CHAPTER VII
SECRETS
There was a short silence. Brice looked anxiously through thegathering darkness at the dimly seen face so near to his own.He could not guess, for the life of him, whether the girl wassilent because she refused to tell him what he sought soeagerly to know, or whether she was still fighting to controlher voice.
As he sat gazing down at her, there was something so tiny, sofragile, so helplessly trustful about her, that it wentstraight to the man's heart. He had played and schemed andrisked life itself for this crucial hour, for this hour whenhe should have swept aside the girl's possible suspicions andenlisted her complete sympathy for himself and could make hertrust him and feel keen remorse for the treatment he hadreceived.
Yes--he had achieved all this. And he had done infinitelymore. He had awakened in her heart a sense of loneliness andof need for some one in whom she might confide.
He had done all this, had Gavin Brice. And, though he wasnot a vain man, yet he knew he had done it cleverly. But,somehow--even as he waited to see if the hour for fullconfidences were indeed ripe--he was not able to feel the thrillof exultation which should belong to the winner of a hard-foughtduel. Instead, to his amazement, he was aware of a growing senseof shame, of disgust at having used such weapons against anywoman,--especially against this girl whose whiteness of soul and ofpurpose he could no longer doubt.
Then, through the silence and above the soft lap-lap-lap ofwater against the idly drifting boat's side, Claire drew adeep breath. She threw back her drooping shoulders and satup, facing the man. And in the dusk, Gavin could see theflash of resolve in her great eyes.
"Yes!" she said, impulsively. "Yes. I'll tell you. If itis wrong for me to tell, then let it be wrong. I'm sick ofmystery and secrets and signals and suspense, and--oh, I'msick of it all! And it's--it's splendid of you to want tohelp me, after what has happened to you through meeting me!It's your right to know."
She paused for breath. And again Gavin wondered at his owninability to feel a single throb of gladness at having come sotriumphantly to the end of this particular road. Glumly, hestared down at the vibrant little figure beside him.
"There is some of it I don't know, myself," she began. "Andlately I've found myself wondering if all I really know istrue, or whether they have been deceiving me about some of it.I have no right to feel that way, I suppose, about my ownbrother. But he's so horribly under Rodney Hade's influence,and--"
Again, she paused, seeming to realize she was wandering fromthe point. And she made a fresh start.
"It all began as an adventure, a sort of game, more than inearnest," she said. "At least, looking back, that's the wayit seems to me now. As a wonderfully exciting game. You see,everything down here was so thrillingly exciting andinteresting to me, even then."
"I see."
"If you don't mind," she added, "I think I can make youunderstand it all the better, if you'll let me go back to thebeginning. I'll make it as short as I can."
"Yes."
"I had been brought up in New York, except when we were inEurope or when I was away at school. My father and mothernever let me see or know anything of real life. Dad was old,even as far back as I can remember. Mother was his secondwife. Milo's mother was his first wife, and she died ever solong ago. Milo is twenty years older than I am. Milo camedown here on a cruise, when he got out of college. And hefell in love with this part of the country. He persuaded Dadto buy him a farm here, and he has spent fifteen years inbuilding it up to what it is now. He and my mother didn'tdidn't get on awfully well together. So Milo spent about allhis time down here, and I hardly ever saw him. Then Dad andMother died, within a day of each other, during the fluepidemic. And Milo came on, for the funeral, of course, andto wind up the estate. Then he wanted me to come down hereand live with him. He said he was lonely. And I was stilllonelier.
"I came here. And I've been here ever since. It is a part ofthe world that throws a charm around every one who stays longenough under its spell. And I grew to loving it as much asMilo did. We had a beautiful life here, he and I and thecordial, lovable people who became our friends. It was lastspring that Rodney Hade came to see us. Milo had known him,slightly, down here, years ago. He came back here--nobodyknows from where, and rented a house, the other side ofCoconut Grove, and brought his yacht down to Miami Harbor.Almost right away, he seemed to gain the queerest influenceover Milo. It was almost like hypnotism. And yet, I don'taltogether wonder. He has an odd sort of fascination abouthim. Even when he is discussing his snakes."
"His snakes?"
"He has three rooms in his house fitted up as a reptile zoo.He collects them from everywhere. He says--and he seems tobelieve it--that they won't hurt him and that he can handlethem as safely as if they were kittens. Just like that manthey used to have in the post office up at Orlando, who usedto sit with his arms full of rattlesnakes and moccasins, andpet them."
"Yes," said Gavin, absentmindedly, as he struggled against analmost overmastering impulse which was gripping him. "Iremember. But at last one of his pets killed him. He--"
"How did you know?" she asked, surprised. "How in the worldshould a newcomer from the North know about--"
"Oh, I read it in a Florida dispatch to one of the New Yorkpapers," he said, impatient at his own blunder. "And it wassuch a strange story it stuck in my memory. It--"
"Well," resumed Claire, "I think I've made you understand thesimple and natural things that led up to it all. And now,I'll tell you everything, at least everything I know aboutit. It's--it's a gruesome sort of story, and--and I've grownto hate it all so!" She quivered. Then, squaring her youngshoulders again, she continued:
"I don't ask you to believe what I'm going to tell you. Butit's all true. It began this way:
"One night, six months ago, as Milo and I were sitting on theveranda, we heard a scream--a hideous sound it was--from themangrove swamp. And a queer creature in drippy white camecrawling out of--"
"Wait!"
Brice's monosyllable smashed into the current of herscarce-started narrative with the jarring suddenness of apistol shot. She stared up at him in amaze. For, seenthrough the starlight, his face was working strangely. Andhis voice was vibrant with some mighty emotion.
"Wait!" he repeated. "You shan't go on. You shan't tell methe rest. I'm a fool. For I'm throwing away the best chancethat could have come to me. I'm throwing it away with my eyesopen, and because I'm a fool."
"I--I don't understand," she faltered, bewildered.
"No," he said roughly. "You don't understand. That's justwhy I can't let you go on. And, because I'm a fool, I can'tplay out this hand, where every card is mine. I'll despisemyself, always, for this, I suppose. And it's a certaintythat I'll be despised. It means an end to a career I foundtremendously interesting. I didn't need the money it brought.But I--"
"What in the world are you talking about?" she demanded,drawing a little away from him. "I--"
"Listen," he interrupted. "A lot of men, in my line and inothers, have come a cropper in their careers, because of somewoman. But I'm the first to come such a cropper on account ofa woman with a white soul and the eyes of a child,--a woman Iscarcely know, and who has no interest in me. But, to-night,I shall telegraph my resignation. Some saner man can takecharge. There are enough of our men massed in this vicinityto choose from. I'm going to get out of Florida and leave thegame to play itself to an end, without me. I'm an idiot to doit. But I'd be worse than an idiot to let you trust me andlet you tell me things that would wreck your half-brother andbring sorrow and shame to you. I'm through! And I can't evenbe sorry."
"Mr. Brice," she said, gently, "I'm afraid your terribleexperiences, this afternoon and last evening, have unsettledyour mind, a little. Just sit still there, and rest. I amgoing to run the boat to shore and--"
"You're right," he laughed, ruefully, as he made way for herto start the engine. "My experiences have 'unsettled'
mymind. And now that I've spoiled my own game, I'll tell youthe rest--as much of it as I have a right to. It doesn'tmatter, any longer. Hade knows--or at least suspects.That's why he tried to get me killed. In this century, peopledon't try to have others killed, just for fun. There's got tobe a powerful motive behind it. Such a motive as made a manlast evening try to knife your half-brother. Such a motive asinduced Hade to get me out of the way. He knows. Or hesuspects. And that means the crisis must come, almost atonce. The net will close. Whether or not it catches him init."
The boat was started and had gotten slowly under way. Duringits long idleness it had been borne some distance tosouthwestward by tide and breeze. Her work done, Claireturned again to Gavin.
"Don't try to talk," she begged--as she had begged him on thenight before. "Just sit back and rest."
"Even now, you don't get an inkling of it," he murmured."That shows how little they've taken you into their confidence.They warned you against any one who might find the hidden path,and they even armed you for such an emergency. Yet they nevertold you the Law might possibly be crouching to spring on theStandish place, quite as ferociously as those other people whoare in the secret and who want to rob Standish and Hade of theloot! And, by the way," he went on, pettishly, still smartingunder his own renunciation, "tell Hade with my compliments thatif he had lived as long in Southern Florida as I have, he'd knowmocking birds don't sing here in mid-February, and he'd devisesome other signal to use when he comes ashore by way of thatpath and wants to know if the coast is clear."
And now, forgetful of the shadowy course wherewith she wasguiding the boat toward the distant dock--forgetful ofeverything--she dropped her hand from the steering wheel andturned about, in crass astonishment, to gaze at him.
"What--what do you mean?" she queried. "You know about thesignal?--You--?"
"I know far too little about any of the whole crookedbusiness!" he retorted, still enraged at his own quixoticresolve. "That's what I was sent here to clean up, after adozen others failed. That's what I was put in charge of thisdistrict for. That's what I could have found out--or seventyper cent of it--if I'd had the sense not to stop you when youstarted to tell me, just now."
"Mr. Brice," she said, utterly confused, "I don't understandyou at all. At first I was afraid that blow on the head, andthen this afternoon's terrible experiences, had turned yourwits. But you don't talk like a man who is delirious or sick.And there are things you couldn't possibly know--that signal,for instance--if you were what you seemed to be. You made methink you were a stranger in Florida,--that you were downhere, penniless and out of work. Yet now you speak about somemysterious 'job' that you are giving up. It's all such atangle! I can't understand."
Brice tried to ignore the pitiful pleading--the childliketremor in her sweet voice. But it cut to the soul of him.And he replied, brusquely:
"I let you think I was a dead-broke work-hunter. I did that,because I needed to get into your brother's house, to makecertain of things which we suspected but couldn't quite prove.I am the ninth man, in the past two months, to try to get inthere. And I'm the second to succeed. The first couldn'tfind out anything of use. He could only confirm some of ourideas. That's the sort of a man he is. A fine subordinate,but with no genius for anything else except to obey orders. Iwas the only one of the nine, with brains, who could win anyfoothold there. And now I'm throwing away all I gained,because one girl happens to be too much of a child (or of asaint) for me to lie to! I've reason to be proud of myself,haven't I?"
"Who are you?" she asked, dully bewildered under his fiercetirade of self-contempt. "Who are you? What are you?"
"I'm Gavin Brice," he said. "As I told you. But I'm also aUnited States Secret Service official--which I didn't tellyou."
"No!" she stammered, shrinking back. "Oh, no!"
He continued, briskly:
"Your brother, and your snake-loving friend Rodney Hade, areworking a pretty trick on Uncle Sam. And the FederalGovernment has been trying to block it for the past fewmonths. There are plenty of us down here, just now. But, upto lately, nothing's been accomplished. That's why they sentme. They knew I'd had plenty of experience in this region."
"Here? In Florida? But--"
"I spent all my vacations at my grandfather's place, belowCoconut Grove, when I was in school and in college and for awhile afterward, and I know this coast and the keys as well asany outsider can,--even if I was silly enough to let my scowrun into a reef to-night, that wasn't here in my day. Theysent me to take charge of the job and to straighten out itsmixups and to try to win where the others had bungled. I wasdoing it, too,--and it would have been a big feather in mycap, at Washington, when my good sense went to pieces on areef named Claire Standish,--a reef I hadn't counted on, anymore than I counted on the reef that stove in my scow, an hourago."
She strove to speak. The words died in her parched throat.Brice went on:
"I've always bragged that I'm woman-proof. I'm not. No manis. I hadn't met the right woman. That was all. If you'dbeen of the vampire type or the ordinary kind, I could havegone on with it, without turning a hair. If you'd been mixedup in any of the criminal part of it at all--as I and all ofus supposed you must be--I'd have had no scruples about usingany information I could get from you. But--well, tonight, outhere, all at once I understood what I'd been denying to myselfever since I met you. And I couldn't go on with it. You'llbe certain to suffer from it, in any case. But I'm strongenough at the Department to persuade them you're innocent.I--"
"Do you mean," she stammered, incredulously, finding hesitantwords at last, "Do you mean you're a--a spy? That you came toour house--that you ate our bread--with the idea of learningsecrets that might injure us? That you--? Oh!" she burstforth in swift revulsion, "I didn't know any one could beso--so vile! I--"
"Wait!" he commanded, sharply, wincing nevertheless under thesick scorn in her voice and words. "You have no right to saythat. I am not a spy. Or if I am, then every police officerand every detective and every cross-examining lawyer is a spy!I am an official in the United States Secret Service. I, andothers like me, try to guard the welfare of our country and toexpose or thwart persons who are that country's enemies or whoare working to injure its interests. If that is being a spy,then I'm content to be one. I--"
"If you are driven to such despicable work by poverty," shesaid, unconsciously seeking excuse for him, "if it is the onlytrade you know--then I suppose you can't help--"
"No," he said, unwilling to let her gain even this falseimpression. "My grandfather, who brought me up--who owned theplace I spoke of, near Coconut Grove--left me enough to liveon in pretty fair comfort. I could have been an idler if Ichose. I didn't choose. I wanted work. And I wantedadventure. That was why I went into the Secret Service. Istayed in it till I went overseas, and I came back to it afterthe war. I wasn't driven into it by poverty. It's anhonorable profession. There are hundreds of honorable men init. You probably know some of them. They are in all walks oflife, from Fifth Avenue to the slums. They are workingpatriotically for the welfare of the land they love, and theyare working for pitifully small reward. It is not like theSecret Service of Germany or of oldtime Russia. It upholdsDemocracy, not Tyranny. And I'm proud to be a member of it.At least, I was. Now, there is nothing left to me but toresign. It--"
"You haven't even the excuse of poverty!" she exclaimed,confusedly. "And you have not even the grace to feel ashamedfor--for your black ingratitude in tricking us into giving youshelter and--"
"I think I paid my bill for that, to some slight extent," washis dry rejoinder. "But for my 'trickery,' your half-brotherwould be dead, by now. As for 'ingratitude,' how about thetrick he served me, today? Even if he didn't know Hade hadsmuggled across a bagful of his pet moccasins to Roke, yet helet me be trapped into that--"
"It's only in the Devil's Ledger, that two wrongs make aright!" she flamed. "I grant my brother treated youabominably. But his excuse was
that your presence might ruinhis great ambition in life. Your only excuse for doing whatyou have done is the--the foul instinct of the man-hunt.The--"
"The criminal-hunt," he corrected her, trying not to writheunder her hot contempt. "The enemy-to-man hunt, if you like.Your half-brother--"
"My brother is not a criminal!" she cried, furiously. "You haveno right to say so. He has committed no crime. He has broken nolaw."
Again he looked down, searchingly, into her angry little face,as it confronted him so fiercely in the starlight. And heknew she was sincere.
"Miss Standish," he said, slowly. "You believe you aretelling the truth. Your half-brother understood you too wellto let you know what he was really up to. He and Hadeconcocted some story--I don't know what--to explain to you theodd things going on in and around your home. You areinnocent. And you are ignorant. It cuts me like a knife tohave to open your eyes to all this. But, in a very few days,at most, you are bound to know."
"If you think I'll believe a word against my brother--especiallyfrom a self-confessed spy--"
"No?" said Gavin. "And you're just as sure of Rodney Hade'snoble uprightness as of your brother's?"
"I'm not defending Rodney Hade," said Claire. "He is nothingto me, one way or the other. He--"
"Pardon me," interposed Brice. "He is a great deal to you.You hate him and you are in mortal fear of him."
"If you spied that out, too--"
"I did," he admitted. "I did it, in the half-minute I saw youand him together, last evening. I saw a look in your eyes--Iheard a tone in your voice--as you turned to introduce me tohim--that told me all I needed to know. And, incidentally, itmade me want to smash him. Apart from that--well, theDepartment knows a good deal about Rodney Hade. And itsuspects a great deal more. It knows, among minor things,that he schemed to make Milo Standish plunge so heavily oncertain worthless stocks that Standish went broke and indesperation raised a check of Hade's (and did it rather badly,as Hade had foreseen he would, when he set the trap)--in orderto cover his margins. It--"
"No!" she cried, in wrathful refusal to believe. "That is nottrue. It can't be true! It is a--"
"Hade holds a mortgage on everything Standish owns," resumedBrice, "and he has held that raised check over him as aprison-menace. He--"
"Stop!" demanded Claire, ablaze with righteous indignation."If you have such charges to make against my brother, are youtoo much of a coward to come to his house with me, now, andmake them to his face? Are you?"
"No," he said, without a trace of unwillingness or of bravado."I am not. I'll go there, with you, gladly. In the meantime--"
"In the meantime," she caught him up, "please don't speak tome. And please sit in the other end of the boat, if you don'tmind. The air will be easier to breathe if--"
"Certainly," he assented, making his way to the far end of thelaunch, while she seized the neglected steering wheel again."And I am sorrier than I can say, that I have had to tell youall this. If it were not that you must know it, soon, anyway,I'd have bitten my tongue out, sooner than make you sounhappy. Please believe that, won't you?"
There was an earnest depth of contrition in his voice thatchecked the icy retort she had been about to make. And,emboldened by her silence, he went on:
"Hade needed your brother and the use of your brother's houseand land. He needed them, imperatively, for the scheme he wastrying to swing .... That was why he got Standish into hispower, in the first place. That was why he forced or wheedledhim into this partnership. The Standish house was built, inits original form, more than a hundred years ago. In the dayswhen Dade County and all this end of Florida were in hourlydread of Seminole raids from the Everglade country, and whereevery settler's house must be not only his castle, but--"
"I'm sorry to have to remind you," she broke in, freezingly,"that I asked you not to speak to me. Surely you can have atleast that much chivalry,--when I am helpless to get out ofhearing from you. You say you are willing to confront mybrother with, this--this--ridiculous charge. Very well. Tillthen, I hope you won't--"
"All right," he said, gloomily. "And I don't blame you. I'ma bungler, when it comes to saying things to women. I don'tknow so very much about them. I've read that no man reallyunderstands women. And certainly I don't. By the way, theboat's run opposite that spit of beach at the bottom of yourmangrove swamp. If you're in a hurry, you can land there, andwe can go to the house by way of the hidden path. It will cutoff a mile or so. You have a flashlight. So--"
He let his voice trail away, frozen to silence by the rigidlyhostile little figure outlined at the other end of the boat bythe tumble of phosphorus in their wake.
Claire roused herself, from a gloomy reverie, enough to shiftthe course of the craft and to head it for the dim-seensandspit that was backed by the ebony darkness of the mangroveswamp.
Neither of them spoke again, until, with a swishing sound anda soft grate of the light-draught boat, the keel clove its wayinto the offshore sand and the craft came to coughing halttwenty feet from land.
Claire roused herself, from a gloomy reverie in which she hadfallen. Subconsciously, she had accepted the man's suggestionthat they take the short cut. And she had steered thither,forgetful that there was no dock and no suitable landing placefor even so light a boat anywhere along the patch of sandyforeshore.
Now, fast aground, she saw her absent-minded error. And shejumped to her feet, vainly reversing the engine in an effortto back free of the sand wherein the prow had wedged itself sotightly. But Gavin Brice had already taken charge of thesituation.
Stepping overside into the shallow water, he picked up theastounded and vainly protesting girl, bodily, holding herclose to him with one arm, while, with his free hand he caughtthe painter and dragged the boat behind him into water too lowfor it to float off until the change of tide.
It was the work of a bare ten seconds, from the time hestepped into the shallows until he had brought Claire to thedry sand of the beach.
"Set me down!" she was demanding sternly, for the third time,as she struggled with futile repugnance to slip from hisgently firm grip. "I--"
"Certainly," acquiesced Gavin, lowering her to the sand, andsteadying her for an instant, until her feet could find theirbalance. "Only please don't glare at me as though I hadstruck you. I didn't think you'd want to get those littlewhite shoes of yours all wet. So I took the liberty ofcarrying you. My own shoes, and all the rest of me, aredrenched beyond cure anyhow. So another bit of immersiondidn't do me any harm."
He spoke in a careless, matter-of-fact manner, and as hetalked he was leading the way up the short beach, toward thenorthernmost edge of the mangrove swamp. Claire could notwell take further offence at a service which apparently hadbeen rendered to her out of the merest common politeness. So,after another icy look at his unconscious back, she followedwordlessly in Brice's wake.
Now that he was on dry land again and on his way to the housewhere, at the very least, a stormy scene might be expected,the man's spirits seemed to rise, almost boyishly. The bloodwas running again through his veins. The cool night air wasdrying his soaked clothes. The prospect of possible adventurestirred him.
Blithely he sought the shoreward entrance to the hidden path,by the mental notes he had made of its exact whereabouts whenBobby Burns had happened upon its secret. And, in anotherhalf-minute he had drawn aside the screen of growing boughsand was standing aside for Claire to enter the path.
"You see," he explained, impersonally, "this path is a verynice little mystery. But, like most mysteries, it is quitesimple, when once you know your way in and out of it. I knewwhere it was when I was a kid, but I couldn't remember thespot where it came out here. Back yonder, a bit to northward,I came upon Roke, yesterday. I gather he had been visitingyour house or Hade's, by way of the hidden path, and was onhis way back to his boat, to return to Roustabout Key, when hehappened upon Bobby Burns--and then on me. He must havewondered where I vanished to. For he cou
ldn't have seen meenter the path. Maybe he mentioned that to Hade, too, thisafternoon. If Hade thought I knew the path, he'd think I knewa good deal more .... By the way," he added, to theostentatiously unlistening Claire, "that's the second timeyou've stumbled. And both times, you were too far ahead forme to catch you. This is the best part of the path, too--thestraightest and the least dark part. If we stumble here,we'll tumble, farther on, unless you use that flashlight ofyours. May I trouble you to--?"
"I forgot," she said stiffly, as she drew the torch from herpocket and pressed its button.
The dense black of the swamp was split by the light's whitesword, and softer beams from its sharp radiance illumined thepitch-dark gloom for a few yards to either side of thetortuous path. The shadows of the man and the woman were castin monstrous grotesquely floating shapes behind them as theymoved forward.
"This is a cheery rambling-place," commented Gavin. "I wonderif you know its history? I mean, of course, before Standishhad it recut and jacked up and bridged, and all that? Thispath dates back to the house's first owners--in the Seminoledays I was telling you about. They made it as a quickgetaway, to the water, in case a war-party of Seminoles shoulddrop in on them from the Everglades. I came through here,once--oh, it must be twenty years ago--I was a school-kid, atthe time. An old Seminole chief, with the picturesque Indianname of Aleck, showed it to me. His dad once cut off a partyof refugees, somewhere along here, on their way to the sea,and deleted them. Several of the modern Seminoles knew thepath, he said. But almost no white men .... Get that queerodor, and that flapping sound over to the left? That was a'gator. And he seems to be fairly big and alive, from theracket he made. Lucky we're on the path and not in theundergrowth or the water!"
He talked on, as though not in the least concerned as towhether or not she might hear or heed. And, awed by thegruesome stillness and gloom of the place, Claire had not theheart to bid him be silent. Any sound was better, she toldherself, than the dead noiselessness of the surroundingforest.
"That's the tenth mosquito I've missed," cheerily resumedBrice, slapping futilely at his own cheek. "In the old days,they used to infest Miami. Now they're driven back into theswamps. But they seem just as industrious as ever, and everybit as hungry. It must be grand to have such an appetite."
As Claire disregarded this flippancy, he fell silent for aspace, and together they moved on, through the thick of theswamp. Then:
"There's something I've been trying to figure out," herecommenced, speaking more to himself than to Claire. "Theremust be some sort of sense to all the signaling Hade does whenhe comes out of this swamp, onto your lawn. If it was onlythat he doesn't want casual visitors to know he has come thatway, he could just as well go around by the road to the southof the swamp, and come openly to the house, by the front.And, if things are to be moved to or from the house, theycould go by road, at night, as well as through here. Theremust be something more to it all. And, I have an idea I knowwhat it is .... That enclosed space, with the high palingsand the vines all over it, to the north of your house, I thinkyou said that was a little walled orchard where Standish isexperimenting on some 'ideal' orange, and that he is sojealous of the secret process that he won't even let you setfoot in it. The funny part of it is:--"
He stopped short. Claire had been walking a few yards inadvance, and they had come out on the widest part of thetrail, about midway through the woods. To one side of thebeaten path was a tiny clearing. This clearing was strewnthick with a tangle of fallen undergrowth, scarce two feethigh at most.
And they reached it, the girl gave a little cry of fright andstepped back, her hands reaching blindlytoward Gavin, as if for support or comfort. The gesturecaused her to drop the flashlight. Its button was "setforward," so it did not go out as it fell. Instead, it rolledin a semi-circle, casting its ray momentarily in a wideirregular arc as it revolved. Then it came to a stop, againstan outcrop of coral, with a force that put its sensitive bulbpermanently out of business.
But, during that brief circular roll of the light, Gavin Bricecaught the most fleeting glimpse of the sight that had causedClaire to cry out and shrink back against him.
He had seen, for the merest fraction of a second, the upperhalf of a man's body--thickset and hairy,--upright, on a levelwith the ground, as though it had been cut in two and thelegless trunk set up there.
By the time Brice's eyes could focus fairly upon this veryimpossible sight, the half-body had begun to recede rapidlyinto the earth, like that of an anglework which a robin pullshalfway out of the lawn and then loses its grip on.
In practically the same instant, the rolling ray of lightmoved past the amazing spectacle, and less than a second laterbumped against the fragment of coral--the bump which smashedits bulb and left the two wanderers in total darkness for theremainder of their strange pilgrimage.
Claire, momentarily unstrung, caught Gavin by the arm andclung to him. He could feel the shudder of her slender bodyas it pressed to his side for protection.
"What--what was it?" she whispered, tremblingly. "What wasit? Did I really see it? It it couldn't be! It looked--itlooked like a--a body that had been cut in half--and--and--"
"It's all right," he whispered, reassuringly, passing his armunchidden about her slight waist. "Don't be frightened, dear!It wasn't a man cut in half. It was the upper half of a manwho was wiggling down into a tunnel hidden by that smother ofunderbrush .... And here I was just wondering why peopleshould bother to come all the way through this path, insteadof skirting the woods! Answers furnished while you wait!"
Before he spoke, however, he had strained his ears to listen.And the quick receding and then cessation of the sound of thescrambling body in the tunnel had told him the seen half andthe unseen half of the intruder had alike vanished beyondearshot, far under ground.
"But what--?" began the frightened girl.
Then she realized for the first time that she was holding fastto the man whom she had forbidden to speak to her. And sherelinquished her tight clasp on his arm.
"Stand where you are, a minute," he directed. "He's gone.There's no danger. He was as afraid of us as you were of him.He ducked, like a mud-turtle, as soon as he saw we weren't thepeople he expected. Stay here, please. And face this way.That's the direction we were going in, and we don't want toget turned around. I've got to crawl about on all fours for awhile, in the merry quest of the flashlight. I know justabout where it stopped."
She could hear him groping amid the looser undergrowth. Thenhe got to his feet.
"Here it is," he reported. "But it wasn't worth hunting for.The bulb's gone bad. We'll have to walk the rest of the wayby faith. Would you mind, very much, taking my arm? Thepath's wide enough for that, from here on. It needn't implythat you've condoned anything I said to you, out yonder in theboat, you know. But it may save you from a stumble. I'mfairly sure-footed. And I'm used to this sort of travel."
Meekly, she obeyed, wondering at her own queer sense of peaceunder the protection of this man whom she told herself shedetested. The wiry strength of the arm, around which herwhite fingers closed so confidingly, thrilled her. Againsther will, she all at once lost her sense of repulsion and thewrath she had been storing against him. Nor, by her verybest efforts, could she revive her righteous displeasure.
"Mr. Brice," she said, timidly, as he guided her with swiftlysteady step through the dense blackness, "perhaps I had noright to speak as I did. If I did you an injustice--"
"Don't!" he bade her, cutting short her halting apology. "Youmustn't be sorry for anything. And I'd have bitten out mytongue sooner than tell you the things I had to, if it weren'tthat you'd have heard them, soon enough, in an even lesspalatable form. Only--won't you please try not to feel quiteas much toward me as I felt toward those snakes of Hade's,this afternoon? You have a right to, of course. But well, itmakes me sorry I ever escaped from there."
The sincerity, the boyish contrition in his voice, touchedher, unaccounta
bly. And, on impulse, she spoke.
"I asked you to say those things about Milo, to his face," shebegan, hesitantly. "I did that, because I was angry, because Ididn't believe a word of them, and because I wanted to see youpunished for slandering my brother. I--I still don't believea single word of them. But I believe you told them to me ingood faith, and that you were misinformed by the Federalagents who cooked up the absurd story. And--and I don't wantto see you punished, Mr. Brice," she faltered, unconsciouslytightening her clasp on his arm. "Milo is terribly strong.And his temper is so quick! He might nearly kill you. Takeme as far as the end of the path, and then go across the lawnto the road, instead of coming in. Please do!"
"That is sweet of you," said Gavin, after a moment's pause,wherein his desire to laugh struggled with a far deeper andmore potent emotion. "But, if it's just the same to you, I'drather--"
"But he is double your size," she protested, "and he is asstrong as Samson. Why, Roke, over at the Key, is said to bethe only man who ever outwrestled him! And Roke has thestrength of a gorilla."
Gavin Brice smiled grimly to himself in the darkness, as herecalled his own test of prowess with Roke.
"I don't think he'll hurt me overmuch," said he. "I thankyou, just the same. It makes me very happy to know youaren't--"
"Mr. Brice!" she cried, in desperation. "Unless you promiseme not to do as I dared you to--I shall not let you go a stepfarther with me. I--"
"I'm afraid you'll have to let me take you the rest of theway, Miss Standish," he said, a sterner note in his voicequelling her protest and setting her to wondering. "If youlike, we can postpone my talk with Standish about thecheck-raising. But--if you care anything for him, you'd bestlet me go to him as fast as we can travel."
"Why? Is--?"
"Unless I read wrongly what we saw, back yonder in theclearing," he said, cryptically, "your brother is in sore needof every friend he can muster. I had only a glimpse of oursubterranean half-man. But there was a gash across hiseyebrow, and a mass of bruises on his throat. If I'm notmistaken, I put them there. That was the man who tried toknife Standish last evening. And, unless I've misread theriddle of that tunnel, we'll be lucky to get there in time.There's trouble ahead. All sorts of trouble."
Black Caesar's Clan : A Florida Mystery Story Page 8