"Which is the best boat, Peterson?" I repeated. "Hardly the duck boat, I think—and you say not the big boat."

"The dingey is the safest," replied Peterson. "That little tub would ride better; but no man could handle her out there."

"Very well," said I; "she'll get her second wetting, anyhow. Lend a hand."

"She'll carry us both," commented the old man, stepping to the side of the stubby little craft.

"But she'll be lighter and ride easier with but one," was my reply. "A chip is dry on top only as long as it's a chip."

"Let me go along," said Jean Lafitte, stepping up at this time.

"You'll do nothing of the sort, my son," said I. "Go back to the ladies and make a fire, and make a shelter," said I. "I'll be here again before long."

The news of the new adventure now spread among our little party. Mrs. Daniver began sniffling. "Helena," I heard her say, "this is terrible." But meantime I was pulling off my sweater and fastening on a life belt. Nodding to Peterson, we both picked up the dingey, and when the next sea favored, made a swift run in the endeavor to break through the surf.

"Let go!" I cried to him, as the water swirled about our waist. "Go back!" And so I sprang in alone and left him.

For the time I could make small headway, indeed, had not time to get at the oars, but pushing as I might with the first thing that came to hand, I felt the bottom under me, felt again the lift of the sea carry me out of touch. Then an incoming wave carried me back almost to the point whence I had started. In such way as I could not explain, none the less at length the little boat won through, no more than half filled by the breaking comber. I worked first as best I might, paddling, and so keeping her off the best I could. Then when I got the oars, the stubby yawing little tub at first seemed scarce more than to hold her own. I pulled hard—hard as I could. Slowly, the line of white breakers passed astern. After that, saving my strength a trifle, I edged out, now angling into the wind, now pulling full into the teeth of the gale. Even my purpose was almost forgotten in the intensity of the task of merely keeping away from the surf. Dully I pulled, reasoning no more than that that was the thing for me to do.

It had seemed a mile, that short half-mile between the yacht and the beach. It seemed a hundred miles now going back to the boat. I did not dare ask myself how I could go aboard if even I won across so far as the yacht. It was enough that I did not slip backward to the beach once more. Yawing and jibbing in the wind which caught her stubby freeboard, the little boat, none the less, held up under me, and once she was bailed of the surf, rode fairly dry in spite of all, being far more buoyant than either of the other craft. Once in the dark, I saw something thrust up beside me and fancied it to be a stake, marking the channel which pierced the key hereabout. This was confirmed in my mind when, presently, as rain began to fall and the fog lessened for the time, I saw the blurred yellow lighthouse eye answering the wavering search-light of the Belle Helene, which swept from side to side across the bay as she rolled heavily at her anchor. In spite of the hard fight it had given me, I was glad the wind still held inshore. I knew the point of the little island lay not far beyond the light. Once adrift beyond that, not the Belle Helene herself would be safe, in this offshore wind, but must be carried out into the gulf beyond.

Not reasoning much about this, however, and content with mere pulling, I kept on until at length I saw the nodding lights of the Belle Helene lighting the gloom more definitely about me. Presently, I made under her lee, so that the dingey was more manageable, and at last, I edged up almost to her rail, planning how, perhaps, I might cast a line and so make fast. But, first, I tried calling.

"Ahoy, there below, John!" I called through the dark. At first there came no answer, and again I shouted. At this I saw the door of the dining saloon pushed open, and John himself thrust out his hand.

"All litee," said he, merely greeting me casually. "You come?"

"Yes," said I, with equal sang-froid. "You makee quick jump now, John, s'pose I come in."

"All litee," said he once more. I saw now that he stood there, a book and a bundle in his arm. Perhaps he had been reading to pass the time!

Be that as it may, I cautiously pulled the dingey under the lee of the Belle Helene. Timing his leap with a sagacity and agility combined which I had not suspected of him, my China boy made a leap, stumbled, righted himself, got his balance and so placed his bundle on the bottom of the boat and his book upon the seat, where he covered it carefully against the spray.

"All litee," said he once more. "I makee pull now. You come this place."

I endeavored to emulate his Oriental calm. "John," said I, "I catchee plenty wind this time."

"Yes, plenty wind," said he.

"You suppose we leave China boy?" I demanded.

"Oh, no, no!" he exclaimed with emphasis. "I know you come back allee time bimeby, one time."

"What were you doing, John?"

"I leed plenty 'Melican book," said he calmly. "Now I makee pull." To oblige him I made way for him, and we crawled past each other on the floor of the heaving dingey. He took the oars and began pulling with an odd chopping sort of a stroke, perhaps learned in his youth on some sampan that rode the waters of his native land; but for my own part, since Fate seemed to be kind to me after all, I trusted his skill, such as it was, and was willing to rest for a time.

"No velly bad," said John judicially, after a time. "Pretty soon come in." No doubt he saw the little fire, now beginning to light the beach. At any rate, he headed straight in, the seas following, reeling after us. They have their own ways, these people of the East. I fancy John had run surf before. At any rate, I knew the water now was shallow and that, perhaps, one could swim ashore if we were overset. I trusted him to make the landing, however, and he did it like a veteran. One plunge through the ultimate white crest, and we were carried up high on the beach, to meet the shouts of my men and to feel their hands grasp the gunwales of the sturdy little craft.

"All litee," remarked John amiably, and started for the fire, such being his instinct, not with the purpose of getting warm, but of cooking something. And in half an hour he had a cup of hot bouillon all around.

"It's a commendable thing," remarked Mrs. Daniver, "that you, sir, should go to the rescue of even a humble Chinaman. I find this bouillon delicious."

"Have you quite recovered from your seasickness by this time, Mrs. Daniver?" I asked politely.

"Seasickness?" She raised an eyebrow in protest. "I never was seasick in my life—not even in the roughest crossings of the Channel, where others were quite helpless."

"It is fortunate to be immune," said I. "People tell me it is a terrible feeling—they even think they are going to die."

Jean Lafitte, I found, had made quite a serviceable shelter, throwing a tarpaulin over one of the long boat's oars. We pushed our fire to the front of this, and after a time induced the ladies to make themselves more comfortable. Only with some protest did my hearty pirates agree to share this shelter which made our sole protection against the storm.



CHAPTER XXXIII

IN WHICH WE ARE CASTAWAYS

The rain came down dismally, and the chill of the night was very considerable, as I learned soon after ceasing my own exertions. The men made some sort of shelter for themselves by turning up the long boat and the dingey on edge, crawling into the lee, and thus finding a little protection. All but John, my cook. That calm personage, every time I turned, was at my elbow in the dark, standing silent, waiting for I knew not what. For the first time, I realized the virtue of his waterproof silk shirt. He seemed not to mind the rain, although he asked my consent to put his bundle and his book under the shelter. I stooped down at the firelight, curious to see the title of his book. It was familiar—The Pirate's Own Book!

"Where you catchee book, John?" I asked him.

"Litlee boy he give me; him 'Melican book. I lead him some. Plenty good book."

"Yes," said I; "I see. That boy'll make pirates of us all, if we aren't careful."

"That book, him tellee what do, sposee bad storm," said John proudly. "I know."

I walked over to where Peterson lay, his pipe now lighted by some magic all his own. We now could see more plainly the furred and yellow gleam of the lighthouse lamp. Peterson's concern, however, was all for the Belle Helene.

"I hate to think of her out there all by herself," said he.

"So do I, Peterson. I hate also to think of all that ninety-three we left out there."

We were standing near the edge of the ladies' shelter, and I heard Mrs. Daniver's voice as she put out her head at the edge of the tarpaulin.

"I thought you said all the ninety-three was gone," said she with some interest, as it appeared to me.

"No, we only had the last bottle of that case at luncheon, Mrs. Daniver," said I. "There are yet other cases out yonder."

"It's a bad night for neuralgia," said she complainingly.

"It is, madam. But I don't think I'll pull out again. And I am rejoiced that you are not troubled now with seasickness,—that you never are." Which last resulted in her dignified silence.

Through the night, there came continually the clamoring of the wild fowl in the lagoon back of us, and this seemed to make the boys restless. It was Jean Lafitte, next, who poked his head out from under the tarpaulin.

"I've got the gun all right," said he, "and a lot of shells. In the morning we'll go out and get some of those ducks that are squawking."

"Yes, Jean," said I; "we're in one of the best ducking countries on this whole coast."

"That's fine—we can live chiefly by huntin' and fishin', like it says in the g'ographies."

"If the wind should shift," said I, "we may have to do that for quite a time. I don't know whether the lighthouse keeper has a boat or not, and the channel lies between us and the light—it makes out here straight to the Gulf. But now, be quiet, my sons, and see if we can't all get some sleep. I'll take care of the fire."

I passed a little apart to hunt for some driftwood, my shadow, John, following close at hand. When I returned I found a muffled figure standing at the feeble blaze. Helena raised her eyes, grave and serious.

"It was splendid," said she in a low tone of voice, addressing not so much myself as all the world, it seemed to me.

"Get back in there and go to sleep," said I. And, quietly she obeyed, so far as I might tell.

For my own part, I did not seek the shelter of the other boat, but, wrapped in sweater and slicker, stood in the rain, John at my side. Once in a while we set out in the dark to find more wood for the little fire. In some way the long night wore on. Toward morning the rain ceased. It seemed to me that the rocking search-light of the Belle Helene made scarce so wide an arc across the bay. The lighthouse ray shone less furry and yellow through the night. The wind began to lull, coming in gusts, at times after some moments of calm. The roll of the sea still came in, but sometimes I almost fancied that the surf was bellowing not so loud. And so at length, the dawn came, softening the gloom, and I could hear the roar of the great bodies of wild fowl rising as they always do at dawn, the tumult of their wings rivaling the heavy rhythm of the surf itself.

The advancing calm of nature seemed to quiet the senses of the sleepers, even in their sleep. Gently making up the fire for the last time, as the gray light began to come across the beach, I wandered inland a little way in search of the fresh water lagoon. Its edge lay not more than two or three hundred yards back of our bivouac. So, as best I might, I bathed my face and hands, and regretted that such things as soap and towels had been forgotten with many other things. Not irremediable, our plight; for now I could see the Belle Helene still rolling at her anchor, uneasy, but still afloat; and in the daylight, and with a lessening sea, there would be no great difficulty in boarding her as we liked.

Presently the others of the party were all afoot, standing stiffly, sluggishly, in the chill of dawn; and such was the breakfast which my boy John presently prepared for us, that I confess I began to make comparisons not wholly to his discredit. Now, for instance, said I to myself, had it been Mrs. Daniver who had been forgotten on board ship—but, of course, that line of reasoning might not be followed out. And as for Mrs. Daniver herself, it was only just to say that she made a fair attempt at comradeship, considering that she had retired without any aid whatever for her neuralgia. Helena seemed reticent. The men, as usual, ate apart. I did not find myself loquacious. Only my two young ruffians seemed full of the enjoyment possible in such a situation.

"Gee! ain't this fine?" said L'Olonnois. "I never did think we'd be really shipwrecked and cast away on a desert island. This is just like it is in the books."

"Can we go huntin' now?" demanded Jean Lafitte, his mouth still full of bacon. "And will you come along? There must be millions of them ducks and geese. I didn't know there was so many in all the world."

"You may go, both of you, Jean Lafitte," said I, "if you'll be careful not to shoot yourselves. As for me, I must go back once more to the boat, I fancy."

Peterson and I now held a brief conference, and presently, leaving the ladies in charge of Willy and the cook, we two, with Williams to run the motor, with some difficulty launched the long boat and made off through a sea none too amiable, to go aboard the Belle Helene once more—which so short a time before I had thought we never might do again.

"This is easier than pulling out in the dingey," grinned Peterson, as we approached the Belle Helene. "Confound that deck-hand, he might have got you drowned! I'll fire him, sure!"

"No," said I; "I've been thinking that over. There was a great deal of confusion, and after all, he may have thought that we had John with us. Besides, he's only young, and he's human. I'll tell you what we'll do, Peterson—I'll dock him a month's wages, and I'll send his wages to his mother. Meantime, let him carry the wood and water for a week."

We found it not difficult now to go aboard the Belle Helene, for, in the lessening seaway, she rolled not so evilly. Peterson sprang to the deck as the bow of our boat rose alongside on a wave, and made fast our line. When Williams and I had followed, we took a general inventory of the Belle Helene. All the deck gear was gone, spare oars and spars, a canvas or so, and some coils of rope. Beyond that, there seemed no serious damage, unless the hull had been injured by its pounding during the night.

"It's a mud-bank here, I think, Mr. Harry," said Peterson. "She may have ripped some of her copper on the oyster reefs, but she seems to bed full length and maybe she's not strained, after all."

"There's the line of channel guides," said I, pointing to a row of sticks driven into the mud a couple of miles in length.

"Yes," said the old man, "the channel's not more than a biscuit toss from here. We came right across it—if it hadn't been in the dark, we'd have gone through into the lee of the island and been all right. Now as it is, we're all wrong."

"How do you mean?" I asked.

"How'll we get that anchor up?" grumbled he. "If we start the engines and try to crawl up by the capstan, we couldn't pull her out of the mud. If we put on a donkey engine we'd snatch the bow out of here before we could lift the hook. And until we do, how are we going to move her? There's the channel, but it's as far as ever. We can't sweep her off, of course, and we can't pole her off."

"Well, Peterson," said I, "let us, by all means, hope for the worst." I smiled, seeing that he now was possessed of his normal gloom.

"Well," said he, "we went on at full tide, and hard aground at that. This wind is blowing all the water out of Cote Blanche. Of course, if the wind should turn and drive in again, we might move her, if we caught her at high tide once more. Until that happens, I guess we're anchored here for sure."

"The glass is rising now, Peterson," said I, pleasantly.

"Oh, yes, it may rise a little," said he, "and of course the storm's gone by for the time. But I don't think there's going to be any good change of weather that'll hold, very soon. But now, Williams and I'll go below and see if we can start a pump. I expect she's sprung a leak, all right."

Shaking his head in much apprehension, the old man made his way with Williams, first into the engine-room. For my own part, I turned toward my cabin door. All at once as I did so it seemed to me I heard a sound. It came again, a sort of a meek diffident sound, expectant rather than complaining. And then I heard an unmistakable scraping at the door. Hastening, I flung it open. I was greeted with a great whine of joy and trust, a shaggy form leaped upon me, thrust its cold nose into my face, gave me much greetings of whines, and at length of a loud howl of joy.

"Partial!" I cried, and caught him by the paws as he put them on my shoulders and rubbed his muzzle along my cheek, whimpering; "Partial! Oh, my dear chap, I say now, I'm glad to see you!"

As a matter of fact, I had forgotten Partial these three days, other things being on my mind. Once more our amateurishness in shipwreck had nearly cost us a life. Partial, no doubt, had meekly waited at his usual place until ordered to come out with the rest. We had closed the doors and port-holes when we left the Belle Helene, and thus he had been locked in.

I sat down on one of the bench lockers with Partial's head in my hand, and almost my eyes became moist. "Partial," said I, "let me confess the truth to you. The woman had maddened me. I forgot you—I did, and will own it now. It was a grave fault, my friend. I do not ask you to forgive me, and all I can do is to promise you such amend as lies in my power. From now on, I promise you, you shall go with me to all the ends of the earth. My people shall be your people, till death do us part. Do you hear me, Partial?"

He answered by springing up again and licking my face and hands, whimpering excitedly, glad that I had come at last. "Dear Partial," said I, "you're no gladder than I am. And what's more, you've nothing to cost you penitence. Come, we'll go to the dining-room and see whether there's anything left to eat."

He followed me now along the rolling deck, and happily I was able to get him some scraps for his breakfast. Peterson heard me talking, and thrust up a head above the engine-room hatch. He was as crestfallen as myself when I showed him that, once more, we had been forgetful and had left a friend while busy in saving ourselves.

I went once more to my cabin—Peterson having discovered, apparently to his great regret, that so far as could be determined, we had not started a seam or smashed a timber anywhere. I found a small tent among other of my sporting equipment and tossed this out to go in the long boat's cargo. Another fowling piece and ammunition, my canvas hunting coat and wading boots, followed. Even, I caught down from a nail the only other pair of trousers available in my wardrobe—for Davidson's vast midship section comported ill with my own. I found my watch in these other trousers, and putting a hand in a pocket, fished out also my portemonnaie. It had certain bills in it—I presume two or three thousand dollars in all, and I thrust these into my pocket. At the bottom of the little purse,—among collar buttons and other hard objects,—I found a little round white object, and once more bethought me of my pearl which I had won on the far northern river, as it seemed to me many years before—the pearl which, as I have said, was to be known as the Belle Helene. I preserved it now.

Peterson and Williams, meantime, were busy in getting aboard a case or so of water—not forgetting the ninety-three of which I reminded the old man once more. Some additional stores of bacon and tea, and a case of eggs, were also taken aboard. At length, with quite a little cargo in the way of comforts, we embarked once more and started for our rude encampment.

"We may be here for a month," said Peterson gloomily, looking at the Belle Helene, now rolling just a little, her keel fast full length in the mud-bar. "I don't think there's ever going to be any change of wind—it'll blow steadily this way for a week, anyhow."

"I presume, Peterson," said I coolly, "that you don't see the sun breaking through the clouds over there, at all. And I fancy that you will not believe, either, that the sea is lulling now. Very well, I don't want to make you unhappy, my friend."

I heard Williams chuckling as he stooped over his engine. Thus, chugging on merrily with the long oily roll of the sea under us, we presently once more ran our surf, and this time had small difficulty in winning through, for, once we felt the ground under us, we simply sprang overboard and waded in, dragging the boat with us, waist-deep sometimes in the flood, but on the whole quite safe.

My two pirate mates came down to the beach joyously, and helped us unload. It seemed that they had made something of a hunt already, for with much pride Jean now displayed to me certain birds, proof of his own prowess with his shotgun.

"Some of 'em's good to eat," said he. "Regular greenheads, like we get up North." I looked at the string of birds, and saw that they were mallards and teals, a couple of dozen at least.

"Fie, fie!" said I. "I fear you've been shooting on the water."

"Sure I did! And here's four things that I don't suppose are good to eat—they got kind of snaky heads, and red-colored, too. Ain't no ducks good to eat that ain't got green heads."

"Each man to his taste," said I, "but if you like, you may have the green heads, and I'll take these with the auburn locks."

"Pshaw! What are they?" answered he.

"Only canvasbacks," said I, "and good fat ones, too. What luck have you, Jimmy, my son?"

"Well, I went along and helped carry things," said L'Olonnois.

"What's that you've got on a string?" I asked him.

"Oh, that," said he, flushing. "It ain't nothing but a little turtle. It had funny marks on its back. I caught it in the grass over there by the lake."

Something about Jimmy's little turtle interested me, and I picked it up in my hands.

"For amateur sportsmen, gentlemen," said I, "you're doing pretty well. Your funny little turtle, Jimmy, is nothing but a diamond-back terrapin. There are perhaps more of them on this coast than anywhere else in the world to-day. And Partial, here—that friend of ours now leaping excitedly and joyously before them, barking at this little turtle of Jimmy's—will perhaps be able to help you find some more of them in the grass—the market hunters here hunt them with dogs, as perhaps you did not know."

"We got some oysters, Sir," said Willy, coming forward shyly and shamefacedly; and showed me the cockpit of the duck boat pretty well filled. The boy had, it seems, found a reef of these in a brackish arm which made inland, and dug them by the simple process of stooping down below the surface of the water, since he had no oyster tongs.

"Well," said I, "it looks as if we would fare pretty well for lunch. John"—and I called my China boy—"again I find renewed cause for felicitations on your rescue."

John stood looking at me blankly.

"You savee, John?" said I, showing him one of the canvasbacks, and he remarked mildly, "All litee." If anything, his lunch was better than his breakfast, and when I saw him take Jimmy's funny little turtle from him and examine it with appraising eye, I felt fairly well convinced that we should not suffer at the dinner hour.

But though a certain gaiety now came to others of the party as we sat about our midday meal, warm now and well fed, and although the boys excitedly made plans about putting up the tent and furnishing it and going into camp for the winter, I could not share their eagerness. There was one other reticent figure at our fireside. Helena sat silent, the head of Partial in her lap. I felt resentment that she should steal from me even my dog. At last, having nothing better to do, I picked up my gun, and slipping on my coat, started down the beach, telling the boys that I was going alone, perhaps too far for them to follow, with the purpose of making some sort of an exploration of the island.

Moody and depressed, not in the least well satisfied with life, even with matters thus so far more fortunate than we had so recently had reason to expect, I walked along the hard sand, sometimes looking at the long lines of wild fowl streaming in above the fresh-water lagoon, but in reality thinking but little of these. I did not at first hear the light step which came behind me on the sand.



CHAPTER XXXIV

IN WHICH IS NO RAPPROCHEMENT WITH THE FAIR CAPTIVE

"Harry!" I heard her call, and turned quickly. "Harry, wait!"

She came hurrying up toward me. I felt my color rise. Awkwardly, I stood waiting, and did not greet her. I cast a quick glance the other way down the beach. It would be a hundred yards before the first bend of the shore-line would carry us behind the tall rushes. Meantime, we were in full sight of all.

Partial, who had followed me when I whistled, now greeted her more joyously than did his master.

"Yes?" said I dully; "I suppose you came to take away my dog from me, didn't you? It was all that was left."

"Of course," said she coloring. "I didn't know but what Partial might be hungry."

"It is I who am hungry, Helena," said I. "I have long been hungry—for a look, a word."

She did not smile, showed not any trace of coquetry in her mien, but paced on with me now down the beach. I suppose she knew when we had turned the point of rushes, for now she laid her hand on my rough canvas sleeve. It must have cost her effort to do that.

"Harry, what's wrong with you?" said she after a time, since I still remained moodily staring ahead. I did not answer, would not look at her for a time, but at length she turned. She stood, I say, with her hand on my arm, her chin raised fully, her serious eyes fixed on me. The dark hair was blown all about her face. She had on over her long white sweater a loose silk waterproof of some sort, which blew every way, but did not disturb the lines of her tall figure, nor lessen the pale red and white which the sea breeze had stung into her cheeks. She did not smile, and her eyes, I say, looked steadily and seriously into mine.

"What's wrong with you?" she asked, frowning slightly, as it seemed to me.

"Everything in the world is wrong with me, as you know very well," said I. "Am I not a poor man? Am I not an unsuccessful lover? Am I not a failure under every test which you can apply? Am I not a coward—did you not tell me so yourself?"

Her eyes grew damp slowly. "I didn't mean it," said she.

"Then why did you say it?"

"It was long before—that was before last night, Harry. You forget."

"What if it was?" I demanded. "I was the same man then that I was last night."

"I didn't mean it, Harry," said she, her voice low. Her hand was still on my arm. Her eye now was cast down, the tip of her toe was tracing a circle on the wet sand where we stood.

"I didn't think," said she, after a little while.

"I presume not," said I coldly. "Sometimes women do not stop to think. You have not stopped to think that there is a limit even to what my love would stand, Helena. Now, much as I love you—and I never loved you so much as I do now—I'll never again ask you for what you can not give me. I've been rubbed the wrong way all I can stand, and I'll not have it any more. I've brought you here, yes, and I'm sorry enough for it. But I'm going to fix all that now, soon as I can."

"What do you mean, Harry?" she asked quietly.

"Yonder, across the bay," said I, pointing, "runs a channel. That's the Cheniere. I presume the lighthouse boats come from in there. Maybe there'll be one down after the storm in a day or so. He'll take out a message, and get it on some boat bound for Morgan City, perhaps."

"And what then?"

"Why, I shall send out any message you like, beside my own message to the parents of these boys of mine. And I'll send a message, too, to my friend, Manning."

She turned her eyes where I pointed once more, this time seemingly northward across the bay. "Yonder is still another channel," said I, "not twenty miles from where we stand. It runs back to the live-oak islands where my friend Manning has his plantation. If the tide serves and we can get the yacht afloat, it won't take us long to get in there. Once there, you are safe; and once there, I say good-by. Judge for yourself whether or not this is the last time."

"And when will that be, Harry?" she demanded, still tracing some figure on the sand with the toe of her little boot.

"That, I have said, is something I can not tell. But as soon as possible, rest assured."

She was silent now, confused, a little abashed, a mood entirely new to her in my recollection of her many moods. Her hand still lay upon my coarse canvas sleeve as though she had forgotten it. I bent now and kissed it. "Harry," said she in a whisper, "don't you care for me any more?"

"Go back to the camp, Helena," said I; "you know I do, but I've done enough for you, and I'll do no more. All a coward can do to keep you safe I have done, but I'm no such coward as to follow you around now and dangle at your apron strings. It's good-by once more. What are you," I demanded fiercely, once more, "that you should walk over my soul again and again? Hasn't there got to be an end to that sort of thing some time, and don't you think there is an end for me? Go back and tell your aunt that you have won. And much joy may you both have in your winning."

I kissed her hand, flung it off, turned and went down the beach. She did not look about, but presently as I saw, turned and went back toward the camp, her head hanging. And, as I had said to her, I never loved her so much in all my life, though never was I so little disposed to go one step in her pursuit.

Partial sat, looking after her also, his heart torn in the division between us, for he loved us both.

"Partial," I called to him harshly, and he came, his ears down and very unhappy. Silently, the dog at my heels, I strode on down the beach, and so I saw her no more for some time.

I found for myself a driftwood log at the edge of the sea-marsh, and here for a time I sat down, moodily staring out across the bay, as unhappy, I fancy, as man gets to be in this world. I scarce know how long I sat here, in the wind which blew salt across the bay, and for some time, I paid no attention to the clamoring fowl which passed and repassed not far from my point.

At length, a long harrow of great Canadian geese passed so close to me that without much thought about it, I raised the gun and fired. I killed two birds, and as I picked them up I found they were not a brace, but a pair. The report of my gun started a clamoring of all manner of fowl beyond the edge of reeds which hid the reef. A cloud of ducks passed before me, and slipping in the shells once more, I fired right and left. Again I killed my brace, and again when I picked them up they were a pair. The head of one was green, the other brown. "Male and female made He them!" said I. "If I had not killed these birds, in the spring they would have gone northward, to the edge of the world in their own love-making, thousands of miles from here." I looked at my quarry with remorse, and not caring to shoot more, at length picked up the birds and slowly started back to camp, not looking forward with any too great pleasure, it may be imagined, to further meetings with the woman whom, of all the world, I most cared to meet.

I found all the others of the party amiably engaged in camp affairs. The tent now was up, the fire was arranged in more practical fashion, and John was busy with his pans. Lafitte, ever resourceful and ever busy, was out with Willy after more oysters. L'Olonnois, his partner, seemed engaged in some sort of argument with his Auntie Helena.

"Jimmy, I can't!" I heard her say. "There isn't any sugar."

"Aw!" said he, "there's plenty of sugar, ain't there, John?" And that worthy smiled as he pointed toward an open canister of that dainty.

"But I haven't any pan."

"Yes, you have, too, got a pan. Here's one a-settin' right here in front of you. Come on now, Auntie. We're goin' to have duck and terrapin and oysters and everything—all a fellow would want, besides that, is just fudges."

Helena stood preoccupied and hesitant, hardly hearing what he said, as I fancy. At once L'Olonnois' attitude changed. Folding his arms, he turned toward her sternly.

"Woman!" said he, "are you not a captive to our band? Then who gives orders here? Either you make fudges, or your life's blood stains these sands!"

"Oh, all right, Jimmy," she said listlessly. "I'll make them, if you like."

"You'd better," remarked that worthy sententiously. "Of course," he added, seeking to mollify his victim, over whom he thus domineered, "it ain't just like it is back home on the stove, but you'll have to get used to that, because we're going to live here forever. And," he added, casting a glance of his stern blue eyes upon her, "it is the part of the captive maid ever to live happily with the chief of the pirate band."

Whereupon Helena and Jimmy both looked up and saw me standing, unwilling listener to all that had been said. Helena moved away and pretended to be busy with the material for her confections.

"Aw, shucks, Black Bart," said Jimmy, turning to me—"ain't that just like a woman?—They won't never play the game."



CHAPTER XXXV

IN WHICH I FIND TWO ESTIMABLE FRIENDS, BUT LOSE ONE BELOVED

The weather now, moderating, after the fashion of weather on this coast, as rapidly as it had become inclement, we passed a more comfortable night on our desert island. No doubt the lighthouse tender knew of our presence, for he easily could see our tent by day and our fire by night, and he surely must have seen our good ship riding at anchor under his nose at the edge of the channel; but no visit came from that official—for the very good reason, as we later learned, that the storm had stove in his boat at her mooring; so that all he himself could do was to cross his Cajun bosom and pray that his supply skiff might come from across the bay. So, as much alone as the Swiss family by name of Robinson—an odd name for a Swiss family, it always seemed to me—we remained on our desert island undisturbed, the ladies now in the comfortable tent, my hardy pirates under the tarpaulin, and the rest of us as we liked or might, all in beds of the sweet scented grasses which grew along the lagoon where the great ranks of wild fowl kept up their chatter day and night.

It was a land of plenty, and any but a man in my situation might well have been content there for many days. Content was not in my own soul. I was up by dawn and busy about the boats, before any sign of life was visible around the tent or the canvas shelter. But since the sun rose warm, it yet was early when we met at John's breakfast fire. I felt myself a shabby figure, for in my haste I had forgotten my razors; and by now my clothing was sadly soiled and stained, even the most famous of the Davidson waistcoats being the worse for the salt-water immersions it had known; and my ancient flannels were corkscrewing about my limbs. But as for Helena, young and vital, she discarded her sweater for breakfast, and appeared as she had before the shipwreck, in lace bridge coat and wearing many gems! L'Olonnois, with the intimacy of kin and the admiration of youth—and with youth's lack of tact—saluted her now gaily. "Gee! Auntie," said he, at table on the sand, "togged out that way, all them glitterin' gems, you shore look fit for a pirate's bride!"

Poor Helena! She blushed red to the hair; and I fear I did no better myself. "Jimmy!" reproved Aunt Lucinda.

"Don't call me 'Jimmy'!" rejoined that hopeful. "My name is L'Olonnois, the Scourge of The Sea. Me an' Jean Lafitte, we follow Black Bart the Avenger, to the Spanish Main. Auntie, pass me the bacon, please. I'm just about starved."

Mrs. Daniver, as was her custom, ate a very substantial breakfast; Helena, almost none at all; nor had I much taste for food. In some way, our constraint insensibly extended to all the party, much to L'Olonnois' disgust. "It's her fault!" I overheard him say to his mate. "Women can't play no games. An' we was havin' such a bully chance! Now, like's not, we won't stay here longer'n it'll take to get things back to the boat again. I don't want to go back home—I'd rather be a pirate; an' so'd any fellow."

"Sure he would," assented Jean. They did not see me, behind the tent.

"Somethin's wrong," began L'Olonnois, portentously.

"What'd you guess?" queried Lafitte. "Looks to me like it was somethin' between him an' the fair captive."

"That's just it—that's just what I said! Now, if Black Bart lets his whiskers grow, an' Auntie Helena wears them rings, ain't it just like in the book? Course it is! But here they go, don't eat nothin', don't talk none to nobody."

"I'll tell you what!" began Lafitte.

"Uh-huh, what?" demanded L'Olonnois.

"A great wrong has been did our brave leader by yon heartless jade; that's what!"

"You betcher life they has. He's on the square, an' look what he done for us—look how he managed things all the way down to here. Anybody else couldn't have got away with this. Anybody else'd never a' went out there last night after John, just a Chink, thataway. An' her!"

Jimmy's disapproval of his auntie, as thus expressed, was extreme. I was now about to step away, but feared detection, so unwillingly heard on.

"But he can't see no one else but yon fickle jade!" commented Jean Lafitte, "unworthy as she is of a bold chief's regard!"

"Nope. That's what's goin' to make all the trouble. I'll tell you what!"

"What?"

"We'll have to fix it up, somehow."

"How'd you mean?"

"Why, reason it out with 'em both."

Jean apparently shook his head, or had some look of dubiousness, for L'Olonnois went on.

"We gotta do it, somehow. If we don't, we'll about have to go back home; an' who wants to go back home from a good old desert island like this here. So now——"

"Uh, huh?"

"Why, I'll tell you, now. You see, I got some pull with her—the fair captive. She used to lick me, but she don't dast to try it on here on a desert island: so I got some pull. An' like enough you c'd talk it over with Black Bart."

"Nuh—uh! I don't like to."

"Why?"

"Well, I don't. He's all right."

"Yes, but we got to get 'em together!"

"Shore. But, my idea, he's hard to get together if he gets a notion he ain't had a square deal nohow, someways."

"Well, he ain't. So that makes my part the hardest. But you just go to him, and tell him not to hurry, because you are informed the fair captive is goin' to relent, pretty soon, if we just don't get in too big a hurry and run away from a place like this—where the duck shootin' is immense!"

"But kin you work her, Jimmy?"

"Well, I dunno. She's pretty set, if she thinks she ain't had a square deal, too."

"Well now," argued Lafitte, "if that's the way they both feel, either they're both wrong an' ought to shake hands, or else one of 'em's wrong, and they either ought to get together an' find out which it was, or else they ought to leave it to some one else to say which one was wrong. Ain't that so?"

"O' course it's so. So now, thing fer us fellows to do, is just to put it before 'em plain, an' get 'em both to leave it to us two fellers what's right fer 'em both to do. Now, I think they'd ought to get married, both of 'em—I mean to each other, you know. Folks does get married."

"Black Bart would," said Jean Lafitte. "I'll bet anything. The fair captive, she's a heartless jade, but I seen Black Bart lookin' at her, an'——"

"An' I seen her lookin' at him—leastways a picture—an' says she, 'Jimmy——'"

"Jimmy!" It was I, myself, red and angry, who now broke from my unwilling eavesdropping.

The two boys turned to me innocently. I found it difficult to say anything at all, and wisest to say nothing. "I was just going to ask if you two wouldn't like to take the guns and go out after some more ducks—especially the kind with red heads and flat noses, such as we had yesterday. And I'll lend you Partial, so you can try for some more of those funny little turtles. I'll have to go out to the ship, and also over to the lighthouse, before long. The tide will turn, perhaps, and at least the wind is offshore from the island now."

"Sure, we'll go." Jean spoke for both at once.

"Very well, then. And be careful. And you'd—you'd better leave your auntie and her auntie alone, Jimmy—they'll want to sleep."

"You didn't hear us sayin' nothin', did you, Black Bart?" asked L'Olonnois, suspiciously.

"By Jove! I believe that's a boat beating down the bay," said I. "Sail ho!" And so eager were they that they forgot my omission of direct reply.

"It's very likely only the lighthouse supply boat coming in," said I. "I'll find out over there. Better run along, or the morning flight of the birds will be over." So they ran along.

As for myself, I called Peterson and Williams for another visit to our disabled ship, which now lay on a level keel, white and glistening, rocking gently in the bright wind. I left word for the ladies that we might not be back for luncheon.

We found that the piling waters of Cote Blanche, erstwhile blown out to sea, were now slowly settling back again after the offshore storm. The Belle Helene had risen from her bed in the mud now and rode free. Our soundings showed us that it would be easy now to break out the anchor and reach the channel, just ahead. So, finding no leak of consequence, and the beloved engines not the worse for wear, Williams went below to get up some power, while Peterson took the wheel and I went forward to the capstan.

The donkey winch soon began its work, and I felt the great anchor at length break away and come apeak. The current of the air swung us before we had all made fast; and as I sounded with a long bow pike, I presently called out to Peterson, "No bottom!" He nodded; and now, slowly, we took the channel and moved on in opposite the light. We could see the white-capped gulf rolling beyond.

"Water there!" said Peterson. "We can go on through, come around in the Morrison cut-off, and so make the end of the Manning channel to the mainland. But I wish we had a local pilot."

I nodded. "Drop her in alongside this fellow's wharf," I added. "The ladies have sent some letters—to go out by the tender's boat, yonder—I suppose he'll be going back to-day."

"Like enough," said Peterson; and so gently we moved on up the dredged channel, and at last made fast at the tumble-down wharf of the lighthouse; courteously waiting for the little craft of the tender to make its landing.

We found the mooring none too good, what with the storm's work at the wharf, and as we shifted our lines a time or two, the gaping, jeans-clad Cajun who had come in with mail and supplies passed in to the lighthouse ahead of us; and I wonder his head did not twist quite off its neck, for though he walked forward, he ever looked behind him.

When at length we two, Peterson and myself, passed up the rickety walk to the equally rickety gallery at the foot of the light, we found two very badly frightened men instead of a single curious one. The keeper in sooth had in hand a muzzle-loading shotgun of such extreme age, connected with such extreme length of barrel, as might have led one to suspect it had grown an inch or so annually for all of many decades. He was too much frightened to make active resistance, however, and only warned us away, himself, now, a pale saffron in color.

"Keep hout!" he commanded. "No, you'll didn't!"

"We'll didn't what, my friend?" began I mildly. "Don't you like my looks? Not that I blame you if you do not. But has the boat brought down any milk or eggs that you can spare?"

"No milluk—no haig!" muttered the light tender; and they would have closed the door.

"Come, come now, my friends!" I rejoined testily. "Suppose you haven't, you can at least be civil. I want to talk with you a minute. This is the power yacht Belle Helene, of Mackinaw, cruising on the Gulf. We went aground in the storm; and all we want now is to send out a little mail by you to Morgan City, or wherever you go; and to pass the time of day with you, as friends should. What's wrong—do you think us a government revenue boat, and are you smuggling stuff from Cuba through the light here?"

"We no make hany smug'," replied the keeper. "But we know you, who you been!"

He smote now upon an open newspaper, whose wrapper still lay on the floor. I glanced, and this time I saw a half-page cut of the Belle Helene herself, together with portraits of myself, Mrs. Daniver, Miss Emory and two wholly imaginary and fearsome boys who very likely were made up from newspaper portraits of the James Brothers! Moreover, my hasty glance caught sight of a line in large letters, reading:

TEN THOUSAND DOLLARS REWARD!

"Peterson," said I calmly, handing him the paper, "they seem to be after us, and to value us rather high."

He glanced, his eyes eager; but Peterson, while a professional doubter, was personally a man of whose loyalty and whose courage I, myself, had not the slightest doubt.

"Let 'em come!" said he. "We're on our own way and about our own business; and outside the three mile zone, let 'em follow us on the high seas if they like. She's sound as a bell, Mr. Harry, and once we get her docked and her port shaft straight, there's nothing can touch her on the Gulf. Let 'em come."

"But we can't dock here, my good Peterson."

"Well, we can beat 'em with one engine and one screw. Besides, what have we done?"

"Haint you was 'hrobber, han ron hoff with those sheep?" demanded the keeper excitedly.

"No, we are not ship thieves but gentlemen, my friend," I answered, suddenly catching at his long gun and setting it behind me. "You might let that go off," I explained. At which he went yellower than ever, a thing I had thought impossible.

"Now, look here," said I. "Suppose we are robbers, pirates, what you like, and suppose a price is put on our heads—a price which means a jolly nice libel suit for each paper printing it, by the way, or a jolly nice apology—none the less, we are a strong band and without fear either of the law or of you. Here you are alone, and not a sail is in sight. If any boat did come here, we could—well, we could blow her out of the water, couldn't we, Peterson? We could blow you out of the water, too, couldn't we, we and these ruffians of our crew?"—and I pointed at the two low-browed pictures of Lafitte and L'Olonnois.

A shudder was my only answer. I think the two portraits of my young bullies did the business.

"Very well, then," I resumed, "it is plain, Messieurs, that there is many a slip between the reward and the pocket, voyez vous? Bien! But here—" and I thrust a hand into my pocket—"is a reward much closer home, and far easier to attain."

Their eyes bulged as they saw two or three thousand dollars in big bills smoothed out.

"Ecoutez, Messieurs!" said I. "Behold here not enemies, but men of like mind. I speak of men who live by the sea, men of the old home of Jean Lafitte, that great merchant, that bold soldier, who did so much to save his country at the Battle. Even now he has thousands of friends and hundreds of relatives in this land. You yourself, I doubt not, Messieurs, are distant cousins of Jean Lafitte? N'est-ce pas?"

They crossed themselves, but murmured "Ba-oui!" "Est ees the trut'! How did Monsieur know?" asked the tender.

"I know many things. I know that any cousin descended from those brave days loves the sea and its ways more than he loves the law. And if money has come easy—as this did—what harm if a cousin should take the price of a rat-skin or two and carry out a letter or so to the railway, and keep a close mouth about it as well? To the good old days, and Messieurs, my friends!" I had seen the neck of a flask in Peterson's pocket, and now I took it forth, unscrewed the top, and passed it, with two bills of one hundred dollars each.

They poured, grinned. I stood, waiting for their slow brains to act, but there was only a foregone answer. The keeper drank first, as ranking his tender; the other followed; and they handed the flask—not the bills—back to Peterson and me.

"Merci, mes amis!" said I. "And I drink to Jean Lafitte and the old days! Perhaps, you may buy a mass for your cousin's soul?"

"Ah non!" answered the keeper. "Hees soul she's hout of Purgatoire long hago eef she'll goin' get hout. Me, I buy me some net for s'rimp."

"An' me, two harpent more lan' for my farm," quoth the tender.

"Alas! poor Jean!" said I. "But he was so virtuous a man that he needs no masses after a hundred years, perhaps. As you like. You will take the letters; and this for the telegraph?"

"Certain'! I'll took it those," answered the tender. "You'll stayed for dish coffee, yass?" inquired the keeper, with Cajun hospitality.

"No, I fear it is not possible, thank you," I replied. "We must be going soon."

"An' where you'll goin', Monsieur?"

"Around the island, up the channel, up the old oyster-boat channel of Monsieur Edouard. The letters are some of them for Monsieur Edouard himself. And you know well, mes amis, that once we lie at the wharf of Monsieur Edouard, not the government even of the state will touch us yonder?"

"My faith, non! I should say it—certain' not! No man he'll mawnkey wit' Monsieur Edouard, heem! You'll was know him, Monsieur?"

"We went to school together. We smoked the same pipe."

"My faith! You'll know Monsieur Edouard!" The keeper shook my hand. "H'I'll was work for Monsieur Edouard manny tam hon hees boat, hon hees plantation, hon hees 'ouse. When I'll want some leetle money, s'pose those hrat he'll wasn't been prime yet, hall H'I'll need was to go non Monsieur Edouard, hask for those leetle monny. He'll han' it on me, yass, heem, ten dollar, jus' like as heasy Monsieur has gave it me hondred dollar now, yas, heem!"

"Yes? Well, I know that a cousin of Jean Lafitte—who no doubt has dug for treasure all over the dooryard of Monsieur Edouard——"

"But not behin' the smoke-house—nevair on dose place yet, I'll swear it!"

"—Very well, suppose you have not yet included the smoke-house of Monsieur Edouard, at least you are his friend. And what Acadian lives who is not a friend of the ladies?"

"Certain', Monsieur."

"Very well again. What you see in the paper is all false. The two ladies whose pictures you see here, and here, are yonder at our camp. You shall come and see that they are well and happy, both of them. Moreover, if you like another fifty for the mass for Jean Lafitte's soul, you, yourself, my friend, shall pilot us into the channel of Monsieur Edouard. We'll tow your boat behind us across the bay. Is it not?"

"Certain'! oui!" answered the tender. "But you'll had leetle dish coffee quite plain?" once more demanded the lonesome keeper; and for sake of his hospitable soul we now said yes; and very good coffee it was, too: and the better since I knew it meant we now were friends. Ah! pirate blood is far thicker than any water you may find.

"But if we take you on as pilot, my friend," said I to the pilot as at length we arose, "how shall we get out our letters after all?"

"Thass hall right," replied he, "my cousin, Richard Barriere—she's cousin of Jean Lafitte too, heem—she'll was my partner on the s'rimp, an' she'll was come hon the light, here, heem, to-mor', yas, heem."

"And would you give the letters to Mr. Richard Barriere to-morrow?" I inquired of the lighthouse keeper.

"Oui, oui, certain', assurement, wit' plaisir, Monsieur," he replied. So I handed him the little packet.

It chanced that my eye caught sight of one of the two letters Mrs. Daniver had handed me. The address was not in Mrs. Daniver's handwriting, but one that I knew very well. And the letter, in this handwriting that I knew very well, was addressed to Calvin Horace Davidson, Esquire, The Boston Club, New Orleans, Louisiana: all written out in full in Helena's own scrupulous fashion.

I gave the letter over to the messenger, but for a time I stood silent, thinking. I knew now very well what that letter contained. But yesterday, Helena Emory had finally decided, there on the beach, alone with me, the salt air on her cheek, the salt tears in her eyes. She had gone far as woman might to tell me that she was grieved over a hasty word—she had given me a chance, my first chance, my only chance, my last chance. And, I, pig-headed fool, had slighted her at the very moment of moments of all my life—I who had prided myself on my "psychology"—I who had thought myself wise—I had allowed that woman to go away with her head drooping when at last she—oh, I saw it all plainly enough now! And now indeed small psychology and small wit were requisite to know the whole process of a woman's soul, thus chilled. She had been hesitant, had been a little resentful of this runaway situation, had not liked my domineering ways; but at last she had relented and had asked my pardon. Then I had spurned her. And then her mind swung to the other man. She had not yet given that man his answer, but when I chilled her, rejected her timid little desire to "make up" with me—why, then, her mind was made up for that other man at once. She had written his answer. And now—oh! fiendlike cruelty of woman's heart—she had chosen me as her messenger to carry out that word which would cost me herself forever! She had done that exquisitely well, as she did everything, not even advising me that I was to be her errand boy on such an errand, trusting me to find out by accident, as I had, that I was to be my own executioner, was to spring my own guillotine. She knew that, none the less, though I understood what the letter meant thus addressed, I sacredly must execute her silent trust. Oh! Helena, yours was indeed an exquisite revenge for that one hour of a dour man's hurt pride.



CHAPTER XXXVI

IN WHICH WE FOLD OUR TENTS

By consent of the lighthouse keeper, we left the Belle Helene moored at the wharf in the channel, with Williams in charge, while Peterson and I, towing the tender's sailing skiff, its piratical lateen sail lowered, started back for our encampment in our long boat. It was only a half mile or so alongshore around the head of the island, although we had to keep out a bit to avoid going aground on the flats where the Belle Helene had come to grief—and had, moreover, to wade ashore some fifty yards or so, now that the sea was calm, since the keel of the motor-boat would not admit a closer approach in the shallows.

We found our party all assembled, John having but now issued his luncheon call; and, such had proved the swift spell of this care-free life, none expressed much delight at the announcement of my decision to strike camp and move toward civilization. Helena only looked up swiftly, but made no comment; and Mrs. Daniver, to my surprise, openly rebelled at leaving these flesh-pots, where canvasback and terrapin might be had by shaking the bushes, and where the supply of ninety-three seemed, after all, not exhausted. Of course, my men had nothing to say about it, but when it came to my partners and associates, Lafitte and L'Olonnois, there was open mutiny.

"Why, now," protested L'Olonnois, his lip quivering, "O' course we don't want to go home. Ain't our desert island all right? Where you goin' to find any better place 'n this, like to know? Besides"—and here he drew me to one side—"they's a good reason for not goin' just yet, Black Bart!"

"What, Jimmy?" I inquired.

"Well, I know somethin'."

"And what is it?"

"Well, Jean Lafitte knows it, too."

"What is it then?"

"Well, it ain't happened yet, but it's goin' to—or anyhow maybe."

"You interest me! Is it a matter of importance?"

"—Say it was!"

"To whom?"

"Why, to you—an' besides, to my Auntie Helena. 'N' you can't pull off things like that just anywheres. Jean Lafitte an' me, we frame up how to handle yon heartless jade, the fair captive, 'n' here you butt in 'n' spoil the whole works. It ain't right."

I bethought me now of the conversation I had unwillingly overheard—and my heart was grateful to these my friends—but the next instant I remembered the note to Cal Davidson.

"I thank you, Jimmy, my friend," said I, "and I believe I know what you mean, but it can't be done."

"What can't, an' why can't it?"

"Why, the—the frame-up that you have just mentioned. In short—but, Jimmy, go on and roll up the blankets."

"But why can't it, and what do you know about it? Tell me," he demanded with sudden inspiration, "is yon varlet a suitor, too, for yon heartless jade?"

"I decline to answer, Jimmy. Don't let's get into too deep water. Go on and get your bundles ready."

"You're a fine pirate, ain't you, Black Bart!" he broke out. "Do you hold yerself fit to head a band o' bold an' desprit men, when you let yerself be bluffed by yon varlet, an' him a thousand miles away? You try me, just you gimme a desert island, or even a pirut ship, a week, like the chance you got, an' beshrew me, but any heartless jade would be mine!"

"Oh, maybe not, Jimmy."

"—Or else she'd walk the plank."

"There isn't any plank to walk here, Jimmy," said I, pointing to our boat, which lay in the shoals far out. "I rather wish there were."

"You'll have to carry my Auntie Helen out on yore strong right arm, Black Bart."

"I'll do nothing of the sort, Jimmy."

"Don't you like her no more? An' if you don't, what're we here for?"

I could foresee embarrassments in further conversation with Jimmy in his present truculent mood, so sought out others less mutinous, and gave orders for the striking of the camp and the embarkment of all in the small boats. I left Peterson and Willy to take the ladies and most of the duffel in the large boat, assigned John the dingey for his cook boat, and decided to pole the light draft duck boat over the shallows direct to the yacht, taking my two associates with me. It was necessary, of course, to carry our fair passengers out to the long boat, which was some distance out on the flat beach. Peterson and I made a cradle for Mrs. Daniver, with our locked hands, and so got her substantial weight aboard. Helena mutely waited, but seeing her so, and unwilling myself to be so near to her any more, I motioned her to step into the flat duck boat, dry shod, and so poled her out to the long boat; but I did so in silence, nor did she look up or speak to me.

Our new pilot sat in his own boat, and was towed back, after rendering some assistance with the cargoes; so now, at last, I was ready to leave a spot which, in any other circumstances, would have offered much charm for a man fond of the out-of-doors. As for my young friends, they were almost in tears as they sat, looking back longingly at the great flights of all manner of wild fowl continuously streaming in and out of the lagoon. At any other time, I would have been unwilling as any to depart, but, now, the whole taste and flavor of life had left me, and no interest remained in any of my old occupations or enjoyments. All that remained was the action necessary to deliver Helena and her aunt back to the usual scenes of their lives, to make their losses as light as possible, to take my own losses, and so close the books of my life.

"There they come!" said Jean Lafitte, pointing to a vast gaggle of clamoring wild geese coming in from the bay. "Right over our point, Jimmy! Gee! I wisht I was under them fellers right now. Pow! Pow!"

"Aw, shut up!" was Jimmy's reply. "We won't never get no chance like this again. Why, looky here, we was reg'lar castaways on a real desert island, an' we had a abandoned ship, an' we c'd 'a' lived chiefly by huntin' an' fishin'; and we had evaded all pursuit an' run off with the fair captive to a place o' hidin'—why, it's all just like in the book. An' what do we do? Why, we go home! Wouldn't it frost you? An' what's worse, we let the heartless jade get away with it, too! Ain't that so?"

"Yes, that's true, Jimmy," I replied.

"Well, I was talkin' to Jean Lafitte—but it's so. We started out all right as pirates, but now we let a girl bluff us."

"What would you do, Jimmy, in a case like that?" I inquired.

"I would wring the wench's slender neck, beshrew me! She couldn't put over none o' that coarse work on me. No, curses on her fair face!"

"That will do, Jimmy!" said I, and pushed on in silence, Jean Lafitte very grave, and Jimmy snuffling, now, in his grief at leaving the enchanted island. So, all much about the same time, we reached the Belle Helene and went aboard. The ladies went at once to their cabin, and I saw neither again that day, although I sent down duck, terrapin and ninety-three for their dinner that night.

In half an hour we were under way; and in an hour and a half, having circumvented our long desert island, we were passing through the cut-off which led us back into Cote Blanche, some fifty miles, I presume, from what was to be our voyage's end. We still were in the vast marsh country, an inaccessible region teeming with wild life. The sky now was clear, the air once more warm, the breeze gentle, and all the country roundabout us had a charm quite its own. A thousand side channels led back into the fortresses of the great sea-marsh, to this or that of the many lakes, lagoons and pond holes where the wild fowl found their feeding beds. Here was this refuge, where they fled to escape persecution, the spot most remote, secluded, secret, inaccessible. Here nature conspired to balk pursuit. The wide shallows made a bar now to the average sailing craft, and as for a motor-yacht like ours, the presence of a local pilot, acquainted with all the oyster reefs and shallows, all the channels and cut-offs, made us feel more easy, for we knew we could no longer sail merely by compass and chart. A great sense of remoteness from all the world came over me. I scarce could realize that yonder, so lately left behind, roared the mad tumult of the northern cities. This wide expanse was broken by no structure dedicated to commerce, not even the quiet spire of some rural church arose among the lesser edifices of any village—not even the blue smoke of some farmhouse marked the dwelling-place of man. It was the wilderness, fit only for the nomad, fit only for the man resentful of restraint and custom, longing only for the freedom of adventure and romance. The cycles of Cathay lay here in these gray silences, the leaf of the lotus pulsed on this lazy sea. Ah! here, here indeed were surcease and calm.

And all this I was leaving. I was going back now to the vast tumult of the roaring towns, to the lip of mockery, the eye of insincerity, the hand of hypocrisy, where none may trust a neighbor. And moreover, I was going back without one look, face to face, into the eyes and the heart of the woman I had loved, and who, by force of these extraordinary circumstances had, for a miraculous moment, been thus set down with me, her lover, in the very surroundings built of Providence for secrecy and love! Yonder, speeding to her summons, no doubt hastened, ready to meet her, the man whom she had preferred above me. And like a beast of burden, driven in the service of these two, I was plodding on, in the work of leaving paradise and opportunity, and delivering safe into the hands of another man the woman whom I loved far more than all else in all the world.



CHAPTER XXXVII

IN WHICH IS PHILOSOPHY; WHICH, HOWEVER, SHOULD NOT BE SKIPPED

We passed on steadily to the northward until mid-afternoon, making no great headway with one propellor missing, but leaving the main gulf steadily, and at length, raising, a faint blue loom on the sky, the long oak-crowned heights of those singular geological formations, the heights known as "islands", that bound the head of this great bay. Here the land, springing out of the level marshes and alluvial wet prairies, thrusts up in long reefs, hundreds of feet above the sea level. On the eminences grow ancient and mossy forest trees, as well as much half-tropic brake in the lower levels. Here are wide and rich acres also, owned as hereditary fees by old proud families, part of whose wealth comes from their plantations, part from their bay fisheries, and much from the ancient salt mines which lie under these singular uplifts above the great alluvial plain. As of right, here grow mansion homes, and here is lived life as nearly feudal and as wholly dignified and cultured as any in any land. Ignorant of the banal word "aristocracy," here, uncounting wealth, unsearching of self and uncritical of others, simple and fine, folk live as the best ambition of America might make one long to live, so far above the vulgar northern scramble for money and display as might make angels weep for the latter in the comparison.

Perhaps it was Edouard Manning, planter, miner, sportsman, gentleman, traveler, scholar and host, who first taught me what wealth might mean, may mean, ought to mean. Always, before now, I had approached his home with joy, as that of an old friend. There, I knew, I would find horses, guns, dogs, good sport and a simple welcome; and I could read or ride as I preferred. A king among all the cousins of Jean Lafitte, Monsieur Edouard. Hereabouts ran the old causeway by which the wagon reached the "importations" of Jean's barges, brought inland from his schooners hid in the marshes far below. Here, too, as is well known in all the state, was the burying-ground of Jean Lafitte's treasure-chests: for, though the old adventurer sold silks and tobaccos and sugars very cheap to the planters and traders, he secreted, as is well known, great store of plate, bullion and minted coins, at divers points about the several miles of forest covered heights; so that the very atmosphere thereabout—till custom stales it for the visitor who comes often there—reeks with the flavor of pieces of eight, Spanish doubloons, and rare gems of the Orient. Laughingly, many a time Monsieur Edouard had agreed to go a-treasure hunting with me, even had showed me several of the curious old treasure-keys, maps and cabalistic characters which tell the place where Lafitte and his men buried their gold—such maps as are kept as secret heirlooms in many a Cajun family.

But now, as I saw myself once more approaching this pleasant spot so well known to me, I felt little of the old thrill of eagerness come over me. True, Edouard would be there, and the dogs, and the birds, and the horses, and the quiet welcome. True, also, I could, either in truth or by evasion, establish a pleasant and conventional footing for all my party—it would be easy to explain so natural and pleasant an incident as a visit during a yacht cruise, and to laugh at all that silly newspaper sensation which by now must fully have blown over. True, Monsieur Edouard would be charmed to meet the woman whose influence on my life he knew so well. Yes, I could tell him everything easily, nicely, except the truth; which was, that I was bringing to another man's arms the woman whom he knew I loved. No, the blue loom of Manning's Island gave me no joy now. I wished it three thousand miles away instead of thirty. I wished that almost anything might prevent my arrival—accident, delay.

And then, in the most natural way in the world, there were both! Without much warning, the pulse of our engine slackened, the throb of our single screw slowed down and ceased. Williams stuck his head up out of his engine-room and shouted something to Peterson, who methodically drew out his pipe and made ready for a smoke.

"It's no use going any farther," explained Williams when I came up. "That intake's gone wrong again, and she's got sand all through her. It's a crime to see her cut herself all to pieces this way. We've just got to stop and clean her up, that's all, and fix the job right—ought to have done it back there before we started in."

"How long will it take, Williams?" I asked.

"Oh, I don't know, sir. More than this afternoon, sure."

"That's too bad," said I, with a fair imitation of regret. "We had expected to make Manning Island by night."

"Yes, it is too bad, but it's better to stop than ruin her, isn't it, sir?"

"Certainly it is, and I quite approve your judgment. But I presume we can go a little way yet, until we find a good berth somewhere? There's a deep channel comes in from the left, just ahead, and I think if we move on half a mile or so, we can get water enough to float even at low tide, and at the same time be out of sight of any boats passing in the lower part of the bay."

"Oh, yes, sir, we can get that far," said the engineer. Peterson was full of gloom, and though he thought nothing less than that we were going to be kept here a month, as one more event in a trip already unlucky enough, he gave the wheel to our Cajun pilot, and we crawled on around the head of a long point that came out into the bay. Here we could not see Manning Island, and were out of sight from most of the bay, so that, once more, the feeling of remoteness, aloofness, came upon me.

Not that it did me any present good. I despatched L'Olonnois as messenger to the ladies, telling them the cause of our delay, and explaining how difficult it was to say just when we would get in to the island; and then I betook myself to gloomy pacing up and down what restricted part of the deck I felt free for my own use. I wearied of it soon, and went to my cabin, trying to read.

At first I undertook one of the modern novels which had been recommended by my bookseller, but I found myself unable to get on with it, and standing before my shelves took down one volume after another of philosophers who once were wont to comfort me—men with brains, thinking men who had done something in the world beside buying yachts and country houses. My eye caught a page which earlier I had turned down, and I read again:

"Trust thyself; every heart vibrates to that iron string. Accept the place the Divine Providence has found for you—the society of friends, the connexion of events. Great men have always done so, and confided themselves childlike to the genius of their age.... And we now are men, and must accept in the highest mind the same transcendent destiny; and not pinched in a corner nor cowards fleeing before a revolution, but redeemers, and benefactors, pious aspirants to be noble clay, under the Almighty effort let us advance on Chaos and the Dark."

I read the mystic, involved, subjective words again, as most of the Concord Sage's words require, and reflected how well they jumped with the note of my heathen Epictetus, who had said, "Be natural and noble". And, so thinking, I began to wonder whether, after all, my father, whose ruthless ways I betimes had explored, whose ruthless sins I had betimes atoned, had not been, perhaps, a better man than sometimes I had credited him with being. He, in accordance with his lights, had accepted the part given him by the Poet of the Play. He had confided himself childlike to the genius of his age, roaring, fighting, scrambling, getting and sometimes giving. He had trusted himself; and in the end, a bold man, he had advanced bravely on Chaos and the Dark. After a life of war and sometimes of rapine, done under the genius of his day, he had struck boldly the last chord on an iron string. Dear old Governor! I did not regret the million of his money I had spent to restore his memory clean in my own mind: for after all, it had all been in open war—that time when he unloaded a worthless mine on his friend, Dan Emory—Helena's father, Daniel Emory, who was, at first, said to have left his family penniless; until a shrewd lawyer in some miraculous way had managed to sell at a good price a box full of worthless mining stock to some innocent victim.

Helena Emory never knew of that sale, nor did her guardian aunt. I did know of it, for the very good reason that I was both the shrewd lawyer and the innocent purchaser. It was the last act of my professional career; and it was this which caused the general report that I had made a bad mining venture, had lost my father's fortune, and retired from my career a ruined man. A few friends knew otherwise: and I blessed the rumor which cost me certain friends who thought me poor and so forsook me. Perhaps, my father would have called me quixotic had he known. Now, as I read and pondered, I neither blamed him for his own course in fair business war with old Dan Emory, nor did I censure myself for my own hidden act of restitution. Let the world wag its head if it liked, and remain ignorant of other millions given to me before my father's death, unprobated, secret, after the fashion of my pirate parent who buried his treasures and told none but his kin how they might be found.

Of course, in time, it all might come out. In time, Helena would know that this yacht which she supposed to be Davidson's was my own, that the farm I was supposed to have rented really was a handsome estate that I owned, that many covert deeds in finance had been my own—it was only my silence and my absence in many parts of the world which had prevented her, also much a traveler, from knowing the truth about me long ago. And the truth was, I was not a poor man, but a rich one.

Yet he who had stolen my purse would indeed have stolen trash this day. Rich in one way, I was poor, indeed, in others. I cared nothing for old Dan Emory's money, but very, very much for old Dan Emory's daughter; and her I might not have, even after all my efforts.... No, the waters would leave no trail; and once more, after I had restored old Dan Emory's daughter to her home and friends, I would travel the wide world again, and the gossipers might guess what causes had ended a professional career, apparently ended a great fortune, and actually had ended a life.... For, I thought—using some philosophy of my own making—it is not wealth, but usefulness, contentment and independence which a man should hold as his most desired success. These achieved, little is left to gain. Any one of these last, and nothing remains worth gaining.

I took up another book, at another marked page: "Let us learn to be content with what we have. Let us get rid of our false estimates, set up all the higher ideals—a quiet home, vines of our own planting; a few books full of the inspiration of genius; a few friends worthy of being loved; a hundred innocent pleasures that bring no pain or remorse; a devotion to the right that will never swerve; a simple religion empty of all bigotry, full of trust and hope and love—and to such a philosophy, this world will give up all the empty joy it has."

I meditated over this also, applying these tests to my own life.... Ah! now I saw why my foot was ever restless, why I sought always new scenes.... Where was my quiet home, the vines of my own planting? Would I flee from that to every corner of the world? Not if it held the woman of my choice. Would she thus roam restless, if she held the heart of her chosen and if they had a home?... I began to see the Plan unfold. Yes, and saw myself outside the Plan.... Because of a devotion to the right that would not swerve. Because of a fanaticism, an "oddness", a nonconformity—ah! so I said bitterly to myself, because, after all, I was unattuned to my age, because I was unfit to survive before a man's own judge.... It is Portia judges this world. The case of every man comes before a woman for decision. I, who rarely had lost a case at law where I could use my own trained mind, had lost my first and only case at the bar of Love....

So—and I sighed as I shut the books and returned them to their shelves—contentment never could be mine, nor that quiet home where only life is lived that is worth living; nor usefulness; nor independence.

I did not hear Jimmy when he came in, and when he spoke I jumped, startled.



CHAPTER XXXVIII

IN WHICH IS AN ARMISTICE WITH FATE

"Black Bart!" said Jimmy. "Say, now——"

"Well, good mate," said I, and laid a hand on his curly fair head, "what shall I say?"

"Say nothin'," he remarked, dropping his voice. "Listen!"

"Yes?"

"We have held a council."

"Who has?"

"Why, me and Jean Lafitte and the heartless jade. I told her you sent us to her to bid her seek your presence."

"Jimmy! What on earth do you mean! That's precisely the last thing I would have done—I haven't done it. On the contrary——"

"I told her," he resumed calmly, "that when Black Bart, the pirut, spoke, he spoke to be obeyed. She said, 'I can't go,' and I said, 'You gotta go.'"

"You, yourself, may now go and tell her that there has been a very bad mistake, Jimmy; and that she need not come."

"An' make her cry worse? I ain't goin' to do it!"

"Sir! This is mutiny!—But did she cry, Jimmy?"

"Yes. Awful. She said she was homesick. She ain't. I don't know what really is the matter. I ast Jean Lafitte, an' he said maybe you'd know. We thought maybe it was something about yon varlet. Do you know?"

"No, I do not, Jimmy." I found myself engaged in one of those detestable conversations where one knows the talk ought to end, yet dislikes to end it.

Jimmy stood for some time, much perturbed, looking every way but at me, and at last he blurted out.

"Don't you just jolly well awfully love the fair captive, yon heartless jade—my Auntie Helen? Don't you, Black Bart?"

I made no answer, but frowned very much at his presumption.

"—Because, everybody else does. She's nice. I should think you would. I do, I know mighty well."

"She is—she is—she's a very estimable young woman, Jimmy," said I, coloring. "I think I may say that without compromising myself."

"Then why do you hurt her feelings the way you do—when she's plumb gone on you, the way she is?"

I sprang toward him to clap a hand over his garrulous mouth, but he evaded me, and spoke from behind the bathroom door. "Well, she is! Don't I hear her sticking up for you all the time—didn't I hear her an' Auntie Lucinda havin' a reg'lar row over it again, 'I don't care if he hasn't got a cent!' says she."

"But yon varlet is rich," said I.

"She didn't mean yon varlet—she meant you, I'm pretty sure, Black Bart. An' she's been feedin' Partial all the afternoon—say, he's the shape of a sausage."

"She is heartless, Jimmy! Little do you know the ways of a heartless jade—she wants to win away from me the last thing on earth I have—even my dog. That's all. Now, Jimmy, you must go."

But he emerged only in part from his shelter. "So Jean Lafitte an' me, we looked it up in the book; an' it says where the heartless jade is brought before the pirut chief, 'How now, fair one!' says he, an' he bends on her the piercin' gaze o' his iggle eye: 'how now, wouldst spurn me suit?' The fair captive she bends her head an' stands before him unable to encounter his piercin' gaze, an' for some moments a deep silence prevails——"

"Jimmy!" I heard a clear voice calling along the deck. No answer, and Jimmy raised a hand to command silence of me also.

"Jimme-e-e-e!" It was Helena's voice, and nearer along the rail. "Here's the fudges—now where can the little nuisance have gone! Jim!"

"Here I am, Auntie," replied the little nuisance, as she now approached the door of our cabin; and he brushed past me and started not aft but toward the bows. "An' there you are!" he shouted over his shoulder in cryptic speech, whether to me or to his Auntie Helen I could not say.

She stood now in such position near my door that neither of us could avoid the other without open rudeness. I looked at her gravely and she at me, her eyes wide, her lips silent for a time. Silently also, I swung the cabin door wide and stood back for her to pass.

"You have sent for me?" she said at last, still standing as she was. A faint smile—part in humor, part in timidity, part, it seemed suddenly to me, wistful; and all just a trifle pathetic—stirred her lips.

"'I sent my soul through the Invisible,'" said I; and stepped within and quite aside for her to pass.

"Jimmy told the biggest lie in all his career," said I. She would have sprung back.

"—And the greatest truth ever told in all the world. Come in, Helena Emory. Come into my quiet home. Already, as you know, you have come into my heart."

"I am not used to going into a gentleman's—quarters," said she: but her foot was on the shallow stair.

"It is common to three gentlemen of the ship's company, Helena Emory," said I, "and we have no better place to receive our friends."

She now was in the room. I closed the door, and sprung the catch.

"At last," said I, "you are in my power!" And I bent upon her the piercing gaze of my eagle eye.



CHAPTER XXXIX

IN WHICH ARE SEALED ORDERS

She stood before me for just a moment undecided. The twilight was coming and the room was dim.

"Auntie will miss me," said she, "after a time."

"I have missed you all the time," was my reply.

"But you sent for me?"

"Of course I did. Doesn't this look as though I had?"

"I don't quite understand——"

"Shall I call Jimmy to explain? He called you a heartless jade——"

"The little imp! How dare he!"

"—As in fact all of our brotherhood has come to call you: 'The heartless jade.'"

"I made fudges for him! And the little wretch told me I wasn't playing the game! What did he mean? Oh, Harry, I wouldn't have come if I hadn't wanted to play the game fairly. I'm sorry for what I said." She spoke now suddenly, impulsively.

"What was it you said?"

"When I said—when I called you—a coward. I didn't mean it."

"You said it."

"But not the way you thought. I only meant, you took an unfair advantage of a girl, running off with her, this way, and giving her no chance to—to get away. But now you do give me a chance—you meant to, all along—and in every way, as I've just done telling auntie, you've been perfectly fine, perfectly splendid, perfectly bully, too! It has been a hard place for a man, too, but—Harry, dear boy, I'll have to say it, you've been some considerable gentleman through it all! There now!" And she stood, aloof, agitated, very likely flushed, though I could not tell in the dark.

"Thank you, Helena," I said.

"And as to your being any other sort of a coward—that you had physical fear—that you wouldn't do a man's part—why, I never did mean that at all. How could I? And if I had—why, even Auntie Lucinda said your going out after that Chinaman the other night was heroic—even if he couldn't have cooked a bit!—and you know Auntie Lucinda has always been against you."

"Yes, and you both called me a coward, because I quit my law office and ran away from misfortune."

"Yes, we did. And I meant that, too! I say it now to your face, Harry. But maybe I don't know all about that——"

"Maybe not."

"Well, I wouldn't want to be unjust, of course, but I don't think a man ought to throw away his life. You're young. You could start over again, and you ought to have tried. Your father made his own money, and so did my father—why, look at the Sally M. mine, that has given me my own fortune. Do you suppose that grew on a bush to be shaken off? So why couldn't you go out in the same way and do something in the world—I don't mean just make money, you know, but do something? That's what a girl likes. And you were able enough. You are young and strong, and you have your education; and I've heard my father say, before he died—and other men agreed with him—that you were the best lawyer at our bar, and that you had an extraordinary mind, and a clear sense of justice, and, and——"

"Go on. Did he say that?"

"Yes."

"But with all my fine qualities of mind and heart," said I, "I lost all when I lost my money!"

"What do you mean?"

"I'll tell you what I mean—you dropped me because you thought me poor. Well, I don't blame you. It takes money to live, and you deserved all that the world can give. I don't blame you. There were other men in the world for you. The trouble with me was that there was no other woman in the world for me. All our trouble—all our many meetings and partings—have come out of those two facts."

"Did you think that of me?" she asked at length, slowly. I suppose she was pale, but I could not see.

"I certainly did. How could I think anything else?"

"Harry!" she half whispered. "Why, Harry, Harry!"

"Admit that you did!" I exclaimed bitterly, "and let me start from that as a premise. Listen! If you were a man, and loved a woman, and she chucked you when you lost your money, do you think you'd break your neck to make any more success in the world after that? Why should you? Why does a man work? It's for a home, for the sake of power, and mostly for the sake of the game."

"Yes."

"And I could play that game—I can play it now, and win at it, any time I like. I quit it not because I was afraid of the game—it's the easiest thing in the world to make money, if that's all you really want to do. That's all your father wanted, or mine, and it was easy. I can play that game. But why? Ah! if it were to win a quiet home, the woman I loved, independence, usefulness, contentment,—yes! But when all those stakes were out of the game, Helena, I didn't care to play it any more. And that was why you thought I ran away. I did run away—from myself, and you."

She was silent now, and perhaps paler—I could not see.

"—But wherever I have gone, Helena, all over the world, I've found those two people there ahead of me, and I couldn't escape them—myself, and you!"

"Did you think that of me, Harry?" She half whispered once more.

"Yes, I did. And did you think that of me?"

"Yes, I did. But I did not understand."

"No. Like many a woman, you got cause and effect mixed up: and you never troubled yourself to get it straight. Let me tell you, unless two people can come to each other without compromises and without explanations and without reservations, they would better never come at all. I don't want you cheap, you oughtn't to want me cheap. So how can it end any way other than the way it has? If it was my loss of fortune that made you chuck me, I oughtn't ever to give you a second thought, for you wouldn't be worth it. The fact you did, and that I do, hasn't anything to do with it at all."

"No."

"And if you don't think me able and disposed to play a man's part in the world, you oughtn't to care a copper for me, that is plain, isn't it?"

"Yes, quite plain."

"And the fact that you did, and that you do, has nothing to do with it—nothing in the world, has it, Helena?"

"No." She must have been very pale, though I could not tell.

"Therefore, as logic shows us, my dear, and because we never did get our premises straight, and so never will get our conclusions straight, either—we don't belong together and never can come together, can we?"

"No." I could barely hear her whisper.

"No. And that is why, just before you came, I was trying to pull myself together and to advance as best an unhappy devil may, upon Chaos and the Dark! And that's all I see ahead, Helena, without you—Chaos and the Dark."

"It was all you saw that night, in the little boat," she said after a time. "Yet you went?"

"Oh, yes, but that was different."

"Is this all, Harry?" she said, and moved toward the door.

"Yes, my dear; it is all—but all the rest."

Her color must have risen, for I saw dimly that she raised both her hands to her bosom, her throat. Thus the heartless jade stood, her head drooped, unable to meet the piercing gaze of my eagle eye.

There came a faint scratching at the door, a little whimpering whine.

"It is Partial, my dog, come after you," said I bitterly. "He knows you are here. He never has done that way for me. He loves you."

"He knows you are here, and he loves you," said she. "That is why things come and scratch at doors where ruffians live."

I flung open the door. "Partial," said I, "come in; and choose between us."

As to the first part of my speech, the invitation to enter, Partial obeyed with a rush; as to the second, the admonition, he apparently could not obey at all. In his poor dumb brute affliction, lack of human speech, he stood, after saluting us both, alternately and equally, hesitant between us, wagging, whining and gazing, knowing full well somewhat was wrong between us, grieving over us, beseeching us—but certainly not choosing between us.

"Give him time," said I hoarsely. "He loves you more, and is merely polite to me."

"Give him time," said she bitterly. "He loves you more, and you don't deserve it."

But Partial would not choose.

"He wants us both, Helena!" said I at last. "He has wiped out logic, premises, conclusions, cause and effect, horse, cart and all! He wants us both! He wants a quiet home and independence, Helena, and usefulness, and contentment. Ah, my God!"

She reached down and put a hand on his head, but he only looked from one to the other of us, unhappy.

"Don't you love me, Helena?" I asked quietly, after a time. "For the sake of my dog, can you not love me?"

She continued stroking the head of the agonized Partial.... And until, somewhat inarticulately, I had choked or spoken, and had caught her dark hair against my cheek and kissed her hair and stammered in her ear, and turned her face and kissed her eyes and her cheek and her lips many, many times, Partial held his peace and issued no decision.... At least, I did not hear him....

She was sobbing now, her head on my shoulder, as we sat on the locker seat, and Partial's head was on the cushion beside us, and he was silent and overjoyed, and tranquilly happy—seeing perhaps, that a quiet home would in the event be his, and that he was going to live happy ever after. And after I drew Helena's head closer to my face, I kissed her hair.

"Do you love me, Helena?" I asked. "Only the truth now, in God's name!"

"You know I do," she said, and I felt her arms about my neck.

"Have you, always?"

"I think so, yes. It seems always."

"We have been cruel to each other."

"Yes, are cruel now."

"How now?"

"You make me say I love you, and yet——"

"You will marry me—right away, soon, Helena—as I am, poor, ragged, without a cent, only myself?"

"Not here," she smiled.

"At Edouard Manning's, at once, as soon as we get in?"

"It is duress! I am in the power of a ruffian band! Is it fair? Are you sure I know my mind?"

"I am sure only that I know my own! Tell me, what was in that note I carried, addressed to yon varlet Davidson?"

"Sealed orders!"

"And how does that affect me, Helena. Tell me—I know you love me, and you know that all the rest is small, to that; but as to that wedding part of it, Helena—what do you say?"

She hesitated for an instant. "You want me to—come—to come with honor, as you do?"

"Yes. I'll take any risk that means with you."

"Will you take sealed orders, too?"

"Yes."

"Turn on the lights."

I reached the switch, and an instant later a dozen high candle-power bulbs flooded the suite with light. With a little cry of dismay Helena sprang away, and stood at my shaving-glass, arranging her hair. Now and then she turned her face just enough to smile at me a little, her eyes dark, languid, heavy lidded, a faint shadow of blue beneath. And now and then her breast heaved, as though it were a sea late troubled by a storm gone by.

"What will auntie say?" she sighed at last.

"What will you say?" I replied.

"Oh, brute, you shall not know! I must have some manner of revenge against a ruffian who has taken advantage of me while I was in his power!"

"Ah, heartless jade!"

"—So you shall wait until we are ashore. I will give you sealed orders——"

"When?"

"Now. And you shall open them at your friend's house—as soon as we are all settled and straightened after leaving the boat—as soon as——"

"It looks as though it were as soon as you please, not when I please."

"Harry, it is my revenge for the indignities you have heaped on me. Do you think a girl will submit to that meekly—to be browbeaten, abused, endangered as I have been! No, sir—sealed orders or none. I have only owned I loved you. So many girls have been mistaken about things when—when the moon, or a desert island or—or something has bewitched them. But I haven't said I would marry you, have I, ever?"

"No. I don't care about that so much as the other; but I care a very, very great deal about it, too. You, too, are cruel. You are a heartless jade."

"And you have been a cruel and ruthless pirate."

"Tell me now!"

"No." And she evaded me, and gained the door. "I must go. Oh, it's all a ruin now—Auntie'll be furious. And what shall I say?"

"Give her sealed orders, and my love! And when do I get mine?"

"In five minutes."

She was gone.... And after some moments, rapt as I was at her late presence, which still seemed to fill the room like the fragrance, like the fragrance of her hair which still lingered in my senses, I looked about, sighing for that she was gone. Then I noted that our friend Partial had gone with her. "Fie! Partial, after all, you loved her more!" I said to myself.