_Lentala’s Odd Mistake. Beela Finds Me Refractory. The Deep-Laid Plan of
Gato. Christopher and I Charged With Service to the Old King_.
SLEEP held away that night. The revelations of the privy council had
been startling. Some things were clear. One was that the king was a
shrewd, easy-going, kindly man, vastly wiser than his subjects, and
finding it simpler to rule them by pampering their superstitions than by
raising them to his own understanding. Another was that he felt himself
on the edge of a crisis, saw no way to avert a possible catastrophe, and
was facing it with a paralyzing dread.
Lentala, fresh and radiant, brought our breakfast. Except for her color,
not a trace of savagery remained about her. Her dress was a simple
house-frock of fine white linen, and of a modern style. Her hair was
done exactly like Annabel’s.
It did not improve her appearance. Had she been white, there would have
been no touch of the incongruous. But in this fresh, sweet daintiness,
much of her savage splendor had been sunk, and I felt a keen
disappointment. The former Lentala, for all her barbarity, had never
seemed an alien, but more a bringing back to me of a deeply rooted
principle fundamental in my heritage.
She appeared to expect a compliment; but how could I be otherwise than
sincere with her? Our greetings were pleasant; yet her clothes had set a
constraint between us.
“You don’t like my dress, Mr. Tudor?” she ruefully asked.
“It is exquisite, Lentala, and----”
“I made it all myself, from a picture in a book out of your ship! I
thought you would like it. Doesn’t Annabel dress this way?”
“Yes; but in the native dress your beautiful, rich color----” I paused
in my floundering for a delicate way in which to say it. “Annabel is
white, you know,” I blundered.
Foreseeing my explanation, she had turned flutteringly away before my
final words came, and was still holding the empty copper tray on which
she had brought our breakfast. It fell with a clatter; her back was
turned to me when she picked it up in confusion.
“A white woman!” She did not look at me. “Yes, she can wear dainty
things and be sweet; but a brown savage woman----”
I had risen from my seat at the table and was advancing toward her.
She turned and faced me defiantly, backing away, her eyes flashing. In
another second, with a lightning change which showed her near kinship
with Beela, she smiled sweetly, and asked with a dash of her old
coquetry:
“Would you like Lentala better if she were white and pink like Annabel?”
“How could I like Lentala white more than Lentala brown, since, first
and last, it is Lentala that I like?”
She frowned comically in an effort to puzzle some sense out of that
speech.
“I mean,” I added, laughing at her perplexity, “that I like Lentala
because she is Lentala, not because she isn’t some one else.”
That was another poser, and she made just such a little wry face over it
as I had seen Beela make many a time. Her face brightened as she made a
dash at a short cut out:
“Do you like me _because_ I’m brown?”
“That is a question! It isn’t because you aren’t white that I like you.”
“_Could_ you like me if I were white?” She stamped impatiently.
“I’d try to,” I sighed.
She made a little pout, stuck up her chin, turned stiffly, and went out
with great dignity. It was the Lentala of the feast!
Beela entered when we had finished breakfast. In her rough clothes and
tightly bound hair, she made so sharp a contrast to Lentala that, for a
moment, I could not think of her as a girl, but as the dear lad whom I
had lost. She had none of her brilliant sparkle now, and my heart ached
to see the weariness and anxiety that she tried so bravely to conceal.
“What’s afoot for today, dear little brother?” I cheerily inquired.
She was regarding me solemnly. “You’ve had your wish, I suppose. You’ve
seen Lentala this morning.”
“Yes. She brought our breakfast. She’s an angel.”
“Pooh!” Beela was bored. “I’ve seen her. She looked a fright in those
clothes. Trying to ape Annabel! She ought to have better sense. I know
you were disgusted.”
“Beelo!”
“Don’t talk! I know.”
“You are tired and cross this morning, lad.”
She flopped into a chair, very glum. “Women are _such_ fools!” she
grumbled.
“Now I am grieved to learn that Lentala is not a woman, for she could
never be a fool.”
Beela looked at me with sad reproach, and shook her head.
“Just now,” I went on, “she was a rich red rose sparkling with morning
dew. Her smile started all the birds to singing. She----”
“Choseph!” She stamped the floor, much as Lentala had done, but a smile
fringed her frown. “You _know_ she made a fright of herself trying to
look like Annabel,--and with that ugly brown face!”
“No, no, Beelo. The only trouble was that Lentala is too modest to
realize how splendidly perfect she is as Lentala.”
“But wasn’t she still Lentala in those silly clothes?”
“She was as much less Lentala as her effort to be something else
succeeded in making her.”
Beela looked puzzled exactly as Lentala had.
“But her heart is broken!” she cried. “She says that you laughed at her,
and spoke in riddles!”
“I laughed _with_ her, Beelo, not _at_ her; and the riddles were a bit
that I put in my mouth.”
“Why?”
“The temptation to say beautiful things to Lentala that might sound
insincere is strong.”
She rose, with a confusion that was half amusement, and tried to hide
the light in her eyes.
“Come, Choseph! There is much to do today.”
“I must see Lentala first.”
She could not mistake my seriousness. “Why?” in surprise.
“I won’t have her unhappy over that trifling incident. She is too
sensitive,--she misunderstood. I must see her, lad.” I started for the
door.
“Choseph!” came breathlessly. “Don’t!”
I turned.
“Don’t look at me that way!” she exclaimed in genuine alarm. Christopher
was moving round toward the door for which I had started.
“What way?”
“As though--as though you’d break down doors and kill anybody that
stood in your way!”
“I want to see Lentala.”
“You can’t! She--she’s undressed. I’ll tell her. She’ll be satisfied.”
“Will you, lad? Thank you.”
She began making some preparations about the room. “You ought to be kept
tied, Choseph,” she said, half to herself. “I never know what you are
going to do next.” Yet a sweet note in her voice sounded low.
She came and stood before me, looking me straight in the eyes.
“I was going to give you and Christopher very delicate and important
work to do this morning, Choseph, but I’m afraid you’ll do something
rash and ruin us all.”
I felt the sting. “Trust me, little brother.”
She shook her head in trouble. “You’re not sly, Choseph; you’re not
cunning and patient. Those are what are needed now. You have enough
courage.”
“Trust me, lad.”
“You are to meet King Rangan, Choseph, and you are to do everything that
he wishes you to do. You may think you ought not.”
“If you say that I ought, I will.”
“I do say so. If you refuse, or show temper, or do anything that a
Senatra wouldn’t do, all is lost. Do you understand?”
“I am not a fool, Beelo.”
“Choseph! That was temper.”
“Trust me, lad,” I begged.
“It is very dangerous work--terribly so if you make a mistake.”
“There will be no mistake.”
“The king is much broken. He is growing old, and the problem of the
colony is wearing on him. Choseph, will you think of him as kind and
gentle, and as meaning well?”
“Yes.”
“And will you watch Christopher? Sometimes he understands more than you
or I.”
“I will.”
“Very well.” Beela was much relieved. “Now I’ll explain. The king
is failing rapidly. He needs such friends as you and Christopher,
and------”
“Such friends as _we_, when he is holding us as fattening cattle?”
“Choseph!” Beela’s voice rang sharp, and she angrily stamped. Then came
a hopeless look.
I took her hands. “Come, dear friend,” I pleaded. “That was the last. I
am wholly in your hands. And remember, there is always Christopher.”
She turned away with a sigh, and began to put finishing touches to our
efforts at the restoration of neatness in the room. She was evidently
gathering herself, for presently she came and took a seat facing me,
Christopher standing. Her manner was serious.
“This is the case,” she said: “The king has meant always to be kind to
Lentala and me, and we are grateful. We love the queen dearly. We would
lay down our lives before permitting any harm to befall them.”
Her emotion made her pause.
“Serious dangers are threatening them now,--more than they suspect,--and
these have come because of your people. Before that, only one or two
would be cast up from the wrecks. They gave no trouble.”
Horror came into her face, and she looked away.
“I always supposed that they were sent off,” she resumed. “Never once
did I suspect the truth until shortly before your party came, and then
my affection for the king died in me, and I was sick at heart. I don’t
think the queen knows the truth to this day. I think the king would
have stopped it long ago, but for Gato, who wanted to use it to keep the
natives in savagery. He is a bad man, with great power. When your
large party came, he saw a way to break the king, stir the people to
rebellion, kill the king and queen, and take the throne himself.”
“Does Gato suspect that you know this about him?” I asked in
astonishment.
“No. There is where our safety lies. I never should have suspected him
if he hadn’t made love to Lentala and told her that if she would marry
him she would soon be queen,--the beast! Then we watched and found out.”
After a thoughtful pause she proceeded:
“Gato is secretly stirring up the people. I have no doubt that he is
about ready to strike. His plan will be this, I think: The palace guard
are men whom he can trust to do his work; he will kill everybody here,
and then take the army into your valley and slaughter all but a few. He
will keep those for the sacrifices. It was he that induced the king to
use Mr. Vancouver as your traitor. But, unlike the king, he doesn’t care
how many natives might be killed in a fight with the colony when he has
made himself king.”
She was regarding me curiously.
“And what are Christopher and I to do?” I cheerfully asked.
“Let me tell you some things before that,” she answered, but with
hesitancy. “You won’t be hurt with me, Choseph, and you won’t be angry?”
“Assuredly not, dear lad.”
“I told Captain Mason all these things when I went into the valley the
last time.” She waited anxiously.
“I am very glad of that,” I brightly answered.
She was much relieved, and with a sudden dash came over and squeezed my
hand.
“You are really my dear big brother!” she said, and demurely resumed her
seat. “I told him something else,” she went on with more confidence. “It
was to have his entire colony ready to move at a moment’s notice,--not
to bring anything with them, except all the food they could carry,
but to be prepared at any time of the day or night to march in perfect
silence out of the valley.”
“To the ship!” I exclaimed.
She smiled. “I advised him to pick some cool, trustworthy men to take
charge of the march.”
“He said------?”
“That he already had his men chosen, and was glad that Hobart didn’t
have to come out with me. He said it would be the making of Rawley to
come, and that you would understand.”
I did at last. There was something almost magical in Captain Mason’s
ability to dig the manhood out of men.
“And now for your work and Christopher’s,” resumed Beela. “I will take
you to the king as English-speaking natives from the mountains beyond
the valley on the west, which you have not seen. As I have told you, the
natives there are wilder and fiercer than these, have little intercourse
with them, and are largely independent. Their blood has mingled with
that of a few castaways, and they are brighter. On this side is the
ancient race, simple, gentle, dull. The king is proud of it, and wishes
to keep it pure. But he will welcome the other men in this emergency,
particularly if they speak English.”
“Has he full confidence in Gato?” I inquired.
“I think he is growing suspicious.”
“And we?”
“You are to be the king’s confidential agents; to find out,
independently of Gato, all that is afoot; to be ready to protect the
king; and especially to treat with the colony if any trouble should rise
from that source. Is it all clear?”
“Nearly. We are to guard the king and maintain his authority at any
cost?”
Beela studied me uneasily. “Yes, at any cost,” she slowly answered.
“I was thinking of Gato,” I explained. “We are to resort to any
measures with him, however extreme, if we have good reason to think them
necessary?”
“Yes,” somewhat anxiously. “What do you mean, Choseph?”
“Anything that may be wise and prudent.”
She glanced down. She made no reply, but gave this warning, still not
looking up:
“Take no chances with him. When you strike, which you must, sooner or
later, let the blow be swift and sure.”
“What will become of the army when he is out of the way?”
The question troubled her. “It is very uncertain,” she answered. “There
may be leaders under him who are in his confidence. They or one of them
may take command and lead the army against the palace.”
She sprang to her feet and glanced about.
“Let’s go to the king at once,” she said. “Lentala told him about
you and promised to have you there by this time. I fear that Gato has
already returned with his report of the Face with its open mouth and
purple flame.”
“Just one thing, dear lad,” I interrupted. “I wish to see Lentala
first.”
Her adaptability was as quick as a child’s. The seriousness which she
had worn flashed into a teasing quirk of the mouth.
“What for?”
“You know very well.”
“Choseph,” she said, solemnly wagging her head at me, “how can you think
of girls at such a time as this? Lentala would have too much sense to
see you now. Come with me to the king.”