WHEN I regained consciousness I was on my feet, standing erect, near
enough to my burning aeroplane to feel the warmth radiated by the
crackling flames with which every part of it was ablaze; far enough
from it to be, despite the strong breeze, much more aware of the fierce
heat of the late forenoon sunrays beating down on me from almost
overhead out of the cloudless sky. My shadow, much shorter than I, was
sharply outlined before me on the intensely white sand of the beach;
which dazzling expanse, but a few paces to my right, ended abruptly
in an almost straight line, at a little bank of about eight inches
of exposed blackish loam, beyond which was dense tropical vegetation
gleaming in the brilliant sunshine. Not much farther away on my left
were great patches, almost heaps, fathoms long, yards wide and one or
even two or three feet high, of unwholesome looking grayish white slimy
foam, like persistent dirty soap-bubbles, strung along the margin of
the sparkling dry sand, between it and the swishes of hissing froth
that lashed lazily up from the sluggish breakers in which ended the
long, broad-backed, sleepy swells of the endlessly recurrent ocean
surges. As there was no cloud in the dark blue firmament, so there
was no sail, no funnel-smoke in sight on the deep blue sea. Overhead,
against the intense blue sky, whirled uncountable flocks of garishly
pink flamingoes, some higher, some lower, crossing and recrossing each
other, grotesque, flashing, and amazing in their myriads.
To my scrutinizing gaze, as to my first glance, it was manifest that
there was no indication of wreckage, breakage or injury to any part of
my aeroplane visible through the flames now fast consuming it. No bone
of me was broken, no ligament strained. I had not a bruise on me, not a
scratch. I did not feel shaken or jarred, my garments were untorn and
not even rumpled or mussed. I conjectured at once, what is my settled
opinion after long reflection, that I, in my stupor or trance or daze
or whatever it was, had made some sort of a landing, had unstrapped
myself, had clambered out of the fuselage, had staggered away from it,
and had fainted; and that, while I was unconscious, some one had set
fire to my aeroplane.
As I stood there on the beach I was flogging my memory to make it
bridge over my interval of unconsciousness and I recollected vividly
what had preceded my lapse and every detail of my sensations. I had
been flying my aeroplane between the wide blue sky, unvaried by any
cloud, and the wide blue sea, unbroken by any sign of sail, steamer or
island. Then I descried a difference of appearance at one point of the
horizon forward and on my right and steered towards it. Soon I made
sure of a low island ahead of me.
Up to that instant I had never, in all my life, had anything resembling
a delusion or even any thoughts that could be called queer. But, just
as I made certain that I was approaching an island, there popped into
my head, for no assignable reason, the recollection of the flock of
white geese on my grandmother’s farm and of how I, when seven years old
or so, or maybe only six or perhaps even younger, used to make a pet
of an unusually large and most uncommonly docile and friendly white
gander, used to fondle him, and, in particular, used to straddle him
and fairly ride about on him, he flapping his wings and squawking.
While I was wondering what in the world had made me think of that
gander, all of a sudden, as I neared the island and would soon be over
it, I had an indubitable delusion. Instead of seeing before me and
about me the familiar parts of my aeroplane, I seemed to see nothing
but sky and sea and myself astraddle of an enormous white gander,
longer than a canoe, and bigger than a dray-horse; I seemed to see
his immense, dazzlingly white wings, ten yards or more in spread,
rhythmically beating the air on either side of me; I seemed to see,
straight out in front of me, his long white neck, the flattened,
rounded top of his big head, and the tip of his great yellow bill
against the sky; what was more, instead of seeing my knees clad in
khaki, my calves swathed in puttees and my feet in brown boots, I
seemed to see my knees in blue corduroy knickerbockers, my legs in blue
ribbed woolen stockings, against the white feathers of that gigantic
dream-gander’s back, and my feet sticking out on either side of him
encased in low, square-toed shoes of black leather, of the cut one sees
in pictures of Continental soldiers or of Benjamin Franklin as a lad,
their big silver buckles plain to me against the blueness of the ocean
far below me.
After being swallowed up in this astounding hallucination, which I
vividly recalled, I remembered nothing until I came to myself, standing
on the beach by what was left of my blazing aeroplane.
While struggling to recollect what I could remember and trying to
surmise what had happened during my unconsciousness, I had been
surveying my surroundings. On one hand I saw only the limitless and
unvaried ocean from which came the cool sea-breeze that fanned my
left cheek and stirred my hair under the visor of my cap; on the
other opened a wide, flat-floored valley, bounded by low hills,
the highest, at the head of the valley, not over ninety feet above
sea-level, crowned by a huge palatial building of pinkish stone, its
two lofty stories topped by an ornate carved balustrade above which
no roof showed, so that I inferred that the roof was flat. The hills
shutting in my view on either side, lower and lower towards the
sea, were rounded and covered with a dense growth of scrubby trees,
not quite tall enough to be called forest. Close to the beach and
hills, on each side of the valley, was what looked like a sort of
model garden village. That on my right, as I faced inland, was of
closely-set one-story cottages, bowered in flowering vines, under
a grove of handsome, exotic-looking trees. The other, which I saw
beyond the slackening flames above the embers of my aeroplane, was of
roomy, broad-verandahed, two-story villas, generously spaced, beneath
magnificent young shade-trees, mostly loaded with brilliant flowers.
As I was looking at the valley, the villages, the palace on the
hill-top and from one to the other, with now and then a glance
overhead at the hosts of wheeling flamingoes, I thought I had a second
hallucination. I seemed to see, along a path through the riotous
greenery, a human figure approaching me, but, when it drew near and I
seemed to see it more clearly, I felt that it must be a figment of my
imagination.
It was that of a tall, perfectly formed and gracefully moving young
man. But, under the scorching rays of that caustic sunshine he was
bareheaded and his shock of abundant, wavy and brilliantly yellow
golden hair was bobbed off short below his ears like the hair of
Italian page-boys in early Florentine and Venetian paintings. His
eyes were very bright and a very light blue, his cheeks rosy, his
bare neck pinkish. He was clad only in a tight-fitting stockinet
garment of green silk, something like the patent underwear shown in
advertising pictures. It looked very new, very silky and very green,
and as unsuitable as possible for the climate, for its long, clinging
sleeves reached to his wrists and the tight legs of it sheathed him
to his ankles. His feet were encased in high laced shoes of a very
bright, and apparently very soft, yellow leather, with (I was sure he
was an hallucination) _every one of the five toes of each formed
separately_.
Just as I was about to rub my eyes to banish this disconcerting
apparition, I recognized him and saw him recognize me.
It was Pembroke!
His face, as he recognized me, did not express pleasure; what mine
expressed, besides amazement, I could not conjecture. All in a
flash my mind ran over what I knew of him and had heard. We had
first met as freshmen and had seen little of each other during
our life as classmates. Pembroke, at college, had been noted as
the handsomest student of his day; as the youngest student of his
class; as surrounding himself with the most luxurious furnishings,
the most beautiful and costly pictures, bronzes, porcelains and art
objects ever known in the quarters of any student at our college;
as very self-indulgent, yet so brilliantly gifted that he stood
fifth or sixth in a large class with an unusual proportion of bright
students; as daft about languages, music and birds, and, frequently
descanting on the wickedness and folly of allowing wild bird-life to
be all-but exterminated; as so capricious and erratic that most of his
acquaintances thought him odd and his enemies said he was cracked.
I had not seen him since our class dispersed after its graduation and
the attendant ceremonies and festivities. I had heard that, besides
having a very rich father, he had inherited, on his twenty-first
birthday, an income of over four hundred thousand dollars a year and a
huge accumulation of ready cash; that he had at once interested himself
in the creation of refuges for migratory, rare and picturesque birds;
that his fantastic whimsicalities and eccentricities had intensified so
as to cause a series of quarrels and a complete estrangement between
himself and his father; that he had bought an island somewhere and
had absorbed himself in the fostering of wild bird-life and in the
companionship of very questionable associates.
He held out his hand and we shook hands.
“You don’t seem injured or hurt at all, Denbigh,” he said. “How did you
manage to get out of that blazing thing alive, let alone without any
sign of scratch or scorch?”
“I must have gotten out of it before it caught fire,” I replied. “I
must have gone daffy or lost my wits as I drew over your island. I have
no idea how I landed or why. The whole thing is a blank to me.”
“You are lucky,” he said, matter-of-factly, “to have landed at all.
If your mind wandered, it is a miracle you did not smash on the coral
rocks on the other side of the island or on one of the outlying keys,
or fall into the ocean and drown.
“However, all’s well that ends well. Nothing can be salvaged from the
wreckage of your conveyance, that is clear. What you need is a bracer,
food, rest, a bath, sleep, fresh clothes and whatever else will soothe
you. Come along. I’ll do all I can for you.”
I followed him past the remnants of my aeroplane, along the beach, to
the group of villas. Close to them and to the beach was a sort of park
or open garden, with fountains playing and carved marble seats set here
and there along concrete walks between beds of flowers, shrubberies,
and trim lawns, all canopied by astonishingly vigorous and well-grown
ornamental trees.
As we approached the nearest villa I saw a family group on its veranda,
obviously parents and children; also I heard some one whistling
“Annie Laurie” so exquisitely as to evidence superlative artistry.
As we passed the entrance to the villa I was amazed to recognize
Radnor, another classmate. But, as he ran down the steps to greet me,
I reflected that there was nothing really astonishing in a man as
opulent as Pembroke having as dependable a physician as he could engage
resident on his island nor anything unnatural in his choosing an
acquaintance.
“Denbigh,” said Pembroke, “has dropped on us out of the wide blue sky.
His aeroplane has been demolished, so he’ll sojourn with us a while.”
“You don’t seem to need me,” Radnor commented, conning me. “I see no
blood and no indications of any broken bones. Can I patch you up,
anywhere?”
“Not a bruise on me, as far as I know,” I replied.
“Then,” he laughed, “my prescription is two hours abed. Get undressed
and horizontal and stay so till you really feel like getting up. And
not more than one nip of Pembroke’s guest-brandy, either. Get flat with
no unnecessary delay and sleep if you can.”
As we went on I noted that neither Radnor close by nor Mrs. Radnor on
the veranda seemed aware of anything remarkable in Pembroke’s attire;
they must be habituated by him to it or to similar or even more
fantastic raiment.
We appeared to walk the length or width of the village, to the villa
farthest from the beach. As we entered I had a glimpse on one hand
of a parlor with an ample round center-table, inviting armchairs and
walls lined with bookcases, through whose doors I espied some handsome
bindings; on the other hand of a cozy dining-room with a polished
table and beyond it a sideboard loaded with silverware and decorated
porcelain.
By the newel-post of the broad, easy stair stood a paragon of a Chinese
butler.
“Wu,” said Pembroke, “Mr. Denbigh is to occupy this house. Show him
to his bedroom and call Fong. Mr. Denbigh needs him at once. And tell
Fong that Mr. Denbigh has lost all his baggage and needs a change of
clothes promptly.”
Without any sudden movement or appearance of haste, without a word, he
turned and was out of the villa and away before I could speak.
I found myself domiciled in an abode delightfully situated, each
outlook a charming picture, and inside admirably designed and lavishly
provided with every imaginable comfort and luxury. The servants were
all Chinese. One took care of the lawn, flowers and shrubberies,
another swept the rooms; there was an unsurpassable Chinese cook,
whom I never saw, and something I heard made me infer that he had a
helper. I had at my beck a Chinese valet, a Chinese errand-boy and the
deferential butler, who managed the house and anticipated my every want.
Except for frequent baths I think I slept most of the ensuing
forty-eight hours. What I swallowed I took in bed. My second
breakfast on the island I ate in the dainty, exquisitely appointed
dining-room. After that I had energy enough to loll in one of the
rattan lounging-chairs on the veranda, comfortably clad in neat, cool,
well-cut, well-fitting garments chosen from the amazing abundance which
Fong had ready for me, how so exactly suitable for me I could not
conjecture. I had not been long on the veranda when Radnor strolled by,
whistling “The Carnival of Venice.” He came up and joined me. Early in
our chat he said:
“Probably you will be unable to refrain from asking questions; but I
fancy that I shall feel at liberty to answer very few of your queries.
Nearly everything I know about this island and about happenings on it
I have learned not as a mere man or as a mere dweller here, but as
Pembroke’s resident physician; it is all confidential. Most of what you
learn here you’ll have to absorb by observation and inference. And I
don’t mind telling you that the less you learn the better will Pembroke
be pleased, and I likewise.”
He did tell me that the villas were tenanted chiefly by the members of
Pembroke’s private orchestra and band, mostly Hungarians, Bohemians,
Poles and Italians, with such other satellites as a sculptor, an
architect, an engineer, a machinist, a head carpenter, a tailor and
an accountant. The other village was populated entirely by Asiatics,
Chinese, Japanese, Hindoos, and others; who performed all the labor of
the island.
The next morning, about the same time, as I was similarly lounging on
my veranda, Pembroke appeared, in the same bizarre attire, or lack of
attire, in which I had previously seen him. He sat with me a half hour
or so, asked courteously after my health and comfort and remarked:
“I am glad you feel contented: you’ll probably abide here some time.”
I said nothing. He glanced away from me, up under the edge of the
veranda roof through the overarching boughs. My eyes followed his. I
caught glints of pink from far-off flamingoes.
“Glorious birds!” Pembroke exclaimed, rapturously. “They nest on
several of the low outlying keys, which, with the coral-reefs scattered
between them, make it impossible for any craft bigger than a cat-boat
to approach this side of the island. They have multiplied amazingly
since I began shepherding them. I love them! I glory in them!”
At the word he left me, as abruptly and swiftly as after our first
encounter.
Thereafter, for some weeks of what I can describe only as luxuriously
comfortable and very pleasant captivity, I diverted myself by reading
the very well-chosen and varied books of the villa’s fairly large
library, by getting acquainted with the inhabitants of the other
villas, and by roaming about the lower part of the valley. The very
evening of our chat Radnor had invited me to dinner, for which Fong
fitted me out irreproachably, and at which I found Mrs. Radnor charming
and the other guests, Conway the architect, and his wife and sister,
very agreeable companions. After that I was a guest at dinner at one or
another of the villas each evening, so that I lunched and breakfasted
alone at my abode, but never dined there.
Once only I inspected the other village and found its neatness and
the apparent contentment of its inhabitants, especially the women and
children, very charming. But I seemed to divine that they felt the
presence of a European or American as an intrusion: I avoided the
village thereafter.
Some of the men of that village tended the trees, shrubberies, vines
and gardens of the valley, and kept it a paradise, luxuriant with every
sort of fruit and vegetable which could be grown in that soil and
climate.
I saw nothing more of Pembroke and found that I could not approach
his palace on the hill-top, for there was an extremely adequate steel
fence of tall L-irons, sharp at the top, across the valley and down
to the beach beyond either village, which barrier was patrolled by
heavily-built, muscular guards, seemingly Scotch and not visibly
armed, who respectfully intimated that no one passed any of its gates,
or along either beach, without Mr. Pembroke’s express permit. Very
seldom did I so much as catch a glimpse of Pembroke on the terraces
of his palace, but I did see on them knots, even bevies, of women
whose outlines, even at that distance, suggested that they were young
and personable, certainly that they were gayly clad in bright-colored
silks. Near or with them I saw no man, excepting Asiatic servitors, and
Pembroke himself, who powerfully suggested an oriental despot among his
sultanas.
By the inadvertent utterance of some one, I forget whom, I learned that
the guards had a cantonment or barrack on the other side of the island.
I enjoyed rambling about the valley, as far as I was permitted, for
both the variety and the beauty of its products were amazing.
Still more amazing to me was the number of ever-flowing ornamental
fountains. The Bahamas are proverbially hampered by scanty water
supply. But here I found, apparently, a superabundance of clear, pure,
drinkable water. There was a fountain near the village, where a seated
bronze figure, seemingly of some Asiatic god or saint unknown to me,
held in each hand a great serpent grasped by its throat, and from the
open mouth of each snake poured a spout of water into the basin before
the statue. There were other fountains, each with a figure or group of
figures of bronze, in the formal garden by the village of villas. And
beyond it, set against the scooped-out flank of one of the range of
enclosing hills, was a huge concrete edifice of basins and outstanding
groups of statuary and statues and groups in niches, more or less
reminiscent of the Fountain of Trevi. I was dumbfounded at the flow of
water from this extravagantly ornate and overloaded structure. There
were many jets squirting so as to cross each other in the air, even to
interlace, as it were. But midway of the whole construction, behind the
middle basin, was a sort of grotto with, centrally, an open entrance
like a low doorway or manhole, on either side of which were two larger
apertures like low latticed windows, filled in with elaborately
patterned bronze gratings, through the lower part of which flowed two
streams of water as copious as brooks, which cascaded into the main
basin.
Beyond this rococco fountain was a plot of ground enclosed by a hedge,
serving as garden for a tiny cottage of one low story. In it lived an
old Welsh woman, spoken of by the inhabitants of the village as “Mother
Bevan.” She always wore the hideous Welsh national costume and hobbled
about leaning on a stout malacca walking-stick with an ivory crosshead
tipped with gold bosses. She cared for and delighted in a numerous
flock of snow-white geese which somehow seemed thriving in this, one
would suppose, for them far too tropical climate. Among them was a
large and very handsome gander, which reminded me of my childhood’s
pet. The flock spent much of its time swimming and splashing in the
basins of the enormous grotto-fountain.
When I asked Radnor about the abundance of water and its apparent
waste, he said:
“No mystery there nor any secrets. Pembroke could spend anything he
pleased on wildcat artesian drilling and had the perverse luck to
strike a generous flow just as his drillers were about to tell him
that no humanly constructed implements could drill any deeper. It’s
no spouting well, though, and a less opulent proprietor than Pembroke
could not afford to pump it as he does. The power-station is on the
other side of the island, near the harbor. It uses oil fuel of some
kind. There is never any stint of water for any use and the surplus is
made to do ornamental duty, as you see.”
I was interested in the old Welsh woman and in her tiny cottage, so
oddly discordant with the Italianate concrete fountain near it and the
spacious villas not far off. Except the Asiatics of the village and the
barrier-guards I had found affable every dweller on the island; most of
them sociable. I accosted the grotesque old crone, as she leaned over
her gate and discovered in her the unexpected peculiarity that all her
answers were in rhyming lines, rather cleverly versified, which she
uttered, indeed, slowly, in a measured voice, but without the slightest
symptom of hesitation. Her demeanor was distinctly forbidding and her
words by no means conciliatory. I recall only one of her doggerels,
which ended our first interview:
“Man fallen out of the sky.
“God never intended us to fly.
“It’s impious to ascend so high.
“’Twas wicked of you ever to try.
“No lover of reprobates am I.”
Except for this queer old creature I encountered no unfriendly word
or look from any of my neighbors. I enjoyed the dinners to which I
was invited and liked my fellow-guests at them; indeed I disliked no
one with whom I talked; but, on the other hand, I was attracted to no
one, and, while I felt entirely welcome wherever I was invited and
altogether at my ease, and pleased to be invited again later, at no
household did I feel free to drop in at odd times for casual chat. I
found many congenial fellow-diners, but no one increasingly congenial,
no one who impressed me as likely to be glad to have me call uninvited.
Therefore, as I always loved the open air, as I somehow felt lonely
on my own veranda and nowhere intimate enough to lounge on any other,
I took to spending many hours of the mornings, before the heat of the
midday grew intense, out in the shade of the little park, to which I
was attracted by many of its charming features, especially by the pink
masses of flowering bougainvillea here and there through it. I always
carried a book, sometimes I read, oftener I merely gazed about at the
enchanting vistas, overhead at the uncountable flamingoes, or between
the trees out to seaward at the dazzling white heaps of billowy cumulus
clouds, like titanic snow-clad mountains, bulging and growing on the
towering thunder-heads forming against the vivid blue sky out over the
ocean.
I think it was on my second morning in the park that I caught a glimpse
of Mother Bevan crossing a path at some distance. Later I caught other
glimpses of her crossing other paths. Each morning I caught similar
glimpses of her. On the fifth or sixth morning I suddenly became
conscious of an inward impression that she was, again and again, making
the circuit of the park, circling about me as it were, like a witch
weaving a spell about an intended victim.
Next morning I affected an absorption in my book and kept an alert, and
I was certain, an imperceptible watch in all directions. I made sure
that Mother Bevan was indeed perambulating the outer portions of the
park, stumping along, leaning heavily on her cross-headed cane, and I
made sure also that after she had completed one circuit about me she
kept on her way and completed another and another.
I was curious, puzzled, incensed; derisive of myself for so much as
entertaining the idea of any one, in 1921, attempting witchcraft;
concerned for fear that my wits were addled; and, while unable to rid
myself of the notion, yet completely skeptical of any effect on me and
unconscious of any.
But, the very next day, seated on the same marble bench, by the same
fountain, among the same pink masses of bougainvillea in flower, I was
aware not only of Mother Bevan circumambulating the outskirts of the
park, but also of her numerous flock of noisy, self-important, white
geese waddling about, not far from me, and indubitably walking round
and round me in ever lessening circles, the big gander always nearest
me. At first I felt incredulous, then silly, then resentful. And, as
the gander, now and then honking, circled about me for the fifth or
sixth time, I became conscious of an inner impulse, of an all but
overmastering inner impulse, to seek out Pembroke and to tell him that
I was willing to do anything he wanted me to do; to pledge myself to do
anything he wanted me to do.
I took alarm. I felt, shamefacedly, but vividly, that I was being made
the subject of some sort of attempted necromancy. All of a sudden I
found myself aflame with resentment, with hatred of that gander. I
leapt to my feet, I hurled my book at him, I ran after him, I threw
at him my bamboo walking-stick, barely missing him. I retrieved the
walking-stick and pursued the retreating bird, and threw the cane at
him a second time, almost hitting him.
The geese half waddled, half flew towards the beetling atrocities of
the ornate rococco hill-side fountain; I followed, still infuriated.
There was, along the walk before the fountain, an edging of lumps of
coral rock defining the border of the flower-beds. I picked up an
armful of the smaller pieces of angular coral rock, chased the geese
into the big main basin of the fountain and pelted that gander with
jagged chunks of coral. He fled through the central manhole into the
grotto and hissed at me through one of the gratings, behind which he
was safe from my missiles.
Suddenly overwhelmed by a revulsion of shame and a tendency to laugh
at myself, I beat a retreat to my veranda. There I sat, pondering my
situation and my experiences.
I recalled that, at every dinner to which I had been invited, there
had been, practically, but two subjects of conversation: the boredom
of life on tropical islands in general and on Pembroke island in
particular; and the worth, the fine qualities, the charm, the
perfection of Pembroke himself.
I watched a chance to find Radnor at leisure, to waylay him, to entice
him to my veranda. When the atmosphere of our talk seemed auspicious, I
said:
“See here, Radnor! I know you said you meant to elude any queries I
might put to you, but there is one question you’ll have to answer,
somehow. Why are all these people here?”
“That is easy,” Radnor laughed. “I have no objection to answering that
question. They are here because Pembroke wants them here.”
“I didn’t phrase my question well,” I said, “but you know what I mean.
No one I have met really likes being here. Why do they stay?”
“That’s easy, too,” Radnor smiled. “Almost anyone will stay almost
anywhere if lodged comfortably and paid enough. Pembroke provides his
hirelings with an overplus of luxuries and is more than liberal in
payment.”
“That does not explain what intrigues me,” I pursued. “I haven’t yet
hit on the right words to express my idea. But you really understand
me, I think, though you pretend you don’t. All the inhabitants of these
villas are not merely uneasy, they are consciously homesick, acutely
homesick, homesick to a degree which no luxurious surroundings, no
prospective savings could alleviate. They are pining for home. What
keeps them here?”
“Put it down,” said Radnor, weightily, “to the unescapable charm of the
island. That keeps them here.”
“Did you say witchery or enchantment?” I queried, meaningly.
Radnor was emphatic.
“I said charm!” he uttered. “Let it go at that.”
“I am not in the least inclined,” I retorted, “to let it go at that. I
take it that this is no joke, certainly not anything to be dismissed by
a clever play on words. I insist on knowing what makes all these people
stay here. They all declare, at every opportunity, that they are dying
of ennui, that the climate is uncongenial, that they long for temperate
skies, for northern vegetation, for frosty nights. What keeps them
here?”
“I tell you,” said Radnor, “that, like me, most human beings will do
anything, anything lawful and reasonable, if paid high enough.”
“The rest aren’t like you,” I asserted. “You and Mrs. Radnor impress
me as free agents, doing, for a consideration, what you have been
asked to do, and what you both, after weighing the pros and cons, have
agreed to do. All the others, Europeans, Americans and Asiatics, except
Mother Bevan, appear like beings hypnotized and moving in a trance,
mere living automatons, without any will of their own, actuated solely
by Pembroke’s will; as much so as if they were mechanical dolls. They
impress me as being mesmerized or bewitched. I seriously vow that
I believe they have been subjected to some supernatural or magical
influence. They are as totally dominated by Pembroke as if they were
the ends of his fingers.”
Radnor looked startled.
“It will do no good,” I cried, “to contradict me or to deny it.”
“I believe you,” Radnor said, as if thinking out loud. He went on:
“You are right. Except Mother Bevan and me and Lucille every human
being on this island is completely under Pembroke’s influence, gained
largely through the help of Mother Bevan.”
“Why not you and your wife?” I queried.
“Lucille, because of me,” he replied. “Pembroke found out, by trying
Melville here and Kennard, that, after being put under his influence,
while retaining surgical skill, a physician loses all ability to
diagnose and prescribe. He had to ship Kennard and Melville back home,
and pension them till their faculties recovered their tone.”
I looked him straight in the eyes. He forestalled my impending outburst
by saying:
“As far as I can discern, Pembroke’s influence over his retainers does
them no harm, physical or mental. Kennard and Melville have as large
incomes and as many patients and are as successful and prosperous, as
popular and prominent among their fellow-physicians as if they had
never sojourned here. Except in their enthusiasm for and admiration of
Pembroke every human being on this island appears to me as healthy as
if not under any influence of any kind.”
“Even so,” I blurted out, “you ought not to abet any such deviltries.”
“I don’t admit,” said Radnor, hotly, “that any deviltries exist on
this island or that there is any approach to deviltry in what you have
partly divined. Also I abet nothing, as I ought, but, as I also ought,
I conceive that I am under obligations not to thwart Pembroke in any
way. I am the island’s resident physician and his personal physician;
I am here to treat injuries, cure maladies, relieve pain, and do all
I can to keep healthy every dweller on this island. I live up to my
conception of my duty. Don’t attempt to preach at me.”
“I am impatient,” I said, “at my enforced stay here, and revolted at
the idea of succumbing to Pembroke’s influence.”
Radnor laughed.
“You are,” he said, “the only human being who has reached the island,
since Pembroke bought it, uninvited. You’ll get away by and by. And you
are most unlikely to be affected by anything he or Mother Bevan may
have in their power to do. Neither Kennard nor Melville ever suspected
anything, or grew suspicious. You alone have half seen through the
situation here. You are Mother Bevan’s most refractory subject, so far.
Have no fear.”
He went off, whistling Strauss’ Blue Danube Waltz.
I had frequent and recurrent fears, but I dissembled them. I think,
among all the terrors which haunted me during the remainder of my
sojourn on the island, that I came nearest to panic and horror within
an hour after Radnor had left me. Hardly was he gone when Pembroke,
arrayed precisely as before and reminding me of a stage-frog in a
goblin pantomime, sauntered up and seated himself by me.
I sweated with tremors of dismay, I was ready to despair, when I found
myself, however I tried, unable to utter a word to him concerning the
gander, Mother Bevan, or my suspicions; unable even to allude to the
subject in any way, although he asked me bluntly:
“Have you anything to complain of?”
“Only that I am here,” I replied.
“I had nothing to do with your coming here,” he retorted. “You came
uninvited, of your own accord, or by accident. I trust I have been a
courteous host, but I have not tried to pretend that you are welcome.
I am endeavoring to arrange that your departure shall not entail upon
me any inconvenience or any danger of disadvantageous consequences.
Believe me, I am doing all I can to expedite your return to your
normal haunts. Meantime you’ll have to be patient.”
I was most impatient and very nearly frantic at finding myself, no
matter how I struggled inwardly, totally unable so much as to refer or
allude to what lay heaviest on my mind.
We exchanged vaguely generalized sentences for awhile and he left as
abruptly as before, left me quivering with consternation, dreading that
my inability to broach the subject on which I was eager to beard him
was a premonition of my total enthrallment to Pembroke’s influence.
As the days passed I became habituated to stoning that uncanny gander,
chasing him into the basin of the fountain and having him hiss at me
from behind one of the gratings; I became indifferent to the glimpses
I caught of Mother Bevan hovering in the middle distance. I had a good
appetite for my meals: in fact, the food set before me at my abode
would have awakened the most finicky dyspeptic to zest and relish, even
to voracity; while the dinners to which I was invited were delectable.
But from night to night I slept less and less, until I was near
insomnia. And, from day to day, I found it more and more difficult to
absorb myself in reading, to keep my mind on what I read; even to read
at all.
Again I waylaid Radnor. I described to him my progressively worsening
discomfort and distress.
“I am now,” I said, “or soon shall be, not merely in need of your help,
but beyond any help from you or anybody. If you don’t do something for
me I’ll go crazy, I’ll do something desperate, I’ll commit suicide.”
“I have been pondering,” he said, “how to help you, and I have almost
hit upon a method. Your condition does not yet justify my giving you
anything to make you sleep. As yet I do not want to give you any sort
of drug, not even the simplest sedative. Honestly try to get to sleep
to-night. Before to-morrow I think I’ll hit upon an entirely suitable
prescription, salutary for you and yet avoiding any appearance, any
hint, of my antagonizing Pembroke.”
I did try to sleep that night, but I was still wide awake long after
midnight. So tossing and turning on my comfortable bed, I heard outside
in the moonless darkness some one whistling a tune. As the sound came
nearer I made sure it was Radnor. Also I recognized the tune.
It was that of “The Ballad of Nell Flaherty’s Drake.”
The tune brought to my mind the words of the song’s refrain:
“The dear little fellow,
“His legs were so yellow,
“He could fly like a swallow and swim like a hake!
“Bad luck to the tober,
“The haythen cashlober,
“The monsther thot murthered Nell Flaherty’s drake!”
All of a sudden I conceived that this was Radnor’s method of intimating
to me by indirection what he did not dare to utter to me in plain
words. I thought I knew what he meant as well as if it had been put
into the plainest words. I rolled over, was asleep in three breaths,
and slept till Fong ventured to waken me.
After breakfast I went upstairs again and rummaged about in the closet
where Fong had deposited what I had worn when I came under his care. I
found there everything I remembered to have had about me. My automatic
was well oiled and in good working order and its clip of cartridges was
full. My belt, with the extra clips of cartridges, was as it had been
when I last put it on. I put it on, over my feather-weight hot-weather
habiliments; I strapped on my automatic; I strolled out, intent on
somehow coming within speaking distance of Pembroke.
Chance, or some unconscious whim, guided my footsteps to the beach and,
in spite of the rapidly intensifying heat of the sun rays, along it
to the remaining fragments of my wreck, barely visible under a great
accumulation of beach foam, left by the breakers, hurled shorewards
during the thunder storm which had raged while I slept.
Not far beyond those vestiges of what had been an aeroplane,
approaching me along the beach, I encountered Pembroke.