</p>
+
+<p>We stared at him, but he volunteered nothing further,
+having again bent over his search. For several minutes
+we watched in silence. Then he sat up with a snap,
+as a steel spring might be released.</p>
+
+<p>"The man who made this bomb made my counterfeit
+bank note," he cried.</p>
+
+<p>Tommy and I jumped.</p>
+
+<p>"Just so," he continued eagerly. "The bomb is a
+hurried affair, impromptu, constructed of materials happening
+to be at hand when needed. That necessity, we
+assume, arose within the last few hours, since we have
+been in these waters but shortly. Here is a piece of the
+wrapper. You make nothing of it, yet to my experienced
+knowledge I see the identical paper on which my
+money is printed. The counterfeiter, possessing a good
+resisting paper and suddenly desiring to make a bomb,
+employs it. So much for so much! Now we have him a
+bomb-maker and a counterfeiter;&mdash;then we shall eliminate
+the anarchist!"</p>
+
+<p>"Why?" I asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Because a counterfeiter of such skill&mdash;and this engraving
+is the work of a master&mdash;implies long and intense
+application; therefore a secluded life rather than
+one of following the red flag. Moreover, an anarchist
+would be tempted into this risk, such as tried upon us,
+only to destroy someone of great importance&mdash;which I
+may conclude no one of us is. And irrespective of these<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[87]</a></span>
+reasons counterfeiters do not sympathize with anarchy.
+The psychology of each must be diametric, for if there
+is no government to make money there is no money to
+counterfeit. So the anarchist in our case lacks motive,
+but the other finds it if he suspects us of knowing his
+secret. So much for so much. Do we know any counterfeiter's
+secret? No. Then a final theory: the placer
+of this bomb has mistaken us for an enemy&mdash;he thinks
+we are whom we are not!"</p>
+
+<p>"That's what I said," Gates interposed.</p>
+
+<p>"But he does suspect us of knowing it," Tommy exclaimed,
+"or why did he tell the waiter Jack was a
+detective?"</p>
+
+<p>The professor, obviously disappointed, turned again
+to the bomb that was fast reaching a state of <i>d&eacute;shabille</i>&mdash;if
+bombs can be said to reach that state.</p>
+
+<p>"You assume this to be the work of people on that
+yacht," he said, with a touch of annoyance. "Can you
+sustain that theory?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, of course, sir," Gates declared.</p>
+
+<p>"A mere presumption, <i>mon Capitaine!</i>"</p>
+
+<p>"But the voice," I challenged. "Don't you suppose
+I recognized it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Tut-tut, my boy Jack! You have never actually
+heard the lady's voice!" And as this was true I had
+nothing further to offer; but he brightened up, adding:
+"We shall now go to the stomach of the bomb, if only
+to enjoy ourselves."</p>
+
+<p>"You've a curious idea of fun," I grunted.</p>
+
+<p>"Just go easy," Tommy said. "She may be ticklish."</p>
+
+<p>"Why not sink the wicked thing at once, sir," Gates
+urged. "We've seen enough now to keep us awake
+nights, and I haven't any craving to look at its stomach,
+Lor' knows I haven't!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[88]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>But the professor would not listen. Already he had
+recommenced the exploration, gingerly removing some
+wires wrapped about the explosive center, while we
+almost held our breaths lest he touch the wrong thing.
+Once he smiled, and murmured: "<i>Le capitaine</i> is right&mdash;it
+was made on the <i>Orchid</i>!" Yet he did not stop
+work for this, and soon brought to view two half sticks
+of dynamite, one of them ingeniously capped. Leaning
+above this now, with his elbows on the table and his
+head in his hands, he sank into a profound study, then
+startled us by giving a snort and springing up, jostling
+the table so violently that the dynamite slid gracefully
+toward the edge. Most happily Tommy grabbed it in
+time.</p>
+
+<p>"Lor', sir, 'twas a close shave," Gates whispered,
+wiping his forehead.</p>
+
+<p>But Monsieur remained blissfully unconscious of the
+mess so narrowly averted. He was staring, breathing
+heavily, blinking and thinking. As though walking in
+his sleep he again went to his mysterious bags, took out
+something and began to study it through the lens.
+Then with a yell he rushed at me, hugged me, kissed me
+on the cheek, held me off, and hugged me again, crying
+over and over:</p>
+
+<p>"I am right&mdash;I am right&mdash;I am right!"</p>
+
+<p>He now caromed from me and in the same manner
+embraced Tommy, and after this he tackled Gates. But
+Gates did not understand the continental fashion of
+masculine salutations, and sternly disengaged himself,
+saying:</p>
+
+<p>"You carn't be right, sir! I don't know what's the
+matter, but it's easy to see you carn't just be right!"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[89]</a></span></p><p>"<i>Sacr&eacute; bleu!</i>" Monsieur stepped back, actually weeping
+with happiness. "What stupid idiots we are! Can't
+you see?"</p>
+
+<p>"I can see one," Tommy grinned at him sweetly.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, but look!" He thrust before us the thing he
+had taken from the bag. It was that precious kodak
+film of Sylvia. "Look!" he cried. "You say she is
+near to twenty&mdash;he, to seventy-five! But, more than all,
+I see with my lens that here is the breathing likeness
+of the mother! Where are your eyes, my boys? <i>Ciel</i>,
+must I tell you? She is the kidnaped princess of
+Azuria!"</p>
+
+<p>You who read may have surmised this; so might we,
+had we been reading instead of making history. The
+human mind that leans above a printed page possesses
+a more concentrated grasp of facts than the human
+atoms who run over the earth collecting them. So I
+caught my breath and simply stared, too dazed to speak.
+It seemed as though something had given me a surprising
+whack that sent a thousand sparks before my eyes.
+But then slowly the whole structure began to unfold.
+Each step of evidence we had picked up since the memorable
+night but twenty-four hours ago, now took its
+place as the panorama&mdash;not flawless, but with inviting
+possibilities,&mdash;and passed across my brain.</p>
+
+<p>It was very late when we pushed back from the table.
+In its center were the counterfeit bill, the magnifying
+glass, parts of the thoroughly dissected bomb, several
+pages of writing pad with the professor's deductions;
+and by these were some of Gates' charts, the paper I
+had procured from the waiter, and another page containing
+those mystic sentences Sylvia had spoken for
+finding her island&mdash;because I thought it fair to her that
+this should be laid before my friends, especially as she
+had only said them in a dream.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[90]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Strangely enough the professor was willing to admit
+them to his scheme of carrying on our pursuit&mdash;a chase
+which he now seemed determined to direct&mdash;when even
+Tommy, the superstitious Tommy, declared they would
+throw us off the track a thousand miles. I could think
+of no plan, for altogether it did seem like combing out
+the universe for two human atoms.</p>
+
+<p>"We have one sure way, of course," the professor
+leaned wearily back. "Keep the <i>Orchid</i> in sight. If
+we do this till she reaches her lair, all is well."</p>
+
+<p>"I wouldn't doubt she sailed, sir, right arfter placing
+the bomb," Gates ventured.</p>
+
+<p>"Then we can't keep her in sight," said Tommy dolefully.</p>
+
+<p>"Do not thwart me," the little fellow cried, with a
+sudden flare of anger that made us smile in spite of the
+serious work at hand.</p>
+
+<p>"We'd better go ashore first," I suggested, "and get
+authority to capture her. The government can deputize
+us by sending along an officer."</p>
+
+<p>"Authority!" Monsieur puffed out his cheeks and
+snapped his finger. "That for your government's authority!
+I have the authority with me!"</p>
+
+<p>"You!" I exclaimed.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Certainement!</i> I was one of those true friends who
+left the palace years ago, with the old King's authority
+in my pocket! It is in that bag now! It is absolute&mdash;absolute!&mdash;protecting
+me against anything I may do in
+effecting her rescue and return. It is by far more
+powerful than anything your government could give us!
+A King's order makes the police of the world my underlings!
+Besides that, she is my special charge, and no
+power this side of Azuria can abrogate my authority
+over her!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[91]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>A cold hand wrapped its fingers about my heart. The
+hopelessness of our search would have been depressing
+enough had it not contained the spice of chase, but to
+feel that it might be fruitful only to have her snatched
+off into a world as unknown, as impossible to me as this
+far off kingdom, was crazing. To me it would be like
+seeing her transported from one star to another, while
+I remained on earth to gaze my eyes out and eat my
+heart out with endless longing.</p>
+
+<p>"Her mother is regent, you say?" Tommy asked, intuitively
+sympathizing with my state of mind.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. In Roumania a woman may not ascend the
+throne alone, but in Azuria, where the Ruman blood
+has never mixed, she may act as regent if her heir is a
+girl too young to marry. But now," he clapped his
+hands joyfully, "we can complete the alliance with a
+neighboring prince&mdash;and, ah, what joy there will be!"</p>
+
+<p>"You've got to catch her first," Tommy said, not
+without a trace of spite. "Even if we get near enough
+to see him, at all, he can see us, too; then lead us off
+the track till night and make a run for base."</p>
+
+<p>"So he will, my boy Tommy. And if his lair is to
+the west, he will doubtless lead us to the east. But we
+must sail at dawn&mdash;then we shall see what we shall
+see!"</p>
+
+<p>"Good night," I said, abruptly kicking back my chair.</p>
+
+<p>Thus our meeting broke up; Gates going first to sink
+the dynamite and then leave orders for all canvas to be
+stretched at peep o' day. Tommy came on deck with
+me, and we stood a while looking into the black water.
+Off in the town, in a side street near the wharf where
+sailors' amusement halls are clustered, some tipsy fellow
+was bawling a love song at the top of his voice. He<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[92]</a></span>
+seemed to be the only thing awake in Key West at this
+hour. When the song, or his voice, gave out the silence
+settled heavier than before. A ship's bell, far over the
+water, began to strike, and we counted five mellow
+strokes: one-one, one-one, one!</p>
+
+<p>"Half-past two," Tommy whispered, "I wonder
+what Nell's doing!"</p>
+
+<p>"Dreaming of you, no doubt," I tried to laugh.
+"Maybe you and she are wrecked on a desert island at
+this blissful moment."</p>
+
+<p>"I wish we were," he murmured, without looking
+around. "And you and Sylvia, too!"</p>
+
+<p>"Cut it," I growled. "She's a princess, Tommy, and
+that puts the kibosh on my dreams."</p>
+
+<p>"Nell's a princess, too," he said gently, "and I still
+hang on. Tilt up your chin, Jack, and things'll squeeze
+through for us! We'll ship the old counterfeiter to
+prison, or kill him, and then&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"And then," I said bitterly, turning to go below,
+"Princess Sylvia goes to the arms of some popinjay
+prince!"</p>
+
+<p>But I had taken only a step when his hand fell on my
+shoulder like a piece of steel and whirled me around.
+There was nothing gentle in his voice this time as he
+sharply commanded:</p>
+
+<p>"Look at me, you damn slacker, and let's see if I'm
+talking to the man I fought the Boche with!"</p>
+
+<p>I must have appeared rather well indignant with him,
+for he gave a low, reassured laugh, adding:</p>
+
+<p>"That's better. Now I want to say, once and for all&mdash;and
+I swear it on each of these stars, both for myself
+and Nell&mdash;that if we catch up with Princess Sylvia, and
+you let her be taken away, I'll punch your face into a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[93]</a></span>
+jolly good pulp, so help me old Kentucky! Good
+<i>night</i>!"</p>
+
+<p>"If you're man enough to do it," I yelled after him.</p>
+
+<p>Fine old Tommy! I believe I loved him then better
+than ever before.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII</h2>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[94]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2>THE CHASE BEGINS</h2>
+
+
+<p>I slept like a log and was awake, anxious to turn out,
+at the peep of dawn. But Gates was ahead of me when
+I reached the deck. Our anchor had just been hoisted,
+and every sail was set, though nearly limp with a
+negligible breeze.</p>
+
+<p>"What news?" I asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing, sir; leastwise nothing of the <i>Orchid</i>. She's
+gone."</p>
+
+<p>"We expected that. Any idea which way?"</p>
+
+<p>"I talked to a sponge fisher who came by a while back,
+sir, and he said a schooner yacht sailed about midnight,
+or maybe later; north, he said. But she carn't have got
+far, as there hasn't been hardly any air stirring all night
+till this little one now. If it wasn't so heavy off there
+we might see her, I farncy. The mate's aloft, sir."</p>
+
+<p>I looked up and saw him steadily sweeping the distance
+with his binoculars; but, as Gates had said, the
+horizon in all directions was heavy, and in such weather
+our search, indeed, seemed next to useless. With the
+world a playground, how could we find this vagrant
+yacht.</p>
+
+<p>Then I let my eyes rest on the tinted east, marvelling
+at what a curiously beautiful, dangerously sweet old
+world this is. The sky and water were beginning to be
+touched by the first faint tones of rose, the dawn was
+bringing its enchantment to this marriage-time of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[95]</a></span>
+black and white. Over in the Key West barracks a
+bugler would soon be blowing reveille; down in the
+sleeping town stumpy little street cars would squeak
+from their sheds and clang their discordant gongs
+through the narrow thoroughfares. But farther yet to
+the northeast, in the Florida I best knew and loved, a
+whooping crane would startle the solitude with its uncanny
+cry, the alligators would croak their guttural
+grunts at waking time, while, here and there in the
+shadowy forest, the whine of a skulking panther would
+strike terror to the hearts of gentler things. Ah, the
+trackless wilderness of dreamy Florida, where nature
+moves on padded foot and silent wing!</p>
+
+<p>Gates had hoisted even the topmast- and maintopmast-staysails,
+but these did not help much; and when Tommy
+and Monsieur appeared half an hour later they were in
+wretched humors at the way matters stood. The only
+slight hope we nursed had been one cry of "Sail-ho!"
+from the mate, but he could not tell what kind of a
+craft had rested on his lens, because she was almost
+at once swallowed by the distant bank of mist. At last,
+with a squint into the southwest, Gates prophesied that
+something worth while would be coming before long,
+and with this crumb of comfort, seasoned by his promise
+to call if anything appeared, we half-heartedly went
+down to breakfast.</p>
+
+<p>Healthy man is ever cheered by breakfast, especially
+if Pete has prepared it, and gradually our departed
+spirits came lumbering back. I remembered Tommy's
+promise of the night before to mutilate my countenance
+on certain conditions, and began to laugh. Then he
+laughed, doubtless because I had, and pretty soon Monsieur
+showed signs of warming up.</p>
+
+<p>"This is what my boy Tommy would call hot-stuffie,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[96]</a></span>
+eh?" he cried. "To be chasing a scoundrel who has
+kidnaped a Princess is fun, you think so?"</p>
+
+<p>"And such a princess," Tommy rapturously exclaimed.
+"Eyes more deep than the mysteries of twilight
+shadows in a woodland pool!&mdash;oval cheeks more
+damask than the rose which steals its fragrance from
+her hair!&mdash;lips whose Cupid's bow&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Here," I good-naturedly protested. "Don't make
+her so wonderful! You won't have an adjective left for
+the beautiful Bluegrass flower!"</p>
+
+<p>"But isn't she wonderful?&mdash;I challenge you, isn't she
+perfect?"</p>
+
+<p>"That is a perilous assertion," Monsieur chuckled,
+"since there is a Persian proverb that 'to be perfect is
+to be damned.'"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, she'd rather be damned than ugly, if I know
+anything about girls&mdash;and I do!" Tommy declared.
+"Isn't that right, gezabo?"</p>
+
+<p>"Isn't what right? That you know so much about
+girls? Bah! It is a young rooster's foolish talk!
+Woman, my boy, is as the law of gravity&mdash;difficult to
+understand, and I may add difficult to disobey. But to
+comprehend her she must first be stripped&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, you wicked old thing," Tommy, in mock astonishment,
+gasped at him.</p>
+
+<p>"You do not let me finish," he blushingly protested.
+"What I mean is stripped of her inexplicable&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, come off," his tormentor burst out laughing.
+"That's as transparent as a girl buying cigarettes for
+her brother! I didn't know you were so curious."</p>
+
+<p>"Please&mdash;you shame me! I am curious of nothing,
+and you will someday learn that curiosity is the root
+of tragedy."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[97]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"There's an epigram worthy of you: 'Curiosity is the
+root of tragedy'&mdash;and the blossom of delight!"</p>
+
+<p>"I said nothing of delight," the professor blushed. "I
+said tragedy! And&mdash;ah, I see! You are cut-upping! I
+will not talk. Your conscience should hurt you!"</p>
+
+<p>"Not conscience, old fellow! The wages of conscience
+is <i>ennui</i>, and the gods know how I hate that. Give me
+your epigrams on delight and love, and the Princess of
+Azuria!"</p>
+
+<p>"Love! Bah!" Monsieur now stormed in disgust.
+"A mythical invention of diseased minds to explain
+away our follies!"</p>
+
+<p>"Wait till she hears that," Tommy warned, "and
+your head's as good as in the sawdust. I hope to
+heaven she makes me her lord high executioner, and
+darned if I don't lop it off with a single whack!"</p>
+
+<p>"And I hope you have a chance to tell her, so smart!"</p>
+
+<p>"I'll have a chance, all right, never you fear. I'm
+the only one who will, for after you're disposed of, and
+Jack has gone moony, this expedition will need a clear
+thinker. There's where your uncle Tom comes in."</p>
+
+<p>"He understands himself so well," the professor indulgently
+smiled.</p>
+
+<p>"It requires no concentration, really," I murmured.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, Mr. Brutus," Tommy grinned at me over a
+fork-load of buckwheat cakes, "can it be your cooling
+blade I feel?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is; and you'll get it in the neck, good and properly,
+if you don't leave me out of your silly nonsense," I
+warned.</p>
+
+<p>"Here's a touchy one for you, gezabo! Yachting
+with royalty the other night made him too good for
+us."</p>
+
+<p>"You close up," I growled.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[98]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>After a few minutes devoted to breakfast, he asked:</p>
+
+<p>"Are princesses like other people, I wonder? Jack
+ought to be put wise, so he'll know how to behave when
+we get her aboard."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, yes, my boy Tommy," Monsieur answered,
+taking him seriously, of course. "They are the same
+as other young ladies, except more highly cultured, more
+of education, more of that&mdash;what you call&mdash;indefinable
+chasteness."</p>
+
+<p>"Indefinable chasteness," he puckered his lips and repeated
+the phrase in a ruminating way. "D'you know,
+a philosopher once told me that if ever I heard an old
+lady call a girl anything like that, to put the young
+one down for a kissable, artful little flirt; for in this
+present day of ours, he said, woman understands everything
+on God's green earth&mdash;except the mind of her
+succeeding generation."</p>
+
+<p>"But I am no old lady," the professor bristled.</p>
+
+<p>"Sail-ho!" came the far off voice of the mate from
+his perch aloft.</p>
+
+<p>We held our breaths, intently listening.</p>
+
+<p>"Where away?" Gates called, and I could picture
+him: legs apart, head thrown back, hands cupped around
+his lips.</p>
+
+<p>"Dead ahead, sir," came the answer: "I got a better
+look at her this time, and she's a schooner yacht like
+us!"</p>
+
+<p>We bounded from the table and dashed up the companionway
+stairs out into the cockpit. The old skipper
+was laughing gleefully, and our spirits were as high
+as the masthead.</p>
+
+<p>"We're on the right track, Mr. Jack," he cried. "Just
+wait till arfter a breeze springs up&mdash;she won't stay so
+far ahead!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[99]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>But the breeze did not pick up and we continued to
+poke along at about six knots, hardly consoled by the
+knowledge that she was doing no better. Time seemed
+to be creeping on its hands and knees. The <i>Orchid</i>, if
+such were the yacht ahead of us, continued beyond the
+fringe of mist, now mixed with a fine drizzle, showing
+herself at rare intervals which served to keep us from
+going astray.</p>
+
+<p>The slickers of the crew were dripping and shiny,
+and we, too, soon looked like a flock of wet, disgruntled
+hens. To add to my discomfiture the professor brought
+up a newspaper and began consulting the shipping
+news, blandly telling us that if we captured the princess
+within forty-eight hours he could have her in
+Azuria in twenty days. I was glad when the paper
+got so wet that he had to throw it overboard.</p>
+
+<p>At luncheon we could not help being downcast, largely
+owing to the drizzle which, aboard a yacht, is indeed a
+spirit breaker. The few sporadic attempts we made at
+cheer did not get very far. But after a little, happening
+to glance at Tommy, I saw a look in his face that
+put me on my guard for something. There was no hoax
+about this, no "cut-upping."</p>
+
+<p>"Our conversation was interrupted this morning," he
+said, in answer to my unspoken question. "There were
+things I wanted to talk about&mdash;for instance, what'll we
+do when we catch up?"</p>
+
+<p>I had thought of this a hundred times without finding
+a very definite solution, as my fancies refused to reach
+beyond the moment I should stand face to face with
+Sylvia. But, after a fashion, I made answer:</p>
+
+<p>"We'll hand the scoundrel over to the law, I suppose,
+and take the Princess&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"That's just it," he interrupted me. "Take her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[100]</a></span>
+where? That's the point I want to make." His voice
+was almost purring now&mdash;a sign with him of deadly
+earnestness. He was continuing: "Suppose she has a
+perfectly good home where she is! Suppose she doesn't
+see the virtues in our interference that we see! How
+do we know the man's a scoundrel, anyway?"</p>
+
+<p>"Bah!" Monsieur cried. "She wrote a message of
+danger! The man tried to blow us up! He made bad
+money that I have here!"&mdash;whereupon he thumped his
+breastpocket half a dozen times. "How do we know?
+<i>Pardieu</i>, I tell you!"</p>
+
+<p>"She wrote the message," Tommy admitted, "but
+everything else you say is guess. Even suppose you're
+right about it, where are our warrants? Where are the
+sworn officers to serve them?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have told you that I have the authority, the absolute
+authority!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, that doesn't amount to a damn," Tommy replied
+with supreme indifference, and for a moment I feared
+Monsieur was going to have a stroke of apoplexy.
+"Don't you see that we must possess proofs? And then
+we've got to board his yacht, don't we? Is he going to
+take a siesta while we stroll over the old tub? Your
+authority, gezabo, is a scrap of paper unless, first, he's
+the man who kidnapped your princess, and second, we
+can lay our hands on him. Now try to think!"</p>
+
+<p>"Think! There is nothing to think&mdash;only to do! You
+speak as a child! We must take that girl to her throne,
+to her rightful heritage! By every law of conscience,
+justice and humanity, there is nothing left for us to do!
+Absolutely we must obey!"</p>
+
+<p>A silence fell upon Tommy and me. I saw him
+moisten his lips and dart the professor a quick glance.
+I knew how inherently strong that little fellow was in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[101]</a></span>
+his loyalty, but had not been prepared for such an
+appeal as this. Conscience, humanity, justice! He was
+calling on my manhood to send her back to Azuria, out
+of my arms, out of my life. And she would go; I felt it,
+I knew it. I realized now that Tommy, in preambling
+up to this point, intended to settle it once and for all.
+And I realized how much farther his clear vision had
+penetrated the situation than my own poor addled mind.</p>
+
+<p>Leaning forward, he said in the same soft voice&mdash;though
+Monsieur did not recognize the deadly purpose
+behind it:</p>
+
+<p>"Professor, if you seriously want to see Azuria again
+I think we'd better arrange this thing, somehow. You
+came here to look for a princess; Jack came&mdash;pardon
+me, Jack, but it's unavoidable&mdash;for a sweetheart. Every
+man to his trade, you know!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, and if I find Her Serene Highness I shall most
+certainly restore her to&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"You'll most certainly do nothing of the kind,"
+Tommy interrupted him. "You see, old fellow, we
+couldn't trust her to you&mdash;it wouldn't be fair. The
+fact is, you've been acting mighty queerly of late, saying
+all kinds of strange things!"</p>
+
+<p>A puzzled look came into the professor's eyes as he
+glanced at me and then back at Tommy, who now leaned
+confidentially nearer.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you realize," he soothingly continued, "that you
+thought someone was trying to blow up our yacht?"</p>
+
+<p>"Trying to blow it up? Did I not have the bomb in
+my hands?"</p>
+
+<p>"He still believes it, Jack," Tommy sighed. "There's
+nothing to be done, I reckon, but take him back to Key
+West. They've a pretty fair hospital there."</p>
+
+<p>Monsieur's face turned so livid and looked so weird<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[102]</a></span>
+in its frame of straw-colored hair that I began to think
+all the hospitals on earth could not save him. Sputtering,
+he appealed to me:</p>
+
+<p>"The truth, my boy Jack&mdash;he is cut-upping?"</p>
+
+<p>But Tommy was saying:</p>
+
+<p>"We're awfully sorry, you dear old manatou; we'll
+miss you, take my word for it."</p>
+
+<p>"You boys dare do this," he sprang to his feet, too
+angry for further protest.</p>
+
+<p>"Sit down, sir," Tommy spoke now in a different
+tone. "Of course, I don't believe it, nor does Jack; but
+others will if we take you to the Key West hospital tied
+up in ropes and say you've got that blowing-up bug in
+your bonnet. Get the point?"</p>
+
+<p>"I get no points," he furiously pounded the table.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, here it is, and its name is Compromise! Either
+compromise, or the wow-wow house. We won't force
+the issue; you must decide nicely, without being
+pressed one way or the other. But these are the
+facts: you're sailing on an American yacht; Jack's the
+owner, Gates is captain, I'm the boss. We're hoping to
+overhaul the <i>Orchid</i>, board her, capture the princess,
+and all that. Then for one entire week Jack's to have
+an uninterrupted t&ecirc;te-&agrave;-t&ecirc;te while you make yourself
+invisible. Come along if you want to and turn the old
+rascal over to your consul when we get home, plead with
+the princess after Jack's week is up, recover a hundred
+good bucks for your bad ones&mdash;but he has to have his
+chance first, and we sign articles of agreement <i>right
+now</i>!"</p>
+
+<p>"Children," he cried, with a great show of disgust.
+"Should you return to Key West, how would you ever
+find the <i>Orchid</i> again! Ah-ha, you have tripped yourselves!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[103]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Not on your life, we haven't. We'll keep on now
+and locate her hiding place, then deliver you to a guardian,
+and come back."</p>
+
+<p>The professor thought a moment, breathing fast and
+blinking.</p>
+
+<p>"What are those bucks you spoke about?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Bucks? Hell, man, they're beans, bones&mdash;the things
+you won at roulette!"</p>
+
+<p>"I won no such things at roulette," he gravely shook
+his head, adding slowly: "So I must agree, eh? <i>Tres-bien!</i>
+Yet I warn you that she will go back with me in
+spite of all my boy Jack can say in a week, or a year.
+It is inevitable&mdash;she can not possibly disobey! Come!
+You win for the moment, so we will drink, standing
+together for Azuria!"</p>
+
+<p>"Standing for your grandmother," Tommy laughed.
+"No, you jolly old filbert, we stand for Jack and Sylvia,
+and don't you forget it! We'll use your vaunted authority,
+too, when the time comes to make that scoundrel
+surrender. Now let's get our arsenal in shape!"</p>
+
+<p>Monsieur approved of this, entering into it with a
+boyish spirit, and for a long time we went over rifles
+and automatics, showing him their virtues, explaining
+the accuracy of their range, occasionally throwing one
+up to the shoulder and taking a quick aim over the
+sights, as fellows will who find them good companions.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll lay you odds, Professor, that the barrels of some
+of this hardware get hot before night," Tommy said.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, I will not bet on such bloody business. You
+think we fight today?"</p>
+
+<p>"Two to one on it," he answered; then giving my
+shoulder a slap that felt like the kick of a mule, he cried:</p>
+
+<p>"So romance and adventure died with the war, did
+they? Oh, <i>baby</i>, what a shame!"</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX</h2>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[104]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2>A SHOT FROM THE DARK</h2>
+
+
+<p>During the first few hours of the afternoon we had
+looked on deck several times, but felt better satisfied to
+remain below, out of the drizzle. Now the captain's
+big voice rumbled some kind of good news, and each of
+us made a dash for the stairs.</p>
+
+<p>Even as we piled out into the cockpit the mate gave
+a yell and sailors sprang to haul down the topmast-and
+main-topmast-staysails. Off in the southwest, which
+had been leaden from horizon to meridian showing no
+distinction of water and sky, appeared a spot of light,
+a glow, growing rapidly brighter. Before it the misty
+rain was being wiped as if by magic from the air.</p>
+
+<p>Looking toward the northward I beheld the other
+yacht standing out in bold relief upon a blacker, more
+dismal background. She was beautiful at that moment&mdash;her
+sides and sails unnaturally whitened against the
+gloom, suggesting a cameo set on a piece of slate. Our
+blocks began to creak, sails bulged into huge scoops,
+masts tilted majestically, and the <i>Whim</i>, freed from her
+enforced idleness, bounded in response.</p>
+
+<p>"Wind!" Tommy shouted, his arms held skyward.
+"Aphrodite, sweet and mighty, send a gale before the
+nighty!"</p>
+
+<p>"But," Monsieur looked at him reprovingly, "Aphrodite
+is not goddess of the wind!"</p>
+
+<p>"Who said she was?" he innocently asked.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[105]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"You conjure her for the gale&mdash;bah!"</p>
+
+<p>"That's because she rhymes with nighty, gezabo!
+When my Muse sings, to hell with mythology! Come
+join the clouds&mdash;you're sordid!"</p>
+
+<p>"These have been sordid clouds," the little fellow
+laughed. "I would rather join you in other, but a more
+genial, wet."</p>
+
+<p>"Gates, how long before we catch her?" I called.</p>
+
+<p>"I carn't measure her speed yet, sir, but should say
+we won't be far behind in an hour and a harf."</p>
+
+<p>"Then," Tommy announced, "we'll go below and
+drink to the safety of our sweet Princess&mdash;for, unless
+I'm greatly mistaken, this day will see the finish of one
+good yacht! Give over the wheel and join us, Captain!"</p>
+
+<p>It was a hilarious four that touched glasses in the
+cabin, and after Gates went above we set to work in
+good earnest on our arms and cartridge belts. Having
+seen that each piece worked perfectly we followed him
+up, and the sight which greeted our eyes made us laugh
+for joy.</p>
+
+<p>How we accomplished it only Gates could have told,
+but now in the late afternoon light the <i>Orchid</i> seemed
+to be less than half her former distance. Looking over
+the rail at the flying water I felt a great pride in my
+father's craft, for she fairly skimmed along. Monsieur
+began at once to hug the captain, and this time the old
+skipper did not mind&mdash;at least, he permitted it.</p>
+
+<p>There was, of course, some concern along with our
+happiness; first of importance being the declining day
+that held scarcely more than an hour of light. Had it
+been otherwise, had the blessing of good sailing weather
+come to us earlier, we might have held an immediate
+council of war; but this for the present could be left.
+It was a profound disappointment, though, and showed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[106]</a></span>
+in our strained silence. Gates stood at my elbow.</p>
+
+<p>"How'll we find her in the morning&mdash;if we don't
+catch up pretty soon?" I asked.</p>
+
+<p>"I was thinking of that, sir. Now, as she sees we can
+sail circles around her with a good breeze, she won't
+hold the same course, and can give us a mighty slip
+during the night. We're almost in&mdash;&mdash;" he hesitated,
+and again ventured: "We're almost in close enough to
+send a shot across her bows, sir, if you wish to bring
+her about!"</p>
+
+<p>Tommy, overhearing, let out a yell of joy. The old
+skipper's suggestion electrified us all, particularly myself,
+for it promised that he would see this affair through
+at any and all costs&mdash;and I had been apprehensive
+regarding the attitude of Gates, lest his love for me, or
+for the <i>Whim</i>, cause him to balk short of the danger
+line. So, hastily imploring Monsieur to hug him again,
+I dashed below for one of the rifles. This arm was a
+neat high-power sporting model, but I thought it might
+persuade our kidnaper to look around.</p>
+
+<p>Coming up, however, I found that another plan had
+been adopted. Gates and Tommy were busily unlacing
+the canvas cover from our brass cannon. While it was
+only used for signaling, it could make a stunning racket.
+Bilkins was holding a box of blank shells, each containing
+somewhere near twenty drams of black powder. As
+I approached, Tommy was excitedly arguing with Gates
+who, this time, seemed to demur.</p>
+
+<p>"It's not of the <i>Orchid</i> I'm thinking, sir," he turned
+appealingly to me, "but ourselves! Miss Nancy&mdash;as Mr.
+Thomas calls this young howitzer, here,&mdash;won't stand
+much fooling. She warn't built for it, and if we go
+pressing her too hard she'll bust a stay&mdash;which is the
+same, sir, as sending harf of us to the sick-bay!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[107]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"What I want to do," Tommy explained, "is load her
+up with sinkers and truck like that, and touch her off
+right! Just a blank won't tell those devils anything,
+but if we pepper 'em with a hat full of old junk they'll
+haul-to in a jiffy!"</p>
+
+<p>"Surest thing in the world," I cried. "Suppose she
+does bust a stay, Gates! We can huddle in the cockpit
+and fire her with a long lanyard&mdash;then let her bust!"</p>
+
+<p>"That's easy, sir," he still remonstrated, "but suppose
+Miss Sylvia's looking out a porthole and stops one
+of the sinkers!"</p>
+
+<p>The thought of it made me shiver. Tommy, however,
+his enthusiasm undampened, acquiesced at once, saying:</p>
+
+<p>"Righto, Gates! Blank it is! Cartridge, Bilkins! I'm
+ready&mdash;say when!"</p>
+
+<p>"Wait! Let's get a bit closer, sir," Gates urged.</p>
+
+<p>Several minutes passed. We were only four hundred
+yards from the <i>Orchid</i> now and cutting down the space.
+She stood off our starboard quarter and, although a
+great deal more obscure in the gathering dusk, her cabin
+lights came on changing the portholes to a line of golden
+disks. Then another solitary light appeared, being carried
+aft by a sailor who fastened it to the taffrail. It
+was the stern lantern being swung out for the night,
+and I could not help smiling at this delightful display
+of audacity, deliberately to put up that tell-tale beacon,
+right in our faces, as it were.</p>
+
+<p>"It's a good bluff," Gates chuckled, "but they don't
+intend leaving it there for long, sir. I'd say we'd better
+fire now, Mr. Thomas, and when they stop we'll have a
+little chat with 'em."</p>
+
+<p>Tommy sprang up and pulled the string, and our eyes
+were dazzled, our ears jarred, with a perfectly glorious
+explosion that lighted up the sea for a hundred yards.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[108]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Whiz-bang!" Tommy yelled. "I wish I had this
+thing in Kentucky! It'd work wonders for the Democrats!"</p>
+
+<p>Nothing happened aboard the <i>Orchid</i>. She did not
+vary her course an inch. The sailor at the helm had
+given a frantic jump when Miss Nancy went off, but
+resumed his place evidently aware that no missiles had
+been fired.</p>
+
+<p>"Load her up again," I urged. "Let's keep on till
+they get mad!"</p>
+
+<p>Bilkins passed out the shells and the piece was loaded
+and fired, loaded and fired, till we seemed surely to have
+waked old Nep himself. I do not know how many
+rounds we shot but it must have continued for some
+time, thoroughly engrossing us. Now suddenly the
+stern light went out, and immediately afterwards the
+portholes, losing their glow, became as nothing. The
+tropical night, always swift in coming, had fallen more
+stealthily than we realized, and the yacht melted into
+darkness.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Sacr&eacute; bleu!</i>" Monsieur raged&mdash;for the night was
+overcast and as black as sin.</p>
+
+<p>But Gates was already stripping the searchlight of its
+cover. When he had swung open the big lens Tommy
+struck a match, which blew out. His second was blown
+out by a hiss of air that preceded the flow of gas, and
+the professor jumbled matters by trying his hand. But
+these efforts scarcely took more time than the telling,
+and when the powerful streak of light finally pierced
+the darkness the very first thing it showed us was a
+white sail.</p>
+
+<p>"I shouldn't have worried about night catching us,
+sir, if I'd thought of this before," Gates laughed. "And<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[109]</a></span>
+there's plenty of extra acetylene tanks, too, so she carn't
+get away now!"</p>
+
+<p>"You'll have to haul down some sail, though," I
+replied, seeing that the <i>Orchid</i> lay nearly abeam of us.</p>
+
+<p>"No quicker said than done, sir."</p>
+
+<p>He went to direct this, while we held our light
+squarely on the fleeing outlaw. Nobody was astir about
+her deck; indeed, so undisturbed did she appear that
+the sailor standing statue-like at her wheel might have
+been the only living thing aboard.</p>
+
+<p>I breathed fast with thinking that maybe Sylvia
+might come up, and my senses were so alert, my mind,
+eyes, ears so intently reaching toward her, that now I
+heard what was indeed a most unexpected sound: a
+piano. Grasping Tommy's arm I whispered this to him,
+and he nodded, saying in a low tone:</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I hear it plainly. Reminds me of Monsieur's
+master musician playing a rhapsody in the dark, d'you
+remember? Listen! Gods, it's '<i>De puis le jour</i>,' from
+Louise!" Yet in the next breath he added: "Cheerful
+girl you have, Jack,&mdash;she's switched off from her love
+song to Chopin's funeral march!"</p>
+
+<p>I dolefully smiled to myself, not at the funeral march
+but at the realization that dreams are only dreams and
+nothing more, that Gates's common sense had come
+nearer hitting the mark than all of our professor's psychology;
+for I had seen no piano in that cabin, and five
+minutes ago I would have sworn its interior was as well
+known to me as the <i>Whim</i>. But an instant later my
+smile had given way to a cry of rage, as a little streak
+of fire spat from one of the portholes and the big lens
+of our searchlight, with a bang, shattered into a thousand
+pieces.</p>
+
+<p>"The nerve of it," Tommy yelled, violently shaking<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[110]</a></span>
+his hand that had been resting on the brass frame.
+"Damn his hide, he nearly shot off my finger!"</p>
+
+<p>"Are you hit?" I asked quickly.</p>
+
+<p>"Hell, no; but my hand feels like a pincushion! Say,
+he knows how to shoot, though! I'll give him that
+much!"</p>
+
+<p>"Those people are prepared for all that comes, I tell
+you," Monsieur vigorously nodded his head. "They
+must even have violet spectacles for looking into search-lights,
+else that fellow's eyes could not have stood the
+glare."</p>
+
+<p>Again the <i>Orchid</i> was invisible. For a moment I
+thought that out of the dark sky my gods were derisively
+mocking me; but it was a human sound, a long,
+triumphant laugh, doubtless from the coarse-throated
+creature who had made the lucky shot.</p>
+
+<p>Gates, fearing we might answer it in kind, came forward
+to counsel silence, at the same time sending a sailor
+for the megaphone and ordering another to extinguish
+our own lights. With his knife he then hastily cut the
+megaphone in half, keeping the large end whose openings
+now tapered from about eight inch to eighteen inch
+diameters. As we stood, not understanding what he
+meant to do, I heard across the water a rattling of
+blocks and knew the <i>Orchid</i>, free of pursuit, was changing
+her course. Gates cocked his head and listened, then
+whispered to the mate who went back and changed the
+<i>Whim's</i> course.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, Mr. Jack," he said, in a guarded tone, "we're
+behind her, and dark, too; so keep all hands as quiet as
+mice, sir! Take the wheel and steer as I signal from
+under my coat with this electric torch, like this: one
+long, means put your helm up a point, two long means
+two points; but a short flash means down a point, two<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[111]</a></span>
+short down two points. D'you understand, sir? We've
+got to keep close to her, or daylight'll find her gone!
+I'm going out on the bowsprit and, with this piece of
+megaphone to help, think I can follow by sound.
+They're apt to make some noise, believing themselves
+safe. And their blocks are bound to rattle when they
+change their course&mdash;which they'll be doing before long
+as we're both headed for the coast of Florida, twenty-five
+or thirty miles off. Now go back quiet, sir, and
+watch for my lights."</p>
+
+<p>God bless old Gates, I said to myself.</p>
+
+<p>Till well into the night that indefatigable sea dog sat
+astride the bowsprit with the crude sound magnifier over
+his ear, while I, alert and watchful, gripped the wheel
+as though I were driving a speed boat. In the beginning
+he had sent a few signals, and we jockied this way and
+that, but after perhaps an hour we settled down to another
+straight course&mdash;though I could not tell how near
+we were, or if we were sailing right, or if they suspected
+us.</p>
+
+<p>Tommy had come aft to keep me company, and now
+asked in a whisper:</p>
+
+<p>"What do you think about that piano?"</p>
+
+<p>"I think she played like an angel."</p>
+
+<p>"Son, you don't get the point. What do you think
+about changing suddenly from that exquisite Charpentier
+love song to a funeral march&mdash;just before the rifle
+went off?"</p>
+
+<p>"You don't mean she was signaling?" I asked in surprise,
+for the idea knocked me a little bit silly.</p>
+
+<p>"I mean just that; of course, she was signaling, and
+taking a big chance, too. You may put your own construction
+on the first piece she played, but the instant
+she saw what they were up to she sent us the flash. The<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[112]</a></span>
+only trouble about it was that we weren't anywhere near
+as quick."</p>
+
+<p>"But look here," I said, alarmed by another thought,
+"suppose she meant it would be <i>her</i> funeral march if
+we keep up the pursuit?"</p>
+
+<p>Tommy considered this.</p>
+
+<p>"I reckon not," he finally replied. "They might
+threaten us with her death if we don't turn back, but
+there'd be no reason to kill her otherwise. No, she saw
+them preparing to shoot&mdash;which you can't deny that
+they did, jolly good and well."</p>
+
+<p>"She's a queen," I murmured.</p>
+
+<p>"Queen! That girl must be a royal straight flush in
+hearts, and if it weren't for Nell I'd adore her to the
+tips of my teeth!"</p>
+
+<p>At midnight I sent the mate to relieve Gates and gave
+the wheel to a likely sailor, and after making sure they
+understood the signals we went below for a bite to eat.
+Although the day of suspense had been wearing, my
+brain was too active to permit much thought of sleep;
+but finally Gates nodded, awoke with a jerk, and started
+off to bed. He had had no easy time of it on the bowsprit,
+good old Gates!</p>
+
+<p>Tommy and I talked in low tones while the professor
+sat to one side, humped over and buried in thought. He
+was a strange looking spectacle when buried in thought.
+His countenance then became all wrinkles, with a kind
+of turned-up nubbin in the middle that I knew to be a
+nose, only because I'd previously seen it&mdash;otherwise it
+might have been almost anything that one does not
+expect to find in the center of a man's face. Tommy
+regarded him a moment in silence.</p>
+
+<p>"Monsieur," he whispered, "come join this confab.
+We're up against the real thing in the morning, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[113]</a></span>
+may as well begin to lay pipe. The old catamount who
+shot out our searchlight won't have any more regard
+for our personal lights, let's keep that in mind. What's
+more, he has a real excuse now, because we fired those
+blanks at him which he'll find it convenient to say
+weren't blanks. So the business is coming off to a certainty.
+What's your idea?"</p>
+
+<p>"My idea?"</p>
+
+<p>"I meant to be that flattering, yes. What do you
+think we'll be up against when ordering the <i>Orchid</i> to
+surrender?"</p>
+
+<p>"I do not know; but something we are not expecting,
+you may be sure," he dolefully answered.</p>
+
+<p>"That sort of gloom won't get us anywhere," Tommy
+retorted. "Try another thought!"</p>
+
+<p>"It gets us very far! If we expect to experience what
+we are not expecting, then we are expecting it! How
+can we be surprised when we are prepared for the thing
+we are not prepared for? It is obvious. That is my
+idea."</p>
+
+<p>"Then you ought to keep it in a less fragile place.
+Try still another, gezabo!"</p>
+
+<p>But he was inclined to pout now, and would neither
+talk nor listen to our entreaties.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," he exclaimed at last, with a superior smile
+as he struck the table smartly, "I will tell you this: I
+have nothing more to say!"</p>
+
+<p>It was a lot of preparation for a mighty small result,
+I thought, and Tommy smiled at the childish gentleman,
+murmuring sweetly:</p>
+
+<p>"If you really mean that, and stick to it, pray accept
+my congratulations upon having reached the height of
+conversational charm. Now, Jack, let's plan!"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[114]</a></span></p><p>But Monsieur, while unwilling to talk, was also unwilling
+to be ignored. I think he wanted to be coaxed.
+People get that way, sometimes. So he petulantly exclaimed:</p>
+
+<p>"You think I am what you call an old crank!"</p>
+
+<p>"No I don't, honest!" Tommy gave me a wink.
+"Even if I did, it's a compliment in America to be
+called a crank, because cranks make things move. Now
+help us out, like a good sport. By this time tomorrow
+you'll be shot to pieces, for all we know."</p>
+
+<p>He said it solemnly, but his humorous mouth showed
+how much he wanted to laugh. I believe Tommy would
+have walked to the gallows joking with his executioner.
+That infectious smile, sometimes the flash of his teeth,
+but always a snap in his honest gray eyes, were invariably
+quickened by the imminence of danger. I knew
+Tommy; therefore I also knew that beneath his jocose
+raillery were nerves stretched to concert pitch that
+meant music for whoever stood in his way tomorrow.</p>
+
+<p>The professor sat up straighter and blinked at him.</p>
+
+<p>"Why do you say I get shot to pieces?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why not? The fellow'd be a fool to sit by and let
+us go aboard&mdash;and we've got to go aboard!"</p>
+
+<p>"It is nonsense! You want my advice? Then leave
+him alone!"</p>
+
+<p>I think that Tommy's eyes narrowed slightly. I know
+that my teeth clenched at this evidence of quitting; yet
+what could we expect from a chap who did nothing but
+teach in a University?</p>
+
+<p>"You won't be in any danger," I said, arising.
+"We'll manage all right. Come on, Tommy!"</p>
+
+<p>"You will not manage&mdash;that is just it," he angrily
+retorted. "You two boys will strut about like roosters
+showing what good fighters you are, and get blown up
+through the insides! Have I not seen it often? Bah!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[115]</a></span>
+He ran his hands through his hair. "Why is it, when
+brains are as easily cultivated as biceps, that young
+bloods think only of a strong arm! You stay in the
+cabin and leave the man to me; then I will take him
+before your eyes, and nobody get hurt!"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think we quite understand!"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course! But there are no ladies on the <i>Orchid</i>
+whom I desire to charm, therefore I will be rational.
+Your <i>Capitaine</i> Gates will lower a boat, we row to the
+scoundrel's yacht, I present my authority, he surrenders,
+and we bring him back. There is no bloodshed, and my
+two young friends who are disposed to ridicule me will
+not get hurt!"</p>
+
+<p>Tommy flushed, and I felt uncommonly like a pup.</p>
+
+<p>"But suppose he won't come?&mdash;suppose he begins to
+fight?"&mdash;we asked these questions simultaneously. They
+were quite unnecessary, for the man would not come
+and, moreover, he would fight; but Monsieur's earnestness
+and visionary assumption had completely disarmed
+us.</p>
+
+<p>"In that case, your Gates and I will shoot him," he
+answered, as a matter of course. "Such grizzly alternatives
+must sometimes be the means of peace and harmony."</p>
+
+<p>Some might at times have called him an idiot, and on
+occasions I have found myself wondering if he possessed
+a scintilla of common sense, but no one after this
+could call him a coward. He would have gone single-handed
+to the <i>Orchid</i> with the same beautiful faith that
+a wee child would crawl into the kennel of a vicious
+dog. It was not in Monsieur to consider that anyone
+would dare disobey his Azurian authority.</p>
+
+<p>"Gezabo," Tommy said tenderly, "I'm going to lock
+you up tomorrow, for if anyone so much as rumples<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[116]</a></span>
+your noble topknot I'll cut him to ribbons&mdash;so'll Jack.
+Now kick us, and go to bed. We've been a pair of braying
+asses, and you're a sure-nuff Prince!"</p>
+
+<p>And, although I thought that Tommy had done most
+of the braying, I was willing to let it go at that. A
+lack of discriminating accuracy on his part might have
+been pardoned when we were faced by issues of so much
+greater portent. The dawn was but six hours off, and
+with it would come&mdash;what?</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a>CHAPTER X</h2>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[117]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2>A SILENT ENEMY</h2>
+
+
+<p>Bilkins rushed into my room at daylight announcing
+perfect weather and the <i>Orchid</i> sailing some twelve
+miles astern of us. While dressing I wondered how she
+could have fallen so far behind, but assumed that our
+men on watch must finally have lost her. As this seemed
+to be a reasonable explanation, since the later the night
+the more probability of her company having settled
+down and become quiet, I dismissed these speculations
+of no consequence for a feeling of thankfulness that she
+had not escaped us.</p>
+
+<p>Gates was on his way to call me when I came out, and
+one look at his broad smile required no further augury
+of good news.</p>
+
+<p>"We're arfter her hard, sir," he said, "and have been
+drawing up farst this hour gone. We'll be in hailing
+distance in another two hours, or less."</p>
+
+<p>"There's a good wind?"</p>
+
+<p>"Fair, sir. The mate, who's aloft, says that for some
+reason she's hauled down everything but mains'l and
+jib, and carn't be making any speed to speak of. Still,
+she's going along. We've quite some canvas set. He
+says there was noise enough to follow till about five bells
+of the morning watch; then she grew so still he wondered
+if she'd sunk. You'd better have breakfast, sir,
+for we'll be on her, as I say, in two hours or less."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[118]</a></span></p><p>This was Tommy's idea when I met him with Monsieur
+in the cabin, but Tommy was always ready for
+breakfast. They had become reconciled&mdash;or, perhaps,
+I ought to say the professor seemed to have forgiven
+both of us handsomely. Gates sat down with us for
+there was much to talk about. In fact, the professor,
+in his uncontrollable and passionate appetite for grapefruit,
+had scarcely extruded a spray of its juice in our
+direction&mdash;the usual evidence with us that breakfast had
+seriously begun&mdash;when the question of how we should
+board the <i>Orchid</i> was raised. The old skipper listened
+to my plan, then to Tommy's, and after these he turned
+to our little scientist, who waved a hand with no small
+degree of impatience, saying:</p>
+
+<p>"One is visionary, the other is crazy. One wants to
+blow her out of the water&mdash;with what? The other wants
+to do something no one can understand&mdash;and why? But
+they both agree upon killing everyone on board except
+a privileged lady. It is school-boy tomfoolery!"</p>
+
+<p>"Tomfoolery your grandmother," Tommy flared up.
+"What do you suggest that's any better&mdash;the utopian
+scheme you sprung on us last night?"</p>
+
+<p>"How do you know we have to board her?" Monsieur
+thrust half a biscuit in his mouth and took a long drink
+of coffee. "I have been thinking since; I have been on
+deck, and observed. There is wind, and we are catching
+up. Off there," he pointed toward something the
+cabin walls prevented us from seeing, "is land; low,
+gray-blue land. Now it can be done with cattle, but can
+it be done with yachts?"</p>
+
+<p>"Can what be done?" we asked.</p>
+
+<p>"We shall sail out, head her back, and drive her into
+the land until she sticks!"</p>
+
+<p>Never having heard of such a silly idea I looked at
+Gates, who was chuckling.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[119]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Oh, it might be done, sir," he laughed, "if she stood
+close enough to the islands. We might jockey her that
+way, foul her a bit, and make her go aground&mdash;or fight.
+But, Lor' bless you, she's sailing straight west across
+the Gulf, with nothing but a thousand miles of good
+water between her and the mouth of the Rio Grande!"</p>
+
+<p>"Get in front&mdash;butt her around," Monsieur cried.
+"If she does not like it, then let her, as you suggest,
+fight!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, you've said something at last," Tommy
+grinned. "How about it, Gates? And, by the way,
+what are those islands you spoke of? We're looking
+for a certain</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">'&mdash;&mdash;one of many, many islands<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Set like emerald jewels in an ever changing sea.'"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Though with his sincerity there was also the bantering
+tone of the unbeliever here.</p>
+
+<p>"It's the Ponce de Leon Bay, sir, with the Ten Thousand
+Islands&mdash;and I'd say there're all of ten thousand,
+or quite harf, anyway."</p>
+
+<p>With his fork he quickly drew on the tablecloth a
+sketch of southwestern Florida, outlining the waters
+northeast of Cape Sable and with little jabs indicating
+the island area which extends up and down the coast,
+as well as into Whitewater Bay. Gates was used to
+doing this kind of thing and he did it well, with the
+result that we got a very clear idea of what he meant.
+No one knew the exact number of islands, he said, because
+they had never been charted. Government surveys
+had been considered useless, in all probability;
+and, of private interests, there were none. No boat,
+except perhaps at rare intervals a very small craft of
+adventurous spirit, ever tried to enter&mdash;but, as to that,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[120]</a></span>
+twenty small boats might spend a month's playing in
+that maze and never meet. The mainland, for many
+miles in all directions, was without habitation, and these
+conditions had isolated this entire section as completely
+as though it were in the heart of a South American
+jungle.</p>
+
+<p>Difficult as it was to believe that on the "Playground
+Peninsula" of eastern United States an unsurveyed
+primeval wilderness of perhaps three thousand square
+miles had remained absolutely detached from inquisitive
+civilization, I was soon to learn that Gates had not in
+any way exaggerated. It was there; it is there today in
+the same unbroken solitude, for any to see who will.</p>
+
+<p>"Why didn't she duck in there and hide last night?"
+I asked, coming out of the charmed spell his description
+had cast over me.</p>
+
+<p>"She daren't, sir. Nothing but a dinghy, or the like
+of that, has ever gone in very far. Leastwise, I don't
+think so. The islands are just a lot of oyster-shell bars
+covered with sand and overgrown with red mangrove
+trees. I've been told the channel between 'em sometimes
+isn't more'n a foot deep; but in other places there
+may be good water. What I mean to say is that they're
+not charted, and I doubt if any man living could find
+his way through 'em the same way twice. They lay in a
+bunch stretching about forty miles north and south, and
+maybe fifteen or twenty through. Some are good sized&mdash;we'll
+say a mile long&mdash;but others run down to the size
+of the <i>Whim</i>. Oh, he wouldn't dare to run in there,
+sir! Now we might try to tease him close to 'em and
+crowd him some way, as the professor says&mdash;or let him
+do the other thing!"</p>
+
+<p>"That sounds like some plan," Tommy sprang to his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[121]</a></span>
+feet. "We'll tease him, all right, if we shoot fast
+enough!"</p>
+
+<p>"But they must be let to begin that shooting first,"
+Monsieur insisted.</p>
+
+<p>"I'd like to know why?" Tommy turned to him.</p>
+
+<p>"Why? What right have we to come and start such
+a business?"</p>
+
+<p>"What right have we to crowd her out of the ocean?"
+Tommy answered with another question. "What right
+have they to blow us up?&mdash;or steal a girl?&mdash;or counterfeit
+our money?&mdash;or darn near shoot my finger off and
+then laugh at me? To hell with rights! We've got
+more than that scoundrel has, if we haven't any!"</p>
+
+<p>Gates got up with an oath.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he said, "and shoot out my searchlight! No,
+Professor, I'd say the shooting's already begun. But
+they won't stand for too much fooling, not if I know
+anything!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, well," Monsieur sighed, "give me the gun."</p>
+
+<p>"Give him Miss Nancy," Tommy laughed. "Now,
+fellows, suppose a couple of us entrench on top of the
+cabin, to get the advantage of altitude&mdash;the superiority
+of position, as it were&mdash;and command their decks!"</p>
+
+<p>"You'll need a fair protection, sir, as they'll be shooting
+from the portholes," Gates said. "And we carn't
+fire back at the portholes because of the lady!"</p>
+
+<p>"Righto! But the man at their wheel's our meat,
+and anyone else who comes to take his place. Minus a
+steersman they're helpless; and then, Gates, if we can
+run alongside and batten down (is that what you call
+it?) their hatches, they're ours."</p>
+
+<p>"Suppose they send the Princess out, herself, to
+steer?" Monsieur asked.</p>
+
+<p>The suggestion gave me a turn.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[122]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Still, they may not think of that," he continued,
+"and our two shooters may command their decks quite
+easily. It is good. If a man comes out to steer you will
+shoot him till he runs downstairs again, then we go
+aboard and sail home. Yes, it is a good plan."</p>
+
+<p>"Shoot him till he runs downstairs!" Tommy gasped.
+"What d'you think we're going to do&mdash;just spank him
+with lead?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'll say that professor is in a clarss by himself, sir,"
+Gates turned to me, chuckling.</p>
+
+<p>The next half hour was a busy one. Our sailors, singing
+with happiness, brought up from the cuddy rolls of
+extra sails that were lowered overboard for a good wetting,
+then mauled into a neat rifle pit on the cabin roof&mdash;as
+snug as I'd want anywhere, and quite able to stop
+high-power bullets. Gates then showed another bit of
+generalship that called anew for Monsieur's nods of
+approval. Since our own helmsman would be as much
+exposed as the man on the <i>Orchid</i>&mdash;whom we intended
+to "shoot until he ran downstairs"&mdash;the mate brought
+up some line, bent it several times around the wheel
+drum, passed it through newly fastened blocks, and let
+it run into the cockpit. By this arrangement he could
+lie on the floor, as safe as you please, and steer according
+to orders sung up by the old skipper who, stationed
+below with a shaving mirror&mdash;suggesting a trench periscope&mdash;would
+take his bearings without showing any
+portion of his face. It was a nice piece of work.</p>
+
+<p>"One carn't be too cautious, sir," he explained.
+"Harf our chance of coming out ahead is being ready
+beforehand, and harf our satisfaction is to keep from
+having any burials at sea&mdash;which are gruesome things,
+any way you take 'em, sir."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[123]</a></span></p><p>Bilkins had acted as armorer and laid out rifles, bandoliers
+bulging with filled clips, and a few automatic revolvers;
+then in a low tone he said to me:</p>
+
+<p>"I'll never go back, sir, if anything happens to you
+today."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, you will," I replied, touched by his show of
+devotion. "You'll have to tell them why it happened.
+But don't be a raincrow. We'll come through."</p>
+
+<p>Gates now sent the men to stations for we were within
+a half a mile of the <i>Orchid</i>. Then Tommy stepped into
+our rifle pit and laid down. I followed. Quietly each
+of us beat a crease in the soaked canvas through which
+we could fire without showing too much head.</p>
+
+<p>The mate, crouched below, tried his new steering
+device as Gates sang up an order, and swore a jovial
+oath at the ease with which the <i>Whim</i> responded.
+Within his reach was an automatic, and he looked the
+very picture of contentment.</p>
+
+<p>Along the side of my rifle barrel now resting in the
+crease I took a good look at the <i>Orchid</i> sailing with
+apparent unconcern but a short way out from us, but I
+could picture the activity and hatred seething below
+her deck. I wondered what Sylvia might be thinking
+about all this; if she associated our pursuit by the
+slightest imaginative thread with a fellow who impolitely
+stared at her in a Havana caf&eacute;, yet to whom she
+had been willing to cry: "I am in danger!" Presumptuous
+fallacy! Then other thoughts began to race
+through my brain. Now that we were face to face with
+action, how were we going to come out? Had I a right
+to imperil those who were sailing with me? Was it
+not my duty, even at this eleventh hour, to order the
+<i>Whim</i> back?</p>
+
+<p>I turned to Tommy, saying:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[124]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"You didn't ship for this kind of thing, old man. If
+anything happens to you I'll feel like the devil."</p>
+
+<p>"So'll I," he grinned. "Don't bother about how
+you'll feel if anything happens to <i>me</i>; keep those regrets
+for the moment a hot pill investigates your own honorable
+insides, Mr. Jackass! I wouldn't miss this party
+for a million dollar bill. Settle down, now. Gates is
+pointing closer." Then, peeping along his rifle, he
+crooned one of our regimental paraphrases: "Stick
+your head up, Fritzy-Fritz, while I plug you in the
+gizzard," adding: "I don't see anyone at their wheel!"</p>
+
+<p>I took another squint and, just as he had said, their
+deck was deserted&mdash;not a man in sight.</p>
+
+<p>"What d'you make of it?" I asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Get down," he warned. "Don't forget that anyone
+who could center our searchlight, as some crafty
+boy did last night, won't have much trouble peeling a
+scalp at three hundred yards! They've probably made
+a steering rig like ours, that's all. The first thing we
+know bally hell will spit out of those portholes, if my
+guess counts! Beats a trench raid, doesn't it, old man?"</p>
+
+<p>"All hollow," I agreed. "We've got 'em this trip!"</p>
+
+<p>"We have unless they carry a ten-pounder&mdash;in which
+case we'll take a bath. Freeze close, buddie!"</p>
+
+<p>Nearer and nearer we drew, but no bally hell came
+from her. She showed absolutely no sign of anyone, not
+even a pile of canvas or a box that might hide a sharp-shooter.
+That, then, was the old counterfeiter's ruse:
+to tempt us into taking the initiative when, more than
+likely, he was ready with the probable ten-pounder to
+sink us. Still, it felt rather snug to be lying there elbow
+to elbow with Tommy.</p>
+
+<p>Gates had steered so close by this time that any skipper
+on the other yacht, not endowed with stupendous<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[125]</a></span>
+nerve, would certainly have gone about; for we had
+maneuvered to get the right of way, and a collision
+would have been entirely the <i>Orchid's</i> fault. But no
+one ran out, nor did her course change, and at the very
+last minute Gates called an order that brought us off a
+few points.</p>
+
+<p>We were now sailing parallel, not more than ten
+fathoms apart, and could have thrown a biscuit on her
+deck. I glanced out the corner of my eye at Tommy.
+His cheek rested snugly against the stock of his rifle and
+his finger stroked the trigger, I thought affectionately.</p>
+
+<p>Had either of us been more conversant with nautical
+matters we would have noticed something that Gates
+now came crawling up to tell us. He did this without
+being much exposed, by creeping along until abreast
+of us and then projecting himself, headfirst or any other
+way, into our midst. It was an active accomplishment
+for one of Gates's years.</p>
+
+<p>"D'you see what they've done?" he excitedly asked.
+"That wheel, there, is lashed over; they've paid out the
+mains'l enough to starboard, and set the jib properly to
+port. That's why the fores'l isn't up!"</p>
+
+<p>"What of it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, sir, she'll sail that way all day in a wind like
+this, and nobody have to touch her! They knew we'd
+be popping at their helmsman, and they fixed it so we
+carn't! Now it's our turn to start something!"</p>
+
+<p>"Then start it," Tommy said. "Run alongside and
+we'll climb over!"</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Thomas," he demurred, "that's rank piracy,
+unless we're the law. I wouldn't say no, understand,
+if there warn't some other way. But if we try it they'll
+have every right to shoot us down&mdash;which they can easy
+do, being hid and ready!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[126]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"You forget, Gates, they haven't a right on earth.
+They don't want to face the law with the best justification
+ever known&mdash;they'd be mortally afraid to!"</p>
+
+<p>"Then they wouldn't be any less particular about
+shooting us," the old skipper replied.</p>
+
+<p>There was no denying that Tommy had impaled himself
+upon his own point; not that he cared a hang
+whether they began shooting or not, but the anxiety of
+Gates caused him to temporize, and he said:</p>
+
+<p>"Bluff it! Sing across that we're the U.&nbsp; S.&nbsp; A. ordering
+'em to stop. Say it strong enough to make us believe
+it, too, Gates&mdash;so we'll feel self-righteous when the scrap
+comes!"</p>
+
+<p>Gates grinned and, cupping his hands, shouted:</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Orchid</i>, ahoy! This yacht's chartered by the U.&nbsp; S.
+Secret Service, and you're ordered to come about! Delay
+one minute and we blow you out of the water!"</p>
+
+<p>"Accomplished old liar," Tommy chuckled. "See
+anything?"</p>
+
+<p>Gates, so earnest was he in this r&ocirc;le of Uncle Sam,
+had his watch out, marking off the seconds. When the
+sixtieth had ticked he called again, in a more ferocious
+tone:</p>
+
+<p>"Time's up, but I'll give you harf a minute longer!
+This is the larst word!"</p>
+
+<p>"Now," said Tommy, having waited the thirty seconds
+which brought no response, "let's see you make
+good! Will you fire a torpedo, or one of the fifteen-inch
+guns?"</p>
+
+<p>But Gates was seeing no humor in the situation;
+neither was I; neither was Tommy, if the truth were
+known. Our position was in a sense desperate. We had
+bluffed and the bluff had been called. Five minutes ago
+we might have turned back, but such a course now<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[127]</a></span>
+would make us laughing-stocks even to ourselves. And
+there was Sylvia. What sort of a quitter would she
+think me!</p>
+
+<p>I saw that someone had to board that yacht, even
+though such a course, almost to a certainty, meant a
+test of the professor's surgical skill&mdash;a skill we knew he
+possessed along with his other attainments. But I could
+not&mdash;I simply would not&mdash;risk any of our fellows on an
+undertaking so hazardous. Conscious, however, of
+Tommy's utter pig-headedness I saw the futility of
+merely asking him to stay behind; so my mind became
+instantly made up and, turning to Gates, I sharply
+asked:</p>
+
+<p>"Who commands here?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, I'm the captain, sir," he answered, surprised
+at my tone.</p>
+
+<p>"But whose orders are absolute?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yours, Mr. Jack, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Then take this man below and keep him there while
+you run your rail alongside the <i>Orchid</i>. Nobody follows
+me until I call, or shoot. Be lively, Captain!"</p>
+
+<p>He looked his horror, but stiffly saluted, saying
+"Come" to Tommy who had turned white with anger
+and murderously glared at me.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you mean this dirty trick?" he asked, and I did
+not meet his eyes when admitting it.</p>
+
+<p>In a few minutes he and Gates were safely in the
+cabin&mdash;Gates having dived nimbly out of our canvas
+fort; while Tommy, oozing rage, had walked erect, shaking
+his fist at the <i>Orchid</i> and calling me pretty much
+every kind of a lizard that crawls the earth.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps the mad that this aroused was good for me.
+I had charged into an enemy's face once or twice under
+a certain amount of unpleasant fire and most uncom<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[128]</a></span>fortable
+sensations. A fellow's <i>savoir faire</i> is far from
+being faultless on such occasions, but if he's mad&mdash;damn
+mad&mdash;he gets along rather well, and Tommy's
+insulting words turned the trick for me.</p>
+
+<p>We had luffed a bit to let the <i>Orchid</i> draw out ahead,
+and now all I seemed to see was her slowly nearing rail;
+twenty feet away, fifteen, ten. My rifle had been laid
+aside, and I felt to see that my automatic was snugly
+nested in its holster. Five feet, four, three&mdash;we were
+about to touch! With a bound I cleared my shelter just
+as the rails were within spanning distance, and vaulted
+over.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a>CHAPTER XI</h2>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[129]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2>A STRANGE FIND</h2>
+
+
+<p>My feet had no more than touched the new deck when
+I became electrified with a glorious feeling of possession,
+of mastery. Immediately I seemed to know just what
+to do, where to go; and my first move was another headlong
+rush at the companionway door, bursting it in with
+a kick and springing quickly aside&mdash;ready, listening;
+being for the time shielded from a fusillade of expected
+shots. And, because these were not forthcoming, I felt
+momentarily confused.</p>
+
+<p>Yet in times of white hot action it is impulse that succeeds.
+This door ahead of me was the only way below,
+except perhaps a hatch, offering greater danger, somewhere
+forward; it was the only way, therefore, through
+which Sylvia might be brought up to safety. She was
+now below, and I would reach her if it were my last
+journey! Three bounds down the stairs took me into
+the cabin, my pistol forward, my nerves on hair-trigger,
+ready for anything that moved.</p>
+
+<p>Silence!&mdash;that sickish silence which permeates places
+of death! No human sound could be detected&mdash;no sound
+of any kind, except an uncanny creaking beneath the
+floor where the old masts rested in their steps, and a
+gentle swish of water outside the hull.</p>
+
+<p>There were two doors from the cabin, each opening
+into a separate, though parallel, passageway that doubtless
+led forward to about the same general arrangements<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[130]</a></span>
+we had on the <i>Whim</i>&mdash;one past three staterooms, through
+a galley and into the sailors' quarters; the other, also
+past a stateroom or two, but opening to the ice-box
+room and galley. Both of these doors now swung
+slightly ajar, at a suspicious angle that almost without
+doubt told me where the men were crouched, and this
+rendered my position so inexcusably exposed that swift
+and vigorous action was the only choice. With finger
+tightening on the trigger I dashed at the nearer of these,
+giving it a kick that sent it banging against the wall.
+The passageway was empty, and thus encouraged I
+rushed the other door. Here, again, no foe had lain in
+ambush.</p>
+
+<p>I was crouched now, sheltered by a strip of paneled
+wall between the two doorways. The staterooms on one
+side must come next, and after them the galley, with
+the forecastle beyond, and even beyond this, perhaps,
+some kind of a cuddy.</p>
+
+<p>Where the men were hiding God only knew, but hiding
+they were with cocked weapons, firmly gripped
+knives at some point of vantage that had been carefully
+chosen&mdash;as they expected nothing less than half our
+crew. I could almost feel their nearness; so alert were
+my senses that I fancied I could smell their sweaty
+clothes.</p>
+
+<p>Again action spelled success and, marking the first
+stateroom, I bounded into it covering the interior with
+a quick sweep of my automatic. Nothing! From this I
+sprang to the second room, showing myself in the passageway
+only long enough to cover the space. This,
+also, was empty.</p>
+
+<p>A third was on this side before the galley should be
+reached. By my tactics of quick rushes I had doubtless
+made too fleeting a target to draw their fire, so I dashed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[131]</a></span>
+at this third door. It was closed but yielded to my
+shoulder. As I entered, and became instantaneously
+aware that it contained no foe, my nerves were fired
+by the sound of rushing feet behind me.</p>
+
+<p>Trapped! At such a time a man will ask an awful
+price for his life&mdash;when he is trapped by merciless villains
+to whom quarter is an unknown tongue! Springing
+behind the door, keeping only my pistol hand and
+eye beyond its thin partition, I waited with leveled
+weapon, ready to drop the first man who came in sight.
+He did not keep me long in suspense. It was Gates,
+while behind him pressed several anxious faces.</p>
+
+<p>"Thank God, sir, you're not killed," he shouted.</p>
+
+<p>I was glad to see him, there's no denying it!</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Thomas said he heard you call, so we came
+a-biling, sir!"</p>
+
+<p>My mind was working rather fast; indeed, it seemed
+to be thinking at the rate of a thousand miles a minute&mdash;clear
+thinking, too&mdash;so even before Gates spoke the
+second time I had seen through Tommy's ruse. Bless
+his old scalp, I was a dog not to have taken him in the
+first place, now that things were nearer equal. But I
+said hastily:</p>
+
+<p>"Look sharp, Gates, I haven't been farther than here!
+They're in the galley!&mdash;I'm rushing it!"</p>
+
+<p>So I splintered the door and charged through, with
+the others tripping over my heels. Then my revolver
+swung across and covered a crouching form.</p>
+
+<p>"Hands up," I commanded.</p>
+
+<p>Although darker here, we could see a huge, partially
+clothed figure on the floor, reclining very much as The
+Wounded Gladiator. Leaning above him, with an arm
+passed beneath his shoulders, was another man.</p>
+
+<p>"Hands up, you fool," I called again, ready to fire<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[132]</a></span>
+at the first suspicious move. The man lowered his burden
+and turned. It was Tommy.</p>
+
+<p>"You'll forgive me, Jack," he grinned. "We thought
+I heard you call&mdash;and that was to be the signal, you
+know!"</p>
+
+<p>We thought I heard you call!</p>
+
+<p>"I know about that, you prince of liars. Who's this?
+But hold him!&mdash;we're going on through!"</p>
+
+<p>"You needn't," he said. "I took a speedy trip down
+the other passageway while Gates went to you. There
+isn't a soul on board, except this poor devil who's got a
+crack on the bean."</p>
+
+<p>"It isn't possible," I cried. For, indeed, it was not
+possible, and we hurried forward, leaving him as he was.</p>
+
+<p>But a two-minute search revealed the truth of Tommy's
+words. There was not a sign of anyone. The
+yacht was as absolutely deserted as if it had been sailed
+by spirits&mdash;except, of course, the wretch in Tommy's
+charge.</p>
+
+<p>"You're sure we've looked everywhere, Gates?" I
+asked, stunned at the disappearance of Sylvia and mystified
+by the whole affair.</p>
+
+<p>"Everywhere, sir. To tell the truth, Mr. Jack, a
+minute ago it was as complete a mystery as I ever saw.
+But I understand it now. They've taken to the small
+boats and escaped, sir. They've just sailed in close to
+shore and done that during the night, sir; and all morning
+we've been chasing a boat with nobody on it. I
+should have noticed the small boats gone, if I hadn't
+been so sure the people were here."</p>
+
+<p>I leaned against the wall too utterly disappointed to
+move, vaguely wondering if this were another dream
+from which I should awake and find the <i>Orchid</i> sailing
+out ahead of us. But it was no dream. In dreams one<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[133]</a></span>
+can not always know that one is dreaming, but there is
+never a doubt of knowing when one is awake.</p>
+
+<p>"They couldn't be under the floor?" I asked, absurdly
+clinging to a straw of hope that Sylvia might be there.</p>
+
+<p>"Lor' bless you, no, sir! I tell you, Mr. Jack, they
+just sailed as close as they dared to those islands, and
+skipped&mdash;the hull pack of 'em; first having headed the
+<i>Orchid</i> out as we found her. That's why everything
+was so quiet the larst part of the night&mdash;there warn't
+anyone here to <i>make</i> a noise!"</p>
+
+<p>Passing back to the galley we saw half our crew, in a
+circle, looking down at the wounded man.</p>
+
+<p>"Who is it, Tommy?" I asked. "Not the old scoundrel
+himself, by any good luck?"</p>
+
+<p>"Stranger yet," he said, waving the others back and
+standing up, "It's your black giant of the Key West
+docks!"</p>
+
+<p>"How the devil did he get here?" I cried, pushing
+between the men and also looking down at him. "How
+did he get here?" I asked again, but Tommy had gone.</p>
+
+<p>Someone had put a cushion under his head. His eyes
+were open, gazing up with their former gentle expression;
+more sad now, I fancied, since the great human
+machine he had controlled was wounded.</p>
+
+<p>"How did he get here?" I repeated my general question,
+this time straight at him.</p>
+
+<p>His lips moved with a curious, rather horrible, inarticulate
+sound, and his glance swept our crew as
+though in search of a face. Then he seemed to give it
+up, and passed a hand slowly over his forehead. I was
+about to order him carried on deck when Tommy called
+through the galley portlight:</p>
+
+<p>"Fetch your wounded, Jack! The professor's here
+with his outfit!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[134]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>As our men stooped to obey the big fellow surprised
+us by quietly arising; and, when cushions had been arranged
+in a shaded place above, he laid on them as obediently
+as a docile mastiff. Monsieur, very much in his
+element, became busy at once.</p>
+
+<p>The <i>Whim</i> and the <i>Orchid</i> were still at grips&mdash;or
+rather were it more correct to say the <i>Orchid</i> was in the
+<i>Whim's</i> grip. Lines had been passed through the chocks
+of each, sails had been hauled down, and both yachts
+rode inertly side by side.</p>
+
+<p>The part of our crew that had stayed behind to attend
+these matters now came over the rail like monkeys,
+grinning broadly and crowding up to shake hands with
+me&mdash;a wholly uncalled for proceeding which charmed
+me, nevertheless.</p>
+
+<p>"Lie on your face," I heard Monsieur saying to the
+big black. He had become excessively busy and his
+fingers were feeling everywhere over the man's cranium,
+yet as tenderly as a woman's. "What struck you?" he
+asked.</p>
+
+<p>"I've told you he can't talk," Tommy, who was also
+kneeling by him, explained.</p>
+
+<p>"And I did not ask you," the professor snapped.
+"What if he can not! May I not see him make the
+effort?"</p>
+
+<p>"But what's the use of having the poor beggar make
+the effort when you know he can't put it over? Why
+not get down to cases and cure him, instead of monkeying?"</p>
+
+<p>"Down to cases! Cure him!" Monsieur sputtered.
+"How great a surgeon are you to direct me in this
+impertinent manner?"</p>
+
+<p>Really, he was quite a great deal put out.</p>
+
+<p>"You fellows cut it," I interposed. "While you're<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[135]</a></span>
+squabbling the chap might click it, and then what?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm not squabbling," Tommy looked up earnestly.
+"I'm only saying it's a rotten shame to put a <i>bless&eacute;</i>
+through a lot of unnecessary paces that hurt him, and
+I stick to it! But go ahead, professor!"</p>
+
+<p>"I shall go ahead, have no fear of it! You think me
+cruel&mdash;but see: if I am aware something is wrong with
+a machine, how better to find out what than by trying
+to make it run?"</p>
+
+<p>He turned again to his examination, while Tommy lit
+a cigarette and sat nearby, looking on. At last Monsieur
+gave a sigh, indicating that his diagnosis was
+ready. I waited until he, too, had lit a cigarette, then
+asked:</p>
+
+<p>"Well, doctor, how serious?"</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps not serious, as there is no fracture. He
+has suffered a concussion over the third frontal convolution,
+resulting in an aphasia&mdash;aphemia we are sure
+of, and doubtless also agraphia&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Hold on! This isn't the University of Bucharest,"
+Tommy cried. "If you insist on telling us, instead of
+putting this man to bed where he ought to be, tell it
+nursery-fashion!"</p>
+
+<p>"Already I have said it for children," he witheringly
+replied.</p>
+
+<p>"Then God help 'em!" This in a whisper from
+Gates, but with no thought of levity.</p>
+
+<p>"Go ahead and cure the man," I implored. "We
+couldn't understand you, anyhow."</p>
+
+<p>"But, yes, you will understand&mdash;I desire it! This
+blow has produced the aphemia. If he were not illiterate
+we could, by asking him to write, say if agraphia
+also is present. But he can not write, therefore we do<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[136]</a></span>
+not know whether he can or not; so, therefore, we only
+know that he can not speak."</p>
+
+<p>"You know he can't write, too&mdash;you just said so!"</p>
+
+<p>"Exactly, my boy Tommy, you have the correct idea.
+Yet we do not know it by the test."</p>
+
+<p>"I begin to see what he's driving at, Jack. He knows
+he can't write because it's a known fact, but he doesn't
+know it by the scientifically known test known to him&mdash;and
+that's agraphia. If it isn't, it's near enough. Now,
+he knows he can talk because we all know he can, but
+no one knows it at present because he can't&mdash;and that's
+aphemia. Do I get you, Professor?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, as you say, you get me. The motor area has
+suffered a concussion; perhaps a slight hemorrhage,
+perhaps not. It may pass in a few days, or longer.
+We will keep him quiet, with ice bags to the head and
+blood pressure low, and see what we shall see. A hundred
+years ago they would have bled him and made
+him well. But we shall see!"</p>
+
+<p>"If he'd got well a hundred years ago by being bled,
+why not now?" I asked.</p>
+
+<p>"He'd be too old now," Tommy whispered; but the
+professor, not hearing this, looked at me as though I
+had committed an unpardonable breach of etiquette, and
+again witheringly replied:</p>
+
+<p>"We have more advanced methods."</p>
+
+<p>Having thus been put in my place, he ordered his
+patient taken aboard the <i>Whim</i> and ran ahead to superintend
+the construction of a bed. Scientists are a curious
+lot, Tommy says, but I doubt if there is another like
+the professor. I hope not, for the sake of the sciences.
+But let that pass. In half an hour the big black was
+resting easily in the midst of paraphernalia especially<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[137]</a></span>
+designed, and Bilkins had been assigned the place as
+nurse.</p>
+
+<p>I fancied, when this latter suggestion came up, that
+our old servant might not readily take to it. With
+twenty years of his life spent as major domo and general
+valet in my father's household, a sudden transformation
+into trained nurse for a dusky African must,
+peradventure, have been a shock.</p>
+
+<p>But in this I was mistaken. The last forty hours of
+common peril, of a central interest, had lifted Bilkins
+from that pettiness usually burdensome in servants of
+his type. He was, as a matter of fact, cheerfully alert
+to take the job, accepting it with the same enthusiasm
+that Gates, and later the mate, had straddled the bowsprit.
+So I realized that Bilkins had doffed the uniform
+of servitude to put on one that fit a man. True, indeed,
+there is no such potent melting-pot as common peril!
+It had been the same in France&mdash;banker, lawyer, merchant,
+beggar-man, thief, perhaps&mdash;all one. Common
+peril, common necessity!&mdash;O thou molders of men!</p>
+
+<p>When everything had been arranged, and a sailor put
+at our ice machine to supply packs for the wounded
+man's head, Tommy, the professor and I climbed back
+aboard the <i>Orchid</i>, this time to give her a thorough
+search. We held to the hope that there might be a
+note, or little clue, from the girl whose extremity had
+once led her to send the other message. Monsieur
+thought this most probable, and our hopes ran high.</p>
+
+<p>Beginning with a writing desk in the cabin, we examined
+the book shelves and every nook and corner, then
+passed to the staterooms. These gave the same impression
+of having been swept clean&mdash;cupboards, presses, all
+were empty. Only in one drawer, delicately scented,
+was there a single item&mdash;a hairpin. Here, then, must<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[138]</a></span>
+be Sylvia's room, but otherwise it was devoid of any
+article. Equally unproductive did we find the galley,
+the crew's quarters, and a small cuddy forward.</p>
+
+<p>Monsieur sat down and pursed his lips.</p>
+
+<p>"They have anticipated our intention," he said,
+thoughtfully. "Doubtless the things were emptied into
+sheets, then either weighted and sunk, or taken in the
+boats. But she must have exerted her ingenuity. There
+absolutely must be some word left for us. Wait!"</p>
+
+<p>Hurrying to the <i>Whim</i> he returned with his lens,
+while from the mate he had borrowed a caliper, a two-foot
+rule and a sail needle.</p>
+
+<p>"Now we shall search scientifically," he cried. "Remember,
+that as no personal belonging remains, even
+the books being gone, we must infer they made a great
+effort to destroy everything that would leave a clue.
+They suspected the girl, too, and that made them doubly
+careful. What would she do then? Exactly as we
+would do&mdash;hide her message so the others could not discover
+it! Now, my boy Jack, you take the sail needle
+and probe cushions, pillows and mattresses! My boy
+Tommy, take my lens and look for places where the
+glue has been disturbed on furniture joints; I will
+measure the desk, piano, panels&mdash;everything&mdash;for a secret
+hiding place!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I'll be darned," Tommy grinned. "You're
+some cop, professor!"</p>
+
+<p>When each of us had finished and reported failure,
+Monsieur did not seem at all discouraged.</p>
+
+<p>"Now we go to the second phase," he said. "Keep in
+mind, whenever you search for anything, that it may
+be under your nose. That is the place to look, not off at
+the clouds&mdash;and nothing is too insignificant to escape
+investigation. For see: I can write on a very thin<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[139]</a></span>
+piece of paper, roll it into a string, thread it into a
+bodkin, and weave it into a rug, curtain, quilt, and so
+forth; or press it lengthwise into a crack in the floor. A
+favorite way is to tie it to a real piece of string, and
+throw them carelessly into a wastebasket, thus making
+them appear to have been cut from a bundle. But
+there are a thousand ways! Now we proceed with this.
+Later we probe down gas jets, water spouts and outlets,
+empty lamp reservoirs, unscrew the backs of mirrors,
+search key holes, unravel carpets&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Heavens," I cried, seeing that in his zeal for doing
+this professionally he was making himself absurd; and
+Tommy burst into a hearty laugh, saying:</p>
+
+<p>"Gezabo, there isn't a girl in a million who'd think
+of those places, and if she did she wouldn't credit us
+with enough sense to find 'em. Call off your bloodhounds!
+There's no message for us, that's a cinch!
+Let's get busy at once on something practical!"</p>
+
+<p>"That's what I say," I chipped in. "It's only eleven
+o'clock, and we have eight good hours of daylight. Let's
+go back and call Gates for a conference, without losing
+a minute!"</p>
+
+<p>"You may be right," he sighed, "but&mdash;well, let us go,
+as you say. With eight hours of light we can accomplish
+everything. Today may bring success!"</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII"></a>CHAPTER XII</h2>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[140]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2>THE HURRICANE</h2>
+
+
+<p>Tommy's spirits were sky high. While treating our
+situation seriously he found in every phase of it some
+new sense of humor, whereas the professor looked on
+with grim purpose. Gates occupied rather a neutral
+ground, I think, perhaps alternately leaning one way
+and the other. But I was gripped by a single idea, a
+deep and growing love for this fugitive girl to whom I
+had never spoken, who I did not know, but had sworn
+to rescue.</p>
+
+<p>As we climbed back to the <i>Whim</i> and summoned
+Gates it was understood that haste meant everything.
+Yet we could not very well move before knowing whither
+the outlaw crew had gone. That they made for Florida
+was, of course, self-evident, but where upon that vast
+stretch of coast? Would they entrench and wait?
+Were they even now watching with binoculars from a
+pine tree top to discover our next move, or had they
+set out at once for the security of the Everglades, the
+prairies, or the forests? Any of those trackless vastnesses
+to the eastward might hide a battalion of men
+for months; therefore, in case they had run, what hope
+of finding them?</p>
+
+<p>These and other facts I put before my friends while
+they listened in glum silence&mdash;indeed, with hardly a
+move except the pipes carried mechanically to their lips
+or down. Tommy's brier was empty, but his teeth were<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[141]</a></span>
+tight upon the stem and I saw the muscles of his jaws
+working, as though grinding up my conclusions.</p>
+
+<p>"So that's how it stands," I said, at last. "Personally
+I lean to the Ten Thousand Islands. Gates tells us
+the location is unexplored; it offers ten thousand hiding
+places and, in the circumstances, they couldn't ask for
+anything better."</p>
+
+<p>Monsieur stretched back in his chair and blew out a
+volume of smoke, adding:</p>
+
+<p>"It is the Islands, of course. And I think there is
+little doubt what they did after landing. They did not
+start inland. They feel secure where they are, and there
+they will remain to watch us. It may also be their
+lair, their home, for they must have a home ashore
+somewhere! <i>Mon Capitaine</i>, you know with certainty
+there is not a channel deep enough for our yacht?"</p>
+
+<p>"I never heard of one," Gates answered. "Of
+course, there might be; only I never heard of it."</p>
+
+<p>"If there were, why did they abandon the <i>Orchid</i>?"
+Tommy asked.</p>
+
+<p>"It will bear looking into," the professor mused.
+"Now, that paper with the dots and rambling line!
+Could it represent a chart to their stronghold?"</p>
+
+<p>"From what I saw in it, as a sea-faring man," Gates
+answered, "the bearings on that paper didn't tell
+enough. No one could sail in new water without a
+plainer chart than that. No, sir, if it means anything
+at all, I'd say it meant something else."</p>
+
+<p>"We're wasting a lot of golden time here," I said.
+"What if there is a channel, and what if the paper does
+mark the entrance to it! That doesn't get us anywhere.
+How could we tell which were the right two islands to go
+between, when there're thousands of 'em on the water
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[142]</a></span>and less than fifty on the paper, and not even a landmark
+of any kind indicated! As Gates says, it isn't
+plain enough."</p>
+
+<p>Monsieur seemed to be unconvinced, and Tommy began
+to laugh at him, saying:</p>
+
+<p>"Gates would be an idiot to sail into a lot of treacherous
+oyster bars guided by that poor excuse of a thing!
+Sylvia drew it for a subterfuge, anyhow, not a chart.
+I've got the right dope, so listen: Those crooks are
+ashore watching us right now&mdash;it's a cinch they are,
+because any of us, placed in their position, would be
+doing the same. Now if we sail in and push things,
+they'll run off and we couldn't find 'em again&mdash;probably
+never. So let's divide our crew and sail both
+yachts straight out across the Gulf&mdash;like we're going
+home. Then they'll think we've given up the chase
+and be off their guard. But when we get over the
+horizon we'll make a circle back, and after dark anchor
+in some cove north of this island area&mdash;if Gates knows
+a good one. From that point, being well hid and unsuspected,
+we'll conduct operations by land as we think
+best. How about it?"</p>
+
+<p>It was the most sensible thing I could see, and said
+so. The others quite enthusiastically agreed, and in a
+few minutes the two yachts were sailing prettily westward.
+Lower and lower sank the Ten Thousand Islands,
+and sometime after we finished luncheon a sailor aloft
+reported them gone. Then with a will we changed our
+course and began the big circle back.</p>
+
+<p>Gates had been making observations. His chart showed
+a cove about ten miles north of the island area, but
+too shallow for the <i>Whim</i>. Yet ten miles farther north
+of that was another inlet with fairly good water. Some
+thought this would be the logical place to anchor, while
+others insisted it was too far from operations.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[143]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"We might establish an outpost in the little cove,"
+I said, at last, "making a camp there and keeping the
+launch with us, while the <i>Whim</i> stays in the larger cove
+as a base to fall back on in case of necessity."</p>
+
+<p>"The launch won't do," Tommy corrected. "In a
+quiet place like that its put-put could be heard for
+miles. Paddles, oars or sails for these still waters,
+Jack!"</p>
+
+<p>He was right. Moreover, one of our small boats did
+have a center-board, thwart and portable mast, so that
+obstacle was easily crossed.</p>
+
+<p>"Now," he continued, "I approve of Jack's plan,
+and suggest that tonight we slip into Big Cove&mdash;hereinafter
+to be so called&mdash;and anchor the <i>Orchid</i>. Then
+with a whole crew we'll sail down outside of Little Cove,
+land provisions, ammunition, and stuff like that for the
+scouting party. After this the <i>Whim</i> goes back and
+waits alongside the <i>Orchid</i>. The thing now is to decide
+on signals. Who knows the Morse?"</p>
+
+<p>Gates answered promptly that he did; but I did not,
+so Tommy wrote the alphabet on a card, saying:</p>
+
+<p>"You've this afternoon to memorize it, and tonight
+I'll drill you. It'll do between ourselves, Jack, if we
+get separated. But how shall we reach you, Gates? Have
+you any black powder for smoke balls?"</p>
+
+<p>"Lor' bless you, sir, we've only what's in a few shells
+belonging to Miss Nancy. It would take a fair sized
+keg to signal that far, sir!"</p>
+
+<p>I will not recount the hours I walked back and forth
+along the deck, with a flag in one hand and Tommy's
+card in the other, making what to the uninitiated would
+have seemed a perfectly ridiculous spectacle. But I had
+got quite well along, and was standing near the foremast
+wig-wagging a message to an imaginary pair of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[144]</a></span>
+violet eyes&mdash;for man can be silly and serious at one and
+the same time&mdash;when a little puff of hot air struck my
+face. It was the second puff of this kind I had noticed.
+Gates now came up and joined me.</p>
+
+<p>"There's a howl of something coming, sir," he said.
+"I've had suspicions of it all day, but now the barometer's
+touched bottom."</p>
+
+<p>"The sky's clear," I suggested.</p>
+
+<p>He laughed, though without humor.</p>
+
+<p>"A sky isn't always clear because there're no clouds
+in it, Mr. Jack."</p>
+
+<p>"But what do you expect, Gates? We don't have
+storms at this season!"</p>
+
+<p>"You're right, sir. But once in a long while there'll
+be a howler, and that's what the barometer is trying to
+tell us now. As we have only harf a crew on each yacht
+I think we'd better make a bee-line in. 'Twill take us
+twenty miles north of where we were, and those fellows
+carn't see us."</p>
+
+<p>I never disputed conditions of weather with Gates, so
+the course was changed and we started on our run to
+land, which he thought might be reached by dark. In
+this he was right, for as the sun, like a strangely weird
+greenish ball, touched the horizon our prow, leading the
+<i>Orchid</i> by half a mile, entered the protecting waters of
+Big Cove.</p>
+
+<p>Just at this moment Bilkins dashed up from the cabin,
+looking scared and yelling:</p>
+
+<p>"He won't stay quiet, sirs; I can't make him!"</p>
+
+<p>We would have thought a delirium had seized the
+big black had not he then appeared from the same
+doorway, regarding us with an air of rationality. I
+have never seen a smile more broad, or more expressive
+of relief. It simply radiated happiness, and Tommy,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[145]</a></span>
+staring at him, began to hum a song that had cheered
+us many a time in the trenches.</p>
+
+<p>"By Jingo, Tommy," I cried, "we'll name him
+that!"</p>
+
+<p>And thus he was christened Smiles&mdash;which, however,
+through some fatuous process of fabrication so soon
+grew to Smilax, that as Smilax he shall henceforth be
+known.</p>
+
+<p>The frown of displeasure that had gathered on Monsieur's
+brow fled as the fellow spoke. For he did speak,
+telling in his own style that the concussion had been a
+mere bagatelle, that his faculties had returned quite
+unimpaired after their brief absence, and that he was
+hungry but ready to serve us. What he did actually say
+to express this&mdash;to which the professor would have devoted
+five whole minutes of scientific phrasing&mdash;was:</p>
+
+<p>"Me well."</p>
+
+<p>Monsieur sprang forward and imperiously commanded
+him to sit facing the western glow. He then
+proceeded to squint closely into the patient fellow's
+eyes, he felt of his head, his pulse, and looked at his
+tongue. At last he stood back, pondering with an air
+of deep solemnity.</p>
+
+<p>"It is true," he sighed. "The man is well."</p>
+
+<p>"You look like we ought to put the flag at half-mast,"
+I said. "What's the objection to a little
+snicker?"</p>
+
+<p>"I do not understand," he murmured, ignoring this
+flippancy, "how he got well so soon."</p>
+
+<p>"Of all the funereal old bugs!" Tommy began to
+laugh at him. "If you ever doctored me, gezabo, and I
+happened to recover, darned if I wouldn't turn around
+and die out of pity for you! Come here, Smilax, I
+want to ask some questions!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[146]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The result of Tommy's probing showed that late the
+previous afternoon, while this negro was fishing sponges,
+the <i>Orchid</i> deliberately ran him down. She would not
+have stopped, but luckily he grasped the bowsprit stays
+and climbed aboard of her. Here he was met and roundly
+cursed by angry men who were, for a while, at least,
+in favor of throwing him back. He had seen the <i>Whim</i>
+following. No, he had not seen a lady. Yes, he had
+heard strange music that, with our shooting at them,
+decided him to swim off to us during the night.</p>
+
+<p>To Tommy's further questioning we learned that he
+knew nothing of the Ten Thousand Islands except
+through hearsay. As to his wound the recital was
+brief: he had been put to work wrapping up many
+things in old sails; two men came into the galley and
+stood by while he finished the last bundle, then one of
+them who wore a cap like&mdash;he pointed to Gates&mdash;stepped
+behind him, something crashed upon his head, and that
+was all.</p>
+
+<p>Tommy drew in his breath with a sharp hiss, saying:</p>
+
+<p>"That's a cold blooded bunch!"</p>
+
+<p>"They're on those islands, sir," Gates cried. "I just
+feel it!"</p>
+
+<p>The mate and his half of the crew had come aboard
+after making the <i>Orchid</i> snug for whatever weather the
+increasing sultriness portended, while Tommy took
+Smilax forward to coach him in the manipulation of an
+automatic revolver&mdash;for this modern arm puzzled the
+big negro who was, however, nicely skilled in the use
+of older models.</p>
+
+<p>That something brewed in the way of a storm did
+not require a barometer or the eye of a seaman to determine,
+so I insisted upon speeding up preparations
+for the landing force. This met the approval of all,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[147]</a></span>
+since the skipper thought it likely that we could be put
+ashore and the <i>Whim</i> get well on her way back to Big
+Cove before the disturbance came.</p>
+
+<p>While we ate a hasty supper, therefore, Bilkins saw
+that the things we should want were stored in the small
+boat: food, ammunition, canvas for a lean-to, matches,
+utensils of sundry kinds&mdash;in fact, the necessaries. He
+had attended to my camping outfits before, and possessed
+a genius for knowing what to include. Only when
+this was under way, and the mate had thrice assured
+Gates of his ability to navigate the <i>Whim</i> on her ticklish
+course down the coast, did the old captain feel satisfied
+to join us at table.</p>
+
+<p>He brought with him a large chart that he pinned
+to the wall and, nodding to it as he tucked a napkin
+under his chin, said:</p>
+
+<p>"You should take that, sir. It shows scarce more'n
+the shore line, but the shore's where you'll be, and not
+far inland. Here's Little Cove," he touched the spot
+with his fork. "In harf an hour we'll lay outside it,
+not being able to get in, and there we'll anchor to put
+you off. Who'll you be taking with you, sir?"</p>
+
+<p>"Tommy and I thought we'd make a sort of reconnoissance
+first, and Bilkins says he wants to go as cook,"
+I answered. "In a day or two, weather permitting,
+we'll sail the small boat up to Big Cove for a council of
+war."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, sir," he said, shaking his head, "just go slow,
+that's all I arsk. Don't start anything. There's no use
+two young fellows kicking up a racket without their
+friends, that's what I say. So just poke around, but
+keep out of sight; learn all you want, but don't start
+anything. If you carn't learn it all, be satisfied with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[148]</a></span>
+harf; then the rest of us will take that and make a whole
+of it in no time. Am I right, Professor?"</p>
+
+<p>"You are right, <i>mon Capitaine</i>, if they will mind you.
+But will they? A chance comes for to&mdash;what my boy
+Tommy calls plug&mdash;that old sinner, and so they will
+jump to a fight. Fight! Bah! How many fools give
+a life for one who cannot give a reason!"</p>
+
+<p>"There's reason enough here," Tommy laughed.
+"But we'll promise to be careful, if that satisfies you."</p>
+
+<p>When at last we dropped anchor half a mile outside
+the entrance of Little Cove our deck became active. I
+went off first with the supplies to choose a spot where
+they should be stored, although in such a black night
+this might have been left haphazard to the men. But
+one never believes, on occasions so momentous as pitching
+camp, that others know a jot about it but oneself&mdash;to
+this there are practically no exceptions.</p>
+
+<p>While being rowed shoreward I noticed that the wind
+had quite died down, leaving a suffocation in the air
+that is difficult to explain; but I've felt something like
+it on a sultry summer day when the sky is black with
+slowly advancing clouds, when the birds have become
+too awed to chirp and every leaf in the trees hangs motionless.
+It is in these suspenses of unpleasant expectation,
+when at any moment the heavens will open
+with a hissing smash of fire and nature be turned to
+fury, that one breathes heavily. There is no other
+feeling like it, except the drag of torturing minutes
+before being called to make a speech, or to be whistled
+over the top into No Man's Land.</p>
+
+<p>Our prow grated on the sand and in silence we began
+to unload. Back from the sloping beach grew a fringe
+of small machineel trees and palms; the beach and they,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[149]</a></span>
+as well as I could judge, forming a kind of amphitheater
+to the water.</p>
+
+<p>My men wanted to raise the canvas into a make-shift
+tent before returning for the second load, but I thought
+better of this and had them leave it as it was, wrapped
+about our guns and stowed with the other things beneath
+the palms. Until daylight showed how well our
+position might be screened from the islands, it were a
+short sighted business to stretch a tell-tale piece of
+white duck that could be seen for miles.</p>
+
+<p>Already there were eerie whisperings of some disturbance
+in the sky. From the black forest far behind
+us could be detected faint restless noises, as if a myriad
+agitated spirits were scurrying hither and thither whipping
+their wings against the branches. Something more
+than an ordinary man's size blow was coming out of the
+southeast, so I tumbled the crew into their boat, charging
+them to pull right heartily and bring back Tommy, at
+least, before too late.</p>
+
+<p>They must have got close to the <i>Whim</i> when a force,
+as sudden as it was at the moment unexpected, almost
+lifted me off my feet. Indeed, had I not possessed
+the presence of mind to fall flat upon the beach I should
+have gone kittering. In half a second the heavens were
+cluttered not only with screaming and tumbling winds
+but branches of large trees driven along as straws. I
+dug my toes and fingers into the sand, flattening out
+for dear life. Close upon the head of this hurricane
+came the deluge of rain, cloudburst after cloudburst.
+Then lightning was unchained, veritable shocks of fire,
+and no thunder out of hell could have been more appalling.</p>
+
+<p>For perhaps a minute I had not been given a chance
+to think of the small boat, or the <i>Whim</i>, but struggling<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[150]</a></span>
+to raise my head I stared through the inky space eagerly
+awaiting the next flash. It came almost at once, bringing
+into image the Cove as if a million green calcium
+lights were focused there. This was but for an instant,
+yet such is the peculiar effect of lightning that in the
+following blackness each detail of the scene remained
+photographed upon my retin&aelig;. I saw the turbulent
+waters apparently sweeping, as a mill race, out to sea;
+I saw a lone palm, that had formerly stood in dignified
+solitude upon a nearby point of land, now bent in the
+wildest agony, its leafy top resembling an umbrella
+turned inside out. I saw the <i>Whim</i>, greenish white in
+a greenish foam, heeled over till her masts were all but
+on the waves and her mainsail, half torn from its
+boom, snapping in the wind. In this fashion she was
+being driven at breakneck speed across the Gulf. I
+thought&mdash;I tried to think&mdash;that I had seen a small boat
+being dragged behind. Surely my men had reached
+her!</p>
+
+<p>But another flash, and still another, brought no
+greater assurance of this. Each showed the yacht
+farther away, more blurred by rain, until the distance
+became too great for me to make her out at all.</p>
+
+<p>And then another sky-splitting flame photographed a
+sight that made my blood congeal. I got but an instantaneous
+glimpse of it from the corner of my eye
+before the world became wrapped again in darkness&mdash;but
+something had been there, some huge, horrible
+monster was rising out of the water and waddling
+toward me. I had seen two long dripping arms, or
+feelers, extending in my direction. Crouched, with my
+nerves on fire, I waited. The rifles and revolvers were
+wrapped in the canvas and could not be reached in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[151]</a></span>
+time; there was nothing to do but wait till this thing
+touched me.</p>
+
+<p>It seemed an age before the heavens split again, and
+then I gave a yell wilder than the lashing rain, a yell
+of joy; for, staggering up the beach was Smilax, true to
+his name with a grin so broad that the greenish glare
+flickered on his teeth.</p>
+
+<p>His sense of direction was either extremely acute or
+he possessed the eyes of a cat, for in the following darkness
+I felt a hand grasp my shoulder and push me toward
+the trees. Obediently I yielded. Then above the storm
+I heard him tearing leaves from the smaller palms until,
+by overlapping them against some bushes so they
+would be held by the wind, he constructed a lean-to&mdash;in
+the circumstances a most creditable achievement&mdash;beneath
+which I crawled.</p>
+
+<p>The rain drumming upon this shelter made conversation
+an effort, but in half an hour the storm had all but
+blown itself to pieces and then I let fly a string of
+questions&mdash;the first being of our small boat.</p>
+
+<p>He told me, in his taciturn way, that her crew had
+made safe just in time. As they scrambled aboard the
+hurricane struck. The mate, knowing with laudatory
+foresight that the masts were in danger of destruction,
+had rushed forward and chopped the anchor cable.
+Even that had not saved the mainsail from being torn
+away.</p>
+
+<p>As to the fate of our yacht neither he nor I felt much
+concern. I knew her to be a staunch craft, handled by
+able seamen, and felt that she would come out on top
+even if upon the coast of Mexico. Then, with a simplicity
+that deeply touched me, he added that as she
+was about to be blown off for an absence of, perhaps,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[152]</a></span>
+some days, and he realized that I would be in need of
+help, he dived overboard.</p>
+
+<p>"But," I cried, remembering the anger of that seething
+water, "you took your life in your hands!"</p>
+
+<p>"Me swim all over," came his quiet reply; but
+whether he meant all over the world, or all over as
+might apply to his personal self, was left in doubt.</p>
+
+<p>Anyway, I do not believe there is another man living
+who could have breasted that hurricane-lashed sea for
+such a distance. I could judge something of what it cost
+him by the way he had gasped for breath&mdash;and since
+then I have seen him finish a fifteen-mile run, breathing
+little faster than normally. This gives an idea of his
+task that night, and the risk he took&mdash;and the indifference
+with which he took it; yet about his stupendous
+strength I can not write, but only marvel.</p>
+
+<p>Wet clothes are not conducive to sleep, but I was thoroughly
+tired, healthily drowsy. There were more questions
+to be asked, plans to be discussed, but my gods
+descended; and, lo, when I looked again the sun was
+shining in all its glory.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIII" id="CHAPTER_XIII"></a>CHAPTER XIII</h2>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[153]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2>ON TO DEATH RIVER!</h2>
+
+
+<p>Some day I shall write an ode, not to sleep but to the
+pleasure of awaking when the sleep has been deep and
+dreamless, when the day is ushered in by smiling skies,
+a laughing earth, and a forest of joyous songsters. More
+especially beautiful is the face of nature after a storm-swept
+night, for then, indeed, the blinking dawn itself
+reflects the gratitude of mundane things for their deliverance.
+In the forest one hears a water-drip&mdash;aftermath
+of rains; a gentle, almost noiseless fall of crystal drop
+on crystal drop tapping the loamy soil, and imagination
+sings in whatsoever key the soul is tuned.</p>
+
+<p>But with what reaches of farther imaginings do we
+greet the day, and how variously! Our eyes do not
+require a visual picture of the lone wild turkey on his
+cypress roost to know that he is ruffling his feathers,
+craning his neck inquisitively downward in all directions,
+before chancing to descend to earth and breakfast;
+nor need we see the panther skulking from his lair to
+know that he has stopped to lick his paw and pass it
+over his face&mdash;the feline morning ablution. Each
+creature has a particular mode of resurrection after its
+hours of mimic death; and so I, on a bed of whatsoever
+it may be, yawn hideously and stretch my arms and
+grumble: O, Lord, how I hate to get up! Indeed, how
+variously do we greet the day!</p>
+
+<p>Smilax had opened our duffle and hung out several<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[154]</a></span>
+things to air. But the provisions, ammunition, matches
+and&mdash;glory be!&mdash;my tobacco, had been packed in tins
+and were dry. I could not say as much for the clothes
+I wore, and quickly stripped them off to hang before the
+fire he was building.</p>
+
+<p>As these and the coffee pot were steaming I walked
+to the beach and followed it to a westernmost point,
+being curious to see if from there we could get a glimpse
+of the islands, and also if our camp were securely hidden
+from anyone passing the entrance of the Cove. Most of
+all, of course, did I want to search the horizon, and for
+several minutes stood beneath the solitary palm that
+had resumed its majesty. So white was the sand, sloping
+from a violet-tinted fringe of sea-grape stalks to the
+lapping waves, so green and sparkling, yet so drowsy,
+was the Gulf, that I could not realize, were my present
+nudeness less constantly a reminder, that since the setting
+sun these peaceful things had been lashed with a
+devil's fury. No sail showed anywhere; only the palm
+and I seemed to be alone in this balmy wilderness. But
+my faith in Gates whispered that the <i>Whim</i> was safe.
+Looking back, I realized also that our camp lay well
+concealed; to the south the islands were cut off by an
+opposite strip of land; eastward and northward
+stretched primeval forests, swamps and prairies for half
+a hundred miles. I seemed to be the only human animal
+upon the earth.</p>
+
+<p>A hungry osprey circling in the sky dropped as a
+plummet, struck the water and, after a momentary
+struggle, arose with his fish, ingeniously holding it head-foremost
+to facilitate flight. From another point now
+came a scream, well known to me, and I turned to see
+an eagle approaching with tremendous speed. Here
+before my eyes was to be committed "an overt act of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[155]</a></span>
+piracy" that has for untold centuries caused a strained
+relationship between these birds. By feints at darting,
+but with no real intention to harm, he drove the osprey
+upward&mdash;for in aerial combats amongst the feathered
+tribes advantage lies in the higher altitude, and the
+hawk excitedly strove for this while the eagle coolly
+permitted it. In such a manner the fight was carried
+skyward until the combatants looked small. Then it
+entered its second, and last, phase.</p>
+
+<p>Quite master of the situation the eagle now rose to
+the upper plane and began his attack from above, whereupon
+to save itself the hawk released its fish and took to
+flight&mdash;which was, of course, exactly what the eagle
+wished. Here was his opportunity for the spectacular.
+Diving straight downward&mdash;first, however, increasing
+his speed with two swift strokes of his powerful wings
+which then became set in a half curve&mdash;he overtook the
+falling breakfast in mid air, seized it, swung gracefully
+outward and disappeared over the forest.</p>
+
+<p>Shame, thought I, that our National Bird, secure from
+discovery at Washington, should be practising this thoroughly
+un-American might-makes-right business! Yet
+through my being came a sympathetic whisper. I had
+never felt it while in contact with other people, but here
+I was stripped as a savage&mdash;alone with the woods and
+the ocean. If the Florida peninsula had been formed
+when my ancestors went naked, one of them might have
+loitered near this very spot, and I smiled as I wondered
+if he, too, had been planning to carry off some female
+from her watchful tribe!</p>
+
+<p>It was good to be in the wilderness, good to be savage,
+good to be unclothed beneath God's high heaven and
+know that by my muscle and my cunning I was king.
+No ordinary king who went about with a jeweled crown<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[156]</a></span>
+upon his head could ever feel this exuberance of being,
+and in pure delight I plunged into the water.</p>
+
+<p>Out, out and out I swam, joyously diving for handsfull
+of shells that I held aloft as a pagan offering to the
+gods. I put in bursts of speed, then rested on my back
+upon the cradling waves, watching the streaks of feathery
+clouds that stretched across the sky&mdash;streamers, flying
+far behind the tempest. And then, with tingling
+blood, I would flip my body and swim down, down for
+more shells. I was King of the great out-of-doors; a
+reincarnated primordial monster, holding high carnival
+with the elements!</p>
+
+<p>Smilax, having come in search of me and seeing my
+head far from shore, followed at once. It was then,
+as he approached, that I received my first disillusionment
+of being king by the right of muscle, because he
+sped through the water as an oiled torpedo, putting to
+shame my skill that had been somewhat thought of in
+the Athletic Club tank at home. Almost immediately
+followed my second jolt, as he glanced over his shoulder,
+saying:</p>
+
+<p>"Lookout, maybe whole lot shark!"</p>
+
+<p>King or no king, I went shoreward like a scared cat.
+Anyone could have had my crown then for the mere
+trouble of picking it up. Curiously, there flashed into
+my mind a game I used to play as a youngster: What-Would-You-Rather-Be-Eaten-Up-By!
+We boys would
+pompously answer lions, puffing ourselves out bravely
+and pretending we didn't care, but I remembered one
+little girl who aroused our contemptuous laughter by
+answering "goldfish." And now, after all these years,
+for the first time I found myself marveling at her
+sagacity. Indeed, she was off and on in my thoughts
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[157]</a></span>until I had clothed myself in dry garments and partaken
+of a grown man's breakfast; after which I
+dropped into a state of retrospective contentment, divided
+between the annoyances that beset kings, Azurian
+princesses, and the culinary skill of Smilax.</p>
+
+<p>That ebony giant of strength was not aware of my
+mission here, nor, indeed, of anything that had passed
+aboard the <i>Whim</i>, so when he had cleaned the dishes I
+lit my pipe and called to him. It seemed but fair that
+he should know the dangers of our expedition before
+joining it. His perception was quicker than his speech,
+and more than once he anticipated my narrative with
+some word suitable to its climax.</p>
+
+<p>"We get lady," he said, at last.</p>
+
+<p>"After a while," I corrected. "Just now we're to
+see where she is, how she's guarded, and how many
+guards there are. But we're not to start anything till
+the others get back. You don't happen to know this
+country, I suppose?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not right here; but two day walk there," he pointed
+a little east of north, "yes, good. Mother live with
+Seminole one time, over there."</p>
+
+<p>"I thought you were from Jamaica," I said; for, indeed,
+we had got that impression.</p>
+
+<p>"No, me nigger raised by Seminoles. Been to Jamaica
+on ship, heap time."</p>
+
+<p>"Then you speak Seminole?"</p>
+
+<p>"Some," he answered, modestly.</p>
+
+<p>I should have recognized in his way of talking, which
+was neither Jamaica nor American negro, the Seminole
+influence. Now this further light upon his past accounted
+for the many ways he had shown himself a
+woodsman; things that had astonished and pleased me,
+since I had not looked for them in a seafaring man who
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[158]</a></span>later became a fisher of sponges. It brought me a feeling
+of greater assurance for the task ahead of us, because
+Smilax, with an Indian training added to his stupendous
+strength, would be scout, warrior, pack-horse,
+all in one; really, an invaluable asset.</p>
+
+<p>The chart that should have come in the second boat&mdash;with
+Tommy, alas, and Bilkins&mdash;was missing, but I remembered
+pretty well the lay of the land and knew that
+the island area began only a short distance south of our
+Cove. This I discussed with Smilax, who added light by
+his general knowledge&mdash;hearsay, for the most part. Yet
+when I suggested leaving our things cached where they
+were while we made a reconnoissance, he strenuously
+objected.</p>
+
+<p>"Lady maybe fifteen, twenty, mile 'way," he said.
+"We take camp 'long."</p>
+
+<p>"That's very well if you take it," I laughed, "but
+I've no idea of lugging that stuff half over Florida.
+Why not carry the things we need?"</p>
+
+<p>"Maybe need all," he answered, then smiled: "Camp
+light."</p>
+
+<p>At this he arose with a subtle power that reminded
+me of a huge black leopard and began making our things
+into a pack. Never had I seen, anywhere from Newfoundland
+to the Rockies, a bundle of duffle more skillfully
+arranged, and I said with no small degree of
+admiration:</p>
+
+<p>"I'd take off my hat to you, Smilax, if the storm
+hadn't blown it away!"</p>
+
+<p>He grinned, feeling the praise if not understanding
+its medium; then asked:</p>
+
+<p>"We go now?"</p>
+
+<p>"Let's wait half an hour to see if the <i>Whim</i> comes in
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[159]</a></span>sight," I told him. "There's a lot to talk over, anyway,
+before we start. For one thing, if we get separated
+how shall we find each other?"</p>
+
+<p>"If you lose me, you hunt good place to wait, and
+wait. Me find you."</p>
+
+<p>For some time we discussed other details. Finally I
+asked:</p>
+
+<p>"How far down in those islands do you think they
+are?"</p>
+
+<p>He was sitting with his knees drawn up, his arms
+crossed upon them, and now let his forehead, too, rest
+there in meditation.</p>
+
+<p>"One place," he slowly answered, "no white hunter
+ever get. Injuns know it, but 'fraid to go 'cause evil
+spirit live there&mdash;near mouth of river Seminole call
+Il-lit; in white man tongue, mean Death. Me think
+maybe find 'em there."</p>
+
+<p>"Death river's a good place for that old scoundrel to
+hang out," I agreed. "How far?"</p>
+
+<p>"Maybe fifteen mile, maybe ten, maybe twenty; no
+can say. We see."</p>
+
+<p>"By the way, Smilax, how do you say 'damn old
+scoundrel' in Seminole?"</p>
+
+<p>He raised his head and appreciatively grinned, answering:</p>
+
+<p>"Hal-wak esta-had-kee, mean 'bad white man.'"</p>
+
+<p>"That's neither bad nor short enough. What else?"</p>
+
+<p>"Host-cope-e-taw, mean thief."</p>
+
+<p>"Good but too long. I want something I can remember;
+to christen him, understand? What's your
+shortest word?"</p>
+
+<p>"Shee."</p>
+
+<p>"That's more like it. What's 'shee' mean?"</p>
+
+<p>"Feathers."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[160]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"But, hell, Smilax," I burst out laughing, "there'd
+be no sense in calling him feathers!"</p>
+
+<p>"Efaw," he said again, "mean dog; kotee, toad; chesshe,
+rat. Maybe him dog-toad-rat!"</p>
+
+<p>"That only begins to be him," I declared, with the
+same glorious contempt for pronouns. "In the prospective
+waters of Death river I christen him Efaw Kotee,
+the dog-toad!"&mdash;But in my heart I offered an apology
+to the canine family, many of whose sons and
+daughters have been among my most loyal friends.</p>
+
+<p>"We go; maybe find him," the black giant grinned
+again, bending backward to get his shoulders beneath
+the ropes and then straightening up as though two, and
+not two hundred, pounds of weight came with him.</p>
+
+<p>I walked quickly out to the point and took one more
+look, a searching, lingering look across the green water.
+Nowhere was the <i>Whim</i>, nowhere even a speck of sail
+or any other craft. Except for a pelican of sober mien,
+rising and falling with the waves, the Gulf seemed
+barren of any life. But something told me that the
+yacht was safe.</p>
+
+<p>A scrub jay, in a near-by thicket of mangroves,
+mocked my solitude with a raucous note; yet it gave
+me heart, for I saw in it the call of the land and knew
+that thoughts of the <i>Whim</i> must be put aside. So I
+went back to Smilax, and together we strode through
+the fringe of palms into a shadowy jungle; our faces
+set toward a mysterious place, unknown to us, where
+Death river meets the sea.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIV" id="CHAPTER_XIV"></a>CHAPTER XIV</h2>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[161]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2>SMILAX BRINGS NEWS</h2>
+
+
+<p>Intuitively I dropped behind and walked at the
+heels of Smilax who, as if he were treading a well-defined
+trail instead of unknown jungle land, moved
+with a free stride that challenged my endurance. Clinging
+vines pulled at my clothes as things alive, causing
+both noise and annoyance. Silence was a virtue on
+our present expedition.</p>
+
+<p>After an hour of this we came to a cypress swamp,
+and for several miles waded through water ankle-deep
+although on a bottom of firm sand. Hardly any undergrowth
+was here, but in all directions stood gray, dismal
+cypress trees, coarsely buttressed at the water's edge
+and tapering to slender tips. Draped in long streamers
+of Spanish moss which were delicately swayed by an
+almost imperceptible current of air, this was a ghoulish
+place&mdash;suggesting a rookery for shrouded spirits
+which perched along the bonelike branches awaiting
+their resurrection. Here, too, upon some convenient
+root of these gray ancients&mdash;perhaps the longest lived
+of our southern trees&mdash;lay coiled the dozing moccasin.
+And from this grim place we merged once more into
+the jungle where my clothes again became the prey of
+clawing things.</p>
+
+<p>But Smilax, never faltering, moved with the ease of
+a shadow. At last, by watching him I, too, came to
+learn his secret and was charmed to find that it made<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[162]</a></span>
+my pace both quiet and swift. Indeed, I took great
+care to practice this silent trail walking&mdash;a knack that
+can be acquired only by the closest observation; for a
+hundred books could not teach a hundredth part as
+much as a ten-mile hike at the heels of a trained woodsman
+when he is trying to go noiselessly. Finally he
+turned and looked at me, saying:</p>
+
+<p>"You do good now."</p>
+
+<p>Noon brought us to a higher country whose beauty
+could not be surpassed. Dark and cool it was, even
+dismal without bringing depression. The mid-day suns
+of a hundred years must have been tempered to the
+aisles of this wild cathedral by venerable specimens of
+mahogany and black olive trees; and, where the
+branches of these did not touch, rose the slenderer red
+ironwood. The mahoganies, alone, stood as a proof
+that we were entering a region which had escaped the
+eyes of white man for&mdash;how long? It was even seventy
+years ago that bands of wood pirates, known as
+"the mahogany cutters," invaded southern Florida
+from the Bahamas and ruthlessly pillaged this desirable
+wood for foreign markets; so here, at least, was a spot
+that had remained undiscovered, where perhaps a white
+foot had never trod.</p>
+
+<p>Charmed as I was, a greater enchantment awaited,
+when the next few steps brought me to a pool; a pool of
+crystal transparency, though dark for reflecting the
+black bowl of earth in which it lay. Without a ripple
+it nestled close against the roots of a golden-fig tree&mdash;an
+unfruitful parasitic giant of squat stature and tremendous
+girth; while, pendant from one gnarled out-reaching
+branch, and almost touching the mirror-like
+surface into which it looked, hung a solitary streamer
+of Spanish moss.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[163]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>One might have fancied that this pure water slept in
+the tranquillity of being forever blessed by a gaunt old
+friar, the gray sleeve of whose cowl hung from an arm
+perpetually outstretched in silent benediction. Around
+the bank, and leaning their purple flowers above the
+more purple depths, grew a fringe of wild iris; while
+sprinkled at random farther out were a few blooms of
+"bonnet"&mdash;the yellow water-lily of southern ponds.
+And then, in a darker nook, erect and motionless upon
+one leg, a pink flamingo stood. I caught my breath in
+amazement at the beauty of this place!</p>
+
+<p>To me it possessed a soul; and the soul, arms, that
+were amorously held out, inviting, pleading. This was
+the spot, and not by the green waves, to strip my mind
+of culture, to tear a club from nature's forest and do
+battle for existence! Here, in the very birthplace of
+silence where I could smell the loam of untouched wilderness,
+would be the haunt of my re-created, or pre-created,
+self. Throughout the days I would hunt&mdash;and
+slay; in the nights I would sleep among the branches.
+But there would come dawns and sunsets when in some
+corner of this wild temple I would raise a pagan altar,
+light a tiny wish-wood flame, and conjure the forest's
+soul of many arms to reach across the earth, bringing
+me a living, breathing Psyche with iris-colored eyes to
+gaze into the limpid pool!</p>
+
+<p>In the contemplation of such an Eden I had forgotten
+Smilax, who now shattered my illusion by swinging
+down the pack and saying, as he turned to me:</p>
+
+<p>"We eat."</p>
+
+<p>O, mundane worm, that he could think of food while
+my spirit was communing with our common ancestor!
+However, without much reluctance, I arrived at his
+point of view when, filling my pipe, I stretched out to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[164]</a></span>
+watch his savory preparations. And now to my surprise,
+but increasing admiration for his woodcraft, he
+raised a hand as I was about to strike the match.</p>
+
+<p>"Wait," he said. "Wind wrong; maybe some one
+smell; me go see."</p>
+
+<p>"Never mind," I protested, wanting to spare him
+additional work after the amount he had already accomplished.
+"I don't care about smoking."</p>
+
+<p>"Cook fire smell," he said, rather pityingly that I
+should have overlooked this obvious fact. "Me go see;
+get good wood." Then, grinning broadly, he added:
+"Maybe Efaw Kotee somewhere."</p>
+
+<p>I knew that if he went for wood he must mean buttonwood,
+because there was no end of other kinds about;
+but buttonwood is the only fuel in Florida&mdash;dry mangrove
+being a close second&mdash;that, burning slowly like
+charcoal, is both very hot and smokeless, and he was
+evidently taking no chances. I knew, too, that he would
+have to go far toward the coast for it, since only on
+tidewater shores may it be found; and with a pleasant
+feeling of excitement I wondered if he would also bring
+back news of&mdash;her; some sign, a thin line of smoke
+above the trees! It was not the excitement of battle,
+or a skirmish; no, it was the approaching reality of a
+dream that had gripped me with soft fingers since the
+moment I entered this forest. Since my eyes had rested
+on that pool, my heart had called afresh for her. The
+arms of the place were about me.</p>
+
+<p>Softly I arose and went back to it. The pink flamingo
+was there, but as I approached, nearer this time,
+he gave signs of uneasiness and at last clumsily took
+wing for some other sanctuary where his solitude might
+be untroubled by strange beings.</p>
+
+<p>Standing on the flowery bank, I looked deep into the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[165]</a></span>
+water. No fish, nor life of any kind, disturbed its sweet
+serenity. So like her soul, I thought, was the soul of
+this! Yet could her soul be undisturbed? Was it not,
+indeed, turbulent with apprehensions? Did it&mdash;I asked
+the question eagerly&mdash;did it sometimes hope that I
+would come? And something in the water answered
+yes. So I picked a blossom of the iris&mdash;that had taken
+its color from her eyes&mdash;and put it carefully away.
+By the spirit of her glance, by the unspoken message
+of this place, I swore&mdash;oh, why put down here all I
+swore? Men have stood beside solemn pools before,
+and women, too. Those who commune in the woods
+think more sublimely than they speak, so I can not
+speak now, in written words, my immeasurable longing.</p>
+
+<p>Soon Smilax, grinning broadly, emerged from the
+shadows.</p>
+
+<p>"All right," he said. "You smoke; me cook."</p>
+
+<p>"Did you see anything? How far did you go?" I
+asked, and he answered in the curious way he had of
+dealing with one question at a time.</p>
+
+<p>"No see signs of Efaw Kotee. Long way."</p>
+
+<p>While the combined aroma of bacon and coffee was
+for the moment throwing its cloak of materialism about
+the romance of my forest, I asked again:</p>
+
+<p>"Why are we heading so far inland, when they must
+be somewhere along the coast?"</p>
+
+<p>"Best go this way. All right; you smoke."</p>
+
+<p>I was smoking, but that seemed to be his way of telling
+me to put my mind at rest. Yet I persisted with
+another question:</p>
+
+<p>"How do you know we haven't passed them already?"</p>
+
+<p>"Me know," he grinned. "All right; you smoke."</p>
+
+<p>He was a funny cuss, but I let it go at that.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[166]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Biscuits, bacon and coffee might properly be called
+the Woodsmen's Ambrosia, but it is not a feast over
+which man is inclined to loiter, and Smilax was soon
+re-wrapping the pack.</p>
+
+<p>Up to this time I had walked practically empty
+handed, yet now I conscientiously rebelled, insisting
+that a share of the load must rest upon my shoulders.
+But here he showed himself as obdurate as a mule until,
+arbitrarily, I strapped on our second automatic, took
+out our second rifle, and filled my pockets with extra
+cartridges. He raised no objection to this; he even
+approved it. We were getting down into the Death
+river country and ready fire-arms made agreeable companions.
+Furthermore, at his direction I tied the rather
+goodly supply of buttonwood into a bundle and swung
+it to my back.</p>
+
+<p>Toward evening we saw on our left evidences of open
+country and bore in that direction, for when one has
+walked many hours in the shadows of interlocking
+branches it is as natural to be drawn toward a spot of
+sunlight as it would be to approach an open window
+after having been confined in a dismal room. So we
+bore in that direction and came to the edge of a vast
+prairie stretching before us as a sea of lifeless grass.</p>
+
+<p>Except for a gray line on its horizon, marking, I
+afterward learned, the boundary of the Great Cypress
+Swamp, there was but a single break on this expansive
+waste. That was a rich growth of trees about two
+miles out, to the southeast of us; an oasis, it would have
+been called in the Sahara, but in the Florida prairies
+known as an "island." Whether this term of "island"
+finds origin in the similarity of these verdant places to
+real islands, seeming as they do to float upon an inland
+sea of grass, or whether because, being of higher ground,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[167]</a></span>
+they actually become islands during rainy seasons when
+much of the prairie land is inundated, the native
+"cracker" is unable to explain. At any rate, fanned
+by the prairie breeze, they afford agreeable shelter
+where, in perfect seclusion, one may look out upon the
+surrounding country for great distances.</p>
+
+<p>"We camp there," Smilax nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"A good place," I affirmed.</p>
+
+<p>"You stay hide," he said again. "Me find out if
+nobody 'round to see us go."</p>
+
+<p>"Why can't I look with you?" I asked, wanting to
+study more of his methods, but he squelched me by
+answering:</p>
+
+<p>"You look whole lot; no see anything."</p>
+
+<p>I would have given him a good piece of my mind had
+he not suddenly disappeared; returning soon with his
+usual smile and saying:</p>
+
+<p>"Come."</p>
+
+<p>Single file, as before, we pushed into the breast-high
+grass, and the walking was easy. Once we crossed a
+patch of oozy turf from which arose a score of jack-snipe;
+again we skirted a drying pond whose boggy
+edges were the hunting ground of marsh hens. Yet
+other trails could be read here: deer, wildcat, raccoon,
+and innumerable wee things. And here, too, around
+the "bonnet" leaves, the silent moccasin lay coiled, so it
+was well to step with caution in a place like this.</p>
+
+<p>A wound by the cotton-mouth moccasin, if treated
+properly, may not result in death. Like other viperine
+bites, however, it so affects the surrounding flesh that
+blood poisoning may follow days after the first crisis has
+been passed. Yet, even with this two-fold menace lurking
+in its fangs, it is not the most feared of Florida
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[168]</a></span>snakes. Pre&euml;minent in that capacity stands the diamond-back
+rattler, largest of the world's venomous species
+and second to none in point of deadliness. Smilax
+insisted&mdash;on I do not know what authority&mdash;that more
+dangerous than either of these is the beautiful little
+coral snake, <i>elaps fulvius</i>, whose victim becomes ravingly
+insane and invariably dies. That he possessed
+some uncanny knowledge of the creature must be admitted
+because of its close relationship to the Cobra-de-Capello,
+of Asiatic fame, whose poison, we know,
+flies directly to the nerve centers and almost entirely
+ignores the tissue. Four days later I had good reason
+to remember this.</p>
+
+<p>"Are there many snakes hereabouts?" I asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Winter, not much; summer, heap."</p>
+
+<p>However, at that very moment he held his hand back
+to stop me, then beckoned me forward.</p>
+
+<p>"Look!" He was pointing tensely ahead of us, moving
+his arm leftward and indicating a circle of perhaps
+thirty feet in diameter.</p>
+
+<p>Whatever it was, I could see the tops of the grass
+shake as their stems were slightly jostled by this unknown
+creature's progress, which continued with incredible
+speed and was circling back toward us. Then,
+with a slightly swishing sound as its body glided through
+the dry grass, that friend of Florida woodsmen&mdash;the
+king snake&mdash;passed before our feet like a brownish-green
+streak.</p>
+
+<p>"Rattler! You watch!" Smilax whispered. His
+eyes were wide with interest, for it is not permitted
+many men to see a duel between these mortal enemies.</p>
+
+<p>Somewhere directly ahead of us a diamond-back rattlesnake
+must have awaited the attack he sensed, though
+we could not yet see him. Time after time the king
+snake swept by in front of us, decreasing the circles<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[169]</a></span>
+and, I thought, increasing his speed. After each revolution
+we stepped in a little nearer, being careful not
+to interfere with his course nor distract his attention
+from the serious business at hand.</p>
+
+<p>Soon the viper became visible. His flat head, elevated
+a few inches above his heavy coil, turned anxiously
+with the sounds in the grass. He knew what
+was coming, I think, but did not rattle until the king
+had reduced the circles about him to a diameter of six
+or seven feet. Then he became electrified. The rattles
+sounded viciously, and his head began an ominous swaying
+motion, out and in, as he searched for a vital spot
+at which to strike.</p>
+
+<p>The king, although keeping just outside the danger
+line, was also watching for an opportunity. He may
+have realized his immunity to poisons, yet did not care
+unnecessarily to suffer the laceration of fangs. Rather
+did he choose to rely upon the further protective gifts
+that nature had given him: length and strength, speed
+and agility, and a skin that blended elusively with
+the ground colors; therefore, revolving in these smaller
+circles, he seemed to make almost a continuous line,
+without beginning or end, and the rattler was at a loss
+to act. Now, profiting by a moment when the venomous
+eyes were turned away, he darted in and caught the
+viper close up behind its head. Wrapping himself about
+the squirming body he ruthlessly straightened out. We
+heard the vertebrae being torn until his victim lay
+crushed and stretched into a helpless mass.</p>
+
+<p>For several minutes the sleek avenger remained perfectly
+quiet. Then, uncoiling warily but not releasing
+the hold with his teeth, he worked his body aside. Last
+of all he dropped the head and drew suspiciously back
+as if alert for a sign of life. Of course, there was none,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[170]</a></span>
+and soon he glided into the grass, not seeming to have
+noticed us at all.</p>
+
+<p>"Whew!" I said, taking a deep breath. "I wish we
+had king snakes around us all the time!"</p>
+
+<p>"Heap good friend," Smilax grinned, stooping to cut
+off the rattles that were large and perfect.</p>
+
+<p>"I thought you said there weren't any snakes out in
+winter!"</p>
+
+<p>"Not much; maybe no see any for long time."</p>
+
+<p>He told me now as we proceeded across the prairie
+that the Seminole Reservation lay about fifty miles
+north of us, and I wondered what our chances would
+be of getting a squad of "braves," should the <i>Whim</i>
+not show up and we found ourselves on the eve of a
+fight against rather big odds. It was worth keeping in
+mind.</p>
+
+<p>The "island," when we reached it, was by far the
+largest I had ever seen, and proved to be an ideal place
+to camp. High pines and stately palms grew here in
+great profusion, while there also might be found a
+sprinkling of hardwoods; and yet in some parts there
+was enough sunlight to permit the growth of really
+luxurious grass, as trim as if it had been cut by the
+hand of man. Smilax, pointing to a number of tracks
+I had not observed, said the deer kept it short by grazing.
+One's first impression here was of a well-kept park,
+intersected by green avenues that stretched beneath the
+best specimens of trees which a landscape architect had
+carefully planned to leave standing. But there were
+wilder portions; perhaps three acres of heavy jungle.
+About midway, festooned with vines, was the pool I
+had hoped to find, of quite good size and cool. It, like
+the other that had entranced me, nourished a few stalks<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[171]</a></span>
+of iris, but there was no "bonnet" or other place on its
+closely cropped bank for the wily moccasin.</p>
+
+<p>"My private bath," I declared, feeling at this sundown
+hour the call strong within me.</p>
+
+<p>Smilax had remained behind. His reconnoissance as
+we entered the prairie must be completed by another
+as we emerged from it; and I had left him standing
+behind the trees looking back across our trail, searching
+for any distant movement. At last he came up, saying:</p>
+
+<p>"All right; you smoke."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't want to smoke," I laughed. "I want to
+get in that pool, if we can find another supply of drinking
+water."</p>
+
+<p>"No need um," he grinned. "Big spring come up
+there," he pointed toward the farther end. "Me know
+island now; been here one time."</p>
+
+<p>I afterwards saw that he referred to one of those
+unique springs, occasionally to be found in Florida&mdash;a
+transparent water of bluish tinge, bubbling up through
+the bottom of its deep, self-made reservoir; keeping the
+sand in a subdued state of agitation, and bringing pleasure
+to the eye of man.</p>
+
+<p>By the spirit of Pan, my pool felt good after the long
+day's hike!</p>
+
+<p>The wind had changed with the waning afternoon and
+now blew gently from the southwest, promising a period
+of fair weather. It gave us, also, the advantage of
+greater freedom in noises; for, when living in the wild,
+one comes to realize how potent a carrier, or muffler,
+of noises is the wind. A fire at night, or smoke by
+day, may be tempered with human ingenuity, but nature
+bandies the sound waves with her breath.</p>
+
+<p>I dined in the elegance of simplicity, and Smilax extinguished
+our small fire of buttonwood. Leaning my<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[172]</a></span>
+back against a stalwart pine, I watched the shadows
+stealing through our avenue of trees. Somewhere above
+my head a whistling owl, one of those lovable little
+feathered cavaliers that showers his mate with unstinted
+adulation, fluttered and courted. Later the mournful
+call of a whooping crane floated across the prairie.</p>
+
+<p>I heard these things in a lazy, contented way, but my
+thoughts were on another island&mdash;a real island surrounded
+by water, where waves lapped the beach and
+two eyes, that had given color to the iris, watched for
+deliverance. Then with a jerk I sat up. Smilax had
+turned his head to listen, and in his attitude dwelt a note
+of agitation.</p>
+
+<p>"What is it?" I whispered; for surely I had heard
+a sound that did not belong to these creatures living in
+the forest about us.</p>
+
+<p>He raised his hand to caution silence. Then came
+the sound again, slowly: one&mdash;two&mdash;three&mdash;four&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Axe," he said, his eyes shining as beads and his
+finger pointing into the southwest from where the breeze
+was coming. "You wait; me go see."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll go, too," I announced.</p>
+
+<p>"No; maybe make too much noise. Smilax go."</p>
+
+<p>"Who d'you suppose it is that close to us?" I excitedly
+asked. "Not them, surely?"</p>
+
+<p>He looked at me with grave eyes and answered:</p>
+
+<p>"No can say; maybe hunters find way in here. You
+smoke; me go see."</p>
+
+<p>Yet his sudden gravity left little doubt in my mind
+of what, at least, he suspected; for he well knew that
+hunters did not find their way into this unsurveyed
+wilderness! Then, too, there was something in the stillness
+of the night that seemed to portend great things.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[173]</a></span>
+The leaves transmitted their restlessness to my yawning
+nerves, as iron dust springs to a magnet.</p>
+
+<p>Intending to wave good luck as he melted into the
+darkness, without being observed I walked silently behind
+him to the prairie's edge; but there he stopped,
+opened his arms, raised his face to the sky, standing
+motionless. And a great peace came over me, for I saw
+that, in the simple way of the old-time Seminoles who
+invariably turned to their Great Spirit on the eve of
+hopes or fears or dangers, Smilax was praying.</p>
+
+<p>Religion is the poetry of the savages' existence. Alas,
+that we are civilized! He does not spend his nights
+poring over The Laws and The Prophets, and his days
+peppering a neighbor across the head with a new-born
+creed. No, he puts an abiding faith in some Great
+Spirit, be it the sun, the moon, the stars; or fashioned
+of stone, or clay, or wood. But his soul looks into the
+Infinite as his physical sight, less far reaching, feasts
+upon the Symbol. And what does he lose? He loses
+the privilege of bickering with evangelists; he loses the
+acid frequently to be found in church organization&mdash;the
+feeling of pity or contempt of one denomination for
+another, each of which stands upon the Holy Rock
+searching for motes and waving a princely disregard to
+beams. And, because he remains benighted and in
+darkness, he also loses doubt; wherefore, as a trusting
+child, he touches the hand of God.</p>
+
+<p>I had long since finished my second pipe when Smilax
+returned. He came out of the darkness as he had gone
+into it, with the stealth of a panther, and was close to
+me before I knew it. But a striking change had taken
+place in him. His breathing was fast, though not from
+exertion, and pointing back he hurriedly whispered:</p>
+
+<p>"Efaw Kotee there! Lady, too! Me see!"</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XV" id="CHAPTER_XV"></a>CHAPTER XV</h2>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[174]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2>EFAW KOTEE'S DEN</h2>
+
+
+<p>Sylvia there! I bounded up as though some one had
+sent a galvanic current through my body, exclaiming:</p>
+
+<p>"Good Lord! How far, Smilax? Come quick, let's
+go!"</p>
+
+<p>He answered each of my exclamations in sequence, a
+peculiarity he had:</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Lord good. Two mile, maybe some more.
+Plenty time, we go back soon."</p>
+
+<p>"But we couldn't have heard that axe two miles," I
+said incredulously.</p>
+
+<p>"Still night, when wind on prairie right; yes, sometime."</p>
+
+<p>"How are they camped? How many are there?
+Come, man, don't keep me waiting!"</p>
+
+<p>He drew himself up to full height and, with one arm
+pointing toward the southwest, spoke deliberately as if
+realizing his importance, seeming to choose his words&mdash;seeming,
+rather, to grope for them.</p>
+
+<p>"Over there forest is little strip thick, maybe half
+mile; then come water&mdash;Gulf. Me know um is Gulf;
+taste and find um salt. Close by shore big island, close
+by um little island. More island all 'round. Too dark
+to see much, but Efaw Kotee live on big island. Many
+cabin. On little island Lady live. One cabin. She
+come to door and me get good look, for light in cabin.
+Old woman live with her; Injun squaw; me know by
+way she walk. Before day we go hide in good place on<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[175]</a></span>
+shore. Watch all day and see. Must watch all day, or
+they see us if we leave 'fore dark. Now you smoke;
+then we go 'sleep l'il while."</p>
+
+<p>Sleep! How could I sleep while she was within three
+miles of me, surrounded by ten or a dozen devils the
+combined virtues of whom would not fill a gnat's eye!
+Of course, she had lived in this situation for years, but I
+had not heard of it until very recently, and that makes a
+world of difference.</p>
+
+<p>But after we got back to camp and I had stretched
+out on my blanket to let the telescope of my fancies
+pierce the realm of hopes, sleep did come. I would not
+have believed it, but it did; for soon I realized that
+some one was shaking my arm, while a voice said over
+and over:</p>
+
+<p>"Time we go; time we go!"</p>
+
+<p>It was yet night when I opened my eyes, but Smilax
+had lit a small buttonwood fire and breakfast was waiting.
+While I stumbled to the pool to drive the cobwebs
+from my brain he took the canteens and filled them at
+the spring; for, in the all-day strain ahead of us&mdash;and
+few things are more trying than to lie concealed and
+watch from the gray of dawn till the black of night&mdash;we
+should need a liberal supply of water.</p>
+
+<p>"Shall we take rifles?" I asked, when everything was
+ready and each of us had our snack of food.</p>
+
+<p>"No," he answered. "Too hard to crawl like snake.
+They no see us to-day. We take l'il crack-crack."</p>
+
+<p>"Little crack-crack" meant an automatic revolver,
+greatly admired by Smilax and, since Tommy's coaching,
+handled by him with no mean skill. So I swung
+one of these to the small of my back, into position when
+we should begin crawling, and handed him the other;
+whereupon, without further ado, we traversed the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[176]</a></span>
+"island" and melted into the prairie. Forty minutes
+later Smilax moving slowly and cautiously ahead, entered
+the narrow strip of forest. Another ten minutes,
+and we got to our hands and knees. In this way we
+proceeded perhaps a hundred yards when, putting his
+lips close to my ear, he whispered:</p>
+
+<p>"We hide here; come still like snake."</p>
+
+<p>I put out my hand and felt the ragged edge of saw-palmetto,
+then slipped in behind him, moving scarcely
+more than a yard a minute. Heaven help us, I thought,
+if we had to lie on that torturous stuff for fifteen hours!
+But Smilax was equal to every occasion. When we
+reached the far side of the patch, leaving only a fringe
+of leaves to shield us from those we came to watch, he
+worked a while with his hands, then whispered: "Now
+lay down." Lo, the uncomfortable roots had been
+pressed in other directions and the soft sand received
+my body. He remained, however, long enough on his
+knees to make sure that none of the fronds had been
+twisted out of line, else uncompromising daylight might
+show our enemy that all here was not right.</p>
+
+<p>The night remained very still and impenetrably black,
+though I think that Smilax could see a little with his
+extraordinary catlike sight. Then came a first sleepy
+bird note. The day, at last, was on the wing!</p>
+
+<p>When from obscurity the saw-tooth stems took shape
+before my eyes and the distance receded farther, I saw
+that we were near the edge of a steep bank. Perhaps
+twelve feet below us lay the water, as a mirror on which
+some one has breathed. A mist hung over it&mdash;and in
+that gossamer shroud a little island floated whereon my
+Sylvia dwelt&mdash;where now she slept.</p>
+
+<p>A minute later the forest awoke with bird life; dawn
+came rapidly. Islands took shape, trees stepped out<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[177]</a></span>
+from their obscurity and small details drew into focus.
+First I sought her home and could hardly take my eyes
+from it. Low and rambling, it stood two hundred feet
+away, nestled in a most inviting shade of splendid trees.
+Flowers and climbing vines were everywhere, touched
+with the rich coloring of poinsettia and bougainvillea&mdash;although
+this very approach of day began to close the
+fragrant moon-flowers and spelled death to the night-blooming
+cereus. The walls of her bungalow seemed to
+be tinted red, varying to purple, which gave a strange
+yet most pleasing effect in the setting of blossoms. Not
+till later did I learn that this was the rare Cat's Claw
+wood, nowhere to be found but in southern Florida.</p>
+
+<p>On the larger island, not over a hundred feet from
+us, were perhaps ten buildings of about the same size
+and plan, and presumably sleeping quarters. But in
+their midst stood a structure of some pretensions that
+we afterwards knew to be a dining hall. Quite off in
+the background were two small bungalows whose air
+denoted quality, but the roof of one had been fitted with
+a skylight which gave me the impression that here Efaw
+Kotee worked his trade at counterfeiting. Still beyond
+this was a tower rising above the low trees, perhaps
+intended for a lighthouse, although there had been no
+light burning when we came. But these were at best
+surmises that arranged themselves in my mind while
+noting everything in sight and awaiting a further sign
+of life.</p>
+
+<p>Soon a hinge squeaked. A man stepped from one of
+the smaller huts, looked at the sky, yawned and
+stretched. A second appeared from another hut, walked
+away and came back with an armful of wood that he
+took into the dining hall. As they passed there was
+scarcely a nod of greeting. A surly pair, I thought.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[178]</a></span>
+After this smoke issued from the chimney, and other
+men, one by one from other huts, came dribbling out
+into the day, until altogether we had counted seven.
+The six now before us, after make-shift splashes in the
+basins beside their doors, went as the chap with the
+wood had gone; and shortly we heard sounds of knives
+and forks rattling on china.</p>
+
+<p>It was at this moment that a thin line of smoke arose
+from the chimney of Sylvia's bungalow. Longingly I
+watched it; tingling to my finger tips I blessed it. A
+side door opened, but it was an Indian woman who
+emerged with two pails and walked back of the house&mdash;doubtless
+to a tank of rain water, because she returned
+with them full and went in, taking care to close the
+door softly. The deference of her manner, the affection
+with which she apparently guarded her mistress' sleep,
+strongly appealed to me, and I knew that the Indian
+woman would be my friend.</p>
+
+<p>The next move came again from the dining hall when
+a swarthy fellow emerged wiping his mouth upon his
+sleeve. His hair was long and black, reaching below
+his shoulders. With a rifle nested in the hollow of his
+arm he disappeared toward the tower, and Smilax whispered:</p>
+
+<p>"Him Injun."</p>
+
+<p>Now to our surprise some one appeared to be looking
+down from the tower, and a few minutes later the Indian
+was seen above the mangroves climbing up to him.
+There must have been strips spiked crosswise to one of
+the uprights, making a kind of ladder.</p>
+
+<p>"So that's a watch tower," I said cautiously. "And
+he makes eight."</p>
+
+<p>Smilax nodded.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[179]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The fellows talked a while, then the one who had been
+relieved came down, going for his breakfast.</p>
+
+<p>"What do you think of it?" I whispered.</p>
+
+<p>"No see him before," Smilax looked grave. "Maybe
+one up in tree 'round here."</p>
+
+<p>"Gee, you think so?" It was not a comforting suggestion.</p>
+
+<p>"No, maybe not," he answered, after a moment of
+thought. "They no look for us by land; all by water.
+We all right. Look! Efaw Kotee have breakfast!"</p>
+
+<p>Two men left the dining hall, each bearing a tray of
+food, and we watched until they entered the rather exclusive
+house next to the work shop. This without doubt
+was the old scoundrel's headquarters, but why did he
+have two trays? Could by any chance Sylvia be kept
+beneath the same roof with him? Had Smilax been
+mistaken? The weight of my automatic felt good just
+then.</p>
+
+<p>When they came out, empty handed, one turned toward
+the watch tower but the other went for still a
+third tray. This, which he carried with an air of deference,
+was covered by a white cloth. He came to the
+boats across from us and got into a punt, balancing his
+tray across the bow while he paddled, standing, toward
+the little island. Now I became more than ever tense,
+and perhaps I moved, for Smilax pressed my arm in
+caution.</p>
+
+<p>As the punt touched at the landing platform below
+Sylvia's house the fellow did not get out, but gave the
+call of an ibis&mdash;a weird, beautifully mystic call that is
+rarely heard and almost impossible to imitate. Smilax
+appreciated this, for he grunted: "Good."</p>
+
+<p>The door opened and the Indian woman looked out.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[180]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Hey, there, Echochee," he said. "I got a present
+from the boss."</p>
+
+<p>She slammed the door, and I do not know when in my
+life I was ever so charmed by this simple act.</p>
+
+<p>"Then you go to hell," he drawled. "But I tell yer
+this: the boss said if no one come down to git it, for me
+to leave it in yer parler."</p>
+
+<p>While Echochee had slammed the door she was evidently
+listening; for now she came out again, a picture
+of fury, crying:</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you put foot here!"</p>
+
+<p>"Then come an' git it," he carelessly replied.</p>
+
+<p>She hesitated.</p>
+
+<p>"Lay um down, then go back. Me get um."</p>
+
+<p>"Naw, old hatchet-face. Jest come on down an' git it
+yer own se'f, or I'll bring it up."</p>
+
+<p>"My Lady no let any one come here," she warned.
+"You go back quick!"</p>
+
+<p>"That's all right 'bout yer Lady, but the boss says
+fer me to hand this right in myse'f, an' what the boss
+says&mdash;goes! Yer git that, don't yer? So come on
+down an' git this, an' that'll make two things yer git,"
+he laughed boisterously, adding: "It's a weddin' present,
+an' if yer don't git a move on maybe the boss'll
+come his own se'f!"</p>
+
+<p>I could see from the woman's face that she was in a
+towering rage, but she went&mdash;lithely as a girl, for all her
+years&mdash;to the landing.</p>
+
+<p>"That's what I call sense, old hatchet-face," he
+sneered, stepping gingerly over the seat&mdash;for a punt is
+a tippy thing&mdash;and holding the tray out to her.</p>
+
+<p>With a snarl she jerked it from his hands, raised it
+quickly and brought it down on his head. Of course,
+the cloth and everything beneath it went scattering to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[181]</a></span>
+the winds, while he tumbled backward into the water.
+Not content, she picked up several of the various fruits
+the tray had held and began to pepper him with such
+good aim that he hastily and profanely splashed back
+to the other shore. Then the tray, its cover, and the
+spilled fruits not already used in the form of ammunition,
+were contemptuously tossed in his direction. After
+this she tied the punt as though nothing had happened,
+went back into the house and closed the door. Smilax
+was shaking with silent delight.</p>
+
+<p>"Bully," I whispered.</p>
+
+<p>"Good," he said. "Look&mdash;water not much deep.
+We 'member that." Though at the time I did not see
+how this held any advantage for us, being distinctly of
+less protection for Sylvia.</p>
+
+<p>The man dragged himself up the oozy bank, cursing
+roundly, and started post-haste for Efaw Kotee's bungalow.
+We could hear the water sloshing in his shoes,
+and knew that he was quite as uncomfortable in mind
+as in body. He did not go upon the porch, but stood
+below, hat in hand, calling. Then I saw the old chief&mdash;the
+same man who had paid his supper check with a new
+fifty-dollar bill. Smilax squeezed my arm, saying:</p>
+
+<p>"Him boss on yacht."</p>
+
+<p>I felt well satisfied at this identification, which was
+the first definite assurance that the owner of the <i>Orchid</i>
+and my neighbor in the caf&eacute; were one and the same.
+He came out scowling, listened unmoved to the fellow's
+recital and turned back without a word, while the aggrieved
+one walked sulkily to his quarters.</p>
+
+<p>But soon Efaw Kotee reappeared, this time with another
+man, and Smilax became excited.</p>
+
+<p>"Look," he whispered. "Him name Jess. Him bust
+Smilax head!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[182]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>It was the fellow who had drawn back when Tommy
+and Monsieur went to the gambling rooms, but now
+without his uniform he seemed coarser and more cruel.</p>
+
+<p>"That makes ten, all told," I whispered.</p>
+
+<p>"Whole lot," was the black's only comment.</p>
+
+<p>They came slowly, talking in low tones. At the water's
+edge across from us they halted and Jess, pointing
+to the punt, said something whereupon the older man's
+face turned dark with anger.</p>
+
+<p>"Echochee!" he called.</p>
+
+<p>No answer; the door of Sylvia's dwelling remained
+closed.</p>
+
+<p>"Echochee," he called again, and his voice grated
+hatefully on my nerves, "bring that punt over here!"</p>
+
+<p>Then the door did open, I thought reluctantly, and
+the Indian woman came out.</p>
+
+<p>"What you want?" she asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Say: 'What you want, <i>Master</i>!'" he yelled at her.</p>
+
+<p>"Why I say that?" she asked, a dull fire of hatred
+kindling in her eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Because it's so," he thundered, stamping the ground
+in fury while his palsied head shook more noticeably.</p>
+
+<p>"You lie," she replied. "You no master of my Lady
+or me, any more. We go to Great Spirit any time
+now."</p>
+
+<p>A chill ran over me. What, in God's name, did she
+mean? Was Sylvia dying? Again Smilax touched my
+arm to caution prudence.</p>
+
+<p>Efaw Kotee was, I think, trying to control himself,
+yet his long arms and veiny hands were swinging, pendulum-like,
+to and fro across his body. It was an uncanny
+indication of anger, suggesting rather a beast
+than a human being. The captain was standing silent,
+with his arms folded.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[183]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Echochee," said the chief, "bring us that punt.
+We must see your Lady."</p>
+
+<p>"My Lady see no one."</p>
+
+<p>"I want that punt," he bellowed at her.</p>
+
+<p>"You got plenty punt; me go in house," she replied
+stoically.</p>
+
+<p>There were, indeed, three or four punts tied to the
+shore near by.</p>
+
+<p>"Hold on, there," he commanded, "or it'll go bad for
+you! I want that punt, there, understand?"</p>
+
+<p>"Then get that punt there," she said indifferently.</p>
+
+<p>"You damned old hag," he screamed, now quite beside
+himself, "one of your rotten tribe's in that lookout
+tower, d'you understand? If you don't bring that punt
+across I'll have him crucified before your eyes! Hear
+me, hag?"</p>
+
+<p>"All right," she said quietly. "Him no 'count; do
+him good."</p>
+
+<p>She turned back to pass through the door, but was
+stopped by some one coming out. Sylvia! Never more
+beautiful than now! Echochee put up both arms to
+stop her and I noticed&mdash;for in tense moments one's
+eyes retain some of the most insignificant details&mdash;how
+incongruously her brown old bony fingers sank into
+the dainty folds of her lady's morning gown. But Sylvia
+would not be stopped. She placed a hand on the
+woman's shoulder and spoke a few hurried words, then
+raised her head and looked imperiously at the men,
+saying:</p>
+
+<p>"You shan't hurt any one because Echochee obeys
+me. Is the punt all you want?"</p>
+
+<p>Jess moved uneasily, but there was no trace of embarrassment
+in the bearing of Efaw Kotee.</p>
+
+<p>"No, it's not! We want to cross to you!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[184]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"No one comes on this island," she said.</p>
+
+<p>"I've had enough of your nonsense," the old fellow
+cried. "I believe yet you steered that bunch of pups
+after us, in spite of hell I believe it; but, whether you
+did or didn't, I've had enough of bowing and scraping
+like a nigger, and begging to be allowed to go over there!
+Enough, I tell you!"</p>
+
+<p>"Then don't try any more," she indifferently replied,
+turning to go in; but he checked her with another threat&mdash;and
+by the way she flinched I knew that he meant it.</p>
+
+<p>"If you go in that door till I'm through," he bellowed,
+"that crucifying comes off in ten minutes&mdash;right
+on this spot where you can hear the beggar squeal!"</p>
+
+<p>She stopped and looked at him, and I realized that
+we had come in the nick of time for some great crisis
+which was enveloping her.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, see here," he continued, in a calmer voice,
+"you've kept this up since yesterday morning, and it's
+unreasonable. Why don't you let us come over and
+have a talk? I've been a good father to you! You've
+had everything you want&mdash;and just bought six trunks
+full of clothes in Havana last week! Why do you keep
+us&mdash;keep me&mdash;away?"</p>
+
+<p>While absorbedly listening, I was struck by the oddity
+of a girl in this wilderness buying six trunks full
+of clothes; but it then occurred to me that Efaw Kotee
+would encourage extravagant buying of all things, when
+the <i>Orchid</i> visited a city, in order that he might get
+bona fide change for his spurious bills. At least there
+was good reason for her gown to be modern, smart, and
+becoming, as Havana's best Americanized shops are
+quite continental.</p>
+
+<p>"I keep you away," she answered icily, "because<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[185]</a></span>
+you're planning to marry me to an unprincipled scoundrel."</p>
+
+<p>"A what?" Jess yelled.</p>
+
+<p>"Shut up!" the old one snapped at him.</p>
+
+<p>"An unprincipled scoundrel," she answered evenly,
+"who's as loathsome as an ape. And I shan't be married
+to that kind of thing, or any one else. You've had
+my warning. If you, or he, or any of your beastly men
+come to this island, you'll get only my dead body. And
+Echochee, dear soul, is going with me. What's more, if
+you start any tortures, we'll die before witnessing
+them."</p>
+
+<p>"Then, by God," he screamed, "you and your
+damned hag'll begin to starve from this day! With no
+more provisions sent over we'll see who obeys me!
+And in three more days if you don't come to your senses
+I'll crucify an offering to your dead body&mdash;head down
+on the spot I stand!" He had been raving, but now
+his tone quickly changed to one of whining entreaty,
+as he added: "I hope you understand how it pains
+your dear old father to threaten you, my child!"</p>
+
+<p>It was so maudlin an exhibition that I wondered if
+he were sane.</p>
+
+<p>"Dear old father," she repeated, giving a short laugh
+of contempt.</p>
+
+<p>I did not know how much of this was real and how
+much acting on her part, although it did seem genuine
+enough when she could not be looking for relief. Yet,
+as she stood there calmly mistress of herself while Efaw
+Kotee writhed beneath her scorn, I was reminded of an
+angler who had hooked an ungainly fish&mdash;she with intellect
+at one end, he at the other representing brute
+strength, fear, cunning; both connected by a barely
+visible thread that in this case was not a line, but Fate.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[186]</a></span>
+For another moment she let him writhe, then turned and
+went in.</p>
+
+<p>Jess laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"Shut up, you clown," the old chief turned on him.</p>
+
+<p>"Clown yourself," the captain snarled. "I'll have
+you know I won't take any of your lip!"</p>
+
+<p>"Then I back out of our bargain, that's all!"</p>
+
+<p>"If you say that again I'll twist off your palsied head
+with these two hands," Jess held them under Efaw
+Kotee's nose and wriggled his fingers, until the old man
+shrank back, cowering. "The men'll follow me when
+I tell 'em you play double, an' you know it! You
+swine, I'm sick of this place! I'm going to take my
+share of the stuff, an' the girl, an' clear out! It's been
+fifteen years since we raised these cabins&mdash;more'n that!
+An' what have we got? Plenty of the slickest money
+ever printed&mdash;an' the other stuff, too&mdash;an' you afraid
+to take a chance. Three times I've stopped a mutiny
+for you, an' you'd be dead an' buried if I hadn't. Then
+came this last when things went wrong. You say the
+girl peached, but 'tween you an' me I say you tried to
+turn State's evidence&mdash;don't deny anything," he held
+up his hand when the other would have interrupted.
+"That's passed now. But I've agreed to forget it, to
+keep the mutinies stopped for keeps&mdash;by marrying the
+girl. You agreed, too. Now you talk of backing out.
+Is killing too good for you?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't want to, Jess; I don't, honest," Efaw Kotee
+said, with a whine. "But you see yourself how she is!
+If we rush the place, day or night, she'll kill herself.
+Tell me what to do, and I'll do it!"</p>
+
+<p>"You've done about all you can for a while," Jess
+grumbled, adding: "If she don't run away."</p>
+
+<p>"Where'd she run to?" the other sneered.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[187]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Well, some kind friend might show her!"</p>
+
+<p>"You're crazy," the chief contemptuously exclaimed.</p>
+
+<p>"Crazy or not, you just see that she doesn't. Then,
+if starving three days doesn't bring her, maybe crucifying
+<i>you</i> head down might do the trick."</p>
+
+<p>"Wha&mdash;what d'you mean?" The old fellow sprang
+around and stared at him, seeming to have grown hollow
+and gray.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, nothing," Jess grinned. "Just a little idea I
+had&mdash;worth keeping in mind, though. It might be
+healthy for you to see she can't run off, that's all."</p>
+
+<p>Efaw Kotee looked at the captain suspiciously, and
+said:</p>
+
+<p>"I'll guarantee she doesn't run off&mdash;and your other
+little ideas aren't pleasant. Let's go back and have a
+drink."</p>
+
+<p>When they had entered the bungalow a silence fell
+over the settlement. I did not see a man anywhere.
+But I drew a long breath of relief because Sylvia was
+for a little while safe, even while I raged at the realization
+of her danger. My body was cramped, and cautiously
+I stretched my legs. Smilax had not moved.</p>
+
+<p>"It looks like we got here just in time," I whispered.
+"But what shall we do?"</p>
+
+<p>He relaxed then, and slowly answered:</p>
+
+<p>"Me think 'while. Echochee good old woman; always
+kind to l'il black boy."</p>
+
+<p>"You know her?" I could hardly have hoped for
+that stroke of luck.</p>
+
+<p>"Me know all Seminole; not many left. 'Echochee'
+mean what white man say 'li'l deer.' She old woman
+when me l'il black boy in Reservation. Me think 'while;
+you, too."</p>
+
+<p>Schemes of every wild kind, daring and impossible<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[188]</a></span>
+plans of rescue, raced through my brain; seeming reasonable
+enough at the time, but Smilax quickly found
+the flaws in each until I had exhausted my supply.
+Finally he spoke, and I knew that he spoke with judgment.</p>
+
+<p>"To-night," he said, "we watch and see if they put
+out guard. Maybe they do, after what Jess said 'bout
+Lady run off. When dark come, me swim to l'il island
+and give owl call&mdash;two times, then stop soft in middle.
+Long 'go in Injun village that mean: 'panther, come
+quick, gun,' Echochee will hear and 'member. Good.
+Then we talk and fix all up. First we see if Efaw Kotee
+put out guard."</p>
+
+<p>This was so different, so tame, to the brilliant, suicidal
+dashes into the thick of rescue and glory&mdash;and
+doubtless destruction&mdash;as my plans ran, that I almost
+felt ashamed. Smilax could neither read nor write; his
+vocabulary might have been held in the hollow of one's
+hand, but in many respects he was the sanest creature I
+ever met.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you suppose Echochee will trust us to get them
+away?" I whispered.</p>
+
+<p>"If Lady say come, she come," he answered.</p>
+
+<p>This set me thinking, and I decided to write a note
+that Smilax could deliver. Sylvia might then feel assured
+that she was not being abducted by a negro whom
+Echochee had known only in childhood. But, on second
+thought, I wondered if she would risk escape with an
+unknown white man; if she would not rather face the
+supreme issue, once and for all, than perhaps be forced
+into it later by an over-zealous stranger! In her distracted
+state of mind I feared she would find the rescue
+too precarious&mdash;too easily offering the same danger that
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[189]</a></span>beset her now, and lacking her present weapon of defense.
+Yet if she refused to come&mdash;what then? I could
+always rush the camp, if but to die with her. Having
+gone over these possibilities, I whispered to Smilax:</p>
+
+<p>"She'll come easier if she doesn't know I'm here.
+Echochee will remember you, and reassure her. You
+might tell Echochee that you were hunting this way
+and saw her beat the chap over the head with the tray.
+Understand? After that you saw the rest and realized
+how much trouble she was in. How about it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Good," he grunted. "That good. To-night me
+tell Echochee get ready, and to-morrow night we run
+'way&mdash;maybe to Reservation. But we come by camp
+and find you; then all work 'round to yacht. Good."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," I demurred, "that isn't the way I meant,
+for I intend to stay here and help. Some of those devils
+might get busy!"</p>
+
+<p>"That good, too. Now we eat; then you go sleep."</p>
+
+<p>While tackling our rations we discussed the plan again
+and again. I did not want to leave Sylvia another
+night within the grasp of those fiends, but Smilax insisted;
+explaining that she was practically safe for
+three days, at any rate. Of course, each twenty-four
+hours would make her and Echochee weaker from starvation
+and, as they would need strength, we dared not
+wait too long. Immediate help from the <i>Whim</i> was all
+but a forlorn hope. The rescue had come suddenly up
+to us, and it must be met without a thought of failure.</p>
+
+<p>But as the tiresome afternoon wore on without further
+incidents to keep us aroused, my fancies drifted
+from rescues to the rescued; and after a while I whispered:</p>
+
+<p>"I'll take that nap now,"&mdash;scarcely hearing him reply:</p>
+
+<p>"Good."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVI" id="CHAPTER_XVI"></a>CHAPTER XVI</h2>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[190]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2>THE CAVE MAN SETS FORTH</h2>
+
+
+<p>Close to my ear I heard a warning: "Sh!"&mdash;at the
+same time feeling a hand squeeze my arm. It was dusk.
+While I slept the shadows had lengthened and blended
+into those soft gray tones of twilight that give mystery
+to forests of the South. Cautiously I raised my head
+and, following the tense stare of Smilax, saw the cause
+of his agitation.</p>
+
+<p>Three men were standing on the larger island, at the
+spot where Efaw Kotee and Jess had stood, and one held
+a piece of coiled rope tied to a grappling hook. They
+were whispering and chuckling. Then he with the iron
+hook began to swing it back and forth, finally letting
+it fly across the water into the punt, whereupon they
+chuckled again. Now they began to haul in the line at
+a lively rate, doubtless fearing that Echochee, aroused
+by the noise, would rush out and frustrate them. But
+the house remained quiet, even dark; and, since the
+boat's painter was of slim material, there could be only
+one result when they gave a hard pull&mdash;the punt was
+theirs.</p>
+
+<p>This procedure disturbed Smilax, no less myself.
+There was deviltry afoot, yet hardly a plan for capturing
+the girl as other punts were available. But the
+next moment we breathed easier, for the men broke into
+a boisterous laugh, and one called:</p>
+
+<p>"Ole hatchet-face, yo're done out-punted this time!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[191]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Another, bending over and slapping his thigh in
+mirthful ecstasy, guffawed:</p>
+
+<p>"Bill says she's done out-<i>punted</i>," whereupon they
+again laughed, and a third called:</p>
+
+<p>"This here busts yo' chance of makin' a git-away to-night,
+yer ole she-devil! The chief's on to yer, he is!"</p>
+
+<p>"They expect an escape," I whispered.</p>
+
+<p>Smilax nodded. His face was grave.</p>
+
+<p>Then came a most exasperating moment, when I
+hugged the ground so close that my body felt no
+thicker than a playing card. The men, each picking
+up a rifle, stepped into the punt and paddled to our
+side. Two of them climbed the bank, one going about
+a hundred yards to our left, and the other, passing
+within ten feet of us, went the opposite way. We could
+not follow him with our eyes but knew, by counting his
+steps, that he stopped at about an equal distance. Then
+the punt glided back and disappeared behind the little
+island. Guards! Sentinels! We were trapped, as
+well as those whom we had come to save!</p>
+
+<p>The firm fingers of Smilax had never left my arm, a
+continuous caution for silence that I minded well. Ten
+minutes passed, and the trees had all but lost their
+shapes. In another ten minutes the night wholly enveloped
+us, and then the black man moved so that his lips
+were at my ear, while he barely whispered:</p>
+
+<p>"Me go; noise in camp will help. You wait still like
+dead; me come back soon."</p>
+
+<p>I did not attempt to answer, for there was nothing to
+say. Flanked by the two sentinels, I was pretty sure
+to wait, and wait like dead, too. He began to move
+then, yet he did not seem to move. But as I watched&mdash;more
+with my senses than my eyes&mdash;I knew that he had
+worked his head and shoulders out of our shelter, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[192]</a></span>
+was edging himself along at the rate of perhaps a foot
+a minute. Soon I realized that he had entirely gone;
+that, free of the saw-palmetto&mdash;a most difficult stuff in
+which to move silently&mdash;he was topping the bank. I
+could imagine how he glided now, alligator fashion,
+head downward to the water; and I could almost feel
+the moment he slid noiselessly into it. I waited for the
+owl call&mdash;"two times, then stop soft in middle."</p>
+
+<p>And now an electric torch flashed where the sentry
+on my right was posted, and I froze, wondering if it
+were directed at Smilax. But no challenge came. In a
+very short interval it flashed again, and the fellow
+called in military style:</p>
+
+<p>"Post one, seven o'clock, and all's well!"</p>
+
+<p>The voice at my left took it up:</p>
+
+<p>"Post two, seven o'clock, and all's well!"</p>
+
+<p>From somewhere beyond Sylvia's island the third
+guard called post three, and silence followed. I was
+glad to find that they called their posts. It told us
+that there were only three, and gave a very fair idea
+of their positions. Of course, we could not hope, with
+this military precaution, to have one of them fall asleep
+at a convenient moment. Especially would this not
+happen with a newly placed guard&mdash;and these fellows
+were on watch to-night for the first time, else we would
+have seen them, or they us, when we came that morning.
+Smilax, also, would have discovered them the
+night before. Sylvia and Echochee, therefore, had just
+come under suspicion of intending to escape&mdash;and we
+were in the nick of time, although I felt staggered by
+the job ahead of us.</p>
+
+<p>After another wait the fellow at post one again flashed
+his torch&mdash;on his watch, no doubt, because from time to
+time there were other flashes and, after the last of these,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[193]</a></span>
+he called half-past seven. That was good for us, too&mdash;the
+half hours! Eight o'clock came, then half after,
+then nine. The lights in the camp had been extinguished.
+A real owl hooted mournfully somewhere
+back in the forest. I was waiting for post one to be
+called again when a voice, not twelve inches from my
+face, whispered:</p>
+
+<p>"All right; come; slow like me. When you think
+you can no go more slow, then go two times as slow."</p>
+
+<p>Had it not been for that last piece of advice I might
+have made a mess of things, but by moving at first
+scarcely more than an inch a minute, by distributing my
+feeling sense to every part of my body, detecting the
+slightest pull at my clothing, the merest contact with
+any little twig that might traitorously snap&mdash;in fact, by
+almost wishing myself along&mdash;I came at last free of the
+palmettoes and lay beside him. From there our progress
+was easier, and shortly we got to our hands and
+knees.</p>
+
+<p>After following in this manner for two hundred yards
+Smilax stopped and sat down.</p>
+
+<p>"You do good," he said. "Wait; me go back."</p>
+
+<p>"What for?" I asked, in surprise. "Tell me what
+Echochee said?"</p>
+
+<p>"After 'while," he answered. "Me go fix pine
+needles where we crawl out; then take look at all's-well-men.
+You wait."</p>
+
+<p>I should never have thought about obliterating our
+trail in the pine needles, yet now saw that it was a
+very necessary thing to do, for men can not crawl on
+their stomachs without mussing the ground if it is at
+all soft. In the morning those fellows would see our
+tracks leading from the palmetto patch and, to a certainty,
+be waiting for us when we returned.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[194]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>He was back sooner than I expected, and we took a
+good swinging pace to camp. Not till he had made a
+mere handful of fire and warmed over some coffee (gods
+of good things, how delicious it was!) and I had lighted
+my pipe (O, goddess Nicotine, what a pipe!) would he
+speak. Then suddenly he said:</p>
+
+<p>"We no lay out to-morrow."</p>
+
+<p>"Why?" I asked, quickly alarmed that Sylvia had
+refused to come.</p>
+
+<p>"No use. When men on guard call, we find 'em
+easy. No much palmetto; we slip up good."</p>
+
+<p>I laughed; not at what he said, but because to laugh
+was irresistible. My nerves were just a little drunk on
+relaxation.</p>
+
+<p>"Come across with what Echochee said," I told him.</p>
+
+<p>He grinned and nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"Echochee know me. Me no call like owl, for 'fraid
+all's-well-men no be fooled; so crawl close and scratch
+on wall. She come to place inside, then me put mouth
+to crack and say in Seminole: 'Echochee, me Tachachobee.'
+She squat down by crack and whisper back:
+'You lie. What your father name?' Me say: 'Black
+boy got no father; Echochee friend, Wanona, squaw of
+Kittimee, raise him.' Then she ask back quick: 'How
+many pickaninny Kittimee and Wanona had?' Me say:
+'Boy child.' She whisper quicker: 'What wigwam
+stood in morning shadow to Kittimee?' Me say: 'Echochee
+wigwam.' She say: 'Who next?' Me say: 'Pattawa,
+him shoot long gun.' She wait 'while, and say:
+'If you Tachachobee, what scar you got on left leg?'
+Me say: 'No scar on left leg, scar on right leg; four
+teeth of Pawpawloochee spotted dog what wildcat kill.'
+She know then me tell no lie, and unlock door and come
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[195]</a></span>out, and take my hand. 'You big man now, Tachachobee,'
+she say. 'Me got big man job, Echochee,' me say,
+and tell her how me take 'em 'way."</p>
+
+<p>I was charmed with the way Echochee had put Smilax
+through the third degree, so to speak, because it proved
+that Sylvia had a shrewd protector; one who would at
+least not be outmatched except by force&mdash;and, judging
+from the tray episode, even force would have to be considerable.</p>
+
+<p>"She go in," Smilax continued, "and tell Lady, then
+Lady come out and say: 'Good. We be ready. How
+we know when you come?' And me tell her this, Mister
+Jack, so you listen for you have to do um. Me say:
+'You hear men call what time?' She say she do. Me
+say: 'You hear 'em call all's well?' She say she do,
+and me say: 'When you hear one call all's-er-well, unlock
+door for me come quick.'"</p>
+
+<p>"You want me to call all's-er-well, instead of all's-well?
+Is that the idea?"</p>
+
+<p>"Good. We slip up on guard; you take man at One,
+me man at Two; we kill 'em quick and make no noise.
+Man at Three far off; him no count. Me wait then till
+time for next call. If me hear all's-er-well, me know
+you no dead, and go in water. Then you come quick
+and quiet to place where Two is dead and make call for
+him. Then Three will answer; we no care 'bout Three.
+If me take long, and come time for 'nother call, you do
+um same as first. Soon we be over."</p>
+
+<p>"You won't have a punt," I suggested.</p>
+
+<p>"No need um; water so," he drew his hand across his
+waist. "Tote Lady, then Echochee."</p>
+
+<p>"She doesn't know I'm to be there?"</p>
+
+<p>"No; plenty time."</p>
+
+<p>That night I slept heavily, as a man who has regained
+the bloom of health, and awoke with the rosy dawn. A<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[196]</a></span>
+few fiery bars shot across the sky, which the trees, brush
+and grass reflected. Red, everywhere red; and I
+thought how much more red the night would be after
+Smilax and I had silenced Posts One and Two. I
+raised my head and looked for him. The fire was burning,
+our breakfast was cooking. He had doubtless gone
+to the spring for water, so I rolled out of my lean-to
+and started to the pool; but stopped, listening.</p>
+
+<p>Somewhere ahead of me I heard his voice, deep and
+musical, droning a weird kind of chant that seemed to
+be utterly everlasting. It was not loud, but rather like
+a deep organ note that carries a long distance. In a
+while he came nearer, walking unconcernedly with his
+face to the sky. Over and over and over the chant continued;
+truly a sort of world without end.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you know the second verse?" I cheerily asked,
+as he was about to pass.</p>
+
+<p>He stopped, swung around, and showed his teeth in a
+smile that was as free from worry as the day.</p>
+
+<p>"Me sing askabee," he explained. "Enemy go down
+when me sing askabee."</p>
+
+<p>"Then pray continue, by all means," I said hurriedly,
+"Maybe after breakfast we can manage to knock out a
+duet."</p>
+
+<p>"We build fort after breakfast," he replied, unmindful
+of my banter. "Breakfast 'bout ready. Get wet
+quick and come back soon." It's a wonder he hadn't
+told me to smoke.</p>
+
+<p>On the southern and western edge of our "island"&mdash;thus
+being nearest Efaw Kotee's settlement&mdash;were a lot
+of fallen palms; trees that many years ago had been
+killed by fire and now lay partially rotted. The best of
+these Smilax had planned to make into a fort; not an
+elaborate affair, but a shoulder-high hollow square,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[197]</a></span>
+around which was to be built another hollow square, a
+three foot space between their walls to be filled with
+sand. It was a good idea, and would stop a Krag or
+modern Springfield bullet with ease.</p>
+
+<p>We worked on this till noon; he trimming, lifting and
+placing the logs&mdash;and elephants have never swung teak
+more splendidly&mdash;while I, with our jointed camp spade,
+filled in the sand. The use of an axe could not possibly
+betray our position as Efaw Kotee had been betrayed,
+because the breeze continued from him to us, and also
+for the equally good reason that the bite of an axe in
+soggy palmetto does not sound with anything like the
+ring that is caused by hardwood. So our walls grew,
+being fitted with nice precision that gave them more
+than enough strength to sustain the filling of sand&mdash;which,
+in turn, was kept from sifting through the interstices
+by a double lining of palm leaves.</p>
+
+<p>After an early luncheon we went back to add a few
+finishing touches, and then stood off admiring it.</p>
+
+<p>"Oughtn't we put in a stock of provisions?" I asked.</p>
+
+<p>"No stay long 'nough in there to get much hungry,"
+Smilax shook his head. "One night and they pull um
+down and got us. Good to keep 'em off in daytime;
+after dark we run in grass."</p>
+
+<p>There was something in what he said.</p>
+
+<p>With the approach of evening a curious calm came
+over me. Perhaps it was the nearness of action, perhaps
+because I had accustomed myself to the thought
+that before another dawn I must deliberately slip upon
+a fellow man and destroy him. In France, with a battle
+raging, men lost their identity, and if&mdash;or when&mdash;we
+killed one, we rarely knew it. But in this peaceful
+country it seemed a more murderous thing to do. Yet<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[198]</a></span>
+perhaps the truest reason why my nerves had turned to
+steel was the dominating thought of Sylvia.</p>
+
+<p>Twice I rehearsed before Smilax what I was to do.
+I stood apart and called: "Post One, nine o'clock, and
+all's-er-well!" to let him judge if my voice differed materially
+from the one we heard last night. This was
+most important, as the suspicion of the guard at post
+Three must not be aroused. I then called the next post
+in an altered voice, and felt well pleased when Smilax
+said the tones were near enough to pass.</p>
+
+<p>It was an uncanny rehearsal, this imitating the voices
+of those whom we should have made forever silent, but
+if there existed anywhere on earth a justification for
+the taking of human life it rested with Smilax and me.
+We were not killers, but defenders; we did not go so
+much to destroy as to save. Our way was the only way
+to rescue a helpless girl and a faithful old woman from
+destruction. Two men, or two hundred, made no difference
+now; I would kill all, or any number, who stood in
+the way of that beloved girl's safety.</p>
+
+<p>We looked over our firearms. I had given him Tommy's
+"l'il crack-crack" which, with my own, were the
+only weapons we intended to take&mdash;I mean the only
+explosive weapons, for Smilax carried his long, keen-edged
+hunting knife, a thing he was never without; and
+I, likewise, strapped on my own. After this we went
+about putting the camp in order; building a shelter
+tent by the spring for Sylvia and an adjacent lean-to
+for Echochee. Joyfully I robbed myself of bedding,
+arranged comfortable shake-downs with moss and leaves
+of the cabbage palm, and did everything conceivable to
+make the place attractive.</p>
+
+<p>I had demurred at first about coming back here for a
+day or two; wanting, instead, to travel as speedily as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[199]</a></span>
+possible to Big Cove, where the <i>Whim</i>&mdash;and if not the
+<i>Whim</i>, at least the <i>Orchid</i>&mdash;would be at our disposal.
+But he showed me the futility of this. In the first
+place, that was exactly what Efaw Kotee would be suspecting
+when the escape became known. The dead
+sentries, certain to be discovered when they failed to
+call the next half hour, would reveal the story of outside
+help, so the pursuit would be swift and directly up
+the coast&mdash;swifter, indeed, than she might be able to
+travel.</p>
+
+<p>"Why shouldn't they think we'd taken her off in
+a small boat," I asked, "and escaped through the
+islands?"</p>
+
+<p>"Then Efaw Kotee want to know why kill guard on
+mainland."</p>
+
+<p>"That's so. But, Smilax, suppose we hide the
+guards?"</p>
+
+<p>He thought a moment over this, but finally shook his
+head.</p>
+
+<p>"No good. Then Efaw Kotee say guard run off with
+Lady, so he come back 'cross prairie same as up and
+down shore. That make our chance ve'y bad. No.
+They find men dead, then hunt quick through forest up
+beach; maybe down beach. After 'while, maybe they
+find sign where me and you camp in L'il Cove; then they
+know small boat been there and gone. Then they come
+home mad, and when all quiet we make big circle to
+<i>Whim</i>. Some day we come back; maybe kill 'em all.
+Me want Jess; him crack Smilax head. That good plan;
+you smoke."</p>
+
+<p>I lay on the ground and smiled. Kill 'em all! Gods,
+but I was going back into the primitive by leaps and
+bounds! I wondered if that girl would trust herself
+to me, were she to know!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[200]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Me big fool," Smilax suddenly cried, smashing a
+fist into the palm of his hand.</p>
+
+<p>"What's the matter?" I sat up, asking.</p>
+
+<p>"Me ought to be in L'il Cove and make fresh signs.
+Me big fool!"</p>
+
+<p>It would have been a cute move, but now too late, and
+I told him so.</p>
+
+<p>"No too late," he sprang up. "Three hour more
+sun."</p>
+
+<p>"But, Smilax, it took us the best part of a day to
+come here! You can't do it!"</p>
+
+<p>"Me go short way back, and fast." He pointed to
+the western sky, at an angle of about twenty degrees
+above the horizon, asking: "When night come you see
+big star there?"</p>
+
+<p>I nodded. It was Jupiter or Venus, I didn't know
+which; but it was large and beautiful, and I had seen it
+many evenings.</p>
+
+<p>"When um touch top of trees you start. Me meet
+you on far side of prairie."</p>
+
+<p>Feeling to see if his weapons were securely holstered
+he was off without another word to make signs in the
+sand at Little Cove that would look as though this very
+afternoon a landing party had been there, and I wondered
+if real Indians could possess the foresight of this
+big negro. In amazement I watched him growing smaller
+and smaller across the sea of grass; going north-by-northwest
+now, and not the way we came. The prairie
+in this direction must have extended five miles before
+it met the forest, and as long as my eyes could follow
+him he was jogging at a good free trot. By this more
+direct route he had perhaps ten or twelve miles to go
+each way; and his return would be at night, lighted by
+a partial moon. I knew that he would make it, and be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[201]</a></span>
+at our meeting place when I arrived, but how he could
+possibly do so was in a realm beyond my comprehension.</p>
+
+<p>When the evening star sank and touched the forest
+I quietly left our camp. The night air was delightfully
+mellow, but my soul, my nerves, my determination were
+as cold as the long blade of my knife. In our present
+days of railroads, telegraphs and institutions of learning
+I was merely a chap setting out to take a girl from
+a den of rogues; but in this night-bathed Florida wilderness
+civilization had been stripped to the bone. I was
+a man going forth to steal a female&mdash;I had come from
+my lair at dusk, set off with a snarl on my lips and a
+firm grip upon my stone axe; so completely dominated
+by this feeling that human pawns who might stand in
+the way would be of no more consequence than ants.</p>
+
+<p>From the lighter prairie I cautiously approached the
+black shadows of the forest, made impenetrably dark
+by a network of branches and a mat of leaves which no
+ray from the half grown moon could pierce. As I was
+about to enter Smilax arose from the ground in front
+of me.</p>
+
+<p>"Good," he whispered. "We rest li'l while; then
+go fix 'em."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVII" id="CHAPTER_XVII"></a>CHAPTER XVII</h2>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[202]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2>THE RESCUE</h2>
+
+
+<p>We lay in silence till at last, faintly, came the call
+of post one. I listened, trying to catch the quality of
+his voice, knowing I soon should have to imitate it. To
+the call of the next man I also listened. The third did
+not concern us more than to know he was on duty. No
+others called, so the guard had not been strengthened.
+These voices seemed to arouse Smilax, for he raised
+himself up on one elbow, whispering:</p>
+
+<p>"What time they say?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ten o'clock," I answered.</p>
+
+<p>"Good. We fix 'em 'leven; come."</p>
+
+<p>So the game was on! I followed silently&mdash;and savagely;
+for, as I have said, the human pawns who stood
+between me and my maid held no more value than the
+ants.</p>
+
+<p>For about ten minutes our progress went reasonably
+well, then Smilax slowed to a pace of extreme caution
+and finally sank to his hands and knees. In this manner
+we crawled a few hundred yards farther.</p>
+
+<p>"Here your place," he put his lips close to my ear
+and whispered. "First man not ve'y far; straight. You
+find out when he call once more, or flash light. Watch
+when Two man call so you know where go next. No
+let 'em call 'leven. Good. Me go now." And he was
+off like a snake to take up a position behind post two.</p>
+
+<p>I felt about me and, finding the ground clear of any<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[203]</a></span>
+growth that might produce a noise, moved stealthily
+forward, still on my hands and knees; but, after each
+step, pausing and feeling ahead until my fingers seemed
+to have grown as long and sensitive as antenn&aelig;. In
+this way I must have gone another two hundred feet
+when I saw a glimmer of white light. It was the electric
+torch, and I knew the sentry must be looking at his
+watch.</p>
+
+<p>Fleeting as it had been it showed me that between us
+lay a patch of saw-palmetto, and this was awkward as
+I could get no idea of its depth. But since he did not
+call the post I knew that he would soon be taking another
+look at the time, and kept warily on, my eyes alert to
+ascertain the dimensions of that patch the instant his
+torch should flare. For I must crawl around it; to go
+through would be impossible. Smilax could have
+achieved it, but Smilax was a wonder.</p>
+
+<p>The light showed again. I was within fifty feet of
+the patch now and saw with a feeling of relief that it
+ended almost at the spot where my man stood, or sat,
+or whatever he was doing. Still, the time had not come
+for him to call the half hour, when I should be able to
+advance more rapidly during the few seconds that his
+voice would make him insensible to other slight sounds.
+Inch by inch, almost holding my breath, I crawled. The
+pine needles let me slide along as though on a greased
+floor. My left hand touched a saw-toothed stem, so I
+veered slightly to the right, getting closer, all the while
+closer.</p>
+
+<p>At the next flash I heard him clear his throat&mdash;that
+had ever been his prelude to a call&mdash;and by the time his
+sing-song "Post-one-half-past-ten-and-all's-well" ended
+I had made good progress. Now, close up behind the
+point of palmettoes which acted as a screen but was too<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[204]</a></span>
+sparse to offer interference, I realized that he could be
+not more than ten feet away; and this was the best I
+could hope to do, surely as close as I dared get.</p>
+
+<p>But ten feet was too great a space to be crossed at a
+bound before he might utter one cry that would alarm
+the camp. One cry, even half a cry, meant ruin to us.
+It was not enough that this sentry die; he must die
+without having uttered the merest sound. I determined,
+therefore, to wait until his senses became focused, his
+breathing centered, on the eleven o'clock call; for, so
+occupied, his mind would be a fraction of a second
+slower in responding to an outside thought which came
+unawares to him than if he were standing on the alert
+for sounds. This seemed to be good psychology. When
+he cleared his throat to call eleven, therefore, I would
+spring&mdash;and the gods be with me!</p>
+
+<p>I own that for a little while my heart did pound unmercifully,
+but with even less mercy I willed it to be
+calm. For the moment I almost regretted having come
+so near, because it seemed preposterous to suppose that
+he would not discover me. I could distinctly hear the
+slightest move he made&mdash;but it must be remembered
+that I was listening to him, whereas he did not suspect
+my existence. Once he knocked the dead ashes from
+his pipe against the heel of his boot; then I thought he
+was getting ready for a smoke, and soon after this he
+struck a match.</p>
+
+<p>As the flame, sheltered by his two hands held cup-wise,
+flickered above the bowl I got a look at him. He impressed
+me as being a well put up fellow of considerable
+strength, who would not be conquered without trouble.
+But never have I seen a face present a pantomime of
+more brutal indifference. It was seamed with lines of
+cruelty; the coarse lips were hideously puckered about<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[205]</a></span>
+the pipe stem; his eyes drooped in bestial satisfaction
+as he sucked at it. While he was getting the light, thus
+creating a noise in his own ears that would drown a
+slighter noise from me, I took the opportunity to arrange
+my position somewhat, and now felt satisfied.
+With clean ground beneath me, with only a thin screen
+of palmetto leaves between us, how better could I have
+planned!</p>
+
+<p>Minutes sped, and my senses seemed to have accumulated
+into a little ball between my eyes. I may have
+trembled; I know that my nerves were stretched to the
+very highest fighting pitch, they were in tune with my
+determination. The next half hour would decide the
+salvation or destruction of the girl I loved.</p>
+
+<p>The electric torch flashed on a silver watch in his
+huge, dirty hand. I held my breath, ready&mdash;but he did
+not call. Again I had to will my heart to stop its
+sudden thumping; again I settled down to wait&mdash;though
+with my legs crouched and my fingers resting on the
+sand, as I had "set" many a time for a hundred yard
+dash. All I needed now was the word "Go!"</p>
+
+<p>More minutes sped. At last he moved, and I guessed
+that he was reaching into his pocket for the torch. It
+flashed, shining on the silver watch as before. I heard
+the cover snap to with a click of finality; he cleared
+his throat&mdash;and I bounded into the air.</p>
+
+<p>He had no time to cry out before my fingers locked
+upon his throat as jaws of iron. He staggered and
+caught my wrists, but did not immediately begin the
+frantic struggle I expected. His rifle fell to the soft
+earth with hardly a sound and, like a dead weight, he
+crumpled up; falling so quickly that I nearly came down
+on top of him.</p>
+
+<p>At first, suspecting this might be a ruse to break my<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[206]</a></span>
+grip, I squeezed the tighter, holding his head up as far
+as my knees and shaking it with the savageness that a
+terrier would shake a rat. There was no room for compromises
+here. Grimly believing him to be beyond the
+point of giving an alarm, I was not prepared for an
+attack when he came to life with an energy born of
+desperation, wrapped his arms about my legs and with
+tremendous strength jerked me forward, at the same
+instant striking me in the back with his knee. Thus,
+to keep from pitching over his head, I involuntarily lost
+my hold&mdash;the last of all things I would have done!</p>
+
+<p>Yet the effect to so violent a choking seemed for the
+moment to have paralyzed his power to call, and swiftly,
+as a darting hawk, I made another grab for the throat
+that must at all costs be silenced. He had covered it
+with his own hands and I could not pry away his fingers.
+Again and again I tried, and now, with growing
+strength, he caught my wrists and held them. Maddened
+by the specter of failure, I heard him drawing in
+a labored breath that I knew would come out in a
+hideous yell.</p>
+
+<p>Success lay upon the fraction of a second. In a
+frenzy jerking one of my hands free, and throwing the
+full weight of my body across his face to momentarily
+smother the outcry, I twisted around, drew my knife,
+and plunged it deep into his side. There was a convulsive
+tremor, and silence. Yet, as the king snake had
+done, I also drew back warily, listening. It had been
+enough.</p>
+
+<p>Springing up, and trying to calm my breathing, I
+called:</p>
+
+<p>"Post one, 'leven o'clock, and all's-er-well!"</p>
+
+<p>The last word had no more than been pronounced
+when I was moving swiftly, silently on post number<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[207]</a></span>
+two. True to his intention, Smilax had prepared the
+way.</p>
+
+<p>"Post two, 'leven o'clock, and all's-er-well!" I called
+in an altered voice.</p>
+
+<p>The sentry at post three, doubtless having a vein of
+humor or finding any variation of his tedious duty agreeable,
+dwelt in his turn long and almost lovingly over
+the "er-well," making it sound "e-e-er-well."</p>
+
+<p>"How you like that?" he called, in a guarded tone,
+and receiving no answer, laughed: "Then go ter hell
+with yer perlite manners."</p>
+
+<p>A few minutes elapsed before I was conscious of a
+movement in the water, slight, barely distinguishable.
+But my eyes had grown more and more accustomed
+to the darkness and I thought that I made out something
+coming toward the shore. Creeping a little forward
+and listening, I felt that it was Smilax carrying
+Sylvia, and became certain of this when someone was
+deposited there who began cautiously to climb the bank.
+Smilax, evidently, had turned back for Echochee. But
+along this section of the mainland the bank was steep,
+and the climber came with difficulty&mdash;once slipping and
+making what I thought to be an awful racket. Even
+the humorous sentry on post three heard it and, providentially
+unsuspicious, called:</p>
+
+<p>"Yer ain't bit yerse'f, have yer?"</p>
+
+<p>I made no answer to this, trusting him to be satisfied
+with his own wit. Yet now, following a most
+natural impulse, forgetting in our extreme peril that
+Sylvia was unaware of my presence, I leaned above the
+top and reached down to her; when, to my utter consternation,
+she gave a piercing scream of terror. Quick
+as a flash the sentry at post three yelled and fired his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[208]</a></span>
+gun, and the sleeping camp became a bedlam of cursing
+men.</p>
+
+<p>"For God's sake," I whispered&mdash;but Smilax had
+turned back to us and was beside her.</p>
+
+<p>"Him friend," he said, hurriedly. "Only friend we
+got! Go with him quick! Me get Echochee!"</p>
+
+<p>While saying this he was pushing her up to me, at the
+same time holding out a bag, or kind of traveling case,
+that she had dropped. I seized it with one hand, and
+her arm with the other.</p>
+
+<p>"Quick; go to camp," Smilax was saying. "Me get
+Echochee and give 'em chase up coast. Be back soon;
+you wait there."</p>
+
+<p>He had taken to the water again and was making for
+the Indian woman, who I thought had started out to
+meet him. So I knew he would rescue her, as surely as
+he was six and a half feet of muscle and endurance.
+The camp had become thoroughly aroused by now, and
+lights were everywhere. Hoping to reassure Sylvia, I
+whispered as Smilax would have spoken:</p>
+
+<p>"Me friend; come quick!"</p>
+
+<p>Above the confusion we could hear the voice of Efaw
+Kotee bellowing:</p>
+
+<p>"Get the punts, you fools! Which way is she?"</p>
+
+<p>"On the mainland," someone yelled.</p>
+
+<p>"Then catch her," he bellowed again, with a string
+of blasphemous oaths.</p>
+
+<p>This decided her, and she whispered wildly:</p>
+
+<p>"Hurry! Take me where Tachachobee said!"</p>
+
+<p>We dashed through the forest, I leading, she close
+behind. Nor had we any time to spare, for before we
+had gone a hundred yards two quick shots rang out. It
+was "li'l crack-crack" speaking, I felt sure of it.</p>
+
+<p>Shots answered rapidly in threes and fours. The<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[209]</a></span>
+automatic spoke again, this time farther to the north,
+drawing more shots from the angry pursuers; but I
+knew that among trees so thick and in darkness so
+impenetrable Smilax and Echochee ran little chance of
+being hit. At the prairie, made vaguely lighter by a
+hazy, half grown moon, we crouched in the grass and
+waited.</p>
+
+<p>You have never, I suppose, been afraid to breathe,
+flattened against a wall, or huddled in a shadowy place,
+listening to the growls and grunts and sniffs of the
+man-beast hunting you? No, of course not.</p>
+
+<p>Men were now tearing through the forest like a herd
+of stampeded horses, shooting, yelling, cursing, while at
+brief intervals the automatic told them which way to
+go. Farther and farther the chase went, all the time
+following the coast and leading away from us till, after
+twenty minutes, the yells were hardly discernible and
+the shots sounded like faint little pops of a nursery
+gun. But they were as rapid as ever, telling us that
+the pursuit had in no way diminished. Smilax, undoubtedly
+master of the situation, would lead them on
+and on; either close by Big Cove so those aboard the
+<i>Whim</i>&mdash;had she made harbor&mdash;could take a hand, or
+finally lose them somewhere in the treacherous Everglades.
+Then he would came back for us. I felt no
+great uncertainty for Smilax and Echochee.</p>
+
+<p>I now straightened up&mdash;taking care that she should
+not see my face&mdash;and listened to satisfy myself that no
+one had stayed behind to be roaming in the forest near
+us, then whispered:</p>
+
+<p>"Come!"</p>
+
+<p>In silence, she following, we crossed the two mile
+space, and I drew a deep breath of thankfulness when<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[210]</a></span>
+we at last stepped beneath the black trees of my
+"island."</p>
+
+<p>I knew that she had taken me for a Seminole&mdash;at
+least, the probability seemed to be strong in that direction.
+The darkness again was too intense for her to see
+my features, and, since I had been fairly successful
+in speaking the choppy English of the Indian, I determined
+to continue the deception until morning. For
+she had become somewhat accustomed to the "trusted
+friend" by now, whereas re-introductions at this hour
+would be exceedingly awkward, if not quite disastrous
+to her peace of mind. So, without a halt, I walked on
+through the trees until we came to her tent. At the
+door of this I put down her bag, then stepped back and
+for a second at arm's length flashed my electric torch
+on it, again being careful to keep my face in shadow.</p>
+
+<p>"You safe here," I said. "Tachachobee make this
+camp for you. Me and him camp little way off. To-night
+me watch to see when him and Echochee come.
+No one find you; you sleep well. Tachachobee good
+man; me and him friends. You no be 'fraid."</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you," she said wearily. Ah, how tired her
+voice did seem!</p>
+
+<p>"There water; good to drink. You hungry?" I
+asked.</p>
+
+<p>"No, thank you,&mdash;what is your name?"</p>
+
+<p>This was a poser, for I had not thought up a name.
+But, of course, Jack came first into my mind, so I
+answered:</p>
+
+<p>"Jackachobee."</p>
+
+<p>"No, thank you, Jackachobee," she said, "I'm not
+hungry."</p>
+
+<p>"You want gun?" I asked again.</p>
+
+<p>"I have one," she answered.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[211]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Good. Then you sleep; no one find you here. In
+morning take time; when ready for breakfast walk back
+this way a hundred steps and whistle like plover. Then
+me come and show you way. Sleep good."</p>
+
+<p>Thus, feeling very well satisfied with my Indian impersonation&mdash;which,
+nevertheless, had its faults&mdash;I left
+her; turning and going to the fort, there choosing a
+place where I could keep guard all night against possible
+danger.</p>
+
+<p>Long and earnestly did I listen for some sound of the
+chase, but the night had grown absolutely still except
+for a soft breeze rustling the palm fronds above my
+head and the prairie grass in front of me. Yet I felt
+secure in the belief that Smilax had not been taken.
+Without question, he and Echochee were still in flight,
+heading toward some safe refuge; coaxing, by shot or
+cry, the furious pack that tore hopefully after them.
+I knew that my vigil here was unnecessary&mdash;that with
+all senses focused on the chase no straggler would by
+any chance be coming this far out into the prairie&mdash;but
+I had told Sylvia it would be kept.</p>
+
+<p>As I sat there, joyous over the conquest we had made,
+but more supremely happy because she was safe and
+near me, thinking tumultuous things which were a
+credit to mankind, hoping hopes that man has never
+realized, I raised my face to the sky and thanked God.</p>
+
+<p>Creature of incongruities! I thanked God for putting
+her safely into my keeping, when my fingers had not
+yet been washed after their bath in a fellow creature's
+blood! The cave man had gone abroad at dusk to find
+a mate, and human pawns who stood in his way had
+been of no more consequence than ants!</p>
+
+<p>Thus it has always been for the women we love. Thus
+it should be.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVIII" id="CHAPTER_XVIII"></a>CHAPTER XVIII</h2>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[212]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2>DOLORIA</h2>
+
+
+<p>With the first glimpse of dawn I arose and faced the
+East; my arms out, my palms up, and across them my
+rifle as a kind of offering to the day. I do not know
+why I did this&mdash;this spontaneous though semi-pagan
+act&mdash;except that on my "island," and in my power,
+slept the girl I loved; she whom I had stolen from her
+watchful tribe, whom I would have as mate. By all
+the laws of the wilderness she was mine, and I wanted
+to tell someone, to challenge the wild, that these arms
+and hands and this rifle would protect her till the
+end.</p>
+
+<p>A thin mist hung low upon the prairie, a faint tint
+of salmon touched the sky, and to my lips sprang the
+words of that inspiring "Salutation of the Dawn" which
+found expression in the Orient many thousands of years
+ago:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0"><i>Listen to the Exhortation of the Dawn!</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i8"><i>Look to this Day!</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>For it is life, the very life of life.</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>In its brief course lie all the verities</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>And realities of your existence:</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i8"><i>The glory of action,</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i8"><i>The bliss of growth,</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i8"><i>The splendor of beauty:</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>For yesterday is but a dream,</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>And tomorrow is only a vision;</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>But today well-lived makes</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>Every yesterday a dream of happiness,</i><br /></span>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[213]</a></span><span class="i0"><i>And every tomorrow a vision of hope.</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>Look well, therefore, to this Day!</i><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Then, as the light increased and the mist began to
+dissolve, I swept the prairie in all directions for a sign
+of enemies. Everywhere was peace.</p>
+
+<p>Assured that Efaw Kotee would never find us here
+I turned and went to my lean-to&mdash;to the place my
+lean-to had been before we moved it beside the spring&mdash;gathered
+up my knick-knacks and repaired to the
+pool, emerging half an hour later a more presentable
+man. After this I built a small fire of buttonwood and
+set about preparing breakfast.</p>
+
+<p>But this proved to be a perplexing ordeal. Bilkins
+had packed in a lot of stuff that he might have manipulated,
+though to me it was worse than Greek. Of course,
+I could cook up coffee and bacon&mdash;the kind of meal
+Smilax and I were used to&mdash;but Sylvia must never be
+subjected to that! And it would be insane of me to go
+out on the prairie after snipe! There was nothing for
+it but prepare a dainty concoction from what we had, so,
+wishing heartily that Bilkins had come off in the small
+boat with me, I dived into our stores on a tour of inspection.</p>
+
+<p>Tea!&mdash;who wanted tea for breakfast! A pot of butter!&mdash;appropriate
+enough, though it might have been
+fresher. A can of beans!&mdash;worse than tea. A can of
+finnan haddie came after this, and several cans that
+only Bilkins could have understood. But in the end I
+carried a number of them to the fire and had a general
+opening, arranged them in a row, and began to cook.
+The chief trouble was that I did not know which should
+be done thoroughly and which merely warmed up. Anyway,
+I emptied something, inviting if unpronounceable,
+into the skillet and as it began to sizzle it smelt really<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[214]</a></span>
+good. So I crouched lower, stirring vigorously to keep
+it from scorching, and thought of the surprise it would
+be to her&mdash;for, to be quite frank, it was a surprise to
+me!</p>
+
+<p>Then a voice at my back, making me forget the
+sizzling stuff, the fire, the breakfast, said with a note
+of extreme anxiety:</p>
+
+<p>"Good morning, Jackachobee! Oughtn't Echochee
+be here by this time? You don't think any thing's happened
+to her, do you? I can't whistle like a plover and
+had to come to breakfast unannounced. I hope it's
+ready. You've seen nothing of those men?"</p>
+
+<p>I did not move under this rapid fire of questions and
+statements. To the contrary, I lowered my head and
+was afraid to move; afraid to face the rebuke, or the
+fear, or whatever it would be, that might naturally follow
+her discovery of my deception. But more potent
+than this dread was the thrill of joy I felt in knowing
+that she stood close behind me; that when I turned I
+should see her there, face to face. Yet the very thought
+of turning again started the chill of apprehension.
+Without doubt she would wither me like a parched leaf
+for having played so silly a part as Indian. I began
+vigorously to stir the stuff in my skillet which now had
+stuck to the bottom and was smelling like the very old
+devil. Of course, my face would have been red, anyway&mdash;leaning
+over the fire as I was!</p>
+
+<p>"Are you keeping anything from me?" she cried, I
+thought on the verge of "nerves," so hesitating no
+longer I arose and turned to her.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" she gasped, drawing back and putting one
+hand to her breast&mdash;while the other, I noticed, fell
+mechanically to the butt of a revolver swung to her
+waist. Her eyes were wide with surprise, as her lips<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[215]</a></span>
+were parted in fear and utter wonderment. Truly, she
+was the incarnation of girlhood standing at bay!</p>
+
+<p>I had known her beauty; I had been astounded by it
+in the Havana caf&eacute;, in my dream, in the little kodak
+film of Monsieur's, and last, when she stood in her doorway
+less than forty-eight hours before. But here was
+something that transcended all that I had previously
+seen in her. Perhaps the young sun, golden in the
+morning atmosphere, cast the spell as it sought out
+spun-copper strands amongst her waves of hair; perhaps
+the days of anxiety, terminating in a night of unfearful
+sleep, had put the dew, the mystery, in her eyes; or it
+may have been the color, smouldering beneath the attractive
+tan on her cheeks and tinting her pure throat,
+that held me charmed; or the indefinable spirit of wildness
+that showed through a natural poise. I saw, too,
+in a hazy kind of way, a most bewitching costume&mdash;at
+least, admirably suited to her: a waist of olive-drab,
+not unlike our service shirts but of delicate material,
+open at the throat and fitting her snugly; quite
+a short skirt to match, and laced tan boots.</p>
+
+<p>"Please don't shoot," I said, trying to smile.</p>
+
+<p>"Where is Jackachobee?" she demanded.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm Jackachobee."</p>
+
+<p>"But you're not an Indian!"</p>
+
+<p>"No, but I really am the friend Tachachobee told
+you of."</p>
+
+<p>I could see that she was growing more alarmed, and
+now spoke frankly, saying:</p>
+
+<p>"I pretended to be a Seminole last night because explanations
+would have taken time; and I thought, too,
+that you'd feel safer with a good Indian because he's
+easier to boss than a white man."</p>
+
+<p>Her eyes narrowed, subtly suggesting that she might<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[216]</a></span>
+take this as a challenge. At last, having looked me over&mdash;but
+not once removing her hand from the revolver
+butt&mdash;she said, with a little pucker between her eyebrows:</p>
+
+<p>"I've seen you somewhere. Were you ever in our&mdash;in
+that place over there?"</p>
+
+<p>Now, of course, I could hardly expect her to see a
+resemblance between a chap wearing breeches and puttees
+in a Florida wilderness and the dinner-jacketed
+yachtsman who dined near her table off yonder in
+Havana. It would be asking a great deal&mdash;although
+I did feel disappointed.</p>
+
+<p>"No," I answered, "I haven't been in that settlement;
+but I watched it from a hiding place all of day
+before yesterday. You see, I've come two hundred
+miles to take you away from it."</p>
+
+<p>"You've come to&mdash;to take <i>me</i>?" she slowly asked, and
+I thought the color began to smoulder again; while
+from her eyes flashed a look that might have been a
+struggle between gratitude, resentment and fear. Wanting
+only the first to prevail I continued hastily:</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; I followed ever since you wrote that you were
+in danger, and I've sworn not to return to my yacht
+without you."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" she gasped, stepping back and staring at me
+through the swiftly changing lights of her awakening.
+"Surely," she caught her breath again, "surely you're
+not the&mdash;you <i>can't</i> be!"</p>
+
+<p>"I am," I smiled, holding out my hand. "The man
+you gave the paper ball to."</p>
+
+<p>Impulsively she clasped it in both of her own, swaying
+slightly toward me and looking her gratitude
+through eyes brim-full of tears&mdash;but the angels be my
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[217]</a></span>witness that spoken words have never been so eloquent!
+Then she began to laugh&mdash;a little wildly, a
+little hysterically&mdash;so I said:</p>
+
+<p>"It's all right&mdash;you're safe here, absolutely! I
+watched last night and there wasn't the slightest sign
+of anyone. You see, Smilax&mdash;that's Tachachobee, but
+we call him Smilax because he smiles&mdash;well, he and
+Echochee purposely led those fellows up the coast, and
+they'll keep on leading them any-old-where until it's
+safe to join us here. It's been carefully planned out.
+However, I'll tell you everything after&mdash;after&mdash;&mdash;" I
+looked ruefully at the shriveled black stuff now incinerated
+on the bottom of my skillet, adding: "but there
+isn't going to be any after; it's all burned up!"</p>
+
+<p>She had pluckily taken herself in hand by now and,
+following my dejected stare, cried:</p>
+
+<p>"Is <i>that</i> our breakfast? Heavens, what a calamity!
+But show me where the things are and I'll cook another!"</p>
+
+<p>"You'll soil your fingers," I hesitatingly protested.</p>
+
+<p>"Soil my fingers! Of course, I will; but there's no
+scarcity of water, nor of my appetite, either&mdash;and we
+can't possibly eat what you cook!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I don't know," I said, just a little touchily.
+"I'm a pretty good sort of a cook, I am!" Often have I
+noticed how the majority of men get touchy about their
+cooking.</p>
+
+<p>"The evidence is convincing," she laughed. "Where
+do you keep your stores? Hurry, please do, if you don't
+want a fainting woman on your hands. I'm starved!"</p>
+
+<p>Now I saw that some of this was being put on; that
+it was the slackening of tightly pulled nerves; so I
+encouraged her as far as I dared without being suspected,
+knowing that it is best to open all vents when
+one's feelings have been dangerously pent up. As to my<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[218]</a></span>
+ability to cook!&mdash;why, there were extenuating circumstances
+governing this breakfast that should have excused
+it. Some day I'd surprise her.</p>
+
+<p>I changed that idea quickly enough when she took
+charge, however, for in ten minutes there were two or
+three things sizzling and sending out an aroma that
+might have brought Epicurus himself back to life.
+What's more, she did not seem to be worrying over
+them; she did not even seem particular about stirring
+them, nor did she burn her fingers, nor get red in the
+face and hot, nor suffer any of those agonies that I had
+supposed were a necessary part of culinary science.</p>
+
+<p>"You're a wonder," I exclaimed. "Darned if I've
+ever seen such a swell cook!"</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you, sir," she tossed her head and mimicked.
+"I'm glad I please, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Like your new place?" I asked, gravely.</p>
+
+<p>"I've seen worse, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Like your new master, too?" I ventured.</p>
+
+<p>"Marster, is it!" She sent me a look with which
+there was a most fetching little curve at the corners of
+her lips that she seemed unable to control. "I'll 'ave
+you understand that queens of the kitchen know no marster!"</p>
+
+<p>"But you won't be in the kitchen all the time."</p>
+
+<p>"That I will," she replied. "In the woods, all the
+world's a kitchen!"</p>
+
+<p>"I rather wish it was," I sighed, looking toward the
+savory skillet and coffee pot; whereupon she gave the
+brightest of laughs, telling me to set the table as things
+were about ready.</p>
+
+<p>But Smilax and I had never bothered about a table.
+We did not even possess a cloth, or napkin, or anything
+like that. So I cut some palm leaves, arranging them<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[219]</a></span>
+on the ground; then ransacked the duffle for a small kit
+of aluminum plates and cups, with also knives and forks.
+Neither had Smilax and I deigned to use this kit, principally
+because our meals had been taken on the move.
+At best palm leaves do not make a good table, as their
+ridges cause the dishes to wobble; so in the end we
+spread our steaming feast upon the grass.</p>
+
+<p>My word, but that was a breakfast! I don't remember
+what we had, but it did taste good. When it was
+over, right down to the last crumb&mdash;for she had complained
+of starvation, too&mdash;I looked across at her, saying:</p>
+
+<p>"If I can move, at all, and you're willing to go
+slowly, I'd like to show you over your new possessions!"</p>
+
+<p>"Right away? Mercy no," she stood up, brushing
+her skirt. "I'm going to get a cigarette, and you're
+going to wash the dishes!"</p>
+
+<p>"But Smilax washes the dishes," I protested.</p>
+
+<p>"And he may be thirty miles from here," she announced.</p>
+
+<p>"Will you come back and watch me?"</p>
+
+<p>"I will if you want me to," she laughed, "but you'll
+look awfully silly."</p>
+
+<p>"Then you needn't," I agreed, less reluctantly, "and
+I'll call in half an hour. By the way, I've deeded you
+all the 'island' east of those two big pines. The other
+side is mine."</p>
+
+<p>"Thanks. I'll take possession at once." And she
+left me for her spring and bailiwick and cigarette&mdash;although
+I never saw her smoking one before, or after. In
+a few minutes I heard her calling and, straightening up
+with some feeling of alarm, answered:</p>
+
+<p>"What's wrong?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[220]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Nothing; only don't forget to use very hot water!"</p>
+
+<p>Later we walked to the south-western edge of the
+"island," so she could see how it stood in relation to
+Efaw Kotee's settlement; and I showed her the fort,
+purposely exaggerating its ability to withstand a siege
+and minimizing its chances of having to do so. We sat
+down there upon the turf, where the breeze and shade
+were refreshing. It was a fortunate location, also, for
+keeping an eye on the prairie.</p>
+
+<p>"Have you named this beautiful place of yours?"
+she asked.</p>
+
+<p>"No; we merely call it the 'island,' after the native
+fashion. Will you name it for me&mdash;for us? It's half
+yours, you know."</p>
+
+<p>"Let's call it&mdash;&mdash;" she thought a moment, "oh, let's
+call it The Oasis; for that's cool and comfortable and
+suggests safety from all sorts of things!"</p>
+
+<p>"The Oasis it is, and we'll put it on the map some
+day, see if we don't!"</p>
+
+<p>After a while I told her pretty much everything from
+the beginning of our cruise: of Tommy, Monsieur, and
+Gates, of Smilax, of seeing her in Havana. I scrupulously
+avoided any mention of having been bowled over
+by her beauty, or of the dream, and was inclined to
+treat the paper ball episode with a laugh; but here she
+interrupted me, saying:</p>
+
+<p>"But I was very serious, really, and scared almost to
+death. You surely know I must have been to've done
+it! The whole thing came so suddenly&mdash;like a frightful
+storm!"</p>
+
+<p>"Then you hadn't always been at outs with him&mdash;or
+forbidden him to cross to your little island?" I
+asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Mercy, no&mdash;that is, not my father. The other men,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[221]</a></span>
+of course, were on a footing of servants&mdash;to me, at
+any rate. It was only after we got home two days ago,
+after Echochee and I were alone again, that I kept
+them away by&mdash;by threatening&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Don't say what&mdash;it hurts me," I interrupted her
+quickly. "I saw your wonderful courage from our hiding
+place."</p>
+
+<p>"Everyone was quite friendly up to the time we
+reached Havana," she continued, in a rather forced,
+even voice. "We were there three days before your
+yacht came&mdash;though I didn't know it was yours until
+today&mdash;and that afternoon I'd been up in the Prado
+with Echochee doing a lot of shopping. We always
+bought every conceivable thing on those semi-yearly
+trips. Well, when we got back on board my father
+rather balked about taking me off again to dinner, but
+I held him to it because he'd previously promised. I
+think that he had grown so sensate to dangers that he
+felt one then, but couldn't locate it."</p>
+
+<p>"Because we were anchored so close to you?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't really know. But it was something. It
+wasn't a pleasant dinner from the outset, because I resented
+his devilish mood and was disgusted with him
+for being afraid. That doesn't sound very nice," she
+added, half apologetically, "but, you know, there had
+always been something subtly antagonistic within me
+that&mdash;oh, I can't express it, but I'd never felt very
+close to him, ever since I can remember. It was largely
+my fault, I suppose. But I'd had glimpses of his
+frightfully cruel nature. Then Echochee, who came to
+nurse me when I was little, always hated him, and I
+adored her&mdash;so, of course, her influence counted. You
+really think she's coming through all right?"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[222]</a></span></p><p>"Downright sure of it," I declared, in solemn earnest.
+After a few moments of silence, I asked gently:
+"Do you mind telling me more?"</p>
+
+<p>She gave a slight start as though the question had
+brought her from some deep thought, but smiled, saying:</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly, I don't. When your two friends left
+you in the caf&eacute; my father became terribly excited. I
+asked him what on earth was the trouble&mdash;but smiling,
+for that was a subterfuge he always demanded of me
+in public places&mdash;and he whispered that he thought the
+shorter man was a police agent from his lost republic."</p>
+
+<p>"Lost republic?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. You see, my father had been its President&mdash;in
+South America, you know&mdash;until the revolution compelled
+us to fly." This was said resignedly.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh," I murmured. "When was that?"</p>
+
+<p>"Years ago. I just remember being carried off one
+night in a great hurry."</p>
+
+<p>"Tell me the rest about Havana?" I asked, trying to
+appear calm.</p>
+
+<p>"It's all rather awful," she sighed. "I hadn't noticed
+your friends more than to get a glimpse of them
+as they left, but saw you alone at the table. Pretty
+soon our captain, Jess,"&mdash;she may have given a slight
+shudder, I wasn't sure&mdash;"came up and verified my
+father's suspicions, and then I thought he surely would
+lose his mind. I was already becoming frightened, especially
+as the creature, Jess, impertinently leered at me,
+and my father didn't knock him down for it. He had
+never dared look at me before, except most deferentially,
+and suddenly I felt that I was nearing something awful.
+I can't explain it. It just came to me all of a sudden,
+you know, with desperate certainty, and&mdash;and I wanted
+to run away."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[223]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Were you trying to tell me that?"</p>
+
+<p>She flushed, but answered steadily:</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. I thought you looked like a man who'd help
+a girl out of a mean place."</p>
+
+<p>"By Jove, that's the biggest compliment I've ever
+had!"</p>
+
+<p>"I only had a chance to write a little," she ignored
+my outburst, "but hoped you'd guess and tell your
+friend, the police agent."</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't guess that," I admitted, somewhat crestfallen.
+"But we knew you were in danger."</p>
+
+<p>"I should never have left that caf&eacute; if I'd known more
+myself, then," she said, tensely. "I'd have stood up
+and called to you&mdash;to every man there!"</p>
+
+<p>"And I'd have brought you out in spite of hell," I
+cried. "Don't tell me there was anything much
+worse!"</p>
+
+<p>Her cheeks were still aflame with anger, but she
+smiled, saying in a lower tone:</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing worse than threats. When we got aboard
+the yacht my father came to me and said, point-blank
+before those men, that&mdash;that&mdash;oh, I can't!" She buried
+her face in her hands&mdash;and it was all I could do to
+keep from putting my arms about her and whispering
+that everything was now all right. But she had started
+out to tell me, and was determined to see it through.
+"He said that he'd promised our captain, that creature
+Jess, that I should&mdash;should&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Never mind," I murmured. "I know about it&mdash;he
+said you'd have to marry the scoundrel."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh," she exclaimed. "I'd never heard anything
+so cold-blooded and damnable in all my life! The
+creature stood leering at me over his shoulder, and I
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[224]</a></span>knew he'd been using threats because my father, himself,
+was almost paralyzed with fear. And then I lost
+my head&mdash;in blind rage, I suppose. I must have talked
+like a common fish woman, but my one desire was to
+see them cringe. So I told about leaving the message
+for you, pretending to've written a great deal more&mdash;twisting
+the knife all I knew how, and being thoroughly
+catty. It must have been a disgusting exhibition,"
+she gave a sigh of despair, as if for that uncontrollable
+outburst of temper.</p>
+
+<p>"I hope you rubbed it in good," I growled.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I didn't, because my father became so insane
+with fear that he actually struck me, and rushed ashore
+in the frantic hope that you might not have seen my
+message. He would have killed you had he met you
+then. It was in those few minutes that the little love I
+ever had for him turned to loathing&mdash;and that's a frightful
+thing to say about one's father, so I hope you won't
+remember it."</p>
+
+<p>"We have a very mutual respect for each other in
+loathing that gentleman," I announced. "But tell me
+quickly&mdash;were you safe after that?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes, for I began to temporize. Echochee wanted
+to kill them, of course&mdash;that being her only solution.
+But I hoped we might manage to escape if they could
+be put off a few days."</p>
+
+<p>"And you were in the small boat when they tied on
+the bomb?"</p>
+
+<p>"Heavens, yes. But I'd no idea it was your yacht,
+even then&mdash;although I thought I recognized your
+friends taking pictures the morning we left Havana,
+and was about to call to them when my father, always
+suspicious, burst into my room."</p>
+
+<p>"It must have been hellish," I growled.</p>
+
+<p>"It was all of that. And especially as always before<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[225]</a></span>
+he'd tried to be kind&mdash;at least, he was extremely deferential.
+That night at Key West he and the captain left
+in a small boat, and when they came back I was ordered
+into it. I think he must have been crazy, really, for
+he said that he was going to show me what they did to
+traitors&mdash;that was my new name then, you know&mdash;and
+shoved a package of something in my face. The
+captain cursed him for it&mdash;and I'd never before heard
+him treated with the slightest disrespect, but when I
+found out what the thing was I hoped it would blow
+up and destroy us all. I only thank God that it didn't
+go off and kill&mdash;my rescuer," she murmured.</p>
+
+<p>"Then you did call that it wasn't fair?"</p>
+
+<p>"I had to protest! Oh, but he was a demon then,"
+she added, and I clenched my fists, remembering what
+Gates had said. "But he used to be kind," she added,
+sadly, "and I ought to remember him for that, don't
+you suppose so? We have a wonderful library on the
+islands, and when I was very young he began my education.
+Do you know," she looked up, "I still remember
+my first lesson in grammar? He taught me by the
+days!"</p>
+
+<p>"Quite a remarkable thing, that, to remember so far
+back," I smiled, whereupon she made a little grimace.
+"How do you mean&mdash;by the days?"</p>
+
+<p>"I was taught a tomorrow, not alone because I could
+recognize today but because I remembered yesterday,
+and was shown how these were the past, present, and
+future tenses of our lives; that the present participle is
+Living, and the infinitive is&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"To love?" I suggested.</p>
+
+<p>"To live," she said evenly, and I bit my tongue.
+"He made me study awfully hard, but I rather liked
+it as there wasn't much else to do except play with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[226]</a></span>
+Echochee, and she became tiresome occasionally. Later
+he started me at the piano, and the violin, and I loved
+to work after that. For he's quite a remarkable musician,
+really! I suppose our library must have a
+thousand books, and I've read nearly all of them&mdash;besides
+stacks of the modern ones we always brought from
+our semi-annual cruises 'to the world'&mdash;as he used to
+call those trips. Don't you simply adore Blasco?"</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose you mean Iba&ntilde;ez," I said, rather pleased
+at being able to air this familiarity with literary personages.</p>
+
+<p>"Iba&ntilde;ez, then," she casually agreed, "if you prefer
+calling him by his mother's name."&mdash;And, not knowing
+upon what hazy path this would lead me, I laughingly
+admitted:</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I've only tackled one of his things, and
+haven't even finished that yet." Adding, with perhaps
+a slightly malicious desire to bring her superior knowledge
+to bay: "You read him in the original, I suppose?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not freely enough to be quite relaxing. But on our
+cruise last summer we got a very good translation in
+French&mdash;really, much better than the English, I think."</p>
+
+<p>Again I laughed, as a light entered my muddled outlook
+because of this astonishing information that accounted
+for much I had not been able to reconcile with
+her isolated life. From the moment she had mimicked
+the cook I had been kept in a state of wonderment. I
+had felt her superiority; I had marveled at the cultivation
+that clung about her as a royal robe. Now it was
+explained. Music, literature, languages!</p>
+
+<p>"That night you protested about the bomb," I asked,
+"did you hear me call?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[227]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Could it have been that some of the animation left
+her face as she answered slowly:</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, was it you? I heard someone call to a person
+named Sylvia."</p>
+
+<p>"But&mdash;isn't that your name?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh," she laughed, "I haven't nearly so pretty a
+name as that!"</p>
+
+<p>I was crazy to be the judge, but asked, instead:</p>
+
+<p>"Did your&mdash;father ever explain why he was afraid
+of detectives?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing more than that he was fearfully hunted
+and persecuted. When I was almost a baby he had to
+run away because of a political plot. He escaped with
+me after," her voice lowered, "my mother had been
+killed by the revolutionists, and we've been hiding here
+ever since, awaiting the message that will bring him
+back to be President again; although while the other
+party is in power its agents would arrest him&mdash;and it's
+been in power for years. Do you know," she looked
+at me frankly, "I've never forgiven him for letting
+them kill my mother! Throughout all of my childhood
+I used to hold indignation meetings with myself and
+consign him to every imaginable punishment&mdash;both for
+that, and running away without avenging her."</p>
+
+<p>She was quiet then. This news of the South American
+republic showed what an accomplished liar old
+Efaw Kotee could be. Very plausible, indeed, and an
+adequate excuse for keeping her in a potential prison.</p>
+
+<p>"I fear that I've been terribly outspoken," she said
+at last, with a wistful expression that held both laughter
+and apology.</p>
+
+<p>"You've been wonderful," I whispered, deliberately
+turning away my head and gazing out across the prairie.
+I could not have met her eyes just then.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIX" id="CHAPTER_XIX"></a>CHAPTER XIX</h2>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[228]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2>ENLIGHTENING A PRINCESS</h2>
+
+
+<p>As gently as I could, after I felt that my voice might
+be trusted not to betray itself, I told her of Monsieur
+Dragot's deductions, who we thought she really was&mdash;not
+the daughter of that old scoundrel, at all. I let
+her see the record of his crimes, her mother's discovery
+of the plates, the kidnaping, and, unless something
+most recent and unexpected had happened, the queen
+regent of Azuria was waiting at this minute for the
+little princess to return.</p>
+
+<p>She had been sitting very still, like a child with parted
+lips enchantingly absorbed by a fairy tale. When I
+finished she turned her wondering eyes to mine, and
+gasped:</p>
+
+<p>"It can't be true!"</p>
+
+<p>"I think it is," I said. "I mean that it is so far as
+Monsieur can judge from the threads of evidence he
+holds, and what you've told me makes his theory more
+convincing."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh&mdash;and I've called this man Father for so long!
+You don't suppose he still might be, somehow?"</p>
+
+<p>"There's no somehow about it," I had to smile at this
+question. "He either is, or isn't; in the same indefeasible
+sense that white isn't black."</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't mean that he might be just partly, of
+course," she said so quietly and seriously that I burst
+out laughing. "But it's awfully hard to understand,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[229]</a></span>
+all at once! That must account for the subtle antagonism
+I felt for him. It really accounts for so much!&mdash;for
+the way he encouraged me to spend money, heaps and
+heaps of it! Why, I've everything I can think of&mdash;from
+Havana, New Orleans and Vera Cruz!"</p>
+
+<p>"He wanted you to spend his large bills so he could
+get good money in change," I suggested.</p>
+
+<p>"That's obvious now, but suppose I'd been arrested
+and sent to prison!"</p>
+
+<p>"I won't suppose anything of the kind," I declared,
+so vigorously that she laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"I do feel like a thief, though," she added soberly.
+"Why, everything I possess has been bought fraudulently."</p>
+
+<p>"You couldn't help it! Chuck 'em away, if it'll make
+you feel better!"</p>
+
+<p>"I can't chuck 'em all away," and this time we both
+laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"You can as soon as we reach New York, and&mdash;and&mdash;&mdash;"
+But as I did not know how to finish this,
+I stopped; for what had been in my mind was: "When
+you and I share all I own!"&mdash;and, of course, that
+wouldn't have done to say aloud.</p>
+
+<p>For perhaps a minute she, also, was silent. Then she
+turned, with the frankest, sweetest manner I have ever
+seen, and said in a voice of mellifluent charm:</p>
+
+<p>"Do you know that you've been just awfully splendid?"</p>
+
+<p>I knew that my face got very red, but I tried to
+answer casually enough:</p>
+
+<p>"The splendid things were done by Tommy, Gates,
+Smilax, and the other fellows. You'll like Tommy, and
+Monsieur knows&mdash;did I tell you he knows your mother?"</p>
+
+<p>"Don't," she whispered. "You make me feel like<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[230]</a></span>
+I'm being led into a new world, with new people, and
+new customs, and new things!" Now her eyes widened
+as if making a discovery, as she added: "My fa&mdash;&mdash;,
+that is, Mr. Graham, must actually have recognized
+Monsieur Dragot!"</p>
+
+<p>"There's no other deduction," I agreed. "Our case
+is proved almost beyond a doubt. Don't call that fellow
+your father again, or even Mr. Graham. Smilax and
+I have a name we'll share with you."</p>
+
+<p>"What?"</p>
+
+<p>"Efaw Kotee."</p>
+
+<p>Her laughter rippled through the wood, as she cried:</p>
+
+<p>"How perfectly lovely! I know what it means!"</p>
+
+<p>"Then you speak Seminole, Miss&mdash;Miss&mdash;but you say
+it isn't Sylvia?"</p>
+
+<p>An expression of happy mischief in her face made
+it adorable.</p>
+
+<p>"No, it isn't Sylvia. It's Doloria&mdash;you see, my life
+has been sad!"</p>
+
+<p>"One wouldn't say so to look at you now. And I
+think Doloria's a thousand times prettier than Sylvia!
+Doloria! Just Doloria&mdash;like that?" For I wanted an
+excuse to keep on saying it.</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;I suppose so," she hesitated. "Of course, it's
+always had Graham after it, but&mdash;what did your Monsieur
+Dragot say my last name was?"</p>
+
+<p>"He didn't say."</p>
+
+<p>"Then I haven't any."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, well, you needn't bother about that. Any time
+it gets lonesome you can hitch on Bronx&mdash;that is, I
+mean, only in case, you know."</p>
+
+<p>I could have bitten out my tongue for this! I don't
+know what fiends possessed me to be such an unmitigated
+ass! It was as unfair as poison&mdash;an insult to the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[231]</a></span>
+only precepts I have ever genuinely felt proud of: the
+code of playing fair. Before I could pretend to have
+been making a silly joke she brushed away my contrition
+by asking:</p>
+
+<p>"Why Bronx? What does that mean?"</p>
+
+<p>Glory be! I had forgotten that she could not know
+my name! But now I had to deny myself, cast my birthright
+to the winds, or else let her see that I was a
+miserable cad who could not be trusted as protector to
+a girl thrown upon his care.</p>
+
+<p>And, on the other hand, it was decidedly repulsive to
+tell a lie&mdash;especially to her who seemed by her magnetic
+gaze to challenge the truth right out of a fellow. But
+conscience is, after all, only a name for our hidden
+prosecutor, judge and jury, and our sentences are light
+or heavy depending upon how many witnesses we can
+persuade to perjure themselves. No man lives who has
+not at some time used bribery in the mythical court
+room of his heart. Among women, of course, it is the
+accepted mode of legal procedure; and this gave me
+hope to believe that she might be somewhat forgiving
+when she found me out.</p>
+
+<p>"Why Bronx?" she was asking again.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh," I laughed, "it's a usual name in my part of
+the country, that's all&mdash;like Smith, and Jones."</p>
+
+<p>I thought this would satisfy, but it gave her another
+thought, instead.</p>
+
+<p>"Your name isn't Jackachobee, of course?"</p>
+
+<p>"As far as Jack, yes. Every one calls me Jack."</p>
+
+<p>A little while before this my cigarette case had fallen,
+to the ground by us. She had picked it up, and was
+even now turning it idly between her fingers.</p>
+
+<p>"I see it here," she said, looking more closely at the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[232]</a></span>
+monogram. "'J. B.' What does the B stand for, Mr.&mdash;Mr.
+Jack?"</p>
+
+<p>"Brown," I answered desperately, and could feel
+every ancestor of a long and honorable line of Bronxes
+turning over in their graves. For I detest Brown. It's
+a good name, an exceptionally fine and distinguished
+name, the name not only of dear relatives but of very
+good friends. Yet it just so happened that at this
+particular moment I detested it&mdash;or was it the lie behind
+it? So to repair my self-esteem I blurted somewhat
+incoherently: "Bangs!"&mdash;having known a rather
+decent chap named Bangs.</p>
+
+<p>"Is it spelled with a hyphen?" she glanced up rather
+quizzically. "Brown-Bangs?"</p>
+
+<p>Her mind seemed to have flown lightly beyond me,
+anticipating the extent of my confusion, for the smile
+about her mouth, while enigmatic, suggested&mdash;enticingly
+suggested&mdash;mischief.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course," I answered. "Brown-Bangs; Brown-Bangs!"
+And I wondered how many witnesses I should
+have to bribe now! I wished that in the first place I
+had said: "It would be unfair to tell you what isn't so,
+and dangerous to tell you what is!" But she would have
+guessed the truth by that, to a certainty. Sinners always
+find comfort in good resolutions, so I resolved to be
+more circumspect in the future. A gentleman's duty
+in my position was to be over circumspect; very much
+over circumspect, indeed!</p>
+
+<p>Somewhat indifferently she laid the cigarette case
+back upon the ground, happening to put it near a little
+vine with lavender flowers, shaped like pon-pons; and in
+doing this it also happened that one of its tiny briars
+clung to her hand.</p>
+
+<p>"Watch," she cried, gaily leaning forward. "Watch<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[233]</a></span>
+the leaves! We call this the 'shame-face vine,' because
+whenever it sticks any one every leaf on that particular
+stem is overcome with remorse!"</p>
+
+<p>To my amazement the nine delicate leaves on the
+offending stem began to hang their heads and curl up,
+for all the world expressive of deep humility. It was
+another of the million or so lessons to be found in
+Nature for any one who sees with the right kind of
+eyes. Of course, I could have hung my head for that
+lie about the Browns, although curling up&mdash;at least,
+after the manner of the shame-face vine&mdash;would have
+required a contortionist.</p>
+
+<p>"A well named little weed," I laughed. "But what
+wouldn't be penitent after hurting such a pretty hand!"</p>
+
+<p>"I was just wondering," she said, ignoring this
+banality&mdash;for which in my heart I thanked her&mdash;"if
+there are weeds that show embarrassment for people
+who tell fibs?"</p>
+
+<p>Now there was no possible way for her to have
+learned my name!</p>
+
+<p>"You don't think there was any fibbing when I said
+you were a sure-'nough princess, do you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, please, let's not talk of that again," she entreated.
+"I don't want to be a princess just yet, because
+it's still very satisfying to have been taken away
+from that awful place. I'm so humbly thankful to you,"
+she almost whispered, "that just Cinderella without the
+slipper will suit me nicely."</p>
+
+<p>Beloved of the gods! If she wasn't at that moment
+princess, queen and all the royal families made into
+one!</p>
+
+<p>"But I must tell you this much," I insisted gently,
+"and then we won't speak of it again until you wish.
+Monsieur says your mother is only Regent until you<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[234]</a></span>
+come; that your destiny is marked out for you, that
+by every law of God and man you've got to go back
+and take up the Cross where you left it seventeen years
+ago,&mdash;that you're booked to marry a Prince, I think.
+And he's armed with an iron-bound authority to take
+you. He says you've no possible escape&mdash;though, of
+course, you won't want any. I have to tell you this,"
+I continued more hastily, for it was an extremely difficult
+thing to say, "because I'm only an ordinary kind
+of American chap, as bad as the worst and as good as
+the best, but your court in Azuria would have forty
+duck fits if it knew we were playing together in the
+woods without a chaperone. Suppose you make me
+your Chancellor, or something like that&mdash;chancellor of
+your Oasian possessions! Then I can report for orders
+and escort you about with all propriety, and we can
+talk and laugh occasionally without having some big
+soldier stick me in the back with his halberd."</p>
+
+<p>She had been listening attentively, gravely, to everything
+I said until this last, when she burst into a scream
+of laughter, rocking herself to and fro in a transport of
+merriment.</p>
+
+<p>"You're the funniest thing I ever saw!&mdash;but so be
+it, Mr. Jack Brown-Bangs, et cetera, et cetera! I make
+you my Royal Chancellor, responsible for the welfare
+of our Oasis!"</p>
+
+<p>"And for the protection of Your Serenity," I bowed,
+really feeling as if I'd been knighted.</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you," she said gravely. "I couldn't ask for
+a braver protector. But, Chancellor," she looked at me
+with serious eyes, "why did you say I must take up my
+Cross? It sounded like such a direful prophecy."</p>
+
+<p>My lips refused to speak. As a matter of fact, I
+had been thinking more about my own Cross; how I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[235]</a></span>
+should have to carry it after she went away until my
+heart broke beneath its cruel weight.</p>
+
+<p>"That was a careless way of meaning something else,"
+I tried to answer lightly.</p>
+
+<p>"You shouldn't say evasive things. It leads to speaking
+with two tongues, which Echochee has taught me is
+wrong."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, it couldn't be a direful prophecy, anyhow,
+when your mother and your throne are waiting just
+around the corner, as it were. The direful part of your
+life has passed, and most appropriately your name has
+changed from Doloria to Princess&mdash;though, of the two,
+I prefer Doloria."</p>
+
+<p>"When it means sorrow?"</p>
+
+<p>"It only means sorrow to those you leave. You've
+paid dearly enough to find nothing but happiness now
+for the rest of your life. It's written in the sky."</p>
+
+<p>"You're a comforting Chancellor," she was still looking
+at me calmly, "and I'm already beginning to forget."
+And gently she laid her hand on the back of
+my own which rested between us.</p>
+
+<p>My blood bounded with an unreasoning pleasure, yet
+her movement had been neither temperamental nor
+sentimental; it was instinctive&mdash;one of those honest impulses
+that knows no sex. Did she realize, by some divine
+insight, that this frankness, this absence of finical
+conventions, this whole-hearted camaraderie, would
+hold me more sternly to my path of duty than anything
+else she might have done? Did the instinct of her sex
+whisper that each man's heart, however light and worldly,
+is the possessor of a trusty loadstone which draws
+the best of him to a woman's aid when her honor is
+placed unreservedly into his hands? This speaks, of
+course, of men and not of human beasts; still, a woman<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[236]</a></span>
+is not put to the peril of looking into the heart of a
+human beast to discover that he is a beast&mdash;she can
+read it, without glasses, in his face!</p>
+
+<p>"Shall we look over the rest of your estate?" I asked.
+And I kept the hand until she had been helped up, then
+released it naturally as we started on the tour of inspection.</p>
+
+<p>We finally came to my pool, and I asked her advice in
+choosing a nearby spot where I should build a lean-to;
+since our kitchen site, that until now had been the location
+of my bailiwick, was by right of conquest hers, a
+place where she should be able to approach without the
+precaution of whistling like a plover&mdash;a thing she
+couldn't do, anyway! So we marked a spot and started
+on, taking some time to encircle the pool that, was rather
+large and, upon this side, densely fringed with a riot of
+tropical vines and jungle stuff. Yet, when we had gone
+but a little way, she stopped, looked vaguely troubled,
+and said:</p>
+
+<p>"You won't be as near to me here as you were at
+the kitchen. I was so tired last night that I didn't
+think very much about those men, because our servants
+were leading them off. But don't you think it's possible
+that some of them might wander back here on
+their way home?"</p>
+
+<p>"There's hardly one chance in a thousand," I assured
+her.</p>
+
+<p>"I know. But that one chance would be dreadful
+if&mdash;if&mdash;&mdash;" she stopped, and added wistfully: "I <i>would</i>
+like to feel in the nights that you are nearer to me!"</p>
+
+<p>I turned to look at something else&mdash;at anything but
+her! Yet if my eyes required a subterfuge my heart
+did not, and it thrilled as if some wild musicians were
+tugging at its strings making them sound impassioned<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[237]</a></span>
+harmonies. But, even as I stood swayed by the madness
+of the moment, I felt that a great, an unseen,
+presence had pinned a decoration upon my honor&mdash;not
+because it had already proved itself, but in order that
+it might do so.</p>
+
+<p>We therefore stopped and chose a new place on the
+side nearer her spring, and that being settled&mdash;a most
+important selection, we pretended it to be&mdash;she looked
+up at me, crying happily:</p>
+
+<p>"After luncheon I'll come and help you build it!&mdash;and
+then you'll cut a path straight from my tent to
+yours so, should there be any danger, I can run to
+you without stumbling!"</p>
+
+<p>For another moment, with eyes closed, I visualized my
+new decoration.</p>
+
+<p>Luncheon, I thought, was even an improvement over
+breakfast. Nor did I take so long to wash the dishes
+afterwards.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XX" id="CHAPTER_XX"></a>CHAPTER XX</h2>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[238]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2>SLEEPING BENEATH GOD'S TENT</h2>
+
+
+<p>That afternoon we built the lean-to. I had had some
+fair ideas about building a lean-to, but Doloria was in
+possession of a practical knowledge gathered on camping
+trips that she and Echochee had made&mdash;for these,
+I judged, constituted one of her chief recreations since
+childhood. She knew how to twist ropes of bark for
+tying the poles, and how to interlay the palm fronds so
+they would neither leak nor be lifted by the wind. She
+took the keenest pleasure in it, too, and I can safely say
+that never in my life have I enjoyed building anything
+as much as that lean-to. When it was finished I stepped
+back and, in a burst of admiration, cried:</p>
+
+<p>"It's a palace? I can't ever get along without you!"</p>
+
+<p>A wave of color came into her face, as instantaneous
+as I believe it was unexpected, though she said in a matter
+of fact tone:</p>
+
+<p>"There are other little things to be done, but we'll
+finish them to-morrow."</p>
+
+<p>"It's already the coziest place in the world," I insisted.
+"Now I'm going to cut that path, and then
+we'll have&mdash;&mdash;" but I checked myself and looked at
+her in some concern. She had worked over hard for
+me&mdash;I had not realized it while we were busy; so now
+I begged: "Won't you let me cook the dinner? I'm
+afraid you're about dead!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, really I'm not. But I'm hungry and so are
+you, and&mdash;&mdash;" a little curve came into the corners of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[239]</a></span>
+her mouth that was very tantalizing, "I think I'd better
+cook it."</p>
+
+<p>"I was hoping you would," I admitted shamelessly,
+"even if you are tired."</p>
+
+<p>"Purely a selfish decision on my part, I assure you,"
+she smiled. "I haven't forgotten the breakfast you
+attempted."</p>
+
+<p>"Very well. I'll cut you a nice straight path for a
+nice big feed!"</p>
+
+<p>"And don't leave anything in it, will you, Chancellor!
+It would be dreadful to come running to you
+in the dark, and stumble and&mdash;and bump my nose!"</p>
+
+<p>"Dreadful!" I cried. "It would be the end of the
+world!"</p>
+
+<p>"Or the end of you," she laughed. "Now get to
+work, and then you can build the kitchen fire. Don't
+you think we might have dinner a little earlier to-night?"</p>
+
+<p>With this she left me; but how sweetly confidential
+and domestic that had sounded: "Don't you think we
+might have dinner a little earlier to-night?"</p>
+
+<p>I found her again, sitting on a fallen log and gazing
+wistfully across the prairie toward the east, not back in
+the direction of Efaw Kotee's den, and I felt that she
+was thinking of Azuria&mdash;her Azuria. What visions
+its existence must have opened to her, whose life had
+been always passionate after dreams and utterly bored
+with realities! Yet what were her dreams?</p>
+
+<p>She saw me and arose slowly, passing one hand across
+her eyes as if brushing away the fancies; then I watched
+an expression almost of tenderness as she came up to
+me.</p>
+
+<p>"It isn't quite fair to interrupt," I said, "when you<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[240]</a></span>
+were having such a peaceful time of it; but the fire's
+ready, and our supply of buttonwood shrinks."</p>
+
+<p>"Was I having such a peaceful time of it?" she
+asked, wonderingly. "Perhaps it might have been if I
+knew Echochee and your man are safe. Anyway, I'm
+glad the fire's ready; I've been expecting you to call
+me."</p>
+
+<p>"I wish I could give you the same assurance about
+them that I feel myself. Try to think I'm right, won't
+you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, really I will, good Chancellor," she smiled.</p>
+
+<p>On the way back we passed my pool, where she
+kneeled ingenuously to bathe her hands and arms, as
+chastely innocent as a mermaid.</p>
+
+<p>"Have you such a thing as a towel?" she laughed.
+"Mine are in the tent!"</p>
+
+<p>I got it, and walked slowly on. And I realized again,
+what I had once before noted, that overly refined proprieties&mdash;I
+do not mean proprieties of the essential kind&mdash;cannot
+endure between man and maid cast alone in a
+wilderness. They become frail, insipid; and mar, rather
+than perfect, the harmony of existence. Contraversely,
+their absence adds a deeper luster, strikes the tuning-fork
+that hums with the true note of life. Sorry the
+man who does not feel a sympathetic vibration! A
+woman is not exactly at her best when bathing her face
+above a porcelain bowl, and to be the constant, daily
+witness of such ablutions would, in my limited experience,
+engender a slight unrest among the tuneful Nine.
+Yet let her gracefully lean above a woodland pool,
+roll back her sleeves and open the collar of her shooting
+shirt, and she becomes a personification of glory to
+him who waits near the fire he has built for their
+evening meal. But she must have looked danger in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[241]</a></span>
+face with him, slept near him beneath the stars; knowing,
+should she be affrighted in the night, that her call
+will bring his reassuring answer, but also knowing that
+the voice is all that will ever come unbidden to her
+side. And thus is the Cave-man in him gloriously
+aroused to guard her from Nature's wild, while the
+poetry of their intercourse guards her from himself.
+What more beautiful existence than to live alone in a
+forest with the girl you love!</p>
+
+<p>I thought that after dinner it might be well to sit
+again beside the fort where we could watch the prairie.
+There is a comforting sense of security that comes to one
+at nightfall when one has looked in all directions and
+found all things well. So for a while she left me to the
+orgy of washing dishes, but when I had turned the last
+plate top down upon our kitchen log to dry, I saw her
+returning.</p>
+
+<p>She came humming a tune, a catchy tune&mdash;I recognized
+it at once&mdash;that the mandolins had tinkled in the
+Havana caf&eacute;, and from the mischievous curves about
+the corners of her mouth I knew that her mood was
+adorable. So I caught up the tune, whistling softly,
+and crossed to her holding out my hands.</p>
+
+<p>"It's a corking fox-trot," I said, for the moment
+stopping our orchestra. "Let's dance it!"</p>
+
+<p>But she drew back, laughing outright.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know how!"</p>
+
+<p>"Don't dance?" I must have looked my amazement,
+for she answered:</p>
+
+<p>"I've often danced, all alone, when I just couldn't
+help it; but there hasn't been any one to teach me your
+kind!"</p>
+
+<p>"I will," I cried delightedly. "We'll begin with
+that fox-trot!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[242]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"We'd look awfully silly," she replied. "Besides,
+the name of your dance is atrocious."</p>
+
+<p>I felt rather thankful that I hadn't suggested the
+shimmy.</p>
+
+<p>"That may get you out of it now," I announced,
+"but when we reach the yacht I'm going to teach you
+ten hours a day. Understand?&mdash;ten hours a day!"</p>
+
+<p>Again came the tantalizing expression, as she daintily
+caught her skirt and made me a royal curtsey, saying:</p>
+
+<p>"It's beyond all measure charming of you, Chancellor.
+But shall I be so difficult?"</p>
+
+<p>"Don't joke about a wonderful prospect," I answered.
+"You're difficult because of your grace, not
+the lack of it&mdash;if that's what you mean!" But from
+her indifferent way of dismissing the subject I judged
+it was not what she had meant, at all.</p>
+
+<p>The sun must have set while we were encircling
+my pool. Then we passed on into a still denser growth,
+following a crooked path that led to the fort&mdash;entering
+a mysterious shadow-land that twilights have the trick
+of producing when overhead foliage shuts out the afterglow
+and the serene forest gloom is painted in tones of
+gray. The soft earth we trod was dark, and the water
+lay phantom-like in its black bowl. Except for the few
+times I held aside a swinging wildwood vine for her to
+pass, we might have been two drifting spirits&mdash;so quietly
+did we move, and so unknowingly were we affected by
+the hour, the place.</p>
+
+<p>At the edge of our forest, where that long ago prairie
+fire had blighted a grove of palm trees that subsequently
+fell upon each other like an entangled pile of jackstraws,
+she took my hand to get across and, freed from
+the clinging shadows, we ran out beneath the sky&mdash;then
+gasped in amazement at its splendor.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[243]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>It was not a sunset, not an afterglow in the usual
+sense of afterglows, but a sky of deep, smouldering red
+equally distributed from horizon to horizon; as though
+everywhere below the world a conflagration raged. I
+could not at first speak for the grandeur of it, and when
+I turned to her words were again checked by the look
+upon her face. For this dull, permeating glow&mdash;this
+enchantment from the heavens&mdash;touched her brow, her
+cheeks, her parted lips, with a light that aroused in me
+a thousand devils and a thousand gods; it lingered over
+her hair as if striving to concentrate itself into a halo
+there; and in her eyes that gazed afar were suggested
+the awakening of deeper fires, of wilder mysteries.</p>
+
+<p>"God, what a sky," I at last exclaimed, through sheer
+panic at the imminence of crying aloud my love for
+her.</p>
+
+<p>"What a sky, O God," she whispered, delicately turning
+my profane outburst to a sigh of thankfulness.</p>
+
+<p>But, better than she, I knew the meaning of that
+sky. I knew that down over the western edge of the
+world blazed a huge funeral pyre on which my past
+was being changed to harmless ashes; while in the east
+flames were already lighted beneath the on-coming crucible
+of destiny, from whose purifying heat a new love
+arose. Farther into obscurity would sink the one; up
+and on would come the other; and so the sky was now
+roseate unto its zenith, reflecting the glory of these
+miracles. I followed the look of her eyes and saw, high
+against the red, a lone crane flying majestically homeward
+to the seclusion of his swamp; and it typified my
+own belated heart that, without questioning the whence
+or why, unerringly obeyed a silent voice which called it
+to another sanctuary.</p>
+
+<p>I wanted to tell her this, but dared not. And so we<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[244]</a></span>
+stood, spellbound, while the night brought out the blue&mdash;and
+the young moon changed from red to silver&mdash;and
+the stars came down to take their places. Then
+slowly we passed on and sat by the fort, leaning our
+backs against it; in meditation looking across the prairie
+that had become so changed a place to us.</p>
+
+<p>The night grew sweet with the purity of untouched
+wilderness as, shoulder to shoulder, we sat talking in low
+tones of Smilax and Echochee. She had wondered about
+them no few times that day, and now I, too, felt some
+concern. Yet the Everglades lay far eastward and, for
+any reason giving up Big Cove, I knew he would plunge
+as deeply into it as his pursuers dared follow. To-morrow
+would be time enough to worry, I assured her,
+so we talked about Monsieur, the Azurian throne, and&mdash;I
+could not help it&mdash;of another Chancellor who would
+build her kitchen fires. But I tried to keep all bitterness
+from my words. In the vague light I could see
+that her face was serious, and very tender. Then for
+a time we sat without speaking.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps it was the place, the charm; perhaps a magic
+was working stronger than I knew; but words came to
+my lips that I stubbornly refused to speak. I fought
+against them; they, too, fought with grim insistence;
+so as a compromise, looking straight ahead and pretending
+to jest even while I accused, I said:</p>
+
+<p>"You've been listening!"</p>
+
+<p>"Listening?" Her eyes opened prettily, alert as
+they always were to parry banter with banter.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, listening&mdash;at the keyhole like a common gossip.
+A nice pastime for a Princess, surely!"</p>
+
+<p>"At the&mdash;keyhole?" She was proceeding warily
+now; her mind, as in a game of hide-and-seek, was on
+tiptoe, in expectation of discovering me at every step.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[245]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Yes," I repeated. "And you heard my heart admitting
+that it's happy&mdash;to've found something it was
+hungry for."</p>
+
+<p>For the briefest instant I thought a tremor ran
+through her shoulder, as if a little chilly sensation had
+rippled her nerves. But it was a silly idea, because
+she lightly replied:</p>
+
+<p>"Corn cakes, maybe. It ought to feel quite stuffed
+after the seven you had for dinner."</p>
+
+<p>"Six," I corrected.</p>
+
+<p>"Seven," she insisted.</p>
+
+<p>"But I know!"</p>
+
+<p>"So do I," she laughed, "that you stole one from
+my plate when you thought I wasn't looking."</p>
+
+<p>"I needed that one."</p>
+
+<p>"I never doubted it," she agreed.</p>
+
+<p>Wild words again sprang to my lips, but this time
+I ruthlessly strangled them. Yet I wanted to say: "I
+took from you because you stole from me!" And I
+wanted to ask&mdash;O, shades of suffering Dante, how I
+longed to ask!&mdash;if her dear heart were hungering, too,
+that she should have needed my own to feed it!&mdash;if that
+were her excuse for thievery!</p>
+
+<p>But already I had overstepped my resolution, although
+not feeling desperately contrite about it after
+the sleight-of-hand way that a declaration of love had
+been changed into the accusation of filching a corn
+cake. Yet it had been a narrow escape and I thanked
+my gods for the chance of pulling up, of again getting
+the right perspective.</p>
+
+<p>To tell her anything at all before Echochee came
+would be the act of an utterly selfish cad, for if she
+did not want my love&mdash;and there was little enough reason
+to suppose that she did&mdash;her position would be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[246]</a></span>
+intolerable. In such an eventuality never again could
+we sit beside the fort on nights like this, no longer
+would she want a cleared path leading to her bailiwick.
+We would be as two estranged creatures doomed to live
+near yet apart; each a daily witness of the other's unhappiness;
+neither able by word or deed to give relief.
+Ah, I was glad she did not even suspect that I cared a
+whit for her! I lit my pipe and in moody silence
+smoked.</p>
+
+<p>A pipe stem is a safe thing for man to grip his teeth
+upon when silence is a virtue. Here in our forest I was
+master, the undisputed superior force; and I wondered
+with a fascinating wonder how that ancestor, who
+climbed down from his tree at nightfall, would have
+been greeting her! I visualized his cunning face, now
+peering at me through the ages, leering at me with bared
+tusks, bidding me take what was my own by right of
+might! I felt the savage splendor of it. The wildness
+of this place, its solitude, its distance from mankind,
+supported me. The cry of a night bird out on
+the prairie told that it, too, was preying, or being
+preyed upon; and, as if being stirred by this, a panther
+sent his wail across the night. I listened for a mate to
+answer, but she did not. A large, whitish moth flying
+out of the shadows passed clumsily within a few inches
+of my face, its wings swishing as a bird's; and it, too,
+was without a mate.</p>
+
+<p>Then, as in the following silence I continued to listen,
+some far off words came back to me. They came as the
+scent of lavender comes when rain is pattering on the
+shingles, and some one opens the old trunk that, ever
+since you can remember, has stood back under the rafters
+of the sloping roof; the hallowed old trunk where a
+veil of yellowing lace is stored&mdash;a piece of white satin, a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[247]</a></span>
+blue or gray faded uniform, and maybe a wee shoe, and
+a lock of hair. Every one who has leaned above that
+trunk&mdash;and thank God they are legion!&mdash;has also listened
+to a voice coming faintly through the past. And
+so words out of a lesser past now came to me, as they
+were meant to be written on a torn wine card: "I am
+in danger!"</p>
+
+<p>She had been in danger of a brute, and had offered the
+safety of her keeping to me. And the vision of my
+savage ancestor, though retreating sullenly, faded into
+nothing. Then I felt her body press against me softly
+and, looking down, I saw that she had fallen asleep,
+with her head&mdash;precious, trusting thing&mdash;resting against
+my shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>For an hour I sat motionless, fearing to awake her.
+Finally one of my legs went to sleep, and soon my other
+leg. Yet it was a welcome discomfort because endured
+for her. And I suppose the numbness must eventually
+have crept the length of my body, for, I, too, slept;
+awaking, I did not know how much later, to find her
+gone.</p>
+
+<p>Then I stumbled back to my lean-to, but did not go
+inside. This was not the night, nor mine the mood,
+to shut high heaven from my eyes, my thoughts, the
+lambent flame of my love? So I chose the open, and lay
+on my back gazing up into the silhouetted palm fronds,
+catching glimpses of a star that here or there peeped
+through at me, steeping my thoughts in solitude.</p>
+
+<p>For it was that hushed hour of betwixt and between,
+when crickets, tree-toads and other little creatures of
+the darkness have wearied themselves to rest; yet also
+before the daylight life has stirred from its own deep
+sleep. The silent hour, this is; the one hour in the
+round of time when nature seems to be absolutely poised<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[248]</a></span>
+in breathless space; when the pendulum of night hangs
+dead, and dawn is still a great way over the hill. I
+shared its mysticism, feeling also a rich contentment
+that she, too, was lying near me somewhere in this same
+solitude; dreaming, with her cheek upon her arm; her
+hair kissed by the same dew that cooled my face. I
+could not, of course, reach out my hand and touch her,
+but the path led straight; and along this now my heart
+went begging&mdash;impoverished rascal! He went on tiptoe,
+begging; while I continued to watch for the elusive
+star, and my soul looked into the level eyes of God.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXI" id="CHAPTER_XXI"></a>CHAPTER XXI</h2>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[249]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2>PLANTING A MEMORY</h2>
+
+
+<p>A searching look next morning over the prairie revealed
+no sign of enemies, or of Smilax. Somewhat
+thoughtful over his continued absence I went to the
+kitchen and laid the fire, but did not light it because our
+stock of buttonwood had become reduced to a few small
+sticks and scraps that would scarcely more than cook one
+meal, and the use of other woods might at this time be
+an unwise experiment. So with an eye to prudence I
+withheld the match until Her Serene Highness should
+arrive.</p>
+
+<p>When she did not come nor answer to my call, I set
+out to see what might have detained her, conscious of a
+vague dread yet not seriously giving in to it; but, after
+visiting the fort, this grew into an unreasoning fear,
+and I began to run. It seemed so easy now to understand
+how some of Efaw Kotee's henchmen could have
+discovered us, slipped up during the night and overpowered
+her! What had been a remote possibility
+yesterday, to-day grew into a certainty. With this obsession
+torturing me I dashed across the Oasis, finally
+coming out of the forest at its extreme eastern tip.</p>
+
+<p>Then I saw her but a few yards away. Perhaps the
+brisk wind, rustling the palms and prairie grass,
+drowned the noise of my impetuous rush, for she did
+not turn.</p>
+
+<p>Her face was toward the east, looking above an orange
+sun that still clung to the horizon. Instinctively I felt<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[250]</a></span>
+that she was thinking of Azuria, that the pictures of it
+which I had drawn were recrossing before her dreamy
+vision, forming a panorama of splendor that called more
+surely than in March the Canadian flats call the Southern
+water bird. This gave her eyes, her uplifted face,
+her slightly parted lips, a new glory, and I involuntarily
+exclaimed:</p>
+
+<p>"Doloria of the Golden Dawn!"</p>
+
+<p>She knew then that I was there and, without turning,
+reached back one hand to me. Impulsively I took it,
+raised it to my lips, but afraid to hold it longer I
+stepped aside as if awaiting her commands. When I
+had done that she looked over her shoulder, gave a little
+sigh, and said sweetly:</p>
+
+<p>"Chancellor, I wish you'd convince me that our people
+are safe, and then help me settle a grave question of
+state!"</p>
+
+<p>"I think they'll be coming to-day, and&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I hope so!" she clasped her hands.</p>
+
+<p>"As for the state question," I continued, "I'll settle
+it quickly, if you'll let me."</p>
+
+<p>"No, I'm afraid you can't! No, Chancellor," she
+gave a little laugh, "you can't be trusted to settle that,
+at all!" Then firmly, almost severely, putting back
+into its place a wave of hair that had been coquetting
+with the breeze, she asked: "Is the fire ready?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ready to light," I answered. "I came to find you."</p>
+
+<p>"Then let's go, for it isn't good to ponder over questions
+of state before breakfast."</p>
+
+<p>"What is it?" I asked, as we turned back. "Why
+won't you trust me to settle it?"</p>
+
+<p>Another laugh, more full of pathos, was my answer;
+nor would she speak again&mdash;because of some mischief<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[251]</a></span>
+in her mind, I believed&mdash;until, preparing the ambrosial
+corncakes, she rather abruptly exclaimed:</p>
+
+<p>"I wonder if you deserve any breakfast this morning?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why?" I cried, in feigned alarm.</p>
+
+<p>"Because of your impoliteness."</p>
+
+<p>"My impoliteness was doubtless the need of breakfast.
+But when was I impolite? I don't remember,
+honest!"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course, you don't; how could you," she went on
+rather indifferently. "Were you not such a capable
+Chancellor I might be more offended. I am tryingly
+stupid at times, but to be in the very middle of a
+sentence and discover that the man I'm talking to is
+fast asleep, is humiliating, to say the least."</p>
+
+<p>Did she think there was a chance of putting over that
+atrocious yarn on me&mdash;of bluffing me into an admission
+that I had been the first to fall asleep?</p>
+
+<p>"You may be right," I said, with the utmost gravity,
+"but I did it only in justice to you. You were talking,
+true enough, but in <i>your</i> sleep; saying things that&mdash;well,
+no gentleman could have remained awake, in the
+circumstances."</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't," she cried, darting me a look of uncertainty.
+"Echochee says I never do!"</p>
+
+<p>"Echochee wasn't here last night," I casually replied,
+poking the coals of her fire closer. "I hope you
+understand that I didn't listen intentionally; for, of
+course, you'd never have told me all those things&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Stop it," she commanded; and, when I had stopped,
+there was an ominous silence.</p>
+
+<p>But I would not look at her and indifferently pretended
+to be busy. I confess that I was deriving a
+purely masculine enjoyment out of this, and intended<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[252]</a></span>
+to push my counter bluff so vigorously that she would
+be driven to admit her own. Therefore, after I thought
+the silence had become sufficiently impressive, I yielded
+to an impulse that many men find irresistible&mdash;I made
+an egregious ass of myself.</p>
+
+<p>"Lots of people," said I, sliding out upon thin ice
+with the braggadocio of him who rocks the boat, "chatter
+like magpies when dozing in an uncomfortable position.
+Police recognize this, and often arrange a suspect's
+cell so he'll have to sleep sitting up, then they
+listen and take down his inmost thoughts. That's the
+way you chattered last night."</p>
+
+<p>"Chattered!" she caught her breath.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; just rippled along, you know, telling everything
+you've been thinking these last couple of days.
+Some of it was rather interesting. Shall I poke up the
+fire again?"</p>
+
+<p>"Rather interesting!" She sprang around and faced
+me with blazing eyes, the picture of embarrassment and
+fury. "You consider the things I've been thinking
+the last couple of days 'rather interesting!' Oh," she
+cried, dashing the pan of corn meal batter to the
+ground, "you're damnable&mdash;I hate you!" There was a
+whirl of a skirt, the twinkle of a little booted foot, and,
+by Jove, she had gone flying off like the wind; while I,
+feeling about the size of a june-bug, stood first on one
+leg and then the other, wondering what the devil she had
+been thinking these last couple of days.</p>
+
+<p>Now, when a fellow has made a blatant ass of himself,
+I hold that the quickest road to salvation is "own
+up and shut up." If he's forgiven, life may flow on
+as formerly. If he isn't, he has recourse to the pose of
+having been grossly misunderstood, and eventually work
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[253]</a></span>himself into quite a creditable reproduction of a martyred
+nobleman. If he's good at that kind of thing,
+a girl will grow sorry and forgive him in spite of herself.
+I got this from Tommy, one day, and Tommy
+knows a lot about women&mdash;really, an awful lot.</p>
+
+<p>But the most detestable part of my present muddle
+was that I had hurt her&mdash;I, who would have bartered
+my life to shield her from hurts! Feeling thoroughly
+contrite I went quickly in pursuit, looking ahead and
+on both sides for a glimpse of the dress that meant the
+world to me. Regardless of boundaries, regardless of
+everything but to implore an instant forgiveness at
+whatever cost, I rushed impetuously on, calling her
+name.</p>
+
+<p>Then I came up with her at the side of the bubbling
+spring. She was lying prone upon the bank, her face
+buried in her arms that were crossed beneath it. And,
+having found her, I could not advance. Something
+about the lovely grace of her body held me enthralled.
+Furthermore, I had no right to be here; I was an interloper,
+a prowler! There were but two things to do,
+and do at once, to wit, make myself humble and scarce.</p>
+
+<p>"Doloria," I said.</p>
+
+<p>She did not move, perhaps she had not heard, so I
+kneeled and took one of her hands, whereupon she
+sprang to her feet looking at me strangely, wildly.</p>
+
+<p>"You've no right here," she cried. "You've broken
+faith!"</p>
+
+<p>"No, please no," I said quickly. "I'm too desperate
+to care where I am when you're angry! Since you called
+me damnable&mdash;said you hated me&mdash;the world's turned
+black; so I'm not deliberately trespassing&mdash;only lost,
+because you've taken away your smile!"</p>
+
+<p>"<i>You</i> took it away," she retorted. "You'd murder
+any girl's smile by such&mdash;brutality!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[254]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Brutality!" I gasped.</p>
+
+<p>"Truthfulness," she stamped her foot.</p>
+
+<p>"But I wasn't truthful," I hurried to tell her. "I
+lied like the devil to call your bluff&mdash;wanted to make
+you own up because&mdash;well, you'd lied a little, too! I
+never dreamed my joke would hurt you. Great God,"
+I now cried passionately, "to think of hurting you who
+are my life and breath and&mdash;&mdash;" I caught myself, stopping
+short and looking at her; then slowly adding: "You
+didn't say a word in your sleep, I swear it. It was
+beautiful of you to trust me that way, and&mdash;and if you'll
+rescue our breakfast I'll never be such an idiot again."</p>
+
+<p>She had partly turned away at my impassioned outburst,
+but the assurance I gave that Somnus had been
+dumb brought a hint of the fascinating curve to her
+lips. Yet her eyes still expressed doubt, and I was
+growing desperate enough even to humor her incredulity,
+hoping thereby to discover another road to favor, when
+she asked:</p>
+
+<p>"You're not just saying that?"</p>
+
+<p>"On my honor it's true&mdash;every word! I'm sorry,
+Princess!"</p>
+
+<p>Again she turned away her face, looking across the
+spring and murmuring, as though to someone there:</p>
+
+<p>"It's because he's hungry, I suppose,"&mdash;then whirled
+and held out both hands to me, in that sweet way of
+hers. "It's I who am cruel, Chancellor. Come, poor
+man, I'll feed you; you look as glum as Pharaoh&mdash;was
+Pharaoh glum? I'll beat you to the kitchen!" And
+she bounded away, almost before the challenge had been
+given.</p>
+
+<p>Straight she sped with astonishing swiftness, skimming
+over fallen logs, darting this way and that through
+festoons of vines, with the grace of a frightened doe.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[255]</a></span>
+In freedom of motion she was as some wild thing of
+forest birth, suggesting the spirits of the wind, the
+dappled sunlight, the dancing waters; yet never lacking
+an ineffable refinement that added both charm and
+mystery.</p>
+
+<p>Each of us was breathing fast when, shoulder to
+shoulder, we reached the fire, she claiming the race
+without the slightest show of embarrassment.</p>
+
+<p>"But I was holding back," I said, finding combativeness
+a very fair outlet to pursue, and adding: "You
+had the start, too!"</p>
+
+<p>"In a race any one has the start who's able to get
+it," she asserted. "Besides, I set the pace, and all
+you had to do was follow. I slowed up toward the end,
+anyway."</p>
+
+<p>The impertinence of it!</p>
+
+<p>"You slowed up because you had to! And I don't
+believe you were angry a while ago, either!"</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you?" she asked, slowly.</p>
+
+<p>"Not so very," I compromised, seeing the danger
+signal. "I think you were just making a jolly chump
+of me, that's all. I don't so much mind making one
+of myself, but it's rotten having other people do it for
+me!"</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose," she said indifferently, raising her arms
+to tuck in a lock of hair, "that if it's worthwhile making
+the distinction, you might be allowed a choice."</p>
+
+<p>For the pure deviltry of this remark I looked around
+for something to throw at her, and then saw our fire&mdash;a
+tragic picture of dead ashes which the wind was
+blowing over a now cold skillet.</p>
+
+<p>"See," I cried, "what our family row has led to!
+Fire out, breakfast ruined, and here I am due at the
+office in half an hour!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[256]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Jack," she looked at me gravely, putting an
+end to our banter&mdash;and for the first time calling me
+Jack, though I believe she did it unconsciously&mdash;"haven't
+we any more buttonwood? This is serious,
+isn't it!"</p>
+
+<p>"Not so very, perhaps. We can try another kind."</p>
+
+<p>"Will it be safe?" she asked, uncertainly.</p>
+
+<p>"With a small fire of very dry hardwood, and this
+rising wind, what little smoke there is won't hold together
+long enough to be seen."</p>
+
+<p>"But it'll blow right toward their camp! The wind's
+changed since yesterday!"</p>
+
+<p>"That's more than two miles off, and they're probably
+still after Smilax. I'll make a very small fire."</p>
+
+<p>This, indeed, seemed to work well enough, and by the
+time a new breakfast was ready our uncertainties had
+become shadows of no consequence.</p>
+
+<p>"But you <i>do</i> know I was angry, don't you?" she
+asked, out of a clear sky, with an unexpectedness that
+made me throw back my head and laugh.</p>
+
+<p>"You bet I do! And you beat me in the race, too;
+and you're the best cook on our block!"</p>
+
+<p>"It seems to be the same old story," she smiled, with
+affected sorrow, "that food must always be the price of
+masculine tractability. Ah, the long drawn out tragedy
+of woman's existence, that she must forever be stuffing
+man with things to eat, as reptiles are stuffed, to keep
+him facile!"</p>
+
+<p>"You fail to observe, my little snake charmer," I
+replied, "that you omitted to say good things to eat.
+I'm never facile after Smilax feeds me."&mdash;Though I
+owe Smilax an apology for this!</p>
+
+<p>"He must have run great risks of being bitten."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[257]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no; I'm not the biting kind of snake! I'm
+a constrictor&mdash;I hug!"</p>
+
+<p>"Mercy!" She gave a little gasp, then, turned and
+went indifferently toward the spring.</p>
+
+<p>Whistling happily I finished the dishes. But I
+finished them with the promise of a better cleansing next
+time, and soon was calling her.</p>
+
+<p>She came to me humming the song I had been whistling&mdash;an
+unconscious bit of flattery on her part, but it added
+to my pleasure. There is, after all, so much to be
+gained by hitching your wagon to a star, that I tried
+to believe she deliberately intended it. I would have
+hitched up oftener to that same star, except for the
+fact that stars sometimes get hot and furious at too
+many liberties, and switch their tails and kick the
+wagons of well-meaning people to smithereens. That
+it may be better to have had a stellar joy-ride and be
+sent to hell for speeding than keep your boots forever
+in the clay, I will neither affirm nor deny; but the prudent
+man hitcheth to the moon!</p>
+
+<p>As we went toward the fort she turned to me, asking:</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you think they should have been here sooner?
+Do you fear anything you won't tell me?" Her eyes
+were anxious, and I saw how insistent this worry had
+been.</p>
+
+<p>"Everything depends on how far Smilax had to go,"
+I answered. "He'd never dream of coming back until
+the men gave up&mdash;and they might chase him half across
+the state! So a few extra days doesn't mean anything.
+They can't catch him, that's certain; and he and Echochee'll
+only stay away as long as they're pursued.
+They'll come through, I believe it sincerely; and your
+Chancellor, sweet Princess, will guard you with his
+life&mdash;with ten lives, if he had them."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[258]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I know that," she murmured, "and shan't worry
+if you tell me not to."</p>
+
+<p>"Then cheer up! Smilax is a past-master of the
+swamps and woods, take my word for it!"</p>
+
+<p>"I really suppose Echochee knows a great deal about
+them, too," she said, after a pause, "for when she was
+sixteen she had to leave the Reservation with her husband
+and hide him in the Everglades. She learned
+a great deal, then."</p>
+
+<p>"Why did she have to do that?"</p>
+
+<p>"He'd fought and killed another Indian, and the
+officers were expected. But in the fight he received
+a cut that made him blind. For ten years Echochee
+fed and clothed him, hunting alligators and watching
+her chance of slipping the skins to a market. By extreme
+stinting she finally saved enough to 'buy him
+loose'&mdash;her optimistic way of saying 'pay a lawyer for
+his defense.' Think, after being outcasts all that time,
+of leading a blind husband through half a hundred
+miles of wilderness, with the savings of ten years
+to wager on a chance of having him cleared!"</p>
+
+<p>"I hope he was," I declared.</p>
+
+<p>"In a sense he was, yes. He knew where she kept
+the money, and while she was in the lawyer's office
+persuading him to take the case, her husband stole it
+and sneaked away."</p>
+
+<p>I uttered a cry at this hideous ingratitude, and she
+glanced at me, gravely adding:</p>
+
+<p>"Then he got drunk and was run over by a train; so,
+in a sense, Echochee freed him, after all."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, the magnanimous courage of a woman's devotion!"
+I stopped and looked at her. "It's always the
+same, irrespective of tribe and nation. She's dauntless,
+world-defying, utterly self-sacrificing. I hope to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[259]</a></span>
+God, Doloria, that you won't be among those who
+squeeze their hearts dry! You've lived away from the
+world and may not know how plentiful these are; but
+no day passes without its toll of some woman being
+silently crucified in her losing fight to save a besotted
+biped&mdash;the lord of her earthly temple. It's only by a
+streak of luck when their stage is cleared, as Echochee's
+was!"</p>
+
+<p>"That may be all right for clearing the stage," she
+murmured, "but it doesn't heal the hearts of those
+who were made to suffer."</p>
+
+<p>I had not fathomed the penetration of her sympathy,
+being satisfied, man like, to let a swift revenge wipe
+the slate. She seemed to be contemplating what I had
+said, and when she again spoke her voice was tender
+as though it had come unbidden from a wistful reverie.</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose you're right, Jack. The world I've
+known, only through books, must be full of such cruelties.
+I rather dread having to go into it. It seems a
+pity that I can't always live in&mdash;in&mdash;&mdash;" then, with
+a smile, she asked: "Do you ever dream? I don't mean
+when you're asleep, but awake&mdash;wide awake?"</p>
+
+<p>"I rather think I'm dreaming now," I admitted, for
+a great contentment had fallen about us as we walked
+beneath the solemn trees.</p>
+
+<p>The silence that followed was again stirred by her
+voice, saying:</p>
+
+<p>"You mustn't think me childish, but I've always had
+a secret gateway to a place&mdash;my Secret world&mdash;where
+everything is make-believe, and nothing can be but
+truth and beauty. Often when Echochee was tiresome,
+or I was tired, I used to slip away and go there."</p>
+
+<p>"I wish you'd take me&mdash;won't you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I can't," she quickly answered, stooping for a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[260]</a></span>
+flower in our path, holding it in both hands and leaning
+her face above it.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," at last I said, "I've a place like that; but I
+don't know whether I live there in make-believe, or
+throwing off the make-believe we have to wear in the
+world you're going to, I live honestly with myself. If
+you won't take me to yours, sometime maybe you'll
+come to mine!"</p>
+
+<p>Now, I had no intention of making love to her. We
+were talking only about secret worlds and day-dreams.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm afraid it might be difficult," she answered,
+dropping the flower and walking a shade more slowly.
+"Our lives&mdash;yours and mine&mdash;are cast along such opposite
+lines, it seems!"</p>
+
+<p>"That's what Secret worlds are for," I told her,
+"&mdash;&mdash;that, no matter how far apart we are, our spirits
+may come and meet; live again, as we've lived here;
+be happy again&mdash;as I've been." I turned, saying with
+a laugh that was meant to convey an impression of insouciance&mdash;yet
+failing rather miserably: "These two
+big pines here, Princess, actually make the gateway to
+my pool&mdash;which is, in fact, my Secret world, because
+you helped me build my home there. So, you see, it
+wouldn't be very difficult, as you were about to enter
+without knowing it. Oh, I wish I could tell you more
+about it!" And I then became silent, too helplessly
+afraid to go on.</p>
+
+<p>A brighter color had come into her throat and cheeks,
+but she was smiling whimsically as she said:</p>
+
+<p>"Then we must go around&mdash;find another path to the
+fort&mdash;mustn't we!"</p>
+
+<p>She had stopped before me, poised delicately, almost
+swaying; and for several seconds our eyes, that must
+have been charged with some untranslatable excitement,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[261]</a></span>
+held fast. Mine would not let go, and hers I believe
+could not. Her hands, idly at her sides, were turned
+palms forward, unconsciously suggestive of supplication.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you know what you remind me of when you stand
+that way?" I asked.</p>
+
+<p>"No," She looked away now, laughing lightly&mdash;though
+it was more subtly than suddenly done.
+"What?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of a fairy that's flown from a butterfly moon, just
+alighting at my threshold and asking to come in."</p>
+
+<p>"Wouldn't a fairy be unseemly forward to come to
+a young man's threshold and ask admittance?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not admittance, but admission&mdash;to my dreams,
+where nothing is real but you and beauty."</p>
+
+<p>"Dreams are for the old, the young shall see visions!&mdash;isn't
+there a quotation like that?" she asked, smiling.</p>
+
+<p>"You're not playing fair," I laughed&mdash;for I was
+afraid not to laugh, wanting desperately to say that I
+was seeing the vision now that would be my dream forever!</p>
+
+<p>"I'll play fair if I know the rules," she also laughed.
+"You haven't told them to me!"</p>
+
+<p>"We'll make them up as we go along!"</p>
+
+<p>"But what are we going to play?"</p>
+
+<p>"Make-believe," I eagerly cried. "That we're exploring
+our Secret world where we'll come after,"&mdash;there
+was no laugh in my voice now&mdash;"you've gone to
+Azuria, and I'm here alone."</p>
+
+<p>She gave my face a quick, searching look.</p>
+
+<p>"And we only have to pass between these two big
+trees?" she asked, half lightly, half timidly.</p>
+
+<p>"Only through that gateway, and we're in our
+world!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[262]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Why should I go, I wonder?" The question was
+whispered, almost unconsciously, and catching the tone
+of it I also whispered:</p>
+
+<p>"To plant a memory, Doloria, that will grow and
+bloom as long as we live; where each of us may come&mdash;when
+we're lonely."</p>
+
+<p>What forces, intangible, supernal, were at work here
+no man can tell. Philosophers stumble, fools blunder,
+and the truth dances on ahead through Life's woodland
+of mysteries&mdash;one instant revealing itself in a
+golden shaft of sunlight, hiding the next with smothered
+laughter in the black shadow of a fern, while seekers
+after it tramp past in grumbling blindness.</p>
+
+<p>At this moment our wood seemed rich with mystic
+presage. Pleadingly my hands went out to her, and
+trustfully she put hers into them. Slowly I backed
+between the two big trees, our eyes held as two charmed
+beings. Everything about me called to her, everything
+in her urged compliance; and I knew, as did she, that
+something strange was happening. Yet when I halted
+she did not falter, but came on, bravely, sweetly, into
+my arms.</p>
+
+<p>That she should have done this was as inevitable
+as it was gloriously true. We could no more have continued
+to stroll side by side through our Oasis, commenting
+on the seasons, sometimes rapturous over a sunset
+or the call of a bird, than we could have rubbed a
+lamp and brought the <i>Whim</i> sailing to us over the sea
+of grass. Static existences only prevail with static
+people, and there was too much surgingly dynamic
+about this twenty year old girl to have encouraged it
+here. I say, too, with candor that any man of twenty-six
+whose blood is red is&mdash;with the great out-of-doors
+abetting&mdash;not insulated for or against currents. Throw<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[263]</a></span>
+these two alone in a primitive world where their tent is
+the sky, and a spark must eventually jump across the
+gradually lessening distance. It is thus that wild things
+mate&mdash;and their mating is incorruptible.</p>
+
+<p>But now as my arms tightened and my face leaned to
+hers, she gave a half fearful cry and sprang tremblingly
+back, pressing both hands to her breast, breathing
+quickly and staring at me with wide eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Chancellor," she gasped, "this is madness, don't
+you know it?"</p>
+
+<p>The quick alarm in her voice sobered me and I answered
+"Yes," for there was nothing else to say. And
+a moment later when, in an even tone and at a conventional
+distance, she suggested: "Shall we go on
+to the fort?" I did not reply, but walked mutely at
+her side.</p>
+
+<p>Our contact had been too instantaneous for me to
+collect myself at once, and I wondered how she was
+managing to do so&mdash;or if she were bluffing. For this
+sudden serene-mindedness she now displayed was quite
+too enigmatic for my comprehension.</p>
+
+<p>"We planted the memory that will be mine forever,"
+I whispered, trying to see her face which she kept
+partially hid by keeping half a step ahead of me. "I'll
+never forget our&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh," she cried, on the verge of tears, I thought,
+"don't ever speak to me of it again&mdash;ever!"</p>
+
+<p>"It's nothing we ought to regret&mdash;it wasn't your
+fault," I persisted,&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"That's just it&mdash;it was my fault, it was," she interrupted
+passionately, and somehow her hand found mine
+and pressed it. Was there ever any one more square?
+"I knew we were going to&mdash;do that, and I didn't try to
+stop it. You'll think that I'm&mdash;I'm&mdash;&mdash;"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[264]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"The most glorious girl who ever lived," I cried, taking
+full possession of her hand now.</p>
+
+<p>"Won't you please be honest?" she asked, quite seriously.
+"I am; and I give you my word I'd never
+have done it if it hadn't seemed so real&mdash;I mean, our
+planting the memory."</p>
+
+<p>She turned then, and to my relief she was half smiling.
+For an instant the longing to hold her again
+showed in my face, but she stopped me with a look. This
+time it was done with the intention of stopping me, and
+I stopped. Yet the smile had not left her face as she
+said, in a tone of sweet confidence:</p>
+
+<p>"Let's be above-the-board-honest with each other in
+all things, Jack; it makes for long friendships, Echochee
+says&mdash;and there's nothing finer, anyhow, than to
+freely admit a mistake. So it wasn't your fault any
+more than mine; we've both been very naughty spirits,
+and we mustn't be again." She paused, adding: "After
+all, I suppose it does make our secret world just
+a little&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>I waited, and when she did not continue, asked:</p>
+
+<p>"A little what?"</p>
+
+<p>Still she hesitated.</p>
+
+<p>"Be honest," I warned.</p>
+
+<p>She smiled again, looking at me frankly.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, a little sweeter, to feel that we're equally to
+blame; that that's why we can't ever go there again."</p>
+
+<p>"Eden up-to-date?" I laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"Y-yes, I suppose so; and the flaming sword has
+smote us, so we have to be circumspect forever and
+ever."</p>
+
+<p>"But Eve wasn't! The flaming sword didn't phaze
+her a minute!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[265]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I've had lots of time to improve on Eve," she replied
+archly.</p>
+
+<p>"That's God's truth," I cried.</p>
+
+<p>A rippling laugh burst from her lips&mdash;a ringing,
+happy laugh that was heard, I swear, in listening heaven.
+She seemed obsessed by a strange excitement&mdash;perhaps
+like my own, that sprang from a deep, inordinate sense
+of pleasure.</p>
+
+<p>We were getting on toward the fort, walking inside
+the edge of our Oasis near that place where the fallen
+palms lay in a confused tangle. I had her hand and
+was helping her over this network of logs when she suddenly
+sprang before me with dazzling quickness; facing
+outward, and holding back her arms to keep me in
+check.</p>
+
+<p>It was an act instinctive of protection, yet scarcely
+had I time to wonder at it when a whining, crackling
+sound, that might have come from anywhere, dashed
+past our heads. Men who have heard a high-power
+bullet splitting the air do not forget the sound, which
+is as quickly recognized a second time as the rattling
+of a diamond-back.</p>
+
+<p>Immediately following it came the crack of a rifle,
+and guided by this I saw, above the prairie grass four
+hundred yards away, the head and shoulders of a man.
+At that instant he fired again.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXII" id="CHAPTER_XXII"></a>CHAPTER XXII</h2>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[266]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2>I LOVE YOU</h2>
+
+
+<p>To be transported instantly from the essence of happiness
+to the brink of tragedy&mdash;and a tragedy wherein
+the whole of one's world goes tottering&mdash;engenders a
+confusion of mind that for a moment leaves one helpless.
+And thus it was that the second bullet flashed by
+us before I sufficiently gathered my wits to act, to realize
+that some returning member of Efaw Kotee's band
+had stumbled on our little paradise.</p>
+
+<p>I caught Doloria and swung her behind me, at the
+same time drawing my automatic and sending two quick
+shots, aimed high, toward the scoundrel who was making
+ready to try his hand again. Almost at once he
+disappeared, though I knew he had not been hit for it
+was extremely doubtful if, at that range, a revolver
+bullet could reach him at all. For the sake of caution
+he was merely crouching in the grass, and waiting.</p>
+
+<p>Then I became swept by an inordinate anger; a
+natural enough feeling in a man whose life has been
+sneakingly attempted, but let a life that is a million
+times more precious than his own be so fired upon and
+he will pass the limit of human rage. With an oath I
+pushed her down into a niche of temporary safety, saying:</p>
+
+<p>"Stay there till I come back!"</p>
+
+<p>Immediately I began to scramble over the network
+of fallen logs; my intention being to reach the high grass
+and, dropping to my hands and knees, crawl out to meet<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[267]</a></span>
+him&mdash;as, in all probability, he was now crawling toward
+us. But before I got free of the entanglements she
+had sprung after me and caught my arm, crying:</p>
+
+<p>"It's insane for you to go out there&mdash;with only your
+automatic against his rifle! Come back!"</p>
+
+<p>"Go back yourself," I said sternly, shaking off her
+grasp. "Crouch in the hole, as I told you! Quick!"</p>
+
+<p>"I won't&mdash;unless you do, too! For the love of God&mdash;he'll
+<i>kill</i> you!" This last she screamed, frantically
+catching hold of me again as the man fired a third shot
+and we felt the breath of his bullet on our faces.</p>
+
+<p>Both of us knew that this was no time for argument,
+and she began tugging at my belt like a wild thing, bracing
+herself to keep me back and showing no disposition
+to obey. So without ceremony I picked her up intending
+to shove her down between the logs.</p>
+
+<p>"You shan't," she gasped. "He'll kill you if you
+go&mdash;if you don't he'll leave!"</p>
+
+<p>But I was too terrified for her sake to listen&mdash;too determined
+that the fellow should not get back and tell
+his gang.</p>
+
+<p>"Do as I say," I commanded, giving her a shake.</p>
+
+<p>She had stopped speaking and was desperately using
+her strength. I, also, had grown desperate. Our position
+was too unwarrantably exposed to tolerate this further,
+and urgently I began to pry open her fingers when,
+by some twist of her own or awkwardness on my part,
+I slipped and fell out backwards into a deep, narrow
+slit between the logs, drawing her down with me and
+wedging my shoulders as if they were held in a vise.</p>
+
+<p>It might have been a serious fall&mdash;for her, I mean&mdash;had
+not providentially she landed atop of me; but now,
+trying to arise, I found that I had measured neither
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[268]</a></span>her strength of purpose nor of muscle. Her determination
+had not been cooled by this mishap, rather had it
+become more aroused with the consciousness of her advantage;
+for, in answer to my first movement, she
+caught my cheeks and passionately shook me. Her eyes,
+scarcely half a foot away, stared down into mine with a
+frightened, pleading, commanding look. They were
+open wider than usual, giving the impression that this
+was the first test of physical encounter she had ever
+experienced.</p>
+
+<p>"You're safe here!&mdash;you shan't move!" she was whispering
+wildly.</p>
+
+<p>"I must," I declared. "He's got to be stopped, I
+tell you!"</p>
+
+<p>I did not want to hurt her, yet at all hazards that
+man had to be killed, and I began really to struggle.</p>
+
+<p>"No&mdash;no!" she panted, pushing down my partially
+raised head with a jolt that made me see stars. For she
+was fighting this time, with the ferocity of a tigress,
+and I, held by her weight, found the task of freeing
+myself no easy one. I tried working loose one shoulder,
+growling between my teeth:</p>
+
+<p>"I <i>will</i> get out of here!"</p>
+
+<p>"You won't&mdash;you won't!" She reiterated this as if
+sheer force of mind could make me yield. And then her
+hair, uncoiling, fell softly over my face and closed my
+eyes.</p>
+
+<p>There is a mesmeric force about the human hair, a
+woman's hair, resting on a man's upturned face&mdash;although
+I do not mean this in a sentimental sense. It is
+a natural law; as a wild bird can be put into a state
+of mimic sleep by laying it on its back and pressing its
+eyes with feathers.</p>
+
+<p>The frenzy of Doloria's clutching fingers that still
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[269]</a></span>held my cheeks, and the pressure of her body whose excited
+breathing wedged me even tighter down between
+the logs, had been to us no more than incidents in the
+desperate struggle we were making, each for the other's
+safety. But, blinded by her hair, for the moment I desisted
+and, taking quick advantage of this, she
+whispered:</p>
+
+<p>"If you've any wish to please me, listen! I know
+those men by heart&mdash;each is an arrant coward when
+alone. So he won't crawl closer. By the time he brings
+the others back we'll be inside the fort!"</p>
+
+<p>"That's just it," I retorted. "The fort's no good
+at night&mdash;they'll rush it! He's got to be stopped, Doloria!"</p>
+
+<p>"Jack, do this for me, please?" she begged. Her lips
+were very near. "If we have to die, we will&mdash;but I
+can't see you go out on that prairie alone&mdash;I simply
+can't!" And I grew still.</p>
+
+<p>Soon I felt her hands upon my chest as she pushed
+herself up to look over the logs. By this movement
+the blindfold was partially lifted and I could see her&mdash;her
+body curved backward, as a mermaid that raises itself
+at arm's length upon the shore. Her lips were
+parted, her eyes were steady and level as they gazed
+searchingly across the sea of grass&mdash;as many a nymph,
+no doubt, hiding from a company of swashbuckling
+gnomes, must have peeped out to see if her glade were
+safe before venturing from the wood. In another moment
+she had left me and run a few steps toward the
+prairie, crying:</p>
+
+<p>"Look! He's 'way, 'way off!"</p>
+
+<p>"I can't look," I called after her. "You've put me
+here for life!"</p>
+
+<p>Indeed, I was so completely held that the first result
+of my twisting seemed only to make me lose ground.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[270]</a></span>
+She came back, this time laughing without control&mdash;but
+I knew the sign; my nerves, too, had recently been drunk
+on relaxation from a strain. Tucking up her hair with
+a few quick movements she held down both hands to me
+and, after more squirming, I worked myself out. But
+our enemy had by this time disappeared.</p>
+
+<p>"If that fellow's back, the others are, too," I said,
+with some display of temper. "You've made the very
+devil of a mess!"</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose I have," she looked demurely away. There
+was nothing of the tigress, nothing of the willful little
+fighter, now.</p>
+
+<p>"The consequence is," I continued, "that we have to
+decide between two darned slim chances, for they'll be
+coming back within an hour. We can stay here, or run
+for it! What do you think?" But as she remained
+silent, gazing across the prairie, I kept irritably on:
+"If it's run, we can't reach the forests north, south or
+east without being seen&mdash;and you know what a fight in
+the open means against such odds. We might hide in
+the grass and travel at night, but if their woodcraft's
+worth a hang they'll read our trail on this kind of
+ground like an electric sign. There's an Indian in their
+crowd, too. If we stay, the fort'll keep them off till
+night&mdash;and there's always a hope of Smilax turning up.
+They mightn't rush us after dark, either."</p>
+
+<p>I could see that the fort was our best chance, but
+still I wanted her opinion. Something about the way
+she stood, having no word to say, rather awed me, and
+going softly I looked around at her face. Her cheeks
+were wet and her lips were trembling with convulsive
+sobs. Oh, how I hated myself then!</p>
+
+<p>"Good God," I cried, throwing my arms about her,
+"see what I've done!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[271]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>But she put her palms against my shoulders and held
+me off, saying brokenly:</p>
+
+<p>"You haven't done anything."</p>
+
+<p>"I have," I cried again. "I've hurt you&mdash;hurt the
+one I love most in all the world!"</p>
+
+<p>"Don't," she said, more startled now than at any
+time when she had been facing a greater danger.
+"Quick! Please&mdash;let's get the things we need for the
+fort!" And she sprang away from me, running toward
+the pool.</p>
+
+<p>In a very few minutes we were back with the rifles,
+an ample supply of cartridges, our canteens, and a
+blanket I had brought in case we decided to slip away
+at night. Helping her over the parapet I followed, and
+we stood looking intently for a sign of foes, but the waving
+grass spoke only of a brisk wind. It might be a
+half an hour before Efaw Kotee's band could get within
+range of us. Twice I whispered her name, but she
+would not answer, so I turned her around until she had
+to face me.</p>
+
+<p>"I have the right to speak now," I said gently, "because
+this may be the last of things. The next few
+hours will decide. You understand, don't you, and
+know that my words are their own excuse?"</p>
+
+<p>There was a serious, calm mystery in her look that
+answered mine with simple courage, as she whispered:</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I understand."</p>
+
+<p>"We can't die," I drew her close to me, "because
+I love you&mdash;I love you!"</p>
+
+<p>For a quick moment, and then gone, a light shone in
+her eyes&mdash;as though some fire raging below had been
+swept through the entirety of her being. Her fingers
+that had been clutching my shoulders relaxed, and very<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[272]</a></span>
+softly her arms crept around my neck, as she murmured:
+"No more than I do you!"</p>
+
+<p>It might have been a minute or a year that we drifted
+in a rapturously agonizing kiss; but slowly her eyes
+opened, her lips sighed and, touching them to my cheek,
+she whispered my name over and over again.</p>
+
+<p>"We'll win to-day," I cried, giving the prairie a
+searching look above her head, "and after that there's
+a kingdom waiting for you here!"</p>
+
+<p>"I can feel it beating," she whispered adorably.
+"But if we&mdash;&mdash;" She could not say it, but let her
+moist lips cling to mine as if challenging Death to part
+us.</p>
+
+<p>Who dares measure time when Cupid perches on the
+clock! 'Twas a wise providence that gave severe St.
+Gregory the making of our calendar, and not St. Anthony,
+else some minutes might be spun to days, and
+hours squeezed to the fraction of a second.</p>
+
+<p>But the ever present danger had not at any time quite
+ceased to pierce the mist of our paradise. She knew
+I was keeping a careful watch, even while I held her.
+Now she drew away, and crossed her arms upon the
+parapet.</p>
+
+<p>"When things begin to happen," I said, "you must
+sit on the ground. I won't risk your lovely head above
+the wall!"</p>
+
+<p>"Why?" she asked. "Aren't two rifles better than
+one?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," I admitted, "but I can't shoot unless you're
+safe."</p>
+
+<p>"Then don't think of me, at all, for I promise to do
+whatever you say. Look," she pointed suddenly.
+"There they are!&mdash;I believe every one of them! Oh, I
+wonder if they've killed Echochee!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[273]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>I, too, wondered; for surely here was the gang that
+had pursued them&mdash;quite a mile out on the prairie, to
+be sure, but unquestionably Efaw Kotee's band, showing
+as a black smudge above the grass. Whether
+this pack of human wolves had lost the trail of Smilax
+I would not try to guess, for it was enough to know that
+they had found our own.</p>
+
+<p>They were still too far off to be counted, but I felt
+that Doloria had been right in saying every man of
+them. That would mean eight if Jess and the old chief
+were along, furious devils demanding their revenge,
+mad to surround us and take their own good time about
+placing a shot where it would do the work. It was only
+fair that she should know the odds, so I put my arm
+around her, saying:</p>
+
+<p>"When they get nearer, they'll scatter out. Some
+will stay in front, hiding in the grass and shooting
+enough to keep us busy, and others will circle to the
+trees behind us. It's going to be a close call, sweetheart,
+but they'll never get in while I'm up."</p>
+
+<p>"I know that," she answered gently. "We may as
+well be brave and speak of it with indifference; it's
+easier that way; so I want to tell you that if you&mdash;you&mdash;&mdash;"
+but her voice did choke, yet she raised her
+chin and calmly finished, "are killed, I'll follow right
+away. It's infinitely preferable to being taken," she
+hastily added, seeing my look of horror. "So wait for
+me just a little while, and I'll catch up with you."</p>
+
+<p>Was there ever such courage! Looking back into her
+eyes I saw a light that by its own vital force was self-translated,
+requiring no words, nor the sight of her
+fingers grasping the handle of that small revolver at her
+waist, to tell of her determination. In spite of myself
+I shuddered; yet she was so calm, so wonderful in her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[274]</a></span>
+abiding faith of catching up with me on that Long
+Trail that knows no turning back, that my heart, too,
+burned with a flame more enduring than the love of
+mortals. Without a word I took the small revolver
+from her hand, and in its place put mine of larger,
+more reliable, caliber. Understanding, she looked gratefully
+up at me, her eyes filling with tears even as she
+smiled and whispered:</p>
+
+<p>"Now I can do it without being afraid."</p>
+
+<p>"By the God above us," I groaned in my agony,
+"you'll never have to! For your sake I'll beat off
+twice that many men!"</p>
+
+<p>"Then don't think of it again, my ferocious, terrible
+Chancellor," she laughed a little&mdash;but I knew, with a
+sob tearing at my throat, that her playful mood, intended
+as a tonic for my nerves, was the bravest thing
+she had yet done. "Look, Jack! They're doing something!"</p>
+
+<p>"They're spreading out," I said, tensely.</p>
+
+<p>Her excitement suddenly died. In its place came a
+pathetic look of wistfulness as she raised her face to
+mine and, with a quick sob, whispered:</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, very own mine, try to let me cook your dinner
+again to-night?"</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIII" id="CHAPTER_XXIII"></a>CHAPTER XXIII</h2>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[275]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2>THE ATTACK</h2>
+
+
+<p>When after this I looked across the parapet I was
+as a man of highly tempered steel. The compact mass
+had begun to disintegrate, spreading in both directions
+until their flanks must have been an eighth of a mile
+apart. Then they advanced.</p>
+
+<p>On a guess I judged their line to be quite fifteen
+hundred yards away because each unit looked about
+the size of a pea; and, as these represented the upper
+halves of men, the distance was too great to open fire.
+So I raised my sight to a thousand yards and waited.
+My nerves were steady with a purpose deep-set in me,
+for I was about to shoot for the greatest trophy of my
+life, so when the line had advanced a third of the way
+I took careful aim, and fired. A second passed; then my
+target disappeared.</p>
+
+<p>"Is he hit or hiding?" Doloria asked excitedly, adding
+with a little gasp: "He's hit, for some are going to
+him&mdash;see?"</p>
+
+<p>"I believe he is," I agreed, taking another careful
+aim at one who had not started to his comrade's assistance.
+He, too, disappeared, and immediately afterwards
+all of them ducked from view.</p>
+
+<p>"That's awkward," I growled. "They'll do some
+crawling up, now!"</p>
+
+<p>"They won't dare come close after that," she cried,
+"for I know you hit one!" Yet this might have been
+what Echochee would have called "good-medicine-talk,"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[276]</a></span>
+and while standing ready I warned her not to be too
+sure, as both men might have dropped only for safety.</p>
+
+<p>It will not seem strange that we both felt some disappointment
+over the probability of this, if one stops
+to consider what lurked in the other side of the scales
+for us.</p>
+
+<p>Heads soon began to bob up nearer, now accompanied
+by quickly fired shots, and I ordered Doloria to the
+ground. But with relief I noticed that these shots went
+wild, many times hitting too far away to be heard at all,
+so our position obviously was as yet undiscovered. The
+morning sun shone directly in the men's eyes, while the
+protective coloration of our fort blended most elusively
+into the background of somber forest.</p>
+
+<p>At the bobbing heads I continued to fire with what
+quickness I could, sometimes sending a second, third
+and fourth shot purposely low to probe the grass where
+it seemed that a man might be crouching. I could not
+reasonably have expected to register a hit by this, but
+it kept them in check, and that was our chief concern.
+From the beginning I realized that if they got near
+enough to rush us the night would close over a very silent
+little fort.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly Doloria gave a cry that froze my blood,
+for I thought it meant an attack from the rear.</p>
+
+<p>"Quick&mdash;quick! Your matches! Oh, not to have
+thought of it before!" But this last was added while I
+dug into my pockets for the precious box.</p>
+
+<p>"You can't do it," I exclaimed.</p>
+
+<p>"I can! Keep them down, and I'll crawl! They
+won't see me!"</p>
+
+<p>There was wisdom here, and I yielded. Nimbly she
+climbed the wall, dropped to her hands and knees, and
+crawled to the prairie. In another minute a string of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[277]</a></span>
+smoke appeared; then with a bunch of grass alight she
+flew from place to place, stooping as she ran, and leaving
+in her wake a trail of fire. Almost as quickly she
+was back at my side, breathing fast.</p>
+
+<p>"You glorious genius, we'll win out yet," I yelled.</p>
+
+<p>The grass was dry and tall and thick, and the wind
+was blowing smartly. Fire asks for no better playground,
+and with incredible swiftness a wall of flame
+sprang up, crackling and roaring as it spread out
+fan-wise.</p>
+
+<p>She knew, as did I, that the men would back-fire.
+But while this would save them from the flames it would
+at the same time remove their cover, and my rifle could
+then have a whole man to bite at instead of merely his
+head and shoulders, or less. They would have no alternative
+now but to come forward quickly or retreat.
+I think Doloria realized that anything might be about
+to happen, for she laid the other rifle in position on the
+parapet, rather casually asking:</p>
+
+<p>"Will it matter if I stand on the canteens? They
+raise me just high enough!"</p>
+
+<p>Why should she not be given a chance to fight for her
+life&mdash;at least, until they located our point of concealment
+and began to concentrate their fire on it. That
+this would inevitably happen might be a matter of
+minutes, but until then I thought she had every right
+to stay. There's no denying, too, that I knew her
+value.</p>
+
+<p>What was going on behind the wall of racing flame we
+could not tell. But now it rose majestically, leapt
+skyward and sank to insignificance. The back-fire had
+met our own; they had gripped, flared up, and died.
+Likewise were our forces about to clash, and perhaps
+burn out with the heat of human passion.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[278]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Staring through the smoke we counted seven men
+running to the rear. They well enough knew the danger
+of being without cover, and were intending first to get
+beyond our range and then bring the fight back by
+some other means. Shooting fast I heard Doloria give
+several quick gasps of excitement as I knocked up the
+ash dust close to them, and although, their number was
+not reduced we gained a feeling of greater security to
+find the fort more impregnable than I had prophesied.</p>
+
+<p>But our budding hope lasted about as long as it took
+us to conceive it. One of the fellows suddenly changed
+his direction, waving as he ran, and the others dashed
+after him. Then we, too, saw the discovery he had made,
+and it filled me with a sense of desperation.</p>
+
+<p>This was a long, low line of green, indicating a ditch,
+or slough, edged with saw-palmettoes and bay bushes,
+that began at some indefinite northwestward point and
+diagonally crossed the prairie until it passed around
+our Oasis scarcely more than a hundred feet away.
+Heretofore, completely hidden by the tall grass, I had
+had no idea of its existence, and neither had the men,
+until Doloria's torch changed the prairie to a charred
+waste. In reality it was the outlet from our spring, and
+I knew that it must be fairly wide because the fire had
+not jumped it.</p>
+
+<p>To Efaw Kotee's band it offered both an immediate
+cover and a place from which to carry on the fight;
+moreover, by following it toward us, they could reach
+the Oasis and eventually creep up behind so near that
+a well-directed shot in my head would be only a question
+of persistence and time.</p>
+
+<p>Doloria must have understood this, and for the first
+time she began to fire, yet at nearly a thousand yards,
+when one's target not only moves but looks small and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[279]</a></span>
+black upon a blackened background, and is made further
+elusive by a haze of smoke, only luck can hit it. Still
+we played that luck to the last card, until one by one
+the men made safe and disappeared. Then she laid her
+rifle on the parapet, and I think took a long breath.
+For a moment neither of us spoke, each being afraid of
+saying too much, perhaps.</p>
+
+<p>Beginning to fill the magazine, she finally announced:</p>
+
+<p>"They're seven, Jack. You hit that first one, a
+while ago."</p>
+
+<p>"No," I replied, "or we'd see him on the ground
+now. He merely ducked, like the others."</p>
+
+<p>"But there were eight the night I escaped!"</p>
+
+<p>"Then Smilax got one during the chase&mdash;which shows
+that he and Echochee haven't been killed." But during
+this our eyes never left the ditch and our rifles were
+ready to blaze away at the first sign of movement.</p>
+
+<p>"Why?" she asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Because if he had to make a last stand there
+wouldn't be as many as seven men here now." And I
+firmly believed it, knowing how savagely our two servants
+would account for themselves. I think she agreed
+with me.</p>
+
+<p>An ominous silence lay about us. I felt sure that the
+scoundrels were crawling up along the ditch, and told
+her this. She nodded. Minutes passed.</p>
+
+<p>At one point, about two hundred yards out, there was
+a spot where the saw-palmettoes and bay bushes thinned
+to almost nothing. Sooner or later the enemy would
+have to cross this, and I watched it without blinking
+because it would offer our best&mdash;if not, indeed, last&mdash;chance
+to hold them. So when finally a stooping figure
+showed itself I opened a vigorous fire. He drew back,
+or fell back, and the silence again enveloped us, to be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[280]</a></span>
+shattered an instant later by a fusillade of shots that
+made the air thick with crackling whines. The location
+of our fort was known.</p>
+
+<p>"Down, down!" I yelled.</p>
+
+<p>"I am," she answered, obeying as the best of soldiers.
+"I'll load for you!"</p>
+
+<p>We were being showered with lead by now, and between
+the wasplike things speeding overhead and their
+"sput-sput" as they hit the logs, I dared expose no
+more than my eyes and forehead while emptying rifle
+after rifle. In the fleeting movement of handing one
+down and taking the other I saw Doloria sitting near
+my feet, with several opened boxes of cartridges on the
+ground beside her. We had plenty of ammunition, so
+I did not wait for human targets but fired rapidly into
+every probable place of concealment&mdash;just hoping.</p>
+
+<p>This must have begun to touch them up, for one now
+made a dash across the open space and dived into good
+cover, from which he started an instant reply to me.
+There had been only time for a quick shot at him, as
+the opening was scarcely ten feet wide. Another tried
+and made it, but the third stumbled. Whether he accidentally
+fell or was wounded, I had no way of knowing,
+yet he was able, at least, to continue the fight because
+there seemed to be no let up in their volume of
+fire. Then, to my chagrin, a fourth got across, and,
+following him, the last three tried together&mdash;successfully.</p>
+
+<p>In the best of conditions these men would have been
+very hard to hit, yet I offer no excuses. My aim, of
+course, had greatly suffered. Disregard for the nicest
+accuracy in marksmanship may be expected when an
+enemy is pouring a hundred shots a minute at a certain
+point, and you happen to be that point.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[281]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Again their rifles became silent. There seemed, indeed,
+no reason to keep them speaking, as the road to
+the Oasis was clear. When the trees back of us should
+be reached more shots would ring out, closer, always
+getting closer; eventually would come the hand-to-hand
+fight, and then&mdash;forgetfulness. Yet I swore with a
+burning rage in my heart that whoever of those fiends
+were left to gloat over their victory would remember
+until their dying day the price I had collected for it.</p>
+
+<p>"Where are they?" Doloria asked, in a voice that
+trembled slightly. The strain of waiting below was
+greater than that of seeing what went on outside.</p>
+
+<p>Grimly I told her how matters stood with us, and we,
+also, became silent.</p>
+
+<p>The next move appeared in the direction of our
+kitchen, when several shadowy forms began to dart
+from tree to tree. The same plan was being adopted as
+that which they had used at the ditch: one man, his
+advance covered by a hot fire from the others, would
+stoop and run forward to a previously selected place,
+then a second, third, and so on, each beginning to shoot
+from the new position, as he got to it. These tactics
+might successfully be repeated until the last barrier of
+trees, not more than twenty yards from us, was gained.
+But now a fellow showed himself a moment too long
+and I thought I dropped him, because a howl of rage
+went up from his mates.</p>
+
+<p>I was keeping the two rifles very busy by this time,
+and Doloria could scarcely load one before the other
+was being passed to her. Each side had resorted to
+the expediency of rising, firing and ducking down again.
+They were too near for me to risk an inch of head for
+more than the necessary fraction of a second, and sometimes,
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[282]</a></span>in my haste, I aimed at nothing at all. A vigorous
+fire, whether effective or not, would hold off their
+rush. But when I peeped over the next time a rifle,
+protruding from around a tree, showed me that one, at
+least, had reached the nearest point of cover. I banged
+at it and ducked, as several shots whizzed over me. It
+was rather discouraging work, this of being forced to
+keep down! Another brief silence on their part was
+suggestive of a new move, and I felt sure that they were
+preparing for a charge.</p>
+
+<p>Calling this to Doloria, I began to bob up at different
+places along the wall, trying in a frenzy to check them,
+and for the moment was successful. Then I heard her
+give a cry, as a bullet split the stock of the rifle she was
+loading.</p>
+
+<p>"Some one's in a tree shooting down at us! Look
+out!" she called, rolling over to get beneath the nearer
+wall.</p>
+
+<p>Upon hearing this I gave up trying to dodge, and
+stood to the parapet determined to drop as many as
+possible before being dropped myself; for if their number
+were materially reduced she might be able, as a last
+resort, to come off victor with the automatic. And
+spurred by this intention I faced them so resolutely
+that they were compelled to hug their cover. But a
+second shot from the tree, slanting downward, struck
+the surface of the sand filling we had used between our
+walls; it hit a few inches directly in front of my face,
+knocking up a shower of grit that, for the moment, completely
+blinded me.</p>
+
+<p>I must have wheeled around with my arm across
+my eyes, because the men believed that I'd been done
+for, and with a triumphant howl started forward. Doloria,
+too, thought the end had come, and gave one despairing
+cry that I shall remember if I live a thousand<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[283]</a></span>
+years. Through my blurred vision I got a glimpse of
+her face, a blending of courage and horror and purpose,
+as she raised the automatic to her temple.</p>
+
+<p>And then by some divine insight I sprang and
+snatched it away. The howls of triumph had ceased;
+no leering enemy appeared above our parapet. The
+smart in my eyes was passing enough for me to see
+four of them running southward across the prairie with
+the speed of deer, and suddenly I knew that, without
+realizing it, I had just been hearing other rifle shots.
+Whirling about, I saw emerging from a near-by point in
+the ditch several figures, shouting and waving their hats.</p>
+
+<p>"Tommy," I yelled, "Gates, Echochee, Smilax!" I
+did not name them all, but turned quickly as Doloria
+flew into my arms. "We're saved, sweetheart! The
+dice have rolled for us!"</p>
+
+<p>She was crying a little, clinging to my neck, talking
+fast, but saying only one thing. And although Tommy
+afterwards declared that for a time there was such a
+silence in the fort that he believed we had been killed,
+I consider this but one of his verbal extravagances; for
+it seemed only a second after he waved before we were
+on the parapet waving back to him.</p>
+
+<p>Yet, in the midst of my wildest cheer I stopped. It
+stuck in my throat, it dried up as the fountain of my
+gladness seemed suddenly to have gone dry, and I
+looked at her. There must have been a great pain in
+my eyes&mdash;not physical, for that was transient and had
+passed&mdash;because she touched them, whispering:</p>
+
+<p>"What is it?"</p>
+
+<p>"See what I'm cheering for," I answered huskily.
+"Our escape only means death to our dreams&mdash;it's good-bye
+to the Oasis!"</p>
+
+<p>"Why?" she asked, her face turning slightly pale.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[284]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Because the minute those people get here you won't
+be my Doloria of the Golden Dawn any more, but Princess
+Doloria of Azuria!"</p>
+
+<p>She caught hold of my sleeve and gasped, a little
+hysterically:</p>
+
+<p>"But, Jack, suppose I don't <i>want</i> to be Princess Doloria!"</p>
+
+<p>Our friends had covered half the distance, and I
+hurriedly said:</p>
+
+<p>"You can't help yourself! You don't know the
+power that man, Dragot, has! Will you run off with
+me to-night?" For I could not dismiss the obsession
+that Monsieur would prevail. "He came especially
+armed with government orders to find you and take you
+back. And I'm only afraid your heart's too straight
+to refuse him, even if you could, when he puts it up to
+your conscience! Oh, Doloria&mdash;please don't cry!"</p>
+
+<p>"I won't," she answered tremulously, "if you stop
+talking that way!"</p>
+
+<p>I was sorry, and quickly told her that everything
+would come out all right&mdash;that my love was stronger
+than all the powers of all the governments under the
+sun. Then I helped her down on the prairie side, for
+the others were nearly up to us, approaching with bared
+heads. There was a fantastic note in our situation that
+deeply affected me. What could have been more bizarre
+than an Azurian princess holding court upon the
+edge of a Florida prairie? This, emphasized by our
+escape from death, added color to the fabric of unreality
+whose warp was romance, and whose woof was the
+mystifying surge of human impulses. So my vacillating
+spirits rebounded to the pinnacle of happiness and,
+raising my hand, I announced in a loud voice:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[285]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Gentlemen, Her Serene Highness, Doloria, Princess
+of Azuria!"</p>
+
+<p>Except for Echochee, they stopped and in frank
+amazement gazed at her. Flushed by the excitements
+that had made this day memorable, she was indeed the
+most adorable sovereign before whom knights had e'er
+sworn fealty. But the old Indian woman, with an undisguised
+croon of delight, went straight to her side,
+folded her in aged, brown arms of iron, and faced the
+waiting men with a look of defiance. She did not comprehend
+all that was passing, but distinctly wanted it
+understood that no one should touch her child.</p>
+
+<p>After that they were all about her, even Bilkins and
+the two sailors asking to shake hands and hear from
+her own lips the story of what had happened. She recognized
+Gates as "the splendid captain who found the
+bomb," and he blushed like a little boy. Monsieur, of
+course, could not bring himself to treat her with anything
+less than royal deference, so he kneeled and
+kissed her hand. I saw her look at the back of it when
+he arose, and then search his face&mdash;he had left a tear
+which she seemed unwilling to brush off. Tommy, not
+content with one hand, took both; and these he shook
+until she burst out laughing. As a matter of fact, we
+were all laughing a few degrees immoderately. Then,
+without warning, the strain became too much. Her
+eyes suddenly filled, her lips began to tremble. Turning
+impulsively, she put an arm across Echochee's shoulders
+and together they walked toward the spring, leaving
+us silent.</p>
+
+<p>Old Gates rubbed his chin and looked up at the sky,
+saying huskily:</p>
+
+<p>"My word, it's going to rain!" And, although there
+was no cloud in sight, Tommy said he thought so, too.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[286]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Thus the spell was broken and, with a more dismal
+duty to be performed, we sent for Smilax to bring the
+camp spade&mdash;leaving Monsieur to find Doloria and talk
+with her, for I had excused him from the contract
+Tommy made aboard the <i>Whim</i>, wanting to remove uncertainties
+as soon as possible.</p>
+
+<p>Gates entered a careful record in his notebook of
+identification marks on the three men we found dead.
+Our joint statement would be sufficient for the law in
+such a case as this, especially as Monsieur knew there
+was a price on Efaw Kotee's head, and doubtless on the
+heads of all who served him.</p>
+
+<p>When Smilax approached the last man he pointed
+down with grim satisfaction, saying:</p>
+
+<p>"Him bust black boy's head!"</p>
+
+<p>It was Jess, who would have bullied the old chief into
+giving up my princess! Well, our account was closed.
+But of Efaw Kotee there was no clue. I felt sure he
+was not among those who escaped, simply because he
+could not have run so fast; and Smilax was certain he
+did not follow with the chase.</p>
+
+<p>Our gruesome task finished, we turned back. For the
+moment I wanted to be alone, with my thoughts, my
+happiness, my uncertainty of Monsieur's power of persuasion,
+my heaviness of spirit caused by the work behind
+us. But Tommy ran up and slipped his arm
+through mine, saying with exaggerated carelessness:</p>
+
+<p>"I'm glad that crescendo of horrors is over&mdash;if you'll
+allow a kind of musical term; but I've got music in my
+soul to-day."</p>
+
+<p>"It's a funny time for music," I grumbled, "&mdash;except
+funeral marches."</p>
+
+<p>"By the way, did you find out about that other funeral
+march?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[287]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"No, I forgot," I confessed. "Don't bother me,
+Tommy; I feel like the devil."</p>
+
+<p>"I know it," he gave my arm a squeeze&mdash;for Tommy
+possessed that characteristic making for a community
+of mind and spirit that did not wait for explanations.
+"I know it," he repeated, "but you <i>look</i> a whole lot
+better&mdash;really like your old self! Now, what's the trouble?
+If you're worrying about the ruins we created
+back there, cut it out! I'm not bothered over the one
+or two I might have got! Fact is, nobody knows which
+of us hit which, anyway. So what is it? I'm not asking,
+merely insisting!"</p>
+
+<p>So I told him pretty much everything, as one chum
+can to another.</p>
+
+<p>"You mean she may listen to the little gezabo and
+go back?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"I mean just that. She will if she thinks it has a
+bigger claim on her. I know how square she is!"</p>
+
+<p>"Besides being square," he said thoughtfully,
+"there's also something in the make-up of woman that
+I've never understood: her apparent hankering after
+sacrifice. When it comes to a show-down between heart
+and conscience, she'll follow the conscience ten to one&mdash;if
+she's straight. Look at it," he swept his arm toward
+the prairie, as if innumerable instances were in
+sight of us. "See the sweet-faced old ladies who never
+wrote 'Mrs.' before their names&mdash;not that they've
+missed anything, God knows, but just look at 'em! All
+because some over-finicky parent didn't approve, no
+doubt! And see the heart starvation stamped on
+'daughter's' face, because 'father' was nearly bankrupt
+and she <i>did</i> write 'Mrs.' to save him! Taking them in
+retrospect, it's a question if the thing they called sacrifice
+wasn't plain damn foolishness. Why, hell, Jack,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[288]</a></span>
+d'you mean to say that the professor and his musty
+European customs&mdash;oh, I can't be profane enough!&mdash;the
+English language is trifling and inadequate! But
+I'm going to take a hand in this courtship, myself!"</p>
+
+<p>"For a gregarious animal, Tommy, you're something
+of a wonder," I began to laugh, because it was like
+myrrh and frankincense blown upon my doubts and
+fears to hear him talk.</p>
+
+<p>We went quietly on after this. Our boots made no
+noise in the soft earth, and thus silently we approached
+the fort; then halted. For on the farther side, hidden
+by the walls, a man was speaking in tones of earnestness,
+yet at that very instant a voice interrupted him.</p>
+
+<p>"I wish you wouldn't persist in talking now," it
+said irritably, "I'm too unhappy over the lives which
+most have been lost, and&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"But Your Serenity must realize that lives are nothing.
+The new destiny that&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I know what you'd say," the voice cried. "But
+don't give me any more arguments, for Heaven's sake!
+They're utterly useless and, besides, you might convince
+me!"</p>
+
+<p>Softly we tiptoed away and, when at a safe distance
+I stopped to rub my arm where Tommy's fingers had
+been digging into it, he whispered:</p>
+
+<p>"That didn't sound sacrificy, did it?"</p>
+
+<p>"The old fellow hasn't struck his pace, yet," I answered
+doubtfully.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," Tommy looked back toward the fort, "the
+pressure's high enough for one day. She needs another
+rescuing. You go and speed up the grub."</p>
+
+<p>So, whistling the Charpentier love song, he left me.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIV" id="CHAPTER_XXIV"></a>CHAPTER XXIV</h2>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[289]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2>GERMAN CRUELTY</h2>
+
+
+<p>At the kitchen fire Echochee was busily preparing
+food for a company now swelled to ten, and Smilax had
+dropped in rank to an assistant. I saw from her activity
+that this was not a fortunate moment to interrupt,
+yet there are some few things in life more
+important than a well-turned meal, and I therefore advanced,
+wishing to speak in the presence of our two
+sailors who hovered near with lips that all but drewled
+in anticipation of the feast.</p>
+
+<p>"I want to remind each of you," I said, "not to tell
+the princess that any one was killed. Let it go that a
+few were scratched, and the rest got away. You get
+the idea? I don't want her shocked."</p>
+
+<p>My men understood at once, but Echochee, never
+taking her eyes from the sizzling skillets, asked:</p>
+
+<p>"What you mean&mdash;'shocked'?"</p>
+
+<p>"I mean horrified, terrified&mdash;sorry," I answered,
+rather put to it how else to explain.</p>
+
+<p>"Ugh! She already sorry; cry some, say ve'y bad.
+Me say ve'y good. She all right now. You through?"</p>
+
+<p>And, since I was through, she gave another grunt,
+leaving me with the suspicion that she thought I was a
+very small boy.</p>
+
+<p>When finally the others came in sight Doloria walked
+at the side of Tommy, while Monsieur followed in some
+discomfiture of mind. His hair was tousled, and his
+eyes were thoughtful. From this, and the grin on<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[290]</a></span>
+Tommy's face, I judged that all was not going well for
+him and, in a more happy frame of mind, I went out to
+meet them.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Davis has been telling me a strange story," she
+smiled at me.</p>
+
+<p>"He's full of strange stories," I warned her. "Don't
+take him seriously&mdash;ever!"</p>
+
+<p>"But I know he was serious this time&mdash;weren't you?"
+The corners of her mouth were tell-tales of merriment
+as she turned to him.</p>
+
+<p>"Shall we let Jack in on it?" he asked, the grin on
+his face widening.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you think we'd better?" She was laughing outright
+now, with an alluring spirit of confidence; so I
+knew that she approved my estimate of Tommy and had
+taken him into her heart as for many years he had
+lived in mine.</p>
+
+<p>But women always loved Tommy&mdash;perhaps because he
+loved them. If some far-reaching providence had not
+endowed him with a well-developed sense of honor to
+go hand in hand with his attractiveness, more girls
+would have looked after him through tears than toward
+him with gladness. Whatever his loves and secret affairs,
+he always played above the board and never
+cheated; so they could trust him if he won, and pet him
+if he lost. Taken altogether, he was rather a lucky
+beggar, who learned early in life that the golden key
+which unlocks a woman's heart is Secrecy&mdash;and this
+they seemed to know by some divine, or devilish, insight.</p>
+
+<p>Before he now had a chance to answer her question,
+Monsieur caught up with us.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, my boy Jack," he grasped my hands, forgetting
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[291]</a></span>his ill humor to beam on me. "For lack of opportunity
+I have not expressed my gratitude! Azuria
+is your debtor! I, who have the authority, say it!"</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you," I replied, "but that debt was cancelled
+early this morning when its Princess saved me
+from assassination."</p>
+
+<p>"Good Lord," Tommy cried, in despair, "he's spilled
+the beans! Jack, you bone-head, we&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Be quiet, sir," she commanded, turning beautifully
+pink and giving me ten thousand messages in a single
+look.</p>
+
+<p>"Then come on," Tommy said, beginning to draw her
+away by the hand, "let's go off and think up another!"</p>
+
+<p>"My boy Tommy," the professor sternly reproved
+him, "she is of royal blood!"</p>
+
+<p>"You said something that time," he imperturbably
+replied. "Come on, Princess!" And laughingly she
+went with him.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Pardieu</i>," the old fellow pulled at his beard, "that
+sex is like a cyclone&mdash;the nearer I get the faster I am
+twisted! But just as her mother was at that age&mdash;yes,
+quite!" He sighed.</p>
+
+<p>"Is she going back with you?" I asked, feeling a malicious
+joy in the question after the last look she gave
+me.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Certainement</i>, there is no other way! Thus far I
+have not tried to persuade her, but merely presented a
+few minor facts. Yes, she will go."</p>
+
+<p>I confess that my malicious joy sank somewhat.</p>
+
+<p>"You are a gentleman," he continued, "and that
+presupposes a delicate sense of honor. I know how you
+feel toward her&mdash;yet would you have her remain with
+you if she one day regretted it? Great things rest on
+her return, I assure you. Let us start even! You
+have had two days to persuade her your way; let me<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[292]</a></span>
+have two days to persuade her mine! After that, we
+fight in the open&mdash;you and I!"</p>
+
+<p>There was something straightforward in his appeal
+that impressed me. I had had two days, and it would
+be giving her destiny, those great things he spoke of, a
+square deal to comply. I had misgivings, of course, but
+these were overruled by&mdash;why deny it?&mdash;the masculine
+conceit that becomes assertive after a few feminine favors.
+At any rate, it was a fair sporting proposition,
+and I said:</p>
+
+<p>"All right, for two days&mdash;provided I explain to her
+how we made this bargain."</p>
+
+<p>He smiled and hugged me as of yore, crying:</p>
+
+<p>"Almost you would make me sorry when I win! So
+we fight to the last ditch, eh?"</p>
+
+<p>"To the last ditch," I smiled, shaking hands with
+him.</p>
+
+<p>But hardly had the agreement been sealed before I
+regretted it. Tommy's dissertation on sacrifice worried
+me. And yet, what man with red blood and two wide-open
+eyes in his heart would have refused to play the
+cards Monsieur thus honestly laid out? It would be
+unfair to Doloria's future if I pugnaciously held to the
+advantage these few days had brought; for it is one
+thing to start in an open race with men, and run and
+burst your heart to be first across the goal which means
+a woman's arms, but quite another to take her unawares
+in a wilderness and, upon the spot, claim her before she
+knows what the surrender may involve. In years to
+follow a time might come when she would look at me
+through shadows&mdash;shadows that grow dark with perplexity
+over some irrevocable step&mdash;and I did not want
+to sow a seed to ripen into one of these. It is distracting
+enough for a man to bury his existing ghosts, but<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[293]</a></span>
+sheer madness deliberately to raise a crop of new ones.</p>
+
+<p>In this case I did not so much fear a race with other
+men in forms of rivals. I had reached my goal, her
+arms, and nothing could undo that. But her conscience&mdash;who
+dares claim the conscience of another! For two
+days, then, Monsieur could fight it out alone with her,
+and if his arguments prevailed&mdash;well, I would set about
+destroying them.</p>
+
+<p>After luncheon, with a brevity that she must have understood
+meant torture, I explained the compact, saying
+that I could ask for no more promises until two
+days had passed; and when she would have replied that
+her promise had been given I warned her that Monsieur
+had not even begun to show his power. She seemed a
+little frightened at this and, but for the sterling mark
+indubitably pressed upon her sense of right, I think she
+might have consented to fly from him.</p>
+
+<p>"For two days, then, I'm not to see you," she said
+simply.</p>
+
+<p>"No," I cried. "But for two days I can't tell you
+how I love you; how you're the very breath of my life,
+the control of my brain and body and soul, how I'll
+finally win you against everything! I'll see you, and
+be with you, but for two long, weary, interminable days
+I can't tell you that!"</p>
+
+<p>"Mightn't you," she smiled, a wee bit naughtily,
+"remind me each morning of those things you must not
+tell me during the two long, weary, interminable days?
+Then you wouldn't be so likely to forget, and break your
+contract."</p>
+
+<p>"Temptress! I wish we'd walked to the fort!" For,
+while we stood out of hearing, we were still in sight of
+the others.</p>
+
+<p>"So do I," she laughed now, her eyes expressive of a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[294]</a></span>
+most fascinating wickedness, a daredeviltry born of the
+knowledge that the proximity of outsiders made her
+safe. Tommy says that girls often take this unfair advantage
+of a fellow. Then Monsieur, believing the time
+for explanations should be up, came toward us.</p>
+
+<p>At three o'clock our cavalcade started across the
+prairie for Efaw Kotee's settlement. Tommy and Monsieur
+were keen to see it, and especially was the latter
+keyed up to ransack the place for proofs and information.
+Smilax led, keeping away from the graves. Doloria
+had made no reference to casualties, accepting
+them as an unfortunate necessity, and only once asked
+about the old chief's fate.</p>
+
+<p>I looked back at the Oasis growing small behind us
+and a great sorrow came over me. It was not easy to
+leave the place where I had found such happiness, the
+place sacred to our vows, our first dwelling together beneath
+God's tent! It lay green and peaceful, but now
+upon a blackened sea. And, like that flame-swept land,
+so was my flame-swept heart; the fire of a resistless
+passion had passed over it, leaving amid the ashes one
+spot of beauty. She, also, had stopped to look at it
+and, as she turned away, our eyes met.</p>
+
+<p>When we approached the islands I went forward with
+Tommy and Smilax, leaving Gates to command the rear
+guard composed of his two sailors, Bilkins and Monsieur.
+Echochee, supremely content to have found Doloria,
+remained at her side.</p>
+
+<p>Four of the attacking party had escaped and might
+well have returned to their houses. We favored the
+theory, too, that Efaw Kotee had remained there, expecting
+his band to capture us; so, if the fugitives were
+with him, they could by now have prepared a formidable
+resistance. We therefore went warily up to a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[295]</a></span>
+certain point and waited while Smilax crawled forward
+to reconnoiter.</p>
+
+<p>He returned saying that three punts were on our side,
+from which he believed the men had not come back but
+were still putting as much distance between themselves
+and us as possible. Tommy thought the punts might
+mean a trap and, although Smilax shook his head in
+doubt at this, we brought up one of the sailors to cover
+our crossing in case of an attack. Then, scrambling
+down the steep bank, in less than a minute we stood
+upon the island stronghold. No shot had been fired, no
+sign of life existed anywhere. Running to the nearest
+cabin we hastily searched it, and ran to the next, and
+in this way came finally to the old chief's bungalow.
+Here we halted, as if some horrible magic had turned
+us to stone.</p>
+
+<p>Efaw Kotee, naked to the waist, a few dried smears
+of blood around his mouth, was there to meet us. His
+lips munched the air, as a very old man who interminably
+chews on nothing, and his chest rose convulsively,
+then rested several seconds before renewing its struggle
+for breath. He was repulsive beyond all human description;
+for, stretched as an animal skin to dry, legs
+and arms pulled wide apart with buckskin thongs, he
+had been fastened head down on the wall beside his
+door. Yet this was not all. Hanging at the end of a
+string&mdash;in fact, now resting inertly against his cheek&mdash;was
+the scarlet, black and yellow ringed body of a coral
+snake, the deadly elaps. Its head had been severed and
+lay upon the floor directly underneath.</p>
+
+<p>In a flash I read the story: a duel of teeth between
+this captive reptile and the semi-crucified man; the one
+in anger wounding, the other snapping in his frenzy to
+sever that venomous head&mdash;his only means of escape<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[296]</a></span>
+from it. From the way the thongs had cut into his
+wrists and ankles I knew the struggle had been wild,
+yet much of this may have come from the insanity later
+kindled by the poison. But that period of torment now
+had passed. Strength was exhausted, and life dangled
+by the merest thread.</p>
+
+<p>I heard Tommy draw in his breath. With a shiver
+Smilax turned away. Better than we he understood
+what the old man had endured. Together we cut the
+pitiable victim down, carried him inside and laid him
+on a kind of divan.</p>
+
+<p>"Who did this?" Tommy kneeled and called in a
+loud voice close to his ear, hoping to reach a consciousness
+that had receded far into the shadows.</p>
+
+<p>"I know who did it," I interrupted. "Quick! While
+there's time let me ask something we're not so sure
+about!" And, taking Tommy's place, I called: "Is
+Doloria the princess of Azuria?"</p>
+
+<p>It was so obviously my duty to see that she learned
+the truth from one who knew, that I may be forgiven
+this apparent disregard for the sufferer in our hands.
+But he showed no sign of having heard, although I
+called again and again in a more commanding voice.
+His mouth had not munched the air since we put him
+down, and Tommy, listening for a heart beat, looked
+up quietly, saying:</p>
+
+<p>"Must have died on the way in."</p>
+
+<p>"If we'd only come an hour ago," I exclaimed.</p>
+
+<p>"No," Smilax shook his head, "him only squeal ve'y
+bad for last twelve hour. Me reckon some men come
+back last night; say he plan Lady run-'way; tie him
+up; tie on snake. No, him no talk hour ago. Coral
+snake bite make him ve'y crazy bad."</p>
+
+<p>Tommy had arisen and was walking softly back and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[297]</a></span>
+forth across the room. Finally he stopped, saying over
+his shoulder:</p>
+
+<p>"I'll give odds there's more in this old desk than he
+could have told in a week! Here's a safe, too, stuck
+back in an alcove, that looks like it might hold a ton!
+You won't have any trouble finding out things!"</p>
+
+<p>I had not yet noticed the room, but now looked with
+interest at these places that promised to reveal so much.
+The room itself was large and expressive of luxury,
+without being luxuriously furnished. The fireplace,
+mantel, and furniture were of a good, home-made mission
+type, constructed from gyminda, Florida's nearest
+approach to ebony; but the floor was covered with
+really beautiful rugs. Around the walls were built-in
+book shelves, mantel high, filled with the volumes Doloria
+had told me of. The piano was there, not an up-right
+as we had found on the <i>Orchid</i>, but a handsome
+grand, bearing one of the best names. A violin case
+lay upon it, while near by was a music stand. Altogether,
+these living quarters of Efaw Kotee showed a
+taste I would have expected. Instinctively I crossed to
+the desk, but Tommy stopped me, saying:</p>
+
+<p>"Not while that's in here, old fellow," he jerked his
+head toward the divan. "In no other circumstances
+would he take it from us lying down, and it's kind of
+rubbing it in, don't you think so?"</p>
+
+<p>"If you feel that way about it," I agreed. "But to
+rob a girl of seventeen years or so of life isn't a crime
+that merits much sympathy."</p>
+
+<p>"I reckon he pretty well paid up for it during last
+night and to-day," he said softly.</p>
+
+<p>"Whether he did or not, I don't owe him anything,"
+I retorted, in no charitable vein, that I hope was caused
+by our excitement and excessive strain.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[298]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"You owe him a dog-gone lot," Tommy emphatically
+replied. "Look at those books, at that piano, at what
+is suggested by the violin case, at the refinement of this
+room&mdash;and then picture what might have been here!
+Take another view, and consider what a fine chance
+you'd have had to meet her if that old codger hadn't
+turned scamp off there in Azuria! Anyway, we've got
+to clean up the signs of this butchery before she comes."</p>
+
+<p>In an adjoining room we laid Efaw Kotee upon his
+own bed. The sheet that Tommy got out of a press to
+spread over him was, I noticed, of beautiful linen, and
+I felt softened toward the uncouth frame which, in this
+wilderness, had still demanded the refinements of life.</p>
+
+<p>Locking the door, we passed back to the living room
+and thence to the landing where, at our direction, the
+sailor signaled Gates to bring up his waiting party. As
+Doloria once more stepped upon the island I saw her
+eyes grow moist with tears.</p>
+
+<p>We told her that the chief had been found dying, that
+now he was dead and the place deserted; but after she
+and Echochee had been rowed across to their own home
+and the two sailors posted to guard against a possible
+return of the outlaws, Monsieur and Gates accompanied
+us to the place of awful murder where we explained
+what we had found.</p>
+
+<p>Monsieur passed into the smaller room, but came out
+shaking his head and murmuring:</p>
+
+<p>"The face is much changed, yet I recognize enough to
+feel reasonably sure it is he."</p>
+
+<p>More positive proofs came when, with breathless interest,
+we went through the contents of the desk, taking
+things out in order and putting them aside after minute
+examination. The first of these was a seal, and the professor,
+bending over it, uttered a cry of surprise:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[299]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"The royal seal of Azuria! What deviltry could he
+have been contemplating when he stole this!"</p>
+
+<p>Then came a blank sheet of note paper, stamped with
+a gold peak, surmounted by a gold crown and three lavender
+ostrich plumes&mdash;the Azurian royal crest. These
+two things alone were strong pieces of evidence for the
+professor's sanguine expectation. There was nothing
+further of importance, so we turned to the safe which
+seemed impassively challenging us to get at its secrets,
+for the door stood fastened and the combination was
+unknown.</p>
+
+<p>Monsieur kneeled, placed his ear against it, and began
+slowly to turn the knob, listening intently for the little
+metal hammers, or tumblers, of the lock to fall clicking
+into place.</p>
+
+<p>"I never supposed he knew enough for that," Tommy
+whispered. "It's a regular crook's way!"</p>
+
+<p>At last, very much disgusted, he gave up after explaining
+that he could have succeeded in an hour or so,
+but preferred to use dynamite because it was quicker.</p>
+
+<p>"Undoubtedly it's quicker," Tommy said, "but unless
+you've cracked safes that way before, we may as
+well say good-bye to the bungalow!"</p>
+
+<p>Gates thought that the door, being of ancient pattern,
+might yield to a sledge, and Smilax went in search of
+one. Finding none of sufficient size, he returned with
+an anvil, swinging it by its spike. I remember the muscles
+of his arm that held it, the poise of his body as he
+raised it above his head and gathered every ounce of
+power to hurl it upon the combination knob. It made
+a superb picture of primordial man pitted against the
+sciences. After each resounding blow we tried to throw
+the lever, and at last the battered door swung out.</p>
+
+<p>Here was a find worth coming far to see&mdash;packages<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[300]</a></span>
+upon packages of greenbacks, all counterfeit, but they
+made a show, nevertheless. There were also plates for
+printing francs, pounds and rubles, as well as those
+from which the American bills had been made. While
+Monsieur was studying one of these more carefully,
+Tommy reached past him and drew out a large bundle
+wrapped in heavy brown paper, securely tied and sealed.
+He cut the strings and opened it, then gave a whistle of
+surprise, asking:</p>
+
+<p>"Are these counterfeit, too?"</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Mon Dieu</i>, no!" the old fellow gasped, and I, also,
+caught my breath; for in the bundle were hundreds of
+unregistered French bonds, of the highest denomination.</p>
+
+<p>Opening one, I looked at the last coupon, announcing
+that it bore a date of about seventeen years ago, whereupon
+Monsieur cried:</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, I see it! This accounts for the royal seal we
+found! Here, at last, is the perpetrator of that grand
+swindle, lying peacefully behind the door and not caring
+what we discover! But he has taken his rue with
+the spoils!&mdash;he dared not enjoy these because of the lees
+he saw in the pleasure cup!"</p>
+
+<p>"Chop that off," Tommy told him. "If you've an
+inspiration about this stuff, come across with it!"</p>
+
+<p>"Ah-ha, that man&mdash;that <i>capitaine</i> Jess! His name is
+Karl Schartzmann, a shrewd, rascally German who vanished
+after the <i>coup d'&eacute;tat</i>!"</p>
+
+<p>"What swindle, Monsieur?&mdash;what <i>coup d'&eacute;tat</i>?
+Whom do these belong to?" I was really losing patience;
+and Tommy murmured:</p>
+
+<p>"Jack, didn't it strike you that only a German mind
+could have conceived that revenge on Efaw Kotee?"</p>
+
+<p>"It was certainly true to German form," I admitted,
+without reluctance.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[301]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"The Bank of France!&mdash;who else?" Monsieur was
+saying. "As one of the trusted, I know! Listen: the
+dead man behind us, and the one called Jess, with our
+Azurian consul in Paris&mdash;all scoundrels&mdash;hatched a
+swindle to sell, through forged state authority and a
+farcical secret diplomacy, a portion of Azuria to France.
+This, you may remember, came near upsetting the
+Balkans in 1903. Their crafty scheme lay ready to be
+sprung when Efaw Kotee&mdash;we will call him that&mdash;had
+to kidnap the princess in self-defense. From that time
+but fragmentary facts came dribbling in from secret
+agents, as follows:</p>
+
+<p>"First: Two weeks after the kidnaping a foreigner
+bought a schooner yacht in New York, fitted it up with
+great masses of household effects, and sailed, his papers
+designating Guayra, Venezuela.</p>
+
+<p>"Second: Still two weeks later Karl Schartzmann and
+our consul in Paris transferred the secret bill of sale
+and left with their arms full of bonds. When France
+discovered the fraud they were well away.</p>
+
+<p>"Third: Still two weeks later a schooner yacht, afterward
+supposed to be the one bought in New York,
+dropped anchor at Guayra and stayed until two men,
+arriving by steamer, went aboard; whereupon she sailed.</p>
+
+<p>"This is all we definitely discovered, except that before
+sailing crafty inquiries were made into extradition
+treaties between France and South American countries&mdash;and
+found, in every instance, to be unfriendly to
+swindlers.</p>
+
+<p>"I now see how it was with them. Fearing everywhere
+the press of France's vengeance, shunning telegraph
+wires, they were driven to the solitude of these
+islands where, as solitude has a way of treating the
+criminal mind, their shyness grew to fear, their fear to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[302]</a></span>
+terror. They did not dare go out except at rare intervals,
+nor dared they realize on the bonds. It is clear
+to me at last!"</p>
+
+<p>It was also clear to me, at last inerrantly clear, that
+Doloria and the little princess were the same.</p>
+
+<p>"Whew!" Tommy gave a whistle. "I feel as woozy
+as an old warped mirror! Did France offer a reward
+for this stuff?"</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Certainement!</i> And you drew it out!&mdash;it is yours,
+my boy!"</p>
+
+<p>"Like hell it is," he laughed. "I move it goes as
+prize money to Smilax, Echochee, and the crew!"</p>
+
+<p>Late that evening we buried Efaw Kotee under the
+mangroves, and did not tell Doloria. No one knows,
+who has never seen it, the desolation of laying a shrouded
+figure in a mangrove-covered oyster bar at twilight,
+where water follows each slushy lift of the spade! I
+feared for her to witness it, and therefore, Tommy reading
+the service, the old chief was buried without a
+woman's sympathy. But, in a measure, he had our own.
+He held a claim on it for having faced a certain responsibility
+to Doloria; for having, with the skill of a master,
+developed the talents God had given her; for having
+kept her from growing up like a weed.</p>
+
+<p>At ten o'clock that night when, by prearrangement,
+Tommy and I paddled across to bring Monsieur back
+from the little island, she was standing with him on
+the landing. The moon was nearing full, bathing her
+in a silvery light, and I saw from the droop of her
+body that she was tired.</p>
+
+<p>"Good night," I said, arising in the punt and putting
+out my hand.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[303]</a></span></p><p>"Good night," she murmured wearily; but her fingers
+were cold and did not answer the pressure of my
+own. I had touched Efaw Kotee's hand only a few
+hours before, and it had been cold with the same inert,
+mysterious coldness. I shivered.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXV" id="CHAPTER_XXV"></a>CHAPTER XXV</h2>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[304]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2>A FLYING THRONE</h2>
+
+
+<p>Early next morning Monsieur was taken to the little
+island, and I felt that his interview would be long and
+solemn&mdash;perhaps stormy. I hoped so. He came back
+for luncheon and immediately left again, having given
+us no intimation of his progress. I did not know what
+Doloria might be suffering from these visits, but they
+made me so abominably restive that during the afternoon
+I took a pine and crossed to the mainland, half-heartedly
+intending to look for deer. It was nearly
+sundown when I returned.</p>
+
+<p>"We're packing, sir," said the sailor who tied my
+punt.</p>
+
+<p>"Packing? Why?"</p>
+
+<p>"Orders, sir."</p>
+
+<p>Without loss of time I hunted up Tommy, finding him
+and Bilkins busy at carpentry.</p>
+
+<p>"What's in the wind?" I brusquely demanded, forgetting
+that Tommy was rather particular about the
+way people addressed him.</p>
+
+<p>"Rain," he imperturbably replied; or did he mean
+reign, and was employing a vulgar pun to apprize me
+of Doloria's decision! So I delivered a ten-second
+philippic on the poverty of some intellects, whereupon
+he left off working and regarded me with amusement.</p>
+
+<p>"Fact is, Lord Chesterfield, I don't know what's in
+the wind," he said, "but we're leaving for Little Cove
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[305]</a></span>to-morrow at dawn. Bilkins and I are making a portable
+throne&mdash;in other words, a chair suspended from
+poles so Doloria won't have to walk. Professor came
+over about five o'clock in a rattling hurry and splendid
+humor. He's packing Efaw Kotee's effects now. Smilax
+left two hours ago with orders for the <i>Whim</i> to be
+there and take us off. Add it up for yourself."</p>
+
+<p>"Orders," I angrily exclaimed, for this impertinence
+on the part of Monsieur was going too far. "He settles
+with me, that's all!&mdash;and the <i>Whim</i> stays in Big
+Cove till I send for her!"</p>
+
+<p>He grinned, then whistled softly.</p>
+
+<p>"So there's no use knicking my knuckles any more
+on this portable throne?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not the slightest," I told him.</p>
+
+<p>"Love's first tiff," he sighed, laying down the hammer
+and beginning to fill his pipe.</p>
+
+<p>"Love's what?"</p>
+
+<p>"Tootsie-wootsie tiff, I believe I said"&mdash;this between
+puffs as the match flared high and low over the bowl.
+"You understand, of course, that Doloria gave the
+order."</p>
+
+<p>"Confound you, why didn't you say so! What's
+happened? Did a message come?"</p>
+
+<p>"Sure." He stopped smoking and looked at me. "A
+big limousine drove up with a note and flowers."</p>
+
+<p>"Be serious," I thundered. "This isn't any time to
+joke!"</p>
+
+<p>"When you talk about a paucity of intellect," he
+laughed softly, "it's a wonder you don't bite yourself."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Tommy, please let up; I'm sorry, honest&mdash;I'm
+wretched, too!"</p>
+
+<p>His manner changed then. Putting his arm through
+mine, he led me outside, going toward our landing.</p>
+
+<p>"This is just the time to joke, old man," he said, when<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[306]</a></span>
+we reached it. "She made up her mind to leave,
+<i>pronto</i>! Why? Conscience said obey Monsieur, but
+heart said nixy! What's to do then? Start home
+quick, of course, before little heart gives old conscience
+the solar plexus! That's how I size it up!"</p>
+
+<p>"But I don't see anything to joke about," I said
+gloomily.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, let me shuffle again&mdash;now take a look! When
+Smilax left with her order, I sent a note to the mate,
+telling him to bring both yachts down. Then we'll have
+to split the crew, and in the mix-up I'll see that you and
+she get on the <i>Whim</i>, while Monsieur sails on&mdash;&mdash;But
+I see you get me! If you can't stifle her conscience before
+we reach Miami, you're a mud-hen."</p>
+
+<p>"Great guns," I whispered, grabbing him by the
+arms, "we might sail&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"All over the Gulf," he chuckled, giving me a push
+toward the water. "There's your Hellespont, son, as
+sure as Leander was a gentleman! Cross it now and
+tell her it's all right about that order!"</p>
+
+<p>"My two days aren't up yet; I'm bound."</p>
+
+<p>"That's nothing. Wait!"</p>
+
+<p>He was off to the old chief's bungalow and reappeared
+with Monsieur, whose broad smile was anything but
+reassuring.</p>
+
+<p>"You wish to relieve her uncertainty about that order?"
+he asked, coming up. "Certainly, my boy Jack,
+go and say what you please."</p>
+
+<p>"What I please?" I asked pointedly.</p>
+
+<p>"Why not what you please? She goes with me to
+Azuria&mdash;we have arranged it. You could not dissuade
+her now. Even could you, she knows she can not resist
+my authority. Yes, go and say what you like."</p>
+
+<p>He was laughing by this time, at his success rather<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[307]</a></span>
+than my discomfiture, but Tommy saw that I was making
+little distinction between the two and wisely led him
+away.</p>
+
+<p>As I stepped upon the little island Echochee came
+down to meet me.</p>
+
+<p>"How's your Lady?" I asked.</p>
+
+<p>"You go see," she answered in a low voice, pointing
+to the open door.</p>
+
+<p>As I entered the commodious living room Doloria
+looked up, but did not smile. She was reclining on a
+<i>chaise-longue</i>, beneath a shaded lamp whose rays still
+blended with the light of a dying afterglow. Her hunting
+costume had been discarded for a flimsy kind of an
+exquisite thing of blue&mdash;hardly a dress, although it had
+a lot of lace and seemed to fit her perfectly. It was
+open at the throat like some dresses, and the sleeves fell
+away from her arms; but I had seen one instinctive
+movement she made to pull it closer which might have
+indicated embarrassment.</p>
+
+<p>"I've come with Monsieur's permission," I said,
+bowing over her hand.</p>
+
+<p>"With Monsieur's permission," she repeated after
+me. "We seem to do nothing but with Monsieur's permission."</p>
+
+<p>I saw that she was nervous and very much upset, so
+replied as gently as I could:</p>
+
+<p>"But this visit involved my promise, otherwise I
+wouldn't have asked him. I want to tell you that it's
+all right about the yacht&mdash;your sending for her, I mean.
+She'll be on hand to-morrow."</p>
+
+<p>"Thanks, Chancellor." Her tone had changed to
+one of complete weariness. "Now leave me, please."</p>
+
+<p>"Leave you," I exclaimed. "I'll do nothing of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[308]</a></span>
+kind! The two-day ban is off, and Monsieur has told
+me I can say anything I please!"</p>
+
+<p>"And having his permission to say anything you
+please, did you rehearse it before him, too?"</p>
+
+<p>This left me helpless, fervently wishing I'd had more
+of Tommy's experience with girls' moods. He knew a
+lot about them, and would have understood just what
+to do. But I felt suddenly enraged&mdash;not at her, but at
+everything, and cried:</p>
+
+<p>"I don't give a damn for him or his permission! He
+shan't take you away!"</p>
+
+<p>For the first time she smiled, and held out her hands
+to me, saying:</p>
+
+<p>"That's good-medicine-talk, Jack. I like it even if it
+won't cure me. Say it again&mdash;that you don't give a
+damn for him!"</p>
+
+<p>I would have said something in an entirely different
+way had not Echochee been moving about the next room,
+but I kneeled, leaning over her, keeping her hand and
+whispering:</p>
+
+<p>"He shan't dominate our lives! You're going back
+with me&mdash;don't you know you are?"</p>
+
+<p>"Don't make me sorry you came, Jack," she said
+softly. "I must go with him. So let's talk of other
+things and keep our last evening here from being a
+horror."</p>
+
+<p>"I've got to talk about it, as I've got to breathe and
+think and move and love you! It's all one! It's my
+existence, and if you went away it would be like tearing
+me to pieces!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, but don't you see that I must," she cried despairingly.
+"I didn't close my eyes all night, thinking,
+thinking, thinking! It was agony. It's agony<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[309]</a></span>
+now. But my decision's been through the fire, Jack,
+and I know I'm right!"</p>
+
+<p>"No decision counts for anything against all you
+mean to me!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Jack, I'm so sorry!" she moaned, looking at me
+without dissimulation and letting me see that her face
+was marked by a solemnity and tragedy that wrung my
+heart. "God," she whispered, putting her hand to my
+forehead, "how I suffer while I see your tortured eyes!"</p>
+
+<p>"Then out of sorrow, pity, tell me what the fellow
+said," I implored, nearly beside myself. "Let me know
+the strength of your duty, so my own strength can have
+a chance. It isn't fair to make a beggar of me when
+I might be fighting for happiness! Let me see his
+weapons so I can strike back; then, if I lose, I'll lose
+standing up&mdash;and the future," I added, less impetuously,
+"isn't so gray to the man who loses standing up."</p>
+
+<p>She had turned away with a quick gesture of anguish
+and seemed to be crying, but when she looked at me
+again there were no signs of tears.</p>
+
+<p>"He says others have demands and rights, and the
+many must outweigh the few."</p>
+
+<p>"That depends on the greatness of each side's claims,"
+I began, when she interrupted by continuing:</p>
+
+<p>"My conscience decided that&mdash;it had no choice; every
+claim has been weighed&mdash;accurately." Her voice trembled
+a little, and I thought she was trying to make it
+harsh. "He said that you and I were thrown out from
+separate spheres, opposite poles. By chance our orbits
+happened to cross, and you rendered me this tremendous
+service. But it was only a part of the foreordination&mdash;only
+to make my path easier to a greater duty ahead,
+a greater destiny to be fulfilled. Now this commands&mdash;he
+says. The call of my birthright has come, and I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[310]</a></span>
+must answer. He says that neither of us will mind it in
+a little while, as memories pa&mdash;pass." She wavered
+at last, and again turned away her face.</p>
+
+<p>"But you don't believe that stuff?" I cried.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, his words are so unanswerable&mdash;when he speaks
+them! Then he has the authority to command me!"</p>
+
+<p>"They're not unanswerable," I said hotly. "<i>You</i>
+haven't weighed our happiness against this unknown
+voice of your people, your birthright&mdash;he did it for
+you! His cold logic read the scales&mdash;not your heart or
+your conscience! He's built a wall around you like a
+cistern, and you can't see out. If it was ordained for
+us to face death, then by the same law we've got to
+face life! Sweetheart, don't you see what I mean?"</p>
+
+<p>"I've seen all that from the beginning, dear," she
+murmured, putting one hand on my hair and stroking
+it. "But nothing can prevail against what you call his
+cold logic. He's certain that he's right, and he has the
+power to make me go."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, if I only had the brains to out-argue him!"
+My voice choked, and I bowed my head in her lap.</p>
+
+<p>For a while we were silent. Her hand continued to
+stroke my hair, and soon her fingers strayed to my temple
+and gently pressed it&mdash;as if she knew that my head
+burned and ached, and wanted to make it well.</p>
+
+<p>"You don't have to argue, always my own," I heard
+her whisper. "There's something stronger than words
+pleading for you."</p>
+
+<p>I looked up quietly, saying:</p>
+
+<p>"Let's run away to-night! Let's have another rescue,
+and go back to our Oasis&mdash;&mdash;" But she stopped me
+by putting her hand over my mouth, although she was
+breathing fast and the color had flown to her cheeks.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[311]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Don't, don't," she gasped. "I've thought of that
+so many times!"</p>
+
+<p>"To-night," I begged. "You know I'll always make
+you happy?"</p>
+
+<p>"Happy?" Her eyes, half closed, held mine with a
+look that did not try to hide its longing. "There'd be
+no happiness on earth like that of being entirely yours
+at our Oasis!"</p>
+
+<p>"Then, sweetheart&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"No, Jack," she now sat straighter. "I was dreaming.
+Besides, he'd follow with every officer in Florida.
+Don't you understand, dear, that he has the <i>right</i>?
+I'm helpless to refuse! I can't&mdash;possibly! It's simply
+awful, but it's got to be."</p>
+
+<p>Yet I believed that she had been on the point of yielding,
+and was about to urge still further when Monsieur's
+voice, speaking to Echochee, brought me to my feet.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, my boy Jack," he exclaimed, entering with a
+cheeriness I found detestable, "we shall leave her now,
+eh? She has packing to do, and must get early to
+rest."</p>
+
+<p>His protectorate seemed to brook no opposition, and
+an angry retort sprang to my lips which remained unspoken
+when I saw the pallor of Doloria's face.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," she said, without animation, "I must pack.
+See you to-morrow&mdash;on the march."</p>
+
+<p>So, ignoring him, I passed out. But a better humor
+came to me as I thought of Tommy's scheme about the
+<i>Orchid</i>, and coming upon Echochee at the landing I
+asked&mdash;lightly for her benefit, yet quite seriously for
+myself:</p>
+
+<p>"Is there any magic in your tribe that can bring a
+troubled princess sleep and pleasant dreams?"</p>
+
+<p>I knew that she was searching my face with her black<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">[312]</a></span>
+little eyes that glistened like a snake's, as she answered
+slowly:</p>
+
+<p>"Injun maiden find plenty good dream when her
+head lay on breast of sleeping brave."</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't mean just that," I stammered, feeling my
+cheeks grow hot. For, albeit, Doloria had slept part of
+a night with her head against my shoulder when we
+fared alone in the purity of our wilderness, now, since
+others of the world were touching elbows with us, Echochee's
+words knocked me rather into a self-conscious
+heap. But such is the bitter tithe we must toss into
+the maw of civilization which, despite its multitude of
+admitted blessings, breeds also the false! And I stepped
+into the punt wishing that this daughter of our oldest
+American family could be divinely appointed arbiter of
+our customs.</p>
+
+<p>Smilax returned with word that both yachts would
+be at Little Cove, and one by one the lights in our
+camp went out. But I sat late at Efaw Kotee's desk
+writing a ten-page telegram and a fifty-page letter to
+my father. Both of these I would despatch from Key
+West&mdash;the wire telling him to bring the Mater to Miami
+where the letter would await them; and I urged
+them both, as they loved me, to pick up a certain darling
+of the gods named Nell. Only I made it stronger and
+more explicit than that, and knew they would comply
+if such a thing were humanly possible. But this pet
+scheme I intended to keep from Tommy. It would repay
+him for his masterly scheme of sailing both yachts
+homeward.</p>
+
+<p>The next morning after an early breakfast our cavalcade
+set forth, each man carrying a pack except the
+two sailors on whose shoulders rested the poles of Doloria's
+chair. But in this chair sat a very sad little<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">[313]</a></span>
+princess&mdash;this morning particularly, as she was leaving
+a nominal home for a new and mystifying adventure.
+Whatever else Efaw Kotee had been to her, at least he
+stood in her memory of father; and however irrevocably
+she may have turned against him, the very fact that
+she found it necessary to do so was a grievous disappointment.</p>
+
+<p>All that had passed. Strangers had come, and in a
+few days she was being borne to the other half of the
+world. To her mother!&mdash;what did she know of a
+mother? To a throne!&mdash;but with an unknown prince to
+rule beside her? And these were entirely apart from
+the longings she might leave on this side of the world.
+Surely, if she needed sympathy at any time it was now
+as the march began.</p>
+
+<p>Although Monsieur had taken a position close to her,
+and evidently meant to keep it, before we had gone very
+far I fell in alongside with them, asking:</p>
+
+<p>"How do you find the march? Tiring?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no, not in Tommy's flying throne, as he calls
+it,"&mdash;and in an undertone she added: "I wish it were
+the only throne I had to occupy."</p>
+
+<p>But the professor, overhearing this&mdash;for little escaped
+him now&mdash;cleared his throat and stepped nearer.</p>
+
+<p>"She is mistaken, my boy Jack," he said suavely.
+"The march is quite fatiguing, and I must insist that
+she conserve her strength. There will be no more conversation."</p>
+
+<p>Taken aback by this, I was on the point of giving him
+a jolly good blowing up, but her ready acquiescence
+caused me to desist. Really, I began to wonder if he
+had her hypnotized; and, furious&mdash;indeed, quite a good
+deal hurt&mdash;by the cool way she obeyed him and began
+to ignore me, I marched grimly ahead.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">[314]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>As, three hours later, we neared the cove I saw Tommy
+sauntering back. His manner seemed an augury of
+trouble, and I hurried on to him, asking:</p>
+
+<p>"What's happened?"</p>
+
+<p>"The <i>Orchid</i> isn't there," he turned and fell into
+step with me. "While getting her out of Big Cove she
+fouled on a bar. She's still on it, poor dear. So Monsieur
+sails with us, after all."</p>
+
+<p>For several minutes I stood still in my tracks and
+swore, stopping only when Doloria's chair came in
+sight.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm glad you got that out of your system," Tommy
+grinned. "Now get busy on a new line of attack.
+We've only three more days, and you'll have to work
+fast. Surprise her, upset her, then cinch her before
+she knows what's what. That's the way!" And he
+hurried back to pay his respects.</p>
+
+<p>The mate and his fellows, even to Pete the cook, escorted
+us happily down to the small boats. They were
+honestly glad, and made no pretense of disguising their
+admiration for Doloria, to the increasing wrath of Echochee.</p>
+
+<p>If ever the men of my own boat crew were on their
+mettle it was when they sat with oars straight up while
+I helped her into the gig and took my place at her side&mdash;for
+this was an honor I could not yield to Monsieur,
+etiquette demanding that, when going aboard, the owner
+must be her personal escort. With a nod to them they
+snapped into stroke and we shot away, leaving the old
+fellow much disgruntled.</p>
+
+<p>At the top of the gangway she hesitated in pretty
+wonderment before stepping on deck, for the <i>Whim</i> was
+a smart craft and our sailors had not been idle these
+few days past.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">[315]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Everything's so unreal," she murmured. "My
+house of cards has come tumbling down about my ears,
+until I think it must be a dreadful dream."</p>
+
+<p>"To be transported to a sure-enough throne is certainly
+dreamlike," I said, arranging the cushions in a
+chair. "But I hardly think you'll find anything dreadful
+about it."</p>
+
+<p>"You don't?" she asked pointedly.</p>
+
+<p>"No," I answered. "The dreadful part's for me."</p>
+
+<p>I knew this was not true, or only partially true, but
+considered it justifiable after Tommy's warning&mdash;and
+Tommy knew a lot about women. I remembered him
+saying once that a girl's determination could be changed
+in two ways: by opposition, and by co&ouml;peration. I had
+tried opposition, so now I would pretend to fall resignedly
+in with Monsieur's plan, taking it for granted
+that her future promised nothing but idyllic happiness,
+that memories would pass, and all that kind of thing.
+I would become an enigma to her&mdash;for this, also, had
+been one of Tommy's diverse methods of success. Some
+day, confessing how my triumph had been achieved, we
+both would laugh over it, and then she would have to
+admit that Tommy was not the only one who knew a
+thing or two about women.</p>
+
+<p>So reasoning, I started in at once. For a while she
+stared at me, her eyes growing wider and wider. Then
+she arose and went to the rail, remarking coolly:</p>
+
+<p>"Please signal to have Echochee and Monsieur Dragot
+brought out at once." And that was the only thing she
+would say.</p>
+
+<p>To hell with what Tommy knew about women! She
+would not so much as look at me again, and when that
+wretched old rag of a shriveled-up squaw, incarnate
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">[316]</a></span>fiend of a watchful guardian, arrived my princess retired
+to her stateroom, nor did she appear again the
+entire day. What Tommy knew about women, indeed!</p>
+
+<p>The rest of us lunched in moody silence, except Monsieur
+who grew loquacious to the point of making himself
+an ass. He was not on the crest of popularity,
+anyway. Previously, in order to give Doloria more
+freedom, Tommy and I decided to sleep on deck and
+use Gates's quarters for a dressing room. But when
+this proposition was also opened to the professor he
+flatly refused to join with us. The truth of the matter
+was that he had determined upon a plan&mdash;singularly
+popular among pedagogues&mdash;of watchful waiting; he
+had made up his mind that Doloria and I should not see
+each other again except in his presence. He may have
+told her this&mdash;I rather suspected it.</p>
+
+<p>As we sat in the cockpit smoking, he became down-right
+obnoxious by excessive jocularity. It can be disgustingly
+overdone. Believing that his triumph was
+assured, he sputtered and giggled with small regard for
+my presence, and the farther he went the madder I got.
+Despite his former protestations of fair play, I now
+began to nurse a suspicion of this befousled little gimcrack;
+but I'd not thought that Tommy would grow a
+distemper of any magnitude until the professor, rubbing
+his hands, announced:</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Mon Capitaine</i> says we do not sail for an hour. Let
+us take a small boat and fish around the mangroves!
+Maybe a snapper, eh?&mdash;or a sheep's-head!"</p>
+
+<p>I was silent. Tommy puffed indifferently at his pipe.</p>
+
+<p>"Come," he cried again. "Let us make a fishing
+party!"</p>
+
+<p>"The trouble with fishing parties is," Tommy
+drawled, "that there's always some damn fool along
+who wants to fish."&mdash;Which was, I think, not only the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">[317]</a></span>
+best thing Tommy ever said but, in the circumstances,
+the best that could have been said.</p>
+
+<p>The professor sat down again rather suddenly and
+blinked at us.</p>
+
+<p>"So! Then we do not fish," he murmured, and after
+another thoughtful pause went below.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't suppose we ought to insult him," I suggested,
+not intending any one to think I meant it.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't care what we do to him," Tommy savagely
+retorted. "All the good you've got out of this cruise
+will go to the bow-wows. I won't have it, I tell you!
+Let's chuck him overboard!"</p>
+
+<p>"Chuck over your grouch," I laughed, although his
+proposition interested me.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I haven't any grouch," he turned away; but
+swung back, asking: "Are you going to give up?"</p>
+
+<p>"Most certainly not!"</p>
+
+<p>"Then why don't you get busy?"</p>
+
+<p>"Get busy! D'you expect me to go downstairs and
+drag her out of her room?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes&mdash;do anything! She isn't staying there from
+choice!" (But I knew better than that.) "If I slug
+the gezabo you might ask her up. Shall I?"</p>
+
+<p>"Show an idea, man! You know she wouldn't see
+me!"</p>
+
+<p>"What if she wouldn't! Bring her out, anyhow!
+Good Lord, Jack, if you're an example of lovers up
+North, then I say God pity Yankee girls!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, what would you do, Mr. Know-so-much?" I
+asked, my temper blowing up. "If she told you she'd
+stayed awake nights fighting it out and reached the
+conclusion, absolutely and without peradventure of
+changing her mind, that her destiny's in Azuria, what
+would you do then&mdash;you who know such a hell of a lot<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">[318]</a></span>
+about women?" I just had to say that; it kept irritating
+me.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't claim any knowledge of the genus," he said,
+looking mildly at the horizon&mdash;and wanting to laugh, I
+thought. "But a modicum of brain would show you
+she hasn't thought it out, at all. How could she in
+forty-eight hours, being confronted for the first time in
+her life with the two most glowing things in a girl's
+fancy&mdash;love or a throne? She's dazzled, not decided."</p>
+
+<p>"She's worse," I growled. "She's hurt&mdash;that's one
+reason she won't come up! And allow me to say that
+what you know about women wouldn't fill a gnat's eye!"
+I seemed to be hypped on this, and couldn't get away
+from it.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, if you've spilled the beans you'll have to pick
+'em up pretty quick, for we'll be home in three days.
+Just be sure you don't intimate that Azuria can be
+less than a perfect hell to her, for that would ruin your
+chances forever!" And with this parting injunction,
+that drove terror to my heart, he walked aft to join
+Gates.</p>
+
+<p>Going to the companionway door, I peered into the
+cabin. The wretched Dragot, bedecked in smoking
+jacket and spectacles, looking uncommonly like a monkey,
+I thought, was lounging behind a book. He knew
+that the nearer uncertainty approaches a certainty the
+more fatal will be the result of its upsetting; that, whereas
+a scheme jumbled in its infancy may recover, the
+slightest maladjustment on the threshold of success
+often spells irrevocable ruin. He was taking no
+chances.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVI" id="CHAPTER_XXVI"></a>CHAPTER XXVI</h2>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">[319]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2>A TREASURE BOX</h2>
+
+
+<p>Late that afternoon we got under way, setting our
+course for Key West. But it was a glum company
+aboard. The Princess remained in her stateroom;
+Tommy's grouch for Monsieur had grown out of all
+proportion, so the professor's gay mood lost much of its
+bloom; Echochee, whenever she left her mistress, scowled
+at us as though we were pirates; Gates, knowing that
+my plans had become miserably pied, grumbled over
+trifles; Bilkins sniffled, and the mate walked about with
+curses fairly bristling from him like pin-feathers.
+Heaven knows how wretched I was! If a group of people
+were ever out of tune, we had struck the original
+discord. Of us all, the cook maintained both equanimity
+and cuisine in perfect taste, else I hesitate to think
+what might have been the fate of the good yacht, <i>Whim</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Sometime during the night we reached Key West,
+and early next morning Gates called me to go ashore. I
+had requested this. There were the telegram and letter
+to be sent; and candy, flowers, fruits, magazines, souvenirs,
+and anything suitable I might find, to lay at
+Doloria's shrine. Had it not been for the stubbornness
+of a fellow who insisted that he was under contract,
+I would have had a moving picture show aboard
+for her.</p>
+
+<p>By eight o'clock we were again away, sailing lazily
+eastward before a light breeze. Three days of this inert
+weather, or possibly less, should bring us to Miami.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">[320]</a></span>
+There Monsieur had expressed his intention of wiring
+the Roumanian, or some other, consul; then he would
+entrain with my little Princess, and&mdash;well, that would
+be the end.</p>
+
+<p>All that day we poked along. Surreptitiously I had
+sent several notes down by Bilkins, but the only reply
+they got was an angry negative shake of Echochee's
+head. The old Indian would divulge nothing beyond
+the fact that her Lady was well. I then thought of
+knocking at Doloria's door to get a word with her, but
+the professor, always in the cabin on guard, sat where
+he could frustrate any such plan. He had stayed there
+the previous night until a late hour, and was back at
+his post quite an hour before breakfast.</p>
+
+<p>She did not appear at luncheon, nor during the long
+and wearisome afternoon.</p>
+
+<p>The next day was a counterpart of its forerunner,
+except that it got more on my nerves. I had pegged
+through it in the hope that she might at least dine with
+us&mdash;for this was to be our last dinner on the <i>Whim</i>,
+Gates saying we would land about the following noon.
+But, happening upon Echochee and asking her this, she
+almost snapped my head off in saying that her mistress
+had no such intention.</p>
+
+<p>Growing more desperate as the afternoon waned, I
+tried again to approach Doloria's stateroom from the
+far end of the passageway, but Monsieur, glancing over
+his book, arose and came toward me. The expression in
+his face plainly said that if I attempted to force him
+aside he would command her to keep her door locked&mdash;and
+I knew that she would obey. Therefore, ready to
+abandon hope, I wandered up and sought a secluded
+place along the rail where, unobserved by steersman and
+forward watch, I could swear a little, and look more<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">[321]</a></span>
+glum, and feel quite natural. It was here that Tommy
+passed me on his way to the cabin.</p>
+
+<p>"Time for dinner," he said, stopping and laying down
+something that had been under his arm.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't want any dinner," I growled.</p>
+
+<p>His face, for the first time in three days, broke into a
+beatific smile, and for a moment I was disposed to punch
+it, thinking, of course, that he meant to guy me. But
+he saw this intention and sprang back, holding his palms
+outward in an attitude of alert protest; yet the smile
+continued, now to be followed by a low, pleased laugh.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't get mad," he gurgled. "I'm not laughing at
+you&mdash;only at things."</p>
+
+<p>"In the circumstances I consider that personal," I
+glared at him.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, you needn't, honest! To-night I'm presenting
+the gezabo with a treasure box, and had really intended
+asking you to keep away from dinner. That's
+why I'm laughing&mdash;your unintentional acquiescence is
+a good omen!"</p>
+
+<p>"Treasure box of what?" I demanded, knowing this
+was some of his tomfoolishness, and irritated that he
+should have any heart for it.</p>
+
+<p>"Keep your head down," he winked good-humoredly.
+"You'll know soon enough."</p>
+
+<p>"Tommy," I now excitedly caught him by the arms,
+"you've got a scheme! What is it, old man? Tell me
+quick!" I shook him happily, for there was something
+about his mysterious air that began to inspire me with
+hope.</p>
+
+<p>"Very simple, son; very simple," he chuckled. "Surprisingly
+simple, and that's why it'll get across. You
+sit in the cockpit and observe without being observed,
+but I'll need your help in one thing: when you see me<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322">[322]</a></span>
+get up and walk around my chair, you beat it, <i>pronto</i>,
+for this very spot where we are now&mdash;and wait here.
+Understand? It's a nice secluded spot, so you just wait
+till I come."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, but&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Never mind! Just do what your Uncle Tom says.
+Now it's dinner time and I reckon Monsieur's starved&mdash;he
+always is! So I'll take my treasure box&mdash;oh, by the
+way, you're not supposed to be in the cockpit, so don't
+stir around!"</p>
+
+<p>As he picked the thing up I saw that it was a little
+iron safe about ten inches square&mdash;everybody knows
+the kind. Although small, it was heavy and quite complete,
+possessing a combination lock of no small merit.
+In the captain's quarters that Tommy and I now used
+as a dressing room I had noticed a safe similar to this,
+and asked if it were the same, whereupon he laughed,
+saying:</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. Gates keeps his pipes in it, but I got him to
+flip the combination on 'em for to-night. Well, here
+goes!" And a few minutes later as he descended the
+stairs, I, with repressed excitement, stepped back to
+the cockpit, taking a chair where I could see without
+being seen.</p>
+
+<p>The dinner had scarcely begun when Monsieur, looking
+about, asked:</p>
+
+<p>"Where's my boy Jack?"</p>
+
+<p>"Where's Jack?" Tommy repeated, in a voice unnecessarily
+loud, I thought. "Didn't you know about
+Jack? Why, he's in bad shape&mdash;maybe die, for all I
+know!"</p>
+
+<p>I must say that the professor looked genuinely concerned,
+and would have left at once to doctor me had
+not Tommy sternly interposed. Across the carpeted<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323">[323]</a></span>
+floor of the dim passageway that led past the staterooms
+I now saw a thin streak of light, as if some one
+had quietly opened a door an inch or so. Since this
+happened to come from Doloria's room, I suspected the
+Indian woman of listening.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you go near him or he'll jump overboard, I
+tell you," Tommy was saying. "He wouldn't let you,
+and you couldn't help him, anyhow; no one can, poor
+old Jack! When the Princess stopped speaking to him,
+and he saw the game was up,&mdash;well, his heart kind of
+broke!"</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Pardieu</i>, I am sorry&mdash;I am sorry," the professor
+shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't let's talk about it," Tommy replied, as dolefully
+as the loud tone would permit. "I can't look at
+his suffering&mdash;really I can't! It almost kills me! And
+there's no remedy, now!" And, when finally the conversation
+had been diverted to other channels, the streak
+of light disappeared.</p>
+
+<p>Sometime later Tommy, with, a fine show of indifference,
+said over his demitasse:</p>
+
+<p>"By the way, if we land to-morrow this is your last
+chance to open that treasure box."</p>
+
+<p>"Treasure box?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, the little safe I found tucked down in Efaw
+Kotee's trunk. Jack and I intended to tackle it to-night,
+but since he's knocked out I've lost interest."</p>
+
+<p>"I had not heard of this," the professor cried, his
+eyes sparkling with all manner of hope and enthusiasm.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, you heard of it, but just forgot. Anyhow, here
+it is." He lifted it from the floor and placed it on the
+table. "You're welcome to its secrets; I'm satisfied to
+get home with a whole skin." Whereupon he reached<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_324" id="Page_324">[324]</a></span>
+for a recent Key West newspaper, tilted back his chair
+and settled down to read.</p>
+
+<p>Monsieur's fingers closed feverishly around the little
+safe as though it might have held the secret of perpetual
+youth. After examining it minutely, he sprawled over
+and prepared to open it by listening for the little metal
+tumblers to fall into their notches while he slowly turned
+the combination knob. Tommy, I guessed at once, had
+neatly anticipated this after seeing him try it on the
+big safe in Efaw Kotee's house and hearing his boast
+that he could have accomplished it in time. Now, just
+as he got his ear flattened to the iron door and was
+almost choking for breath in an agony of listening, the
+newspaper began to rustle.</p>
+
+<p>"It gets my goat," Tommy irritably exclaimed, "to
+have a front-page story carried to the inside, where half
+the time I can't find it!"</p>
+
+<p>Monsieur, raising his head, politely waited for the
+noise to cease, as no one could hear the delicate sounds
+he sought with a newspaper carrying on that way about
+his head. Yet, when quiet had been once more restored
+and he was ready to try again, Tommy began another
+hunt for news.</p>
+
+<p>"Think you can work it?" he casually asked, over his
+shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;I might, with less noise," the professor suggested.</p>
+
+<p>"Hope my paper doesn't bother you. This is the
+only place I have to read since I gave up my room, you
+know."</p>
+
+<p>Several times more, as Monsieur was holding his
+breath momentarily expecting the mystery of the combination
+to dissolve, the paper seemed to be stricken
+with an ague, till at last, hugging the safe to his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_325" id="Page_325">[325]</a></span>
+chest, he indignantly stalked down the passageway and
+slammed the door of his room after him.</p>
+
+<p>Tommy now arose and walked around his chair, and
+as I was leaving for my appointed place I saw him
+start on tiptoe in the direction of Doloria's stateroom.</p>
+
+<p>Ten minutes later he appeared in the cockpit, helped
+her to the deck, and together they approached. Yet as
+they drew near the place I was standing she stopped,
+looking at me in pretty surprise, but came forward again
+with hands outstretched, saying:</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Jack, I thought you were terribly, dangerously
+ill!" And before I could reply Tommy was gurgling,
+with a fatuous grin:</p>
+
+<p>"Why, hullo, Jack! I see you're up!"</p>
+
+<p>"Are you better?" she asked, letting her hands rest
+in mine.</p>
+
+<p>"D'you know," here Tommy interposed, not giving
+me a chance to answer, "that old whiz-bang devil told
+Doloria that if she spoke to you, or answered your
+notes, he'd have you jailed for interfering with a foreign
+country's accredited agent? Sure, he did! He
+stuffed her poor little head full of trumped-up international
+law that hadn't a grain of truth in it&mdash;to scare
+her, see? She was afraid to budge!"</p>
+
+<p>"He did that?" I cried.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes, but it doesn't matter now," she said hurriedly.
+"Are you really better?"</p>
+
+<p>"Dear me, dear me"&mdash;it was Tommy again&mdash;"I've
+come up without my cigarettes! You'll excuse me?"
+He bowed to her, and left without awaiting the royal
+consent.</p>
+
+<p>The silence was a trifle awkward when he went, and
+our eyes seemed to be glued to the spot where he disappeared;
+but now I turned to her.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_326" id="Page_326">[326]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I suppose Echochee was listening to his conversation
+with Monsieur, and told you. Tommy's full of ideas,
+but this is his masterpiece because it unlocked your
+prison."</p>
+
+<p>"It was I who listened&mdash;purposely," she said, without
+a trace of embarrassment, but laughed a little strangely
+as she asked: "You weren't ill, at all?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I honestly was&mdash;with unhappiness; but not as
+near dead as he pretended."</p>
+
+<p>"And you're in no danger by talking to me?"</p>
+
+<p>"The greatest danger&mdash;but not from man-made
+prisons."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, it feels so good to be up in this fresh air," she
+said irrelevantly, raising her face to the sky and taking
+a deep breath.</p>
+
+<p>"He was a scoundrel to keep you shut in down there,"
+I declared; and then she told me of the old fellow's
+fabrications, really such atrocious lies that for a while
+I was undecided whether to thrash him or laugh. As it
+turned out, I laughed; because she did.</p>
+
+<p>She had moved to the rail and rested her arms on it,
+leaning over and looking pensively down at the water.
+I, also, went to stand by her, but, in turning, my eyes
+happened to glance through one of the cabin portlights
+at Tommy. He was seated comfortably in a deep chair,
+Doloria's box of candy stood on the table within easy
+reach, the newspaper was in his hands, a cigarette hung
+from his lips, and Echochee was just bringing him the
+basket of fruit I had taken so much care at Key West
+to have made attractive.</p>
+
+<p>"Picture of Tommy hurrying down for his cigarettes,"
+I whispered. "Peep at him!"</p>
+
+<p>As she leaned forward and the light fell on her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_327" id="Page_327">[327]</a></span>
+serious face, the attractive curves of mischief, always
+so maddening, touched the corners of her mouth.</p>
+
+<p>"Isn't he a dear," she murmured. "And there's
+nothing in the safe but the captain's old pipes?"</p>
+
+<p>"That's all. Tommy's waiting to soothe the professor
+when he makes that discovery, and keep him
+from coming on deck."</p>
+
+<p>She laughed guardedly, but there was no great spirit
+of fun in either of us, and again we turned back to our
+contemplation of the water, for a long time looking
+down at it in moody silence. I instinctively felt that
+she had not altered her decision.</p>
+
+<p>In the distance off our starboard bow a hairlike line
+of slowly brightening silver, forerunner of the climbing
+moon, touched the far horizon. It resembled a
+shining lake upon a great dark waste, and I told her it
+was my love trying to light my life that had turned to
+night without her.</p>
+
+<p>I know we were subdued by the witchery that comes
+with watching for the moon, because when its dome
+appeared her fingers gently tightened on my sleeve; nor
+did we speak until it stood serenely balanced upon the
+world's edge, sending to our feet a silvery pathway that
+twinkled on the waves. And then, by the merest accident
+of our position as the yacht changed its course
+among the keys, two far-off pine trees, appearing to move
+out side by side across the sea, stopped in the center of
+the moon. She caught her breath at the unusual beauty
+of this. That sigh from her, and the mystic night, all
+but drove me mad. My senses swayed with the throb of
+some vast indwelling orchestra.</p>
+
+<p>"Let's take the silvery path," I whispered, putting
+my arms about her. "Look, it leads to the gate of our
+Secret world, where we first found happiness!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_328" id="Page_328">[328]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Oh, dear Jack," she pleaded&mdash;but I would not be
+stopped, and words stumbled over each other in my
+agony to persuade her.</p>
+
+<p>"It's Fate&mdash;your destiny! I can't change it, neither
+can you! It spoke to us beneath our two big pines on
+the Oasis; it's speaking to-night&mdash;saying you shall never
+leave me!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, but Jack, that's so impossible! He'll <i>make</i> me
+go!"</p>
+
+<p>I saw the glitter of tears upon her cheeks, and answered
+fiercely:</p>
+
+<p>"He can't, when I love you as I do!"&mdash;and whispered
+over and over: "Sweetheart, sweetheart, I love you!"</p>
+
+<p>She had not moved. The moon, by this time high
+enough to have mustered its forces, frosted the yacht
+into the semblance of a dream-ship, and we might, indeed,
+have been sailing upon some phantom lake in
+fairyland. My eyes were pleading for hers until she
+raised them&mdash;and then they could not turn away. Held
+and blended by a mesmeric force, they began to give
+and answer question for question, secret for secret. I
+saw the quick pulsations in her throat, which seemed to
+be beating in my veins, instead.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Jack," she whispered, laughing tremulously,
+with a subdued madness that was made for such a night
+as this, "let me go back to Echochee!"</p>
+
+<p>But I could only answer as I had before:</p>
+
+<p>"I love you&mdash;I love you!"</p>
+
+<p>"Darling, darling Jack," she begged, taking my
+cheeks in her palms, "you mustn't&mdash;you really mustn't!
+Let me go, dear!&mdash;Oh, I believe my throne is&mdash;is tottering!"</p>
+
+<p>"And my reason with it!" I cried, drawing her
+quickly, passionately, up to me.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_329" id="Page_329">[329]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>For a long time a silvery yacht glided across a silvery
+sea, while in far-off Azuria a throne did totter and
+fall; but ten thousand loyal subjects smiled in their
+sleep that night at a strangely happy dream, wherein
+their little Princess was pressing upon the lips of an
+unknown beggar the seal of her eternal sovereignty.</p>
+
+<p>When again we thought of the moon it had climbed
+surprisingly high, making our shadow on the spotless
+deck seem like a black rug beneath our feet.</p>
+
+<p>"Is it awfully late?" she whispered.</p>
+
+<p>"The moon's still up, sweetheart," I said.</p>
+
+<p>"Is it, dear?" she murmured, adorably sighing her
+contentment at this evidence that the night must yet
+be very young, indeed.</p>
+
+<p>And, finally, when moving stealthily like two happy
+thieves we went down into the cabin, she blew a kiss
+to the sleeping Thomas Jefferson Davis, then gave both
+hands impulsively to me, and disappeared into her room.
+After the door had closed, and I felt she would not open
+it again, I shook Tommy's shoulder. He blinked at me,
+mumbling:</p>
+
+<p>"Must have been asleep."</p>
+
+<p>"Must have been," I grinned down at him.</p>
+
+<p>And, when he saw my grin, he sat straight up and
+grinned back at me&mdash;for it is in this way that men
+sometimes understand each other.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVII" id="CHAPTER_XXVII"></a>CHAPTER XXVII</h2>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_330" id="Page_330">[330]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2>THE FINAL HOCUS-POCUS</h2>
+
+
+<p>Doloria breakfasted in her room, but from the galley
+I sent a note on her tray, among other important things
+saying that I was about to break the news to Monsieur.
+In her reply, surreptitiously delivered by Echochee, who
+was smiling, she wrote&mdash;among still more important
+things&mdash;"for Heaven's sake, break it into tiny little
+pieces!" With this in mind, although having no idea
+how I should succeed, I came up by way of the fo'castle
+and walked aft to where Tommy and he were smoking.</p>
+
+<p>The open safe and three or four pipes belonging to
+Gates lay on the floor between them, while the old skipper
+who had taken the wheel was silently convulsed with
+laughter as he watched the puzzled expression on Monsieur's
+face and the innocence on Tommy's. My opportunity
+seeming favorable, I said:</p>
+
+<p>"Professor, last night the Princess decided to give up
+Azuria. She's promised to stay here and rule me; so
+I'm giving notice that neither you, nor any one else,
+can take her."</p>
+
+<p>He listened to this with more tolerance than surprise,
+giving Tommy a look that implied his distress to see my
+prostration taking the form of hallucinations. But
+Tommy added:</p>
+
+<p>"It's on the square. Jack's put one over, and all he
+asks is your blessing. Give it like a good sport, and,
+we'll drink their health."</p>
+
+<p>"You are cut-upping," he gasped, staring with wide<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_331" id="Page_331">[331]</a></span>
+eyes&mdash;that perceptibly narrowed as he glanced down at
+the pipes.</p>
+
+<p>"Call it what you please," Tommy imperturbably replied,
+though I knew that he was not at all sure of his
+ground, "but the Princess and Jack are going to be
+married, and I rather fancy I'm to be best man. It
+would be right decent of you, as the special emissary
+plenipotentiary extraordinary fat-and-hairy agent from
+Azuria, to give the bride away. I'm only suggesting
+it."</p>
+
+<p>But the professor was on his feet, sputtering and
+waving his arms in a torrent of rage.</p>
+
+<p>"It shall not be, it shall not be!" he cried. Then
+suddenly he began to laugh, looking at us with a superior
+air of cunning that made my flesh creep. "Why,
+you are as pigmies with your childish schemes! You
+suppose I have gone this far without arranging everything
+to circumvent you, or anything you could do?
+Bah!"</p>
+
+<p>"Circumvent till you're black in the face, you beloved
+old rag doll," Tommy gave a mirthless chuckle,
+"but the Princess doesn't go back with you&mdash;and that's
+a cinch. She's going home with me, to visit my sister.
+Don't you try to follow her, either, for I'm giving it
+to you straight that you'd last about seventeen seconds
+in Kentucky. Yes, Professor, I'd say that in Jefferson
+county seventeen seconds would be a right venerable age
+for you!"</p>
+
+<p>"That shows what small children you are," he
+laughed contemptuously. "The minute we touch land
+I order the first police to arrest her&mdash;and on my authority
+he will not dare refuse! She is still a subject of
+Azuria, and not of age according to its laws! Then I
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_332" id="Page_332">[332]</a></span>will lay the matter with our representatives in Washington,
+and your President, fearing to disturb the consummation
+of his League of Nations, will return her, of
+course! This for your threats!" He snapped his finger
+at us and began to fill his pipe.</p>
+
+<p>Who'd ever have thought the League of Nations would
+treat me that way? Tommy saw murder rising in my
+heart and gave me a warning look. Yet I could see from
+his puckered forehead that he was pretty well up against
+a stone wall. Our only hope of success, so far as my
+mentality could work it out, was instantaneous manslaughter.</p>
+
+<p>Finally, amid a complete silence and under the professor's
+supercilious smile, Tommy got up and went
+below. Had I tried to enter the cabin, the old fellow
+would have followed me.</p>
+
+<p>A sailor passed aft and whispered to Gates, who surrendered
+the wheel, went forward and disappeared.
+Ten minutes later he came back and took a seat near
+us; affecting to be at his ease, but making a very poor
+go at it. Soon after him came Tommy, carrying open
+in his hands a large book, calf-bound and old. For on
+the cabin shelves my father kept a lot of truck in the
+way of old books that no one ever read. I saw, also,
+that Tommy and Gates had reached an understanding.</p>
+
+<p>Of course, I was bursting to know what those conspirators
+had up their sleeves. Tommy stood in the
+middle of the cockpit, looking serious and thoughtful.
+Now, in an impressive voice, he said:</p>
+
+<p>"Monsieur, Gates has been good enough to get out
+his copy of American Marine Law, pertaining to the
+obligations and powers of captains of American vessels
+sailing upon salt water. Perhaps, after this brief preamble,
+it would be tautological for me to continue with
+what your overly acute mind must have by this time<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_333" id="Page_333">[333]</a></span>
+grasped; nevertheless, you will pardon me if I read you
+a paragraph, that goes as follows: 'In cases of emergency,
+where it is evident that a vessel can not in the
+required time reach a port wherein there may with certainty
+be found a civil officer of the United States of
+America, or the captain of such vessel in any other circumstances
+deems the request of the principals a proper
+one and of sufficient warrant, he is thereby, and is hereby,
+endowed with the right to perform the ceremony of
+marriage according to the civil code of said United
+States, and such ceremony, properly attested by two
+witnesses, shall constitute the bonds of holy matrimony
+before the world.'"</p>
+
+<p>At the beginning of this Monsieur had sprung up,
+but before Tommy concluded he again sank into his
+chair, breathing fast and blinking.</p>
+
+<p>"Gates," Tommy asked, "do you consider the request
+of these principals a proper one and of sufficient warrant?"</p>
+
+<p>"I do, sir," Gates answered.</p>
+
+<p>"You consider that the emergency in every way justifies
+you to perform this ceremony of marriage?"</p>
+
+<p>"I do, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Then, Jack," he turned to me, "suppose we say
+high noon. It's a fashionable hour, and gives you a
+little while to primp up."</p>
+
+<p>I gasped at him, unable to believe my ears; but before
+I could speak Monsieur was again raving.</p>
+
+<p>"It shall not!" he yelled. "I say it shall not; for
+now I, too, play a card!" And drawing from his pocket
+a paper, discolored by wear and age, he flourished it in
+our faces, crying: "By this authority I claim her as
+my ward; both of us Azurians; and in the name of my
+country I forbid the marriage!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_334" id="Page_334">[334]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Gates," Tommy asked, without batting an eye at
+Monsieur's grandiloquent outburst&mdash;which seemed to
+me the absolute frustration of our plan, "we don't know
+this man. He's a tramp we picked up at Key West.
+Do you recognize his credentials, or would you say
+they're forgeries?"</p>
+
+<p>"They look like forgeries to me, Mr. Thomas," the old
+skipper answered at once, not being within ten feet of
+Monsieur and his paper. "If I'm mistaken, sir, I'll
+apologize when we get ashore, but I carn't see any
+reason why the ceremony shouldn't take place at high
+noon. If that's too early, Mr. Jack, we can sail back
+to Key West&mdash;or New Oreleans."</p>
+
+<p>"But my authority," the professor cried, seeming on
+the verge of apoplexy.</p>
+
+<p>Tommy closed the calf-bound book and tossed it over
+to me, then turned Monsieur good-naturedly around and
+pointed to the Stars and Stripes flying at our main
+peak.</p>
+
+<p>"While you're on this yacht, my friend," he laughed,
+"that's the authority, and <i>don't you forget it</i>!"</p>
+
+<p>I glanced at the volume of Marine Law he had tossed
+to me. It was <i>Gibbon's</i> DECLINE AND FALL OF
+THE ROMAN EMPIRE!</p>
+
+<p>Monsieur's beard began to twitch curiously. I
+thought at first he was really intending to make the
+best of things, but suddenly two great tears squeezed
+from his eyes and rolled lumberingly over his cheeks;
+then, as an unbridled torrential storm breaks in the
+tropics, he threw himself face down upon the cushions
+and wept&mdash;piteously.</p>
+
+<p>Tommy and I were thunderstruck. It gives one a
+weird feeling to see a man shaken with grief. I was
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_335" id="Page_335">[335]</a></span>helpless and, there's no denying it, just a little remorseful.
+As quick in sympathy as he was in resource,
+Tommy crossed and put a hand on the old fellow's
+shoulder, saying gently:</p>
+
+<p>"Buck up, Professor. This kind of thing won't do,
+you know!"</p>
+
+<p>Then my surprise was most complete. Sitting now,
+face buried in his hands, he brokenly told a story that
+at times brought tears to our own eyes.</p>
+
+<p>When he finished I had visualized a scene begun
+more than thirty years ago in the Royal Palace of
+Azuria: an honorable young doctor, Court physician,
+voluntarily surrendering his appointment because he
+loved the King's younger daughter&mdash;Doloria's aunt;
+the old ruler's searching eyes that sympathized even
+while they censured&mdash;the aged hand that pressed with
+understanding even while it took the proffered resignation.
+Then the young doctor's quick departure; his
+plunge into the Universities, trusting absorption of the
+sciences to act as a panacea for his grief. Years later
+his return to Azuria; their pure love still burning,
+though unexpressed. At last the kidnaping; the quick
+preparations for pursuit; and finally the girl, herself,
+sweet with many confessions, bringing in her own hands
+the old King's "authority"&mdash;this paper before us&mdash;which
+commanded him to return the little Princess by
+any means he could, his reward being the fulfillment of
+his heart's desire.</p>
+
+<p>"And now," he moaned, rocking to and fro, "after
+seventeen years of searching, I have won only to lose!"</p>
+
+<p>Truly, I was touched. Tommy turned quickly away
+and blinked at the horizon. Yet neither of us knew
+that all of this time Doloria had been standing in the
+companionway door. She now crossed swiftly and sat
+by the weeping man, impulsively drawing his grizzled<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_336" id="Page_336">[336]</a></span>
+head to her shoulder as a mother might have comforted
+a hurt child. But toward me her face was turned, and
+I saw that her startled eyes spoke into mine the entreating
+message which distracted her&mdash;telling me that
+we must acknowledge this claim of Monsieur's poor
+heart before our own could ever be happy; asking me
+what to do, since his title to happiness came first. Yet
+all that her lips spoke was the trembling whisper:</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Jack!"</p>
+
+<p>But he, with a new determination, sat quickly upright.
+The warmth of a woman's sympathetic arms
+upon a life that had been without comfort, the quick
+intuition that she was pleading for him at a great cost
+to herself, stirred the fineness of his nature, and he
+cried:</p>
+
+<p>"Never! I have lived this long, and this long suffered,
+enough to know the irony of that royal barrier!
+Your aunt and I, dear child, are passing toward the
+shadows of life, while you and my boy Jack are just
+starting out. Your happiness shall not be cindered upon
+a false altar&mdash;I swear it!"</p>
+
+<p>"Good old boy," Tommy murmured. "Do you mean
+that, honest?"</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Pardieu</i>, have I not sworn it?"</p>
+
+<p>"And you wouldn't try to muddy the water again if
+I confessed that our Marine Law was a hocus-pocus?"</p>
+
+<p>"What is that hocus-pocus?"</p>
+
+<p>"A no-such-a-thing."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Sacr&eacute; bleu</i>! I see! Pipes and iron safes and
+hocus-pocus! But I do not care!" He turned to Doloria
+and, taking one of her hands, said: "You, <i>mon
+ami</i>, shall find your heart's best desire. It is I who say
+it!&mdash;I, who have the authority!" The way he clung
+to that authority was really pathetic.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_337" id="Page_337">[337]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"It occurs to me, Monsieur," Tommy crossed and
+looked down at them&mdash;and I saw that Doloria read in
+his eyes the sadness of one who must remain outside
+while others pass through to happiness&mdash;"that you, too,
+can find your heart's best desire. Jack and our sweet
+Princess will be leaving for Azuria as soon as passports
+are procurable. Now, the day they arrive, you
+might be moseying about the railroad station, borrow
+her for an hour, and personally conduct her to the
+palace. The late lamented King's royal authority contained
+no stipulation about the missing child being returned
+in a state of single blessedness, therefore the reward
+is yours. Add that up, and see if it doesn't spell
+Eureka!"</p>
+
+<p>Doloria turned to Monsieur with a glorious smile and,
+being nearest, received the first hug as the light of
+Tommy's reasoning burst upon him. Then he bounded
+up and hugged me; but Gates and Tommy ran away, the
+cowards, yet did a lot of laughing from a distance.
+And now the forward watch called something, at the
+same time pointing off our port bow. Low upon the
+water lay Miami.</p>
+
+<p>Excitedly we took turns focusing the binoculars on
+it, and after a little as we drew fairly near Tommy,
+with a puzzled look, asked:</p>
+
+<p>"Who are those people on your Colonel's dock?"</p>
+
+<p>"My father, maybe. I wired him to come."</p>
+
+<p>"Boy, I mean the petticoats! Look at 'em&mdash;there're
+two!"</p>
+
+<p>"Can you make out their faces?" I asked, having
+a good time all to myself; for here was my chance to
+return an obligation in the matter of courtships which,
+if not cancelled, would furnish the versatile Tommy
+with an anecdote I should never outlive.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_338" id="Page_338">[338]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Not yet," he mumbled, squinting more closely.</p>
+
+<p>"One's probably the Mater," I suggested.</p>
+
+<p>"I hope so," he smiled, lowering the binoculars.
+"What was the toast you gave her, Jack?&mdash;'if romance
+and adventure are alive I'll bring them home to you!'&mdash;wasn't
+that it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, and we sailed out on that quest only seventeen
+days ago. It seems incredible, doesn't it!"</p>
+
+<p>"It sure does," he chuckled, once more raising the
+glasses. "You've put on seventeen pounds, too,&mdash;besides
+a special chunk of 120, or thereabouts, which you
+gained the night of the rescue. That's some record,
+boy! See here," he asked quickly, "who the deuce
+are those people, anyway! One has a mighty familiar
+look!" And I could hardly keep from laughing as I
+answered:</p>
+
+<p>"I think the Mater went by Louisville and picked up
+Nell&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Good Lord, I <i>see</i> her," he yelled, so instantly and
+irrepressibly delirious with joy that he let my binoculars
+fall overboard, the chump.</p>
+
+<p>But now I saw that Doloria&mdash;which was the other
+name for romance and adventure&mdash;had slipped away
+from Monsieur; she had gone forward and, all alone,
+was leaning against the foremast, gazing dreamily at this
+new world and these new people who waited to take her
+to their hearts. So I forgot Tommy, God bless him!&mdash;he
+may have known a little about women, after all!</p>
+
+
+<h2>THE END</h2>
+
+
+
+<h4 class="biggap">Transcriber's Note:</h4>
+
+<p>Inconsistencies in the hyphenation and variations in spelling have been
+retained as in the original.</p>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Wings of the Wind, by Credo Harris
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Wings of the Wind, by Credo Harris
+
+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: Wings of the Wind
+
+Author: Credo Harris
+
+Release Date: December 6, 2009 [EBook #30618]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WINGS OF THE WIND ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Garcia, Odessa Paige Turner and the
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
+(This file was produced from images generously made
+available by The Kentuckiana Digital Library)
+
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Note:
+
+Inconsistencies in the hyphenation and variations in spelling have been
+retained as in the original.
+
+
+
+
+
+  WINGS OF THE
+    WIND
+
+  BY
+
+  CREDO HARRIS
+
+  _Author of_
+  "TOBY," "SUNLIGHT PATCH,"
+  "WHERE THE SOULS OF MEN ARE CALLING,"
+  ETC.
+
+
+  BOSTON
+  SMALL, MAYNARD & COMPANY
+  PUBLISHERS
+
+
+
+
+  Copyright, 1920
+  BY SMALL, MAYNARD & COMPANY
+  (INCORPORATED)
+
+
+
+
+  TO
+  S. THRUSTON BALLARD
+  WITH WHOM THE AUTHOR HAS SHARED
+  MANY A PLEASANT CAMP-FIRE
+  THIS BOOK IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED
+
+
+
+
+  CONTENTS
+
+
+  CHAPTER                                PAGE
+
+      I. "TO ADVENTURE AND ROMANCE!"       9
+
+     II. THE MYSTERIOUS MONSIEUR          16
+
+    III. THE GIRL IN THE CAFE             29
+
+     IV. NIRVANA                          43
+
+      V. "TO THE VERY END!"               54
+
+     VI. A VOICE FROM THE WATER           70
+
+    VII. A BOMB AND A DISCOVERY           80
+
+   VIII. THE CHASE BEGINS                 94
+
+     IX. A SHOT FROM THE DARK            104
+
+      X. A SILENT ENEMY                  117
+
+     XI. A STRANGE FIND                  129
+
+    XII. THE HURRICANE                   140
+
+   XIII. ON TO DEATH RIVER!              153
+
+    XIV. SMILAX BRINGS NEWS              161
+
+     XV. EFAW KOTEE'S DEN                174
+
+    XVI. THE CAVE MAN SETS FORTH         190
+
+   XVII. THE RESCUE                      202
+
+  XVIII. DOLORIA                         212
+
+    XIX. ENLIGHTENING A PRINCESS         228
+
+     XX. SLEEPING BENEATH GOD'S TENT     238
+
+    XXI. PLANTING A MEMORY               249
+
+   XXII. I LOVE YOU                      266
+
+  XXIII. THE ATTACK                      275
+
+   XXIV. GERMAN CRUELTY                  289
+
+    XXV. A FLYING THRONE                 304
+
+   XXVI. A TREASURE BOX                  319
+
+  XXVII. THE FINAL HOCUS-POCUS           330
+
+
+
+
+
+WINGS OF THE WIND
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+"TO ADVENTURE AND ROMANCE!"
+
+
+At last out of khaki, and dressed in conventional evening clothes, I
+felt as if I were indeed writing the first words of another story on the
+unmarred page of the incoming year. As I entered the library my mother,
+forgetting that it was I who owed her deference, came forward with
+outstretched arms and a sound in her voice like that of doves at nesting
+time. Dad's welcome was heartier, even though his eyes were dimmed with
+happy tears. And old Bilkins, our solemn, irreproachable butler, grinned
+benignly as he stood waiting to announce dinner. What a wealth of
+affection I had to be grateful for!
+
+I did not lack gratitude, but with the old year touching the heels of
+the new, and Time commanding me to get in step, my return to civil life
+held few inducements. Instead of a superabundance of cheer, I had
+brought from France jumpy nerves and a body lean with over
+training--natural results of physical exhaustion coupled with the mental
+reaction that must inevitably follow a year and a half of highly
+imaginative living.
+
+But there was another aspect less tangible, perhaps more permanent--and
+all members of combat divisions will understand exactly what I mean.
+When America picked up the gauntlet, an active conscience jerked me from
+a tuneful life and drove me out to war--for whether men are driven by
+conscience, or a government draft board, makes no difference in the
+effect upon those who come through. Time after time, for eighteen
+months, I made my regular trips into hell--into a hell more revolting
+than mid-Victorian evangelists ever pictured to spellbound, quaking
+sinners. Never in this world had there been a parallel to the naked
+dangers and nauseous discomforts of that western front; never so
+prolonged an agony of head-splitting noises, lacerations of human flesh,
+smells that turned the body sick, blasphemies that made the soul grow
+hard, frenzied efforts to kill, and above all a spirit, fanatical, that
+urged each man to bear more, kill more, because he was a Crusader for
+the right.
+
+Into this red crucible I had plunged, and now emerged--remolded. In one
+brief year and a half I had lived my life, dreamed the undreamable,
+accomplished the unaccomplishable. Much had gone from me, yet much had
+come--and it was this which had come that distorted my vision of future
+days; making them drab, making my fellows who had not taken the plunge
+seem purposeless and immature. Either they were out of tune, or I
+was--and I thought, of course, that they were. What freshness could I
+bring to an existence of peace when my gears would not mesh with its
+humdrum machinery!
+
+My mother, ever quick to detect the workings of my mind as well as the
+variations of my body, had noticed these changes when I disembarked the
+previous week, and had become obsessed with the idea that I stood
+tottering on the brink of abysmal wretchedness. So, while I was marking
+time the few days at camp until the hour of demobilization, she summoned
+into hasty conference my father, our family doctor, and the select near
+relatives whose advice was a matter of habit rather than value, to
+devise means of leading me out of myself.
+
+This, I afterward learned, had been a weighty conference, resulting in
+the conclusion that I must have complete rest and diversion. But as my
+more recent letters home had expressed a determination to rush headlong
+into business--as a sort of fatuous panacea for jumpy nerves, no
+doubt--and since the conferees possessed an intimate knowledge of the
+mulish streak that coursed through my blood, their plans were laid
+behind my back with the greatest secrecy. Therefore, when entering the
+library this last night in December and hurrying to my mother's arms, I
+had no suspicion that I was being drawn into a very agreeable trap,
+gilded by my father's abundant generosity.
+
+We sat late after dinner. Somewhere in the hall Bilkins hovered with
+glasses and tray to be on hand when the whistles began their screaming.
+In twenty years he had not omitted this New Year's Eve ceremony.
+
+"Your wound never troubles you?" my mother asked, her solicitation over
+a scratch I had received ten months before not disguising a light of
+pride that charmed me.
+
+"I've forgotten it, Mater. Never amounted to anything."
+
+"Still, you did leave some blood on French soil," Dad spoke up, for this
+conceit appealed to him.
+
+"Enough to grow an ugly rose, perhaps," I admitted.
+
+"I'll bet you grew pretty ones on the cheeks of those French girls," he
+chuckled.
+
+"Pretty ones don't grow any more, on cheeks or anywhere else," I
+doggedly replied. "Materialism's the keynote now--that's why I'm going
+back to work, at once."
+
+"Oh," the Mater laughed, "don't think of your father's stupid office,
+yet!"
+
+"There's nothing left to think of," I grumbled.
+
+"Isn't there?" he exclaimed. "What'd you say if Gates has the yacht in
+commission, and you take a run down to Miami----"
+
+"Or open the cottage, if you'd rather," she excitedly interrupted him.
+"I hadn't intended leaving New York this winter, but will chaperon a
+house party if you like!"
+
+"Fiddlesticks! Cruise, by all means," he spoke with good-natured
+emphasis. "Get another fellow, and go after adventures and romances and
+that kind of thing! Go after 'em hammer and tongs! By George, that's
+what I'd do if I were a boy, and had the chance!"
+
+They waited, rather expectantly.
+
+"Cruising's all right," I said, without enthusiasm. "But it's a waste of
+time to go after romance and adventure. They died with the war."
+
+"Ho!--they did, did they?" he laughed in mock derision. "What's become
+of your imagination--your vaporings? You used to be full of it!" And the
+Mater supported him by exclaiming:
+
+"Why, Jack Bronx! And I used to call you my Pantheist! Don't tell me
+your second sight for discovering the beautiful in things has failed
+you!"
+
+"It got put out by mustard gas, maybe," I murmured, remembering with
+bitterness some of the fellows who had been with me.
+
+What was romance here to the colorful, high-tensioned thing I had seen
+in devastated areas where loves of all gradations were torn and
+scattered and trampled into the earth like chaff! Fretfully I told them
+this.
+
+They exchanged glances, yet she continued in coaxing vein:
+
+"You're such a big baby to've been such a big soldier! Don't you know
+that romance is always just over the hill, hand in hand with
+adventure--both lonely for someone to play with? Wars can't kill them!
+It's after wars, when a nation is wounded, that they become priceless!"
+
+"By George, that's right," Dad cried. "Come to think of it, that's
+exactly right! And Gates has the same crew of six--men you've always
+known! Even that rascal, Pete, cooks better 'n ever! The _Whim_, you
+can't deny, is the smartest ninety-six foot schooner yacht that sails! I
+say again that if I had the chance I'd turn her free on whatever magic
+course the wings of the wind would take her! That I would--by George!"
+
+And there was a note of deep appeal in the Mater's voice as she asked:
+
+"Why not get that boy you wrote so much about--Tommy what's-his-name,
+the Southerner? I like him!"
+
+This plan, which I now saw had been so carefully prepared--fruit of the
+secret conference--was but one in the million or so of others throughout
+America nurtured and matured by the brave army of fathers, mothers,
+wives, sisters, daughters, who stayed at home and gave their all,
+waiting with alternate hopes and fears, looking with prayerful eyes to
+the day that would bring a certain one back into their arms. What
+difference if some plans were elaborate and some as modest as a flower?
+Who would dare distinguish between the cruise on a private yacht and the
+cake endearingly made in a hot little kitchen for the husky lad just
+returned from overseas? Each was its own best expression of pride and
+love. Each said in its tenderest way: "Well done, my own!"
+
+A lump came into my throat.
+
+"It's rather decent of a fellow to have two such corking forbears," I
+murmured.
+
+The Mater turned her gentle eyes to the fire, and Dad, clearing his
+throat in a blustering way--though he was not at all a blustering
+man--replied:
+
+"Perhaps it's rather decent of us to have a son who--er, I mean,
+who--well, er----"
+
+"A cruise hits me right," I exclaimed, hurriedly coming to his rescue,
+for neither of us wanted a scene. "And I'll wire Tommy Davis, Mater--the
+chap you mentioned. He's a corking fellow! I didn't write you how the
+battalion started calling him 'Rebel' till he closed up half a dozen
+eyes, did I? You see, in the beginning, when we were rookies, the
+sergeant had us up in formation to get our names, and when he came to
+Tommy that innocent drawled: 'Mr. Thomas Jefferson Davis, suh, of
+Loui'ville, Jefferson county, Kentucky, suh.' You could have heard a pin
+drop. The sergeant, as hard-boiled as they come, stood perfectly still
+and let a cold eye bore into him for half a minute, then gasped: 'Gawd!
+What a wicked little rebel!'"
+
+They laughed.
+
+"Why didn't you bring him home with you?"
+
+"Same reason he couldn't take me home with him. There were people
+waiting, and turkey, and--but he won't want to go," I added. "He's crazy
+about a girl down there!"
+
+"Fiddlesticks," my father chuckled. "Any normal fellow'll want to
+cruise! I'll wire him myself--this very night!"
+
+Bilkins entered with the tray, wishing us a happy new year. Outside the
+whistles were beginning to blow. After we had pledged each other, and
+drunk to 1919, the Mater, a light of challenge in her eyes, looked at me
+and gave another toast:
+
+"To a cruise and an adventure, Jack!"
+
+"To romance," Dad cried, gallantly raising her fingers to his lips.
+
+There was no use being a wet blanket, so with a laugh I said:
+
+"To adventure and romance!--Mater, if they're still on earth I'll bring
+them home to you!"
+
+I knew it was a very silly toast, but let it go to please them--for why
+disillusion those who believe in the actuality of nonexistence?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+THE MYSTERIOUS MONSIEUR
+
+
+Ten days later Tommy and I--and Bilkins, whom I had begged of my father
+at the eleventh hour--stepped off the train at Miami, stretched our arms
+and breathed deep breaths of balmy air. Gates, his ruddy face an augury
+of good cheer, was there to meet us, and as he started off well laden
+with a portion of our bags, Tommy whispered:
+
+"Reminds me of the old chap in that picture 'The Fisherman's Daughter'!"
+
+The description did fit Gates like an old glove, yet his most dominant
+characteristic was an unfailing loyalty to our family and an honest
+bluntness, both of which had become as generally recognized as his skill
+in handling the _Whim_--"the smartest schooner yacht," he would have
+told you on a two-minute acquaintanceship, "that ever tasted salt."
+
+"We might open the cottage for a few days, Gates," I said, as we were
+getting into the motor.
+
+"Bless you, sir," he replied, caressing a weather-beaten chin with thumb
+and finger, "the _Whim_'s been tugging at her cable mighty fretful this
+parst fortnight! The crew hoped you'd be coming aboard at once, sir.
+Fact is, we're wanting to be told how you and Mr. Thomas, here, licked
+those Germans."
+
+"Angels of the Marne protect me," Tommy groaned. "Gates, I wouldn't
+resurrect those scraps for the Kaiser's scalp!"
+
+"Yes, he will," I promised, smiling at the old fellow's look of
+disappointment. "He'll probably talk you to death, though; that's the
+only trouble."
+
+"I'll tell you what," Tommy said, "we'll chuck the cottage idea and go
+aboard; then tonight, Gates, you pipe the crew--if that's the nautical
+term--whereupon I'll hold a two-hour inquest over our deceased war, on
+condition that we bury the subject forever more. We came down here to
+lose the last eighteen months of our lives, Gates, not keep 'em green.
+Maybe you don't know it, but we're after the big adventure!"
+
+His eyes twinkled as he said this, and his face was lighted by a rare
+smile that no one possessed more engagingly than Tommy. While he treated
+the probability of an adventure with tolerant amusement, such was his
+inherent love of it and so developed was his capacity for
+"playing-true," that he sometimes made me think almost anything might
+turn up. I was quite unaware that my mother had written him, or that he,
+in return, had promised to keep her fully advised of my improvement--a
+state which was already beginning.
+
+"I carn't see how you help talking of it, sir--all that gas, and liquid
+fire, and bursting shells," Gates stared at him in perplexity.
+
+"It's an effort, but I refuse to turn phonograph like some of the old
+timers--not that I love 'em any less for it, Lord knows!" Then he began
+to laugh, and turned to me, adding: "One of the first things I did after
+getting home was to drop in on a very dear gentleman who's been a friend
+of our family since the Ark. He came at me with open arms, crying:
+'Well, Thomas, sit right down and tell me about your experiences!' I
+side-tracked that--for I hate the word. We didn't go over for
+_experiences_! But he wouldn't be denied. 'Try to think,' he commanded.
+'Why, Thomas, old as I am, I remember when Stonewall Jackson struck that
+brilliant blow----' and you can shoot me for a spy, Jack, if he didn't
+keep me there five hours while he fought the entire Civil War! No
+sir-ee! After tonight, never again!"
+
+But Tommy's talk, to which the crew listened in rapt attention, consumed
+nearer six than two, or even five hours. These men were hungry for
+authentic first-hand information--being too old to have sought it for
+themselves.
+
+It must not be inferred that the _Whim's_ crew consisted of the ancient
+and decrepit. More than once my father had said that if ever he should
+get in a tight place there was no band of six he would rather have at
+his back than this one headed by Gates; nor did he except Pete, the
+prince of cooks. Yet who, by the wildest stretch of fancy, could have
+contemplated tight places or dangers as the trim yacht rode peacefully
+at anchor an eighth of a mile off our dock at smiling Miami? To every
+man aboard such things as death and the shedding of blood had ceased
+with the armistice, and Gates would have taken his oath, were it asked
+of him, that our course pointed only toward laughing waters, blue skies,
+and emerald shore-lines.
+
+Early next morning we were under way when Tommy pounded on my stateroom
+door, challenging me to a dip overboard. There was a glorious joy in his
+voice, as far reaching as reveille, that found response in the cockles
+of my heart. Gates, never happier than when standing beneath stretched
+canvas, hove-to as he saw us dash stark naked up the companionway stairs
+and clear the rail head-first, but he laid by only while we had our
+splash and continued the course southward the moment our hands grasped
+the gangway.
+
+"We're cruising, not swimming," he said bluntly, as we reached the deck.
+"But I'll say this," he called after us, "you're both in about as fine
+condition as men get to be. I'll give _that_ to the Army!" Which was
+true, except for the fact that I might have been pronounced overtrained.
+Tommy and I were as hard as nails, our skin glowed like satin--but,
+better than this, his spirit was quick with the love of living, charged
+with a contagion that had already begun to touch my own.
+
+Half an hour later he mumbled through a crumbling biscuit:
+
+"If Pete ever cooked better grub than this it was in a previous
+incarnation!"
+
+"Man achieves his greatest triumph but once in life," I admitted. "It's
+self-evident."
+
+One loses track of time while sailing in south Florida waters. There is
+a lassitude that laughs at clocks; the lotus floats over the waves even
+as over the land, and a poetic languor steals into the soul breeding an
+indifference to hours and days--wretched things, at best, that were only
+meant for slaves! Neither of us realized our passing into Barnes Sound,
+and saw only that the _Whim_, sails gracefully drawing, cut the water as
+cleanly as a knife.
+
+Another day passed during which we shot at sharks, or trawled, or lay on
+deck smoking and occasionally gazing over the side at displays of fish
+and flora twenty feet beneath us. But upon the third morning I asked:
+
+"Where are we bound, Gates?"
+
+"Mr. Thomas says Key West, sir, and then Havana."
+
+"Mr. Thomas, indeed," I laughed, for it was exactly like Tommy to take
+over the command of a ship, or anything else that struck his fancy.
+
+Before leaving Miami he had received a twenty page letter from the
+Bluegrass region of Kentucky which threw him into a state of such
+volatile ineptitude that I was well satisfied to let him give what
+orders he would, sending us to the world's end for all I cared. In a
+very large measure Tommy's happiness was my own, as I knew that mine
+would always be dear to him.
+
+During our most trying hours in France, thoughts of this wonderful girl,
+whose name was Nell, unfailingly kept his spirits high. In moments of
+confidence that come to pals on the eve of battle I saw that some day
+they might be eternal "buddies"--certainly if he had his way; and toward
+this achievement he had been, since graduating from the University of
+Virginia, directing every effort to build up a stock farm which his
+family had more or less indifferently carried for generations. Next to
+winning Nell, his greatest ambition was to raise a Derby
+winner--according to him a more notable feat than being President.
+
+The sixth of April, 1917, had caught him with a promising string of
+yearlings, each an aristocrat in the equine world of blue-bloods, each a
+hope for that most classic of American races. But he had thrown these
+upon the hands of a trainer and submerged his personal interests six
+hours after Congress declared war. At the same moment, indeed, all of
+Kentucky was turning to a greater tradition than that of "horses and
+whiskey"; and, by the time the draft became operative, the board of one
+county searched it from end to end without finding a man to
+register--because those in the fighting age, married or single, with
+dependents or otherwise, had previously rushed to the Colors. This, and
+the fact that his state, with three others, headed the nation with the
+highest percentage in physical examinations, added luster to the shield
+of his old Commonwealth--though he roundly insisted that 'twas not
+Kentucky's manhood, but her womanhood, who deserved the credit. After
+our cruise he was going back to the thoroughbreds, now within a few
+months of the required Derby age; and of course I had promised to be on
+hand at Churchill Downs when his colors flashed past the grandstand.
+
+Late in the afternoon the _Whim_ docked at Key West and, while Gates was
+ashore arranging for our clearance, Tommy and I ambled up town in search
+of daily papers. We were seated in the office of a rather seedy hotel
+when its proprietor approached, saying:
+
+"'Scuse me, gents,--are you from that boat down there?"
+
+I answered in the affirmative.
+
+"Going to Havana?"
+
+This, too, I admitted.
+
+"Well, there's a feller by the desk who missed the steamer, and he
+hoped--er----"
+
+"We'd take him over," Tommy supplied the halting words. "Where is he?"
+
+Turning, we easily distinguished the man by his timid glances in our
+direction.
+
+"Whiz-bang," Tommy whispered. "What the deuce would you call it, Jack?"
+
+Except for his age, that might have been sixty, he was most comical to
+look upon--in stature short and round, suggesting kinship with a gnome.
+His head seemed too large for the body, yet this might have been because
+it carried a plenteous shock of straw-colored hair, with mustache and
+beard to match. He was attired in "knickers" and pleated jacket, that
+looked as if he'd slept in them, and his fat legs were knock-kneed. On
+the floor about his feet lay almost every conceivable type and age of
+traveling bag, with the inevitable camera.
+
+"What's his name?" Tommy asked, not that that would have made any
+difference if his passport were in order.
+
+"Registered as 'Monsieur Dragot, of Roumania,'" the proprietor answered.
+
+"Roumania!" Tommy looked at me. "Let's go meet him, Jack."
+
+Monsieur Dragot turned out to be the original singed cat, for assuredly
+he possessed more attractive qualities inside than were exteriorly
+visible, and from a first shyness that did not lack charm he expanded
+briskly. After visiting a "dry" cafe, to seal this fortunate
+acquaintanceship--as he insisted upon calling it--he warmed up to us and
+we to him, with the result that his bags were soon carried down and
+stowed in our spare stateroom. Leaving him there, we went on deck.
+
+"Dragot," Tommy mused. "Speaks with a slight accent, but I can't make
+out what!"
+
+"Roumanian, possibly," I suggested, "as he comes from there."
+
+"You rather excel yourself," he smiled. "Registering from Roumania,
+however, isn't prima facie evidence that he's a Roumanian."
+
+"He's a clever little talker, all the same."
+
+"Right O! Too clever. I'm wondering if we aren't a pair of chumps to
+take him."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"He may be a crook, for all we know. Did you notice what he said about
+holding a commission from Azuria, and then hurrying to explain that
+Azuria isn't on the ordinary maps--just a wee bit of a kingdom up in the
+Carpathians, yet in the confines of Roumania? I call that fishy!"
+
+"Not entirely so, Tommy. When you said it might now be turning into a
+republic, did you notice how proudly he declared that the descendants of
+Basil the Wolf couldn't be humbled?--that, situated in Moldavia, and
+escaping the ravages of the Bulgarian army, they were stronger today
+than ever?"
+
+"Sounds like raving, sonny. Who the dickens is Basil the Wolf? No, Jack,
+that doesn't tell us anything."
+
+"It tells us he couldn't have been inspired like that unless the place
+and people were real to him!"
+
+"Well, pirate or priest," Tommy laughed, "he'll do if he waltzes us up
+to the big adventure. You're about fit enough to tackle one now!" During
+the past forty-eight hours he had openly rejoiced with Gates at my
+improvement and tried, with the indifferent success of an unbeliever, to
+play up at top speed that silly idea of an approaching adventure.
+
+We had strolled aft, and now stopped to watch a tall Jamaica negro--or
+so we thought him to be--asking Gates for a place in the crew. His
+clothing was too scant to hide the great muscles beneath, and Tommy
+touched my arm, saying:
+
+"There's a specimen for you!"
+
+Had he been cast in bronze a critic might have said that the sculptor,
+by over-idealizing masculine perfection, had made the waist too small,
+the hips too slender, for the powerful chest and shoulders; the wrists
+and ankles might have been thought too delicate as terminals for the
+massive sinews leading into them. He smiled continually, and spoke in a
+soft, almost timid voice.
+
+"I like that big fellow," I said. Perhaps I had been well called a
+pantheist, having always extravagantly admired the perfect in form or
+face or the wide outdoors.
+
+Feeling my interests he turned from Gates, looking at me with dog-like
+pathetic trustfulness. Among the things he told us briefly--for the crew
+stood ready to cast off--was that he once followed the sea, but in more
+recent years lived by fishing up sponges and at times supplying shark
+meat to the poorer quarter of Key West. The carcass of a water fowl tied
+to his boat, while he occupied himself with sponges, would sometimes
+attract a shark; then he would strip, take a knife in his teeth, and
+dive.
+
+I glanced at Gates, but saw no incredulity in his face.
+
+In another hour, at nearly dusk, Key West had grown small and finally
+sank below the horizon, leaving only its three skeleton-like towers
+standing against the sky--standing erect with all nerves strained,
+watch-dogs of the darkening sea; ears cocked, to catch a distressed cry
+from some waif out in the mysterious night.
+
+Looking back along our wake I imagined the big black man standing as we
+had left him on the dock, gazing after us with patient regret; and I was
+glad to have given him the handful of coins at parting, little dreaming
+how many times that loaf upon the water would come floating in to me.
+
+Monsieur Dragot revealed himself more and more to our astonished eyes as
+we sat that night on deck. He had been a professor in the University of
+Bucharest, and hinted at an intimate entente with the reigning house of
+Azuria. Besides being versed in many sciences, including medicine, he
+spoke seven languages and read several others. But these things were
+drawn from him by Tommy's artful questions, rather than being said in
+boastfulness. Indeed, Monsieur was charmingly, almost touchily, modest.
+Of his business in Havana he gave no hint, yet this happened to be the
+one piece of information that Tommy seemed most possessed to find out.
+
+"You'll be in Cuba long, Monsieur?" he asked.
+
+"No one can say. A day, a week, a month, a year--it is an elusive search
+I follow, my young friends. May I call you that?"
+
+We bowed, and I deferentially suggested:
+
+"If we can help you in any way?----"
+
+"It is the beautiful spirit of America," he sighed, "to help those in
+distress, yet there is nothing to do but watch--watch. For you have not
+yet been here long enough to see a child in these waters--no?"
+
+Tommy, perhaps because he came from the South and was on more or less
+friendly terms with superstitions, glanced over the rail as if an infant
+might be floating around almost anywhere. Our strange guest's mysterious
+hints were, indeed, rather conducive to creeps.
+
+Then, without further comment, he arose, tossed his cigar overboard, ran
+his fingers through his mass of hair, and went below.
+
+"What d'you suppose he meant?" I asked, in a guarded voice.
+
+"Simple enough," Tommy whispered. "He's got apartments to let
+upstairs."
+
+"Get out, man," I laughed. "That chap has more sense than either of us!"
+
+"Then he'd better come across with some of it. You remember the freckled
+lad at Soissons who got fuzzy-headed from too much concussion? Well, he
+saw children around everywhere, too! It's a sure sign, Jack!" But now he
+laughed, adding: "Oh, I suppose our little Roumanian's all right,
+only----"
+
+He was interrupted by Monsieur, himself, who emerged from the
+companionway door.
+
+"I come again," he smiled apologetically, "because tomorrow our journeys
+part, and I have shown scant consideration for your kindness."
+
+"It's we who feel the obligation," Tommy murmured. "Now, if we could
+only help you find the child--supposing, of course, that's what you're
+watching for!"
+
+Monsieur gave a deep sigh, appearing to be quite overcome by a secret
+grief; but after a moment he looked at us, asking ingenuously:
+
+"You think my behavior unusual?"
+
+"Well, since you make a point of it," I laughed, and hesitated.
+
+"I see, I see! But, my young friends, you must take my word that I
+cannot tell you much." He drew us nearer. "This I may say: that, after
+Roumania dropped out of the war, the new Chancellor of Azuria wired
+imploringly for me to leave my classes at the University and come to
+him--because for years I have advised with Azurian statesmen, frequently
+going on special missions. By the recent death of the old Chancellor a
+certain paper came to light. This was a secret agent's report sent from
+Havana in 1914----I may not divulge its contents. But for the war it
+would have been followed up at once. Whether the same hopes exist
+now--well, I am here to discover. Ah, my young friends," his voice
+trembled, "much depends upon this! I must--I must find the child if it
+lives!"
+
+Tommy's eyes grew round.
+
+"I can say no more," Monsieur added. "Accept my thanks and gratitude for
+the help you have given me. And now--_bon soir_."
+
+He bowed, backing himself toward the stairs as though leaving a royal
+presence, doing it so easily, so naturally, that we did not even smile.
+When he had quite disappeared we turned and faced each other.
+
+"What do you think now?" I asked.
+
+"I think he's a treasure," Tommy cried. His face had lighted with a new
+excitement. "If we want any fun on this trip, don't let him get out of
+our sight! Stick to him! I won't deny he has a screw loose, but----"
+
+"That makes it all the better," I laughed, adding: "Looks like the
+Mater's toast might come true, after all, doesn't it!"--for I had
+described our New Year's Eve to Tommy.
+
+"Sonny, I've a hunch we won't even have to tiptoe over the hill to find
+adventures with him around! He's their regular hanging-out place!"
+
+Gates came up, and seemed vastly amused when we told him of our hopes.
+
+"He doesn't look like much of an adventurer, sir, but he's certainly a
+change from the great run of people I've met. Still, I carn't see how
+we're going to keep him against his will!"
+
+"Neither can I, Tommy."
+
+"Use a little persuasion."
+
+"But suppose he won't persuade?"
+
+"What's the use of crossing bridges," Tommy grinned. "If he won't
+persuade, then sit on his head--anything, I don't care! The main thing
+is--keep him!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+THE GIRL IN THE CAFE
+
+
+Next morning began the conversion, or rather the persuasion, of Monsieur
+Dragot to remain a while longer with the _Whim_. Pete started off with
+another triumphant breakfast and before our guest had gone far with it
+his face was agleam with pleasure. Tommy and I put ourselves out to be
+agreeable, telling him jokes that sometimes registered but frequently
+did not. Yet we were on most affable terms when, stuffed to repletion,
+we leaned back and lighted cigarettes.
+
+"Professor," Tommy suggested, "I think if you stay with us you'll have a
+better chance to find that child!"
+
+Our guest beamed agreeably at the appelative, then looked toward me.
+
+"I'm sure of it," I said. "We've nowhere to go but anywhere, and that
+ought to fall in with your plans."
+
+"_Pardieu_, you overwhelm me! You mean I may sail about with you,
+searching?"
+
+"Nothing simpler," I assured him. "We've rather taken a fancy to you,
+haven't we, Tommy?"
+
+"Double it," Tommy laughed. "We agreed last night that you looked like a
+million-dollar bill to us!"
+
+"Oh, my boys," Monsieur sputtered with embarrassment and pleasure, "you
+disarm my power to thank you--see, I blush!"
+
+"Damned if he isn't," Tommy grinned at me. "What d'you know about this
+little gezabo, anyhow!"
+
+Monsieur's face grew more composed as he showed his interest in a new
+word.
+
+"You say--gazebo?" he asked, blandly. "Is that not a belvedere?"
+
+"Gazebo is, yes; but I said gezabo--that's you!"
+
+"Your American Indian language?"
+
+"Sure thing. Pure talk. If you're interested in Indians, stick around.
+Why not get the Havana police to help us hunt the kiddie?"--I had known
+that before long Tommy would be using a first personal pronoun.
+
+"Bah! They are of no value! But even I have small hope of finding her.
+The report was written nearly six years ago, and she has been gone
+upwards of twenty years."
+
+"So it's a she," Tommy looked over at me and nodded. "Well, nearly six
+years, and upwards of twenty, plus what she was when she left home,
+leads me to believe the lady's almost old enough to take care of
+herself!"
+
+Monsieur considered this a great joke, exclaiming:
+
+"It is not so much as that! She is but three--to me, always three! Yet,
+as you say, I might better find her with you than anywhere! A despairing
+search, my boys!"
+
+Tommy's eyes were twinkling as he murmured sympathetically:
+
+"If it's a three-year-old you want, there's a place in Havana called
+'Casa de Beneficencia Maternidad,' where furtive-eyed damsels leave
+kiddies at twilight, ring the doorbell, and beat it. You might pick up
+one there, as a last resort."
+
+"But--but," Monsieur began to sputter, when I threw an orange at Tommy,
+explaining to our agitated guest that he was a cut-up devoid of ideas,
+really an intellectual outcast.
+
+"Well," he cried, seeming to exude pleasure, "I will stay with you a
+while, eh? Maybe we can teach him something--this cut-upping Tommy of
+yours!"
+
+He had fallen in with our scheme most agreeably, and later Tommy
+confided to me that he was glad we wouldn't have to sit on the old
+fellow's head.
+
+Passing that afternoon beneath Morro Castle, the _Whim_ tacked prettily
+through the entrance of Havana harbor and in another scant two miles
+dropped anchor.
+
+Havana Bay is a dancing sheet of water, as bright as the skies and
+hardly less contagious than the city's laughter. But when one drops
+anchor and then hoists it up, one recoils from the black and slimy mud
+those blue waves hide; and this circumstance, slight as it may seem,
+held a potent influence on our future.
+
+Riding nearby was another yacht, in size and design very much like the
+_Whim_, except that her rigging had an old-fashioned cut. Her masts were
+checked with age and, where our craft showed polished brass, she long
+ago had resorted to white paint. At the same time, she gave the
+impression of aristocracy--broken-down aristocracy, if you choose. No
+bunting fluttered at her masthead, no country's emblem waved over her
+taffrail, and the only hint of nationality or ownership was a rather
+badly painted word _Orchid_ on her name plate. Taken altogether, she was
+rather difficult to place.
+
+These signs of poverty would have passed unobserved by us, had we not in
+coming to anchor swung between her moorings and the Machina wharf. Not
+that it made any serious difference, Gates explained, nor were we
+impertinently near, but it just missed being the scrupulously polite
+thing to have done--and Gates was a stickler on matters of yacht
+etiquette. So he felt uncomfortable about it, while at the same time
+being reluctant to hoist anchor and foul our decks with the bottom of
+Havana Bay. To be on the safe side he determined to megaphone apologies
+and consult her wishes. Twice he hailed, receiving no answer. Two
+sailors were seated forward playing cards--a surlier pair of ruffians
+would have been hard to find--but neither of them so much as glanced up.
+
+"Let the professor try in Spanish," Tommy said.
+
+Monsieur took the megaphone and did so, but with no better success. Then
+to our profound admiration he called in half a dozen languages; finally
+growling: "Lascars, likely!"--and proceeded to hail in something he
+afterwards explained was Lascar gibberish. All of which failed to
+attract the surly pair who played at cards.
+
+"Now you might try Airedale and Pekinese," Tommy suggested, but this was
+lost on the serious little man. Yet he did call in another strangely
+sounding tongue, then with a sigh laid the megaphone down, saying:
+
+"They must be stuffies!"
+
+"Dummies, sir, dummies," Tommy corrected. "Nice people don't say
+stuffies, ever!"
+
+"Your Tommy does so much cut-upping, eh!" he smiled at me. I had noticed
+that when preoccupied or excited the idioms of his various languages got
+tumbled into a rather hopeless potpourri.
+
+Quarantine and customs were passed in the leisurely fashion of Cuban
+officials, and Monsieur asked to be sent immediately ashore, promising
+to return at sundown. There was a man, the secret agent, he explained,
+who held important information.
+
+"I'll have the launch for you at Machina wharf, sir," Gates told him,
+but he refused to consider this, declaring that he could hire any of the
+boatmen thereabout to bring him out.
+
+"He's that considerate, sir," Gates later confided to me. "But I carn't
+make head nor tail of him. Bilkins says he went in to lay out his
+clothes, and the things he's got stuck in those bags would astonish
+you!"
+
+Nearing six o'clock a skiff drew alongside, being propelled by one
+oar--a method much in vogue with Havana harbormen--and when Monsieur
+came aboard we saw at once evidences of disappointment. His arms hung
+listlessly, and his large head drooped forward as if at last its weight
+had proven too great for the squat body.
+
+"What's wrong?" I asked.
+
+"How do you know there is anything wrong, my boy Jack?"
+
+"You look so killingly happy," Tommy said, joining us.
+
+Monsieur's pale eyes stared for a moment, then blinked several times
+before he murmured:
+
+"The man I went to see is dead--murdered, just after he mailed that
+report. So I have no information. These police called it suicide because
+a knife lay in his hand. Bah! I could place a knife in the hand of any
+man I kill!"
+
+"Was he a friend of yours?"
+
+"No. I have never seen him. But he knew something!"
+
+"He evidently knew too much," Tommy suggested.
+
+"You speak true, my boy. It seems to be a dangerous thing here to know
+too much of certain matters!"
+
+"Well," I laughed, trying to put a heartiness in my voice and drive away
+his depression, "let's go ashore for dinner! Then the Opera--and
+afterwards another bite where the high life eats? What-say, Professor?"
+
+As it turned out, however, neither the dinner, nor all of Tommy's
+banter, nor Madame Butterfly sung in Spanish (as if it could!) succeeded
+in restoring Monsieur to a normal temper.
+
+"We've simply got to make him laugh," I whispered to Tommy. "It's a
+matter of principle now!"
+
+"Then wait till we have supper, and get him soused," my confederate
+cautiously replied. "That'll do it. But you'd better not drink much," he
+added. "How are the nerves this evening?"
+
+"I've almost forgotten them," I answered.
+
+But Tommy was persistent at times. Unknown to me he was now preparing a
+report to wire the Mater.
+
+"Sleeping better?" he asked.
+
+"Lots."
+
+"Lying to me?"
+
+"A little," I laughed outright. "But honestly I'm in heaps better
+shape!"
+
+"Oh, I've seen you improving from day to day, but we want to put it over
+right. So don't hit the asphalt too hard tonight."
+
+And in all justice to myself and my friendship to Tommy I really did not
+intend to. What place was it that some one said is paved with good
+intentions?
+
+Leaving the Opera House we mixed with the laughing tide that flowed
+along the Prado, and by the merest chance--destinies of nations, much
+less our own, sometimes rest upon a merest chance--dropped in for supper
+at a fashionable place patronized by those who wish to see the brightest
+of Havana life. There were other places, of course, that might have
+offered quite as much, but this one happened to be on the route we had
+taken.
+
+Midnight passed, but still we lingered, seated on the latticed balcony
+that encircles an inner court where cabaret features are
+held--suggestive of a bull ring. One rather piquant Spanish girl,
+playing her accompaniment on a guitar, gazed softly up at Tommy while
+singing about some wonderful Nirvana, an enchanted island that floated
+in a sea of love. It was a pretty song, even if more intense than
+temperate, and pleased with it he tossed her a coin; whereupon she
+tilted her chin and raised a shoulder, asking in the universal language
+of cabarets if she should not come up and drink a health with the
+_imperioso Senor_. But he, whose heart was beating against a twenty-page
+letter from a nymph in the Bluegrass region of Kentucky, laughed a
+negative, this time throwing her a flower that she kissed lightly and
+put in her hair.
+
+We had supped well, the mandolins were now tinkling, incessantly, and
+this, mingled with the silvery tones of glasses touched in eager
+pledges, created an ensemble of sounds dear to the heart of every true
+Bohemian. Effects were good here. The ceilings and walls of our balcony
+were lighted by vari-colored electric bulbs artfully placed amidst
+growing vines that drooped in festoons above the tables, producing a
+fairy-like enchantment. And, indeed, the cafe proved to be a mart not
+only of enchantments but entertainments, including a popular gambling
+salon.
+
+At last, in desperation seeing that Monsieur refused to be cheered,
+Tommy sprang up, saying:
+
+"Come, gezabo, let's court Dame Roulette! Join us, Jack?"
+
+This I declined, and watched them move off arm in arm. But a strange
+thing arrested my attention for, as they preceded down the corridor, I
+saw a man in yachting clothes--the uniform of a captain--draw quickly
+back into an alcove as if wanting to escape discovery. When they had
+passed he looked out, more fearfully than curiously, and after a moment
+of indecision slowly followed them. Urged by a suspicion that this was
+in some way associated with the professor, I arose and also followed.
+Yet upon reaching the salon the stranger was nowhere to be seen. Tommy
+and Monsieur were each buying a stack of chips, the place seemed quiet
+and orderly, so without being observed I returned to my table.
+
+Now left alone I leaned back, idly twisting the stem of my glass,
+looking over the sea of merry people who made a picture that quickened
+interest. For I am particularly fond of sitting apart and watching an
+assemblage of handsomely groomed men and women laughing, talking and
+making love. I like to guess whether fears or tears or desperate courage
+hide behind their gayety; whether the rapidly wagging tongues are
+uttering inanities or planning naughty things; whether the love-making
+will stop with coffee and liqueur, or, lighted by them, burn into
+eternity.
+
+All phases of human banality and human enigma seemed to be represented.
+There were languid beauties of the Latin type whose drooping eyes might
+have expressed _ennui_, passion, pride--anything, in fact, that one's
+humor chose to fancy; the blonde by adoption was there, with heavy
+ear-rings of jet, whose habit was that of looking slant-wise through her
+cigarette smoke and raising one black, though carefully plucked,
+eyebrow; also there were a few American women, by far the most smartly
+dressed. Great was the throb of life in this discreet and fashionable
+cafe. I felt its tremendous emphasis, and was content.
+
+Then, quite without warning, I caught my breath as my glance fell upon a
+girl dining with an old chap but three tables away. Among the habitues
+of the Ritzes of two continents there could not have been found another
+like her, for never had I beheld a face as exquisite--and I've seen
+many. It possessed a beauty that left me helpless--yet there was an
+indefinable sadness in it that might have suggested a haunting fear.
+
+One of the lights among the vines hung close to her, and I could see
+these things. Even could I see the color of her eyes, deep purple
+eyes--the tone the wild iris takes at twilight. When she leaned one way
+I might have thought the rich abundance of her hair contained spun
+copper or deep red gold, and again I would have sworn it matched the
+mellow brown of chestnuts; in all forming an arrangement of waves, each
+refusing to stay in place yet never really getting out of order, each
+coquetting with a subtle mischief that found an echo in her lips. Her
+neck and shoulders were of that perfection that men realize but can not
+analyze; and her mouth, laughing or in repose, was maddening.
+
+And there was an added charm quite apart from hair and eyes and lips.
+This I had never before seen in any face. Animation? Yes, and more.
+Interest in the life about her? Assuredly, to a very marked degree.
+Wildness? That was it!--a wildness, subtly blended with refinement, that
+found expression in every quick look; as if someone had put a fawn there
+from the forest and it was trying, half humorously, half confidently, to
+keep itself from running away in fright. It was this glory of wildness
+that she typified which made my cheeks grow hot with watching.
+
+But who has ever made a picture worthy of his dreams! How, then, can I
+describe this girl, when painter, sculptor, writer--all--would miserably
+fail at attempting to portray a beauty whereon imagination might gaze in
+frank amazement and admit itself surpassed! Here, indeed, was all the
+vital, colorful magnetism of a type that men are quick to die for!
+
+Her gown--yet how can man describe a woman's gown? It was a very rich
+affair and added to the picture. But this I did observe distinctly, that
+in revealing her arms and shoulders there was no slightest hint of that
+abandonment of _decollete_ which denotes the approach of feminine
+despair, nor was the color in her cheeks a result of anything less pure
+than the kiss of air and sunshine.
+
+Her _vis-a-vis_, almost too old to have been her father, was one of
+those whose nationality is difficult to place. His hair, mustache and
+Vandyke beard were gray; he was tall, thin, and perhaps seventy-five
+years old. His complexion impressed one most unpleasantly because of its
+sallow, almost yellow, hue; and although I had not yet had a full-face
+view of him I intuitively knew that his teeth were long and thin and
+yellow. A slight palsy never let his head be still, as if some
+persistent agent were making him deny, eternally deny, an inarticulate
+accusation--as accusations of the conscience perforce must be.
+
+Despite his grumpy silence he showed an air of repressed excitement,
+sending frequent, shifty glances over the room; and that he possessed
+the temper of a fiend I did not doubt after seeing him turn upon the
+waiter for some trifling omission and reduce that usually placid
+individual to a state of amazed incapacity. Then a quick, really a
+pitiful, look of terror came into the girl's eyes as she shrank back in
+her chair. It lasted but a second before she was again making herself
+agreeable--acting, of course--and I wanted to cross to him and demand:
+"Why is this lady afraid?"
+
+I hated the man; at first sight I loathed him. It was one of those
+antipathies sometimes observed in dogs that see each other from a
+distance--hair up and teeth bared. The feeling is spontaneous,
+unpredictable, and the usual result is fight.
+
+Up to this time she had not seen me, or even known of my insignificant
+existence; but suddenly, as though it were a sally of banter whose blade
+he parried in the nick of time, her laughter-bathed eyes darted past him
+and squarely met my own; her lips sobered into a half parted expression
+of interest and, some strange thought--perhaps unbidden--coming into her
+mind, sent the blood surging to her cheeks. As quickly as this happened
+it had gone, and again she seemed to be absorbing the attention of her
+_vis-a-vis_.
+
+Once, years ago in the Dolomites, I thoughtlessly struck my staff upon a
+piece of rock when, lo, a wonderful tone arose therefrom. And the memory
+of that rich, unbidden sound was re-awakened now as the contact of our
+glances stirred something which thrilled me with a maddening sense of
+harmony. As an E string vibrates when another E is struck somewhere near
+to it, so my being vibrated with each tilt of her head, each movement of
+her lips. Yet however much I conjured the magnet of my will to make her
+look again, she successfully, if coquettishly, resisted.
+
+The Spanish waiter came up softly to refill my glass; an attention I
+permitted, murmuring happily:
+
+"Right, kiddo! Stay me with flagons, comfort me with champagne, for my
+heart is faint with love!"--only Solomon didn't sing it quite like
+that, the fickle old dog, nor did my waiter understand me, which was
+just as well.
+
+Engrossed with watching her I saw a new look come into her face as she
+quickly whispered something across the table. Her _vis-a-vis_ turned
+impatiently as a man approached them, who to my surprise was the yacht
+captain--the fellow who had apparently followed Tommy and Monsieur. He
+was a well-built blond, with a bullet-shaped head, high cheek bones and
+deep set eyes--pig eyes. His right cheek bore several scars which,
+considering his type, strongly suggested a German of University dueling
+experiences. So I looked on him with a livelier suspicion, even as she
+seemed to be doing.
+
+In an undertone he now said something that brought the old man to his
+feet. With fear written on their faces they talked for several minutes,
+during which the blond jerked his head once or twice toward the gambling
+rooms. The girl had leaned forward watching them intently. Then with a
+peremptory order the old one sent him away and sank back into his chair;
+but a moment later, clutching the tablecloth, he spoke a few words that
+made her recoil in evident horror.
+
+I did not know what to do or what to think, so I merely watched with
+every sense alert. I saw him call the waiter for his settlement, I saw
+him take out a large roll of money and with trembling fingers peel off
+the outside bill--a new and crinkly fifty-dollar note. I saw the girl
+idly marking on the winecard with a small gold pencil, though her eyes
+were veiling an intense excitement; and when the waiter returned with a
+pile of change which the old man began to count, I saw her furtively
+slip the winecard to her lap. A moment later it fell to the floor as she
+arose to leave.
+
+Together they started toward the exit, but having taken a few steps she
+left him with a brief word and returned, presumably for her glove.
+Partially free from his eternal vigilance, she raised her eyes without
+dissimulation and looked quickly, appealingly into mine; then down at
+her hand, on which she leaned, whose fingers were unfolding from a
+little ball of paper. Again into my eyes she looked--a look of infinite
+appeal.
+
+Across the void from her world to my own she was signaling--trying to
+tell me what?--and frantically my fancy sprang to translate the message.
+But as the man, with growing agitation, had been watching narrowly
+throughout this--a condition of which I felt sure she must be acutely
+aware--I dared not make the slightest sign. Yet she seemed to understand
+and, joining him, they passed out.
+
+I pounced upon that crumpled ball of paper and was back in my chair
+unfolding it with nervous fingers. Feverishly pressing out the creases I
+saw that it was, indeed, a corner torn from the winecard, and written
+upon it--nothing. Absolutely nothing!
+
+Perhaps I should have laughed, but as a matter of fact I cursed. Deep in
+my soul I cursed. Her little joke, her pretty bit of acting, had left a
+stinging sense of loss. As suddenly as this ruthless comet swept into my
+orbit it had swung out and on; for one delicious moment we had touched
+across the infinite, but now my harmony was shattered, the strings of my
+harp were snapped, curled up, and could not be made to play again.
+
+But the Spanish girl was playing her guitar, once more singing her
+impassioned song of the enchanted island in its sea of love, which made
+me pity myself so much that I permitted the waiter again to fill my
+glass. What a wondrous adventure this night might have brought!
+
+Such thoughts wore not to be profaned by the companionship of Tommy and
+Monsieur, so I slipped away, hailed a cab and alighted at the Machina
+wharf. The boatman there, whom I aroused to take me out, was one of the
+most stupid fellows I've ever encountered. At any rate, someone was
+stupid.
+
+Going aboard the yacht I stood for a moment listening to the lonely
+sweep of his oar sculling shoreward through the murky night. Over the
+castellated walls of La Cabana raced low, angry clouds. Was it a storm
+brewing, or had some supernal madness touched the night?
+
+The watch forward called in a guarded voice: "All right, sir?" to which
+I answered, "All right," then went cautiously across deck and crept down
+the companionway stairs. The cabin was dark so I felt for my stateroom,
+passed in and closed the door. Somehow my fingers could not locate the
+light jet, but what matter? In three minutes I had undressed and was
+fast asleep.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+NIRVANA
+
+
+A pleasant sense of motion came over me that suggested cradling waves,
+and I was sleepily wondering why we had gone out on a day that portended
+storms, when a tapping at my stateroom door was followed by someone
+whispering:
+
+"Aren't you ever going to get up, you lazy old dear?"
+
+It was a girl's voice.
+
+Gradually and cautiously I drew the sheet about my chin, feeling no
+little confused to have a girl five feet away whispering pet names at me
+through a thin partition.
+
+"Aren't you?" she repeated, more sweetly imperious.
+
+"You bet," I stammered.
+
+"Then do hurry! It's almost ten, and I've been waiting such a long
+time!"
+
+Whereupon I heard her moving off, pressing her hands against the panels
+for steadiness, and there struck me as having been an endearing pathos
+in the way she said: "such a long time!"
+
+This was, no doubt, some of Tommy's doing. He had invited friends aboard
+for luncheon, and was now daring one of them to play this joke. But my
+glance turned to the room, to its equipment and toilette articles which
+were large and curiously shaped, and the numbing truth crept into my
+brain that the stupid boatman had put me on the wrong yacht.
+
+I had known some tight places in France, but this one simply squeezed me
+all over. There was nothing for it, of course, but go out and
+explain--yet how could a chap appear at noon draped in a sheet! The
+situation confused me, but I decided to search the wardrobe, of my
+unknown host, to borrow his razor, appropriate a new toothbrush that
+should be found in a box somewhere, and select flannels and linens in
+keeping with the hour. Still balanced between confusion and panic I must
+have done these things because, fittingly attired though with no very
+good fit, I opened my door, stepped softly along the passageway, and
+entered the cabin.
+
+On a wide couch built in at one side a girl lay reading. Her head was
+toward me, but as I advanced she arose with a low cry of gladness,
+saying:
+
+"So you're here at last----!" then with a little gasp drew back, facing
+me in the most entrancing attitude of bewilderment.
+
+It was the girl who had left that ball of paper!
+
+The sea, always my friend, at this moment did a rather decent thing; it
+gave the yacht a firm but gentle lurch and sent us into each other's
+arms. Perhaps nothing else in all the world of chances could so
+effectively have broken the ice between us, for we were laughing as I
+helped her back to the couch; and, as our eyes met, again we laughed.
+
+"I didn't know," she said, "that Father brought a guest aboard last
+night!"
+
+"Awkward of him, wasn't it?" I stammered, sparring for time.
+
+"One is apt to be awkward in weather like this," she graciously
+admitted.
+
+"You don't know how profoundly aware I am of--of how terribly true that
+is," I stumbled along. "Is he on deck?" For, oh, if I could only get to
+see him five minutes alone!
+
+"No, he's unusually lazy this morning; but I've called, him, the old
+dear!"
+
+A chill crept up my spine--crept up, crept down, and then criss-crossed.
+But she must know of her mistake before we had gone so far that putting
+me ashore would be a serious inconvenience--for I knew he would put me
+ashore at the nearest point, if not, indeed, set me adrift in an open
+boat. Therefore I suggested:
+
+"Wouldn't it be a good idea to call him again? It's rather important!"
+
+"Oh, you think we shouldn't have gone out in a storm like this? I've
+been dreadfully uneasy!"
+
+"No danger at all," I declared, with affected indifference, adding: "The
+weather isn't half as rough as 'the old dear' will be, take my word for
+it!"
+
+A shadow of mystification passed over her wonderful face, yet she smiled
+with well-bred tolerance, saying:
+
+"You are quite droll."
+
+"Drollery is the brother of good fellowship," I replied, helping her
+across the reeling cabin. As I had feared, she went directly to my room
+where the door had swung back showing an empty bunk.
+
+"Why, he's up, after all," she glanced over her shoulder at me.
+
+"I believe he is," I idiotically affirmed.
+
+"But where?"--this more to herself.
+
+"Hiding, maybe," I ventured, taking a facetious squint about.
+
+"Hiding?" she asked, in mild surprise.
+
+"Er--playing a trick on us! He's a funny old dog at tricks!"
+
+"Funny old dog?" She drew slightly away from me. "Do you mean my father,
+Mr.--er?"
+
+"Jack," I prompted, more than ever embarrassed and wishing the ocean
+would come up and swallow me; for I realized, alas, that my gods, by
+whom I was reasonably well remembered in so far as concerned physique,
+had been shamelessly remiss in their bestowal of brains.
+
+"Jack?" she slowly repeated. "What an odd name!"
+
+This made me feel queer.
+
+"Where do you live," I asked, "that you think it's an odd name? The
+States are crawling with Jacks! It's even the Democratic emblem!"
+
+Her perplexity was fast approaching alarm when we heard a muffled report
+above, followed by a trembling of the yacht. Someone called an order
+that sounded far away in the wind.
+
+"Hold tight," I said, "while I see if anything's wrong!"
+
+But I did not leave her side, knowing exactly what had happened. We had
+snapped our mainsheet, that was all; letting the boom swing out and
+putting us in the trough of the waves where we might expect a few wobbly
+minutes until the sailors could work in a new line. There was no danger
+and I reassured her at once, but she merely asked:
+
+"Was my father on deck?"
+
+"I didn't look," I answered, wondering why she thought I knew.
+
+"Won't you see?" Her patience was becoming exhausted.
+
+"I'm crazy to. But first let me help you back--you can't make it
+alone!"
+
+"Oh, yes, I can," she murmured. "I always make things alone!"
+
+I tried to fathom the meaning of this, but gave it up and started to go
+on deck. If I could take her father off to one side and explain, well
+and good. He would perhaps sympathize with my mistake when he understood
+that it was partially the result of a desire to fill Monsieur with
+spirits. Considering this, I spoiled everything by asking:
+
+"What does he look like?"
+
+"My father?" she gasped, in a wondering way.
+
+"No--yes--certainly not! I mean--oh, this is intolerable! I don't know
+your father, never saw him in my life--unless he was the one with you
+last night when you drove me frantic with that ball of paper trick! But
+what you did has nothing to do with my being here. I've not wilfully
+followed. A stupid boatman mistook your yacht for my own when I was--I
+mean to say, when I was too engrossed with the memory of you to notice
+his mistake."
+
+From alarm her look gave way to wonderment, then almost to mirth. It was
+a hard place for a girl to be in, and I expected her to leave me now,
+find the old chap and promptly have me hanged to a yard-arm. The fact
+that there are no yard-arms on schooner yachts made no difference. And I
+do believe she was considering that when a sailor passed us, looking
+enough like Tommy to have been his twin brother.
+
+"Jack," she said to him, "tell Mr. Graham to come below!"
+
+The fellow saluted and left, and I stared at her in surprise, saying:
+
+"Then my name can't seem very odd to you, Miss Graham!"
+
+She was regarding me as though trying to discover what kind of a species
+I was that had got on her father's yacht, when the sailor came back
+followed by a husky brute in uniform. Intuitively I stiffened to meet
+the crisis, but even at this eleventh hour a respite came.
+
+"He ain't aboard," the other Jack whispered, and the captain--for the
+burly one was only the captain, after all--saluted, saying:
+
+"I've just now found out, ma'am, he ain't aboard!"
+
+"Not aboard? What do you mean?"
+
+"After bringing you on last night he went ashore again to get a little
+ball of paper, but told me to sail the minute he returned. I don't
+understand it, ma'am, for later the watch woke me to say Mr. Graham had
+come."
+
+"Good Lord," I groaned. "It was I, and not your father, who answered the
+watch."
+
+For several minutes we stared blankly into each other's faces, but it
+was she who broke the deadly silence.
+
+"We must hurry back," she calmly told him, adding with a nervous catch
+in her breath: "What a joke on Daddy!"
+
+"A scream of a joke," I muttered, "----one he'll roar over till
+God-knows-when!"
+
+"We can't go back, Miss Sylvia," the captain now said. "When our
+mainsheet parted the boom gybed so hard that it opened a seam. It may
+hold on this tack, and it may not, but we'd sink if the weather hit us
+on the other side. So I'm making for Key West."
+
+A suspicious quiver played over her lips as the big fellow turned and
+went upstairs, and I began to hate myself rather cordially.
+
+"Do you happen to have that--that ball of paper?" she asked, when the
+threatened storm of tears had been controlled.
+
+"No, I threw it down."
+
+A look of terror came into her eyes as she gasped:
+
+"Then he'll find it!"
+
+"It won't matter if he does! You hadn't written anything on it!"
+
+"Did you look on both sides of it?"
+
+"I--I think so; of course, I must have. Did you write on the other
+side?"
+
+"I don't know which the other side is that you refer to," she answered
+with some show of anger. "There were two sides, you know. Still, it
+can't much matter now whether it had any sides or not."
+
+This was very perplexing, the words no more so than the way she looked
+at me while pronouncing them. Yet I hardly thought it should give her as
+much concern as our leaky boat. The storm had grown worse, and more than
+once she glanced anxiously at the portholes whose glass, over half the
+time, were submerged by swirls of greenish water.
+
+"It'll turn out all right," I said, gently. "And you mustn't be afraid
+of this storm."
+
+"I'm not afraid!"
+
+"Yes, you are," I tenderly persisted, "but your skipper looks like a man
+who'll bring us through."
+
+"Your concern is most flattering," she frigidly replied. "But fear of
+storms, and distress over the unhappiness one may be causing others, are
+quite different phases of emotion."
+
+"I stand corrected and rebuked," I humbly acknowledged. "Yet I want you
+to know that my concern springs from a deeper source than flattery. I
+want honestly to assure you----"
+
+"Of course, there's less danger here than in port," she continued in the
+same icy tone, utterly ignoring me, "for here, at least, we can't be
+boarded at night by irresponsible people."
+
+I winced.
+
+"By people who drink," she added.
+
+I winced again, for I seemed to be getting the winces now, and couldn't
+stop.
+
+"That isn't fair, Miss Graham! Circumstances are against me, but you
+might suspend judgment till you know me better!"
+
+"The circumstances require no further evidence," she said, with supreme
+indifference.
+
+"But circumstantial evidence," I felt pleased at turning her phrase,
+"often wears the cap and bells, instead of the wig and gown!"
+
+"I'm discovering that," she murmured, and added with a touch of sarcasm:
+"The knack of making a catch phrase is often very agreeable, but
+presupposes no presence of an idea."
+
+Now I thought this most unkind of her, because I had been quite set up
+by my retort; so, arising with as much dignity as the waves would
+permit, I buttoned my coat, remarking:
+
+"Then I'll go on deck, and leave you."
+
+The coat was tight and, while fastening it, I felt something in an inner
+pocket press against my side. There are few impulses more natural than
+to investigate anything that has a curious feel in one's pocket, so
+thrusting in my hand I brought forth a small round frame of brass, made
+in the imitation of a porthole, encircling her photograph. This would
+not have happened had I remembered being in her father's clothes, but
+it was done, and I stood looking first at the picture and then at her.
+
+"Give it to me," she cried.
+
+"I don't see why," I temporized, not at all loath at having this chance
+for revenge.
+
+"It's mine," she imperiously announced.
+
+"It may be a picture of you, but, as you perceive, not at this moment
+your picture," and my eyes lowered again and lingered on it, for it was
+indeed a wonderful likeness, moving me strangely by its amazing beauty.
+The frame, too, gave it added charm, as she seemed really to be looking
+out of a porthole.
+
+"Give that to me this instant," she said, with such a show of passion
+that I passively surrendered it, and started to walk away. Yet some
+cruel power held my feet. I tried again to move, but could not.
+
+Overhead the men were working desperately at the pumps to keep us
+afloat. One of them left his place and passed us, whispering:
+
+"It's no use--we're gone!"
+
+The cabin was in twilight as I again turned to her. She had crawled to
+the far corner of the couch, and lay staring at the ceiling--waiting.
+Here in this dismal room, alone and facing death with a courage amazing
+to behold, she made a picture which so stirred me that despite earlier
+wounded feelings I went to her side. The little hands were cold and
+inert when I took them, but her fingers tightened ever so gently.
+
+"Did he say we're going down?" she quietly asked, without turning her
+head.
+
+"Yes," I answered--though both of us spoke in whispers.
+
+"I'm sorry to have been unkind," she said, withdrawing one of her hands
+and laying it on the back of my own--for Death is a great leveler of
+conventions.
+
+The pathetic resignation in her voice brought hot tears to my eyes and,
+raising her fingers to my lips, I murmured:
+
+"You're the sweetest angel I ever knew!"
+
+For a long time we sat in the gathering darkness, holding to each other
+as two little children lost in the night. Finally I heard her whisper:
+
+"Why am I not afraid--now?"
+
+I turned and looked down at her; down into those eyes gazing back at me
+through a magnetizing moisture that drew my face nearer, nearer.
+
+"Because," I said, "we've found something which outlives death!"
+
+"Yes," she whispered, as her arms moved sweetly up around my neck--but
+the next instant they held me off, as she gasped: "Look! Look! The end
+is here!"
+
+Quite a foot of water was swashing back and forth over the cabin floor,
+while a steady stream poured down the companionway stairs. Yes, the end
+was here!
+
+"Take this," she hurriedly pressed into my hand the round brass frame
+that held her picture--the frame fashioned after a porthole. "Keep
+it--then come to me! Swear!"
+
+"I swear," I gasped. "But where shall I find you? In what strange land
+will you be?"
+
+Her eyes were wide with a frightened look that even in our extremity
+gave the lie to fear. Through parted, expectant lips a trembling sigh of
+inexpressible sweetness seemed to carry her answer; it was brought by
+the mystery of her look, by the clasp of our senses--for I know she did
+not speak a word:
+
+    "I'll wait beneath the palms on one of many, many islands,
+    Set as emerald jewels in an ever-changing sea;
+    My hammock swings beside a pool of purling, crystal water
+    Whisp'ring to the shadows of a lonely Arcady;
+    The Spanish moss hangs solemn in long streamers from the cypress,
+    The paths are soft and noiseless with dead needles of the pine,
+    The nights are still and fragrant, and I'll wait----
+
+Ah!" she broke the measure with a despairing cry and struggled to get
+from my arms, as another voice, far away but familiar, began to call my
+name. Then slowly my eyes opened and beheld Bilkins looking down at me,
+in my own stateroom, where my clothes were lying as I had thrown them
+off the night before.
+
+"I've called you twice, sir," he was saying. "It's almost ten o'clock,
+and I'm afraid your bath is cold."
+
+"I want it cold," I murmured, staring up at him. "God, Bilkins, I've had
+a most extraordinary dream!"
+
+"If it's bad don't tell it before breakfast, sir, whatever you do! Just
+hold on a minute, and I'll bring your tray right in!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+"TO THE VERY END!"
+
+
+I dressed hurriedly, wanting to be on deck and get a more searching view
+of the yacht near which we had anchored. Stepping out into the cockpit,
+therefore, I looked hungrily toward her mooring place, but it was
+vacant.
+
+"Where has she gone?" I asked Tommy, who was the only one about.
+
+"The etiquette of this yacht requires its owner first to say 'good
+morning' when he comes up at break of day," he grinned at me accusingly.
+"The little professor won eight hundred dollars from the proud Castilian
+last night--I hope Dame Fortune was as kind to you!"
+
+"She was diverting," I admitted. "Where's Monsieur now?"
+
+"'Sleep. We didn't turn in till an unholy hour. He got up at seven from
+force of habit, fussed around a while, took some pictures of the
+neighborhood and developed them, but by that time the poor old door-mat
+couldn't keep his eyes open. Do you know he wept all the way home last
+night, telling me how good we were to him?"
+
+We laughed.
+
+"But, Tommy, where's the yacht that was over there yesterday?"
+
+"Her? Oh, she cleared this morning--and listen to me, boy, if you want
+to see a dream just cast your eye on that last film of Monsieur's!"
+
+See a dream! Great heavens, if I wanted to see a dream!
+
+He led the way aft to a ribbon of freshly developed film hanging from
+the boom to dry and, as I gingerly raised it to the light, he went on to
+explain:
+
+"It was boorish of him, but I'm to blame. We were standing forward after
+breakfast snapping the harbor when that yacht weighed anchor and swung
+across our bow less than thirty feet off; and, Jack, with the prettiest
+girl I ever saw--barring Nell--looking out at us through a porthole.
+'Shoot her,' I whispered. So he swung his camera and shot, and she gave
+a darling little gasp and ducked."
+
+I had come to the last negative and there, with the porthole in exact
+imitation of the round brass frame, was the same beautiful face of the
+same beautiful girl I'd left in that wondrous dream!
+
+"Sylvia Graham," I cried.
+
+"The devil," Tommy straightened up. "Graham's the chap who owns that
+boat! Gates found it out this morning, but how did you know?"
+
+My eyes were glued to the negative.
+
+"They cleared for Key West, Tommy?"
+
+"So Gates said. Has he told you?"
+
+"I haven't seen him since yesterday," I murmured, still unable to look
+away from that strip of gelatine which held the image of my world.
+
+"He didn't know anything about it yesterday, either," Tommy announced,
+and I felt him regarding me in some slight amusement, as though he
+thought I had a secret up my sleeve that I was trying to keep from him.
+"What's the cute little idea, son? I've told you where she cleared for,
+now clear me up!"
+
+"Tommy," I let the film swing back and caught him by the shoulders,
+"Miss Graham's father carries a photograph like that in the inside
+pocket of a white flannel coat which hangs behind his stateroom door!"
+
+He looked me up and down, this time more seriously, and murmured:
+
+"Whiz-bang!--but you must have been heroically decorated last night!
+Still, I can't see that it hurt you much, for you look about twice as
+fit as when we left Miami."
+
+"I'll bet I didn't drink an ounce more than you, or Monsieur," I
+declared. "The facts of the matter are, Tommy, that there's a lot mighty
+curious about this picture!"
+
+"Really?" he grinned. "You go below and take something with a dash of
+bitters in it."
+
+"Dry up," I snapped. "I tell you I'm going to catch up with that yacht
+if we have to follow her around the world!"
+
+He gave a low whistle, saying with good-natured tolerance:
+
+"Looks like the big adventure's on the wing, doesn't it! Well, I don't
+mind chasing the old tub, or doing any other damphule thing in reason,
+but what's the game? Put me next! When was this earthquake that loosened
+all your little rivets? Speak up, son--I'm your _padre_!"
+
+"It's hard to explain," I turned again to the negative, feeling too
+serious for his asinine humor. "But I'll honestly try to before night.
+This girl needs me. I don't know why or how, but she does. What's more,
+I'm going to find her. It's the most unheard-of situation, old man."
+
+"I'd be ashamed to belittle a situation like this by the mere term
+'unheard-of,'" he now laughed outright. "Anyhow, she doesn't need you at
+present quite as much as you need scientific attention--and I hear the
+professor moving around!"
+
+Stepping to the companionway door he bawled some nonsense to our guest
+about bringing up his medicine chest and a rope, then turned back to me.
+
+"You see, Jack, I consider this to be serious. As long as I've known you
+that lady in the porthole is the first female you've ever thought of
+with any sign of, what I might call, _ardeur_. Where you met her is your
+business, but how you're going to get her must naturally concern us all.
+Hence Monsieur to consult with!"
+
+We could hear Monsieur's grunts and wheezes before he appeared, and on
+catching sight of me he actually skipped to us. It was a grotesque
+exhibition that made me burst out laughing. His hair was tousled, his
+eyes were half closed, and he looked about as much like a scrambled egg
+as anything I could think of.
+
+"We lost you last night," he cried. "You ran away from us?"
+
+"He was poisoned," Tommy blandly answered, "and now his heart's kind of
+upside-down and twisty."
+
+"Upside-down and twisty?" he gasped.
+
+"Tommy doesn't mean it's anything dangerous, just an affection; a kind
+of--a kind of----"
+
+"A kind of affectionate affection," Tommy put in. "You see, he was stung
+there, and it itches, and he can't scratch it."
+
+"Stung on the heart? _Sacre nomme!_" The old fellow clasped his head in
+both hands and stared at us.
+
+"You fascinating little ass," Tommy murmured, "did you ever hear of
+love?"
+
+"Love?" the professor's face beamed into twice its usual breadth. "You,
+my boy Jack? Is she a Spanish mademoiselle?"
+
+"Good Lord, whoever heard of a Spanish mademoiselle! No, Jack says that
+she's a lady in need, who lives in the pocket of her father's white
+serge coat that hangs behind his stateroom door; and she's in a helluva
+lot of trouble, but Jack doesn't know where else she is, so we're going
+to comb out the universe and find her! Get the idea?"
+
+"I will drink some coffee," he stammered, and disappeared.
+
+Tommy and I decided that we must be after the _Orchid_ without losing a
+minute, as there was still a chance of drawing in sight of her before
+she could leave Key West. Yet I first had a mission to fulfill at the
+cafe, nor did I confide this at once to him lest he brand me a total
+wreck. I knew that he was delighted at the prospect of this bizarre
+chase, however chimeric it might seem to him, for he possessed the
+faculty of "playing-true" even in the veriest of fairy-tales. So for the
+moment I let the other matter rest, not realizing at the time that he
+had read more of it in my face than I meant to show.
+
+Gates, also, had caught the excitement and was waiting with the launch
+to push off; and thus, while he concluded official duties at the port, I
+entered the cafe--in the present unfriendly light a changed place from
+the night before. As luck would have it, my own waiter was the first man
+I saw.
+
+"Do you remember finding a small piece of crumpled paper on my table
+last night?" I asked.
+
+"_Si_, Senor; the mad _caballero_ came for it."
+
+"Did he get it?"
+
+"But, no, Senor," the waiter lowered his voice. "Yet he came near to,
+being much angry, and calling you--pardon me!"
+
+"Well, what? What, man?"
+
+He still hesitated, so I carelessly took out my wallet. It's amazing,
+the power of a wallet!
+
+"He demanded the paper of our _maitre d'hotel_, saying you, Senor, were
+a pig of a detective--and as we admire the detective not at all,
+everyone searched for it. But I had seen other things, Senor," he smiled
+knowingly.
+
+"You have it?"
+
+"_Si, si,_--but not so loud! Could I give it to the old one? Even a poor
+waiter may sometimes observe! _Mas vale saber que haber, Senor_," he
+shrugged and smiled as the ancient proverb slipped from his tongue.
+
+"You've a mighty level head on you, kid," I agreed; a metaphor he may or
+may not have understood. There was no doubt in my mind that his words,
+"wisdom is better than wealth," were never more aptly spoken.
+
+"I saw it after you left, Senor, and put it away--so! The mad
+_caballero_ soon came--he was not happy. We searched the floor, and all
+the time he was shaking his head and mumbling that Mademoiselle had
+confessed to writing it--and to a detective! He was quite crazy. Ah,
+with what care and sympathy did I help him, Senor, and how generously
+did he reward my careful search!"
+
+He shrugged and smiled, then drew the paper from his pocket, and I
+slipped it into mine--passing him back another kind of paper that he
+slipped into his with a grateful bow.
+
+"Do you know who the man is, or if that was his daughter?"
+
+"No, Senor. I have seen them, but can not remember where. Carlos served
+their table--but Carlos is stupid," he shrugged compassionately.
+
+The moment my cab turned the first corner I feverishly took out that
+precious paper. Sure enough, on one side were marks _I_ had not seen,
+but the pencilling was very faint--having had the soft tablecloth for a
+desk, perhaps--and showed only a meandering line, curving in and out
+through a group of dots. From every angle I studied it, coming to two
+conclusions: first, that it could mean nothing; and second, that I must
+have imbibed more freely than I thought to have overlooked this.
+
+But now I saw, fainter than the dots, something that resembled written
+words. They were so obscure, indeed, that although the light was
+excellent my jostling cab made it impossible for me to decipher them.
+Telling the driver to stop, I bent over again, and laboriously read:
+
+"I am on Mr. Graham's yacht in great da----"
+
+At this place, as I looked back upon last night, the old chap had
+indicated his wish to leave, and she, tearing off a corner, had let the
+wine card slip to the floor. It explained the broken word, the sudden
+interruption; and this much was not a dream, neither was the disturbing
+message in my hands--for what else but "danger" could the "da" mean?
+
+All was ready to weigh anchor when I stepped aboard, and when we were
+outside the harbor, drawing nicely toward the north, Tommy came up
+grumbling.
+
+"This mystery's getting heavy," he said. "Put us wise!"
+
+So I pushed him into a chair, and called the professor and Gates; then
+when the four of us were comfortably settled, the cushions fitting our
+shoulders, our pipes alight, our spirits glowing with that exhilaration
+which a yacht can bring as she lays over and cuts the waves, I told the
+story from beginning to end--sparing Sylvia where I should.
+
+For some minutes they smoked with their eyes downcast. Then Monsieur
+looked up in his mild way, asking:
+
+"May I see the paper?"
+
+I passed it to him and we drew together, studying it.
+
+"This is the most singular part of the affair," he said, leaning back,
+"because it first came to you in fact, although the man's returning for
+it was told in the dream--and later verified. The dots and line mean
+nothing, perhaps, but that interrupted message!--ah, truly it spells
+danger! What danger? She spoke of no danger in the dream?"
+
+Now, it may seem strange or not, but I had begun to lose track of the
+places where the dream came in and where they left off. The actual was
+so woven with the unreal that I had to stop and consider this question.
+The paper episode, the vividness with which Sylvia had appeared to me,
+the brass frame made in the imitation of a porthole, and the camera's
+film, all contributed to a confusion not unshared by my three friends.
+
+"It's a darned funny coincidence," said Tommy, in an awed voice. "But,
+Jack, you don't think more seriously of it, do you?"
+
+"Would we be chasing these people if I didn't?" I temporized with
+another question.
+
+He seemed to be troubled, glancing toward the thoughtful professor as
+if expecting him to speak, and when this was not forthcoming he asked
+again:
+
+"Well, friend gezabo, what do you think?"
+
+The little scientist lowered his pipe, sighed and impressively answered:
+
+"It is not given to all men to see this invisible agency at work."
+
+The profoundly solemn way he said this made Tommy's eyes grow round.
+Ghost and mystery tales imparted during his childhood by black mammies
+and other negro servants had endowed him with a considerable amount of
+superstition that not infrequently prevailed against his better
+judgment. So now, when the erudite Monsieur treated my experience with
+reverence, even introducing an element of mysticism, Tommy wavered.
+
+"Whiz-bang! You don't really believe that spooky stuff, do you?"
+
+"To my knowledge," Monsieur answered, "I have seen one case. You have
+heard me speak of Azuria. Well, many years ago a friend of mine,
+daughter of our King Christopher, fell to worrying about her cousin, a
+profligate who divided his time between the palace and Paris. As a
+punishment for various escapades the King had curtailed his allowance to
+a mere pittance, yet he seemed in spite of this to have as much money as
+before. It was this fact that worried my friend--the fear of a scandal.
+
+"One night she dreamed that her child, a girl of nearly three, was being
+kidnaped. She arose in her sleep to follow, walking the length of the
+palace, and awoke to find herself in the cousin's room--standing,
+indeed, behind his chair as he bent beneath a shaded lamp earnestly
+working on a plate for spurious money. Instantly she threatened to
+expose him to the King.
+
+"Well, to shorten a long story, that night he did actually kidnap the
+child, leaving a note to my friend in which he suggested a compromise.
+But there was no compromise with villainy in her make-up. The old King
+was much affected. Yet there were things in the air at that time,
+delicate situations of state, which demanded consideration. The
+kidnaping, if made public, would have produced a most disquieting effect
+in certain quarters. Our treaty with a powerful state had just been
+signed, based on the little princess' betrothal--you see? Therefore, her
+disappearance must be kept a secret for a while, so the police of the
+world were not notified. But that night ten men--a few of them loyal
+subjects and the others paid agents--left the capital. Thus a relentless
+search began, being carried to the ends of the world. A noted rogue,
+that fellow was--yet, strange to say, in earlier life a man of parts, an
+esthetic, an artist and musician of great ability; but _mon Dieu_, what
+a scoundrel!"
+
+"Where did they find the little princess?" Tommy asked, after a pause.
+
+"She was never found," he answered softly. "Word once came that she had
+died; again that she lived--but this I begin to doubt. So her mother
+reigns as regent, and in sorrow. Old Christopher had two daughters, the
+younger of whom----" but he stopped in confusion, his face turning very
+red. Later I remembered this.
+
+We fell into a silence, a mutual sympathy for the bereaved lady who had
+been so wronged. At last Tommy asked:
+
+"Do you cross your heart that Jack's dream was anything like the one she
+had?"
+
+"Dream?" Monsieur ran his fingers through his shock of hair. "Who can
+say? Was she dreaming, or did she see a vision? If a vision, why did it
+mislead by urging her into the very step that brought disaster? That
+scoundrel might never have considered kidnaping the child had the mother
+remained unsuspicious of his occupation! Yet visions are sent to warn
+against, not to court dangers. Again, some hold that he happened to be
+contemplating this step as a means of escape should discovery come, and
+so it was his thought transmitted to her."
+
+"For goodness sake talk sense," I cried. "What difference does it make
+whether they were dreams or nightmares, or how much the cousin was
+thinking! What we want to know is where does my dream come in!"
+
+He looked so hurt that I apologized by saying his fairy talk had sent me
+off my head. Small wonder, for when our guest attempted to explain a
+theory he proceeded on the assumption that we were as well versed in it
+as himself. Anyway, we smoothed him down and now, looking at us
+solemnly, he said:
+
+"Latter-day English-speaking psychologists to the contrary
+notwithstanding, we know in the East that souls do travel abroad; that
+they will speak, one to another, while our bodies sleep--while we are
+steeped in that mysterious period of mimic death which leads us so
+uncannily near their twilight zone! Some men hold that our dreams are
+vagaries, as a puff of air or a passing breeze; others that they are
+unfulfilled desires; still others that they are the impress made by
+another soul upon the subliminal part of us, that leaves to our active
+senses but imperfectly translatable hieroglyphics. Does that show you
+nothing?"
+
+"Well," I temporized, "I can't say it shows me much. How about you,
+Tommy?"
+
+"Smell a little smoke, but don't see any bright light yet. Elucidate,
+professor!"
+
+He sighed, giving us a look of pity, I thought.
+
+"If I call to a man, and the space is great, my voice may fail before
+reaching him. Yet if it hangs its vibrations on a puff of air, a passing
+breeze that blows in his direction, he hears me! So does the soul employ
+the passing breeze--by which I mean the capricious thing called
+dreaming--to enter our consciousness that might not otherwise be
+reached. The impossibility is to say which is which--that is, which is
+the unfulfilled desire, which is but the capricious passing breeze, and
+which is the message from another! If in the dark an uneducated fellow
+sits at a piano he might play several lovely chords, yet while they
+sounded well there would be no intelligence behind them. Such is the
+chance dream! But a master-player could produce a rhapsody, expressing
+to one who listened hope, love, desire, warning--everything. Such is the
+harmonious blending of soul and soul in sleep! And how can we tell which
+is which?"
+
+He paused and gazed out at the water, and I saw in his face the
+peculiarly wistful expression that so often accompanies thoughts which
+are both elusive and far away. The index finger of his right hand was
+slightly raised, indicating a subconscious impulse to point upward.
+Slowly turning back to us, he said in a tone of solemnity that lingers
+with me even now, a year later, as I write of it:
+
+"In the Psalms we find these merciful words: 'He giveth His beloved
+sleep.' Yet they are but an imperfect translation of the original, which
+reads: 'He giveth _to_ His beloved _in_ sleep.' Do you not see here a
+greater meaning? Do your minds not at once grasp the corollary?"
+
+"Then you mean," Tommy asked, "that every dream is intended to express
+something?"
+
+"I will not go quite that far, although there are men highly practiced
+in the science of psycho-analytical research who stoutly affirm it. Ah,
+the great difficulty is in drawing the line--in determining which dreams
+are but passing breezes and which are sent to us upon the wings of
+angels!"
+
+"You've studied those things," I ventured. "Which was mine?"
+
+"Study!" he cried, with a fine degree of scorn. "Yes, we study! We
+gather around the brink of a black well and steep ourselves in thought;
+we wrinkle our brows and tear our beards. Cries one: 'I know what is
+down there!' Another turns to him: 'You lie!' A third challenges: 'Prove
+yourselves!' And thus do professors, students, psychologists, churchmen,
+laymen, infidels, and fools, gather about the pit! This much for study,"
+he snapped his finger. "Unless a man have faith, he is in darkness to
+the end of his days!"
+
+"All the same, I believe someone tried to warn the princess," Tommy
+insisted. "And it couldn't have been anything less than a master-player
+that got off that rhapsody to Jack last night!" There was a note of
+teasing in this that the others did not detect.
+
+"Well, Mr. Thomas, you're wrong, sir." Gates, who had been listening
+attentively, now uncrossed his legs and spoke. "There isn't a single
+curious thing in Mr. Jack's dream. Anyone can see how it came
+about--with my apologies to you, sir," he bowed to Monsieur.
+
+We laughed, because Gates had not impressed us as being much of a
+psychologist, and Tommy said:
+
+"If you explain how he knew what Graham's name was, I'll listen."
+
+"Why, sir, he saw it on the paper the night before--for it was there, as
+sure as you live, and he says he looked at the paper. The only thing is,
+he didn't know he saw it--being a little gone in his cups, as you might
+say. But he did see it, and it soaked into his head, waiting till arfter
+he got to sleep before stirring around."
+
+"That's my first clear idea," Tommy's face brightened; and Gates, thus
+encouraged, added:
+
+"The reason he dreamed the old man went ashore for the paper was because
+he saw the lady being watched when she came back to her table--and I'll
+venture he thought right then that the old one was about to come back,
+too, and see what she was doing. Didn't you, sir?"
+
+"I believe I did," I murmured.
+
+"So that stuck in his mind and came out the wrong way, just like dreams
+sometimes will. As for the photograph and brass frame--why, Mr. Thomas,
+you and the professor took on so about that picture when he'd developed
+it that Mr. Jack could have heard you in his sleep, and got that part of
+his dream from what you said!"
+
+"It does fit, doesn't it," Tommy cried. "And, Jack, the poetry Sylvia
+breathed at you--wasn't it about the same thing our little Spanish girl
+sang?"
+
+"It had the same general idea," I admitted.
+
+"There you are, sir," Gates announced, with a satisfied air. "So there
+isn't a thing unusual about your dream, arfter all. It's as reasonable
+as the general run."
+
+Monsieur did not relish having his big occult smoke blown away in this
+fashion; he looked at us with rather a sickish expression, as a boy
+might have if someone stuck a pin in his toy balloon. But it was such a
+relief to get back to practicalities that we let him sulk.
+
+"Jack," Tommy asked, "do you think her real name is Sylvia?"
+
+"Yes; I'm sure of that, anyhow!"
+
+"How're you sure of it?"
+
+"It fits her so absolutely," I answered with decision.
+
+"But Revenge would fit her, too, wouldn't it? That's sweet," he grinned.
+
+"Or Constancy," the professor smiled, for once becoming inspired as he
+threw off his grouch.
+
+"Try Ignorance!" This again from Tommy, who made an attempt to look
+blissful and only succeeded in making himself ridiculous, I thought.
+
+Old Gates now stretched, cocked an eye up at the weather and, in a
+drawl, asked:
+
+"Would it be supposing a great deal, sir, to suggest that the lady might
+be named Much-Learning?"
+
+Whereupon we laughed uproariously, and Tommy slapped him on the knee,
+exclaiming:
+
+"Papa Gates, you've hit it! Truly, she hath made us mad!"
+
+"All the same," I cried, arising and laughing down at them, "there's one
+thing you can't explain away! The big adventure's come at last!--the
+wildest chase----"
+
+"Love chase," Tommy interposed.
+
+"Chase," I repeated, "that man ever started! Are you fellows game enough
+to see it through--to the very end?"
+
+"_Are_ we?" Tommy yelled, springing to his feet. "To the very end! What
+say, Gates?--Professor?"
+
+"To the very end, sir," the old skipper's face beamed happily.
+
+"Why, yes, my boys," Monsieur declared. "To the very
+end,--_certainement!_"
+
+And Gates must have confided this to the crew, for later, as I passed
+the mate, that worthy gave his forelock a pull and whispered:
+
+"To the very end, sir!"
+
+It pleased me immensely.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+A VOICE FROM THE WATER
+
+
+A perfect tropical night crept down on us, with the sky a deep and
+velvety blue, and the stars low enough to touch. Brilliant
+phosphorescence dashed from our bow and a silvery streak trailed in our
+wake emphasizing the enchantment as the _Whim_ rose, leaned, and dipped
+over the bosom of the breathing Gulf. So, also, were my hopes; now up,
+now down, on the breast of another fickle monster. Love and the sea!
+Have they not always been counterparts? Do they not span the known and
+unknown in each man's world, carrying some in safety--others destroying?
+
+It must have been nine o'clock when the forward watch called and,
+springing to the rail, peering through the darkness, we saw down upon
+the horizon the fixed white eye and three red sectors of the Key West
+light.
+
+"A good run, Gates."
+
+"Nothing of our size can beat it, sir."
+
+"You think the _Orchid_ will be in harbor?"
+
+"I carn't say, sir. She had six hours' start of us, and could have
+left."
+
+"How long do we lay off this burg?" Tommy asked, sauntering up.
+
+"That depends. If the mysterious yacht's here we'll stay till something
+happens."
+
+"And if she isn't," he nudged the professor, "we'll comb out the
+universe. You get that, don't you? A nice fat job, I'll say it is!
+How'll we know which way to start? Gates, couldn't you get a peep at her
+papers in the port?" But the skipper solemnly shook his head, saying:
+
+"It carn't be done, sir."
+
+"Well, Jack, when customs are finished we'll take the launch and comb
+out the harbor, anyhow! She'll be anchored nearby, like as not."
+
+Not caring to tie up at the dock we chose a berth far enough out to
+escape the electric glare ashore, and had hardly swung-to when Gates was
+off in his gig to clear our papers. The port officials were astir and
+accommodatingly looked us over without loss of time, for the skipper had
+mentioned our wish to leave whenever the spirit moved us. Those, indeed,
+had been his identical words, and I wondered if they were
+prophetic--whenever the spirit moved us!
+
+They were a nice pair of fellows, those American officers, and before
+going into business--a mere formality in our case--we gathered in the
+cockpit for a long straw and a bowl of ice. The occasion was more
+agreeable for possessing that sense of aloofness one feels at being on
+the edge, yet safely beyond the reach, of a little city's night
+diversions and excitements.
+
+"I suppose you've nothing dutiable," one said, knowing we had left
+Havana unexpectedly soon.
+
+"Nothing," Tommy volunteered.
+
+"But, yes," Monsieur exclaimed. "I shall declare!"
+
+"About the only thing he brought away was a wad of money from a roulette
+game," I laughed.
+
+"Ah, I surprise you," he cried, in high good humor, ducking below; and
+was soon heard struggling up the stairs, crying: "Give me help!"
+
+Into our hands then he began thrusting packages of cigars; packages
+containing a dozen boxes each, until the cockpit looked like moving day
+in a tobacco shop. Behind the last of these, he came.
+
+"Oh, _la la_," Tommy's jaw dropped. "Where did you tie up with this
+stuff? We've been together all the time!"
+
+"Not all the time," the professor chuckled. "Before you were awake this
+morning I was in town for camera supplies, and brought back, also, much
+of that most genial and ameliorating of influences exerted upon us in
+life--cigars! How much do I pay?"
+
+"How many have you?"
+
+"Ten thousand."
+
+"Ten thousand cigars!" We stared at him.
+
+"That's a lot of ameliorating influence," one of the officers laughed.
+"But, in spite of it, I'll have to charge you on nine thousand, nine
+hundred--unless a hundred belong to each of your friends. Everyone's
+entitled to bring in a hundred free."
+
+"A hundred are mine," Tommy spoke up at once. "I haven't won cigars so
+fast, ever! Jack, you for a hundred. Gates, you, too. Colonel," he
+turned to the officer--out of the Army he scattered the titles of
+Colonel, Judge, Governor and Parson with a free hand--"suppose you all
+take a hundred each. It'll be a whole lot cheaper for Sir Walter, here!"
+
+The professor was giggling.
+
+"They have cost me nothing," he cried, "for last night I have won almost
+a thousand dollars at that wretched place--see, here is plenty with
+which to pay!"
+
+And a fortunate thing it was that he had, being called on for something
+in the neighborhood of three hundred dollars.
+
+The officer--Hardwick, by name--and his associate were good fellows, as
+I have said. They had greeted us as congenial spirits and, probably on
+this account, I noticed some embarrassment on his part when he leaned
+into the light and slowly looked over the money Monsieur had given him.
+The rest of us were conversing in a more or less distrait fashion till
+this unpleasant duty should be finished, when he took an electric torch
+from his pocket and flashed it on one of the bills; then on another, and
+so through the lot. Hesitatingly he touched Monsieur's arm, asking:
+
+"Is this the money you won last night?"
+
+"That? It is just as they paid me."
+
+A moment of silence, then:
+
+"I'm sorry to tell you, but these two fifty-dollar bills are
+counterfeits."
+
+There ensued an absolute hush, and before my eyes arose the vision of
+Sylvia's father paying his supper check with a crisp fifty.
+
+"Counterfeit," the professor mused, putting out a hand for them and
+moving nearer the light. "Strange! Just today I was speaking of a
+counterfeiter!" And Tommy, in an awed voice, asked:
+
+"You don't think it's more dreams?"
+
+The officials, I rather suspected, were beginning to look at us askance.
+Our various attitudes at this discovery were scarcely in accordance with
+the usually accepted actions of innocent people; on the contrary, with
+but a grain of imagination, we might be branded as a trio of rascals
+trying to stall out of a tight place. My apprehension was more confirmed
+when Hardwick, a shade less cordial, said:
+
+"As a United States official, I should like to hear your views about
+these."
+
+Now Tommy looked across at me and I saw that he was awake. Monsieur, on
+the other hand, remained blissfully indifferent that anything might be
+out of the ordinary--except, of course, being loaded with a hundred
+dollars of bad money, which does not happen every day.
+
+"My counterfeiter?" he smiled innocently. "Yes, he could have done
+these. His plates are all but perfect. And these bills--you will admit
+they almost fooled you!" Whereupon he laughed.
+
+Tommy fidgeted, saying:
+
+"Have a care, gezabo, or you'll be sending us to the rock pile!"
+
+"My friend is cut-upping," Monsieur beamed on the official, but met with
+no more hearty response than the dry acquiescence:
+
+"I've no doubt of it. But suppose you tell me more of your other
+friend--the counterfeiter!"
+
+"Friend? _My_ friend?" Monsieur's face now became the picture of horror.
+"I was telling these boys of one who disappeared years ago, and
+afterwards the police showed me some plates found in his rooms! _My_
+friend!"
+
+Hardwick began to laugh.
+
+"Please accept my apologies, but, really, for the moment----"
+
+"Don't mention it," Tommy interrupted him, handing across a newly opened
+box of cigars. "I understand you--the professor couldn't!"
+
+Returning to the important subject, Hardwick said:
+
+"Whoever put these out is probably in Cuba. You got them at the
+cafe----?"
+
+"Quite so," Monsieur exclaimed, warming up with the notion of doing
+detective work. "I was playing roulette--but, pardon me, you have
+heard."
+
+"Do you remember any one around the table who showed new-looking bills?"
+
+"No. We were the only ones playing, and but a few were looking on."
+
+"The restaurant was crowded," Tommy said, "and connects with the
+gambling rooms. Mightn't they send money back and forth if needed?"
+
+"Quite probable."
+
+In the silence that followed I started twice to tell him that Sylvia's
+father had used a new bill of that denomination, yet the words would not
+come. It seemed a sneaky thing to do, after she had turned to me for
+help. Yet, if she were in danger, what quicker way to safety than arrest
+the old vulture who had her in his power? So I said:
+
+"Mr. Hardwick, last night in that restaurant I saw a man----" but this
+time something stopped my words. It was a voice, a girl's voice,
+beautiful with an impassioned ring of protest, that cried from some
+place near us on the water:
+
+"It isn't fair!"
+
+It isn't fair! Oh, the just and pleading accusation of that cry! I
+sprang up, loudly calling her name:
+
+"Sylvia!"
+
+There was not a breath of sound. Those with whom I had been conversing
+were as mute as graven images, but in the black pall just beyond our
+taffrail drifted the magnetic presence toward which every nerve and
+fiber of my body pointed;--pointed, aye, tugged and wrestled with my
+poor flesh to be free! Yet, silence; all silence. No sound, no vision,
+no anything to guide me, other than my flashing brain and thumping heart
+which spoke of her.
+
+I saw one of our sailors staring at the water with strange owlish eyes,
+and yelled at him:
+
+"Into the gig, man!"
+
+But this was frustrated before he moved, for some black shadow, showing
+vaguely, glided out from beneath our rail and disappeared. I could not
+be sure that I saw it, but the sailor did because he crossed himself.
+
+"It ain't no use--now, sir," he managed to say.
+
+My own eyes were trying to follow the eerie, silent thing which had
+passed so spookily into the night, leaving the merest suggestion of
+phosphorescence after it. Then an arm slipped affectionately about my
+shoulders, and I felt that Tommy was also standing by, looking along the
+trail of deadened sound. His face showed excitement, but he whispered
+steadily enough:
+
+"Come and sit down."
+
+Indeed, now that the thing had disappeared, I felt like an ass; and,
+resuming my seat, attempted to make the best of it.
+
+"Really," I laughed, "you fellows mustn't judge a man too critically.
+There was something in the voice of that young lady which took me off my
+guard, and recalled--well, it recalled what you've all probably had
+recalled by one means or another, at some time or other, during
+your--er--lives." And I gave a weakish smile, waving my hand toward any
+old thing in sight by way of saying: "You know, old chaps, how just that
+one girl plays the devil with a fellow, sometimes!"
+
+But the government officials received this in a different spirit than
+that which I had hoped to arouse. They looked at me with a gravity most
+disquieting, and Hardwick, suspicion written in every line of his face,
+asked:
+
+"Is the young lady a member of your party?"
+
+"Heavens, no," I answered quickly. "Oh, no," I vigorously repeated. "We
+don't know her, at all--none of us!"
+
+An ominous silence followed this emphatic denial, and I could actually
+_feel_ him making up his mind about us. It was an awful moment. At last
+Tommy flecked the ash from his cigar and, with great deliberation,
+asked:
+
+"Colonel, do you believe in ghosts?"
+
+"If you're serious," Hardwick snapped, "I certainly do not!"
+
+"I'm serious, all right," Tommy purred, and I knew, from the unusually
+soft quality of his voice, that, indeed, he was--"for, if you don't
+believe in ghosts, you believe we're a bunch of damn crooks--oh, yes you
+do!--and I may say that if you don't, you're a damn fool. _Now_ you see
+how serious I am, and how serious this affair is! This man was telling
+the exact truth when he said that none of us have ever heard that voice.
+If we actually did hear it just now, the coincidence that brought a
+small boat past us at this time of night, and prompted some woman in it
+to speak when and what she did, is more inexplicable to me than you
+think it is to you--because you've made up your mind to understand it. I
+can, however, understand how any sweet voice on a night like this might
+make my friend skid off his usually sane and normal track, because----"
+he hesitated, adding slowly: "Hardwick, I can't go into my friend's
+private affairs, but I wish to tell you that he's had a hell of a jolt,
+and on account of a memory--a memory, Hardwick--we're at Key West
+tonight. I trust, sir, that you won't misjudge, but rather fit these
+fragments and supply the needed others; for I know that your
+appreciation of--er--things is too delicate to allow me to proceed."
+
+Be it noted that Tommy did tell but the simple truth; and, what is
+more, he told it with such sincerity that, in a large measure, our
+embarrassment became shifted over to our guests. Personally, I felt like
+a howling ass to be staked out and exhibited as somebody's jilted Romeo,
+but this was a welcome compromise; thrice welcome, since Hardwick's next
+words showed that he had forgotten, or dismissed, the prelude to my
+burst of confidence about "a man in the restaurant," for arising he
+said:
+
+"Well, we've kept you longer than we should. If this gentleman will give
+my government good money for its revenue we'll bid you _bon voyage_. I
+suppose there's no objection to my keeping those?" He pointed to the
+spurious bills.
+
+"I have paid dearly for them," the professor remonstrated.
+
+"I'm sorry, but you won't lose any more than you've already lost--nor
+gain more, as you won't think of using them!"
+
+"Why should I not use them? I will use them--_certainement!_"
+
+"Be explicit, or forever hold your peace," Tommy laughed. "Can't you see
+the man reaching for his handcuffs?"
+
+But Monsieur, thoroughly aroused, waved the crisp bills with a great
+show of indignation, crying:
+
+"If there is a way to run this cheat to earth I, alone, will know it!
+Then you will want me to be telling you! For my own pleasure I have made
+a study of counterfeiters and their methods. Perhaps it may surprise you
+to learn that the police of Europe come to Bucharest and consult with
+me, eh? Thus, if I may also help you, I must retain my bills!"
+
+We laughed, although I felt tremendously proud of the professor, having
+had no idea he was such a wonder; and Hardwick said, bowing:
+
+"Then help yourself so I, also, may be helped. But let me take one for
+my government and, when you finish with the other, mail it to me with
+your report. I shall appreciate your assistance, really."
+
+Monsieur was delighted.
+
+They left us then, and again we settled about the cockpit; each waiting
+for one of the others to begin. My own thoughts were like a whirlwind,
+and my ears strained with listening toward the black Gulf--listening for
+a voice, or the unnamable noise of the gods knew what, that might float
+to me across the water. I think Tommy half expected me to suggest that
+we take one of the small boats, and went to his room to put on darker
+clothes. In a few minutes Monsieur yawned and followed him--though I
+rather suspected that his yawn was caused more by nervousness than the
+want of sleep. A moment later Gates, standing near the wheel, softly
+called my name, so I arose and went to him.
+
+It must be remembered that Gates was absolutely dependable. There were
+no frills about the old skipper, he shared not one superstitious
+sentiment in common with Tommy, and it is extremely doubtful if he knew
+the sensation of fear; therefore, when I saw his face, I was astonished,
+and in alarm asked:
+
+"Are you ill?"
+
+"No, sir, but I'm sore upset. Please come a bit more aft, sir."
+
+Taking a few steps till we were abaft the traveler, he turned and
+whispered:
+
+"Mr. Jack, someone's been trying to blow us up!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+A BOMB AND A DISCOVERY
+
+
+It seemed that either Gates or I must be out of our senses.
+
+"Blow us up!" I gasped, staring at him.
+
+"As sure as you're born, sir! 'Twas about the time you called over the
+rail. A little before that, as you gentlemen were talking, I heard a
+small boat. She came near, and she came up sneaking. First I thought it
+might be a sponge fisher with more curiosity than manners, but as she
+didn't start on again I begun to cock my ear. Then something gave a rub
+against our rudder post. I didn't like it. I was sitting back there,
+anyhow, so just got to my hands and knees, and peeped over."
+
+"Why didn't you challenge?"
+
+"Because there's been strange doings these twenty-four hours parst, and
+I knew your affairs might be taking a serious turn. I thought you'd be
+wanting to know their play, 'stead of scaring 'em off. So I peeped and
+listened. With my eyes getting fair used to the dark I made out a dinghy
+with four men, and think they'd bent a line about our rudder post, for
+the for'ard man seemed to be working at us silent and farst. The middle
+one had the oars, ready to pull away. In the stern sheets sat the one I
+guessed was boss and, kind of squatting down in front of him, was a lad.
+To tell the truth, sir, I felt squirmy, for those night-hawks were up to
+something mysterious."
+
+"Wait a minute, Gates--did you recognize them?"
+
+"Not me, sir. As I was saying, the fellow aft now parssed up a bundle to
+the for'ard chap, who took it gingerly and began farstening it on to us
+somewhere--I couldn't see. The young lad leaned over and looked at it,
+then he up and sings out: 'It ain't fair!'"
+
+"Yes, yes," I caught him by the shoulders. "Go on, Gates!"
+
+"Mind out this thing under my coat," he warned. "Well, sir, the one that
+was boss made a grab for him--Lor', how he did jerk him!--and the others
+froze like stone. They stayed that way while you were calling, then the
+dinghy glided off--the one aft still holding his hand over the lad's
+mouth and kind of choking him with the other."
+
+My blood was fairly steaming, and I cried out what was uppermost in my
+mind:
+
+"That wasn't a lad, Gates! It was a girl!"
+
+His jaw dropped and he stared at me, but slowly shook his head.
+
+"No, sir, it warn't a girl, or the fellow wouldn't have handled her so
+rough. Besides, sir, he wore--the lad, I mean--a jacket and cap like you
+or me."
+
+"That doesn't mean anything. I tell you it was a girl--I'm sure of it!"
+
+"Well, sir, you're wrong; for when they got out five fathom or so they
+stopped--to listen, maybe. You were back in the cockpit by then, and I
+guess the fellow must have let up on the young-un; for, all at once,
+he--the lad, I mean--raked a match along the gunnel, for to take a
+smoke, d'you see! My word, but the way he was grabbed this time would
+have shocked you. I couldn't see it, but you could hear the youngster
+gurgling. That shows it warn't a girl, sir!"
+
+"What shows it? Because you think she wanted to smoke? Girls do, Gates!"
+
+"They do that, sir, and I'm not gainsaying it; but they do it sociable,
+arfter dinner, setting 'round the cockpit, as you might say. It's seldom
+any of 'em has such a mortal craving for tobacco as to have to take a
+suck at a little cigarette every time a man chokes her by the throat. My
+word, no! It's the male sex that wants the weed under those
+conditions--not a girl, sir!"
+
+But I was seeing an entirely different version of the affair, so far as
+the smoking went; and Gates would have seen it, too, if he hadn't been
+so excited. She had not wanted to smoke, at all, but to signal us! I
+knew it! I was never more sure of anything in all creation!
+
+"And besides, sir," Gates now added, "no one would push his fingers into
+a girl's throat like----"
+
+"Stop," I cried, for I could not listen to more of this. If ever I
+wanted to kill it was then. I wanted to get my own fingers on that
+scoundrel's throat as he had dared touch hers; and in my heart I swore
+by all the gods, by all the stars and moons and other things in the
+heavens and under the sea, that I would strangle out his miserable life
+by inches, or leave my bones to bleach on the shore of her unknown
+island. Wherever it was, I would find it; wherever she was, I would find
+her!--and God help him when he came my way! It was a classy oath, and I
+felt a lot better for it.
+
+"Now, sir," Gates's voice began to tremble with passion as he held up a
+black thing that had been tucked under his coat, "this invention I took
+off our rudder post when I rowed 'round to see what they'd been up to.
+It's a dirty bomb, fixed to start us off for Davy Jones's Locker
+sometime tonight, sir!"
+
+"You're sure it can't start us off now?" I asked, taking it from his
+hands.
+
+"Not lest you get too familiar, sir. I've disconnected the clock part of
+it."
+
+"Have you any idea what those men looked like?"
+
+He solemnly shook his head.
+
+"You can't guess who they were, or why they wanted to blow us up?" I
+persisted. "Shall we notify the port, or what?"
+
+He stood a while silent before answering.
+
+"Mr. Jack, God knows who they are. It was too dark for me to get any
+satisfying squint at 'em; but I never saw 'em before--that I know. Three
+things are sure: they're either lunatics, or they've taken us for some
+mortal enemy, or----"
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Or I'm wrong in those two guesses, sir."
+
+"But you think they're from the _Orchid_, don't you?"
+
+"On another guess, I'd swear it, sir."
+
+"And you're positive you never saw the yacht till yesterday--in any
+port?"
+
+"Never, sir. I even made inquiry about her in Havana before we cleared
+to-day--that is, without exciting comment. A one-eyed stevedore said she
+drops in there maybe once or twice a year, but he didn't know from
+where. _I've_ never seen her, and I've sailed close to thirty year most
+everywhere in these waters during winter seasons!"
+
+"Well, I'm stumped," I admitted. "Let's take this to the professor and
+see what he makes of it." So we went down together.
+
+Monsieur, in his stateroom, sat bent over his counterfeit bill when I
+quietly shoved the bomb in front of him. He sprang up with a broadside
+of expletives that in the sunlight would have cast a wondrous rainbow.
+It was a way with the little professor, and we had learned to keep
+respectfully distant during such periods of effervescing energy.
+
+"Tied to our rudder post," I told him.
+
+He seemed to grasp the entire situation at once. I have never known such
+a genius for corraling facts! In an instant his mind apparently galloped
+completely around the boundary of our discovery, and then circled in.
+
+"You have made it harmless," was his first oral observation.
+
+"Gates did, yes; he disconnected the clock-work."
+
+"It is quickly made, and crude," he mused, turning it over in his hands,
+"but the work of one who is not a novice. Give me the other part!--um!
+Very pretty, very pretty, indeed!" Then he looked up, calling: "My boy
+Tommy, come! We are to see what we shall see!"
+
+"See what?" Tommy sauntered in; but as we explained the situation he
+looked positively hopeful. For the chief quality in Tommy that made him
+so likable was his abiding love of danger. He would rather flirt with
+death than a ravishing coquette--though I will not deny his preference
+to play the pair.
+
+"Oh, boy!" he now chuckled, giving my arm a squeeze.
+
+As we gathered about the table, Monsieur took a knife and began to press
+its blade into the covering of the bomb, saying:
+
+"I have known the builder of one of these to leave his tracks inside,
+trusting the explosion to obliterate them. But sometimes the machine
+does not go off."
+
+"Let's hope this'll be one of those times," Tommy murmured, "or we'll
+pretty well leave our tracks all over the Gulf. Don't use any bad
+judgment, Professor. Centuries are looking down at you!"
+
+"I shall try not," he smiled, pushing the blade deeper and giving a
+gentle twist.
+
+"I should say he ought to be doing that ashore, sir," Gates whispered.
+"Lor' knows this is no place----"
+
+But Monsieur was speaking again.
+
+"The gentleman who left it with us may have used bad judgment by not
+exploding it himself. So much the worse for him. Steady!" he grunted,
+peeling off another slice of the wrapper. "Yet, if criminals did not
+sometimes use bad judgment, a sorry plight would be ours, eh? Moreover,
+it is natural that they use bad judgment, for, being criminals, their
+judgment is bad--primarily bad, or they would not be criminals."
+
+"Please work without your tongue or talk without your hands," I said,
+with a touch of irritation. "That thing's nervous for undivided
+attention!"
+
+The professor may not have heard, and in a monotone continued:
+
+"The man who made it knew his business; therefore he is a student of
+this type of explosives; therefore a police agent, a--what you
+call--crank like myself, or a destroying criminal--that is, an
+anarchist. Therefore he is the last named, since neither of the others
+would want to blow up a gentleman's yacht. It seems clear to you?" he
+asked, without raising his eyes; but none of us cared to divert his
+attention by answering.
+
+By now Monsieur had peeled off several pieces of the wrapper, and was
+sprawled over the table with a powerful magnifying lens. For some time
+he minutely studied them, finally squinting closely at a particular one
+and beginning to show increased excitement. Arising and pushing by us,
+he went to his many boxes and returned with a small glass-stoppered
+bottle. It must have contained an acid; at any rate, he touched a drop
+of it to a piece of the inner wrapping, then bent over to watch results.
+Finally, with very bright eyes, he looked up announcing in a voice of
+triumph:
+
+"This paper is the kind they use for printing money on!"
+
+We stared at him, but he volunteered nothing further, having again bent
+over his search. For several minutes we watched in silence. Then he sat
+up with a snap, as a steel spring might be released.
+
+"The man who made this bomb made my counterfeit bank note," he cried.
+
+Tommy and I jumped.
+
+"Just so," he continued eagerly. "The bomb is a hurried affair,
+impromptu, constructed of materials happening to be at hand when needed.
+That necessity, we assume, arose within the last few hours, since we
+have been in these waters but shortly. Here is a piece of the wrapper.
+You make nothing of it, yet to my experienced knowledge I see the
+identical paper on which my money is printed. The counterfeiter,
+possessing a good resisting paper and suddenly desiring to make a bomb,
+employs it. So much for so much! Now we have him a bomb-maker and a
+counterfeiter;--then we shall eliminate the anarchist!"
+
+"Why?" I asked.
+
+"Because a counterfeiter of such skill--and this engraving is the work
+of a master--implies long and intense application; therefore a secluded
+life rather than one of following the red flag. Moreover, an anarchist
+would be tempted into this risk, such as tried upon us, only to destroy
+someone of great importance--which I may conclude no one of us is. And
+irrespective of these reasons counterfeiters do not sympathize with
+anarchy. The psychology of each must be diametric, for if there is no
+government to make money there is no money to counterfeit. So the
+anarchist in our case lacks motive, but the other finds it if he
+suspects us of knowing his secret. So much for so much. Do we know any
+counterfeiter's secret? No. Then a final theory: the placer of this bomb
+has mistaken us for an enemy--he thinks we are whom we are not!"
+
+"That's what I said," Gates interposed.
+
+"But he does suspect us of knowing it," Tommy exclaimed, "or why did he
+tell the waiter Jack was a detective?"
+
+The professor, obviously disappointed, turned again to the bomb that was
+fast reaching a state of _deshabille_--if bombs can be said to reach
+that state.
+
+"You assume this to be the work of people on that yacht," he said, with
+a touch of annoyance. "Can you sustain that theory?"
+
+"Why, of course, sir," Gates declared.
+
+"A mere presumption, _mon Capitaine!_"
+
+"But the voice," I challenged. "Don't you suppose I recognized it?"
+
+"Tut-tut, my boy Jack! You have never actually heard the lady's voice!"
+And as this was true I had nothing further to offer; but he brightened
+up, adding: "We shall now go to the stomach of the bomb, if only to
+enjoy ourselves."
+
+"You've a curious idea of fun," I grunted.
+
+"Just go easy," Tommy said. "She may be ticklish."
+
+"Why not sink the wicked thing at once, sir," Gates urged. "We've seen
+enough now to keep us awake nights, and I haven't any craving to look at
+its stomach, Lor' knows I haven't!"
+
+But the professor would not listen. Already he had recommenced the
+exploration, gingerly removing some wires wrapped about the explosive
+center, while we almost held our breaths lest he touch the wrong thing.
+Once he smiled, and murmured: "_Le capitaine_ is right--it was made on
+the _Orchid_!" Yet he did not stop work for this, and soon brought to
+view two half sticks of dynamite, one of them ingeniously capped.
+Leaning above this now, with his elbows on the table and his head in his
+hands, he sank into a profound study, then startled us by giving a snort
+and springing up, jostling the table so violently that the dynamite slid
+gracefully toward the edge. Most happily Tommy grabbed it in time.
+
+"Lor', sir, 'twas a close shave," Gates whispered, wiping his forehead.
+
+But Monsieur remained blissfully unconscious of the mess so narrowly
+averted. He was staring, breathing heavily, blinking and thinking. As
+though walking in his sleep he again went to his mysterious bags, took
+out something and began to study it through the lens. Then with a yell
+he rushed at me, hugged me, kissed me on the cheek, held me off, and
+hugged me again, crying over and over:
+
+"I am right--I am right--I am right!"
+
+He now caromed from me and in the same manner embraced Tommy, and after
+this he tackled Gates. But Gates did not understand the continental
+fashion of masculine salutations, and sternly disengaged himself,
+saying:
+
+"You carn't be right, sir! I don't know what's the matter, but it's easy
+to see you carn't just be right!"
+
+"_Sacre bleu!_" Monsieur stepped back, actually weeping with happiness.
+"What stupid idiots we are! Can't you see?"
+
+"I can see one," Tommy grinned at him sweetly.
+
+"Ah, but look!" He thrust before us the thing he had taken from the bag.
+It was that precious kodak film of Sylvia. "Look!" he cried. "You say
+she is near to twenty--he, to seventy-five! But, more than all, I see
+with my lens that here is the breathing likeness of the mother! Where
+are your eyes, my boys? _Ciel_, must I tell you? She is the kidnaped
+princess of Azuria!"
+
+You who read may have surmised this; so might we, had we been reading
+instead of making history. The human mind that leans above a printed
+page possesses a more concentrated grasp of facts than the human atoms
+who run over the earth collecting them. So I caught my breath and simply
+stared, too dazed to speak. It seemed as though something had given me a
+surprising whack that sent a thousand sparks before my eyes. But then
+slowly the whole structure began to unfold. Each step of evidence we had
+picked up since the memorable night but twenty-four hours ago, now took
+its place as the panorama--not flawless, but with inviting
+possibilities,--and passed across my brain.
+
+It was very late when we pushed back from the table. In its center were
+the counterfeit bill, the magnifying glass, parts of the thoroughly
+dissected bomb, several pages of writing pad with the professor's
+deductions; and by these were some of Gates' charts, the paper I had
+procured from the waiter, and another page containing those mystic
+sentences Sylvia had spoken for finding her island--because I thought it
+fair to her that this should be laid before my friends, especially as
+she had only said them in a dream.
+
+Strangely enough the professor was willing to admit them to his scheme
+of carrying on our pursuit--a chase which he now seemed determined to
+direct--when even Tommy, the superstitious Tommy, declared they would
+throw us off the track a thousand miles. I could think of no plan, for
+altogether it did seem like combing out the universe for two human
+atoms.
+
+"We have one sure way, of course," the professor leaned wearily back.
+"Keep the _Orchid_ in sight. If we do this till she reaches her lair,
+all is well."
+
+"I wouldn't doubt she sailed, sir, right arfter placing the bomb," Gates
+ventured.
+
+"Then we can't keep her in sight," said Tommy dolefully.
+
+"Do not thwart me," the little fellow cried, with a sudden flare of
+anger that made us smile in spite of the serious work at hand.
+
+"We'd better go ashore first," I suggested, "and get authority to
+capture her. The government can deputize us by sending along an
+officer."
+
+"Authority!" Monsieur puffed out his cheeks and snapped his finger.
+"That for your government's authority! I have the authority with me!"
+
+"You!" I exclaimed.
+
+"_Certainement!_ I was one of those true friends who left the palace
+years ago, with the old King's authority in my pocket! It is in that bag
+now! It is absolute--absolute!--protecting me against anything I may do
+in effecting her rescue and return. It is by far more powerful than
+anything your government could give us! A King's order makes the police
+of the world my underlings! Besides that, she is my special charge, and
+no power this side of Azuria can abrogate my authority over her!"
+
+A cold hand wrapped its fingers about my heart. The hopelessness of our
+search would have been depressing enough had it not contained the spice
+of chase, but to feel that it might be fruitful only to have her
+snatched off into a world as unknown, as impossible to me as this far
+off kingdom, was crazing. To me it would be like seeing her transported
+from one star to another, while I remained on earth to gaze my eyes out
+and eat my heart out with endless longing.
+
+"Her mother is regent, you say?" Tommy asked, intuitively sympathizing
+with my state of mind.
+
+"Yes. In Roumania a woman may not ascend the throne alone, but in
+Azuria, where the Ruman blood has never mixed, she may act as regent if
+her heir is a girl too young to marry. But now," he clapped his hands
+joyfully, "we can complete the alliance with a neighboring prince--and,
+ah, what joy there will be!"
+
+"You've got to catch her first," Tommy said, not without a trace of
+spite. "Even if we get near enough to see him, at all, he can see us,
+too; then lead us off the track till night and make a run for base."
+
+"So he will, my boy Tommy. And if his lair is to the west, he will
+doubtless lead us to the east. But we must sail at dawn--then we shall
+see what we shall see!"
+
+"Good night," I said, abruptly kicking back my chair.
+
+Thus our meeting broke up; Gates going first to sink the dynamite and
+then leave orders for all canvas to be stretched at peep o' day. Tommy
+came on deck with me, and we stood a while looking into the black water.
+Off in the town, in a side street near the wharf where sailors'
+amusement halls are clustered, some tipsy fellow was bawling a love song
+at the top of his voice. He seemed to be the only thing awake in Key
+West at this hour. When the song, or his voice, gave out the silence
+settled heavier than before. A ship's bell, far over the water, began to
+strike, and we counted five mellow strokes: one-one, one-one, one!
+
+"Half-past two," Tommy whispered, "I wonder what Nell's doing!"
+
+"Dreaming of you, no doubt," I tried to laugh. "Maybe you and she are
+wrecked on a desert island at this blissful moment."
+
+"I wish we were," he murmured, without looking around. "And you and
+Sylvia, too!"
+
+"Cut it," I growled. "She's a princess, Tommy, and that puts the kibosh
+on my dreams."
+
+"Nell's a princess, too," he said gently, "and I still hang on. Tilt up
+your chin, Jack, and things'll squeeze through for us! We'll ship the
+old counterfeiter to prison, or kill him, and then----"
+
+"And then," I said bitterly, turning to go below, "Princess Sylvia goes
+to the arms of some popinjay prince!"
+
+But I had taken only a step when his hand fell on my shoulder like a
+piece of steel and whirled me around. There was nothing gentle in his
+voice this time as he sharply commanded:
+
+"Look at me, you damn slacker, and let's see if I'm talking to the man I
+fought the Boche with!"
+
+I must have appeared rather well indignant with him, for he gave a low,
+reassured laugh, adding:
+
+"That's better. Now I want to say, once and for all--and I swear it on
+each of these stars, both for myself and Nell--that if we catch up with
+Princess Sylvia, and you let her be taken away, I'll punch your face
+into a jolly good pulp, so help me old Kentucky! Good _night_!"
+
+"If you're man enough to do it," I yelled after him.
+
+Fine old Tommy! I believe I loved him then better than ever before.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+THE CHASE BEGINS
+
+
+I slept like a log and was awake, anxious to turn out, at the peep of
+dawn. But Gates was ahead of me when I reached the deck. Our anchor had
+just been hoisted, and every sail was set, though nearly limp with a
+negligible breeze.
+
+"What news?" I asked.
+
+"Nothing, sir; leastwise nothing of the _Orchid_. She's gone."
+
+"We expected that. Any idea which way?"
+
+"I talked to a sponge fisher who came by a while back, sir, and he said
+a schooner yacht sailed about midnight, or maybe later; north, he said.
+But she carn't have got far, as there hasn't been hardly any air
+stirring all night till this little one now. If it wasn't so heavy off
+there we might see her, I farncy. The mate's aloft, sir."
+
+I looked up and saw him steadily sweeping the distance with his
+binoculars; but, as Gates had said, the horizon in all directions was
+heavy, and in such weather our search, indeed, seemed next to useless.
+With the world a playground, how could we find this vagrant yacht.
+
+Then I let my eyes rest on the tinted east, marvelling at what a
+curiously beautiful, dangerously sweet old world this is. The sky and
+water were beginning to be touched by the first faint tones of rose, the
+dawn was bringing its enchantment to this marriage-time of the black
+and white. Over in the Key West barracks a bugler would soon be blowing
+reveille; down in the sleeping town stumpy little street cars would
+squeak from their sheds and clang their discordant gongs through the
+narrow thoroughfares. But farther yet to the northeast, in the Florida I
+best knew and loved, a whooping crane would startle the solitude with
+its uncanny cry, the alligators would croak their guttural grunts at
+waking time, while, here and there in the shadowy forest, the whine of a
+skulking panther would strike terror to the hearts of gentler things.
+Ah, the trackless wilderness of dreamy Florida, where nature moves on
+padded foot and silent wing!
+
+Gates had hoisted even the topmast- and maintopmast-staysails, but these
+did not help much; and when Tommy and Monsieur appeared half an hour
+later they were in wretched humors at the way matters stood. The only
+slight hope we nursed had been one cry of "Sail-ho!" from the mate, but
+he could not tell what kind of a craft had rested on his lens, because
+she was almost at once swallowed by the distant bank of mist. At last,
+with a squint into the southwest, Gates prophesied that something worth
+while would be coming before long, and with this crumb of comfort,
+seasoned by his promise to call if anything appeared, we half-heartedly
+went down to breakfast.
+
+Healthy man is ever cheered by breakfast, especially if Pete has
+prepared it, and gradually our departed spirits came lumbering back. I
+remembered Tommy's promise of the night before to mutilate my
+countenance on certain conditions, and began to laugh. Then he laughed,
+doubtless because I had, and pretty soon Monsieur showed signs of
+warming up.
+
+"This is what my boy Tommy would call hot-stuffie, eh?" he cried. "To
+be chasing a scoundrel who has kidnaped a Princess is fun, you think
+so?"
+
+"And such a princess," Tommy rapturously exclaimed. "Eyes more deep than
+the mysteries of twilight shadows in a woodland pool!--oval cheeks more
+damask than the rose which steals its fragrance from her hair!--lips
+whose Cupid's bow----"
+
+"Here," I good-naturedly protested. "Don't make her so wonderful! You
+won't have an adjective left for the beautiful Bluegrass flower!"
+
+"But isn't she wonderful?--I challenge you, isn't she perfect?"
+
+"That is a perilous assertion," Monsieur chuckled, "since there is a
+Persian proverb that 'to be perfect is to be damned.'"
+
+"Well, she'd rather be damned than ugly, if I know anything about
+girls--and I do!" Tommy declared. "Isn't that right, gezabo?"
+
+"Isn't what right? That you know so much about girls? Bah! It is a young
+rooster's foolish talk! Woman, my boy, is as the law of
+gravity--difficult to understand, and I may add difficult to disobey.
+But to comprehend her she must first be stripped----"
+
+"Why, you wicked old thing," Tommy, in mock astonishment, gasped at him.
+
+"You do not let me finish," he blushingly protested. "What I mean is
+stripped of her inexplicable----"
+
+"Oh, come off," his tormentor burst out laughing. "That's as transparent
+as a girl buying cigarettes for her brother! I didn't know you were so
+curious."
+
+"Please--you shame me! I am curious of nothing, and you will someday
+learn that curiosity is the root of tragedy."
+
+"There's an epigram worthy of you: 'Curiosity is the root of
+tragedy'--and the blossom of delight!"
+
+"I said nothing of delight," the professor blushed. "I said tragedy!
+And--ah, I see! You are cut-upping! I will not talk. Your conscience
+should hurt you!"
+
+"Not conscience, old fellow! The wages of conscience is _ennui_, and the
+gods know how I hate that. Give me your epigrams on delight and love,
+and the Princess of Azuria!"
+
+"Love! Bah!" Monsieur now stormed in disgust. "A mythical invention of
+diseased minds to explain away our follies!"
+
+"Wait till she hears that," Tommy warned, "and your head's as good as in
+the sawdust. I hope to heaven she makes me her lord high executioner,
+and darned if I don't lop it off with a single whack!"
+
+"And I hope you have a chance to tell her, so smart!"
+
+"I'll have a chance, all right, never you fear. I'm the only one who
+will, for after you're disposed of, and Jack has gone moony, this
+expedition will need a clear thinker. There's where your uncle Tom comes
+in."
+
+"He understands himself so well," the professor indulgently smiled.
+
+"It requires no concentration, really," I murmured.
+
+"Ah, Mr. Brutus," Tommy grinned at me over a fork-load of buckwheat
+cakes, "can it be your cooling blade I feel?"
+
+"It is; and you'll get it in the neck, good and properly, if you don't
+leave me out of your silly nonsense," I warned.
+
+"Here's a touchy one for you, gezabo! Yachting with royalty the other
+night made him too good for us."
+
+"You close up," I growled.
+
+After a few minutes devoted to breakfast, he asked:
+
+"Are princesses like other people, I wonder? Jack ought to be put wise,
+so he'll know how to behave when we get her aboard."
+
+"Why, yes, my boy Tommy," Monsieur answered, taking him seriously, of
+course. "They are the same as other young ladies, except more highly
+cultured, more of education, more of that--what you call--indefinable
+chasteness."
+
+"Indefinable chasteness," he puckered his lips and repeated the phrase
+in a ruminating way. "D'you know, a philosopher once told me that if
+ever I heard an old lady call a girl anything like that, to put the
+young one down for a kissable, artful little flirt; for in this present
+day of ours, he said, woman understands everything on God's green
+earth--except the mind of her succeeding generation."
+
+"But I am no old lady," the professor bristled.
+
+"Sail-ho!" came the far off voice of the mate from his perch aloft.
+
+We held our breaths, intently listening.
+
+"Where away?" Gates called, and I could picture him: legs apart, head
+thrown back, hands cupped around his lips.
+
+"Dead ahead, sir," came the answer: "I got a better look at her this
+time, and she's a schooner yacht like us!"
+
+We bounded from the table and dashed up the companionway stairs out into
+the cockpit. The old skipper was laughing gleefully, and our spirits
+were as high as the masthead.
+
+"We're on the right track, Mr. Jack," he cried. "Just wait till arfter a
+breeze springs up--she won't stay so far ahead!"
+
+But the breeze did not pick up and we continued to poke along at about
+six knots, hardly consoled by the knowledge that she was doing no
+better. Time seemed to be creeping on its hands and knees. The _Orchid_,
+if such were the yacht ahead of us, continued beyond the fringe of mist,
+now mixed with a fine drizzle, showing herself at rare intervals which
+served to keep us from going astray.
+
+The slickers of the crew were dripping and shiny, and we, too, soon
+looked like a flock of wet, disgruntled hens. To add to my discomfiture
+the professor brought up a newspaper and began consulting the shipping
+news, blandly telling us that if we captured the princess within
+forty-eight hours he could have her in Azuria in twenty days. I was glad
+when the paper got so wet that he had to throw it overboard.
+
+At luncheon we could not help being downcast, largely owing to the
+drizzle which, aboard a yacht, is indeed a spirit breaker. The few
+sporadic attempts we made at cheer did not get very far. But after a
+little, happening to glance at Tommy, I saw a look in his face that put
+me on my guard for something. There was no hoax about this, no
+"cut-upping."
+
+"Our conversation was interrupted this morning," he said, in answer to
+my unspoken question. "There were things I wanted to talk about--for
+instance, what'll we do when we catch up?"
+
+I had thought of this a hundred times without finding a very definite
+solution, as my fancies refused to reach beyond the moment I should
+stand face to face with Sylvia. But, after a fashion, I made answer:
+
+"We'll hand the scoundrel over to the law, I suppose, and take the
+Princess----"
+
+"That's just it," he interrupted me. "Take her where? That's the point
+I want to make." His voice was almost purring now--a sign with him of
+deadly earnestness. He was continuing: "Suppose she has a perfectly good
+home where she is! Suppose she doesn't see the virtues in our
+interference that we see! How do we know the man's a scoundrel, anyway?"
+
+"Bah!" Monsieur cried. "She wrote a message of danger! The man tried to
+blow us up! He made bad money that I have here!"--whereupon he thumped
+his breastpocket half a dozen times. "How do we know? _Pardieu_, I tell
+you!"
+
+"She wrote the message," Tommy admitted, "but everything else you say is
+guess. Even suppose you're right about it, where are our warrants? Where
+are the sworn officers to serve them?"
+
+"I have told you that I have the authority, the absolute authority!"
+
+"Oh, that doesn't amount to a damn," Tommy replied with supreme
+indifference, and for a moment I feared Monsieur was going to have a
+stroke of apoplexy. "Don't you see that we must possess proofs? And then
+we've got to board his yacht, don't we? Is he going to take a siesta
+while we stroll over the old tub? Your authority, gezabo, is a scrap of
+paper unless, first, he's the man who kidnapped your princess, and
+second, we can lay our hands on him. Now try to think!"
+
+"Think! There is nothing to think--only to do! You speak as a child! We
+must take that girl to her throne, to her rightful heritage! By every
+law of conscience, justice and humanity, there is nothing left for us to
+do! Absolutely we must obey!"
+
+A silence fell upon Tommy and me. I saw him moisten his lips and dart
+the professor a quick glance. I knew how inherently strong that little
+fellow was in his loyalty, but had not been prepared for such an appeal
+as this. Conscience, humanity, justice! He was calling on my manhood to
+send her back to Azuria, out of my arms, out of my life. And she would
+go; I felt it, I knew it. I realized now that Tommy, in preambling up to
+this point, intended to settle it once and for all. And I realized how
+much farther his clear vision had penetrated the situation than my own
+poor addled mind.
+
+Leaning forward, he said in the same soft voice--though Monsieur did not
+recognize the deadly purpose behind it:
+
+"Professor, if you seriously want to see Azuria again I think we'd
+better arrange this thing, somehow. You came here to look for a
+princess; Jack came--pardon me, Jack, but it's unavoidable--for a
+sweetheart. Every man to his trade, you know!"
+
+"Yes, and if I find Her Serene Highness I shall most certainly restore
+her to----"
+
+"You'll most certainly do nothing of the kind," Tommy interrupted him.
+"You see, old fellow, we couldn't trust her to you--it wouldn't be fair.
+The fact is, you've been acting mighty queerly of late, saying all kinds
+of strange things!"
+
+A puzzled look came into the professor's eyes as he glanced at me and
+then back at Tommy, who now leaned confidentially nearer.
+
+"Do you realize," he soothingly continued, "that you thought someone was
+trying to blow up our yacht?"
+
+"Trying to blow it up? Did I not have the bomb in my hands?"
+
+"He still believes it, Jack," Tommy sighed. "There's nothing to be done,
+I reckon, but take him back to Key West. They've a pretty fair hospital
+there."
+
+Monsieur's face turned so livid and looked so weird in its frame of
+straw-colored hair that I began to think all the hospitals on earth
+could not save him. Sputtering, he appealed to me:
+
+"The truth, my boy Jack--he is cut-upping?"
+
+But Tommy was saying:
+
+"We're awfully sorry, you dear old manatou; we'll miss you, take my word
+for it."
+
+"You boys dare do this," he sprang to his feet, too angry for further
+protest.
+
+"Sit down, sir," Tommy spoke now in a different tone. "Of course, I
+don't believe it, nor does Jack; but others will if we take you to the
+Key West hospital tied up in ropes and say you've got that blowing-up
+bug in your bonnet. Get the point?"
+
+"I get no points," he furiously pounded the table.
+
+"Well, here it is, and its name is Compromise! Either compromise, or the
+wow-wow house. We won't force the issue; you must decide nicely, without
+being pressed one way or the other. But these are the facts: you're
+sailing on an American yacht; Jack's the owner, Gates is captain, I'm
+the boss. We're hoping to overhaul the _Orchid_, board her, capture the
+princess, and all that. Then for one entire week Jack's to have an
+uninterrupted tete-a-tete while you make yourself invisible. Come along
+if you want to and turn the old rascal over to your consul when we get
+home, plead with the princess after Jack's week is up, recover a hundred
+good bucks for your bad ones--but he has to have his chance first, and
+we sign articles of agreement _right now_!"
+
+"Children," he cried, with a great show of disgust. "Should you return
+to Key West, how would you ever find the _Orchid_ again! Ah-ha, you have
+tripped yourselves!"
+
+"Not on your life, we haven't. We'll keep on now and locate her hiding
+place, then deliver you to a guardian, and come back."
+
+The professor thought a moment, breathing fast and blinking.
+
+"What are those bucks you spoke about?" he asked.
+
+"Bucks? Hell, man, they're beans, bones--the things you won at
+roulette!"
+
+"I won no such things at roulette," he gravely shook his head, adding
+slowly: "So I must agree, eh? _Tres-bien!_ Yet I warn you that she will
+go back with me in spite of all my boy Jack can say in a week, or a
+year. It is inevitable--she can not possibly disobey! Come! You win for
+the moment, so we will drink, standing together for Azuria!"
+
+"Standing for your grandmother," Tommy laughed. "No, you jolly old
+filbert, we stand for Jack and Sylvia, and don't you forget it! We'll
+use your vaunted authority, too, when the time comes to make that
+scoundrel surrender. Now let's get our arsenal in shape!"
+
+Monsieur approved of this, entering into it with a boyish spirit, and
+for a long time we went over rifles and automatics, showing him their
+virtues, explaining the accuracy of their range, occasionally throwing
+one up to the shoulder and taking a quick aim over the sights, as
+fellows will who find them good companions.
+
+"I'll lay you odds, Professor, that the barrels of some of this hardware
+get hot before night," Tommy said.
+
+"Ah, I will not bet on such bloody business. You think we fight today?"
+
+"Two to one on it," he answered; then giving my shoulder a slap that
+felt like the kick of a mule, he cried:
+
+"So romance and adventure died with the war, did they? Oh, _baby_, what
+a shame!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+A SHOT FROM THE DARK
+
+
+During the first few hours of the afternoon we had looked on deck
+several times, but felt better satisfied to remain below, out of the
+drizzle. Now the captain's big voice rumbled some kind of good news, and
+each of us made a dash for the stairs.
+
+Even as we piled out into the cockpit the mate gave a yell and sailors
+sprang to haul down the topmast-and main-topmast-staysails. Off in the
+southwest, which had been leaden from horizon to meridian showing no
+distinction of water and sky, appeared a spot of light, a glow, growing
+rapidly brighter. Before it the misty rain was being wiped as if by
+magic from the air.
+
+Looking toward the northward I beheld the other yacht standing out in
+bold relief upon a blacker, more dismal background. She was beautiful at
+that moment--her sides and sails unnaturally whitened against the gloom,
+suggesting a cameo set on a piece of slate. Our blocks began to creak,
+sails bulged into huge scoops, masts tilted majestically, and the
+_Whim_, freed from her enforced idleness, bounded in response.
+
+"Wind!" Tommy shouted, his arms held skyward. "Aphrodite, sweet and
+mighty, send a gale before the nighty!"
+
+"But," Monsieur looked at him reprovingly, "Aphrodite is not goddess of
+the wind!"
+
+"Who said she was?" he innocently asked.
+
+"You conjure her for the gale--bah!"
+
+"That's because she rhymes with nighty, gezabo! When my Muse sings, to
+hell with mythology! Come join the clouds--you're sordid!"
+
+"These have been sordid clouds," the little fellow laughed. "I would
+rather join you in other, but a more genial, wet."
+
+"Gates, how long before we catch her?" I called.
+
+"I carn't measure her speed yet, sir, but should say we won't be far
+behind in an hour and a harf."
+
+"Then," Tommy announced, "we'll go below and drink to the safety of our
+sweet Princess--for, unless I'm greatly mistaken, this day will see the
+finish of one good yacht! Give over the wheel and join us, Captain!"
+
+It was a hilarious four that touched glasses in the cabin, and after
+Gates went above we set to work in good earnest on our arms and
+cartridge belts. Having seen that each piece worked perfectly we
+followed him up, and the sight which greeted our eyes made us laugh for
+joy.
+
+How we accomplished it only Gates could have told, but now in the late
+afternoon light the _Orchid_ seemed to be less than half her former
+distance. Looking over the rail at the flying water I felt a great pride
+in my father's craft, for she fairly skimmed along. Monsieur began at
+once to hug the captain, and this time the old skipper did not mind--at
+least, he permitted it.
+
+There was, of course, some concern along with our happiness; first of
+importance being the declining day that held scarcely more than an hour
+of light. Had it been otherwise, had the blessing of good sailing
+weather come to us earlier, we might have held an immediate council of
+war; but this for the present could be left. It was a profound
+disappointment, though, and showed in our strained silence. Gates stood
+at my elbow.
+
+"How'll we find her in the morning--if we don't catch up pretty soon?" I
+asked.
+
+"I was thinking of that, sir. Now, as she sees we can sail circles
+around her with a good breeze, she won't hold the same course, and can
+give us a mighty slip during the night. We're almost in----" he
+hesitated, and again ventured: "We're almost in close enough to send a
+shot across her bows, sir, if you wish to bring her about!"
+
+Tommy, overhearing, let out a yell of joy. The old skipper's suggestion
+electrified us all, particularly myself, for it promised that he would
+see this affair through at any and all costs--and I had been
+apprehensive regarding the attitude of Gates, lest his love for me, or
+for the _Whim_, cause him to balk short of the danger line. So, hastily
+imploring Monsieur to hug him again, I dashed below for one of the
+rifles. This arm was a neat high-power sporting model, but I thought it
+might persuade our kidnaper to look around.
+
+Coming up, however, I found that another plan had been adopted. Gates
+and Tommy were busily unlacing the canvas cover from our brass cannon.
+While it was only used for signaling, it could make a stunning racket.
+Bilkins was holding a box of blank shells, each containing somewhere
+near twenty drams of black powder. As I approached, Tommy was excitedly
+arguing with Gates who, this time, seemed to demur.
+
+"It's not of the _Orchid_ I'm thinking, sir," he turned appealingly to
+me, "but ourselves! Miss Nancy--as Mr. Thomas calls this young howitzer,
+here,--won't stand much fooling. She warn't built for it, and if we go
+pressing her too hard she'll bust a stay--which is the same, sir, as
+sending harf of us to the sick-bay!"
+
+"What I want to do," Tommy explained, "is load her up with sinkers and
+truck like that, and touch her off right! Just a blank won't tell those
+devils anything, but if we pepper 'em with a hat full of old junk
+they'll haul-to in a jiffy!"
+
+"Surest thing in the world," I cried. "Suppose she does bust a stay,
+Gates! We can huddle in the cockpit and fire her with a long
+lanyard--then let her bust!"
+
+"That's easy, sir," he still remonstrated, "but suppose Miss Sylvia's
+looking out a porthole and stops one of the sinkers!"
+
+The thought of it made me shiver. Tommy, however, his enthusiasm
+undampened, acquiesced at once, saying:
+
+"Righto, Gates! Blank it is! Cartridge, Bilkins! I'm ready--say when!"
+
+"Wait! Let's get a bit closer, sir," Gates urged.
+
+Several minutes passed. We were only four hundred yards from the
+_Orchid_ now and cutting down the space. She stood off our starboard
+quarter and, although a great deal more obscure in the gathering dusk,
+her cabin lights came on changing the portholes to a line of golden
+disks. Then another solitary light appeared, being carried aft by a
+sailor who fastened it to the taffrail. It was the stern lantern being
+swung out for the night, and I could not help smiling at this delightful
+display of audacity, deliberately to put up that tell-tale beacon, right
+in our faces, as it were.
+
+"It's a good bluff," Gates chuckled, "but they don't intend leaving it
+there for long, sir. I'd say we'd better fire now, Mr. Thomas, and when
+they stop we'll have a little chat with 'em."
+
+Tommy sprang up and pulled the string, and our eyes were dazzled, our
+ears jarred, with a perfectly glorious explosion that lighted up the sea
+for a hundred yards.
+
+"Whiz-bang!" Tommy yelled. "I wish I had this thing in Kentucky! It'd
+work wonders for the Democrats!"
+
+Nothing happened aboard the _Orchid_. She did not vary her course an
+inch. The sailor at the helm had given a frantic jump when Miss Nancy
+went off, but resumed his place evidently aware that no missiles had
+been fired.
+
+"Load her up again," I urged. "Let's keep on till they get mad!"
+
+Bilkins passed out the shells and the piece was loaded and fired, loaded
+and fired, till we seemed surely to have waked old Nep himself. I do not
+know how many rounds we shot but it must have continued for some time,
+thoroughly engrossing us. Now suddenly the stern light went out, and
+immediately afterwards the portholes, losing their glow, became as
+nothing. The tropical night, always swift in coming, had fallen more
+stealthily than we realized, and the yacht melted into darkness.
+
+"_Sacre bleu!_" Monsieur raged--for the night was overcast and as black
+as sin.
+
+But Gates was already stripping the searchlight of its cover. When he
+had swung open the big lens Tommy struck a match, which blew out. His
+second was blown out by a hiss of air that preceded the flow of gas, and
+the professor jumbled matters by trying his hand. But these efforts
+scarcely took more time than the telling, and when the powerful streak
+of light finally pierced the darkness the very first thing it showed us
+was a white sail.
+
+"I shouldn't have worried about night catching us, sir, if I'd thought
+of this before," Gates laughed. "And there's plenty of extra acetylene
+tanks, too, so she carn't get away now!"
+
+"You'll have to haul down some sail, though," I replied, seeing that the
+_Orchid_ lay nearly abeam of us.
+
+"No quicker said than done, sir."
+
+He went to direct this, while we held our light squarely on the fleeing
+outlaw. Nobody was astir about her deck; indeed, so undisturbed did she
+appear that the sailor standing statue-like at her wheel might have been
+the only living thing aboard.
+
+I breathed fast with thinking that maybe Sylvia might come up, and my
+senses were so alert, my mind, eyes, ears so intently reaching toward
+her, that now I heard what was indeed a most unexpected sound: a piano.
+Grasping Tommy's arm I whispered this to him, and he nodded, saying in a
+low tone:
+
+"Yes, I hear it plainly. Reminds me of Monsieur's master musician
+playing a rhapsody in the dark, d'you remember? Listen! Gods, it's '_De
+puis le jour_,' from Louise!" Yet in the next breath he added: "Cheerful
+girl you have, Jack,--she's switched off from her love song to Chopin's
+funeral march!"
+
+I dolefully smiled to myself, not at the funeral march but at the
+realization that dreams are only dreams and nothing more, that Gates's
+common sense had come nearer hitting the mark than all of our
+professor's psychology; for I had seen no piano in that cabin, and five
+minutes ago I would have sworn its interior was as well known to me as
+the _Whim_. But an instant later my smile had given way to a cry of
+rage, as a little streak of fire spat from one of the portholes and the
+big lens of our searchlight, with a bang, shattered into a thousand
+pieces.
+
+"The nerve of it," Tommy yelled, violently shaking his hand that had
+been resting on the brass frame. "Damn his hide, he nearly shot off my
+finger!"
+
+"Are you hit?" I asked quickly.
+
+"Hell, no; but my hand feels like a pincushion! Say, he knows how to
+shoot, though! I'll give him that much!"
+
+"Those people are prepared for all that comes, I tell you," Monsieur
+vigorously nodded his head. "They must even have violet spectacles for
+looking into search-lights, else that fellow's eyes could not have stood
+the glare."
+
+Again the _Orchid_ was invisible. For a moment I thought that out of the
+dark sky my gods were derisively mocking me; but it was a human sound, a
+long, triumphant laugh, doubtless from the coarse-throated creature who
+had made the lucky shot.
+
+Gates, fearing we might answer it in kind, came forward to counsel
+silence, at the same time sending a sailor for the megaphone and
+ordering another to extinguish our own lights. With his knife he then
+hastily cut the megaphone in half, keeping the large end whose openings
+now tapered from about eight inch to eighteen inch diameters. As we
+stood, not understanding what he meant to do, I heard across the water a
+rattling of blocks and knew the _Orchid_, free of pursuit, was changing
+her course. Gates cocked his head and listened, then whispered to the
+mate who went back and changed the _Whim's_ course.
+
+"Now, Mr. Jack," he said, in a guarded tone, "we're behind her, and
+dark, too; so keep all hands as quiet as mice, sir! Take the wheel and
+steer as I signal from under my coat with this electric torch, like
+this: one long, means put your helm up a point, two long means two
+points; but a short flash means down a point, two short down two
+points. D'you understand, sir? We've got to keep close to her, or
+daylight'll find her gone! I'm going out on the bowsprit and, with this
+piece of megaphone to help, think I can follow by sound. They're apt to
+make some noise, believing themselves safe. And their blocks are bound
+to rattle when they change their course--which they'll be doing before
+long as we're both headed for the coast of Florida, twenty-five or
+thirty miles off. Now go back quiet, sir, and watch for my lights."
+
+God bless old Gates, I said to myself.
+
+Till well into the night that indefatigable sea dog sat astride the
+bowsprit with the crude sound magnifier over his ear, while I, alert and
+watchful, gripped the wheel as though I were driving a speed boat. In
+the beginning he had sent a few signals, and we jockied this way and
+that, but after perhaps an hour we settled down to another straight
+course--though I could not tell how near we were, or if we were sailing
+right, or if they suspected us.
+
+Tommy had come aft to keep me company, and now asked in a whisper:
+
+"What do you think about that piano?"
+
+"I think she played like an angel."
+
+"Son, you don't get the point. What do you think about changing suddenly
+from that exquisite Charpentier love song to a funeral march--just
+before the rifle went off?"
+
+"You don't mean she was signaling?" I asked in surprise, for the idea
+knocked me a little bit silly.
+
+"I mean just that; of course, she was signaling, and taking a big
+chance, too. You may put your own construction on the first piece she
+played, but the instant she saw what they were up to she sent us the
+flash. The only trouble about it was that we weren't anywhere near as
+quick."
+
+"But look here," I said, alarmed by another thought, "suppose she meant
+it would be _her_ funeral march if we keep up the pursuit?"
+
+Tommy considered this.
+
+"I reckon not," he finally replied. "They might threaten us with her
+death if we don't turn back, but there'd be no reason to kill her
+otherwise. No, she saw them preparing to shoot--which you can't deny
+that they did, jolly good and well."
+
+"She's a queen," I murmured.
+
+"Queen! That girl must be a royal straight flush in hearts, and if it
+weren't for Nell I'd adore her to the tips of my teeth!"
+
+At midnight I sent the mate to relieve Gates and gave the wheel to a
+likely sailor, and after making sure they understood the signals we went
+below for a bite to eat. Although the day of suspense had been wearing,
+my brain was too active to permit much thought of sleep; but finally
+Gates nodded, awoke with a jerk, and started off to bed. He had had no
+easy time of it on the bowsprit, good old Gates!
+
+Tommy and I talked in low tones while the professor sat to one side,
+humped over and buried in thought. He was a strange looking spectacle
+when buried in thought. His countenance then became all wrinkles, with a
+kind of turned-up nubbin in the middle that I knew to be a nose, only
+because I'd previously seen it--otherwise it might have been almost
+anything that one does not expect to find in the center of a man's face.
+Tommy regarded him a moment in silence.
+
+"Monsieur," he whispered, "come join this confab. We're up against the
+real thing in the morning, and may as well begin to lay pipe. The old
+catamount who shot out our searchlight won't have any more regard for
+our personal lights, let's keep that in mind. What's more, he has a real
+excuse now, because we fired those blanks at him which he'll find it
+convenient to say weren't blanks. So the business is coming off to a
+certainty. What's your idea?"
+
+"My idea?"
+
+"I meant to be that flattering, yes. What do you think we'll be up
+against when ordering the _Orchid_ to surrender?"
+
+"I do not know; but something we are not expecting, you may be sure," he
+dolefully answered.
+
+"That sort of gloom won't get us anywhere," Tommy retorted. "Try another
+thought!"
+
+"It gets us very far! If we expect to experience what we are not
+expecting, then we are expecting it! How can we be surprised when we are
+prepared for the thing we are not prepared for? It is obvious. That is
+my idea."
+
+"Then you ought to keep it in a less fragile place. Try still another,
+gezabo!"
+
+But he was inclined to pout now, and would neither talk nor listen to
+our entreaties.
+
+"Well," he exclaimed at last, with a superior smile as he struck the
+table smartly, "I will tell you this: I have nothing more to say!"
+
+It was a lot of preparation for a mighty small result, I thought, and
+Tommy smiled at the childish gentleman, murmuring sweetly:
+
+"If you really mean that, and stick to it, pray accept my
+congratulations upon having reached the height of conversational charm.
+Now, Jack, let's plan!"
+
+But Monsieur, while unwilling to talk, was also unwilling to be
+ignored. I think he wanted to be coaxed. People get that way, sometimes.
+So he petulantly exclaimed:
+
+"You think I am what you call an old crank!"
+
+"No I don't, honest!" Tommy gave me a wink. "Even if I did, it's a
+compliment in America to be called a crank, because cranks make things
+move. Now help us out, like a good sport. By this time tomorrow you'll
+be shot to pieces, for all we know."
+
+He said it solemnly, but his humorous mouth showed how much he wanted to
+laugh. I believe Tommy would have walked to the gallows joking with his
+executioner. That infectious smile, sometimes the flash of his teeth,
+but always a snap in his honest gray eyes, were invariably quickened by
+the imminence of danger. I knew Tommy; therefore I also knew that
+beneath his jocose raillery were nerves stretched to concert pitch that
+meant music for whoever stood in his way tomorrow.
+
+The professor sat up straighter and blinked at him.
+
+"Why do you say I get shot to pieces?"
+
+"Why not? The fellow'd be a fool to sit by and let us go aboard--and
+we've got to go aboard!"
+
+"It is nonsense! You want my advice? Then leave him alone!"
+
+I think that Tommy's eyes narrowed slightly. I know that my teeth
+clenched at this evidence of quitting; yet what could we expect from a
+chap who did nothing but teach in a University?
+
+"You won't be in any danger," I said, arising. "We'll manage all right.
+Come on, Tommy!"
+
+"You will not manage--that is just it," he angrily retorted. "You two
+boys will strut about like roosters showing what good fighters you are,
+and get blown up through the insides! Have I not seen it often? Bah!"
+He ran his hands through his hair. "Why is it, when brains are as easily
+cultivated as biceps, that young bloods think only of a strong arm! You
+stay in the cabin and leave the man to me; then I will take him before
+your eyes, and nobody get hurt!"
+
+"I don't think we quite understand!"
+
+"Of course! But there are no ladies on the _Orchid_ whom I desire to
+charm, therefore I will be rational. Your _Capitaine_ Gates will lower a
+boat, we row to the scoundrel's yacht, I present my authority, he
+surrenders, and we bring him back. There is no bloodshed, and my two
+young friends who are disposed to ridicule me will not get hurt!"
+
+Tommy flushed, and I felt uncommonly like a pup.
+
+"But suppose he won't come?--suppose he begins to fight?"--we asked
+these questions simultaneously. They were quite unnecessary, for the man
+would not come and, moreover, he would fight; but Monsieur's earnestness
+and visionary assumption had completely disarmed us.
+
+"In that case, your Gates and I will shoot him," he answered, as a
+matter of course. "Such grizzly alternatives must sometimes be the means
+of peace and harmony."
+
+Some might at times have called him an idiot, and on occasions I have
+found myself wondering if he possessed a scintilla of common sense, but
+no one after this could call him a coward. He would have gone
+single-handed to the _Orchid_ with the same beautiful faith that a wee
+child would crawl into the kennel of a vicious dog. It was not in
+Monsieur to consider that anyone would dare disobey his Azurian
+authority.
+
+"Gezabo," Tommy said tenderly, "I'm going to lock you up tomorrow, for
+if anyone so much as rumples your noble topknot I'll cut him to
+ribbons--so'll Jack. Now kick us, and go to bed. We've been a pair of
+braying asses, and you're a sure-nuff Prince!"
+
+And, although I thought that Tommy had done most of the braying, I was
+willing to let it go at that. A lack of discriminating accuracy on his
+part might have been pardoned when we were faced by issues of so much
+greater portent. The dawn was but six hours off, and with it would
+come--what?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+A SILENT ENEMY
+
+
+Bilkins rushed into my room at daylight announcing perfect weather and
+the _Orchid_ sailing some twelve miles astern of us. While dressing I
+wondered how she could have fallen so far behind, but assumed that our
+men on watch must finally have lost her. As this seemed to be a
+reasonable explanation, since the later the night the more probability
+of her company having settled down and become quiet, I dismissed these
+speculations of no consequence for a feeling of thankfulness that she
+had not escaped us.
+
+Gates was on his way to call me when I came out, and one look at his
+broad smile required no further augury of good news.
+
+"We're arfter her hard, sir," he said, "and have been drawing up farst
+this hour gone. We'll be in hailing distance in another two hours, or
+less."
+
+"There's a good wind?"
+
+"Fair, sir. The mate, who's aloft, says that for some reason she's
+hauled down everything but mains'l and jib, and carn't be making any
+speed to speak of. Still, she's going along. We've quite some canvas
+set. He says there was noise enough to follow till about five bells of
+the morning watch; then she grew so still he wondered if she'd sunk.
+You'd better have breakfast, sir, for we'll be on her, as I say, in two
+hours or less."
+
+This was Tommy's idea when I met him with Monsieur in the cabin, but
+Tommy was always ready for breakfast. They had become reconciled--or,
+perhaps, I ought to say the professor seemed to have forgiven both of us
+handsomely. Gates sat down with us for there was much to talk about. In
+fact, the professor, in his uncontrollable and passionate appetite for
+grapefruit, had scarcely extruded a spray of its juice in our
+direction--the usual evidence with us that breakfast had seriously
+begun--when the question of how we should board the _Orchid_ was raised.
+The old skipper listened to my plan, then to Tommy's, and after these he
+turned to our little scientist, who waved a hand with no small degree of
+impatience, saying:
+
+"One is visionary, the other is crazy. One wants to blow her out of the
+water--with what? The other wants to do something no one can
+understand--and why? But they both agree upon killing everyone on board
+except a privileged lady. It is school-boy tomfoolery!"
+
+"Tomfoolery your grandmother," Tommy flared up. "What do you suggest
+that's any better--the utopian scheme you sprung on us last night?"
+
+"How do you know we have to board her?" Monsieur thrust half a biscuit
+in his mouth and took a long drink of coffee. "I have been thinking
+since; I have been on deck, and observed. There is wind, and we are
+catching up. Off there," he pointed toward something the cabin walls
+prevented us from seeing, "is land; low, gray-blue land. Now it can be
+done with cattle, but can it be done with yachts?"
+
+"Can what be done?" we asked.
+
+"We shall sail out, head her back, and drive her into the land until she
+sticks!"
+
+Never having heard of such a silly idea I looked at Gates, who was
+chuckling.
+
+"Oh, it might be done, sir," he laughed, "if she stood close enough to
+the islands. We might jockey her that way, foul her a bit, and make her
+go aground--or fight. But, Lor' bless you, she's sailing straight west
+across the Gulf, with nothing but a thousand miles of good water between
+her and the mouth of the Rio Grande!"
+
+"Get in front--butt her around," Monsieur cried. "If she does not like
+it, then let her, as you suggest, fight!"
+
+"Well, you've said something at last," Tommy grinned. "How about it,
+Gates? And, by the way, what are those islands you spoke of? We're
+looking for a certain
+
+    '----one of many, many islands
+    Set like emerald jewels in an ever changing sea.'"
+
+Though with his sincerity there was also the bantering tone of the
+unbeliever here.
+
+"It's the Ponce de Leon Bay, sir, with the Ten Thousand Islands--and I'd
+say there're all of ten thousand, or quite harf, anyway."
+
+With his fork he quickly drew on the tablecloth a sketch of southwestern
+Florida, outlining the waters northeast of Cape Sable and with little
+jabs indicating the island area which extends up and down the coast, as
+well as into Whitewater Bay. Gates was used to doing this kind of thing
+and he did it well, with the result that we got a very clear idea of
+what he meant. No one knew the exact number of islands, he said, because
+they had never been charted. Government surveys had been considered
+useless, in all probability; and, of private interests, there were none.
+No boat, except perhaps at rare intervals a very small craft of
+adventurous spirit, ever tried to enter--but, as to that, twenty small
+boats might spend a month's playing in that maze and never meet. The
+mainland, for many miles in all directions, was without habitation, and
+these conditions had isolated this entire section as completely as
+though it were in the heart of a South American jungle.
+
+Difficult as it was to believe that on the "Playground Peninsula" of
+eastern United States an unsurveyed primeval wilderness of perhaps three
+thousand square miles had remained absolutely detached from inquisitive
+civilization, I was soon to learn that Gates had not in any way
+exaggerated. It was there; it is there today in the same unbroken
+solitude, for any to see who will.
+
+"Why didn't she duck in there and hide last night?" I asked, coming out
+of the charmed spell his description had cast over me.
+
+"She daren't, sir. Nothing but a dinghy, or the like of that, has ever
+gone in very far. Leastwise, I don't think so. The islands are just a
+lot of oyster-shell bars covered with sand and overgrown with red
+mangrove trees. I've been told the channel between 'em sometimes isn't
+more'n a foot deep; but in other places there may be good water. What I
+mean to say is that they're not charted, and I doubt if any man living
+could find his way through 'em the same way twice. They lay in a bunch
+stretching about forty miles north and south, and maybe fifteen or
+twenty through. Some are good sized--we'll say a mile long--but others
+run down to the size of the _Whim_. Oh, he wouldn't dare to run in
+there, sir! Now we might try to tease him close to 'em and crowd him
+some way, as the professor says--or let him do the other thing!"
+
+"That sounds like some plan," Tommy sprang to his feet. "We'll tease
+him, all right, if we shoot fast enough!"
+
+"But they must be let to begin that shooting first," Monsieur insisted.
+
+"I'd like to know why?" Tommy turned to him.
+
+"Why? What right have we to come and start such a business?"
+
+"What right have we to crowd her out of the ocean?" Tommy answered with
+another question. "What right have they to blow us up?--or steal a
+girl?--or counterfeit our money?--or darn near shoot my finger off and
+then laugh at me? To hell with rights! We've got more than that
+scoundrel has, if we haven't any!"
+
+Gates got up with an oath.
+
+"Yes," he said, "and shoot out my searchlight! No, Professor, I'd say
+the shooting's already begun. But they won't stand for too much fooling,
+not if I know anything!"
+
+"Oh, well," Monsieur sighed, "give me the gun."
+
+"Give him Miss Nancy," Tommy laughed. "Now, fellows, suppose a couple of
+us entrench on top of the cabin, to get the advantage of altitude--the
+superiority of position, as it were--and command their decks!"
+
+"You'll need a fair protection, sir, as they'll be shooting from the
+portholes," Gates said. "And we carn't fire back at the portholes
+because of the lady!"
+
+"Righto! But the man at their wheel's our meat, and anyone else who
+comes to take his place. Minus a steersman they're helpless; and then,
+Gates, if we can run alongside and batten down (is that what you call
+it?) their hatches, they're ours."
+
+"Suppose they send the Princess out, herself, to steer?" Monsieur asked.
+
+The suggestion gave me a turn.
+
+"Still, they may not think of that," he continued, "and our two shooters
+may command their decks quite easily. It is good. If a man comes out to
+steer you will shoot him till he runs downstairs again, then we go
+aboard and sail home. Yes, it is a good plan."
+
+"Shoot him till he runs downstairs!" Tommy gasped. "What d'you think
+we're going to do--just spank him with lead?"
+
+"I'll say that professor is in a clarss by himself, sir," Gates turned
+to me, chuckling.
+
+The next half hour was a busy one. Our sailors, singing with happiness,
+brought up from the cuddy rolls of extra sails that were lowered
+overboard for a good wetting, then mauled into a neat rifle pit on the
+cabin roof--as snug as I'd want anywhere, and quite able to stop
+high-power bullets. Gates then showed another bit of generalship that
+called anew for Monsieur's nods of approval. Since our own helmsman
+would be as much exposed as the man on the _Orchid_--whom we intended to
+"shoot until he ran downstairs"--the mate brought up some line, bent it
+several times around the wheel drum, passed it through newly fastened
+blocks, and let it run into the cockpit. By this arrangement he could
+lie on the floor, as safe as you please, and steer according to orders
+sung up by the old skipper who, stationed below with a shaving
+mirror--suggesting a trench periscope--would take his bearings without
+showing any portion of his face. It was a nice piece of work.
+
+"One carn't be too cautious, sir," he explained. "Harf our chance of
+coming out ahead is being ready beforehand, and harf our satisfaction is
+to keep from having any burials at sea--which are gruesome things, any
+way you take 'em, sir."
+
+Bilkins had acted as armorer and laid out rifles, bandoliers bulging
+with filled clips, and a few automatic revolvers; then in a low tone he
+said to me:
+
+"I'll never go back, sir, if anything happens to you today."
+
+"Yes, you will," I replied, touched by his show of devotion. "You'll
+have to tell them why it happened. But don't be a raincrow. We'll come
+through."
+
+Gates now sent the men to stations for we were within a half a mile of
+the _Orchid_. Then Tommy stepped into our rifle pit and laid down. I
+followed. Quietly each of us beat a crease in the soaked canvas through
+which we could fire without showing too much head.
+
+The mate, crouched below, tried his new steering device as Gates sang up
+an order, and swore a jovial oath at the ease with which the _Whim_
+responded. Within his reach was an automatic, and he looked the very
+picture of contentment.
+
+Along the side of my rifle barrel now resting in the crease I took a
+good look at the _Orchid_ sailing with apparent unconcern but a short
+way out from us, but I could picture the activity and hatred seething
+below her deck. I wondered what Sylvia might be thinking about all this;
+if she associated our pursuit by the slightest imaginative thread with a
+fellow who impolitely stared at her in a Havana cafe, yet to whom she
+had been willing to cry: "I am in danger!" Presumptuous fallacy! Then
+other thoughts began to race through my brain. Now that we were face to
+face with action, how were we going to come out? Had I a right to
+imperil those who were sailing with me? Was it not my duty, even at this
+eleventh hour, to order the _Whim_ back?
+
+I turned to Tommy, saying:
+
+"You didn't ship for this kind of thing, old man. If anything happens to
+you I'll feel like the devil."
+
+"So'll I," he grinned. "Don't bother about how you'll feel if anything
+happens to _me_; keep those regrets for the moment a hot pill
+investigates your own honorable insides, Mr. Jackass! I wouldn't miss
+this party for a million dollar bill. Settle down, now. Gates is
+pointing closer." Then, peeping along his rifle, he crooned one of our
+regimental paraphrases: "Stick your head up, Fritzy-Fritz, while I plug
+you in the gizzard," adding: "I don't see anyone at their wheel!"
+
+I took another squint and, just as he had said, their deck was
+deserted--not a man in sight.
+
+"What d'you make of it?" I asked.
+
+"Get down," he warned. "Don't forget that anyone who could center our
+searchlight, as some crafty boy did last night, won't have much trouble
+peeling a scalp at three hundred yards! They've probably made a steering
+rig like ours, that's all. The first thing we know bally hell will spit
+out of those portholes, if my guess counts! Beats a trench raid, doesn't
+it, old man?"
+
+"All hollow," I agreed. "We've got 'em this trip!"
+
+"We have unless they carry a ten-pounder--in which case we'll take a
+bath. Freeze close, buddie!"
+
+Nearer and nearer we drew, but no bally hell came from her. She showed
+absolutely no sign of anyone, not even a pile of canvas or a box that
+might hide a sharp-shooter. That, then, was the old counterfeiter's
+ruse: to tempt us into taking the initiative when, more than likely, he
+was ready with the probable ten-pounder to sink us. Still, it felt
+rather snug to be lying there elbow to elbow with Tommy.
+
+Gates had steered so close by this time that any skipper on the other
+yacht, not endowed with stupendous nerve, would certainly have gone
+about; for we had maneuvered to get the right of way, and a collision
+would have been entirely the _Orchid's_ fault. But no one ran out, nor
+did her course change, and at the very last minute Gates called an order
+that brought us off a few points.
+
+We were now sailing parallel, not more than ten fathoms apart, and could
+have thrown a biscuit on her deck. I glanced out the corner of my eye at
+Tommy. His cheek rested snugly against the stock of his rifle and his
+finger stroked the trigger, I thought affectionately.
+
+Had either of us been more conversant with nautical matters we would
+have noticed something that Gates now came crawling up to tell us. He
+did this without being much exposed, by creeping along until abreast of
+us and then projecting himself, headfirst or any other way, into our
+midst. It was an active accomplishment for one of Gates's years.
+
+"D'you see what they've done?" he excitedly asked. "That wheel, there,
+is lashed over; they've paid out the mains'l enough to starboard, and
+set the jib properly to port. That's why the fores'l isn't up!"
+
+"What of it?"
+
+"Why, sir, she'll sail that way all day in a wind like this, and nobody
+have to touch her! They knew we'd be popping at their helmsman, and they
+fixed it so we carn't! Now it's our turn to start something!"
+
+"Then start it," Tommy said. "Run alongside and we'll climb over!"
+
+"Mr. Thomas," he demurred, "that's rank piracy, unless we're the law. I
+wouldn't say no, understand, if there warn't some other way. But if we
+try it they'll have every right to shoot us down--which they can easy
+do, being hid and ready!"
+
+"You forget, Gates, they haven't a right on earth. They don't want to
+face the law with the best justification ever known--they'd be mortally
+afraid to!"
+
+"Then they wouldn't be any less particular about shooting us," the old
+skipper replied.
+
+There was no denying that Tommy had impaled himself upon his own point;
+not that he cared a hang whether they began shooting or not, but the
+anxiety of Gates caused him to temporize, and he said:
+
+"Bluff it! Sing across that we're the U. S. A. ordering 'em to stop. Say
+it strong enough to make us believe it, too, Gates--so we'll feel
+self-righteous when the scrap comes!"
+
+Gates grinned and, cupping his hands, shouted:
+
+"_Orchid_, ahoy! This yacht's chartered by the U. S. Secret Service, and
+you're ordered to come about! Delay one minute and we blow you out of
+the water!"
+
+"Accomplished old liar," Tommy chuckled. "See anything?"
+
+Gates, so earnest was he in this role of Uncle Sam, had his watch out,
+marking off the seconds. When the sixtieth had ticked he called again,
+in a more ferocious tone:
+
+"Time's up, but I'll give you harf a minute longer! This is the larst
+word!"
+
+"Now," said Tommy, having waited the thirty seconds which brought no
+response, "let's see you make good! Will you fire a torpedo, or one of
+the fifteen-inch guns?"
+
+But Gates was seeing no humor in the situation; neither was I; neither
+was Tommy, if the truth were known. Our position was in a sense
+desperate. We had bluffed and the bluff had been called. Five minutes
+ago we might have turned back, but such a course now would make us
+laughing-stocks even to ourselves. And there was Sylvia. What sort of a
+quitter would she think me!
+
+I saw that someone had to board that yacht, even though such a course,
+almost to a certainty, meant a test of the professor's surgical skill--a
+skill we knew he possessed along with his other attainments. But I could
+not--I simply would not--risk any of our fellows on an undertaking so
+hazardous. Conscious, however, of Tommy's utter pig-headedness I saw the
+futility of merely asking him to stay behind; so my mind became
+instantly made up and, turning to Gates, I sharply asked:
+
+"Who commands here?"
+
+"Why, I'm the captain, sir," he answered, surprised at my tone.
+
+"But whose orders are absolute?"
+
+"Yours, Mr. Jack, sir."
+
+"Then take this man below and keep him there while you run your rail
+alongside the _Orchid_. Nobody follows me until I call, or shoot. Be
+lively, Captain!"
+
+He looked his horror, but stiffly saluted, saying "Come" to Tommy who
+had turned white with anger and murderously glared at me.
+
+"Do you mean this dirty trick?" he asked, and I did not meet his eyes
+when admitting it.
+
+In a few minutes he and Gates were safely in the cabin--Gates having
+dived nimbly out of our canvas fort; while Tommy, oozing rage, had
+walked erect, shaking his fist at the _Orchid_ and calling me pretty
+much every kind of a lizard that crawls the earth.
+
+Perhaps the mad that this aroused was good for me. I had charged into an
+enemy's face once or twice under a certain amount of unpleasant fire and
+most uncomfortable sensations. A fellow's _savoir faire_ is far from
+being faultless on such occasions, but if he's mad--damn mad--he gets
+along rather well, and Tommy's insulting words turned the trick for me.
+
+We had luffed a bit to let the _Orchid_ draw out ahead, and now all I
+seemed to see was her slowly nearing rail; twenty feet away, fifteen,
+ten. My rifle had been laid aside, and I felt to see that my automatic
+was snugly nested in its holster. Five feet, four, three--we were about
+to touch! With a bound I cleared my shelter just as the rails were
+within spanning distance, and vaulted over.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+A STRANGE FIND
+
+
+My feet had no more than touched the new deck when I became electrified
+with a glorious feeling of possession, of mastery. Immediately I seemed
+to know just what to do, where to go; and my first move was another
+headlong rush at the companionway door, bursting it in with a kick and
+springing quickly aside--ready, listening; being for the time shielded
+from a fusillade of expected shots. And, because these were not
+forthcoming, I felt momentarily confused.
+
+Yet in times of white hot action it is impulse that succeeds. This door
+ahead of me was the only way below, except perhaps a hatch, offering
+greater danger, somewhere forward; it was the only way, therefore,
+through which Sylvia might be brought up to safety. She was now below,
+and I would reach her if it were my last journey! Three bounds down the
+stairs took me into the cabin, my pistol forward, my nerves on
+hair-trigger, ready for anything that moved.
+
+Silence!--that sickish silence which permeates places of death! No human
+sound could be detected--no sound of any kind, except an uncanny
+creaking beneath the floor where the old masts rested in their steps,
+and a gentle swish of water outside the hull.
+
+There were two doors from the cabin, each opening into a separate,
+though parallel, passageway that doubtless led forward to about the same
+general arrangements we had on the _Whim_--one past three staterooms,
+through a galley and into the sailors' quarters; the other, also past a
+stateroom or two, but opening to the ice-box room and galley. Both of
+these doors now swung slightly ajar, at a suspicious angle that almost
+without doubt told me where the men were crouched, and this rendered my
+position so inexcusably exposed that swift and vigorous action was the
+only choice. With finger tightening on the trigger I dashed at the
+nearer of these, giving it a kick that sent it banging against the wall.
+The passageway was empty, and thus encouraged I rushed the other door.
+Here, again, no foe had lain in ambush.
+
+I was crouched now, sheltered by a strip of paneled wall between the two
+doorways. The staterooms on one side must come next, and after them the
+galley, with the forecastle beyond, and even beyond this, perhaps, some
+kind of a cuddy.
+
+Where the men were hiding God only knew, but hiding they were with
+cocked weapons, firmly gripped knives at some point of vantage that had
+been carefully chosen--as they expected nothing less than half our crew.
+I could almost feel their nearness; so alert were my senses that I
+fancied I could smell their sweaty clothes.
+
+Again action spelled success and, marking the first stateroom, I bounded
+into it covering the interior with a quick sweep of my automatic.
+Nothing! From this I sprang to the second room, showing myself in the
+passageway only long enough to cover the space. This, also, was empty.
+
+A third was on this side before the galley should be reached. By my
+tactics of quick rushes I had doubtless made too fleeting a target to
+draw their fire, so I dashed at this third door. It was closed but
+yielded to my shoulder. As I entered, and became instantaneously aware
+that it contained no foe, my nerves were fired by the sound of rushing
+feet behind me.
+
+Trapped! At such a time a man will ask an awful price for his life--when
+he is trapped by merciless villains to whom quarter is an unknown
+tongue! Springing behind the door, keeping only my pistol hand and eye
+beyond its thin partition, I waited with leveled weapon, ready to drop
+the first man who came in sight. He did not keep me long in suspense. It
+was Gates, while behind him pressed several anxious faces.
+
+"Thank God, sir, you're not killed," he shouted.
+
+I was glad to see him, there's no denying it!
+
+"Mr. Thomas said he heard you call, so we came a-biling, sir!"
+
+My mind was working rather fast; indeed, it seemed to be thinking at the
+rate of a thousand miles a minute--clear thinking, too--so even before
+Gates spoke the second time I had seen through Tommy's ruse. Bless his
+old scalp, I was a dog not to have taken him in the first place, now
+that things were nearer equal. But I said hastily:
+
+"Look sharp, Gates, I haven't been farther than here! They're in the
+galley!--I'm rushing it!"
+
+So I splintered the door and charged through, with the others tripping
+over my heels. Then my revolver swung across and covered a crouching
+form.
+
+"Hands up," I commanded.
+
+Although darker here, we could see a huge, partially clothed figure on
+the floor, reclining very much as The Wounded Gladiator. Leaning above
+him, with an arm passed beneath his shoulders, was another man.
+
+"Hands up, you fool," I called again, ready to fire at the first
+suspicious move. The man lowered his burden and turned. It was Tommy.
+
+"You'll forgive me, Jack," he grinned. "We thought I heard you call--and
+that was to be the signal, you know!"
+
+We thought I heard you call!
+
+"I know about that, you prince of liars. Who's this? But hold
+him!--we're going on through!"
+
+"You needn't," he said. "I took a speedy trip down the other passageway
+while Gates went to you. There isn't a soul on board, except this poor
+devil who's got a crack on the bean."
+
+"It isn't possible," I cried. For, indeed, it was not possible, and we
+hurried forward, leaving him as he was.
+
+But a two-minute search revealed the truth of Tommy's words. There was
+not a sign of anyone. The yacht was as absolutely deserted as if it had
+been sailed by spirits--except, of course, the wretch in Tommy's charge.
+
+"You're sure we've looked everywhere, Gates?" I asked, stunned at the
+disappearance of Sylvia and mystified by the whole affair.
+
+"Everywhere, sir. To tell the truth, Mr. Jack, a minute ago it was as
+complete a mystery as I ever saw. But I understand it now. They've taken
+to the small boats and escaped, sir. They've just sailed in close to
+shore and done that during the night, sir; and all morning we've been
+chasing a boat with nobody on it. I should have noticed the small boats
+gone, if I hadn't been so sure the people were here."
+
+I leaned against the wall too utterly disappointed to move, vaguely
+wondering if this were another dream from which I should awake and find
+the _Orchid_ sailing out ahead of us. But it was no dream. In dreams
+one can not always know that one is dreaming, but there is never a
+doubt of knowing when one is awake.
+
+"They couldn't be under the floor?" I asked, absurdly clinging to a
+straw of hope that Sylvia might be there.
+
+"Lor' bless you, no, sir! I tell you, Mr. Jack, they just sailed as
+close as they dared to those islands, and skipped--the hull pack of 'em;
+first having headed the _Orchid_ out as we found her. That's why
+everything was so quiet the larst part of the night--there warn't anyone
+here to _make_ a noise!"
+
+Passing back to the galley we saw half our crew, in a circle, looking
+down at the wounded man.
+
+"Who is it, Tommy?" I asked. "Not the old scoundrel himself, by any good
+luck?"
+
+"Stranger yet," he said, waving the others back and standing up, "It's
+your black giant of the Key West docks!"
+
+"How the devil did he get here?" I cried, pushing between the men and
+also looking down at him. "How did he get here?" I asked again, but
+Tommy had gone.
+
+Someone had put a cushion under his head. His eyes were open, gazing up
+with their former gentle expression; more sad now, I fancied, since the
+great human machine he had controlled was wounded.
+
+"How did he get here?" I repeated my general question, this time
+straight at him.
+
+His lips moved with a curious, rather horrible, inarticulate sound, and
+his glance swept our crew as though in search of a face. Then he seemed
+to give it up, and passed a hand slowly over his forehead. I was about
+to order him carried on deck when Tommy called through the galley
+portlight:
+
+"Fetch your wounded, Jack! The professor's here with his outfit!"
+
+As our men stooped to obey the big fellow surprised us by quietly
+arising; and, when cushions had been arranged in a shaded place above,
+he laid on them as obediently as a docile mastiff. Monsieur, very much
+in his element, became busy at once.
+
+The _Whim_ and the _Orchid_ were still at grips--or rather were it more
+correct to say the _Orchid_ was in the _Whim's_ grip. Lines had been
+passed through the chocks of each, sails had been hauled down, and both
+yachts rode inertly side by side.
+
+The part of our crew that had stayed behind to attend these matters now
+came over the rail like monkeys, grinning broadly and crowding up to
+shake hands with me--a wholly uncalled for proceeding which charmed me,
+nevertheless.
+
+"Lie on your face," I heard Monsieur saying to the big black. He had
+become excessively busy and his fingers were feeling everywhere over the
+man's cranium, yet as tenderly as a woman's. "What struck you?" he
+asked.
+
+"I've told you he can't talk," Tommy, who was also kneeling by him,
+explained.
+
+"And I did not ask you," the professor snapped. "What if he can not! May
+I not see him make the effort?"
+
+"But what's the use of having the poor beggar make the effort when you
+know he can't put it over? Why not get down to cases and cure him,
+instead of monkeying?"
+
+"Down to cases! Cure him!" Monsieur sputtered. "How great a surgeon are
+you to direct me in this impertinent manner?"
+
+Really, he was quite a great deal put out.
+
+"You fellows cut it," I interposed. "While you're squabbling the chap
+might click it, and then what?"
+
+"I'm not squabbling," Tommy looked up earnestly. "I'm only saying it's a
+rotten shame to put a _blesse_ through a lot of unnecessary paces that
+hurt him, and I stick to it! But go ahead, professor!"
+
+"I shall go ahead, have no fear of it! You think me cruel--but see: if I
+am aware something is wrong with a machine, how better to find out what
+than by trying to make it run?"
+
+He turned again to his examination, while Tommy lit a cigarette and sat
+nearby, looking on. At last Monsieur gave a sigh, indicating that his
+diagnosis was ready. I waited until he, too, had lit a cigarette, then
+asked:
+
+"Well, doctor, how serious?"
+
+"Perhaps not serious, as there is no fracture. He has suffered a
+concussion over the third frontal convolution, resulting in an
+aphasia--aphemia we are sure of, and doubtless also agraphia----"
+
+"Hold on! This isn't the University of Bucharest," Tommy cried. "If you
+insist on telling us, instead of putting this man to bed where he ought
+to be, tell it nursery-fashion!"
+
+"Already I have said it for children," he witheringly replied.
+
+"Then God help 'em!" This in a whisper from Gates, but with no thought
+of levity.
+
+"Go ahead and cure the man," I implored. "We couldn't understand you,
+anyhow."
+
+"But, yes, you will understand--I desire it! This blow has produced the
+aphemia. If he were not illiterate we could, by asking him to write, say
+if agraphia also is present. But he can not write, therefore we do not
+know whether he can or not; so, therefore, we only know that he can not
+speak."
+
+"You know he can't write, too--you just said so!"
+
+"Exactly, my boy Tommy, you have the correct idea. Yet we do not know it
+by the test."
+
+"I begin to see what he's driving at, Jack. He knows he can't write
+because it's a known fact, but he doesn't know it by the scientifically
+known test known to him--and that's agraphia. If it isn't, it's near
+enough. Now, he knows he can talk because we all know he can, but no one
+knows it at present because he can't--and that's aphemia. Do I get you,
+Professor?"
+
+"Yes, as you say, you get me. The motor area has suffered a concussion;
+perhaps a slight hemorrhage, perhaps not. It may pass in a few days, or
+longer. We will keep him quiet, with ice bags to the head and blood
+pressure low, and see what we shall see. A hundred years ago they would
+have bled him and made him well. But we shall see!"
+
+"If he'd got well a hundred years ago by being bled, why not now?" I
+asked.
+
+"He'd be too old now," Tommy whispered; but the professor, not hearing
+this, looked at me as though I had committed an unpardonable breach of
+etiquette, and again witheringly replied:
+
+"We have more advanced methods."
+
+Having thus been put in my place, he ordered his patient taken aboard
+the _Whim_ and ran ahead to superintend the construction of a bed.
+Scientists are a curious lot, Tommy says, but I doubt if there is
+another like the professor. I hope not, for the sake of the sciences.
+But let that pass. In half an hour the big black was resting easily in
+the midst of paraphernalia especially designed, and Bilkins had been
+assigned the place as nurse.
+
+I fancied, when this latter suggestion came up, that our old servant
+might not readily take to it. With twenty years of his life spent as
+major domo and general valet in my father's household, a sudden
+transformation into trained nurse for a dusky African must,
+peradventure, have been a shock.
+
+But in this I was mistaken. The last forty hours of common peril, of a
+central interest, had lifted Bilkins from that pettiness usually
+burdensome in servants of his type. He was, as a matter of fact,
+cheerfully alert to take the job, accepting it with the same enthusiasm
+that Gates, and later the mate, had straddled the bowsprit. So I
+realized that Bilkins had doffed the uniform of servitude to put on one
+that fit a man. True, indeed, there is no such potent melting-pot as
+common peril! It had been the same in France--banker, lawyer, merchant,
+beggar-man, thief, perhaps--all one. Common peril, common necessity!--O
+thou molders of men!
+
+When everything had been arranged, and a sailor put at our ice machine
+to supply packs for the wounded man's head, Tommy, the professor and I
+climbed back aboard the _Orchid_, this time to give her a thorough
+search. We held to the hope that there might be a note, or little clue,
+from the girl whose extremity had once led her to send the other
+message. Monsieur thought this most probable, and our hopes ran high.
+
+Beginning with a writing desk in the cabin, we examined the book shelves
+and every nook and corner, then passed to the staterooms. These gave the
+same impression of having been swept clean--cupboards, presses, all were
+empty. Only in one drawer, delicately scented, was there a single
+item--a hairpin. Here, then, must be Sylvia's room, but otherwise it
+was devoid of any article. Equally unproductive did we find the galley,
+the crew's quarters, and a small cuddy forward.
+
+Monsieur sat down and pursed his lips.
+
+"They have anticipated our intention," he said, thoughtfully. "Doubtless
+the things were emptied into sheets, then either weighted and sunk, or
+taken in the boats. But she must have exerted her ingenuity. There
+absolutely must be some word left for us. Wait!"
+
+Hurrying to the _Whim_ he returned with his lens, while from the mate he
+had borrowed a caliper, a two-foot rule and a sail needle.
+
+"Now we shall search scientifically," he cried. "Remember, that as no
+personal belonging remains, even the books being gone, we must infer
+they made a great effort to destroy everything that would leave a clue.
+They suspected the girl, too, and that made them doubly careful. What
+would she do then? Exactly as we would do--hide her message so the
+others could not discover it! Now, my boy Jack, you take the sail needle
+and probe cushions, pillows and mattresses! My boy Tommy, take my lens
+and look for places where the glue has been disturbed on furniture
+joints; I will measure the desk, piano, panels--everything--for a secret
+hiding place!"
+
+"Well, I'll be darned," Tommy grinned. "You're some cop, professor!"
+
+When each of us had finished and reported failure, Monsieur did not seem
+at all discouraged.
+
+"Now we go to the second phase," he said. "Keep in mind, whenever you
+search for anything, that it may be under your nose. That is the place
+to look, not off at the clouds--and nothing is too insignificant to
+escape investigation. For see: I can write on a very thin piece of
+paper, roll it into a string, thread it into a bodkin, and weave it into
+a rug, curtain, quilt, and so forth; or press it lengthwise into a crack
+in the floor. A favorite way is to tie it to a real piece of string, and
+throw them carelessly into a wastebasket, thus making them appear to
+have been cut from a bundle. But there are a thousand ways! Now we
+proceed with this. Later we probe down gas jets, water spouts and
+outlets, empty lamp reservoirs, unscrew the backs of mirrors, search key
+holes, unravel carpets----"
+
+"Heavens," I cried, seeing that in his zeal for doing this
+professionally he was making himself absurd; and Tommy burst into a
+hearty laugh, saying:
+
+"Gezabo, there isn't a girl in a million who'd think of those places,
+and if she did she wouldn't credit us with enough sense to find 'em.
+Call off your bloodhounds! There's no message for us, that's a cinch!
+Let's get busy at once on something practical!"
+
+"That's what I say," I chipped in. "It's only eleven o'clock, and we
+have eight good hours of daylight. Let's go back and call Gates for a
+conference, without losing a minute!"
+
+"You may be right," he sighed, "but--well, let us go, as you say. With
+eight hours of light we can accomplish everything. Today may bring
+success!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+THE HURRICANE
+
+
+Tommy's spirits were sky high. While treating our situation seriously he
+found in every phase of it some new sense of humor, whereas the
+professor looked on with grim purpose. Gates occupied rather a neutral
+ground, I think, perhaps alternately leaning one way and the other. But
+I was gripped by a single idea, a deep and growing love for this
+fugitive girl to whom I had never spoken, who I did not know, but had
+sworn to rescue.
+
+As we climbed back to the _Whim_ and summoned Gates it was understood
+that haste meant everything. Yet we could not very well move before
+knowing whither the outlaw crew had gone. That they made for Florida
+was, of course, self-evident, but where upon that vast stretch of coast?
+Would they entrench and wait? Were they even now watching with
+binoculars from a pine tree top to discover our next move, or had they
+set out at once for the security of the Everglades, the prairies, or the
+forests? Any of those trackless vastnesses to the eastward might hide a
+battalion of men for months; therefore, in case they had run, what hope
+of finding them?
+
+These and other facts I put before my friends while they listened in
+glum silence--indeed, with hardly a move except the pipes carried
+mechanically to their lips or down. Tommy's brier was empty, but his
+teeth were tight upon the stem and I saw the muscles of his jaws
+working, as though grinding up my conclusions.
+
+"So that's how it stands," I said, at last. "Personally I lean to the
+Ten Thousand Islands. Gates tells us the location is unexplored; it
+offers ten thousand hiding places and, in the circumstances, they
+couldn't ask for anything better."
+
+Monsieur stretched back in his chair and blew out a volume of smoke,
+adding:
+
+"It is the Islands, of course. And I think there is little doubt what
+they did after landing. They did not start inland. They feel secure
+where they are, and there they will remain to watch us. It may also be
+their lair, their home, for they must have a home ashore somewhere! _Mon
+Capitaine_, you know with certainty there is not a channel deep enough
+for our yacht?"
+
+"I never heard of one," Gates answered. "Of course, there might be; only
+I never heard of it."
+
+"If there were, why did they abandon the _Orchid_?" Tommy asked.
+
+"It will bear looking into," the professor mused. "Now, that paper with
+the dots and rambling line! Could it represent a chart to their
+stronghold?"
+
+"From what I saw in it, as a sea-faring man," Gates answered, "the
+bearings on that paper didn't tell enough. No one could sail in new
+water without a plainer chart than that. No, sir, if it means anything
+at all, I'd say it meant something else."
+
+"We're wasting a lot of golden time here," I said. "What if there is a
+channel, and what if the paper does mark the entrance to it! That
+doesn't get us anywhere. How could we tell which were the right two
+islands to go between, when there're thousands of 'em on the water and
+less than fifty on the paper, and not even a landmark of any kind
+indicated! As Gates says, it isn't plain enough."
+
+Monsieur seemed to be unconvinced, and Tommy began to laugh at him,
+saying:
+
+"Gates would be an idiot to sail into a lot of treacherous oyster bars
+guided by that poor excuse of a thing! Sylvia drew it for a subterfuge,
+anyhow, not a chart. I've got the right dope, so listen: Those crooks
+are ashore watching us right now--it's a cinch they are, because any of
+us, placed in their position, would be doing the same. Now if we sail in
+and push things, they'll run off and we couldn't find 'em
+again--probably never. So let's divide our crew and sail both yachts
+straight out across the Gulf--like we're going home. Then they'll think
+we've given up the chase and be off their guard. But when we get over
+the horizon we'll make a circle back, and after dark anchor in some cove
+north of this island area--if Gates knows a good one. From that point,
+being well hid and unsuspected, we'll conduct operations by land as we
+think best. How about it?"
+
+It was the most sensible thing I could see, and said so. The others
+quite enthusiastically agreed, and in a few minutes the two yachts were
+sailing prettily westward. Lower and lower sank the Ten Thousand
+Islands, and sometime after we finished luncheon a sailor aloft reported
+them gone. Then with a will we changed our course and began the big
+circle back.
+
+Gates had been making observations. His chart showed a cove about ten
+miles north of the island area, but too shallow for the _Whim_. Yet ten
+miles farther north of that was another inlet with fairly good water.
+Some thought this would be the logical place to anchor, while others
+insisted it was too far from operations.
+
+"We might establish an outpost in the little cove," I said, at last,
+"making a camp there and keeping the launch with us, while the _Whim_
+stays in the larger cove as a base to fall back on in case of
+necessity."
+
+"The launch won't do," Tommy corrected. "In a quiet place like that its
+put-put could be heard for miles. Paddles, oars or sails for these still
+waters, Jack!"
+
+He was right. Moreover, one of our small boats did have a center-board,
+thwart and portable mast, so that obstacle was easily crossed.
+
+"Now," he continued, "I approve of Jack's plan, and suggest that tonight
+we slip into Big Cove--hereinafter to be so called--and anchor the
+_Orchid_. Then with a whole crew we'll sail down outside of Little Cove,
+land provisions, ammunition, and stuff like that for the scouting party.
+After this the _Whim_ goes back and waits alongside the _Orchid_. The
+thing now is to decide on signals. Who knows the Morse?"
+
+Gates answered promptly that he did; but I did not, so Tommy wrote the
+alphabet on a card, saying:
+
+"You've this afternoon to memorize it, and tonight I'll drill you. It'll
+do between ourselves, Jack, if we get separated. But how shall we reach
+you, Gates? Have you any black powder for smoke balls?"
+
+"Lor' bless you, sir, we've only what's in a few shells belonging to
+Miss Nancy. It would take a fair sized keg to signal that far, sir!"
+
+I will not recount the hours I walked back and forth along the deck,
+with a flag in one hand and Tommy's card in the other, making what to
+the uninitiated would have seemed a perfectly ridiculous spectacle. But
+I had got quite well along, and was standing near the foremast
+wig-wagging a message to an imaginary pair of violet eyes--for man can
+be silly and serious at one and the same time--when a little puff of hot
+air struck my face. It was the second puff of this kind I had noticed.
+Gates now came up and joined me.
+
+"There's a howl of something coming, sir," he said. "I've had suspicions
+of it all day, but now the barometer's touched bottom."
+
+"The sky's clear," I suggested.
+
+He laughed, though without humor.
+
+"A sky isn't always clear because there're no clouds in it, Mr. Jack."
+
+"But what do you expect, Gates? We don't have storms at this season!"
+
+"You're right, sir. But once in a long while there'll be a howler, and
+that's what the barometer is trying to tell us now. As we have only harf
+a crew on each yacht I think we'd better make a bee-line in. 'Twill take
+us twenty miles north of where we were, and those fellows carn't see
+us."
+
+I never disputed conditions of weather with Gates, so the course was
+changed and we started on our run to land, which he thought might be
+reached by dark. In this he was right, for as the sun, like a strangely
+weird greenish ball, touched the horizon our prow, leading the _Orchid_
+by half a mile, entered the protecting waters of Big Cove.
+
+Just at this moment Bilkins dashed up from the cabin, looking scared and
+yelling:
+
+"He won't stay quiet, sirs; I can't make him!"
+
+We would have thought a delirium had seized the big black had not he
+then appeared from the same doorway, regarding us with an air of
+rationality. I have never seen a smile more broad, or more expressive of
+relief. It simply radiated happiness, and Tommy, staring at him, began
+to hum a song that had cheered us many a time in the trenches.
+
+"By Jingo, Tommy," I cried, "we'll name him that!"
+
+And thus he was christened Smiles--which, however, through some fatuous
+process of fabrication so soon grew to Smilax, that as Smilax he shall
+henceforth be known.
+
+The frown of displeasure that had gathered on Monsieur's brow fled as
+the fellow spoke. For he did speak, telling in his own style that the
+concussion had been a mere bagatelle, that his faculties had returned
+quite unimpaired after their brief absence, and that he was hungry but
+ready to serve us. What he did actually say to express this--to which
+the professor would have devoted five whole minutes of scientific
+phrasing--was:
+
+"Me well."
+
+Monsieur sprang forward and imperiously commanded him to sit facing the
+western glow. He then proceeded to squint closely into the patient
+fellow's eyes, he felt of his head, his pulse, and looked at his tongue.
+At last he stood back, pondering with an air of deep solemnity.
+
+"It is true," he sighed. "The man is well."
+
+"You look like we ought to put the flag at half-mast," I said. "What's
+the objection to a little snicker?"
+
+"I do not understand," he murmured, ignoring this flippancy, "how he got
+well so soon."
+
+"Of all the funereal old bugs!" Tommy began to laugh at him. "If you
+ever doctored me, gezabo, and I happened to recover, darned if I
+wouldn't turn around and die out of pity for you! Come here, Smilax, I
+want to ask some questions!"
+
+The result of Tommy's probing showed that late the previous afternoon,
+while this negro was fishing sponges, the _Orchid_ deliberately ran him
+down. She would not have stopped, but luckily he grasped the bowsprit
+stays and climbed aboard of her. Here he was met and roundly cursed by
+angry men who were, for a while, at least, in favor of throwing him
+back. He had seen the _Whim_ following. No, he had not seen a lady. Yes,
+he had heard strange music that, with our shooting at them, decided him
+to swim off to us during the night.
+
+To Tommy's further questioning we learned that he knew nothing of the
+Ten Thousand Islands except through hearsay. As to his wound the recital
+was brief: he had been put to work wrapping up many things in old sails;
+two men came into the galley and stood by while he finished the last
+bundle, then one of them who wore a cap like--he pointed to
+Gates--stepped behind him, something crashed upon his head, and that was
+all.
+
+Tommy drew in his breath with a sharp hiss, saying:
+
+"That's a cold blooded bunch!"
+
+"They're on those islands, sir," Gates cried. "I just feel it!"
+
+The mate and his half of the crew had come aboard after making the
+_Orchid_ snug for whatever weather the increasing sultriness portended,
+while Tommy took Smilax forward to coach him in the manipulation of an
+automatic revolver--for this modern arm puzzled the big negro who was,
+however, nicely skilled in the use of older models.
+
+That something brewed in the way of a storm did not require a barometer
+or the eye of a seaman to determine, so I insisted upon speeding up
+preparations for the landing force. This met the approval of all, since
+the skipper thought it likely that we could be put ashore and the _Whim_
+get well on her way back to Big Cove before the disturbance came.
+
+While we ate a hasty supper, therefore, Bilkins saw that the things we
+should want were stored in the small boat: food, ammunition, canvas for
+a lean-to, matches, utensils of sundry kinds--in fact, the necessaries.
+He had attended to my camping outfits before, and possessed a genius for
+knowing what to include. Only when this was under way, and the mate had
+thrice assured Gates of his ability to navigate the _Whim_ on her
+ticklish course down the coast, did the old captain feel satisfied to
+join us at table.
+
+He brought with him a large chart that he pinned to the wall and,
+nodding to it as he tucked a napkin under his chin, said:
+
+"You should take that, sir. It shows scarce more'n the shore line, but
+the shore's where you'll be, and not far inland. Here's Little Cove," he
+touched the spot with his fork. "In harf an hour we'll lay outside it,
+not being able to get in, and there we'll anchor to put you off. Who'll
+you be taking with you, sir?"
+
+"Tommy and I thought we'd make a sort of reconnoissance first, and
+Bilkins says he wants to go as cook," I answered. "In a day or two,
+weather permitting, we'll sail the small boat up to Big Cove for a
+council of war."
+
+"Well, sir," he said, shaking his head, "just go slow, that's all I
+arsk. Don't start anything. There's no use two young fellows kicking up
+a racket without their friends, that's what I say. So just poke around,
+but keep out of sight; learn all you want, but don't start anything. If
+you carn't learn it all, be satisfied with harf; then the rest of us
+will take that and make a whole of it in no time. Am I right,
+Professor?"
+
+"You are right, _mon Capitaine_, if they will mind you. But will they? A
+chance comes for to--what my boy Tommy calls plug--that old sinner, and
+so they will jump to a fight. Fight! Bah! How many fools give a life for
+one who cannot give a reason!"
+
+"There's reason enough here," Tommy laughed. "But we'll promise to be
+careful, if that satisfies you."
+
+When at last we dropped anchor half a mile outside the entrance of
+Little Cove our deck became active. I went off first with the supplies
+to choose a spot where they should be stored, although in such a black
+night this might have been left haphazard to the men. But one never
+believes, on occasions so momentous as pitching camp, that others know a
+jot about it but oneself--to this there are practically no exceptions.
+
+While being rowed shoreward I noticed that the wind had quite died down,
+leaving a suffocation in the air that is difficult to explain; but I've
+felt something like it on a sultry summer day when the sky is black with
+slowly advancing clouds, when the birds have become too awed to chirp
+and every leaf in the trees hangs motionless. It is in these suspenses
+of unpleasant expectation, when at any moment the heavens will open with
+a hissing smash of fire and nature be turned to fury, that one breathes
+heavily. There is no other feeling like it, except the drag of torturing
+minutes before being called to make a speech, or to be whistled over the
+top into No Man's Land.
+
+Our prow grated on the sand and in silence we began to unload. Back from
+the sloping beach grew a fringe of small machineel trees and palms; the
+beach and they, as well as I could judge, forming a kind of
+amphitheater to the water.
+
+My men wanted to raise the canvas into a make-shift tent before
+returning for the second load, but I thought better of this and had them
+leave it as it was, wrapped about our guns and stowed with the other
+things beneath the palms. Until daylight showed how well our position
+might be screened from the islands, it were a short sighted business to
+stretch a tell-tale piece of white duck that could be seen for miles.
+
+Already there were eerie whisperings of some disturbance in the sky.
+From the black forest far behind us could be detected faint restless
+noises, as if a myriad agitated spirits were scurrying hither and
+thither whipping their wings against the branches. Something more than
+an ordinary man's size blow was coming out of the southeast, so I
+tumbled the crew into their boat, charging them to pull right heartily
+and bring back Tommy, at least, before too late.
+
+They must have got close to the _Whim_ when a force, as sudden as it was
+at the moment unexpected, almost lifted me off my feet. Indeed, had I
+not possessed the presence of mind to fall flat upon the beach I should
+have gone kittering. In half a second the heavens were cluttered not
+only with screaming and tumbling winds but branches of large trees
+driven along as straws. I dug my toes and fingers into the sand,
+flattening out for dear life. Close upon the head of this hurricane came
+the deluge of rain, cloudburst after cloudburst. Then lightning was
+unchained, veritable shocks of fire, and no thunder out of hell could
+have been more appalling.
+
+For perhaps a minute I had not been given a chance to think of the small
+boat, or the _Whim_, but struggling to raise my head I stared through
+the inky space eagerly awaiting the next flash. It came almost at once,
+bringing into image the Cove as if a million green calcium lights were
+focused there. This was but for an instant, yet such is the peculiar
+effect of lightning that in the following blackness each detail of the
+scene remained photographed upon my retinae. I saw the turbulent waters
+apparently sweeping, as a mill race, out to sea; I saw a lone palm, that
+had formerly stood in dignified solitude upon a nearby point of land,
+now bent in the wildest agony, its leafy top resembling an umbrella
+turned inside out. I saw the _Whim_, greenish white in a greenish foam,
+heeled over till her masts were all but on the waves and her mainsail,
+half torn from its boom, snapping in the wind. In this fashion she was
+being driven at breakneck speed across the Gulf. I thought--I tried to
+think--that I had seen a small boat being dragged behind. Surely my men
+had reached her!
+
+But another flash, and still another, brought no greater assurance of
+this. Each showed the yacht farther away, more blurred by rain, until
+the distance became too great for me to make her out at all.
+
+And then another sky-splitting flame photographed a sight that made my
+blood congeal. I got but an instantaneous glimpse of it from the corner
+of my eye before the world became wrapped again in darkness--but
+something had been there, some huge, horrible monster was rising out of
+the water and waddling toward me. I had seen two long dripping arms, or
+feelers, extending in my direction. Crouched, with my nerves on fire, I
+waited. The rifles and revolvers were wrapped in the canvas and could
+not be reached in time; there was nothing to do but wait till this
+thing touched me.
+
+It seemed an age before the heavens split again, and then I gave a yell
+wilder than the lashing rain, a yell of joy; for, staggering up the
+beach was Smilax, true to his name with a grin so broad that the
+greenish glare flickered on his teeth.
+
+His sense of direction was either extremely acute or he possessed the
+eyes of a cat, for in the following darkness I felt a hand grasp my
+shoulder and push me toward the trees. Obediently I yielded. Then above
+the storm I heard him tearing leaves from the smaller palms until, by
+overlapping them against some bushes so they would be held by the wind,
+he constructed a lean-to--in the circumstances a most creditable
+achievement--beneath which I crawled.
+
+The rain drumming upon this shelter made conversation an effort, but in
+half an hour the storm had all but blown itself to pieces and then I let
+fly a string of questions--the first being of our small boat.
+
+He told me, in his taciturn way, that her crew had made safe just in
+time. As they scrambled aboard the hurricane struck. The mate, knowing
+with laudatory foresight that the masts were in danger of destruction,
+had rushed forward and chopped the anchor cable. Even that had not saved
+the mainsail from being torn away.
+
+As to the fate of our yacht neither he nor I felt much concern. I knew
+her to be a staunch craft, handled by able seamen, and felt that she
+would come out on top even if upon the coast of Mexico. Then, with a
+simplicity that deeply touched me, he added that as she was about to be
+blown off for an absence of, perhaps, some days, and he realized that I
+would be in need of help, he dived overboard.
+
+"But," I cried, remembering the anger of that seething water, "you took
+your life in your hands!"
+
+"Me swim all over," came his quiet reply; but whether he meant all over
+the world, or all over as might apply to his personal self, was left in
+doubt.
+
+Anyway, I do not believe there is another man living who could have
+breasted that hurricane-lashed sea for such a distance. I could judge
+something of what it cost him by the way he had gasped for breath--and
+since then I have seen him finish a fifteen-mile run, breathing little
+faster than normally. This gives an idea of his task that night, and the
+risk he took--and the indifference with which he took it; yet about his
+stupendous strength I can not write, but only marvel.
+
+Wet clothes are not conducive to sleep, but I was thoroughly tired,
+healthily drowsy. There were more questions to be asked, plans to be
+discussed, but my gods descended; and, lo, when I looked again the sun
+was shining in all its glory.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+ON TO DEATH RIVER!
+
+
+Some day I shall write an ode, not to sleep but to the pleasure of
+awaking when the sleep has been deep and dreamless, when the day is
+ushered in by smiling skies, a laughing earth, and a forest of joyous
+songsters. More especially beautiful is the face of nature after a
+storm-swept night, for then, indeed, the blinking dawn itself reflects
+the gratitude of mundane things for their deliverance. In the forest one
+hears a water-drip--aftermath of rains; a gentle, almost noiseless fall
+of crystal drop on crystal drop tapping the loamy soil, and imagination
+sings in whatsoever key the soul is tuned.
+
+But with what reaches of farther imaginings do we greet the day, and how
+variously! Our eyes do not require a visual picture of the lone wild
+turkey on his cypress roost to know that he is ruffling his feathers,
+craning his neck inquisitively downward in all directions, before
+chancing to descend to earth and breakfast; nor need we see the panther
+skulking from his lair to know that he has stopped to lick his paw and
+pass it over his face--the feline morning ablution. Each creature has a
+particular mode of resurrection after its hours of mimic death; and so
+I, on a bed of whatsoever it may be, yawn hideously and stretch my arms
+and grumble: O, Lord, how I hate to get up! Indeed, how variously do we
+greet the day!
+
+Smilax had opened our duffle and hung out several things to air. But
+the provisions, ammunition, matches and--glory be!--my tobacco, had been
+packed in tins and were dry. I could not say as much for the clothes I
+wore, and quickly stripped them off to hang before the fire he was
+building.
+
+As these and the coffee pot were steaming I walked to the beach and
+followed it to a westernmost point, being curious to see if from there
+we could get a glimpse of the islands, and also if our camp were
+securely hidden from anyone passing the entrance of the Cove. Most of
+all, of course, did I want to search the horizon, and for several
+minutes stood beneath the solitary palm that had resumed its majesty. So
+white was the sand, sloping from a violet-tinted fringe of sea-grape
+stalks to the lapping waves, so green and sparkling, yet so drowsy, was
+the Gulf, that I could not realize, were my present nudeness less
+constantly a reminder, that since the setting sun these peaceful things
+had been lashed with a devil's fury. No sail showed anywhere; only the
+palm and I seemed to be alone in this balmy wilderness. But my faith in
+Gates whispered that the _Whim_ was safe. Looking back, I realized also
+that our camp lay well concealed; to the south the islands were cut off
+by an opposite strip of land; eastward and northward stretched primeval
+forests, swamps and prairies for half a hundred miles. I seemed to be
+the only human animal upon the earth.
+
+A hungry osprey circling in the sky dropped as a plummet, struck the
+water and, after a momentary struggle, arose with his fish, ingeniously
+holding it head-foremost to facilitate flight. From another point now
+came a scream, well known to me, and I turned to see an eagle
+approaching with tremendous speed. Here before my eyes was to be
+committed "an overt act of piracy" that has for untold centuries caused
+a strained relationship between these birds. By feints at darting, but
+with no real intention to harm, he drove the osprey upward--for in
+aerial combats amongst the feathered tribes advantage lies in the higher
+altitude, and the hawk excitedly strove for this while the eagle coolly
+permitted it. In such a manner the fight was carried skyward until the
+combatants looked small. Then it entered its second, and last, phase.
+
+Quite master of the situation the eagle now rose to the upper plane and
+began his attack from above, whereupon to save itself the hawk released
+its fish and took to flight--which was, of course, exactly what the
+eagle wished. Here was his opportunity for the spectacular. Diving
+straight downward--first, however, increasing his speed with two swift
+strokes of his powerful wings which then became set in a half curve--he
+overtook the falling breakfast in mid air, seized it, swung gracefully
+outward and disappeared over the forest.
+
+Shame, thought I, that our National Bird, secure from discovery at
+Washington, should be practising this thoroughly un-American
+might-makes-right business! Yet through my being came a sympathetic
+whisper. I had never felt it while in contact with other people, but
+here I was stripped as a savage--alone with the woods and the ocean. If
+the Florida peninsula had been formed when my ancestors went naked, one
+of them might have loitered near this very spot, and I smiled as I
+wondered if he, too, had been planning to carry off some female from her
+watchful tribe!
+
+It was good to be in the wilderness, good to be savage, good to be
+unclothed beneath God's high heaven and know that by my muscle and my
+cunning I was king. No ordinary king who went about with a jeweled
+crown upon his head could ever feel this exuberance of being, and in
+pure delight I plunged into the water.
+
+Out, out and out I swam, joyously diving for handsfull of shells that I
+held aloft as a pagan offering to the gods. I put in bursts of speed,
+then rested on my back upon the cradling waves, watching the streaks of
+feathery clouds that stretched across the sky--streamers, flying far
+behind the tempest. And then, with tingling blood, I would flip my body
+and swim down, down for more shells. I was King of the great
+out-of-doors; a reincarnated primordial monster, holding high carnival
+with the elements!
+
+Smilax, having come in search of me and seeing my head far from shore,
+followed at once. It was then, as he approached, that I received my
+first disillusionment of being king by the right of muscle, because he
+sped through the water as an oiled torpedo, putting to shame my skill
+that had been somewhat thought of in the Athletic Club tank at home.
+Almost immediately followed my second jolt, as he glanced over his
+shoulder, saying:
+
+"Lookout, maybe whole lot shark!"
+
+King or no king, I went shoreward like a scared cat. Anyone could have
+had my crown then for the mere trouble of picking it up. Curiously,
+there flashed into my mind a game I used to play as a youngster:
+What-Would-You-Rather-Be-Eaten-Up-By! We boys would pompously answer
+lions, puffing ourselves out bravely and pretending we didn't care, but
+I remembered one little girl who aroused our contemptuous laughter by
+answering "goldfish." And now, after all these years, for the first time
+I found myself marveling at her sagacity. Indeed, she was off and on in
+my thoughts until I had clothed myself in dry garments and partaken of
+a grown man's breakfast; after which I dropped into a state of
+retrospective contentment, divided between the annoyances that beset
+kings, Azurian princesses, and the culinary skill of Smilax.
+
+That ebony giant of strength was not aware of my mission here, nor,
+indeed, of anything that had passed aboard the _Whim_, so when he had
+cleaned the dishes I lit my pipe and called to him. It seemed but fair
+that he should know the dangers of our expedition before joining it. His
+perception was quicker than his speech, and more than once he
+anticipated my narrative with some word suitable to its climax.
+
+"We get lady," he said, at last.
+
+"After a while," I corrected. "Just now we're to see where she is, how
+she's guarded, and how many guards there are. But we're not to start
+anything till the others get back. You don't happen to know this
+country, I suppose?"
+
+"Not right here; but two day walk there," he pointed a little east of
+north, "yes, good. Mother live with Seminole one time, over there."
+
+"I thought you were from Jamaica," I said; for, indeed, we had got that
+impression.
+
+"No, me nigger raised by Seminoles. Been to Jamaica on ship, heap time."
+
+"Then you speak Seminole?"
+
+"Some," he answered, modestly.
+
+I should have recognized in his way of talking, which was neither
+Jamaica nor American negro, the Seminole influence. Now this further
+light upon his past accounted for the many ways he had shown himself a
+woodsman; things that had astonished and pleased me, since I had not
+looked for them in a seafaring man who later became a fisher of
+sponges. It brought me a feeling of greater assurance for the task ahead
+of us, because Smilax, with an Indian training added to his stupendous
+strength, would be scout, warrior, pack-horse, all in one; really, an
+invaluable asset.
+
+The chart that should have come in the second boat--with Tommy, alas,
+and Bilkins--was missing, but I remembered pretty well the lay of the
+land and knew that the island area began only a short distance south of
+our Cove. This I discussed with Smilax, who added light by his general
+knowledge--hearsay, for the most part. Yet when I suggested leaving our
+things cached where they were while we made a reconnoissance, he
+strenuously objected.
+
+"Lady maybe fifteen, twenty, mile 'way," he said. "We take camp 'long."
+
+"That's very well if you take it," I laughed, "but I've no idea of
+lugging that stuff half over Florida. Why not carry the things we need?"
+
+"Maybe need all," he answered, then smiled: "Camp light."
+
+At this he arose with a subtle power that reminded me of a huge black
+leopard and began making our things into a pack. Never had I seen,
+anywhere from Newfoundland to the Rockies, a bundle of duffle more
+skillfully arranged, and I said with no small degree of admiration:
+
+"I'd take off my hat to you, Smilax, if the storm hadn't blown it away!"
+
+He grinned, feeling the praise if not understanding its medium; then
+asked:
+
+"We go now?"
+
+"Let's wait half an hour to see if the _Whim_ comes in sight," I told
+him. "There's a lot to talk over, anyway, before we start. For one
+thing, if we get separated how shall we find each other?"
+
+"If you lose me, you hunt good place to wait, and wait. Me find you."
+
+For some time we discussed other details. Finally I asked:
+
+"How far down in those islands do you think they are?"
+
+He was sitting with his knees drawn up, his arms crossed upon them, and
+now let his forehead, too, rest there in meditation.
+
+"One place," he slowly answered, "no white hunter ever get. Injuns know
+it, but 'fraid to go 'cause evil spirit live there--near mouth of river
+Seminole call Il-lit; in white man tongue, mean Death. Me think maybe
+find 'em there."
+
+"Death river's a good place for that old scoundrel to hang out," I
+agreed. "How far?"
+
+"Maybe fifteen mile, maybe ten, maybe twenty; no can say. We see."
+
+"By the way, Smilax, how do you say 'damn old scoundrel' in Seminole?"
+
+He raised his head and appreciatively grinned, answering:
+
+"Hal-wak esta-had-kee, mean 'bad white man.'"
+
+"That's neither bad nor short enough. What else?"
+
+"Host-cope-e-taw, mean thief."
+
+"Good but too long. I want something I can remember; to christen him,
+understand? What's your shortest word?"
+
+"Shee."
+
+"That's more like it. What's 'shee' mean?"
+
+"Feathers."
+
+"But, hell, Smilax," I burst out laughing, "there'd be no sense in
+calling him feathers!"
+
+"Efaw," he said again, "mean dog; kotee, toad; chesshe, rat. Maybe him
+dog-toad-rat!"
+
+"That only begins to be him," I declared, with the same glorious
+contempt for pronouns. "In the prospective waters of Death river I
+christen him Efaw Kotee, the dog-toad!"--But in my heart I offered an
+apology to the canine family, many of whose sons and daughters have been
+among my most loyal friends.
+
+"We go; maybe find him," the black giant grinned again, bending backward
+to get his shoulders beneath the ropes and then straightening up as
+though two, and not two hundred, pounds of weight came with him.
+
+I walked quickly out to the point and took one more look, a searching,
+lingering look across the green water. Nowhere was the _Whim_, nowhere
+even a speck of sail or any other craft. Except for a pelican of sober
+mien, rising and falling with the waves, the Gulf seemed barren of any
+life. But something told me that the yacht was safe.
+
+A scrub jay, in a near-by thicket of mangroves, mocked my solitude with
+a raucous note; yet it gave me heart, for I saw in it the call of the
+land and knew that thoughts of the _Whim_ must be put aside. So I went
+back to Smilax, and together we strode through the fringe of palms into
+a shadowy jungle; our faces set toward a mysterious place, unknown to
+us, where Death river meets the sea.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+SMILAX BRINGS NEWS
+
+
+Intuitively I dropped behind and walked at the heels of Smilax who, as
+if he were treading a well-defined trail instead of unknown jungle land,
+moved with a free stride that challenged my endurance. Clinging vines
+pulled at my clothes as things alive, causing both noise and annoyance.
+Silence was a virtue on our present expedition.
+
+After an hour of this we came to a cypress swamp, and for several miles
+waded through water ankle-deep although on a bottom of firm sand. Hardly
+any undergrowth was here, but in all directions stood gray, dismal
+cypress trees, coarsely buttressed at the water's edge and tapering to
+slender tips. Draped in long streamers of Spanish moss which were
+delicately swayed by an almost imperceptible current of air, this was a
+ghoulish place--suggesting a rookery for shrouded spirits which perched
+along the bonelike branches awaiting their resurrection. Here, too, upon
+some convenient root of these gray ancients--perhaps the longest lived
+of our southern trees--lay coiled the dozing moccasin. And from this
+grim place we merged once more into the jungle where my clothes again
+became the prey of clawing things.
+
+But Smilax, never faltering, moved with the ease of a shadow. At last,
+by watching him I, too, came to learn his secret and was charmed to find
+that it made my pace both quiet and swift. Indeed, I took great care to
+practice this silent trail walking--a knack that can be acquired only by
+the closest observation; for a hundred books could not teach a hundredth
+part as much as a ten-mile hike at the heels of a trained woodsman when
+he is trying to go noiselessly. Finally he turned and looked at me,
+saying:
+
+"You do good now."
+
+Noon brought us to a higher country whose beauty could not be surpassed.
+Dark and cool it was, even dismal without bringing depression. The
+mid-day suns of a hundred years must have been tempered to the aisles of
+this wild cathedral by venerable specimens of mahogany and black olive
+trees; and, where the branches of these did not touch, rose the
+slenderer red ironwood. The mahoganies, alone, stood as a proof that we
+were entering a region which had escaped the eyes of white man for--how
+long? It was even seventy years ago that bands of wood pirates, known as
+"the mahogany cutters," invaded southern Florida from the Bahamas and
+ruthlessly pillaged this desirable wood for foreign markets; so here, at
+least, was a spot that had remained undiscovered, where perhaps a white
+foot had never trod.
+
+Charmed as I was, a greater enchantment awaited, when the next few steps
+brought me to a pool; a pool of crystal transparency, though dark for
+reflecting the black bowl of earth in which it lay. Without a ripple it
+nestled close against the roots of a golden-fig tree--an unfruitful
+parasitic giant of squat stature and tremendous girth; while, pendant
+from one gnarled out-reaching branch, and almost touching the
+mirror-like surface into which it looked, hung a solitary streamer of
+Spanish moss.
+
+One might have fancied that this pure water slept in the tranquillity of
+being forever blessed by a gaunt old friar, the gray sleeve of whose
+cowl hung from an arm perpetually outstretched in silent benediction.
+Around the bank, and leaning their purple flowers above the more purple
+depths, grew a fringe of wild iris; while sprinkled at random farther
+out were a few blooms of "bonnet"--the yellow water-lily of southern
+ponds. And then, in a darker nook, erect and motionless upon one leg, a
+pink flamingo stood. I caught my breath in amazement at the beauty of
+this place!
+
+To me it possessed a soul; and the soul, arms, that were amorously held
+out, inviting, pleading. This was the spot, and not by the green waves,
+to strip my mind of culture, to tear a club from nature's forest and do
+battle for existence! Here, in the very birthplace of silence where I
+could smell the loam of untouched wilderness, would be the haunt of my
+re-created, or pre-created, self. Throughout the days I would hunt--and
+slay; in the nights I would sleep among the branches. But there would
+come dawns and sunsets when in some corner of this wild temple I would
+raise a pagan altar, light a tiny wish-wood flame, and conjure the
+forest's soul of many arms to reach across the earth, bringing me a
+living, breathing Psyche with iris-colored eyes to gaze into the limpid
+pool!
+
+In the contemplation of such an Eden I had forgotten Smilax, who now
+shattered my illusion by swinging down the pack and saying, as he turned
+to me:
+
+"We eat."
+
+O, mundane worm, that he could think of food while my spirit was
+communing with our common ancestor! However, without much reluctance, I
+arrived at his point of view when, filling my pipe, I stretched out to
+watch his savory preparations. And now to my surprise, but increasing
+admiration for his woodcraft, he raised a hand as I was about to strike
+the match.
+
+"Wait," he said. "Wind wrong; maybe some one smell; me go see."
+
+"Never mind," I protested, wanting to spare him additional work after
+the amount he had already accomplished. "I don't care about smoking."
+
+"Cook fire smell," he said, rather pityingly that I should have
+overlooked this obvious fact. "Me go see; get good wood." Then, grinning
+broadly, he added: "Maybe Efaw Kotee somewhere."
+
+I knew that if he went for wood he must mean buttonwood, because there
+was no end of other kinds about; but buttonwood is the only fuel in
+Florida--dry mangrove being a close second--that, burning slowly like
+charcoal, is both very hot and smokeless, and he was evidently taking no
+chances. I knew, too, that he would have to go far toward the coast for
+it, since only on tidewater shores may it be found; and with a pleasant
+feeling of excitement I wondered if he would also bring back news
+of--her; some sign, a thin line of smoke above the trees! It was not the
+excitement of battle, or a skirmish; no, it was the approaching reality
+of a dream that had gripped me with soft fingers since the moment I
+entered this forest. Since my eyes had rested on that pool, my heart had
+called afresh for her. The arms of the place were about me.
+
+Softly I arose and went back to it. The pink flamingo was there, but as
+I approached, nearer this time, he gave signs of uneasiness and at last
+clumsily took wing for some other sanctuary where his solitude might be
+untroubled by strange beings.
+
+Standing on the flowery bank, I looked deep into the water. No fish,
+nor life of any kind, disturbed its sweet serenity. So like her soul, I
+thought, was the soul of this! Yet could her soul be undisturbed? Was it
+not, indeed, turbulent with apprehensions? Did it--I asked the question
+eagerly--did it sometimes hope that I would come? And something in the
+water answered yes. So I picked a blossom of the iris--that had taken
+its color from her eyes--and put it carefully away. By the spirit of her
+glance, by the unspoken message of this place, I swore--oh, why put down
+here all I swore? Men have stood beside solemn pools before, and women,
+too. Those who commune in the woods think more sublimely than they
+speak, so I can not speak now, in written words, my immeasurable
+longing.
+
+Soon Smilax, grinning broadly, emerged from the shadows.
+
+"All right," he said. "You smoke; me cook."
+
+"Did you see anything? How far did you go?" I asked, and he answered in
+the curious way he had of dealing with one question at a time.
+
+"No see signs of Efaw Kotee. Long way."
+
+While the combined aroma of bacon and coffee was for the moment throwing
+its cloak of materialism about the romance of my forest, I asked again:
+
+"Why are we heading so far inland, when they must be somewhere along the
+coast?"
+
+"Best go this way. All right; you smoke."
+
+I was smoking, but that seemed to be his way of telling me to put my
+mind at rest. Yet I persisted with another question:
+
+"How do you know we haven't passed them already?"
+
+"Me know," he grinned. "All right; you smoke."
+
+He was a funny cuss, but I let it go at that.
+
+Biscuits, bacon and coffee might properly be called the Woodsmen's
+Ambrosia, but it is not a feast over which man is inclined to loiter,
+and Smilax was soon re-wrapping the pack.
+
+Up to this time I had walked practically empty handed, yet now I
+conscientiously rebelled, insisting that a share of the load must rest
+upon my shoulders. But here he showed himself as obdurate as a mule
+until, arbitrarily, I strapped on our second automatic, took out our
+second rifle, and filled my pockets with extra cartridges. He raised no
+objection to this; he even approved it. We were getting down into the
+Death river country and ready fire-arms made agreeable companions.
+Furthermore, at his direction I tied the rather goodly supply of
+buttonwood into a bundle and swung it to my back.
+
+Toward evening we saw on our left evidences of open country and bore in
+that direction, for when one has walked many hours in the shadows of
+interlocking branches it is as natural to be drawn toward a spot of
+sunlight as it would be to approach an open window after having been
+confined in a dismal room. So we bore in that direction and came to the
+edge of a vast prairie stretching before us as a sea of lifeless grass.
+
+Except for a gray line on its horizon, marking, I afterward learned, the
+boundary of the Great Cypress Swamp, there was but a single break on
+this expansive waste. That was a rich growth of trees about two miles
+out, to the southeast of us; an oasis, it would have been called in the
+Sahara, but in the Florida prairies known as an "island." Whether this
+term of "island" finds origin in the similarity of these verdant places
+to real islands, seeming as they do to float upon an inland sea of
+grass, or whether because, being of higher ground, they actually become
+islands during rainy seasons when much of the prairie land is inundated,
+the native "cracker" is unable to explain. At any rate, fanned by the
+prairie breeze, they afford agreeable shelter where, in perfect
+seclusion, one may look out upon the surrounding country for great
+distances.
+
+"We camp there," Smilax nodded.
+
+"A good place," I affirmed.
+
+"You stay hide," he said again. "Me find out if nobody 'round to see us
+go."
+
+"Why can't I look with you?" I asked, wanting to study more of his
+methods, but he squelched me by answering:
+
+"You look whole lot; no see anything."
+
+I would have given him a good piece of my mind had he not suddenly
+disappeared; returning soon with his usual smile and saying:
+
+"Come."
+
+Single file, as before, we pushed into the breast-high grass, and the
+walking was easy. Once we crossed a patch of oozy turf from which arose
+a score of jack-snipe; again we skirted a drying pond whose boggy edges
+were the hunting ground of marsh hens. Yet other trails could be read
+here: deer, wildcat, raccoon, and innumerable wee things. And here, too,
+around the "bonnet" leaves, the silent moccasin lay coiled, so it was
+well to step with caution in a place like this.
+
+A wound by the cotton-mouth moccasin, if treated properly, may not
+result in death. Like other viperine bites, however, it so affects the
+surrounding flesh that blood poisoning may follow days after the first
+crisis has been passed. Yet, even with this two-fold menace lurking in
+its fangs, it is not the most feared of Florida snakes. Preeminent in
+that capacity stands the diamond-back rattler, largest of the world's
+venomous species and second to none in point of deadliness. Smilax
+insisted--on I do not know what authority--that more dangerous than
+either of these is the beautiful little coral snake, _elaps fulvius_,
+whose victim becomes ravingly insane and invariably dies. That he
+possessed some uncanny knowledge of the creature must be admitted
+because of its close relationship to the Cobra-de-Capello, of Asiatic
+fame, whose poison, we know, flies directly to the nerve centers and
+almost entirely ignores the tissue. Four days later I had good reason to
+remember this.
+
+"Are there many snakes hereabouts?" I asked.
+
+"Winter, not much; summer, heap."
+
+However, at that very moment he held his hand back to stop me, then
+beckoned me forward.
+
+"Look!" He was pointing tensely ahead of us, moving his arm leftward and
+indicating a circle of perhaps thirty feet in diameter.
+
+Whatever it was, I could see the tops of the grass shake as their stems
+were slightly jostled by this unknown creature's progress, which
+continued with incredible speed and was circling back toward us. Then,
+with a slightly swishing sound as its body glided through the dry grass,
+that friend of Florida woodsmen--the king snake--passed before our feet
+like a brownish-green streak.
+
+"Rattler! You watch!" Smilax whispered. His eyes were wide with
+interest, for it is not permitted many men to see a duel between these
+mortal enemies.
+
+Somewhere directly ahead of us a diamond-back rattlesnake must have
+awaited the attack he sensed, though we could not yet see him. Time
+after time the king snake swept by in front of us, decreasing the
+circles and, I thought, increasing his speed. After each revolution we
+stepped in a little nearer, being careful not to interfere with his
+course nor distract his attention from the serious business at hand.
+
+Soon the viper became visible. His flat head, elevated a few inches
+above his heavy coil, turned anxiously with the sounds in the grass. He
+knew what was coming, I think, but did not rattle until the king had
+reduced the circles about him to a diameter of six or seven feet. Then
+he became electrified. The rattles sounded viciously, and his head began
+an ominous swaying motion, out and in, as he searched for a vital spot
+at which to strike.
+
+The king, although keeping just outside the danger line, was also
+watching for an opportunity. He may have realized his immunity to
+poisons, yet did not care unnecessarily to suffer the laceration of
+fangs. Rather did he choose to rely upon the further protective gifts
+that nature had given him: length and strength, speed and agility, and a
+skin that blended elusively with the ground colors; therefore, revolving
+in these smaller circles, he seemed to make almost a continuous line,
+without beginning or end, and the rattler was at a loss to act. Now,
+profiting by a moment when the venomous eyes were turned away, he darted
+in and caught the viper close up behind its head. Wrapping himself about
+the squirming body he ruthlessly straightened out. We heard the
+vertebrae being torn until his victim lay crushed and stretched into a
+helpless mass.
+
+For several minutes the sleek avenger remained perfectly quiet. Then,
+uncoiling warily but not releasing the hold with his teeth, he worked
+his body aside. Last of all he dropped the head and drew suspiciously
+back as if alert for a sign of life. Of course, there was none, and
+soon he glided into the grass, not seeming to have noticed us at all.
+
+"Whew!" I said, taking a deep breath. "I wish we had king snakes around
+us all the time!"
+
+"Heap good friend," Smilax grinned, stooping to cut off the rattles that
+were large and perfect.
+
+"I thought you said there weren't any snakes out in winter!"
+
+"Not much; maybe no see any for long time."
+
+He told me now as we proceeded across the prairie that the Seminole
+Reservation lay about fifty miles north of us, and I wondered what our
+chances would be of getting a squad of "braves," should the _Whim_ not
+show up and we found ourselves on the eve of a fight against rather big
+odds. It was worth keeping in mind.
+
+The "island," when we reached it, was by far the largest I had ever
+seen, and proved to be an ideal place to camp. High pines and stately
+palms grew here in great profusion, while there also might be found a
+sprinkling of hardwoods; and yet in some parts there was enough sunlight
+to permit the growth of really luxurious grass, as trim as if it had
+been cut by the hand of man. Smilax, pointing to a number of tracks I
+had not observed, said the deer kept it short by grazing. One's first
+impression here was of a well-kept park, intersected by green avenues
+that stretched beneath the best specimens of trees which a landscape
+architect had carefully planned to leave standing. But there were wilder
+portions; perhaps three acres of heavy jungle. About midway, festooned
+with vines, was the pool I had hoped to find, of quite good size and
+cool. It, like the other that had entranced me, nourished a few stalks
+of iris, but there was no "bonnet" or other place on its closely cropped
+bank for the wily moccasin.
+
+"My private bath," I declared, feeling at this sundown hour the call
+strong within me.
+
+Smilax had remained behind. His reconnoissance as we entered the prairie
+must be completed by another as we emerged from it; and I had left him
+standing behind the trees looking back across our trail, searching for
+any distant movement. At last he came up, saying:
+
+"All right; you smoke."
+
+"I don't want to smoke," I laughed. "I want to get in that pool, if we
+can find another supply of drinking water."
+
+"No need um," he grinned. "Big spring come up there," he pointed toward
+the farther end. "Me know island now; been here one time."
+
+I afterwards saw that he referred to one of those unique springs,
+occasionally to be found in Florida--a transparent water of bluish
+tinge, bubbling up through the bottom of its deep, self-made reservoir;
+keeping the sand in a subdued state of agitation, and bringing pleasure
+to the eye of man.
+
+By the spirit of Pan, my pool felt good after the long day's hike!
+
+The wind had changed with the waning afternoon and now blew gently from
+the southwest, promising a period of fair weather. It gave us, also, the
+advantage of greater freedom in noises; for, when living in the wild,
+one comes to realize how potent a carrier, or muffler, of noises is the
+wind. A fire at night, or smoke by day, may be tempered with human
+ingenuity, but nature bandies the sound waves with her breath.
+
+I dined in the elegance of simplicity, and Smilax extinguished our small
+fire of buttonwood. Leaning my back against a stalwart pine, I watched
+the shadows stealing through our avenue of trees. Somewhere above my
+head a whistling owl, one of those lovable little feathered cavaliers
+that showers his mate with unstinted adulation, fluttered and courted.
+Later the mournful call of a whooping crane floated across the prairie.
+
+I heard these things in a lazy, contented way, but my thoughts were on
+another island--a real island surrounded by water, where waves lapped
+the beach and two eyes, that had given color to the iris, watched for
+deliverance. Then with a jerk I sat up. Smilax had turned his head to
+listen, and in his attitude dwelt a note of agitation.
+
+"What is it?" I whispered; for surely I had heard a sound that did not
+belong to these creatures living in the forest about us.
+
+He raised his hand to caution silence. Then came the sound again,
+slowly: one--two--three--four--
+
+"Axe," he said, his eyes shining as beads and his finger pointing into
+the southwest from where the breeze was coming. "You wait; me go see."
+
+"I'll go, too," I announced.
+
+"No; maybe make too much noise. Smilax go."
+
+"Who d'you suppose it is that close to us?" I excitedly asked. "Not
+them, surely?"
+
+He looked at me with grave eyes and answered:
+
+"No can say; maybe hunters find way in here. You smoke; me go see."
+
+Yet his sudden gravity left little doubt in my mind of what, at least,
+he suspected; for he well knew that hunters did not find their way into
+this unsurveyed wilderness! Then, too, there was something in the
+stillness of the night that seemed to portend great things. The leaves
+transmitted their restlessness to my yawning nerves, as iron dust
+springs to a magnet.
+
+Intending to wave good luck as he melted into the darkness, without
+being observed I walked silently behind him to the prairie's edge; but
+there he stopped, opened his arms, raised his face to the sky, standing
+motionless. And a great peace came over me, for I saw that, in the
+simple way of the old-time Seminoles who invariably turned to their
+Great Spirit on the eve of hopes or fears or dangers, Smilax was
+praying.
+
+Religion is the poetry of the savages' existence. Alas, that we are
+civilized! He does not spend his nights poring over The Laws and The
+Prophets, and his days peppering a neighbor across the head with a
+new-born creed. No, he puts an abiding faith in some Great Spirit, be it
+the sun, the moon, the stars; or fashioned of stone, or clay, or wood.
+But his soul looks into the Infinite as his physical sight, less far
+reaching, feasts upon the Symbol. And what does he lose? He loses the
+privilege of bickering with evangelists; he loses the acid frequently to
+be found in church organization--the feeling of pity or contempt of one
+denomination for another, each of which stands upon the Holy Rock
+searching for motes and waving a princely disregard to beams. And,
+because he remains benighted and in darkness, he also loses doubt;
+wherefore, as a trusting child, he touches the hand of God.
+
+I had long since finished my second pipe when Smilax returned. He came
+out of the darkness as he had gone into it, with the stealth of a
+panther, and was close to me before I knew it. But a striking change had
+taken place in him. His breathing was fast, though not from exertion,
+and pointing back he hurriedly whispered:
+
+"Efaw Kotee there! Lady, too! Me see!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+EFAW KOTEE'S DEN
+
+
+Sylvia there! I bounded up as though some one had sent a galvanic
+current through my body, exclaiming:
+
+"Good Lord! How far, Smilax? Come quick, let's go!"
+
+He answered each of my exclamations in sequence, a peculiarity he had:
+
+"Yes, Lord good. Two mile, maybe some more. Plenty time, we go back
+soon."
+
+"But we couldn't have heard that axe two miles," I said incredulously.
+
+"Still night, when wind on prairie right; yes, sometime."
+
+"How are they camped? How many are there? Come, man, don't keep me
+waiting!"
+
+He drew himself up to full height and, with one arm pointing toward the
+southwest, spoke deliberately as if realizing his importance, seeming to
+choose his words--seeming, rather, to grope for them.
+
+"Over there forest is little strip thick, maybe half mile; then come
+water--Gulf. Me know um is Gulf; taste and find um salt. Close by shore
+big island, close by um little island. More island all 'round. Too dark
+to see much, but Efaw Kotee live on big island. Many cabin. On little
+island Lady live. One cabin. She come to door and me get good look, for
+light in cabin. Old woman live with her; Injun squaw; me know by way she
+walk. Before day we go hide in good place on shore. Watch all day and
+see. Must watch all day, or they see us if we leave 'fore dark. Now you
+smoke; then we go 'sleep l'il while."
+
+Sleep! How could I sleep while she was within three miles of me,
+surrounded by ten or a dozen devils the combined virtues of whom would
+not fill a gnat's eye! Of course, she had lived in this situation for
+years, but I had not heard of it until very recently, and that makes a
+world of difference.
+
+But after we got back to camp and I had stretched out on my blanket to
+let the telescope of my fancies pierce the realm of hopes, sleep did
+come. I would not have believed it, but it did; for soon I realized that
+some one was shaking my arm, while a voice said over and over:
+
+"Time we go; time we go!"
+
+It was yet night when I opened my eyes, but Smilax had lit a small
+buttonwood fire and breakfast was waiting. While I stumbled to the pool
+to drive the cobwebs from my brain he took the canteens and filled them
+at the spring; for, in the all-day strain ahead of us--and few things
+are more trying than to lie concealed and watch from the gray of dawn
+till the black of night--we should need a liberal supply of water.
+
+"Shall we take rifles?" I asked, when everything was ready and each of
+us had our snack of food.
+
+"No," he answered. "Too hard to crawl like snake. They no see us to-day.
+We take l'il crack-crack."
+
+"Little crack-crack" meant an automatic revolver, greatly admired by
+Smilax and, since Tommy's coaching, handled by him with no mean skill.
+So I swung one of these to the small of my back, into position when we
+should begin crawling, and handed him the other; whereupon, without
+further ado, we traversed the "island" and melted into the prairie.
+Forty minutes later Smilax moving slowly and cautiously ahead, entered
+the narrow strip of forest. Another ten minutes, and we got to our hands
+and knees. In this way we proceeded perhaps a hundred yards when,
+putting his lips close to my ear, he whispered:
+
+"We hide here; come still like snake."
+
+I put out my hand and felt the ragged edge of saw-palmetto, then slipped
+in behind him, moving scarcely more than a yard a minute. Heaven help
+us, I thought, if we had to lie on that torturous stuff for fifteen
+hours! But Smilax was equal to every occasion. When we reached the far
+side of the patch, leaving only a fringe of leaves to shield us from
+those we came to watch, he worked a while with his hands, then
+whispered: "Now lay down." Lo, the uncomfortable roots had been pressed
+in other directions and the soft sand received my body. He remained,
+however, long enough on his knees to make sure that none of the fronds
+had been twisted out of line, else uncompromising daylight might show
+our enemy that all here was not right.
+
+The night remained very still and impenetrably black, though I think
+that Smilax could see a little with his extraordinary catlike sight.
+Then came a first sleepy bird note. The day, at last, was on the wing!
+
+When from obscurity the saw-tooth stems took shape before my eyes and
+the distance receded farther, I saw that we were near the edge of a
+steep bank. Perhaps twelve feet below us lay the water, as a mirror on
+which some one has breathed. A mist hung over it--and in that gossamer
+shroud a little island floated whereon my Sylvia dwelt--where now she
+slept.
+
+A minute later the forest awoke with bird life; dawn came rapidly.
+Islands took shape, trees stepped out from their obscurity and small
+details drew into focus. First I sought her home and could hardly take
+my eyes from it. Low and rambling, it stood two hundred feet away,
+nestled in a most inviting shade of splendid trees. Flowers and climbing
+vines were everywhere, touched with the rich coloring of poinsettia and
+bougainvillea--although this very approach of day began to close the
+fragrant moon-flowers and spelled death to the night-blooming cereus.
+The walls of her bungalow seemed to be tinted red, varying to purple,
+which gave a strange yet most pleasing effect in the setting of
+blossoms. Not till later did I learn that this was the rare Cat's Claw
+wood, nowhere to be found but in southern Florida.
+
+On the larger island, not over a hundred feet from us, were perhaps ten
+buildings of about the same size and plan, and presumably sleeping
+quarters. But in their midst stood a structure of some pretensions that
+we afterwards knew to be a dining hall. Quite off in the background were
+two small bungalows whose air denoted quality, but the roof of one had
+been fitted with a skylight which gave me the impression that here Efaw
+Kotee worked his trade at counterfeiting. Still beyond this was a tower
+rising above the low trees, perhaps intended for a lighthouse, although
+there had been no light burning when we came. But these were at best
+surmises that arranged themselves in my mind while noting everything in
+sight and awaiting a further sign of life.
+
+Soon a hinge squeaked. A man stepped from one of the smaller huts,
+looked at the sky, yawned and stretched. A second appeared from another
+hut, walked away and came back with an armful of wood that he took into
+the dining hall. As they passed there was scarcely a nod of greeting. A
+surly pair, I thought. After this smoke issued from the chimney, and
+other men, one by one from other huts, came dribbling out into the day,
+until altogether we had counted seven. The six now before us, after
+make-shift splashes in the basins beside their doors, went as the chap
+with the wood had gone; and shortly we heard sounds of knives and forks
+rattling on china.
+
+It was at this moment that a thin line of smoke arose from the chimney
+of Sylvia's bungalow. Longingly I watched it; tingling to my finger tips
+I blessed it. A side door opened, but it was an Indian woman who emerged
+with two pails and walked back of the house--doubtless to a tank of rain
+water, because she returned with them full and went in, taking care to
+close the door softly. The deference of her manner, the affection with
+which she apparently guarded her mistress' sleep, strongly appealed to
+me, and I knew that the Indian woman would be my friend.
+
+The next move came again from the dining hall when a swarthy fellow
+emerged wiping his mouth upon his sleeve. His hair was long and black,
+reaching below his shoulders. With a rifle nested in the hollow of his
+arm he disappeared toward the tower, and Smilax whispered:
+
+"Him Injun."
+
+Now to our surprise some one appeared to be looking down from the tower,
+and a few minutes later the Indian was seen above the mangroves climbing
+up to him. There must have been strips spiked crosswise to one of the
+uprights, making a kind of ladder.
+
+"So that's a watch tower," I said cautiously. "And he makes eight."
+
+Smilax nodded.
+
+The fellows talked a while, then the one who had been relieved came
+down, going for his breakfast.
+
+"What do you think of it?" I whispered.
+
+"No see him before," Smilax looked grave. "Maybe one up in tree 'round
+here."
+
+"Gee, you think so?" It was not a comforting suggestion.
+
+"No, maybe not," he answered, after a moment of thought. "They no look
+for us by land; all by water. We all right. Look! Efaw Kotee have
+breakfast!"
+
+Two men left the dining hall, each bearing a tray of food, and we
+watched until they entered the rather exclusive house next to the work
+shop. This without doubt was the old scoundrel's headquarters, but why
+did he have two trays? Could by any chance Sylvia be kept beneath the
+same roof with him? Had Smilax been mistaken? The weight of my automatic
+felt good just then.
+
+When they came out, empty handed, one turned toward the watch tower but
+the other went for still a third tray. This, which he carried with an
+air of deference, was covered by a white cloth. He came to the boats
+across from us and got into a punt, balancing his tray across the bow
+while he paddled, standing, toward the little island. Now I became more
+than ever tense, and perhaps I moved, for Smilax pressed my arm in
+caution.
+
+As the punt touched at the landing platform below Sylvia's house the
+fellow did not get out, but gave the call of an ibis--a weird,
+beautifully mystic call that is rarely heard and almost impossible to
+imitate. Smilax appreciated this, for he grunted: "Good."
+
+The door opened and the Indian woman looked out.
+
+"Hey, there, Echochee," he said. "I got a present from the boss."
+
+She slammed the door, and I do not know when in my life I was ever so
+charmed by this simple act.
+
+"Then you go to hell," he drawled. "But I tell yer this: the boss said
+if no one come down to git it, for me to leave it in yer parler."
+
+While Echochee had slammed the door she was evidently listening; for now
+she came out again, a picture of fury, crying:
+
+"Don't you put foot here!"
+
+"Then come an' git it," he carelessly replied.
+
+She hesitated.
+
+"Lay um down, then go back. Me get um."
+
+"Naw, old hatchet-face. Jest come on down an' git it yer own se'f, or
+I'll bring it up."
+
+"My Lady no let any one come here," she warned. "You go back quick!"
+
+"That's all right 'bout yer Lady, but the boss says fer me to hand this
+right in myse'f, an' what the boss says--goes! Yer git that, don't yer?
+So come on down an' git this, an' that'll make two things yer git," he
+laughed boisterously, adding: "It's a weddin' present, an' if yer don't
+git a move on maybe the boss'll come his own se'f!"
+
+I could see from the woman's face that she was in a towering rage, but
+she went--lithely as a girl, for all her years--to the landing.
+
+"That's what I call sense, old hatchet-face," he sneered, stepping
+gingerly over the seat--for a punt is a tippy thing--and holding the
+tray out to her.
+
+With a snarl she jerked it from his hands, raised it quickly and brought
+it down on his head. Of course, the cloth and everything beneath it went
+scattering to the winds, while he tumbled backward into the water. Not
+content, she picked up several of the various fruits the tray had held
+and began to pepper him with such good aim that he hastily and profanely
+splashed back to the other shore. Then the tray, its cover, and the
+spilled fruits not already used in the form of ammunition, were
+contemptuously tossed in his direction. After this she tied the punt as
+though nothing had happened, went back into the house and closed the
+door. Smilax was shaking with silent delight.
+
+"Bully," I whispered.
+
+"Good," he said. "Look--water not much deep. We 'member that." Though at
+the time I did not see how this held any advantage for us, being
+distinctly of less protection for Sylvia.
+
+The man dragged himself up the oozy bank, cursing roundly, and started
+post-haste for Efaw Kotee's bungalow. We could hear the water sloshing
+in his shoes, and knew that he was quite as uncomfortable in mind as in
+body. He did not go upon the porch, but stood below, hat in hand,
+calling. Then I saw the old chief--the same man who had paid his supper
+check with a new fifty-dollar bill. Smilax squeezed my arm, saying:
+
+"Him boss on yacht."
+
+I felt well satisfied at this identification, which was the first
+definite assurance that the owner of the _Orchid_ and my neighbor in the
+cafe were one and the same. He came out scowling, listened unmoved to
+the fellow's recital and turned back without a word, while the aggrieved
+one walked sulkily to his quarters.
+
+But soon Efaw Kotee reappeared, this time with another man, and Smilax
+became excited.
+
+"Look," he whispered. "Him name Jess. Him bust Smilax head!"
+
+It was the fellow who had drawn back when Tommy and Monsieur went to the
+gambling rooms, but now without his uniform he seemed coarser and more
+cruel.
+
+"That makes ten, all told," I whispered.
+
+"Whole lot," was the black's only comment.
+
+They came slowly, talking in low tones. At the water's edge across from
+us they halted and Jess, pointing to the punt, said something whereupon
+the older man's face turned dark with anger.
+
+"Echochee!" he called.
+
+No answer; the door of Sylvia's dwelling remained closed.
+
+"Echochee," he called again, and his voice grated hatefully on my
+nerves, "bring that punt over here!"
+
+Then the door did open, I thought reluctantly, and the Indian woman came
+out.
+
+"What you want?" she asked.
+
+"Say: 'What you want, _Master_!'" he yelled at her.
+
+"Why I say that?" she asked, a dull fire of hatred kindling in her eyes.
+
+"Because it's so," he thundered, stamping the ground in fury while his
+palsied head shook more noticeably.
+
+"You lie," she replied. "You no master of my Lady or me, any more. We go
+to Great Spirit any time now."
+
+A chill ran over me. What, in God's name, did she mean? Was Sylvia
+dying? Again Smilax touched my arm to caution prudence.
+
+Efaw Kotee was, I think, trying to control himself, yet his long arms
+and veiny hands were swinging, pendulum-like, to and fro across his
+body. It was an uncanny indication of anger, suggesting rather a beast
+than a human being. The captain was standing silent, with his arms
+folded.
+
+"Echochee," said the chief, "bring us that punt. We must see your Lady."
+
+"My Lady see no one."
+
+"I want that punt," he bellowed at her.
+
+"You got plenty punt; me go in house," she replied stoically.
+
+There were, indeed, three or four punts tied to the shore near by.
+
+"Hold on, there," he commanded, "or it'll go bad for you! I want that
+punt, there, understand?"
+
+"Then get that punt there," she said indifferently.
+
+"You damned old hag," he screamed, now quite beside himself, "one of
+your rotten tribe's in that lookout tower, d'you understand? If you
+don't bring that punt across I'll have him crucified before your eyes!
+Hear me, hag?"
+
+"All right," she said quietly. "Him no 'count; do him good."
+
+She turned back to pass through the door, but was stopped by some one
+coming out. Sylvia! Never more beautiful than now! Echochee put up both
+arms to stop her and I noticed--for in tense moments one's eyes retain
+some of the most insignificant details--how incongruously her brown old
+bony fingers sank into the dainty folds of her lady's morning gown. But
+Sylvia would not be stopped. She placed a hand on the woman's shoulder
+and spoke a few hurried words, then raised her head and looked
+imperiously at the men, saying:
+
+"You shan't hurt any one because Echochee obeys me. Is the punt all you
+want?"
+
+Jess moved uneasily, but there was no trace of embarrassment in the
+bearing of Efaw Kotee.
+
+"No, it's not! We want to cross to you!"
+
+"No one comes on this island," she said.
+
+"I've had enough of your nonsense," the old fellow cried. "I believe yet
+you steered that bunch of pups after us, in spite of hell I believe it;
+but, whether you did or didn't, I've had enough of bowing and scraping
+like a nigger, and begging to be allowed to go over there! Enough, I
+tell you!"
+
+"Then don't try any more," she indifferently replied, turning to go in;
+but he checked her with another threat--and by the way she flinched I
+knew that he meant it.
+
+"If you go in that door till I'm through," he bellowed, "that crucifying
+comes off in ten minutes--right on this spot where you can hear the
+beggar squeal!"
+
+She stopped and looked at him, and I realized that we had come in the
+nick of time for some great crisis which was enveloping her.
+
+"Now, see here," he continued, in a calmer voice, "you've kept this up
+since yesterday morning, and it's unreasonable. Why don't you let us
+come over and have a talk? I've been a good father to you! You've had
+everything you want--and just bought six trunks full of clothes in
+Havana last week! Why do you keep us--keep me--away?"
+
+While absorbedly listening, I was struck by the oddity of a girl in this
+wilderness buying six trunks full of clothes; but it then occurred to me
+that Efaw Kotee would encourage extravagant buying of all things, when
+the _Orchid_ visited a city, in order that he might get bona fide change
+for his spurious bills. At least there was good reason for her gown to
+be modern, smart, and becoming, as Havana's best Americanized shops are
+quite continental.
+
+"I keep you away," she answered icily, "because you're planning to
+marry me to an unprincipled scoundrel."
+
+"A what?" Jess yelled.
+
+"Shut up!" the old one snapped at him.
+
+"An unprincipled scoundrel," she answered evenly, "who's as loathsome as
+an ape. And I shan't be married to that kind of thing, or any one else.
+You've had my warning. If you, or he, or any of your beastly men come to
+this island, you'll get only my dead body. And Echochee, dear soul, is
+going with me. What's more, if you start any tortures, we'll die before
+witnessing them."
+
+"Then, by God," he screamed, "you and your damned hag'll begin to starve
+from this day! With no more provisions sent over we'll see who obeys me!
+And in three more days if you don't come to your senses I'll crucify an
+offering to your dead body--head down on the spot I stand!" He had been
+raving, but now his tone quickly changed to one of whining entreaty, as
+he added: "I hope you understand how it pains your dear old father to
+threaten you, my child!"
+
+It was so maudlin an exhibition that I wondered if he were sane.
+
+"Dear old father," she repeated, giving a short laugh of contempt.
+
+I did not know how much of this was real and how much acting on her
+part, although it did seem genuine enough when she could not be looking
+for relief. Yet, as she stood there calmly mistress of herself while
+Efaw Kotee writhed beneath her scorn, I was reminded of an angler who
+had hooked an ungainly fish--she with intellect at one end, he at the
+other representing brute strength, fear, cunning; both connected by a
+barely visible thread that in this case was not a line, but Fate. For
+another moment she let him writhe, then turned and went in.
+
+Jess laughed.
+
+"Shut up, you clown," the old chief turned on him.
+
+"Clown yourself," the captain snarled. "I'll have you know I won't take
+any of your lip!"
+
+"Then I back out of our bargain, that's all!"
+
+"If you say that again I'll twist off your palsied head with these two
+hands," Jess held them under Efaw Kotee's nose and wriggled his fingers,
+until the old man shrank back, cowering. "The men'll follow me when I
+tell 'em you play double, an' you know it! You swine, I'm sick of this
+place! I'm going to take my share of the stuff, an' the girl, an' clear
+out! It's been fifteen years since we raised these cabins--more'n that!
+An' what have we got? Plenty of the slickest money ever printed--an' the
+other stuff, too--an' you afraid to take a chance. Three times I've
+stopped a mutiny for you, an' you'd be dead an' buried if I hadn't. Then
+came this last when things went wrong. You say the girl peached, but
+'tween you an' me I say you tried to turn State's evidence--don't deny
+anything," he held up his hand when the other would have interrupted.
+"That's passed now. But I've agreed to forget it, to keep the mutinies
+stopped for keeps--by marrying the girl. You agreed, too. Now you talk
+of backing out. Is killing too good for you?"
+
+"I don't want to, Jess; I don't, honest," Efaw Kotee said, with a whine.
+"But you see yourself how she is! If we rush the place, day or night,
+she'll kill herself. Tell me what to do, and I'll do it!"
+
+"You've done about all you can for a while," Jess grumbled, adding: "If
+she don't run away."
+
+"Where'd she run to?" the other sneered.
+
+"Well, some kind friend might show her!"
+
+"You're crazy," the chief contemptuously exclaimed.
+
+"Crazy or not, you just see that she doesn't. Then, if starving three
+days doesn't bring her, maybe crucifying _you_ head down might do the
+trick."
+
+"Wha--what d'you mean?" The old fellow sprang around and stared at him,
+seeming to have grown hollow and gray.
+
+"Oh, nothing," Jess grinned. "Just a little idea I had--worth keeping in
+mind, though. It might be healthy for you to see she can't run off,
+that's all."
+
+Efaw Kotee looked at the captain suspiciously, and said:
+
+"I'll guarantee she doesn't run off--and your other little ideas aren't
+pleasant. Let's go back and have a drink."
+
+When they had entered the bungalow a silence fell over the settlement. I
+did not see a man anywhere. But I drew a long breath of relief because
+Sylvia was for a little while safe, even while I raged at the
+realization of her danger. My body was cramped, and cautiously I
+stretched my legs. Smilax had not moved.
+
+"It looks like we got here just in time," I whispered. "But what shall
+we do?"
+
+He relaxed then, and slowly answered:
+
+"Me think 'while. Echochee good old woman; always kind to l'il black
+boy."
+
+"You know her?" I could hardly have hoped for that stroke of luck.
+
+"Me know all Seminole; not many left. 'Echochee' mean what white man say
+'li'l deer.' She old woman when me l'il black boy in Reservation. Me
+think 'while; you, too."
+
+Schemes of every wild kind, daring and impossible plans of rescue,
+raced through my brain; seeming reasonable enough at the time, but
+Smilax quickly found the flaws in each until I had exhausted my supply.
+Finally he spoke, and I knew that he spoke with judgment.
+
+"To-night," he said, "we watch and see if they put out guard. Maybe they
+do, after what Jess said 'bout Lady run off. When dark come, me swim to
+l'il island and give owl call--two times, then stop soft in middle. Long
+'go in Injun village that mean: 'panther, come quick, gun,' Echochee
+will hear and 'member. Good. Then we talk and fix all up. First we see
+if Efaw Kotee put out guard."
+
+This was so different, so tame, to the brilliant, suicidal dashes into
+the thick of rescue and glory--and doubtless destruction--as my plans
+ran, that I almost felt ashamed. Smilax could neither read nor write;
+his vocabulary might have been held in the hollow of one's hand, but in
+many respects he was the sanest creature I ever met.
+
+"Do you suppose Echochee will trust us to get them away?" I whispered.
+
+"If Lady say come, she come," he answered.
+
+This set me thinking, and I decided to write a note that Smilax could
+deliver. Sylvia might then feel assured that she was not being abducted
+by a negro whom Echochee had known only in childhood. But, on second
+thought, I wondered if she would risk escape with an unknown white man;
+if she would not rather face the supreme issue, once and for all, than
+perhaps be forced into it later by an over-zealous stranger! In her
+distracted state of mind I feared she would find the rescue too
+precarious--too easily offering the same danger that beset her now, and
+lacking her present weapon of defense. Yet if she refused to come--what
+then? I could always rush the camp, if but to die with her. Having gone
+over these possibilities, I whispered to Smilax:
+
+"She'll come easier if she doesn't know I'm here. Echochee will remember
+you, and reassure her. You might tell Echochee that you were hunting
+this way and saw her beat the chap over the head with the tray.
+Understand? After that you saw the rest and realized how much trouble
+she was in. How about it?"
+
+"Good," he grunted. "That good. To-night me tell Echochee get ready, and
+to-morrow night we run 'way--maybe to Reservation. But we come by camp
+and find you; then all work 'round to yacht. Good."
+
+"Well," I demurred, "that isn't the way I meant, for I intend to stay
+here and help. Some of those devils might get busy!"
+
+"That good, too. Now we eat; then you go sleep."
+
+While tackling our rations we discussed the plan again and again. I did
+not want to leave Sylvia another night within the grasp of those fiends,
+but Smilax insisted; explaining that she was practically safe for three
+days, at any rate. Of course, each twenty-four hours would make her and
+Echochee weaker from starvation and, as they would need strength, we
+dared not wait too long. Immediate help from the _Whim_ was all but a
+forlorn hope. The rescue had come suddenly up to us, and it must be met
+without a thought of failure.
+
+But as the tiresome afternoon wore on without further incidents to keep
+us aroused, my fancies drifted from rescues to the rescued; and after a
+while I whispered:
+
+"I'll take that nap now,"--scarcely hearing him reply:
+
+"Good."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+THE CAVE MAN SETS FORTH
+
+
+Close to my ear I heard a warning: "Sh!"--at the same time feeling a
+hand squeeze my arm. It was dusk. While I slept the shadows had
+lengthened and blended into those soft gray tones of twilight that give
+mystery to forests of the South. Cautiously I raised my head and,
+following the tense stare of Smilax, saw the cause of his agitation.
+
+Three men were standing on the larger island, at the spot where Efaw
+Kotee and Jess had stood, and one held a piece of coiled rope tied to a
+grappling hook. They were whispering and chuckling. Then he with the
+iron hook began to swing it back and forth, finally letting it fly
+across the water into the punt, whereupon they chuckled again. Now they
+began to haul in the line at a lively rate, doubtless fearing that
+Echochee, aroused by the noise, would rush out and frustrate them. But
+the house remained quiet, even dark; and, since the boat's painter was
+of slim material, there could be only one result when they gave a hard
+pull--the punt was theirs.
+
+This procedure disturbed Smilax, no less myself. There was deviltry
+afoot, yet hardly a plan for capturing the girl as other punts were
+available. But the next moment we breathed easier, for the men broke
+into a boisterous laugh, and one called:
+
+"Ole hatchet-face, yo're done out-punted this time!"
+
+Another, bending over and slapping his thigh in mirthful ecstasy,
+guffawed:
+
+"Bill says she's done out-_punted_," whereupon they again laughed, and a
+third called:
+
+"This here busts yo' chance of makin' a git-away to-night, yer ole
+she-devil! The chief's on to yer, he is!"
+
+"They expect an escape," I whispered.
+
+Smilax nodded. His face was grave.
+
+Then came a most exasperating moment, when I hugged the ground so close
+that my body felt no thicker than a playing card. The men, each picking
+up a rifle, stepped into the punt and paddled to our side. Two of them
+climbed the bank, one going about a hundred yards to our left, and the
+other, passing within ten feet of us, went the opposite way. We could
+not follow him with our eyes but knew, by counting his steps, that he
+stopped at about an equal distance. Then the punt glided back and
+disappeared behind the little island. Guards! Sentinels! We were
+trapped, as well as those whom we had come to save!
+
+The firm fingers of Smilax had never left my arm, a continuous caution
+for silence that I minded well. Ten minutes passed, and the trees had
+all but lost their shapes. In another ten minutes the night wholly
+enveloped us, and then the black man moved so that his lips were at my
+ear, while he barely whispered:
+
+"Me go; noise in camp will help. You wait still like dead; me come back
+soon."
+
+I did not attempt to answer, for there was nothing to say. Flanked by
+the two sentinels, I was pretty sure to wait, and wait like dead, too.
+He began to move then, yet he did not seem to move. But as I
+watched--more with my senses than my eyes--I knew that he had worked his
+head and shoulders out of our shelter, and was edging himself along at
+the rate of perhaps a foot a minute. Soon I realized that he had
+entirely gone; that, free of the saw-palmetto--a most difficult stuff in
+which to move silently--he was topping the bank. I could imagine how he
+glided now, alligator fashion, head downward to the water; and I could
+almost feel the moment he slid noiselessly into it. I waited for the owl
+call--"two times, then stop soft in middle."
+
+And now an electric torch flashed where the sentry on my right was
+posted, and I froze, wondering if it were directed at Smilax. But no
+challenge came. In a very short interval it flashed again, and the
+fellow called in military style:
+
+"Post one, seven o'clock, and all's well!"
+
+The voice at my left took it up:
+
+"Post two, seven o'clock, and all's well!"
+
+From somewhere beyond Sylvia's island the third guard called post three,
+and silence followed. I was glad to find that they called their posts.
+It told us that there were only three, and gave a very fair idea of
+their positions. Of course, we could not hope, with this military
+precaution, to have one of them fall asleep at a convenient moment.
+Especially would this not happen with a newly placed guard--and these
+fellows were on watch to-night for the first time, else we would have
+seen them, or they us, when we came that morning. Smilax, also, would
+have discovered them the night before. Sylvia and Echochee, therefore,
+had just come under suspicion of intending to escape--and we were in the
+nick of time, although I felt staggered by the job ahead of us.
+
+After another wait the fellow at post one again flashed his torch--on
+his watch, no doubt, because from time to time there were other flashes
+and, after the last of these, he called half-past seven. That was good
+for us, too--the half hours! Eight o'clock came, then half after, then
+nine. The lights in the camp had been extinguished. A real owl hooted
+mournfully somewhere back in the forest. I was waiting for post one to
+be called again when a voice, not twelve inches from my face, whispered:
+
+"All right; come; slow like me. When you think you can no go more slow,
+then go two times as slow."
+
+Had it not been for that last piece of advice I might have made a mess
+of things, but by moving at first scarcely more than an inch a minute,
+by distributing my feeling sense to every part of my body, detecting the
+slightest pull at my clothing, the merest contact with any little twig
+that might traitorously snap--in fact, by almost wishing myself along--I
+came at last free of the palmettoes and lay beside him. From there our
+progress was easier, and shortly we got to our hands and knees.
+
+After following in this manner for two hundred yards Smilax stopped and
+sat down.
+
+"You do good," he said. "Wait; me go back."
+
+"What for?" I asked, in surprise. "Tell me what Echochee said?"
+
+"After 'while," he answered. "Me go fix pine needles where we crawl out;
+then take look at all's-well-men. You wait."
+
+I should never have thought about obliterating our trail in the pine
+needles, yet now saw that it was a very necessary thing to do, for men
+can not crawl on their stomachs without mussing the ground if it is at
+all soft. In the morning those fellows would see our tracks leading from
+the palmetto patch and, to a certainty, be waiting for us when we
+returned.
+
+He was back sooner than I expected, and we took a good swinging pace to
+camp. Not till he had made a mere handful of fire and warmed over some
+coffee (gods of good things, how delicious it was!) and I had lighted my
+pipe (O, goddess Nicotine, what a pipe!) would he speak. Then suddenly
+he said:
+
+"We no lay out to-morrow."
+
+"Why?" I asked, quickly alarmed that Sylvia had refused to come.
+
+"No use. When men on guard call, we find 'em easy. No much palmetto; we
+slip up good."
+
+I laughed; not at what he said, but because to laugh was irresistible.
+My nerves were just a little drunk on relaxation.
+
+"Come across with what Echochee said," I told him.
+
+He grinned and nodded.
+
+"Echochee know me. Me no call like owl, for 'fraid all's-well-men no be
+fooled; so crawl close and scratch on wall. She come to place inside,
+then me put mouth to crack and say in Seminole: 'Echochee, me
+Tachachobee.' She squat down by crack and whisper back: 'You lie. What
+your father name?' Me say: 'Black boy got no father; Echochee friend,
+Wanona, squaw of Kittimee, raise him.' Then she ask back quick: 'How
+many pickaninny Kittimee and Wanona had?' Me say: 'Boy child.' She
+whisper quicker: 'What wigwam stood in morning shadow to Kittimee?' Me
+say: 'Echochee wigwam.' She say: 'Who next?' Me say: 'Pattawa, him shoot
+long gun.' She wait 'while, and say: 'If you Tachachobee, what scar you
+got on left leg?' Me say: 'No scar on left leg, scar on right leg; four
+teeth of Pawpawloochee spotted dog what wildcat kill.' She know then me
+tell no lie, and unlock door and come out, and take my hand. 'You big
+man now, Tachachobee,' she say. 'Me got big man job, Echochee,' me say,
+and tell her how me take 'em 'way."
+
+I was charmed with the way Echochee had put Smilax through the third
+degree, so to speak, because it proved that Sylvia had a shrewd
+protector; one who would at least not be outmatched except by
+force--and, judging from the tray episode, even force would have to be
+considerable.
+
+"She go in," Smilax continued, "and tell Lady, then Lady come out and
+say: 'Good. We be ready. How we know when you come?' And me tell her
+this, Mister Jack, so you listen for you have to do um. Me say: 'You
+hear men call what time?' She say she do. Me say: 'You hear 'em call
+all's well?' She say she do, and me say: 'When you hear one call
+all's-er-well, unlock door for me come quick.'"
+
+"You want me to call all's-er-well, instead of all's-well? Is that the
+idea?"
+
+"Good. We slip up on guard; you take man at One, me man at Two; we kill
+'em quick and make no noise. Man at Three far off; him no count. Me wait
+then till time for next call. If me hear all's-er-well, me know you no
+dead, and go in water. Then you come quick and quiet to place where Two
+is dead and make call for him. Then Three will answer; we no care 'bout
+Three. If me take long, and come time for 'nother call, you do um same
+as first. Soon we be over."
+
+"You won't have a punt," I suggested.
+
+"No need um; water so," he drew his hand across his waist. "Tote Lady,
+then Echochee."
+
+"She doesn't know I'm to be there?"
+
+"No; plenty time."
+
+That night I slept heavily, as a man who has regained the bloom of
+health, and awoke with the rosy dawn. A few fiery bars shot across the
+sky, which the trees, brush and grass reflected. Red, everywhere red;
+and I thought how much more red the night would be after Smilax and I
+had silenced Posts One and Two. I raised my head and looked for him. The
+fire was burning, our breakfast was cooking. He had doubtless gone to
+the spring for water, so I rolled out of my lean-to and started to the
+pool; but stopped, listening.
+
+Somewhere ahead of me I heard his voice, deep and musical, droning a
+weird kind of chant that seemed to be utterly everlasting. It was not
+loud, but rather like a deep organ note that carries a long distance. In
+a while he came nearer, walking unconcernedly with his face to the sky.
+Over and over and over the chant continued; truly a sort of world
+without end.
+
+"Do you know the second verse?" I cheerily asked, as he was about to
+pass.
+
+He stopped, swung around, and showed his teeth in a smile that was as
+free from worry as the day.
+
+"Me sing askabee," he explained. "Enemy go down when me sing askabee."
+
+"Then pray continue, by all means," I said hurriedly, "Maybe after
+breakfast we can manage to knock out a duet."
+
+"We build fort after breakfast," he replied, unmindful of my banter.
+"Breakfast 'bout ready. Get wet quick and come back soon." It's a wonder
+he hadn't told me to smoke.
+
+On the southern and western edge of our "island"--thus being nearest
+Efaw Kotee's settlement--were a lot of fallen palms; trees that many
+years ago had been killed by fire and now lay partially rotted. The best
+of these Smilax had planned to make into a fort; not an elaborate
+affair, but a shoulder-high hollow square, around which was to be built
+another hollow square, a three foot space between their walls to be
+filled with sand. It was a good idea, and would stop a Krag or modern
+Springfield bullet with ease.
+
+We worked on this till noon; he trimming, lifting and placing the
+logs--and elephants have never swung teak more splendidly--while I, with
+our jointed camp spade, filled in the sand. The use of an axe could not
+possibly betray our position as Efaw Kotee had been betrayed, because
+the breeze continued from him to us, and also for the equally good
+reason that the bite of an axe in soggy palmetto does not sound with
+anything like the ring that is caused by hardwood. So our walls grew,
+being fitted with nice precision that gave them more than enough
+strength to sustain the filling of sand--which, in turn, was kept from
+sifting through the interstices by a double lining of palm leaves.
+
+After an early luncheon we went back to add a few finishing touches, and
+then stood off admiring it.
+
+"Oughtn't we put in a stock of provisions?" I asked.
+
+"No stay long 'nough in there to get much hungry," Smilax shook his
+head. "One night and they pull um down and got us. Good to keep 'em off
+in daytime; after dark we run in grass."
+
+There was something in what he said.
+
+With the approach of evening a curious calm came over me. Perhaps it was
+the nearness of action, perhaps because I had accustomed myself to the
+thought that before another dawn I must deliberately slip upon a fellow
+man and destroy him. In France, with a battle raging, men lost their
+identity, and if--or when--we killed one, we rarely knew it. But in this
+peaceful country it seemed a more murderous thing to do. Yet perhaps
+the truest reason why my nerves had turned to steel was the dominating
+thought of Sylvia.
+
+Twice I rehearsed before Smilax what I was to do. I stood apart and
+called: "Post One, nine o'clock, and all's-er-well!" to let him judge if
+my voice differed materially from the one we heard last night. This was
+most important, as the suspicion of the guard at post Three must not be
+aroused. I then called the next post in an altered voice, and felt well
+pleased when Smilax said the tones were near enough to pass.
+
+It was an uncanny rehearsal, this imitating the voices of those whom we
+should have made forever silent, but if there existed anywhere on earth
+a justification for the taking of human life it rested with Smilax and
+me. We were not killers, but defenders; we did not go so much to destroy
+as to save. Our way was the only way to rescue a helpless girl and a
+faithful old woman from destruction. Two men, or two hundred, made no
+difference now; I would kill all, or any number, who stood in the way of
+that beloved girl's safety.
+
+We looked over our firearms. I had given him Tommy's "l'il crack-crack"
+which, with my own, were the only weapons we intended to take--I mean
+the only explosive weapons, for Smilax carried his long, keen-edged
+hunting knife, a thing he was never without; and I, likewise, strapped
+on my own. After this we went about putting the camp in order; building
+a shelter tent by the spring for Sylvia and an adjacent lean-to for
+Echochee. Joyfully I robbed myself of bedding, arranged comfortable
+shake-downs with moss and leaves of the cabbage palm, and did everything
+conceivable to make the place attractive.
+
+I had demurred at first about coming back here for a day or two;
+wanting, instead, to travel as speedily as possible to Big Cove, where
+the _Whim_--and if not the _Whim_, at least the _Orchid_--would be at
+our disposal. But he showed me the futility of this. In the first place,
+that was exactly what Efaw Kotee would be suspecting when the escape
+became known. The dead sentries, certain to be discovered when they
+failed to call the next half hour, would reveal the story of outside
+help, so the pursuit would be swift and directly up the coast--swifter,
+indeed, than she might be able to travel.
+
+"Why shouldn't they think we'd taken her off in a small boat," I asked,
+"and escaped through the islands?"
+
+"Then Efaw Kotee want to know why kill guard on mainland."
+
+"That's so. But, Smilax, suppose we hide the guards?"
+
+He thought a moment over this, but finally shook his head.
+
+"No good. Then Efaw Kotee say guard run off with Lady, so he come back
+'cross prairie same as up and down shore. That make our chance ve'y bad.
+No. They find men dead, then hunt quick through forest up beach; maybe
+down beach. After 'while, maybe they find sign where me and you camp in
+L'il Cove; then they know small boat been there and gone. Then they come
+home mad, and when all quiet we make big circle to _Whim_. Some day we
+come back; maybe kill 'em all. Me want Jess; him crack Smilax head. That
+good plan; you smoke."
+
+I lay on the ground and smiled. Kill 'em all! Gods, but I was going back
+into the primitive by leaps and bounds! I wondered if that girl would
+trust herself to me, were she to know!
+
+"Me big fool," Smilax suddenly cried, smashing a fist into the palm of
+his hand.
+
+"What's the matter?" I sat up, asking.
+
+"Me ought to be in L'il Cove and make fresh signs. Me big fool!"
+
+It would have been a cute move, but now too late, and I told him so.
+
+"No too late," he sprang up. "Three hour more sun."
+
+"But, Smilax, it took us the best part of a day to come here! You can't
+do it!"
+
+"Me go short way back, and fast." He pointed to the western sky, at an
+angle of about twenty degrees above the horizon, asking: "When night
+come you see big star there?"
+
+I nodded. It was Jupiter or Venus, I didn't know which; but it was large
+and beautiful, and I had seen it many evenings.
+
+"When um touch top of trees you start. Me meet you on far side of
+prairie."
+
+Feeling to see if his weapons were securely holstered he was off without
+another word to make signs in the sand at Little Cove that would look as
+though this very afternoon a landing party had been there, and I
+wondered if real Indians could possess the foresight of this big negro.
+In amazement I watched him growing smaller and smaller across the sea of
+grass; going north-by-northwest now, and not the way we came. The
+prairie in this direction must have extended five miles before it met
+the forest, and as long as my eyes could follow him he was jogging at a
+good free trot. By this more direct route he had perhaps ten or twelve
+miles to go each way; and his return would be at night, lighted by a
+partial moon. I knew that he would make it, and be at our meeting place
+when I arrived, but how he could possibly do so was in a realm beyond my
+comprehension.
+
+When the evening star sank and touched the forest I quietly left our
+camp. The night air was delightfully mellow, but my soul, my nerves, my
+determination were as cold as the long blade of my knife. In our present
+days of railroads, telegraphs and institutions of learning I was merely
+a chap setting out to take a girl from a den of rogues; but in this
+night-bathed Florida wilderness civilization had been stripped to the
+bone. I was a man going forth to steal a female--I had come from my lair
+at dusk, set off with a snarl on my lips and a firm grip upon my stone
+axe; so completely dominated by this feeling that human pawns who might
+stand in the way would be of no more consequence than ants.
+
+From the lighter prairie I cautiously approached the black shadows of
+the forest, made impenetrably dark by a network of branches and a mat of
+leaves which no ray from the half grown moon could pierce. As I was
+about to enter Smilax arose from the ground in front of me.
+
+"Good," he whispered. "We rest li'l while; then go fix 'em."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+THE RESCUE
+
+
+We lay in silence till at last, faintly, came the call of post one. I
+listened, trying to catch the quality of his voice, knowing I soon
+should have to imitate it. To the call of the next man I also listened.
+The third did not concern us more than to know he was on duty. No others
+called, so the guard had not been strengthened. These voices seemed to
+arouse Smilax, for he raised himself up on one elbow, whispering:
+
+"What time they say?"
+
+"Ten o'clock," I answered.
+
+"Good. We fix 'em 'leven; come."
+
+So the game was on! I followed silently--and savagely; for, as I have
+said, the human pawns who stood between me and my maid held no more
+value than the ants.
+
+For about ten minutes our progress went reasonably well, then Smilax
+slowed to a pace of extreme caution and finally sank to his hands and
+knees. In this manner we crawled a few hundred yards farther.
+
+"Here your place," he put his lips close to my ear and whispered. "First
+man not ve'y far; straight. You find out when he call once more, or
+flash light. Watch when Two man call so you know where go next. No let
+'em call 'leven. Good. Me go now." And he was off like a snake to take
+up a position behind post two.
+
+I felt about me and, finding the ground clear of any growth that might
+produce a noise, moved stealthily forward, still on my hands and knees;
+but, after each step, pausing and feeling ahead until my fingers seemed
+to have grown as long and sensitive as antennae. In this way I must have
+gone another two hundred feet when I saw a glimmer of white light. It
+was the electric torch, and I knew the sentry must be looking at his
+watch.
+
+Fleeting as it had been it showed me that between us lay a patch of
+saw-palmetto, and this was awkward as I could get no idea of its depth.
+But since he did not call the post I knew that he would soon be taking
+another look at the time, and kept warily on, my eyes alert to ascertain
+the dimensions of that patch the instant his torch should flare. For I
+must crawl around it; to go through would be impossible. Smilax could
+have achieved it, but Smilax was a wonder.
+
+The light showed again. I was within fifty feet of the patch now and saw
+with a feeling of relief that it ended almost at the spot where my man
+stood, or sat, or whatever he was doing. Still, the time had not come
+for him to call the half hour, when I should be able to advance more
+rapidly during the few seconds that his voice would make him insensible
+to other slight sounds. Inch by inch, almost holding my breath, I
+crawled. The pine needles let me slide along as though on a greased
+floor. My left hand touched a saw-toothed stem, so I veered slightly to
+the right, getting closer, all the while closer.
+
+At the next flash I heard him clear his throat--that had ever
+been his prelude to a call--and by the time his sing-song
+"Post-one-half-past-ten-and-all's-well" ended I had made good
+progress. Now, close up behind the point of palmettoes which acted
+as a screen but was too sparse to offer interference, I realized
+that he could be not more than ten feet away; and this was the best
+I could hope to do, surely as close as I dared get.
+
+But ten feet was too great a space to be crossed at a bound before he
+might utter one cry that would alarm the camp. One cry, even half a cry,
+meant ruin to us. It was not enough that this sentry die; he must die
+without having uttered the merest sound. I determined, therefore, to
+wait until his senses became focused, his breathing centered, on the
+eleven o'clock call; for, so occupied, his mind would be a fraction of a
+second slower in responding to an outside thought which came unawares to
+him than if he were standing on the alert for sounds. This seemed to be
+good psychology. When he cleared his throat to call eleven, therefore, I
+would spring--and the gods be with me!
+
+I own that for a little while my heart did pound unmercifully, but with
+even less mercy I willed it to be calm. For the moment I almost
+regretted having come so near, because it seemed preposterous to suppose
+that he would not discover me. I could distinctly hear the slightest
+move he made--but it must be remembered that I was listening to him,
+whereas he did not suspect my existence. Once he knocked the dead ashes
+from his pipe against the heel of his boot; then I thought he was
+getting ready for a smoke, and soon after this he struck a match.
+
+As the flame, sheltered by his two hands held cup-wise, flickered above
+the bowl I got a look at him. He impressed me as being a well put up
+fellow of considerable strength, who would not be conquered without
+trouble. But never have I seen a face present a pantomime of more brutal
+indifference. It was seamed with lines of cruelty; the coarse lips were
+hideously puckered about the pipe stem; his eyes drooped in bestial
+satisfaction as he sucked at it. While he was getting the light, thus
+creating a noise in his own ears that would drown a slighter noise from
+me, I took the opportunity to arrange my position somewhat, and now felt
+satisfied. With clean ground beneath me, with only a thin screen of
+palmetto leaves between us, how better could I have planned!
+
+Minutes sped, and my senses seemed to have accumulated into a little
+ball between my eyes. I may have trembled; I know that my nerves were
+stretched to the very highest fighting pitch, they were in tune with my
+determination. The next half hour would decide the salvation or
+destruction of the girl I loved.
+
+The electric torch flashed on a silver watch in his huge, dirty hand. I
+held my breath, ready--but he did not call. Again I had to will my heart
+to stop its sudden thumping; again I settled down to wait--though with
+my legs crouched and my fingers resting on the sand, as I had "set" many
+a time for a hundred yard dash. All I needed now was the word "Go!"
+
+More minutes sped. At last he moved, and I guessed that he was reaching
+into his pocket for the torch. It flashed, shining on the silver watch
+as before. I heard the cover snap to with a click of finality; he
+cleared his throat--and I bounded into the air.
+
+He had no time to cry out before my fingers locked upon his throat as
+jaws of iron. He staggered and caught my wrists, but did not immediately
+begin the frantic struggle I expected. His rifle fell to the soft earth
+with hardly a sound and, like a dead weight, he crumpled up; falling so
+quickly that I nearly came down on top of him.
+
+At first, suspecting this might be a ruse to break my grip, I squeezed
+the tighter, holding his head up as far as my knees and shaking it with
+the savageness that a terrier would shake a rat. There was no room for
+compromises here. Grimly believing him to be beyond the point of giving
+an alarm, I was not prepared for an attack when he came to life with an
+energy born of desperation, wrapped his arms about my legs and with
+tremendous strength jerked me forward, at the same instant striking me
+in the back with his knee. Thus, to keep from pitching over his head, I
+involuntarily lost my hold--the last of all things I would have done!
+
+Yet the effect to so violent a choking seemed for the moment to have
+paralyzed his power to call, and swiftly, as a darting hawk, I made
+another grab for the throat that must at all costs be silenced. He had
+covered it with his own hands and I could not pry away his fingers.
+Again and again I tried, and now, with growing strength, he caught my
+wrists and held them. Maddened by the specter of failure, I heard him
+drawing in a labored breath that I knew would come out in a hideous
+yell.
+
+Success lay upon the fraction of a second. In a frenzy jerking one of my
+hands free, and throwing the full weight of my body across his face to
+momentarily smother the outcry, I twisted around, drew my knife, and
+plunged it deep into his side. There was a convulsive tremor, and
+silence. Yet, as the king snake had done, I also drew back warily,
+listening. It had been enough.
+
+Springing up, and trying to calm my breathing, I called:
+
+"Post one, 'leven o'clock, and all's-er-well!"
+
+The last word had no more than been pronounced when I was moving
+swiftly, silently on post number two. True to his intention, Smilax had
+prepared the way.
+
+"Post two, 'leven o'clock, and all's-er-well!" I called in an altered
+voice.
+
+The sentry at post three, doubtless having a vein of humor or finding
+any variation of his tedious duty agreeable, dwelt in his turn long and
+almost lovingly over the "er-well," making it sound "e-e-er-well."
+
+"How you like that?" he called, in a guarded tone, and receiving no
+answer, laughed: "Then go ter hell with yer perlite manners."
+
+A few minutes elapsed before I was conscious of a movement in the water,
+slight, barely distinguishable. But my eyes had grown more and more
+accustomed to the darkness and I thought that I made out something
+coming toward the shore. Creeping a little forward and listening, I felt
+that it was Smilax carrying Sylvia, and became certain of this when
+someone was deposited there who began cautiously to climb the bank.
+Smilax, evidently, had turned back for Echochee. But along this section
+of the mainland the bank was steep, and the climber came with
+difficulty--once slipping and making what I thought to be an awful
+racket. Even the humorous sentry on post three heard it and,
+providentially unsuspicious, called:
+
+"Yer ain't bit yerse'f, have yer?"
+
+I made no answer to this, trusting him to be satisfied with his own wit.
+Yet now, following a most natural impulse, forgetting in our extreme
+peril that Sylvia was unaware of my presence, I leaned above the top and
+reached down to her; when, to my utter consternation, she gave a
+piercing scream of terror. Quick as a flash the sentry at post three
+yelled and fired his gun, and the sleeping camp became a bedlam of
+cursing men.
+
+"For God's sake," I whispered--but Smilax had turned back to us and was
+beside her.
+
+"Him friend," he said, hurriedly. "Only friend we got! Go with him
+quick! Me get Echochee!"
+
+While saying this he was pushing her up to me, at the same time holding
+out a bag, or kind of traveling case, that she had dropped. I seized it
+with one hand, and her arm with the other.
+
+"Quick; go to camp," Smilax was saying. "Me get Echochee and give 'em
+chase up coast. Be back soon; you wait there."
+
+He had taken to the water again and was making for the Indian woman, who
+I thought had started out to meet him. So I knew he would rescue her, as
+surely as he was six and a half feet of muscle and endurance. The camp
+had become thoroughly aroused by now, and lights were everywhere. Hoping
+to reassure Sylvia, I whispered as Smilax would have spoken:
+
+"Me friend; come quick!"
+
+Above the confusion we could hear the voice of Efaw Kotee bellowing:
+
+"Get the punts, you fools! Which way is she?"
+
+"On the mainland," someone yelled.
+
+"Then catch her," he bellowed again, with a string of blasphemous oaths.
+
+This decided her, and she whispered wildly:
+
+"Hurry! Take me where Tachachobee said!"
+
+We dashed through the forest, I leading, she close behind. Nor had we
+any time to spare, for before we had gone a hundred yards two quick
+shots rang out. It was "li'l crack-crack" speaking, I felt sure of it.
+
+Shots answered rapidly in threes and fours. The automatic spoke again,
+this time farther to the north, drawing more shots from the angry
+pursuers; but I knew that among trees so thick and in darkness so
+impenetrable Smilax and Echochee ran little chance of being hit. At the
+prairie, made vaguely lighter by a hazy, half grown moon, we crouched in
+the grass and waited.
+
+You have never, I suppose, been afraid to breathe, flattened against a
+wall, or huddled in a shadowy place, listening to the growls and grunts
+and sniffs of the man-beast hunting you? No, of course not.
+
+Men were now tearing through the forest like a herd of stampeded horses,
+shooting, yelling, cursing, while at brief intervals the automatic told
+them which way to go. Farther and farther the chase went, all the time
+following the coast and leading away from us till, after twenty minutes,
+the yells were hardly discernible and the shots sounded like faint
+little pops of a nursery gun. But they were as rapid as ever, telling us
+that the pursuit had in no way diminished. Smilax, undoubtedly master of
+the situation, would lead them on and on; either close by Big Cove so
+those aboard the _Whim_--had she made harbor--could take a hand, or
+finally lose them somewhere in the treacherous Everglades. Then he would
+came back for us. I felt no great uncertainty for Smilax and Echochee.
+
+I now straightened up--taking care that she should not see my face--and
+listened to satisfy myself that no one had stayed behind to be roaming
+in the forest near us, then whispered:
+
+"Come!"
+
+In silence, she following, we crossed the two mile space, and I drew a
+deep breath of thankfulness when we at last stepped beneath the black
+trees of my "island."
+
+I knew that she had taken me for a Seminole--at least, the probability
+seemed to be strong in that direction. The darkness again was too
+intense for her to see my features, and, since I had been fairly
+successful in speaking the choppy English of the Indian, I determined to
+continue the deception until morning. For she had become somewhat
+accustomed to the "trusted friend" by now, whereas re-introductions at
+this hour would be exceedingly awkward, if not quite disastrous to her
+peace of mind. So, without a halt, I walked on through the trees until
+we came to her tent. At the door of this I put down her bag, then
+stepped back and for a second at arm's length flashed my electric torch
+on it, again being careful to keep my face in shadow.
+
+"You safe here," I said. "Tachachobee make this camp for you. Me and him
+camp little way off. To-night me watch to see when him and Echochee
+come. No one find you; you sleep well. Tachachobee good man; me and him
+friends. You no be 'fraid."
+
+"Thank you," she said wearily. Ah, how tired her voice did seem!
+
+"There water; good to drink. You hungry?" I asked.
+
+"No, thank you,--what is your name?"
+
+This was a poser, for I had not thought up a name. But, of course, Jack
+came first into my mind, so I answered:
+
+"Jackachobee."
+
+"No, thank you, Jackachobee," she said, "I'm not hungry."
+
+"You want gun?" I asked again.
+
+"I have one," she answered.
+
+"Good. Then you sleep; no one find you here. In morning take time; when
+ready for breakfast walk back this way a hundred steps and whistle like
+plover. Then me come and show you way. Sleep good."
+
+Thus, feeling very well satisfied with my Indian impersonation--which,
+nevertheless, had its faults--I left her; turning and going to the fort,
+there choosing a place where I could keep guard all night against
+possible danger.
+
+Long and earnestly did I listen for some sound of the chase, but the
+night had grown absolutely still except for a soft breeze rustling the
+palm fronds above my head and the prairie grass in front of me. Yet I
+felt secure in the belief that Smilax had not been taken. Without
+question, he and Echochee were still in flight, heading toward some safe
+refuge; coaxing, by shot or cry, the furious pack that tore hopefully
+after them. I knew that my vigil here was unnecessary--that with all
+senses focused on the chase no straggler would by any chance be coming
+this far out into the prairie--but I had told Sylvia it would be kept.
+
+As I sat there, joyous over the conquest we had made, but more supremely
+happy because she was safe and near me, thinking tumultuous things which
+were a credit to mankind, hoping hopes that man has never realized, I
+raised my face to the sky and thanked God.
+
+Creature of incongruities! I thanked God for putting her safely into my
+keeping, when my fingers had not yet been washed after their bath in a
+fellow creature's blood! The cave man had gone abroad at dusk to find a
+mate, and human pawns who stood in his way had been of no more
+consequence than ants!
+
+Thus it has always been for the women we love. Thus it should be.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+DOLORIA
+
+
+With the first glimpse of dawn I arose and faced the East; my arms out,
+my palms up, and across them my rifle as a kind of offering to the day.
+I do not know why I did this--this spontaneous though semi-pagan
+act--except that on my "island," and in my power, slept the girl I
+loved; she whom I had stolen from her watchful tribe, whom I would have
+as mate. By all the laws of the wilderness she was mine, and I wanted to
+tell someone, to challenge the wild, that these arms and hands and this
+rifle would protect her till the end.
+
+A thin mist hung low upon the prairie, a faint tint of salmon touched
+the sky, and to my lips sprang the words of that inspiring "Salutation
+of the Dawn" which found expression in the Orient many thousands of
+years ago:
+
+        _Listen to the Exhortation of the Dawn!
+                Look to this Day!
+        For it is life, the very life of life.
+        In its brief course lie all the verities
+        And realities of your existence:
+                The glory of action,
+                The bliss of growth,
+                The splendor of beauty:
+        For yesterday is but a dream,
+        And tomorrow is only a vision;
+        But today well-lived makes
+        Every yesterday a dream of happiness,
+        And every tomorrow a vision of hope.
+        Look well, therefore, to this Day!_
+
+Then, as the light increased and the mist began to dissolve, I swept the
+prairie in all directions for a sign of enemies. Everywhere was peace.
+
+Assured that Efaw Kotee would never find us here I turned and went to my
+lean-to--to the place my lean-to had been before we moved it beside the
+spring--gathered up my knick-knacks and repaired to the pool, emerging
+half an hour later a more presentable man. After this I built a small
+fire of buttonwood and set about preparing breakfast.
+
+But this proved to be a perplexing ordeal. Bilkins had packed in a lot
+of stuff that he might have manipulated, though to me it was worse than
+Greek. Of course, I could cook up coffee and bacon--the kind of meal
+Smilax and I were used to--but Sylvia must never be subjected to that!
+And it would be insane of me to go out on the prairie after snipe! There
+was nothing for it but prepare a dainty concoction from what we had, so,
+wishing heartily that Bilkins had come off in the small boat with me, I
+dived into our stores on a tour of inspection.
+
+Tea!--who wanted tea for breakfast! A pot of butter!--appropriate
+enough, though it might have been fresher. A can of beans!--worse than
+tea. A can of finnan haddie came after this, and several cans that only
+Bilkins could have understood. But in the end I carried a number of them
+to the fire and had a general opening, arranged them in a row, and began
+to cook. The chief trouble was that I did not know which should be done
+thoroughly and which merely warmed up. Anyway, I emptied something,
+inviting if unpronounceable, into the skillet and as it began to sizzle
+it smelt really good. So I crouched lower, stirring vigorously to keep
+it from scorching, and thought of the surprise it would be to her--for,
+to be quite frank, it was a surprise to me!
+
+Then a voice at my back, making me forget the sizzling stuff, the fire,
+the breakfast, said with a note of extreme anxiety:
+
+"Good morning, Jackachobee! Oughtn't Echochee be here by this time? You
+don't think any thing's happened to her, do you? I can't whistle like a
+plover and had to come to breakfast unannounced. I hope it's ready.
+You've seen nothing of those men?"
+
+I did not move under this rapid fire of questions and statements. To the
+contrary, I lowered my head and was afraid to move; afraid to face the
+rebuke, or the fear, or whatever it would be, that might naturally
+follow her discovery of my deception. But more potent than this dread
+was the thrill of joy I felt in knowing that she stood close behind me;
+that when I turned I should see her there, face to face. Yet the very
+thought of turning again started the chill of apprehension. Without
+doubt she would wither me like a parched leaf for having played so silly
+a part as Indian. I began vigorously to stir the stuff in my skillet
+which now had stuck to the bottom and was smelling like the very old
+devil. Of course, my face would have been red, anyway--leaning over the
+fire as I was!
+
+"Are you keeping anything from me?" she cried, I thought on the verge of
+"nerves," so hesitating no longer I arose and turned to her.
+
+"Oh!" she gasped, drawing back and putting one hand to her breast--while
+the other, I noticed, fell mechanically to the butt of a revolver swung
+to her waist. Her eyes were wide with surprise, as her lips were parted
+in fear and utter wonderment. Truly, she was the incarnation of girlhood
+standing at bay!
+
+I had known her beauty; I had been astounded by it in the Havana cafe,
+in my dream, in the little kodak film of Monsieur's, and last, when she
+stood in her doorway less than forty-eight hours before. But here was
+something that transcended all that I had previously seen in her.
+Perhaps the young sun, golden in the morning atmosphere, cast the spell
+as it sought out spun-copper strands amongst her waves of hair; perhaps
+the days of anxiety, terminating in a night of unfearful sleep, had put
+the dew, the mystery, in her eyes; or it may have been the color,
+smouldering beneath the attractive tan on her cheeks and tinting her
+pure throat, that held me charmed; or the indefinable spirit of wildness
+that showed through a natural poise. I saw, too, in a hazy kind of way,
+a most bewitching costume--at least, admirably suited to her: a waist of
+olive-drab, not unlike our service shirts but of delicate material, open
+at the throat and fitting her snugly; quite a short skirt to match, and
+laced tan boots.
+
+"Please don't shoot," I said, trying to smile.
+
+"Where is Jackachobee?" she demanded.
+
+"I'm Jackachobee."
+
+"But you're not an Indian!"
+
+"No, but I really am the friend Tachachobee told you of."
+
+I could see that she was growing more alarmed, and now spoke frankly,
+saying:
+
+"I pretended to be a Seminole last night because explanations would have
+taken time; and I thought, too, that you'd feel safer with a good Indian
+because he's easier to boss than a white man."
+
+Her eyes narrowed, subtly suggesting that she might take this as a
+challenge. At last, having looked me over--but not once removing her
+hand from the revolver butt--she said, with a little pucker between her
+eyebrows:
+
+"I've seen you somewhere. Were you ever in our--in that place over
+there?"
+
+Now, of course, I could hardly expect her to see a resemblance between a
+chap wearing breeches and puttees in a Florida wilderness and the
+dinner-jacketed yachtsman who dined near her table off yonder in Havana.
+It would be asking a great deal--although I did feel disappointed.
+
+"No," I answered, "I haven't been in that settlement; but I watched it
+from a hiding place all of day before yesterday. You see, I've come two
+hundred miles to take you away from it."
+
+"You've come to--to take _me_?" she slowly asked, and I thought the
+color began to smoulder again; while from her eyes flashed a look that
+might have been a struggle between gratitude, resentment and fear.
+Wanting only the first to prevail I continued hastily:
+
+"Yes; I followed ever since you wrote that you were in danger, and I've
+sworn not to return to my yacht without you."
+
+"Oh!" she gasped, stepping back and staring at me through the swiftly
+changing lights of her awakening. "Surely," she caught her breath again,
+"surely you're not the--you _can't_ be!"
+
+"I am," I smiled, holding out my hand. "The man you gave the paper ball
+to."
+
+Impulsively she clasped it in both of her own, swaying slightly toward
+me and looking her gratitude through eyes brim-full of tears--but the
+angels be my witness that spoken words have never been so eloquent!
+Then she began to laugh--a little wildly, a little hysterically--so I
+said:
+
+"It's all right--you're safe here, absolutely! I watched last night and
+there wasn't the slightest sign of anyone. You see, Smilax--that's
+Tachachobee, but we call him Smilax because he smiles--well, he and
+Echochee purposely led those fellows up the coast, and they'll keep on
+leading them any-old-where until it's safe to join us here. It's been
+carefully planned out. However, I'll tell you everything
+after--after----" I looked ruefully at the shriveled black stuff now
+incinerated on the bottom of my skillet, adding: "but there isn't going
+to be any after; it's all burned up!"
+
+She had pluckily taken herself in hand by now and, following my dejected
+stare, cried:
+
+"Is _that_ our breakfast? Heavens, what a calamity! But show me where
+the things are and I'll cook another!"
+
+"You'll soil your fingers," I hesitatingly protested.
+
+"Soil my fingers! Of course, I will; but there's no scarcity of water,
+nor of my appetite, either--and we can't possibly eat what you cook!"
+
+"Oh, I don't know," I said, just a little touchily. "I'm a pretty good
+sort of a cook, I am!" Often have I noticed how the majority of men get
+touchy about their cooking.
+
+"The evidence is convincing," she laughed. "Where do you keep your
+stores? Hurry, please do, if you don't want a fainting woman on your
+hands. I'm starved!"
+
+Now I saw that some of this was being put on; that it was the slackening
+of tightly pulled nerves; so I encouraged her as far as I dared without
+being suspected, knowing that it is best to open all vents when one's
+feelings have been dangerously pent up. As to my ability to cook!--why,
+there were extenuating circumstances governing this breakfast that
+should have excused it. Some day I'd surprise her.
+
+I changed that idea quickly enough when she took charge, however, for in
+ten minutes there were two or three things sizzling and sending out an
+aroma that might have brought Epicurus himself back to life. What's
+more, she did not seem to be worrying over them; she did not even seem
+particular about stirring them, nor did she burn her fingers, nor get
+red in the face and hot, nor suffer any of those agonies that I had
+supposed were a necessary part of culinary science.
+
+"You're a wonder," I exclaimed. "Darned if I've ever seen such a swell
+cook!"
+
+"Thank you, sir," she tossed her head and mimicked. "I'm glad I please,
+sir."
+
+"Like your new place?" I asked, gravely.
+
+"I've seen worse, sir."
+
+"Like your new master, too?" I ventured.
+
+"Marster, is it!" She sent me a look with which there was a most
+fetching little curve at the corners of her lips that she seemed unable
+to control. "I'll 'ave you understand that queens of the kitchen know no
+marster!"
+
+"But you won't be in the kitchen all the time."
+
+"That I will," she replied. "In the woods, all the world's a kitchen!"
+
+"I rather wish it was," I sighed, looking toward the savory skillet and
+coffee pot; whereupon she gave the brightest of laughs, telling me to
+set the table as things were about ready.
+
+But Smilax and I had never bothered about a table. We did not even
+possess a cloth, or napkin, or anything like that. So I cut some palm
+leaves, arranging them on the ground; then ransacked the duffle for a
+small kit of aluminum plates and cups, with also knives and forks.
+Neither had Smilax and I deigned to use this kit, principally because
+our meals had been taken on the move. At best palm leaves do not make a
+good table, as their ridges cause the dishes to wobble; so in the end we
+spread our steaming feast upon the grass.
+
+My word, but that was a breakfast! I don't remember what we had, but it
+did taste good. When it was over, right down to the last crumb--for she
+had complained of starvation, too--I looked across at her, saying:
+
+"If I can move, at all, and you're willing to go slowly, I'd like to
+show you over your new possessions!"
+
+"Right away? Mercy no," she stood up, brushing her skirt. "I'm going to
+get a cigarette, and you're going to wash the dishes!"
+
+"But Smilax washes the dishes," I protested.
+
+"And he may be thirty miles from here," she announced.
+
+"Will you come back and watch me?"
+
+"I will if you want me to," she laughed, "but you'll look awfully
+silly."
+
+"Then you needn't," I agreed, less reluctantly, "and I'll call in half
+an hour. By the way, I've deeded you all the 'island' east of those two
+big pines. The other side is mine."
+
+"Thanks. I'll take possession at once." And she left me for her spring
+and bailiwick and cigarette--although I never saw her smoking one
+before, or after. In a few minutes I heard her calling and,
+straightening up with some feeling of alarm, answered:
+
+"What's wrong?"
+
+"Nothing; only don't forget to use very hot water!"
+
+Later we walked to the south-western edge of the "island," so she could
+see how it stood in relation to Efaw Kotee's settlement; and I showed
+her the fort, purposely exaggerating its ability to withstand a siege
+and minimizing its chances of having to do so. We sat down there upon
+the turf, where the breeze and shade were refreshing. It was a fortunate
+location, also, for keeping an eye on the prairie.
+
+"Have you named this beautiful place of yours?" she asked.
+
+"No; we merely call it the 'island,' after the native fashion. Will you
+name it for me--for us? It's half yours, you know."
+
+"Let's call it----" she thought a moment, "oh, let's call it The Oasis;
+for that's cool and comfortable and suggests safety from all sorts of
+things!"
+
+"The Oasis it is, and we'll put it on the map some day, see if we
+don't!"
+
+After a while I told her pretty much everything from the beginning of
+our cruise: of Tommy, Monsieur, and Gates, of Smilax, of seeing her in
+Havana. I scrupulously avoided any mention of having been bowled over by
+her beauty, or of the dream, and was inclined to treat the paper ball
+episode with a laugh; but here she interrupted me, saying:
+
+"But I was very serious, really, and scared almost to death. You surely
+know I must have been to 've done it! The whole thing came so
+suddenly--like a frightful storm!"
+
+"Then you hadn't always been at outs with him--or forbidden him to cross
+to your little island?" I asked.
+
+"Mercy, no--that is, not my father. The other men, of course, were on a
+footing of servants--to me, at any rate. It was only after we got home
+two days ago, after Echochee and I were alone again, that I kept them
+away by--by threatening----"
+
+"Don't say what--it hurts me," I interrupted her quickly. "I saw your
+wonderful courage from our hiding place."
+
+"Everyone was quite friendly up to the time we reached Havana," she
+continued, in a rather forced, even voice. "We were there three days
+before your yacht came--though I didn't know it was yours until
+today--and that afternoon I'd been up in the Prado with Echochee doing a
+lot of shopping. We always bought every conceivable thing on those
+semi-yearly trips. Well, when we got back on board my father rather
+balked about taking me off again to dinner, but I held him to it because
+he'd previously promised. I think that he had grown so sensate to
+dangers that he felt one then, but couldn't locate it."
+
+"Because we were anchored so close to you?"
+
+"I don't really know. But it was something. It wasn't a pleasant dinner
+from the outset, because I resented his devilish mood and was disgusted
+with him for being afraid. That doesn't sound very nice," she added,
+half apologetically, "but, you know, there had always been something
+subtly antagonistic within me that--oh, I can't express it, but I'd
+never felt very close to him, ever since I can remember. It was largely
+my fault, I suppose. But I'd had glimpses of his frightfully cruel
+nature. Then Echochee, who came to nurse me when I was little, always
+hated him, and I adored her--so, of course, her influence counted. You
+really think she's coming through all right?"
+
+"Downright sure of it," I declared, in solemn earnest. After a few
+moments of silence, I asked gently: "Do you mind telling me more?"
+
+She gave a slight start as though the question had brought her from some
+deep thought, but smiled, saying:
+
+"Certainly, I don't. When your two friends left you in the cafe my
+father became terribly excited. I asked him what on earth was the
+trouble--but smiling, for that was a subterfuge he always demanded of me
+in public places--and he whispered that he thought the shorter man was a
+police agent from his lost republic."
+
+"Lost republic?"
+
+"Yes. You see, my father had been its President--in South America, you
+know--until the revolution compelled us to fly." This was said
+resignedly.
+
+"Oh," I murmured. "When was that?"
+
+"Years ago. I just remember being carried off one night in a great
+hurry."
+
+"Tell me the rest about Havana?" I asked, trying to appear calm.
+
+"It's all rather awful," she sighed. "I hadn't noticed your friends more
+than to get a glimpse of them as they left, but saw you alone at the
+table. Pretty soon our captain, Jess,"--she may have given a slight
+shudder, I wasn't sure--"came up and verified my father's suspicions,
+and then I thought he surely would lose his mind. I was already becoming
+frightened, especially as the creature, Jess, impertinently leered at
+me, and my father didn't knock him down for it. He had never dared look
+at me before, except most deferentially, and suddenly I felt that I was
+nearing something awful. I can't explain it. It just came to me all of a
+sudden, you know, with desperate certainty, and--and I wanted to run
+away."
+
+"Were you trying to tell me that?"
+
+She flushed, but answered steadily:
+
+"Yes. I thought you looked like a man who'd help a girl out of a mean
+place."
+
+"By Jove, that's the biggest compliment I've ever had!"
+
+"I only had a chance to write a little," she ignored my outburst, "but
+hoped you'd guess and tell your friend, the police agent."
+
+"I didn't guess that," I admitted, somewhat crestfallen. "But we knew
+you were in danger."
+
+"I should never have left that cafe if I'd known more myself, then," she
+said, tensely. "I'd have stood up and called to you--to every man
+there!"
+
+"And I'd have brought you out in spite of hell," I cried. "Don't tell me
+there was anything much worse!"
+
+Her cheeks were still aflame with anger, but she smiled, saying in a
+lower tone:
+
+"Nothing worse than threats. When we got aboard the yacht my father came
+to me and said, point-blank before those men, that--that--oh, I can't!"
+She buried her face in her hands--and it was all I could do to keep from
+putting my arms about her and whispering that everything was now all
+right. But she had started out to tell me, and was determined to see it
+through. "He said that he'd promised our captain, that creature Jess,
+that I should--should----"
+
+"Never mind," I murmured. "I know about it--he said you'd have to marry
+the scoundrel."
+
+"Oh," she exclaimed. "I'd never heard anything so cold-blooded and
+damnable in all my life! The creature stood leering at me over his
+shoulder, and I knew he'd been using threats because my father,
+himself, was almost paralyzed with fear. And then I lost my head--in
+blind rage, I suppose. I must have talked like a common fish woman, but
+my one desire was to see them cringe. So I told about leaving the
+message for you, pretending to 've written a great deal more--twisting
+the knife all I knew how, and being thoroughly catty. It must have been
+a disgusting exhibition," she gave a sigh of despair, as if for that
+uncontrollable outburst of temper.
+
+"I hope you rubbed it in good," I growled.
+
+"Well, I didn't, because my father became so insane with fear that he
+actually struck me, and rushed ashore in the frantic hope that you might
+not have seen my message. He would have killed you had he met you then.
+It was in those few minutes that the little love I ever had for him
+turned to loathing--and that's a frightful thing to say about one's
+father, so I hope you won't remember it."
+
+"We have a very mutual respect for each other in loathing that
+gentleman," I announced. "But tell me quickly--were you safe after
+that?"
+
+"Oh, yes, for I began to temporize. Echochee wanted to kill them, of
+course--that being her only solution. But I hoped we might manage to
+escape if they could be put off a few days."
+
+"And you were in the small boat when they tied on the bomb?"
+
+"Heavens, yes. But I'd no idea it was your yacht, even then--although I
+thought I recognized your friends taking pictures the morning we left
+Havana, and was about to call to them when my father, always suspicious,
+burst into my room."
+
+"It must have been hellish," I growled.
+
+"It was all of that. And especially as always before he'd tried to be
+kind--at least, he was extremely deferential. That night at Key West he
+and the captain left in a small boat, and when they came back I was
+ordered into it. I think he must have been crazy, really, for he said
+that he was going to show me what they did to traitors--that was my new
+name then, you know--and shoved a package of something in my face. The
+captain cursed him for it--and I'd never before heard him treated with
+the slightest disrespect, but when I found out what the thing was I
+hoped it would blow up and destroy us all. I only thank God that it
+didn't go off and kill--my rescuer," she murmured.
+
+"Then you did call that it wasn't fair?"
+
+"I had to protest! Oh, but he was a demon then," she added, and I
+clenched my fists, remembering what Gates had said. "But he used to be
+kind," she added, sadly, "and I ought to remember him for that, don't
+you suppose so? We have a wonderful library on the islands, and when I
+was very young he began my education. Do you know," she looked up, "I
+still remember my first lesson in grammar? He taught me by the days!"
+
+"Quite a remarkable thing, that, to remember so far back," I smiled,
+whereupon she made a little grimace. "How do you mean--by the days?"
+
+"I was taught a tomorrow, not alone because I could recognize today but
+because I remembered yesterday, and was shown how these were the past,
+present, and future tenses of our lives; that the present participle is
+Living, and the infinitive is----"
+
+"To love?" I suggested.
+
+"To live," she said evenly, and I bit my tongue. "He made me study
+awfully hard, but I rather liked it as there wasn't much else to do
+except play with Echochee, and she became tiresome occasionally. Later
+he started me at the piano, and the violin, and I loved to work after
+that. For he's quite a remarkable musician, really! I suppose our
+library must have a thousand books, and I've read nearly all of
+them--besides stacks of the modern ones we always brought from our
+semi-annual cruises 'to the world'--as he used to call those trips.
+Don't you simply adore Blasco?"
+
+"I suppose you mean Ibanez," I said, rather pleased at being able to air
+this familiarity with literary personages.
+
+"Ibanez, then," she casually agreed, "if you prefer calling him by his
+mother's name."--And, not knowing upon what hazy path this would lead
+me, I laughingly admitted:
+
+"Well, I've only tackled one of his things, and haven't even finished
+that yet." Adding, with perhaps a slightly malicious desire to bring her
+superior knowledge to bay: "You read him in the original, I suppose?"
+
+"Not freely enough to be quite relaxing. But on our cruise last summer
+we got a very good translation in French--really, much better than the
+English, I think."
+
+Again I laughed, as a light entered my muddled outlook because of this
+astonishing information that accounted for much I had not been able to
+reconcile with her isolated life. From the moment she had mimicked the
+cook I had been kept in a state of wonderment. I had felt her
+superiority; I had marveled at the cultivation that clung about her as a
+royal robe. Now it was explained. Music, literature, languages!
+
+"That night you protested about the bomb," I asked, "did you hear me
+call?"
+
+Could it have been that some of the animation left her face as she
+answered slowly:
+
+"Oh, was it you? I heard someone call to a person named Sylvia."
+
+"But--isn't that your name?"
+
+"Oh," she laughed, "I haven't nearly so pretty a name as that!"
+
+I was crazy to be the judge, but asked, instead:
+
+"Did your--father ever explain why he was afraid of detectives?"
+
+"Nothing more than that he was fearfully hunted and persecuted. When I
+was almost a baby he had to run away because of a political plot. He
+escaped with me after," her voice lowered, "my mother had been killed by
+the revolutionists, and we've been hiding here ever since, awaiting the
+message that will bring him back to be President again; although while
+the other party is in power its agents would arrest him--and it's been
+in power for years. Do you know," she looked at me frankly, "I've never
+forgiven him for letting them kill my mother! Throughout all of my
+childhood I used to hold indignation meetings with myself and consign
+him to every imaginable punishment--both for that, and running away
+without avenging her."
+
+She was quiet then. This news of the South American republic showed what
+an accomplished liar old Efaw Kotee could be. Very plausible, indeed,
+and an adequate excuse for keeping her in a potential prison.
+
+"I fear that I've been terribly outspoken," she said at last, with a
+wistful expression that held both laughter and apology.
+
+"You've been wonderful," I whispered, deliberately turning away my head
+and gazing out across the prairie. I could not have met her eyes just
+then.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+ENLIGHTENING A PRINCESS
+
+
+As gently as I could, after I felt that my voice might be trusted not to
+betray itself, I told her of Monsieur Dragot's deductions, who we
+thought she really was--not the daughter of that old scoundrel, at all.
+I let her see the record of his crimes, her mother's discovery of the
+plates, the kidnaping, and, unless something most recent and unexpected
+had happened, the queen regent of Azuria was waiting at this minute for
+the little princess to return.
+
+She had been sitting very still, like a child with parted lips
+enchantingly absorbed by a fairy tale. When I finished she turned her
+wondering eyes to mine, and gasped:
+
+"It can't be true!"
+
+"I think it is," I said. "I mean that it is so far as Monsieur can judge
+from the threads of evidence he holds, and what you've told me makes his
+theory more convincing."
+
+"Oh--and I've called this man Father for so long! You don't suppose he
+still might be, somehow?"
+
+"There's no somehow about it," I had to smile at this question. "He
+either is, or isn't; in the same indefeasible sense that white isn't
+black."
+
+"I didn't mean that he might be just partly, of course," she said so
+quietly and seriously that I burst out laughing. "But it's awfully hard
+to understand, all at once! That must account for the subtle antagonism
+I felt for him. It really accounts for so much!--for the way he
+encouraged me to spend money, heaps and heaps of it! Why, I've
+everything I can think of--from Havana, New Orleans and Vera Cruz!"
+
+"He wanted you to spend his large bills so he could get good money in
+change," I suggested.
+
+"That's obvious now, but suppose I'd been arrested and sent to prison!"
+
+"I won't suppose anything of the kind," I declared, so vigorously that
+she laughed.
+
+"I do feel like a thief, though," she added soberly. "Why, everything I
+possess has been bought fraudulently."
+
+"You couldn't help it! Chuck 'em away, if it'll make you feel better!"
+
+"I can't chuck 'em all away," and this time we both laughed.
+
+"You can as soon as we reach New York, and--and----" But as I did not
+know how to finish this, I stopped; for what had been in my mind was:
+"When you and I share all I own!"--and, of course, that wouldn't have
+done to say aloud.
+
+For perhaps a minute she, also, was silent. Then she turned, with the
+frankest, sweetest manner I have ever seen, and said in a voice of
+mellifluent charm:
+
+"Do you know that you've been just awfully splendid?"
+
+I knew that my face got very red, but I tried to answer casually enough:
+
+"The splendid things were done by Tommy, Gates, Smilax, and the other
+fellows. You'll like Tommy, and Monsieur knows--did I tell you he knows
+your mother?"
+
+"Don't," she whispered. "You make me feel like I'm being led into a new
+world, with new people, and new customs, and new things!" Now her eyes
+widened as if making a discovery, as she added: "My fa----, that is, Mr.
+Graham, must actually have recognized Monsieur Dragot!"
+
+"There's no other deduction," I agreed. "Our case is proved almost
+beyond a doubt. Don't call that fellow your father again, or even Mr.
+Graham. Smilax and I have a name we'll share with you."
+
+"What?"
+
+"Efaw Kotee."
+
+Her laughter rippled through the wood, as she cried:
+
+"How perfectly lovely! I know what it means!"
+
+"Then you speak Seminole, Miss--Miss--but you say it isn't Sylvia?"
+
+An expression of happy mischief in her face made it adorable.
+
+"No, it isn't Sylvia. It's Doloria--you see, my life has been sad!"
+
+"One wouldn't say so to look at you now. And I think Doloria's a
+thousand times prettier than Sylvia! Doloria! Just Doloria--like that?"
+For I wanted an excuse to keep on saying it.
+
+"I--I suppose so," she hesitated. "Of course, it's always had Graham
+after it, but--what did your Monsieur Dragot say my last name was?"
+
+"He didn't say."
+
+"Then I haven't any."
+
+"Oh, well, you needn't bother about that. Any time it gets lonesome you
+can hitch on Bronx--that is, I mean, only in case, you know."
+
+I could have bitten out my tongue for this! I don't know what fiends
+possessed me to be such an unmitigated ass! It was as unfair as
+poison--an insult to the only precepts I have ever genuinely felt proud
+of: the code of playing fair. Before I could pretend to have been making
+a silly joke she brushed away my contrition by asking:
+
+"Why Bronx? What does that mean?"
+
+Glory be! I had forgotten that she could not know my name! But now I had
+to deny myself, cast my birthright to the winds, or else let her see
+that I was a miserable cad who could not be trusted as protector to a
+girl thrown upon his care.
+
+And, on the other hand, it was decidedly repulsive to tell a
+lie--especially to her who seemed by her magnetic gaze to challenge the
+truth right out of a fellow. But conscience is, after all, only a name
+for our hidden prosecutor, judge and jury, and our sentences are light
+or heavy depending upon how many witnesses we can persuade to perjure
+themselves. No man lives who has not at some time used bribery in the
+mythical court room of his heart. Among women, of course, it is the
+accepted mode of legal procedure; and this gave me hope to believe that
+she might be somewhat forgiving when she found me out.
+
+"Why Bronx?" she was asking again.
+
+"Oh," I laughed, "it's a usual name in my part of the country, that's
+all--like Smith, and Jones."
+
+I thought this would satisfy, but it gave her another thought, instead.
+
+"Your name isn't Jackachobee, of course?"
+
+"As far as Jack, yes. Every one calls me Jack."
+
+A little while before this my cigarette case had fallen, to the ground
+by us. She had picked it up, and was even now turning it idly between
+her fingers.
+
+"I see it here," she said, looking more closely at the monogram. "'J.
+B.' What does the B stand for, Mr.--Mr. Jack?"
+
+"Brown," I answered desperately, and could feel every ancestor of a long
+and honorable line of Bronxes turning over in their graves. For I detest
+Brown. It's a good name, an exceptionally fine and distinguished name,
+the name not only of dear relatives but of very good friends. Yet it
+just so happened that at this particular moment I detested it--or was it
+the lie behind it? So to repair my self-esteem I blurted somewhat
+incoherently: "Bangs!"--having known a rather decent chap named Bangs.
+
+"Is it spelled with a hyphen?" she glanced up rather quizzically.
+"Brown-Bangs?"
+
+Her mind seemed to have flown lightly beyond me, anticipating the extent
+of my confusion, for the smile about her mouth, while enigmatic,
+suggested--enticingly suggested--mischief.
+
+"Of course," I answered. "Brown-Bangs; Brown-Bangs!" And I wondered how
+many witnesses I should have to bribe now! I wished that in the first
+place I had said: "It would be unfair to tell you what isn't so, and
+dangerous to tell you what is!" But she would have guessed the truth by
+that, to a certainty. Sinners always find comfort in good resolutions,
+so I resolved to be more circumspect in the future. A gentleman's duty
+in my position was to be over circumspect; very much over circumspect,
+indeed!
+
+Somewhat indifferently she laid the cigarette case back upon the ground,
+happening to put it near a little vine with lavender flowers, shaped
+like pon-pons; and in doing this it also happened that one of its tiny
+briars clung to her hand.
+
+"Watch," she cried, gaily leaning forward. "Watch the leaves! We call
+this the 'shame-face vine,' because whenever it sticks any one every
+leaf on that particular stem is overcome with remorse!"
+
+To my amazement the nine delicate leaves on the offending stem began to
+hang their heads and curl up, for all the world expressive of deep
+humility. It was another of the million or so lessons to be found in
+Nature for any one who sees with the right kind of eyes. Of course, I
+could have hung my head for that lie about the Browns, although curling
+up--at least, after the manner of the shame-face vine--would have
+required a contortionist.
+
+"A well named little weed," I laughed. "But what wouldn't be penitent
+after hurting such a pretty hand!"
+
+"I was just wondering," she said, ignoring this banality--for which in
+my heart I thanked her--"if there are weeds that show embarrassment for
+people who tell fibs?"
+
+Now there was no possible way for her to have learned my name!
+
+"You don't think there was any fibbing when I said you were a
+sure-'nough princess, do you?"
+
+"Oh, please, let's not talk of that again," she entreated. "I don't want
+to be a princess just yet, because it's still very satisfying to have
+been taken away from that awful place. I'm so humbly thankful to you,"
+she almost whispered, "that just Cinderella without the slipper will
+suit me nicely."
+
+Beloved of the gods! If she wasn't at that moment princess, queen and
+all the royal families made into one!
+
+"But I must tell you this much," I insisted gently, "and then we won't
+speak of it again until you wish. Monsieur says your mother is only
+Regent until you come; that your destiny is marked out for you, that by
+every law of God and man you've got to go back and take up the Cross
+where you left it seventeen years ago,--that you're booked to marry a
+Prince, I think. And he's armed with an iron-bound authority to take
+you. He says you've no possible escape--though, of course, you won't
+want any. I have to tell you this," I continued more hastily, for it was
+an extremely difficult thing to say, "because I'm only an ordinary kind
+of American chap, as bad as the worst and as good as the best, but your
+court in Azuria would have forty duck fits if it knew we were playing
+together in the woods without a chaperone. Suppose you make me your
+Chancellor, or something like that--chancellor of your Oasian
+possessions! Then I can report for orders and escort you about with all
+propriety, and we can talk and laugh occasionally without having some
+big soldier stick me in the back with his halberd."
+
+She had been listening attentively, gravely, to everything I said until
+this last, when she burst into a scream of laughter, rocking herself to
+and fro in a transport of merriment.
+
+"You're the funniest thing I ever saw!--but so be it, Mr. Jack
+Brown-Bangs, et cetera, et cetera! I make you my Royal Chancellor,
+responsible for the welfare of our Oasis!"
+
+"And for the protection of Your Serenity," I bowed, really feeling as if
+I'd been knighted.
+
+"Thank you," she said gravely. "I couldn't ask for a braver protector.
+But, Chancellor," she looked at me with serious eyes, "why did you say I
+must take up my Cross? It sounded like such a direful prophecy."
+
+My lips refused to speak. As a matter of fact, I had been thinking more
+about my own Cross; how I should have to carry it after she went away
+until my heart broke beneath its cruel weight.
+
+"That was a careless way of meaning something else," I tried to answer
+lightly.
+
+"You shouldn't say evasive things. It leads to speaking with two
+tongues, which Echochee has taught me is wrong."
+
+"Well, it couldn't be a direful prophecy, anyhow, when your mother and
+your throne are waiting just around the corner, as it were. The direful
+part of your life has passed, and most appropriately your name has
+changed from Doloria to Princess--though, of the two, I prefer Doloria."
+
+"When it means sorrow?"
+
+"It only means sorrow to those you leave. You've paid dearly enough to
+find nothing but happiness now for the rest of your life. It's written
+in the sky."
+
+"You're a comforting Chancellor," she was still looking at me calmly,
+"and I'm already beginning to forget." And gently she laid her hand on
+the back of my own which rested between us.
+
+My blood bounded with an unreasoning pleasure, yet her movement had been
+neither temperamental nor sentimental; it was instinctive--one of those
+honest impulses that knows no sex. Did she realize, by some divine
+insight, that this frankness, this absence of finical conventions, this
+whole-hearted camaraderie, would hold me more sternly to my path of duty
+than anything else she might have done? Did the instinct of her sex
+whisper that each man's heart, however light and worldly, is the
+possessor of a trusty loadstone which draws the best of him to a woman's
+aid when her honor is placed unreservedly into his hands? This speaks,
+of course, of men and not of human beasts; still, a woman is not put to
+the peril of looking into the heart of a human beast to discover that he
+is a beast--she can read it, without glasses, in his face!
+
+"Shall we look over the rest of your estate?" I asked. And I kept the
+hand until she had been helped up, then released it naturally as we
+started on the tour of inspection.
+
+We finally came to my pool, and I asked her advice in choosing a nearby
+spot where I should build a lean-to; since our kitchen site, that until
+now had been the location of my bailiwick, was by right of conquest
+hers, a place where she should be able to approach without the
+precaution of whistling like a plover--a thing she couldn't do, anyway!
+So we marked a spot and started on, taking some time to encircle the
+pool that, was rather large and, upon this side, densely fringed with a
+riot of tropical vines and jungle stuff. Yet, when we had gone but a
+little way, she stopped, looked vaguely troubled, and said:
+
+"You won't be as near to me here as you were at the kitchen. I was so
+tired last night that I didn't think very much about those men, because
+our servants were leading them off. But don't you think it's possible
+that some of them might wander back here on their way home?"
+
+"There's hardly one chance in a thousand," I assured her.
+
+"I know. But that one chance would be dreadful if--if----" she stopped,
+and added wistfully: "I _would_ like to feel in the nights that you are
+nearer to me!"
+
+I turned to look at something else--at anything but her! Yet if my eyes
+required a subterfuge my heart did not, and it thrilled as if some wild
+musicians were tugging at its strings making them sound impassioned
+harmonies. But, even as I stood swayed by the madness of the moment, I
+felt that a great, an unseen, presence had pinned a decoration upon my
+honor--not because it had already proved itself, but in order that it
+might do so.
+
+We therefore stopped and chose a new place on the side nearer her
+spring, and that being settled--a most important selection, we pretended
+it to be--she looked up at me, crying happily:
+
+"After luncheon I'll come and help you build it!--and then you'll cut a
+path straight from my tent to yours so, should there be any danger, I
+can run to you without stumbling!"
+
+For another moment, with eyes closed, I visualized my new decoration.
+
+Luncheon, I thought, was even an improvement over breakfast. Nor did I
+take so long to wash the dishes afterwards.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+SLEEPING BENEATH GOD'S TENT
+
+
+That afternoon we built the lean-to. I had had some fair ideas about
+building a lean-to, but Doloria was in possession of a practical
+knowledge gathered on camping trips that she and Echochee had made--for
+these, I judged, constituted one of her chief recreations since
+childhood. She knew how to twist ropes of bark for tying the poles, and
+how to interlay the palm fronds so they would neither leak nor be lifted
+by the wind. She took the keenest pleasure in it, too, and I can safely
+say that never in my life have I enjoyed building anything as much as
+that lean-to. When it was finished I stepped back and, in a burst of
+admiration, cried:
+
+"It's a palace? I can't ever get along without you!"
+
+A wave of color came into her face, as instantaneous as I believe it was
+unexpected, though she said in a matter of fact tone:
+
+"There are other little things to be done, but we'll finish them
+to-morrow."
+
+"It's already the coziest place in the world," I insisted. "Now I'm
+going to cut that path, and then we'll have----" but I checked myself
+and looked at her in some concern. She had worked over hard for me--I
+had not realized it while we were busy; so now I begged: "Won't you let
+me cook the dinner? I'm afraid you're about dead!"
+
+"Oh, really I'm not. But I'm hungry and so are you, and----" a little
+curve came into the corners of her mouth that was very tantalizing, "I
+think I'd better cook it."
+
+"I was hoping you would," I admitted shamelessly, "even if you are
+tired."
+
+"Purely a selfish decision on my part, I assure you," she smiled. "I
+haven't forgotten the breakfast you attempted."
+
+"Very well. I'll cut you a nice straight path for a nice big feed!"
+
+"And don't leave anything in it, will you, Chancellor! It would be
+dreadful to come running to you in the dark, and stumble and--and bump
+my nose!"
+
+"Dreadful!" I cried. "It would be the end of the world!"
+
+"Or the end of you," she laughed. "Now get to work, and then you can
+build the kitchen fire. Don't you think we might have dinner a little
+earlier to-night?"
+
+With this she left me; but how sweetly confidential and domestic that
+had sounded: "Don't you think we might have dinner a little earlier
+to-night?"
+
+I found her again, sitting on a fallen log and gazing wistfully across
+the prairie toward the east, not back in the direction of Efaw Kotee's
+den, and I felt that she was thinking of Azuria--her Azuria. What
+visions its existence must have opened to her, whose life had been
+always passionate after dreams and utterly bored with realities! Yet
+what were her dreams?
+
+She saw me and arose slowly, passing one hand across her eyes as if
+brushing away the fancies; then I watched an expression almost of
+tenderness as she came up to me.
+
+"It isn't quite fair to interrupt," I said, "when you were having such
+a peaceful time of it; but the fire's ready, and our supply of
+buttonwood shrinks."
+
+"Was I having such a peaceful time of it?" she asked, wonderingly.
+"Perhaps it might have been if I knew Echochee and your man are safe.
+Anyway, I'm glad the fire's ready; I've been expecting you to call me."
+
+"I wish I could give you the same assurance about them that I feel
+myself. Try to think I'm right, won't you?"
+
+"Yes, really I will, good Chancellor," she smiled.
+
+On the way back we passed my pool, where she kneeled ingenuously to
+bathe her hands and arms, as chastely innocent as a mermaid.
+
+"Have you such a thing as a towel?" she laughed. "Mine are in the tent!"
+
+I got it, and walked slowly on. And I realized again, what I had once
+before noted, that overly refined proprieties--I do not mean proprieties
+of the essential kind--cannot endure between man and maid cast alone in
+a wilderness. They become frail, insipid; and mar, rather than perfect,
+the harmony of existence. Contraversely, their absence adds a deeper
+luster, strikes the tuning-fork that hums with the true note of life.
+Sorry the man who does not feel a sympathetic vibration! A woman is not
+exactly at her best when bathing her face above a porcelain bowl, and to
+be the constant, daily witness of such ablutions would, in my limited
+experience, engender a slight unrest among the tuneful Nine. Yet let her
+gracefully lean above a woodland pool, roll back her sleeves and open
+the collar of her shooting shirt, and she becomes a personification of
+glory to him who waits near the fire he has built for their evening
+meal. But she must have looked danger in the face with him, slept near
+him beneath the stars; knowing, should she be affrighted in the night,
+that her call will bring his reassuring answer, but also knowing that
+the voice is all that will ever come unbidden to her side. And thus is
+the Cave-man in him gloriously aroused to guard her from Nature's wild,
+while the poetry of their intercourse guards her from himself. What more
+beautiful existence than to live alone in a forest with the girl you
+love!
+
+I thought that after dinner it might be well to sit again beside the
+fort where we could watch the prairie. There is a comforting sense of
+security that comes to one at nightfall when one has looked in all
+directions and found all things well. So for a while she left me to the
+orgy of washing dishes, but when I had turned the last plate top down
+upon our kitchen log to dry, I saw her returning.
+
+She came humming a tune, a catchy tune--I recognized it at once--that
+the mandolins had tinkled in the Havana cafe, and from the mischievous
+curves about the corners of her mouth I knew that her mood was adorable.
+So I caught up the tune, whistling softly, and crossed to her holding
+out my hands.
+
+"It's a corking fox-trot," I said, for the moment stopping our
+orchestra. "Let's dance it!"
+
+But she drew back, laughing outright.
+
+"I don't know how!"
+
+"Don't dance?" I must have looked my amazement, for she answered:
+
+"I've often danced, all alone, when I just couldn't help it; but there
+hasn't been any one to teach me your kind!"
+
+"I will," I cried delightedly. "We'll begin with that fox-trot!"
+
+"We'd look awfully silly," she replied. "Besides, the name of your dance
+is atrocious."
+
+I felt rather thankful that I hadn't suggested the shimmy.
+
+"That may get you out of it now," I announced, "but when we reach the
+yacht I'm going to teach you ten hours a day. Understand?--ten hours a
+day!"
+
+Again came the tantalizing expression, as she daintily caught her skirt
+and made me a royal curtsey, saying:
+
+"It's beyond all measure charming of you, Chancellor. But shall I be so
+difficult?"
+
+"Don't joke about a wonderful prospect," I answered. "You're difficult
+because of your grace, not the lack of it--if that's what you mean!" But
+from her indifferent way of dismissing the subject I judged it was not
+what she had meant, at all.
+
+The sun must have set while we were encircling my pool. Then we passed
+on into a still denser growth, following a crooked path that led to the
+fort--entering a mysterious shadow-land that twilights have the trick of
+producing when overhead foliage shuts out the afterglow and the serene
+forest gloom is painted in tones of gray. The soft earth we trod was
+dark, and the water lay phantom-like in its black bowl. Except for the
+few times I held aside a swinging wildwood vine for her to pass, we
+might have been two drifting spirits--so quietly did we move, and so
+unknowingly were we affected by the hour, the place.
+
+At the edge of our forest, where that long ago prairie fire had blighted
+a grove of palm trees that subsequently fell upon each other like an
+entangled pile of jackstraws, she took my hand to get across and, freed
+from the clinging shadows, we ran out beneath the sky--then gasped in
+amazement at its splendor.
+
+It was not a sunset, not an afterglow in the usual sense of afterglows,
+but a sky of deep, smouldering red equally distributed from horizon to
+horizon; as though everywhere below the world a conflagration raged. I
+could not at first speak for the grandeur of it, and when I turned to
+her words were again checked by the look upon her face. For this dull,
+permeating glow--this enchantment from the heavens--touched her brow,
+her cheeks, her parted lips, with a light that aroused in me a thousand
+devils and a thousand gods; it lingered over her hair as if striving to
+concentrate itself into a halo there; and in her eyes that gazed afar
+were suggested the awakening of deeper fires, of wilder mysteries.
+
+"God, what a sky," I at last exclaimed, through sheer panic at the
+imminence of crying aloud my love for her.
+
+"What a sky, O God," she whispered, delicately turning my profane
+outburst to a sigh of thankfulness.
+
+But, better than she, I knew the meaning of that sky. I knew that down
+over the western edge of the world blazed a huge funeral pyre on which
+my past was being changed to harmless ashes; while in the east flames
+were already lighted beneath the on-coming crucible of destiny, from
+whose purifying heat a new love arose. Farther into obscurity would sink
+the one; up and on would come the other; and so the sky was now roseate
+unto its zenith, reflecting the glory of these miracles. I followed the
+look of her eyes and saw, high against the red, a lone crane flying
+majestically homeward to the seclusion of his swamp; and it typified my
+own belated heart that, without questioning the whence or why,
+unerringly obeyed a silent voice which called it to another sanctuary.
+
+I wanted to tell her this, but dared not. And so we stood, spellbound,
+while the night brought out the blue--and the young moon changed from
+red to silver--and the stars came down to take their places. Then slowly
+we passed on and sat by the fort, leaning our backs against it; in
+meditation looking across the prairie that had become so changed a place
+to us.
+
+The night grew sweet with the purity of untouched wilderness as,
+shoulder to shoulder, we sat talking in low tones of Smilax and
+Echochee. She had wondered about them no few times that day, and now I,
+too, felt some concern. Yet the Everglades lay far eastward and, for any
+reason giving up Big Cove, I knew he would plunge as deeply into it as
+his pursuers dared follow. To-morrow would be time enough to worry, I
+assured her, so we talked about Monsieur, the Azurian throne, and--I
+could not help it--of another Chancellor who would build her kitchen
+fires. But I tried to keep all bitterness from my words. In the vague
+light I could see that her face was serious, and very tender. Then for a
+time we sat without speaking.
+
+Perhaps it was the place, the charm; perhaps a magic was working
+stronger than I knew; but words came to my lips that I stubbornly
+refused to speak. I fought against them; they, too, fought with grim
+insistence; so as a compromise, looking straight ahead and pretending to
+jest even while I accused, I said:
+
+"You've been listening!"
+
+"Listening?" Her eyes opened prettily, alert as they always were to
+parry banter with banter.
+
+"Yes, listening--at the keyhole like a common gossip. A nice pastime for
+a Princess, surely!"
+
+"At the--keyhole?" She was proceeding warily now; her mind, as in a game
+of hide-and-seek, was on tiptoe, in expectation of discovering me at
+every step.
+
+"Yes," I repeated. "And you heard my heart admitting that it's
+happy--to've found something it was hungry for."
+
+For the briefest instant I thought a tremor ran through her shoulder, as
+if a little chilly sensation had rippled her nerves. But it was a silly
+idea, because she lightly replied:
+
+"Corn cakes, maybe. It ought to feel quite stuffed after the seven you
+had for dinner."
+
+"Six," I corrected.
+
+"Seven," she insisted.
+
+"But I know!"
+
+"So do I," she laughed, "that you stole one from my plate when you
+thought I wasn't looking."
+
+"I needed that one."
+
+"I never doubted it," she agreed.
+
+Wild words again sprang to my lips, but this time I ruthlessly strangled
+them. Yet I wanted to say: "I took from you because you stole from me!"
+And I wanted to ask--O, shades of suffering Dante, how I longed to
+ask!--if her dear heart were hungering, too, that she should have needed
+my own to feed it!--if that were her excuse for thievery!
+
+But already I had overstepped my resolution, although not feeling
+desperately contrite about it after the sleight-of-hand way that a
+declaration of love had been changed into the accusation of filching a
+corn cake. Yet it had been a narrow escape and I thanked my gods for the
+chance of pulling up, of again getting the right perspective.
+
+To tell her anything at all before Echochee came would be the act of an
+utterly selfish cad, for if she did not want my love--and there was
+little enough reason to suppose that she did--her position would be
+intolerable. In such an eventuality never again could we sit beside the
+fort on nights like this, no longer would she want a cleared path
+leading to her bailiwick. We would be as two estranged creatures doomed
+to live near yet apart; each a daily witness of the other's unhappiness;
+neither able by word or deed to give relief. Ah, I was glad she did not
+even suspect that I cared a whit for her! I lit my pipe and in moody
+silence smoked.
+
+A pipe stem is a safe thing for man to grip his teeth upon when silence
+is a virtue. Here in our forest I was master, the undisputed superior
+force; and I wondered with a fascinating wonder how that ancestor, who
+climbed down from his tree at nightfall, would have been greeting her! I
+visualized his cunning face, now peering at me through the ages, leering
+at me with bared tusks, bidding me take what was my own by right of
+might! I felt the savage splendor of it. The wildness of this place, its
+solitude, its distance from mankind, supported me. The cry of a night
+bird out on the prairie told that it, too, was preying, or being preyed
+upon; and, as if being stirred by this, a panther sent his wail across
+the night. I listened for a mate to answer, but she did not. A large,
+whitish moth flying out of the shadows passed clumsily within a few
+inches of my face, its wings swishing as a bird's; and it, too, was
+without a mate.
+
+Then, as in the following silence I continued to listen, some far off
+words came back to me. They came as the scent of lavender comes when
+rain is pattering on the shingles, and some one opens the old trunk
+that, ever since you can remember, has stood back under the rafters of
+the sloping roof; the hallowed old trunk where a veil of yellowing lace
+is stored--a piece of white satin, a blue or gray faded uniform, and
+maybe a wee shoe, and a lock of hair. Every one who has leaned above
+that trunk--and thank God they are legion!--has also listened to a voice
+coming faintly through the past. And so words out of a lesser past now
+came to me, as they were meant to be written on a torn wine card: "I am
+in danger!"
+
+She had been in danger of a brute, and had offered the safety of her
+keeping to me. And the vision of my savage ancestor, though retreating
+sullenly, faded into nothing. Then I felt her body press against me
+softly and, looking down, I saw that she had fallen asleep, with her
+head--precious, trusting thing--resting against my shoulder.
+
+For an hour I sat motionless, fearing to awake her. Finally one of my
+legs went to sleep, and soon my other leg. Yet it was a welcome
+discomfort because endured for her. And I suppose the numbness must
+eventually have crept the length of my body, for, I, too, slept;
+awaking, I did not know how much later, to find her gone.
+
+Then I stumbled back to my lean-to, but did not go inside. This was not
+the night, nor mine the mood, to shut high heaven from my eyes, my
+thoughts, the lambent flame of my love? So I chose the open, and lay on
+my back gazing up into the silhouetted palm fronds, catching glimpses of
+a star that here or there peeped through at me, steeping my thoughts in
+solitude.
+
+For it was that hushed hour of betwixt and between, when crickets,
+tree-toads and other little creatures of the darkness have wearied
+themselves to rest; yet also before the daylight life has stirred from
+its own deep sleep. The silent hour, this is; the one hour in the round
+of time when nature seems to be absolutely poised in breathless space;
+when the pendulum of night hangs dead, and dawn is still a great way
+over the hill. I shared its mysticism, feeling also a rich contentment
+that she, too, was lying near me somewhere in this same solitude;
+dreaming, with her cheek upon her arm; her hair kissed by the same dew
+that cooled my face. I could not, of course, reach out my hand and touch
+her, but the path led straight; and along this now my heart went
+begging--impoverished rascal! He went on tiptoe, begging; while I
+continued to watch for the elusive star, and my soul looked into the
+level eyes of God.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+PLANTING A MEMORY
+
+
+A searching look next morning over the prairie revealed no sign of
+enemies, or of Smilax. Somewhat thoughtful over his continued absence I
+went to the kitchen and laid the fire, but did not light it because our
+stock of buttonwood had become reduced to a few small sticks and scraps
+that would scarcely more than cook one meal, and the use of other woods
+might at this time be an unwise experiment. So with an eye to prudence I
+withheld the match until Her Serene Highness should arrive.
+
+When she did not come nor answer to my call, I set out to see what might
+have detained her, conscious of a vague dread yet not seriously giving
+in to it; but, after visiting the fort, this grew into an unreasoning
+fear, and I began to run. It seemed so easy now to understand how some
+of Efaw Kotee's henchmen could have discovered us, slipped up during the
+night and overpowered her! What had been a remote possibility yesterday,
+to-day grew into a certainty. With this obsession torturing me I dashed
+across the Oasis, finally coming out of the forest at its extreme
+eastern tip.
+
+Then I saw her but a few yards away. Perhaps the brisk wind, rustling
+the palms and prairie grass, drowned the noise of my impetuous rush, for
+she did not turn.
+
+Her face was toward the east, looking above an orange sun that still
+clung to the horizon. Instinctively I felt that she was thinking of
+Azuria, that the pictures of it which I had drawn were recrossing before
+her dreamy vision, forming a panorama of splendor that called more
+surely than in March the Canadian flats call the Southern water bird.
+This gave her eyes, her uplifted face, her slightly parted lips, a new
+glory, and I involuntarily exclaimed:
+
+"Doloria of the Golden Dawn!"
+
+She knew then that I was there and, without turning, reached back one
+hand to me. Impulsively I took it, raised it to my lips, but afraid to
+hold it longer I stepped aside as if awaiting her commands. When I had
+done that she looked over her shoulder, gave a little sigh, and said
+sweetly:
+
+"Chancellor, I wish you'd convince me that our people are safe, and then
+help me settle a grave question of state!"
+
+"I think they'll be coming to-day, and----"
+
+"Oh, I hope so!" she clasped her hands.
+
+"As for the state question," I continued, "I'll settle it quickly, if
+you'll let me."
+
+"No, I'm afraid you can't! No, Chancellor," she gave a little laugh,
+"you can't be trusted to settle that, at all!" Then firmly, almost
+severely, putting back into its place a wave of hair that had been
+coquetting with the breeze, she asked: "Is the fire ready?"
+
+"Ready to light," I answered. "I came to find you."
+
+"Then let's go, for it isn't good to ponder over questions of state
+before breakfast."
+
+"What is it?" I asked, as we turned back. "Why won't you trust me to
+settle it?"
+
+Another laugh, more full of pathos, was my answer; nor would she speak
+again--because of some mischief in her mind, I believed--until,
+preparing the ambrosial corncakes, she rather abruptly exclaimed:
+
+"I wonder if you deserve any breakfast this morning?"
+
+"Why?" I cried, in feigned alarm.
+
+"Because of your impoliteness."
+
+"My impoliteness was doubtless the need of breakfast. But when was I
+impolite? I don't remember, honest!"
+
+"Of course, you don't; how could you," she went on rather indifferently.
+"Were you not such a capable Chancellor I might be more offended. I am
+tryingly stupid at times, but to be in the very middle of a sentence and
+discover that the man I'm talking to is fast asleep, is humiliating, to
+say the least."
+
+Did she think there was a chance of putting over that atrocious yarn on
+me--of bluffing me into an admission that I had been the first to fall
+asleep?
+
+"You may be right," I said, with the utmost gravity, "but I did it only
+in justice to you. You were talking, true enough, but in _your_ sleep;
+saying things that--well, no gentleman could have remained awake, in the
+circumstances."
+
+"I didn't," she cried, darting me a look of uncertainty. "Echochee says
+I never do!"
+
+"Echochee wasn't here last night," I casually replied, poking the coals
+of her fire closer. "I hope you understand that I didn't listen
+intentionally; for, of course, you'd never have told me all those
+things----"
+
+"Stop it," she commanded; and, when I had stopped, there was an ominous
+silence.
+
+But I would not look at her and indifferently pretended to be busy. I
+confess that I was deriving a purely masculine enjoyment out of this,
+and intended to push my counter bluff so vigorously that she would be
+driven to admit her own. Therefore, after I thought the silence had
+become sufficiently impressive, I yielded to an impulse that many men
+find irresistible--I made an egregious ass of myself.
+
+"Lots of people," said I, sliding out upon thin ice with the braggadocio
+of him who rocks the boat, "chatter like magpies when dozing in an
+uncomfortable position. Police recognize this, and often arrange a
+suspect's cell so he'll have to sleep sitting up, then they listen and
+take down his inmost thoughts. That's the way you chattered last night."
+
+"Chattered!" she caught her breath.
+
+"Yes; just rippled along, you know, telling everything you've been
+thinking these last couple of days. Some of it was rather interesting.
+Shall I poke up the fire again?"
+
+"Rather interesting!" She sprang around and faced me with blazing eyes,
+the picture of embarrassment and fury. "You consider the things I've
+been thinking the last couple of days 'rather interesting!' Oh," she
+cried, dashing the pan of corn meal batter to the ground, "you're
+damnable--I hate you!" There was a whirl of a skirt, the twinkle of a
+little booted foot, and, by Jove, she had gone flying off like the wind;
+while I, feeling about the size of a june-bug, stood first on one leg
+and then the other, wondering what the devil she had been thinking these
+last couple of days.
+
+Now, when a fellow has made a blatant ass of himself, I hold that the
+quickest road to salvation is "own up and shut up." If he's forgiven,
+life may flow on as formerly. If he isn't, he has recourse to the pose
+of having been grossly misunderstood, and eventually work himself into
+quite a creditable reproduction of a martyred nobleman. If he's good at
+that kind of thing, a girl will grow sorry and forgive him in spite of
+herself. I got this from Tommy, one day, and Tommy knows a lot about
+women--really, an awful lot.
+
+But the most detestable part of my present muddle was that I had hurt
+her--I, who would have bartered my life to shield her from hurts!
+Feeling thoroughly contrite I went quickly in pursuit, looking ahead and
+on both sides for a glimpse of the dress that meant the world to me.
+Regardless of boundaries, regardless of everything but to implore an
+instant forgiveness at whatever cost, I rushed impetuously on, calling
+her name.
+
+Then I came up with her at the side of the bubbling spring. She was
+lying prone upon the bank, her face buried in her arms that were crossed
+beneath it. And, having found her, I could not advance. Something about
+the lovely grace of her body held me enthralled. Furthermore, I had no
+right to be here; I was an interloper, a prowler! There were but two
+things to do, and do at once, to wit, make myself humble and scarce.
+
+"Doloria," I said.
+
+She did not move, perhaps she had not heard, so I kneeled and took one
+of her hands, whereupon she sprang to her feet looking at me strangely,
+wildly.
+
+"You've no right here," she cried. "You've broken faith!"
+
+"No, please no," I said quickly. "I'm too desperate to care where I am
+when you're angry! Since you called me damnable--said you hated me--the
+world's turned black; so I'm not deliberately trespassing--only lost,
+because you've taken away your smile!"
+
+"_You_ took it away," she retorted. "You'd murder any girl's smile by
+such--brutality!"
+
+"Brutality!" I gasped.
+
+"Truthfulness," she stamped her foot.
+
+"But I wasn't truthful," I hurried to tell her. "I lied like the devil
+to call your bluff--wanted to make you own up because--well, you'd lied
+a little, too! I never dreamed my joke would hurt you. Great God," I now
+cried passionately, "to think of hurting you who are my life and breath
+and----" I caught myself, stopping short and looking at her; then slowly
+adding: "You didn't say a word in your sleep, I swear it. It was
+beautiful of you to trust me that way, and--and if you'll rescue our
+breakfast I'll never be such an idiot again."
+
+She had partly turned away at my impassioned outburst, but the assurance
+I gave that Somnus had been dumb brought a hint of the fascinating curve
+to her lips. Yet her eyes still expressed doubt, and I was growing
+desperate enough even to humor her incredulity, hoping thereby to
+discover another road to favor, when she asked:
+
+"You're not just saying that?"
+
+"On my honor it's true--every word! I'm sorry, Princess!"
+
+Again she turned away her face, looking across the spring and murmuring,
+as though to someone there:
+
+"It's because he's hungry, I suppose,"--then whirled and held out both
+hands to me, in that sweet way of hers. "It's I who am cruel,
+Chancellor. Come, poor man, I'll feed you; you look as glum as
+Pharaoh--was Pharaoh glum? I'll beat you to the kitchen!" And she
+bounded away, almost before the challenge had been given.
+
+Straight she sped with astonishing swiftness, skimming over fallen logs,
+darting this way and that through festoons of vines, with the grace of a
+frightened doe. In freedom of motion she was as some wild thing of
+forest birth, suggesting the spirits of the wind, the dappled sunlight,
+the dancing waters; yet never lacking an ineffable refinement that added
+both charm and mystery.
+
+Each of us was breathing fast when, shoulder to shoulder, we reached the
+fire, she claiming the race without the slightest show of embarrassment.
+
+"But I was holding back," I said, finding combativeness a very fair
+outlet to pursue, and adding: "You had the start, too!"
+
+"In a race any one has the start who's able to get it," she asserted.
+"Besides, I set the pace, and all you had to do was follow. I slowed up
+toward the end, anyway."
+
+The impertinence of it!
+
+"You slowed up because you had to! And I don't believe you were angry a
+while ago, either!"
+
+"Don't you?" she asked, slowly.
+
+"Not so very," I compromised, seeing the danger signal. "I think you
+were just making a jolly chump of me, that's all. I don't so much mind
+making one of myself, but it's rotten having other people do it for me!"
+
+"I suppose," she said indifferently, raising her arms to tuck in a lock
+of hair, "that if it's worthwhile making the distinction, you might be
+allowed a choice."
+
+For the pure deviltry of this remark I looked around for something to
+throw at her, and then saw our fire--a tragic picture of dead ashes
+which the wind was blowing over a now cold skillet.
+
+"See," I cried, "what our family row has led to! Fire out, breakfast
+ruined, and here I am due at the office in half an hour!"
+
+"Oh, Jack," she looked at me gravely, putting an end to our banter--and
+for the first time calling me Jack, though I believe she did it
+unconsciously--"haven't we any more buttonwood? This is serious, isn't
+it!"
+
+"Not so very, perhaps. We can try another kind."
+
+"Will it be safe?" she asked, uncertainly.
+
+"With a small fire of very dry hardwood, and this rising wind, what
+little smoke there is won't hold together long enough to be seen."
+
+"But it'll blow right toward their camp! The wind's changed since
+yesterday!"
+
+"That's more than two miles off, and they're probably still after
+Smilax. I'll make a very small fire."
+
+This, indeed, seemed to work well enough, and by the time a new
+breakfast was ready our uncertainties had become shadows of no
+consequence.
+
+"But you _do_ know I was angry, don't you?" she asked, out of a clear
+sky, with an unexpectedness that made me throw back my head and laugh.
+
+"You bet I do! And you beat me in the race, too; and you're the best
+cook on our block!"
+
+"It seems to be the same old story," she smiled, with affected sorrow,
+"that food must always be the price of masculine tractability. Ah, the
+long drawn out tragedy of woman's existence, that she must forever be
+stuffing man with things to eat, as reptiles are stuffed, to keep him
+facile!"
+
+"You fail to observe, my little snake charmer," I replied, "that you
+omitted to say good things to eat. I'm never facile after Smilax feeds
+me."--Though I owe Smilax an apology for this!
+
+"He must have run great risks of being bitten."
+
+"Oh, no; I'm not the biting kind of snake! I'm a constrictor--I hug!"
+
+"Mercy!" She gave a little gasp, then, turned and went indifferently
+toward the spring.
+
+Whistling happily I finished the dishes. But I finished them with the
+promise of a better cleansing next time, and soon was calling her.
+
+She came to me humming the song I had been whistling--an unconscious bit
+of flattery on her part, but it added to my pleasure. There is, after
+all, so much to be gained by hitching your wagon to a star, that I tried
+to believe she deliberately intended it. I would have hitched up oftener
+to that same star, except for the fact that stars sometimes get hot and
+furious at too many liberties, and switch their tails and kick the
+wagons of well-meaning people to smithereens. That it may be better to
+have had a stellar joy-ride and be sent to hell for speeding than keep
+your boots forever in the clay, I will neither affirm nor deny; but the
+prudent man hitcheth to the moon!
+
+As we went toward the fort she turned to me, asking:
+
+"Don't you think they should have been here sooner? Do you fear anything
+you won't tell me?" Her eyes were anxious, and I saw how insistent this
+worry had been.
+
+"Everything depends on how far Smilax had to go," I answered. "He'd
+never dream of coming back until the men gave up--and they might chase
+him half across the state! So a few extra days doesn't mean anything.
+They can't catch him, that's certain; and he and Echochee'll only stay
+away as long as they're pursued. They'll come through, I believe it
+sincerely; and your Chancellor, sweet Princess, will guard you with his
+life--with ten lives, if he had them."
+
+"I know that," she murmured, "and shan't worry if you tell me not to."
+
+"Then cheer up! Smilax is a past-master of the swamps and woods, take my
+word for it!"
+
+"I really suppose Echochee knows a great deal about them, too," she
+said, after a pause, "for when she was sixteen she had to leave the
+Reservation with her husband and hide him in the Everglades. She learned
+a great deal, then."
+
+"Why did she have to do that?"
+
+"He'd fought and killed another Indian, and the officers were expected.
+But in the fight he received a cut that made him blind. For ten years
+Echochee fed and clothed him, hunting alligators and watching her chance
+of slipping the skins to a market. By extreme stinting she finally saved
+enough to 'buy him loose'--her optimistic way of saying 'pay a lawyer
+for his defense.' Think, after being outcasts all that time, of leading
+a blind husband through half a hundred miles of wilderness, with the
+savings of ten years to wager on a chance of having him cleared!"
+
+"I hope he was," I declared.
+
+"In a sense he was, yes. He knew where she kept the money, and while she
+was in the lawyer's office persuading him to take the case, her husband
+stole it and sneaked away."
+
+I uttered a cry at this hideous ingratitude, and she glanced at me,
+gravely adding:
+
+"Then he got drunk and was run over by a train; so, in a sense, Echochee
+freed him, after all."
+
+"Oh, the magnanimous courage of a woman's devotion!" I stopped and
+looked at her. "It's always the same, irrespective of tribe and nation.
+She's dauntless, world-defying, utterly self-sacrificing. I hope to
+God, Doloria, that you won't be among those who squeeze their hearts
+dry! You've lived away from the world and may not know how plentiful
+these are; but no day passes without its toll of some woman being
+silently crucified in her losing fight to save a besotted biped--the
+lord of her earthly temple. It's only by a streak of luck when their
+stage is cleared, as Echochee's was!"
+
+"That may be all right for clearing the stage," she murmured, "but it
+doesn't heal the hearts of those who were made to suffer."
+
+I had not fathomed the penetration of her sympathy, being satisfied, man
+like, to let a swift revenge wipe the slate. She seemed to be
+contemplating what I had said, and when she again spoke her voice was
+tender as though it had come unbidden from a wistful reverie.
+
+"I suppose you're right, Jack. The world I've known, only through books,
+must be full of such cruelties. I rather dread having to go into it. It
+seems a pity that I can't always live in--in----" then, with a smile,
+she asked: "Do you ever dream? I don't mean when you're asleep, but
+awake--wide awake?"
+
+"I rather think I'm dreaming now," I admitted, for a great contentment
+had fallen about us as we walked beneath the solemn trees.
+
+The silence that followed was again stirred by her voice, saying:
+
+"You mustn't think me childish, but I've always had a secret gateway to
+a place--my Secret world--where everything is make-believe, and nothing
+can be but truth and beauty. Often when Echochee was tiresome, or I was
+tired, I used to slip away and go there."
+
+"I wish you'd take me--won't you?"
+
+"Oh, I can't," she quickly answered, stooping for a flower in our path,
+holding it in both hands and leaning her face above it.
+
+"Yes," at last I said, "I've a place like that; but I don't know whether
+I live there in make-believe, or throwing off the make-believe we have
+to wear in the world you're going to, I live honestly with myself. If
+you won't take me to yours, sometime maybe you'll come to mine!"
+
+Now, I had no intention of making love to her. We were talking only
+about secret worlds and day-dreams.
+
+"I'm afraid it might be difficult," she answered, dropping the flower
+and walking a shade more slowly. "Our lives--yours and mine--are cast
+along such opposite lines, it seems!"
+
+"That's what Secret worlds are for," I told her, "----that, no matter
+how far apart we are, our spirits may come and meet; live again, as
+we've lived here; be happy again--as I've been." I turned, saying with a
+laugh that was meant to convey an impression of insouciance--yet failing
+rather miserably: "These two big pines here, Princess, actually make the
+gateway to my pool--which is, in fact, my Secret world, because you
+helped me build my home there. So, you see, it wouldn't be very
+difficult, as you were about to enter without knowing it. Oh, I wish I
+could tell you more about it!" And I then became silent, too helplessly
+afraid to go on.
+
+A brighter color had come into her throat and cheeks, but she was
+smiling whimsically as she said:
+
+"Then we must go around--find another path to the fort--mustn't we!"
+
+She had stopped before me, poised delicately, almost swaying; and for
+several seconds our eyes, that must have been charged with some
+untranslatable excitement, held fast. Mine would not let go, and hers I
+believe could not. Her hands, idly at her sides, were turned palms
+forward, unconsciously suggestive of supplication.
+
+"Do you know what you remind me of when you stand that way?" I asked.
+
+"No," She looked away now, laughing lightly--though it was more subtly
+than suddenly done. "What?"
+
+"Of a fairy that's flown from a butterfly moon, just alighting at my
+threshold and asking to come in."
+
+"Wouldn't a fairy be unseemly forward to come to a young man's threshold
+and ask admittance?"
+
+"Not admittance, but admission--to my dreams, where nothing is real but
+you and beauty."
+
+"Dreams are for the old, the young shall see visions!--isn't there a
+quotation like that?" she asked, smiling.
+
+"You're not playing fair," I laughed--for I was afraid not to laugh,
+wanting desperately to say that I was seeing the vision now that would
+be my dream forever!
+
+"I'll play fair if I know the rules," she also laughed. "You haven't
+told them to me!"
+
+"We'll make them up as we go along!"
+
+"But what are we going to play?"
+
+"Make-believe," I eagerly cried. "That we're exploring our Secret world
+where we'll come after,"--there was no laugh in my voice now--"you've
+gone to Azuria, and I'm here alone."
+
+She gave my face a quick, searching look.
+
+"And we only have to pass between these two big trees?" she asked, half
+lightly, half timidly.
+
+"Only through that gateway, and we're in our world!"
+
+"Why should I go, I wonder?" The question was whispered, almost
+unconsciously, and catching the tone of it I also whispered:
+
+"To plant a memory, Doloria, that will grow and bloom as long as we
+live; where each of us may come--when we're lonely."
+
+What forces, intangible, supernal, were at work here no man can tell.
+Philosophers stumble, fools blunder, and the truth dances on ahead
+through Life's woodland of mysteries--one instant revealing itself in a
+golden shaft of sunlight, hiding the next with smothered laughter in the
+black shadow of a fern, while seekers after it tramp past in grumbling
+blindness.
+
+At this moment our wood seemed rich with mystic presage. Pleadingly my
+hands went out to her, and trustfully she put hers into them. Slowly I
+backed between the two big trees, our eyes held as two charmed beings.
+Everything about me called to her, everything in her urged compliance;
+and I knew, as did she, that something strange was happening. Yet when I
+halted she did not falter, but came on, bravely, sweetly, into my arms.
+
+That she should have done this was as inevitable as it was gloriously
+true. We could no more have continued to stroll side by side through our
+Oasis, commenting on the seasons, sometimes rapturous over a sunset or
+the call of a bird, than we could have rubbed a lamp and brought the
+_Whim_ sailing to us over the sea of grass. Static existences only
+prevail with static people, and there was too much surgingly dynamic
+about this twenty year old girl to have encouraged it here. I say, too,
+with candor that any man of twenty-six whose blood is red is--with the
+great out-of-doors abetting--not insulated for or against currents.
+Throw these two alone in a primitive world where their tent is the sky,
+and a spark must eventually jump across the gradually lessening
+distance. It is thus that wild things mate--and their mating is
+incorruptible.
+
+But now as my arms tightened and my face leaned to hers, she gave a half
+fearful cry and sprang tremblingly back, pressing both hands to her
+breast, breathing quickly and staring at me with wide eyes.
+
+"Chancellor," she gasped, "this is madness, don't you know it?"
+
+The quick alarm in her voice sobered me and I answered "Yes," for there
+was nothing else to say. And a moment later when, in an even tone and at
+a conventional distance, she suggested: "Shall we go on to the fort?" I
+did not reply, but walked mutely at her side.
+
+Our contact had been too instantaneous for me to collect myself at once,
+and I wondered how she was managing to do so--or if she were bluffing.
+For this sudden serene-mindedness she now displayed was quite too
+enigmatic for my comprehension.
+
+"We planted the memory that will be mine forever," I whispered, trying
+to see her face which she kept partially hid by keeping half a step
+ahead of me. "I'll never forget our----"
+
+"Oh," she cried, on the verge of tears, I thought, "don't ever speak to
+me of it again--ever!"
+
+"It's nothing we ought to regret--it wasn't your fault," I
+persisted,----
+
+"That's just it--it was my fault, it was," she interrupted passionately,
+and somehow her hand found mine and pressed it. Was there ever any one
+more square? "I knew we were going to--do that, and I didn't try to stop
+it. You'll think that I'm--I'm----"
+
+"The most glorious girl who ever lived," I cried, taking full possession
+of her hand now.
+
+"Won't you please be honest?" she asked, quite seriously. "I am; and I
+give you my word I'd never have done it if it hadn't seemed so real--I
+mean, our planting the memory."
+
+She turned then, and to my relief she was half smiling. For an instant
+the longing to hold her again showed in my face, but she stopped me with
+a look. This time it was done with the intention of stopping me, and I
+stopped. Yet the smile had not left her face as she said, in a tone of
+sweet confidence:
+
+"Let's be above-the-board-honest with each other in all things, Jack; it
+makes for long friendships, Echochee says--and there's nothing finer,
+anyhow, than to freely admit a mistake. So it wasn't your fault any more
+than mine; we've both been very naughty spirits, and we mustn't be
+again." She paused, adding: "After all, I suppose it does make our
+secret world just a little----"
+
+I waited, and when she did not continue, asked:
+
+"A little what?"
+
+Still she hesitated.
+
+"Be honest," I warned.
+
+She smiled again, looking at me frankly.
+
+"Well, a little sweeter, to feel that we're equally to blame; that
+that's why we can't ever go there again."
+
+"Eden up-to-date?" I laughed.
+
+"Y-yes, I suppose so; and the flaming sword has smote us, so we have to
+be circumspect forever and ever."
+
+"But Eve wasn't! The flaming sword didn't phaze her a minute!"
+
+"I've had lots of time to improve on Eve," she replied archly.
+
+"That's God's truth," I cried.
+
+A rippling laugh burst from her lips--a ringing, happy laugh that was
+heard, I swear, in listening heaven. She seemed obsessed by a strange
+excitement--perhaps like my own, that sprang from a deep, inordinate
+sense of pleasure.
+
+We were getting on toward the fort, walking inside the edge of our Oasis
+near that place where the fallen palms lay in a confused tangle. I had
+her hand and was helping her over this network of logs when she suddenly
+sprang before me with dazzling quickness; facing outward, and holding
+back her arms to keep me in check.
+
+It was an act instinctive of protection, yet scarcely had I time to
+wonder at it when a whining, crackling sound, that might have come from
+anywhere, dashed past our heads. Men who have heard a high-power bullet
+splitting the air do not forget the sound, which is as quickly
+recognized a second time as the rattling of a diamond-back.
+
+Immediately following it came the crack of a rifle, and guided by this I
+saw, above the prairie grass four hundred yards away, the head and
+shoulders of a man. At that instant he fired again.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+I LOVE YOU
+
+
+To be transported instantly from the essence of happiness to the brink
+of tragedy--and a tragedy wherein the whole of one's world goes
+tottering--engenders a confusion of mind that for a moment leaves one
+helpless. And thus it was that the second bullet flashed by us before I
+sufficiently gathered my wits to act, to realize that some returning
+member of Efaw Kotee's band had stumbled on our little paradise.
+
+I caught Doloria and swung her behind me, at the same time drawing my
+automatic and sending two quick shots, aimed high, toward the scoundrel
+who was making ready to try his hand again. Almost at once he
+disappeared, though I knew he had not been hit for it was extremely
+doubtful if, at that range, a revolver bullet could reach him at all.
+For the sake of caution he was merely crouching in the grass, and
+waiting.
+
+Then I became swept by an inordinate anger; a natural enough feeling in
+a man whose life has been sneakingly attempted, but let a life that is a
+million times more precious than his own be so fired upon and he will
+pass the limit of human rage. With an oath I pushed her down into a
+niche of temporary safety, saying:
+
+"Stay there till I come back!"
+
+Immediately I began to scramble over the network of fallen logs; my
+intention being to reach the high grass and, dropping to my hands and
+knees, crawl out to meet him--as, in all probability, he was now
+crawling toward us. But before I got free of the entanglements she had
+sprung after me and caught my arm, crying:
+
+"It's insane for you to go out there--with only your automatic against
+his rifle! Come back!"
+
+"Go back yourself," I said sternly, shaking off her grasp. "Crouch in
+the hole, as I told you! Quick!"
+
+"I won't--unless you do, too! For the love of God--he'll _kill_ you!"
+This last she screamed, frantically catching hold of me again as the man
+fired a third shot and we felt the breath of his bullet on our faces.
+
+Both of us knew that this was no time for argument, and she began
+tugging at my belt like a wild thing, bracing herself to keep me back
+and showing no disposition to obey. So without ceremony I picked her up
+intending to shove her down between the logs.
+
+"You shan't," she gasped. "He'll kill you if you go--if you don't he'll
+leave!"
+
+But I was too terrified for her sake to listen--too determined that the
+fellow should not get back and tell his gang.
+
+"Do as I say," I commanded, giving her a shake.
+
+She had stopped speaking and was desperately using her strength. I,
+also, had grown desperate. Our position was too unwarrantably exposed to
+tolerate this further, and urgently I began to pry open her fingers
+when, by some twist of her own or awkwardness on my part, I slipped and
+fell out backwards into a deep, narrow slit between the logs, drawing
+her down with me and wedging my shoulders as if they were held in a
+vise.
+
+It might have been a serious fall--for her, I mean--had not
+providentially she landed atop of me; but now, trying to arise, I found
+that I had measured neither her strength of purpose nor of muscle. Her
+determination had not been cooled by this mishap, rather had it become
+more aroused with the consciousness of her advantage; for, in answer to
+my first movement, she caught my cheeks and passionately shook me. Her
+eyes, scarcely half a foot away, stared down into mine with a
+frightened, pleading, commanding look. They were open wider than usual,
+giving the impression that this was the first test of physical encounter
+she had ever experienced.
+
+"You're safe here!--you shan't move!" she was whispering wildly.
+
+"I must," I declared. "He's got to be stopped, I tell you!"
+
+I did not want to hurt her, yet at all hazards that man had to be
+killed, and I began really to struggle.
+
+"No--no!" she panted, pushing down my partially raised head with a jolt
+that made me see stars. For she was fighting this time, with the
+ferocity of a tigress, and I, held by her weight, found the task of
+freeing myself no easy one. I tried working loose one shoulder, growling
+between my teeth:
+
+"I _will_ get out of here!"
+
+"You won't--you won't!" She reiterated this as if sheer force of mind
+could make me yield. And then her hair, uncoiling, fell softly over my
+face and closed my eyes.
+
+There is a mesmeric force about the human hair, a woman's hair, resting
+on a man's upturned face--although I do not mean this in a sentimental
+sense. It is a natural law; as a wild bird can be put into a state of
+mimic sleep by laying it on its back and pressing its eyes with
+feathers.
+
+The frenzy of Doloria's clutching fingers that still held my cheeks,
+and the pressure of her body whose excited breathing wedged me even
+tighter down between the logs, had been to us no more than incidents in
+the desperate struggle we were making, each for the other's safety. But,
+blinded by her hair, for the moment I desisted and, taking quick
+advantage of this, she whispered:
+
+"If you've any wish to please me, listen! I know those men by
+heart--each is an arrant coward when alone. So he won't crawl closer. By
+the time he brings the others back we'll be inside the fort!"
+
+"That's just it," I retorted. "The fort's no good at night--they'll rush
+it! He's got to be stopped, Doloria!"
+
+"Jack, do this for me, please?" she begged. Her lips were very near. "If
+we have to die, we will--but I can't see you go out on that prairie
+alone--I simply can't!" And I grew still.
+
+Soon I felt her hands upon my chest as she pushed herself up to look
+over the logs. By this movement the blindfold was partially lifted and I
+could see her--her body curved backward, as a mermaid that raises itself
+at arm's length upon the shore. Her lips were parted, her eyes were
+steady and level as they gazed searchingly across the sea of grass--as
+many a nymph, no doubt, hiding from a company of swashbuckling gnomes,
+must have peeped out to see if her glade were safe before venturing from
+the wood. In another moment she had left me and run a few steps toward
+the prairie, crying:
+
+"Look! He's 'way, 'way off!"
+
+"I can't look," I called after her. "You've put me here for life!"
+
+Indeed, I was so completely held that the first result of my twisting
+seemed only to make me lose ground. She came back, this time laughing
+without control--but I knew the sign; my nerves, too, had recently been
+drunk on relaxation from a strain. Tucking up her hair with a few quick
+movements she held down both hands to me and, after more squirming, I
+worked myself out. But our enemy had by this time disappeared.
+
+"If that fellow's back, the others are, too," I said, with some display
+of temper. "You've made the very devil of a mess!"
+
+"I suppose I have," she looked demurely away. There was nothing of the
+tigress, nothing of the willful little fighter, now.
+
+"The consequence is," I continued, "that we have to decide between two
+darned slim chances, for they'll be coming back within an hour. We can
+stay here, or run for it! What do you think?" But as she remained
+silent, gazing across the prairie, I kept irritably on: "If it's run, we
+can't reach the forests north, south or east without being seen--and you
+know what a fight in the open means against such odds. We might hide in
+the grass and travel at night, but if their woodcraft's worth a hang
+they'll read our trail on this kind of ground like an electric sign.
+There's an Indian in their crowd, too. If we stay, the fort'll keep
+them off till night--and there's always a hope of Smilax turning up.
+They mightn't rush us after dark, either."
+
+I could see that the fort was our best chance, but still I wanted her
+opinion. Something about the way she stood, having no word to say,
+rather awed me, and going softly I looked around at her face. Her cheeks
+were wet and her lips were trembling with convulsive sobs. Oh, how I
+hated myself then!
+
+"Good God," I cried, throwing my arms about her, "see what I've done!"
+
+But she put her palms against my shoulders and held me off, saying
+brokenly:
+
+"You haven't done anything."
+
+"I have," I cried again. "I've hurt you--hurt the one I love most in all
+the world!"
+
+"Don't," she said, more startled now than at any time when she had been
+facing a greater danger. "Quick! Please--let's get the things we need
+for the fort!" And she sprang away from me, running toward the pool.
+
+In a very few minutes we were back with the rifles, an ample supply of
+cartridges, our canteens, and a blanket I had brought in case we decided
+to slip away at night. Helping her over the parapet I followed, and we
+stood looking intently for a sign of foes, but the waving grass spoke
+only of a brisk wind. It might be a half an hour before Efaw Kotee's
+band could get within range of us. Twice I whispered her name, but she
+would not answer, so I turned her around until she had to face me.
+
+"I have the right to speak now," I said gently, "because this may be the
+last of things. The next few hours will decide. You understand, don't
+you, and know that my words are their own excuse?"
+
+There was a serious, calm mystery in her look that answered mine with
+simple courage, as she whispered:
+
+"Yes, I understand."
+
+"We can't die," I drew her close to me, "because I love you--I love
+you!"
+
+For a quick moment, and then gone, a light shone in her eyes--as though
+some fire raging below had been swept through the entirety of her being.
+Her fingers that had been clutching my shoulders relaxed, and very
+softly her arms crept around my neck, as she murmured: "No more than I
+do you!"
+
+It might have been a minute or a year that we drifted in a rapturously
+agonizing kiss; but slowly her eyes opened, her lips sighed and,
+touching them to my cheek, she whispered my name over and over again.
+
+"We'll win to-day," I cried, giving the prairie a searching look above
+her head, "and after that there's a kingdom waiting for you here!"
+
+"I can feel it beating," she whispered adorably. "But if we----" She
+could not say it, but let her moist lips cling to mine as if challenging
+Death to part us.
+
+Who dares measure time when Cupid perches on the clock! 'Twas a wise
+providence that gave severe St. Gregory the making of our calendar, and
+not St. Anthony, else some minutes might be spun to days, and hours
+squeezed to the fraction of a second.
+
+But the ever present danger had not at any time quite ceased to pierce
+the mist of our paradise. She knew I was keeping a careful watch, even
+while I held her. Now she drew away, and crossed her arms upon the
+parapet.
+
+"When things begin to happen," I said, "you must sit on the ground. I
+won't risk your lovely head above the wall!"
+
+"Why?" she asked. "Aren't two rifles better than one?"
+
+"Yes," I admitted, "but I can't shoot unless you're safe."
+
+"Then don't think of me, at all, for I promise to do whatever you say.
+Look," she pointed suddenly. "There they are!--I believe every one of
+them! Oh, I wonder if they've killed Echochee!"
+
+I, too, wondered; for surely here was the gang that had pursued
+them--quite a mile out on the prairie, to be sure, but unquestionably
+Efaw Kotee's band, showing as a black smudge above the grass. Whether
+this pack of human wolves had lost the trail of Smilax I would not try
+to guess, for it was enough to know that they had found our own.
+
+They were still too far off to be counted, but I felt that Doloria had
+been right in saying every man of them. That would mean eight if Jess
+and the old chief were along, furious devils demanding their revenge,
+mad to surround us and take their own good time about placing a shot
+where it would do the work. It was only fair that she should know the
+odds, so I put my arm around her, saying:
+
+"When they get nearer, they'll scatter out. Some will stay in front,
+hiding in the grass and shooting enough to keep us busy, and others will
+circle to the trees behind us. It's going to be a close call,
+sweetheart, but they'll never get in while I'm up."
+
+"I know that," she answered gently. "We may as well be brave and speak
+of it with indifference; it's easier that way; so I want to tell you
+that if you--you----" but her voice did choke, yet she raised her chin
+and calmly finished, "are killed, I'll follow right away. It's
+infinitely preferable to being taken," she hastily added, seeing my look
+of horror. "So wait for me just a little while, and I'll catch up with
+you."
+
+Was there ever such courage! Looking back into her eyes I saw a light
+that by its own vital force was self-translated, requiring no words, nor
+the sight of her fingers grasping the handle of that small revolver at
+her waist, to tell of her determination. In spite of myself I shuddered;
+yet she was so calm, so wonderful in her abiding faith of catching up
+with me on that Long Trail that knows no turning back, that my heart,
+too, burned with a flame more enduring than the love of mortals. Without
+a word I took the small revolver from her hand, and in its place put
+mine of larger, more reliable, caliber. Understanding, she looked
+gratefully up at me, her eyes filling with tears even as she smiled and
+whispered:
+
+"Now I can do it without being afraid."
+
+"By the God above us," I groaned in my agony, "you'll never have to! For
+your sake I'll beat off twice that many men!"
+
+"Then don't think of it again, my ferocious, terrible Chancellor," she
+laughed a little--but I knew, with a sob tearing at my throat, that her
+playful mood, intended as a tonic for my nerves, was the bravest thing
+she had yet done. "Look, Jack! They're doing something!"
+
+"They're spreading out," I said, tensely.
+
+Her excitement suddenly died. In its place came a pathetic look of
+wistfulness as she raised her face to mine and, with a quick sob,
+whispered:
+
+"Oh, very own mine, try to let me cook your dinner again to-night?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+THE ATTACK
+
+
+When after this I looked across the parapet I was as a man of highly
+tempered steel. The compact mass had begun to disintegrate, spreading in
+both directions until their flanks must have been an eighth of a mile
+apart. Then they advanced.
+
+On a guess I judged their line to be quite fifteen hundred yards away
+because each unit looked about the size of a pea; and, as these
+represented the upper halves of men, the distance was too great to open
+fire. So I raised my sight to a thousand yards and waited. My nerves
+were steady with a purpose deep-set in me, for I was about to shoot for
+the greatest trophy of my life, so when the line had advanced a third of
+the way I took careful aim, and fired. A second passed; then my target
+disappeared.
+
+"Is he hit or hiding?" Doloria asked excitedly, adding with a little
+gasp: "He's hit, for some are going to him--see?"
+
+"I believe he is," I agreed, taking another careful aim at one who had
+not started to his comrade's assistance. He, too, disappeared, and
+immediately afterwards all of them ducked from view.
+
+"That's awkward," I growled. "They'll do some crawling up, now!"
+
+"They won't dare come close after that," she cried, "for I know you hit
+one!" Yet this might have been what Echochee would have called
+"good-medicine-talk," and while standing ready I warned her not to be
+too sure, as both men might have dropped only for safety.
+
+It will not seem strange that we both felt some disappointment over the
+probability of this, if one stops to consider what lurked in the other
+side of the scales for us.
+
+Heads soon began to bob up nearer, now accompanied by quickly fired
+shots, and I ordered Doloria to the ground. But with relief I noticed
+that these shots went wild, many times hitting too far away to be heard
+at all, so our position obviously was as yet undiscovered. The morning
+sun shone directly in the men's eyes, while the protective coloration of
+our fort blended most elusively into the background of somber forest.
+
+At the bobbing heads I continued to fire with what quickness I could,
+sometimes sending a second, third and fourth shot purposely low to probe
+the grass where it seemed that a man might be crouching. I could not
+reasonably have expected to register a hit by this, but it kept them in
+check, and that was our chief concern. From the beginning I realized
+that if they got near enough to rush us the night would close over a
+very silent little fort.
+
+Suddenly Doloria gave a cry that froze my blood, for I thought it meant
+an attack from the rear.
+
+"Quick--quick! Your matches! Oh, not to have thought of it before!" But
+this last was added while I dug into my pockets for the precious box.
+
+"You can't do it," I exclaimed.
+
+"I can! Keep them down, and I'll crawl! They won't see me!"
+
+There was wisdom here, and I yielded. Nimbly she climbed the wall,
+dropped to her hands and knees, and crawled to the prairie. In another
+minute a string of smoke appeared; then with a bunch of grass alight
+she flew from place to place, stooping as she ran, and leaving in her
+wake a trail of fire. Almost as quickly she was back at my side,
+breathing fast.
+
+"You glorious genius, we'll win out yet," I yelled.
+
+The grass was dry and tall and thick, and the wind was blowing smartly.
+Fire asks for no better playground, and with incredible swiftness a wall
+of flame sprang up, crackling and roaring as it spread out fan-wise.
+
+She knew, as did I, that the men would back-fire. But while this would
+save them from the flames it would at the same time remove their cover,
+and my rifle could then have a whole man to bite at instead of merely
+his head and shoulders, or less. They would have no alternative now but
+to come forward quickly or retreat. I think Doloria realized that
+anything might be about to happen, for she laid the other rifle in
+position on the parapet, rather casually asking:
+
+"Will it matter if I stand on the canteens? They raise me just high
+enough!"
+
+Why should she not be given a chance to fight for her life--at least,
+until they located our point of concealment and began to concentrate
+their fire on it. That this would inevitably happen might be a matter of
+minutes, but until then I thought she had every right to stay. There's
+no denying, too, that I knew her value.
+
+What was going on behind the wall of racing flame we could not tell. But
+now it rose majestically, leapt skyward and sank to insignificance. The
+back-fire had met our own; they had gripped, flared up, and died.
+Likewise were our forces about to clash, and perhaps burn out with the
+heat of human passion.
+
+Staring through the smoke we counted seven men running to the rear. They
+well enough knew the danger of being without cover, and were intending
+first to get beyond our range and then bring the fight back by some
+other means. Shooting fast I heard Doloria give several quick gasps of
+excitement as I knocked up the ash dust close to them, and although,
+their number was not reduced we gained a feeling of greater security to
+find the fort more impregnable than I had prophesied.
+
+But our budding hope lasted about as long as it took us to conceive it.
+One of the fellows suddenly changed his direction, waving as he ran, and
+the others dashed after him. Then we, too, saw the discovery he had
+made, and it filled me with a sense of desperation.
+
+This was a long, low line of green, indicating a ditch, or slough, edged
+with saw-palmettoes and bay bushes, that began at some indefinite
+northwestward point and diagonally crossed the prairie until it passed
+around our Oasis scarcely more than a hundred feet away. Heretofore,
+completely hidden by the tall grass, I had had no idea of its existence,
+and neither had the men, until Doloria's torch changed the prairie to a
+charred waste. In reality it was the outlet from our spring, and I knew
+that it must be fairly wide because the fire had not jumped it.
+
+To Efaw Kotee's band it offered both an immediate cover and a place from
+which to carry on the fight; moreover, by following it toward us, they
+could reach the Oasis and eventually creep up behind so near that a
+well-directed shot in my head would be only a question of persistence
+and time.
+
+Doloria must have understood this, and for the first time she began to
+fire, yet at nearly a thousand yards, when one's target not only moves
+but looks small and black upon a blackened background, and is made
+further elusive by a haze of smoke, only luck can hit it. Still we
+played that luck to the last card, until one by one the men made safe
+and disappeared. Then she laid her rifle on the parapet, and I think
+took a long breath. For a moment neither of us spoke, each being afraid
+of saying too much, perhaps.
+
+Beginning to fill the magazine, she finally announced:
+
+"They're seven, Jack. You hit that first one, a while ago."
+
+"No," I replied, "or we'd see him on the ground now. He merely ducked,
+like the others."
+
+"But there were eight the night I escaped!"
+
+"Then Smilax got one during the chase--which shows that he and Echochee
+haven't been killed." But during this our eyes never left the ditch and
+our rifles were ready to blaze away at the first sign of movement.
+
+"Why?" she asked.
+
+"Because if he had to make a last stand there wouldn't be as many as
+seven men here now." And I firmly believed it, knowing how savagely our
+two servants would account for themselves. I think she agreed with me.
+
+An ominous silence lay about us. I felt sure that the scoundrels were
+crawling up along the ditch, and told her this. She nodded. Minutes
+passed.
+
+At one point, about two hundred yards out, there was a spot where the
+saw-palmettoes and bay bushes thinned to almost nothing. Sooner or later
+the enemy would have to cross this, and I watched it without blinking
+because it would offer our best--if not, indeed, last--chance to hold
+them. So when finally a stooping figure showed itself I opened a
+vigorous fire. He drew back, or fell back, and the silence again
+enveloped us, to be shattered an instant later by a fusillade of shots
+that made the air thick with crackling whines. The location of our fort
+was known.
+
+"Down, down!" I yelled.
+
+"I am," she answered, obeying as the best of soldiers. "I'll load for
+you!"
+
+We were being showered with lead by now, and between the wasplike things
+speeding overhead and their "sput-sput" as they hit the logs, I dared
+expose no more than my eyes and forehead while emptying rifle after
+rifle. In the fleeting movement of handing one down and taking the other
+I saw Doloria sitting near my feet, with several opened boxes of
+cartridges on the ground beside her. We had plenty of ammunition, so I
+did not wait for human targets but fired rapidly into every probable
+place of concealment--just hoping.
+
+This must have begun to touch them up, for one now made a dash across
+the open space and dived into good cover, from which he started an
+instant reply to me. There had been only time for a quick shot at him,
+as the opening was scarcely ten feet wide. Another tried and made it,
+but the third stumbled. Whether he accidentally fell or was wounded, I
+had no way of knowing, yet he was able, at least, to continue the fight
+because there seemed to be no let up in their volume of fire. Then, to
+my chagrin, a fourth got across, and, following him, the last three
+tried together--successfully.
+
+In the best of conditions these men would have been very hard to hit,
+yet I offer no excuses. My aim, of course, had greatly suffered.
+Disregard for the nicest accuracy in marksmanship may be expected when
+an enemy is pouring a hundred shots a minute at a certain point, and you
+happen to be that point.
+
+Again their rifles became silent. There seemed, indeed, no reason to
+keep them speaking, as the road to the Oasis was clear. When the trees
+back of us should be reached more shots would ring out, closer, always
+getting closer; eventually would come the hand-to-hand fight, and
+then--forgetfulness. Yet I swore with a burning rage in my heart that
+whoever of those fiends were left to gloat over their victory would
+remember until their dying day the price I had collected for it.
+
+"Where are they?" Doloria asked, in a voice that trembled slightly. The
+strain of waiting below was greater than that of seeing what went on
+outside.
+
+Grimly I told her how matters stood with us, and we, also, became
+silent.
+
+The next move appeared in the direction of our kitchen, when several
+shadowy forms began to dart from tree to tree. The same plan was being
+adopted as that which they had used at the ditch: one man, his advance
+covered by a hot fire from the others, would stoop and run forward to a
+previously selected place, then a second, third, and so on, each
+beginning to shoot from the new position, as he got to it. These tactics
+might successfully be repeated until the last barrier of trees, not more
+than twenty yards from us, was gained. But now a fellow showed himself a
+moment too long and I thought I dropped him, because a howl of rage went
+up from his mates.
+
+I was keeping the two rifles very busy by this time, and Doloria could
+scarcely load one before the other was being passed to her. Each side
+had resorted to the expediency of rising, firing and ducking down again.
+They were too near for me to risk an inch of head for more than the
+necessary fraction of a second, and sometimes, in my haste, I aimed at
+nothing at all. A vigorous fire, whether effective or not, would hold
+off their rush. But when I peeped over the next time a rifle, protruding
+from around a tree, showed me that one, at least, had reached the
+nearest point of cover. I banged at it and ducked, as several shots
+whizzed over me. It was rather discouraging work, this of being forced
+to keep down! Another brief silence on their part was suggestive of a
+new move, and I felt sure that they were preparing for a charge.
+
+Calling this to Doloria, I began to bob up at different places along the
+wall, trying in a frenzy to check them, and for the moment was
+successful. Then I heard her give a cry, as a bullet split the stock of
+the rifle she was loading.
+
+"Some one's in a tree shooting down at us! Look out!" she called,
+rolling over to get beneath the nearer wall.
+
+Upon hearing this I gave up trying to dodge, and stood to the parapet
+determined to drop as many as possible before being dropped myself; for
+if their number were materially reduced she might be able, as a last
+resort, to come off victor with the automatic. And spurred by this
+intention I faced them so resolutely that they were compelled to hug
+their cover. But a second shot from the tree, slanting downward, struck
+the surface of the sand filling we had used between our walls; it hit a
+few inches directly in front of my face, knocking up a shower of grit
+that, for the moment, completely blinded me.
+
+I must have wheeled around with my arm across my eyes, because the men
+believed that I'd been done for, and with a triumphant howl started
+forward. Doloria, too, thought the end had come, and gave one despairing
+cry that I shall remember if I live a thousand years. Through my
+blurred vision I got a glimpse of her face, a blending of courage and
+horror and purpose, as she raised the automatic to her temple.
+
+And then by some divine insight I sprang and snatched it away. The howls
+of triumph had ceased; no leering enemy appeared above our parapet. The
+smart in my eyes was passing enough for me to see four of them running
+southward across the prairie with the speed of deer, and suddenly I knew
+that, without realizing it, I had just been hearing other rifle shots.
+Whirling about, I saw emerging from a near-by point in the ditch several
+figures, shouting and waving their hats.
+
+"Tommy," I yelled, "Gates, Echochee, Smilax!" I did not name them all,
+but turned quickly as Doloria flew into my arms. "We're saved,
+sweetheart! The dice have rolled for us!"
+
+She was crying a little, clinging to my neck, talking fast, but saying
+only one thing. And although Tommy afterwards declared that for a time
+there was such a silence in the fort that he believed we had been
+killed, I consider this but one of his verbal extravagances; for it
+seemed only a second after he waved before we were on the parapet waving
+back to him.
+
+Yet, in the midst of my wildest cheer I stopped. It stuck in my throat,
+it dried up as the fountain of my gladness seemed suddenly to have gone
+dry, and I looked at her. There must have been a great pain in my
+eyes--not physical, for that was transient and had passed--because she
+touched them, whispering:
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"See what I'm cheering for," I answered huskily. "Our escape only means
+death to our dreams--it's good-bye to the Oasis!"
+
+"Why?" she asked, her face turning slightly pale.
+
+"Because the minute those people get here you won't be my Doloria of the
+Golden Dawn any more, but Princess Doloria of Azuria!"
+
+She caught hold of my sleeve and gasped, a little hysterically:
+
+"But, Jack, suppose I don't _want_ to be Princess Doloria!"
+
+Our friends had covered half the distance, and I hurriedly said:
+
+"You can't help yourself! You don't know the power that man, Dragot,
+has! Will you run off with me to-night?" For I could not dismiss the
+obsession that Monsieur would prevail. "He came especially armed with
+government orders to find you and take you back. And I'm only afraid
+your heart's too straight to refuse him, even if you could, when he puts
+it up to your conscience! Oh, Doloria--please don't cry!"
+
+"I won't," she answered tremulously, "if you stop talking that way!"
+
+I was sorry, and quickly told her that everything would come out all
+right--that my love was stronger than all the powers of all the
+governments under the sun. Then I helped her down on the prairie side,
+for the others were nearly up to us, approaching with bared heads. There
+was a fantastic note in our situation that deeply affected me. What
+could have been more bizarre than an Azurian princess holding court upon
+the edge of a Florida prairie? This, emphasized by our escape from
+death, added color to the fabric of unreality whose warp was romance,
+and whose woof was the mystifying surge of human impulses. So my
+vacillating spirits rebounded to the pinnacle of happiness and, raising
+my hand, I announced in a loud voice:
+
+"Gentlemen, Her Serene Highness, Doloria, Princess of Azuria!"
+
+Except for Echochee, they stopped and in frank amazement gazed at her.
+Flushed by the excitements that had made this day memorable, she was
+indeed the most adorable sovereign before whom knights had e'er sworn
+fealty. But the old Indian woman, with an undisguised croon of delight,
+went straight to her side, folded her in aged, brown arms of iron, and
+faced the waiting men with a look of defiance. She did not comprehend
+all that was passing, but distinctly wanted it understood that no one
+should touch her child.
+
+After that they were all about her, even Bilkins and the two sailors
+asking to shake hands and hear from her own lips the story of what had
+happened. She recognized Gates as "the splendid captain who found the
+bomb," and he blushed like a little boy. Monsieur, of course, could not
+bring himself to treat her with anything less than royal deference, so
+he kneeled and kissed her hand. I saw her look at the back of it when he
+arose, and then search his face--he had left a tear which she seemed
+unwilling to brush off. Tommy, not content with one hand, took both; and
+these he shook until she burst out laughing. As a matter of fact, we
+were all laughing a few degrees immoderately. Then, without warning, the
+strain became too much. Her eyes suddenly filled, her lips began to
+tremble. Turning impulsively, she put an arm across Echochee's shoulders
+and together they walked toward the spring, leaving us silent.
+
+Old Gates rubbed his chin and looked up at the sky, saying huskily:
+
+"My word, it's going to rain!" And, although there was no cloud in
+sight, Tommy said he thought so, too.
+
+Thus the spell was broken and, with a more dismal duty to be performed,
+we sent for Smilax to bring the camp spade--leaving Monsieur to find
+Doloria and talk with her, for I had excused him from the contract Tommy
+made aboard the _Whim_, wanting to remove uncertainties as soon as
+possible.
+
+Gates entered a careful record in his notebook of identification marks
+on the three men we found dead. Our joint statement would be sufficient
+for the law in such a case as this, especially as Monsieur knew there
+was a price on Efaw Kotee's head, and doubtless on the heads of all who
+served him.
+
+When Smilax approached the last man he pointed down with grim
+satisfaction, saying:
+
+"Him bust black boy's head!"
+
+It was Jess, who would have bullied the old chief into giving up my
+princess! Well, our account was closed. But of Efaw Kotee there was no
+clue. I felt sure he was not among those who escaped, simply because he
+could not have run so fast; and Smilax was certain he did not follow
+with the chase.
+
+Our gruesome task finished, we turned back. For the moment I wanted to
+be alone, with my thoughts, my happiness, my uncertainty of Monsieur's
+power of persuasion, my heaviness of spirit caused by the work behind
+us. But Tommy ran up and slipped his arm through mine, saying with
+exaggerated carelessness:
+
+"I'm glad that crescendo of horrors is over--if you'll allow a kind of
+musical term; but I've got music in my soul to-day."
+
+"It's a funny time for music," I grumbled, "--except funeral marches."
+
+"By the way, did you find out about that other funeral march?"
+
+"No, I forgot," I confessed. "Don't bother me, Tommy; I feel like the
+devil."
+
+"I know it," he gave my arm a squeeze--for Tommy possessed that
+characteristic making for a community of mind and spirit that did not
+wait for explanations. "I know it," he repeated, "but you _look_ a whole
+lot better--really like your old self! Now, what's the trouble? If
+you're worrying about the ruins we created back there, cut it out! I'm
+not bothered over the one or two I might have got! Fact is, nobody knows
+which of us hit which, anyway. So what is it? I'm not asking, merely
+insisting!"
+
+So I told him pretty much everything, as one chum can to another.
+
+"You mean she may listen to the little gezabo and go back?" he asked.
+
+"I mean just that. She will if she thinks it has a bigger claim on her.
+I know how square she is!"
+
+"Besides being square," he said thoughtfully, "there's also something in
+the make-up of woman that I've never understood: her apparent hankering
+after sacrifice. When it comes to a show-down between heart and
+conscience, she'll follow the conscience ten to one--if she's straight.
+Look at it," he swept his arm toward the prairie, as if innumerable
+instances were in sight of us. "See the sweet-faced old ladies who never
+wrote 'Mrs.' before their names--not that they've missed anything, God
+knows, but just look at 'em! All because some over-finicky parent didn't
+approve, no doubt! And see the heart starvation stamped on 'daughter's'
+face, because 'father' was nearly bankrupt and she _did_ write 'Mrs.' to
+save him! Taking them in retrospect, it's a question if the thing they
+called sacrifice wasn't plain damn foolishness. Why, hell, Jack, d'you
+mean to say that the professor and his musty European customs--oh, I
+can't be profane enough!--the English language is trifling and
+inadequate! But I'm going to take a hand in this courtship, myself!"
+
+"For a gregarious animal, Tommy, you're something of a wonder," I began
+to laugh, because it was like myrrh and frankincense blown upon my
+doubts and fears to hear him talk.
+
+We went quietly on after this. Our boots made no noise in the soft
+earth, and thus silently we approached the fort; then halted. For on the
+farther side, hidden by the walls, a man was speaking in tones of
+earnestness, yet at that very instant a voice interrupted him.
+
+"I wish you wouldn't persist in talking now," it said irritably, "I'm
+too unhappy over the lives which most have been lost, and----"
+
+"But Your Serenity must realize that lives are nothing. The new destiny
+that----"
+
+"Oh, I know what you'd say," the voice cried. "But don't give me any
+more arguments, for Heaven's sake! They're utterly useless and, besides,
+you might convince me!"
+
+Softly we tiptoed away and, when at a safe distance I stopped to rub my
+arm where Tommy's fingers had been digging into it, he whispered:
+
+"That didn't sound sacrificy, did it?"
+
+"The old fellow hasn't struck his pace, yet," I answered doubtfully.
+
+"Well," Tommy looked back toward the fort, "the pressure's high enough
+for one day. She needs another rescuing. You go and speed up the grub."
+
+So, whistling the Charpentier love song, he left me.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+GERMAN CRUELTY
+
+
+At the kitchen fire Echochee was busily preparing food for a company now
+swelled to ten, and Smilax had dropped in rank to an assistant. I saw
+from her activity that this was not a fortunate moment to interrupt, yet
+there are some few things in life more important than a well-turned
+meal, and I therefore advanced, wishing to speak in the presence of our
+two sailors who hovered near with lips that all but drewled in
+anticipation of the feast.
+
+"I want to remind each of you," I said, "not to tell the princess that
+any one was killed. Let it go that a few were scratched, and the rest
+got away. You get the idea? I don't want her shocked."
+
+My men understood at once, but Echochee, never taking her eyes from the
+sizzling skillets, asked:
+
+"What you mean--'shocked'?"
+
+"I mean horrified, terrified--sorry," I answered, rather put to it how
+else to explain.
+
+"Ugh! She already sorry; cry some, say ve'y bad. Me say ve'y good. She
+all right now. You through?"
+
+And, since I was through, she gave another grunt, leaving me with the
+suspicion that she thought I was a very small boy.
+
+When finally the others came in sight Doloria walked at the side of
+Tommy, while Monsieur followed in some discomfiture of mind. His hair
+was tousled, and his eyes were thoughtful. From this, and the grin on
+Tommy's face, I judged that all was not going well for him and, in a
+more happy frame of mind, I went out to meet them.
+
+"Mr. Davis has been telling me a strange story," she smiled at me.
+
+"He's full of strange stories," I warned her. "Don't take him
+seriously--ever!"
+
+"But I know he was serious this time--weren't you?" The corners of her
+mouth were tell-tales of merriment as she turned to him.
+
+"Shall we let Jack in on it?" he asked, the grin on his face widening.
+
+"Do you think we'd better?" She was laughing outright now, with an
+alluring spirit of confidence; so I knew that she approved my estimate
+of Tommy and had taken him into her heart as for many years he had lived
+in mine.
+
+But women always loved Tommy--perhaps because he loved them. If some
+far-reaching providence had not endowed him with a well-developed sense
+of honor to go hand in hand with his attractiveness, more girls would
+have looked after him through tears than toward him with gladness.
+Whatever his loves and secret affairs, he always played above the board
+and never cheated; so they could trust him if he won, and pet him if he
+lost. Taken altogether, he was rather a lucky beggar, who learned early
+in life that the golden key which unlocks a woman's heart is
+Secrecy--and this they seemed to know by some divine, or devilish,
+insight.
+
+Before he now had a chance to answer her question, Monsieur caught up
+with us.
+
+"Ah, my boy Jack," he grasped my hands, forgetting his ill humor to
+beam on me. "For lack of opportunity I have not expressed my gratitude!
+Azuria is your debtor! I, who have the authority, say it!"
+
+"Thank you," I replied, "but that debt was cancelled early this morning
+when its Princess saved me from assassination."
+
+"Good Lord," Tommy cried, in despair, "he's spilled the beans! Jack, you
+bone-head, we----"
+
+"Be quiet, sir," she commanded, turning beautifully pink and giving me
+ten thousand messages in a single look.
+
+"Then come on," Tommy said, beginning to draw her away by the hand,
+"let's go off and think up another!"
+
+"My boy Tommy," the professor sternly reproved him, "she is of royal
+blood!"
+
+"You said something that time," he imperturbably replied. "Come on,
+Princess!" And laughingly she went with him.
+
+"_Pardieu_," the old fellow pulled at his beard, "that sex is like a
+cyclone--the nearer I get the faster I am twisted! But just as her
+mother was at that age--yes, quite!" He sighed.
+
+"Is she going back with you?" I asked, feeling a malicious joy in the
+question after the last look she gave me.
+
+"_Certainement_, there is no other way! Thus far I have not tried to
+persuade her, but merely presented a few minor facts. Yes, she will go."
+
+I confess that my malicious joy sank somewhat.
+
+"You are a gentleman," he continued, "and that presupposes a delicate
+sense of honor. I know how you feel toward her--yet would you have her
+remain with you if she one day regretted it? Great things rest on her
+return, I assure you. Let us start even! You have had two days to
+persuade her your way; let me have two days to persuade her mine! After
+that, we fight in the open--you and I!"
+
+There was something straightforward in his appeal that impressed me. I
+had had two days, and it would be giving her destiny, those great things
+he spoke of, a square deal to comply. I had misgivings, of course, but
+these were overruled by--why deny it?--the masculine conceit that
+becomes assertive after a few feminine favors. At any rate, it was a
+fair sporting proposition, and I said:
+
+"All right, for two days--provided I explain to her how we made this
+bargain."
+
+He smiled and hugged me as of yore, crying:
+
+"Almost you would make me sorry when I win! So we fight to the last
+ditch, eh?"
+
+"To the last ditch," I smiled, shaking hands with him.
+
+But hardly had the agreement been sealed before I regretted it. Tommy's
+dissertation on sacrifice worried me. And yet, what man with red blood
+and two wide-open eyes in his heart would have refused to play the cards
+Monsieur thus honestly laid out? It would be unfair to Doloria's future
+if I pugnaciously held to the advantage these few days had brought; for
+it is one thing to start in an open race with men, and run and burst
+your heart to be first across the goal which means a woman's arms, but
+quite another to take her unawares in a wilderness and, upon the spot,
+claim her before she knows what the surrender may involve. In years to
+follow a time might come when she would look at me through
+shadows--shadows that grow dark with perplexity over some irrevocable
+step--and I did not want to sow a seed to ripen into one of these. It is
+distracting enough for a man to bury his existing ghosts, but sheer
+madness deliberately to raise a crop of new ones.
+
+In this case I did not so much fear a race with other men in forms of
+rivals. I had reached my goal, her arms, and nothing could undo that.
+But her conscience--who dares claim the conscience of another! For two
+days, then, Monsieur could fight it out alone with her, and if his
+arguments prevailed--well, I would set about destroying them.
+
+After luncheon, with a brevity that she must have understood meant
+torture, I explained the compact, saying that I could ask for no more
+promises until two days had passed; and when she would have replied that
+her promise had been given I warned her that Monsieur had not even begun
+to show his power. She seemed a little frightened at this and, but for
+the sterling mark indubitably pressed upon her sense of right, I think
+she might have consented to fly from him.
+
+"For two days, then, I'm not to see you," she said simply.
+
+"No," I cried. "But for two days I can't tell you how I love you; how
+you're the very breath of my life, the control of my brain and body and
+soul, how I'll finally win you against everything! I'll see you, and be
+with you, but for two long, weary, interminable days I can't tell you
+that!"
+
+"Mightn't you," she smiled, a wee bit naughtily, "remind me each morning
+of those things you must not tell me during the two long, weary,
+interminable days? Then you wouldn't be so likely to forget, and break
+your contract."
+
+"Temptress! I wish we'd walked to the fort!" For, while we stood out of
+hearing, we were still in sight of the others.
+
+"So do I," she laughed now, her eyes expressive of a most fascinating
+wickedness, a daredeviltry born of the knowledge that the proximity of
+outsiders made her safe. Tommy says that girls often take this unfair
+advantage of a fellow. Then Monsieur, believing the time for
+explanations should be up, came toward us.
+
+At three o'clock our cavalcade started across the prairie for Efaw
+Kotee's settlement. Tommy and Monsieur were keen to see it, and
+especially was the latter keyed up to ransack the place for proofs and
+information. Smilax led, keeping away from the graves. Doloria had made
+no reference to casualties, accepting them as an unfortunate necessity,
+and only once asked about the old chief's fate.
+
+I looked back at the Oasis growing small behind us and a great sorrow
+came over me. It was not easy to leave the place where I had found such
+happiness, the place sacred to our vows, our first dwelling together
+beneath God's tent! It lay green and peaceful, but now upon a blackened
+sea. And, like that flame-swept land, so was my flame-swept heart; the
+fire of a resistless passion had passed over it, leaving amid the ashes
+one spot of beauty. She, also, had stopped to look at it and, as she
+turned away, our eyes met.
+
+When we approached the islands I went forward with Tommy and Smilax,
+leaving Gates to command the rear guard composed of his two sailors,
+Bilkins and Monsieur. Echochee, supremely content to have found Doloria,
+remained at her side.
+
+Four of the attacking party had escaped and might well have returned to
+their houses. We favored the theory, too, that Efaw Kotee had remained
+there, expecting his band to capture us; so, if the fugitives were with
+him, they could by now have prepared a formidable resistance. We
+therefore went warily up to a certain point and waited while Smilax
+crawled forward to reconnoiter.
+
+He returned saying that three punts were on our side, from which he
+believed the men had not come back but were still putting as much
+distance between themselves and us as possible. Tommy thought the punts
+might mean a trap and, although Smilax shook his head in doubt at this,
+we brought up one of the sailors to cover our crossing in case of an
+attack. Then, scrambling down the steep bank, in less than a minute we
+stood upon the island stronghold. No shot had been fired, no sign of
+life existed anywhere. Running to the nearest cabin we hastily searched
+it, and ran to the next, and in this way came finally to the old chief's
+bungalow. Here we halted, as if some horrible magic had turned us to
+stone.
+
+Efaw Kotee, naked to the waist, a few dried smears of blood around his
+mouth, was there to meet us. His lips munched the air, as a very old man
+who interminably chews on nothing, and his chest rose convulsively, then
+rested several seconds before renewing its struggle for breath. He was
+repulsive beyond all human description; for, stretched as an animal skin
+to dry, legs and arms pulled wide apart with buckskin thongs, he had
+been fastened head down on the wall beside his door. Yet this was not
+all. Hanging at the end of a string--in fact, now resting inertly
+against his cheek--was the scarlet, black and yellow ringed body of a
+coral snake, the deadly elaps. Its head had been severed and lay upon
+the floor directly underneath.
+
+In a flash I read the story: a duel of teeth between this captive
+reptile and the semi-crucified man; the one in anger wounding, the other
+snapping in his frenzy to sever that venomous head--his only means of
+escape from it. From the way the thongs had cut into his wrists and
+ankles I knew the struggle had been wild, yet much of this may have come
+from the insanity later kindled by the poison. But that period of
+torment now had passed. Strength was exhausted, and life dangled by the
+merest thread.
+
+I heard Tommy draw in his breath. With a shiver Smilax turned away.
+Better than we he understood what the old man had endured. Together we
+cut the pitiable victim down, carried him inside and laid him on a kind
+of divan.
+
+"Who did this?" Tommy kneeled and called in a loud voice close to his
+ear, hoping to reach a consciousness that had receded far into the
+shadows.
+
+"I know who did it," I interrupted. "Quick! While there's time let me
+ask something we're not so sure about!" And, taking Tommy's place, I
+called: "Is Doloria the princess of Azuria?"
+
+It was so obviously my duty to see that she learned the truth from one
+who knew, that I may be forgiven this apparent disregard for the
+sufferer in our hands. But he showed no sign of having heard, although I
+called again and again in a more commanding voice. His mouth had not
+munched the air since we put him down, and Tommy, listening for a heart
+beat, looked up quietly, saying:
+
+"Must have died on the way in."
+
+"If we'd only come an hour ago," I exclaimed.
+
+"No," Smilax shook his head, "him only squeal ve'y bad for last twelve
+hour. Me reckon some men come back last night; say he plan Lady
+run-'way; tie him up; tie on snake. No, him no talk hour ago. Coral
+snake bite make him ve'y crazy bad."
+
+Tommy had arisen and was walking softly back and forth across the room.
+Finally he stopped, saying over his shoulder:
+
+"I'll give odds there's more in this old desk than he could have told in
+a week! Here's a safe, too, stuck back in an alcove, that looks like it
+might hold a ton! You won't have any trouble finding out things!"
+
+I had not yet noticed the room, but now looked with interest at these
+places that promised to reveal so much. The room itself was large and
+expressive of luxury, without being luxuriously furnished. The
+fireplace, mantel, and furniture were of a good, home-made mission type,
+constructed from gyminda, Florida's nearest approach to ebony; but the
+floor was covered with really beautiful rugs. Around the walls were
+built-in book shelves, mantel high, filled with the volumes Doloria had
+told me of. The piano was there, not an up-right as we had found on the
+_Orchid_, but a handsome grand, bearing one of the best names. A violin
+case lay upon it, while near by was a music stand. Altogether, these
+living quarters of Efaw Kotee showed a taste I would have expected.
+Instinctively I crossed to the desk, but Tommy stopped me, saying:
+
+"Not while that's in here, old fellow," he jerked his head toward the
+divan. "In no other circumstances would he take it from us lying down,
+and it's kind of rubbing it in, don't you think so?"
+
+"If you feel that way about it," I agreed. "But to rob a girl of
+seventeen years or so of life isn't a crime that merits much sympathy."
+
+"I reckon he pretty well paid up for it during last night and to-day,"
+he said softly.
+
+"Whether he did or not, I don't owe him anything," I retorted, in no
+charitable vein, that I hope was caused by our excitement and excessive
+strain.
+
+"You owe him a dog-gone lot," Tommy emphatically replied. "Look at those
+books, at that piano, at what is suggested by the violin case, at the
+refinement of this room--and then picture what might have been here!
+Take another view, and consider what a fine chance you'd have had to
+meet her if that old codger hadn't turned scamp off there in Azuria!
+Anyway, we've got to clean up the signs of this butchery before she
+comes."
+
+In an adjoining room we laid Efaw Kotee upon his own bed. The sheet that
+Tommy got out of a press to spread over him was, I noticed, of beautiful
+linen, and I felt softened toward the uncouth frame which, in this
+wilderness, had still demanded the refinements of life.
+
+Locking the door, we passed back to the living room and thence to the
+landing where, at our direction, the sailor signaled Gates to bring up
+his waiting party. As Doloria once more stepped upon the island I saw
+her eyes grow moist with tears.
+
+We told her that the chief had been found dying, that now he was dead
+and the place deserted; but after she and Echochee had been rowed across
+to their own home and the two sailors posted to guard against a possible
+return of the outlaws, Monsieur and Gates accompanied us to the place of
+awful murder where we explained what we had found.
+
+Monsieur passed into the smaller room, but came out shaking his head and
+murmuring:
+
+"The face is much changed, yet I recognize enough to feel reasonably
+sure it is he."
+
+More positive proofs came when, with breathless interest, we went
+through the contents of the desk, taking things out in order and putting
+them aside after minute examination. The first of these was a seal, and
+the professor, bending over it, uttered a cry of surprise:
+
+"The royal seal of Azuria! What deviltry could he have been
+contemplating when he stole this!"
+
+Then came a blank sheet of note paper, stamped with a gold peak,
+surmounted by a gold crown and three lavender ostrich plumes--the
+Azurian royal crest. These two things alone were strong pieces of
+evidence for the professor's sanguine expectation. There was nothing
+further of importance, so we turned to the safe which seemed impassively
+challenging us to get at its secrets, for the door stood fastened and
+the combination was unknown.
+
+Monsieur kneeled, placed his ear against it, and began slowly to turn
+the knob, listening intently for the little metal hammers, or tumblers,
+of the lock to fall clicking into place.
+
+"I never supposed he knew enough for that," Tommy whispered. "It's a
+regular crook's way!"
+
+At last, very much disgusted, he gave up after explaining that he could
+have succeeded in an hour or so, but preferred to use dynamite because
+it was quicker.
+
+"Undoubtedly it's quicker," Tommy said, "but unless you've cracked safes
+that way before, we may as well say good-bye to the bungalow!"
+
+Gates thought that the door, being of ancient pattern, might yield to a
+sledge, and Smilax went in search of one. Finding none of sufficient
+size, he returned with an anvil, swinging it by its spike. I remember
+the muscles of his arm that held it, the poise of his body as he raised
+it above his head and gathered every ounce of power to hurl it upon the
+combination knob. It made a superb picture of primordial man pitted
+against the sciences. After each resounding blow we tried to throw the
+lever, and at last the battered door swung out.
+
+Here was a find worth coming far to see--packages upon packages of
+greenbacks, all counterfeit, but they made a show, nevertheless. There
+were also plates for printing francs, pounds and rubles, as well as
+those from which the American bills had been made. While Monsieur was
+studying one of these more carefully, Tommy reached past him and drew
+out a large bundle wrapped in heavy brown paper, securely tied and
+sealed. He cut the strings and opened it, then gave a whistle of
+surprise, asking:
+
+"Are these counterfeit, too?"
+
+"_Mon Dieu_, no!" the old fellow gasped, and I, also, caught my breath;
+for in the bundle were hundreds of unregistered French bonds, of the
+highest denomination.
+
+Opening one, I looked at the last coupon, announcing that it bore a date
+of about seventeen years ago, whereupon Monsieur cried:
+
+"Ah, I see it! This accounts for the royal seal we found! Here, at last,
+is the perpetrator of that grand swindle, lying peacefully behind the
+door and not caring what we discover! But he has taken his rue with the
+spoils!--he dared not enjoy these because of the lees he saw in the
+pleasure cup!"
+
+"Chop that off," Tommy told him. "If you've an inspiration about this
+stuff, come across with it!"
+
+"Ah-ha, that man--that _capitaine_ Jess! His name is Karl Schartzmann, a
+shrewd, rascally German who vanished after the _coup d'etat_!"
+
+"What swindle, Monsieur?--what _coup d'etat_? Whom do these belong to?"
+I was really losing patience; and Tommy murmured:
+
+"Jack, didn't it strike you that only a German mind could have conceived
+that revenge on Efaw Kotee?"
+
+"It was certainly true to German form," I admitted, without reluctance.
+
+"The Bank of France!--who else?" Monsieur was saying. "As one of the
+trusted, I know! Listen: the dead man behind us, and the one called
+Jess, with our Azurian consul in Paris--all scoundrels--hatched a
+swindle to sell, through forged state authority and a farcical secret
+diplomacy, a portion of Azuria to France. This, you may remember, came
+near upsetting the Balkans in 1903. Their crafty scheme lay ready to be
+sprung when Efaw Kotee--we will call him that--had to kidnap the
+princess in self-defense. From that time but fragmentary facts came
+dribbling in from secret agents, as follows:
+
+"First: Two weeks after the kidnaping a foreigner bought a schooner
+yacht in New York, fitted it up with great masses of household effects,
+and sailed, his papers designating Guayra, Venezuela.
+
+"Second: Still two weeks later Karl Schartzmann and our consul in Paris
+transferred the secret bill of sale and left with their arms full of
+bonds. When France discovered the fraud they were well away.
+
+"Third: Still two weeks later a schooner yacht, afterward supposed to be
+the one bought in New York, dropped anchor at Guayra and stayed until
+two men, arriving by steamer, went aboard; whereupon she sailed.
+
+"This is all we definitely discovered, except that before sailing crafty
+inquiries were made into extradition treaties between France and South
+American countries--and found, in every instance, to be unfriendly to
+swindlers.
+
+"I now see how it was with them. Fearing everywhere the press of
+France's vengeance, shunning telegraph wires, they were driven to the
+solitude of these islands where, as solitude has a way of treating the
+criminal mind, their shyness grew to fear, their fear to terror. They
+did not dare go out except at rare intervals, nor dared they realize on
+the bonds. It is clear to me at last!"
+
+It was also clear to me, at last inerrantly clear, that Doloria and the
+little princess were the same.
+
+"Whew!" Tommy gave a whistle. "I feel as woozy as an old warped mirror!
+Did France offer a reward for this stuff?"
+
+"_Certainement!_ And you drew it out!--it is yours, my boy!"
+
+"Like hell it is," he laughed. "I move it goes as prize money to Smilax,
+Echochee, and the crew!"
+
+Late that evening we buried Efaw Kotee under the mangroves, and did not
+tell Doloria. No one knows, who has never seen it, the desolation of
+laying a shrouded figure in a mangrove-covered oyster bar at twilight,
+where water follows each slushy lift of the spade! I feared for her to
+witness it, and therefore, Tommy reading the service, the old chief was
+buried without a woman's sympathy. But, in a measure, he had our own. He
+held a claim on it for having faced a certain responsibility to Doloria;
+for having, with the skill of a master, developed the talents God had
+given her; for having kept her from growing up like a weed.
+
+At ten o'clock that night when, by prearrangement, Tommy and I paddled
+across to bring Monsieur back from the little island, she was standing
+with him on the landing. The moon was nearing full, bathing her in a
+silvery light, and I saw from the droop of her body that she was tired.
+
+"Good night," I said, arising in the punt and putting out my hand.
+
+"Good night," she murmured wearily; but her fingers were cold and did
+not answer the pressure of my own. I had touched Efaw Kotee's hand only
+a few hours before, and it had been cold with the same inert, mysterious
+coldness. I shivered.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+A FLYING THRONE
+
+
+Early next morning Monsieur was taken to the little island, and I felt
+that his interview would be long and solemn--perhaps stormy. I hoped so.
+He came back for luncheon and immediately left again, having given us no
+intimation of his progress. I did not know what Doloria might be
+suffering from these visits, but they made me so abominably restive that
+during the afternoon I took a pine and crossed to the mainland,
+half-heartedly intending to look for deer. It was nearly sundown when I
+returned.
+
+"We're packing, sir," said the sailor who tied my punt.
+
+"Packing? Why?"
+
+"Orders, sir."
+
+Without loss of time I hunted up Tommy, finding him and Bilkins busy at
+carpentry.
+
+"What's in the wind?" I brusquely demanded, forgetting that Tommy was
+rather particular about the way people addressed him.
+
+"Rain," he imperturbably replied; or did he mean reign, and was
+employing a vulgar pun to apprize me of Doloria's decision! So I
+delivered a ten-second philippic on the poverty of some intellects,
+whereupon he left off working and regarded me with amusement.
+
+"Fact is, Lord Chesterfield, I don't know what's in the wind," he said,
+"but we're leaving for Little Cove to-morrow at dawn. Bilkins and I are
+making a portable throne--in other words, a chair suspended from poles
+so Doloria won't have to walk. Professor came over about five o'clock in
+a rattling hurry and splendid humor. He's packing Efaw Kotee's effects
+now. Smilax left two hours ago with orders for the _Whim_ to be there
+and take us off. Add it up for yourself."
+
+"Orders," I angrily exclaimed, for this impertinence on the part of
+Monsieur was going too far. "He settles with me, that's all!--and the
+_Whim_ stays in Big Cove till I send for her!"
+
+He grinned, then whistled softly.
+
+"So there's no use knicking my knuckles any more on this portable
+throne?"
+
+"Not the slightest," I told him.
+
+"Love's first tiff," he sighed, laying down the hammer and beginning to
+fill his pipe.
+
+"Love's what?"
+
+"Tootsie-wootsie tiff, I believe I said"--this between puffs as the
+match flared high and low over the bowl. "You understand, of course,
+that Doloria gave the order."
+
+"Confound you, why didn't you say so! What's happened? Did a message
+come?"
+
+"Sure." He stopped smoking and looked at me. "A big limousine drove up
+with a note and flowers."
+
+"Be serious," I thundered. "This isn't any time to joke!"
+
+"When you talk about a paucity of intellect," he laughed softly, "it's a
+wonder you don't bite yourself."
+
+"Oh, Tommy, please let up; I'm sorry, honest--I'm wretched, too!"
+
+His manner changed then. Putting his arm through mine, he led me
+outside, going toward our landing.
+
+"This is just the time to joke, old man," he said, when we reached it.
+"She made up her mind to leave, _pronto_! Why? Conscience said obey
+Monsieur, but heart said nixy! What's to do then? Start home quick, of
+course, before little heart gives old conscience the solar plexus!
+That's how I size it up!"
+
+"But I don't see anything to joke about," I said gloomily.
+
+"Well, let me shuffle again--now take a look! When Smilax left with her
+order, I sent a note to the mate, telling him to bring both yachts down.
+Then we'll have to split the crew, and in the mix-up I'll see that you
+and she get on the _Whim_, while Monsieur sails on----But I see you get
+me! If you can't stifle her conscience before we reach Miami, you're a
+mud-hen."
+
+"Great guns," I whispered, grabbing him by the arms, "we might sail----"
+
+"All over the Gulf," he chuckled, giving me a push toward the water.
+"There's your Hellespont, son, as sure as Leander was a gentleman! Cross
+it now and tell her it's all right about that order!"
+
+"My two days aren't up yet; I'm bound."
+
+"That's nothing. Wait!"
+
+He was off to the old chief's bungalow and reappeared with Monsieur,
+whose broad smile was anything but reassuring.
+
+"You wish to relieve her uncertainty about that order?" he asked, coming
+up. "Certainly, my boy Jack, go and say what you please."
+
+"What I please?" I asked pointedly.
+
+"Why not what you please? She goes with me to Azuria--we have arranged
+it. You could not dissuade her now. Even could you, she knows she can
+not resist my authority. Yes, go and say what you like."
+
+He was laughing by this time, at his success rather than my
+discomfiture, but Tommy saw that I was making little distinction between
+the two and wisely led him away.
+
+As I stepped upon the little island Echochee came down to meet me.
+
+"How's your Lady?" I asked.
+
+"You go see," she answered in a low voice, pointing to the open door.
+
+As I entered the commodious living room Doloria looked up, but did not
+smile. She was reclining on a _chaise-longue_, beneath a shaded lamp
+whose rays still blended with the light of a dying afterglow. Her
+hunting costume had been discarded for a flimsy kind of an exquisite
+thing of blue--hardly a dress, although it had a lot of lace and seemed
+to fit her perfectly. It was open at the throat like some dresses, and
+the sleeves fell away from her arms; but I had seen one instinctive
+movement she made to pull it closer which might have indicated
+embarrassment.
+
+"I've come with Monsieur's permission," I said, bowing over her hand.
+
+"With Monsieur's permission," she repeated after me. "We seem to do
+nothing but with Monsieur's permission."
+
+I saw that she was nervous and very much upset, so replied as gently as
+I could:
+
+"But this visit involved my promise, otherwise I wouldn't have asked
+him. I want to tell you that it's all right about the yacht--your
+sending for her, I mean. She'll be on hand to-morrow."
+
+"Thanks, Chancellor." Her tone had changed to one of complete weariness.
+"Now leave me, please."
+
+"Leave you," I exclaimed. "I'll do nothing of the kind! The two-day ban
+is off, and Monsieur has told me I can say anything I please!"
+
+"And having his permission to say anything you please, did you rehearse
+it before him, too?"
+
+This left me helpless, fervently wishing I'd had more of Tommy's
+experience with girls' moods. He knew a lot about them, and would have
+understood just what to do. But I felt suddenly enraged--not at her, but
+at everything, and cried:
+
+"I don't give a damn for him or his permission! He shan't take you
+away!"
+
+For the first time she smiled, and held out her hands to me, saying:
+
+"That's good-medicine-talk, Jack. I like it even if it won't cure me.
+Say it again--that you don't give a damn for him!"
+
+I would have said something in an entirely different way had not
+Echochee been moving about the next room, but I kneeled, leaning over
+her, keeping her hand and whispering:
+
+"He shan't dominate our lives! You're going back with me--don't you know
+you are?"
+
+"Don't make me sorry you came, Jack," she said softly. "I must go with
+him. So let's talk of other things and keep our last evening here from
+being a horror."
+
+"I've got to talk about it, as I've got to breathe and think and move
+and love you! It's all one! It's my existence, and if you went away it
+would be like tearing me to pieces!"
+
+"Oh, but don't you see that I must," she cried despairingly. "I didn't
+close my eyes all night, thinking, thinking, thinking! It was agony.
+It's agony now. But my decision's been through the fire, Jack, and I
+know I'm right!"
+
+"No decision counts for anything against all you mean to me!"
+
+"Oh, Jack, I'm so sorry!" she moaned, looking at me without
+dissimulation and letting me see that her face was marked by a solemnity
+and tragedy that wrung my heart. "God," she whispered, putting her hand
+to my forehead, "how I suffer while I see your tortured eyes!"
+
+"Then out of sorrow, pity, tell me what the fellow said," I implored,
+nearly beside myself. "Let me know the strength of your duty, so my own
+strength can have a chance. It isn't fair to make a beggar of me when I
+might be fighting for happiness! Let me see his weapons so I can strike
+back; then, if I lose, I'll lose standing up--and the future," I added,
+less impetuously, "isn't so gray to the man who loses standing up."
+
+She had turned away with a quick gesture of anguish and seemed to be
+crying, but when she looked at me again there were no signs of tears.
+
+"He says others have demands and rights, and the many must outweigh the
+few."
+
+"That depends on the greatness of each side's claims," I began, when she
+interrupted by continuing:
+
+"My conscience decided that--it had no choice; every claim has been
+weighed--accurately." Her voice trembled a little, and I thought she was
+trying to make it harsh. "He said that you and I were thrown out from
+separate spheres, opposite poles. By chance our orbits happened to
+cross, and you rendered me this tremendous service. But it was only a
+part of the foreordination--only to make my path easier to a greater
+duty ahead, a greater destiny to be fulfilled. Now this commands--he
+says. The call of my birthright has come, and I must answer. He says
+that neither of us will mind it in a little while, as memories
+pa--pass." She wavered at last, and again turned away her face.
+
+"But you don't believe that stuff?" I cried.
+
+"Oh, his words are so unanswerable--when he speaks them! Then he has the
+authority to command me!"
+
+"They're not unanswerable," I said hotly. "_You_ haven't weighed our
+happiness against this unknown voice of your people, your birthright--he
+did it for you! His cold logic read the scales--not your heart or your
+conscience! He's built a wall around you like a cistern, and you can't
+see out. If it was ordained for us to face death, then by the same law
+we've got to face life! Sweetheart, don't you see what I mean?"
+
+"I've seen all that from the beginning, dear," she murmured, putting one
+hand on my hair and stroking it. "But nothing can prevail against what
+you call his cold logic. He's certain that he's right, and he has the
+power to make me go."
+
+"Oh, if I only had the brains to out-argue him!" My voice choked, and I
+bowed my head in her lap.
+
+For a while we were silent. Her hand continued to stroke my hair, and
+soon her fingers strayed to my temple and gently pressed it--as if she
+knew that my head burned and ached, and wanted to make it well.
+
+"You don't have to argue, always my own," I heard her whisper. "There's
+something stronger than words pleading for you."
+
+I looked up quietly, saying:
+
+"Let's run away to-night! Let's have another rescue, and go back to our
+Oasis----" But she stopped me by putting her hand over my mouth,
+although she was breathing fast and the color had flown to her cheeks.
+
+"Don't, don't," she gasped. "I've thought of that so many times!"
+
+"To-night," I begged. "You know I'll always make you happy?"
+
+"Happy?" Her eyes, half closed, held mine with a look that did not try
+to hide its longing. "There'd be no happiness on earth like that of
+being entirely yours at our Oasis!"
+
+"Then, sweetheart----"
+
+"No, Jack," she now sat straighter. "I was dreaming. Besides, he'd
+follow with every officer in Florida. Don't you understand, dear, that
+he has the _right_? I'm helpless to refuse! I can't--possibly! It's
+simply awful, but it's got to be."
+
+Yet I believed that she had been on the point of yielding, and was about
+to urge still further when Monsieur's voice, speaking to Echochee,
+brought me to my feet.
+
+"Well, my boy Jack," he exclaimed, entering with a cheeriness I found
+detestable, "we shall leave her now, eh? She has packing to do, and must
+get early to rest."
+
+His protectorate seemed to brook no opposition, and an angry retort
+sprang to my lips which remained unspoken when I saw the pallor of
+Doloria's face.
+
+"Yes," she said, without animation, "I must pack. See you to-morrow--on
+the march."
+
+So, ignoring him, I passed out. But a better humor came to me as I
+thought of Tommy's scheme about the _Orchid_, and coming upon Echochee
+at the landing I asked--lightly for her benefit, yet quite seriously for
+myself:
+
+"Is there any magic in your tribe that can bring a troubled princess
+sleep and pleasant dreams?"
+
+I knew that she was searching my face with her black little eyes that
+glistened like a snake's, as she answered slowly:
+
+"Injun maiden find plenty good dream when her head lay on breast of
+sleeping brave."
+
+"I didn't mean just that," I stammered, feeling my cheeks grow hot. For,
+albeit, Doloria had slept part of a night with her head against my
+shoulder when we fared alone in the purity of our wilderness, now, since
+others of the world were touching elbows with us, Echochee's words
+knocked me rather into a self-conscious heap. But such is the bitter
+tithe we must toss into the maw of civilization which, despite its
+multitude of admitted blessings, breeds also the false! And I stepped
+into the punt wishing that this daughter of our oldest American family
+could be divinely appointed arbiter of our customs.
+
+Smilax returned with word that both yachts would be at Little Cove, and
+one by one the lights in our camp went out. But I sat late at Efaw
+Kotee's desk writing a ten-page telegram and a fifty-page letter to my
+father. Both of these I would despatch from Key West--the wire telling
+him to bring the Mater to Miami where the letter would await them; and I
+urged them both, as they loved me, to pick up a certain darling of the
+gods named Nell. Only I made it stronger and more explicit than that,
+and knew they would comply if such a thing were humanly possible. But
+this pet scheme I intended to keep from Tommy. It would repay him for
+his masterly scheme of sailing both yachts homeward.
+
+The next morning after an early breakfast our cavalcade set forth, each
+man carrying a pack except the two sailors on whose shoulders rested the
+poles of Doloria's chair. But in this chair sat a very sad little
+princess--this morning particularly, as she was leaving a nominal home
+for a new and mystifying adventure. Whatever else Efaw Kotee had been to
+her, at least he stood in her memory of father; and however irrevocably
+she may have turned against him, the very fact that she found it
+necessary to do so was a grievous disappointment.
+
+All that had passed. Strangers had come, and in a few days she was being
+borne to the other half of the world. To her mother!--what did she know
+of a mother? To a throne!--but with an unknown prince to rule beside
+her? And these were entirely apart from the longings she might leave on
+this side of the world. Surely, if she needed sympathy at any time it
+was now as the march began.
+
+Although Monsieur had taken a position close to her, and evidently meant
+to keep it, before we had gone very far I fell in alongside with them,
+asking:
+
+"How do you find the march? Tiring?"
+
+"Oh, no, not in Tommy's flying throne, as he calls it,"--and in an
+undertone she added: "I wish it were the only throne I had to occupy."
+
+But the professor, overhearing this--for little escaped him now--cleared
+his throat and stepped nearer.
+
+"She is mistaken, my boy Jack," he said suavely. "The march is quite
+fatiguing, and I must insist that she conserve her strength. There will
+be no more conversation."
+
+Taken aback by this, I was on the point of giving him a jolly good
+blowing up, but her ready acquiescence caused me to desist. Really, I
+began to wonder if he had her hypnotized; and, furious--indeed, quite a
+good deal hurt--by the cool way she obeyed him and began to ignore me, I
+marched grimly ahead.
+
+As, three hours later, we neared the cove I saw Tommy sauntering back.
+His manner seemed an augury of trouble, and I hurried on to him, asking:
+
+"What's happened?"
+
+"The _Orchid_ isn't there," he turned and fell into step with me. "While
+getting her out of Big Cove she fouled on a bar. She's still on it, poor
+dear. So Monsieur sails with us, after all."
+
+For several minutes I stood still in my tracks and swore, stopping only
+when Doloria's chair came in sight.
+
+"I'm glad you got that out of your system," Tommy grinned. "Now get busy
+on a new line of attack. We've only three more days, and you'll have to
+work fast. Surprise her, upset her, then cinch her before she knows
+what's what. That's the way!" And he hurried back to pay his respects.
+
+The mate and his fellows, even to Pete the cook, escorted us happily
+down to the small boats. They were honestly glad, and made no pretense
+of disguising their admiration for Doloria, to the increasing wrath of
+Echochee.
+
+If ever the men of my own boat crew were on their mettle it was when
+they sat with oars straight up while I helped her into the gig and took
+my place at her side--for this was an honor I could not yield to
+Monsieur, etiquette demanding that, when going aboard, the owner must be
+her personal escort. With a nod to them they snapped into stroke and we
+shot away, leaving the old fellow much disgruntled.
+
+At the top of the gangway she hesitated in pretty wonderment before
+stepping on deck, for the _Whim_ was a smart craft and our sailors had
+not been idle these few days past.
+
+"Everything's so unreal," she murmured. "My house of cards has come
+tumbling down about my ears, until I think it must be a dreadful dream."
+
+"To be transported to a sure-enough throne is certainly dreamlike," I
+said, arranging the cushions in a chair. "But I hardly think you'll find
+anything dreadful about it."
+
+"You don't?" she asked pointedly.
+
+"No," I answered. "The dreadful part's for me."
+
+I knew this was not true, or only partially true, but considered it
+justifiable after Tommy's warning--and Tommy knew a lot about women. I
+remembered him saying once that a girl's determination could be changed
+in two ways: by opposition, and by cooperation. I had tried opposition,
+so now I would pretend to fall resignedly in with Monsieur's plan,
+taking it for granted that her future promised nothing but idyllic
+happiness, that memories would pass, and all that kind of thing. I would
+become an enigma to her--for this, also, had been one of Tommy's diverse
+methods of success. Some day, confessing how my triumph had been
+achieved, we both would laugh over it, and then she would have to admit
+that Tommy was not the only one who knew a thing or two about women.
+
+So reasoning, I started in at once. For a while she stared at me, her
+eyes growing wider and wider. Then she arose and went to the rail,
+remarking coolly:
+
+"Please signal to have Echochee and Monsieur Dragot brought out at
+once." And that was the only thing she would say.
+
+To hell with what Tommy knew about women! She would not so much as look
+at me again, and when that wretched old rag of a shriveled-up squaw,
+incarnate fiend of a watchful guardian, arrived my princess retired to
+her stateroom, nor did she appear again the entire day. What Tommy knew
+about women, indeed!
+
+The rest of us lunched in moody silence, except Monsieur who grew
+loquacious to the point of making himself an ass. He was not on the
+crest of popularity, anyway. Previously, in order to give Doloria more
+freedom, Tommy and I decided to sleep on deck and use Gates's quarters
+for a dressing room. But when this proposition was also opened to the
+professor he flatly refused to join with us. The truth of the matter was
+that he had determined upon a plan--singularly popular among
+pedagogues--of watchful waiting; he had made up his mind that Doloria
+and I should not see each other again except in his presence. He may
+have told her this--I rather suspected it.
+
+As we sat in the cockpit smoking, he became down-right obnoxious by
+excessive jocularity. It can be disgustingly overdone. Believing that
+his triumph was assured, he sputtered and giggled with small regard for
+my presence, and the farther he went the madder I got. Despite his
+former protestations of fair play, I now began to nurse a suspicion of
+this befousled little gimcrack; but I'd not thought that Tommy would
+grow a distemper of any magnitude until the professor, rubbing his
+hands, announced:
+
+"_Mon Capitaine_ says we do not sail for an hour. Let us take a small
+boat and fish around the mangroves! Maybe a snapper, eh?--or a
+sheep's-head!"
+
+I was silent. Tommy puffed indifferently at his pipe.
+
+"Come," he cried again. "Let us make a fishing party!"
+
+"The trouble with fishing parties is," Tommy drawled, "that there's
+always some damn fool along who wants to fish."--Which was, I think, not
+only the best thing Tommy ever said but, in the circumstances, the best
+that could have been said.
+
+The professor sat down again rather suddenly and blinked at us.
+
+"So! Then we do not fish," he murmured, and after another thoughtful
+pause went below.
+
+"I don't suppose we ought to insult him," I suggested, not intending any
+one to think I meant it.
+
+"I don't care what we do to him," Tommy savagely retorted. "All the good
+you've got out of this cruise will go to the bow-wows. I won't have it,
+I tell you! Let's chuck him overboard!"
+
+"Chuck over your grouch," I laughed, although his proposition interested
+me.
+
+"Oh, I haven't any grouch," he turned away; but swung back, asking: "Are
+you going to give up?"
+
+"Most certainly not!"
+
+"Then why don't you get busy?"
+
+"Get busy! D'you expect me to go downstairs and drag her out of her
+room?"
+
+"Yes--do anything! She isn't staying there from choice!" (But I knew
+better than that.) "If I slug the gezabo you might ask her up. Shall I?"
+
+"Show an idea, man! You know she wouldn't see me!"
+
+"What if she wouldn't! Bring her out, anyhow! Good Lord, Jack, if you're
+an example of lovers up North, then I say God pity Yankee girls!"
+
+"Well, what would you do, Mr. Know-so-much?" I asked, my temper blowing
+up. "If she told you she'd stayed awake nights fighting it out and
+reached the conclusion, absolutely and without peradventure of changing
+her mind, that her destiny's in Azuria, what would you do then--you who
+know such a hell of a lot about women?" I just had to say that; it kept
+irritating me.
+
+"I don't claim any knowledge of the genus," he said, looking mildly at
+the horizon--and wanting to laugh, I thought. "But a modicum of brain
+would show you she hasn't thought it out, at all. How could she in
+forty-eight hours, being confronted for the first time in her life with
+the two most glowing things in a girl's fancy--love or a throne? She's
+dazzled, not decided."
+
+"She's worse," I growled. "She's hurt--that's one reason she won't come
+up! And allow me to say that what you know about women wouldn't fill a
+gnat's eye!" I seemed to be hypped on this, and couldn't get away from
+it.
+
+"Well, if you've spilled the beans you'll have to pick 'em up pretty
+quick, for we'll be home in three days. Just be sure you don't intimate
+that Azuria can be less than a perfect hell to her, for that would ruin
+your chances forever!" And with this parting injunction, that drove
+terror to my heart, he walked aft to join Gates.
+
+Going to the companionway door, I peered into the cabin. The wretched
+Dragot, bedecked in smoking jacket and spectacles, looking uncommonly
+like a monkey, I thought, was lounging behind a book. He knew that the
+nearer uncertainty approaches a certainty the more fatal will be the
+result of its upsetting; that, whereas a scheme jumbled in its infancy
+may recover, the slightest maladjustment on the threshold of success
+often spells irrevocable ruin. He was taking no chances.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+A TREASURE BOX
+
+
+Late that afternoon we got under way, setting our course for Key West.
+But it was a glum company aboard. The Princess remained in her
+stateroom; Tommy's grouch for Monsieur had grown out of all proportion,
+so the professor's gay mood lost much of its bloom; Echochee, whenever
+she left her mistress, scowled at us as though we were pirates; Gates,
+knowing that my plans had become miserably pied, grumbled over trifles;
+Bilkins sniffled, and the mate walked about with curses fairly bristling
+from him like pin-feathers. Heaven knows how wretched I was! If a group
+of people were ever out of tune, we had struck the original discord. Of
+us all, the cook maintained both equanimity and cuisine in perfect
+taste, else I hesitate to think what might have been the fate of the
+good yacht, _Whim_.
+
+Sometime during the night we reached Key West, and early next morning
+Gates called me to go ashore. I had requested this. There were the
+telegram and letter to be sent; and candy, flowers, fruits, magazines,
+souvenirs, and anything suitable I might find, to lay at Doloria's
+shrine. Had it not been for the stubbornness of a fellow who insisted
+that he was under contract, I would have had a moving picture show
+aboard for her.
+
+By eight o'clock we were again away, sailing lazily eastward before a
+light breeze. Three days of this inert weather, or possibly less, should
+bring us to Miami. There Monsieur had expressed his intention of wiring
+the Roumanian, or some other, consul; then he would entrain with my
+little Princess, and--well, that would be the end.
+
+All that day we poked along. Surreptitiously I had sent several notes
+down by Bilkins, but the only reply they got was an angry negative shake
+of Echochee's head. The old Indian would divulge nothing beyond the fact
+that her Lady was well. I then thought of knocking at Doloria's door to
+get a word with her, but the professor, always in the cabin on guard,
+sat where he could frustrate any such plan. He had stayed there the
+previous night until a late hour, and was back at his post quite an hour
+before breakfast.
+
+She did not appear at luncheon, nor during the long and wearisome
+afternoon.
+
+The next day was a counterpart of its forerunner, except that it got
+more on my nerves. I had pegged through it in the hope that she might at
+least dine with us--for this was to be our last dinner on the _Whim_,
+Gates saying we would land about the following noon. But, happening upon
+Echochee and asking her this, she almost snapped my head off in saying
+that her mistress had no such intention.
+
+Growing more desperate as the afternoon waned, I tried again to approach
+Doloria's stateroom from the far end of the passageway, but Monsieur,
+glancing over his book, arose and came toward me. The expression in his
+face plainly said that if I attempted to force him aside he would
+command her to keep her door locked--and I knew that she would obey.
+Therefore, ready to abandon hope, I wandered up and sought a secluded
+place along the rail where, unobserved by steersman and forward watch, I
+could swear a little, and look more glum, and feel quite natural. It
+was here that Tommy passed me on his way to the cabin.
+
+"Time for dinner," he said, stopping and laying down something that had
+been under his arm.
+
+"Don't want any dinner," I growled.
+
+His face, for the first time in three days, broke into a beatific smile,
+and for a moment I was disposed to punch it, thinking, of course, that
+he meant to guy me. But he saw this intention and sprang back, holding
+his palms outward in an attitude of alert protest; yet the smile
+continued, now to be followed by a low, pleased laugh.
+
+"Don't get mad," he gurgled. "I'm not laughing at you--only at things."
+
+"In the circumstances I consider that personal," I glared at him.
+
+"Well, you needn't, honest! To-night I'm presenting the gezabo with a
+treasure box, and had really intended asking you to keep away from
+dinner. That's why I'm laughing--your unintentional acquiescence is a
+good omen!"
+
+"Treasure box of what?" I demanded, knowing this was some of his
+tomfoolishness, and irritated that he should have any heart for it.
+
+"Keep your head down," he winked good-humoredly. "You'll know soon
+enough."
+
+"Tommy," I now excitedly caught him by the arms, "you've got a scheme!
+What is it, old man? Tell me quick!" I shook him happily, for there was
+something about his mysterious air that began to inspire me with hope.
+
+"Very simple, son; very simple," he chuckled. "Surprisingly simple, and
+that's why it'll get across. You sit in the cockpit and observe without
+being observed, but I'll need your help in one thing: when you see me
+get up and walk around my chair, you beat it, _pronto_, for this very
+spot where we are now--and wait here. Understand? It's a nice secluded
+spot, so you just wait till I come."
+
+"Yes, but----"
+
+"Never mind! Just do what your Uncle Tom says. Now it's dinner time and
+I reckon Monsieur's starved--he always is! So I'll take my treasure
+box--oh, by the way, you're not supposed to be in the cockpit, so don't
+stir around!"
+
+As he picked the thing up I saw that it was a little iron safe about ten
+inches square--everybody knows the kind. Although small, it was heavy
+and quite complete, possessing a combination lock of no small merit. In
+the captain's quarters that Tommy and I now used as a dressing room I
+had noticed a safe similar to this, and asked if it were the same,
+whereupon he laughed, saying:
+
+"Yes. Gates keeps his pipes in it, but I got him to flip the combination
+on 'em for to-night. Well, here goes!" And a few minutes later as he
+descended the stairs, I, with repressed excitement, stepped back to the
+cockpit, taking a chair where I could see without being seen.
+
+The dinner had scarcely begun when Monsieur, looking about, asked:
+
+"Where's my boy Jack?"
+
+"Where's Jack?" Tommy repeated, in a voice unnecessarily loud, I
+thought. "Didn't you know about Jack? Why, he's in bad shape--maybe die,
+for all I know!"
+
+I must say that the professor looked genuinely concerned, and would have
+left at once to doctor me had not Tommy sternly interposed. Across the
+carpeted floor of the dim passageway that led past the staterooms I now
+saw a thin streak of light, as if some one had quietly opened a door an
+inch or so. Since this happened to come from Doloria's room, I suspected
+the Indian woman of listening.
+
+"Don't you go near him or he'll jump overboard, I tell you," Tommy was
+saying. "He wouldn't let you, and you couldn't help him, anyhow; no one
+can, poor old Jack! When the Princess stopped speaking to him, and he
+saw the game was up,--well, his heart kind of broke!"
+
+"_Pardieu_, I am sorry--I am sorry," the professor shook his head.
+
+"Don't let's talk about it," Tommy replied, as dolefully as the loud
+tone would permit. "I can't look at his suffering--really I can't! It
+almost kills me! And there's no remedy, now!" And, when finally the
+conversation had been diverted to other channels, the streak of light
+disappeared.
+
+Sometime later Tommy, with, a fine show of indifference, said over his
+demitasse:
+
+"By the way, if we land to-morrow this is your last chance to open that
+treasure box."
+
+"Treasure box?"
+
+"Yes, the little safe I found tucked down in Efaw Kotee's trunk. Jack
+and I intended to tackle it to-night, but since he's knocked out I've
+lost interest."
+
+"I had not heard of this," the professor cried, his eyes sparkling with
+all manner of hope and enthusiasm.
+
+"Oh, you heard of it, but just forgot. Anyhow, here it is." He lifted it
+from the floor and placed it on the table. "You're welcome to its
+secrets; I'm satisfied to get home with a whole skin." Whereupon he
+reached for a recent Key West newspaper, tilted back his chair and
+settled down to read.
+
+Monsieur's fingers closed feverishly around the little safe as though it
+might have held the secret of perpetual youth. After examining it
+minutely, he sprawled over and prepared to open it by listening for the
+little metal tumblers to fall into their notches while he slowly turned
+the combination knob. Tommy, I guessed at once, had neatly anticipated
+this after seeing him try it on the big safe in Efaw Kotee's house and
+hearing his boast that he could have accomplished it in time. Now, just
+as he got his ear flattened to the iron door and was almost choking for
+breath in an agony of listening, the newspaper began to rustle.
+
+"It gets my goat," Tommy irritably exclaimed, "to have a front-page
+story carried to the inside, where half the time I can't find it!"
+
+Monsieur, raising his head, politely waited for the noise to cease, as
+no one could hear the delicate sounds he sought with a newspaper
+carrying on that way about his head. Yet, when quiet had been once more
+restored and he was ready to try again, Tommy began another hunt for
+news.
+
+"Think you can work it?" he casually asked, over his shoulder.
+
+"I--I might, with less noise," the professor suggested.
+
+"Hope my paper doesn't bother you. This is the only place I have to read
+since I gave up my room, you know."
+
+Several times more, as Monsieur was holding his breath momentarily
+expecting the mystery of the combination to dissolve, the paper seemed
+to be stricken with an ague, till at last, hugging the safe to his
+chest, he indignantly stalked down the passageway and slammed the door
+of his room after him.
+
+Tommy now arose and walked around his chair, and as I was leaving for my
+appointed place I saw him start on tiptoe in the direction of Doloria's
+stateroom.
+
+Ten minutes later he appeared in the cockpit, helped her to the deck,
+and together they approached. Yet as they drew near the place I was
+standing she stopped, looking at me in pretty surprise, but came forward
+again with hands outstretched, saying:
+
+"Oh, Jack, I thought you were terribly, dangerously ill!" And before I
+could reply Tommy was gurgling, with a fatuous grin:
+
+"Why, hullo, Jack! I see you're up!"
+
+"Are you better?" she asked, letting her hands rest in mine.
+
+"D'you know," here Tommy interposed, not giving me a chance to answer,
+"that old whiz-bang devil told Doloria that if she spoke to you, or
+answered your notes, he'd have you jailed for interfering with a foreign
+country's accredited agent? Sure, he did! He stuffed her poor little
+head full of trumped-up international law that hadn't a grain of truth
+in it--to scare her, see? She was afraid to budge!"
+
+"He did that?" I cried.
+
+"Oh, yes, but it doesn't matter now," she said hurriedly. "Are you
+really better?"
+
+"Dear me, dear me"--it was Tommy again--"I've come up without my
+cigarettes! You'll excuse me?" He bowed to her, and left without
+awaiting the royal consent.
+
+The silence was a trifle awkward when he went, and our eyes seemed to be
+glued to the spot where he disappeared; but now I turned to her.
+
+"I suppose Echochee was listening to his conversation with Monsieur, and
+told you. Tommy's full of ideas, but this is his masterpiece because it
+unlocked your prison."
+
+"It was I who listened--purposely," she said, without a trace of
+embarrassment, but laughed a little strangely as she asked: "You weren't
+ill, at all?"
+
+"Yes, I honestly was--with unhappiness; but not as near dead as he
+pretended."
+
+"And you're in no danger by talking to me?"
+
+"The greatest danger--but not from man-made prisons."
+
+"Oh, it feels so good to be up in this fresh air," she said
+irrelevantly, raising her face to the sky and taking a deep breath.
+
+"He was a scoundrel to keep you shut in down there," I declared; and
+then she told me of the old fellow's fabrications, really such atrocious
+lies that for a while I was undecided whether to thrash him or laugh. As
+it turned out, I laughed; because she did.
+
+She had moved to the rail and rested her arms on it, leaning over and
+looking pensively down at the water. I, also, went to stand by her, but,
+in turning, my eyes happened to glance through one of the cabin
+portlights at Tommy. He was seated comfortably in a deep chair,
+Doloria's box of candy stood on the table within easy reach, the
+newspaper was in his hands, a cigarette hung from his lips, and Echochee
+was just bringing him the basket of fruit I had taken so much care at
+Key West to have made attractive.
+
+"Picture of Tommy hurrying down for his cigarettes," I whispered. "Peep
+at him!"
+
+As she leaned forward and the light fell on her serious face, the
+attractive curves of mischief, always so maddening, touched the corners
+of her mouth.
+
+"Isn't he a dear," she murmured. "And there's nothing in the safe but
+the captain's old pipes?"
+
+"That's all. Tommy's waiting to soothe the professor when he makes that
+discovery, and keep him from coming on deck."
+
+She laughed guardedly, but there was no great spirit of fun in either of
+us, and again we turned back to our contemplation of the water, for a
+long time looking down at it in moody silence. I instinctively felt that
+she had not altered her decision.
+
+In the distance off our starboard bow a hairlike line of slowly
+brightening silver, forerunner of the climbing moon, touched the far
+horizon. It resembled a shining lake upon a great dark waste, and I told
+her it was my love trying to light my life that had turned to night
+without her.
+
+I know we were subdued by the witchery that comes with watching for the
+moon, because when its dome appeared her fingers gently tightened on my
+sleeve; nor did we speak until it stood serenely balanced upon the
+world's edge, sending to our feet a silvery pathway that twinkled on the
+waves. And then, by the merest accident of our position as the yacht
+changed its course among the keys, two far-off pine trees, appearing to
+move out side by side across the sea, stopped in the center of the moon.
+She caught her breath at the unusual beauty of this. That sigh from her,
+and the mystic night, all but drove me mad. My senses swayed with the
+throb of some vast indwelling orchestra.
+
+"Let's take the silvery path," I whispered, putting my arms about her.
+"Look, it leads to the gate of our Secret world, where we first found
+happiness!"
+
+"Oh, dear Jack," she pleaded--but I would not be stopped, and words
+stumbled over each other in my agony to persuade her.
+
+"It's Fate--your destiny! I can't change it, neither can you! It spoke
+to us beneath our two big pines on the Oasis; it's speaking
+to-night--saying you shall never leave me!"
+
+"Oh, but Jack, that's so impossible! He'll _make_ me go!"
+
+I saw the glitter of tears upon her cheeks, and answered fiercely:
+
+"He can't, when I love you as I do!"--and whispered over and over:
+"Sweetheart, sweetheart, I love you!"
+
+She had not moved. The moon, by this time high enough to have mustered
+its forces, frosted the yacht into the semblance of a dream-ship, and we
+might, indeed, have been sailing upon some phantom lake in fairyland. My
+eyes were pleading for hers until she raised them--and then they could
+not turn away. Held and blended by a mesmeric force, they began to give
+and answer question for question, secret for secret. I saw the quick
+pulsations in her throat, which seemed to be beating in my veins,
+instead.
+
+"Oh, Jack," she whispered, laughing tremulously, with a subdued madness
+that was made for such a night as this, "let me go back to Echochee!"
+
+But I could only answer as I had before:
+
+"I love you--I love you!"
+
+"Darling, darling Jack," she begged, taking my cheeks in her palms, "you
+mustn't--you really mustn't! Let me go, dear!--Oh, I believe my throne
+is--is tottering!"
+
+"And my reason with it!" I cried, drawing her quickly, passionately, up
+to me.
+
+For a long time a silvery yacht glided across a silvery sea, while in
+far-off Azuria a throne did totter and fall; but ten thousand loyal
+subjects smiled in their sleep that night at a strangely happy dream,
+wherein their little Princess was pressing upon the lips of an unknown
+beggar the seal of her eternal sovereignty.
+
+When again we thought of the moon it had climbed surprisingly high,
+making our shadow on the spotless deck seem like a black rug beneath our
+feet.
+
+"Is it awfully late?" she whispered.
+
+"The moon's still up, sweetheart," I said.
+
+"Is it, dear?" she murmured, adorably sighing her contentment at this
+evidence that the night must yet be very young, indeed.
+
+And, finally, when moving stealthily like two happy thieves we went down
+into the cabin, she blew a kiss to the sleeping Thomas Jefferson Davis,
+then gave both hands impulsively to me, and disappeared into her room.
+After the door had closed, and I felt she would not open it again, I
+shook Tommy's shoulder. He blinked at me, mumbling:
+
+"Must have been asleep."
+
+"Must have been," I grinned down at him.
+
+And, when he saw my grin, he sat straight up and grinned back at me--for
+it is in this way that men sometimes understand each other.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+THE FINAL HOCUS-POCUS
+
+
+Doloria breakfasted in her room, but from the galley I sent a note on
+her tray, among other important things saying that I was about to break
+the news to Monsieur. In her reply, surreptitiously delivered by
+Echochee, who was smiling, she wrote--among still more important
+things--"for Heaven's sake, break it into tiny little pieces!" With this
+in mind, although having no idea how I should succeed, I came up by way
+of the fo'castle and walked aft to where Tommy and he were smoking.
+
+The open safe and three or four pipes belonging to Gates lay on the
+floor between them, while the old skipper who had taken the wheel was
+silently convulsed with laughter as he watched the puzzled expression on
+Monsieur's face and the innocence on Tommy's. My opportunity seeming
+favorable, I said:
+
+"Professor, last night the Princess decided to give up Azuria. She's
+promised to stay here and rule me; so I'm giving notice that neither
+you, nor any one else, can take her."
+
+He listened to this with more tolerance than surprise, giving Tommy a
+look that implied his distress to see my prostration taking the form of
+hallucinations. But Tommy added:
+
+"It's on the square. Jack's put one over, and all he asks is your
+blessing. Give it like a good sport, and, we'll drink their health."
+
+"You are cut-upping," he gasped, staring with wide eyes--that
+perceptibly narrowed as he glanced down at the pipes.
+
+"Call it what you please," Tommy imperturbably replied, though I knew
+that he was not at all sure of his ground, "but the Princess and Jack
+are going to be married, and I rather fancy I'm to be best man. It would
+be right decent of you, as the special emissary plenipotentiary
+extraordinary fat-and-hairy agent from Azuria, to give the bride away.
+I'm only suggesting it."
+
+But the professor was on his feet, sputtering and waving his arms in a
+torrent of rage.
+
+"It shall not be, it shall not be!" he cried. Then suddenly he began to
+laugh, looking at us with a superior air of cunning that made my flesh
+creep. "Why, you are as pigmies with your childish schemes! You suppose
+I have gone this far without arranging everything to circumvent you, or
+anything you could do? Bah!"
+
+"Circumvent till you're black in the face, you beloved old rag doll,"
+Tommy gave a mirthless chuckle, "but the Princess doesn't go back with
+you--and that's a cinch. She's going home with me, to visit my sister.
+Don't you try to follow her, either, for I'm giving it to you straight
+that you'd last about seventeen seconds in Kentucky. Yes, Professor, I'd
+say that in Jefferson county seventeen seconds would be a right
+venerable age for you!"
+
+"That shows what small children you are," he laughed contemptuously.
+"The minute we touch land I order the first police to arrest her--and on
+my authority he will not dare refuse! She is still a subject of Azuria,
+and not of age according to its laws! Then I will lay the matter with
+our representatives in Washington, and your President, fearing to
+disturb the consummation of his League of Nations, will return her, of
+course! This for your threats!" He snapped his finger at us and began to
+fill his pipe.
+
+Who'd ever have thought the League of Nations would treat me that way?
+Tommy saw murder rising in my heart and gave me a warning look. Yet I
+could see from his puckered forehead that he was pretty well up against
+a stone wall. Our only hope of success, so far as my mentality could
+work it out, was instantaneous manslaughter.
+
+Finally, amid a complete silence and under the professor's supercilious
+smile, Tommy got up and went below. Had I tried to enter the cabin, the
+old fellow would have followed me.
+
+A sailor passed aft and whispered to Gates, who surrendered the wheel,
+went forward and disappeared. Ten minutes later he came back and took a
+seat near us; affecting to be at his ease, but making a very poor go at
+it. Soon after him came Tommy, carrying open in his hands a large book,
+calf-bound and old. For on the cabin shelves my father kept a lot of
+truck in the way of old books that no one ever read. I saw, also, that
+Tommy and Gates had reached an understanding.
+
+Of course, I was bursting to know what those conspirators had up their
+sleeves. Tommy stood in the middle of the cockpit, looking serious and
+thoughtful. Now, in an impressive voice, he said:
+
+"Monsieur, Gates has been good enough to get out his copy of American
+Marine Law, pertaining to the obligations and powers of captains of
+American vessels sailing upon salt water. Perhaps, after this brief
+preamble, it would be tautological for me to continue with what your
+overly acute mind must have by this time grasped; nevertheless, you
+will pardon me if I read you a paragraph, that goes as follows: 'In
+cases of emergency, where it is evident that a vessel can not in the
+required time reach a port wherein there may with certainty be found a
+civil officer of the United States of America, or the captain of such
+vessel in any other circumstances deems the request of the principals a
+proper one and of sufficient warrant, he is thereby, and is hereby,
+endowed with the right to perform the ceremony of marriage according to
+the civil code of said United States, and such ceremony, properly
+attested by two witnesses, shall constitute the bonds of holy matrimony
+before the world.'"
+
+At the beginning of this Monsieur had sprung up, but before Tommy
+concluded he again sank into his chair, breathing fast and blinking.
+
+"Gates," Tommy asked, "do you consider the request of these principals a
+proper one and of sufficient warrant?"
+
+"I do, sir," Gates answered.
+
+"You consider that the emergency in every way justifies you to perform
+this ceremony of marriage?"
+
+"I do, sir."
+
+"Then, Jack," he turned to me, "suppose we say high noon. It's a
+fashionable hour, and gives you a little while to primp up."
+
+I gasped at him, unable to believe my ears; but before I could speak
+Monsieur was again raving.
+
+"It shall not!" he yelled. "I say it shall not; for now I, too, play a
+card!" And drawing from his pocket a paper, discolored by wear and age,
+he flourished it in our faces, crying: "By this authority I claim her as
+my ward; both of us Azurians; and in the name of my country I forbid the
+marriage!"
+
+"Gates," Tommy asked, without batting an eye at Monsieur's grandiloquent
+outburst--which seemed to me the absolute frustration of our plan, "we
+don't know this man. He's a tramp we picked up at Key West. Do you
+recognize his credentials, or would you say they're forgeries?"
+
+"They look like forgeries to me, Mr. Thomas," the old skipper answered
+at once, not being within ten feet of Monsieur and his paper. "If I'm
+mistaken, sir, I'll apologize when we get ashore, but I carn't see any
+reason why the ceremony shouldn't take place at high noon. If that's too
+early, Mr. Jack, we can sail back to Key West--or New Oreleans."
+
+"But my authority," the professor cried, seeming on the verge of
+apoplexy.
+
+Tommy closed the calf-bound book and tossed it over to me, then turned
+Monsieur good-naturedly around and pointed to the Stars and Stripes
+flying at our main peak.
+
+"While you're on this yacht, my friend," he laughed, "that's the
+authority, and _don't you forget it_!"
+
+I glanced at the volume of Marine Law he had tossed to me. It was
+_Gibbon's_ DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE!
+
+Monsieur's beard began to twitch curiously. I thought at first he was
+really intending to make the best of things, but suddenly two great
+tears squeezed from his eyes and rolled lumberingly over his cheeks;
+then, as an unbridled torrential storm breaks in the tropics, he threw
+himself face down upon the cushions and wept--piteously.
+
+Tommy and I were thunderstruck. It gives one a weird feeling to see a
+man shaken with grief. I was helpless and, there's no denying it, just
+a little remorseful. As quick in sympathy as he was in resource, Tommy
+crossed and put a hand on the old fellow's shoulder, saying gently:
+
+"Buck up, Professor. This kind of thing won't do, you know!"
+
+Then my surprise was most complete. Sitting now, face buried in his
+hands, he brokenly told a story that at times brought tears to our own
+eyes.
+
+When he finished I had visualized a scene begun more than thirty years
+ago in the Royal Palace of Azuria: an honorable young doctor, Court
+physician, voluntarily surrendering his appointment because he loved the
+King's younger daughter--Doloria's aunt; the old ruler's searching eyes
+that sympathized even while they censured--the aged hand that pressed
+with understanding even while it took the proffered resignation. Then
+the young doctor's quick departure; his plunge into the Universities,
+trusting absorption of the sciences to act as a panacea for his grief.
+Years later his return to Azuria; their pure love still burning, though
+unexpressed. At last the kidnaping; the quick preparations for pursuit;
+and finally the girl, herself, sweet with many confessions, bringing in
+her own hands the old King's "authority"--this paper before us--which
+commanded him to return the little Princess by any means he could, his
+reward being the fulfillment of his heart's desire.
+
+"And now," he moaned, rocking to and fro, "after seventeen years of
+searching, I have won only to lose!"
+
+Truly, I was touched. Tommy turned quickly away and blinked at the
+horizon. Yet neither of us knew that all of this time Doloria had been
+standing in the companionway door. She now crossed swiftly and sat by
+the weeping man, impulsively drawing his grizzled head to her shoulder
+as a mother might have comforted a hurt child. But toward me her face
+was turned, and I saw that her startled eyes spoke into mine the
+entreating message which distracted her--telling me that we must
+acknowledge this claim of Monsieur's poor heart before our own could
+ever be happy; asking me what to do, since his title to happiness came
+first. Yet all that her lips spoke was the trembling whisper:
+
+"Oh, Jack!"
+
+But he, with a new determination, sat quickly upright. The warmth of a
+woman's sympathetic arms upon a life that had been without comfort, the
+quick intuition that she was pleading for him at a great cost to
+herself, stirred the fineness of his nature, and he cried:
+
+"Never! I have lived this long, and this long suffered, enough to know
+the irony of that royal barrier! Your aunt and I, dear child, are
+passing toward the shadows of life, while you and my boy Jack are just
+starting out. Your happiness shall not be cindered upon a false altar--I
+swear it!"
+
+"Good old boy," Tommy murmured. "Do you mean that, honest?"
+
+"_Pardieu_, have I not sworn it?"
+
+"And you wouldn't try to muddy the water again if I confessed that our
+Marine Law was a hocus-pocus?"
+
+"What is that hocus-pocus?"
+
+"A no-such-a-thing."
+
+"_Sacre bleu_! I see! Pipes and iron safes and hocus-pocus! But I do not
+care!" He turned to Doloria and, taking one of her hands, said: "You,
+_mon ami_, shall find your heart's best desire. It is I who say it!--I,
+who have the authority!" The way he clung to that authority was really
+pathetic.
+
+"It occurs to me, Monsieur," Tommy crossed and looked down at them--and
+I saw that Doloria read in his eyes the sadness of one who must remain
+outside while others pass through to happiness--"that you, too, can find
+your heart's best desire. Jack and our sweet Princess will be leaving
+for Azuria as soon as passports are procurable. Now, the day they
+arrive, you might be moseying about the railroad station, borrow her for
+an hour, and personally conduct her to the palace. The late lamented
+King's royal authority contained no stipulation about the missing child
+being returned in a state of single blessedness, therefore the reward is
+yours. Add that up, and see if it doesn't spell Eureka!"
+
+Doloria turned to Monsieur with a glorious smile and, being nearest,
+received the first hug as the light of Tommy's reasoning burst upon him.
+Then he bounded up and hugged me; but Gates and Tommy ran away, the
+cowards, yet did a lot of laughing from a distance. And now the forward
+watch called something, at the same time pointing off our port bow. Low
+upon the water lay Miami.
+
+Excitedly we took turns focusing the binoculars on it, and after a
+little as we drew fairly near Tommy, with a puzzled look, asked:
+
+"Who are those people on your Colonel's dock?"
+
+"My father, maybe. I wired him to come."
+
+"Boy, I mean the petticoats! Look at 'em--there're two!"
+
+"Can you make out their faces?" I asked, having a good time all to
+myself; for here was my chance to return an obligation in the matter of
+courtships which, if not cancelled, would furnish the versatile Tommy
+with an anecdote I should never outlive.
+
+"Not yet," he mumbled, squinting more closely.
+
+"One's probably the Mater," I suggested.
+
+"I hope so," he smiled, lowering the binoculars. "What was the toast you
+gave her, Jack?--'if romance and adventure are alive I'll bring them
+home to you!'--wasn't that it?"
+
+"Yes, and we sailed out on that quest only seventeen days ago. It seems
+incredible, doesn't it!"
+
+"It sure does," he chuckled, once more raising the glasses. "You've put
+on seventeen pounds, too,--besides a special chunk of 120, or
+thereabouts, which you gained the night of the rescue. That's some
+record, boy! See here," he asked quickly, "who the deuce are those
+people, anyway! One has a mighty familiar look!" And I could hardly keep
+from laughing as I answered:
+
+"I think the Mater went by Louisville and picked up Nell----"
+
+"Good Lord, I _see_ her," he yelled, so instantly and irrepressibly
+delirious with joy that he let my binoculars fall overboard, the chump.
+
+But now I saw that Doloria--which was the other name for romance and
+adventure--had slipped away from Monsieur; she had gone forward and, all
+alone, was leaning against the foremast, gazing dreamily at this new
+world and these new people who waited to take her to their hearts. So I
+forgot Tommy, God bless him!--he may have known a little about women,
+after all!
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Wings of the Wind, by Credo Harris
+
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