The Isle of Seven Moons/Chapter 28
CHAPTER XXVIII
A BULB FROM THE GREAT WHITE WAY
When she found Ben, who was frantically hallooing through the woods, the sun had passed the zenith too far to allow further investigation of the strange house, so they made their way over the mountain, down the terraces to the hut.
"It's funny that I never discovered the place before," said Ben. "I've tramped every acre of the island north of the gorge, though, come to think of it, I've not covered the part south so well. I've stuck to the coast pretty much there. But I should have seen the house from the shore."
"I think the trees and vines hide it from anyone at a distance, Ben. I wonder who they are. Is it possible that they own the island?"
"No, they must have just come. If they had been here long I would have run across them before, or have seen the smoke of their fires at least."
As they reached the hut, they heard the sound of the North Star's bells—struck twice. It was five o'clock. After Ben had departed on some errand, Sally sat cross-legged, watching Spanish Dick as he moved about, preparing supper, his bare legs, tatooed arms, and chest, coppery-swart in the levelling sun-rays, his melting brown eyes full of dreams and fancies as usual.
"Well this island hasn't floated away yet, Dick," was the bait Sally offered him, adding a little slowly, "though I must confess it is a strange place."
"Wait and see, Señorita. Some day it go, if we stay here long."
He shook his curly head and great earrings uncertainly.
"Your uncle is a good man but very foolish. Tell heem haul up that anchor, dam queeck—your pardon, Señorita. The cards say trouble and they do not lie like men."
"But we're going to hunt for the gold."
"Gold is not good when the yellow is stain with red," he returned. "There is blood on that gold, and much bad will come to him who finds it."
"Why, Dick, whatever can happen?"
"I don' know," he shrugged his shoulders, "mebbe the island float away an' drop over the edge of the world."
"But the earth is round like a ball."
"No, Señorita, it is like a plate. See for yourself."
He pointed to the curve of the horizon.
"As I tell you many times, I have seen this islan' all blue an' green an beautiful in—what you say?—mist like gold with stars in eet—an' way up high, the beeg moon an the six leetle ones swim roun' and roun'. An the islan'—she drift away like a boat when the oar gone. An' if she doan do that, she"
He paused significantly, then gazed at her cunningly to see if her curiosity were sufficiently piqued. He had genuine histrionic talent, had Spanish Dick, and he knew well how to play on an audience.
"What, Dick?"
"Well mebbe she blow up—psst! like that—an' bury us in fire, an' the sea open up an' swallow the beeg ship an' el Capitan with the many whiskerr, who will not listen."
A little too much like her dream was this, and she didn't like it. Seeing this, the gypsy of the sea went on, really believing most of his tale.
"If we hurry, we can sail away before something happen. For by San Federigo who walk on the burning fire an' was not scorch, we die if we do not go. The card say verry soon.
"But we must eet, Senorita; el Capitan has leetle faith but beeg stomach."
Rising, he brought from the tree a brace of wild doves. Sally exclaimed over the lustrous beauty of their plumage, soft grey, irised with the tints one finds in the shadows of pearl-lined shells. Then, having no mind to see the pretty things torn apart, she strolled to the spring, looked in its mirror, and rearranged her hair, trying it this way and that.
So occupied, she did not notice the bird of strange plumage, as brilliant as the parrots above, who strayed into the grove and stood surveying the scene before her, one heavily-ringed hand resting against the stem of the palm. She might indeed have been "the fair Inez who came from out the west."
But it was not a musical cry, such as the immortal heroine would have used, which issued from this dark lady's lips, nor in so quaint a tongue. It was a single word in English that brought the nymph of the spring bolt upright.
"Camera!"
The girl could easily have dispensed with this new apparition—so many had crossed her path that day. Bizarrely clad in a diaphanous skirt of tango red, a sheer light waist of some kindred shade, and a hat of yellow, like a newly-minted coin, tilted on her sleek black hair, she walked across the open in languorous, hip-swaying fashion, a little daring and not at all ungraceful.
And all she said by way of greeting when she met Sally's stare was this:
"Where's the camera-man, girlie?"
The costume indeed seemed quite Spanish, but even to Sally's untravelled eyes it had a touch of extreme smartness that the tropics never knew. And the newcomer spoke in a lingo as unintelligible sometimes as any native dialect, yet with a nasal echo of the big cities back home.
However, she was a perfect picture in that setting. If only she could have hushed that voice!
Was this the woman of the yacht? Sally turned towards her sharply. She was in no mood for banter from a stranger. But was that face entirely strange? Where—no, she couldn't place it.
"Who are you?"
Again the harsh voice from the carmined lips.
"Oh-ah I'm Lady Geraldine taking a cruise in my youngest steam yacht. They are such a boah, my dear, don't you think?"
Carrying out the momentary rôle with the perfect ennui of a show-girl in a Palm beach scene, she crooked her arm affectedly, feathered her hair with the tips of her fingers, and gazed at Sally through an imaginary lorgnette. Only the spotlight was lacking, and the round-brimmed yellow hat on the back of her head indeed gave that effect.
"So you're the sweet little bride who left poor Philip flat."
Fairly angry was Sally now, at the impudence of the stranger.
"Who are you? How did you know that?" Suddenly it dawned on her, the headstones—the church gallery—that mocking face!
The newcomer lowered her voice from the grande dame falsetto to its own natural harsh level.
"Oh, I was behind the scenes, it was a great show."
"How did you get down here anyway?" returned the smaller girl sharply, for she could be spitfire enough when the occasion rose. But there was no malice in the stranger now. That night she herself had felt so defenceless, but out here in the open, the obsession, all fears, were gone.
So, thinking that she would be civil anyway, even if the stranger was too rude and personal, she added:
"I beg your pardon, I didn't mean to be impolite, but it's queer the way people are always bobbing up on this island that's supposed to be deserted!"
"Ain't it the truth! I tell Mac—he's the boss of the expedition—the place is hoodooed. Did yuh pipe those skeletons?"
"Pipe—I beg your pardon."
"Pipe? why lamp—get a look at 'em, I mean—they're back in that cove."
"Were you scared?"
"Scared! I had the worst case of stage fright I ever had. All the bones in my spine was clicking like castanets, tangoing faster'n Reny Castle's."
"Well, there's a lot more of them, heaps all over the island," returned her opponent viciously.
"Fur the luv o' Mike! you don't say so! The place is a morgue. We gotta beat it, we gotta beat it. I've seen guys croaked and never turned a hair—but no skeletons for mine."
Appeased a little with the advantage in the skirmish, Sally smiled. The tables were surely turned. True, terra firma was all that and more to Carlotta. Once on it, and away from the dreaded deep, her spirits had risen, particularly with an audience before her—but—those skeletons weren't any too reassuring!
"But tell me what is your name," Sally ventured. "You apparently know mine."
"Yes, yours is Fell, Sally for monicker. You see Miss Fell, Mr. Huntington and I are intimate, oh, very intimate. He told me all about you."
"Phil Huntington? Where is he?"
"Wouldn't you like to know? My name's Carlotta, they call me 'Carlotta, the Divine.' Pretty isn't it? He's the swell little press-agent, that Abey Clout. But"—in a burst of good humoured confidence—"my real name's Rosey Cohen, and I don't care who knows it—but call me Carlotta. Everybody does now."
Her curiosity aroused, Sally questioned further:
"If you won't tell me where he is, tell me what he said—about me, I mean."
"Well, it wasn't exactly American Beauty bouquets he handed you."
"You came in that yacht?"
"Sure."
"It looks like the Huntingtons' Aileen."
The stranger started at this, tapped her slipper with the rhine-stone buckles and stilted heels, and answered evasively
"Oh, steam yachts all look alike, same's chorus men."
"But whatever are you doing here?"
"Lookin' for gold—can ya beat it?"
"Gold! You too!"
"Surest thing you know. You're not one of those crazy nuts that believe there s gold on this phony island, are you?"
A nut! Why couldn't the girl use regular English! As she talked on, she shifted her poses restlessly, and used hands and quick wrist motions to illustrate and emphasize her statements. Sally decided her eyes showed cunning—perhaps even avarice, but she had an infectious good humour. And she certainly was a smashing beauty in spite of the flaws.
"My gen'leman friends on the yacht swallowed some yarn about treasure on the place," Carlotta rattled on. "Now my own little idea is that you don't turn up gold with a spade, but you get it by darn hard work. I know I've worked hard enough for all I got—until this fool trip—though you couldn't tell that to the boobs that come to see me at Standish's. They don't think I'm straight either," she added defiantly, "But I am. Us cabaret girls never get any credit. But that's how I fool 'em—lead 'em on—and well, I can take care of myself when the pinch comes, all right."
"You sing in cabarets?"
"Yes, and dance a little all the latest steps. You ought to see my newest—it's a regular riot—the Orangoutang Chill." She coolly measured the sweet-faced girl before her. "But no, you wouldn't like it. Hearts an' Flowers for yours, dearie. And you're right, it's prettier even if there isn't so much pep. The other's just some of that Broadway bunk the bald-heads and the wise guys from Oshkosh eat up."
The harsh voice softened and grew confidential.
"You didn't fall for Phil, did you?"
"No—I was sorry to treat him so. But I had to. Ben was alone on the island—and now I'm engaged to some one else."
Carlotta stretched out her strong, well-shaped hand impulsively.
"Put it there—girlie—congratulations. It's the sailor guy isn't it?"
"Well, it's Mr. Boltwood. He was wrecked here, you know, and we came after him."
"Regular fairy tale, bottle and all, isn't it?—But it's fine stuff—you'll be happy all right, back in that burg—what d'you call it? Pepper 'n' Salt? An' a nice little cottage all covered with roses—an' lots o' babies an'—but never mind, dearie, you're ongenoo, all right. But I like you even if you aren't my style."
She patted Sally's hand, who forthwith was sure of her own liking for the new friend, or rather acquaintance. She wasn't such a bad sort even if, as she had remarked, "their styles" were so different and she painted and smoked—and even swore at times. And she was decidedly good entertainment.
"It's queer about this love-stuff, isn't it? Now me and Phil's no more alike than caviar is like baked beans. But I've fallen for him somehow, and now you're not in the runnin'—we can be friends."
"You haven't told me yet where he is."
"Oh, he came with me in his father's yacht."
"He's here, then?"
"Surest thing you know, dearie. Otherwise I wouldn't have come. He's a fool kid and he just had to have a nurse—but all on the level—do you get me?"
Sally picked out the thread of reason in this vernacular maze, and nodded. But she was thinking that they must hurry about that gold, with the searchers increasing in number each day. If it was there, it belonged rightfully to Ben. But it was a fair game. Let them all have a try at it.
Carlotta rose.
"If I was you, girlie, I'd get back to God's Country as quick as I could, but I can't swim, so what's the use. I don't like that floating bottle stuff and the gold and those skeletons. Too much for a sensible human bein'. I tell you somethin'll happen before we get through."
"That's what Spanish Dick says. He read it in the cards. Of course I didn't believe him but"
"Is he the geezer with the curly whiskers and the merry-go-round rings in his ears?"
"That's the one. He's over there now. You can see him through the trees."
"Well, you'd better believe him, all right. But bye, bye, girlie, I've gotta beat it."
Sally watched her go, a bright bit of swaying colour against the green background. On the beach she joined the unpromising trio waiting with the boat,—the tall, dark man with the staring eyes she did not like, the heavy set husky with the bundles of muscles, glistening pink and oily with sweat, under his sparse flannel undershirt, and the chipper old man with the bleary eyes, the tobacco-stained beard, and the wicked saw mouth that cursed so constantly.
At four bells that night, Sally and Ben were watching the new moon over the rail of the North Star.
"It's just like a slice of ripe melon, isn't it?"
"And just like that night when I sent you the note, and you climbed down the trellis, and we went to the Lighthouse."
Her hand rested on his for a moment with a slight pressure, which he answered with one far stronger:
"If you hadn't come and given me your promise, I couldn't have stood it on the island," he went on in his shy boy's way.
"It's funny, but to tell the truth, I used to be jealous of Phil Huntington. I was all kinds of a chump, but I couldn't help it.
"There he is now."
The lights on the lee rail of the yacht were rising and falling on the slight swell, and the metallic strains of a phonograph jarred the stillness of the tropical night. Listening carefully, the pair could distinguish a throaty soprano and a mediocre baritone, in a ragtime song as choppy as the waves of Dead Man's Channel.
"Um ti dee, deedle dee
Um ti dee, deedle dee
Oh play it again
That shivery refrain
Um ti dee, deedle dee—"
"It sounds like a frightful discord in this lovely, peaceful place—as much of a discord as—as—" Sally wildly searched for a home-made simile—"a piece of red flannel on a crepe-de-chine dress."
"It has about the same itch," said Ben. Homely humour—but they both laughed joyously anyway. Then he remarked, a little sternly:
"If that's Phil—I've been looking for him."
Her hand closed over his.
"Now, dear, don't. You can afford to forgive."
Over and over, the silly, and cheap, but maddening melody tantalized the listeners—"um ti dee, deedle, dee—um ti dee, deedle dee—" Now they were dancing to it—the man's figure and the girl's, still clad in the gay costume which even in the night gleamed colourfully as she swayed within the circle of the bright lantern. Aft, four figures were bending over some objects. A game of cards. The music at last stopped, and in the stillness they thought they could hear the slap, slap, as the tall man dealt.
"Ben—look at that!"
In the northwest the golden slice of moon was brilliant—straining her eyes, she could see only one—but above the mountain to the south hung something dark.
It was a little curl of smoke, like a black ostrich plume.
"I never saw that before," said Ben.