I dropped my book and ran on deck. Every one else was already
there. I joined the row at the rail, indifferent, for the moment,
to the fact that to display so much interest in their ridiculous
island involved a descent from my pinnacle. Indeed, the chill
altitude of pinnacles never agrees with me for long at a time, so
that I am obliged to descend at intervals to breathe the air on the
common level.
The great gleaming orb of the tropic moon was blinding as the sun.
Away to the faint translucent line of the horizon rolled an
infinity of shining sea. Straight ahead rose a dark conical mass.
It was the mountainous shape of Leeward Island.
Everybody was craning to get a clearer view. "Hail, isle of
Fortune!" exclaimed Miss Browne. I think my aunt would not have
been surprised if it had begun to rain doubloons upon the deck.
"I bet we don't put it over some on them original Argonaut fellers,
hey?" cried Mr. Tubbs.
Higher and higher across the sky-line cut the dark crest of the
island as the freighter steamed valiantly ahead. She had a manner
all her own of progressing by a series of headlong lunges, followed
by a nerve-racking pause before she found her equilibrium again.
But she managed to wallow forward at a good gait, and the island
grew clearer momently. Sheer and formidable from the sea rose a
line of black cliffs, and above them a single peak threw its shadow
far across the water. Faintly we made out the white line of the
breakers foaming at the foot of the cliffs.
We coasted slowly along, looking for the mouth of the little bay.
Meanwhile we had collected our belongings, and stood grouped about
the deck, ready for the first thrilling plunge into adventure. My
aunt and Miss Browne had tied huge green veils over their cork
helmets, and were clumping about in tremendous hobnailed boots. I
could not hope to rival this severely military get-up, but I had a
blue linen skirt and a white middy, and trusted that my small stock
of similar garments would last out our time on the island. All the
luggage I was allowed to take was in a traveling bag and a
gunny-sack, obligingly donated by the cook. Speaking of cooks, I
found we had one of our own along, a coal-black negro with grizzled
wool, an unctuous voice, and the manners of an old-school family
retainer. So far as I know, his name was Cookie. I suppose he had
received another once from his sponsors in baptism, but if so, it
was buried in oblivion.
Now a narrow gleaming gap appeared in the wall of cliffs, and the
freighter whistled and lay to. There began a bustle at the davits,
and shouts of "Lower away!" and for the first time it swept over me
that we were to be put ashore in boats. Simultaneously this fact
swept over Aunt Jane, and I think also over Miss Browne, for I saw
her fling one wild glance around, as though in search of some
impossible means of retreat. But she took the blow in a grim
silence, while Aunt Jane burst out in lamentation. She would not,
could not go in a boat. She had heard all her life that small
boats were most unsafe. A little girl had been drowned in a lake
near where she was visiting once through going in a boat. Why
didn't the captain sail right up to the island as she had expected
and put us ashore? Even at Panama with only a little way to go she
had felt it suicidal--here it was not to be thought of.
But the preparations for this desperate step went on apace, and no
one heeded Aunt Jane but Mr. Tubbs, who had hastened to succor
beauty in distress, and mingled broken exhortations to courage with
hints that if his opinion had been attended to all would be well.
Then Aunt Jane clutched at Mr. Shaw's coat lapel as he went by, and
he stopped long enough to explain patiently that vessels of the
freighter's size could not enter the bay, and that there really was
no danger, and that Aunt Jane might wait if she liked till the last
boat, as it would take several trips to transfer us and our
baggage. I supposed of course that this would include me, and
stood leaning on the rail, watching the first boat with Mr. Shaw,
Captain Magnus and the cook, fade to a dark speck on the water,
when Mr. Vane appeared at my elbow.
"Ready, Miss Harding? You are to go in the next boat, with me. I
asked especially."
"Oh, thanks!" I cried fervently. He would be much nicer than Mr.
Tubbs to cling to as I went down--indeed, he was so tall that if it
were at all a shallow place I might use him as a stepping-stone and
survive. I hoped drowning men didn't gurgle very much--meanwhile
Mr. Vane had disappeared over the side, and a sailor was lifting me
and setting my reluctant feet on the strands of the ladder.
"Good-by, auntie !" I cried, as I began the descent. "Don't blame
yourself too much. Everybody has to go some time, you know, and
they say drowning's easy."
With a stifled cry Aunt Jane forsook Mr. Tubbs and flew to the
rail. I was already out of reach.
"Oh, Virginia!" she wailed. "Oh, my dear child! If it should be
the last parting!"
"Give my jewelry and things to Bess's baby!" I found strength to
call back. What with the wallowing of the steamer and the natural
instability of rope-ladders I seemed a mere atom tossed about in a
swaying, reeling universe. _What will Aunt Jane do_? flashed
through my mind, and I wished I had waited to see. Then the arms
of the Honorable Mr. Vane received me. The strong rowers bent
their backs, and the boat shot out over the mile or two of bright
water between us and the island. Great slow swells lifted us. We
dipped with a soothing, cradle-like motion. I forgot to be afraid,
in the delight of the warm wind that fanned our cheeks, of the
moonbeams that on the crest of every ripple were splintered
to a thousand dancing lights. I forgot fear, forgot Miss
Higglesby-Browne, forgot the harshness of the Scotch character.
"Oh, glorious, glorious!" I cried to Cuthbert Vane.
"Not so dusty, eh?" he came back in their ridiculous English slang.
Now an American would have said _some little old moon that_! We
certainly have our points of superiority.
All around the island white charging lines of breakers foamed on
ragged half-seen reefs. You saw the flash of foam leaping half the
height of the black cliffs. The thunder of the surf was in our
ears, now rising to wild clamor, fierce, hungry, menacing, now
dying to a vast broken mutter. Now our boat felt the lift of the
great shoreward rollers, and sprang forward like a living thing.
The other boat, empty of all but the rowers and returning from the
island to the ship, passed us with a hail. We steered warily away
from a wild welter of foam at the end of a long point, and shot
beyond it on the heave of a great swell into quiet water. We were
in the little bay under the shadow of the frowning cliff's.
At the head of the bay, a quarter of a mile away, lay a broad white
beach shining under the moon. At the edge of dark woods beyond a
fire burned redly. It threw into relief the black moving shapes of
men upon the sand. The waters of the cove broke upon the beach in
a white lacework of foam.
Straight for the sand the sailors drove the boat. She struck it
with a jar, grinding forward heavily. The men sprang overboard,
wading half-way to the waist. And the arms of the Honorable
Cuthbert Vane had snatched me up and were bearing me safe and dry
to shore.
The sailors hauled on the boat, dragging it up the beach, and I saw
the Scotchman lending them a hand. The hard dry sand was crunching
under the heels of Mr. Vane. I wriggled a little and Apollo, who
had grown absent-minded apparently, set me down.
Mr. Shaw approached and the two men greeted each other in their
offhand British way. As we couldn't well, under the circumstances,
maintain a fiction of mutual invisibility, Mr. Shaw, with a certain
obvious hesitation, turned to me.
"Only lady passenger, eh? Hope you're not wet through. Cookie's
making coffee over yonder."
"I say, Shaw," cried the beautiful youth enthusiastically, "Miss
Harding's the most ripping sport, you know! Not the least nervous
about the trip, I assure you."
"I was," I announced, moved to defiance by the neighborhood of Mr.
Shaw. "Before we started I was so afraid that if you had listened
you might have heard my teeth chattering. But I had at least the
comforting thought that if I did go to my end it would not be
simply in pursuit of sordid gain!"
"And indeed that was almost a waste of noble sentiment under the
circumstances," answered the dour Scot, with the fleeting shadow of
an enraging smile. "Such disappointingly calm weather as it is!
See that Miss Harding has some coffee, Bert."
I promised myself, as I went with Mr. Vane toward the fire, that
some day I would find the weapon that would penetrate the
Scotchman's armor--and would use it mercilessly.
Cookie, in his white attire, and with his black shining face and
ivory teeth gleaming in the ruddy firelight, looked like a
converted cannibal--perhaps won from his errors by one of Mr.
Vane's missionary Johnnies. He received us with unctuous warmth.
"Well, now, 'clar to goodness if it ain't the li'le lady! How come
you git ashore all dry lak you is? Yes, sah, Cookie'll git you-all
some'n hot immejusly." He wafted me with stately gestures to a
seat on an overturned iron kettle, and served my coffee with an air
appropriate to mahogany and plate. It was something to see him
wait on Cuthbert Vane. As Cookie told me later, in the course of
our rapidly developing friendship, "dat young gemmun am sure one ob
de quality." To indicate the certainty of Cookie's instinct, Miss
Higglesby-Browne was never more to him than "dat pusson." and the
cold aloofness of his manner toward her, which yet never sank to
impertinence, would have done credit to a duke.
On the beach Mr. Shaw, Captain Magnus and the sailors were toiling,
unloading and piling up stores. Rather laggingly, Apollo joined
them. I was glad, for a heavy fatigue was stealing over me.
Cookie, taking note of my sagging head, brought me somebody's
dunnage bag for a pillow. I felt him drawing a tarpaulin over me
as I sank into bottomless depths of sleep.
I opened my eyes to the dying stars. The moon had set. Black
shapes of tree and boulder loomed portentous through the ashen
dimness that precedes the dawn. I heard men shouting, "Here she
comes!" "Stand by to lend a hand!" In haste I scrambled up and
tore for the beach. I must witness the landing of Aunt Jane.
"Where are they, where are they?" I demanded, rubbing my sleepy
eyes.
"Why didn't you stay by the fire and have your nap out?" asked Mr.
Shaw, in a tone which seemed to have forgotten for the moment to be
frigid--perhaps because I hadn't yet waked up enough to have my
quills in good pricking order.
"Nap? Do you think that for all the treasure ever buried by a
pirate I would miss the spectacle of Aunt Jane and Miss Browne
arriving? I expect it to compensate me for all I have suffered on
this trip so far."
"See what it is, Bert," exclaimed the Scotchman, "to have a truly
gentle and forgiving nature--how it brings its own reward. I'm
afraid you and I miss a great deal in life, lad."
The beautiful youth pondered this.
"I don't know," he replied, "what you say sounds quite fit and
proper for the parson, and all that, of course, but I fancy you are
a bit out in supposing that Miss Harding is so forgiving, old man."
"I didn't know that _you_ thought so badly of me, too!" I said
timidly. I couldn't help it--the temptation was too great.
"I? Oh, really, now, you can't think that!" Through the dusk I saw
that he was flushing hotly.
"Lad," said the Scotchman in a suddenly harsh voice, "lend a hand
with this rope, will you?" And in the dusk I turned away to hide
my triumphant smiles. I had found the weak spot of my foe--as Mr.
Tubbs might have said, I was wise to Achilles's heel.
And now through the dawn-twilight that lay upon the cove the boat
drew near that bore Mr. Tubbs and his fair charges. I saw the
three cork helmets grouped together in the stern. Then the foaming
fringe of wavelets caught the boat, hurled it forward, seemed all
but to engulf it out leaped the sailors. Out leaped Mr. Tubbs, and
disappeared at once beneath the waves. Shrill and prolonged rose
the shrieks of my aunt and Miss Higglesby-Browne. Valiantly Mr.
Shaw and Cuthbert Vane had rushed into the deep. Each now appeared
staggering up the steep, foam-swept strand under a struggling
burden. Even after they were safely deposited on the sand. Miss
Browne and my aunt continued to shriek.
"Save, save Mr. Tubbs!" implored Aunt Jane. But Mr. Tubbs,
overlooked by all but this thoughtful friend, had cannily saved
himself. He advanced upon us dripping.
"A close call!" he sang out cheerfully. "Thought one time old Nep
had got a strangle-hold all right. Thinks I, I guess there'll be
something doing when Wall Street gets this news--that old H. H. is
food for the finny denizens of the deep!"
"Such an event, Mr. Tubbs," pronounced Violet, who had recovered
her form with surprising swiftness, "might well have sent its
vibrations through the financial arteries of the world!"
"It would have been most--most shocking!" quavered poor Aunt Jane
with feeling. She was piteously striving to extricate herself from
the folds of the green veil.
I came to her assistance. The poor plump little woman was
trembling from head to foot.
"It was a most--unusual experience," she told me as I unwound her.
"Probably extremely--unifying to the soul-forces and all that, as
Miss Browne says, but for the moment--unsettling. Is my helmet on
straight, dear? I think it is a little severe for my type of face,
don't you? There was a sweet little hat in a Fifth Avenue
shop--simple and yet so chic. I thought it just the thing, but
Miss Browne said no, helmets were always worn--Coffee? Oh, my dear
child, how thankful I shall be!"
And Aunt Jane clung to me as of yore as I led her up the beach.
V