AN OMINOUS LULL
The three saw nothing more of each other that day. Miss Leslie had
withdrawn into the baobab, and Blake had gone off down the cleft for
more salt. He did not return until after the others were asleep. Miss
Leslie had gone without her supper, or had eaten some of the food stored
within the tree.
When, late the next morning, she finally left her seclusion, Blake was
nowhere in sight. Ignoring Winthrope's attempts to start a conversation,
she hurried through her breakfast, and having gathered a supply of food
and water, went to spend the day on the headland.
Evening forced her to return to the cleft. She had emptied the water
flask by noon, and was thirsty. Winthrope was dozing beneath his canopy,
which Blake had moved some yards down towards the barricade. Blake was
cooking supper.
He did not look up, and met her attempt at a pleasant greeting with an
inarticulate grunt. When she turned to enter the baobab, she found the
opening littered with bamboos and green creepers and pieces of large
branches with charred ends. On either side, midway through the entrance,
a vertical row of holes had been sunk through the bark of the tree into
the soft wood.
"What is this?" she asked. "Are you planning a porch?"
"Maybe," he replied.
"But why should you make the holes so far in? I know so little about
these matters, but I should have fancied the holes would come on the
front of the tree."
"You'll see in a day or two."
"How did you make the holes? They look black, as though--"
"Burnt 'em, of course--hot stones."
"That was so clever of you!"
He made no response.
Supper was eaten in silence. Even Winthrope's presence would have
been a relief to the girl; yet she could not go to waken him, or even
suggest that her companion do so. Blake sat throughout the meal sullen
and stolid, and carefully avoided meeting her gaze. Before they had
finished, twilight had come and gone, and night was upon them. Yet
she lingered for a last attempt.
"Good-night, friend!" she whispered.
He sprang up as though she had struck him, and blundered away into the
darkness.
In the morning it was as before. He had gone off before she wakened. She
lingered over breakfast; but he did not appear, and she could not endure
Winthrope's suave drawl. She went for another day on the headland.
She returned somewhat earlier than on the previous day. As before,
Winthrope was dozing in the shade. But Blake was under the baobab, raking
together a heap of rubbish. His hands were scratched and bleeding. To the
girl's surprise, he met her with a cheerful grin and a clear, direct
glance.
"Look here," he called.
She stepped around the baobab, and stood staring. The entrance, from the
ground to the height of twelve feet, was walled up with a mass of thorny
branches, interwoven with yet thornier creepers.
"How's that for a front door?" he demanded.
"Door?"
"Yes."
"But it's so big. I could never move it."
"A child could. Look." He grasped a projecting handle near the bottom
of the thorny mass. The lower half of the door swung up and outward, the
upper half in and downward. "See; it's balanced on a crossbar in the
middle. Come on in."
She walked after him in under the now horizontal door. He gave the inner
end a light upward thrust, and the door swung back in its vertical
circle until it again stood upright in the opening. From the inside the
girl could see the strong framework to which was lashed the facing of
thorns. It was made of bamboo and strong pieces of branches, bound
together with tough creepers.
"Pretty good grating, eh?" remarked Blake. "When those green creepers
dry, they'll shrink and hold tight as iron clamps. Even now nothing
short of a rhinoceros could walk through when the bars are fast. See
here."
He stepped up to the novel door, and slid several socketed crossbars
until their outer ends were deep in the holes in the tree trunk, three
on each side.
"How's that for a set of bolts?" he demanded.
"Wonderful! Really, you are very, very clever! But why should you go
to all this trouble, when the barricade--"
"Well, you see, it's best to be on the safe side."
"But it's absurd for you to go to all this needless work. Not that I do
not appreciate your kind thought for my safety. Yet look at your hands!"
Blake hastened to put his bleeding hands behind him.
"They are no sight for a lady!" he muttered apologetically.
"Go and wash them at once, and I'll put on a dressing."
Blake glowed with frank pleasure, yet shook his head.
"No, thank you, Miss Jenny. You needn't bother. They'll do all right."
"You must! It would please me."
"Why, then, of course-- But first, I want to make sure you understand
fastening the door. Try the bars yourself."
She obeyed, sliding the bars in and out until he nodded his satisfaction.
"Good!" he said. "Now promise me you'll slide 'em fast every night."
"If you ask it. But why?"
"I want to make perfectly safe."
"Safe? But am I not secure with--"
"Look here, Miss Leslie; I'm not going to say anything about anybody."
"Perhaps you had better say no more, Mr. Blake."
"That's right. But whatever happens, you'll believe I've done my
best, won't you?--even if I'm not a-- Promise me straight, you'll
lock up tight every night."
"Very well, I promise," responded the girl, not a little troubled by
the strangeness of his expression.
He turned at once, swung open the door, and went out. During supper he
was markedly taciturn, and immediately afterwards went off to his bed.
That night Miss Leslie dutifully fastened herself in with all six bars.
She wakened at dawn, and hastened out to prepare Blake's breakfast, but
she found herself too late. There were evidences that he had eaten and
gone off before dawn. The stretching frame of one of the antelope skins
had been moved around by the fire, and on the smooth inner surface of
the hide was a laconic note, written with charcoal in a firm, bold hand:--
"_Exploring inland. Back by night, if can_."
She bit her lip in her disappointment, for she had planned to show him
how much she appreciated his absurd but well-meant concern for her
safety. As it was, he had gone off without a word, and left her to
the questionable pleasure of a _tête-à-tête_ with Winthrope. Hoping to
avoid this, she hurried her preparations for a day on the cliff. But
before she could get off, Winthrope sauntered up, hiding his yawns behind
a hand which had regained most of its normal plumpness. His eye was at
once caught by the charcoal note.
"Ah!" he drawled; "really now, this is too kind of him to give us the
pleasure of his absence all day!"
"Ye-es!" murmured Miss Leslie. "Permit me to add that you will also
have the pleasure of my absence. I am going now."
Winthrope looked down, and began to speak very rapidly: "Miss Genevieve,
I--I wish to apologize. I've thought it over. I've made a mistake--I--I
mean, my conduct the other day was vile, utterly vile! Permit me to
appeal to your considerateness for a man who has been unfortunate--who,
I mean, has been--er--was carried away by his feelings. Your favoring
of that bloom--er--that--er--bounder so angered me that I--that I--"
"Mr. Winthrope!" interrupted the girl, "I will have you to understand
that you do not advance yourself in my esteem by such references to Mr.
Blake."
"Aye! aye, that Blake!" panted Winthrope. "Don't you see? It's 'im,
an' that blossom! W'en a man's daffy--w'en 'e's in love!--"
Miss Leslie burst into a nervous laugh; but checked herself on the
instant.
"Really, Mr. Winthrope!" she exclaimed, "you must pardon me. I--I
never knew that cultured Englishmen ever dropped their h's. As it
happens, you know, I never saw one excited before this."
"Ah, yes; to be sure--to be sure!" murmured Winthrope, in an odd tone.
The girl threw out her hand in a little gesture of protest.
"Really, I'm sorry to have hurt--to have been so thoughtless!"
Winthrope stood silent. She spoke again: "I'll do what you ask. I'll
make allowances for your--for your feelings towards me, and will try
to forget all you said the other day. Let me begin by asking a favor of
you."
"Ah, Miss Genevieve, anything, to be sure, that I may do!"
"It is that I wish your opinion. When Mr. Blake finished that absurd
door last evening, he would not tell me why he had built it--only a vague
statement about my safety."
"Ah! He did not go into particulars?" drawled Winthrope.
"No, not even a hint; and he looked so--odd."
Winthrope slowly rubbed his soft palms on upon the other.
"Do you--er--really desire to know his--the motive which actuated him?"
he murmured.
"I should not have mentioned it to you, if I did not," she answered.
"Well--er--" He hesitated and paused for a full minute. "You see,
it is a rather difficult undertaking to intimate such a matter to a
lady--just the right touch of delicacy, you know. But I will begin by
explaining that I have known it since the first--"
"Known what?"
"Of that bound--of--er--Blake's trouble."
"Trouble?"
"Ah! Perhaps I should have said affliction; yes, that is the better
word. To own the truth, the fellow has some good qualities. It was no
doubt because he realised, when in his better moments--"
"Better moments? Mr. Winthrope, I am not a child. In justice both to
myself and to Mr. Blake, I must ask you to speak out plainly."
"My dear Miss Leslie, may I first ask if you have not observed how
strangely at times the fellow acts,--'looks odd,' as you put it,--how
he falls into melancholia or senseless rages? I may truthfully state
that he has three times threatened my life."
"I--I thought his anger quite natural, after I had so rudely--and so
many people are given to brooding-- But if he was violent to you--"
"My dear Miss Genevieve, I hold nothing against the miserable fellow. At
such times he is not--er--responsible, you know. Let us give the fellow
full credit--that is why he himself built your door."
"Oh, but I can't believe it! I can't believe it!" cried the girl.
"It's not possible! He's so strong, so true and manly, so kind, for
all his gruffness!"
"Ah, my dear!" soothed Winthrope, "that is the pity of it. But when
a man must needs be his worst enemy, when he must needs lead a certain
kind of life, he must take the consequences. To put it as delicately as
possible, yet explain all, I need only say one word--paranoia."
Miss Leslie gathered up her day's outfit with trembling fingers, and
went to mount the cliff.
After waiting a few minutes Winthrope walked hurriedly through the cleft,
and climbed the tree-ladder with an agility that would have amazed his
companions. But he did not draw himself up on the cliff. Having satisfied
himself that Miss Leslie was well out toward the signal, he returned to
the baobab, and proceeded to examine Blake's door with minute scrutiny.
That evening, shortly before dark, Blake came in almost exhausted by his
journey. Few men could have covered the same ground in twice the time. It
had been one continuous round of grass jungle, thorn scrub, rocks, and
swamp. And for all his pains, he brought back with him nothing more
than the discouraging information that the back-country was worse
than the shore. Yet he betrayed no trace of depression over the bad
news, and for all his fatigue, maintained a tone of hearty cheerfulness
until, having eaten his fill, he suddenly observed Miss Leslie's
frigid politeness.
"What's up now?" he demanded. "You're not mad 'cause I hiked off
this morning without notice?"
"No, of course not, Mr. Blake. Nothing of the kind. But I--"
"Well,-what?" he broke in, as she hesitated. "I can't, for the world,
think of anything else I've done--"
"You've done! Perhaps I might suggest that it is a question of what
you haven't done." The girl was trembling on the verge of hysterics.
"Yes, what you've not done! All these weeks, and not a single attempt
to get us away from here, except that miserable signal; and I as good as
put that up! You call yourself a man! But I--I--" She stopped short,
white with a sudden overpowering fear.
Winthrope looked from her to Blake with a sidelong glance, his lips drawn
up in an odd twist.
There followed several moments of tense silence; then Blake mumbled
apologetically: "Well, I suppose I might have done more. I was so dead
anxious to make sure of food and shelter. But this trip to-day--"
"Mr.--Mr. Blake, pray do not get excited--I--I mean, please excuse me.
I'm--"
"You're coming down sick!" he said.
"No, no! I have no fever."
"Then it's the sun. Yet you ought to keep up there where the air is
freshest. I'll make you a shade."
She protested, and withdrew, somewhat hurriedly, to her tree.
In the morning Blake was gone again; but instead of a note, beside
the fire stood the smaller antelope skin, converted into a great
bamboo-ribbed sunshade.
She spent the day as usual on the headland. There was no wind, and the
sun was scorching hot. But with her big sunshade to protect her from the
direct rays, the heat was at least endurable. She even found energy to
work at a basket which she was attempting to weave out of long, coarse
grass; yet there were frequent intervals when her hands sank idle in
her lap, and she gazed away over the shimmering glassy expanse of the
ocean.
In the afternoon the heat became oppressively sultry, and a long slow
swell began to roll shoreward from beyond the distant horizon, showing
no trace of white along its oily crests until they broke over the coral
reefs. There was not a breath of air stirring, and for a time the reefs
so checked the rollers that they lacked force to drive on in and break
upon the beach.
Steadily, however, the swell grew heavier, though not so much as a
cat's-paw ruffled the dead surfaces of the watery hillocks. By sunset
they were rolling high over both lines of reefs and racing shoreward to
break upon the beach and the cliff foot in furious surf. The still air
reverberated with the booming of the breakers. Yet the girl, inland bred
and unversed in weather lore, sat heedless and indifferent, her eyes
fixed upon the horizon in a vacant stare.
Her reverie was at last disturbed by the peculiar behavior of the
seafowl. Those in the air circled around in a manner strange to her,
while their mates on the ledges waddled restlessly about over and between
their nests. There was a shriller note than usual in their discordant
clamor.
Yet even when she gave heed to the birds, the girl failed to realize
their alarm or to sense the impending danger. It was only that a feeling
of disquiet had broken the spell of her reverie; it did not obtrude
upon the field of her conscious thought. She sighed, and rose to return
to the cleft, idly wondering that the air should seem more sultry than at
mid-day. The peculiar appearance of the sun and the western sky meant
nothing more to her than an odd effect of color and light. She smilingly
compared it with an attempt at a sunset painted by an artist friend of
the impressionist school.
Neither Winthrope nor Blake was in sight when she reached the baobab,
and neither appeared, though she delayed supper until dark. It was quite
possible that they had eaten before her return and had gone off again,
the Englishman to doze, and Blake on an evening hunt.
At last, tired of waiting, she covered the fire, and retired into her
tree-cave. The air in the cleft was still more stifling than on the
headland. She paused, with her hand upraised to close the swinging
door. She had propped it open when she came out in the morning. After a
moment's hesitation, she went on across the hollow, leaving the door
wide open.
"I will rest a little, and close it later," she sighed. She was feeling
weary and depressed.
An hour passed. An ominous stillness lay upon the cleft. Even the
cicadas had hushed their shrill note. The only sound was a muffled
reverberating echo of the surf roaring upon the seashore. Beneath the
giant spread of the baobab all was blackness.
Something moved in a bush a little way down the cleft. A crouching figure
appeared, dimly outlined in the starlight. The figure crept stealthily
across into the denser night of the baobab. The darkness closed about
it like a shroud.
A blinding flash of light pierced the blackness. The figure halted
and crouched lower, though the flash had gone again in a fraction of
a second. A dull rumbling mingled with the ceaseless boom of the surf.
A second flash lighted the cleft with its dazzling coruscation. This time
the creeping figure did not halt.
Again and again the forked lightning streaked across the sky, every
stroke more vivid than the one before. The rumble of the distant thunder
deepened to a heavy rolling which dominated the dull roar of the
breakers. The storm was coming with the on-rush of a tornado. Yet
the leaves hung motionless in the still air, and there was no sound
other than the thunder and the booming of the surf.
The lightning flared, one stroke upon the other, with a brilliancy that
lit up the cave's interior brighter than at mid-day.
In the white glare the girl saw Winthrope, crouched beneath her upswung
door; and his face was as the face of a beast.