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.
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br /> “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 blacks. 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.
A BRUSH WITH THE CHINESE, by G.A. Henty
It was early in December that H.M.S. Perseus was cruising off the mouth of the Canton River. War had been declared with China in consequence of her continued evasions of the treaty she had made with us, and it was expected that a strong naval force would soon gather to bring her to reason. In the meantime the ships on the station had a busy time of it, chasing the enemy’s junks when they ventured to show themselves beyond the reach of the guns of their forts, and occasionally having a brush with the piratical boats which took advantage of the general confusion to plunder friend as well as foe.
The Perseus had that afternoon chased two Government junks up a creek. The sun had already set when they took refuge there, and the captain did not care to send his boats after them in the dark, as many of the creeks ran up for miles into the flat country; and as they not unfrequently had many arms or branches, the boats might, in the dark, miss the junks altogether. Orders were issued that four boats should be ready for starting at daybreak the next morning. The Perseus anchored off the mouth of the creek, and two boats were ordered to row backwards and forwards off its mouth all night to insure that the enemy did not slip out in the darkness.
Jack Fothergill, the senior midshipman, was commanding the gig, and two of the other midshipmen were going in the pinnace and launch, commanded respectively by the first lieutenant and the master. The three other midshipmen of the Perseus were loud in their lamentations that they were not to take share in the fun.
“You can’t all go, you know,” Fothergill said, “and it’s no use making a row about it; the captain has been very good to let three of us go.”
“It’s all very well for you, Jack,” Percy Adcock, the youngest of the lads, replied, “because you are one of those chosen; and it is not so hard for Simmons and Linthorpe, because they went the other day in the boat that chased those junks under shelter of the guns of their battery, but I haven’t had a chance for ever so long.”
“What fun was there in chasing the junks?” Simmons said. “We never got near the brutes till they were close to their battery, and then just as the first shot came singing from their guns, and we thought that we were going to have some excitement, the first lieutenant sung out ‘Easy all,’ and there was nothing for it but to turn round and to row for the ship, and a nice hot row it was—two hours and a half in a broiling sun. Of course I am not blaming Oliphant, for the captain’s orders were strict that we were not to try to cut the junks out if they got under the guns of any of their batteries. Still it was horribly annoying, and I do think the captain might have remembered what beastly luck we had last time, and given us a chance tomorrow.”
“It is clear we could not all go,” Fothergill said, “and naturally enough the captain chose the three seniors. Besides, if you did have bad luck last time, you had your chance, and I don’t suppose we shall have anything more exciting now; these fellows always set fire to their junks and row for the shore directly they see us, after firing a shot or two wildly in our direction.”
“Well, Jack, if you don’t expect any fun,” Simmons replied, “perhaps you wouldn’t mind telling the first lieutenant you do not care for going, and that I am very anxious to take your place. Perhaps he will be good enough to allow me to relieve you.”
“A likely thing that!” Fothergill laughed. “No, Tom, I am sorry you are not going, but you must make the best of it till another chance comes.”
“Don’t you think, Jack,” Percy Adcock said to his senior in a coaxing tone later on, “you could manage to smuggle me into the boat with you?”
“Not I, Percy. Suppose you got hurt, what would the captain say then? And firing as wildly as the Chinese do, a shot is just as likely to hit your little carcase as to lodge in one of the sailors. No, you must just make the best of it, Percy, and I promise you that next time there is a boat expedition, if you are not put in, I will say a good word to the first luff for you.”
“That promise is better than nothing,” the boy said; “but I would a deal rather go this time and take my chance next.”
“But you see you can’t, Percy, and there’s no use talking any more about it. I really do not expect there will be any fighting. Two junks would hardly make any opposition to the boats of the ship, and I expect we shall be back by nine o’clock with the news that they were well on fire before we came up.”
Percy Adcock, however, was determined, if possible, to go. He was a favourite among the men, and when he spoke to the bow oar of the gig, the latter promised to do anything he could to aid him to carry out his wishes.
“We are to start at daybreak, Tom, so that it will be quite dark when the boats are lowered. I will creep into the gig before that and hide myself as well as I can under your thwart, and all you have got to do is to take no notice of me. When the boat is lowered I think they willhardly make me out from the deck, especially as you will be standing up in the bow holding on with the boat-hook till the rest get on board.”
“Well, sir, I will do my best; but if you are caught you must not let out that I knew anything about it.”
“I won’t do that,” Percy said. “I don�
�t think there is much chance of my being noticed until we get on board the junks, and then they won’t know which boat I came off in, and the first lieutenant will be too busy to blow me up. Of course I shall get it when I am on board again, but I don’t mind that so that I see the fun. Besides, I want to send home some things to my sister, and she will like them all the better if I can tell her I captured them on board some junks we seized and burnt.”
* * * *
The next morning the crews mustered before daybreak. Percy had already taken his place under the bow thwart of the gig. The davits were swung overboard, and two men took their places in her as she was lowered down by the falls. As soon as she touched the water the rest of the crew clambered down by the ladder and took their places; then Fothergill took his seat in the stern, and the boat pushed off and lay a few lengths away from the ship until the heavier boats put off. As soon as they were under way Percy crawled out from his hiding-place and placed himself in the bow, where he was sheltered by the body of the oarsmen from Fothergill’s sight.
Day was just breaking now, but it was still dark on the water, and the boat rowed very slowly until it became lighter. Percy could just make out the shores of the creek on both sides; they were but two or three feet above the level of the water, and were evidently submerged at high tide. The creek was about a hundred yards wide, and the lad could not see far ahead, for it was full of sharp windings and turnings. Here and there branches joined it, but the boats were evidently following the main channel. After another half-hour’s rowing the first lieutenant suddenly gave the order, “Easy all,” and the men, looking over their shoulders, saw a village a quarter of a mile ahead, with the two junks they had chased the night before lying in front of it. Almost at the same moment a sudden uproar was heard—drums were beaten and gongs sounded.
“They are on the look-out for us,” the first lieutenant said. “Mr. Mason, do you keep with me and attack the junk highest up the river; Mr. Bellew and Mr. Fothergill, do you take the one lower down. Row on, men.”
The Pirate Story Megapack: 25 Classic and Modern Tales Page 51