"How far has it spread?" I asked. "Mrs. Van Tromp has been trying to
keep the scarcity in the background. Does any one else know?"
"I can't say. But I do know that Mrs. Van Tromp is anxious to hide it
from her girls--and from Madeleine."
"Why from Madeleine in particular?"
Again Conetta let her honest eyes look fairly into mine.
"Because Bonteck will not have Madeleine told. He means to spare her to
the very last, no matter how much she has to waste upon her father's
finicky appetite. Only this morning, she had to throw his entire
breakfast away--after he'd messed with it and spoiled it--and get him
another one!"
This was growing serious; much more serious than I had suspected; and
I made a mental resolve to get the men of our party together on a
short-rations basis at once. We had been hideously reckless with our
stores; no one could deny that.
"This smudge will smoke for an hour or so longer," I pointed out,
rising and helping Conetta to her feet. "Suppose we take a walk around
on the south beach and look over toward my old stamping ground in
Venezuela."
She made no objection, and once we were in motion we kept on, since the
southern horizon was just as likely to yield the hopeful sign for which
we were straining our eyes as any other. I am morally certain that I
had no hunch to prompt the change of view-point, and if my companion
had, she didn't mention it. Nevertheless, when we had measured
something less than half the length of the island, tramping side by
side in sober silence over the white sands, the thing we had looked for
in vain through so many weary hours appeared, and we both saw it at the
same instant--the long, low smoke trail of a steamer blackening the
line where sea and sky came together.
There was nothing to be done; absolutely nothing that we could do to
attract the attention of those people who were just out of sight below
the blurred horizon. For so long as we could distinguish the slowly
vanishing harbinger of rescue we stood transfixed, hardly daring to
breathe, hoping against hope that the steamer's course was laid toward
us instead of away from us. But when the black of the smoke trail had
faded to gray, and the gray became so faint that it was no longer
separable from the slight haze of the sky-line, Conetta turned and
clung to me, sobbing like a hurt and frightened child. It was too much,
and I took her in my arms and comforted her, as I had once had the
right to do.
And at that climaxing moment, out of the jungle thicketing behind us
came Jerry Dupuyster and Beatrice Van Tromp. Beatrice was laughing
openly, and on Jerry's face there was an inane smile that made me wish
very heartily to kill him where he stood.
X