Kidnapping Coline/Part 2
{WHAT HAPPENED IN THE FIRST CHAPTERS:
Jack Hamilton, a wealthy young American, has just returned to San Francisco on his schooner-yacht after five years in Europe. He has promptly fallen in love with Coline Satterlie, a childhood playmate, who, however, has recently promised to marry Konrad Von Reibnitz, a German count of attractive manners but most unsavory reputation. Her father, determined to prevent the marriage at any cost, explains to Jack a scheme he has worked out for breaking of her infatuation: he wants to send her away on a six months' cruise in the South Seas, with no companions save Jack and the captain and mate. Jack makes objections, but at last reluctantly consents, on the chance of saving Coline from a lifetime of unhappiness. When he meets Captain Saltonstall and the mate, Whistler, he finds them also deeply distressed over the kidnapping project. Coline herself, who supposes the voyage is merely to Australia, is amused by her father's plan, which she declares principally a device for making her fall in love with Jack. She fully intends to return by the first steamer and marry Von Reibnitz at once. Finally, after Mr. Satterlie has gone east on business. Jack and Saltonstall rebel, and both tell Coline of Satterlie's orders to keep her at sea for six months or longer. Whereupon Coline astounds them by announcing that she will go anyhow.
The same afternoon Jack meets the mate coming from the office of a lawyer notorious for crooked practises and, his suspicions aroused, he asks Whistler pointblank what he was doing in such a place.
Chapter VI—Continued
“If you have any legal business to transact,” said I, “just step across the hall and talk to my solicitors. It will cost you less and you can feel that you are in honest hands.”
“I wouldna' go so far as to say that yon auld corby craw hasna' a deal to learn of his profession,” Whistler answered, “but for a' that 'tis a canny auld body and I have heard him highly ree-commended. Besides, he didna' charge me a cent for the consultation.”
“Then you can bet your whiskers he banks on getting it out of somebody else,” I answered, as we were going down the stairs together. On the street, a sudden idea striking me, I said:—“I hope to heaven, Mr. Whistler, that you have not been consulting him in regard to this voyage of ours.”
His shamefaced expression told me at once that I had hit the nail on the head. Much disturbed, I drew him into a café, where at a quiet table over a glass of Scotch ale I managed to extract his confession.
“Aweel, sir-r,” said Whistler, “ye must knaw that I'm by way of bein' a mon o' str-rong preenciples. A thing now might be morally right but legally wr-rong, and I am no the mon to fly in the face o' the law...”
“But, confound it all!” I cried, angry enough to have brought my stone mug down on the top of his scrubby, sandy head, “why couldn't you have told the captain or myself what you were up to, before putting us all at the mercy of that old shark? Not that we are, though, in any case. Why, damn it, man!” I dropped my voice and brought my face closer to his—“I have told Miss Satterlie everything!”
Whistler's small, deep-set eyes glimmered at me in a manner which suggested some troglodyte looking out of his cave.
“What's that y' are sayin'?” he asked. “Ye have told her?”
“Yes,” I answered, impatiently. “The skipper practically told her, too. You needn't think that you are the only one who has been bothered about the right of the thing.”
Whistler gripped the arms of his chair and leaned forward. “And she is willin' to go, a' the same?” he asked, disbelievingly.
“Yes. She told her father that she would go and she is going. Miss Satterlie is coming aboard to-morrow night.”
“And ye told the young lady about the island?”
“What island? I told her that we might wander all over the shop for the next six months.”
He leaned back in his chair and his little eyes twinkled at me brighter than ever. “She canna' knaw what is in store for her,” he muttered, as if to himself.
“Look here,” I interrupted, “how much did you tell that old cormorant, anyhow?”
“Nae mair than was needfu',” he answered, evasively. “It was for the protection of us all, d'ye see?” He shook his bushy head like an old owl, which bird of overrated intelligence he strongly resembled in many ways. “I wouldna' go so far as to say that the skipper himself might not be creeminally responsible, but that is his own lookout. As mate and merely obeyin' or-rders I am no' supposed to have any hand in the business, offeecially.”
I was silent for a few moments, trying to get the upper hand of my anger before continuing the conversation. In this I succeeded sufficiently to be able to question him in calmer tones as to how much he had told the “shyster.” But it was like trying to question a hedgehog. Whistler curled up tighter and tighter with each verbal prod, while his sandy whiskers bristled out at me like a defense. So far as I was able to gather, he had merely presented the proposition as an abstract point of law about which he had engaged in argument with a friend and on the decision of which he had risked a small bet. He told me that old Craven had laughed at the whole thing, offered a cigar, and refused to accept any fee in compensation for his time.
In the end old Craven had dismissed Whistler with a cordial shake of the band and a hint that in the case of any subsequent maritime difficulty he was to remember that he had always a friend ashore on whom he might rely—“a sheet anchor,” as he beautifully expressed it; and for the life of me, after listening to Whistler's story, I could not actually determine whether the old barnacle had really learned anything which he thought that he might use to his future advantage or was merely inserting an advertisement in the maritime world.
Whistler himself was canny enough, but he must at some time have had some unfortunate forensic experience, for the law was his bogey; the only thing, perhaps, of which he was really afraid. He would cross the street to avoid passing a policeman, and I really believe that a strong factor in leading him to prefer his mate's billet to that of master was the legal responsibility incumbent on the latter.
I could get nothing really definite out of him, so far as his interview with the “shyster” was concerned. In fact, I did not try as hard as I might have done, feeling that he would not be candid with me.
“Of course you did not mention any names,” I observed, finally.
“I am no such a zany,” answered Whistler, in a surly voice. As he saw my anger subsiding he began to get a bit huffy himself. “I would have ye to knaw, sir, that I am not in the habit o' law-breakin' and do not care to reesk bein' haled to court like a felon.”
“You didn't have to,” I retorted. “You were under no compulsion to go on the voyage. Mr. Satterlie would have given you a billet on one of his other vessels. But since you decided to stick on, you might at least have kept quiet about it. Mind you, it's not the legal complications that I'm thinking of, but Miss Satterlie's reputation.”
This hit him as entirely a new idea and he crumpled up again. I noticed as I spoke that a smug-faced youth who had come into the place directly behind us and taken his seat at a neighboring table appeared to be reaching for us with his ear, so I said to Whistler:
“Well, let's drink up and get down to the yard; that is, if you are not going anywhere else.”
He said that he was not, so we finished our ale and went out. On the way down Whistler requested me, with some embarrassment, not to say anything to the captain about his interview with the lawyer.
“But I think that he ought to know,” I objected.
“I wouldna' mind his knawin',” said Whistler, “only that it would hurt his feelin's to think that I should have been doubtin' the correctness of his behavior to the extent o' seekin' legal advice. He is a proud mon, the skipper, and I value his good opeenion.”
“All right,” I answered. “Now that the mischief's done there's no use in talking about it, I suppose.” And so the incident was dropped so far as any further discussion of it was concerned. But I must say that I was not altogether quiet in my mind.
CHAPTER VII
Aboard the Lotus Ship
Everything on board the schooner was ready, so the following night I took Coline aboard. The household, even to her elderly aunt, had been given to understand that she had suddenly decided to go east to join her father and might remain indefinitely to visit with friends. I was supposed to be going to escort her, an arrangement permissible enough with a boyhood friend of the family. We sailed the next morning at daylight, dropping down with the tide and a fresh, reaching breeze, the weather being good enough, though rather overcast and gloomy. But aboard the Sabbath Day we were all cheerful, though Saltonstall's gaiety impressed me as a little forced.
One good effect of Whistler's legal consultation, however, was that it had appeared to sweep away the funereal dejection which had pervaded his manner for a number of days. He was really a kindly man at heart and underneath his crabbed and often critical attitude toward Saltonstall he was devoted as a faithful dog to the genial, expansive skipper. They were complementary parts and each seemed to find in the other those qualities in which his own nature was deficient. Saltonstall, big-souled, impulsive, debonair, and extravagant, really needed a Whistler, who was cautious, crabbed, and economical; and Whistler needed him.
We slipped into the fine weather like a girl strolling into a garden, and for day after day glided over soft summer seas which the sun smeared with gold each morning, tormented a little at high noon, and caressed with rosy kisses before the last good-night. Coline loved it all. She conducted herself like a child whom three doting guardians are doing their best to spoil. She had grown very quiet, for some reason, but happily quiet, and I never would have believed that a girl could sleep so much. Perhaps she was feeling the reaction from a somewhat hectic life ashore. We rigged her a hammock on deck, and there she would lie and swing gently with the sway of the rhythmic swell, and read a little and doze a little; and Lalla Rookh—my Persian cat—would drift about the deck, caress herself, with arched back and tail erect, against a halliard, finally to fetch up under the gently swaying hammock, into which she would undulate from the deck so lightly as not to disturb Coline's siesta.
These were mystic, happy days. Up forward the Kanakas sang soft little hulas as they moved about their simple tasks. Nobody really worked. As Satterlie said, it was wicked to work on the Sabbath Day. Often at sunset the vessel reminded me of one of Turner's masterpieces depicting a dream vessel slipping of its own volition into a golden realm of dreams. I tried to study and could not, and tried to write and could not, and tried to think of the future, only to cast that futile effort aside.
About the only material thing we managed was to eat, and that we did rather to excess, I fear for the Chinese cook was a distinguished artist We were all getting fat but Saltonstall, who as the days slipped past seemed to be growing thinner, like a man with some secret sorrow. I remarked this fact without giving it much thought, as that “sweet doing nothing” atmosphere had saturated me to such a degree that the most vigorous effort of which I seemed capable was sitting at the side of Coline's hammock and reading aloud selections of poetry—to which she may have listened, when awake. Whistler, also, had grown rather silent during the last few days, but I had not particularly observed it.
Illustration: “IF YOU HAVE ANY LEGAL BUSINESS TO TRANSACT,” SAID I, “JUST STEP ACROSS THE HALL AND TALK TO MY SOLICITORS.”
Then, one day, Saltonstall walked up to where I was standing by the rail and observed, jerkily: “Water's getting low, Jack, my dear boy. We've got to dip in somewhere and fill our tanks. Can't deprive Miss Satterlie of her fresh shower. Besides, a little run along the beach might do us all good.”
There was a peculiar mock heartiness in tone which struck oddly on my ear. But I was surprised to learn that we were near any land, for, although I had long since lost interest in our position, I was under the impression that we were in a lonely part of the Pacific, far from any archipelago.
“Where do you propose to dip in?” I asked.
“Did you ever hear of 'Secret Island?'”
“No.”
“It's on the recent charts. A little clump of jungle-covered volcanic rocks 'way off the track of everything. I went in there once when in the Revenue service. We were looking up all of the uninhabited, out-of-the-way places on the chance of picking up castaways. Nasty place to enter, owing to outlying reefs, and I was detailed to plot out some charts. I remember the place well—and once inside there's a snug lagoon. No danger in this fine weather.”
“Is there water?” I asked.
“Most excellent. Seeps down from a small lake in the old crater. We found also a number of turtles. They might prove an agreeable change from our rather monotonous diet.”
Again I was struck by the odd quality in his tone and manner of speaking. Glancing at his face I saw that it was drawn, almost haggard, and there was a peculiar hectic flush on his lean cheeks.
“You're not looking yourself, Captain,” said I.
The flush deepened and his luminous eyes had a tormented look. He waved his hand with a deprecating gesture.
“A slight indisposition, my dear fellow. I am sometimes addicted to insomnia. Lack of exercise, I presume...” And he turned on his heel and strode away forward as if anxious to escape.
Coline roused herself and clapped her hands when I told her that we were going to visit an almost unknown island to take water and hunt for turtles.
“What fun!” said she. “Maybe that will wake us up. I feel as if I'd slept for ages. And we're all getting disgustingly fat. We'll take our lunch and spend the day ashore and pretend that we're marooned. To tell the truth. Jack, I'm beginning to get a little fed up on this Sabbath Day repose.”
CHAPTER VIII
The Secret of Secret Island
It was early the next morning that we sighted the island—a thin, blue, broken line against a white horizon. The sea was like a lake, with a gentle little breeze and a ground-swell so long as to be imperceptible, the low undulations a mile or so apart. But as we drew closer we could see long streaks of snowy white which extended as far as the eye could reach and appeared to encircle the little isle, which did not look to be more than two or three miles in length.
Saltonstall approached cautiously, and soon there appeared a wide channel between two rows of reef, the outer one of which overlapped the inner. Climbing to the crosstrees, however, I could see that there was a wide entrance of smooth, green water, and with my glass was able to locate the entrance to the lagoon. It was a fantastic little isle with rocks jutting up in odd, grotesque shapes and pitted, as it looked, with caves and grottoes. The jungle was dense and green and there was a wide sweep of snowy beach.
Under shortened canvas we drifted gently in, closehauled, but without the necessity of tacking, for which maneuver there would indeed scarcely have been room. The lead was going constantly, and from no bottom the water shoaled abruptly to seven fathoms, then as quickly deepened again until we came to the mouth of the lagoon, where within a cable's length it shoaled to six, then five, then four. Saltonstall let go his anchor and we lay in still, sheltered water so clear that one could see every tiny shell on the sandy floor and strange fishes drifting back and forth.
“What a darling place!” said Coline, as we leaned on the rail and studied the curious formations. “It looks as if it hadn't the faintest idea in the world how lonely it is. When can we go ashore? I'm dying to explore.”
“If you care to do so, Miss Satterlie,” said Saltonstall's hollow bass at our shoulders, “you might stroll along the beach to the other side of the island, where there are some very curious and beautiful grottoes. Why not take your luncheon and spend the day?”
“That's just what I suggested,” answered Coline. “Come on, Jack. Tell Charlie to put us up something. We'll go for a turtle hunt.”
Half an hour later found us walking slowly along the edge of the beach toward a little promontory which presently hid the schooner from our view. The air was soft, and from the jungle came delicious odors of ferns and flowers and other growing things. Coline had only her sunshade, while I carried a canvas bag which contained our luncheon and also a rifle with an ammunition-belt, on the off chance of getting a shot at a goat; for the British Admiralty had at one time stocked many desert islands in the Pacific with these animals as a source of food-supply for possible castaways.
“The captain does not look well,” Coline presently observed. “Haven't you noticed it, Jack? He seems terribly nervous and acts as if he were worried about something.”
“Whistler acts oddly, too,” I answered. “The chances are that neither of them likes this job, Coline. They are both honest, self-respecting sailormen, and I think that they feel the work they're now engaged on rather beneath their dignity.”
“It's beneath the dignity of us all,” she answered. “I haven't minded it so much up to now, but I must say I shouldn't care to have it continue for another four or five months. So far I've enjoyed the rest and change, but I think that we've all had about enough of it.”
“Good heavens,” I answered, “don't talk like that, Coline! It's only just begun.”
She looked up at me and laughed. “It may have only just begun,” she answered, “but you'll find that it will only just stop whenever I get enough of it... and I'm beginning to think that I've had enough of it, now.”
“No doubt that's what's bothering the skipper,” I answered. “He's torn between chivalry and a sense of duty to his employer. He knows that you will soon be wanting to put an end to the silly business and he's wondering what he's going to do about it. What would you do if he were gently and firmly to refuse to set you ashore?”
“I'd refuse to eat and begin to fade gently away. Every few hours I might have a violent attack of hysterics.”
“Good Lord,” said I, “don't suggest anything so awful!”
“How long do you think that poor old Anthony could hold out under that?” Coline asked, throwing me a sidelong look from under the rim of her parasol.”
“About an hour,” I answered. “You'd probably come on deck and find us both hanging by our necks from the main-boom and Whistler hopping about on top of the deck-house gibbering at the crew.”
“I don't think that it will become necessary for me to perform,” she observed. “A few tears ought to do the work, if I am any judge of human nature. However, we shall see. Look, Jack; what is that gray thing on the beach?”
“A turtle,” I answered, and ran forward to secure the amphibian, Coline close at my heels. We overtook the unfortunate creature before it reached the water's edge, and I made it a prisoner by the simple expedient of grabbing a hind flipper and heaving it on to its back. Following up the trail, we had no difficulty in finding where it had just deposited its eggs.
“There's some nice fresh food,” I remarked, as we resumed our way. Before we had gone far we came on another in the act of scraping a nest in the hot sand, and presently others. The beach appeared to be a favorite hatchery, as presently we came on quite a colony. Judging five to be quite sufficient for our needs, we did not molest them, nor did our presence appear to cause them the slightest alarm. I collected a few eggs with the idea of building a fire and baking them for our picnic lunch, for there are many worse things to eat than freshly laid turtles' eggs.
The island was larger than I had thought, but appeared to be merely a volcanic heap with a fringe of vegetation and wide outlying reefs, the most distant stretching five or six miles off shore. There were also a few small scattered islets, some an acre or two in area but rocky and barren and swarming with sea fowl. As for the general shape of the main island itself, I can think of no more apt simile than that of a smashed-in straw hat with a ragged brim and a green puggaree twisted about the demolished crown.
Coline, however, seemed to find it beautiful. She skipped along the water's edge and gathered lovely opalescent shells with which she filled my pockets; and then, getting her shoes and stockings full of wet sand, she took them off and festooned the lunch-bag with them, pinning up her short skirt and romping in the ripples like a plump child.
“I'd like to go in bathing,” said she.
“All right,” I answered, “you may do so—as soon as we come to some bath-houses.”
“But I want to go in now,” she answered. “I'm so hot. Can't you walk on down the beach for a mile or two while I take a little dip? You may do the same, if you like.”
“Very well,” I answered, seriously, “only be careful not to get more than knee-deep. These Pacific waters are always full of megalo-ornithorhynchidæ.”
“Of what?”
“It's a variety of duck-billed shark,” I answered. “Something like a flounder in shape,with a flat head and saw-edged teeth. They lie just under the loose sand that comes back from the wash of the waves, and they are not dangerous unless you happen to step directly on their heads. In that case they are apt to tear out the calf of one's leg. And watch out for sea-urchins, too.”
“What are they?”
“Marine chestnut-burrs. There's really no danger in bathing if you only take the proper precautions.”
“You're kidding me, Jack!”
“I'm not kidding you at all,” I answered. “I'm merely advising you. Go in and have your dip, if you like, and I will wait for you down there by those All-Hallow E'en melted-lead-looking rocks. Only be careful where you step and don't go in too deep.”
“Jack,” said Coline, entreatingly, “you're trying to make a fool of me.”
“You are talking nonsense,” I answered. “Nobody can make a fool of a woman but herself. Sometimes, of course, she calls in outside aid when she feels that she may not be doing the job properly. But that's her own lookout.”
“I think you are horrid,” said Coline.
“So do I,” I answered. “It's very necessary.”
“Why?”
“To keep from going to the other extreme.”
Coline gave me a malicious smile. “You may go a little way in that direction, if you like,” said she.
“Well then, I adore you, Coline.”
“Do you call that a little way?”
“Yes ... comparatively speaking.”
“Then perhaps you'd better stop there and rest.”
“I shall stop there, if you wish,” I answered, “but I can't promise to rest.”
Coline laughed. “I am really awfully fond of you, Jack,” said she, sweetly. “I can't think of any other person with whom I could stand being boxed up as we have been.”
“What's that?” I cried, stopping short in my tracks and looking at her eagerly.
Coline's clear eyes rested on me steadily and she shook her head with a little half smile. It seemed to me that I had never seen her more lovely than as she stood there on the water's edge with the brine swirling around her bare little feet and ankles, and her charming, supple figure silhouetted against the topaz sea. An amber light came through the parasol to give her face the soft transparency of a seashell, and the fresh breeze draped the light muslin which she wore about her graceful limbs.
But it was something in the thoughtful serious expression of her face which caught and held my attention and which, coupled with her last words, set my heart to pounding like the surf. Still, I was scarcely prepared for what followed.
“I have not been sleeping all of the time on this voyage. Jack,” said she. “I've been doing a lot of thinking, too. The result of it all is that I have decided not to marry Von Reibnitz.”
“Coline!” I cried, and sprang forward, instinctively. But she retreated a few steps and stood smiling at me with the clear water eddying half-way to her knees.
“Don't get excited. Jack. I say that I have decided not to marry Von Reibnitz ... but I did not say that I thought of marrying ... anybody else.”
“Never mind,” I cried, joyfully. “Oh, my dear, I could howl with delight!” My voice choked a little and I turned away, ashamed of the sudden moisture in my eyes.
“When did you come to this decision?” I asked, as soon as I felt that I could control my voice.
“I don't know, precisely; it came gradually, as my nerves began to get rested and relaxed. I realized little by little that my feeling for Konrad was a feverish sort of fascination, partly curiosity and partly something else, I don't just know what. But lying in my hammock on the schooner, resting and thinking and talking quietly to you three dear men, it began to die out, like a fire. It dwindled away until only white ashes were left, and I looked at them with a sort of wonder that such gray, fragile things could ever have held any heat. Then I began to think with a kind of horror of what might have happened and to contrast his fierce, domineering nature with the sweetness and gentleness of such men as Dad and Saltonstall and your dear old self. Now it's all over. Jack, and I am heart-free again—although I do not think that he ever really had my heart.”
For several moments I could not speak. I wanted to laugh, to shout, to cry, to rush around in small circles like a joyful pup. Coline watched me with a tender little smile on her red, parted lips. I splashed out into the water and seized her waist.
Illustration: “LOOK,” SAID I DISGUSTEDLY TO COLINE. “HERE I'VE BEEN THINKING THAT WE WERE IN A WORLD ABSOLUTELY OUR OWN—AND THERE'S A SAIL.”
“Let's run back and tell the captain,” I cried. “Come, Coline—we really shouldn't keep him another minute in suspense. Then we'll go aboard and slam all her rags on the old schooner and tear out for the nearest port where we can send a cable to your father. Oh, my dear—my darling—” and I fell to kissing her round, bare forearm.
But Coline, smiling and dimpling and a little pale, drew it away.
“There's no such desperate hurry, Jack. To tell the truth, I did not mean to say anything about it until I had tried to see if I could not persuade you all to set me ashore. After all, one can't expect to kidnap a girl without being made to pay for it. But when I saw poor old Anthony's face as he watched us getting into the boat to come ashore my heart went back on me. I'll tell him this afternoon when we go aboard again. Let's have our picnic, now, and visit the grottoes that he spoke about. They must be on ahead there where the rocks come tumbling out to cut off the beach.”
I was selfish enough to agree. To tell the truth, my happiness was so great that I did not wish to share it with any one immediately. So we pushed on through the golden sunshine which flowed about Coline like melted amber, with the far distant diapason of the surf in our ears and the fragrant trade-wind in our faces, presently to arrive at the grottoes. These were wonderfully beautiful: deep, translucent pools where the light struck up from beneath through tinted water clearer than air, in which hung marvelous fish of opalescent hues, poised like jewels in a matrix of ether. Into some of these pools the sea sobbed like a child crying itself to sleep, and set the algae undulating in graceful, sweeping curves, while the fishes balanced back and forth and wove weird geometric figures.
Coline bathed in one of these limpid basins while I went over to the shadow of the cliffs beyond and made a small fire of aromatic sticks and proceeded to cook the turtles' eggs in the Polynesian way, burying them in the damp sand underneath the fire. Then I went to another grotto for a plunge myself, and when I returned, refreshed and hungry, there was Coline with her sunny hair scattered over her shoulders, laying out the luncheon on a flat rock in the shadow of an overhanging cliff.
Yes, very unconventional, if you like; but neither improper nor indiscreet. These qualities are non-existent when the soul is clean—and there is nobody to criticize.
We ate like young wild-fowl, then stretched out on the soft, cool sand and dozed a little, for the unaccustomed exercise of our three-mile walk and our bath and our delicious luncheon acted as a soporific, especially as we had the sleeping habit! Later we explored some more grottoes and practised for a while with the .32 caliber rifle which I had brought, shooting at a small point of rock which jutted from the water at a distance of two or three hundred yards. The shadows were beginning to lengthen when we started back, and the whole long stretch of beach resembled the inside of a pearl-oyster shell, for the tide was low' and the late sun-rays, striking it aslant, broke into their elementary rainbow colors, glistening up in bands of delicately merging tones.
The breezes had dropped light, drawn away from the island in lazy pursuit of the sun, and as we reached the promontory I looked out toward the indigo horizon. Something caught my eye.
“Look,” said I disgustedly to Coline. “Here I've been thinking that we were in a world absolutely our own—and there's a sail.”
Just over the brim of the sea a snowy-speck jutted up to mar the perfect line. Coline's bright eyes picked it up and she looked at me with a smile.
“There is no such thing as privacy in this day and age. Jack,” said she. “Dear old Anthony told me only this morning that no vessel passed within sight of this island once in twelve months. And there's one, already.”
I stared for a moment at the snowy speck, and a vague disquiet came over me. It was an odd, disagreeable sensation imposable to describe: a subtle sense of some impending ill; something wrong—out of its place; a distinct jar to the peaceful harmony on all sides. Coline felt it, too, and we hurried on without speaking until we had rounded the rocky little promontory which jutted out from the lagoon.
Here we both stopped as if suddenly entangled in a quicksand. I stared—rubbed my eyes—then stared again. There was no sign of the schooner; no sign of anything which denoted human life except a curious litter of objects high on the beach, which for the instant I scarcely noticed. And yet from where we stood we were able to examine with our eyes the whole of the little lagoon.
“But ... good Lord ... where the deuce is the schooner?” ... I stammered.
Coline's small hand fell on my wrist and gripped it like a manacle.
“There...” said she, and pointed at the blue horizon.
CHAPTER IX
Crusoe With Modern Improvements
There come times, I suppose, in the lives of most men and women when in a moment all faith in their fellow humans and the honesty of life in general is swept away, to leave them torn between disgust and desire for revenge.
As I stood there and stared, first at the vacant lagoon, then at the pinkish snow-speck dropping over the horizon, and last of all at the disorderly array of huge packing-cases which strewed the edge of the jungle, it seemed to me that the scales had fallen from my eyes, and that I beheld human nature in all its shocking falsity. Coline and I had been tricked, betrayed, duped; marooned on a desolate heap of rock and jungle in the loneliest part of the Pacific that those who knew it best could fix upon as a safe prison.
And yet it was an incomprehensible thing. Knowing Satterlie's tender love for his only child, and old Saltonstall's high chivalry and sweet, kindly nature, and Whistler's rugged honesty and strong innate sense of fair dealing, I could not believe that these three men would deliberately maroon a mere child like Coline on a desolate island with a single companion—a sole protector to stand between herself and utter solitude. What if she were to become ill, or some accident were to happen to me, or the island were to be visited by some savage crew, whether white or native, as all islands sometimes are? True, it was far removed from any track ever taken by vessels, and the natives of the nearest archipelagoes were friendly, but what of that? The other considerations were enough, and the thing which had happened dazed and stupefied, less from its calamity than because it was so far outside of all human reckoning.
I looked dumbly at Coline and she looked back at me with wide, frightened eyes, colorless face, and trembling lips. The knees of both of us grew weak and we sank down on the sand, in silence, and stared out at the dwindling speck on the far horizon.
Then a sudden rage got hold of me and I sprang to my feet and, shaking my fist at the dissolving atom, began to speak. Just what I may have said I can not remember, but it must have been lurid, for suddenly I found Coline at my shoulder with her trembling hand against my lips and her loose hair blowing in my face.
“Don't, Jack ... don't...” she whispered, tremulously. “It's bad enough as it is—and worst of all, it was so unnecessary.” She gave a short laugh which strangled in her throat. “Dad usually has an ace or two up his sleeve, but I hadn't looked for a royal straight flush.” And her laugh broke out again, hysterically.
“Coline,” I cried, in despair, “tell me one thing, and say it quickly. You don't think that I had any part in this damned, cold-blooded villainy?”
“Of course I don't. Be quiet, Jack. We mustn't lose our heads...”
This sobered me. I certainly was in a fair way of losing mine, but as I glanced at Coline I saw that she had already got her self in hand and, though pale and with a hard, set look about her resolute little chin, was as steady as a veteran under fire. I felt suddenly ashamed.
“Of course,” I muttered, “it's all on your account. Coline, that I let go as I did. I could cheerfully kill those three men—your father and all.”
“They are stupid,” she answered, “but I suppose they acted according to their lights. I begin now to understand a lot of things which puzzled me, Jack. It was a pretty awful thing to do—but Dad never goes at any job half-heartedly. No wonder poor old Anthony looked so ill. I'll bet that he is feeling worse at this moment than we are, Jack.”
“I hope so,” I muttered.
Both of us were silent for several moments; then, realizing what a strain the girl must be under, I made a struggle to get at least the appearance of cheerful resignation.
“At the most,” I said, “they can't mean to leave us here for more than a month or so. The skipper wouldn't do it, orders or no orders. Let's go see what they've left us.” And I nodded toward the array of packing-cases on the edge of the bush.
We hurried down the beach and proceeded to take stock of our supplies. Certainly, two maroons were never better provided for. The tops of the crates had been wrenched off, and the first things which I flung out were two large tents with all of their accompanying gear. There were cooking utensils and a stove, pipe and all, and a chest of tools, and clothing and bedding, and a couple of camp cots, arms, ammunition, fishing-tackle, medicine-chest, books, and provisions of every sort, including four barrels of potatoes. There were even a couple of dozen live fowls, and a great roll of wire netting for the construction of a poultry-yard!
As I surveyed the enormous quantity of stuff my heart sank, for its volume seemed to indicate the prospect of a long imprisonment. I was busily rummaging through all this duffle when I was startled by a plaintive wail on the other side of a big box which actually contained a little piano.
“What's that?” I cried.
But Coline was ahead of me and, half laughing, half crying, she wrenched off some slats tacked to the top of a small box, when out leaped Lalla Rookh, who arched her fluffy back and began to purr against the girl's knee.
Here indeed was the final coup! I had already flung out in a sort of frenzy Coline's banjo and my mandolin and a gramaphone, and a big tin box of Coline's favorite bonbons, and a camera with all the necessary paraphernalia for the daylight development and printing of photographs; but the delicate attention of leaving me my cat was so absurd that it eased the tension and we both began to laugh. At the same time we discovered that there was a note tied to Lalla Rookh's little red-morocco collar. It proved to be from Saltonstall, and read as follows:
My Two Dear Friends (if indeed I am still entitled to address you as such):
In acting as I have, believe me there have been but two motives. The first is the conviction in my mind that such a step might prevent a sweet and gracious lady from ruining her life's happiness. The second is my duty to my friend and employer, Mr. Satterlie.
It would take too long for me to try to express my wretchedness at the thought of the position which I must even at this moment occupy in the hearts and minds of two people for whom I possess such a great affection and esteem. I can only hope and pray that time may justify my act, and that the sweetness of your two natures may incline you both not to think too harshly of me.
As to your present condition, you will find, I trust, all of your necessities provided for. There is a never-failing spring (for when I first visited this island it was at the end of the dry season and the basin was overflowing with sweet water) about one hundred yards below the spot where we have left your supplies. I would advise that you spread out the potatoes on the floor of a small cave which you will find beside the spring. It might also be well to clear a little ground and plant a few of them. They should grow well in this soil, which is rich in nitrates. You will find shovels, axes, brush-hooks, etc., in the crate containing the tools.
And now, dear friends, as the time presses I must wish you farewell and consign you to the care of God, to Whom I shall pray daily for your care and protection.
“Poor old Anthony,” murmured Coline, “it must nearly have killed him.”
“I wish it had—before he got away,” I growled.
“No, you don't, Jack. It wasn't his fault.” She looked at me thoughtfully. “You are the one it's really hardest on, Jack.”
“I? Good Lord, Coline, you don't think for an instant that it's myself I'm so cut up about! I'd gladly live here with you for the rest of my life if I thought thought you were not unhappy.”
Coline stared at me fixedly for an instant; then her eyes filled with tears. “Is that the truth, Jack?”
“As true as that I'm standing here,” I answered emphatically.
“And—you'd be willing to give up the world—”
“You are all my world, Coline.”
She choked back a sob, then moved closer to me. Her body swayed as she stood, and I put my arm about her shoulders and drew her close to me. She understood, I think, the impulse which led me to do this and knew that it was purely protective. Her hands clasped my shoulders with the grip of a terrified child and for a moment she clung so, sobbing silently, while I soothed and comforted her as best I might, telling her that after all it was not so bad—that there was nothing which could possibly harm her, and comparing our position to that of castaways with neither food nor shelter, nor any hope of rescue. Also, I urged the anxiety of her father to know how she fared. It would not be many weeks, I insisted, before the return of the schooner and, besides, there was always the chance of rescue by some stray vessel ... and a great deal more of the sort. She quieted as I talked on, and presently, releasing herself, looked up smiling through her tears.
Illustration: ONE MIGHT HAVE THOUGHT THAT WE WERE A PAIR OF HAPPY CAMPERS ENJOYING A HARD-EARNED VACATION, RATHER THAN TWO FORLORN MAROONS.
“Thank you, Jack. I'm all right now. See, it's getting late and we must hurry if we want to make our camp before dark. Kiss me, Jack...”
For the first time in my life I kissed her. It was not a lover-like kiss, but rather that of a brother, or father, perhaps. Then we turned to the scattered impedimenta, for the sun was not far above the horizon and long, purple shadows were stealing across the opalescent beach.
As there was no time to do more before the darkness came we merely pitched the two tents where we were and prepared our sleeping accommodations, then set up the little cook-stove and started a fire. It looked odd standing there in the sand with the section of pipe sticking straight up into the air. But the occupation went far to cheer us, and by the time that Coline had set the table (an actual camp-table with folding legs) and the evening air became permeated with the odor of frying bacon and potatoes, one might have thought that we were a pair of happy campers enjoying a hard-earned vacation, rather than two forlorn maroons.
Our supper finished, we sat under the shelter of the tent and listened to the tide as it came whispering back across the glistening sands and talked of the many things which we should have to do on the following day. Then, before long. Coline's bright head began to nod, so I sent her to bed and Lalla Rookh escorted her, curling up at her feet as she had been wont to do in the ham mock aboard the Sabbath Day.
Left alone, I sat and smoked for a while and pondered on many things. In our present situation I found the explanation of numerous incidents which had puzzled me and of which, I believe, I have already made mention. Among them were Whistler's motive in consulting old Craven; what I had taken to be Saltonstall's little private trading enterprise and his embarrassment when I had questioned him about the crates and boxes which were being loaded aboard the schooner; his erratic behavior as we drew near the island, and Whistler's crabbed aloofness.
But that which forced itself upon my retrospect with the greatest insistence—and I recalled how at the time when the words were spoken I had been surprised and rather inclined to resent the intensity of his tone, deeming it quite unnecessary—was the day when Satterlie had said: “... You are the only man living to whom I would entrust my little girl, and I would trust her with you anywhere and under any circumstances ... just remember that always, whatever happens, Jack, my boy....”
“Well,” said I to myself, as I sat on the edge of my cot and pulled off my shoes, “I'll have something to say to him when we next meet. And if he doesn't happen to like it...”
It is unnecessary to repeat what I proposed to tell him that he was at liberty to do if he didn't happen to like it.
CHAPTER X
The Fading World
When I awoke I could see, through the open flaps of my tent—it was a big tent and set up in a way which suggested the breast of a much emaciated fowl—the sun flashing on the smooth surface of the lagoon. Also I saw Lalla Rookh hunting shrimps in the wet sand. Apparently the Oriental instincts of this sagacious feline had warned her that the hour of repose was over and that the sun had risen on an epoch of activity.
I hopped up and went out into the delicious air. No sound came from Coline's tent, which was pitched as close to mine as it was possible to drive the pegs; wherefore, judging that she must be still asleep, I skipped out across the beach and flopped into the delicious water in my pajamas. I was lying on my back in the shallows, letting the ripple massage me, when I heard a burst of laughter and squirmed around to see Coline, in a towel peignoir and with her bright hair shimmering in the sun, watching me in much apparent amusement.
“Hello,” I called, “have a good sleep?”
“Delicious. I've just been for a bath in the spring. Go down there, Jack, and wash off the sticky salt water. It's a wonderful place. There's a basin almost deep enough to swim in, and the water bubbles up from the bottom in little toy volcanoes of white sand. I rather like this island. Do go down there and take a dip in that spring, Jack. It's great.”
“Just now I'd rather eat,” I answered. “Run up to the house and get dressed, and I'll start breakfast. We've got an awful lot of work to do.”
“I know it. Moving is always such a nuisance...” And Coline scampered off up the beach, followed by Lalla Rookh, though rather sluggishly as the result of a surfeit of shrimps.
With that day began a life of such activity as gave us scant leisure in which to repine, even had we been of the repining sort, which we certainly were not. I cleared a space in the bush and there repitched our tents, for greater security in the event of a gale and because the trees were high enough to offer protection against the heat of the midday sun. The ground was firm and dry, and I floored the tents with planks from the packing-cases.
Then, with sundry tarpaulins which Saltonstall had left us, we constructed a sort of kitchen and store-house, only to discover after its completion that one of the boxes contained a third tent, smaller than the other two and no doubt kindly provided for this particular need. However, it came in handily enough—we pitched it at a little distance and installed therein the diminutive piano and our library of books, and it was known thenceforth as “the music-room.” It took some engineering to get the piano property set up, but we managed it by rigging a sledge of boughs and warping it to its place with purchases rigged from the trees—and had fun doing it.
Naturally, all of this took a lot of time, and a week had passed before we were ready, as Coline said, to invite our friends to a “house-warming.” If we had been dormant on the Sabbath Day, we were certainly making up for it now, and I am bound to admit that we thrived on it.
Chopping and hewing away, with the sweat of easy living pouring off me in streams, I sometimes wondered if perhaps Satterlie might not have had some deeper motive than that of keeping his dearly loved daughter from marrying a titled reprobate. Possibly he wished to show us both some truths which he had learned and which we might never otherwise have discovered. The greatest of these was (as I found out when my hands began to blister and Coline bathed and bandaged them) that a man must always work for a woman—but the woman must help.
Coline surely helped. Fancy if you can a girl brought up to every luxury adapting herself in about two hours' time to life on a desert island! No woman can ever help a man more than by encouraging his faith in himself. And that was what Coline did for me, aside from all personal efforts. She dissolved from me my fierce resentment against her father, and she made me think more kindly of Saltonstall and Whistler—and helped me carry water from the spring.
She made the feminine touches about our camp which gave it a homelike air, planting nasturtiums and pansies and sweetpeas and other seeds which sprang up quickly in the rich, damp mold, blooming with tropical luxuriance and lending greatly to our cheer, as there were no flowers on the island. It was beyond the flight of land birds from any other place, and the sea fowl would not carry seeds. They had carried spawn, however, some time in the past to the little lake in the old crater, which we discovered to be teeming with several varieties of excellent fish.
For the first fortnight we scarcely left the camp, there were so many things to do. The hardest task of all was that of making a garden. Fearing that our potatoes might rot or sprout, and our onions as well, I acted on Saltonstall's advice, clearing a small space of even ground and freeing it as best I could of roots.
The great quantity of our supplies, and particularly the garden seeds furnished us, led me to believe that we might be in for an exile of some duration. Satterlie had told Saltonstall that he would rather see his daughter dead than married to Von Reibnitz, and therefore he might be quite capable of confining her for an indefinite period on a healthful tropical island in the care of a man who was devoted to her and in whom he had implicit confidence, both as to personal honor and ability to meet the requirements of the position ... for I had spent much of my life in various shooting and exploring expeditions. Consequently, we went ahead with our home-making precisely as if we had been squatters in some remote wilderness where we purposed to remain for the rest of our lives.
The ordinary routine of housekeeping occupied a great deal of our time. I had built a run for our chickens with the rolls of wire netting which had been provided for the purpose. Then, finding no evidence of reptiles or rodents on the island, we turned them at liberty, and they appeared to thrive on the shrimps and small shell-fish along the beach, returning to their coop to roost and pick up the scant grain which we scattered there. We planted our garden, weeding and watering it as required, and I even dug up the slope of a bare knoll and sowed some wheat and corn.
And thus a month passed, then six weeks, and up to this time we had not made the slightest attempt to explore the island beyond going two or three times to the little lake in the crater to fish. Indeed, there was not much incentive to climb over the jagged lava rocks of which the “interior” was principally composed. Aside from the sea-fowl there did not appear to be a living creature on the island but ourselves. Our routine was to rise at dawn, bathe, get breakfast, and work until it began to grow hot, then keep under shelter and lunch and rest and read until the heat of the day had passed before resuming our necessary tasks.
These six weeks had wrought wonderful changes in us. Coline's slenderly rounded figure began to broaden and take on new lines of graceful strength and vigor, and she no longer grew fatigued after an hour or so of physical work. It was a wonderful and a beautiful thing to see the tender girl hood ripening into the mature force of such a woman as might have posed for an allegoric frieze to depict the feminine ideal in its fuller, richer sense—the strong but tender helpmate of the male.
As for myself, the sleekness of easy living was sweated off in the first fortnight, and I found myself becoming thewed and sinewed like a gladiator. It was a pleasure to feel the hardening muscles bulge and contract, to take with no conscious effort a strain which a month before would have left me panting and breathless, with trembling limbs and body bathed in perspiration. My hands were hard as those of a smith, and there was no more of that drowsy lethargy which comes of a system surfeited with waste products.
But that which was best of all, and sometimes set me to vibrating with shudders of pure ecstasy, was the consciousness that Coline and I were drawing steadily together. It was a subtle, thrilling process and one of which neither of us would have dared to speak, though both appreciated it. If our hands touched in the performance of some simple task I could feel the vital elixir set my nerves a-tingle like a draft of pure oxygen, while Coline would turn as rosy pink as a tropic sunrise. At such moments we scarcely dared to look at each other ... or, at least, I dared not look at Coline. Sometimes she would grab up Lalla Rookh and crush that fluffy feline in her round, bare arms until there would be a protesting half-smothered yowl and possibly the scratch of a frantic claw across the satiny skin.
But such occasions were rare, and for the most part our attitudes were such as they had always been, of frank and friendly comradeship quite free from all self-consciousness.
Yet both knew, I think, that some new element was growing quietly, like a vine which binds together its two supports. It was getting more and more difficult for me to have her long out of my sight; and this feeling she must have reciprocated, for when her own tasks were finished she would often come to our garden patch and, sitting in the shade of a bush, watch me silently as I dug and weeded and watered.
One might think, perhaps, that a man and a woman boxed up together as we were would have come to loathe the sight of each other, if only from the monotony of seeing no other human face. No doubt in many cases such would have been the result. But there had always been strong ties of friendship and sympathy between Coline and me, which even her infatuation for Reibnitz had been unable to sever. Our natures were both rather primitive, and we were both young and vital and full of the wine of life. Somewhere, far beyond the high horizon, rocked a giddy, panting world; but as the days passed it grew vague and indistinct in our dual consciousness ... and we looked longer and longer at each other.
CHAPTER XI
Two's Company
One day I made a startling discovery, though I said nothing about it to Coline.
While she was taking her early afternoon siesta I decided to go to the other side of the island in search of turtles' eggs. Our hens had been laying generously, but as three of them had shown maternal instincts we had denied ourselves with such good results that already a brood of downy chicks was peeping about the camp. Lalla Rookh, after a first effort to molest them, received a warning from the mother and thereafter left them to live their innocent young lives in peace.
Turtles' eggs are strong food, but we were strong young people, so, desiring a change from pork and bacon and fish and turtle-meat, I scribbled a note to Coline, took a sack, and sallied forth. The turtles must have been moulting, or something of the sort, for I got as far as the grottoes without falling upon any “sign.” Thinking that perhaps our occasional inroads on the hatcheries might have led the amphibians to change their diggings, I kept on along the beach for some distance beyond. The tide was nearly at the last of the ebb, and as I strode along the water's edge I came suddenly on some very peculiar depressions in the wet sand.
They were almost washed out, but the traces were still distinct enough to show me that some large biped had recently passed that way. But the puzzling question was, what sort of biped? Every six or seven feet, as it seemed, came a distinct impression. Straight down the beach the traces went, for the distance of perhaps half a mile, where they were lost at the side of a little rocky promontory which jutted out across the beach.
I sat down and scratched my head. It seemed out of the question that the tracks could be of human agency; first because Coline and I were the only human beings on the island, and second because the tracks were too widely spaced. Stretching my legs to their utmost, I could not have kept in those depressions. And yet some two-legged creature had made them, and made them very recently.
The more I puzzled over this enigma, the more bewildered I became. I went back and re-examined the tracks, by this time mere washed-out concavities in the fine, wet sand. I found that by running I could leap into each for perhaps a dozen paces, but only as the result of an extreme effort which winded me before I had gone fifty yards. My height is a little under six feet and my legs try to make up in muscle what they lack in length, but even allowing for a good springiness of thigh it seemed to me impossible that any man could have left such widely distanced tracks.
Then what the deuce, I asked myself, could have left them?
This problem proving too much for me, I sat down in the sand to think. The more I thought the more perplexed I became. Then I began to hunger for a smoke, which might or might not have stimulated my mental faculties; probably not. I had nothing to smoke, for with all of his extreme thoughtfulness in supplying our possible needs Mr. Satterlie had entirely overlooked alcoholics and tobacco. Or, perhaps he had not overlooked them, but merely looked them over and eliminated them as undesirable concomitants—which even their devotees are bound to admit as a great truth. He had one day remarked that I smoked too much, and when I had replied that I knew it but that I was unable to break myself of the vicious habit he had replied, rather drily: “You will, one of these days.”
Having no tobacco to help me, I was naturally forced to turn my faculties toward helping themselves. They responded rather sluggishly. I stared at the sea, then at the beach, then at a certain irregular plateau of volcanic rock which reared itself back of the fringe of jungle. And then I got another object for consideration.
From the rim of this plateau there came as I stared such a bright, sparkling flash as might have been sent out from the mirror of a heliograph. Now, as I was entirely motionless when this flash appeared, it seemed reasonable to suppose that whatever caused it must have been in motion. Had it not been for this consideration I should not have given it a thought, taking it merely for the result of the sun's shining on a piece of quartz or mica or something of the sort. But had that been the cause the gleam would have been constant, since I was quite motionless. I determined to investigate.
Before I had moved, however, the flash was repeated. It gave me an eerie feeling, as I stood there, to reflect that up on that plateau was some sort of creature capable of emitting flashes and leaving tracks in the sand spaced beyond the limits of the stride of the ordinary man.
Whatever it was, I determined to stalk it.
The next instalment of “Kidnapping Coline” will appear in the November number.