THE DANCE OF DEATH
“In France, at one time,” Jeanne began, as she settled back in her place
and Florence rested on her oars, “the gypsies were treated as outlaws.
They were hunted from province to province. Many were hanged on trees.
Perhaps—” She shrugged her shoulders. “Perhaps this was their own fault.
They may have behaved badly.
“All this did not rob them of their love for life. They danced and sang
all the same.
“Sometimes they had rifles and bullets. One time they had none. A company
of soldiers were stealing upon them through the forest. They were
expected at midnight, when a young man, Bratu Vaicu, who was in love with
the old chief’s daughter, said to him:
“‘This is the time Tinka promised to marry me.’
“‘Spoken like a brave gypsy!’ exclaimed the chief. ‘Let the wedding go
on.’
“Danger meant nothing to these gypsies when a bridal feast and a dance
were at hand. They kindled fires. The women prepared the feast.
“Stan and Marga decided to be married, too. Two other couples joined
them. Four couples, four weddings in all. What a night of joy for a gypsy
camp!
“They cleared a space among the trees. Old Radu took down his fiddle. He
began to sing. They all started dancing, doing the tarantella, the most
beautiful dance in the world.”
“Yes, the most beautiful,” Florence agreed.
“Shots sounded in the distance,” Jeanne went on, in a tone that was
musical, dramatic. “The shots did not disturb the gypsies. Bullets meant
death. But what was death? Were they not living now as they had never
lived before?
“The dance grew wilder. Shots came closer. Bullets whizzed by. Still they
danced.
“A soldier peered through the branches. He expected to see grim faces and
muzzles of rifles. Instead, he saw laughing eyes and flashing heels. What
did it mean? He did not understand.
“He was joined by another, another, and yet another. A beautiful gypsy
girl saw them. She seized one soldier and drew him into the dance. Others
followed. Soon all the soldiers were dancing.
“Morning found the soldiers without swords or rifles. Who cared? They had
found true happiness. They would join the gypsies. And they did.
“So you see,” Jeanne ended with a sigh, “by their very love of life,
their disregard for danger and death, they won more abundant life. But
surely you can see, too, that gypsies are not really afraid.
“Neither am I. If there are gypsies from France in these forests, I wish
to see them, to speak their language, to hear them speak my own beloved
tongue. In this strange land we have a bond of brotherhood.”
“So that is the way she feels about it!” Florence thought in some
surprise. “Then I must find her some gypsies.”
She did find them, and that very soon—the same three who had left their
patteran on the dock post. She lost them, too, only to be found by them
long weeks afterward under the most unusual circumstances.
In the meantime, there was the rowboat and water that was like glass. She
rowed on and on down the bay until the cottages, the store, the ancient
sawmill, the dock, were all but specks in the distance. Then, with a fir
tree on a point as her guide, she rowed straight for their cabin.
They ate their lunch on the beach that evening. Then Jeanne went for a
stroll along the shore.
Florence pushed her boat out into the bay and rowed toward the open lake.
She loved this spot. No small lake could have so won her affection. Here
in this land-locked bay she was always safe from storms. Yet, just
beyond, through the gap between two points of land, she could see Lake
Huron. “Makes you feel that you are part of something tremendous,” she
had said to Tillie, once. And Tillie had understood.
Now she dropped her oars and sat there alone, watching the light fade
from the sky while “some artist Saint spilled his paint adown the western
sky.”
She was glad to be alone. She wished to think. Jeanne had a disturbing
way of reading one’s thoughts, or very nearly reading them, that was
uncanny. It was of Jeanne, in part, that she wished to think.
“It is positively weird,” she told herself, “the way exciting happenings
keep bobbing up in this quiet place. Just when I think those gypsies have
left these parts and Jeanne is free from any harm they might do her, she
discovers that patteran and gets excited about it.”
She had not expected Jeanne to be so anxious to see the gypsies. Now she
was in a quandary. Should she attempt to find the gypsies and bring them
to Jeanne? She did not doubt that this could be done.
“Their camp is just over there,” she told herself, nodding toward the
little island that lay across the bay. “But if I find them; if they meet
Jeanne face to face, what then?”
Who could answer this question? Certainly it was beyond her. There were
times when she felt certain that this gypsy band had come to America for
the purpose of revenge; that they had somehow secured possession of a
speed boat, had perhaps stolen it, and that it had been they who tipped
over the rowboat and had come near drowning Jeanne on that other night.
Just now she was not so sure of this. “If they stole a speed boat they
would not dare remain so long in one place,” she thought. “But, after
all, what other motive can they have for remaining in this vicinity?”
What, indeed? They were not to be seen at the village, nor along the
shore selling baskets and telling fortunes as gypsies are accustomed to
do. Yet they did not go away.
“If they did not run us down, who did?” she asked herself for the
hundredth time. She all but hated herself for clinging so tenaciously to
this question.
She thought of the rich people who lived on Erie Point. At first she had
blamed them for the near catastrophe—had thought of it as a cruel prank.
The lady cop’s opinion of rich young people had cast a deep shadow upon
this theory. Still she had not wholly abandoned it.
Then, of course, there were the people on Gamblers’ Island. The lady cop
had said she believed someone had mistaken their boat for hers. “That
would mean that they know she is after them, and they wish to destroy
her,” she reasoned. “And yet she hides from them as if they knew nothing
about her. It’s all very puzzling.”
She recalled her latest visit to the lady cop’s cabin. They had been
seated by the lady cop’s fire when Tillie said, “O-oo! How thrilling to
be the friend of a lady detective!”
“It may be thrilling,” Miss Weightman had replied, “but you must not
forget that it is dangerous, too.”
“Dangerous!” Tillie had stared.
“The crook, the lawbreaker is sought by the detective,” the lady cop had
continued soberly. “Too often the tables are turned. The detective is
hunted by the crook. There is an age-long war between the law and the
breakers of the law.”
“Such peril,” Florence assured herself now, “should be welcomed by every
right-minded person. If being a friend to justice and to those who uphold
the arm of the law puts one in danger, then welcome, oh you danger!”
All the while she was thinking these problems through, she was conscious
of a drumming sound beating in upon her senses. Now it suddenly grew into
a roar.
“Another speed boat. And I am alone, far out at sea,” she thought to
herself in sudden consternation as, gripping the sides of her boat, she
braced herself for a sudden shock.
The shock did not come. Instead the put-put-put of a motor ceased and,
ten seconds later, the strangest craft Florence had ever seen glided up
beside her boat. She stared at it in amazement. The thing was not one
quarter the size of her rowboat; yet it boasted an outboard motor capable
of handling a twenty foot boat. It had no keel. The prow was flat as a
surfboard. There was one seat, large enough for a single person. In that
seat reposed a grinning boy of some eighteen summers.
“What is it?” The question escaped her lips unbidden.
“Name’s ‘Spank Me Again.’” The boy’s grin broadened.
“But what is it?” she persisted.
“Guess.”
“I can’t.” She was beginning to feel amused. “It makes a noise like an
airplane. But it has no wings. Looks like a surfboat. But surfboats don’t
have their own power. It can’t be a boat because it has no keel. I guess
it’s a what’s-it.”
“Correct,” laughed the boy. “And I’m a who’s-it. I’m Bradford Erie. My
dad’s frightfully rich, so I have to have this thing to advertise.”
“Advertise?” Florence was puzzled.
“To advertise the fact that I’m just like everybody else. People think
rich folks are not. But they are. How could they be different, even if
they wanted to? They eat and sleep, drink, fish, play, fight and go to
school if they are boys. And what does anyone else do? Exactly the same.”
“I think I could like that boy,” Florence thought to herself.
She said to him in a mocking tone, “It must be truly dreadful to be
rich.”
“Oh! it is!
“Want a tow back?” He changed the subject.
“That might be thrilling, and perhaps a trifle dangerous.”
“I won’t dump you out. I’m no rotter. Give me a try.”
She gave him a try. It was indeed a thrilling ride. His boat cut the foam
as it leaped from side to side. She got some spray in her face, and was
home before she knew it.
“With that boy at the wheel,” she told herself, after thanking him and
bidding him good-night, “no speed boat would run down a humbler craft.
But then, perhaps he only mans the ‘Spank Me Again.’
“That thing will be the death of him,” she said, as she finished telling
Jeanne of this little adventure. “It will turn over when it’s going at
full speed. The motor will take it to the bottom, and him with it.”
Little she knew how nearly a true prophetess she was.
That evening Florence sat for some time before the fire. She was trying
to read the future by the pictures in the flames. The pictures were dim
and distorted. She read little there. But often the smiling face of the
“poor little rich boy,” who found it necessary to advertise the fact that
he was just like other folks, danced and faded in the flames.
“He’s a real sport,” she told herself. “I hope we meet again.”
Strangely enough, with this wish came the conviction that they would meet
again, that his life and her life, the life of Tillie, of Jeanne, and of
the lady cop, were inseparably linked together.
“But after all,” she told herself skeptically, “this, too, may be but a
dream of the passing flames.”