as she had prayed for it, _with his eyes turned away_--hurled forward
as one diving into the sea. The flying body seemed huge in the little
cabin. The concentration of her weight struck him in the throat. His
head whipped back like a flaunted arm. The chair had been screwed to
the floor, but the weight of impact ripped the fastenings out of the
heavy planking. Backward Rey was borne, beneath a stabbing creature
whose cries were as some bestial mystery of the dark.
It was Framtree who tore her loose, and tightened upon her wrist until
the fingers opened and the little knife--concealed how long in her
hair?--dropped like a feather to the carpet. Swiftly it had let out the
life of the Spaniard.... Bedient opened the galley-door at a gesture
from the woman. The Chinese came forth.
"It was I--your mistress, Boy--who killed the Señor. You may look. Then
fix him quickly, so he will sink. I want him to sink!" she panted.
Bedient waited for Framtree to look up. The eyes of the two men met.
"The first and last chance of war in Equatoria is eliminated," Bedient
said.
Presently he moved out of the cabin, and sat down beside Miss Mallory.
Each had held out a hand to the other, but they had not words.
The place was being made clean within.... The Glow-worm could not be
silent, muttered constantly to the Chinese. "... You shall go back to
South America with me. I shall be very good to you.... Oh, do open some
wine, Boy! I am so very thirsty!" and on, until she saw the face of
Framtree, moodily watching. She sank into a chair shuddering, and
covered her face. "Don't look at me so horribly!" she cried. "Ask
Señorita Mallory about it--ask her about me."
He jerked up, but did not answer at once. The Glow-worm screamed at him
to speak.
Framtree crossed the cabin, and dropped his huge hand upon her shaking
shoulder.
"I have nothing to say, Señora.... It was a matter between you and
him.... But I'm glad to help you. It bowled me over a little, that's
all."
His voice was big in the hush that had fallen upon the cabin....
Framtree helped the Chinese carry forth the weighted body.... As it
paused for an instant on the gunwale, the searchlight from Jaffier's
gunboat flicked athwart the _Savonarola_--sinister tableaux in its
ghostly light.... Without a sound the Glow-worm fell backward to the
cabin floor, as if touched by the finger of the Destroying Angel.
Bedient worked upon her until consciousness was restored.
"What next in this terrible night?" Miss Mallory asked in an awed
voice, when Bedient rejoined her.
"Such an end has hung over him for more years than we have lived," he
said. "I call it rather wonderful--as it came about. Hundreds of men
will continue to live because of this death. It means an end of
war-making, the release of this turbulent spirit."
Bedient turned to the light. She saw the red stain upon the breast of
his coat.
He glanced down, and felt in the inner pocket. "It's the red chalk," he
said with a laugh. "It got crushed somehow, and it was oily. The
forecastle melted it."
...Plainly at this moment they both heard the sound of a steamer's
screw--ahead. But there were no lights. Bedient took the wheel and
brought the _Savonarola_ sheering away to the south of the sound, which
had stopped abruptly.
Nothing was seen, not even a denser shadow in the moonless dark.
Framtree joined them, and they waited expectantly for Jaffier's index
of light to pick up the mystery. Ten minutes passed before the gunboat,
following doggedly, and whipping her light over sea, suddenly uncovered
the dark from a big tramp steamer, aimed at the Inlet. For an instant
it was lost again, but the searchlight swept back, groped until the
tramp was caught, and this time held--in all her unlit wickedness.
"Framtree," said Bedient, "I believe we are about to lose our
convoy----"
"Looks that way," Framtree replied. "Miss Mallory has steered----"
"Miss Mallory has steered--Equatoria off a revolutionary shoal,"
Bedient finished.
"You mean the Señora----?" Miss Mallory intervened.
"No."
"I'm very tired and stupid; please tell me in little words," she
pleaded.
"You changed the ship's course?"
"I didn't. It changed itself. I didn't dare to change back, because of
the reefs," she added hastily. "Didn't the Señor mean to run the convoy
aground if they didn't give up the chase?"
"I hadn't thought of that," Bedient said. "Mr. Framtree, hadn't you
better explain to Miss Mallory?"
"No, that's for you."
"Perhaps you will correct me if I am wrong.... The black tramp yonder
was making for _The Pleiad_ Inlet, with a cargo of guns and ammunition
for the rebellion. The little sailing-trip of Señor Rey was designed to
pull the gunboat afar off in the Southwest, the original course, as you
say, to permit the tramp to make the Inlet unmolested. Jaffier won't
need the guns, but they're a moral force----"
"As a war correspondent," Miss Mallory remarked, "I am rather a
spectacular failure."
"It's a boy's game," said Bedient.
THIRTY-SECOND CHAPTER
IN THE LITTLE ROOM NEXT
They sailed around open water until daybreak, when Bedient brought the
_Savonarola_ into a river-mouth on Carreras land, and forcing her in
out of the current, dropped anchor. The small boat was launched and
pulled ashore. Six, a silent and weary six, they were. The _hacienda_
was five miles inland. Bedient sent natives there for saddle-ponies,
and made the party comfortable until these were brought. The roads
would not permit vehicle of any sort, and though saddling was an ordeal
for the Glow-worm and Madame Sorenson, the distance was not great, and
from every eminence there were flashes of morning glory upon the
endless company of hills.
Falk and Leadley stood upon the great porch as the cavalcade drew up.
They steadied and leaned upon each other in this climacteric moment of
their service.... There was breakfast with Carreras coffee, and the
party separated for rest. The still torrid day became more vivid, and
the native women and children hushed one another under the large open
windows.... Miss Mallory was last in the breakfast room. Bedient saw
that she wanted to speak with him, and they walked out on the porch
together.
"You say it will be six days before the _Henlopen_ leaves for New
York?" she asked.
"Yes, and no _Pleiad_ for you, Miss Mallory. There will be changes and
disorder down in the city.... I'll make you comfortable as I can."
"Oh, I'll like that! It's so still and restful--and--from here--last
night seems ages behind.... It would have been unbearable, but for what
you said about the other men's lives saved. Then the Glow-worm had told
me so much! He was unspeakable.... As for Sorenson, I just couldn't
have done that had I thought of sharks first!... I wonder what Rey
meant to do--just before ... yes, yes, let's forget him!... When you
are rested, there is something I have to tell you."
"And there is something for me to say--but now?" he questioned.
"I want you to let me take care of you--during the six days----"
The old feminine magnetism thrilled him again. It was so strange and
unexpected from Miss Mallory--a breath from the old Dream Ranges. It
quickened him to the race of women, even to the great work, as he had
not been quickened since the night he looked back at the empty open
door.... He did not speak, but held out both hands to her.
"I think you are living and moving at this moment," she went on
fervently, "upon some strange force that other people do not have.
Since we left New York, I have watched you--seen you almost every day.
You are like a traveler who has crossed some terrible and forbidden
land. You do not eat nor sleep. I must help you. Please let me.... Oh,
it isn't as if I were a girl! I've worked with men--done a man's work
among the newspapers. I'd call it bigger than all that has happened for
the good fortune of Equatoria--if I could make you look as----"
She checked the tumult of words. There was a misty look in her
eyes--and his. He smiled and held himself hard, to say steadily:
"A man doesn't often win so dear a friend----"
"You have found about me so much of humor and scheming," she said
pathetically, "but since I came to understand a little, I've wanted to
show you other things----"
"I could not have relished your humor, nor used your plans, had I not
felt so much besides." He pointed over the shining lands. "Great good
can come from all this--perhaps you'll help me--where the suffering is
blackest in New York. With that big tramp steamer in _The Pleiad_, and
Celestino in command, it would have been hard to save this. You did
it----"
"If I did, it's not _vital_ to you. It does not bring you rest. How
clearly I see that!"
Bedient turned aside from her tearful searching eyes. He was facing the
old battle; and yet a certain uplift came from her brave spirit. It was
one of the big intimate warmths of the world, one of the fine moments
of life in the world. Her giving was true. He could think of no other
who could have helped him in this way, save Vina Nettleton. These two
had not entered his mind together before. And they were unlike in every
way, except in their pure quality of giving.
"Please tell me that other matter now--why you were so good to me, even
on the steamer?"
"But I want you to rest."
"I would rest better----"
Miss Mallory looked up at him for a moment, and embarrassment came to
her face--different from any look of hers before.
"It was in New York.... I wore a white net waist and a big bunch of
English violets," she said, watching him. "It seems very long ago, but
it isn't--hardly ten weeks. There was darkness and _Hedda_ was telling
young _Lövborg_ to drink wine and get vine-leaves in his hair----"
"And you were the one?" Bedient said.
"'So fleet the works of men, back to their earth again,
Ancient and holy things fade like a dream,'"
she repeated.
"I remember."
"And do you remember the first scream?... If I were a lost and freezing
traveler in Siberia, the first cry of a gathering wolf-pack could not
have more terror for me than that scream. And, I can hear the snapping
of the chair-backs still, hideous secrets from human lips, and the
scraping, panting, packing. I was hurt in the first crazy rush. I
crushed the violets to my lips to keep out the smoke and gas.... Then
your voice, 'Now's the time for vine-leaves, fellows,--there's a woman
for everyone to help!' I heard you laugh and challenge the men to their
best manhood.... And all the time, I thought I was dying.... Then your
foot touched me, and I heard you say, 'Why, here's a little one left
for me----'"
"Your hair had come undone," he said softly.
"And you never looked under the violets----"
"I went back to look for you. I wasn't gone a minute, but you had
vanished."
"They took me away in the car--then I thought of the story and I didn't
see you again, until you brushed by me in the Dryden ticket office in
New York--the day before we sailed----"
"And you've been my good angel ever since----"
"I want to be--now.... Please get me a glass of warm milk."
He obeyed. From her bag she produced a powder and, at her word, Bedient
held forth his tongue....
"And now I want you to drink the milk--all of it. You put down
asterisks in the place of breakfast--quite as usual. I considered my
self-control remarkable at the time."
He drank the milk slowly, as she had ordered.... The moments were
sensational. Picture after picture passed through the light of his
mind, as from other lives, and the loves of many women; and then the
whole story that he had told Beth Truba rushed by--the mother's hand
and the little boy--the city, the parks, the ships--the hours upon her
arm, when she had made him over anew to face the long voyage alone--the
questions he had asked--the last port with her, which he had never been
able to find--the last ride with Beth--until he was shaken with the
rush of visions. Everything that he was, and hoped to be, everything
that he had thought of beauty and truth and giving, every aspiration
and every inspiration--seemed gifts of women! His very life and all
that had come to him--gifts of women. And all their loving, wistful,
smiling faces were there--among the Dream Ranges.... Now this one was
speaking:
... "I want you to show me where I am to rest and where you are to
rest."
Up they went together and softly.... He led her into his own room, but
she saw his things and would not.
"This is where you belong," she whispered. "You will rest better
here.... Please don't dispute.... But let me be near, if you will."
He showed her a little room that joined his own. Falk had made it
ready.
"Just the place for me.... And after you have lain down, please whistle
softly. I shall come in and read to you until you are asleep."
"It's like a fairy story already," he said.
* * * * *
He closed his eyes, and the pictures took up their swift passing again.
It was not the drug, but the new thing in this life of his--a woman's
ministering.... She came in presently, her hair loosened. She wore one
of his silk night-coats, the sleeves rolled up; and very little, she
looked, in the heelless straw sandals. She was pale. He saw the
throbbing artery in her white throat. The polished ebon floor had a
startling effect upon her black hair.
"You are like Rossetti's _Pomegranate_ picture," he said, and added
with a strange smile, "Do you know there is something true about
you--arrow-true?"
She sat down in the chair near him and picked up the Book. "What shall
I read?" she asked without looking up. "It must be something that will
soothe, and not make you think, except happily."
"It's all there.... The stately prose of Isaiah--I love the ringing
authority of it----"
She read. There were delicate shadings of volume, even in her lowered
voice, which lent a fine natural quality to her expression. Bedient
knew the words, but he loved the mystery of this giving of hers--her
giving of peace to him.... He had obeyed her implicitly, and the
morning had become very dear.... Ill and weary, all his nerves smarting
with terrific fatigue, as the eyes smart before tears, and yet her
ministering had made him a little boy again.... His eyelids were shut
and he was happy. It was a bewildering sense, so long had he been, and
so far, from a moment like this. His immortal heroine was close once
more--she of the answered questions and the healing arms. So real was
it, that he thought this must be death.... A sign from _her_ made him
know that it was not.... Queer, bright thoughts winged in and out of
his mind. There was a drowsy sweep to the atmosphere--no, it was the
nuances of the voice that read to him.... "When one comes to see in
this life a clearer, brighter way for the conduct of the next, he has
not failed." His mind went over this several times.... And presently he
felt himself sailing through space toward one bright star. For
eternities he had sailed--dominant, deathless--often wavering in the
zones of attraction of other worlds, but never really losing that
primal impetus for his own light of the universe.... And so while she
read, Bedient drifted afar, sailing on and on toward his star....
She saw that he slept, and her head dropped forward until it touched
the edge of his bed, but very softly.... And there, for a long time,
she remained, until the woven cane left a white impress upon her
forehead.
Late in the afternoon the others met below, but Bedient had not
awakened. Miss Mallory joined them and told what she had done, and how
ill he had been for need of rest.... When the day was ending she stole
through the little room into his. Still he slept, so softly, that she
bent close to hear his breathing.... All the furious moments of action
in recent days passed in swift review, as she stood there in the dark.
And from it all came this:
"It is a good thing for a woman to serve a man, with hand and
brain,--as one man might serve another--and there's high joy in it; but
a woman must not serve a man that way--if she'd rather have his love
than hope of heaven."
... And when he awakened, she was still beside him.
THIRTY-THIRD CHAPTER
THE HILLS AND THE SKIES
Varied were the emotions of Dictator Jaffier and Coral City generally,
while Bedient slept through that long day of surpassing fortune to the
Island. He communicated certain facts to the Dictator next morning, and
a day later, the government forces entered and took possession of _The
Pleiad_ without firing a shot.
It did not transpire at this time that the vast inflation of
war-sentiment in Equatoria was pricked with a knife, so small that a
woman could conceal it in her hair.
Bedient intervened between Jaffier and Señora Rey, and upon the latter
a substantial settlement was made, as well as a generous annuity.
Within three days, the Glow-worm had left Coral City for an Antillean
port, to connect with a South American steamer. The Sorensons and one
Chinese accompanied her. The Glow-worm shone as one lavishly rich, but
trembled with fears which she dared not express, until Equatoria should
sink from her horizon.
Jaffier's gunboat, which had followed the _Savonarola_ on principle and
deserted for the unlit tramp, drove this latter destiny-maker through
the coral passage in daylight, and around to the harbor, amid the
subdued rejoicing of the Defenders. Subdued, because the Defenders were
jerky with fear of a trick, even with the guns and ammunition safely
stored in the Capitol--until the message from Bedient to Jaffier made
certain mysterious issues clear.
_The Pleiad_ guests were not summarily routed, but the force of law,
and the flood of light, suddenly turned upon every corner of this
establishment, destroyed the atmosphere for crime and concupiscence.
The paintings and various beautiful collections of the late
art-lover-and-patron, were gathered together in one of the great wings
of the establishment, and opened to the people. The magnificent grounds
became a public park.
Bedient was regarded with something akin to awe for his activity at
_The Pleiad_, and on board the _Savonarola_. Jaffier could readily
perceive how large were the pecuniary interests of Carreras' heir in
the complete demolition of the Spaniard's power, but such single-handed
effectiveness had a supermasculine voltage about it, despite Bedient's
laughing explanations. The Carreras interests became, in Jaffier's
mind, second only to the interests of the government. A handsome
present and a rich grant of land were privately conferred upon Miss
Mallory, at Bedient's suggestion, for her brilliant services to the
government.... But these are dry externals. A careful résume of happy
adjustments from Jaffier down to Monkhouse following the last sail of
the Spaniard, would weary.... Three days after the spent and silent six
rode up to the _hacienda_, Bedient was left with but two guests, Miss
Mallory and Jim Framtree, who were awaiting the New York steamer.... In
effect, the parable of the horses had been retold to Framtree. Bedient
took him for a night-walk over the hills for this.
"But Beth showed me very clearly--where I wouldn't do at all," the big
man said intensely. "And clearly, I saw it, too,--raw and unfinished
beside her, I was."
"Did she ever show you that little picture of you she painted?" Bedient
asked.
"No. All she had of me were a few kodak prints----"
"She probably painted the picture from them," Bedient said. "I saw it
on her mantle one day, and instantly our little talk in Coral City
recurred to me. I knew you. Beth Truba didn't mention your name.... The
portrait is exquisitely done.... Why, Jim Framtree, that portrait meant
more to her than my comings and goings in the flesh----"
"I can't quite understand that, Bedient!"
"I knew there was some power in her heart that I did not affect. I
related it to the picture, and when she told me the parable, I asked
her outright if the picture and her heart's knight were one. She
answered 'Yes.'... And so, Jim, I stand in awe of you. You've won and
held what is to me the greatest woman of our time. I don't know
anything I wouldn't do for you--with that light upon you----"
"You've got me thinking faster than is safe, Bedient. Do men turn this
sort of trick very often for each other?"
"It was glad tidings," Bedient said. "The fact is, I have no better
thing to give, than services for such a woman. It's clear and simple,
that my business is to make her as happy as I can from the outside....
And, Jim, she must not know I told you, nor that I hunted you up. It
wouldn't be best.... Just go back to New York, ask to see her, and try
again. She'll be glad----"
"You're sure of that?"
"Well, I shouldn't be sure. It's her province.... I want her to have
the chance."
"...You ought to know how I feel about all this, Bedient," Framtree
said unsteadily, "since you know her."
Bedient liked that.
"I made it a bit hard for you," he replied, "the way I told it--as if
you didn't count at all with me--only as something she wanted--but you
do, Jim----"
"...We'll come back, or I'll come back," Framtree said, and he turned
away from the other's eyes.
Bedient had looked upon him that moment, as if he would add his own
soul's strength to the strength of Framtree.... The hours that
followed, to the moment of the _Henlopen's_ sailing, were hours of
building. Framtree found himself locked in the concentration of
Bedient's ideals--matters of manhood fitted about him, that he had not
aspired to. And it was not easy to fall from them, when Bedient
believed in him so truly.
And Miss Mallory lured back Bedient's strength. He ate, drank and slept
at her bidding.... So little she said, so instant to understand, so
strange and different she was, waiting upon his words as upon a
master's.... The last evening at the _hacienda_ (the _Henlopen_ had
arrived in the harbor) he played for them upon the orchestrelle. Music
came forth new and of big import to his consciousness.... He had tried
the soul-rousing _heimweh_ from the slow movement of Dvorák's _New
World Symphony_, when Miss Mallory, looking over the rolls, discovered
the _Andante_ of Beethoven's Fifth.
"Don't you remember--the orchestra--that night?... It's wonderful and
mysterious--won't you----?" But she saw the look that came into his
face, and did not finish. Instead, she put the roll away quickly,
knowing she had touched a more vital association than a theatre fright.
"Don't mind, and please forgive me----"
...That night they stood together at the door of the little room, for
she had refused to change. Bedient said:
"Every time I think of you I feel better, Adith Mallory.... I shall
think of you often, always as if you were in the little room next to
mine."
They went aboard the following night, and sailed at dawn. Bedient rode
back to the _hacienda_ during the morning.... How strange it will
be--alone, he thought; stranger still, he faced the prospect without
dread.... A hush had fallen upon the hills, and upon his heart. Some
mysterious movement was stirring at the centres of his life....
A box of pictures had come on the _Henlopen_; also a letter from
Torvin. There were three canvases in the latest shipment, and seven had
come to the _hacienda_ while he was in New York. He hung them all in a
room where there was good North light, and kept the key with him. And
so there was a gallery for the Grey One in that house, as well as the
little room next to his. He smiled at the thought that a man's life
becomes a house of his friends.... Torvin reported that Miss Grey had
disposed of several pictures direct from her studio; that he had
marketed eight pictures beside the ones shipped to Equatoria, and that
there was a sprightly demand for her work....
* * * * *
That night, as Bedient ascended the stairs, a long sigh escaped him. So
uncommon a thing was this, that he stopped to reflect. It was like one
casting off a worn garment. Some old, ill, tired part of him passed
away, and out of the great still house. He did not loathe it, but sped
its passing, happily, gratefully.... Then the thought came, "Why do I
attract all this beauty of friendship and loyalty?"... All the eager
activity of others in his behalf recurred--the gracious image of that
Mother of myriad services, before all--and the fragrant essence of a
hundred deeds of love for him.... "I must hurry to keep pace, but I
can't--with these infinite favors!" he whispered.
A passion for service surged through him--to pray, and serve, and love
and do; to write and give and lift and smile; always to help; to fall
asleep blessing the near and the far; to awake prodigal with
strength.... Such a spirit of giving brimmed into his life, that his
flesh thrilled with the ecstasy of illimitable service.