“Five hundred a week!” she whispered to herself. “Two weeks. A whole thousand dollars to spend as I please! No one shall say: ‘This is an inheritance. It belongs to the past and to the future.’ I shall spend it.
“But two weeks of being Lorena LeMar!” She sighed heavily. “It will be so difficult!
“Ah, well!” She drew the gorgeous cape about her, snuggled her head in the soft fur, and for the moment felt quite recompensed.
“I shall have that dress,” she told herself, stopping before a window. “Nile-green. The color suits me well.
“And some perfume.” She paused again. “That great bottle cut like a diamond. I love bottles, the fantastic sort.
“And shoes!” She was a veritable Cinderella dreaming dreams that night. “Shoes! There are some darling ones. Golden shoes to match the nile-green dress. And only forty dollars. Think of it!”
Yes, she was a joyous little Cinderella. But all her joy vanished on the instant.
Of a sudden three very much over-dressed young men swooped down upon her.
“Lorena! Lorena LeMar!” they shouted in a chorus.
“And now, such a night as we shall make of it!”
Jeanne was pleased and frightened at one and the same time; pleased that she had copied the LeMar manner so well that her friends were thoroughly deceived; frightened at being alone at such a time.
“Oh, no you won’t!” She tried in vain to steady her voice. “I—I’m doing a picture; on the water-wagon and all that, till it’s finished.”
“Water-wagon! Water-wagon!” they shouted in derision, crowding about her. “That’s a good one! A real wise crack!”
Of a sudden the little French girl’s world whirled about her. When it steadied she happened to see, by the most fortunate chance in the world, a familiar figure standing by the corner of a skyscraper.
In appearance this person was not so very different from the three nearer at hand. Natty brown suit, black derby, bright tie, spats, and all that. But his face! Ah, there you had it! His cheeks wore a healthy glow. His muscles were smooth and hard. In the eyes of these three who had so suddenly come upon her there was a nervous twitch. Their faces spoke of excess: too much money, too much fun, too many hours in a day, too much everything.
“Oh, all right!” She tossed her head in the LeMar manner. “I’ll go. Which way? Over here?” She walked rapidly toward the one on the corner.
Caught off their guard, the gay trio followed. Not until it was too late did they realize that they had been tricked.
“Why, hello, my good friend Pat!” Jeanne called suddenly, as if the meeting had been by chance. She grasped the firm hand of the one on the corner. “Boys,” she trilled, “this is Pat Murphy. He’s a detective, aren’t you, Pat? Show them your star, Pat.”
Pat grinned as he threw open his coat.
“Been looking for pickpockets and—and mashers, haven’t you, Pat?” Jeanne gave her detective friend a look.
“Yeah. Just anything. A fellow’s gotta make a pinch now and then to hold his job.” Pat was still grinning. For all that, a queer something had stolen into his voice.
“Oh say, George!” one of the joy-hunting trio exclaimed. “Forgot something, didn’t we? Directors’ meeting, or something like that. It was at ten sharp, wasn’t it?
“Awfully sorry!” He turned hurriedly to Jeanne. “Be seeing you again, LeMar.”
“We’ll be seeing you.”
“We’ll be—” They were gone.
“Yeah, they forgot something!” Pat chuckled. “What’ll I do? Go and get them?”
“Oh no, please don’t!” Jeanne grasped his arm.
“You see,” she explained, “they thought I was some one else.”
“This LeMar person? Well, ain’t you?”
“No, I’m not, really.” She gave him a knowing look. “I’m just Petite Jeanne, the little French girl who lived with Bihari the gypsy. You know that, Pat. You’ve known it quite a long while.
“All the same,” she added hastily, “if you see Lorena LeMar, who looks just like me, having any trouble, you just march right up and say: ‘What’s all this about?’ Will you?” She gave his arm a squeeze and was gone.
Dashing to a corner she boarded a bus and was whirled away. No more window-shopping for her that night. Only her own top floor rooms with the door safely locked could still her heart’s wild beating.
“Not Lorena LeMar yet,” she thought, as fresh consternation seized her. “Yet I am threatened with the doubtful kindness of her friends.
“Oh, I know,” she breathed. “They were only three gay play-boys out for a good time.
“But when you don’t know what play-boys are like, when you haven’t the least notion what they expect of you—how terrifying!
“Good old Pat!” she thought with a sigh. “He saved me that time. To think what it means, this having humble friends all strewn along your pathway, scores and scores of just common folks, your friends!
“But why not?” She laughed a little laugh. “Am I not myself only Petite Jeanne, friend of the gypsies, humblest of them all?”
So she hurried home to lock the door, hang the beautiful robe carefully in a corner, settle herself in a great shabby chair and give herself over to watching the rocket cars streak across the sky far above the great Fair.
* * * * * * * *
And in one of these cars, hoping against hope that she might at the other end catch up with the long-eared Chinaman, was Florence.
“No chance!” she breathed a moment later, as she sent one wide sweeping glance across the landing platform. “He’s gone. But which way? Down or across?”
Choosing to re-cross the broad expanse, she once more boarded a rocket car and went speeding away.
This time, having all but given up hope of catching the fugitive, she gave herself over to enjoyment of the moment.
Never, though she rode the Sky Ride a thousand times, would she lose that feeling of breath-taking thrill that came over her as, hanging high in air, she watched the ever changing lights and the milling throng upon the land, the flashing fountains, the darting boats on the lagoon.
“It’s marvelous!” she breathed. “Why must one be disturbed by the problems of others? Why should not one—”
Once more they were across. She leaped to her feet, was first at the door.
“There! There he is! He—he’s going down!”
Leaping for the descending car, she caught it just in time, only to find herself wedged in between a very fat man and two extremely tall women. The Chinaman was in the car, of that she was sure. Yet, crane her neck as she might, she could not catch sight of him.
Nor was she more fortunate upon landing. He was gone before she caught a glimpse of him. Only one thing she knew, he had gone toward the lagoon. Throngs were pressing in that direction. All other avenues were clear.
Following more by instinct than knowledge, she arrived at the shore of the lagoon just in time to see a fluttering yellow jacket go gliding across the water in a Dodge-Em.
“Here!” She crowded a young couple aside, pressed a half dollar into the starter’s hand, leaped into a Dodge-Em and was away.
A Dodge-Em is a curious sort of boat. It is short and broad, is very heavy and has a motor that appears to run forever. That it does not run forever Florence was to learn later, to her sorrow.
You may stand on the edge of a Dodge-Em. It will not tip you out. You may run it nose first into another Dodge-Em or into a stone wall—yet you will not harm the Dodge-Em. It has a solid rubber prow and heavily padded sides. A truly remarkable craft is a Dodge-Em. Only one thing you cannot do; you can never make a Dodge-Em go faster than its accustomed speed, which is some four miles per hour.
This last Florence learned to her great disgust. Step on the gas as she might, and did, she could get no burst of speed from that indolent Dodge-Em.
So, in the end, she lost the race. Having crossed the lagoon, the fleeing one abandoned his boat, climbed the breakwater and disappeared in the Florida orange grove that by some touch of magic had been made to grow on the shores of Chicago.
“Oh, well,” she sighed, settling back in her seat. “It’s a grand night for dreaming, and who could fail to dream at night in a slow old Dodge-Em. I—”
“Hello there! Out for a ride?”
It was Erik Nord who called from another Dodge-Em.
“Did—did you see him, too?”
She spoke before she thought.
“See him?”
“Yes—er—well, there was a curious sort of person out here on the water. Gone now.” She would not tell him, not just yet.
“Let’s double up,” he suggested. “Fine night for sport.”
So it happened that she found herself seated in his Dodge-Em, gliding across the blue waters.
The hour was late. There were few boats on the lagoon.
“Queer, the things you can do with these things.” He steered his craft toward the shadows. In the shadows was another Dodge-Em. Without appearing to plan it, he allowed his boat to strike the other a glancing blow.
Came a scream from the other boat.
“Hey! Watch out! What are you doing?”
“Beg your pardon!”
Erik and Florence glided away. “No,” he chuckled, “you can’t hurt ’em, these Dodge-Ems. Don’t hurt the spooners to shake ’em up a bit.”
“Look out!” Florence gripped his arm. He was headed square for a Dodge-Em coming from the other way. Too late. Came a sudden jolt, a growl from a placid fat man who, up to that moment, had been dreaming along in his own slow way.
“Nope, you can’t hurt them. And they can’t hurt you!” Once again they were away.
They passed out no more sudden shocks that night, but gliding down the lagoon and back again, talked of many things, of customs in China, of temples and gardens, of America and her own ways and of the great Fair.
“It’s been a pleasure to be with you,” he said, as he bade her good-night at the gate. “Here’s hoping we meet again!”
“Here’s hoping.” She hurried away into the night.
There was little need to hope. They would indeed be together again and that under the most unusual circumstances.
“Jeanne, what can you be doing?”
Florence stared at her eccentric little friend in surprise.
“But can you not see?” Jeanne did not pause for an instant. “I am doing a gypsy dance, practicing for my so very wonderful moving picture. We begin rehearsals to-morrow, and must I not be prepared?”
“Yes, but—”
Florence could say no more. The whole affair was too fantastic for words. Here was Jeanne in the sumptuous apartment of Lorena LeMar. She was clothed in a filmy thing of nile-green that floated around her as clouds float about a mountain peak. She was as radiant, too, as any mountain peak at dawn. She was doing one of her gypsy dances, one of those exotic, fairy-like dances that, now dreamy, now wild as a bird in flight, drug one’s very senses.
“But Jeanne!” she exclaimed, when at last the little French girl threw herself upon a low couch. “Your moving picture is to be one of those simple, human affairs, a story of the Cumberlands. You are to be Zola, an innocent little mountain child.”
“Ah, yes!” Jeanne sat up. Vibrant, alive to the very tips of her toes, she shook her finger at Florence. “There is the trouble! No contrast, none at all. And what is a movie, what can any dramatic thing be, without contrast?
“Our Zola,” she hurried on, “is not so simple as you think.
“You remember she is rescued from a car-load of soft coal, very black, and she is scrubbed up?”
“Yes.” Florence smiled.
“Well!” Jeanne struck a dramatic pose. “When she is washed up she is introduced to the president of the railroad. He thinks she is a—how would you say it?—a ‘wow’!
“So! He takes her home. He has a son and a daughter about her own age. This daughter dresses her up in this.” She touched the filmy gown.
“They are in a place like this.” She glanced about the apartment. “Only grander, much grander; you know: high ceilings, marble pillars, ancestral portraits, butler, and all that.” She threw her arms wide.
“When they have dressed our Zola of the box car up, she does like this.”
Once again she went drifting like a butterfly across the room and again alighted upon her downy perch.
“And then,” she cried exultantly, “they know she is a wow!”
“But, Jeanne,” Florence objected, “where could a little mountain girl learn that dance?”
“Gypsies, traveling gypsies. They go everywhere.
“And,” she went on, “when Zola does that dance, they want to keep her—just the way you’d like to keep a beautiful wild bird who flies into your window.
“They do keep her, too, for a few days. But the little wild thing longs for her mountain home. So, one starry night, she folds up the gorgeous pink nightie they have given her, puts on her old calico dress and steals away, back to her home on the side of Big Black Mountain.
“See!” she exclaimed. “Contrast! Is it not wonderful?” Once again, like some strange tropical bird, she drifted across the room.
“But Jeanne!” Again the skeptic protested. “Is all this in the scenario?”
“Not yet. I am putting it in to-morrow.”
“Putting it in?” Florence was aghast.
“Yes, yes. And why not? Why must one be a star, a movie queen, if she is not to have her own way?”
“And Lorena LeMar is gone?”
“Yes. She ’phoned me this morning, only a few words. She was off on the yacht. I must move in this very day. To-morrow we must rehearse. And voila! Here we are!”
“And you do not know where you can reach her in case—”
“In case what?”
“In case they detect that you are an impostor.”
“Oh, no, my friend, not an impostor!” Jeanne held up her hands in horror. “Only a twin star.”
“Or in case you fail.”
“Fail? But how could I? The movie is already—how shall I say it?—a flop.
“And I—I shall make it a grand success. I, Petite Jeanne, who has never failed. Nevair! I have willed that this so beautiful picture shall be a success!”
“Well,” Florence’s voice was deep and low, “here’s wishing you success.
“To-morrow—” She spoke again after some moments of silence. “To-morrow will tell the story. If you can carry it off to-morrow you are on your way.”
“Ah, yes!” Jeanne was drooping a little now. She was like a butterfly who has ridden the sunbeams long and far. “Ah, yes. To-morrow we shall know.”
For a full half hour the little French girl reposed upon that luxurious couch. Now and again her slender fingers touched the folds of her filmy gown. Often her eyes wandered from pictures to tapestries, then to little touches everywhere that told of lavish expenditure.
As a kitten lying on the doorstep basks in the sunshine, she basked in the warmth of elegance that was all about her.
“I am Lorena LeMar,” she was telling herself. “I am no longer a very careful little French girl. I am care-free, extravagant. I must tip the porter and the bell boy. I must ride in a taxi. I must—
“Oh!” she exclaimed, springing to her feet. “I came near to forgetting. We must go to the Tavern. I must see Jensie.”
“To-night?”
“At once.”
Jeanne was out of her finery and into street clothes in a jiffy.
“Now down the elevator and into a taxi.” They were away like a streak. “You see,” she explained, “there is so very much I do not know about those blessed mountains. Jensie must tell me. She must go with me to-morrow. Ah! That most terrible to-morrow!” she sighed.
Florence scarcely heard her. She was thinking of many things, of the long-eared Chinaman, of Erik Nord’s story, of the three-bladed knife and last but not least of Jensie and her “haunts.”
“Jeanne,” she said quite suddenly, “you didn’t believe that, did you?”
“Believe what?” Jeanne’s tone showed her astonishment.
“Oh,” Florence laughed, “I forgot you were not reading my mind. You don’t believe that a ghost was playing the reed organ in the Tavern that night, do you?”
“What should one believe? You saw no one?”
“No one.”
“And the doors were locked?”
“Of course.”
“The windows, too?”
“Yes, I—I’m sure of it.”
“Well then, what shall we say?”
Florence gave up. Jeanne was at heart a gypsy. And for gypsies all manner of curious creatures are real, ghosts and devils, goblins and witches, all quite real, so what could she say?
It was a dark and gloomy night. Black clouds hurried over the black waters of Lake Michigan. The Tavern seemed dark, mysterious, uninviting. Yet, as ever, there was the pale light, the low fire of coals, the slender girl scrubbing on hands and knees.
“Jensie,” said Jeanne. Her voice was low and friendly when at last they sat before the fire, which had been made to glow a little. “Jensie, when the big show is over, shall you go back to your mountain home?”
“It is beautiful.” Jensie spoke slowly, and with seeming reluctance. “Y-e-s, I shall probably go back.”
“But you do not wish it?” Jeanne was surprised.
“I have been through eighth grade down there. It is as far as I can go. I walked four miles every morning and night for that. I—I would like to study—study more.”
“Where?” Jeanne’s voice was low.
“There is a place—” The mountain girl’s voice took on a new note of enthusiasm. “Such a beautiful place! A school. Lena, my chum, is there now. Her father has a coal mine.
“And this place—” She stared at the fire. “There are trees, great spreading elm trees, very old. And the brown stone building at the top of the hill is old, all grown over with ivy. Some of the teachers are old too. Their hair is like silver. But they are kind, oh so very kind. And they teach you so much. I have visited there. I know.” Her voice fell.
“Is it far?” Jeanne asked.
“Only an hour’s ride from here.”
“We shall go there some time, you and I.
“But Jensie—” The little French girl was all business now. “To-morrow I must go out to the lot.”
“The lot?”
“Where they make moving pictures. Will you go with me?”
“I’d love to.”
“Will you help me? Will you tell me if the trees are wrong, if the porch on the cabin is right, if the old mountaineer says his lines right?”
“I—I’ll do all I can.”
“Jensie,” Jeanne threw her arms about her. “You are a dear! We will make a picture, oh, such a marvelous picture of the land where your great Lincoln was born. And I—I shall be famous as—as Lorena LeMar. And you, ah, well, I shall not tell you now, but if we succeed you shall have something so very wonderful!”
Releasing her little mountain friend, she went flying away down the dark room in a wild gypsy dance.
Ten seconds later, she was back on tiptoe, her face white with terror.
“The hearse!” she whispered hoarsely. “There are now two black horses and a coffin. It moves! Oh, it moves!”
It was a full five minutes before even the stout-hearted Florence found courage to drive her reluctant feet down the long room. When she did, and had taken one look out of the window, she returned in haste.
“It’s gone,” she murmured hoarsely, “the hearse is gone!”
“I told you!” Jeanne repeated. “Two black horses and a coffin.”
“Haunts!” Jensie’s tone was solemn. “The hearse will be back there in the morning.”
“Will it?” Florence asked herself.
Gliding silently out of the room, they locked the door, then hurried away into the darkness with not a single backward look.
If Jeanne carried her heart in her mouth as she passed through the gate and walked out on the lot of that “Little Bit of Hollywood” in Chicago that day, neither her face nor her feet betrayed her. She was smiling. Her feet moved in a sort of rhythmic motion that was almost a dance.
“Come over here.” She steered Jensie, who was at her side, into the shadow of the stadium for spectators.
Before the stadium, a proper distance off, a liberal section of a mountain had been reproduced. This was surprisingly real with trees, bushes, grass and rocks. Real flowers were in bloom.
This did not astonish Jeanne. She had become accustomed to the magic of Chicago scenery. It came and went, she knew that well enough. Four months before this greatest of all Fairs had opened there had not been a tree nor even a shrub upon its grounds. And now, there they were, hundreds of trees, some towering fifty feet in air, thousands of shrubs, miles of hedges.
“Magic,” Jeanne murmured.
“It’s very beautiful.” Jensie’s voice was low. “A very beautiful mountain. But it’s not Big Black Mountain.”
“Why? Tell me!” Jeanne’s voice was eager.
Jensie did tell her. For a full quarter of an hour Jeanne listened, and not a word escaped her.
When at last a short chubby man, who walked with a slight limp, appeared at the foot of the mountain she was ready. That Lorena LeMar was capable of an imperious manner befitting a queen, she knew well enough. She was Lorena LeMar now. She would be imperious.
“Ah! Miss LeMar!” The little man gripped the tips of her fingers. “What a day!” he enthused. “It is so bright, like a child with a washed face. And look! What a mountain I have got for you!”
Jeanne looked into his bright little eyes. She was shaking at the knees, but her voice was steady.
“It’s a very pretty mountain, Mr. Soloman. But it’s not right.”
“What’s this? Not right, you say?” He stared in unfeigned astonishment.
“This story,” she went on, “is about Big Black Mountain. You have pines, young pines all over it. There are no pines on Big Black Mountain. There is mountain ivy, rhododendrons and dogwood in bloom. That’s the title, ‘When the Dogwood Is in Bloom.’ Where is it? Not a twig!”
“But Miss LeMar, you know—”
“Yes, I know.” Jeanne was going fast now. “You think the story can never be on the screen. What of that? These people who come to see pictures taken, many of them have traveled in the mountains of Kentucky and Virginia. They will look at your mountain and laugh.”
“Laugh? Laugh at me! At Abe Soloman!” The little director fairly danced. “I shall have it changed. You shall have your way, your ivy and your dogwood and what was it you said?”
“Rhododendrons.”
“Yes, and your dogwood, all over the lot.”
“Oh, thanks, Mr. Soloman.” The queen held out an imaginary sceptre.
“And Mr. Soloman,” Jeanne had intended going no further that day, but an irresistible impulse carried her on, “we can make a success of this picture, a real big success!”
The small eyes gave her a look that bored like a gimlet into her very soul. Had he guessed? Had she betrayed herself? She felt that her trembling knees would betray her. Too late now. She took a fresh start.
“It’s a truly beautiful story. All it lacks is contrast. When this mountain is done over it will do. We—we can shoot the indoor scenes in some fine home. I—I have rich friends.”
“Indoor scenes? Miss LeMar, there are no indoor scenes.”
“Oh, but Mr. Soloman!” In her eagerness Jeanne had her hand on the little man’s shoulder. “There must be indoor scenes. All this, this outside beauty and simplicity is fine, but there must be a palace, silks, gold, grandeur, just for contrast.
“When Zola, the little mountain girl, gets to Louisville in a box car she must be taken up by rich people who live in a grand house. They must dress her up in gowns, silk gowns and all that.”
Jeanne was running down like an eight-day alarm clock, but the little man did not appear to notice it. Before he caught up with her she was off again.
“These people!” She waved a hand at the half-filled stadium. “They come from everywhere. If they see a little bit of a feature picture shot, they’ll want to see the finished picture. That’s natural. Put up a big sign where they can see it. ‘The picture now being made is WHEN THE DOGWOOD IS IN BLOOM. See it in your home theater next month.’ And won’t they be there?”
“And how!” the little man muttered hoarsely, as he gripped her hand hard. “Miss LeMar, you are a vunder! A vunder! How did you ever get that vay?”
Not daring to utter another word, Jeanne fled precipitately from the spot.
As she rested in the shadow of the stadium, trying in vain to still her wildly beating heart, momentous questions crowded her brain. Had she gotten away with it? Had she truly? It seemed impossible.
“He’s a Jew, Mr. Soloman is a Jew. And whoever deceived a Jew? They are the keenest people living. I didn’t know he was a Jew. If I had known—”
If she had known, what then? Would she have refused? She did not know.
“There’s nothing for it now but to go on until some one shouts: ‘Stop!’” she assured herself as her mind sobered and her heart ceased its wild flutter.
She was still very much in the doldrums when, hours later, she sat wrapped in a satin bathrobe, looking out at the city by night.
“If I only were not so impulsive!” she was saying to Florence. “I meant to unfold my bright ideas one at a time. And there I blurted them out all at once, like some little child.
“And now,” she sighed, “he says there’ll be nothing more done on the picture for two days.
“Nothing more!” Her tone took on a bitter tinge. “Nothing has been done. We went through the motions and the dialogue to-day; did it just the best we knew how, too! The camera men seemed to be making shots. But it was all a fake. People in the stadium got a big kick out of it. But it made me feel all sick inside.
“The others in the cast are so fine, too.” Her voice changed. “This boy who’s playing the part of an Italian riding into the mountains on a donkey is a dear. Just a kid, but such smooth cheeks, such big eyes, such black hair!
“And he’s nice! Not hard as steel the way you expect movie men to be. He told me this was the first real part he’d ever been in, and oh, how he did want it to be a success! But he’d heard it was all set to be a flop.”
“And did you tell him you were going to make it a grand success?”
“No, I—” Jeanne’s voice trailed off. “I—I couldn’t. I—”
“You need more faith,” Florence said quietly. “Did you ever think, Jeanne, that nothing really worth while is ever accomplished without a tremendous amount of faith? You must believe in things and in people. You must believe that this picture is awfully worth while. You must believe in Mr. Soloman and your young Italian. Most of all, you must believe in yourself! Faith! That’s a grand word!”
“Yes. And I will have faith!” Springing to her feet, Jeanne went into such a wild whirl as set her blood racing and brought her back to her place at last with cheeks as rosy as those of her little Kentucky mountain friend.
“Do you know what?” she whispered, as if afraid of being overheard. “Jensie told me the old hearse at the back of the Tavern was in its place as usual this morning!”
“Of course. What did you expect?”
“But there were horses!” Jeanne’s tone carried conviction. “There were two black horses. I saw them. And there was a coffin! I saw that too. And the horses were hauling the hearse away!”
Long after Florence had retired for the night Jeanne paced slowly back and forth in that magnificently furnished living room. Her bare feet sank deep in the softest of Oriental rugs. Her filmy gown shimmered in the moonlight.
Oblivious of all these surroundings, Jeanne was deep in thought. “Faith!” she murmured. “Faith! Faith in one’s self, in one’s associates, one’s tasks. Faith in one’s future. Faith in a kind Providence.
“Faith. Faith. Ah, yes, I shall have faith.”
But the future? How strange the past had been! In her thoughts three-bladed knives, Buddhas and curious Oriental banners were strangely mixed with log cabins, a hearse drawn by black horses, and an organ playing itself.
“Ah, yes, but the future!” she exclaimed. “There is always a to-morrow, to-morrow, and to-morrow. The grand, good, golden future! Who can be afraid?”
At that she snapped out the light to stand looking down upon the vast, mysterious city until the distant chimes rang out the hour of two.
“Ah!” she whispered. “My hour of enchantment!”
For a moment she stood with bowed head as if in prayer. After that, for long hours, this entrancing room knew her not. For long hours she was wrapped in sleep.
It was well that she had faith in the future for to-morrow was to bring events mysterious and terrifying.
The clock was preparing to strike the hour of ten on the following night before she ventured forth from her well-kept fortress, Lorena LeMar’s apartment. She had not forgotten her narrow escape from Miss LeMar’s friends, the three rich and very badly spoiled play-boys. “Not that they were likely to do me any real harm,” she had confided to Florence. “They were out for one wild night and wished me to join them. And that for me?” She had made a face. “No! No! Not for me! Never!”
That she might escape danger from this quarter, she had garbed herself in her ancient gypsy costume of bright red and had hidden herself inside a long drab coat that came to her ankles.
She realized that perfect safety was to be had only by remaining inside. But who wants perfect safety? Certainly not our little French girl.
As a further precaution she descended a back stairway and left the building from a little-used doorway.
A half hour later she might have been found in the throng of joy hunters on the Midway of the great Fair.
She had just emerged from a breath-taking crush when off to the right she caught sight of a curious group gathered about some person beating a drum.
Tum, tum, tum, the dull monotony of beats played upon her ears.
Having joined the circle, she found herself looking at a very dark-skinned person with deep, piercing eyes. The man wore a long white robe. On his head was something resembling a Turkish towel twisted into a large knot.
Seated on the ground near this man were two others quite as dark as he. One was beating a curious sort of drum, the other squeaking away at something resembling a flute.
“Now watch! I will make him go up! Up! He will climb the rope. He will disappear utterly. Utterly!” The dark man’s voice, coming as it did from deep down in his throat, suggested that he might be talking from a well.
Upon hearing these words a small man stepped forward. The dark-faced one drew a circle about this little man.
At once the dark one began to whirl, then to dance.
Jeanne had witnessed many strange dances, but none so weird as this. The man whirled round and round until his robe seemed a winding sheet for a ghost. He began revolving about in a circle. And inside that circle stood the little man who was, Jeanne discovered, dressed in a curious sort of yellow gown.
Faster and faster went the drum beats, squeak-squeak went the flute, wilder and wilder flew the dancer.
“What can be going to happen?” the girl asked herself. In a vague sort of way she wished herself somewhere else, but to her astonishment she found herself unable to move.
Then a discovery, that under normal circumstances must have fairly bowled her over, came to her as in a dream: The little man standing there in the center garbed in an orange gown was none other than the long-eared Chinaman who had snatched the three-bladed knife from her hand.
“You can get him. Get him now,” a low voice seemed to whisper.
“Ah, yes, but you won’t,” a stronger voice appeared to reach her. “You’re going to see this thing through.”
And so she was.
Of a sudden, without for an instant abandoning his mad whirl, the dark-faced conjurer from India, for such he was, produced a rope. Three times he lifted his hand high.
“Now watch! Watch closely. He will go up.” In his voice there was a strange hypnotic cadence.
Like a thing shot from a gun, the rope rose straight in the air and, in so far as Jeanne’s eyes told her the truth, remained there standing on air.
The next instant a figure all in orange began passing up that rope. Up, up a yard, two yards, three, four, five. Up, up until the darkness appeared to stretch out black-robed arms to receive him.
Then of a sudden the dark-faced one ceased whirling. The drum gave forth one more loud boom, the flute one more squeak, and all was still.
With a sigh that was all but a whisper, Jeanne took one long, full breath.
She closed her eyes for an instant, then opened them.
To her astonishment she saw no dark-faced one in a white robe. The musicians, too, were gone.
“And the Chinaman!” she exclaimed aloud. “He has vanished also!”
“What has happened?” It was Erik Nord, the man from China, who spoke to her. He had just come up. “You must have seen a ghost.”
“No. I—I saw a Chinaman go up a rope that was fastened to nothing but air.”
“There was no rope,” Erik Nord laughed, “at least not in air, and no Chinaman.”
“Oh, yes! I saw him!”
“Well, perhaps. But he did not go up the rope.
“That man in the white robe,” he explained, “was India’s cleverest conjurer. With his weird music and wild whirling he cast a spell over you. You saw what he wished you to see. Perhaps you were hypnotized. Who can say?”
“But that Chinaman!” Jeanne murmured. “He was—was—”
She was about to tell the story of the three-bladed knife. Thinking better of it, she made some commonplace remark, then bade this chance acquaintance good-night as he hurried away to fill an engagement.
It is little wonder that, after such a mystifying experience as this, Jeanne should straightway walk into a trap. This is exactly what she did.
Erik Nord was to be found anywhere and everywhere. Young, very strong, full of the vigor of youth, he was in what was to him a strange land—America. Little wonder, then, that an hour after he had imparted valuable information to Petite Jeanne, Florence should have come upon him standing near the breakwater of the lagoon.
He was looking at a ship, a battered old windjammer tied up there by the shore.
“Stout little old boat, that!” he said to her with a friendly smile. “Can’t help but admire her, can you?”
“Why?” Florence wondered.
“Don’t you know the story? Come on board, and I’ll tell you.”
They mounted the gangplank, then wandered across the upper deck and descended to the deck below.
“See those!” Nord touched a ten-inch hand-hewn beam of ironwood. “Look at those knees! All hand-hewn. Know how old this ship is? Fifty years.
“And yet—” He paused. “And yet, when Richard Byrd wanted a ship that would carry him safely through the polar ice of the Antarctic, Roald Amundsen, who had sailed on this ship as a boy, said: ‘She’s the one you want.’
“They found her,” his voice was mellow, almost tender, “tied up to a dock far north in Norway. They’d thought she was through; everyone who knew her thought that. And yet, isn’t it magnificent! To-day she’s about the most famous ship afloat. Byrd’s Polar Ship, they call her.
“She’s Scandinavian built,” he said proudly. “My ancestors were Norsemen. Can you blame me for admiring this old ship?”
“No,” said Florence. “I’m glad you told me. This ship was built right, wasn’t it?”