IN WHICH I FIND TWO ESTIMABLE FRIENDS, BUT LOSE ONE BELOVED
The weather now, moderating, after the fashion of weather on this
coast, as rapidly as it had become inclement, we passed a more
comfortable night on our desert island. No doubt the lighthouse tender
knew of our presence, for he easily could see our tent by day and our
fire by night, and he surely must have seen our good ship riding at
anchor under his nose at the edge of the channel; but no visit came
from that official--for the very good reason, as we later learned,
that the storm had stove in his boat at her mooring; so that all he
himself could do was to cross his Cajun bosom and pray that his supply
skiff might come from across the bay. So, as much alone as the Swiss
family by name of Robinson--an odd name for a Swiss family, it always
seemed to me--we remained on our desert island undisturbed, the ladies
now in the comfortable tent, my hardy pirates under the tarpaulin, and
the rest of us as we liked or might, all in beds of the sweet scented
grasses which grew along the lagoon where the great ranks of wild
fowl kept up their chatter day and night.
It was a land of plenty, and any but a man in my situation might well
have been content there for many days. Content was not in my own soul.
I was up by dawn and busy about the boats, before any sign of life was
visible around the tent or the canvas shelter. But since the sun rose
warm, it yet was early when we met at John's breakfast fire. I felt
myself a shabby figure, for in my haste I had forgotten my razors; and
by now my clothing was sadly soiled and stained, even the most famous
of the Davidson waistcoats being the worse for the salt-water
immersions it had known; and my ancient flannels were corkscrewing
about my limbs. But as for Helena, young and vital, she discarded her
sweater for breakfast, and appeared as she had before the shipwreck,
in lace bridge coat and wearing many gems! L'Olonnois, with the
intimacy of kin and the admiration of youth--and with youth's lack of
tact--saluted her now gaily. "Gee! Auntie," said he, at table on the
sand, "togged out that way, all them glitterin' gems, you shore look
fit for a pirate's bride!"
Poor Helena! She blushed red to the hair; and I fear I did no better
myself. "Jimmy!" reproved Aunt Lucinda.
"Don't call me 'Jimmy'!" rejoined that hopeful. "My name is
L'Olonnois, the Scourge of The Sea. Me an' Jean Lafitte, we follow
Black Bart the Avenger, to the Spanish Main. Auntie, pass me the
bacon, please. I'm just about starved."
Mrs. Daniver, as was her custom, ate a very substantial breakfast;
Helena, almost none at all; nor had I much taste for food. In some
way, our constraint insensibly extended to all the party, much to
L'Olonnois' disgust. "It's _her_ fault!" I overheard him say to his
mate. "Women can't play no games. An' we was havin' such a bully
chance! Now, like's not, we won't stay here longer'n it'll take to get
things back to the boat again. I don't want to go back home--I'd
rather be a pirate; an' so'd any fellow."
"Sure he would," assented Jean. They did not see me, behind the tent.
"Somethin's wrong," began L'Olonnois, portentously.
"What'd you guess?" queried Lafitte. "Looks to me like it was
somethin' between him an' the fair captive."
"That's just it--that's just what I said! Now, if Black Bart lets his
whiskers grow, an' Auntie Helena wears them rings, ain't it just like
in the book? Course it is! But here they go, don't eat nothin', don't
talk none to nobody."
"I'll tell you what!" began Lafitte.
"Uh-huh, what?" demanded L'Olonnois.
"A great wrong has been did our brave leader by yon heartless jade;
that's what!"
"You betcher life they has. He's on the square, an' look what he done
for us--look how he managed things all the way down to here. Anybody
else couldn't have got away with this. Anybody else'd never a' went
out there last night after John, just a Chink, thataway. An' her!"
Jimmy's disapproval of his auntie, as thus expressed, was extreme. I
was now about to step away, but feared detection, so unwillingly heard
on.
"But he can't see no one else but yon fickle jade!" commented Jean
Lafitte, "unworthy as she is of a bold chief's regard!"
"Nope. That's what's goin' to make all the trouble. I'll tell you
what!"
"What?"
"We'll have to fix it up, somehow."
"How'd you mean?"
"Why, reason it out with 'em both."
Jean apparently shook his head, or had some look of dubiousness, for
L'Olonnois went on.
"We _gotta_ do it, somehow. If we don't, we'll about have to go back
home; an' who wants to go back home from a good old desert island like
this here. _So_ now----"
"Uh, huh?"
"Why, I'll tell you, now. You see, I got some pull with her--the fair
captive. She used to lick me, but she don't dast to try it on here on
a desert island: so I got some pull. An' like enough you c'd talk it
over with Black Bart."
"Nuh--uh! I don't like to."
"Why?"
"Well, I don't. He's all right."
"Yes, but we got to get 'em _together_!"
"Shore. But, my idea, he's hard to _get_ together if he gets a notion
he ain't had a square deal nohow, someways."
"Well, he ain't. So that makes my part the hardest. But you just go to
him, and tell him not to hurry, because you are informed the fair
captive is goin' to relent, pretty soon, if we just don't get in too
big a hurry and run away from a place like this--where the duck
shootin' is immense!"
"But kin you work _her_, Jimmy?"
"Well, I dunno. She's pretty set, if she thinks she ain't had a square
deal, too."
"Well now," argued Lafitte, "if that's the way they both feel, either
they're both wrong an' ought to shake hands, or else one of 'em's
wrong, and they either ought to get together an' find out which it
was, or else they ought to leave it to some one else to say which one
_was_ wrong. Ain't that so?"
"O' course it's so. So now, thing fer us fellows to do, is just to put
it before 'em plain, an' get 'em both to leave it to us two fellers
what's right fer 'em both to do. Now, _I_ think they'd ought to get
married, both of 'em--I mean to each other, you know. Folks _does_ get
married."
"Black Bart would," said Jean Lafitte. "I'll bet anything. The fair
captive, she's a heartless jade, but I seen Black Bart lookin' at her,
an'----"
"An' I seen her lookin' at him--leastways a picture--an' says she,
'Jimmy----'"
"Jimmy!" It was I, myself, red and angry, who now broke from my
unwilling eavesdropping.
The two boys turned to me innocently. I found it difficult to say
anything at all, and wisest to say nothing. "I was just going to ask
if you two wouldn't like to take the guns and go out after some more
ducks--especially the kind with red heads and flat noses, such as we
had yesterday. And I'll lend you Partial, so you can try for some more
of those funny little turtles. I'll have to go out to the ship, and
also over to the lighthouse, before long. The tide will turn, perhaps,
and at least the wind is offshore from the island now."
"Sure, we'll go." Jean spoke for both at once.
"Very well, then. And be careful. And you'd--you'd better leave your
auntie and her auntie alone, Jimmy--they'll want to sleep."
"You didn't hear us sayin' nothin', did you, Black Bart?" asked
L'Olonnois, suspiciously.
"By Jove! I believe that's a boat beating down the bay," said I. "Sail
ho!" And so eager were they that they forgot my omission of direct
reply.
"It's very likely only the lighthouse supply boat coming in," said I.
"I'll find out over there. Better run along, or the morning flight of
the birds will be over." So they ran along.
As for myself, I called Peterson and Williams for another visit to our
disabled ship, which now lay on a level keel, white and glistening,
rocking gently in the bright wind. I left word for the ladies that we
might not be back for luncheon.
We found that the piling waters of Cote Blanche, erstwhile blown out
to sea, were now slowly settling back again after the offshore storm.
The _Belle Helene_ had risen from her bed in the mud now and rode
free. Our soundings showed us that it would be easy now to break out
the anchor and reach the channel, just ahead. So, finding no leak of
consequence, and the beloved engines not the worse for wear, Williams
went below to get up some power, while Peterson took the wheel and I
went forward to the capstan.
The donkey winch soon began its work, and I felt the great anchor at
length break away and come apeak. The current of the air swung us
before we had all made fast; and as I sounded with a long bow pike, I
presently called out to Peterson, "No bottom!" He nodded; and now,
slowly, we took the channel and moved on in opposite the light. We
could see the white-capped gulf rolling beyond.
"Water there!" said Peterson. "We can go on through, come around in
the Morrison cut-off, and so make the end of the Manning channel to
the mainland. But I wish we had a local pilot."
I nodded. "Drop her in alongside this fellow's wharf," I added. "The
ladies have sent some letters--to go out by the tender's boat,
yonder--I suppose he'll be going back to-day."
"Like enough," said Peterson; and so gently we moved on up the dredged
channel, and at last made fast at the tumble-down wharf of the
lighthouse; courteously waiting for the little craft of the tender to
make its landing.
We found the mooring none too good, what with the storm's work at the
wharf, and as we shifted our lines a time or two, the gaping,
jeans-clad Cajun who had come in with mail and supplies passed in to
the lighthouse ahead of us; and I wonder his head did not twist quite
off its neck, for though he walked forward, he ever looked behind him.
When at length we two, Peterson and myself, passed up the rickety walk
to the equally rickety gallery at the foot of the light, we found two
very badly frightened men instead of a single curious one. The keeper
in sooth had in hand a muzzle-loading shotgun of such extreme age,
connected with such extreme length of barrel, as might have led one to
suspect it had grown an inch or so annually for all of many decades.
He was too much frightened to make active resistance, however, and
only warned us away, himself, now, a pale saffron in color.
"Keep hout!" he commanded. "No, you'll didn't!"
"We'll didn't what, my friend?" began I mildly. "Don't you like my
looks? Not that I blame you if you do not. But has the boat brought
down any milk or eggs that you can spare?"
"No milluk--no haig!" muttered the light tender; and they would have
closed the door.
"Come, come now, my friends!" I rejoined testily. "Suppose you
haven't, you can at least be civil. I want to talk with you a minute.
This is the power yacht _Belle Helene_, of Mackinaw, cruising on the
Gulf. We went aground in the storm; and all we want now is to send out
a little mail by you to Morgan City, or wherever you go; and to pass
the time of day with you, as friends should. What's wrong--do you
think us a government revenue boat, and are you smuggling stuff from
Cuba through the light here?"
"We no make hany smug'," replied the keeper. "But we know you, who you
been!"
He smote now upon an open newspaper, whose wrapper still lay on the
floor. I glanced, and this time I saw a half-page cut of the _Belle
Helene_ herself, together with portraits of myself, Mrs. Daniver, Miss
Emory and two wholly imaginary and fearsome boys who very likely were
made up from newspaper portraits of the James Brothers! Moreover, my
hasty glance caught sight of a line in large letters, reading:
TEN THOUSAND DOLLARS REWARD!
"Peterson," said I calmly, handing him the paper, "they seem to be
after us, and to value us rather high."
He glanced, his eyes eager; but Peterson, while a professional
doubter, was personally a man of whose loyalty and whose courage I,
myself, had not the slightest doubt.
"Let 'em come!" said he. "We're on our own way and about our own
business; and outside the three mile zone, let 'em follow us on the
high seas if they like. She's sound as a bell, Mr. Harry, and once we
get her docked and her port shaft straight, there's nothing can touch
her on the Gulf. Let 'em come."
"But we can't dock here, my good Peterson."
"Well, we can beat 'em with one engine and one screw. Besides, what
have we done?"
"Haint you was 'hrobber, han ron hoff with those sheep?" demanded the
keeper excitedly.
"No, we are not ship thieves but gentlemen, my friend," I answered,
suddenly catching at his long gun and setting it behind me. "You
might let that go off," I explained. At which he went yellower than
ever, a thing I had thought impossible.
"Now, look here," said I. "Suppose we are robbers, pirates, what you
like, and suppose a price is put on our heads--a price which means a
jolly nice libel suit for each paper printing it, by the way, or a
jolly nice apology--none the less, we are a strong band and without
fear either of the law or of you. Here you are alone, and not a sail
is in sight. If any boat did come here, we could--well, we could blow
her out of the water, couldn't we, Peterson? We could blow you out of
the water, too, couldn't we, we and these ruffians of our crew?"--and
I pointed at the two low-browed pictures of Lafitte and L'Olonnois.
A shudder was my only answer. I think the two portraits of my young
bullies did the business.
"Very well, then," I resumed, "it is plain, Messieurs, that there is
many a slip between the reward and the pocket, _voyez vous_? _Bien!_
But here--" and I thrust a hand into my pocket--"is a reward much
closer home, and far easier to attain."
Their eyes bulged as they saw two or three thousand dollars in big
bills smoothed out.
"_Ecoutez, Messieurs!_" said I. "Behold here not enemies, but men of
like mind. I speak of men who live by the sea, men of the old home of
Jean Lafitte, that great merchant, that bold soldier, who did so much
to save his country at the Battle. Even now he has thousands of
friends and hundreds of relatives in this land. You yourself, I doubt
not, Messieurs, are distant cousins of Jean Lafitte? _N'est-ce pas?_"
They crossed themselves, but murmured "_Ba-oui!_" "Est ees the trut'!
How did Monsieur know?" asked the tender.
"I know many things. I know that any cousin descended from those brave
days loves the sea and its ways more than he loves the law. And if
money has come easy--as this did--what harm if a cousin should take
the price of a rat-skin or two and carry out a letter or so to the
railway, and keep a close mouth about it as well? To the good old
days, and Messieurs, my friends!" I had seen the neck of a flask in
Peterson's pocket, and now I took it forth, unscrewed the top, and
passed it, with two bills of one hundred dollars each.
They poured, grinned. I stood, waiting for their slow brains to act,
but there was only a foregone answer. The keeper drank first, as
ranking his tender; the other followed; and they handed the
flask--not the bills--back to Peterson and me.
"_Merci, mes amis!_" said I. "And I drink to Jean Lafitte and the old
days! Perhaps, you may buy a mass for your cousin's soul?"
"_Ah non!_" answered the keeper. "Hees soul she's hout of _Purgatoire_
long hago eef she'll goin' get hout. Me, I buy me some net for
s'rimp."
"An' me, two harpent more lan' for my farm," quoth the tender.
"Alas! poor Jean!" said I. "But he was so virtuous a man that he needs
no masses after a hundred years, perhaps. As you like. You will take
the letters; and this for the telegraph?"
"Certain'! I'll took it those," answered the tender. "You'll stayed
for dish coffee, yass?" inquired the keeper, with Cajun hospitality.
"No, I fear it is not possible, thank you," I replied. "We must be
going soon."
"An' where you'll goin', Monsieur?"
"Around the island, up the channel, up the old oyster-boat channel of
Monsieur Edouard. The letters are some of them for Monsieur Edouard
himself. And you know well, _mes amis_, that once we lie at the wharf
of Monsieur Edouard, not the government even of the state will touch
us yonder?"
"My faith, _non!_ I should say it--certain' not! No man he'll mawnkey
wit' Monsieur Edouard, heem! You'll was know him, Monsieur?"
"We went to school together. We smoked the same pipe."
"My faith! You'll know Monsieur Edouard!" The keeper shook my hand.
"H'I'll was work for Monsieur Edouard manny tam hon hees boat, hon
hees plantation, hon hees 'ouse. When I'll want some leetle money,
s'pose those hrat he'll wasn't been prime yet, hall H'I'll need was to
go non Monsieur Edouard, hask for those leetle monny. He'll han' it on
me, yass, heem, ten dollar, jus' like as heasy Monsieur has gave it me
hondred dollar now, yas, heem!"
"Yes? Well, I know that a cousin of Jean Lafitte--who no doubt has dug
for treasure all over the dooryard of Monsieur Edouard----"
"But not behin' the smoke-house--nevair on dose place yet, I'll swear
it!"
"--Very well, suppose you have not yet included the smoke-house of
Monsieur Edouard, at least you are his friend. And what Acadian lives
who is not a friend of the ladies?"
"Certain', Monsieur."
"Very well again. What you see in the paper is all false. The two
ladies whose pictures you see here, and here, are yonder at our camp.
You shall come and see that they are well and happy, both of them.
Moreover, if you like another fifty for the mass for Jean Lafitte's
soul, you, yourself, my friend, shall pilot us into the channel of
Monsieur Edouard. We'll tow your boat behind us across the bay. Is it
not?"
"Certain'! _oui!_" answered the tender. "But you'll had leetle dish
coffee quite plain?" once more demanded the lonesome keeper; and for
sake of his hospitable soul we now said yes; and very good coffee it
was, too: and the better since I knew it meant we now were friends.
Ah! pirate blood is far thicker than any water you may find.
"But if we take you on as pilot, my friend," said I to the pilot as at
length we arose, "how shall we get out our letters after all?"
"Thass hall right," replied he, "my cousin, Richard Barriere--she's
cousin of Jean Lafitte too, heem--she'll was my partner on the s'rimp,
an' she'll was come hon the light, here, heem, to-mor', yas, heem."
"And would you give the letters to Mr. Richard Barriere to-morrow?" I
inquired of the lighthouse keeper.
"_Oui, oui_, certain', _assurement_, wit' _plaisir, Monsieur_," he
replied. So I handed him the little packet.
It chanced that my eye caught sight of one of the two letters Mrs.
Daniver had handed me. The address was not in Mrs. Daniver's
handwriting, but one that I knew very well. And the letter, in this
handwriting that I knew very well, was addressed to Calvin Horace
Davidson, Esquire, The Boston Club, New Orleans, Louisiana: all
written out in full in Helena's own scrupulous fashion.
I gave the letter over to the messenger, but for a time I stood
silent, thinking. I knew now very well what that letter contained. But
yesterday, Helena Emory had finally decided, there on the beach, alone
with me, the salt air on her cheek, the salt tears in her eyes. She
had gone far as woman might to tell me that she was grieved over a
hasty word--she had given me a chance, my first chance, my only
chance, my last chance. And, I, pig-headed fool, had slighted her at
the very moment of moments of all my life--I who had prided myself on
my "psychology"--I who had thought myself wise--I had allowed that
woman to go away with her head drooping when at last she--oh, I saw it
all plainly enough now! And now indeed small psychology and small wit
were requisite to know the whole process of a woman's soul, thus
chilled. She had been hesitant, had been a little resentful of this
runaway situation, had not liked my domineering ways; but at last she
had relented and had asked my pardon. Then I had spurned her. And then
her mind swung to the other man. She had not yet given that man his
answer, but when I chilled her, rejected her timid little desire to
"make up" with me--why, then, her mind was made up for that other man
at once. She had written his answer. And now--oh! fiendlike cruelty of
woman's heart--she had chosen me as her messenger to carry out that
word which would cost me herself forever! She had done that
exquisitely well, as she did everything, not even advising me that I
was to be her errand boy on such an errand, trusting me to find out by
accident, as I had, that I was to be my own executioner, was to spring
my own guillotine. She knew that, none the less, though I understood
what the letter meant thus addressed, I sacredly must execute her
silent trust. Oh! Helena, yours was indeed an exquisite revenge for
that one hour of a dour man's hurt pride.