THE FIRST DAY IN THE WILDS
The sun was up hours before Ridgeway stretched his stiff arms, blinked
his sleepy eyes and peered wonderingly about his strange apartment.
Another and more rapid glance failed to reveal Lady Tennys. His jacket
was still there, and a round depression showed that her head had rested
upon it all night. The packed sand denoted the once present body of
the sleeper.
"Good-morning," came a sweet, clear voice from somewhere.
"Hello! Where are you?" he called, greatly relieved.
"In the kitchen, of course, getting breakfast for you. The kitchen is
down at the spring, you know. Come down."
He hurried down the path, and found her standing beside the bounding
little stream. Her wavy black hair was no longer matted and wild, for,
with the water in the cove as a mirror and her big hair comb as the
necessary toilet article, she had "done it up" in quite a presentable
fashion. Her face was bright and pure in its freshness, her hands were
white and immaculately clean; her eyes sparkled with a deeper, clearer
blue than ever. She wore an air of resolute confidence in herself.
"I have been up for two hours or more. See how nice and clean I am. Go
down there and wash your hands and face and I will comb your hair." She
produced an improvised clothes broom, a stout leafy branch from a
cocoanut-tree, and swished the sand from his clothing as he turned about
for her obediently.
"These clothes of mine are full of sand and scum from the sea, but
before the day is over I intend to give them a good scrubbing and
drying. Then I'll feel like a new man. But wait! This may be Sunday, not
Monday. Can't wash on Sunday, can I? Let's see, the wreck was on
Thursday night, yesterday was Friday and--"
"And to-day is Saturday naturally. We must have clean clothes for
Sunday. Our parlor, kitchen, and laundry are in the same room, it would
seem. Here's a pile of cocoanuts I collected while you slept, and there
are some plums or fruit of some kind. They grow back there in the wood a
short distance. I saw some gorgeous birds out there, and they were
eating the fruit, so it must be wholesome. And those dear, saucy little
monkeys! I could watch them for hours."
"Did you run across any boa constrictors or anacondas?" asked he
serenely.
"Good Heavens! I never thought of snakes. There may be dreadful serpents
in that forest, Hugh." Her eyes were full of alarm.
"I merely asked your Ladyship in order to keep the cook in her
kitchen," laughed he.
"An afternoon out is not a luxury in this land, even for the most cooped
up of cooks. Snakes! Ugh!" Hugh thought she shuddered very prettily.
"Breakfast will be cold if I don't hurry," he observed. He made his way
around the rocky bend to the point where the rivulet emptied into the
cove. When he returned to the shady spot he was put to work opening
cocoanuts and pouring the milk into the shells of others. She had
cleaned the flat surface of a large rock which stood well out from the
lower edge of the cliff, and signified her intention to use it as a
dining table. He became enthusiastic and, by the exertion of all the
strength he could muster, succeeded in rolling two boulders down the
incline, placing them in position as stools beside the queer table. Then
they stood off and laughed at the remarkable set of furniture.
"I wonder what time it is?" she said as they began to eat. He pulled his
forgotten repeater from his watch pocket and opened it with considerable
apprehension. It was not running, nor did it appear as if it would ever
be of service again.
"How are we ever to know the time of day?" she cried.
"I'll try to fix it. It is only water-clogged. My little compass on the
charm is all right and it will give us our bearings, north and south, so
that I can get the time by the sun. I'll drive a little stake out there
on the level, and when the shadow is precisely north and south, then it
is noon. It's all very simple, Lady Tennyson."
"I'm only the cook, Hugh. Won't you please call me Tennys?"
"Thank you; it's such a waste of time to say Lady Tennyson. Shall I
order dinner, cook?"
"We'll have a ten-course dinner, sir, of cocoanuts and plums, sir, if
you please, sir."
"Breakfast warmed over, I see," he murmured, gazing resignedly toward
the trees. Later on he managed to get some life into his watch and
eventually it gave promise of faithful work. He set the hands at twelve
o'clock. It was broiling hot by this time, and he was thoughtful enough
to construct a poke-bonnet for her, utilizing a huge palm leaf. Proudly
he placed the green protector upon her black hair. Then, looking into
her smiling eyes, he tied the grass cord under her up-tilted chin.
"Perfect!" she cried, with genuine pleasure. "You must make another for
yourself." Whether he took it as a command or as a request matters not.
Suffice it to say, he soon produced another palm-leaf hat, and she tied
it under his chin a great deal more deftly than he had performed the
same service for her, consequently with a speed that disappointed him.
He decided to make a short tour of the wood during the afternoon. At
first he argued it would be wise to walk far down the coast, in the hope
of finding a village of some description along the water front. Then he
decided that a trip to the north, through the wood, would be better, as
the lower coast could be surveyed from the summit of the great rock.
"You are not afraid to stay here alone for a couple of hours, are you,
Tennys?" he asked, discerning solicitude in her face.
"I am not afraid for myself, but for you. You must be very careful,
Hugh, and come back to me safely. What can I do? What shall I do if you
never come back?" she cried.
"Nothing can happen to me--nothing in the world. See, it's nearly one
o'clock now. I'll be back by five. And I'll be careful, so do not be
troubled. We must find the way out of this wilderness. Be brave and I'll
soon be with you again."
He was soon in the depths of the forest, skirting the little bay toward
the north. She stood beside their stone festal board, watching him
through uneasy eyes till he disappeared completely from view. A sense of
loneliness so overpowering that it almost crushed her fell upon this
frail, tender woman as she stood there on the edge of the South Sea
jungle, the boundless sea at her back. The luxuries and joys of a life
to which she had been accustomed came up in a great flash before her
memory's eye, almost maddening in their seductiveness. She glanced at
the dress she wore, and a faint, weary smile came to her eyes and lips.
Instead of the white, perfect yachting costume, she saw the wretched,
shrunken, stained, shapeless garment that to her eyes would have looked
appalling on the frame of a mendicant. Her costly shoes, once small and
exquisitely moulded to her aristocratic feet, were now soiled and ugly.
From the palace to the jungle! From the wealth of fashion to the poverty
of nature! From the scores of titled admirers to the single brave
American who shared life with her on the bleak rock, mourning for a love
that might never be restored by the unkind depths. A vision of yesterday
and to-day! Turning to the sea, she breathed a prayer for the salvation
of Grace Vernon, her eyes dimming as she thought of the blithe, cheery
girl who had become so dear to her, and who was all the world to
Hugh Ridgeway.
Her thoughts went then to Lord Huntingford, her husband. There was scant
regret in her heart over the fate of the old nobleman. She was not cruel
enough to rejoice, but there was a certain feeling of relief which she
could not quell, try as she would, in the belief that he had gone down
to death and a younger, nobler man spared. The last she saw of her
husband was when he broke past the officers and plunged out upon the
deck, leaving her to her fate. That he had been instantly swept
overboard she had no doubt. All she could remember of her thoughts at
that thrilling moment was the brief, womanly cry for mercy to his soul.
After that came the lurch which prostrated her, and then Ridgeway's cry,
"Be brave, dearest!"
Bitter tears streamed down her cheeks as she thought of the
strong-hearted Veath and the forsaken American girl--and all of the
others in that merry company. It was not in such anguish as this that
she summed up her individual loss.
Ridgeway was soon in the thick of the jungle. For two or three hours he
plunged through beautiful glades, over swelling knolls, across tiny
streams, but always through a waste of nature that, to all appearance,
had never been touched by a human being save himself.
At last he dropped wearily upon a grassy mound and resigned himself to
the conviction that they had been swept upon an absolutely unexplored,
perhaps undiscovered, portion of the globe. It did not occur to his
discouraged mind that he had covered less than five miles of what might
be a comparatively small piece of uninhabited land and that somewhere
not far distant lay the civilization for which he sought. His despairing
mind magnified the horrors of their position to such an extent that he
actually wondered how long it would be before death broke down their
feeble resistance. Arising despondently, he turned his steps in the
direction of the little cave.
It was not long before he reached a small sandy stretch about five
hundred yards from the spot where he had left Lady Tennys. Little waves
licked the short strip of sand lazily, seeming to invite him down to
meet them on their approach from the big sea whose tidings of woe they
bore. High, dark and ominous loomed the great rock on the south. He
could not see the cave or the rivulet on account of obstructing trees
and a curve in the shore, so he walked down to the very edge of the
water, expecting to obtain a view from that point.
A startling discovery flashed upon him as he strode upon the beach.
There, in the white, soft sand were plainly revealed the footprints of a
bare human foot. He rubbed his eyes and gazed again. Before him were a
number of small footprints, running to and from the water. In a dazed,
wondering way he sought to follow them, eventually finding where a
single line of tracks led directly toward a clump of trees to his left.
At the edge of this he found a confusion of bewildering barefoot moulds,
mixed with others unquestionably made by a shoe on the foot of a
civilized person. Hurrying through the trees, fearful that savages had
attacked Lady Tennys at this place, he was suddenly confronted by a
spectacle that made him gasp. Down at the water's edge, over near the
place where he had left her, he saw white garments spread upon the
rocks. She was nowhere to be seen. Like a flash the truth came to him,
and he looked at his watch in consternation. It was but three-thirty
o'clock. He had told her he would be away until five or after.
Turning about, he dashed back into the depths of the wood. It was after
five when he again approached the rendezvous, carrying a quantity of
plums and other fruits and a number of gaudy feathers that he had
found. Away back in the wood he began to shout to her, long before he
was in sight of the hill. She answered cheerily, venturing into the wood
to meet him. Her clothes were white, clean, even shapely.