We looked over our firearms. I had given him Tommy's "l'il crack-crack" which, with my own, were the only weapons we intended to take—I mean the only explosive weapons, for Smilax carried his long, keen-edged hunting knife, a thing he was never without; and I, likewise, strapped on my own. After this we went about putting the camp in order; building a shelter tent by the spring for Sylvia and an adjacent lean-to for Echochee. Joyfully I robbed myself of bedding, arranged comfortable shake-downs with moss and leaves of the cabbage palm, and did everything conceivable to make the place attractive.
I had demurred at first about coming back here for a day or two; wanting, instead, to travel as speedily aspossible to Big Cove, where theWhim—and if not theWhim, at least theOrchid—would be at our disposal. But he showed me the futility of this. In the first place, that was exactly what Efaw Kotee would be suspecting when the escape became known. The dead sentries, certain to be discovered when they failed to call the next half hour, would reveal the story of outside help, so the pursuit would be swift and directly up the coast—swifter, indeed, than she might be able to travel.
"Why shouldn't they think we'd taken her off in a small boat," I asked, "and escaped through the islands?"
"Then Efaw Kotee want to know why kill guard on mainland."
"That's so. But, Smilax, suppose we hide the guards?"
He thought a moment over this, but finally shook his head.
"No good. Then Efaw Kotee say guard run off with Lady, so he come back 'cross prairie same as up and down shore. That make our chance ve'y bad. No. They find men dead, then hunt quick through forest up beach; maybe down beach. After 'while, maybe they find sign where me and you camp in L'il Cove; then they know small boat been there and gone. Then they come home mad, and when all quiet we make big circle toWhim. Some day we come back; maybe kill 'em all. Me want Jess; him crack Smilax head. That good plan; you smoke."
I lay on the ground and smiled. Kill 'em all! Gods, but I was going back into the primitive by leaps and bounds! I wondered if that girl would trust herself to me, were she to know!
"Me big fool," Smilax suddenly cried, smashing a fist into the palm of his hand.
"What's the matter?" I sat up, asking.
"Me ought to be in L'il Cove and make fresh signs. Me big fool!"
It would have been a cute move, but now too late, and I told him so.
"No too late," he sprang up. "Three hour more sun."
"But, Smilax, it took us the best part of a day to come here! You can't do it!"
"Me go short way back, and fast." He pointed to the western sky, at an angle of about twenty degrees above the horizon, asking: "When night come you see big star there?"
I nodded. It was Jupiter or Venus, I didn't know which; but it was large and beautiful, and I had seen it many evenings.
"When um touch top of trees you start. Me meet you on far side of prairie."
Feeling to see if his weapons were securely holstered he was off without another word to make signs in the sand at Little Cove that would look as though this very afternoon a landing party had been there, and I wondered if real Indians could possess the foresight of this big negro. In amazement I watched him growing smaller and smaller across the sea of grass; going north-by-northwest now, and not the way we came. The prairie in this direction must have extended five miles before it met the forest, and as long as my eyes could follow him he was jogging at a good free trot. By this more direct route he had perhaps ten or twelve miles to go each way; and his return would be at night, lighted by a partial moon. I knew that he would make it, and beat our meeting place when I arrived, but how he could possibly do so was in a realm beyond my comprehension.
When the evening star sank and touched the forest I quietly left our camp. The night air was delightfully mellow, but my soul, my nerves, my determination were as cold as the long blade of my knife. In our present days of railroads, telegraphs and institutions of learning I was merely a chap setting out to take a girl from a den of rogues; but in this night-bathed Florida wilderness civilization had been stripped to the bone. I was a man going forth to steal a female—I had come from my lair at dusk, set off with a snarl on my lips and a firm grip upon my stone axe; so completely dominated by this feeling that human pawns who might stand in the way would be of no more consequence than ants.
From the lighter prairie I cautiously approached the black shadows of the forest, made impenetrably dark by a network of branches and a mat of leaves which no ray from the half grown moon could pierce. As I was about to enter Smilax arose from the ground in front of me.
"Good," he whispered. "We rest li'l while; then go fix 'em."
We lay in silence till at last, faintly, came the call of post one. I listened, trying to catch the quality of his voice, knowing I soon should have to imitate it. To the call of the next man I also listened. The third did not concern us more than to know he was on duty. No others called, so the guard had not been strengthened. These voices seemed to arouse Smilax, for he raised himself up on one elbow, whispering:
"What time they say?"
"Ten o'clock," I answered.
"Good. We fix 'em 'leven; come."
So the game was on! I followed silently—and savagely; for, as I have said, the human pawns who stood between me and my maid held no more value than the ants.
For about ten minutes our progress went reasonably well, then Smilax slowed to a pace of extreme caution and finally sank to his hands and knees. In this manner we crawled a few hundred yards farther.
"Here your place," he put his lips close to my ear and whispered. "First man not ve'y far; straight. You find out when he call once more, or flash light. Watch when Two man call so you know where go next. No let 'em call 'leven. Good. Me go now." And he was off like a snake to take up a position behind post two.
I felt about me and, finding the ground clear of anygrowth that might produce a noise, moved stealthily forward, still on my hands and knees; but, after each step, pausing and feeling ahead until my fingers seemed to have grown as long and sensitive as antennæ. In this way I must have gone another two hundred feet when I saw a glimmer of white light. It was the electric torch, and I knew the sentry must be looking at his watch.
Fleeting as it had been it showed me that between us lay a patch of saw-palmetto, and this was awkward as I could get no idea of its depth. But since he did not call the post I knew that he would soon be taking another look at the time, and kept warily on, my eyes alert to ascertain the dimensions of that patch the instant his torch should flare. For I must crawl around it; to go through would be impossible. Smilax could have achieved it, but Smilax was a wonder.
The light showed again. I was within fifty feet of the patch now and saw with a feeling of relief that it ended almost at the spot where my man stood, or sat, or whatever he was doing. Still, the time had not come for him to call the half hour, when I should be able to advance more rapidly during the few seconds that his voice would make him insensible to other slight sounds. Inch by inch, almost holding my breath, I crawled. The pine needles let me slide along as though on a greased floor. My left hand touched a saw-toothed stem, so I veered slightly to the right, getting closer, all the while closer.
At the next flash I heard him clear his throat—that had ever been his prelude to a call—and by the time his sing-song "Post-one-half-past-ten-and-all's-well" ended I had made good progress. Now, close up behind the point of palmettoes which acted as a screen but was toosparse to offer interference, I realized that he could be not more than ten feet away; and this was the best I could hope to do, surely as close as I dared get.
But ten feet was too great a space to be crossed at a bound before he might utter one cry that would alarm the camp. One cry, even half a cry, meant ruin to us. It was not enough that this sentry die; he must die without having uttered the merest sound. I determined, therefore, to wait until his senses became focused, his breathing centered, on the eleven o'clock call; for, so occupied, his mind would be a fraction of a second slower in responding to an outside thought which came unawares to him than if he were standing on the alert for sounds. This seemed to be good psychology. When he cleared his throat to call eleven, therefore, I would spring—and the gods be with me!
I own that for a little while my heart did pound unmercifully, but with even less mercy I willed it to be calm. For the moment I almost regretted having come so near, because it seemed preposterous to suppose that he would not discover me. I could distinctly hear the slightest move he made—but it must be remembered that I was listening to him, whereas he did not suspect my existence. Once he knocked the dead ashes from his pipe against the heel of his boot; then I thought he was getting ready for a smoke, and soon after this he struck a match.
As the flame, sheltered by his two hands held cup-wise, flickered above the bowl I got a look at him. He impressed me as being a well put up fellow of considerable strength, who would not be conquered without trouble. But never have I seen a face present a pantomime of more brutal indifference. It was seamed with lines of cruelty; the coarse lips were hideously puckered aboutthe pipe stem; his eyes drooped in bestial satisfaction as he sucked at it. While he was getting the light, thus creating a noise in his own ears that would drown a slighter noise from me, I took the opportunity to arrange my position somewhat, and now felt satisfied. With clean ground beneath me, with only a thin screen of palmetto leaves between us, how better could I have planned!
Minutes sped, and my senses seemed to have accumulated into a little ball between my eyes. I may have trembled; I know that my nerves were stretched to the very highest fighting pitch, they were in tune with my determination. The next half hour would decide the salvation or destruction of the girl I loved.
The electric torch flashed on a silver watch in his huge, dirty hand. I held my breath, ready—but he did not call. Again I had to will my heart to stop its sudden thumping; again I settled down to wait—though with my legs crouched and my fingers resting on the sand, as I had "set" many a time for a hundred yard dash. All I needed now was the word "Go!"
More minutes sped. At last he moved, and I guessed that he was reaching into his pocket for the torch. It flashed, shining on the silver watch as before. I heard the cover snap to with a click of finality; he cleared his throat—and I bounded into the air.
He had no time to cry out before my fingers locked upon his throat as jaws of iron. He staggered and caught my wrists, but did not immediately begin the frantic struggle I expected. His rifle fell to the soft earth with hardly a sound and, like a dead weight, he crumpled up; falling so quickly that I nearly came down on top of him.
At first, suspecting this might be a ruse to break mygrip, I squeezed the tighter, holding his head up as far as my knees and shaking it with the savageness that a terrier would shake a rat. There was no room for compromises here. Grimly believing him to be beyond the point of giving an alarm, I was not prepared for an attack when he came to life with an energy born of desperation, wrapped his arms about my legs and with tremendous strength jerked me forward, at the same instant striking me in the back with his knee. Thus, to keep from pitching over his head, I involuntarily lost my hold—the last of all things I would have done!
Yet the effect to so violent a choking seemed for the moment to have paralyzed his power to call, and swiftly, as a darting hawk, I made another grab for the throat that must at all costs be silenced. He had covered it with his own hands and I could not pry away his fingers. Again and again I tried, and now, with growing strength, he caught my wrists and held them. Maddened by the specter of failure, I heard him drawing in a labored breath that I knew would come out in a hideous yell.
Success lay upon the fraction of a second. In a frenzy jerking one of my hands free, and throwing the full weight of my body across his face to momentarily smother the outcry, I twisted around, drew my knife, and plunged it deep into his side. There was a convulsive tremor, and silence. Yet, as the king snake had done, I also drew back warily, listening. It had been enough.
Springing up, and trying to calm my breathing, I called:
"Post one, 'leven o'clock, and all's-er-well!"
The last word had no more than been pronounced when I was moving swiftly, silently on post numbertwo. True to his intention, Smilax had prepared the way.
"Post two, 'leven o'clock, and all's-er-well!" I called in an altered voice.
The sentry at post three, doubtless having a vein of humor or finding any variation of his tedious duty agreeable, dwelt in his turn long and almost lovingly over the "er-well," making it sound "e-e-er-well."
"How you like that?" he called, in a guarded tone, and receiving no answer, laughed: "Then go ter hell with yer perlite manners."
A few minutes elapsed before I was conscious of a movement in the water, slight, barely distinguishable. But my eyes had grown more and more accustomed to the darkness and I thought that I made out something coming toward the shore. Creeping a little forward and listening, I felt that it was Smilax carrying Sylvia, and became certain of this when someone was deposited there who began cautiously to climb the bank. Smilax, evidently, had turned back for Echochee. But along this section of the mainland the bank was steep, and the climber came with difficulty—once slipping and making what I thought to be an awful racket. Even the humorous sentry on post three heard it and, providentially unsuspicious, called:
"Yer ain't bit yerse'f, have yer?"
I made no answer to this, trusting him to be satisfied with his own wit. Yet now, following a most natural impulse, forgetting in our extreme peril that Sylvia was unaware of my presence, I leaned above the top and reached down to her; when, to my utter consternation, she gave a piercing scream of terror. Quick as a flash the sentry at post three yelled and fired hisgun, and the sleeping camp became a bedlam of cursing men.
"For God's sake," I whispered—but Smilax had turned back to us and was beside her.
"Him friend," he said, hurriedly. "Only friend we got! Go with him quick! Me get Echochee!"
While saying this he was pushing her up to me, at the same time holding out a bag, or kind of traveling case, that she had dropped. I seized it with one hand, and her arm with the other.
"Quick; go to camp," Smilax was saying. "Me get Echochee and give 'em chase up coast. Be back soon; you wait there."
He had taken to the water again and was making for the Indian woman, who I thought had started out to meet him. So I knew he would rescue her, as surely as he was six and a half feet of muscle and endurance. The camp had become thoroughly aroused by now, and lights were everywhere. Hoping to reassure Sylvia, I whispered as Smilax would have spoken:
"Me friend; come quick!"
Above the confusion we could hear the voice of Efaw Kotee bellowing:
"Get the punts, you fools! Which way is she?"
"On the mainland," someone yelled.
"Then catch her," he bellowed again, with a string of blasphemous oaths.
This decided her, and she whispered wildly:
"Hurry! Take me where Tachachobee said!"
We dashed through the forest, I leading, she close behind. Nor had we any time to spare, for before we had gone a hundred yards two quick shots rang out. It was "li'l crack-crack" speaking, I felt sure of it.
Shots answered rapidly in threes and fours. Theautomatic spoke again, this time farther to the north, drawing more shots from the angry pursuers; but I knew that among trees so thick and in darkness so impenetrable Smilax and Echochee ran little chance of being hit. At the prairie, made vaguely lighter by a hazy, half grown moon, we crouched in the grass and waited.
You have never, I suppose, been afraid to breathe, flattened against a wall, or huddled in a shadowy place, listening to the growls and grunts and sniffs of the man-beast hunting you? No, of course not.
Men were now tearing through the forest like a herd of stampeded horses, shooting, yelling, cursing, while at brief intervals the automatic told them which way to go. Farther and farther the chase went, all the time following the coast and leading away from us till, after twenty minutes, the yells were hardly discernible and the shots sounded like faint little pops of a nursery gun. But they were as rapid as ever, telling us that the pursuit had in no way diminished. Smilax, undoubtedly master of the situation, would lead them on and on; either close by Big Cove so those aboard theWhim—had she made harbor—could take a hand, or finally lose them somewhere in the treacherous Everglades. Then he would came back for us. I felt no great uncertainty for Smilax and Echochee.
I now straightened up—taking care that she should not see my face—and listened to satisfy myself that no one had stayed behind to be roaming in the forest near us, then whispered:
"Come!"
In silence, she following, we crossed the two mile space, and I drew a deep breath of thankfulness whenwe at last stepped beneath the black trees of my "island."
I knew that she had taken me for a Seminole—at least, the probability seemed to be strong in that direction. The darkness again was too intense for her to see my features, and, since I had been fairly successful in speaking the choppy English of the Indian, I determined to continue the deception until morning. For she had become somewhat accustomed to the "trusted friend" by now, whereas re-introductions at this hour would be exceedingly awkward, if not quite disastrous to her peace of mind. So, without a halt, I walked on through the trees until we came to her tent. At the door of this I put down her bag, then stepped back and for a second at arm's length flashed my electric torch on it, again being careful to keep my face in shadow.
"You safe here," I said. "Tachachobee make this camp for you. Me and him camp little way off. To-night me watch to see when him and Echochee come. No one find you; you sleep well. Tachachobee good man; me and him friends. You no be 'fraid."
"Thank you," she said wearily. Ah, how tired her voice did seem!
"There water; good to drink. You hungry?" I asked.
"No, thank you,—what is your name?"
This was a poser, for I had not thought up a name. But, of course, Jack came first into my mind, so I answered:
"Jackachobee."
"No, thank you, Jackachobee," she said, "I'm not hungry."
"You want gun?" I asked again.
"I have one," she answered.
"Good. Then you sleep; no one find you here. In morning take time; when ready for breakfast walk back this way a hundred steps and whistle like plover. Then me come and show you way. Sleep good."
Thus, feeling very well satisfied with my Indian impersonation—which, nevertheless, had its faults—I left her; turning and going to the fort, there choosing a place where I could keep guard all night against possible danger.
Long and earnestly did I listen for some sound of the chase, but the night had grown absolutely still except for a soft breeze rustling the palm fronds above my head and the prairie grass in front of me. Yet I felt secure in the belief that Smilax had not been taken. Without question, he and Echochee were still in flight, heading toward some safe refuge; coaxing, by shot or cry, the furious pack that tore hopefully after them. I knew that my vigil here was unnecessary—that with all senses focused on the chase no straggler would by any chance be coming this far out into the prairie—but I had told Sylvia it would be kept.
As I sat there, joyous over the conquest we had made, but more supremely happy because she was safe and near me, thinking tumultuous things which were a credit to mankind, hoping hopes that man has never realized, I raised my face to the sky and thanked God.
Creature of incongruities! I thanked God for putting her safely into my keeping, when my fingers had not yet been washed after their bath in a fellow creature's blood! The cave man had gone abroad at dusk to find a mate, and human pawns who stood in his way had been of no more consequence than ants!
Thus it has always been for the women we love. Thus it should be.
With the first glimpse of dawn I arose and faced the East; my arms out, my palms up, and across them my rifle as a kind of offering to the day. I do not know why I did this—this spontaneous though semi-pagan act—except that on my "island," and in my power, slept the girl I loved; she whom I had stolen from her watchful tribe, whom I would have as mate. By all the laws of the wilderness she was mine, and I wanted to tell someone, to challenge the wild, that these arms and hands and this rifle would protect her till the end.
A thin mist hung low upon the prairie, a faint tint of salmon touched the sky, and to my lips sprang the words of that inspiring "Salutation of the Dawn" which found expression in the Orient many thousands of years ago:
Listen to the Exhortation of the Dawn!Look to this Day!For it is life, the very life of life.In its brief course lie all the veritiesAnd realities of your existence:The glory of action,The bliss of growth,The splendor of beauty:For yesterday is but a dream,And tomorrow is only a vision;But today well-lived makesEvery yesterday a dream of happiness,And every tomorrow a vision of hope.Look well, therefore, to this Day!
Listen to the Exhortation of the Dawn!Look to this Day!For it is life, the very life of life.In its brief course lie all the veritiesAnd realities of your existence:The glory of action,The bliss of growth,The splendor of beauty:For yesterday is but a dream,And tomorrow is only a vision;But today well-lived makesEvery yesterday a dream of happiness,And every tomorrow a vision of hope.Look well, therefore, to this Day!
Then, as the light increased and the mist began to dissolve, I swept the prairie in all directions for a sign of enemies. Everywhere was peace.
Assured that Efaw Kotee would never find us here I turned and went to my lean-to—to the place my lean-to had been before we moved it beside the spring—gathered up my knick-knacks and repaired to the pool, emerging half an hour later a more presentable man. After this I built a small fire of buttonwood and set about preparing breakfast.
But this proved to be a perplexing ordeal. Bilkins had packed in a lot of stuff that he might have manipulated, though to me it was worse than Greek. Of course, I could cook up coffee and bacon—the kind of meal Smilax and I were used to—but Sylvia must never be subjected to that! And it would be insane of me to go out on the prairie after snipe! There was nothing for it but prepare a dainty concoction from what we had, so, wishing heartily that Bilkins had come off in the small boat with me, I dived into our stores on a tour of inspection.
Tea!—who wanted tea for breakfast! A pot of butter!—appropriate enough, though it might have been fresher. A can of beans!—worse than tea. A can of finnan haddie came after this, and several cans that only Bilkins could have understood. But in the end I carried a number of them to the fire and had a general opening, arranged them in a row, and began to cook. The chief trouble was that I did not know which should be done thoroughly and which merely warmed up. Anyway, I emptied something, inviting if unpronounceable, into the skillet and as it began to sizzle it smelt reallygood. So I crouched lower, stirring vigorously to keep it from scorching, and thought of the surprise it would be to her—for, to be quite frank, it was a surprise to me!
Then a voice at my back, making me forget the sizzling stuff, the fire, the breakfast, said with a note of extreme anxiety:
"Good morning, Jackachobee! Oughtn't Echochee be here by this time? You don't think any thing's happened to her, do you? I can't whistle like a plover and had to come to breakfast unannounced. I hope it's ready. You've seen nothing of those men?"
I did not move under this rapid fire of questions and statements. To the contrary, I lowered my head and was afraid to move; afraid to face the rebuke, or the fear, or whatever it would be, that might naturally follow her discovery of my deception. But more potent than this dread was the thrill of joy I felt in knowing that she stood close behind me; that when I turned I should see her there, face to face. Yet the very thought of turning again started the chill of apprehension. Without doubt she would wither me like a parched leaf for having played so silly a part as Indian. I began vigorously to stir the stuff in my skillet which now had stuck to the bottom and was smelling like the very old devil. Of course, my face would have been red, anyway—leaning over the fire as I was!
"Are you keeping anything from me?" she cried, I thought on the verge of "nerves," so hesitating no longer I arose and turned to her.
"Oh!" she gasped, drawing back and putting one hand to her breast—while the other, I noticed, fell mechanically to the butt of a revolver swung to her waist. Her eyes were wide with surprise, as her lipswere parted in fear and utter wonderment. Truly, she was the incarnation of girlhood standing at bay!
I had known her beauty; I had been astounded by it in the Havana café, in my dream, in the little kodak film of Monsieur's, and last, when she stood in her doorway less than forty-eight hours before. But here was something that transcended all that I had previously seen in her. Perhaps the young sun, golden in the morning atmosphere, cast the spell as it sought out spun-copper strands amongst her waves of hair; perhaps the days of anxiety, terminating in a night of unfearful sleep, had put the dew, the mystery, in her eyes; or it may have been the color, smouldering beneath the attractive tan on her cheeks and tinting her pure throat, that held me charmed; or the indefinable spirit of wildness that showed through a natural poise. I saw, too, in a hazy kind of way, a most bewitching costume—at least, admirably suited to her: a waist of olive-drab, not unlike our service shirts but of delicate material, open at the throat and fitting her snugly; quite a short skirt to match, and laced tan boots.
"Please don't shoot," I said, trying to smile.
"Where is Jackachobee?" she demanded.
"I'm Jackachobee."
"But you're not an Indian!"
"No, but I really am the friend Tachachobee told you of."
I could see that she was growing more alarmed, and now spoke frankly, saying:
"I pretended to be a Seminole last night because explanations would have taken time; and I thought, too, that you'd feel safer with a good Indian because he's easier to boss than a white man."
Her eyes narrowed, subtly suggesting that she mighttake this as a challenge. At last, having looked me over—but not once removing her hand from the revolver butt—she said, with a little pucker between her eyebrows:
"I've seen you somewhere. Were you ever in our—in that place over there?"
Now, of course, I could hardly expect her to see a resemblance between a chap wearing breeches and puttees in a Florida wilderness and the dinner-jacketed yachtsman who dined near her table off yonder in Havana. It would be asking a great deal—although I did feel disappointed.
"No," I answered, "I haven't been in that settlement; but I watched it from a hiding place all of day before yesterday. You see, I've come two hundred miles to take you away from it."
"You've come to—to takeme?" she slowly asked, and I thought the color began to smoulder again; while from her eyes flashed a look that might have been a struggle between gratitude, resentment and fear. Wanting only the first to prevail I continued hastily:
"Yes; I followed ever since you wrote that you were in danger, and I've sworn not to return to my yacht without you."
"Oh!" she gasped, stepping back and staring at me through the swiftly changing lights of her awakening. "Surely," she caught her breath again, "surely you're not the—youcan'tbe!"
"I am," I smiled, holding out my hand. "The man you gave the paper ball to."
Impulsively she clasped it in both of her own, swaying slightly toward me and looking her gratitude through eyes brim-full of tears—but the angels be mywitness that spoken words have never been so eloquent! Then she began to laugh—a little wildly, a little hysterically—so I said:
"It's all right—you're safe here, absolutely! I watched last night and there wasn't the slightest sign of anyone. You see, Smilax—that's Tachachobee, but we call him Smilax because he smiles—well, he and Echochee purposely led those fellows up the coast, and they'll keep on leading them any-old-where until it's safe to join us here. It's been carefully planned out. However, I'll tell you everything after—after——" I looked ruefully at the shriveled black stuff now incinerated on the bottom of my skillet, adding: "but there isn't going to be any after; it's all burned up!"
She had pluckily taken herself in hand by now and, following my dejected stare, cried:
"Isthatour breakfast? Heavens, what a calamity! But show me where the things are and I'll cook another!"
"You'll soil your fingers," I hesitatingly protested.
"Soil my fingers! Of course, I will; but there's no scarcity of water, nor of my appetite, either—and we can't possibly eat what you cook!"
"Oh, I don't know," I said, just a little touchily. "I'm a pretty good sort of a cook, I am!" Often have I noticed how the majority of men get touchy about their cooking.
"The evidence is convincing," she laughed. "Where do you keep your stores? Hurry, please do, if you don't want a fainting woman on your hands. I'm starved!"
Now I saw that some of this was being put on; that it was the slackening of tightly pulled nerves; so I encouraged her as far as I dared without being suspected, knowing that it is best to open all vents when one's feelings have been dangerously pent up. As to myability to cook!—why, there were extenuating circumstances governing this breakfast that should have excused it. Some day I'd surprise her.
I changed that idea quickly enough when she took charge, however, for in ten minutes there were two or three things sizzling and sending out an aroma that might have brought Epicurus himself back to life. What's more, she did not seem to be worrying over them; she did not even seem particular about stirring them, nor did she burn her fingers, nor get red in the face and hot, nor suffer any of those agonies that I had supposed were a necessary part of culinary science.
"You're a wonder," I exclaimed. "Darned if I've ever seen such a swell cook!"
"Thank you, sir," she tossed her head and mimicked. "I'm glad I please, sir."
"Like your new place?" I asked, gravely.
"I've seen worse, sir."
"Like your new master, too?" I ventured.
"Marster, is it!" She sent me a look with which there was a most fetching little curve at the corners of her lips that she seemed unable to control. "I'll 'ave you understand that queens of the kitchen know no marster!"
"But you won't be in the kitchen all the time."
"That I will," she replied. "In the woods, all the world's a kitchen!"
"I rather wish it was," I sighed, looking toward the savory skillet and coffee pot; whereupon she gave the brightest of laughs, telling me to set the table as things were about ready.
But Smilax and I had never bothered about a table. We did not even possess a cloth, or napkin, or anything like that. So I cut some palm leaves, arranging themon the ground; then ransacked the duffle for a small kit of aluminum plates and cups, with also knives and forks. Neither had Smilax and I deigned to use this kit, principally because our meals had been taken on the move. At best palm leaves do not make a good table, as their ridges cause the dishes to wobble; so in the end we spread our steaming feast upon the grass.
My word, but that was a breakfast! I don't remember what we had, but it did taste good. When it was over, right down to the last crumb—for she had complained of starvation, too—I looked across at her, saying:
"If I can move, at all, and you're willing to go slowly, I'd like to show you over your new possessions!"
"Right away? Mercy no," she stood up, brushing her skirt. "I'm going to get a cigarette, and you're going to wash the dishes!"
"But Smilax washes the dishes," I protested.
"And he may be thirty miles from here," she announced.
"Will you come back and watch me?"
"I will if you want me to," she laughed, "but you'll look awfully silly."
"Then you needn't," I agreed, less reluctantly, "and I'll call in half an hour. By the way, I've deeded you all the 'island' east of those two big pines. The other side is mine."
"Thanks. I'll take possession at once." And she left me for her spring and bailiwick and cigarette—although I never saw her smoking one before, or after. In a few minutes I heard her calling and, straightening up with some feeling of alarm, answered:
"What's wrong?"
"Nothing; only don't forget to use very hot water!"
Later we walked to the south-western edge of the "island," so she could see how it stood in relation to Efaw Kotee's settlement; and I showed her the fort, purposely exaggerating its ability to withstand a siege and minimizing its chances of having to do so. We sat down there upon the turf, where the breeze and shade were refreshing. It was a fortunate location, also, for keeping an eye on the prairie.
"Have you named this beautiful place of yours?" she asked.
"No; we merely call it the 'island,' after the native fashion. Will you name it for me—for us? It's half yours, you know."
"Let's call it——" she thought a moment, "oh, let's call it The Oasis; for that's cool and comfortable and suggests safety from all sorts of things!"
"The Oasis it is, and we'll put it on the map some day, see if we don't!"
After a while I told her pretty much everything from the beginning of our cruise: of Tommy, Monsieur, and Gates, of Smilax, of seeing her in Havana. I scrupulously avoided any mention of having been bowled over by her beauty, or of the dream, and was inclined to treat the paper ball episode with a laugh; but here she interrupted me, saying:
"But I was very serious, really, and scared almost to death. You surely know I must have been to've done it! The whole thing came so suddenly—like a frightful storm!"
"Then you hadn't always been at outs with him—or forbidden him to cross to your little island?" I asked.
"Mercy, no—that is, not my father. The other men,of course, were on a footing of servants—to me, at any rate. It was only after we got home two days ago, after Echochee and I were alone again, that I kept them away by—by threatening——"
"Don't say what—it hurts me," I interrupted her quickly. "I saw your wonderful courage from our hiding place."
"Everyone was quite friendly up to the time we reached Havana," she continued, in a rather forced, even voice. "We were there three days before your yacht came—though I didn't know it was yours until today—and that afternoon I'd been up in the Prado with Echochee doing a lot of shopping. We always bought every conceivable thing on those semi-yearly trips. Well, when we got back on board my father rather balked about taking me off again to dinner, but I held him to it because he'd previously promised. I think that he had grown so sensate to dangers that he felt one then, but couldn't locate it."
"Because we were anchored so close to you?"
"I don't really know. But it was something. It wasn't a pleasant dinner from the outset, because I resented his devilish mood and was disgusted with him for being afraid. That doesn't sound very nice," she added, half apologetically, "but, you know, there had always been something subtly antagonistic within me that—oh, I can't express it, but I'd never felt very close to him, ever since I can remember. It was largely my fault, I suppose. But I'd had glimpses of his frightfully cruel nature. Then Echochee, who came to nurse me when I was little, always hated him, and I adored her—so, of course, her influence counted. You really think she's coming through all right?"
"Downright sure of it," I declared, in solemn earnest. After a few moments of silence, I asked gently: "Do you mind telling me more?"
She gave a slight start as though the question had brought her from some deep thought, but smiled, saying:
"Certainly, I don't. When your two friends left you in the café my father became terribly excited. I asked him what on earth was the trouble—but smiling, for that was a subterfuge he always demanded of me in public places—and he whispered that he thought the shorter man was a police agent from his lost republic."
"Lost republic?"
"Yes. You see, my father had been its President—in South America, you know—until the revolution compelled us to fly." This was said resignedly.
"Oh," I murmured. "When was that?"
"Years ago. I just remember being carried off one night in a great hurry."
"Tell me the rest about Havana?" I asked, trying to appear calm.
"It's all rather awful," she sighed. "I hadn't noticed your friends more than to get a glimpse of them as they left, but saw you alone at the table. Pretty soon our captain, Jess,"—she may have given a slight shudder, I wasn't sure—"came up and verified my father's suspicions, and then I thought he surely would lose his mind. I was already becoming frightened, especially as the creature, Jess, impertinently leered at me, and my father didn't knock him down for it. He had never dared look at me before, except most deferentially, and suddenly I felt that I was nearing something awful. I can't explain it. It just came to me all of a sudden, you know, with desperate certainty, and—and I wanted to run away."
"Were you trying to tell me that?"
She flushed, but answered steadily:
"Yes. I thought you looked like a man who'd help a girl out of a mean place."
"By Jove, that's the biggest compliment I've ever had!"
"I only had a chance to write a little," she ignored my outburst, "but hoped you'd guess and tell your friend, the police agent."
"I didn't guess that," I admitted, somewhat crestfallen. "But we knew you were in danger."
"I should never have left that café if I'd known more myself, then," she said, tensely. "I'd have stood up and called to you—to every man there!"
"And I'd have brought you out in spite of hell," I cried. "Don't tell me there was anything much worse!"
Her cheeks were still aflame with anger, but she smiled, saying in a lower tone:
"Nothing worse than threats. When we got aboard the yacht my father came to me and said, point-blank before those men, that—that—oh, I can't!" She buried her face in her hands—and it was all I could do to keep from putting my arms about her and whispering that everything was now all right. But she had started out to tell me, and was determined to see it through. "He said that he'd promised our captain, that creature Jess, that I should—should——"
"Never mind," I murmured. "I know about it—he said you'd have to marry the scoundrel."
"Oh," she exclaimed. "I'd never heard anything so cold-blooded and damnable in all my life! The creature stood leering at me over his shoulder, and Iknew he'd been using threats because my father, himself, was almost paralyzed with fear. And then I lost my head—in blind rage, I suppose. I must have talked like a common fish woman, but my one desire was to see them cringe. So I told about leaving the message for you, pretending to've written a great deal more—twisting the knife all I knew how, and being thoroughly catty. It must have been a disgusting exhibition," she gave a sigh of despair, as if for that uncontrollable outburst of temper.
"I hope you rubbed it in good," I growled.
"Well, I didn't, because my father became so insane with fear that he actually struck me, and rushed ashore in the frantic hope that you might not have seen my message. He would have killed you had he met you then. It was in those few minutes that the little love I ever had for him turned to loathing—and that's a frightful thing to say about one's father, so I hope you won't remember it."
"We have a very mutual respect for each other in loathing that gentleman," I announced. "But tell me quickly—were you safe after that?"
"Oh, yes, for I began to temporize. Echochee wanted to kill them, of course—that being her only solution. But I hoped we might manage to escape if they could be put off a few days."
"And you were in the small boat when they tied on the bomb?"
"Heavens, yes. But I'd no idea it was your yacht, even then—although I thought I recognized your friends taking pictures the morning we left Havana, and was about to call to them when my father, always suspicious, burst into my room."
"It must have been hellish," I growled.
"It was all of that. And especially as always beforehe'd tried to be kind—at least, he was extremely deferential. That night at Key West he and the captain left in a small boat, and when they came back I was ordered into it. I think he must have been crazy, really, for he said that he was going to show me what they did to traitors—that was my new name then, you know—and shoved a package of something in my face. The captain cursed him for it—and I'd never before heard him treated with the slightest disrespect, but when I found out what the thing was I hoped it would blow up and destroy us all. I only thank God that it didn't go off and kill—my rescuer," she murmured.
"Then you did call that it wasn't fair?"
"I had to protest! Oh, but he was a demon then," she added, and I clenched my fists, remembering what Gates had said. "But he used to be kind," she added, sadly, "and I ought to remember him for that, don't you suppose so? We have a wonderful library on the islands, and when I was very young he began my education. Do you know," she looked up, "I still remember my first lesson in grammar? He taught me by the days!"
"Quite a remarkable thing, that, to remember so far back," I smiled, whereupon she made a little grimace. "How do you mean—by the days?"
"I was taught a tomorrow, not alone because I could recognize today but because I remembered yesterday, and was shown how these were the past, present, and future tenses of our lives; that the present participle is Living, and the infinitive is——"
"To love?" I suggested.
"To live," she said evenly, and I bit my tongue. "He made me study awfully hard, but I rather liked it as there wasn't much else to do except play withEchochee, and she became tiresome occasionally. Later he started me at the piano, and the violin, and I loved to work after that. For he's quite a remarkable musician, really! I suppose our library must have a thousand books, and I've read nearly all of them—besides stacks of the modern ones we always brought from our semi-annual cruises 'to the world'—as he used to call those trips. Don't you simply adore Blasco?"
"I suppose you mean Ibañez," I said, rather pleased at being able to air this familiarity with literary personages.
"Ibañez, then," she casually agreed, "if you prefer calling him by his mother's name."—And, not knowing upon what hazy path this would lead me, I laughingly admitted:
"Well, I've only tackled one of his things, and haven't even finished that yet." Adding, with perhaps a slightly malicious desire to bring her superior knowledge to bay: "You read him in the original, I suppose?"
"Not freely enough to be quite relaxing. But on our cruise last summer we got a very good translation in French—really, much better than the English, I think."
Again I laughed, as a light entered my muddled outlook because of this astonishing information that accounted for much I had not been able to reconcile with her isolated life. From the moment she had mimicked the cook I had been kept in a state of wonderment. I had felt her superiority; I had marveled at the cultivation that clung about her as a royal robe. Now it was explained. Music, literature, languages!
"That night you protested about the bomb," I asked, "did you hear me call?"
Could it have been that some of the animation left her face as she answered slowly:
"Oh, was it you? I heard someone call to a person named Sylvia."
"But—isn't that your name?"
"Oh," she laughed, "I haven't nearly so pretty a name as that!"
I was crazy to be the judge, but asked, instead:
"Did your—father ever explain why he was afraid of detectives?"
"Nothing more than that he was fearfully hunted and persecuted. When I was almost a baby he had to run away because of a political plot. He escaped with me after," her voice lowered, "my mother had been killed by the revolutionists, and we've been hiding here ever since, awaiting the message that will bring him back to be President again; although while the other party is in power its agents would arrest him—and it's been in power for years. Do you know," she looked at me frankly, "I've never forgiven him for letting them kill my mother! Throughout all of my childhood I used to hold indignation meetings with myself and consign him to every imaginable punishment—both for that, and running away without avenging her."
She was quiet then. This news of the South American republic showed what an accomplished liar old Efaw Kotee could be. Very plausible, indeed, and an adequate excuse for keeping her in a potential prison.
"I fear that I've been terribly outspoken," she said at last, with a wistful expression that held both laughter and apology.
"You've been wonderful," I whispered, deliberately turning away my head and gazing out across the prairie. I could not have met her eyes just then.
As gently as I could, after I felt that my voice might be trusted not to betray itself, I told her of Monsieur Dragot's deductions, who we thought she really was—not the daughter of that old scoundrel, at all. I let her see the record of his crimes, her mother's discovery of the plates, the kidnaping, and, unless something most recent and unexpected had happened, the queen regent of Azuria was waiting at this minute for the little princess to return.
She had been sitting very still, like a child with parted lips enchantingly absorbed by a fairy tale. When I finished she turned her wondering eyes to mine, and gasped:
"It can't be true!"
"I think it is," I said. "I mean that it is so far as Monsieur can judge from the threads of evidence he holds, and what you've told me makes his theory more convincing."
"Oh—and I've called this man Father for so long! You don't suppose he still might be, somehow?"
"There's no somehow about it," I had to smile at this question. "He either is, or isn't; in the same indefeasible sense that white isn't black."
"I didn't mean that he might be just partly, of course," she said so quietly and seriously that I burst out laughing. "But it's awfully hard to understand,all at once! That must account for the subtle antagonism I felt for him. It really accounts for so much!—for the way he encouraged me to spend money, heaps and heaps of it! Why, I've everything I can think of—from Havana, New Orleans and Vera Cruz!"
"He wanted you to spend his large bills so he could get good money in change," I suggested.
"That's obvious now, but suppose I'd been arrested and sent to prison!"
"I won't suppose anything of the kind," I declared, so vigorously that she laughed.
"I do feel like a thief, though," she added soberly. "Why, everything I possess has been bought fraudulently."
"You couldn't help it! Chuck 'em away, if it'll make you feel better!"
"I can't chuck 'em all away," and this time we both laughed.
"You can as soon as we reach New York, and—and——" But as I did not know how to finish this, I stopped; for what had been in my mind was: "When you and I share all I own!"—and, of course, that wouldn't have done to say aloud.
For perhaps a minute she, also, was silent. Then she turned, with the frankest, sweetest manner I have ever seen, and said in a voice of mellifluent charm:
"Do you know that you've been just awfully splendid?"
I knew that my face got very red, but I tried to answer casually enough:
"The splendid things were done by Tommy, Gates, Smilax, and the other fellows. You'll like Tommy, and Monsieur knows—did I tell you he knows your mother?"
"Don't," she whispered. "You make me feel likeI'm being led into a new world, with new people, and new customs, and new things!" Now her eyes widened as if making a discovery, as she added: "My fa——, that is, Mr. Graham, must actually have recognized Monsieur Dragot!"
"There's no other deduction," I agreed. "Our case is proved almost beyond a doubt. Don't call that fellow your father again, or even Mr. Graham. Smilax and I have a name we'll share with you."
"What?"
"Efaw Kotee."
Her laughter rippled through the wood, as she cried:
"How perfectly lovely! I know what it means!"
"Then you speak Seminole, Miss—Miss—but you say it isn't Sylvia?"
An expression of happy mischief in her face made it adorable.
"No, it isn't Sylvia. It's Doloria—you see, my life has been sad!"
"One wouldn't say so to look at you now. And I think Doloria's a thousand times prettier than Sylvia! Doloria! Just Doloria—like that?" For I wanted an excuse to keep on saying it.
"I—I suppose so," she hesitated. "Of course, it's always had Graham after it, but—what did your Monsieur Dragot say my last name was?"
"He didn't say."
"Then I haven't any."
"Oh, well, you needn't bother about that. Any time it gets lonesome you can hitch on Bronx—that is, I mean, only in case, you know."
I could have bitten out my tongue for this! I don't know what fiends possessed me to be such an unmitigated ass! It was as unfair as poison—an insult to theonly precepts I have ever genuinely felt proud of: the code of playing fair. Before I could pretend to have been making a silly joke she brushed away my contrition by asking:
"Why Bronx? What does that mean?"
Glory be! I had forgotten that she could not know my name! But now I had to deny myself, cast my birthright to the winds, or else let her see that I was a miserable cad who could not be trusted as protector to a girl thrown upon his care.
And, on the other hand, it was decidedly repulsive to tell a lie—especially to her who seemed by her magnetic gaze to challenge the truth right out of a fellow. But conscience is, after all, only a name for our hidden prosecutor, judge and jury, and our sentences are light or heavy depending upon how many witnesses we can persuade to perjure themselves. No man lives who has not at some time used bribery in the mythical court room of his heart. Among women, of course, it is the accepted mode of legal procedure; and this gave me hope to believe that she might be somewhat forgiving when she found me out.
"Why Bronx?" she was asking again.
"Oh," I laughed, "it's a usual name in my part of the country, that's all—like Smith, and Jones."
I thought this would satisfy, but it gave her another thought, instead.
"Your name isn't Jackachobee, of course?"
"As far as Jack, yes. Every one calls me Jack."
A little while before this my cigarette case had fallen, to the ground by us. She had picked it up, and was even now turning it idly between her fingers.
"I see it here," she said, looking more closely at themonogram. "'J. B.' What does the B stand for, Mr.—Mr. Jack?"
"Brown," I answered desperately, and could feel every ancestor of a long and honorable line of Bronxes turning over in their graves. For I detest Brown. It's a good name, an exceptionally fine and distinguished name, the name not only of dear relatives but of very good friends. Yet it just so happened that at this particular moment I detested it—or was it the lie behind it? So to repair my self-esteem I blurted somewhat incoherently: "Bangs!"—having known a rather decent chap named Bangs.
"Is it spelled with a hyphen?" she glanced up rather quizzically. "Brown-Bangs?"
Her mind seemed to have flown lightly beyond me, anticipating the extent of my confusion, for the smile about her mouth, while enigmatic, suggested—enticingly suggested—mischief.
"Of course," I answered. "Brown-Bangs; Brown-Bangs!" And I wondered how many witnesses I should have to bribe now! I wished that in the first place I had said: "It would be unfair to tell you what isn't so, and dangerous to tell you what is!" But she would have guessed the truth by that, to a certainty. Sinners always find comfort in good resolutions, so I resolved to be more circumspect in the future. A gentleman's duty in my position was to be over circumspect; very much over circumspect, indeed!
Somewhat indifferently she laid the cigarette case back upon the ground, happening to put it near a little vine with lavender flowers, shaped like pon-pons; and in doing this it also happened that one of its tiny briars clung to her hand.
"Watch," she cried, gaily leaning forward. "Watchthe leaves! We call this the 'shame-face vine,' because whenever it sticks any one every leaf on that particular stem is overcome with remorse!"
To my amazement the nine delicate leaves on the offending stem began to hang their heads and curl up, for all the world expressive of deep humility. It was another of the million or so lessons to be found in Nature for any one who sees with the right kind of eyes. Of course, I could have hung my head for that lie about the Browns, although curling up—at least, after the manner of the shame-face vine—would have required a contortionist.
"A well named little weed," I laughed. "But what wouldn't be penitent after hurting such a pretty hand!"
"I was just wondering," she said, ignoring this banality—for which in my heart I thanked her—"if there are weeds that show embarrassment for people who tell fibs?"
Now there was no possible way for her to have learned my name!
"You don't think there was any fibbing when I said you were a sure-'nough princess, do you?"
"Oh, please, let's not talk of that again," she entreated. "I don't want to be a princess just yet, because it's still very satisfying to have been taken away from that awful place. I'm so humbly thankful to you," she almost whispered, "that just Cinderella without the slipper will suit me nicely."
Beloved of the gods! If she wasn't at that moment princess, queen and all the royal families made into one!
"But I must tell you this much," I insisted gently, "and then we won't speak of it again until you wish. Monsieur says your mother is only Regent until youcome; that your destiny is marked out for you, that by every law of God and man you've got to go back and take up the Cross where you left it seventeen years ago,—that you're booked to marry a Prince, I think. And he's armed with an iron-bound authority to take you. He says you've no possible escape—though, of course, you won't want any. I have to tell you this," I continued more hastily, for it was an extremely difficult thing to say, "because I'm only an ordinary kind of American chap, as bad as the worst and as good as the best, but your court in Azuria would have forty duck fits if it knew we were playing together in the woods without a chaperone. Suppose you make me your Chancellor, or something like that—chancellor of your Oasian possessions! Then I can report for orders and escort you about with all propriety, and we can talk and laugh occasionally without having some big soldier stick me in the back with his halberd."
She had been listening attentively, gravely, to everything I said until this last, when she burst into a scream of laughter, rocking herself to and fro in a transport of merriment.
"You're the funniest thing I ever saw!—but so be it, Mr. Jack Brown-Bangs, et cetera, et cetera! I make you my Royal Chancellor, responsible for the welfare of our Oasis!"
"And for the protection of Your Serenity," I bowed, really feeling as if I'd been knighted.
"Thank you," she said gravely. "I couldn't ask for a braver protector. But, Chancellor," she looked at me with serious eyes, "why did you say I must take up my Cross? It sounded like such a direful prophecy."
My lips refused to speak. As a matter of fact, I had been thinking more about my own Cross; how Ishould have to carry it after she went away until my heart broke beneath its cruel weight.
"That was a careless way of meaning something else," I tried to answer lightly.
"You shouldn't say evasive things. It leads to speaking with two tongues, which Echochee has taught me is wrong."
"Well, it couldn't be a direful prophecy, anyhow, when your mother and your throne are waiting just around the corner, as it were. The direful part of your life has passed, and most appropriately your name has changed from Doloria to Princess—though, of the two, I prefer Doloria."
"When it means sorrow?"
"It only means sorrow to those you leave. You've paid dearly enough to find nothing but happiness now for the rest of your life. It's written in the sky."
"You're a comforting Chancellor," she was still looking at me calmly, "and I'm already beginning to forget." And gently she laid her hand on the back of my own which rested between us.
My blood bounded with an unreasoning pleasure, yet her movement had been neither temperamental nor sentimental; it was instinctive—one of those honest impulses that knows no sex. Did she realize, by some divine insight, that this frankness, this absence of finical conventions, this whole-hearted camaraderie, would hold me more sternly to my path of duty than anything else she might have done? Did the instinct of her sex whisper that each man's heart, however light and worldly, is the possessor of a trusty loadstone which draws the best of him to a woman's aid when her honor is placed unreservedly into his hands? This speaks, of course, of men and not of human beasts; still, a womanis not put to the peril of looking into the heart of a human beast to discover that he is a beast—she can read it, without glasses, in his face!
"Shall we look over the rest of your estate?" I asked. And I kept the hand until she had been helped up, then released it naturally as we started on the tour of inspection.
We finally came to my pool, and I asked her advice in choosing a nearby spot where I should build a lean-to; since our kitchen site, that until now had been the location of my bailiwick, was by right of conquest hers, a place where she should be able to approach without the precaution of whistling like a plover—a thing she couldn't do, anyway! So we marked a spot and started on, taking some time to encircle the pool that, was rather large and, upon this side, densely fringed with a riot of tropical vines and jungle stuff. Yet, when we had gone but a little way, she stopped, looked vaguely troubled, and said:
"You won't be as near to me here as you were at the kitchen. I was so tired last night that I didn't think very much about those men, because our servants were leading them off. But don't you think it's possible that some of them might wander back here on their way home?"
"There's hardly one chance in a thousand," I assured her.
"I know. But that one chance would be dreadful if—if——" she stopped, and added wistfully: "Iwouldlike to feel in the nights that you are nearer to me!"
I turned to look at something else—at anything but her! Yet if my eyes required a subterfuge my heart did not, and it thrilled as if some wild musicians were tugging at its strings making them sound impassionedharmonies. But, even as I stood swayed by the madness of the moment, I felt that a great, an unseen, presence had pinned a decoration upon my honor—not because it had already proved itself, but in order that it might do so.
We therefore stopped and chose a new place on the side nearer her spring, and that being settled—a most important selection, we pretended it to be—she looked up at me, crying happily:
"After luncheon I'll come and help you build it!—and then you'll cut a path straight from my tent to yours so, should there be any danger, I can run to you without stumbling!"
For another moment, with eyes closed, I visualized my new decoration.
Luncheon, I thought, was even an improvement over breakfast. Nor did I take so long to wash the dishes afterwards.