else in a wagon-lit. But with a yacht you can explore out-of-the-way
places, and you meet new and interesting people. We wouldn’t have met
Sir Charles if we had waited for a wagon-lit.” She bowed her head to
the Governor, and he smiled with gratitude. He had lost Mr. Collier
somewhere in the Indian Ocean, and he was glad she had brought them back
to the Windless Isles once more.
“And again I repeat that the answer to that is, ‘Why not? said the March
Hare,’” remarked Mr. Collier, determinedly.
The answer, as an answer, did not strike Sir Charles as a very good one.
But the ladies seemed to comprehend, for Miss Cameron said: “Did I tell
you about meeting him at Oxford just a few months before his death--at
a children’s tea-party? He was so sweet and understanding with them!
Two women tried to lionize him, and he ran away and played with the
children. I was more glad to meet him than any one I can think of. Not
as a personage, you know, but because I felt grateful to him.”
“Yes, that way, distinctly,” said Mrs. Collier. “I should have felt that
way towards Mrs. Ewing more than any one else.”
“I know, ‘Jackanapes,’” remarked Collier, shortly; “a brutal assault
upon the feelings, I say.”
“Some one else said it before you, Robert,” Mrs. Collier commented,
calmly. “Perhaps Sir Charles met him at Apia.” They all turned and
looked at him. He wished he could say he had met him at Apia. He did
not quite see how they had made their way from a children’s tea party
at Oxford to the South Pacific islands, but he was anxious to join in
somewhere with a clever observation. But they never seemed to settle in
one place sufficiently long for him to recollect what he knew of it. He
hoped they would get around to the west coast of Africa in time. He had
been Governor of Sierra Leone for five years.
His success that night at dinner on the yacht was far better. The others
seemed a little tired after the hours of sight-seeing to which he had
treated them, and they were content to listen. In the absence of Mr.
Clarges, who knew them word by word, he felt free to tell his three
stories of life at Sierra Leone. He took his time in the telling, and
could congratulate himself that his efforts had never been more keenly
appreciated. He felt that he was holding his own.
The night was still and warm, and while the men lingered below at the
table, the two women mounted to the deck and watched the lights of
the town as they vanished one by one and left the moon in unchallenged
possession of the harbor. For a long time Miss Cameron stood silent,
looking out across the bay at the shore and the hills beyond. A fish
splashed near them, and the sound of oars rose from the mist that
floated above the water, until they were muffled in the distance. The
palms along the shore glistened like silver, and overhead the Southern
Cross shone white against a sky of purple. The silence deepened and
continued for so long a time that Mrs. Collier felt its significance,
and waited for the girl to end it.
Miss Cameron raised her eyes to the stars and frowned. “I am not
surprised that he is content to stay here,” she said. “Are you? It is so
beautiful, so wonderfully beautiful.”
For a moment Mrs. Collier made no answer. “Two years is a long time,
Florence,” she said; “and he is all I have; he is not only my only
brother, he is the only living soul who is related to me. That makes
it harder.”
The girl seemed to find some implied reproach in the speech, for she
turned and looked at her friend closely. “Do you feel it is my fault,
Alice?” she asked.
The older woman shook her head. “How could it be your fault?” she
answered. “If you couldn’t love him enough to marry him, you couldn’t,
that’s all. But that is no reason why he should have hidden himself from
all of us. Even if he could not stand being near you, caring as he did,
he need not have treated me so. We have done all we can do, and Robert
has been more than fine about it. He and his agents have written to
every consul and business house in Central America, and I don’t believe
there is a city that he hasn’t visited. He has sent him money and
letters to every bank and to every post-office--”
The girl raised her head quickly.
“--but he never calls for either,” Mrs. Collier continued, “for I know
that if he had read my letters he would have come home.”
The girl lifted her head as though she were about to speak, and then
turned and walked slowly away. After a few moments she returned, and
stood, with her hands resting on the rail, looking down into the water.
“I wrote him two letters,” she said. In the silence of the night her
voice was unusually clear and distinct. “I--you make me wonder--if they
ever reached him.”
Mrs. Collier, with her eyes fixed upon the girl, rose slowly from her
chair and came towards her. She reached out her hand and touched Miss
Cameron on the arm.
“Florence,” she said, in a whisper, “have you--”
The girl raised her head slowly, and lowered it again. “Yes,” she
answered; “I told him to come back--to come back to me. Alice,” she
cried, “I--I begged him to come back!” She tossed her hands apart and
again walked rapidly away, leaving the older woman standing motionless.
A moment later, when Sir Charles and Mr. Collier stepped out upon the
deck, they discovered the two women standing close together, two white,
ghostly figures in the moonlight, and as they advanced towards them they
saw Mrs. Collier take the girl for an instant in her arms.
Sir Charles was asking Miss Cameron how long she thought an immigrant
should be made to work for his freehold allotment, when Mr. Collier and
his wife rose at the same moment and departed on separate errands. They
met most mysteriously in the shadow of the wheel-house.
“What is it? Is anything wrong with Florence?” Collier asked, anxiously.
“Not homesick, is she?”
Mrs. Collier put her hands on her husband’s shoulders and shook her
head.
“Wrong? No, thank Heaven! it’s as right as right can be!” she cried.
“She’s written to him to come back, but he’s never answered, and so--and
now it’s all right.”
Mr. Collier gazed blankly at his wife’s upturned face. “Well, I don’t
see that,” he remonstrated. “What’s the use of her being in love with
him now when he can’t be found? What? Why didn’t she love him two years
ago when he was where you could get at him--at her house, for instance.
He was there most of his time. She would have saved a lot of trouble.
However,” he added, energetically, “this makes it absolutely necessary
to find that young man and bring him to his senses. We’ll search this
place for the next few days, and then we’ll try the mainland again. I
think I’ll offer a reward for him, and have it printed in Spanish, and
paste it up in all the plazas. We might add a line in English, ‘She has
changed her mind.’ That would bring him home, wouldn’t it?”
“Don’t be unfeeling, Robert,” said Mrs. Collier.
Her husband raised his eyes appealingly, and addressed himself to the
moon. “I ask you now,” he complained, “is that fair to a man who
has spent six months on muleback trying to round up a prodigal
brother-in-law?”
That same evening, after the ladies had gone below, Mr. Collier asked
Sir Charles to assist him in his search for his wife’s brother, and
Sir Charles heartily promised his most active co-operation. There were
several Americans at work in the interior, he said, as overseers on
the coffee-plantations. It was possible that the runaway might be among
them. It was only that morning, Sir Charles remembered, that an American
had been at work “repairing his lawn-mower,” as he considerately
expressed it. He would send for him on the morrow.
But on the morrow the slave of the lawn-mower was reported on the list
of prisoners as “missing,” and Corporal Mallon was grieved, but refused
to consider himself responsible. Sir Charles himself had allowed the
vagrant unusual freedom, and the vagrant had taken advantage of it, and
probably escaped to the hills, or up the river to the logwood camp.
“Telegraph a description of him to Inspector Garrett,” Sir Charles
directed, “and to the heads of all up stations. And when he returns,
bring him to me.”
So great was his zeal that Sir Charles further offered to join Mr.
Collier in his search among the outlying plantations; but Mr. Collier
preferred to work alone. He accordingly set out at once, armed with
letters to the different district inspectors, and in his absence
delegated to Sir Charles the pleasant duty of caring for the wants of
Miss Cameron and his wife. Sir Charles regarded the latter as deserving
of all sympathy, for Mr. Collier, in his efforts to conceal the fact
from the Governor that Florence Cameron was responsible, or in any
way concerned, in the disappearance of the missing man, had been too
mysterious. Sir Charles was convinced that the fugitive had swindled his
brother-in-law and stolen his sister’s jewels.
The days which followed were to the Governor days and nights of strange
discoveries. He recognized that the missionaries from the great outside
world had invaded his shores and disturbed his gods and temples. Their
religion of progress and activity filled him with doubt and unrest.
“In this century,” Mr. Collier had declared, “nothing can stand still.
It’s the same with a corporation, or a country, or a man. We must either
march ahead or fall out. We can’t mark time. What?”
“Exactly--certainly not,” Sir Charles had answered. But in his heart
he knew that he himself had been marking time under these soft tropical
skies while the world was pushing forward. The thought had not disturbed
him before. Now he felt guilty. He conceived a sudden intolerance, if
not contempt, for the little village of whitewashed houses, for the
rafts of mahogany and of logwood that bumped against the pier-heads, for
the sacks of coffee piled high like barricades under the corrugated zinc
sheds along the wharf. Each season it had been his pride to note the
increase in these exports. The development of the resources of his
colony had been a work in which he had felt that the Colonial Secretary
took an immediate interest. He had believed that he was one of the
important wheels of the machinery which moved the British Empire: and
now, in a day, he was undeceived. It was forced upon him that to the
eyes of the outside world he was only a greengrocer operating on a large
scale; he provided the British public with coffee for its breakfast,
with drugs for its stomach, and with strange woods for its
dining-room furniture and walking-sticks. He combated this ignominious
characterization of his position indignantly. The new arrivals certainly
gave him no hint that they considered him so lightly. This thought
greatly comforted him, for he felt that in some way he was summoning
to his aid all of his assets and resources to meet an expert and final
valuation. As he ranged them before him he was disturbed and happy to
find that the value he placed upon them was the value they would have
in the eyes of a young girl--not a girl of the shy, mother-obeying,
man-worshipping English type, but a girl such as Miss Cameron seemed to
be, a girl who could understand what you were trying to say before you
said it, who could take an interest in rates of exchange and preside
at a dinner table, who was charmingly feminine and clever, and who was
respectful of herself and of others. In fact, he decided, with a flush,
that Miss Cameron herself was the young girl he had in his mind.
“Why not?” he asked.
The question came to him in his room, the sixth night of their visit,
and he strode over to the long pier-glass and stood studying himself
critically for the first time in years. He was still a fine-looking,
well-kept man. His hair was thin, but that fact did not show; and his
waist was lost, but riding and tennis would set that right. He had means
outside of his official salary, and there was the title, such as it was.
Lady Greville the wife of the birthday knight sounded as well as Lady
Greville the marchioness. And Americans cared for these things. He
doubted whether this particular American would do so, but he was adding
up all he had to offer, and that was one of the assets. He was sure
she would not be content to remain mistress of the Windless Isles. Nor,
indeed, did he longer care to be master there, now that he had inhaled
this quick, stirring breath from the outer world. He would resign, and
return and mix with the world again. He would enter Parliament; a man
so well acquainted as himself with the Gold Coast of Africa and with
the trade of the West Indies must always be of value in the Lower House.
This value would be recognized, no doubt, and he would become at
first an Under-Secretary for the Colonies, and then, in time, Colonial
Secretary and a cabinet minister. She would like that, he thought. And
after that place had been reached, all things were possible. For years
he had not dreamed such dreams--not since he had been a clerk in the
Foreign Office. They seemed just as possible now as they had seemed real
then, and just as near. He felt it was all absolutely in his own hands.
He descended to the dining-room with the air of a man who already felt
the cares of high responsibility upon his shoulders. His head was erect
and his chest thrown forward. He was ten years younger; his manner was
alert, assured, and gracious. As he passed through the halls he was
impatient of the familiar settings of Government House; they seemed
to him like the furnishings of a hotel where he had paid his bill, and
where his luggage was lying strapped for departure in the hallway.
In his library he saw on his table a number of papers lying open waiting
for his signature, the dog-tax among the others. He smiled to remember
how important it had seemed to him in the past--in that past of
indolence and easy content. Now he was on fire to put this rekindled
ambition to work, to tell the woman who had lighted it that it was all
from her and for her, that without her he had existed, that now he had
begun to live.
They had never found him so delighful{sic} as he appeared that night.
He was like a man on the eve of a holiday. He made a jest of his past
efforts; he made them see, as he now saw it for the first time, that
side of the life of the Windless Isles which was narrow and petty,
even ridiculous. He talked of big men in a big way; he criticised, and
expounded, and advanced his own theories of government and the proper
control of an empire.
Collier, who had returned from his unsuccessful search of the
plantations, shook his head.
“It’s a pity you are not in London now,” he said, sincerely. “They need
some one there who has been on the spot. They can’t direct the colonies
from what they know of them in Whitehall.”
Sir Charles fingered the dinner cloth nervously, and when he spoke,
fixed his eyes anxiously upon Miss Cameron.
“Do you know,” he said, “I have been thinking of doing that very thing,
of resigning my post here and going back, entering Parliament, and all
the rest of it.”
His declaration met with a unanimous chorus of delight. Miss Cameron
nodded her head with eager approval.
“Yes, if I were a man, that is where I should wish to be,” she said, “at
the heart of it. Why, whatever you say in the House of Commons is heard
all over the world the next morning.”
Sir Charles felt the blood tingle in his pulses. He had not been so
stirred in years. Her words ran to his head like wine.
Mr. Collier raised his glass.
“Here’s to our next meeting,” he said, “on the terrace of the House of
Commons.”
But Miss Cameron interrupted. “No; to the Colonial Secretary,” she
amended.
“Oh yes,” they assented, rising, and so drank his health, smiling down
upon him with kind, friendly glances and good-will.
“To the Colonial Secretary,” they said. Sir Charles clasped the arms
of his chair tightly with his hands; his eyes were half closed, and his
lips pressed into a grim, confident smile. He felt that a single word
from her would make all that they suggested possible. If she cared for
such things, they were hers; he had them to give; they were ready lying
at her feet. He knew that the power had always been with him, lying
dormant in his heart and brain. It had only waited for the touch of the
Princess to wake it into life.
The American visitors were to sail for the mainland the next day, but he
had come to know them so well in the brief period of their visit that he
felt he dared speak to her that same night. At least he could give
her some word that would keep him in her mind until they met again in
London, or until she had considered her answer. He could not expect her
to answer at once. She could take much time. What else had he to do now
but to wait for her answer? It was now all that made life.
Collier and his wife had left the veranda and had crossed the lawn
towards the water’s edge. The moonlight fell full upon them with all the
splendor of the tropics, and lit the night with a brilliant, dazzling
radiance. From where Miss Cameron sat on the veranda in the shadow, Sir
Charles could see only the white outline of her figure and the indolent
movement of her fan. Collier had left his wife and was returning slowly
towards the step. Sir Charles felt that if he meant to speak he must
speak now, and quickly. He rose and placed himself beside her in the
shadow, and the girl turned her head inquiringly and looked up at him.
But on the instant the hush of the night was broken by a sharp
challenge, and the sound of men’s voices raised in anger; there was the
noise of a struggle on the gravel, and from the corner of the house the
two sentries came running, dragging between them a slight figure that
fought and wrestled to be free.
Sir Charles exclaimed with indignant impatience, and turning, strode
quickly to the head of the steps.
“What does this mean?” he demanded. “What are you doing with that man?
Why did you bring him here?”
As the soldiers straightened to attention, their prisoner ceased to
struggle, and stood with his head bent on his chest. His sombrero was
pulled down low across his forehead.
“He was crawling through the bushes, Sir Charles,” the soldier panted,
“watching that gentleman, sir,”--he nodded over his shoulder towards
Collier. “I challenged, and he jumped to run, and we collared him. He
resisted, Sir Charles.”
The mind of the Governor was concerned with other matters than
trespassers.
“Well, take him to the barracks, then,” he said. “Report to me in the
morning. That will do.”
The prisoner wheeled eagerly, without further show of resistance, and
the soldiers closed in on him on either side. But as the three men moved
away together, their faces, which had been in shadow, were now turned
towards Mr. Collier, who was advancing leisurely, and with silent
footsteps, across the grass. He met them face to face, and as he did so
the prisoner sprang back and threw out his arms in front of him, with
the gesture of a man who entreats silence. Mr. Collier halted as though
struck to stone, and the two men confronted each other without moving.
“Good God!” Mr. Collier whispered.
He turned stiffly and slowly, as though in a trance, and beckoned to his
wife, who had followed him.
“Alice!” he called. He stepped backwards towards her, and taking her
hand in one of his, drew her towards the prisoner. “Here he is!” he
said.
They heard her cry “Henry!” with the fierceness of a call for help,
and saw her rush forward and stumble into the arms of the prisoner, and
their two heads were bent close together.
Collier ran up the steps and explained breathlessly.
“And now,” he gasped, in conclusion, “what’s to be done? What’s he
arrested for? Is it bailable? What?”
“Good heavens!” exclaimed Sir Charles, miserably. “It is my fault
entirely. I assure you I had no idea. How could I? But I should have
known, I should have guessed it.” He dismissed the sentries with a
gesture. “That will do,” he said. “Return to your posts.”
Mr. Collier laughed with relief.
“Then it is not serious?” he asked.
“He--he had no money, that was all,” exclaimed Sir Charles. “Serious?
Certainly not. Upon my word, I’m sorry--”
The young man had released himself from his sister’s embrace, and was
coming towards them; and Sir Charles, eager to redeem himself, advanced
hurriedly to greet him. But the young man did not see him; he was
looking past him up the steps to where Miss Cameron stood in the shadow.
Sir Charles hesitated and drew back. The young man stopped at the foot
of the steps, and stood with his head raised, staring up at the white
figure of the girl, who came slowly forward.
It was forced upon Sir Charles that in spite of the fact that the young
man before them had but just then been rescued from arrest, that in
spite of his mean garments and ragged sandals, something about him--the
glamour that surrounds the prodigal, or possibly the moonlight--gave him
an air of great dignity and distinction.
As Miss Cameron descended the stairs, Sir Charles recognized for the
first time that the young man was remarkably handsome, and he resented
it. It hurt him, as did also the prodigal’s youth and his assured
bearing. He felt a sudden sinking fear, a weakening of all his vital
forces, and he drew in his breath slowly and deeply. But no one noticed
him; they were looking at the tall figure of the prodigal, standing with
his hat at his hip and his head thrown back, holding the girl with his
eyes.
Collier touched Sir Charles on the arm, and nodded his head towards the
library. “Come,” he whispered, “let us old people leave them together.
They’ve a good deal to say.” Sir Charles obeyed in silence, and crossing
the library to the great oak chair, seated himself and leaned wearily
on the table before him. He picked up one of the goose quills and began
separating it into little pieces. Mr. Collier was pacing up and down,
biting excitedly on the end of his cigar. “Well, this has certainly been
a great night,” he said. “And it is all due to you, Sir Charles--all due
to you. Yes, they have you to thank for it.”
“They?” said Sir Charles. He knew that it had to come. He wanted the man
to strike quickly.
“They? Yes--Florence Cameron and Henry,” Mr. Collier answered. “Henry
went away because she wouldn’t marry him. She didn’t care for him then,
but afterwards she cared. Now they’re reunited,--and so they’re happy;
and my wife is more than happy, and I won’t have to bother any more; and
it’s all right, and all through you.”
“I am glad,” said Sir Charles. There was a long pause, which the men,
each deep in his own thoughts, did not notice.
“You will be leaving now, I suppose?” Sir Charles asked. He was looking
down, examining the broken pen in his hand.
Mr. Collier stopped in his walk and considered. “Yes, I suppose they
will want to get back,” he said. “I shall be sorry myself. And you? What
will you do?”
Sir Charles started slightly. He had not yet thought what he would do.
His eyes wandered over the neglected work, which had accumulated on the
desk before him. Only an hour before he had thought of it as petty and
little, as something unworthy of his energy. Since that time what change
had taken place in him?
For him everything had changed, he answered, but in him there had been
no change; and if this thing which the girl had brought into his life
had meant the best in life, it must always mean that. She had been an
inspiration; she must remain his spring of action. Was he a slave, he
asked himself, that he should rebel? Was he a boy, that he could turn
his love to aught but the best account? He must remember her not as the
woman who had crushed his spirit, but as she who had helped him, who had
lifted him up to something better and finer. He would make sacrifice in
her name; it would be in her name that he would rise to high places and
accomplish much good.
She would not know this, but he would know.
He rose and brushed the papers away from him with an impatient sweep of
the hand.
“I shall follow out the plan of which I spoke at dinner,” he answered.
“I shall resign here, and return home and enter Parliament.”
Mr. Collier laughed admiringly. “I love the way you English take your
share of public life,” he said, “the way you spend yourselves for your
country, and give your brains, your lives, everything you have--all for
the empire.”
Through the open window Sir Charles saw Miss Cameron half hidden by the
vines of the veranda. The moonlight falling about her transformed her
into a figure which was ideal, mysterious, and elusive, like a woman in
a dream. He shook his head wearily.
“For the empire?” he asked.
THE LAST RIDE TOGETHER
A SKETCH CONTAINING THREE POINTS OF VIEW
What the Poet Laureate wrote.
“There are girls in the Gold Reef City
There are mothers and children too!
And they cry ‘Hurry up for pity!’
So what can a brave man do?