Kidnapping Coline/Part 3
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 off 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 voyage out is a succession of happy days, but so languorous that Jack and Coline welcome the chance to go ashore on Secret Island for exercise. During the day Coline confesses that she has been cured of her infatuation for Von Reibnitz and consents to tell the captain. But when they return to reembark, the ship is only a snowy speck on the horizon. On the shore is dumped a complete equipment for luxurious camping, accompanied by a letter from Captain Saltonstall saying that in leaving them marooned he is only carrying out Mr. Satterlie's orders. In the absorption of making a camp home and the wholesomeness of their new life, their first dismay and anger vanish. But one day Jack realizes that their delightful solitude is threatened: he comes upon strange footprints in the sand, and catches flashes from some object inland. He at once determines to find out who, or what, is sharing their island.
Chapter XI—Two's Company (Continued)
This was no very difficult matter, as the promontory of rock ascended gradually from the sea to the little plateau. So up I went like a goat, presently to arrive at the top, where I found only the jagged volcanic rocks and no sign of any living creature. On the other side of the slight elevation was a deep gully which wound off and disappeared in the broken formations in the direction of the old crater.
Considerably disturbed, I returned to the beach, where after a prolonged search I came upon some turtle's eggs, with which I filled my sack, and returned to camp. Coline had awakened and was playing softly on the piano, and it was a curious sensation to hear the rippling notes proceeding from that thick tangle of coarse green foliage with its background of fantastic rocks.
“Any luck, Jack?” she asked, as I drew near, for I never left without scribbling a line to say where I had gone and sticking it on a thorn which we called our “post-office.”
“Yes,” I answered, “but I had a long hunt. This must be the off season for our deep-sea poultry yard. Any callers?”
Coline stopped playing and looked back at me over her shoulder. “Do you know, Jack,” said she, “once or twice recently I have had a very strange feeling.”
“Of what sort?” I asked uneasily.
“Well—” she hesitated slightly—“as if we were not alone on this island. Perhaps it is just a silly fancy, or perhaps, living such a primitive life, my deeper instincts are getting more acute and there is somebody else besides ourselves.”
“Have you any tangible reason for such an idea?” I asked, trying not to show that I was disturbed.
“None worth mentioning, I suppose,” she answered, doubtfully, “but the other day as I was walking along the beach I happened to look toward the crater and saw a sudden flash, as if the sun were shining on some bright object. I thought nothing about it at the time, but a little later I happened to look up there again and it seemed to me that I saw something move. It was a long way off and I could not be sure. But since then I have had several times an odd, uncanny feeling, as if I were being watched. Have you felt it?”
“No,” I answered. “It must be just a fancy, Coline. Who or what could there be?”
“I don't know. Some castaway, perhaps, who might have got queer from solitude and be afraid of us.”
“But how could he live?”
“He might catch fish in the lake and go down to the beach sometimes after turtles' eggs, or trap birds, or something of the sort. You know we've never yet been all the way around the island.”
This was true. We had been too busy to explore, and I judged that in actual circumference the island must be some ten or twelve miles. But I reassured Coline, saying that I thought she must be mistaken. At the same time I decided to do a little careful scouting.
The opportunity for this arrived the next day. Coline, who did the “ordering” for the table, decided that it would be well to have some more fresh fish, and as it was a pretty rough climb up to the lake I told her that I would go alone, setting out at daybreak and returning before the heat. So, taking a couple of lines and a little basket of shrimps and small crabs, I departed before she was awake, climbing up a narrow ravine through which the waters of the lake apparently overflowed during the rainy season. For about a quarter of a mile the vegetation was thick and rank, but I had cleared a rough path, and a little higher up one came out of the jungle upon bare, broken rocks. The lake itself was of irregular outline, about half a mile in length, and at our end marshy and running into heavy jungle.
The rim of the containing crater was low and greatly eroded, and on the side away from our camp seamed and fissured with numerous caverns and grottoes. It seemed to me that if we did actually have a furtive neighbor on the island he would be likely to inhabit one of these. So, with the idea of exploring them, I circled the lake, keeping down behind the higher ledges until on the opposite side. There I descended to the shore of the lake and proceeded cautiously, climbing up from time to time to look into some of these caves.
I had got about half-way around when suddenly, from directly overhead as it seemed, a peculiar sound struck on my ear. It was a low, rumbling mutter, such as might be made by a person declaiming sonorously into a rain-barrel. It rose and fell with a sort of sad, oratorical monotony which suggested the dreary, machine-made prayer of some itinerant evangelist. But so vague and muffled and rumbling was the chant-like cadence that one might almost have taken it for the distant moaning of the surf transmitted telephonically through a subterranean passage.
A moment's listening, however, convinced me that the sound was of human origin and proceeded from one of the caverns over my head. Gripping my rifle, I started to climb up the deeply fissured side of the cliff. Presently I came upon a ledge some three or four feet in diameter which rose diagonally from the smoother rocks below. The first glance showed me that it was a path which had been frequently traversed.
The rumbling sounds ceased as I clambered up on to this ledge. Then, as I stole forward toward a projecting shoulder of rock, they recommenced with greater distinctness and volume—and I stopped short in my tracks and listened with open mouth, and knees from which the power seemed suddenly withdrawn. For that hollow, amphoric bass was only too familiar to me.
Stealing silently up to the projecting mass of rock, I peered around it and discovered on the other side the wide mouth of a cavern. I could not see into the place, but as I stood all a-quiver with astonishment there issued from it in mournful and resonant tones:
“The Lord is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart; and saveth such as be of a contrite spirit.
“Many are the afflictions of the righteous: but the Lord delivereth him out of them all...”
Leaning forward, I peered into the cave. It was spacious, running off into dark recesses, with columns which looked almost as if hewn roughly by the hand of man. But that which caught and held my bewildered eyes was the figure of Captain Saltonstall, in shirt and trousers, sitting on a shelf of rock and reading sonorously from a worn Bible.
His knees were up almost to his chin (for his great height was principally in his legs, which were the longest I ever saw on any human being) and, holding the Bible in one hand, he gestured with the other, as if addressing a congregation. Sitting as he was, slightly turned away from the bright light which streamed into the entrance of the cave, he was unconscious of my presence, and I drew back and silently retraced my steps along the ledge, slipping into the first fissure which would lead me away from the place.
Then, keeping a low ridge between myself and Saltonstall's abode, I struck the trail to the camp, where in my preoccupation I narrowly escaped intruding unceremoniously on Coline's morning plunge. She had naturally not expected me back for another hour, at least, and at her startled scream and the flash of white through the glistening green I leaped back in great confusion and plunged into the bush.
“Coline,” I called, from a discreet distance, “it is I.... Jack.”
“What is the matter?” she answered, rather shortly.
“Who do you think is on this island?”
“Who?”
“Saltonstall!”
There was an instant's silence, then, in a startled, anxious voice: “Saltonstall! Are you crazy, Jack?”
“Never saner in my life. Put on your things and I'll tell you about it.”
You may be sure she was not long in doing this, and she appeared a minute later in peignoir and sandals, fresh and sweet as a flower and starry-eyed with excitement.
“What do you mean, Jack?” she cried. “Captain Saltonstall?”
In a few words I told her of my discovery, and when I had finished we stood for a moment or two locking at each other thoughtfully. Our minds were occupied with the same reflection, I think. Here seemed to be the end of our idyllic solitude; of that which had come to be for me (and, as Coline has since admitted, for her) a “paradis à deux.” For if at first I had resented Saltonstall's leaving Coline marooned upon the island with no other protector than myself, I now resented even more bitterly his presence on the domain which I had come to regard as exclusively Coline's and mine. This was selfish and inconsistent, I know, but I could not help it.
This knowledge of the propinquity of a third person seemed to defraud us of that delicious glamour which was the one great compensating feature of our captivity. Just to have Coline and the island with its canopy of blue and the encircling sea—and now to discover that we were not alone. All of the sparkle seemed suddenly withdrawn from the intoxicating elixir which had come to infuse our lives.
Looking at Coline's lovely, troubled face I could see that she also was conscious of this disillusionment.
Illustration: “DO YOU KNOW, JACK,” SAID SHE, “ONCE OR TWICE RECENTLY I HAVE HAD A VERY STRANGE FEELING—AS IF WE WERE NOT ALONE ON THIS ISLAND.”
“It makes it all seem rather tame, doesn't it, Jack?” said she slowly. “It has been nice to think of just ourselves—” she paused, then went on in a different tone—“I see it all, Jack. It was probably arranged from the start that Saltonstall should remain with us on the island. Dad must have realized that in the case of any accident happening to you I should have gone mad from loneliness—and probably died. But old Anthony hadn't the courage to face us after what he'd done—or else they intended we should think of ourselves as entirely alone here together. The canary-cage again, Jack.” She looked at me with a hard little laugh, and it seemed to me that I could feel her slipping through my fingers; drifting away from me, just when I was beginning to think that I held her close. The day before, Coline would not have made that remark about the “canary-cage.” The subtle consciousness that our lives were slowly but steadily converging to a point where they might merge would have made such an expression seem immodest and profane.
Now, in the knowledge that we were chaperoned, as one might say, by this old troglodyte across the lake, that romance which had brought us both, no doubt, much secret rapture seemed to have lost its divine fire. Not only this, but my own value as protector had to be shared with another. And more than all, there was an extreme obligation to face—and as Coline's eyes met mine each knew what was in the mind of the other and what action the other would take. So much in accord had our sympathies become that each read the other's thought and we both smiled; Coline sadly, I bitterly and with a sigh.
“Of course, Jack,” murmured Coline, “we can't let the poor old chap go on living up there alone in that wretched cave.”
“Of course not,” I muttered, kicking at a shell.
“I should think that he would have gone insane.”
“Maybe he has,” I answered. “He was reading the Psalms of David in the voice of a bull-buffalo. Otherwise I'd never have found the place.”
“You must get him and bring him down here, Jack,” said Coline, decidedly. “For all we know he may be only half-supplied with the necessities of life. That third tent was probably meant for him. There really couldn't have been time enough to carry many supplies to the other side of the lake. Perhaps he is actually in need.”
“I'll go now,” I answered.
Coline gave me one of her swift, warm looks. “You're a dear, Jack”—she would not have said that either, the day before—“but you'd better have some breakfast first.”
“Very well,” I answered. “Since the old fellow has been up there for a couple of months, I guess we can let him wait another couple of hours.”
I am sure I don't know why everybody always prefixed “old” when speaking of Saltonstall, for the captain could not have been much over fifty. Perhaps it was due to his old-fashioned courtliness of manner and a certain fatherly benignity. Then also, it is a sea-going custom to speak of a ship's master as “the old man.” Certainly, though, Saltonstall, when arrayed in his fine shore-going clothes and strolling the principal avenue of some port, considered himself quite a dashing young buck.
So I left Coline shining in the warm, vibrating early morning sun like some lovely lotus-flower from the petals of which the dew has not yet dried, and went back to the camp, where I started a fire in the stove and made the coffee and an omelet of turtle's eggs garnished with thin, crisp slices of bacon, all of which with toasted ship's biscuit constitutes a little breakfast that no magnate need despise. This morning, however, I must say that it lacked savor for me, in spite of my early excursion.
Coline, also, appeared quiet and thoughtful and without her customary appetite. Hearing me sigh like a wind-broken porpoise, she looked at me and laughed. I would have liked it much better if she had looked at me and cried. There are a lot of different ways to laugh; and while Coline's mirth was always genuine and spontaneous, just now it held quite a different note from the low, gurgling tone which goes with the warm, melting look of tender amusement sometimes seen in the eyes of a woman who is laughing and loving at the same time. She laughed now as she had laughed in San Francisco when we had so candidly discussed our proposed voyage.
“Don't look so cut up, Jack,” said she. “Think of poor old Anthony perched up there in his hole in the rocks reading psalms aloud to keep from going off his head. It's downright pathetic.”
“That's what makes me so sad,” I answered.
“But why? You ought to be glad that if you happened to fall off a cliff and break your neck there would be somebody to take care of me.”
“I never had any intention of falling off a cliff and breaking my neck,” I answered, “and I'm not very keen about having anybody else take care of you. It seems to me that I've managed that part of it as well as it could be done. Just look at the garden: potatoes a foot high and no potato-bugs, and peas and beans and corn and Jerusalem artichokes that you can swing your hammock from in another month. And I don't take any chances, either,” I went on, rather hotly. “I love to swim, but when I take my dip in the morning I never go out above my waist for fear of”
“Ornythryncodiplodoccus?”
“—some possible accident which might leave you to rip the shoots out of the garden yourself,” I answered sulkily. “And while I've been taking care of myself as though I were the last hope and salvation of a royal race, old Saltonstall has been sitting in his cave reading psalms and prowling along the cliffs looking us over through his marine glasses to see that we were all sound and sane. It makes me tired, Coline. When I see your father again I'm going to tell him exactly what I think about it all.”
Coline nodded. “I'm going to insult him, too,” she answered. “To tell the truth, Jack, I'm rather disappointed in Dad. He has fallen below my former opinion of him. There would have been something rather big and Spartan and heroic in a man's kidnapping his dearly beloved daughter and leaving her with a trusted friend on a desolate island, rather than see her marry against his will. But to leave an old he nurse, as you say, tucked up in the rocks and watching over us through a spy-glass—the flash we saw must have come from that—takes away all the romance. I am very cross with Dad.”
“When your father stuck you off here,” said I, “he was thinking less of heroics than of getting you away from Von Reibnitz. In the Middle Ages he would have shut you up in a castle or buried you off in the forest with the faithful gamekeeper. Having no castle, he sent you here with two devoted henchmen to look after you. I thought it pretty awful that he should have left you here with me alone.”
“Then why not have let us all remain together instead of making poor old Anthony haul off to a cave like a yogi or lama? No, Jack, it was the canary-bird idea.”
“Don't, Coline,” I protested. “As a matter of fact I'll bet you what you like that his going off by himself was Saltonstall's own idea. Either he was ashamed to face us after serving us as he had, or else he had imagination enough to appreciate how much more romantic the situation would be for us without a third person. He's got a lot of delicacy, old Saltonstall, and he didn't want to wedge in. As for his watching us through his glasses, that was merely to satisfy himself that we were in good shape. Besides, it must have been pretty lonely for him. But your father never had any of what you call the 'canary-bird cage' idea. He never wanted to force me on you, and he jolly well knew that I would never force myself. He knew perfectly well that I would never have taken advantage of your being alone with me to make love to you.”
“I wonder what would have happened if you had,” said Coline, pensively.
My heart sank, for here was the former Coline back again: the San Francisco Coline, cool, impersonal, and detached. Only yesterday she had been Coline of the Secret Isle; a Galatea ready to quicken in the atmosphere of love which continually surrounded her. I sighed again and rose.
“I'm off to hunt up Saltonstall,” I said. “I suppose the poor old chap will be terribly upset at being found out. But we really can't let him go on living like a cave-dweller.”
“Of course not,” said Coline, absently.
So off I started for the lake and made my way to the foot of the cliff, not mounting by the ledge, as I did not wish to startle the captain. No sound came from above, so I moved back far enough to see the rim of the ledge, then lifted my voice in a hail.
“Captain Saltonstall!” I shouted. “Oh, Captain Saltonstall!”
CHAPTER XII
From Fop to Hermit, and Return
There was no answer to my summons, so presently I called again: “Come on out, Captain, unless you want me to come up.”
This fetched him, and the next moment I saw his long, dejected face and enormous, drooping mustache pushed out over the rim of the ledge as he stared down at me, shaking his head from side to side.
“Ha, Jack,” said he in his rumbling bass, “I was afraid that you would find me out. Ha—come up, my dear fellow—that is, hem, if you feel that you care to resume our friendly relations after all that has happened.”
“Of course I do,” I answered, struck with a sudden pity for the poor old chap. So I ran around to the beginning of the ledge and mounted quickly to the little shelf in front of the cavern, where Saltonstall, still in his shirt and trousers, came forward to meet me. My first glance showed me that he had changed in some subtle way.
The former jauntiness of his general expression had given place to a peculiar air, not precisely of melancholy but of deep, pervading calm. There was an odd, distant look in the large, luminous eyes, which seemed less prominent than formerly, and the deep lines of his long face appeared to be in the process of becoming erased. The big mustache and the curly hair about his temples had whitened visibly.
I gave him my hand, which he took in his big, bony one and squeezed warmly before letting it fall.
“And how is Miss Satterlie?” were his first words.
“Splendid,” I answered, “and sends you her love, Captain.”
A glow spread over his face, and his eyes, which appeared to have receded farther under their bushy brows, grew moist. “God bless her. It is very lovable and Christian of you both, Jack, to bear no malice for what has occurred. When did you discover that I was here?”
“This morning,” I answered; “but I had my suspicions yesterday when I went around the beach hunting turtle's eggs and found your tracks in the sand. Then I caught the flash of the sun on the front lens of your glass. Coline had seen it, too. You ought to remember to pull out the sun sleeve, Captain, when spying from cover.”
He made a gesture of protest. “Don't say 'spying,' Jack, my dear boy. That is such a disagreeable word—though no doubt I deserve it. But I never meant to spy upon you, Jack—you understand—in a meddlesome sense. I wished merely to assure myself that all was well with you both. But come inside. The sun is getting hot.”
He ushered me into the cave with as much courtliness as if we had been entering a palace. It was not a bad place, and the view from the shelf of rock was superb: first the lake, which shone like burnished silver, then the green fringe of jungle, and beyond, the topaz sea. Nor was it bad inside, being cool and spacious, with little shelves and niches of which the captain had availed himself with all of a sailor's ingenuity. A canvas hammock of the sort used in the sick-bay of a man-of-war made him a comfortable bed, and neatly stowed were sundry sacks and small boxes containing his supplies. A little kerosene stove and a few cooking utensils were disposed on a small shelf.
Saltonstall up-ended a couple of packing-boxes and we seated ourselves. I observed that he was freshly shaved and his shirt and trousers were spotlessly clean, the latter even freshly creased.
“And how have you been getting on, my dear Jack?” he asked. “And have you been very much bored at this captivity?” He looked me over, approvingly. “I must say, Jack, that you are looking uncommonly fit. And Miss Satterlie?”
“She is in perfect health,” I answered, “and up to this time appears to have been in excellent spirits. But I wouldn't answer for her contentment if she were to be cooped up on this island for another couple of months. The worst of it is, Captain, it was all quite unnecessary—” and I proceed to tell him of Coline's decision in regard to Von Reibnitz. Rather to my surprise, this information did not appear to move him greatly.
“That is extremely good news and I am delighted to hear it, Jack,” said he. “But you must know that Mr. Satterlie's idea in confining his daughter on this island was not entirely the breaking off of her infatuation for Von Reibnitz. That was—ha—in the nature of a foregone conclusion. No such refined and charming young lady as Miss Satterlie could for very long continue to be attracted by such a scoundrel as Von Reibnitz.”
I stared at him in amazement. Satterlie had certainly given me to understand that this was the one essential object of our voyage.
Saltonstall appeared to be very much embarrassed. He tugged at his flowing mustache, and the color deepened in a face which had grown somewhat ascetic.
“Then what the dickens was his idea?” I demanded.
Saltonstall avoided my eye. “Can't you guess, Jack?” he asked, in some confusion.
“Do you mean to intimate,” I asked, “that he cooped us up here together in the hope that she might fall in love with me?”
Saltonstall threw out his hands entreatingly. “Come, come, my dear fellow,” he said, soothingly, for I had jumped up, capsizing the packing-box, and begun to pace up and down the narrow confines of the cave. I was angrier, even, than when I had discovered that we were marooned. So Coline was right. It was the “canary-bird cage” after all.
I turned savagely on Saltonstall. “Let me tell you, Captain,” I exclaimed, “that Satterlie will have to account to me for this. When I see him again I'll spit in his face. I'll pull his nose. If he were a younger man I’d beat his head in. Perhaps I may, even as it is—and let me tell you, his daughter would thank me for it, too.”
“Jack, my dear Jack,” cried Saltonstall, “calm yourself. Don't talk like that. Consider the feelings of a parent, and the high honor which he has done you.”
“High honor, hell!”
“No, Jack—I implore you” He spread out his big hands. “What father who loves his daughter as Mr. Satterlie does Coline would have left her on a desert island with a single protector”
“But he didn't leave her with a single protector,” I retorted. “If he had done that, it would be different. But he knew that you would be here to”
“No, Jack,” Saltonstall interrupted, “Mr. Satterlie knew nothing of the sort. He intended that you and Coline should be quite alone; that you should be her sole bulwark of defense”
Illustration: “COME ON OUT, CAPTAIN, UNLESS YOU WANT ME TO COME UP.”
“What are you talking about, Captain?” I demanded, angrily. “Here you've been roosting up in the rocks all the time, watching over us like a presiding genie”
“Jack, I beg of you. I've been doing nothing of the sort. And even if I have, you must not blame Mr. Satterlie for it. My being here is quite outside of all instructions—something done entirely on my own initiative, for which Mr. Satterlie is in no way to be blamed. Be as severe as you wish with me, Jack, but don't blame Mr. Satterlie. No doubt I was quite in the wrong. My orders were to leave you two here with carefully selected supplies and to return for you at the end of three months. Mr. Satterlie quite convinced me of the wisdom of this course—consider, my dear fellow, in what high esteem he holds you—and I finally agreed to carry out his instructions. But at the eleventh hour I weakened, Jack—” he shook his head dolefully. “I could not help but think: 'What if some accident were to happen to Jack? What if he were to be taken with cramp while swimming in the lagoon, or to fall from a cliff, or something of the sort, and Coline were to be left without a protector?' No, I couldn't do it, my dear fellow. So I had the hands pack up such necessities as I thought might be sufficient for my small needs during a lapse of some three months, and established myself in this cave.”
I up-ended the box and sat down again. Saltonstall excused himself and put on a white flannel coat. Then he came back and looked at me with a sort of appeal in his big eyes, which under excitement had begun to bulge again. Neither of us spoke for some moments. Then I said, rather awkwardly:
“I beg your pardon, Captain Saltonstall. I didn't quite understand.”
“Don't speak of it, my dear Jack. I acted only as my instincts prompted me. But I hope that you cherish no resentment against Mr. Satterlie”
“It must have been pretty lonely for you here,” said I.
Saltonstall shrugged his big, bony shoulders. “For the first few days it was rather trying,” he replied, “but I soon grew accustomed to my seclusion. Let me tell you, Jack—and I know that you will understand—it has brought me nearer God. I have always thought that some day when I retired from the sea I might find some secluded nook in which to devote myself to religious exercises and a personal interpretation of the Scriptures, from the seafarer's point of view. These last two months have given me an excellent opportunity for meditation. They have shown me wherein I have been remiss to God and my fellow-man in many ways. Whistler, in spite of his many hidebound errors of a restricted orthodoxy, is right in many respects. I am now inclined to believe that his denunciation of what he calls 'sinful pride' is quite correct. I realize that I have erred deeply in this regard; my love of personal adornment—you understand—and ogling women on the streets; not, of course, with any evil intention, but merely for the gratification”
“Put on your clothes,” I interrupted, “and come down to pay your respects to Coline. She's expecting you for luncheon, and if we don't show up pretty soon she'll be getting nervous. Put on the nicest things you've got, because she always thinks of you as the best-dressed man of her acquaintance”
“My dear Jack!”
“She does, though,” I answered, stubbornly. “We were talking about you the other day and she said: 'I'll bet you what you like, Jack, that if you were to run on Captain Saltonstall shipwrecked on some desert island you'd find him costumed as if he were going to a lawn-party.'”
“Oh, come, Jack, my dear fellow!”
“Her very words. Now get to work and live up to them.”
“But Jack,” he protested, “she really didn't say that. You're drawing on your imagination.”
“She certainly did,” I answered, emphatically. As a matter of fact, Coline had said something to that effect, one day, and if I laid it on a bit strong I did it honestly enough. The Whistlerian method is right enough in its way; but if I were to become a maker of maxims, the first should be: “Honesty should always be tempered by politeness.”
Saltonstall's face glowed, losing much of its asceticism. It did me good to see it. “Ha—Jack,” said he, with a suggestion of his former heartiness, “that is indeed a compliment. But there—” his face lengthened again—“I have forsworn such vanities. 'Sinful pride,' Whistler calls the vain adornment of the body, and he is right. To tell the truth, my dear Jack, too much of my time has been spent upon the consideration of my person and not enough upon the consideration of my soul.”
“I do not believe it, Captain,” I answered, positively, “if you will pardon me for saying so. In dressing well you are following a natural instinct of evolution. The higher the form of life the more pleasing its outward appearance to the eye. Compare, for instance, a slimy crocodile or a barnacle-covered sea-turtle with the satiny skin and glorious hair of a beautiful woman. But as we can't very well go around in our skin and hair, we turn naturally to handsome fabrics. After all, our bodies are the earthly habitations of our souls and should therefore be made worthy of them, outwardly as well as inwardly.”
He drew his long mustache through his fingers and stared at me with a brightened face.
“I catch your meaning, Jack,” said he, rather weakly. “No doubt you are right, to some extent. But the holy prophets and martyrs were often dirty and unkempt.”
“Well, conditions have changed,” I answered. “Nowadays that would seem to indicate lack of respect for the soul—to house it in such a dingy tabernacle. To-day, we find the most righteous of men extremely careful about their persons; and certainly a sincere cleric who is well-dressed and neat influences more people to his professed religion than he would if he were dirty and untidy.”
Saltonstall beamed at me, and his lustrous eyes began to come out of their caves. He slapped his lean thigh. “By Jove, my dear fellow,” he exclaimed, “I wish that Whistler could hear you say that. I have often felt the same thing, but lacked your clear, comprehensive ability for expressing it. Ha—” His face began to glow with its ancient eagerness and he strode to a recess of the cavern, from which he hauled a canvas sack. He began to tug at the cords which fastened the mouth of the bag. “Since Miss Satterlie has paid this tribute to my good taste, I can scarcely do other wise than live up to it—can I, Jack?”
He loosed the cord and began to haul out garment after garment, whites and striped drills and similar tropical costumes, all of which had been neatly pressed, then rolled smooth and stopped with ends of tape. “Let me see, Jack—what shall I put on? Here is a natty white serge which I had made in San Francisco.” He twitched out the bow-knots of the tapes and let the clothes unroll, then held them off and regarded them in consternation.
“Dear me, but I am afraid that they are sadly creased—hem—ha—but that can soon be remedied. I have a little apparatus here—” He hurried to a small “ditty-box,” as sailors call these little kits, and produced therefrom a patent flat-iron of the sort which is heated from within by methylated spirits. “Come, my dear Jack—if you will excuse me for a few minutes, I will try to make myself comme il faut.”
Never had I seen such a wondrous change in a man. The hermit had suddenly become a fop. One would never have recognized the happy, glowing face as that sad, reposeful one which had been turned to me on my arrival and which suggested a soul far removed from earthly vanities.
“Coline asked me to bring back some fresh fish,” I observed, “so while you are dressing I might go down to the lake and try my luck. I left my bait-can down there in a pool in the rocks.”
“All right, Jack—if you will be good enough to excuse me for about an hour. And I say, Jack—” he hesitated, a little awkwardly—“would it be asking too much of your friendship to run the scissors along my hair in the back? Of course, you understand, my dear fellow, I should not think of making such a request under ordinary circumstances”
“Nonsense,” said I, stifling a grin, “where are your scissors? I have always felt that a great tonsorial artist has been lost in me.”
He dived again into the ditty-box and produced the scissors. I seated him on the end of a case with his back to the light and proceeded to trim his black, curling hair with great elegance. One would have thought that I had saved his life by a skilful operation, so profuse were his acknowledgments. Then, leaving him to complete his toilet, I made my way down to the lake and was soon hauling in a mess of fine, silvery fish which resembled whiting.
I was putting away my line when Saltonstall hailed me and I went back up to the cave, where I beheld a marvelous transformation. Saltonstall was fully costumed in a handsome suit of carefully pressed white serge, with a mauve-colored madras shirt, a turned-down collar with a dark purple neck tie, purple socks, and white buckskin shoes. Set jauntily on his lustrous, curling hair was a Panama hat of the finest fiber, and he wore a narrow belt of pearl-colored suède. A bamboo stick with a silver band completed a costume which would have attracted admiring attention at the Newport Casino. His big, fierce mustache had changed its angle of declination and soared up on a line with his ears.
“How is that, Jack?” he asked, anxiously. “Not overdone, I trust. But I really can't disappoint Miss Satterlie, considering her flattering tribute to my personal taste.”
“If Whistler were to see you now,” I answered, “he would be tongue-tied on the matter of sinful pride. You make me quite homesick, Captain. I shall have to rig out a little myself.”
He glanced at me critically. “You are all right enough for the camp, Jack,” said he, “but since we are to lunch with Miss Satterlie, it would do no harm if you were to freshen up a bit. Otherwise I should feel rather overdressed.”
“I'll do it,” I began, when, happening to glance at Saltonstall, I saw that his eyes were looking past me, with so fiercely intent a gaze that I swung about to examine its object.
“God bless my soul!” cried Saltonstall, reaching for his marine glasses, which hung by a strap from a spike of rock. “A sail”
I sprang to my feet and stared out to sea. Sure enough, there on the sharp horizon was a tiny speck of snowy white. Saltonstall fastened it with his glasses.
“A schooner,” he muttered. “Now what is the meaning of that? Whistler is not due for several weeks!”
He handed me the binoculars with a hand that trembled slightly. Focusing on the sail, I saw that it was, as he said, a schooner, beating up close-hauled toward the island. But far off as the vessel was, I did not think that it was the Sabbath Day. For one thing, the sails looked too snowy white, and for another, there was something in the expression of the rig which was not the same. Saltonstall voiced my thought.
“That is not the Sabbath Day, Jack,” said he. “Then what can she be?”
“She seems to be working for the island,” I answered.
“There is no doubt of that.” He took the glasses and examined her again, then handed them to me with a shake of his head.
The breeze was fresh and the schooner came up at a good clip. Saltonstall and I watched her in tense silence, passing the glasses from hand to hand.
“Whoever it is seems to know the passage,” said he, presently. “He's making dead for the entrance. But he could hardly get in with this breeze—unless his vessel will point almost into the wind's eye. There's no room to tack ship between the reefs—for the average schooner, that is. A modern yacht might do it, if smartly handled.”
“The more I study that fellow,” I answered, “the more I am convinced that it is a yacht.”
“The same idea was in my own mind, Jack,” answered Saltonstall. “But why should anybody come here in a yacht?”
“There is one person who might do so,” I answered.
Saltonstall's bushy eyebrows lifted. “You mean Mr. Satterlie?”
“None other,” I replied. “But the funny part of it, Captain, is that unless I am very much mistaken this vessel beating up to the island is the Sayonara.”
“Jack, my dear Jack, your Sayonara?” His jaw dropped.
“Did you ever see her under sail?” I asked.
“No; but I thought that you had laid her up?”
“I was going to lay her up, but at the last moment I decided to offer her for charter. It seemed to me that she might as well be working for her keep. Now it is by no means impossible that Mr. Satterlie has taken her, then sent her to Tahiti, joined her there, coming on a liner, and is making a run over here to see how we were getting on.” I handed him the glasses. “Take a look at her, Captain. Notice the angular heel in this little breeze. Trading schooners stand up straighter than that. The Sayonara likes to sail on her ear. That was always my chief objection to her. She's stiff enough once she gets her lee scuppers under, but she was built to sail on her side.”
Saltonstall glued his eyes to the lenses.
“By Jove, Jack!” he exclaimed. “I believe you're right, my dear fellow. That is certainly a yacht. Traders carry more head-sails. Well, well, it must be that Mr. Satterlie has chartered the boat, as you say, and run down to look us over. Come, Jack, we must go down at once to acquaint Miss Satterlie with the good news. The chances are that she has not yet sighted the schooner, as we are much higher here. Come, Jack.”
“All right,” I answered, “let's go.”
CHAPTER XIII
Who Leased the Sayonara?
Down we went over the rocks and through the scrub, Saltonstall mincing along like a dancing-master for fear of wiping the pipe-clay off his buckskin shoes on a rough stone or sticking a thorn through his immaculate serge. But I had no desire to laugh at the dear old chap. I could not help but reflect on his unselfish loyalty in having voluntarily exiled himself to live in a cave and chant the psalms and play the rôle of Aldebaran, lest some possible harm befall Coline. Not that Aldebaran chanted many psalms, as I gather; but the protective idea was there. I had gone up prepared to curse him and I came down wanting to hug him.
But these reflections were somewhat marred by the idea that within two or three hours I should be saying certain things to Mr. Satterlie calculated to terminate the friendship of a lifetime.
Saltonstall became very nervous as we approached the camp. Twice he dropped his stick and once he stumbled and would have fallen, to the great detriment of his immaculate costume, if I had not flung out an arm to catch him.
Illustration: “A SCHOONER,” HE MUTTERED. “NOW WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THAT?”
“I say, Jack,” he stammered, “how do you think—ha—that Miss Satterlie will receive me?” His eyes bulged at me with all of their old appeal.
“Rather coldly, I'm afraid,” I answered. “You see, Captain, what she might be able to forgive in her father you could scarcely expect her to pardon in an outside person.”
He shrank into his clothes. “She is quite right,” he mumbled miserably. “And yet, Jack, I do not see how I could have acted otherwise. Do you?”
I stopped short in my tracks. Saltonstall stopped also. At any other time the appeal in his eyes might have aroused my compassion. But I was sore, clean through, and being sore I may have been a bit cruel.
“No,” I answered, slowly, “no doubt you acted according to your convictions, as Whistler would say. But I can tell you this: Coline was almost mine until this morning, when we discovered that you were here on the island. Then she reverted suddenly to her San Francisco state of mind.”
He blushed like an old maid listening to a love story. “Jack—my dear Jack”
“Oh, come on,” I answered. “Let's toddle along and play out the last act of the opera—bouffe. After all, I'm the only one to get singed—and I never traded much on my charms, anyhow. All that I ask now is to talk to Satterlie for about ten minutes”
We plowed on in silence, Saltonstall following me like a dog being led to his bath. As we passed the spring, busy as ever boiling up diminutive volcanoes of sand, I remarked:
“The British Admiralty used to put goats on these islands. So far, I haven't been able to discover a single blood relation”
“Jack—I beseech you”
“There's my garden,” I snapped. “Potatoes almost ready to bloom—and Satterlie swimming in here on my schooner.... There's Coline.”
There indeed was Coline. She came running down the beach to meet us, cheeks aglow, eyes bright, and her sunny hair tumbling about her ears. Without waiting for Saltonstall to make his formal bow, she grabbed him by the arm, then gave him a sort of hug. He captured her hand and raised it to his lips, and as I looked into his face I saw that his eyes were full of tears. It must be remembered that he had been for two months entirely alone.
“You're forgiven, Captain,” said Coline, for the good old chap appeared to have lost his tongue. “You've seen the schooner coming in? Is it the Sabbath Day?”
“We think it's the Sayonara with your father aboard,” said I, wishing to give Saltonstall a little time to pull himself together.
“The Sayonara!... Daddy!...” Coline shrieked. “Really, Jack? Oh, what fun! Listen, Jack; let's put on our best clothes and receive him very formally and tell him that we like the island and have decided to remain on indefinitely...” She skipped around like a small child. “Are you sure that it's Dad?”
I reached for Saltonstall's glasses, which he had slung over his shoulder, and which, with his immaculate costume, gave him rather the air of a wealthy British tourist going to the races at Trouville than that of a sea-captain marooned on Secret Island, recently dwelling in a cave and writing an interpretation of the Scriptures.
Focusing carefully on the schooner, which was beating up to the island with a light head-wind, I saw at once that there could be absolutely no doubt. It was my yacht, right enough, marching up to the entrance with as much assurance as if she had always lived in the place. Saltonstall himself, who when in the revenue service had made the first really accurate charts of the outlying reefs, had approached with great caution and under shortened sail. But my little schooner came waltzing in like an American girl invited to lead a court cotillion under the august eyes of titled dowagers.
Saltonstall was watching the schooner narrowly and, as it seemed to me, with a rather puzzled expression. Catching my eye upon him, he shook his head.
“Mr. Satterlie is either imprudent, Jack,” said he, “or else he has got a sailing master that knows this island better than I. He is standing straight in for the entrance under full sail, as you see, and once inside he will have to haul sharply on the wind and point up very closely to weather the end of the inner reef. I should not care to try it with the Sabbath Day.”
“The Sayonara will point right into the wind's eye, Captain,” I answered.
“Risky, my dear fellow—risky,” he muttered. “It is not like Mr. Satterlie to take unnecessary chances....”
Coline interrupted him. “Come on, Jack,” said she, “let's rig out in our best, then not go down to meet him. We can be playing dummy bridge or something when he arrives, and we will look up coolly from our game and say: “Oh, good morning. When did you arrive? Do stop for luncheon....”
Her voice died away as she glanced at my face. When I had told Saltonstall that I intended to give Satterlie a bad quarter of an hour it was no idle threat. I had been angry then, but I was even angrier now. Satterlie, as I saw it, had not only exposed his daughter to hardship and danger (for she might have been taken ill or met with some accident), but he had made fools of us both with his silly “canary-cage” idea. And the worst of it was that now he had apparently weakened in his resolution and was coming in person to see how we fared and to raise the siege.
I thought of how we had toiled at clearing the brush and turning the soil and planting our garden under the impression that we were destined for an exile of many months, and now here he was coming to spoil everything, making the whole mad adventure futile and unnecessary. He had gone too far—and not far enough. I meant to have it out with Satterlie within the next three hours, and I was inclined to doubt that we should be on speaking terms thereafter.
Coline may have seen something of this in my face, for as our eyes met the joyousness in her own was effaced like the sunshine on the beach under the shadow of a drifting cloud.
“Jack,” she cried, “what makes you look that way? Aren't you glad that Daddy's coming to”
“Open the door of the cage?” I answered bitterly. “Oh, yes, I suppose so. I wasn't thinking of that.”
“What then?”
“That I'm going to make him sorry he ever shut it,” I answered.”
“Oh, come, Jack, my dear fellow,” began Saltonstall, propitiatingly. But an angry flush came suddenly on Coline's cheeks and her eyes sparkled.
“Indeed!” said she. “Then you think that it has been such a terrible hardship to have been shut up here with me for these last two months?”
“I didn't realize it until this morning,” I answered, “but I do now. And I realize the indignity of it, too. Your father has not played fair. He told me that we were off for a long voyage and that he had given Captain Saltonstall orders to stop at about fifty different islands”
“But so he did, Jack,” Saltonstall protested.
“—After leaving us here, perhaps,” I growled. “Mere equivocation. That's worse than downright lying.”
“I won't have you talk so of Dad!” cried Coline.
“All right,” I answered, “then I won't. I'd much rather talk to him—and that's precisely what I intend to do.”
Coline turned her shoulder to me. Of what might have been passing in her mind I had no idea. But Saltonstall was much distressed.
“Oh, I say, Jack,” he remonstrated, “don't let us have any recriminations. Remember that Mr. Satterlie was acting for what he thought to be—ha—your best interests as well as those of—hem—Miss Coline”
“Then what does he want to come butting in for at this early stage of the game,” I interrupted, “if he really did have the canary-cage idea in mind.”
“Jack!—Jack!” Saltonstall's voice was stern. “I fear that you forget yourself.”
I stared at him, surprised, for all trace of his usual apologetic manner had disappeared, and there was an expression such as I had never seen on his big, benevolent face. It did not seem to me that I had said anything coarse. Besides, it was Coline who had started the “canary-bird” business.
She was standing now with her back squarely turned to me, and as I stared at her a sort of ripple seemed to run through her light, graceful figure. Saltonstall observed it, glanced at me, and shook his head warningly.
Hot, angry, and a little puzzled, I turned away from the pair of them and watched the schooner, which was now nearly at the entrance. She came tripping along as demurely as a girl going to market, ignoring the ugly menace of the reefs as the same young lady might disregard the mutters from a parcel of thugs in front of a pot-house. Then in she glided, and we could see the hands running aft to flatten down the mainsheet as she swung gracefully to look the breeze directly in the eye. Deep-drafted, fine of bows, and as sweetly delicate of line as Coline's own self, her way alone carried her half of the required distance; and one could see that she was smartly handled, as before this “shoot” was lost the tremulous flutter in the hoist of the mainsail was erased and, forging slowly ahead at a graceful heel, she weathered by a safe margin the farthest outpost where the white-uniformed sentries flung high their snowy dolmans in salute. Then, with headsails drawing and mainsheet slacked away, she paid off to swing gracefully in toward the lagoon.
Coline had possessed herself of Saltonstall's glasses and was eagerly searching the decks of the yacht. I had not spoken to either of them since Saltonstall's rebuke and, standing a little aloof, I watched the smart evolutions aboard my schooner in gloomy silence. As she drew in on the land, down came foresail and forestaysail, while a couple of hands stood by to let go the anchor. I had about decided to go back to the camp, there to wait until Coline had greeted her father before intruding my ungrateful presence, when she turned to me, rather pale of face and with a curious gleam in her eyes.
“You can save your pique for a later date, Jack,” said she quietly. “Father is not aboard the Sayonara.”
“How do you know?” I asked.
She gave me a malicious little smile. “Because,” she answered, “it was not father who chartered her.”
“Then who was it?”
“Count Konrad Von Reibnitz,” answered Coline, and, turning on her heel, walked slowly back up the beach.
CHAPTER XIV
A Gentlemanly Scoundrel
Saltonstall and I stared at each other, then at the yacht, now almost at the entrance to the lagoon. Down went the helm as we were watching her, and as she presented her broadside in rounding up we observed a white-clad figure standing beside the wheel examining us through a pair of binoculars.
Saltonstall stooped over, picked up his glasses, and wiped the lenses carefully with his cambric handkerchief, then looked at me with a bewildered face.
“What does it mean, Jack?” he asked “How could Von Reibnitz possibly discover that she was here?”
“Did Whistler know what island you and Satterlie selected for our prison?” I asked harshly.
“No,” he answered, “but your suspicions are unworthy of you, my dear Jack. Mr. Whistler would never have betrayed us. Lacking as he may be in some of the finer sensibilities, he is nevertheless a man of honor. The only person who knew our actual destination was Mr. Satterlie himself.”
“But Whistler knew that the plan was to leave us on some out-of-the-way island, did he not?” I snapped.
“Yes,” Saltonstall admitted, “but he would never”
“He has, though,” I interrupted, and told him of how I had met the mate coming out of Craven's office. “The old shark had him shadowed,” I concluded bitterly, “and, finding that he belonged to the Sabbath Day, had no difficulty in forming his conclusions. He then got in touch with Von Reibnitz and sold him the information. Von Reibnitz studied his chart, and by a lucky guess hit on Secret Island as the place where Satterlie had very likely hidden his daughter. He then chartered the Sayonara—and here he is. Very likely he has already visited several islands which might have served the purpose. I seem to see trouble ahead.”
Saltonstall's face underwent a curious change as I talked. The faces of many people often suggest those of certain of the lower animals: pigs, goats, monkeys, sheep, and others. Saltonstall had often reminded me of a horse—a fine old Hambletonian sire. But now, as I watched, the expression of the staid family equine gave way to that of the war-horse who hears from afar the roll of drums. His nostrils seemed to dilate, his upper lip was raised, and I caught the gleam of his strong yellow teeth, while the luminous, bulging eyes were filled with fire. What a marvelous change was here from the old beau and the hermit declaiming the Psalms of David in his cave! The man looked dangerous, and was.
“Ha—” said he, and his usually hollow bass held a harsh and ominous note, “I shall have something to say to Mr. Whistler when we meet again. You should have told me of this before, Jack.”
“Whistler begged me not to,” I answered, “but I should have done so all the same if I had known your real plans. Satterlie gave me to understand that we were to sail about on the schooner. He lied to me, damn him!”
The Sayonara had shot into the wind and presently lost her way, when the jib came scraping down and the anchor splashed over the bow. Scarcely had it gone when a gig took the water, four hands dropped into it, and after them the man in white clothes. A moment later and the boat was pulling in toward the beach with lusty strokes. Saltonstall and I watched it in silence, he tugging at his big mustache, with a scowl.
“Do you think that he would dare try to take her by force?” he asked.
“From all accounts he's quite capable of it,” I answered. “If he does there will be some dead men scattered along this beach.”
“Quite so, Jack—quite so. Ha—he shall never take her while we are alive, my boy.”
“What if she chooses to go with him?” I demanded. “She's quite capable of that.”
“Oh, no. Jack—she would never do that! She told you that she had decided not to marry him.”
“She might have decided not to marry him,” I answered, “and yet want to take advantage of the opportunity to leave the island, if only to get back at her father. She's sick of the whole business, and she's angry with me.”
“But surely she would not put us in such a position,” Saltonstall protested. “She knows that we would never permit the step, and as she is now her own mistress such a decision on her part would put us utterly in the wrong. If it came to a fight, Von Reibnitz would be justified in his act.”
This was, of course, quite true. Coline was now of age, and Saltonstall and I had absolutely no legal ground on which to stand should we attempt to detain her by force against her own will. Von Reibnitz would, of course, be the first to appreciate this fact.
“Let's go up and talk to her before he gets here,” I answered.
There was little time to lose, for the boat was half-way to the beach. So we turned on our heels and hurried back to the camp, where we found Coline sitting quietly in the hammock with Lalla Rookh purring beside her. She looked up questioningly, and I noticed that her face was rather pale and her eyes gleaming with suppressed excitement. I went straight to the point with no preamble, for which indeed there was no time.
“Coline,” I said, “it appears that Von Reibnitz has found us out, probably through Whistler's blabbing. He has come to get you and to take you away. Do you want to go with him?”
“Yes,” she answered. “I've had enough of this place. I think that we had all better go.”
“Captain Saltonstall and I think differently,” I answered. We believe that you should wait here for the Sabbath Day, which is due to return in another month. Of course, you are of age now and your own mistress, and we have no legal right to detain you. Nevertheless, we intend to try.”
Her red lips curved in a slight, ironical smile. “Don't be silly, Jack. What could you two do in the face of Konrad and his whole crew?”
“That remains to be seen,” I answered.
“Quite so, Miss Coline,” said Saltonstall quietly. “Such a decision on your part would lead, I fear, to—ha—bloodshed. I happen to know a good deal about this man Von Reibnitz, and I assure you that I would rather see you between the paws of a tiger than in his power. Although we may be quite in the wrong, Jack and I are prepared to resist such a situation to the—hem—limits of our strength. You must not go with him, my dear.”
“But you are crazy!” Coline leaped from the hammock and stood facing us with flashing eyes. “Von Reibnitz is a gentleman!”
“Hell is full of such gentlemen,” I answered roughly, for I could hear the clatter of oars as the boat ran up on the beach. “He won't get you without a fight, Coline, and that's all there is about it. We may not be able to do much against a dozen or odd, but we'll try our best. So go ahead and do what you like.” And I turned on my heel and went to my tent, where I proceeded to buckle on a brace of revolvers; then, picking up a rifle and belt, I came out and handed them to Saltonstall.
Coline watched us in stony silence.
The next instalment of “Kidnapping Coline” will appear in the December number.