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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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