THE ISLAND
Seeing the dugout, the men raised a shout and bore down upon them
across the sand. Bela was not yet in the river. She swiftly brought
the dugout around and paddled down the lake shore across the river
from the men.
They, suspecting her of a design to land on this side, pulled up their
horses, and returning to the ford, plunged across. Whereupon Bela
coolly paddled out into the lake. By this manoeuvre she was enabled
to get out of range of their guns before they got to the water's edge.
Holding her paddle, she turned to watch them. The sounds of their
curses came down the wind. They were directed against Sam, not Bela.
Sam smiled bitterly. "I catch it both ways," he muttered.
"You want them catch you?" asked Bela, with an odd look.
Sam scowled at her helplessly.
She rested on her paddle, looking up and down the shore and out on the
lake, manifestly debating with herself what to do. To Sam their
situation seemed hopeless. Finally Bela took up the paddle with an air
of resolution.
"Well, what the devil are you goin' to do?" demanded Sam.
"We go to the island," she answered coolly.
An island! Sam's heart sank. He saw his escape indefinitely postponed.
To be kept prisoner on an island by a girl! Intolerably humiliating
prospect! How would he ever be able to hold up his head among men
afterward?
"What the devil are you up to, anyhow?" he broke out angrily again.
"Do you think this will do you any good? What do you expect to gain by
it?"
"What you want me do?" asked Bela sullenly, without looking at him.
"Land, and tell them the truth about what happened!"
"They too mad," said Bela. "Shoot you before they listen. Not believe,
anyway."
Sam could not deny the reasonableness of this.
"Oh, damn!" he cried impotently. "You've got me into a nice mess! Are
you crazy, or just bad? Is it your whole idea to make trouble between
men? I've heard of women like that. One would think you wanted ----
Say! I'll be likely to thank you for this, won't I? The sight of you
is hateful to me!"
Bela made her face like a wall, and looked steadily over his head at
her course. There is no satisfaction in flinging words against a wall.
Sam's angry voice dwindled to a mutter, then fell silent.
The island lay about a mile offshore. In a chaos of lowering grey sky
and torn white water, it seemed to hang like a serene and lovely
little world of itself.
The distant shores of the lake were spectral in the whirl of the
elements, and the island was the one fixed spot. It was as brilliant
as an emerald in a setting of lead. A beach of yellow sand encircled
it, with a border of willows, and taller trees sticking up in the
middle.
Borne on the shoulders of the great wind, they reached it in a few
minutes. Bela paddled under the lee side and landed in quiet water.
Sam rose on his chilled and stiffened limbs, and stepping ashore,
stood off, scowling at her blackly.
There he was! He knew he couldn't escape alone in that cranky craft;
certainly not while the wind blew. Nor could he hope to swim a mile
through icy water. He wondered bitterly if ever a man before him had
been placed in such a galling position.
Ignoring his black looks, Bela hastened to collect dry sticks.
"I mak' fire and dry everything," she said.
Sam cursed her and strode off around the beach.
"Tak' dry matches if you want fire," Bela called after him.
He would not give any sign that he heard.
He sat down on the other side of the island, as far away as he could
get from her. Here he was full in the path of the driving, unwearied
wind, which further irritated his exacerbated nerves.
He swore at Bela; he swore at the cold, at the wind, at the matches
which went out one after another. He felt that all things animate and
inanimate were leagued against him.
Finally, in the lee of some willows, he did get a fire going, and
crouched in the smoke, choking and sneezing, as angry and unhappy a
specimen of young manhood as might have been found in the world that
morning.
Finally he began to dry out, and a measure of warmth returned to his
limbs. He got his pipe going, and felt a little less like a nihilist.
Suddenly a new, ugly thought made him spring up. Suppose she took
advantage of his absence to steal away and leave him marooned on the
island? Anything might be expected of such a woman. He hastened back
around the beach.
She had not gone. From a distance he saw her busy by a great fire,
with the blankets, and all the goods hanging around to dry.
He squatted behind a clump of willows where he could watch her,
himself unseen. Her attitude suggested that she was cooking something,
and at the sight hunger struck through him like a knife. Not for
worlds would he have asked her for anything to eat.
By and by she arose with the frying-pan in her hand, and looked up and
down the beach.
"Oh, Sam!" she called. "Come and eat!"
He laid low, sneering miserably; bent on cutting off his nose to spite
his face. He wondered if there were any berries on the island. No, it
was too early in the season for berries. Edible roots, maybe. But he
wouldn't have known an edible root from any other kind.
After calling awhile, Bela sat down in the sand and proceeded to
satisfy her own appetite. Fresh pangs attacked Sam.
"Selfish creature!" he muttered. "That woman is bad through and
through!"
She arose and, filling another plate, started toward him, carrying it.
Her eyes were following his tracks in the sand. Sam instinctively
sprang up and took to his heels.
His cheeks burned at the realization that she would presently discover
that he had been sitting there watching her. He had not thought of the
tell-tale sand. Wherever he might seek to hide, it would betray him.
He made a complete circuit of the little island, Bela presumably
following him. The circumference of the beach was about half a mile.
He ran as hard as he could, and presently discovered her ahead of
him. He had almost overtaken her.
Thereafter he followed more slowly, keeping her in sight from the
cover of the bushes. The secret consciousness that he was acting like
a wilful child did not make him any happier.
When he came around to Bela's fire again, seeing the dugout drawn up
on the sand, his heart leaped at the chance of escape. If he could
push off in it without capsizing, surely, even with his lack of skill,
he could drive before the wind. Or even if he could keep it floating
under the lee of the island, he could dictate terms.
He waited, hidden, until she passed out of sight ahead, then ran to
it. But even as he put his hands on the bow, she reappeared, running
back. He fled in the other direction.
The chase went on reversed. He no longer heard her coming behind him.
Now he could not tell whether she were in front or behind. He passed
the dugout and the camp fire again. No sign of her there. Rounding the
point beyond, he came to the place where he had made his own fire.
Trying to keep eyes in every side of his head at once, he walked
around a bush and almost collided with her. There she stood with
dimpled face, like a child, behind the door.
She burst out laughing. Sam turned beet colour and, scowling like a
pirate, tried to carry it off with dignity.
"Don't be mad at me," she begged, struggling with her laughter. "You
so fonny, run away. Here's your breakfast. It's cold now. You can
bring it to the fire."
There was bread and smoked fish on the plate she was offering. Sam,
though his stomach cried out, turned his back on her.
"You got eat," said Bela. "Tak' it."
"Not from you," he returned bitterly.
There was a silence. He could not see how she took it. Presently he
heard her put the plate down on the sand and walk off. Her steps died
away around the point.
Sam eyed the food ravenously and began to argue with himself. In the
end, of course, he ate it, but it went down hard.
* * * * *
The day wore on. It continued to blow great guns. Sam wandered up and
down his side of the island, meditating fine but impractical schemes
of escape and revenge.
He might get away on a raft, he thought, if the wind changed and blew
in a direction favourable to carry him ashore. The trouble was the
nights were so short. He might build his raft one night, and escape on
it the next. How to keep her from finding it in the meantime offered a
problem.
He began to look about in the interior of the island for suitable
pieces of dry timber. He could use a blanket for a sail, he thought.
This reminded him that his blankets were at least his own, and he
determined to go and get them.
Rounding the point, he saw her sitting in the sand, making something
with her hands. Though she must have heard him coming, she did not
look up until he addressed her. Sam, in his desire to assert his
manhood, swaggered a bit as he came up.
She raised a face as bland as a baby's. Sam was disconcerted. Desiring
to pick a quarrel, he roughly demanded his blankets. Bela nodded
toward where they hung and went on with her work. She was making a
trolling spoon.
So much for their second encounter. Sam retired from it, feeling that
he had come off no better than from the first.
Later, back on his own side, bored and irritated beyond endurance, he
rolled up in his blankets and sought sleep as an escape from his own
company.
He slept and dreamed. The roaring of the wind and the beating of the
waves wove themselves into his fancies. He dreamed he was engulfed in
a murky tempest, He was tossing wildly in a shell of a boat, without
oars or sail. Sometimes green and smiling fields appeared close at
hand, only to be swallowed up in the murk again.
The noise was deafening. When he endeavoured to shout for aid, his
tongue was clamped to his jaw. Behind him was a terror worse than the
storm, and he dared not look around. It seemed to him that he
struggled for an infinity of time, a hopeless, heart-breaking struggle
against increasing odds.
Suddenly the sun broke through, cheering his heart. It was a sun that
came down close to him, warming him through and through. It was not a
sun. It was a face--a woman's face. At first it was a face he did not
know, but beautiful. Then it was Bela's face, and he was glad.
Closer and closer to his own face it drew, and he did not draw away.
Finally she touched his lips with hers, and a wonderful sweetness
pervaded his whole frame. He awoke.
For a moment he lay blinking, still wrapped in the dream. At any rate,
the storm was real. The bushes still thrashed, and the waves beat.
Before him stretched the same wide waste of grey water slashed with
white.
The sight of the water brought full recollection back. He had been
looking at it all day, and he hated it. It was the water that made his
prison. He sat up swearing at his dream. It was a fine thing a man
should have no better control over his emotions while he slept.
Beside him on the sand lay another tin plate, with bread and fish.
Fresh fish this time, half a pink salmon trout lately pulled from the
water. Touching the plate he found it warm. Was it possible----
Looking in the sand beside where he had lain he saw the rounded
depressions made by two knees, on the other side of him was a
hand-print. Sam scowled and violently scrubbed his lips with the back
of his hand. Even so, he would not admit to himself that the hateful
thing had happened.
Nevertheless he ate the fish.
"I've got to keep my strength up if I'm going to help myself," he
excused it.
The sun was hidden, but he knew by that instinct which serves us when
we give up mechanical contrivances, that it was no more than noon.
Half of this hideous day remained to be got over.
He sat dwelling on his grievances until the top of his head seemed
about to fly off. Then he set to work to search for and collect dry
logs and stow them under the willows, and in so doing managed to tire
himself out.
* * * * *
It was dusk, which is to say nearly ten o'clock, when he awoke from
another nap. A silence, astonishing after the day-long uproar, greeted
his ears. The wind had gone down with the sun, and the world was
enfolded in a delicious peace.
The lake was like a polished floor. Above the tree-tops behind him the
sky was still bright, while over across the water sat Night in robes,
awaiting her cue. On the island there was not a cheep nor a flutter to
break the spell.
Sam wondered idly what had aroused him. He saw with a frown that there
was food beside him as before. But it had been there some time. It was
cold, and sand had drifted into the plate.
At last he heard the sound which had awakened him. It was a strain of
music which came stealing as gently on the air as the first breath of
dawn. Sam's breast was like wax to music.
Without thinking what he was doing, he kicked himself free of the
blankets, and arose to go closer. It was like a lovely incantation,
drawing him irrespective of his will.
He did not instantly recognize the source of the music. It might have
been the song of a twilight bird, a thrush, a mocking-bird. He forgot
for the moment that there are no song-birds so far north.
Presently he knew it for the voice of a woman singing softly, and a
good way off--Bela! Still he did not stop.
"I guess I can listen to her sing without giving anything away," he
told himself. But his breast was dangerously seduced by the sweetness
of the sound.
As he drew closer the detached notes associated themselves into a
regular air. It had nothing in common with the rude, strident chants
of the Indians that he had heard on the rivers. It was both familiar
and elusive. It was like an air he knew, but with a wild, irregular
quality different from our airs. It was mournful, sweet, and artless,
and it made the heart swell in his breast.
As he progressed around the beach he saw her fire. It was dark enough
now for the blaze to shine. Drawing still closer he saw her beside it,
and frowned, remembering his injuries--but the song drew him still.
He began to listen for the words. Suddenly he recognized it--one of
the loveliest of old English songs. Evidently it had been transmitted
from ear to ear until it had acquired the character of a new race of
singers.
He progressed from bush to bush. He wasn't going to have anything to
do with her, he would have said, but she could sing. He came to a
final stop only a few yards away, and watched her through the leaves
with burning eyes. She was in her favourite attitude, sitting on her
heels, her strong young back curving in to her swaying waist.
Her hair, all unbound, fell around her in shifting masses like smoke.
While she sang she combed it with long strokes, holding her head now
on this side, now on that, and ever revealing a lovelier pose of her
round arms. The half light lent her an unearthly beauty.
The sight was no less affecting than the sound. A great pain filled
Sam's breast, and the old inward struggle dragged him back and forth.
She was at once so desirable and so hateful in his eyes. It was the
cry of bewildered youth: "What right has anything so bad to be
beautiful!"
No doubt of her badness occurred to him. Had she not ruined his
chances in that country? The old antagonism was there, the readiness
to believe ill of the other sex that is born of mutual fear. She had
become the immemorial siren in Sam's eyes, and he was fighting to save
his soul. But she was beautiful enough to make a man wish to be
damned.
She came to the end of her song, and presently started another, a more
rollicking air, but still charged with wistfulness. Who had taught her
those hushed, thrilling tones? Sam recognized this air, too, and
thought of the mother who had sung it to him years ago.
It was "Twickenham Ferry." Why that of all songs? he wondered
rebelliously. It was not fair that she should be armed thus to seek
out the weakest joints in his armour.
The desire to stop the song with his own mouth became more than he
could bear. The struggle was almost over when she paused and bent her
head to listen, and looked up and down the beach.
It broke the spell.
"She's just trying to bring you to her!" Sam told himself, aghast.
"That's why her hair is down and all. And you're falling for it, you
fool!"
He turned and fled back around the beach.
Whether or not she heard him run away, the song presently ceased, and
troubled him no more that night. He returned to his blankets, but not
to sleep again.
He built a fire and lay beside it smoking. He drove away the
recollection of the disturbing loveliness he had seen by counting over
his injuries at her hands, nourishing them and magnifying them in his
mind until they filled it to the exclusion of everything else.
It became as dark as it would get. Midnight at that season is no more
than an intensified twilight. By and by the moon arose far across the
water, looking like an old-fashioned gas-globe, and set sail on her
brief voyage low down in the sky from south-east to south-west.
Sam received the friend of lovers with a scowl. He had omitted her
from his calculations. "The nights are short enough without that!" he
thought.
Thinking of escape, a new idea caused him to sit up suddenly.
"Why bother with a raft?" he thought. "She's got to sleep sometime. If
I could sneak around the beach and push the dugout in! No matter how
quick she woke once I was afloat. Oh! it would do my heart good to
float just out of her reach and tell her a few things. On a night like
this I could paddle anywhere. She's got some food and a blanket. Serve
her right, anyhow. I could send some one back after her."
To think of it was to desire to put it into instant action. The moon,
however, forbade. Sam cursed her again, and sat down to wait with what
patience he could muster until it should slowly sink out of sight.
When the bright scimitar edge sunk behind Nine-Mile Point he arose
with a beating heart. Making his blankets into a bundle, he took his
way once more around the strip of beach, his moccasined feet falling
noiselessly on the sand.
It was about two o'clock, and the afterglow had moved around to the
north-east. In an hour it would be light again. The island objects
loomed twice their size in this dusk of dusk. Sam kept close under the
willows to avoid making a silhouette against the sky. As he drew close
to Bela's camp he saw that her fire was out, from which he argued that
she had been asleep for some time.
Coming nearer still, he made out the form of the dugout against the
pale sand. Bela had drawn it up higher, and had turned it over. Still
hugging the willows, he paused, looking for her resting-place. He
could not see her. He supposed she had made her bed under the willows
behind her fire. He dared not approach to make sure. Likely she was a
light sleeper.
Following man's first instinct, he bent double, and crept across the
open sand to the dugout. It lay on its side, the bottom turned toward
him.
His heart was beating like a steam hammer. If with one quick movement
he could turn it over and rush it into the water, let her wake as
quick as she chose. If she attempted to stop him she must take the
consequences. When a man's liberty was at stake he could not be too
nice with the sex. He took a long breath and turned the canoe over.
Bela was lying beneath it.
"Sam!" she said softly.
The keyed-up Sam grunted at the suddenness of the shock and ran back
for ten paces, gasping. Then he got command of himself, and came back
ashamed and raging.
Bela stood up. "What you want?" she asked mildly.
"I want to get away from here!" cried Sam, "and, by George, I'm going
to! If you try to stop me your petticoats won't protect you. Get
back!"
Rather to his surprise she fell back without a word. He glanced at her
uncertainly. Putting his hands on the canoe he started to shove it
toward the water.
"How you goin' mak' it go?" asked Bela softly.
Sam came to a stop, swearing savagely. In his excitement he had
neglected to think of paddles. They were not lying anywhere about.
"Where are the paddles?" he demanded.
"I hide 'em," she answered coolly.
"Where are they?" he cried.
She was silent.
"Tell me where they are or take the consequences!" he cried,
approaching her threateningly.
"I not tell you if you kill me," she replied, standing fast.
This was an out and out challenge to him to strike her. When it came
to the point he could not do it, of course. He turned away, wild with
impotent rage. Must she always get the best of him? If there had only
been a man of her people there that he could take it out on! He broke
into passionate denunciations of her. It was a weird enough scene,
there on the shore in the dim dusk.
"What are you keeping me here for, anyway?" was the burden of his cry.
"What do you expect to gain by it?"
"You safe here," Bela muttered. "If we go to the shore those men kill
you, I think."
This did not help soothe him.
"I'll take my chance of that!" he cried. "I know how to deal with men.
I don't need a woman to look after me! Do you think you're going to
keep me here all summer?"
"No," she returned. "The bishop and the police comin' pretty soon.
Then you safe."
"It's all your fault anyhow!" cried Sam. "Why couldn't you let me
alone in the first place? What's your game anyhow?"
Bela was silent.
"Give me a plain answer!" he cried. "What was your idea in carrying me
off?" He blushed as he said it. "O Lord!" he added helplessly.
"I hear those men talk," Bela said sullenly. "Say they goin' kill you
in the morning. I think if I tell you, you jus' laugh. So I tak' you
away quiet."
It had not the ring of truth. "Rot!" exclaimed Sam. "Why should they
want to kill me?"
Having no answer ready, she remained silent.
"You're lying now!" cried Sam. "The truth is, you were sore because I
wasn't after you like the rest. I know women!"
Bela made an angry movement.
"What's the matter wit' you?" she said defiantly. "You t'ink you so
big and clever! W'at you know about me? If you stop cursing me all the
tam maybe you see w'at I am! If you act good to me I good to you!"
"Do you expect me to take off my hat and thank you for the privilege
of being tied up and carried off?" demanded Sam.
She hung her head. "I sorry for that," she muttered sullenly.
"Huh! Sorry won't mend anything," said Sam.
"I want be friends," she murmured.
"If you're honest you'll get the paddles and put me ashore."
She shook her head. "Not let you go till you friends wit' me."
Sam laughed harshly. "That's good! You'll wait a long time. Hope
you've got grub enough. Friendship! Rubbish! You let me go and we'll
talk."
She stood in sullen silence. Sam abruptly picked up his blankets and
turned to go.
At his move a different sound escaped her. Her hands went to her
breast. "Sam--please----"
He paused. "What do you want?"
"Sam--I say I sorry. I say I a fool."
He stood in uncomfortable silence.
"I say I fool," she repeated. "That not easy to say."
Still he had no answer.
"Why you so hard to me?" she demanded rebelliously. "Can't you see in
my heart? There is nothing but good in there for you. I want you be
good to me. I want you come wit' me so bad. So I act foolish."
Her simplicity surprised and suddenly softened him. Alone with her,
and in the all-concealing dusk, his queasy pride was not obliged to
take up arms. In return he was as simple and direct as she.
"Oh! I'm sorry, too," he said in an uncertain voice--and regretfully.
"If you're like that--if you're on the square. Something might have
come of it. But you've spoiled it. You've put me on my guard against
you for ever. A man has his pride. A man has to choose. He can't
submit to a woman. You wouldn't want a tame man. I'm sorry!"
They stood looking at each other with an odd wistfulness.
"Go back to your own fire," Bela said in a muffled voice.