TOGETHER the girl and the mucker approached the entrance to the amphitheater. From behind a shoulder of rock they peered down into the forest below them. For several minutes neither saw any cause for alarm.
“I guess youse must o' been seein' things,” said Byrne, drily.
“Yes,” said the girl, “and I see them again. Look! Quick! Down there—to the right.”
Byrne looked in the direction she indicated.
“Chinks,” he commented. “Gee! Look at 'em comin'. Dere must be a hundred of 'em.”
He turned a rueful glance back into the amphitheater.
“I dunno as dis place looks as good to me as it did,” he remarked. “Dose yaps wid de toad stabbers could hike up on top o' dese cliffs an' make it a case o' 'thence by carriages to Calvary' for ours in about two shakes.”
“Yes,” said the girl, “I'm afraid it's a regular cul-de-sac.”
“I dunno nothin' about dat,” replied the mucker; “but I do know dat if we wants to get out o' here we gotta get a hump on ourselves good an' lively. Come ahead,” and with his words he ran quickly through the entrance, and turning squarely toward the right skirted the perpendicular cliffs that extended as far as they could see to be lost to view in the forest that ran up to meet them from below.
The trees and underbrush hid them from the head-hunters. There had been danger of detection but for the brief instant that they passed through the entrance of the hollow, but at the time they had chosen the enemy had been hidden in a clump of thick brush far down the slope.
For hours the two fugitives continued their flight, passing over the crest of a ridge and downward toward another valley, until by a small brook they paused to rest, hopeful that they had entirely eluded their pursuers.
Again Byrne fished, and again they sat together at a one-course meal. As they ate the man found himself looking at the girl more and more often. For several days the wonder of her beauty had been growing upon him, until now he found it difficult to take his eyes from her. Thrice she surprised him in the act of staring intently at her, and each time he had dropped his eyes guiltily. At length the girl became nervous, and then terribly frightened—was it coming so soon?
The man had talked but little during this meal, and for the life of her Barbara Harding could not think of any topic with which to distract his attention from his thoughts.
“Hadn't we better be moving on?” she asked at last.
Byrne gave a little start as though surprised in some questionable act.
“I suppose so,” he said; “this ain't no place to spend the night—it's too open. We gotta find a sort o' hiding place if we can, dat a fellow kin barricade wit something.”
Again they took up their seemingly hopeless march—an aimless wandering in search of they knew not what. Away from one danger to possible dangers many fold more terrible. Barbara's heart was very heavy, for again she feared and mistrusted the mucker.
They followed down the little brook now to where it emptied into a river and then down the valley beside the river which grew wider and more turbulent with every mile. Well past mid-afternoon they came opposite a small, rocky island, and as Byrne's eyes fell upon it an exclamation of gratification burst from his lips.
“Jest de place!” he cried. “We orter be able to hide dere forever.”
“But how are we to get there?” asked the girl, looking fearfully at the turbulent river.
“It ain't deep,” Byrne assured her. “Come ahead; I'll carry yeh acrost,” and without waiting for a reply he gathered her in his arms and started down the bank.
What with the thoughts that had occupied his mind off and on during the afternoon the sudden and close contact of the girl's warm young body close to his took Billy Byrne's breath away, and sent the hot blood coursing through his veins. It was with the utmost difficulty that he restrained a mad desire to crush her to him and cover her face with kisses.
And then the fatal thought came to him—why should he restrain himself? What was this girl to him? Had he not always hated her and her kind? Did she not look with loathing and contempt upon him? And to whom did her life belong anyway but to him—had he not saved it twice? What difference would it make? They'd never come out of this savage world alive, and if he didn't take her some monkey-faced Chink would get her.
They were in the middle of the stream now. Byrne's arms already had commenced to tighten upon the girl. With a sudden tug he strove to pull her face down to his; but she put both hands upon his shoulders and held his lips at arms' length. And her wide eyes looked full into the glowing gray ones of the mucker. And each saw in the other's something that held their looks for a full minute.
Barbara saw what she had feared, but she saw too something else that gave her a quick, pulsing hope—a look of honest love, or could she be mistaken? And the mucker saw the true eyes of the woman he loved without knowing that he loved her, and he saw the plea for pity and protection in them.
“Don't,” whispered the girl. “Please don't, you frighten me.”
A week ago Billy Byrne would have laughed at such a plea. Doubtless, too, he would have struck the girl in the face for her resistance. He did neither now, which spoke volumes for the change that was taking place within him, but neither did he relax his hold upon her, or take his burning eyes from her frightened ones.
Thus he strode through the turbulent, shallow river to clamber up the bank onto the island. In his soul the battle still raged, but he had by no means relinquished his intention to have his way with the girl. Fear, numb, freezing fear, was in the girl's eyes now. The mucker read it there as plain as print, and had she not said that she was frightened? That was what he had wanted to accomplish back there upon the Halfmoon—to frighten her. He would have enjoyed the sight, but he had not been able to accomplish the thing. Now she not only showed that she was frightened—she had admitted it, and it gave the mucker no pleasure—on the contrary it made him unaccountably uncomfortable.
And then came the last straw—tears welled to those lovely eyes. A choking sob wracked the girl's frame—“And just when I was learning to trust you so!” she cried.
They had reached the top of the bank, now, and the man, still holding her in his arms, stood upon a mat of jungle grass beneath a great tree. Slowly he lowered her to her feet. The madness of desire still gripped him; but now there was another force at work combating the evil that had predominated before.
Theriere's words came back to him: “Good-bye, Byrne; take good care of Miss Harding,” and his admission to the Frenchman during that last conversation with the dying man: “—a week ago I guess I was a coward. Dere seems to be more'n one kind o' nerve—I'm just a-learnin' of the right kind, I guess.”
He had been standing with eyes upon the ground, his heavy hand still gripping the girl's arm. He looked into her face again. She was waiting there, her great eyes upon his filled with fear and questioning, like a prisoner before the bar awaiting the sentence of her judge.
As the man looked at Barbara Harding standing there before him he saw her in a strange new light, and a sudden realization of the truth flashed upon him. He saw that he could not harm her now, or ever, for he loved her!
And with the awakening there came to Billy Byrne the withering, numbing knowledge that his love must forever be a hopeless one—that this girl of the aristocracy could never be for such as he.
Barbara Harding, still looking questioningly at him, saw the change that came across his countenance—she saw the swift pain that shot to the man's eyes, and she wondered. His fingers released their grasp upon her arm. His hands fell limply to his sides.
“Don't be afraid,” he said. “Please don't be afraid o' me. I couldn't hurt youse if I tried.”
A deep sigh of relief broke from the girl's lips—relief and joy; and she realized that its cause was as much that the man had proved true to the new estimate she had recently placed upon him as that the danger to herself had passed.
“Come,” said Billy Byrne, “we'd better move in a bit out o' sight o' de mainland, an' look fer a place to make camp. I reckon we'd orter rest here for a few days till we git in shape ag'in. I know youse must be dead beat, an' I sure am, all right, all right.”
Together they sought a favorable site for their new home, and it was as though the horrid specter of a few moments before had never risen to menace them, for the girl felt that a great burden of apprehension had been lifted forever from her shoulders, and though a dull ache gnawed at the mucker's heart, still he was happier than he had ever been before—happy to be near the woman he loved.
With the long sword of Oda Yorimoto, Billy Byrne cut saplings and bamboo and the fronds of fan palms, and with long tough grasses bound them together into the semblance of a rude hut. Barbara gathered leaves and grasses with which she covered the floor.
“Number One, Riverside Drive,” said the mucker, with a grin, when the work was completed; “an' now I'll go down on de river front an' build de Bowery.”
“Oh, are you from New York?” asked the girl.
“Not on yer life,” replied Billy Byrne. “I'm from good ol' Chi; but I been to Noo York twict wit de Goose Island Kid, an' so I knows all about it. De roughnecks belongs on de Bowery, so dat's wot we'll call my dump down by de river. You're a highbrow, so youse gotta live on Riverside Drive, see?” and the mucker laughed at his little pleasantry.
But the girl did not laugh with him. Instead she looked troubled.
“Wouldn't you rather be a 'highbrow' too?” she asked, “and live up on Riverside Drive, right across the street from me?”
“I don't belong,” said the mucker gruffly.
“Wouldn't you rather belong?” insisted the girl.
All his life Billy had looked with contempt upon the hated, pusillanimous highbrows, and now to be asked if he would not rather be one! It was unthinkable, and yet, strange to relate, he realized an odd longing to be like Theriere, and Billy Mallory; yes, in some respects like Divine, even. He wanted to be more like the men that the woman he loved knew best.
“It's too late fer me ever to belong, now,” he said ruefully. “Yeh gotta be borned to it. Gee! Wouldn't I look funny in wite pants, an' one o' dem dinky, little 'Willie-off-de-yacht' lids?”
Even Barbara had to laugh at the picture the man's words raised to her imagination.
“I didn't mean that,” she hastened to explain. “I didn't mean that you must necessarily dress like them; but BE like them—act like them—talk like them, as Mr. Theriere did, you know. He was a gentleman.”
“An' I'm not,” said Billy.
“Oh, I didn't mean THAT,” the girl hastened to explain.
“Well, whether youse meant it or not, it's so,” said the mucker. “I ain't no gent—I'm a mucker. I have your word for it, you know—yeh said so that time on de Halfmoon, an' I ain't fergot it; but youse was right—I am a mucker. I ain't never learned how to be anything else. I ain't never wanted to be anything else until today. Now, I'd like to be a gent; but it's too late.”
“Won't you try?” asked the girl. “For my sake?”
“Go to't,” returned the mucker cheerfully; “I'd even wear side whiskers fer youse.”
“Horrors!” exclaimed Barbara Harding. “I couldn't look at you if you did.”
“Well, then, tell me wot youse do want me to do.”
Barbara discovered that her task was to be a difficult one if she were to accomplish it without wounding the man's feelings; but she determined to strike while the iron was hot and risk offending him—why she should be interested in the regeneration of Mr. Billy Byrne it never once occurred to her to ask herself. She hesitated a moment before speaking.
“One of the first things you must do, Mr. Byrne,” she said, “is to learn to speak correctly. You mustn't say 'youse' for 'you,' or 'wot' for 'what'—-you must try to talk as I talk. No one in the world speaks any language faultlessly, but there are certain more or less obvious irregularities of grammar and pronunciation that are particularly distasteful to people of refinement, and which are easy to guard against if one be careful.”
“All right,” said Billy Byrne, “youse—you kin pitch in an' learn me wot—whatever you want to an' I'll do me best to talk like a dude—fer your sake.”
And so the mucker's education commenced, and as there was little else for the two to do it progressed rapidly, for once started the man grew keenly interested, spurred on by the evident pleasure which his self-appointed tutor took in his progress—further it meant just so much more of close companionship with her.
For three weeks they never left the little island except to gather fruit which grew hard by on the adjacent mainland. Byrne's wounds had troubled him considerably—at times he had been threatened with blood poisoning. His temperature had mounted once to alarming heights, and for a whole night Barbara Harding had sat beside him bathing his forehead and easing his sufferings as far as it lay within her power to do; but at last the wonderful vitality of the man had saved him. He was much weakened though and neither of them had thought it safe to attempt to seek the coast until he had fully regained his old-time strength.
So far but little had occurred to give them alarm. Twice they had seen natives on the mainland—evidently hunting parties; but no sign of pursuit had developed. Those whom they had seen had been pure-blood Malays—there had been no samurai among them; but their savage, warlike appearance had warned the two against revealing their presence.
They had subsisted upon fish and fruit principally since they had come to the island. Occasionally this diet had been relieved by messes of wild fowl and fox that Byrne had been successful in snaring with a primitive trap of his own invention; but lately the prey had become wary, and even the fish seemed less plentiful. After two days of fruit diet, Byrne announced his intention of undertaking a hunting trip upon the mainland.
“A mess of venison wouldn't taste half bad,” he remarked.
“Yes,” cried the girl, “I'm nearly famished for meat—it seems as though I could almost eat it raw.”
“I know that I could,” stated Billy. “Lord help the deer that gets within range of this old gat of Theriere's, and you may not get even a mouthful—I'm that hungry I'll probably eat it all, hoof, hide, and horns, before ever I get any of it back here to you.”
“You'd better not,” laughed the girl. “Good-bye and good luck; but please don't go very far—I shall be terribly lonely and frightened while you are away.”
“Maybe you'd better come along,” suggested Billy.
“No, I should be in the way—you can't hunt deer with a gallery, and get any.”
“Well, I'll stay within hailing distance, and you can look for me back any time between now and sundown. Good-bye,” and he picked his way down the bank into the river, while from behind a bush upon the mainland two wicked, black eyes watched his movements and those of the girl on the shore behind him while a long, sinewy, brown hand closed more tightly upon a heavy war spear, and steel muscles tensed for the savage spring and the swift throw.
The girl watched Billy Byrne forging his way through the swift rapids. What a mighty engine of strength and endurance he was! What a man! Yes, brute! And strange to relate Barbara Harding found herself admiring the very brutality that once had been repellent to her. She saw him leap lightly to the opposite bank, and then she saw a quick movement in a bush close at his side. She did not know what manner of thing had caused it, but her intuition warned her that behind that concealing screen lay mortal danger to the unconscious man.
“Billy!” she cried, the unaccustomed name bursting from her lips involuntarily. “In the bush at your left—look out!”
At the note of warning in her voice Byrne had turned at her first word—it was all that saved his life. He saw the half-naked savage and the out-shooting spear arm, and as he would, instinctively, have ducked a right-for-the-head in the squared circle of his other days, he ducked now, side stepping to the right, and the heavy weapon sped harmlessly over his shoulder.
The warrior, with a growl of rage, drew his sharp parang, leaping to close quarters. Barbara Harding saw Byrne whip Theriere's revolver from its holster, and snap it in the face of the savage; but to her horror the cartridge failed to explode, and before he could fire again the warrior was upon him.
The girl saw the white man leap to one side to escape the furious cut aimed at him by his foe, and then she saw him turn with the agility of a panther and spring to close quarters with the wild man. Byrne's left arm went around the Malay's neck, and with his heavy right fist he rained blow after blow upon the brown face.
The savage dropped his useless parang—clawing and biting at the mighty creature in whose power he found himself; but never once did those terrific, relentless blows cease to fall upon his unprotected face.
The sole witness to this battle primeval stood spellbound at the sight of the fierce, brutal ferocity of the white man, and the lion-like strength he exhibited. Slowly but surely he was beating the face of his antagonist into an unrecognizable pulp—with his bare hands he had met and was killing an armed warrior. It was incredible! Not even Theriere or Billy Mallory could have done such a thing. Billy Mallory! And she was gazing with admiration upon his murderer!
AFTER Byrne had dropped the lifeless form of his enemy to the ground he turned and retraced his steps toward the island, a broad grin upon his face as he climbed to the girl's side.
“I guess I'd better overhaul this gat,” he said, “and stick around home. It isn't safe to leave you alone here—I can see that pretty plainly. Gee, supposin' I'd got out of sight before he showed himself!” And the man shuddered visibly at the thought.
The girl had not spoken and the man looked up suddenly, attracted by her silence. He saw a look of horror in her eyes, such as he had seen there once before when he had kicked the unconscious Theriere that time upon the Halfmoon.
“What's the matter?” he asked, alarmed. “What have I done now? I had to croak the stiff—he'd have got me sure if I hadn't, and then he'd have got you, too. I had to do it for your sake—I'm sorry you saw it.”
“It isn't that,” she said slowly. “That was very brave, and very wonderful. It's Mr. Mallory I'm thinking of. O Billy! How could you do it?”
The man hung his head.
“Please don't,” he begged. “I'd give my life to bring him back again, for your sake. I know now that you loved him, and I've tried to do all I could to atone for what I did to him; just as I tried to play white with Theriere when I found that he loved you, and intended to be on the square with you. He was your kind, and I hoped that by helping him to win you fairly it might help to wipe out what I had done to Mallory. I see that nothing ever can wipe that out. I've got to go through life regretting it because you have taught me what a brutal, cowardly thing I did. If it hadn't been for you I'd always have been proud of it—but you and Theriere taught me to look at things in a different way than I ever had learned to before. I'm not sorry for that—I'm glad, for if remorse is a part of my punishment I'll take it gladly and welcome the chance to get a little of what's coming to me. Only please don't look at me that way any more—it's more than I can stand, from you.”
It was the first time that the man ever had opened his heart in any such whole-souled way to her, and it touched the girl more than she would have cared to admit.
“It would be silly to tell you that I ever can forget that terrible affair,” she said; “but somehow I feel that the man who did that was an entirely different man from the man who has been so brave and chivalrous in his treatment of me during the past few weeks.”
“It was me that did it, though,” he said; “you can't get away from that. It'll always stick in your memory, so that you can never think of Mr. Mallory without thinking of the damned beast that murdered him—God! and I thought it smart!
“But you have no idea how I was raised, Miss Harding,” he went on. “Not that that's any excuse for the thing I did; but it does make it seem a wonder that I ever could have made a start even at being decent. I never was well acquainted with any human being that wasn't a thief, or a pickpocket, or a murderer—and they were all beasts, each in his own particular way, only they weren't as decent as dumb beasts.
“I wasn't as crafty as most of them, so I had to hold my own by brute force, and I did it; but, gad, how I accomplished it. The idea of fighting fair,” he laughed at the thought, “was utterly unknown to me. If I'd ever have tried it I'd have seen my finish in a hurry. No one fought fair in my gang, or in any other gang that I ever ran up against. It was an honor to kill a man, and if you accomplished it by kicking him to death when he was unconscious it detracted nothing from the glory of your exploit—it was WHAT you did, not HOW you did it, that counted.
“I could have been decent, though, if I'd wanted to. Other fellows who were born and raised near me were decent enough. They got good jobs and stuck to them, and lived straight; but they made me sick—I looked down on them, and spent my time hanging around saloon corners rushing the can and insulting women—I didn't want to be decent—not until I met you, and learned to—to,” he hesitated, stammering, and the red blood crept up his neck and across his face, “and learned to want your respect.”
It wasn't what he had intended saying and the girl knew it. There sprang into her mind a sudden wish to hear Billy Byrne say the words that he had dared not say; but she promptly checked the desire, and a moment later a qualm of self-disgust came over her because of the weakness that had prompted her to entertain such a wish in connection with a person of this man's station in life.
Days ran into weeks, and still the two remained upon their little island refuge. Byrne found first one excuse and then another to delay the march to the sea. He knew that it must be made sooner or later, and he knew, too, that its commencement would mark the beginning of the end of his association with Miss Harding, and that after that was ended life would be a dreary waste.
Either they would be picked up by a passing vessel or murdered by the natives, but in the latter event his separation from the woman he loved would be no more certain or absolute than in her return to her own people, for Billy Byrne knew that he “didn't belong” in any society that knew Miss Barbara Harding, and he feared that once they had regained civilization there would be a return on the girl's part to the old haughty aloofness, and that again he would be to her only a creature of a lower order, such as she and her kind addressed with a patronizing air as, “my man.”
He intended, of course, to make every possible attempt to restore her to her home; but, he argued, was it wrong to snatch a few golden hours of happiness in return for his service, and as partial recompense for the lifetime of lonely misery that must be his when the woman he loved had passed out of his life forever? Billy thought not, and so he tarried on upon “Manhattan Island,” as Barbara had christened it, and he lived in the second finest residence in town upon the opposite side of “Riverside Drive” from the palatial home of Miss Harding.
Nearly two months had passed before Billy's stock of excuses and delay ran out, and a definite date was set for the commencement of the journey.
“I believe,” Miss Harding had said, “that you do not wish to be rescued at all. Most of your reasons for postponing the trip have been trivial and ridiculous—possibly you are afraid of the dangers that may lie before us,” she added, banteringly.
“I'm afraid you've hit it off about right,” he replied with a grin. “I don't want to be rescued, and I am very much afraid of what lies before—me.”
“Before YOU?”
“I'm going to lose you, any way you look at it, and—and—oh, can't you see that I love you?” he blurted out, despite all his good intentions.
Barbara Harding looked at him for a moment, and then she did the one thing that could have hurt him most—she laughed.
The color mounted to Billy Byrne's face, and then he went very white.
The girl started to say something, and at the same instant there came faintly to them from the mainland the sound of hoarse shouting, and of shots.
Byrne turned and started on a run in the direction of the firing, the girl following closely behind. At the island's edge he motioned her to stop.
“Wait here, it will be safer,” he said. “There may be white men there—those shots sound like it, but again there may not. I want to find out before they see you, whoever they are.”
The sound of firing had ceased now, but loud yelling was distinctly audible from down the river. Byrne took a step down the bank toward the water.
“Wait!” whispered the girl. “Here they come now, we can see them from here in a moment,” and she dragged the mucker down behind a bush.
In silence the two watched the approaching party.
“They're the Chinks,” announced Byrne, who insisted on using this word to describe the proud and haughty samurai.
“Yes, and there are two white men with them,” whispered Barbara Harding, a note of suppressed excitement in her voice.
“Prisoners,” said Byrne. “Some of the precious bunch from the Halfmoon doubtless.”
The samurai were moving straight up the edge of the river. In a few minutes they would pass within a hundred feet of the island. Billy and the girl crouched low behind their shelter.
“I don't recognize them,” said the man.
“Why—why—O Mr. Byrne, it can't be possible!” cried the girl with suppressed excitement. “Those two men are Captain Norris and Mr. Foster, mate of the Lotus!”
Byrne half rose to his feet. The party was opposite their hiding place now.
“Sit tight,” he whispered. “I'm goin' to get 'em,” and then, fiercely “for your sake, because I love you—now laugh,” and he was gone.
He ran lightly down the river bank unnoticed by the samurai who had already passed the island. In one hand he bore the long war spear of the head-hunter he had slain. At his belt hung the long sword of Oda Yorimoto, and in its holster reposed the revolver of the Count de Cadenet.
Barbara Harding watched him as be forded the river, and clambered up the opposite bank. She saw him spring rapidly after the samurai and their prisoners. She saw his spear hand go up, and then from the deep lungs of the man rose a savage yell that would have done credit to a whole tribe of Apaches.
The warriors turned in time to see the heavy spear flying toward them and then, as he dashed into their midst, Billy Byrne drew his revolver and fired to right and left. The two prisoners took advantage of the consternation of their guards to grapple with them and possess themselves of weapons.
There had been but six samurai in the party, two had fallen before Byrne's initial onslaught, but the other four, recovered from their first surprise, turned now to battle with all the terrific ferocity of their kind.
Again, at a crucial moment, had Theriere's revolver missed fire, and in disgust Byrne discarded it, falling back upon the long sword with which he was no match for the samurai. Norris snatched Byrne's spear from the ground, and ran it through the body of one of the Japs who was pressing Byrne too closely. Odds were even now—they fought three against three.
Norris still clung to the spear—it was by far the most effective weapon against the long swords of the samurai. With it he killed his antagonist and then rushed to the assistance of Foster.
Barbara Harding from the island saw that Byrne's foe was pressing him closely. The white man had no chance against the superior swordsmanship of the samurai. She saw that the mucker was trying to get past the Jap's guard and get his hands upon him, but it was evident that the man was too crafty and skilled a fighter to permit of that. There could be but one outcome to that duel unless Byrne had assistance, and that mighty quickly. The girl grasped the short sword that she constantly wore now, and rushed into the river. She had never before crossed it except in Byrne's arms. She found the current swift and strong. It almost swept her off her feet before she was halfway across, but she never for an instant thought of abandoning her effort.
After what seemed an eternity she floundered out upon the mainland, and when she reached the top of the bank she saw to her delight that Byrne was still on his feet, fighting. Foster and Norris were pushing their man back—they were in no danger.
Quickly she ran toward Byrne and the samurai. She saw a wicked smile upon the brown face of the little warrior, and then she saw his gleaming sword twist in a sudden feint, and as Byrne lunged out awkwardly to parry the expected blow the keen edge swerved and came down upon his head.
She was an instant too late to save, but just in time to avenge—scarcely had the samurai's sword touched the mucker than the point of Oda Yorimoto's short sword, wielded by the fair hand of Barbara Harding, plunged into his heart. With a shriek he collapsed beside the body of his victim.
Barbara Harding threw herself beside Byrne. Apparently life was extinct. With a little cry of horror the girl put her ear close to the man's lips. She could hear nothing.
“Come back! Come back!” she wailed. “Forgive me that cruel laugh. O Billy! Billy! I love you!” and the daughter of old Anthony Harding, multimillionaire and scion of the oldest aristocracy that America boasts, took the head of the Grand Avenue mucker in her arms and covered the white, bloody face with kisses—and in the midst of it Billy Byrne opened his eyes.
She was caught in the act. There was no escape, and as a crimson flush suffused her face Billy Byrne put his arms about her and drew her down until their lips met, and this time she did not put her hands upon his shoulders and push him away. “I love you, Billy,” she said simply.
“Remember who and what I am,” he cautioned, fearful lest this great happiness be stolen away from him because she had forgotten for the moment.
“I love you Billy,” she answered, “for what you ARE.”
“Forever?”
“Until death do us part!”
And then Norris and Foster, having dispatched their man, came running up.
“Is he badly hurt, madam?” cried Captain Norris.
“I don't know,” replied Miss Harding; “I'm just trying to help him up, Captain Norris,” she laboriously explained in an effort to account for her arms about Billy's neck.
Norris gave a start of surprise at hearing his name.
“Who are you?” he cried. “How do you know me?” and as the girl turned her face toward him, “Miss Harding! Thank God, Miss Harding, you are safe.”
“But where on earth did you come from?” asked Barbara.
“It's a long story, Miss Harding,” replied the officer, “and the ending of it is going to be pretty hard on you—you must try to bear up though.”
“You don't mean that father is dead?” she asked, a look of terror coming to her eyes.
“Not that—we hope,” replied Norris. “He has been taken prisoner by these half-breed devils on the island. I doubt if they have killed him—we were going to his rescue when we ourselves were captured. He and Mr. Mallory were taken three days ago.”
“Mallory!” shouted Billy Byrne, who had entirely recovered from the blow that had merely served to stun him for a moment. “Is Mallory alive?”
“He was yesterday,” replied Norris; “these fellows from whom you so bravely rescued us told us that much.”
“Thank God!” whispered Billy Byrne.
“What made you think he was dead?” inquired the officer, looking closely at Byrne as though trying to place him.
Another man might have attempted to evade the question but the new Billy Byrne was no coward in any department of his moral or physical structure.
“Because I thought that I had killed him,” he replied, “the day that we took the Lotus.”
Captain Norris looked at the speaker in undisguised horror.
“You!” he cried. “You were one of those damned cut-throats! You the man that nearly killed poor Mr. Mallory! Miss Harding, has he offered you any indignities?”
“Don't judge him rashly, Captain Norris,” said the girl. “But for him I should have been dead and worse than dead long since. Some day I will tell you of his heroism and his chivalry, and don't forget, Captain, that he has just saved you and Mr. Foster from captivity and probable death.”
“That's right,” exclaimed the officer, “and I want to thank him; but I don't understand about Mallory.”
“Never mind about him now,” said Billy Byrne. “If he's alive that's all that counts—I haven't got his blood on my hands. Go on with your story.”
“Well, after that gang of pirates left us,” continued the captain, “we rigged an extra wireless that they didn't know we had, and it wasn't long before we raised the warship Alaska. Her commander put a crew on board the Lotus with machinists and everything necessary to patch her up—coaled and provisioned her and then lay by while we got her in running order. It didn't take near as long as you would have imagined. Then we set out in company with the warship to search for the 'Clarinda,' as your Captain Simms called her. We got on her track through a pirate junk just north of Luzon—he said he'd heard from the natives of a little out-of-the-way island near Formosa that a brigantine had been wrecked there in the recent typhoon, and his description of the vessel led us to believe that it might be the 'Clarinda,' or Halfmoon.
“We made the island, and after considerable search found the survivors. Each of 'em tried to lay the blame on the others, but finally they all agreed that a man by the name of Theriere with a seaman called Byrne, had taken you into the interior, and that they had believed you dead until a few days since they had captured one of the natives and learned that you had all escaped, and were wandering in some part of the island unknown to them.
“Then we set out with a company of marines to find you. Your father, impatient of the seeming slowness of the officer in command, pushed ahead with Mr. Mallory, Mr. Poster, and myself, and two of the men of the Lotus whom he had brought along with us.
“Three days ago we were attacked and your father and Mr. Mallory taken prisoners. The rest of us escaped, and endeavored to make our way back to the marines, but we became confused and have been wandering aimlessly about the island ever since until we were surprised by these natives a few moments ago. Both the seamen were killed in this last fight and Mr. Foster and myself taken prisoners—the rest you know.”
Byrne was on his feet now. He found his sword and revolver and replaced them in his belt.
“You men stay here on the island and take care of Miss Harding,” he said. “If I don't come back the marines will find you sooner or later, or you can make your way to the coast, and work around toward the cove. Good-bye, Miss Harding.”
“Where are you going?” cried the girl.
“To get your father—and Mr. Mallory,” said the mucker.
THROUGH the balance of the day and all during the long night Billy Byrne swung along his lonely way, retracing the familiar steps of the journey that had brought Barbara Harding and himself to the little island in the turbulent river.
Just before dawn he came to the edge of the clearing behind the dwelling of the late Oda Yorimoto. Somewhere within the silent village he was sure that the two prisoners lay.
During the long march he had thrashed over again and again all that the success of his rash venture would mean to him. Of all those who might conceivably stand between him and the woman he loved—the woman who had just acknowledged that she loved him—these two men were the most to be feared.
Billy Byrne did not for a moment believe that Anthony Harding would look with favor upon the Grand Avenue mucker as a prospective son-in-law. And then there was Mallory! He was sure that Barbara had loved this man, and now should he be restored to her as from the grave there seemed little doubt but that the old love would be aroused in the girl's breast. The truth of the matter was that Billy Byrne could not conceive the truth of the testimony of his own ears—even now he scarce dared believe that the wonderful Miss Harding loved him—him, the despised mucker!
But the depth of the man's love for the girl, and the genuineness of his new-found character were proven beyond question by the relentless severity with which he put away every thought of himself and the consequences to him in the matter he had undertaken.
FOR HER SAKE! had become his slogan. What though the results sent him to a savage death, or to a life of lonely misery, or to the arms of his beloved! In the face of duty the result was all the same to Billy Byrne.
For a moment he stood looking at the moon-bathed village, listening for any sign of wakefulness or life, then with all the stealth of an Indian, and with the trained wariness of the thief that he had been, the mucker slunk noiselessly across the clearing to the shadows of the nearest hut.
He listened beneath the window through which he and Barbara and Theriere had made their escape a few weeks before. There was no sound from within. Cautiously he raised himself to the sill, and a moment later dropped into the inky darkness of the interior.
With groping hands he felt about the room—it was unoccupied. Then he passed to the door at the far end. Cautiously he opened it until a narrow crack gave him a view of the dimly lighted chamber beyond. Within all seemed asleep. The mucker pushed the door still further open and stepped within—so must he search every hut within the village until he had found those he sought?
They were not there, and on silent feet that disturbed not even the lightly slumbering curs the man passed out by the front entrance into the street beyond.
Through a second and third hut he made his precarious way. In the fourth a man stirred as Byrne stood upon the opposite side of the room from the door—with a catlike bound the mucker was beside him. Would the fellow awake? Billy scarce breathed. The samurai turned restlessly, and then, with a start, sat up with wide-open eyes. At the same instant iron fingers closed upon his throat and the long sword of his dead daimio passed through his heart.
Byrne held the corpse until he was positive that life was extinct, then he dropped it quietly back upon its pallet, and departed to search the adjoining dwelling. Here he found a large front room, and a smaller chamber in the rear—an arrangement similar to that in the daimio's house.
The front room revealed no clue to the missing men. Within the smaller, rear room Byrne heard the subdued hum of whispered conversation just as he was about to open the door. Like a graven image he stood in silence, his ear glued to the frail door. For a moment he listened thus and then his heart gave a throb of exultation, and he could have shouted aloud in thanksgiving—the men were conversing in English!
Quietly Byrne pushed open the door far enough to admit his body. Those within ceased speaking immediately. Byrne closed the door behind him, advancing until he felt one of the occupants of the room. The man shrank from his touch.
“I guess we're done for, Mallory,” said the man in a low tone; “they've come for us.”
“Sh-sh,” warned the mucker. “Are you and Mallory alone?”
“Yes—for God's sake who are you and where did you come from?” asked the surprised Mr. Harding.
“Be still,” admonished Byrne, feeling for the cords that he knew must bind the captive.
He found them presently and with his jackknife cut them asunder. Then he released Mallory.
“Follow me,” he said, “but go quietly. Take off your shoes if you have 'em on, and hang 'em around your neck—tie the ends of the laces together.”
The men did as he bid and a moment later he was leading them across the room, filled with sleeping men, women, children, and domestic animals. At the far side stood a rack filled with long swords. Byrne removed two without the faintest suspicion of a noise. He handed one to each of his companions, cautioning them to silence with a gesture.
But neither Anthony Harding nor Billy Mallory had had second-story experience, and the former struck his weapon accidentally against the door frame with a resounding clatter that brought half the inmates of the room, wide-eyed, to sitting postures. The sight that met the natives' eyes had them on their feet, yelling like madmen, and dashing toward their escaping prisoners, in an instant.
“Quick!” shouted Billy Byrne. “Follow me!”
Down the village street the three men ran, but the shouts of the natives had brought armed samurai to every door with a celerity that was uncanny, and in another moment the fugitives found themselves surrounded by a pack of howling warriors who cut at them with long swords from every side, blocking their retreat and hemming them in in every direction.
Byrne called to his companions to close in, back to back, and thus, the gangster in advance, the three slowly fought their way toward the end of the narrow street and the jungle beyond. The mucker fought with his long sword in one hand and Theriere's revolver in the other—hewing a way toward freedom for the two men whom he knew would take his love from him.
Beneath the brilliant tropic moon that lighted the scene almost as brilliantly as might the sun himself the battle waged, and though the odds were painfully uneven the white men moved steadily, though slowly, toward the jungle. It was evident that the natives feared the giant white who led the three. Anthony Harding, familiar with Japanese, could translate sufficient of their jargon to be sure of that, had not the respectful distance most of them kept from Byrne been ample proof.
Out of the village street they came at last into the clearing. The warriors danced about them, yelling threats and taunts the while they made occasional dashes to close quarters that they might deliver a swift sword cut and retreat again before the great white devil could get them with the sword that had been Oda Yorimoto's, or the strange fire stick that spoke in such a terrifying voice.
Fifty feet from the jungle Mallory went down with a spear through the calf of his leg. Byrne saw him fall, and dropping back lifted the man to his feet, supporting him with one arm as the two backed slowly in front of the onpressing natives.
The spears were flying thick and fast now, for the samurai all were upon the same side of the enemy and there was no danger of injuring one of their own number with their flying weapons as there had been when the host entirely surrounded the three men, and when the whites at last entered the tall grasses of the jungle a perfect shower of spears followed them.
With the volley Byrne went down—he had been the principal target for the samurai and three of the heavy shafts had pierced his body. Two were buried in his chest and one in his abdomen.
Anthony Harding was horrified. Both his companions were down, and the savages were pressing closely on toward their hiding place. Mallory sat upon the ground trying to tear the spear from his leg. Finally he was successful. Byrne, still conscious, called to Harding to pull the three shafts from him.
“What are we to do?” cried the older man. “They will get us again as sure as fate.”
“They haven't got us yet,” said Billy. “Wait, I got a scheme. Can you walk, Mallory?”
Mallory staggered to his feet.
“I'll see,” he said, and then: “Yes, I can make it.”
“Good,” exclaimed Byrne. “Now listen. Almost due north, across this range of hills behind us is a valley. In the center of the valley is a river. It is a good fifteen-hour march for a well man—it will take Mallory and you longer. Follow down the river till you come to a little island—it should be the first one from where you strike the river. On that island you will find Miss Harding, Norris, and Foster. Now hurry.”
“But you, man!” exclaimed Mallory. “We can't leave you.”
“Never!” said Anthony Harding.
“You'll have to, though,” replied Billy. “That's part of the scheme. It won't work any other way.” He raised his revolver and fired a single shot in the direction of the howling savages. “That's to let 'em know we're still here,” he said. “I'll keep that up, off and on, as long as I can. It'll fool 'em into thinking that we're all here, and cover your escape. See?”
“I won't do it,” said Mallory.
“Yes you will,” replied the mucker. “It's not any of us that counts—it's Miss Harding. As many as can have got to get back to her just as quick as the Lord'll let us. I can't, so you two'll have to. I'm done for—a blind man could see that. It wouldn't do a bit of good for you two to hang around here and get killed, waitin' for me to die; but it would do a lot of harm, for it might mean that Miss Harding would be lost too.”
“You say my daughter is on this island you speak of, with Norris and Foster—is she quite safe and well?” asked Harding.
“Perfectly,” said Byrne; “and now beat it—you're wasting a lot of precious time.”
“For Barbara's sake it looks like the only way,” said Anthony Harding, “but it seems wicked and cowardly to desert a noble fellow like you, sir.”
“It is wicked,” said Billy Mallory. “There must be some other way. By the way, old man, who are you anyhow, and how did you happen to be here?”
Byrne turned his face upward so that the full moon lighted his features clearly.
“There is no other way, Mallory,” he said. “Now take a good look at me—don't you recognize me?”
Mallory gazed intently at the strong face looking into his. He shook his head.
“There is something familiar about your face,” he said; “but I cannot place you. Nor does it make any difference who you are—you have risked your life to save ours and I shall not leave you. Let Mr. Harding go—it is not necessary for both to stay.”
“You will both go,” insisted Byrne; “and you will find that it does make a big difference who I am. I hadn't intended telling you, but I see there is no other way. I'm the mucker that nearly killed you on board the Lotus, Mallory. I'm the fellow that man-handled Miss Harding until even that beast of a Simms made me quit, and Miss Harding has been alone with me on this island for weeks—now go!”
He turned away so that they could no longer see his face, with the mental anguish that he knew must be writ large upon it, and commenced firing toward the natives once more.
Anthony Harding stood with white face and clinched hands during Byrne's recital of his identity. At its close he took a threatening step toward the prostrate man, raising his long sword, with a muffled oath. Billy Mallory sprang before him, catching his upraised arm.
“Don't!” he whispered. “Think what we owe him now. Come!” and the two men turned north into the jungle while Billy Byrne lay upon his belly in the tall grass firing from time to time into the direction from which came an occasional spear.
Anthony Harding and Billy Mallory kept on in silence along their dismal way. The crack of the mucker's revolver, growing fainter and fainter, as they drew away from the scene of conflict, apprised the men that their rescuer still lived.
After a time the distant reports ceased. The two walked on in silence for a few minutes.
“He's gone,” whispered Mallory.
Anthony Harding made no response. They did not hear any further firing behind them. On and on they trudged. Night turned to day. Day rolled slowly on into night once more. And still they staggered on, footsore and weary. Mallory suffered excruciating agony from his wound. There were times when it seemed that it would be impossible for him to continue another yard; but then the thought that Barbara Harding was somewhere ahead of them, and that in a short time now they must be with her once more kept him doggedly at his painful task.
They had reached the river and were following slowly down its bank. The moon, full and gorgeous, flooded the landscape with silvery light.
“Look!” exclaimed Mallory. “The island!”
“Thank God!” whispered Harding, fervently.
On the bank opposite they stopped and hallooed. Almost instantly three figures rushed from the interior of the island to the shore before them—two men and a woman.
“Barbara!” cried Anthony Harding. “O my daughter! My daughter!”
Norris and Foster hastened through the river and brought the two men to the island. Barbara Harding threw herself into her father's arms. A moment later she had grasped Mallory's outstretched hands, and then she looked beyond them for another.
“Mr. Byrne?” she asked. “Where is Mr. Byrne?”
“He is dead,” said Anthony Harding.
The girl looked, wide-eyed and uncomprehending, at her father for a full minute.
“Dead!” she moaned, and fell unconscious at his feet.