IN WHICH I HAVE POLITE CONVERSATION, BUT LITTLE ELSE
I had myself quite forgotten my appointed hour of eleven, feeling so
sure that it would not be remembered, as of covenant, by the party of
the second part, so to speak, and was sitting on the forward deck
looking out over the interesting pictures of the landscape that lay
about us. It was the morning of a Sabbath, and a Sabbath calm lay all
about us--silence, and hush, and arrested action. The sun itself, warm
at a time when soon the breezes must have been chill at my northern
home, was veiled in a soft and tender mist, which brought into yet
lower tones the pale greens and grays of the southern forest which
came close to the bayou's edge. The forest about us not yet fallen
before the devastating northern lumbermen--men such as my father had
been, who cared nothing for a tree or a country save as it might come
to cash--was in part cypress, in part cottonwood, but on the ridge
were many oaks, and over all hung the soft gray Spanish moss. The
bayou itself, once the river, but now released from all the river's
troubling duties, held its unceasing calm, fitted the complete
retirement of the spot, and scarce a ripple broke it anywhere. Over
it, on ahead, now and then passed a long-legged white crane, bound for
some distant and inaccessible swamp; all things fitting perfectly into
this quiet Sabbath picture.
My cigar was excellent, I had my copy of Epictetus at hand, and all
seemed well with the world save one thing. Here, at hand, was
everything man could ask, all comforts, many luxuries; and I knew,
though Helena did not, that the safe increase of my fortune--that
fortune which some had called tainted, and which I myself valued
little, soon as I had helped increase it by the exercise of my
profession--was quite enough to maintain equal comfort or luxury for
us all our lives. But she was obstinate, and so was I. She would not
say whether she loved Cal Davidson, and I would never undeceive her as
to my supposed poverty. Why, the very fact that she had dismissed me
when she thought my fortune gone--that, alone, should have proved her
unworthy of a man's second thought. Therefore, ergo, hence, and
consequently, I could not have been a man; for I swear I was giving
her a second thought, and a thousandth; until I rebelled at a weakness
that could not put a mere woman out of mind.
And then, I slowly turned my head, and saw her standing on the after
deck. Her footfall was not audible on the rubber deck-mats, and she
had not spoken. I resolved, as soon as I had leisure, to ask some
scientific friends to explain how it was possible that with no sound
or other appeal to any of the sensorial nerves, I could, at a distance
of seventy-five feet, become conscious of the presence of a person no
more than five feet five, who had not spoken a word, and was standing
idly looking out over the ship's rail, in quite the opposite direction
from that in which I sat. And then the ship's clock struck six bells,
and recalled the appointment at eleven. Hastily I dropped Epictetus
and my cigar, and hurried aft.
"Good morning again, Helena," said I.
She stood looking on out over the water for a time, but, at length,
turned toward me, just a finger up as to stifle a yawn. "Really," said
she, "while I am hardly so situated that I can well escape it or
resent it, it does seem to me that you might well be just a trifle
less familiar. Why not 'Miss Emory'?"
"Because, Helena, I like 'Helena' better."
A slow anger came into her eyes. She beat a swift foot on the deck.
"Don't," I said. "Don't stamp with your feet. It reminds me of a
Belgian hare, and I do not like them, potted or caged."
"I might as well be one," she broke out, "as well be one, caged here
as we are, and insulted by a--a----"
"A ruthless buccaneer----"
"Yes, a ruthless buccaneer, who has remembered only brutalities."
"And forgotten all amenities? Why, Helena, how could you! And after
all the cork-tipped cigarettes I have given you, and all the
ninety-three I have given your Auntie Lucinda--why look at the empty
message bottles she and you have thrown out into the helpless and
unhelping bayou--a perfect fleet of them, bobbing around. Shan't I
send the boys overboard to gather them in for you again?"
"A fine education you are giving those boys, aren't you, filling their
heads with lawless ideas! A fine debt we'll all owe you for ruining
the character of my nephew Jimmy. He was such a nice nephew, too."
"Your admiration is mutual, Miss Emory--I mean, Helena. He says you
are a very nice auntie, and your divinity fudges are not surpassed and
seldom equaled. It is an accomplishment, however, of no special use to
a poor pirate's bride; as I intend you shall be."
She had turned her back on me now.
"Besides, as to that," I went on, "I am only affording these young
gentlemen the same advantages offered by the advertisements of the
United States navy recruiting service--good wages, good fare, and an
opportunity to see the world. Come now, we'll all see the world
together. Shall we not, Miss Emory--I mean, Helena?"
"We can't live here forever, anyhow," said she.
"I could," was my swift answer. "Forever, in just this quiet scene.
Forever, with all the world forgot, and just you standing there as you
are, the most beautiful girl I ever saw; and once, I thought, the
kindest."
"That I am not."
"No. I was much mistaken in you, much disappointed. It grieved me to
see you fall below the standard I had set for you. I thought your
ideals high and fine. They were not, as I learned to my sorrow. You
were just like all the rest. You cared only for my money, because it
could give you ease, luxury, station. When that was gone, you cared
nothing for me."
I stood looking at her lovely shoulders for some time, but she made no
sign.
"And therefore, finding you so fallen," I resumed, "finding you only,
after all, like the other worthless, parasitic women of the day, Miss
Emory--Helena, I mean--I resolved to do what I could to educate you.
And so I offer you the same footing that I do your nephew--good
wages, good fare, and an opportunity to see the world."
No answer whatever.
"Do you remember the Bay of Naples, at sunset, as we saw it when we
first steamed in on the old _City of Berlin_, Helena?"
No answer.
"And do you recall Fuji-yama, with the white top--remember the
rickshaw rides together, Helena?"
No answer.
"And then, the fiords of Norway, and the mountains? Or the chalk
cliffs off Dover? And those sweet green fields of England--as we rode
up to London town? And the taxis there, just you and I, Helena, with
Aunt Lucinda happily evaded--just you and I? Yes, I am thinking of
forcing Aunt Lucinda to walk the plank ere long, Helena. I want a
world all my own, Helena, the world that was meant for us, Helena,
made for us--a world with no living thing in it but yonder
mocking-bird that's singing; and you, and me."
"Could you not dispense with the mocking-bird--and me?" she asked.
"No," (I winced at her thrust, however). "No, not with you. And you
know in your heart, in the bottom of your trifling and fickle and
worthless heart, Helena Emory, that if it came to the test, and if
life and all the world and all happiness were to be either all yours
or all mine, I'd go anywhere, do anything, and leave it all to you
rather than keep any for myself."
"Go, then!"
"If I might, I should. But male and female made He them. I spoke of us
as units human, but not as the unit _homo_. Much as I despise you,
Helena, I can not separate you from myself in my own thought. We seem
to me to be like old Webster's idea of the Union--'one and
indivisible.' And since I can not divide us in any thought, I, John
Doe, alias Black Bart, alias the man you once called Harry, have
resolved that we shall go undivided, sink or swim, survive or perish.
If the world were indeed my oyster, I should open it for us both; but
saying both, I should see only you. Isn't it odd, Helena?"
"It is eleven-thirty," said she.
"Almost time for luncheon. Do you think me a 'good provider,' Helena?"
"Humph! Mr. Davidson was. While your stolen stores last in your stolen
boat, I suppose we shall not be hungry."
"Or thirsty?" She shrugged.
"Or barren of cork-tips of the evening? Or devoid of guitar strings?"
"I shall need none."
"Ah, but you will! It belikes me much, fair maid, to disport me at
ease this very eve, here on the deck, under the moon, and to hear you
yourself and none other, fairest of all my captives, touch the lute,
or whatever you may call it, to that same air you and I, fair maid,
heard long ago together at a lattice under the Spanish moon. A swain
touched then his lute, or whatever you may call it, to his Dulcinea.
Here 'tis in the reverse. The fair maid, having no option, shall touch
the lute, or whatever you call it, to John Doe, Black Bart, or
whatever you may call him; who is her captor, who feels himself about
to love her beyond all reason; and who, if he find no relief,
presently, in music--which is better than drink--will go mad, go mad,
and be what he should not be, a cruel master; whereas all he asks of
fate is that he shall be only a kind captor and a gentle friend."
Her head held very high, she passed me without a word and threw open
the door of her suite.
[Illustration: It was a love song of old Spain]
... And that night, that very night, that very wondrous, silent,
throbbing night of the Sabbath and the South, when all the air was as
it seemed to me in saturation, in a suspense of ecstasy, to be broken,
to be precipitated by a word, a motion, a caress, a note ... that
night, I say, as I sat on the forward deck alone, I heard, far off and
faint as though indeed it were the lute of Andalusia, the low, slow,
deep throb of a guitar!... My whole heart stopped. I was no more
than a focused demand of life. Reason was gone from me, not intellect
but emotion--that is its basic thing after all, emotion born on earth
but reaching to the stars.... I listened, not hearing.... It was the
air we had heard long ago, a love song of old Spain, written, perhaps,
before DeSoto and his men perished in these very bayous and forests
that now shielded us against all tumult, all turmoil, all things
unhappy or unpleasant. The full tide of life and love swept through my
veins as I listened.
I rose, I hastened. At her door I paused. "Helena!" I called
raucously. "Helena." And she made no reply. "Helena," I called again.
"It was the same old air. This is Spain again! Ah, I thank you for
that same old air. Helena, forgive me. May I come in--will you come
out?"
I halted. A cold voice came from the companionway door. "You have a
poor ear for music, John Doe. It is not the same. Do you think I would
take orders from you, or any other man?"
I stood irresolute a moment, and then did what I should not have done.
I pulled open her door. "Come out," I demanded. But then I closed the
door and went away. She was sitting, her head bowed on the instrument
she had played. And when she looked up, startled at my rudeness, I saw
her eyes wet with tears.