The Courage of Captain Plum/Chapter 6
CHAPTER VI
MARION
At Nathaniel's astonishing words Neil stood as though struck suddenly dumb.
"Don't you see what a very simple case it is?" he continued, enjoying the other's surprised silence. "You plan to kill Strang to keep Marion from marrying him. Well, I will hunt up Marion, put her in a bag if necessary, and carry her to my ship. Isn't that better and safer and just as sure as murder?"
The excitement had gone out of Neil's face. The flush slowly faded from his cheeks and in his eyes there gleamed something besides the malevolence of a few moments before. As Nathaniel stepped back from him half laughing and puffing clouds of smoke from his pipe Marion's brother thrust his hands into his pockets with an exclamation that forcefully expressed his appreciation of Captain Plum's scheme.
"I never thought of that," he added, after a moment. "By Heaven, it will be easy—"
"So easy that I tell you again I am ashamed of you for not having thought of it!" cried Nathaniel. "The first thing is to get safely aboard my ship."
"We can do that within an hour."
"And to-night—where will we find Marion?"
"At home," said Neil. "We live near Obadiah. You must have seen the house as you came out into the clearing this morning from the forest."
Nathaniel smiled as he thought of his suspicions of the old councilor.
"It couldn't be better situated for our work," he said. "Does the forest run down to the lake on Obadiah's side of the island?"
"Clear to the beach."
Neil's face betrayed a sudden flash of doubt.
"I believe that our place has been watched for some time," he explained. "I am sure that it is especially guarded at night and that no person leaves or enters it without the knowledge of Strang. I am certain that Marion is aware of this surveillance although she professes to be wholly ignorant of it. It may cause us trouble."
"Can you reach the house without being observed?"
"After midnight—yes."
"Then there is no cause for alarm," declared Nathaniel. "If necessary I can bring ten men into the edge of the woods. Two can approach the house as quietly as one and I will go with you. Once there you can tell Marion that your life depends on her accompanying you to Obadiah's. I believe she will go. If she won't—" He stretched out his arms as if in anticipation of the burden they might hold. "If she won't—I'll help you carry her!"
"And meanwhile," said Neil, "Arbor Croche's men—"
"Will be as dead as herring floaters if they show up!" he cried, leaping two feet off the ground in his enthusiasm. "I've got twelve of the damnedest fighters aboard my ship that ever lived and ten of them will be in the edge of the woods!"
Neil's eyes were shining with something that made Nathaniel turn his own to the loading of his pipe.
"Captain Plum, I hope I will be able to repay you for this," he said. There was a trembling break in his voice and for a moment Nathaniel did not look up. His own heart was near bursting with the new life that throbbed within it. When he raised his eyes to his companion's face again there was a light in them that spoke almost as plainly as words.
"You haven't accepted my price, yet, Neil," he replied quietly. "I asked you if you'd—be—a sort of brother—"
Neil sprang to his side with a fervor that knocked the pipe out of his hand.
"I swear that! And if Marion doesn't—"
Suddenly he jerked himself into a listening attitude.
"Hark!"
For a moment the two ceased to breathe. The sound had come to them both, low, distant. After it there fell a brief hush. Then again, as they stared questioningly into each other's eyes, it rolled faintly into the swamp—the deep, far baying of a hound.
"Ah!" exclaimed Neil, drawing back with a deep breath. "I thought they would do it!"
"The bloodhounds!"
Horror, not fear, sent an involuntary shiver through Nathaniel.
"They can't reach us!" assured Neil. There was the glitter of triumph in his eyes. "This was to have been my way of escape after I killed Strang. A quarter of a mile deeper in the swamp I have a canoe." He picked up the gun and box and began forcing his way through the dense alder along the edge of the stream. "I'd like to stay and murder those dogs," he called back, "but it wouldn't be policy."
For a time the crashing of their bodies through the dense growth of the swamp drowned all other sound. Five minutes later Neil stopped on the edge of a wide bog. The hounds were giving fierce tongue in the forest on their left and their nearness sent Nathaniel's hand to his pistol. Neil saw the movement and laughed.
"Don't like the sound, eh?" he said. "We get used to it on Beaver Island. They're just about at the place where they tore little Jim Schredder to pieces a few weeks back. Schredder tried to kill one of the elders for stealing his wife while he was away on a night's fishing trip."
He plunged to his knees in the bog.
"They caught him just before he reached the swamp," he flung back over his shoulder. "Two minutes more and he would have been safe."
Nathaniel, sinking to his knees in the mire, forged up beside him.
"Lord!" he exclaimed, as a breath of air brought a sudden burst of blood-curdling cries to them. "If they'd loosed them on us sooner—"
He shivered at the terrible grimace Neil turned on him.
"Had they slipped the leashes when we escaped, we would have been with poor Schredder now, Captain Plum. By the way—" he stopped a moment to wipe the water and mud from his face, "—three days after they covered Schredder's bones with muck out there, the elder took Schredder's wife! She was too pretty for a fisherman." He started on, but halted suddenly with uplifted hand. No longer could they hear the baying of the dogs. "They've struck the creek!" said Neil. "Listen!"
After an interval of silence there came a long mournful howl.
"Treed—treed or in the water, that's what the howling means. How Croche and his devils are hustling now!"
A curse was mingled with Neil's breath as he forced his way through the bog. Twenty rods farther on they came to a slime covered bit of water on which was floating a dugout canoe. Immense relief replaced the anxiety in Nathaniel's face as he climbed into it. At that moment he was willing to fight a hundred men for Marion's sake, but snakes and bogs and bloodhounds were entirely outside his pale of argument and he exhibited no hesitation in betraying this fact to his companion. For a quarter of a mile Neil forced the dugout through water viscid with slime and rotted substance before the clearer channel of the creek was reached. As they progressed the stream constantly became deeper and more navigable until it finally began to show signs of a current and a little later, under the powerful impetus of Neil's paddle, the canoe shot from between the dense shores into the open lake. A mile away Nathaniel dis
Neil forced the dugout through the water.—Page 142
"You are sure there is a small boat waiting for you on the point?" asked Neil.
"Yes, since early morning."
Neil was absorbed in thought for some time as he drove the canoe through the tall rice grass that grew thick along the edge of the shore.
"How would it be if I landed you on the point and met you to-night at Obadiah's?" he asked suddenly. "It is probable that after we get Marion aboard your ship I will not return to the island again, and it is quite necessary that I run down the coast for a couple of miles—for—" He did not finish his reason, but added: "I can make the whole distance in this rice so there is no danger of being seen. Or you might lie off the point yonder and I would join you early this evening."
"That would be a better plan if we must separate," said Nathaniel, whose voice betrayed the reluctance with which he assented to the project. He had guessed shrewdly at Neil's motive. "Is it possible that we may have another young lady passenger?" he asked banteringly.
There was no answering humor to this in Neil's eyes.
"I wish we might!" he said quietly.
"We can!" exclaimed Nathaniel. "My ship—"
"It is impossible. I am speaking of Winnsome. Arbor Croche's house is in the heart of the town and guarded by dogs. I doubt if she would go, anyway. She has always been like a little sister to Marion and me and she has come to believe—something—as we do. I hate to leave her."
"Obadiah told me about her mother," ventured Nathaniel. "He said that some day Winnsome will be a queen."
"I knew her mother," replied Neil, as though he had not heard Nathaniel's last words. He looked frankly into the other's face. "I worshipped her!"
"Oh-h-h!"
"From a distance," he hastened. "She was as pure as Winnsome is now. Little Winn looks like her. Some day she will be as beautiful."
"She is beautiful now."
"But she is a mere child. Why, it seems only a year ago that I was toting her about on my shoulders! And—by George, that was a year before her mother died! She is sixteen now."
Nathaniel laughed softly.
"To-morrow she will be making love, Neil, and before you know it she will be married and have a family of her own. I tell you she is a woman—and if you are not a fool you will take her away with Marion."
With a powerful stroke of his paddle Neil brought the canoe in to the shore.
"There!" he whispered. "You have only to cross this point to reach your boat." He stretched out his long arm and in the silence the two shook hands. "If you should happen to think of a way—that we might get Winnsome—" he added, coloring.
The sudden grip of his companion's fingers made him flinch.
"We must!" said Nathaniel.
He climbed ashore and watched Neil until he had disappeared in the wild rice. Then he turned into the woods. He looked at his watch and saw that it was only two o'clock. He was conscious of no fatigue; he was not conscious of hunger. To him the whole world had suddenly opened with glorious promise and in the still depths of the forest he felt like singing out his rejoicing. He had never stopped to ask himself what might be the end of this passion that had overwhelmed him; he lived only in the present, in the knowledge that Marion was not a wife, and that it was he whom fate had chosen for her deliverance. He reasoned nothing beyond the sweet eyes that had called upon him, that had burned their gratitude, their hope and their despair upon his soul; nothing beyond the thought that she would soon be free from the mysterious influence of the Mormon king and that for days and nights after that she would be on the same ship with him. He had emptied the pockets of the coat he had given Neil and now he brought forth the old letter which Obadiah had rescued from the sands. He read it over again as he sat for a few moments in the cool of the forest and there was no trouble in his face now. It was from a girl. He had known that girl, years ago, as Neil knew Winnsome; in years of wandering he had almost forgotten her—until this letter came. It had brought many memories back to him with shocking clearness. The old folk were still in the little home under the hill; they received his letters; they received the money he sent them each month—but they wanted him. The girl wrote with merciless candor. He had been away four years and it was time for him to return. She told him why. She wrote what they, in their loving fear of inflicting pain, would never have dared to say. At the end, in a postscript, she had asked for his congratulations on her approaching marriage.
To Nathaniel this letter had been a torment. He saw the truth as he had never seen it before—that his place was back there in Vermont, with his father and mother; and that there was something unpleasant in thinking of the girl as belonging to another. But now matters had changed. The letter was a hope and inspiration to him and he smoothed it out with tender care. What a refuge that little home among the Vermont hills would make for Marion! He trembled at the thought and his heart sang with the promise of it as he went his way again through the thick growth of the woods.
It was half an hour before he came out upon the beach. Eagerly he scanned the sea. The Typhoon was nowhere in sight and for an instant the gladness that had been in his heart gave place to a chilling fear. But the direction of the wind reassured him. Casey had probably moved beyond the jutting promontory, that swung in the form of a cart wheel from the base of the point, that he might have sea room in case of something worse than a stiff breeze. But where was the small boat? With every step adding to his anxiety Nathaniel hurried along the narrow rim of beach. He went to the very tip of the point which reached out like the white forefinger of a lady's hand into the sea; he passed the spot where he had lain concealed the preceding day; his breath came faster and faster; he ran, and called softly, and at last halted in the arch of the cart wheel with the fear full-flaming in his breast. Over all those miles of sea there was no sign of the sloop. From end to end of the point there was no boat. What did it mean? Breathlessly he tore his way through the strip of forest on the promontory until all Lake Michigan to the south lay before his eyes. The Typhoon was gone! Was it possible that Casey had abandoned hope of Nathaniel's return and was already lying off St. James with shotted gun? The thought sent a shiver of despair through him. He passed to the opposite side of the point and followed it foot by foot, but there was no sign of life, no distant flash of white that might have been the canvas of the sloop Typhoon.
There was only one thing for him to do—wait. So he went to his hiding-place of the day before and watched the sea with staring eyes. An hour passed and his still aching vision saw no sign of sail; two hours—and the sun was falling in a blinding glare over the Wisconsin wilderness. At last he sprang to his feet with a hopeless cry and stood for a few moments undecided. Should he wait until night with the hope of attracting the attention of Neil and joining him in his canoe or should he hasten in the direction of St. James? In the darkness he might miss Neil, unless he kept up a constant shouting, which would probably bring the Mormons down upon him; if he went to St. James there was a possibility of reaching Casey. He still had faith in Obadiah and he was sure that the old man would help him to reach his ship; he might even assist him in his scheme of getting Marion from the island.
He would go to the councilor's. Having once decided, Nathaniel turned in the direction of the town, avoiding the use of the path which he and Obadiah had taken, but following in the forest near enough to use it as a guide. He was confident that Arbor Croche and his sheriffs were confining their man-hunt to the swamp, but in spite of this belief he exercised extreme caution, stopping to listen now and then, with one hand always near his pistol. A quiet gloom filled the forest and by the tree-tops he marked the going down of the sun. Nathaniel's ears ached with their strain of listening for the rumbling roar that would tell of Casey's attack on St. James.
Suddenly he heard a crackling in the underbrush ahead of him, a sound that came not from the strain of listening for the rumbling roar and in a moment he had dodged into the concealment of the huge roots of an overturned tree, drawn pistol in hand. Whatever object was approaching came slowly, as if hesitating at each step—a cautious, stealthy advance, it struck Nathaniel, and he cocked his weapon. Directly in front of him, half a stone's throw away, was a dense growth of hazel and he could see the tops of the slender bushes swaying. Twice this movement ceased and the second time there came a crashing of brush and a faint cry. For many minutes after that there was absolute silence. Was it the cry of an animal that he had heard—or of a man? In either case the creature who made it had fallen in the thicket and was lying there as still as if dead. For a quarter of an hour Nathaniel waited and listened. He could no longer have seen the movement of bushes in the gathering night-gloom of the forest but his ears were strained to catch the slightest sound from the direction of the mysterious thing that lay within less than a dozen rods of him. Slowly he drew himself out from the shelter of the roots and advanced step by step. Half way to the thicket a stick cracked loudly under his foot and as the sound startled the dead quiet of the forest with pistol-shot clearness there came another cry from the dense hazel, a cry which was neither that of man nor animal but of a woman; and with an answering shout Nathaniel sprang forward to meet there in the edge of the thicket the white face and outstretched arms of Marion. The girl was swaying on her feet. In her face there was a pallor that even in his instant's glance sent a chill of horror through the man and as she staggered toward him, half falling, her lips weakly forming his name Nathaniel leaped to her and caught her close in his arms. In that moment something seemed to burst within him and flood his veins with fire. Closer he held the girl, and heavier he knew that she was becoming in his arms. Her head was upon his breast, his face was crushed in her hair, he felt her throbbing and breathing against him and his lips quivered with the words that were bursting for freedom in his soul. But first there came the girl's own whispered breath—"Neil—where is Neil?"
"He is gone—gone from the island!"
She had become a dead weight now and so he knelt on the ground with her, her head still upon his breast, her eyes closed, her arms fallen to her side. And as Nathaniel looked into the face from which all life seemed to have fled he forgot everything but the joy of this moment—forgot all in life but this woman against his breast. He kissed her soft mouth and the closed eyes until the eyes themselves opened again and gazed at him in a startled, half understanding way, until he drew his head far back with the shame of what he had dared to do flaming in his face.
And as for another moment he held her thus, feeling the quivering life returning in her, there came to him through that vast forest stillness the distant deep-toned thunder of a great gun.
"That's Casey!" he whispered close down to the girl's face. His voice was almost sobbing in its happiness. "That's Casey—firing on St. James!"