Into the Primitive

CHAPTER XVII
THE SERPENT STRIKES

“What’s the matter with my expedition now, old man?” he demanded.

“I–ah–must admit, Blake, we have had a most enjoyable change of food.”

“If you are sure it will agree with you,” remarked Miss Leslie.

“But I am sure of that, Miss Genevieve. I could digest anything to-day. I’m fairly ravenous.”

“All the more reason to be careful,” rejoined Blake. “I guess, though, what we’ve had’ll do no harm. We’ll let it settle a bit, here in the shade, and then hit the home trail.”

“Could we not first go to the river, Mr. Blake? My hands are dreadfully sticky.”

“Win will take you. It’s only a little way to the bank here and there’s not much underbrush.”

“If you think it’s quite safe–” remarked Winthrope.

“It’s safe enough. Go on. You’ll see the river in half a minute. Only thing, you’d better watch out for alligators.”

“I believe that–er–properly speaking, these are crocodiles.”

“You don’t say! Heap of difference it will make if one gets you.”

Miss Leslie caught Winthrope’s eye. He turned on his heel, and led the way for her through the first thicket. Beyond this they came to a little glade which ran through to the river. When they reached the bank, they stepped cautiously down the muddy slope, and bathed their hands in the clear water. As Miss Leslie rose, Winthrope bent over and began to drink.

“Oh, Mr. Winthrope!” she exclaimed; “please don’t! In your weak condition, I’m so afraid–”

“Do not alarm yourself. I am perfectly well, and I am quite as competent to judge what is good for me as your–ah–countryman.”

“Mr. Winthrope, I am thinking only of your own good.”

Winthrope took another deep draught, rinsed his fingers fastidiously, and arose.

“My dear Miss Genevieve,” he observed, “a woman looks at these matters in such a different light from a man. But you should know that there are some things a gentleman cannot tolerate.”

“You were welcome to all the water in the flask. Surely with that you could have waited, if only to please me.”

“Ah, if you put it that way, I must beg pardon. Anything to please you, I’m sure! Pray forgive me, and forget the incident. It is now past.”

“I hope so!” she murmured; but her heart sank as she glanced at his sallow face, and she recalled his languid, feeble movements.

Piqued by her look, Winthrope started back through the glade. Miss Leslie was turning to follow, when she caught sight of a gorgeous crimson blossom under the nearest tree. It was the first flower she had seen since being shipwrecked. She uttered a little cry of delight, and ran to pluck the blossom.

Winthrope, glancing about at her exclamation, saw her stoop over the flower–and in the same instant he saw a huge vivid coil, all black and green and yellow, flash up out of the bedded leaves and strike against the girl. She staggered back, screaming with horror, yet seemed unable to run.

Winthrope swung up his stick, and dashed across the glade towards her.

“What is it–a snake?” he cried.

The girl did not seem to hear him. She had ceased screaming, and stood rigid with fright, glaring down at the ground before her. In a moment Winthrope was near enough, to make out the brilliant glistening body, now extended full length in the grass. It was nearly five feet long and thick as his thigh. Another step, and he saw the hideous triangular head, lifted a few inches on the thick neck. The cold eyes were fixed upon the girl in a malignant, deadly stare.

“Snake! snake!” he yelled, and thrust his cane at the reptile’s tail.

Again came a flashing leap of the beautiful ornate coil, and the stick was struck from Winthrope’s hand. He danced backward, wild with excitement.

“Snake!–Hi, Blake! monster!–Run, Miss Leslie! I’ll hold him–I’ll get another stick!”

He darted aside to catch up a branch, and then ran in and struck boldly at the adder, which reared hissing to meet him. But the blow fell short, and the rotten wood shattered on the ground. Again Winthrope ran aside for a stick. There was none near, and as he paused to glance about, Blake came sprinting down the glade.

“Where?” he shouted.

“There–Hi! look out! You’ll be on him!”

Blake stopped short, barely beyond striking distance of the hissing reptile.

“Wow!” he yelled. “Puff adder! I’ll fix him.”

He leaped back, and thrust his bow at the snake. The challenge was met by a vicious lunge. Even where he stood Winthrope heard the thud of the reptile’s head upon the ground.

“Now, once more, tootsie!” mocked Blake, swinging up his club.

Again the adder struck at the bow tip, more viciously than before. With the flash of the stroke, Blake’s right foot thrust forward, and his club came down with all the drive of his sinewy arm behind it. The blow fell across the thickest part of the adder’s outstretched body.

“Told you so! See him wiggle!” shouted Blake. “Broke his back, first lick– What’s the matter, Miss Jenny? He can’t do anything now.”

Miss Leslie did not answer. She stood rigid, her face ashy-gray, her dilated eyes fixed upon the writhing, hissing adder.

“I–I think the snake struck her!” gasped Winthrope, suddenly overcome with horror.

“God!” cried Blake. He dropped his club, and rushed to the girl. In a moment he had knelt before her and flung up her leopard-skin skirt. Her stockings ripped to shreds in his frantic grasp. There, a little below her right knee, was a tiny red wound. Blake put his lips to it, and sucked with fierce energy.

Then the girl found her voice.

“Go away–go away! How dare you!” she cried, as her face flushed scarlet.

Blake turned, spat, and burst out with a loud demand of Winthrope: “Quick! the little knife–I’ll have to slash it! Ten times worse than a rattlesnake– Lord! you’re slow–I’ll use mine!”

“Let go of me–let go! What do you mean, sir?” cried the girl, struggling to free herself.

“Hold still, you little fool!” he shouted. “It’s death–sure death, if I don’t get the poison from that bite!”

“I’m not bitten– Let go, I say! It struck in the fold of my skirt.”

“For God’s sake, Jenny, don’t lie! It’s certain death! I saw the mark–”

“That was a thorn. I drew it out an hour ago.”

Blake looked up into her hazel eyes. They were blazing with indignant scorn. He freed her, and rose with clumsy slowness. Again he glanced at her quivering, scarlet face, only to look away with a sheepish expression.

“I guess you think I’m just a damned meddlesome idiot,” he mumbled.

She did not answer. He stood for a little, rubbing a finger across his sun-blistered lips. Suddenly he stopped and looked at the finger. It was streaked with blood.

“Whew!” he exclaimed. “Didn’t stop to think of that! It’s just as well for me, Miss Jenny, that wasn’t an adder bite. A little poison on my sore lip would have done for me. Ten to one, we’d both have turned up our toes at the same time. Of course, though, that’d be nothing to you.”

Miss Leslie put her hands before her face, and burst into hysterical weeping.

Blake looked around, far more alarmed than when facing the adder.

“Here, you blooming lud!” he shouted; “take the lady away, and be quick about it. She’ll go dotty if she sees any more snake stunts. Clear out with her, while I smash the wriggler.”

Winthrope, who had been staring fixedly at the beautiful coloring and loathsome form of the writhing adder, started at Blake’s harsh command as though struck.

“I–er–to be sure,” he stammered, and darting around to the hysterical girl, he took her arm and hurried her away up the glade.

They had gone several paces when Blake came running up behind them. Winthrope looked back with a glance of inquiry. Blake shook his head.

“Not yet,” he said. “Give me your cigarette case. I’ve thought of something– Hold on; take out the cigarettes. Smoke ’em, if you like.”

Case in hand, Blake returned to the wounded adder, and picked up his club. A second smashing blow would have ended the matter at once; but Blake did not strike. Instead, he feinted with his club until he managed to pin down the venomous head. The club lay across the monster’s neck, and he held it fast with the pressure of his foot.

When, half an hour later, he wiped his knife on a wisp of grass and stood up, the cigarette case contained over a tablespoonful of a crystalline liquid. He peered in at it, his heavy jaw thrust out, his eyes glowing with savage elation.

“Talk about your meat trusts and Winchesters!” he exulted; “here’s a whole carload of beef in this little box–enough dope to morgue a herd of steers. Good God, though, that was a close shave for her!”

His face sobered, and he stood for several moments staring thoughtfully into space. Then his gaze chanced to fall upon the great crimson blossom which had so nearly lured the girl to her death.

“Hello!” he exclaimed; “that’s an amaryllis. Wonder if she wasn’t coming to pick it–” He snapped shut the lid of the cigarette case, thrust it carefully into his shirt pocket, and stepped forward to pluck the flower. “Makes a fellow feel like a kid; but maybe it’ll make her feel less sore at me.”

He stood gazing at the flower for several moments, his eyes aglow with a soft blue light.

“Whew!” he sighed; “if only– But what’s the use? She’s ’way out of my class–a rough brute like me! All the same, it’s up to me to take care of her. She can’t keep me from being her friend–and she sure can’t object to my picking flowers for her.”

Amaryllis in hand, he gathered up his bow and club. Then he paused to study the skin of the decapitated adder. The inspection ended with a shake of his head.

“Better not, Thomas. It would make a dandy quiver; but then, it might get on her nerves.”

When he came to the ant-hill, he found companions and honey alike gone. He went on to the cocoanuts. There he came upon Winthrope stretched flat beside the skin of honey. Miss Leslie was seated a little way beyond, nervously bending a palm-leaf into shape for a hat.

“I say, Blake,” drawled Winthrope, “you’ve been a deuced long time in coming. It was no end of a task to lug the honey–”

Blake brushed past without replying, and went on until he stood before the girl. As she glanced up at him, he held out the crimson blossom.

“Thought you might like posies,” he said, in a hesitating voice.

Instead of taking the flower, she drew back with a gesture of repulsion.

“Oh, take it away!” she exclaimed.

Blake flung the rejected gift on the ground, and crushed it beneath his heel.

“Catch me making a fool of myself again!” he growled.

“I–I did not mean it that way–really I didn’t, Mr. Blake. It was the thought of that awful snake.”

But Blake, cut to the quick, had turned away, far too angry to heed what she said. He stopped short beside the Englishman; but only to sling the skin of honey upon his back. The load was by no means a light one, even for his strength. Yet he caught up the heavy pot as well, and made off across the plain at a pace which the others could not hope to equal.

As Winthrope rose and came forward to join Miss Leslie, he looked about closely for the bruised flower. It was nowhere in sight.

“Er–beg pardon, Miss Genevieve, but did not Blake drop the bloom–er–blossom somewhere about here?”

“Perhaps he did,” replied Miss Leslie. She spoke with studied indifference.

“I–ah–saw the fellow exhibit his impudence.”

“Ye-es?”

“You know, I think it high time the bounder is taken down a peg.”

“Ah, indeed! Then why do you not try it?”

“Miss Genevieve! you know that at present I am physically so much his inferior–”

“How about mentally?”

Though the girl’s eyes were veiled by their lashes, she saw Winthrope cast after Blake a look that seemed to her almost fiercely vindictive.

“Well?” she said, smiling, but watching him closely.

“Mentally!–We’ll soon see about that!” he muttered. “I must say, Miss Genevieve, it strikes me as deuced odd, you know, to hear you speak so pleasantly of a person who–not to mention past occurrences–has to-day, with the most shocking disregard of–er–decency–”

“Stop!–stop this instant!” screamed the girl, her nerves overwrought.

Winthrope smiled with complacent assurance.

“My dear young lady,” he drawled, “allow me to repeat, ‘All is fair in love and war.’ Believe me, I love you most ardently.”

“No gentleman would press his suit at such a time as this!”

“Really now, I fancy I have always comported myself as a gentleman–”

“A trifle too much so, truth to say!” she retorted.

“Ah, indeed. However, this is now quite another matter. Has it not occurred to you, my dear, that this entire experience of ours since that beastly storm is rather–er–compromising?”

“You–you dare say such a thing! I’ll go this instant and tell Mr. Blake! I’ll–”

“Begging your pardon, madam,–but are you prepared to marry that barbarous clodhopper?”

“Marry? What do you mean, sir?”

“Precisely that. It is a question of marriage, if you’ll pardon me. And, you see, I flatter myself, that when it comes to the point, it will not be Blake, but myself–”

“Ah, indeed! And if I should prefer neither of you?”

“Begging your pardon,–I fancy you will honor me with your hand, my dear. For one thing, you admit that I am a gentleman.”

“Oh, indeed!”

“One moment, please! I am trying to intimate to you, as delicately as possible, how–er–embarrassing you would find it to have these little occurrences–above all, to-day’s–noised abroad to the vulgar crowd, or even among your friends–”

“What do you mean? What do you want?” cried the girl, staring at him with a deepening fear in her bewildered eyes.

“Believe me, my dear, it grieves me to so perturb you; but–er–love must have its way, you know.”

“You forget. There is Mr. Blake.”

“Ah, to be sure! But really now, you would not ask, or even permit him to murder me; and one is not legally bound, you know, to observe promises–a pledge of silence, for example–when extorted under duress, under violence, you know.”

Miss Leslie looked the Englishman up and down, her brown eyes sparkling with quick-returning anger. He met her scorn with a smile of smug complacency.

“Cad!” she cried, and turning her back upon him, she set out across the plain after Blake.

CHAPTER XVIII
THE EAVESDROPPER CAUGHT

Much to Miss Leslie’s surprise, she found herself tending the invalid through the daytime almost as though nothing had happened. But everything about this wild and perilous life was so strange and unnatural to her that she found herself accepting the most unconventional relations as a regular consequence of the situation. She was feverishly eager for anything that might occupy her mind; for she felt that to brood over the future might mean madness. The mere thought of the possibilities was far too terrifying to be calmly dwelt upon. Though slight, there had been some little comfort in the belief that she could rely on Winthrope. But now she was left alone with her doubt and dread. Even if she had nothing to fear from Blake, there were all the savage dangers of the coast, and behind those, far worse, the fever.

Meantime Blake went about his share of the camp work, gruff and silent, but with the usual concrete results. He brought load after load of fresh cocoanuts, and took great pains to hunt out the deliciously flavored eggs of the frigate birds to tempt Winthrope’s failing appetite. When Miss Leslie suggested that beef juice would be much better for the invalid than broth, he went out immediately in search of a gum-bearing tree, and that night, after heating a small quantity of gum in the cigarette case with the adder poison, he spent hours replacing his arrow-heads with small barbed tips that could be loosened from their sockets by a slight pull.

A little before dawn he dipped two of his new arrow-heads in the sticky contents of the cigarette case, fitted them carefully to their shafts, and stole away down the cleft. Dawn found him crouched low in the grass where the overflow from the pool ran out into the plain along its little channel. He could see large forms moving away from him; then came the flood of crimson light, and he made out that the figures were a drove of huge eland.

His eyes flashed with eagerness. It was a long shot; but he knew that no more was required than to pierce the skin on any part of his quarry’s body. He put his fingers between his teeth, and sent out a piercing whistle. It was a trick he had tried more than once on deer and pronghorn antelope. As he expected, the eland halted and swung half around. Their ox-like sides presented a mark hard to miss.

He rose and shot as they were wheeling to fly. Before he could fit his second arrow to the string, the whole herd were running off at a lumbering gallop. He lowered his bow, and walked after the animals, smiling with grim anticipation. He had seen his arrow strike against the side of the young bull at which he had aimed.

A little beyond where the bull had stood, he came upon the headless shaft of his arrow. As he stooped and caught it up, he saw one of the fleeing animals fall. When he came up with the dead bull, his first act was to recover his arrow-tip and cut out the flesh around the wound. Provided only with his weak-bladed knife, he found it no easy task to butcher so large a beast. Though he had now acquired considerable dexterity in the art, noon had passed before he brought the first load of meat up the cleft.

So great was the abundance of meat that Blake worked all the remainder of the day and all night stringing the flesh on the curing racks, and Miss Leslie tried out pot after pot of fat and tallow, until every spare vessel was filled, and she had to resort to a hollow in the rock beside the spring. Blake promised to make more pots as soon as he could fetch the clay, but he had first to dress the eland hide, and prepare a new stock of thread and cord from parts of the animal which he was careful not to let her see.

Whatever their concern for the future,–and even Blake’s was keen and bitter,–the party, as a party, for the time being might have been considered extremely fortunate. They had a shelter secure alike from the weather and from wild beasts; an abundance of nutritious food, and, as material for clothing, the bushbuck, hyena, and eland hides. To obtain more skins and more meat Blake now knew would be a simple matter so long as he had enough poison left in the cigarette case to moisten the tips of his arrows.

Even Winthrope’s relapse proved far less serious than might reasonably have been expected. The fever soon left him, and within a few days he regained strength enough to care for himself. Here, however, much to Blake’s perplexity and concern, his progress seemed to stop, and all Blake’s urging could do no more than cause him to move languidly from one shady spot to another. He would receive Blake’s orders with a smile and a drawling “Ya-as, to be sure!”–and would then absolutely ignore the matter.

Only in two ways did the invalid exhibit any signs of energy. He could and did eat with a heartiness little short of that shown by Blake, and he would insist upon seeking opportunities to press his attentions upon Miss Leslie. He was careful to avoid all offensive remarks; yet the veriest commonplace from his lips was now an offence to the girl. While he needed her as nurse, she had endured his talk as part of her duty. But now she felt that she could no longer do so. Taking advantage of a time when the Englishman was, as she supposed, enjoying a noonday siesta down towards the barricade, she went to meet Blake, who had been up on the cliff for eggs.

“Hello!” he sang out, as he swung down the tree, one hand gripping the clay pot in which he had gathered the eggs. “What you doing out in the sun? Get into the shade.”

She stepped into the shade, and waited until he had climbed down the pile of stones which he had built for steps at the foot of the tree.

“Mr. Blake,” she began, “could not I do this work,–gather the eggs?”

“You could, if I’d let you, Miss Jenny. But it strikes me you’ve got quite enough to do. Tell you the truth, I’d like to make Win take it in hand again. But all my cussing won’t budge him an inch, and you know, when it comes to the rub, I couldn’t wallop a fellow who can hardly stand up.”

“Is he really so weak?” she murmured.

“Well, you know how– Say, you don’t mean that you think he’s shamming?”

“I did not say that I thought so, Mr. Blake. I do not care to talk about him. What I wish is that you will let me attend to this work.”

“Couldn’t think of it, Miss Jenny! You’re already doing your share.”

“Mr. Blake,–if you must know,–I wish to have a place where I can go and be apart–alone.”

Blake scowled. “Alone with that dude! He’d soon find enough strength to climb up with you on the cliff.”

“I–ah–Mr. Blake, would he be apt to follow me, if I told you distinctly I should rather be alone?”

“Would he? Well, I should rather guess not!” cried Blake, making no attempt to conceal his delight. “I’ll give him a hint that’ll make his hair curl. From now on, nobody climbs up this tree but you, without first asking your permission.”

“Thank you, Mr. Blake! You are very kind.”

“Kind to let you do more work! But say, I’ll help out all I can on the other work. You know, Miss Jenny,–a rough fellow like me don’t know how to say it, but he can think it just the same,–I’d do anything in the world for you!”

As he spoke, he held out his rough, powerful hand. She shrank back a little, and caught her breath in sudden fright. But when she met his steady gaze, her fear left her as quickly as it had come. She impulsively thrust out her hand, and he seized it in a grip that brought the tears to her eyes.

“Miss Jenny! Miss Jenny!” he murmured, utterly unconscious that he was hurting her, “you know now that I’m your friend, Miss Jenny!”

“Yes, Mr. Blake,” she answered, blushing and drawing her hand free. “I believe you are a friend–I believe I can trust you.”

“You can, by–Jiminy! But say,” he continued, blundering with dense stupidity, “do you really mean that? Can you forgive me for being so confounded meddlesome, the other day, after the snake–”

He stopped short, for upon the instant she was facing him, as on that eventful day, scarlet with shame and anger.

“How dare you speak of it?” she cried. “You’re–you’re not a gentleman!”

Before he could reply, she turned and left him, walking rapidly and with her head held high. Blake stared after her in bewilderment.

“Well, what in–what in thunder have I done now?” he exclaimed. “Ladies are certainly mighty funny! To go off at a touch–and just when I thought we were going to be chums! But then, of course, I’ve the whole thing to learn about nice girls–like her!”

“I–ah–must certainly agree with you there, Blake,” drawled Winthrope, from beside the nearest bush.

Blake turned upon him with savage fury: “You dirty sneak!–you gentleman! You’ve been eavesdropping!”

The Englishman’s yellow face paled to a sallow mottled gray. He had seen the same look in Blake’s eyes twice before, and this time Blake was far more angry.

“You sneak!–you sham gent!” repeated the American, his voice sinking ominously.

Winthrope dropped in an abject heap, as though Blake had struck him with his club.

“No, no!” he protested shrilly. “I am a real–I am–I’m a not–”

“That’s it–you’re a not! That’s true!” broke in Blake, with sudden grim humor. “You’re a nothing. A fellow can’t even wipe his shoes on nothing!”

The change to sarcasm came as an immense relief to Winthrope.

“Ah, I say now, Blake,” he drawled, pulling together his assurance the instant the dangerous light left Blake’s eyes, “I say now, do you think it fair to pick on a man who is so much your–er–who is ill and weak?”

“That’s it–do the baby act,” jeered Blake. “But say, I don’t know just how much eavesdropping you did; so there’s one thing I’ll repeat for the special benefit of your ludship. It’ll be good for your delicate health to pay attention. From now on, the cliff top belongs to Miss Leslie. Gents and book agents not allowed. Understand? You don’t go up there without her special invite. If you do, I’ll twist your damned neck!”

He turned on his heel, and left the Englishman cowering.

CHAPTER XIX
AN OMINOUS LULL

He did not look up, and met her attempt at a pleasant greeting with an inarticulate grunt. When she turned to enter the baobab, she found the opening littered with bamboos and green creepers and pieces of large branches with charred ends. On either side, midway through the entrance, a vertical row of holes had been sunk through the bark of the tree into the soft wood.

“What is this?” she asked. “Are you planning a porch?”

“Maybe,” he replied.

“But why should you make the holes so far in? I know so little about these matters, but I should have fancied the holes would come on the front of the tree.”

“You’ll see in a day or two.”

“How did you make the holes? They look black, as though–”

“Burnt ’em, of course–hot stones.”

“That was so clever of you!”

He made no response.

Supper was eaten in silence. Even Winthrope’s presence would have been a relief to the girl; yet she could not go to waken him, or even suggest that her companion do so. Blake sat throughout the meal sullen and stolid, and carefully avoided meeting her gaze. Before they had finished, twilight had come and gone, and night was upon them. Yet she lingered for a last attempt.

“Good-night, friend!” she whispered.

He sprang up as though she had struck him, and blundered away into the darkness.

In the morning it was as before. He had gone off before she wakened. She lingered over breakfast; but he did not appear, and she could not endure Winthrope’s suave drawl. She went for another day on the headland.

She returned somewhat earlier than on the previous day. As before, Winthrope was dozing in the shade. But Blake was under the baobab, raking together a heap of rubbish. His hands were scratched and bleeding. To the girl’s surprise, he met her with a cheerful grin and a clear, direct glance.

“Look here,” he called.

She stepped around the baobab, and stood staring. The entrance, from the ground to the height of twelve feet, was walled up with a mass of thorny branches, interwoven with yet thornier creepers.

“How’s that for a front door?” he demanded.

“Door?”

“Yes.”

“But it’s so big. I could never move it.”

“A child could. Look.” He grasped a projecting handle near the bottom of the thorny mass. The lower half of the door swung up and outward, the upper half in and downward. “See; it’s balanced on a crossbar in the middle. Come on in.”

She walked after him in under the now horizontal door. He gave the inner end a light upward thrust, and the door swung back in its vertical circle until it again stood upright in the opening. From the inside the girl could see the strong framework to which was lashed the facing of thorns. It was made of bamboo and strong pieces of branches, bound together with tough creepers.

“Pretty good grating, eh?” remarked Blake. “When those green creepers dry, they’ll shrink and hold tight as iron clamps. Even now nothing short of a rhinoceros could walk through when the bars are fast. See here.”

He stepped up to the novel door, and slid several socketed crossbars until their outer ends were deep in the holes in the tree trunk, three on each side.

“How’s that for a set of bolts?” he demanded.

“Wonderful! Really, you are very, very clever! But why should you go to all this trouble, when the barricade–”

“Well, you see, it’s best to be on the safe side.”

“But it’s absurd for you to go to all this needless work. Not that I do not appreciate your kind thought for my safety. Yet look at your hands!”

Blake hastened to put his bleeding hands behind him.

“They are no sight for a lady!” he muttered apologetically.

“Go and wash them at once, and I’ll put on a dressing.”

Blake glowed with frank pleasure, yet shook his head.

“No, thank you, Miss Jenny. You needn’t bother. They’ll do all right.”

“You must! It would please me.”

“Why, then, of course– But first, I want to make sure you understand fastening the door. Try the bars yourself.”

She obeyed, sliding the bars in and out until he nodded his satisfaction.

“Good!” he said. “Now promise me you’ll slide ’em fast every night.”

“If you ask it. But why?”

“I want to make perfectly safe.”

“Safe? But am I not secure with–”

“Look here, Miss Leslie; I’m not going to say anything about anybody.”

“Perhaps you had better say no more, Mr. Blake.”

“That’s right. But whatever happens, you’ll believe I’ve done my best, won’t you?–even if I’m not a– Promise me straight, you’ll lock up tight every night.”

“Very well, I promise,” responded the girl, not a little troubled by the strangeness of his expression.

He turned at once, swung open the door, and went out. During supper he was markedly taciturn, and immediately afterwards went off to his bed.

That night Miss Leslie dutifully fastened herself in with all six bars. She wakened at dawn, and hastened out to prepare Blake’s breakfast, but she found herself too late. There were evidences that he had eaten and gone off before dawn. The stretching frame of one of the antelope skins had been moved around by the fire, and on the smooth inner surface of the hide was a laconic note, written with charcoal in a firm, bold hand:–

“Exploring inland. Back by night, if can.”

She bit her lip in her disappointment, for she had planned to show him how much she appreciated his absurd but well-meant concern for her safety. As it was, he had gone off without a word, and left her to the questionable pleasure of a tête-à-tête with Winthrope. Hoping to avoid this, she hurried her preparations for a day on the cliff. But before she could get off, Winthrope sauntered up, hiding his yawns behind a hand which had regained most of its normal plumpness. His eye was at once caught by the charcoal note.

“Ah!” he drawled; “really now, this is too kind of him to give us the pleasure of his absence all day!”

“Ye-es!” murmured Miss Leslie. “Permit me to add that you will also have the pleasure of my absence. I am going now.”

Winthrope looked down, and began to speak very rapidly: “Miss Genevieve, I–I wish to apologize. I’ve thought it over. I’ve made a mistake–I–I mean, my conduct the other day was vile, utterly vile! Permit me to appeal to your considerateness for a man who has been unfortunate–who, I mean, has been–er–was carried away by his feelings. Your favoring of that bloom–er–that–er–bounder so angered me that I–that I–”

“Mr. Winthrope!” interrupted the girl, “I will have you to understand that you do not advance yourself in my esteem by such references to Mr. Blake.”

“Aye! aye, that Blake!” panted Winthrope. “Don’t you see? It’s ’im, an’ that blossom! W’en a man’s daffy–w’en ’e’s in love!–”

Miss Leslie burst into a nervous laugh; but checked herself on the instant.

“Really, Mr. Winthrope!” she exclaimed, “you must pardon me. I–I never knew that cultured Englishmen ever dropped their h’s. As it happens, you know, I never saw one excited before this.”

“Ah, yes; to be sure–to be sure!” murmured Winthrope, in an odd tone.

The girl threw out her hand in a little gesture of protest.

“Really, I’m sorry to have hurt–to have been so thoughtless!”

Winthrope stood silent. She spoke again: “I’ll do what you ask. I’ll make allowances for your–for your feelings towards me, and will try to forget all you said the other day. Let me begin by asking a favor of you.”

“Ah, Miss Genevieve, anything, to be sure, that I may do!”

“It is that I wish your opinion. When Mr. Blake finished that absurd door last evening, he would not tell me why he had built it–only a vague statement about my safety.”

“Ah! He did not go into particulars?” drawled Winthrope.

“No, not even a hint; and he looked so–odd.”

Winthrope slowly rubbed his soft palms on upon the other.

“Do you–er–really desire to know his–the motive which actuated him?” he murmured.

“I should not have mentioned it to you, if I did not,” she answered.

“Well–er–” He hesitated and paused for a full minute. “You see, it is a rather difficult undertaking to intimate such a matter to a lady–just the right touch of delicacy, you know. But I will begin by explaining that I have known it since the first–”

“Known what?”

“Of that bound–of–er–Blake’s trouble.”

“Trouble?”

“Ah! Perhaps I should have said affliction; yes, that is the better word. To own the truth, the fellow has some good qualities. It was no doubt because he realised, when in his better moments–”

“Better moments? Mr. Winthrope, I am not a child. In justice both to myself and to Mr. Blake, I must ask you to speak out plainly.”

“My dear Miss Leslie, may I first ask if you have not observed how strangely at times the fellow acts,–‘looks odd,’ as you put it,–how he falls into melancholia or senseless rages? I may truthfully state that he has three times threatened my life.”

“I–I thought his anger quite natural, after I had so rudely–and so many people are given to brooding– But if he was violent to you–”

“My dear Miss Genevieve, I hold nothing against the miserable fellow. At such times he is not–er–responsible, you know. Let us give the fellow full credit–that is why he himself built your door.”

“Oh, but I can’t believe it! I can’t believe it!” cried the girl. “It’s not possible! He’s so strong, so true and manly, so kind, for all his gruffness!”

“Ah, my dear!” soothed Winthrope, “that is the pity of it. But when a man must needs be his worst enemy, when he must needs lead a certain kind of life, he must take the consequences. To put it as delicately as possible, yet explain all, I need only say one word–paranoia.”

Miss Leslie gathered up her day’s outfit with trembling fingers, and went to mount the cliff.

After waiting a few minutes Winthrope walked hurriedly through the cleft, and climbed the tree-ladder with an agility that would have amazed his companions. But he did not draw himself up on the cliff. Having satisfied himself that Miss Leslie was well out toward the signal, he returned to the baobab, and proceeded to examine Blake’s door with minute scrutiny.

That evening, shortly before dark, Blake came in almost exhausted by his journey. Few men could have covered the same ground in twice the time. It had been one continuous round of grass jungle, thorn scrub, rocks, and swamp. And for all his pains, he brought back with him nothing more than the discouraging information that the back-country was worse than the shore. Yet he betrayed no trace of depression over the bad news, and for all his fatigue, maintained a tone of hearty cheerfulness until, having eaten his fill, he suddenly observed Miss Leslie’s frigid politeness.

“What’s up now?” he demanded. “You’re not mad ’cause I hiked off this morning without notice?”

“No, of course not, Mr. Blake. Nothing of the kind. But I–”

“Well,-what?” he broke in, as she hesitated. “I can’t, for the world, think of anything else I’ve done–”

“You’ve done! Perhaps I might suggest that it is a question of what you haven’t done.” The girl was trembling on the verge of hysterics. “Yes, what you’ve not done! All these weeks, and not a single attempt to get us away from here, except that miserable signal; and I as good as put that up! You call yourself a man! But I–I–” She stopped short, white with a sudden overpowering fear.

Winthrope looked from her to Blake with a sidelong glance, his lips drawn up in an odd twist.

There followed several moments of tense silence; then Blake mumbled apologetically: “Well, I suppose I might have done more. I was so dead anxious to make sure of food and shelter. But this trip to-day–”

“Mr.–Mr. Blake, pray do not get excited–I–I mean, please excuse me. I’m–”

“You’re coming down sick!” he said.

“No, no! I have no fever.”

“Then it’s the sun. Yet you ought to keep up there where the air is freshest. I’ll make you a shade.”

She protested, and withdrew, somewhat hurriedly, to her tree.

In the morning Blake was gone again; but instead of a note, beside the fire stood the smaller antelope skin, converted into a great bamboo-ribbed sunshade.

She spent the day as usual on the headland. There was no wind, and the sun was scorching hot. But with her big sunshade to protect her from the direct rays, the heat was at least endurable. She even found energy to work at a basket which she was attempting to weave out of long, coarse grass; yet there were frequent intervals when her hands sank idle in her lap, and she gazed away over the shimmering glassy expanse of the ocean.

In the afternoon the heat became oppressively sultry, and a long slow swell began to roll shoreward from beyond the distant horizon, showing no trace of white along its oily crests until they broke over the coral reefs. There was not a breath of air stirring, and for a time the reefs so checked the rollers that they lacked force to drive on in and break upon the beach.

Steadily, however, the swell grew heavier, though not so much as a cat’s-paw ruffled the dead surfaces of the watery hillocks. By sunset they were rolling high over both lines of reefs and racing shoreward to break upon the beach and the cliff foot in furious surf. The still air reverberated with the booming of the breakers. Yet the girl, inland bred and unversed in weather lore, sat heedless and indifferent, her eyes fixed upon the horizon in a vacant stare.

Her reverie was at last disturbed by the peculiar behavior of the seafowl. Those in the air circled around in a manner strange to her, while their mates on the ledges waddled restlessly about over and between their nests. There was a shriller note than usual in their discordant clamor.

Yet even when she gave heed to the birds, the girl failed to realize their alarm or to sense the impending danger. It was only that a feeling of disquiet had broken the spell of her reverie; it did not obtrude upon the field of her conscious thought. She sighed, and rose to return to the cleft, idly wondering that the air should seem more sultry than at mid-day. The peculiar appearance of the sun and the western sky meant nothing more to her than an odd effect of color and light. She smilingly compared it with an attempt at a sunset painted by an artist friend of the impressionist school.

Neither Winthrope nor Blake was in sight when she reached the baobab, and neither appeared, though she delayed supper until dark. It was quite possible that they had eaten before her return and had gone off again, the Englishman to doze, and Blake on an evening hunt.

At last, tired of waiting, she covered the fire, and retired into her tree-cave. The air in the cleft was still more stifling than on the headland. She paused, with her hand upraised to close the swinging door. She had propped it open when she came out in the morning. After a moment’s hesitation, she went on across the hollow, leaving the door wide open.

“I will rest a little, and close it later,” she sighed. She was feeling weary and depressed.

An hour passed. An ominous stillness lay upon the cleft. Even the cicadas had hushed their shrill note. The only sound was a muffled reverberating echo of the surf roaring upon the seashore. Beneath the giant spread of the baobab all was blackness.

Something moved in a bush a little way down the cleft. A crouching figure appeared, dimly outlined in the starlight. The figure crept stealthily across into the denser night of the baobab. The darkness closed about it like a shroud.

A blinding flash of light pierced the blackness. The figure halted and crouched lower, though the flash had gone again in a fraction of a second. A dull rumbling mingled with the ceaseless boom of the surf.

A second flash lighted the cleft with its dazzling coruscation. This time the creeping figure did not halt.

Again and again the forked lightning streaked across the sky, every stroke more vivid than the one before. The rumble of the distant thunder deepened to a heavy rolling which dominated the dull roar of the breakers. The storm was coming with the on-rush of a tornado. Yet the leaves hung motionless in the still air, and there was no sound other than the thunder and the booming of the surf.

The lightning flared, one stroke upon the other, with a brilliancy that lit up the cave’s interior brighter than at mid-day.

In the white glare the girl saw Winthrope, crouched beneath her upswung door; and his face was as the face of a beast.

CHAPTER XX
THE HURRICANE BLAST

On a sudden the door shook free from its props and whirled violently around on its balance-bar. There was a shriek that pierced above the shrilling of the cyclone,–a single human shriek.

The girl sprang across the cave. The heavy door swished up before her and down again, its lower edge all but grazing her face. For a moment it stopped in a vertical position, and hung quivering, like a beast about to leap upon its prey. Too excited to comprehend the danger of the act, the girl sprang forward and shot one of the thick bars into its socket.

A fierce gust leaped against the outer face of the door and thrust in upon it, striving to burst it bodily from its bearings. The top and the free side of the bottom bowed in. But the branches were still green and tough, the bamboo like whalebone, and the shrunken creepers held the frame together as though the joints were lashed with wire rope. Failing to smash in the elastic structure, or to snap the crossbar, it were as if the blast flung itself alternately against the top and bottom in a fierce attempt to again whirl the frame about. The white glare streaming in through the interstices showed the girl her opportunity. She grasped another bar and shot it into its socket as the lower part of the door gave back with the shifting of the pressure to the top. It was then a simple matter to slide the remaining bars into the deep-sunk holes. Within half a minute she had made the door fast, from the first bar to the sixth.

A heavy spray was beating in upon her through the chinks of the framework. She drew back and sought shelter in a niche at the side. Narrow as was the slit above the top of the door, it let in a torrent of water, which spouted clear across and against the far wall of the cave. It gushed down upon her bed and was already flooding the cave floor.

She piled higher the cocoanuts stored in her niche, and perched herself upon the heap to keep above the water. But even in her sheltered corner the eddying wind showered her with spray. She waded across for her skin-covered sunshade, and returned to huddle beneath it, in the still misery and terror of a hunted animal that has crept wounded into a hole.

During the first hurricane there had been companions to whom she could look for help and comfort, and she had been to a degree unaware of the greatness of the danger. But in the few short weeks since, she had caught more than one glimpse of Primeval Nature,–she of the bloody fang, blind, remorseless, insensate, destroying, ever destroying.

True, this was on solid land, while before there had been the peril of the sea. But now the girl was alone. Outside the straining walls of her refuge, the hurricane yelled and shrieked and roared,–a headless, formless monster, furious to burst in upon her, to overthrow her stanch old tree giant, that in his fall his shattered trunk might crush and mangle her. Or at any instant a thunder-bolt might rend open the great tower of living wood, and hurl her blackened body into the pool on the cave floor.

Once she fancied that she heard Blake shouting outside the door; but when she screamed a shrill response, the blast mocked her with echoing shrieks, and she dared not venture to free the door. If it were Blake, he did not shout again. After a time she began to think that the sound had been no more than a freak of the shifting wind. Yet the thought of him out in the full fury of the cyclone served to turn her thoughts from her own danger. She prayed aloud for his safety, beseeching her God that he be spared. She sought to pray even for Winthrope. But the vision of that beastly face rose up before her, and she could not–then.

Presently she became aware of a change in the storm. The terrific gusts blew with yet greater violence, the thunder crashed heavier, the lightning filled the air with a flame of dazzling white light. But the rain no longer gushed across on the spot where her bed had been. It was entering at a different angle, and its force was broken by the bend in the thick wall of the entrance. After a time the deluge dashed aslant the entrance, gushing down the door in a cataract of foam.

Another interval, and the driving downpour no longer struck even the edge of the opening. The wind was veering rapidly as the cyclone centre moved past on one side. The area of the hurricane was little more than thrice that of a tornado, and it was advancing along its course at great speed. An hour more, and the outermost rim of the huge whirl was passing over the cleft.

Quickly the hurricane gusts fell away to a gale; the gale became a breeze; the breeze lulled and died away, stifled by the torrential rain.

Within the baobab all was again dark and silent. Utterly exhausted, the girl had sunk back against the friendly wall of the tree, and fallen asleep.

She was wakened by a hoarse call: “Miss Jenny! Miss Jenny, answer me! Are you all right?”

She started up, barely saving herself from a fall as the big unhusked nuts rolled beneath her feet. The morning sunlight was streaming in over her door. She sprang down ankle-deep into the mire of the cave floor, and ran to loosen the bars. As the door swung up, she darted out, with a cry of delight: “You are safe–safe! Oh, I was so afraid for you! But you’re drenched! You must build a fire–dry yourself–at once!”

“Wait,” said Blake. “I’ve got to tell you something.”

He caught her outstretched hands, and pushed them down with gentle force. His face was grave, almost solemn.

“Think you can stand bad news–a shock?”

“I– What is it? You look so strange!”

“It’s about Winthrope,–something very bad–”

She turned, with a gasp, and hid her face in her hands, shuddering with horror and loathing.

“Oh! oh!” she cried, “I know already–I know all!”

“All?” demanded Blake, staring blankly.

“Yes; all! And–and he made me think it was you!” She gasped, and fell silent.

Blake’s face went white. He spoke in a clear, vibrant voice, tense as an overstrained violin string: “I am speaking about Winthrope–understand me?–Winthrope. He has been badly hurt.”

“The door swung down and struck him, when he was creeping in.”

“God!” roared Blake. “I picked him up like a sick baby–the beast!–’stead of grinding my heel in his face! God! I’ll–”

“Tom! don’t–don’t even speak it! Tom!”

“God! When a helpless girl–when a –!” He choked, beside himself with rage.

She sprang to him, and caught his sleeve in a convulsive grasp. “Hush, for mercy’s sake! Tom Blake, remember–you’re a man!”

He calmed like a ferocious dog at the voice of its master; but it was several minutes before he could bring himself to obey her insistent urging that he should return to the injured man.

“I’ll go,” he at last growled. “Wouldn’t do it even for you, but he’s good as dead–lucky for him!”

“Dead!”

“Dying. . . . . You stay away.”

He went around the baobab and a few paces along the cleft to the place where a limp form lay huddled on the ledges, out of the mud. Slowly, as though drawn by the fascination of horror, the girl crept after him. When she saw the broken, storm-beaten thing that had been Winthrope, she stopped, and would have turned back. After all, as Blake had said, he was dying–

When she stood at the feet of the writhing figure, and looked down into the battered face, it required all her will-power to keep from fainting. Blake frowned up at her for an instant, but said nothing.

Winthrope was speaking, feebly and brokenly, yet distinctly: “Really, I did not mean any harm–at first–you know. But a man does not always have control–”

“Not a beast like you!” growled Blake.

“Ow! Don’t ’it me! I say now, I’m done for! My legs are cold already–”

“Oh, quick, Mr. Blake! build a fire! It may be, some hot broth–”

“Too late,” muttered Blake. “See here, Winthrope, there’s no use lying about it. You’re going out mighty soon. See if you can’t die like a man.”

“Die! . . . Gawd, but I can’t die–I can’t die–Ow! it burns!”

He flung up a hand, and sought to tear at his wounds.

“Hold hard!” cried Blake, catching the hand in an iron grip.

Something in his touch, or the tone of command, seemed to cower the wretched man into a state of abject submission.

“S’elp me, I’ll confess!–I’ll confess all!” he babbled. “The stones are sewed in the stomach pad; I ’ad to take ’em hout of their settings, and melt up the gold.” He paused, and a cunning smile stole over his distorted features. “Ho, wot a bloomin’ lark! Valet plays the gent, an’ they never ’as a hinkling! Mr. Cecil Winthrope, hif you please, an’ a ’int of a title–wot a lark! ’Awkings, me lad, you’re a gay ’oaxer! Wot a lark! wot a lark!”

Again there was a pause. The breath of the wounded man came in labored gasps. There was an ominous rattling in his throat. Yet once again he rallied, and this time his eyes turned to Miss Leslie, bright with an agonized consciousness of her presence and of all his guilt and shame.

His voice shrilled out in quavering appeal: “Don’t–don’t look at me, miss! I tried to make myself a gentleman; God knows I tried! I fought my way up out of the East End–out of that hell–and none ever lifted finger to help me. I educated myself like a scholar–then the stock sharks cheated me of my savings–out of the last penny; and I had to take service. My God! a valet–his Grace’s valet, and I a scholar! Do you wonder the devil got into me? Do you–”

Blake’s deep voice, firm but strangely husky, broke in upon and silenced the cry of agony: “There, I guess you’ve said enough.”

“Enough!–and last night–My God! to be such a beast! The devil tempted me–aye, and he’s paid me out in my own coin! I’m done for! God ha’ mercy on me!–God ha’ mercy–”

Again came the gasping rattle; this time there was no rally.

Blake thrust himself between Miss Leslie and the crumpled figure.

“Get back around the tree,” he said harshly.

“What are you going to do?”

“That’s my business,” he replied. He thrust his burning-glass into her hand. “Here; go and build a fire, if you can find any dry stuff.”

“You’re not going to– You’ll bury him!”

“Yes. Whatever he may have been, he’s dead now, poor devil!”

“I can’t go,” she half whispered, “not until–until I’ve learned– Do you–can you tell me just what is paranoia?”

Blake studied a little, and tapped the top of his head.

“Near as I can say, it’s softening of the brain.–up there.”

“Do you think that–” she hesitated–“that he had it?”

Again Blake paused to consider.

“Well, I’m no alienist. I thought him a softy from the first. But that was all in line with what he was playing on us–British dude. Fooled me, and I’d been chumming with Jimmy Scarbridge,–and Jimmy was the straight goods, fresh imported–monocle even–when I first ran up against him. No; this–this Hawkins, if that’s his name, had brains all right. Still, he may have been cracked. When folks go dotty, they sometimes get extra ’cute. The best I can think of him is that losing his savings may have made him slip a cog, and then the scare over the way we landed here and his spells of fever probably hurried up the softening.”

“Then you believe his story?”

“Yes, I do. But if you’ll go, please.”

“One thing more–I must know now! Do you remember the day when you set up the signal, and you–you quarrelled with him?”

Blake reddened, and dropped his gaze. “Did he go and tell you that? The sneak!”

“If you please, let us say nothing more about him. But would you care to tell me what you meant–what you said then?”

Blake’s flush deepened; but he raised his head, and faced her squarely as he answered: “No; I’m not going to repeat any dead man’s talk; and as for what I said, this isn’t the time or place to say anything in that line–now that we’re alone. Understand?”

“I’m afraid I do not, Mr. Blake. Please explain.”

“Don’t ask me, Miss Jenny. I can’t tell you now. You’ll have to wait till we get aboard ship. We’ll catch a steamer before long. ’T isn’t every one of them that goes ashore in these blows.”

“Why did you build that door? Did you suspect–” She glanced down at the huddled figure between them.

Blake frowned and hesitated; then burst out almost angrily: “Well, you know now he was a sneak; so it’s not blabbing to tell that much–I knew he was before; and it’s never safe to trust a sneak.”

“Thank you!” she said, and she turned away quickly that she might not again look at the prostrate figure.