Time, having no axe to grind, showered down upon them three days
of afternoons. When the sun cleared the port-hole of Ardita's
cabin an hour after dawn she rose cheerily, donned her
bathing-suit, and went up on deck. The negroes would leave their
work when they saw her, and crowd, chuckling and chattering, to
the rail as she floated, an agile minnow, on and under the
surface of the clear water. Again in the cool of the afternoon
she would swim--and loll and smoke with Carlyle upon the cliff;
or else they would lie on their sides in the sands of the
southern beach, talking little, but watching the day fade
colorfully and tragically into the infinite langour of a tropical
evening.
And with the long, sunny hours Ardita's idea of the episode as
incidental, madcap, a sprig of romance in a desert of reality,
gradually left her. She dreaded the time when he would strike
off southward; she dreaded all the eventualities that presented
themselves to her; thoughts were suddenly troublesome and
decisions odious. Had prayers found place in the pagan rituals
of her soul she would have asked of life only to be unmolested
for a while, lazily acquiescent to the ready, naïf flow of
Carlyle's ideas, his vivid boyish imagination, and the vein of
monomania that seemed to run crosswise through his temperament
and colored his every action.
But this is not a story of two on an island, nor concerned
primarily with love bred of isolation. It is merely the
presentation of two personalities, and its idyllic setting among
the palms of the Gulf Stream is quite incidental. Most of us are
content to exist and breed and fight for the right to do both,
and the dominant idea, the foredoomed attest to control one's
destiny, is reserved for the fortunate or unfortunate few. To me
the interesting thing about Ardita is the courage that will
tarnish with her beauty and youth.
"Take me with you," she said late one night as they sat lazily in
the grass under the shadowy spreading palms. The negroes had
brought ashore their musical instruments, and the sound of weird
ragtime was drifting softly over on the warm breath of the night.
"I'd love to reappear in ten years, as a fabulously wealthy
high-caste Indian lady," she continued.
Carlyle looked at her quickly.
"You can, you know."
She laughed.
"Is it a proposal of marriage? Extra! Ardita Farnam becomes
pirate's bride. Society girl kidnapped by ragtime bank robber."
"It wasn't a bank."
"What was it? Why won't you tell me?"
"I don't want to break down your illusions."
"My dear man, I have no illusions about you."
"I mean your illusions about yourself."
She looked up in surprise.
"About myself! What on earth have I got to do with whatever stray
felonies you've committed?"
"That remains to be seen."
She reached over and patted his hand.
"Dear Mr. Curtis Carlyle," she said softly, "are you in love with
me?"
"As if it mattered."
"But it does--because I think I'm in love with
you."
He looked at her ironically.
"Thus swelling your January total to half a dozen," he suggested.
"Suppose I call your bluff and ask you to come to India with
me?"
"Shall I?"
He shrugged his shoulders.
"We can get married in Callao."
"What sort of life can you offer me? I don't mean that unkindly,
but seriously; what would become of me if the people who want
that twenty-thousand-dollar reward ever catch up with you?"
"I thought you weren't afraid."
"I never am--but I won't throw my life away just to show one man
I'm not."
"I wish you'd been poor. Just a little poor girl dreaming over a
fence in a warm cow country."
"Wouldn't it have been nice?"
"I'd have enjoyed astonishing you--watching your eyes open on
things. If you only wanted things! Don't you see?"
"I know--like girls who stare into the windows of
jewelry-stores."
"Yes--and want the big oblong watch that's platinum and has
diamonds all round the edge. Only you'd decide it was too
expensive and choose one of white gold for a hundred dollar. Then
I'd say: 'Expensive? I should say not!' And we'd go into the
store and pretty soon the platinum one would be gleaming on your
wrist."
"That sounds so nice and vulgar--and fun, doesn't it?" murmured
Ardita.
"Doesn't it? Can't you see us travelling round and spending money
right and left, and being worshipped by bell-boys and waiters?
Oh, blessed are the simple rich for they inherit the earth!"
"I honestly wish we were that way."
"I love you, Ardita," he said gently.
Her face lost its childish look for moment and became oddly
grave.
"I love to be with you," she said, "more than with any man I've
ever met. And I like your looks and your dark old hair, and the
way you go over the side of the rail when we come ashore. In
fact, Curtis Carlyle, I like all the things you do when you're
perfectly natural. I think you've got nerve and you know how I
feel about that. Sometimes when you're around I've been tempted
to kiss you suddenly and tell you that you were just an
idealistic boy with a lot of caste nonsense in his head.
Perhaps if I were just a little bit older and a little more bored
I'd go with you. As it is, I think I'll go back and marry--that
other man."
Over across the silver lake the figures of the negroes writhed
and squirmed in the moonlight like acrobats who, having been too
long inactive, must go through their tacks from sheer surplus
energy. In single file they marched, weaving in concentric
circles, now with their heads thrown back, now bent over their
instruments like piping fauns. And from trombone and saxaphone
ceaselessly whined a blended melody, sometimes riotous and
jubilant, sometimes haunting and plaintive as a death-dance from
the Congo's heart.
"Let's dance," cried Ardita. "I can't sit still with that perfect
jazz going on."
Taking her hand he led her out into a broad stretch of hard sandy
soil that the moon flooded with great splendor. They floated out
like drifting moths under the rich hazy light, and as the
fantastic symphony wept and exulted and wavered and despaired
Ardita's last sense of reality dropped away, and she abandoned
her imagination to the dreamy summer scents of tropical flowers
and the infinite starry spaces overhead, feeling that if she
opened her eyes it would be to find herself dancing with a ghost
in a land created by her own fancy.
"This is what I should call an exclusive private dance," he
whispered.
"I feel quite mad--but delightfully mad!"
"We're enchanted. The shades of unnumbered generations of
cannibals are watching us from high up on the side of the cliff
there."
"And I'll bet the cannibal women are saying that we dance too
close, and that it was immodest of me to come without my
nose-ring."
They both laughed softly--and then their laughter died as over
across the lake they heard the trombones stop in the middle of a
bar, and the saxaphones give a startled moan and fade out.
"What's the matter?" called Carlyle.
After a moment's silence they made out the dark figure of a man
rounding the silver lake at a run. As he came closer they saw it
was Babe in a state of unusual excitement. He drew up before them
and gasped out his news in a breath.
"Ship stan'in' off sho' 'bout half a mile suh. Mose, he uz on
watch, he say look's if she's done ancho'd."
"A ship--what kind of a ship?" demanded Carlyle
anxiously.
Dismay was in his voice, and Ardita's heart gave a sudden wrench
as she saw his whole face suddenly droop.
"He say he don't know, suh."
"Are they landing a boat?"
"No, suh."
"We'll go up," said Carlyle.
They ascended the hill in silence, Ardita's hand still resting in
Carlyle's as it had when they finished dancing. She felt it
clinch nervously from time to time as though he were unaware of
the contact, but though he hurt her she made no attempt to remove
it. It seemed an hour's climb before they reached the top and
crept cautiously across the silhouetted plateau to the edge of
the cliff. After one short look Carlyle involuntarily gave a
little cry. It was a revenue boat with six-inch guns mounted fore
and aft.
"They know!" he said with a short intake of breath. "They know!
They picked up the trail somewhere."
"Are you sure they know about the channel? They may be only
standing by to take a look at the island in the morning. From
where they are they couldn't see the opening in the cliff."
"They could with field-glasses," he said hopelessly. He looked at
his wrist-watch. "It's nearly two now. They won't do anything
until dawn, that's certain. Of course there's always the faint
possibility that they're waiting for some other ship to join; or
for a coaler."
"I suppose we may as well stay right here."
The hour passed and they lay there side by side, very silently,
their chins in their hands like dreaming children. In back of
them squatted the negroes, patient, resigned, acquiescent,
announcing now and then with sonorous snores that not even the
presence of danger could subdue their unconquerable African
craving for sleep.
Just before five o'clock Babe approached Carlyle. There were half
a dozen rifles aboard the Narcissus he said. Had it been decided
to offer no resistance?
A pretty good fight might be made, he thought, if they worked out
some plan.
Carlyle laughed and shook his head.
"That isn't a Spic army out there, Babe. That's a revenue boat.
It'd be like a bow and arrow trying to fight a machine-gun. If
you want to bury those bags somewhere and take a chance on
recovering them later, go on and do it. But it won't work--they'd
dig this island over from one end to the other. It's a lost
battle all round, Babe."
Babe inclined his head silently and turned away, and Carlyle's
voice was husky as he turned to Ardita.
"There's the best friend I ever had. He'd die for me, and be
proud to, if I'd let him."
"You've given up?"
"I've no choice. Of course there's always one way out--the sure
way--but that can wait. I wouldn't miss my trial for
anything--it'll be an interesting experiment in notoriety. 'Miss
Farnam testifies that the pirate's attitude to her was at all
times that of a gentleman.'"
"Don't!" she said. "I'm awfully sorry."
When the color faded from the sky and lustreless blue changed to
leaden gray a commotion was visible on the ship's deck, and they
made out a group of officers clad in white duck, gathered near
the rail. They had field-glasses in their hands and were
attentively examining the islet.
"It's all up," said Carlyle grimly.
"Damn," whispered Ardita. She felt tears gathering in her eyes
"We'll go back to the yacht," he said. "I prefer that to being
hunted out up here like a 'possum."
Leaving the plateau they descended the hill, and reaching the
lake were rowed out to the yacht by the silent negroes. Then,
pale and weary, they sank into the settees and waited.
Half an hour later in the dim gray light the nose of the revenue
boat appeared in the channel and stopped, evidently fearing that
the bay might be too shallow. From the peaceful look of the
yacht, the man and the girl in the settees, and the negroes
lounging curiously against the rail, they evidently judged that
there would be no resistance, for two boats were lowered casually
over the side, one containing an officer and six bluejackets,
and the other, four rowers and in the stern two gray-haired men
in yachting flannels. Ardita and Carlyle stood up, and half
unconsciously started toward each other.
Then he paused and putting his hand suddenly into his pocket he
pulled out a round, glittering object and held it out to her.
"What is it?" she asked wonderingly.
"I'm not positive, but I think from the Russian inscription
inside that it's your promised bracelet."
"Where--where on earth---"
"It came out of one of those bags. You see, Curtis Carlyle and
his Six Black Buddies, in the middle of their performance in the
tea-room of the hotel at Palm Beach, suddenly changed their
instruments for automatics and held up the crowd. I took this
bracelet from a pretty, overrouged woman with red hair."
Ardita frowned and then smiled.
"So that's what you did! You HAVE got nerve!"
He bowed.
"A well-known bourgeois quality," he said.
And then dawn slanted dynamically across the deck and flung the
shadows reeling into gray corners. The dew rose and turned to
golden mist, thin as a dream, enveloping them until they seemed
gossamer relics of the late night, infinitely transient and
already fading. For a moment sea and sky were breathless, and
dawn held a pink hand over the young mouth of life--then from out
in the lake came the complaint of a rowboat and the swish of
oars.
Suddenly against the golden furnace low in the east their two
graceful figures melted into one, and he was kissing her spoiled
young mouth.
"It's a sort of glory," he murmured after a second.
She smiled up at him.
"Happy, are you?"
Her sigh was a benediction--an ecstatic surety that she was youth
and beauty now as much as she would ever know. For another
instant life was radiant and time a phantom and their strength
eternal--then there was a bumping, scraping sound as the rowboat
scraped alongside.
Up the ladder scrambled the two gray-haired men, the officer and
two of the sailors with their hands on their revolvers. Mr.
Farnam folded his arms and stood looking at his niece.
"So," he said nodding his head slowly.
With a sigh her arms unwound from Carlyle's neck, and her eyes,
transfigured and far away, fell upon the boarding party. Her
uncle saw her upper lip slowly swell into that arrogant pout he
knew so well.
"So," he repeated savagely. "So this is your idea of--of romance.
A runaway affair, with a high-seas pirate."
Ardita glanced at him carelessly.
"What an old fool you are!" she said quietly.
"Is that the best you can say for yourself?"
"No," she said as if considering. "No, there's something else.
There's that well-known phrase with which I have ended most of
our conversations for the past few years--'Shut up!'"
And with that she turned, included the two old men, the officer,
and the two sailors in a curt glance of contempt, and walked
proudly down the companionway.
But had she waited an instant longer she would have heard a sound
from her uncle quite unfamiliar in most of their interviews. He
gave vent to a whole-hearted amused chuckle, in which the second
old man joined.
The latter turned briskly to Carlyle, who had been regarding this
scene with an air of cryptic amusement.
"Well, Toby," he said genially, "you incurable, hare-brained
romantic chaser of rainbows, did you find that she was the person
you wanted?"
Carlyle smiled confidently.
"Why--naturally," he said "I've been perfectly sure ever since I
first heard tell of her wild career. That'd why I had Babe send
up the rocket last night."
"I'm glad you did," said Colonel Moreland gravely. "We've been
keeping pretty close to you in case you should have trouble with
those six strange niggers. And we hoped we'd find you two in some
such compromising position," he sighed. "Well, set a crank to
catch a crank!"
"Your father and I sat up all night hoping for the best--or
perhaps it's the worst. Lord knows you're welcome to her, my boy.
She's run me crazy. Did you give her the Russian bracelet my
detective got from that Mimi woman?"
Carlyle nodded.
"Sh!" he said. "She's coming on deck."
Ardita appeared at the head of the companionway and gave a quick
involuntary glance at Carlyle's wrists. A puzzled look passed
across her face. Back aft the negroes had begun to sing, and the
cool lake, fresh with dawn, echoed serenely to their low voices.
"Ardita," said Carlyle unsteadily.
She swayed a step toward him.
"Ardita," he repeated breathlessly, "I've got to tell you
the--the truth. It was all a plant, Ardita. My name isn't
Carlyle. It's Moreland, Toby Moreland. The story was invented,
Ardita, invented out of thin Florida air."
She stared at him, bewildered, amazement, disbelief, and anger
flowing in quick waves across her face. The three men held their
breaths. Moreland, Senior, took a step toward her; Mr. Farnam's
mouth dropped a little open as he waited, panic-stricken, for the
expected crash.
But it did not come. Ardita's face became suddenly radiant, and
with a little laugh she went swiftly to young Moreland and looked
up at him without a trace of wrath in her gray eyes.
"Will you swear," she said quietly, "that it was entirely a
product of your own brain?"
"I swear," said young Moreland eagerly.
She drew his head down and kissed him gently.
"What an imagination!" she said softly and almost enviously. "I
want you to lie to me just as sweetly as you know how for the
rest of my life."
The negroes' voices floated drowsily back, mingled in an air that
she had heard them singing before.
"Time is a thief;
Gladness and grief
Cling to the leaf
As it yellows---"
"What was in the bags?" she asked softly.
"Florida mud," he answered. "That was one of the two true things
I told you."
"Perhaps I can guess the other one," she said; and reaching up on
her tiptoes she kissed him softly in the illustration.