I wasted what little daylight was left trying to climb out, using
nothing but hands and feet. And then I sat down and cursed myself for a
triple-plated, copper-riveted, patent-applied-for fool. Nothing would
have been easier, given light, than to take the wattling that had fallen
into the pit with me to pieces, build a pole--sort of a split-bamboo
fishing-rod on a big scale--shin up and go home. But to turn that trick
in the dark wasn't any fun. I did it though--twice. I made the first
pole too light and it smashed when I was half-way up. A splinter jabbed
into my thigh and drew blood. That complicated matters. The smell of the
blood went out of the pit and travelled around the island like a
sandwich man saying: "Fine supply of fresh meat about to come out of
Right Bower's pet pitfall; second on the left."
When I'd shinned to the top of the second pole I built and crawled over
the rim of the pit--there was a tiger sitting, waiting, very patient. I
could just make him out in the starlight. He was mighty lean and looked
like a hungry gutter-cat on a big scale. Some people are afraid to be
alone in the dark. I'm not. Well, I just knelt there--I'd risen to my
knees--and stared at him. And then I began to take in a long breath--I
swelled and swelled with it. It's a wonder I didn't use up all the air
on the island and create a vacuum--in which case the tiger would have
blown up. I remember wondering what that big breath was going to do when
it came out. I didn't know. I had no plan. I looked at the tiger and he
looked at me and whined--like a spoiled spaniel asking for sugar. That
was too much. I thought of Ivy, maybe needing me as she'd never needed
any one before--and I looked at that stinking cat that meant to keep me
from her. I made one jump at him--'stead of him at me--and at the same
time I let out the big breath I'd drawn in a screech that very likely
was heard in Jericho.
The tiger just vanished like a Cheshire cat in a book I read once, and I
was running through the night for home and Ivy. But the fire at the cave
was dying, and Ivy was gone.
Well, of course she'd have gone to look for me.... It was then that I
began to whimper and cry. I lit a pine-torch, flung some wood on the
embers, and went out to look for her--whimpering all the time. I'd told
her that I was going out to bait a certain trap and would then come
straight home. So of course she'd have gone straight to that trap--and
it was there I found her.
The torch showed her where she sat, right near the dead chetah, in the
very centre of the trap--triggers all about her--to touch one of which
spelt death; and all around the trap, in a ring--like an audience at a
one-ring circus--were the meat-eaters--the tigers--the lions--the
leopards--and, worst of all, the pigs. There she sat and there they
sat--and no one moved--except me with the torch.
She lifted her great eyes to me and she smiled. All the beasts looked at
me and turned away their eyes from the light and blinked and shifted;
and the old he-lion coughed. They wouldn't come near me because of the
torch--and they wouldn't go near Ivy because of the trap. They knew it
was a trap. They always had known it and so had Ivy. That was why she
had gone into it when so many deaths looked at her in so many
ways--because she knew that in there she'd be safe. All along she'd
known that my old traps and pitfalls wouldn't catch anything; but she'd
never said so--and she'd never laughed at them or at me. I could find it
in my heart to call her a perfect wife--just by that one fact of tact
alone; but there are other facts--other reasons--millions of them.
Suddenly from somewhere near Ivy there came a thin, piping sound.
"It's your little son talking to you," says Ivy, as calm as if she was
sitting up in a four-poster.
"My little son!" I says. That was all for a minute. Then I says:
"Are you all right?"
And she says:
"Sure I am--now that I know you are."
I turned my torch fire-end down and it began to blaze and sputter and
presently roar. Then I steps over to the lion and he doesn't move; and I
points the torch at his dirty face--and lunges.
Ever see a kitten enjoying a fit? That was what happened to him. Then I
ran about, beating and poking and shouting and burning. It was like
Ulysses cleaning the house of suitors and handmaids. All the beasts ran;
and some of 'em ran a long way, I guess, and climbed trees.
I stuck the torch point-end in the ground, stepped into the trap, and
lifted my family out. All the time I prayed aloud, saying: "Lord on
high, keep Right Bower from touching his blamed foot against any of
these triggers and dropping the forest on top of all he holds in his
arms!" Ivy, she rubbed her cheek against mine to show confidence--and
then we were safe out and I picked up the torch and carried the whole
kit and boodle, family, torch, happiness--much too big to tote--and
belief in God's goodness, watchfulness, and mercy, home to our cave.
Right Bower added some uneventful details of the few days following--the
ship's boat that put into the island for water and took them off, and
so on. Then he asked me if I'd like to meet Mrs. Bower, and I went
forward with him and was presented.
She was deep in a steamer-chair, half covered with a somewhat gay
assortment of steamer-rugs. I had noticed her before, in passing, and
had mistaken her for a child.
Bower beamed over us for a while and then left us and we talked for
hours--about Bower, the children, and the home in East Orange to which
they were returning after a holiday at Aix; but she wouldn't talk much
about the island. "Right," she said, "was all the time so venturesome
that from morning till night I died of worry and anxiety. Right says the
Lord does just the right thing for the right people at the right
time--always. That's his creed.... Sometimes," she said, "I wonder
what's become of big Bahut. He was such a--white elephant!"
Mrs. Gordon-Colfax took me to task for spending so much of the afternoon
with Mrs. Bower.
"Who," said she, "was that common little person you were flirting
with?--and why?"
"She's a Mrs. Bower," I said. "She has a mission."
"I could tell that," said Mrs. Gordon-Colfax, "from the way she turned
up her eyes at you."
"As long as she doesn't turn up her nose at me--" I began; but Mrs.
Gordon-Colfax put in:
"The Lord did that for her."
"And," I said, "so she was saying. She said the Lord does just the right
thing for the right person at the right time.... Now, your nose is
beautifully Greek; but, to be honest, it turns up ever so much more than
hers does."
"Oh, well," said Mrs. Gordon-Colfax, "I hate common people--and I can't
help it. Let's have a bite in the grill."
"Sorry," I said; "I'm dining with the Bowers."
"You have a strong stomach," said she.
"I have," I said, "but a weak heart--and they are going to strengthen it
for me."
And there arose thenceforth a coolness between Mrs. Gordon-Colfax and
me, which proves once more that the Lord does just the right thing for
the right people at the right time.