IN WHICH I ESTABLISH A MODUS VIVENDI
As good fortune would have it, we swung in, opposite the screened
mouth of Henry's Bayou, at a time when the stream was free of all
craft that might have observed us, although far across the forest we
could see a black column of smoke, marking a river steamer coming up.
"Quick with that long boat, Lafitte," I ordered; and he drew our old
craft alongside as we slowed down. "Get over yonder and sound for a
bar. Take the boat hook. If you get four feet, we'll try it."
My hardy young ruffian was nothing if not prompt, nor was he less
efficient than the average deck-hand. It was he who did the sounding
while Willie, our factotum, pulled slowly in toward the mouth of the
old river bed. I watched them through the glasses, noting that rarely
could Lafitte find any bottom at all with the long shaft of the boat
hook. "She's all right, Peterson," said I. "Follow on in, slowly--I
don't want that steamer yonder to catch us."
"_Why_ don't you?" A voice I should know, to which all my body would
thrill, did I hear it in any corner of the world, spoke at my elbow.
I started for a half instant before I made reply, looking into her
dark eyes, sensible again of the perfume most delirium-producing for a
man: the scent of a woman's hair.
"Because, Helena," said I, "I wish our boat to lie unnoticed for a
time, till the hue and cry has lulled a bit."
"And then?" She bent on me her gaze, so difficult to resist, and
smiled at me with the corners of her lips, so subtly irresistible. I
felt a rush of fire sweep through all my being, and something she must
have noted, for she gave back a bit and stood more aloof along the
rail.
"And then," said I savagely, "this boat runs by all the towns, till we
reach the Gulf, and the open sea."
"And then?"
"And then, Helena, we sail the ocean blue, you and I."
"For how long?"
"Forever, Helena. Or, at least, until----"
"Until when?"
"Until you say you will marry me, Helena."
She made no answer now at all beyond a scornful shrug of her
shoulders. "Suppose I can not?" she said at last.
"If you can not, all the same you must and shall!" said I. "You shall
be prisoner until you do."
"Is there no law for such as you?"
"No. None on the high sea. None in my heart. Only one law I know any
more, Helena--I who have upheld the law, obeyed it, reverenced it."
"And that?"
"The law of the centuries, of the forest, of the sea. The law of love,
Helena."
"Ah, you go about it handsomely! If you wished me to despise you, to
hate you, this would be very fit, what you say."
"You may hate me, despise me, Helena. Let it be so. But you shall not
ignore me, as you have these three years."
"It was your fault; your wish--as well as my wish. We agreed to that.
Why bring it up again? When the news came that you had quit your
profession, and just at the time you had lost all your father's
fortune and your own, had turned your back and run away, when you
should have stayed and fought--well, do you think a girl cares for
that sort of man? No. A man must do something in this world. He
mustn't quit. He's got to _fight_."
"Not even if he has nothing to work for?"
"No, not even then. There are plenty of girls in the world----"
"One."
--"And a man mustn't throw away his life for any one woman. That isn't
right. He has his work to do, his place to make and hold. That's what
a woman wants in a man. But you didn't. Now, you come and say we must
forget all the years of off-and-on, all the time we--we--wasted, don't
you know? And because I am, for a little while, in your hands, you
talk to me in a way of which you ought to be ashamed. You threaten me,
a woman. You even almost compromise me. This will make talk. You speak
to me as though, indeed, you were a buccaneer, and I, indeed, in your
power absolutely. If I did not know you----"
"You do not. Forget the man you knew. I am not he."
She spread out her hands mockingly, and yet more I felt my anger rise.
"I am another man. I am my father, and his great grandfather, and all
his ancestors, pirates all. I know what I covet, and by the Lord!
nothing shall stop me, least of all the law. I shall take my own where
I find it."
"And now listen!" I concluded. "I am master on this ship, no matter
how I got it. Late poor, as you say, I shall be richer soon, for I
shall take, law or no law, consent or no consent, what I want, what I
will have. And that is you!
"Each day, at eleven, Helena," I concluded, "I shall meet you on the
after deck, and shall try to be kind, try to be courteous----"
"Why, Harry----"
"Try to be calm, too. I want to give you time to think. And I, too,
must think. For a time, I wondered what was right, in case you had
really pledged yourself to another man."
"Suppose I had?" she asked, sphinx-like.
"I will try to discover that. Not that it would make any difference in
my plans."
"You would take what was another's?" She still gazed at me,
sphinx-like.
"Yes! By the Lord, Helena, my father did, and his, and so would I! So
would I, if that were you! Let him fend for himself."
She turned from the rail, her color a little heightened, affected to
yawn, stretched her arms.
We were now passing over the bar, slowly, feeling our way, our skiff
alongside, and the shelter of the curving, tree-covered bayou banks
now beginning to hide us from view, though the bellowing steamer below
had not yet entered our bend.
"Who is that boy?" she inquired lazily.
"That, madam, is no less than the celebrated freebooter, Jean Lafitte,
who so long made this lower coast his rendezvous."
"Nonsense! And you're filling his head with wild ideas."
"Say not so; 'twas he and your blessed blue-eyed pirate nephew, the
cutthroat L'Olonnois, who filled my head with wild ideas."
"How, then?"
"They took me prisoner, on my own--I mean, at the little place where I
stop, up in the country. And not till by stern deeds I had won their
confidence, did they accept me as comrade, and, at last, as leader--as
I may modestly claim to be. And do not think that you can wheedle
either of them away from Black Bart. L'Olonnois remembers you spanked
him once, and has sworn a bitter vengeance."
"Why did you happen to start sailing down this way?"
"Because I learned Cal Davidson had started--with you."
"And all that way you had it in mind to overtake us?"
"Yes; and have done so; and have taken his ship away from him, and for
all I know his bride."
"He was your friend."
"I thought so. I suppose he never knew that you and I used to--well,
to know each other, before I lost my money."
"He never spoke of that."
"No difference, unless all for the better, for I shall, now, never
give you up to any man on earth."
"And I thought you the best product of our civilization, a man of
education, of breeding."
"No, not breeding, unless savagery gives it. I'm civilized no longer.
When you stand near me, and your hair--go below, Helena! Go at once!"
She turned, moved slowly toward her door.
I finished calmly as I could. "To-morrow, at eleven, I shall give you
an audience here on the deck. We shall have time. This is a
wilderness. You can not get away, and I hope no one will find you.
That is my risk. And oh! Helena," I added, suddenly, feeling my heart
soften at the pallor of her face--"Oh, Helena, Helena, try to think
gently of me as you can, for all these miles I have followed after
you; and all these years I have thought of you. You do not know--you
do not know! It has been one long agony. Now go, please. I promise to
keep myself as courteous as I can. You and I and Aunt Lucinda will
just have a pleasant voyage together until--until that time. Try to be
kind to me, Helena, as I shall try to be with you."
Silent, unsmiling, she disappeared beyond her cabin door, nor would
she eat dinner even in her cabin, although Aunt Lucinda did; and found
the ninety-three was helping her neuralgia.
I know not if they slept, but I slept not at all. The shadows hung
black about us as we lay at anchor four miles inland, silent, and with
no lights burning to betray us. Now and again, I could hear faint
voices of the night, betimes croakings, splashings in the black water
about us. It was as though the jungle had enclosed us, deep and
secret-keeping. And in my heart the fierce fever of the jungle's
teachings burned, so that I might not sleep.
But in the morning Helena was fresh, all in white, and with no more
than a faint blue of shadow beneath her eyes. She honored us at
breakfast, and made no manner of reference to what had gone on the
evening before. This, then, I saw, was to be our _modus vivendi_;
convention, the social customs we all had known, the art, the gloss,
the veneer of life, as life runs on in society as we have organized
it! Ah, she fought cunningly!
"Black Bart," said L'Olonnois, after breakfast as we all stood on
deck--Helena, Auntie Lucinda and all--"what's all them things floatin'
around in the water?"
"They look like bottles, leftenant," said I; "perhaps they may have
floated in here. How do you suppose they came here, Mrs. Daniver?" I
asked.
"How should I know?" sniffed that lady.
"Well, good leftenant, go overside, you and Jean, and gather up all
those bottles, and carry them with my compliments to the ladies at
their cabin. You can have the satisfaction of throwing them all
overboard later on, Mrs. Daniver. Only, remember, that there is no
current in the bayou, and they will stay where they fall for weeks,
unless for the wind."
"And where shall we be, then?" demanded Auntie Lucinda, who had eaten
a hearty breakfast, and I must say was looking uncommon fit for one so
afflicted with neuralgia.
"Oh, very likely here, in the same place, my dear Mrs. Daniver," said
I, "unless war should break out meantime. At present we all seem to
have a very good _modus vivendi_, and as I have no pressing
engagements, I can conceive of nothing more charming than passing the
winter here in your society." Saying which I bowed, and turning to
Helena, "At eleven, then, if you please?"