“No,” the boy answered, “even though death is not an hour away, we will fight it until the very end.”
Darkness shut down about them so that they could scarcely see each other as they went on in silence. Although each combing, foam-capped rush of water seemed certain to overwhelm them, there was a strange exhilaration, a mad thrill in rising to every giant wave and shooting down its green side in a cloud of spray. One—two—three—each one seemed the last, and yet there were ever more. Nashola’s arms were numb and heavy, his head reeled, but still he struggled on. He wished at last that death would come quickly, to still the terrible aching weariness that possessed his whole being. The worst of the storm had blown, roaring, past them, but the seas were still heavy and nothing—nothing, Nashola thought, could ever bring back the strength to his failing arms.
Suddenly the clouds were torn apart, showing a glimmer of stars and a vague glimpse of the tossing black water all about them.
“Look, look, Nashola,” cried the medicine man, pointing upward, “they have come to help us, your kinsmen, the Seven Brothers of the Sun!”
But Nashola was not looking at the sky; his eyes were fixed on a ghostly shape moving close ahead of them and on the fitful gleam of a ship’s lantern that tossed and glimmered in the dark. Dropping his paddle he put his hands to his mouth and lifted his voice in a long hail. The light bobbed and swung and an answering shout came through the darkness.
To the weather-beaten English sailors, used to the rough adventures of sailing new and uncharted seas, there was little excitement in picking up two half-drowned Indians, although they had never done such a thing before. They warmed the two with blankets, they revived them with fiery remedies, and they sat about them on the deck, trying to talk to them by means of signs, but with small success.
“It is no common thing to see these natives so far from shore,” the mate said to the captain, “for as a rule the Indians distrust the sea. We cannot find out how these came to be adrift in that canoe. The young one tries to make us understand, but the old man merely covers his face and groans. I think he will not believe that we are men like himself.”
“Bring the boy to me,” the captain ordered. “Perhaps we may be able to understand him.”
In the quiet dawn, when calm had followed the night’s storm, the ship ran in toward a rocky headland to send a boat ashore. Yet when it had been lowered and Secotan had dropped into it, he turned to see Nashola standing on the deck above, making no move to follow.
“I am not coming, Secotan,” he declared steadily. “The chief of these men and I have talked with signs and he wishes to carry me to his home on this strange winged vessel. He promises that he will bring me safe back again. Then I can tell you and all of our tribe what these white men really are. And I have always longed to know what lay beyond this forbidden sea.”
Secotan did not protest.
“I have called you friend, I have wished to have you for my brother,” he said, “but I must call you master now, since you have dared what I can never dare.”
Much has been said of the courage of those white men who crossed the stormy Atlantic in their little vessels to explore an unknown continent. But what of the brave hearts of those Indians who thought the white men were spirits come out of the sea, who did not know what ships were, yet who still dared to set sail with them? For we know that there were such dusky voyagers, that they crossed the sea more than once in the English fishing vessels, and that they brought back to their own people almost unbelievable tales of cities and palaces, or harbors crowded with shipping and of whole countrysides covered with green, tilled fields. With all these wonders, however, they could tell their comrades that these white beings were mere men like themselves, to be neither hated nor dreaded as spirits of another world. Deep dwelling in Nashola was that born leadership that makes real men see through the long-established doubts and terrors of their race, who can distinguish the false from the true, who can go forward through shadowy perils to the clear light of knowledge and success.
It was in recognition of this that old Secotan, half understanding, wholly unable to put his feeling into words, standing alone upon the headland, raised his arms in reverent salute and cried a last good-by to his comrade:
“Farewell and good fortune, O Brother of the Sun!”
CHAPTER III
JOHN MASSEY’S LANDLORD
The story had come to an end, but the boy and girl still waited as though to hear more.
“But do oak trees grow to be so old?” Oliver inquired at last, looking out at the moving shadow of the great tree that had now covered the doorstone.
“Yes, three hundred years is no impossible age for an oak. All the old grants of land speak of an oak tree on this hill as one of the landmarks.”
“How did you know?” began Oliver, and then broke off, with a sudden jerk of recollection: “Oh, I forgot all about it—my train!”
He snatched out his watch and stood regarding it with a rueful face. He had missed the train by more than half an hour.
“Were you going away?” asked Polly sympathetically. “We are always missing trains like that, daddy and I. Won’t they be surprised to see you come back!”
“They—they didn’t know I was going,” returned Oliver. “They are wondering now where I am.” He was too much agitated to keep from doing his thinking out loud. “I must be getting back. Thank you for the story. Good-by.”
He was gone before they could say more, leaving Polly, in fact, with her mouth open to speak and with the Beeman looking after him with an amused and quizzical grin, as though he recognized the symptoms of an uneasy conscience.
“We never asked him to come again,” Polly lamented.
To which her father answered, “I believe he will come, just the same.”
The smooth machinery of Cousin Jasper’s house must have been thrown out of gear for a moment when the car came round to the door and Oliver failed to appear. It was running quietly and noiselessly again, however, by the time he returned. Janet was curled up in a big armchair in the library, enjoying a book, when he came in. She looked up at him rather curiously, but only said:
“Eleanor Brighton’s mother telephoned at half past three that Eleanor had been detained somewhere, she didn’t quite know where. She was very apologetic and hoped we would come some other time. I walked down the road to look for you, but you weren’t in sight. I met such a strange man, coming in at the gate; he turned all the way around on the seat of his cart to stare at me. I didn’t like him.”
She did not press Oliver with questions and, as a result, he sat down beside her and told her the whole tale of his afternoon’s adventures, with a glowing description of the Beeman and Polly.
“I must take you there to see them,” he said, “I can’t wait to show you how things look from that hill. And you should see the bees, and the little house, and hear the wind in the big tree. We will go tomorrow.”
When Cousin Jasper appeared for dinner, Oliver felt somewhat apprehensive, but to his relief no questions were asked him. Their cousin listened rather absently while Janet explained why the proposed visit had not been made, and he offered no comment. He looked paler even than usual, with deeper lines in his face, and he sat at the end of the long table, saying little and eating less. Afterward he sat with them in the library, still restless and uneasy and speaking only now and then, in jerking sentences that they could scarcely follow. It was an evident relief to all three of them when the time came to say good night.
Oliver looked back anxiously over his shoulder, as their cousin returned to his study and as they, at the other end of the long room, went out into the hall.
“Something has happened to upset him more than usual,” he said. “Do you think he could have guessed what I intended to do?”
Janet shook her head emphatically.
“He couldn’t have guessed,” she declared. “Even now I can hardly believe it of you, myself, Oliver.”
Oliver, rather ashame
d, was beginning to wonder at himself also.
They had fallen into the habit of going upstairs early to the comfortable sitting room into which their bedrooms opened. It was their own domain, a pleasant, breezy place, with deep wicker chairs, gay chintz curtains, flower boxes, and wide casements opening on a balcony. They had both found some rare treasures among the books downstairs and liked to carry them away for an hour of enjoyment before it was bedtime.
Oliver settled himself comfortably beside a window, opened his book, but did not immediately begin to read. His eyes wandered about the perfectly appointed room, stared out at the moonlit garden, and then came back to his sister.
“Why aren’t we happy here, Janet?” he questioned. “It seems as though we had everything to make us so.”
“Because he isn’t happy,” returned his sister, with a gesture toward the study where Cousin Jasper, distraught, worried, and forlorn, must even then be sitting alone.
“But why isn’t he happy? There is everything here that he could wish for.” Oliver added somewhat bitterly, after a pause: “Why don’t grown-up people tell us things? It is miserable to be old enough to notice when affairs go wrong but not to be old enough to have them explained.”
“Perhaps,” said Janet hopefully, “we will be able to prove that we deserve to know. I think that you will, anyway, and then you can tell me.”
It was not only the younger members of the household who were struggling with mystery that night, however. Before they had been reading many minutes, there came a discreet tap at the door and Hotchkiss appeared upon the threshold. Oliver was wondering what a boy unused to butlers was supposed to say or do on the occasion of such a visit, and even Janet, better at guessing the etiquette of such matters, seemed at a loss. And so also was Hotchkiss, as it presently began to be evident.
If the butler had been of the regulation variety, he might perhaps have known how to ask a few respectful questions without a change of his professional countenance and have gained his information without betraying its significance. But as it was, he had for the moment put off the wooden, expressionless face that he was supposed to wear at his work, and was openly anxious and disturbed.
“We’re troubled about Mr. Peyton, Mrs. Brown and I,” he began, coming frankly to the point at once. “He had a queer visitor today, one who has just been coming lately and who always leaves him upset. I wonder if you saw him, a thin man with a brown face and a kind of a way with him, somehow, in spite of his bad clothes.”
“Did he drive a shambling old horse?” inquired Oliver, remembering suddenly the person he had noticed on the road, “and a wagon that rattled as though it were twenty years old? Yes, we both saw him.”
“Had you ever seen him before?” Hotchkiss asked eagerly, and seemed disappointed when Oliver replied:
“No, we had never laid eyes on him before today.”
“It is just in the last few weeks that he has been coming here so often,” the man went on. “Before that he came rarely and we didn’t think so much about him. I can remember the first time I saw him, soon after I had come to Mr. Peyton, a year ago. The fellow rang the bell as bold as anything, but when I saw that rickety outfit drawn up to the steps, I was about to tell him that the other entrance was the place for him. He must have read my eye—he’s a sharp one—for he said, ‘Your master won’t thank you for turning me away, when I’m a member of the family,’ and sure enough, there was Mr. Peyton behind me in the hall telling me to bring him in. He was nervous and put out with everybody after the man was gone, and he is more and more upset each time he comes. And the fellow begins to come often. I thought that if he was a member of the family you might know who he was—and how we could get rid of him.”
The heat of the last words put an end to any possible thought that the man’s questions were prompted by a servant’s unwarranted curiosity concerning his master. It was plain that Cousin Jasper was a well-beloved employer and that the two chief persons of his household had been laying their heads together over the mystery of his evident trouble.
Hotchkiss was about to tell them more, when a bell, sounding below, summoned him away. There was an interval during which they tried to return to their books, but found their minds occupied with thoughts of what the butler had said. Who could this man be, whom they had both noticed and both set down as odious, and whose coming seemed to have such an unhappy effect upon Cousin Jasper? A relative? It did not seem possible. Presently Hotchkiss was at the door again, more troubled than ever.
“Mr. Peyton wants the motor, but it’s Jennings’ evening off and he has gone to town,” he said. “Didn’t I hear you tell him, Mr. Oliver, that you knew how to drive that make of car?”
Oliver had, indeed, dropped such a hint two days before, hoping that the dullness of his visit might be lightened by his being invited to take the car out for a spin. The statement had fallen on quite unheeding ears in Cousin Jasper’s case, but had been treasured up by the butler.
“Yes, I can drive it,” agreed Oliver, rather doubting whether Cousin Jasper would really desire him as a chauffeur. He got up and went downstairs, to find his cousin waiting in the hall, so nervous and impatient that he made no other comment than:
“We must make haste.”
Oliver hurried out to the garage, backed out the heavy car, paused under the portico for Cousin Jasper to climb in beside him, and sped away down the drive.
“Which way?” he asked, as they came out through the gate, and was directed along the road he had followed that afternoon.
“You may go as fast as you like, I am in a hurry,” was Cousin Jasper’s unexpected permission, so that Oliver, nothing loath, let out the car to its full speed. It was very dark, for the moon had gone under a cloud. The road, showing vaguely white through the blackness, was nearly empty and the tree trunks flashed by, looking unreal in the glare of the lamps, like the cardboard trees of a scene on the stage. The big car hummed and the wind sang in Oliver’s ears, but for only the briefest moment, for they seemed to come immediately to a crossroad, where Cousin Jasper bade him turn. A slower pace was necessary here, for the going was rough and uneven, yet not so difficult as that of the narrower lane in which they presently found themselves. Here the machine lurched among the deep ruts, rustled through high grass and low-hanging trees, and finally came to a stop before a gate.
“No, wait here,” directed Cousin Jasper as Oliver made a move to get out. “I shall not be gone very long.”
He climbed out and jerked at the gate, which, one hinge being gone, opened reluctantly to let him pass. He stalked away, a tall, awkward figure in the brilliant shaft of light from the lamps, walking with a fierce, determined dignity up the path that disappeared into the dark. Oliver felt a sudden rush of pity for him and of shame that he had so nearly deserted him.
“It must be hard,” he thought, “to be so miserable and anxious, and to have no one to talk it over with. And I do wonder what is the matter?”
He waited an hour—and another. He had dimmed his lamps and could see vaguely the outline of a house, with one dull light in a window. A dog barked somewhere beyond the gate, and presently a child began crying. It cried a very long time, then at last was quiet, but still no one came. Oliver fell asleep finally against the comfortable leather cushions, and slumbered he knew not how long before he was aroused by the protesting creak of the broken gate. He thought, as he was waking, that a man’s voice, high-pitched with anger, was talking in the dark, but when he had rubbed the sleep from his eyes, he saw no one but Cousin Jasper.
“I had not thought it would be so long,” was all his cousin said as he got in, and after that there was no word spoken until they entered their own gate and rolled up to the door.
“You drive well for a boy. Good night,” said Cousin Jasper as he climbed out and entered the house. In his hurried, awkward way, he was attempting to express his gratitude, but he had managed to say the wrong thing.
“For a boy, indeed,” snorted Oliver, as he guided th
e car into the door of the garage, and repeated it as he went up the stairs to his room: “For a boy!”
The big clock in the hall was solemnly striking one.
Oliver was wondering, as he came down to breakfast next morning, what his cousin would say in explanation of their midnight expedition, but discovered that Cousin Jasper had adopted the simple expedient of saying nothing at all. The matter was not even referred to until just as they were leaving the table, and then only indirectly.
“I should have thought of it before,” their host said, “that it might give you some pleasure to take out the car. Use it every day, if you wish, and take Jennings or not, just as it suits you. I have real confidence in your driving, Oliver.”
It was surprising how completely matters were put upon another footing by what he had said. If Cousin Jasper had confidence in him, Oliver thought, he need no longer feel like a neglected outsider, one who was of no use or worth in the household.
“Get your hat, Janet,” he urged promptly.
He had not an instant’s hesitation in deciding where they would go first.
Just as Cousin Jasper was entering his study he turned back to say:
“Now about your Cousin Eleanor—”
But Oliver either did not or would not hear, as he sped away toward the garage. Perhaps Cousin Jasper understood the smile that Janet gave him, for he smiled himself and said no more.
In the very shortest time possible, Oliver and Janet were bowling along the smooth white road with all the blue and golden sunlight of a cool June morning about them. Oliver laughed when he thought of his dusty progress along that way the day before. There was little danger of his running away now, for the dreaded Cousin Eleanor was quite forgotten and he was certain that the time would not pass slowly since he had acquired this splendid new plaything.
He wondered, as the highway spun away beneath the swift wheels, which of the crossroads that he passed was the one that he had traveled the evening before, but the night had been so dark and their speed so great that he was quite unable to decide. It was only after exploring a good many of Medford Valley’s lesser thoroughfares, after awkward turns in narrow byroads that proved to be mere blind alleys, that they began to come closer and closer to the foot of the hill. Not being able to find a direct path, Oliver finally drew up beside the low stone wall and plunged, on foot, through the high grass of the orchard.
The Young Adult Award-Winners Megapack Page 33