IN DOUBLE SALVATION
When, an hour or more after dawn the next morning, the girl slowly drew
open her door and came out of the cave, Blake was nowhere in sight. She
sighed, vastly relieved, and hastened across to bathe her flushed face
in the spring. Stopping every few moments to listen for his step down
the cleft, she gathered up a hamper of food and fled to the tree-ladder.
As she drew herself up on the cliff, she noticed a thin column of smoke
rising from the last smouldering brands of a beacon fire that had been
built in the midst of the bird colony, on the extreme outer edge of the
headland. She did not, however, observe that, while the smoke column
streamed up from the fire directly skyward, beyond it there was a much
larger volume of smoke, which seemed to have eddied down the cliff face
and was now rolling up into view from out over the sea. She gave no heed
to this, for the sight of the beacon had instantly alarmed her with the
possibility that Blake was still on the headland, and would imagine that
she was seeking him.
She paused, her cheeks aflame. But the only sign of Blake that she could
see was the fire itself. She reflected that he might very well have
left before dawn. As likely as not, he had descended at the north end
of the cleft, and had gone off to the river to start his catamaran. At
the thought all the color ebbed from her cheeks and left her white and
trembling. Again she stood hesitating. With a sigh she started on toward
the signal staff.
She was close upon the border of the bird colony, when Blake sat up from
behind a ledge, and she found herself staring into his blinking eyes.
"Hello!" he mumbled drowsily. He sprang up, wide awake, and flushing
with the guilty consciousness of what he had done. "Look at the sun--way
up! Didn't mean to oversleep, Miss Leslie. You see I was up pretty late,
tending the beacon. But of course that's no excuse--"
"Don't!" she exclaimed. There were tears in her eyes; yet she smiled
as she spoke. "I know what you mean by 'pretty late.' You've been
up all night."
"No, I haven't. Not all night--"
"To be sure! I quite understand, Mr. Thomas Blake!... Now, sit down,
and eat this luncheon."
"Can't. Haven't time. I've got to get to the river and set to work.
I'll get some jerked beef and eat it on the way. You see--"
"Tom!" she protested.
"It's for you," he rejoined, and his lips closed together resolutely.
He was stepping past her, when over the seaward edge of the cliff there
came a sound like the yell of a raging sea-monster.
"Siren!" shouted Blake, whirling about.
The cloud of smoke beyond the cliff end was now rolling up more to the
left. He dashed away towards the north edge of the cliff as though he
intended to leap off into space. The girl ran after him as fast as she
could over the loose stones. Before she had covered half the distance
she saw him halt on the very brink of the cliff, and begin to wave and
shout like a madman. A few steps farther on she caught sight of the
steamer. It was lying close in, only a little way off the north point of
the headland.
Even as she saw the vessel, its siren responded to Blake's wild gestures
with a series of joyous screams. There could be no mistake. He had been
seen. Already they were letting go anchor, and there was a little crowd
of men gathering about one of the boats. Blake turned and started on
a run for the cliff. But Miss Leslie darted before him, compelling him
to halt.
"Wait!" she cried, her eyes sparkling with happy tears. "Tom, it's
come now. You needn't--"
"Let me by! I'm going to meet them. I want to--"
But she put her hands upon his shoulders.
"Tom!" she whispered, "let it be now, before any one--anything can
possibly come between us! Let it be a part of our life here--here, where
I've learned how brave and true a real man can be!"
"And then have him prove himself a sneak!" he cried. "No; I won't,
Jenny! I've got you to think of. Wait till I've seen your father. Ten
to one, he'll not hear of it--he'll cut you off without a cent. Not but
what I'd be glad myself; but you're used to luxuries, girlie, and I'm
a poor man. I can't give them to you--"
She laid a hand on his mouth, and smiled up at him in tender mockery.
"Come, now, Mr. Blake; you're not very complimentary. After surviving
my cooking all these weeks, don't you think I might do, at a pinch, for
a poor man's wife!"
"No, Jenny!" he protested, trying to draw back. "You oughtn't to
decide now. When you get back among your friends, things may look
different. Think of your society friends! Wait till you see me with
other men--gentlemen! I'm just a rough, uncultured, ordinary--"
"Hush!" she cried, and she again placed her hand on his mouth. "You
sha'n't say such cruel things about Tom--my Tom--the man I trust--that
I--"
Her arms slipped about his neck, and her eyes shone up into his with
tender radiance.
"Don't!" he begged hoarsely. "'T ain't fair! I--I can't stand it!"
"The man I love!" she whispered.
He crushed her to him in his great arms.
"My little girl!--dear little girl!" he repeated, and he pressed his
lips to her hair.
She snuggled her face closer against his shoulder, and replied in a
very small voice, "I--I suppose you know that ship captains can m-marry
people."
"But I haven't even a job yet!" he exclaimed. "Suppose your father--"
"Please listen!" she pleaded. There was a sound like suppressed sobbing.
"What is it?" he ventured, and he listened, greatly perturbed. The
muffled voice sounded very meek and plaintive: "I'll try to do my
part, Mr. Blake,--really I will! I--I hope we can manage to struggle
along--somehow. You know, I have a little of my own. It's only
three--three million; but--"
"What!" he demanded, and he held her out at arm's length, to stare at
her in frowning bewilderment. "If I'd known that, I'd--"
"You'd never have given me a chance to--to propose to you, you dear
old silly!" she cried, her eyes dancing with tender mirth. "See here!"
She turned from him, and back again, and held up a withered, crumpled
flower. He looked, and saw that it was the amaryllis blossom.
"You--kept it!"
"Because--because, even then, down in the bottom of my heart, I had
begun to realize--to know what you were like--and of course that meant--
Tom, tell me! Do you think I'm utterly shameless? Do you blame me for
being the one to--to--"
"Blame you!" he cried. He paused to put a finger under her chin and
raise her down-bent face. His eyes were very blue, but there was a
twinkle in their depths. "Oh, yes; it was dreadful, wasn't it? But
I guess I've no complaint to file just now."
THE END
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