CHAPTER XIXTHE WICKED GENII
Tania had been aroused in the night by seeing a dark figure standing with his back to her only a few feet from her bed. Involuntarily the child stirred. In that instant a black-masked face turned toward her and Tania gave the single, terrified scream that Madge had heard. Before Tania could call out again, a handkerchief was tied so closely around her mouth that she could make no further sound.
A moment later the mysterious, sinister visitor picked the child up in his arms and bore her swiftly and quietly away from the shelter of the houseboat and her beloved friends. The little girl was very slender, yet her abductor staggered as he walked. He had something besides Tania that he was carrying.
About a quarter of a mile from the houseboat Tania was dumped into the rear end of an automobile and covered with a heavy steamer blanket. Then the automobile started off through the night, going faster and faster, it seemed to her, with each hour of darkness that remained.
At times the little prisoner slept. When sheawakened she cried softly to herself, wondering who had stolen away with her and what was now to become of her. But Tania was only a child of the streets and she had been reared in a harder school than other happier children, so she made no effort to cry out or escape. She knew there was no one near to hear her, and the motor car was moving so swiftly that she could not possibly escape from it.
Tania and her unknown companion must have ridden all night. Evidently the driver of the car had not cared about the roads. He had pushed through heavy sand and ploughed over deep holes regardless of his machine. Speed was the only thing he thought of.
By and by the automobile stopped, after a particularly bad piece of traveling. The driver got down, lifted Tania, still wrapped in her blanket, in his arms and carried her inside a house. The child first saw the light in an old room, up several flights of steps, which was drearier and more miserable than anything she had ever beheld in her life in the tenements. It was big and mouldy, and dark with cobwebs swinging like dusty curtains over the windows that had not been washed for years. The windows looked out over a swamp that was thick with old trees.
But Tania saw none of these things when theblanket was first lifted from her head. She gave a gasp of fright and horror. For the first time she now realized that her captor was her childhood’s enemy and evil genius, Philip Holt.
“Oh!” she exclaimed, with a long-drawn sigh that was almost a sob, “it isyou! Why have you brought me here? What have I done?” Then a look of unearthly wisdom came into Tania’s solemn, black eyes. She continued to stare at the young man so silently and gravely that Philip Holt’s blonde face twitched with nervousness.
“Didn’t you recognize me before?” he asked fiercely. “You were quite likely to shriek out in the night and spoil everything, so I had to carry you off with me, little nuisance that you are! You can just make up your mind, young woman, that you will stay right here in this room until I can take you to that nice institution for bad children that I have been telling you about for such a long time. You’ll never see your houseboat friends again.”
Tania made no answer, and Philip Holt left her sitting on the floor of the gloomy room wide-eyed and silent.
For three days Tania stayed alone in that cheerless room. She saw no one but an old, half-foolish man who came to her three times a day to bring her food. He gave Tania a fewrough garments to dress herself in and treated the little prisoner kindly, but Tania found it was quite useless to ask the old man questions. She was a wise, silent child, with considerable knowledge of life, and she understood that there was nothing to be gained by talking to her jailer, who would now and then grin foolishly and tell her that she was to be good and everything would soon be all right. Her nice, kind brother was going to take her away to school as soon as he could. The wicked people who had been trying to steal her away from her own brother should never find her if her brother could help it.
So the long nights passed and the longer days, and little Tania would have been very miserable indeed except for her fairies and her dreams. It is never possible to be unhappy all the time, if you own a dream world of your own. Still, Tania found it much harder to pretend things, now that she had tasted real happiness with her houseboat girls, than she had when she lived with old Sal. It wasn’t much fun to play at being an enchanted princess when you knew what it was to feel like a really happy little girl. And no one would care to be taken away to the most wonderful castle in fairyland if she had to leave the darling houseboat and Madge and Miss Jenny Ann and the other girls behind.
So all through the daylight Tania sat with her small, pale face pressed against the dirty window pane, waiting for Madge to come and find her. She even hoped that a stranger might walk along close enough to the house for her to call for aid. But a dreary rain set in and all the countryside near Tania’s prison house looked desolate. More than anything Tania feared the return of Philip Holt. Once he got hold of her again, she knew he would fulfill his threats.
During this dreadful time Tania had no human companion, but she was not like other children. She was part little girl and the rest of her an elf or a fay. The trees, the birds, and flowers were almost as real to her as human beings. For, until Madge and Eleanor had found her dancing on the New York City street corner, she had never had anybody to be kind to her, or whom she could love.
Just outside Tania’s window there was a tall old cedar tree. Its long arms reached quite up to her window sill, and when the wind blew it used to wave her its greetings. Inside the comfortable branches of the tree there was a regular apartment house of birds, the nests rising one above the other to the topmost limbs.
Tania held long conversations with these birds in the mornings and in the late afternoons. She told them all her troubles, and how very muchshe would like to get away from the place where she was now staying. However, the birds were great gad-abouts during the day, and Tania could hardly blame them.
There was one fat, fatherly robin that became Tania’s particular friend. He used to hop about near her window and nod and chirp to her as though to reassure her. “Your friends will come for you to-day, I am quite sure of it,” he used to say, until one day Tania really spoke aloud to him and was startled at the sound of her own voice.
“I don’t believe you are a robin at all,” she announced. “I just believe you are a nice, fat father of a whole lot of funny little boys and girls. I believe you are enchanted, like me. Oh, dear! I was just beginning to believe that I wasn’t a fairy after all but a real little girl with pretty clothes and friends to kiss me good night.” Tania sighed. “I suppose I must be a fairy princess after all, for if I was a real little girl no one would have cast another wicked spell over me and shut me up in this dungeon in the woods, which is a whole lot worse than living with old Sal.”
Yet playing and pretending, and, worse than anything, waiting, grew very tiresome to Tania. On the morning of the fourth day of her imprisonment Tania awoke with a start. Somethinghad knocked on her window pane. It was only the old cedar tree, and Tania turned over in bed with a sob. But the tapping went on. She got up and went to her window. Quick as a flash Tania made up her mind to run away. Why had she never thought of it before? It was true, her bedroom door was always locked, but here were the branches of the cedar tree reaching close up to her window. Really, this morning they seemed to speak quite distinctly to Tania:
“Why in the world don’t you come to me? I shall hold you quite safe! You can climb down through all my arms to the warm earth and then run away to your friends.”
It was just after dawn. The pink sky was showing against the earlier grayness when Tania slipped into her coarse clothes and, like a small elf, crept out of her window into the friendly branches of the old tree. She was silent and swift as a squirrel as she clambered down. But she need not have feared. No one in the lonely country place was awake but the child.
Once on the ground, Tania ran on and on, without thinking where she was going. She only wished to get far away from the dreary house where Philip Holt had hidden her. There was a thick woods about a mile or so from Tania’s starting place. No one would find her there.Once she was through it Tania hoped to find a town, or at least a farm, where she could ask for help. In spite of her queer, unchildlike ways, Tania knew enough to understand that if she could only find some one to telegraph to her friends they would soon come to her.
But the forest through which Tania hoped to pass was a dreadful cedar swamp, and in trying to cross it Tania wandered far into it and found herself hopelessly lost.
CHAPTER XXA BOW OF SCARLET RIBBON
In the three days that had passed since the disappearance of Tania from the houseboat everything that was possible had been done to discover her whereabouts.
It never occurred to Tom or to Mrs. Curtis to connect Philip Holt’s odd behavior with the lost Tania or the vanished treasure box. True, he had not been seen for the past three days, but Mrs. Curtis had received a note from him the day after his disappearance from her house, saying that he had been unexpectedly called away on very important business so early in the morning that he had not wished to awaken her, but he had left word with the servants and he hoped that they had explained matters to her.
Mrs. Curtis’s maids and butler insisted that Mr. Holt had given them no message. They had not seen or heard him go. So, as Mrs. Curtis did not regard Philip Holt’s withdrawal as of any importance, she gave very little thought to it.
Madge Morton, however, had a different idea. She laid Tania’s disappearance at Philip Holt’s door. She, therefore, determined to take TomCurtis into her confidence, but to ask him not to betray their suspicions of Philip Holt to Mrs. Curtis until they had better proof of the young man’s guilt. Madge had never told even Tom that she had once overheard Philip Holt reveal his real identity, nor how much she had guessed of the young man’s true character from Tania’s unconscious and frightened reports of him.
Tom at first was indignant with Madge, not because she and the other girls believed that Philip Holt had stolen both their little friend and their new-found wealth, but because she had not sooner shared her suspicion of his mother’s guest with him. Tom had never liked Philip, so it was easy for him to think the worst of the goody-goody young man.
Without a word to Mrs. Curtis, Tom and the houseboat girls set to work to trace Philip Holt, believing that once he was overtaken Tania and the stolen treasure would be accounted for.
It was not easy work. Philip Holt had not been a hypocrite all his life without knowing how to play the game of deception. A detective sent to New York City to talk to old Sal had nothing worth while to report. The woman declared positively that Philip was no connection of hers; that she had neither seen nor heard of the young man lately. As for Tania, Sal had truly not set eyes on her from the day thatMadge had taken the little one under her protection.
Philip Holt knew well enough that his mother would be questioned about his disappearance. He believed that Tania had told Madge his true history. So old Sal was prepared with her story when the detective interviewed her. Yet it was curious that the Cape May police were unable to find out in what manner the young man had left the town. Inquiries at the railroad stations, livery stables, and garages gave no clue to him.
The houseboat girls were in despair. Madge neither ate nor slept. She felt particularly responsible for Tania, as the child had been her special charge and protégé. Madge had been deeply grieved when her friend, David Brewster, had been falsely accused of a crime in their previous houseboat holiday, when they had spent a part of their time with Mr. and Mrs. Preston in Virginia; but that sorrow was as nothing to this, for David was almost a grown boy and able to look after himself, while Tania was little more than a baby. When no news came of either Philip Holt or Tania, Madge began to believe that Philip Holt had accomplished his design. He had managed to shut Tania up in some kind of dreadful institution. The little captain did not believe that they would ever findthe child, and was so unhappy over the loss of her Fairy Godmother that she lost her usual power to act.
Phyllis Alden, however, was wide awake and on the alert. She knew that it was not possible for Philip Holt to leave Cape May without some one’s assistance. Some one must know how and when he had disappeared. The whole point was to find that person.
Phil thought over the matter for some time. Then she quietly telephoned to Ethel Swann and asked her to arrange something for her. She made an appointment to call on Ethel the same afternoon, and she and Lillian walked over to the Swann cottage together. It seemed strange to Madge that her two friends could have the heart for making calls, but, as there was absolutely nothing for them to do save to wait for news of Tania that did not come, she said nothing save that she did not feel well enough to accompany them.
As Lillian and Phyllis Alden approached the Swann summer cottage they saw that Ethel had with her on the veranda the two young people who had been most unfriendly to them during their stay at Cape May, Roy Dennis and Mabel Farrar.
Roy Dennis got up hurriedly. His face flushed a dull red, and he began backing down theveranda steps, explaining to Ethel that he must be off at once.
Phyllis Alden was always direct. Before Roy Dennis could get away from her she walked directly up to him, and looking him squarely in the eyes said quietly: “Mr. Dennis, please don’t go away before I have a chance to speak to you. It seems absurd to me for us to be such enemies, simply because something happened between us in the beginning of the summer that wasn’t very agreeable. I wished to ask you a question, so I asked Ethel to arrange this meeting between us this afternoon.”
“What do you wish to ask me?” he returned awkwardly.
Phil plunged directly into her subject. “Weren’t you and Philip Holt great friends while he was Mrs. Curtis’s guest?” she asked.
Roy Dennis looked uncomfortable. “We were fairly good friends, but not pals,” he assured Phil.
“But you, perhaps, know him well enough to have him tell you where he was going when he left Mrs. Curtis’s,” continued Phil in a calmly assured tone. “Mrs. Curtis has not received a letter from him since he left here, so she does not know just where he is. We girls on the houseboat would also like very much to know what has become of Mr. Holt.”
“Why?” demanded Roy Dennis sharply.
Phyllis determined to be perfectly frank. “I will tell you my reason for asking you that question,” she began. “You may not know it, but our little friend, Tania, disappeared from Cape May the very same day that Philip Holt left the Cape. We all knew that Mr. Holt had known Tania for a number of years before we met her. He thought that the child ought to be shut up in some kind of an institution, but Miss Morton wished to put the little girl in a school. So it may just be barely possible that Mr. Holt took Tania away without asking leave of any one.” Phil made absolutely no reference to the stolen money and jewels in her talk with Roy Dennis. If they could run down Philip Holt and Tania the treasure-box would be disclosed as a matter of course.
Roy Dennis hesitated for barely a second. Then he remarked to Phil, half-admiringly: “You have been frank with me, Miss Alden, and, to tell you the truth, I think it is about time that I be equally frank with you. I have no idea where Philip Holt now is, but I do know something about how he got away from Cape May, and I am beginning to have my suspicions that there might have been something ‘shady’ in his behavior that I did not think of at the time. Three nights ago, it must have been abouteleven o’clock, I was just about ready for bed when Mr. Holt rang me up and asked to speak to me alone. He said that he had just had bad news and wished to get out of Cape May as soon as possible. He asked me if I would lend him my car so that he could drive to a nearby railroad station where he could get a train that would take him sooner to the place he wished to go. I thought it was rather a strange request and asked him why he didn’t borrow Tom Curtis’s car? He said that Mrs. Curtis had gone to bed and that he did not like to disturb her. He and Tom had never been friendly, so he did not wish to ask him a favor. Well, I can’t say I felt very cheerful at letting Philip Holt have the use of my car, but he said that he would send it back in a few hours and it would be all right. I got it out for him myself and he drove away in it. It didn’t come back until this morning, and you never saw such a sight in your life, covered with mud and the tires almost used up.”
Phil nodded sympathetically. “Who brought the car back to you?” she asked. “Was it Mr. Holt?”
Roy Dennis shrugged his heavy shoulders. “No, indeed! He sent it back by a chap who wouldn’t say a word about himself, Holt, or from which direction he had come.”
“Is the man still in town?” asked Phil, her voice trembling, “and would you mind Tom Curtis’s asking him some questions? We are so awfully anxious.”
Roy Dennis rose quickly. “I believe the fellow is around yet, and I’ll get hold of him and take him to Tom at once. I don’t think that Philip Holt has had anything to do with the kidnapping of the little girl, but his whole behavior looks pretty funny. We will make the chauffeur chap tell us where Philip Holt was when he turned over my car to him.” Roy was off like a flash.
Phyllis and Lillian were making their apologies to Ethel for being obliged to hurry off at once to the houseboat when Mabel Farrar took hold of Phil’s hand. Her usually haughty expression had changed to one of the deepest interest. “I amsosorry about the little lost girl,” she said. “I hope you will soon find her. She is a queer, fascinating little thing. I have watched her all summer, and she certainly can dance. I can’t believe that Philip Holt has actually stolen her, yet I don’t know. Roy Dennis just told Ethel Swann and me something awfully queer. He says he found a bright scarlet ribbon, like a bow that a child would wear in her hair, in the bottom of his motor car when the chauffeur brought it back to him to-day.”
Phil’s black eyes flashed. “If I ever needed anything to convince me that Philip Holt stole Tania away from us that would do it,” she returned indignantly. “Little Tania slept every night with her hair tied up with a scarlet ribbon so as to keep it out of her eyes. When we find where Philip Holt is we shall find Tania, and if I have any say in the matter he shall answer to the law for what he has done.”
CHAPTER XXITHE RACE FOR LIFE
It took the united efforts of the Cape May police, Tom Curtis, and Roy Dennis to make the chauffeur who had come back with Roy’s car say where he had met Philip Holt, and when Philip had turned over the automobile to him to be brought back to Roy.
The chauffeur was frightened; he finally broke down and told the whole story. Philip Holt had driven from the farmhouse where he left Tania to the nearest village. There he had hired the chauffeur and the man had taken Philip within a few miles of New York. In the course of the ride, Philip had told the automobile driver the same story about Tania that he had told the old man in the tumbled-down farmhouse:
Tania was Philip’s sister. He was hiding her from enemies, who wished to steal the child away from him. If anybody inquired about the child or about him the chauffeur was to say nothing. Philip would pay him handsomely for bringing the car back to Cape May.
The reason that Philip Holt had sent back Roy Dennis’s automobile was because he knewthat Roy would put detectives on his track if he failed to return it. Besides, it would be far easier for Philip Holt to get away with his precious iron safe if he were free of all other entanglements.
It was nearly midnight before the story that the chauffeur told was clear to Tom Curtis. The man believed that he knew the very house in which Tania was probably concealed. There was no other place like it near the town where the chauffeur lived.
Tom got out his own automobile. The chauffeur would ride with him. They would go directly to the old farmhouse. Tania would be there and all would soon be well.
It was about nine o’clock the next morning when Tom’s thundering knock at the rickety farmhouse door brought the foolish old man to open it. As soon as Tom mentioned Tania, the old fellow was alarmed. He was stupid and poor, but Philip Holt’s behavior had begun to look strange even to him.
The old farmer was glad to tell Tom Curtis everything he knew. It was all right. Tania was safe upstairs. He would take Tom up at once to see her. He was just on his way up to take Tania her breakfast. Indeed, the old man explained with tears in his eyes, he had not meant to assist in the kidnapping of a child. Hewas only a poor, lonely old fellow and he hadn’t meant any harm. He had never seen Philip until the moment that the young man appeared at his door in his automobile and asked him to look after his sister for a few days.
The farmer’s story was true. Philip Holt had no idea how he could safely dispose of Tania. Quite by accident, as he hurried through the country, he had espied the old house. If Tania could be kept hidden there for a few days he would then be able to decide what he could do with her.
Tom would have liked to bound up the old stairs three steps at a time to Tania’s bedroom door. Poor little girl, what she must have suffered in the last three days! But Tom’s thought was always for Madge. Before he followed the farmer to Tania’s chamber he wrote a telegram which he made the chauffeur take over to the village to send immediately. It read: “All is well with Tania. Come at once.” And it was addressed to Madge Morton.
Tom was trembling like a girl with sympathy and compassion when he finally reached little Tania’s bedroom door. He wished Madge or his mother were with him. How could he comfort poor Tania for all she had suffered?
Tania’s jailer unlocked the door and knocked at it softly. The child did not answer. Heknocked at it again and tried to make his voice friendly. “Come to the door, little one,” he entreated. “I know you will be glad to see who it is that has come to take you back to your home.”
Still no answer. Tom could endure the waiting no longer, but flung the door wide open. No Tania was to be seen. There was no place to look for her in the empty room, which held only a bed and a single chair. But a window was open and the arm of the old cedar tree still pressed close against the sill. Tom could see that small twigs had been broken off of some of the branches. He guessed at once what had happened. Tania had climbed down this tree and run away. But Tom felt perfectly sure that he would be able to find her before the houseboat party and his mother could arrive.
The houseboat girls and Miss Jenny Ann were overjoyed at Tom’s telegram. Mrs. Curtis was with them when the message came. She was perhaps the happiest of them all, although she had never been an especial friend of little Tania’s. In the last few days her conscience had pricked her a little and her warm heart had sorrowed over the missing child.
Yet, up to this very moment, Mrs. Curtis did not know the truth about Philip Holt. Just before they started for the train that was to bear them to Tom and Tania Madge told Mrs. Curtisthat Philip had stolen the child from them and that they also believed he had run off with their treasure-chest.
Mrs. Curtis listened very quietly to Madge’s story. When the little captain had finished she asked humbly, “Can you ever forgive me, dear? I am an obstinate and spoiled woman. If only I had listened to what you told me about Philip this sorrow would never have come to you. Tom also warned me that I was being deceived in Philip Holt. But I believed you were both prejudiced against him. When we recover Tania I shall try to make up to her the wrong I have done her, if it is ever possible.”
During the journey Madge and Mrs. Curtis sat hand in hand. Captain Jules looked after Miss Jenny Ann, Lillian, Phil and Eleanor, although he was almost as excited by Tom’s news as they were.
At the country station the chauffeur was waiting to drive Tania’s friends to the lonely old farmhouse that the child had thought a dungeon.
Tom and Tania would probably be standing in the front yard when the automobile arrived. They were not there. The old farmer explained that Tom and Tania had gone out together. They would be back in a few minutes. To tell the truth, the man did expect them to appear at anytime. He could not believe that Tania was really lost, although Tom had been searching for her since early morning and it was now about four o’clock in the afternoon.
For two hours the houseboat party waited. The girls walked up and down the rickety farmhouse porch, clinging to Captain Jules. Mrs. Curtis and Miss Jenny Ann remained indoors. At dusk Tom returned. He was alone and could hardly drag one foot after the other, he was so weary and heartsick. To think that after wiring her he had found Tania he must face Madge with the dreadful news that the child was lost again!
Two long, weary days passed without news of the lost Tania. The houseboat party made the old farmhouse their headquarters while conducting the search. At first no one thought to penetrate the cedar swamp where Tania had hidden herself, but the idea finally occurred to Tom Curtis, and on the third morning he and Captain Jules started out.
All that third anxious day the girls searched the immediate neighborhood for Tania. When evening came they gathered sadly in the wretched farmhouse, to await the return of Tom Curtis and the old sea captain.
Madge was lying on a rickety lounge, with her face buried in her hands. Phyllis was sittingnear the door. Mrs. Curtis stood at the window, watching for the return of her son. In a further corner of the room, Miss Jenny Ann, Lillian and Eleanor were talking softly together.
Suddenly each one of the sad women became aware of the captain’s presence as his big form darkened the doorway. A ray of light from their single oil lamp shone across his weather-beaten face. Phil saw him most distinctly and read disaster in his glance. With the unselfish thought of others that invariably marks a great nature, she went swiftly across the room and dropped on her knees beside Madge.
Madge sprang from her lounge and stumbled across the room toward the old sailor. Phil kept close beside her.
“Tania!” whispered Madge faintly, for she too had seen the captain’s face. “Where is my little Fairy Godmother?”
“We have found Tania, Madge,” said Captain Jules gently, “but she is very ill. We found her lying under a tree in the swamp, delirious with fever. She is almost starved, and she is so frail—that——” The old man’s voice broke.
“Don’t say she is going to die, Captain Jules,” implored Mrs. Curtis. “If she does, I shall feel that I am responsible. Surely, somethingcan be done for her.” The proud woman buried her face in her hands.
At that moment Tom entered, bearing in his arms a frail little figure, whose thin hands moved incessantly and whose black eyes were bright with fever.
With a cry of “Tania, dear little Fairy Godmother, you mustn’t, you shan’t die!” Madge sprang to Tom’s side and caught the little, restless hands in hers.
For an instant the black eyes looked recognition. “Madge,” Tania said clearly, “he took me away—the Wicked Genii.” Her voice trailed off into indistinct muttering.
“She must be rushed to a hospital at once.” Captain Jules’s calm voice roused the sorrowing friends of little Tania to action.
“I’ll have my car at the door in ten minutes,” declared Tom huskily. “Make her as comfortable as you can for the journey.”
It was in Captain Jules’s strong arms that little Tania made the journey to a private sanatorium at Cape May. Madge sat beside the captain, her eyes fixed upon the little, dark head that lay against the captain’s broad shoulder. The strong, magnetic touch of the old sailor seemed to quiet the fever-stricken child, and, for the first time since they had found her, Tania lay absolutely still in his arms.
Mrs. Curtis occupied the front seat with her son, who drove his car at a rate of speed that would have caused a traffic officer to hold up his hands in horror. It had been arranged that Tom should return to the farmhouse as soon as possible for the rest of the party.
No one of the occupants of the car ever forgot that ride. Once at the hospital, no time was lost in caring for Tania. The physician in attendance, however, would give them no satisfaction as to Tania’s condition beyond the admission that it was very serious. Mrs. Curtis engaged the most expensive room in the hospital for the child, as well as a day and night nurse, and, surrounded by every comfort and the prayers of anxious and loving friends, Tania began her fight for life.
CHAPTER XXIICAPTAIN JULES LISTENS TO A STORY
Tania did not die. After a few days the fever left her, but she was so weak and frail that the physician in charge of her case advised Mrs. Curtis to allow her to remain in the sanatorium for at least a month. When she should have sufficiently recovered Mrs. Curtis had decided to take upon herself the responsibility of the child’s future. She had been a constant visitor in the sickroom and during the long hours she had spent with the imaginative little one had grown to love her, while Tania in turn adored the stately, white-haired woman and clung to her even as she did to Madge, a fact which pleased Mrs. Curtis more than she would admit.
Philip Holt was discovered hiding in New York City. The treasure-box was in the keeping of old Sal, for Philip had not dared to dispose of the coins or the jewelry while the detectives were on the lookout for him. Tom Curtis saw that the case against Philip Holt was conducted very quietly. The houseboat girls had had enough trouble and excitement. Their treasure was restored to them and they had nodesire ever to hear Philip Holt’s name mentioned again.
Tom Curtis was more curious. In questioning Philip, Tom learned that he himself was innocently to blame for Philip’s crime. Holt recalled to Tom the fact that, on returning from the houseboat after spending the evening with Captain Jules and his friends, Tom had mentioned to his mother that the precious iron safe was on the houseboat, and that if she cared to look at the old jewelry again Miss Jenny Ann would unlock the sideboard drawer and show it to her the next day. In that moment Philip Holt decided on his theft, but he did not expect Tania to thwart him. He had slipped through one of the open staterooms into the dining room of the houseboat, broken the lock of the sideboard and opened the dining room door from the inside to make his escape. Philip Holt believed that in taking Tania with him he had accomplished his own downfall.
If he had not stopped to leave the child at the deserted farmhouse, his movements would never have been traced.
Madge Morton was a good deal changed by the events of the last few weeks. She was so unlike her usual happy, light-hearted and impetuous self that Miss Jenny Ann and the houseboat girls were worried about her. They ardentlywished that Madge would fly into a temper again just to show she possessed her old spirit. But she was very gentle and quiet and liked to spend a good deal of the time alone.
Miss Jenny Ann consulted with Lillian, Phil and Eleanor. They decided to write to David Brewster to ask him to come to spend a few days with them on the houseboat. Madge was fond of David and the young man had done such fine things for himself in the past year that her friends hoped a sight of him would stir her out of her depression.
David was visiting Mrs. Randolph—“Miss Betsey”—in Hartford. He replied that he would try to come to Cape May in another week or ten days, but please not to mention the fact to Madge until he was more sure of coming.
One bright summer afternoon Madge returned alone from a long motor ride with Mrs. Curtis and Tom. She found the houseboat entirely deserted and remembered that the girls and Miss Jenny Ann had had an engagement to go sailing. She curled up on the big steamer chair and gave herself over to dreams.
A small boat, pulled by a pair of strong arms, came along close to the deck of the “Merry Maid.” Madge looked up to see Captain Jules’s faithful face beaming at her.
“All alone?” he called out cheerfully. “Comefor a row with me. I’ll get you back before tea.”
Madge wanted to refuse, but she hardly knew how, so she slipped into the prow of the skiff and sat there idly facing him.
Captain Jules frowned at the girl’s pale face, which looked even paler under the loose twists of her soft auburn hair. Madge looked older and more womanly than she had the day the captain first saw her. There was a deeper meaning to the upper curves of her full, red lips and a gentler sweep to the downward droop of her heavy, black lashes. She was fulfilling the promise of the great beauty that was to be hers. It was easy to see that she had the charm that would make her life full of interest.
Still Captain Jules frowned as though the picture of Madge and her future did not please him.
“How much longer are you going to stay at Cape May, Miss Morton?” he inquired.
Madge smiled at him. “I don’t know anything about ‘Miss Morton’s’ plans, but Madge expects to be here for about two weeks more.”
Recently the captain had been calling the houseboat girls by their first names, as he was with them so constantly in their trouble. But he had now decided that he must return to the formality of the beginning of their acquaintance. It was best to do so.
“And afterward?” the old sailor questioned, pretending that he was really not greatly interested in Madge’s reply.
The girl’s expression changed. “I don’t know,” she returned. “Of course, Eleanor and I will go back to ‘Forest House’ for a while. Aren’t you glad that Uncle has been able to pay off the mortgage? When Nellie and Lillian go to Miss Tolliver’s and Phil to college I don’t know exactly what I shall do. Mrs. Curtis and Tom have asked me to make them a visit in New York next winter.”
The captain frowned again. It was well that Madge was looking over the water and not at him, for she never could have told why he looked so displeased.
“You and Tom Curtis are very good friends, aren’t you, Madge?” said Captain Jules abruptly.
Madge smiled to herself. She felt as though she were in the witness box. Was her dear old captain trying to cross-examine her?
“Of course, I like Tom better than almost any one else. He is awfully good to me. You know you like Tom yourself, so why shouldn’t I?” she ended wickedly.
“I like him. Certainly I do. He is a fine, upright fellow and his money hasn’t hurt him a mite, which you can’t say of the most of us.But it’s a different matter with you, young lady, and I want you to go slowly.”
“But I am not going at all, Captain,” laughed Madge. “It seems to me that I want only one thing in the world, and that’s to find my father. Sometimes I am afraid that perhaps I shall never find my father after all!”
Captain Jules coughed and his voice sounded rather husky. It had a different note in it from any that Madge had ever heard him use to her.
“Don’t play the coward, child,” he said sternly; “just because you have had one defeat don’t go about the world saying you must give up. It may be that your father did that once and is sorry for it now. Keep up the fight. No matter how many times we may be knocked down in this world, if we have the right sort of courage we’ll always get up again.”
Madge sat up very straight. Her blue eyes flashed back at Captain Jules with an expression that he liked to see. “I am not going to give up my search,” she answered defiantly. “One hears that it is Fate which separates two persons. If I find Father, I shall feel that I have won a victory over Fate. But I can’t help longing to tell my father that I know that he is innocent of the fault for which he was disgraced and dismissed from the Navy, and that I havethe proof in my possession that would make it clear to all the world as well as to me.”
The old captain gave vent to a sudden exclamation that sounded like a groan. His face looked strangely drawn under his coat of tan.
“Are you sick, Captain Jules?” asked Madge hastily. “Do take my place and let me have the oars. I am sure I can row you.”
Captain Jules smiled back at her. “What made you think I was sick?” he asked. “What was that you were telling me? How do you know that your father was guiltless of his fault? Why, Captain Robert Morton was one of the kindest men that ever trod a deck, and yet he was convicted of cruelty to one of his own sailors.”
“Captain Jules,” continued Madge earnestly, “I would like to tell you the whole story if you have time to listen to it. You know I promised long ago to tell you. Two years ago, when we were on the second of our houseboat excursions, we spent part of our holiday near Old Point Comfort. There I met the man who had been my father’s superior officer. Some unpleasant things happened between his granddaughter and me, and she told my father’s story at a dinner in order to humiliate me. Long afterward her grandfather heard of what his granddaughter had done and he made a statement before myfriends which cleared my father’s name. He confessed to having allowed my father to suffer for something he had commanded him to do. My father was too great a man to clear himself at the expense of his superior officer, so he left the Navy in disgrace and has never been heard of since that dreadful time.
“There isn’t much more to tell. Only the old admiral has died since I met him. However, he left a paper that was sent to me, in which he acquits my father of all blame and takes the whole responsibility for my father’s act on himself. Must we go back home, Captain Jules?” for, at the end of her speech, Madge observed that the captain had turned his skiff and was rowing directly toward the houseboat. He handed Madge aboard a few moments later with the air of one whose mind is elsewhere.
It was impossible for Miss Jenny Ann to persuade the old pearl diver to remain to supper. With very few words to any of the party he turned Madge over to her friends and rowed hurriedly away toward his home.
CHAPTER XXIIITHE VICTORY OVER FATE
Early the next morning word was brought by a small boy that Captain Jules Fontaine wished Miss Madge Morton to come out to “The Anchorage” alone, as he had some important business that he wished to talk over with her.
It was a wonderful morning, all fresh sea breezes and sparkling sunshine. Madge had not felt so gay in a long time as when the other houseboat girls fell to guessing as to why Captain Jules desired her presence at his house.
“He intends to make you his heiress, Madge,” insisted Lillian. “Then, when you are an old lady, you can come down here to live in the house with the roof like three sails, and ride around in the captain’s rowboat and sailboat and be as happy as a clam.”
Madge shook her head. “No such thing, Lillian. I don’t believe the captain wants me for anything important. He may be going to lecture me, as he did yesterday afternoon. At any rate, I’ll be back before long. Please save some luncheon for me.”
Madge was surprised when her boat landednear “The Anchorage” not to see Captain Jules in his front yard, with his funny pet monkey on his shoulder, waiting to receive her. She began to feel afraid that the captain was ill. She had never been inside his house in all their acquaintance. But Captain Jules had sent for her, so there was nothing for her to do but to march up boldly to his front door and knock.
She lifted the heavy brass knocker, which looked like the head of a dolphin, and gave three brisk blows on the closed door.
At first no one answered. The little captain was beginning to think that the boy who came to her had made some mistake in his message and that Captain Jules had gone out in his fishing boat for the day, when she heard some one coming down the passage to open the door for her.
She gave a little start of surprise. A tall, middle-aged man, with a single streak of white hair through the brown, was gazing at her curiously.
“I would like to see Captain Jules,” murmured Madge stupidly, unable to at once recover from the surprise of finding that Captain Jules did not live alone.
The strange man invited Madge into a tiny parlor which rather surprised her. The room was filled with bookshelves, reaching almost upto the top of the wall. The young girl had never dreamed that her captain was much of a student. The only things that reminded her of Captain Jules were the fishnets that were hung at the windows for curtains and the great sprays of coral and sponge which decorated the mantelpiece.
The man sat down with his back to the light, so that he could look straight into Madge’s face.
“Captain Jules will be here after a little, Miss Morton,” he said gravely, “but he wished me to have a talk with you first.”
Madge looked curiously at the unknown man. She could not obtain a very distinct view of his face, but she saw that he was very distinguished looking, that his eyes seemed quite dark, and that he wore a pointed beard. He did not look like an American. At least, there was something in his appearance that Madge did not quite understand. It struck her that perhaps the man was a lawyer. It could not be that Lillian was right in her guess. The treasure in the iron safe had not yet been sold, so it might be that this man wished to make some offer for it. Whoever he might be the silence was becoming uncomfortable. The little captain decided to break it.
“I wonder if you wish to talk to me about the treasure that we found?” she inquired, smiling.“I would rather that Captain Jules should be in here when we speak of that.”
The stranger shook his head. He had a very beautiful voice that in some way fascinated the girl.
“No, I don’t wish to talk about your treasure, but I do wish to speak of something else that was lost and is found again. I don’t know that you will value it, child, or that it is worth having, but Captain Jules thinks you might.”
Madge’s heart began to beat faster. This strange man had something of great importance to tell her. She wondered if she had ever seen him anywhere before. There was something in his look that was oddly familiar. But why did he look at her so strangely and why did not her old friend come to her to end this foolish suspense?
“I have been down here on a visit to Captain Jules a number of times this summer and he has always talked of you,” went on the fascinating voice. “I have longed to see you, but——Miss Morton, Captain Jules Fontaine and I knew your father once, long years ago. The news that you had proof of his innocence made us very happy last night.”
Madge would have liked to bounce up and down in her chair, like an impatient child. Only her age restrained her. Why didn’t this mantell her the thing he was trying to say? What made him hesitate so long?
“Yes, yes,” she returned impatiently, “but do you know whether my father is alive now? That is the only thing I care about.”
Madge gripped both arms of her chair to control herself. She was trembling so that she felt that she must be having a chill, though it was a warm summer day, for the stranger had risen and was coming toward her, his face white and haggard. Then, as he advanced into the brighter light of the room, Madge saw that his eyes were very blue.
“Your father isn’t dead,” the man replied quietly. “He is here in this very house, and he cares for you more than all the world in spite of his long silence!”
The little captain sprang to her feet, her face flaming. “Captain Jules!Heis my father? He seemed so old that I didn’t realize it. Yet he has said so many things to me that might have made me guess he knew everything in the world about me. Oh, where is he? My own, own Captain Jules?”
The stranger, whose arms had been outstretched toward Madge, let them fall at his sides, but Madge had no eyes for him. Captain Jules had entered the room and she had flung herself straight into his kindly arms.
So, after all, it was Captain Jules Fontaine who had to make it clear to Madge that he was not her father, but her father’s lifelong and devoted friend. The captain told Madge the story while he held both her cold hands in his big, rough ones, and the man who was her own father sat watching and waiting for her verdict.
Jules Fontaine had never been captain of anything but a sailing schooner, but he had been a gunner’s mate on Captain Robert Morton’s ship. He alone knew that Captain Morton had been forced into the fault that he had committed by order of his admiral. When Captain Morton was dismissed from the United States Naval Service Jules Fontaine, gunner’s mate, had procured his discharge and followed the fortunes of his captain. The two men drifted south to the tropics. Every American vessel is equipped with a diving outfit, and some of the men are taught to go down under the water to examine the bottoms of the boats. Jules Fontaine liked the business of diving. When the two men found themselves in a strange land, without any occupations, Captain Jules joined his fortunes with the pearl divers and for many years followed their perilous trade.
Captain Morton had a harder time to get along, but after a while he studied foreign languages and began to translate books. Fiveyears before the two men had come back to the United States. Since that time Captain Morton had tried to follow every movement of his daughter. Captain Jules wanted his friend to make himself known to his own people, but Robert Morton feared that they would never forgive his long silence or his early disgrace. He believed that Madge would be happier without knowledge of him. It was her own longing for her father, reported by Captain Jules, that had impelled Robert Morton at last to reveal himself to her.
Madge could not comprehend all of this at once. She did not even try to do so. She realized only that, after being without any parents, she had suddenly come into two fathers at the same time, her own father and Captain Jules, who was her more than foster father.
With a low, glad cry she went swiftly across the room. She did not try to think or to ask questions at that moment about the past, she only flung her young arms about her father’s neck in a long embrace, feeling that at last she had some one in the world who was her very own.
While Madge, her father, and Captain Jules were trying to see how they could bear the miracle and shock of their great happiness, a small, dark object darted into the room and planted its claws in Madge’s hair. It pulled and chattered with all its might.