The Jewels of Nobleman Jack
A COMPLETE NOVELETTE—A ROMANCE OF LOVE AND ADVENTURE IN TROPICAL SEAS
OUT of that pure good nature which is sometimes an element in the character of persons otherwise admirable, Matthew Madison, Jr., had informed his vis-à-vis in the dining-car of the New York-Florida train that he was the son of a manufacturer of well-borers, that he was himself a sort of naturalist and archeologist, and that he was now on his way to Central America on a commission from the Smithsonian. His vis-à-vis had seemed impressed, and had for his part handed to Matthew a large, decorative card, bearing the name of Phineas Boskom, and in the lower left-hand corner:
- Advance Agent Anderson's Arabian Circus and Menagerie Company.
"And your most humble and obliged servant, Mr. Madison," Mr. Boskom had added, out of his own mouth and bounty.
Matthew smiled politely, and inwardly consigned Mr. Boskom and his menagerie to the devil. What had possessed the head waiter to put him at that table?
"And are the Smith Sons animal-dealers, might I ask?" Boskom pursued.
For a moment Matthew failed to understand. Then he said:
"Of a sort."
"I was always partial to animals, myself," said Boskom. He pronounced it "hanimals," and betrayed other signs of a British origin. "But, as I might say, hunprofessionally, I was born and nurtured to 'igher things, sir. My father was of the nobility; but his estates—no matter. After many vicissitudes I landed in a menagerie! Me, born to the purple, brought low to 'unt wild beasts in 'Onduras. 'Sic traskit' as we said at Hoxford. A mad world, sir!"
Mr. Boskom looked more like a retired butler of convivial sympathies than a scion of the nobility. He was short and stout, with a manner at once pompous and cringing. He wore a decorative waistcoat.
The waiter had just brought the coffee. Matthew was on the point of ignoring it and returning to his car, when two persons entered and took a table on the opposite side of the aisle. Both were women—one gray-haired and stately, the other young and—
"By George!" said Matthew to himself.
She had taken the seat diagonally facing Matthew, and her aspect separated him from his ordinary sober senses. She was simply the loveliest, sweetest, most graceful, and most radiant being ever yet born into this unworthy world. She was the girl that Matthew had dreamed of and adored since his infancy—the girl whom it had been ordained, since the stars were young, that he should love and marry. She had violet eyes and red-gold hair, and her name was Mayda, most adorable of all girls' names.
"Mayda dear, your bow is a little on one side," her mother had said, before looking over the menu-card.
What her other name might be didn't matter, because Matthew knew that it would soon be Madison. Mayda Madison—he repeated it to himself. Was ever combination more perfect?
"By George!" was Matthew's only means, at the moment, of expressing these views and emotions. It was his capsule expletive, reserved for high moments.
Meanwhile Boskom had been talking, and was now ending with an interrogative inflection. What had he been saying? Ask an eagle what ground-hogs talk of in their burrows! Matthew stared at him dazedly. The man held a long, black cigar in his hand.
"And if you would honor me by acceptin' of one of these, sir—it's the right brand, believe me—we'll retire to the smoker and be cozy an' comfortable!"
It was like being invited away from the threshold of the Garden of Eden by a toad.
"Thank you, I—I'm going to have another pot of coffee. I won't detain you. Good day!"
"As you please, Mr. Madison, sir!" said Boskom.
He rose and took himself off. He was probably offended, but Matthew didn't care. Should the incomparable one stay long enough, Matthew was prepared to drink all the coffee on the train, though it didn't agree with him as a general thing.
Her eyes had passed over him once; but can angels have cognizance of mortal flesh and blood? Her hand—oh, the white wonder of it—was playing with the salt-cellar. Blessed salt to be so caressed! Oh, the curves and dimples of it, the flexible eloquence of those fingers, touching and withdrawing! It was her left hand, and on the third finger was a superb sapphire ring.
What, by the way, did such a ring, in such a position, portend? Could it be a betrothal-ring? Could his Mayda, whom he had followed through uncounted eons and measureless spaces, be already engaged? If so, then Matthew realized that he was destined to become the murderer of her fiancé.
Meanwhile she and her mother were eating ox-tail soup. Nothing to compare with that profile, as she lifted her perfect chin to meet the soup-spoon at rhythmic intervals, had ever been imagined since the artists of ancient Greece carved medallions on jewels. And that wrist, that forearm, the nape of that neck, with the tiny golden curls on it—and that ear! A man might spend a happy lifetime in no other occupation than that of following the matchless curves of Mayda's ear!
She touched the crushed rose of her mouth with her napkin; then the napkin slipped to the floor. Matthew, in his spring to restore it to her, almost wrenched his table from its metal moorings in the floor of the car. She acknowledged the courtesy with a surprised but courteous inclination of the head. He had been clumsy, but he was happy! In a way, the ice had been broken. On a long train-journey there were always opportunities.
Yes—but what about that sapphire ring?
Matthew was not one of those bony-jawed, button-brained, eagle-eyed young gentlemen who demonstrate collars and underwear in the manufacturers' advertisements. He was merely a nice-looking young chap, well-bred, and, as a rule, gentle. Yet he was now grinding his teeth. Assuredly murder would be done should what the sapphire suggested be true. She must have been forced into the revolting contract, and doubtless she would welcome deliverance. The back of her mother, now that he examined it, indicated a worldly and soulless personage, of the type that always sacrifices an innocent young life to Mammon—to some worn-out debauchee who possessed wealth and social position.
"It shall not be!" Matthew vowed between his grinding teeth.
The waiter wished to know if there was any mo' oddahs.
"Bring me some coffee," said Matthew absently.
The waiter hefted the still full pot.
"Coffee done got cold, sa'. Bring yo' fresh pot, sa'?"
Matthew felt exposed and humiliated.
"No—I mean the check!"
He paid it and rose. Would she look at him? Unfortunately she was just then helping her mother to a breaded cutlet. He had to retire, baffled for the moment, but resolved.
Seated in his own compartment—for privacy, he had secured both lower and upper berths—he took up the illustrated weekly paper that lay on the seat, and opened it upon a story entitled "Love at First Sight." He let the paper fall, and sank into gloomy reverie. Hitherto he had imagined that love at first sight was an illusion; now he knew that, save at first sight, no true love was possible.
Oh, yes, he, like other men, had had his trial trips, his fancies, but never anything like this! He had wasted eight and twenty years of life; and now, when at last he had begun to live, he must come a cropper over a sapphire ring! Ah, must he? He would see about that!
Boskom came waddling down the aisle, and wheeled himself into the seat opposite Matthew, in spite of the latter's hastily interposed screen of "Love at First Sight."
"It just now come to me, Mr. Madison, sir," he said, "that you and me bein' both hinterested in hanimals, and headin' south, we might 'itch teams, as the sayin' is, and—but what might be your destination, if it's a fair question?"
"I am going nowhere in particular that I know of, Mr. Boskom," replied Matthew grimly, all his good nature stripped off him. "Mexico City, or Caracas, or Lima—something like that. Will you excuse me? I'm very busy."
Again he hid himself behind "Love at First Sight." Boskom had a monocle, and be now inserted it in his right eye-socket.
"Quite an itinnery!" he said. "Reminds one of the scenic railway at Coney! Mebbe you'll be stoppin' off at Seattle or 'Onoluly on your way? There, there, no offense, sir—I must 'ave my little joke! Hidle cur'osity was never a foible of mine, sir. We all vallies our privacy at times; I understand puffickly!"
Matthew, holding his eyes strictly to the title of the story, saw himself in vision taking Boskom by the neck and throwing him off the car; but he made no rejoinder.
Boskom couldn't let well alone.
"Brace of nice-lookin' females, they was, an the diner, just as I was comin' out," he remarked pleasantly. "Did you 'appen to notice 'em? The caste of Vere de Vere, as the poet says. Oh, I know the real thing soon as I put my heye on it!"
"Do you occupy a berth in this car?" demanded Matthew, politely but firmly, laying down his paper and fixing his eyes upon the other.
"Me? No, sir; second to rear, lower six, is my station."
"I bought this section, upper and lower, so as to be undisturbed during the journey," Matthew continued. "I sometimes like to put my feet where you are sitting. I feel that way now. Will you kindly go to your place, or get out of mine, and leave me in peace? I assure you the matter is very urgent!"
The stern-visaged demonstrator of underwear might have recognized a kindred spirit in Matthew's aspect at this juncture. Boskom recognized something. It prompted him to get to his feet and perform an obeisance, the ironic dignity of which was somewhat marred by the swinging movement of the train, at that moment rounding a curve.
"I bid you good evening, Mr. Madison, sir," he said. "Courtesy and consideration for a fellow traveler is the mark of a gentleman, and always a specialty of mine. I hope I may find an opportunity to repay the obligation I owe you, which weighs upon me very heavy. Good evening!" And he wheeled himself away.
Matthew, to be as good as his word, put his feet on the newly vacated place, after folding his arms tightly. No doubt that was better than to have put them, violently, on that of which the place had just been freed. He chuckled grimly. It was very seldom that he permitted himself to get angry. It was very seldom—never, till now—that he had been in love. How perverse that emotions so alien should thus pile one upon the other! The poor charlatan had meant no harm; low natures must needs act according to their nature. Matthew was disgusted with himself almost as much as he had been with Boskom. He would apologize the next time he encountered the creature.
Meanwhile he would think no more about it. Let him think of Mayda. What other thought, indeed, could occupy the mind in which she had established herself? They were both on the same train, that was certain; and what more probable than that both were booked for Key West?
Then it was possible that she would take the boat to Jamaica; but it was more likely that she might be going to Havana, for that was the more usual trip. In the latter case, he could modify his route by making Havana a stopping-place on the way to Jamaica, crossing the island to Santiago de Cuba, and so on. For that matter, what was Jamaica, and all the rest of the globe to boot, in comparison with the importance of following Mayda whithersoever her hallowed footsteps might take her?
Here, however, a fresh contingency crept into his brain. It was winter, the season when doddering valetudinarians of great wealth are prone to seek the tropics. Suppose Mayda's unspeakable fiancé had preceded her and her mother to Havana, or wherever else! There he would be, waiting to take her in his loathsome arms as she alighted at the wharf or station. How about that?
Sudden death—there could be no other answer! But Matthew felt that the prospect would be better if he could secure a formal introduction to Mayda before committing the justifiable homicide. Otherwise she might, in the natural agitation of such a moment, fail to catch his idea. For it would be necessary for them to fly at once to the uttermost part of the earth—Algiers, he thought, would be a suitable retreat, or perhaps one of the Marquesas Islands.
An introduction—what more simple, and what more difficult? How could it be contrived? Time pressed; it must be done at breakfast to-morrow morning. He had the night before him in which to consider the means. Ah, love would find a way!
Why not knock against a waiter, causing him to upset a dish of fried eggs over her skirt—not Mayda's, but her mother's—and then ask their pardon for his clumsiness, and present his card? It was crude, but it would serve. Ten to one it would then be discovered that they had friends in common. Why hadn't he thought of so obvious a device at dinner-time?
He raised his head, and beheld Mayda's mother advancing along the aisle, with her daughter behind her. They were almost upon him. He unfolded his arms, snatched bis feet from the seat opposite, and sprang erect. The weekly illustrated paper slid to the floor, with "Love at First Sight" uppermost. Mayda's mother stepped upon it; but Mayda paused, stooped, picked it up, and handed it to him with a courteous smile—while he stood stiff stricken, powerless to move or speak; and before he could fetch his breath, they were gone!
Had she seen the title of the story, and had that been the cause of her smile? It had been an amused smile, he thought; but his sudden up-jumping might have explained that. He had done the same thing at dinner, and she must think him a sort of jack-in-a-box. But she had certainly smiled, and that was better than frowning. And her picking up the paper meant something. Had she wished to ignore him, she would have stepped on it, like her mother.
Apparently her mother did wish to ignore him. All the better! There was a divergence of feeling on the subject between Mayda and her, and Mayda, consequently, must have taken his part. And inasmuch as she could not help being aware that he loved her—loved her at first sight—the outlook was promising. It paved the way for the fried eggs to-morrow.
He lay awake most of the night, watching the moon on her long journey across the sky and thinking of Mayda. The moon dazzled the stars out of sight, as did Mayda other girls. He fell asleep toward dawn, and when he awoke and looked at his watch, it was near ten o'clock. Would breakfast be over? He dressed furiously.
The train slowed up and stopped. He put his head out between his curtains.
"Porter, what station is this?"
"This is Jacksonville, sir."
"Is the dining-car open still?"
But the porter had gone on. By the time Matthew had found and put on his necktie, the train was moving on, too. He hurried to the dining-car. They were just about closing up, but he could still get a cup of coffee and rolls, and the fried eggs. Unfortunately, there was nothing now left to do with the eggs except to eat them. Mayda and her mother must have breakfasted long since, and returned to their car.
Matthew felt the greatest contempt for himself. Still, his scheme would work as well at luncheon.
In order to avoid further mishap, he obeyed the first luncheon call; but instead of going into the dining-room, he established himself in the passage outside, where he submitted amiably to being shoved this way and that, and to having his toes trodden on by incoming and outgoing guests, for the sake of seeing Mayda when she entered and securing a place near her. He saw Boskom—who, however, appeared not to see him—but there was no Mayda.
After an hour and a half of fruitless vigil, he finally went in with the last detachment, telling himself that she must have had her lunch brought to her in her own car. He projected a trip of investigation through the train after finishing his dreary meal.
However, he would have a smoke first. The smoking-compartment was full. As he hesitated at the portiere, he heard Boskom's voice relating the feats of a trained chimpanzee belonging to the Arabian Menagerie. Boskom was sitting with his back toward him, puffing at one of his superior cigars. Then a man nearer to him remarked to another:
"That was a good-looker that got off at Jacksonville this morning, with the elderly party!"
"You mean the yellow-haired girl with dark blue eyes? She was a peach! And did you see the old dude waiting on the platform kiss her? I'd like to have been in on it! It was her father, I suppose."
"No, he was being too civil to the old lady to be that. Those old fellows get a good deal of the fun, after all!"
"You've said it!"
Matthew drew back. No doubt he was white to the lips, had there been any one there to remark him. He staggered blindly through the next car, and dropped into his seat in the third one. This is what comes of oversleeping! Mayda had been kidnaped away from him.
The conductor came along. Matthew stopped him.
"I've changed my plans, and want to go back to Jacksonville. Can you fix it?"
"Jacksonville? Well, next stop is Palm Beach. You can get a train back from there to-morrow morning."
"If you'd let me off, I'd pay for a special engine—anything!"
"Sorry, sir, but I've no jurisdiction. No, I'm afraid Palm Beach 'll be the best you can do. It's a slow train up from there; but you might make Jacksonville to-morrow evening."
The conductor went on, leaving speechless despair behind him: but conductors are perhaps inured to that sort of thing.
To-morrow evening! Of course she wouldn't stop at Jacksonville; nobody stopped there. That senile kidnaper would be hurrying her off down the St. Johns River by boat, or by auto to Cedar Keys, or Tampa—anywhere. Useless to go to Jacksonville at this stage of the game!
The first round of the battle had gone against Matthew; but the battle wasn't over. The world was wide, but beauty like Mayda's couldn't be hidden long. He would find her yet!
For hours he sat pondering darkly. Palm Beach came and went, but he didn't stir. Finally, at the last call for dinner, he rose, and forced himself to eat. By a freak of fate, the majordomo gave him the very chair which Mayda had occupied. Perhaps that was of good augury. He had made up his mind that he might as well discharge his errand at Jamaica, get that off his "itinnery," as Boskom called it, and then direct his further course according to circumstances.
He had come out to hunt rare plants and insects in tropic jungles. He would now concentrate himself on the pursuit of one matchless flower, and sooner or later he would find it—he was sure of that!
II
On the boat at Key West, Matthew again ran across Boskom.
"Mr. Boskom," he said, confronting him, "I wish to ask your pardon for my rudeness on the train. I'd been—something had greatly disturbed me, just then, and I wasn't myself. I hope you'll be good enough to forget it."
Boskom scrutinized Matthew narrowly through his small black eyes, and put out a pudgy hand.
"Don't mention it, Mr. Madison, sir! I forgot it immediately. Have one of these weeds—you'll find 'em right, I believe. We all have our little moods and tempers. Why, I have 'em myself occasionally. Queer old place, Kingston. Ever see it? Stopping there long? Fine drives round the island—great scenery! Queer old folks there, too, but not much ginger left in 'em. Sugar and ginger went out together, eh? Ha, ha! I must 'ave my little joke! By the way, the captain tells me he's got a private jug of real old Jamaica in the chest. I was on my way to sample it. Have a nip?"
Matthew begged to be excused, and Boskom dived below. So that was off his conscience, and they would be in Kingston next morning. His father had given him a letter to his old friend Devereux Seaton, descendant of a gallant line of planters, but with little left of their once great possessions except their pride of race and portentous manners. He would be bored to extinction, no doubt, but he must put up with it for three or four days. There was probably a family, too, of anemic daughters and pithless sons, but it was all in the day's work. After that, he would be at liberty to pursue his quest. He had a notion that Havana would be a good place to start from.
He saw no more of Boskom that night, and felt grateful to the jug of old Jamaica. He was up early in the morning, and saw the romantic loom of the island in the soft tropic sunshine, rising mountainous out of the serene azure.
As the vessel rounded into the harbor, he looked over the rail and beheld a huge white shape moving silently beneath the transparent surface, on the watch for garbage, or for any passenger who might be tempted to take a morning dip. Then the grimy wharf, with its rows of negro women waiting to bring coal and carry out freight; and lastly a tall gentleman in a suit of snow-white linen, with a flowing blue silk tie and a Panama hat, standing up in a sort of gig with a handsome mare attached to it, and gazing up with a hospitable smile at the faces along the steamer rail.
Boskom, who had appeared during the last few minutes, looking somewhat bleared and dry-lipped, and had expressed interest in the white shark as a possible addition to the Arabian Menagerie, observed that the gent with the bushy white hair looked like the real goods. Mr. Boskom's bearing and speech were less punctilious and guarded than during the period previous to the jug.
"Who might be yonder toff in the gig, cap?" he inquired of the captain, who passed at the moment.
"You been 'ere before, and don't know the Hon. Devereux Seaton?" returned the mariner. "'E's first mate to the guv'nor."
"Oh, ah, to be sure!" muttered Boskom, staring more intently. "What was that of 'im bein' robbed of half a million dollars?"
"'Im? His grandad, you mean. Wake up!" retorted the captain, rolling along aft, and shouting orders to the bosun to slack up a bit on the cable.
Boskom grunted and continued to stare. Without waiting to bid farewell to his traveling- companion, Matthew hastened to the companionway and stepped ashore.
He had often heard, at home, of his father's youthful friendship with the Hon. Devereux Seaton, but had never before set eyes on that gentleman. The first impression of him was agreeable. Manifesting a warm heart under a dignified exterior, he welcomed Matthew warmly with a grip of both his bony but still powerful hands, looking him over with a pair of keen blue eyes. His aquiline nose, lean cheeks, and sweeping gray mustache made him the ideal type of old-fashioned aristocracy.
"I can see a bit of your father in you, Matthew—if you'll pardon the familiarity of an old man who might say he knew you before you were born. But I fancy there'll be a good admixture of your mother, too—as should be the case in the offspring of a union as happy as theirs was. You're doubly welcome, sir! Now, how many boxes did you bring? We can bring up one in the gig, and I'll have the rest follow in the dray."
"Only one trunk and this suit-case, Mr. Seaton," replied the young man. "Nothing else, except this letter from father, and his best love and remembrances to you. I'm very glad to be the letter-carrier."
"I'll read it after we're home," said the other, patting the letter between the palms of his hands affectionately, and then putting it in his pocket. "The dear old chap! This is truly a pleasure! You left him well and hearty?"
"Fit as possible, and wishing he could come with me."
"Good, good! Well, it's too bad that the family isn't here at this moment—off on a little visit, before the notification of your coming reached us; but they'll be back before long. You are to make a real stay with us, you know—six months or a year—the longer the better! It's been a long time between drinks, as your President—wasn't it?—said to somebody. So we'll keep bachelors' hall for a while, and—"
"My dear Mr. Seaton!" interposed Matthew, thinking of Mayda in the grasp of hoary villainy. " I'll have to be getting on in a few days, you know. I'm commissioned by the Smithsonian to—"
The old man laughed and waved the Smithsonian aside.
"They can wait. They are perennials, but we live only once. Here comes your box," he added, as a brawny negro girl trotted up with it on her shoulder. "Now we're off! When we get to the pen, I'll show you how we make mint juleps in this island. Your father used to say that Virginia never tasted better!"
Matthew climbed actively into the seat beside his host, who spoke to the mare, and she started at a powerful gait. As they turned off the wharf, a stout man stepped aside and lifted his hat ceremoniously as he caught Matthew's eye. It seemed impossible to be rid of Boskom; but Matthew soon forgot him in the beauty and tropical richness of the scenes through which they were passing, coming so soon after the snows and naked frigidity of New York.
He thought he could have spent a month here very pleasantly, had the circumstances been different, and if Mr. Seaton's family turned out to be so charming as Mr. Seaton himself; but that was not to be expected. He resolved to time his departure so as to avoid them, as soon as he should learn when they were expected to return. Pictures of Mayda, gagged and bound, were ever before his mental vision, and every hour that delayed his flying to her rescue passed grudgingly.
Meanwhile he was thankful that his host so far surpassed his anticipations: and the fervent heat of the morning sun rendered the promise of the mint julep interesting.
"This is Mona, Matthew," said Devereux Seaton, as they drove through a dilapidated gateway and along a broad sweep of drive with palms and giant ferns and bushes bearing crimson trumpet-flowers forming a lovely jungle on either side. "Only a hundred acres of it left now. We once owned a dozen places as good or better than this; but everything piled up on us at once, and beet sugar—they call it sugar, Heaven knows why—gave us the coup de grâce. At least, that was the last blow but one. Well, here we are!"
The mansion, or pen—in Jamaican patois both an estate and the dwelling upon it are referred to as "pen"—disclosed itself amid the billows of verdure that surged and arched and towered around and above it. It fronted north, a structure of massive stone overlaid with cream-colored plaster. Half a dozen wide and lofty windows opened on a marble veranda twenty feet broad, with a low marble rail bearing a mellow polish that showed it to have been leaned and sat upon by rhany Seaton generations. West of this veranda, and impinging upon it, was a square garden of two or three acres, filled with rose-bushes and orange-trees, both in bloom.
The eaves of the roof impended from a height of fifty feet, though the edifice was of two stories only. Jamaican architects planned their rooms for space and loftiness in the grand days when Mona was built. Extension chairs of bamboo and canvas opened their long arms in silent greeting, and two or three low tables uttered silent hospitality.
The two men ascended the steps of the great porch. At the threshold of the house entrance the old man turned with outstretched hands.
"Welcome once again to your father's son—and to yourself, too!" he said with emotion in his tones. "Stretch out your legs in this chair for a few minutes, my dear boy, while I see if your rooms are in order, and look over your father's letter, and get that julep started—we won't forget that!"
"This is really wonderful!" said Matthew to himself as he stretched at luxurious length on the cool canvas, which adapted itself to his figure. "There needs but one addition to make it heaven! Oh, to be here with Mayda!"
There was a soft jingling of crystal and silver within, and the old gentleman reappeared, preceding a sable, smiling nymph who bore a tray with tall goblets, from which proceeded an aroma that voluptuously contended with those of the garden. From the brown-gold liquid which filled the glasses uprose a dark emerald growth of that mystic herb which must first have come to life upon the fragrant slopes of Parnassus. There followed a genial clink, as host and guest touched their beakers together; and presently two long sighs of content, as the youth and the veteran exchanged tranquil smiles across the table.
"It's the drink of immortality!" murmured the youth.
"Yes, it's one of the few good things that progress has left us," rejoined the other. "Woman is another—though I'm told that even women are getting to be not quite all that they were when I was young. But some of the perfect ones are still left, thank God!"
"Amen!" said Matthew devoutly.
"You're not a benedick yet, of course?"
"No; but—"
"I understand—the vision and the hope! What is it Tennyson says? There are other poets now, I believe, but I've never ventured beyond him:
"To love one maiden only, cleave to her
And worship her by years of noble deeds,
Until they won her!
"But I used to think that 'years' was a little too leisurely. 'Months' would be better, and 'weeks' were long enough! Are you in that stage?"
"Days—hours, if you leave it to me!" declared Matthew, with serious fervor.
"Bravo! Well, Matthew, I pledge her with all my heart," said he, lifting his glass again. "And when you're ready for your honeymoon, come and spend it here!"
Matthew could think of no words that would adequately express his feelings, so he stuck his nose in the mint and finished his draft in silence. His father's friend produced cigars of the Vuelta Abajo and drifted into conversation about matters less intimately personal—the old planters of the eighteenth century, the romantic annals of Jamaica—during which the forenoon passed away. Then came lunch, a two-hour interval for the siesta, and a canter of a dozen miles up zigzags of perfect roads made of pounded white limestone to a broad shelf commanding a transcendent view—was there ever such another view? Matthew's heart was torn between delight and exasperation—the delight of his senses, and exasperation because Mayda was not beside him to share it.
Back to Mona, and to an evening of celestial hues and perfumes, moony splendors and darkling mysteries, with a thunderstorm, visible, but too distant to be audible, above those craggy pinnacles in the west. Dinner was announced, and Matthew entered a vast room decorated with portraits of Seatons of the past, kings and queens of sugar, aristocrats wealthy beyond spending and careless of their wealth, who lavished more money in a week than their descendant could command in a twelvemonth, but who had left him a full inheritance of family pride, gentle breeding, and courtly manners. Matthew silently wished that he could find a pretext for presenting the sweet old patrician with a million or so for which he had no present use, and could see him revive the glories of the stately days of yore!
As dessert was brought on, there was a murmuring colloquy in the doorway, and in stalked a tall, erect figure in a scant calico frock, barefooted, and with grizzled, curly wool surmounting her ebony visage, who bent her stiff old knees in a jerky little obeisance to the lord of the manor, and then stood at attention.
Devereux Seaton looked up from his pineapple.
"Ah, granny, you've brought a message from his excellency?"
Granny lifted her hands to her head and unfastened a document pinned there, which, in silence and with another genuflexion, she handed to the master. She was a telegraph-boy, and had brought the telegram from the office five miles away, on foot, as was the Jamaican custom—and on the head always, whether the consignment weighed fifty pounds or one ounce.
"Now I hope the governor isn't going to command my services at this juncture!" remarked the old man as he opened the despatch. The next moment he uttered an exclamation of pleasure. "A cable from Matilda—Mrs. Seaton!" he cried joyfully. "They've modified their plans, and will be back here to-morrow morning. Good news, granny! Here's a shilling for you!" he added, searching the capacious depths of his white linen pocket.
"A hundred years ago it would have been a guinea at least," thought Matthew to himself, observing the little scene with sympathetic smiles.
Then he bestirred himself to consider the news as good as his friend did, but was fain to counterfeit a little. He could not rid himself of the persuasion that the "family" would not rise to the height of personal and social charm that he had found in the head of the house. The breed must be running out—probably dwindling to skin and bones and prominent teeth. It always did, for the white race cannot hold its own in a tropical island.
Matthew must remain long enough to meet them, of course, but then he must contrive to receive information which would require his immediate departure. Perhaps he might concoct a plot with granny to fetch him a cablegram to that effect. He had had a lovely impression of Mona and its environs; he would not suffer it to be spoiled by uncongenial companionships. By hook or by crook he must get away, and take up his sacred mission of following around the world the fair saint whom he worshiped.
Mr. Seaton did not notice his guest's preoccupation, and the evening passed off well enough. About ten o'clock the old gentleman confessed that he was wont to retire betimes, and Matthew promptly enacted the part of the weary traveler scarce able to keep his eyes open. But after the great house had become quiet and dark, he stole down the ancient carved mahogany stairway in his pajamas, and let himself out on the marble veranda, softly illumined by the westering moon, and redolent with the rich odors from the garden.
It was a night worthy of Juliet and Romeo. In the east, the Southern Cross was lifting above the horizon. A white owl swept by on soundless wings, uttering a ghostly cry. Enormous fireflies flitted to and fro above the bushes, spangling them with light. For a long hour the love-lorn youth paced to and fro. It seemed impossible—incredible—that amid such an environment the girl who was the incarnation of all beauty should not appear!
Nevertheless Matthew continued to be the sole tenant of the veranda; and after finishing two more of Mr. Seaton's Vuelta Abajos, he gave up the hope of a miracle, and went to bed.
He dreamed that granny placed him on her head, went with enormous strides over sea and land, and set him down at last, with one of her jerky genuflexions, face to face with—Boskom! This consummation was so far from what he had expected that it woke him up, and he dressed and went down to breakfast.
While the Hon. Deverenx Seaton was prattling gaily of delightful projects for entertaining his guest during the weeks to come, the young man, paying perfunctory attention to his host's discourse, was asking himself whether the obstacles that he had imagined between himself and Mayda really had any substantial foundation. A sapphire ring—was that conclusive evidence of a betrothal? Certainly not! Girls wear rings for a score of reasons, or for no reason at all. The smoking-room story about the old man receiving her at the railway-station? Haven't old men a prescriptive license to kiss girls, even as the storyteller had intimated? Was the mother a mercenary tyrant? What ground had he for supposing so? All he knew of her was her back, and how was a middle-aged lady's back to convey trustworthy intelligence as to the qualities of her soul?
Positively, now that Matthew marshaled the circumstances before him in the light of a Jamaica morning and of cool reason, there was nothing in them to cause anxiety, except that he had lost the trail, and that he didn't know the surname of her whom he sought. But she couldn't fail to be at some winter retreat or another. The number of these might be large, but it was not infinite, and what he had to do was to visit them all!
The trip to the wharf was to be made in the old family carriage, and there would be room enough in it for Matthew along with the rest; but after glancing at a mental picture of himself squeezed in beside the old gentleman and an anemic son, and looking into the faces of Matilda and a bony daughter with prominent teeth, he discovered that he had some important correspondence to attend to, and that the most convenient hour for it would be precisely while Mr. Seaton was absent on this little journey.
The latter rather reluctantly acceded to this arrangement, and Matthew had the transient satisfaction of seeing his host trundle off in the ponderous vehicle, leaving him to engross the name of Mayda on his letter-paper, and to make vain attempts to draw her indescribable profile. Oh, the delicate tip of that nose! Oh, the ravishing little curve of that upper lip! Oh, the imperial sweep of that eyelid! Raphael himself might throw down his pencil in despair before such a model.
He longed to be off—to take the wings of the morning and fly away like a bird. He got up from his writing-table and went out on the veranda, but the beauty of nature was beautiful no longer, and the fragrance of the garden was faint. He tramped to and fro impatiently, and his senses were so dulled by his internal turmoil that presently he found himself caught unawares. The carriage was actually at the entrance, and the people were getting out!
He adjusted himself promptly, and had ready a complacent mask with which to undergo the necessary introductions. There were two ladies; the son didn't seem to be there. To be sure, there might be no son, for aught he knew to the contrary. He had merely taken one for granted, as he had taken several other things; but there was no question about the mother and daughter.
After all, a son would have been preferable; for what if the young lady were to prove to be sentimental, or a "beautiful soul," or a musician, or devoted to uplift—and what more likely? He resolved, in the few instants while they were looking on the floor of the carriage for something one of them thought she had dropped, that he would avoid the delay and bother of conspiring with granny about the forged cablegram, and would boldly assert, right off, that the message had but just now been received which would compel him—oh, so reluctantly!—to be off to-morrow.
Both the ladies were veiled. The dear old master of the house, eager to perform his little ceremony, was undulating on tiptoe, waving his arms with gestures of presentation, and smiling with kindly human impulses. Matthew stood just within the deep shadow cast by the veranda, prepared to play his part. One of the ladies, her foot on the step, turned back to give some instructions to the driver; the other advanced, convoyed by the husband—or the father, as it might turn out.
"Matthew—Mr. Madison—I take great pleasure in presenting you to my daughter. Let me assist you in removing your veil, my dear!"
"Father's been telling us so much about you that I feel as if I knew you already," said a voice of marvelous richness and sweetness; and the veil was twisted aside by a graceful sweep of hand and wrist. As her eyes met his, she broke into an amused laugh. "Why, so we are next thing to knowing each other, aren't we?"
"By George!" said Matthew.
Whether he were in heaven or on earth, in the flesh or in the spirit, he could not have ventured to affirm; but he was shaking hands with Mayda!
III
Mrs. Seaton may have been up-stairs unpacking. Mr. Seaton may have been down in the stables, giving directions for the long drive up the mountain to the barracks on the summit, which they were going to take the next day. It didn't matter! The moonlight was stealing over the garden of roses and orange-blossoms, and Matthew and Mayda were pacing slowly, side by side, up one enchanted path and down another, and looking, to an outsider, very much like a pair of lovers.
"Oh, that was Uncle Charles—mother's brother—that met us at Jacksonville. We were to have spent a week with them; but they'd had news that their married daughter was ill in New Orleans, and aunt was going to see her, so we decided to come right on home. How funny, the way things turn out! Father has often spoken of your father, but we didn't know anything about Mr. Matthew Madison, Jr., till to-day."
"Nor I of you, or of Jamaica—and I never imagined what you'd be like!"
"You like our little old island, don't you? I haven't traveled very much, but I've never seen anything else so lovely."
Matthew plucked a cluster of orange-blossoms at the corner of the path, and turned to present them to her; looking her in the eyes.
"Nor I!" said he, giving his voice an intonation designed to convey the fact that it was not only of the island that he was speaking.
She raised the white flowers to her bewitching nose for a moment.
"They're sweet, aren't they? Almost too sweet, don't you think? But orange-blossoms aren't the rarity with us that they are with you in the North. Thank you just the same!"
The rejoinder didn't altogether please Matthew. It wasn't so much the words, but he fancied there was a trace of coolness in the tone. He was thrilling with love. It had been growing upon him throughout the day; she was so far more adorable than he had thought, impossible as that might seem.
She was a sumptuous young princess, with full shoulders and deep bosom, moving with a leisurely yet elastic gait, full of latent power, as if restraining an impulse to leap and run. Her costume was a very simple one—a chiffon of violet hue. He had admired it at dinner; her softly rounded arms were visible through it, and the stately setting of her neck on her shoulders. She wore no jewelry, except the sapphire ring—that problematic ring, with its possibility of terrible significance! Now that he knew the narrow circumstances in which this once affluent family was constrained to live, the presence of an ornament so costly on Mayda's finger was more than ever difficult to explain, save on the one intolerable hypothesis.
And yet Mayda didn't seem to him like an engaged girl. There was an emanation from her of untamed virginity, of maiden freedom. He could not believe that the innocent pride of those sweet lips had ever felt the pressure of a lover's. For all her poise, there was a delicious wildness about her.
Several times he had tried to screw up his courage to the point of asking her about the ring. Had he been an unimpassioned and indifferent acquaintance—what a preposterous supposition that was!—he could have done it naturally and easily enough; but how shall a man control the tremor of his voice and subdue the fire in his eyes in asking a question upon the reply to which hangs his every hope of happiness? It were much easier to face a firing-squad with steady gaze and firm lips. He longed and yet dreaded that she would introduce the subject herself.
From the first, she had been delightfully liberal and unconstrained with him, almost as if he had been some near relative, seen for the first time, but with whom formal ceremony might be disregarded. Well, her father and his had been as brothers in the old time; so he and Mayda might regard themselves as cousins by right of paternal affection.
He had striven his best to imitate her easy bearing; but the effort was telling on him. No doubt something had broken bounds when he tendered her the orange-flowers, and she had instantly perceived and parried it.
However, they continued their perambulation. The paths between the overhanging boughs and crowding bushes were narrow, and his shoulder would occasionally touch hers. She didn't seem to avoid these slight contacts, exactly, but she certainly didn't seek them.
Suddenly she looked round at him with a little laugh.
"By the way, I never apologized to you for waking you up out of your nap."
"What can you mean?" he demanded in frank surprise.
"Don't you remember? When I picked up your paper, you'd been reading 'Love at First Sight'—I'd been reading it myself, and don't blame you for falling asleep over it—and I startled you so that you jumped as if I'd run a hatpin into you!"
"Oh, I wasn't asleep. That wasn't a nap; you might call it a dream, though!"
"A dream? I hope it was a nice one—or, rather, since I disturbed it, I hope it wasn't!"
Matthew lost his grip on the reins for a moment.
"It was a dream of love at first sight—not of the story, though!"
"Do you think it a dream? I've always believed that love at first sight is a reality."
"So it is a reality—though I never used to think so!"
This was plain enough speaking; but it seemed to reach her no more than if she had been on another plane of existence. His agitation found no echo in her. They had come to a bench at the western end of the garden. The dark mass of Kingston, with lights twinkling here and there, lay at a few miles' distance, and beyond that, the sea and the pinnacled rocks.
"I always like to sit here a few minutes before going in," she remarked, suiting the action to the word. "Do you mind? People don't catch cold here. It's a nicer place to dream in than the seat in a railway-car. If you'd like to try it, I'll go in and leave you to yourself."
Was this a challenge? His eyes questioned hers; but hers met his pointblank, and the smile that curved her lips had a satirical flavor. She had resented his offer to be sentimental with a betrothed girl, and was checking him betimes—that was Matthew's interpretation. He bit his lip and sat down.
"I like it here," was all he allowed himself to say.
"I suppose father has told you the legend of Nobleman Jack?" she resumed in a perfectly amicable tone, as of a lovely schoolmistress taking a recalcitrant pupil back into favor upon his showing symptoms of repentance.
For some reason, she appeared to imagine that he and Devereux Seaton had told each other every detail of their past lives. This was the second time she had given such an intimation; he wondered what the dear old gentleman had told her! Could Matthew have said anything startling without knowing it, or that had been open to misinterpretation?
"Nobleman Jack? No, I never heard of him. What a romantic name!"
"Isn't it? And the legend fits him. The thing happened about the beginning of the last century. It was over the wall, right here where we're sitting, that he's said to have escaped. He had a horse waiting below, you see."
"What was he escaping from?"
"Why, from us—that is, the 'us' of a hundred years ago. Only we knew nothing about it till next morning, and then it was too late."
"Was he eloping with the heiress?"
"No; none of our heiresses have ever done anything of that kind. When we loved a man that loved us, we were always married here in the house, in the old-fashioned style. We are very old-fashioned in Jamaica."
She said this, Matthew fancied, with a certain emphasis, as much as to imply that a betrothal promise, once given, was final in the Seaton code. He felt a trifle restive under such watchful pressure.
"I'm interrupting the legend, I'm afraid."
"No, but I seemed to be telling it backward. It begins with a very distinguished personage, the Baron Johannes Lassalles de Ferronovo, who turned up here in the course of his travels around the world. He was superb to look at, a man of princely bearing and delightful conversation. As for his wealth, he had a dinner-dress of black silk velvet and small-clothes, and when he first entered the dining-saloon he appeared to be totally without ornaments or decorations; but when the light from the chandelier struck him, lo and behold, his whole vest, from chin to waist, was buttoned up with great diamonds! It was like a flash of lightning in a dark night."
"By George!" murmured Matthew.
"Probably that led the conversation to the subject of precious stones, and the baron, who seemed to consider his vest-buttons a trifling matter, said that jewels and stones were a fad of his, and that the collection belonging to his family, to which he had added a great deal, was said to be the finest in Europe, outside of those of royalty. Of course, he had brought with him only a few trifles; but he put his hand in his vest pocket and brought out an emerald worth several thousand pounds, which he said he carried as a luck-penny. Then he remembered a ruby that he thought might be in his dressing-case. A servant was sent up-stairs for the case; and sure enough, after poking around in it for a while, out came the ruby, which was such a wonderful stone that if it had been anybody but the baron, one would have said it must be imitation. He passed these costly treasures around the table as if they'd been ordinary pebbles from the beach, or he an Aladdin who could order his jinn to fetch him buckets full of them, any time. Mustn't it have been exciting?"
"Great!" said Matthew.
Her eyes, as she gave herself to the story, were too unendurably beautiful to meet, and he kept his directed toward the gigantic ceiba-tree that rose outside the garden and spread out its great island of darksome foliage high aloft. Only by fits and starts did he permit himself a side glance at that azure splendor, from which the moon drew sparkles.
"Well, you see, we had imagined, up to this time, that the Seaton jewels were a pretty fine collection. The pride, or vanity, of my great-great-grandfather was aroused; so by and by he ordered the butler to bring down the famous silver box."
"The silver box? What was that?"
"Oh, it was an heirloom from China, or India, or some such place, which had been in the family for generations. It was elaborately carved all over with dragons and goblins and lotus-flowers and mystical emblems; and on top of the cover, for a knob to take hold of, was a demon squatting with his legs folded in front of him, and an oriental leer on his face. I've heard father describe it a thousand times."
"Do you mean that it's been lost?"
"Well, I'm going to tell you." Here, however, she broke off. "I've spoiled the story!" she said.
"Why, you've only begun it!"
"Yes, but you've already guessed that the Baron Johannes Lassalles de Ferronovo was Nobleman Jack, and that he stole our jewels."
"Oh, not at all! I was following you step by step, and you were telling it divinely. Please go on!"
She laughed.
"You're very nice and polite about it, but some of us Seatons have second sight, or the sixth sense, or whatever it is, and know what people are thinking before they say it."
"Can you tell what I'm thinking? I should fancy it would be easy!" he broke out.
But she tranquilly avoided the point.
"At any rate, it's a pity that our ancestor didn't have his occult faculty about him at that juncture, for it would have saved us at least a hundred thousand pounds' worth of lovely jewels, which would have been useful, after the slaves were emancipated and sugar went down, in better ways than wearing them. The baron, after carefully examining them—the box was full of them—and praising them in a very courteous, superior, patronizing manner, thanked great-great-grandfather, and began talking about something else; and that night he took them, box and all, off the table beside the bed in which our poor deluded ancestor and his wife were sleeping. To avoid disturbing his hosts by unlocking the front door, he let himself out of his bedroom window into the garden, and so over this wall, where his confederates had horses ready, and down to a boat waiting for them outside the harbor. By the time we woke up, they were out of sight below the horizon."
"But was nothing heard of the rascal afterward?"
"Yes; Nobleman Jack was a famous pirate and adventurer of those days—one of the last of the old buccaneers—and there were a hundred anecdotes about him. The last story was that he was in a sea-fight somewhere off the coast of Honduras, and his crew was slaughtered and his ship sunk; but his body was never found. Of course it was said that he had escaped with our box to a little island in that neighborhood, where he was in the habit of going: but the only sure thing is that we never got our jewels back."
"A real old-fashioned treasure story!" muttered Matthew. His eyes were resting absently upon the dense mass of foliage below the wall. Suddenly he looked more intently.
"Are there any large wild animals on this island?" he inquired.
"No—except the iguanas, which are about four feet long, but quite harmless. Did you see anything?"
"I fancied something moved down there, but probably I was mistaken."
"Iguanas never come down here. They keep in the wild places up the mountain."
They looked at each other.
"Shall we go in?" she asked.
Her left hand rested on the back of the bench, and the moonlight flashed on the sapphire ring.
"That's a beautiful ring you have," he remarked, as if he noticed it for the first time. "Is it a survivor of the silver box?"
"No, it's not an heirloom," she replied carelessly. "I had it from a friend." He waited with his heart in his mouth. Would she say anything more? "It's—an engagement ring," she added, after a moment's hesitation.
She got up and moved toward the house, and he followed her with leaden steps.
IV
The ride up to the barracks having been arranged for the day following, Matthew made up his mind, that night, to depart from the island on the morning after that. All was lost, for him, and nothing could be gained by staying longer. He had given up his resolve to commit homicide; it wouldn't meet the conditions of the case. Evidently Mayda was betrothed to a man she loved, and they were to be married, after the Seaton custom, in that house. The sooner Matthew was out of it the better.
It seemed to young Madison that fate was pursuing him with an animosity peculiarly and needlessly virulent. Why couldn't he have been spared meeting Mayda? Why couldn't he have taken an earlier or a later train? Why did his father entrust him with the letter to Seaton? Why must he have lingered in that garden and paced that veranda and yearned to have Mayda beside him, only to have his yearning gratified to his own torture and despair? Why, in short, was he doomed to fall in love with the promised bride of another? Why was he born, since his life must be passed in unavailing misery?
Mr. Seaton had placed a fresh box of the Vuelta Abajos on his guest's dressing-table, and it had been considerably depleted by the time Matthew fell into the sleep of exhaustion. He woke in ample time for breakfast, regretting that he couldn't sleep forever. But when he saw Mayda at the breakfast-table, pouring the clear milk of green coconuts into goblets, she was more irresistible than ever, not to mention the fact that she was attired in her riding costume, which was like pouring oil on poor Matthew's fire. No nymph of ancient Greece was ever so graceful!
"If it's agreeable to you, Matthew," Mr. Seaton said, "you and Mayda will go on horseback, while my wife and I occupy the light gig. The family carriage is heavy for the long pull up the mountain."
"But perhaps Matthew would prefer driving with me in the gig?" Mrs. Seaton put in.
Matthew, since becoming acquainted with this lady, had been a prey to remorse for having so misjudged her on the train. He saw now that even her back revealed none of the rapacious traits with which he had credited her. She was a motherly, amiable old lady, and here was an opportunity graciously held forth to Matthew to make atonement; but the drive up the mountain would be hours long, and though to ride beside Mayda through that romantic scenery would but turn the spear in his wound, he lacked strength to deny himself the delicious agony. He said that he needed exercise, and would like to ride.
"Now I'll peel an orange for you, Jamaica style," said Mayda, after she had prepared a glass of coconut juice for him.
"This is an art indigenous to our island," said her father. "What was it Jeff said, Mayda, when you first did it for him?"
"Oh, Jeff, of course, would say anything," replied Mayda, with a blush.
"I remember it, word for word," said Mrs. Seaton, smiling over her alligator pear. "He said, 'If we ever get poor, you and I will tour the States, and you shall peel oranges for the millionaires at a hundred dollars an orange—one dollar for the orange and ninety-nine dollars for seeing you peel it.' He is wonderfully clever!"
"So Jeff is the supremely lucky man, is he?" growled Matthew inwardly. "Jeff what, I wonder?"
"You would have to take a case of our oranges along with you," commented Devereux Seaton, by way of giving Matthew useful information, "because the Jamaica orange is the only variety whose inner skin is tough and elastic enough not to break while you are squeezing the juice of it into your mouth through t£e little aperture cut in the side. They grow wild here, and we hold the flavor to be incomparable."
Meantime Mayda, wielding a sharp silver knife with those wonderful, supple fingers, had removed all the outer yellow rind, and handed the fruit to Matthew clothed only in its soft white blanket.
"You'll confess that you never sucked so sweet an orange in your life," said her father. "That's what Jeff said!"
Matthew was tempted to ask whether Jeff had ever been in Jericho, being strongly moved to promote his being sent there, whether or no; but he refrained. He absorbed the orange. It was certainly very sweet, but the fingers that had peeled it were sweeter; and they had peeled oranges—dozens of oranges, probably—for Jeff! That bitter reflection mingled with the delicate flavor, and turned it into gall.
Matthew was unable to play his part in the kindly amenities of the breakfast-table. He nibbled and sipped and ate little, and excused himself early to go up to his room and put on his riding-breeches. When he came down, the horses were at the door, Mayda was mounted, and Mrs. Seaton was in the gig. The master of the house was waiting courteously till Matthew should have thrown himself into his saddle, and then the party proceeded.
The road on both sides was high-embowered with tropic verdure, and through the green arcade Matthew and Mayda rode in advance of the gig. They skirted precipitous declivities, sheer above and headlong below; they entered level stretches meet for a gallop; they paused at high coigns of vantage to gaze out at the widening views and await the coming of the gig. The main road was barely wide enough for two vehicles to pass.
Up and up! The air lost its tropic quality and became lighter, keener, purer. Overhead, Matthew had noticed for some time past a white cumulus cloud resting against the mountainside. All at once the riders passed into it, and minute atoms of moisture glistened on their tunics and riding-breeches. Pressing on, they presently emerged from the cloud into clear air, under a sky of darker blue.
"Above the clouds with you!" exclaimed Matthew. "Oh, to go on forever!"
It was her whim to take a more practical view.
"We're not very far from the barracks now," said she, "and from what they say I judge that living above the clouds isn't very comfortable. The men consider it a great favor to be allowed a day off once a month, and they spend it in walking down to the city and back—about twenty miles. I prefer our rose-garden down at Mona."
"Is it never cold there?" inquired Matthew sardonically.
"We're getting too far beyond our party," was her rejoinder. "Oh, I see them, just rounding the turn below there. Steady, Saladin!" Saladin was her horse, a half Arabian, sensitive and spirited. "The darling! See how he dances and prances, after all that climb, with me on his back, too! He knows I'll give him a lump of sugar when we get there."
She caressed his glistening neck and cooed to him lovingly. Matthew suppressed a groan.
"Come on!" said Mayda.
The road, continually curving out of sight before them, suddenly passed out of the arcade of foliage into a naked tract of the upper mountain, with a tremendous declivity on the left—a rocky wall, receding hardly ten degrees from the vertical, and plunging a thousand feet at a breath. The only protection for travelers was a stone parapet about a foot in height along the margin of the road, whitewashed for visibility at night.
"It's a death-trap," muttered Matthew, glancing down the abyss.
Mayda, riding with a free rein, had forged several yards ahead of him, and was now crossing the crest of a little rise, which took a dip beyond. She was silhouetted there for a moment, and then sank out of sight. He touched his mount with the whip, and followed.
Six soldiers, in short scarlet jackets and white trousers, had been sitting side by side on the parapet: they were out on a day's leave. As the horsewoman came upon them, they jumped to their feet as one man and saluted, probably mistaking her for the wife of one of the officers. Saladin rose on his hind legs.
Mayda had been a good rider since her childhood, and there would have been no danger except for the precipice—just as there would be none in a cannon-ball, but for the powder behind it. She rose in her stirrups and leaned against the horse's neck, to weight him down. He had his back to the parapet. Unluckily the soldiers, anxious to help, came running forward, causing Saladin fresh alarm. He stood up straighter than ever, and staggered on his hind feet, which were now but a few inches from the parapet. Mayda would have flung herself from the saddle, but there was not space to avoid the drop to death into the abyss.
Matthew, coming at full speed, saw that the rush of his horse might cause Saladin to take the one fatal step backward. At the last moment, therefore, he swerved violently to the right, at the same time leaping to the ground, and with another bound he was beside Saladin. His thought was to drag the girl from the saddle into his arms. They might both go over the brink, but it seemed the only chance.
Mayda, however, had kept her self-control, and she acted instantaneously upon another idea. Saladin's head was too high aloft for Matthew to catch him by the bit; but she flung the reins deftly over the animal's head, so that they hung down in front of him. Matthew snatched at the loop, fastened his grip upon it, and, shortening his hold, pulled the horse downward and inward. By this time Saladin was incapable of taking a reasonable view of the predicament; and as Mayda, improving her opportunity, sprang safely to her left to the ground, the horse wheeled furiously in the other direction on his hind feet, swinging Matthew, still hanging to the bit, clear over the verge of the parapet.
The episode would probably have ended with horse and man taking the drop to the bottom of the cliff, but for the intervention of one of the men in scarlet jackets—a tall Cornishman, all bone and muscle from top to toe. He had coolly kept track of the proceedings from the start, and now, as Matthew's body swung out on an arc, he reached out over the gulf and grabbed him by the legs below the knees, Matthew relinquishing his grasp on the bit at the same instant.
The Cornishman, with his burden in his arms, teetered for a moment, and might have fallen after all, had not one of his companions caught his landward hand, so that down he went on his back on the road, with Matthew on top of him, and nobody hurt. Saladin, trembling and sweating, stood alongside, his head lowered to the ground.
"A bit of a good job, sir, all round, take it by long and large," remarked the Cornish giant, picking himself up as soon as Matthew had scrambled off him, and brushing the dust from his jacket. "'Tis better here than below, as the man said when the rhinoceros treed 'im. Is all right with ye, miss, askin' yer pardon?"
Mayda's red roses, now that all was over, had given place to white. She looked the soldier in the face as he addressed her, and then stepped up to him, put her arms around his neck, and kissed him on the mouth. He uttered a roar of amazement, and, taking a pace to the rear, stumbled over the back of one of the squad, who was stooping just then to pick up Matthew's hat. The two men rolled together in the road, guffawing and cuffing each other, while Mayda tottered over to the parapet, sat down on it, and hid her face in her hands. It had all passed in a minute, and now the gig rolled serenely up with Mr. and Mrs. Seaton.
"I was just saying to Matilda that I hoped you wouldn't miss this view. It's about the finest on the road," said Mr. Seaton placidly, bringing the gig to a halt. Mrs. Seaton was more observant.
"What's the matter, Mayda? Oh, has anything happened?"
After the explanations and exclamations were over—Matthew told the tale as conservatively as possible—one of the soldiers, who had been paying little attentions to Saladin, ventured the statement that the animal would be the better for a currycomb, and said that he himself, having been an ostler in his previous existence, was willing to take him up to the barracks, a mile farther on, and act as his valet.
"A nice bit o' 'orseflesh, that," he remarked. "'Twould be a pity if he took a chill."
The colonel in command of the regiment was a friend of the Seatons, and neither Mayda nor Saladin was in condition for the trip back to Mona at present, so it was decided to adopt the ex-ostler's suggestion. The Cornishman, with the rest of the squad, had already retreated down the road. Mayda took her father's place in the gig with her mother, and the three men, leading Saladin, following them on foot to the station.
While the ex-ostler was giving Seaton a livelier account of the late occurrence than Matthew's modesty, or his prudence, had allowed him to do in Mrs. Seaton's hearing, the young man had leisure to think over Mayda's unexpected behavior to the Cornishman. Matthew had, perhaps, saved Mayda's life; the Cornishman had undoubtedly saved Matthew's; yet Mayda's kiss had been bestowed, not on Matthew, but on the Cornishman! What might be the esoteric meaning of that fact?
The twenty minutes or more consumed in walking up the hill did not prove time enough for the solution of this riddle. It was unthinkable that a betrothed girl, who had already rebuffed certain significant manifestations on his part, should value his life more than her own. It was more conceivable, though still unlikely, that she had been so confused by agitation that she didn't realize what she was doing.
A third hypothesis was that she had been moved by a passion of gratitude for the rescue of Saladin from peril; but wasn't a kiss—such a kiss!—a grotesquely disproportionate reward for such a service? To Matthew, who would have bartered his life in exchange for it, it seemed so; but the emotions and impulses of girls are notoriously a mystery.
Meanwhile Mayda's father, with tears in his kind old eyes, had thrown an arm across Matthew's shoulders, and was thanking him for the inestimable service he had rendered.
"You can understand, dear fellow, that in the circumstances I can't speak out what is in the bottom of my heart, but if any return for such a deed were possible, you know I'd make it! I'd better say no more—and you must forgive me for so much."
This sounded a little as if Mayda's father would have preferred Matthew for a son-in-law to Jeff, but was too conscientious to advocate breaking a pledge given, and too tender a parent to urge Mayda to reconsider it against her will. Verily, things were going from bad to worse!
"We mustn't trifle with destiny, of course," the young man said. "By the way, who is Jeff?"
He had intended to be too proud to ask that question, but such intentions require careful watching to preserve their integrity.
"Jeff? Oh, he's an old friend—an old young one, like yourself. He's a son of Washington Morton, you know, the lumber man—owns two or three hundred thousand acres in Nova Scotia. Why, he and your father—I've had them both at my house here, thirty years ago. I thought you and Jeff would know each other."
"You don't mean Jack Morton, do you?" demanded Matthew, in a voice suddenly turned husky, and turning to the old man with a startled stare.
"No—Jefferson is the only name we know him by—or Jeff, for short."
Matthew smote his thigh with his clenched fist.
"I see! Very stupid of me! Jack Morton—or Jeff—was my chum in college. A small chap, not over five feet six, but a capital gymnast, and a great boating man. We nicknamed him Lumberjack Morton on account of his father's business, and it got abbreviated to Jack. I'd almost forgotten what his real name was. I haven't seen him for some years. He's a member of the Yacht Club, isn't he? Well, Mr. Seaton, if it had to be somebody, it couldn't be a better fellow than Jack—or Jeff!"
He uttered these words with a manly firmness and candor. Of all men alive, Jack Morton was the one whom he would least think of trying to supplant; so now, indeed, the last hope was gone. Mayda and Jack—kismet!
"Yes, yes—capital fellow," Mr. Seaton agreed. "I believe he's cruising somewhere in these waters in his yacht, the Capable Kate. Might drop in on us any day."
Oh, he might, might he? Decidedly, then, to-morrow should witness Matthew's departure. He knew when he had had enough!
They were now at the gate of the barracks, and the next two hours, so far as Matthew was concerned, were a jumble of meaningless ceremonies, social amenities, an officers' mess, military anecdotes, and cigars and hot Scotch. Mayda was always before his eyes, but she seemed like a figure at a vast distance, in a world inaccessible. He avoided speaking to her.
When the story of the accident was related, and Matthew's conduct was glowingly extolled by Mr. Seaton, Mayda sat silent, with downcast eyes. Matthew's replies to courteous comments and queries were so curt and cold as to be almost boorish; but this was good-naturedly ascribed to his modesty.
Word came from the stables that Saladin was still very nervous, and would be the better for a night at the barracks. Every one of the officers, young and old, immediately proffered Mayda a mount, but she politely but coldly declined all their offers. The colonel then proposed driving her down himself in his runabout; and to this she consented.
"I don't think I shall ever feel inclined to ride again," she remarked.
"Oh, it's shaken you up a bit, but you'll soon get over it," said the colonel kindly.
"I don't think I want to get over it," she replied, but in a tone so low that perhaps no one but Matthew heard it.
The saying perplexed him. He knew she had courage a plenty, but possibly she didn't wish to run any more risks with Jeff's fiancée. Well, it was none of his business!
She and the colonel, in the runabout, led the way down the mountain, Matthew riding beside the gig containing Mr. and Mrs. Seaton. He took the opportunity to announce the necessity of his leaving Jamaica next day. Remonstrances were vain; he was adamant.
"But you'll be coming back soon," said Mrs. Seaton affectionately. "If Jeff can manage it, we hope to have his wedding at Mona next month. You must try to be there!"
Matthew's smile was like that of the Spartan boy when the wild beast was devouring his entrails. He to be present at Mayda's wedding—as best man, perhaps!
On pretense of packing and letter-writing, he spent the afternoon in his room. He feared to be alone with Mayda. The barrier between them seemed to be yielding; he must protect her, if necessary, against herself.
When the dinner-gong sounded, he ran quickly down the great mahogany staircase. Mayda stepped out from behind the newel-post at the foot. She was tremulous, and her voice was scarcely audible.
"May I speak to you? Since you're going—and this is the end—I wanted to be sure you understood. I can't tell why I behaved as I did. It was too much—how could I be myself? Oh, I have seen—I have known—and the only right thing is to part; but I needed to feel sure that you know, and understand. It would be harder if we didn't know. And this is the end!"
He took her hand; but for a moment only could he endure to look in her face. He bent over her hand and kissed it; it was the hand that wore the sapphire ring. Those soft, silken, cold fingers! They gripped his hard for a moment; then she snatched them away and turned from him with a sob.
"Steady!" he said.
He passed before her slowly and laid his hand on the latch of the dining-room door. After a few moments he opened it, and they went in.
V
Matthew's bunk in the Señorita Felicidad was much unlike the cool luxury of the stately bed at Mona which had been his two nights before.
The Señorita was a schooner of much experience and few attractions. Had she been low, black, with raking masts and a skull-and-crossbones flag, she might almost, so far as age went, have been Nobleman Jack's property; but in fact she was built with an eye, not to crime and gold, but to sugar and bananas and the like virtuous cargoes. She was tubby and plodding. Yet, broad of beam though she was, her cabin accommodations were suffocating, and Matthew would have preferred making the trip on deck, had the cases, bales, sacks, barrels, and bundles accumulated there afforded room to stretch out.
The crew consisted of a turbaned oriental, three negroes, and a Chinaman—an ape-like and sinister creature. The captain was a squat-built British islander; and there was one passenger besides Matthew—Mr. Phineas Boskom!
Matthew had not picked out the Señorita Felicidad for her beauty and comforts, but because at the juncture she had been the only vessel bound in his direction; and anything was better than passing another day in the neighborhood of the girl he worshiped. Of such paradoxical elements is man made!
After that interview at the foot of the staircase, two days ago, he had assumed a false gaiety at table, drank more wine than was his habit, and entertained Seaton and his wife with drolleries. Did he understand, Mayda had asked him? Yes, he understood that, but for Jeff, earth might have been Eden. The breath of death on the mountain-top had blown away pretenses. Mayda had lifted her veil, and Matthew would not make her struggle harder; the word of a Seaton must not be broken. Besides, Jeff Morton was his friend, and we don't supplant our friends in their love-affairs. It isn't done!
At the turn of the drive at Mona, as he drove away, he had turned to see Mayda wave her hand—and that was the end. Now for solitude and sorrow!
But the apparition of Boskom had apprized him that solitude, at least, hadn't yet begun. Up went the monocle.
"What? Mr. Madison, upon my word! It is surely a pleasure to see your smiling face again!"
Boskom must have been a profound observer to have detected a smile on Matthew's face at that juncture; but it was no use antagonizing the man. The distance to Trujillo, the Señorita's port, was a long six hundred miles, and she was capable of taking six days, or more, to make it.
"I thought you were to have gone on before this," I said. "Where's the menagerie?"
"Blessed if I know, sir—or my salary, which was to have been awaitin' me in Kingston, what's more! Them Andersons is no better than Nobleman Jack himself."
Matthew was first startled, then irritated, at hearing the hero of Mayda's story named by this fellow.
"What do you know about Nobleman Jack?" he demanded.
"Bless you, every one speaks of 'im in these seas. Why, Mr. Madison, the boys in the circus, who've knocked about some in these latitudes, calls our big eddicated hape after him; but you, not havin' been as low as this before, wouldn't naturally 'ave 'eard the yarn. They say he stole half a million dollars in jewelry, sir, from one o' these Jamaica swells, in days gone by, an' buried it in one o' these 'ere cays to the southward of us. Ah, if them cays could talk, we'd 'ear tales! But, as I was sayin', the boys named our big hape Nobleman Jack. That hape, sir, would filch the handkerchief out o' your clothes as neat as any pickpocket, and he could pitch a baseball to beat Mathewson. A wonderful hanimal, Mr. Madison, and worth a thousand dollars, if a cent!"
Matthew broke away, resolved to spend the rest of the trip in his bunk; but the odors soon drove him on deck again. Boskom had disappeared, and the island, with all he loved, was robing itself in lovely vapors. As the sun set, the breeze freshened, and the first night on board passed somehow, though Matthew was kept awake by sounds of revelry forward, amid which the voice of Boskom was audible. If the fellow would but get dead drunk and stay so!
Next morning the breeze had dropped, and the crew were gathered along the starboard rail, staring at a tramp steamer about half a mile distant. The faint air brought down from her a sickening and offensive odor—a stench that reminded Matthew of the cattle-trains on Riverside Drive in New York. The behavior of the steamer was odd, for she yawed and wheeled on the calm water. Occasionally there came from her noises like the outcries of beasts. A vessel full of beasts, yet abandoned by her crew! But was not that a man climbing the shrouds?
Boskom was on the bridge, in an altercation with the captain. He came down, evidently still thick in the head from the festival of the night before. He stumbled toward Matthew, bleary and grumbling.
"The skipper—confound 'im!—says it's yellow fever, an' won't go no nearer; an' that hape alone would net me a thousand! No live men aboard her, he says, an' no menagerie for him! So that's all about Anderson! Well, serve 'em right for bilking me of my salary! Well, what are you grinnin' at, Matthew Madison, Esquire? Think I'm drunk, eh, and might let somethin' slip? Yes, I could spin yarns, but old Phin Boskom warn't born yesterday! An' he ain't no iguana, neither! Pretty smooth article, you be, but I got your measure! A nat'ralist, 'untin' jewels—say an 'underd thousan' poun' worth, eh? Well, maybe Phin Boskom is in on it, an' maybe not; an' maybe Matt Madison has maps an' di'grams in his clothes, an' maybe not! Just bug-'untin', that's all! Ever 'unt a she-bug with nice yellow hair an'—"
Matthew uppercut him with hearty good-will and without remorse—a beautiful blow. It landed at the juncture of Boskom's nose with his long upper lip, causing considerable pain, with no loss of consciousness. In going down, his head jammed between two barrels filled with farming implements, so that he was unable to extricate himself unaided.
Matthew observed his struggles for a few moments without sympathy—with a sensation of inward peace, rather. It is wonderful how much good a successful uppercut may do the purveyor of it. Finally he beckoned to one of the negroes to attend to the sufferer, and walked aft to bathe the knuckles of his left hand, which were bleeding from contact with Boskom's front teeth.
A breeze now began to puff in from the north, and the Señorita Felicidad awoke from her reverie and sauntered in a southwesterly direction. Seated in the stern on a packing-case, with his back supported against a sack of potatoes, Matthew smoked one of the famous cigars, a box of which had been Devereux Seaton's parting gift, and contemplated the tramp steamer, still swinging aimlessly far away on the starboard quarter. It was a hideous incident—a crew disabled or dead of fever, and a cargo of wild animals let loose among them in their helplessness, and no succor possible!
He turned his thoughts to the tipsy vagabond whom he had righteously chastised. That stirring among the shrubbery at the foot of the wall at Mona was now explained; but what the rest of Boskom's drunken rigmarole meant he couldn't conjecture. The fellow seemed to have a notion that there was a search for pirate treasure in prospect. If he had a revolver, he might seek vengeance for his punishment; but Matthew was not alarmed. He dismissed the subject from his mind, and settled himself more commodiously against the potatoes. Other thoughts came to him.
What would be the manner of his existence during the next few years? To wander amid tropic forests and over lonely seas, "ever roaming with a hungry heart," as Ulysses says? What were animals and plants to him? Mayda would soon be married. She and Jack—Jeff—would set up housekeeping in New York, and if Matthew should return there, it would of course be impossible to avoid meeting them. Mayda the wife of another man! No, he must never return.
The breeze held gentle but steady till sundown, flying-fish and porpoises played their endless game of tag, the turbaned oriental stood naked and impassive at the wheel, and the rest of the crew dozed in the forecastle. At dinner, the captain, who possessed a mouth so commodious that he could eat with one side of it and talk with the other, jerkily explained why it had been both impossible and inexpedient to board the tramp steamer. Incidentally he alluded to Boskom as a "bleeding rotter." Then he grinned terribly, and remarked that the person in question had been bleeding sure enough.
"I'll 'and it to you, sir—you did 'im up good an' proper!"
With the sun, down went the breeze, and by the time Matthew went to his bunk the Señorita was lying as motionless as a rock in the desert. The temperature indicated that the desert must be the Sahara, at least; but relief was on its way, and its arrival was sudden.
The first sensation of which Matthew was distinctly aware was of struggling for his life in a roaring chaos of sea water, and in pitch darkness, while a wind of immeasurable velocity was pinning him down. The Señorita had vanished.
It were vain to inquire just what occurred in Matthew's case previous to his finding himself over head and ears in the Caribbean. He was still in his pajamas, though these were speedily slashed into ribbons by the forces of nature; and it seems probable that he must have left his bunk and got on deck, from which he had then been swept by the wind, by the waves, or possibly by the main boom, which would be likely to part its halyards under such circumstances.
For the present, he forbore to speculate on the subject; but in the midst of his efforts to keep from drowning, he did a peculiar thing. He felt at his throat, to determine whether a locket were still there which for two days past he had been wearing attached to a string. He was greatly encouraged by finding that in the midst of the general chaos it had kept its place. He got his head above water, and struck out manfully.
This locket needs to be accounted for—not so much the locket itself, a pretty, old-fashioned trinket of gold, which had belonged to Matthew's mother, and which he had been wearing attached to his watch-guard. But the truth is that during his stay at Mona he had come upon an old family album in a corner of the spacious reception-room, and had found in it a photograph of Mayda. It was far from doing her justice; but it was at least a shadow of her, and all of her that he could ever hope to possess. Legally, he had no right to it; but morally and sentimentally it was manifestly his, and forthwith, without compunction, he opened his jack-knife and cut the head out of the card, trimmed it to fit the locket, and inserted it therein. He then destroyed the remnants of the card, and put on the mask of innocence.
Although an upright young man in his general walk in life, he had never repented of this deed, and the head had since then afforded him much consolation. There are germs of Nobleman Jack in us all.
The locket and its precious contents were a talisman. So long as he retained it, there would be hope even in the darkest hour; and an hour darker than that in which he had gone overboard was hardly within the compass of nature.
Whereabouts in the hurricane-thrashed, foam-smothered Caribbean was he? Several hundred miles from the mainland, beyond question; but the Seranillo Bank might not be so far off, and there were islets—cays—there. Wind and water were doing their best to strangle him, but he strove against unconsciousness. Life, to be sure, held nothing for him. Death is the proper medicine for disappointed love; but if Matthew were to die, he wished to do it in his own way. Nobody likes to be kicked and cuffed even in the direction of his own desire.
Amid the blackness, he felt a touch on his shoulder—not a blow, but as if an authoritative hand had notified him that he was under arrest.
"By George!" said Matthew.
Something prodded him gently in the back, and nudged him playfully in the flank. He flung an arm backward to investigate, and his fingers closed upon something that felt like a wooden bar. He writhed himself about and grappled with it. It held firm, and with a herculean effort he drew himself by it out of the water. The hurricane seemed to have abated, but the sea was more turbulent than ever, and Matthew realized that the apparent slackening of the gale was due to his being borne along by it, though by what agency he could not at first determine.
As a matter of fact it was a huge tree—a ceiba—which had apparently been uprooted and set afloat by the tornado, and transported to his succor at so opportune a juncture. After recovering some portion of his breath, Matthew felt around in the blackness for further support, and drew himself farther away from the raging torrent beneath. He was more exhausted than he would have thought possible in so brief a time.
With much difficulty he reached a crotch between the boughs which seemed to be temporarily safe. The giant structure of the tree above him groaned and whistled in the gale. Its foliage seemed to have been stripped away, and snake-like lianas were whipped hither and thither and wrapped round the limbs. It was all very different from the stifling bunk in the Señorita Felicidad; not exactly luxurious, but airy enough, and more than cool enough—for Matthew was all but naked. Again he felt for the locket, and finding it there, kissed it fervently. In conditions so unusual, he thought that he had a right to do so.
He was very tired and very sleepy. He had had little sleep since leaving Mona, and he hadn't slept too soundly even there. He snuggled himself into a more convenient posture on the crotch. If the whole tree didn't roll over, he was all right. Presently, like others in desperate straits before him, he fell asleep.
He awoke just before dawn. The wind had passed, but the waves were rolling high, though their surface was oily smooth. Matthew had dreamed that soft fingertips had touched his face. Very light they had been, but there had been a gentle passing to and fro of something over his cheeks and breast. A dream, of course; for only a spirit disembodied could have come to him in his present predicament.
Cautiously he propped himself to an erect sitting position. He was as stiff as a walking-stick insect. A hot breakfast would be acceptable. In lieu of it, he felt for his locket. It was gone!
If Matthew had suddenly missed his heart out of his body, he couldn't have been more startled and dismayed. He scrambled to bis feet; the big tree swayed dangerously, and he all but lost his balance. He continued to feel for the locket, down his back, under his armpits, around his waist, on surrounding projections of the tree, though all the while he miserably knew the futility of the search.
He sat down again at last, in stupefaction. How could he have lost his treasure? Could he himself have taken it off in his sleep? Inconceivable! Had be been mistaken in thinking that he had it when he fell asleep? Ridiculous! Had a pickpocket alighted on the ceiba during the hurricane and made off with it? Had he gone insane?
One moment! What about those fingers in his dream?
Then those soft touches had not been an illusion, but a reality! Then the thief, whoever he was, must be still on the tree! Then—
Once more Matthew lifted himself up, circumspectly, for it was evident that the ceiba's balance in the water was unstable. The increasing light showed him that he was down among the uptorn roots, and that the branches were at the other end of the long trunk, nearly a hundred feet away. He essayed to make the transit, but was soon satisfied that this was impracticable, for the ceiba rolled at his least movement. The waves were running too high for him to dive off and swim to the other end.
"Hello there!" he shouted at the top of his voice.
The sound flattened out in space, and brought no response. Was any one there, after all?
The sun rose, and with it came a gentle breeze. The waves gradually subsided, but the appearance of two or three large triangular fins, cutting the surface of the water this way and that, admonished the voyager that others besides himself were hungry for breakfast. He made another attempt to reach the other end of the tree, where there was enough foliage to offer some protection from the sun, but again he found it too risky.
What was that sound—a chuckle? It sounded like some one laughing throatily—laughing at Matthew. It gave him an unpleasant sensation, such as a man gets from the realization that his companion in a lonely spot is a maniac. For what sane human creature would be disposed to mirth in this predicament?
There wasn't one chance in a hundred that they would escape death by starvation and thirst. Who but a madman, indeed, would have thought of stealing the locket from Matthew's neck? The thing was of small intrinsic value; but had it been the Orloff diamond, it would be no more than a mockery to a castaway on the ocean.
Mad or sane, how came the creature on the ceiba? Could it be one of the crew of the Señorita Felicidad?
Why not—since Matthew himself was one?
In that case, which member of the ship's company? Not Boskom, assuredly; for that gross body was quite incapable of the agility which the conditions implied. One of the negroes, then? Or the Chinaman? Yes, that seemed the likeliest guess.
The Chinaman, on the schooner, had acted as cook. He had stayed in his galley most of the time, but Matthew had noticed that he was small, lean, and nimble in his movements. Chinamen are unaccountable people. The cook might always have been insane, or a shock like that of the sudden bursting of the tornado might have been enough to unseat his reason. It would be just like his crazy cunning to steal the locket, and then his insanity and his activity would prompt him and enable him to venture successfully on the perilous passage to the other end of the ceiba. Yes, the Chinaman it must be!
Matthew so placed himself as to have the branches of the tree in full view, and doggedly crouched there to keep watch. He was thirsty, hungry, bruised, blistered, and helpless, but he would miss no chance of recovering his locket.
Nothing happened, however, except that hour after hour went by. He sank into a torpor. The descending sun shone in his eyes. Night was coming on; was he to perish like this? Was there nothing to be done?
But Matthew was a thoroughbred, and thoroughbreds never say die. Life, at all events, was not complete without that locket; and before darkness fell, he was resolved to find out whether it was anywhere on the floating ceiba. He lifted himself painfully but resolutely to his feet once more. His joints cracked and his back seemed broken, but he stood erect at last.
Before moving forward he cast a careful glance round the horizon. East and north, nothing was visible. Westward, the glare on the surface of the water dazzled him. He looked southwest.
"Steady! Don't fool yourself, man! Maybe it's a mirage!"
He shielded his eyes from the glare and gazed again. It seemed to be four or five miles distant, and was in the path on which the ceiba was slowly drifting. It looked like a cluster of fairy mushrooms, with thread-like stems, penciled distinctly against the bloom of the clear sky. Very pretty, an artist might have called it; to the castaway, it was divinely beautiful. He made it out to be a speck of coral rock lifted above the sea, with palm-trees raising their feathery tops over it—one of the tiny cays of either the Serrano or the Roncador group. It meant a chance for life!
Observing that the ceiba was voyaging head on, and that he was therefore in the stern-sheets, as it were, Matthew wrenched off part of a root, and used it as a rudder to steer the clumsy craft. In the midst of his labors, an odd noise made him look up quickly. It was that throaty chuckle again!
It had grown dusk. Nothing was to be seen in the forward part of the tree, nor was there any further sound. He had read that in those seas there are fishes which, coming to the surface with open mouths in calm weather, have the faculty of producing curious noises. When one's sensibilities are worn threadbare, one is apt to exaggerate and misinterpret impressions.
Matthew resumed his paddle. As the light died out in the west, he fixed the position of the cay by a star hanging just over it. The moon had not yet risen; for a long time he paddled by starlight alone. At last he felt a slight arrest of motion; the boughs of the ceiba had touched bottom! He threw himself into the water and staggered ashore. He was saved; but where was the Chinaman?
VI
The Chinaman was not among the branches of the ceiba—Matthew was not long in ascertaining that. Of course not! It was only to be expected that, as his quarters in the tree had been the first to run aground, he had improved the opportunity to get out of sight before Matthew could get at him.
But the delay was transient only, and the islet could not be explored in the dark, anyway. Matthew schooled himself to wait, and meanwhile set about finding something to eat and drink.
He hadn't taken a dozen steps before he stumbled upon a coconut. He broke it carefully on a boulder, and drank the milk, sip by sip, as slowly as he could. It was delicious—not such as Mayda had prepared for him, indeed, but a life-saver! It stayed his stomach and allayed his thirst.
There would be a spring of water somewhere, but he could wait till morning to search for that. The whole shore of the islet seemed to be fringed with palms; there would be shell-fish in plenty, perhaps breadfruit, and yams. He had no matches with him to make a fire, but he knew how to produce a flame by the stick-rubbing process, for this was not the first time Matthew had been out in the wilds.
Only let him recover the locket, and he could pass a vacation here quite tolerably. The Chinaman, after they had settled their affair, should do the cooking. Clothing was needed; but he could contrive a cloak for himself, Japanese fashion, out of palm-leaves. Shoes? Well, he might plait himself a pair of straw sandals.
While making these plans, and drinking the milk of two more coconuts, Matthew squatted on the beach in front of the stranded ceiba. The moon had risen. The air was getting cool. Better try for a fire at once.
As he sat there he glanced about him for materials. The beach was strewn with driftwood, in some places piled high, probably by the gale. He picked up a piece and examined it. It was dry enough, but a particular kind of wood is needed. As he stooped forward to pick up another stick, something—a small missile—struck him a light blow on the back of the head.
Almost before it had dropped to the ground, he was on his feet. Nothing but the tall stems of the palms, and the thick underbrush behind them, was to be seen. There was not a breath of wind to stir the heavy, tropic leaves; the forest was silence and darkness.
The missile had not dropped from above—he was several yards beyond the limit of the forest—but had been thrown from behind, hitting him an inch or so from his left ear. He glanced down, and saw a ripe banana lying at his feet. That was the missile, and it was the first evidence he had had that there were bananas on the cay.
There are no inhabitants on these cays; no one but the Chinaman could have thrown the banana. There was no other explanation, unless Matthew believed in the legends which told that those cays were haunted by the ghosts of the buccaneers, who used to hide their booty in such places; and spiritual beings don't throw material bananas.
On the other hand, if the Chinaman meant harm, why had he not attacked Matthew with a boulder? A banana was not a weapon; it was a flag of truce, rather, and in itself not unwelcome. A friendly advance, then? Well, why not? The fellow understood that he must be brought to terms ere long, and was appealing for mercy betimes.
Upon this view of the incident, Matthew lifted his voice in a conciliatory tone.
"Hello, Chink! If you come right out and hand over that thing, I'll let you off; but if you wait until I catch you to-morrow, I'll everlastingly thrash you to pulp!"
The terms were plain, and the words were such as a Chinaman cook on a coasting schooner would be likely to have heard often in his career; but there was no response of any kind, not even another banana.
Matthew was very weary, and needed rest. If he didn't get some sleep soon, he might go crazy himself. It is not pleasant to lie down to sleep with a madman prowling about; but in a life of adventure one must accept chances. After some reflection, he got together some of the larger pieces of driftwood, and constructed a sort of shelter that would protect his head and the upper part of his body, in the event of the Chinaman selecting other weapons than bananas. Then, after another look around, and commending himself to Providence, he crawled under his fortification, heaped some dry sand over his legs for warmth, and knew no more till the sun awakened him next morning.
After getting up and going through a few scientific stretching movements, he began to feel something like himself again. The task for to-day was the exploration of the islet. His first discovery was something that looked like a part of a coat-tail hanging from the end of a broken branch of the ceiba. Apparently the Chinaman had managed to put on his Sunday garment before being carried off the Señorita, and when he leaped ashore last night he had left it behind him in his haste. Matthew would have been glad of the garment it came from for a night-dress; but a detached coat-tail on a desert island is of negligible value.
On second thought he divided the fragment into two parts, and with the aid of some tough, string-like lianas from the ceiba, and a padding of palm-leaf shreddings, he built himself a pair of sandals. Walking unshod in the jungle and over boulders—much more running, should it come to that—would be unpleasant.
As he stood up, his eyes happened to fall on a growth of mahogany, a thicket of young sprouts densely clothed with green, just beyond the margin of the white sand. He saw the twigs gently parted to right and left, and in the aperture, stealthily peering forth at him, and somewhat obscured by the heavy shadow, the semblance of a human face, grotesquely ugly. As he stared at it, it slowly vanished.
No slightest sound accompanied the apparition. On the head there had seemed to be a dilapidated cocked hat, of the fashion of a century ago. Matthew leaped forward, and descried a deformed figure in a long, ragged coat or cloak, stealing swiftly but noiselessly away through the underbrush.
Matthew snatched up a knotted stick, to use as a club, and made after the fugitive with deadly intentions; but the underbrush was stiff, and much of it thorny, and the footing underneath was rough and treacherous. He couldn't get on fast, though the fleeing figure flitted away with strange ease and agility, its cloak fluttering behind it. Ever and anon, in the forest gloom, it turned a hideous visage back at him over a deformed shoulder. Matthew had had no idea either of the ugliness of the Chinaman or of his activity.
They were now near what seemed to be the central part of the forest—it was certainly the thickest. In scrambling over a big rock, one of the pursuer's sandals came off; and before he could recover it, the fugitive had vanished.
Matthew still went forward, but more slowly, and keeping a sharp lookout in all directions. He was covered with sweat and bleeding from scratches, and a sharp stone had made a painful cut in his foot. He limped along, winding in and out between the clumps and stumps, passed around a tall boulder, and suddenly came out upon the beach. He had crossed the cay.
It was not so easy to catch the Chinaman as he had anticipated. And what a queer-looking hobgoblin the fellow was—so repulsive of aspect, so preternaturally nimble, so noiseless! Any mind but a scientific one might have hinted at something supernatural—the ghost of some pirate haunting the scene of his crimes. Even Matthew was glad of the bright morning sunshine and the blue, dimpling sea.
He sat down on a piece of flat limestone and looked about him. There was ah indentation in the coast-line at this point—two headlands running out to left and right, forming a convenient little harbor, opening toward the west; and Matthew made up his mind that this was a better site for his camp. The change was easily made, for he had no baggage to transfer; all he had to do was to stay where he was. Desert island life has its advantages!
He gazed off over the bay. Now, if a ship would only appear!
And lo, as if in an Arabian fairy tale, his wish was answered by the appearance of a craft of some sort from behind the headland to the right. It wasn't a ship, nor even a sloop or a catboat, but a small black bumboat, such as are used in these seas for fetching fruit and produce to and from trading vessels on the coast. Matthew had noticed one of them aboard the Señorita Felicidad.
Staring with all his eyes, Matthew saw that the boat had one occupant, who seemed to possess only one oar. With this he was rowing awkwardly, first on one side, then on the other, so that the little craft advanced in a zigzag, like a drunken man. The oarsman didn't seem to understand the science of paddling, and sat with his back to the shore.
On he came, deviously, but getting nearer. He was in his shirt-sleeves, and hatless. As he half turned his head, Matthew noticed that his face was fleshy and very red. Then he observed that there was a peculiar stiffness in the movements of his left shoulder. A moment later he struck his knee with his fist.
"By George!" he exclaimed.
The bumboat's nose slid up on the sand, the occupant feebly arose and stepped out. Matthew advanced to meet him.
"Hello, Boskom!" he said.
Boskom's first response was a sort of squeal, accompanied by an instinctive movement of his right hand toward his hip pocket. He didn't complete the movement, however, and stood for a moment tilting uncertainly backward and forward on his feet. His arms hung by his sides, and he inclined his head backward in order to look at Matthew from under his half-closed eyelids. It was now evident that his face was badly swollen and his eyes nearly closed by sunburn. In fact, Boskom was nearly all in.
Perceiving this, Matthew grew compassionate, and forgot that gesture toward the pocket. Here was a fellow creature who, like himself, had had a narrow escape from death, and who was in dire straits. Boskom's nose was still purple and black from the impact of Matthew's fist. He was probably famishing, and sorely in need of drink. Destiny, for reasons of its own, seemed resolved to have them work out their problems in company.
The resources of the islet as hospital and refectory were limited, but Matthew did what he could for the patient. Meanwhile Boskom's autobiography for the past thirty-six hours dribbled out in gasps and croaks. Its essential points were simple. He had crawled into the Señorita's bumboat for coolness on the night of the tornado, and before he could get out, he and the little craft were afloat by themselves. Till morning he had lain in the bottom of the boat, momentarily expecting annihilation. Upon the gale's subsiding, he took stock of his cargo, and found one oar and a tin dipper. With the latter he baled for some hours; the oar he left undisturbed, rowing not being among his accomplishments, and he not knowing in which direction to row. About noon, a small flying-fish, hotly pursued by a porpoise, dropped into the boat; and upon it, in its raw state, Boskom had breakfasted, lunched, and dined. At sunrise of the present morning he had sighted the cay, and from that moment had been practising himself in the science of navigation. His monocle had been lost.
"And well startled and 'eartily glad I was to 'ear your voice at landing, sir," he remarked—or mumbled, rather, through swollen lips. "I mightn't 'ave recognized you, first off, by your looks, you being a bit dishabilled, as one might say."
"I noticed you thought of shooting me," Matthew said, pointing to the hip pocket. "Is the gun in good working order after its wetting?"
Boskom was greatly embarrassed.
"Now, Mr. Madison, sir—"
"Don't waste time apologizing! We have more important matters to think of. Drinking water is what we most need; so let us hunt for a spring."
"Water—ah!" said Boskom. "If I'd never drunk nothing but water, sir, I'd not 'ave been 'ere this day! I'm most grateful to you for your 'umanity, Mr. Madison. As for me injuring you, sir—in my right senses, never! I'm more likely to kiss your boots."
Matthew laughed.
"You'd have to find the Señorita first. Well, I shall try for a fire, to begin with—if I can find the right sort of wood."
Boskom had been hunting in his pockets. Uttering a crow of satisfaction, he produced a small nickel case containing an oiled wick and an ignitable substance operated by a ring. Upon trial, Matthew found it possible to set fire to a bit of tinder, from which a driftwood fire was soon blazing. The two men then set to work to collect shell-fish, and presently there was an odor as of broiled oysters.
While Boskom, who seemed to have a gift for culinary matters, was busy with these, Matthew went exploring in the vicinity, and almost immediately discovered a spring, flowing out on the border of the wood. He was interested to notice that a basin had been formed around it with flat stones carefully placed, evidently by human hands. He called to Boskom.
"We're not the first here," he remarked.
"No more we are," returned Boskom, examining the rude structure eagerly. "And them stones weren't put there yesterday, neither. If I was hasked my opinion, I'd come near sayin' this is the work o' them 'ere buccaneers—the pirates of the Spanish Main, sir!"
"Perhaps, but what of it?" said Matthew indifferently.
Boskom peered cunningly in his face, and made a motion as of counting coins from one hand into the other. Matthew was amused.
"Have you really got that maggot in your brain of buried treasure?"
Boskom looked down, and seemed to commune with himself.
"Look here, Mr. Madison," he said at length, in a serious tone. "Let's talk man to man, and cards on the table. I've been on your trail some while back. That yarn about Nobleman Jack ain't so private as you seem to think. It looks like we both got pitched on to this cay accidental; but anyhow, here we both be. 'Luck seeks its man,' is an old sayin'. There's been pirates here, and there may be diamonds and rubies as well—all that those Seaton friends of yours had, and more! Treasure-trove, Mr. Madison, an' findin's is havin's, and fifty-fifty is fair division! Shall we call it a bargain?"
"There seems to be a spell on this place that turns people crazy," said Matthew, laughing. "The Chinaman cook got it first, and now you have it. My turn may come next! But while I'm sane, I'll say it 'll be time enough to talk about division when we find something better than mussels and bananas to divide."
"What was that about Chinaman cook?" inquired Boskom, blinking.
"He's around here somewhere. He came ashore with me on a big tree, and got away in the dark before I could catch him; but I'll get him yet!"
"The Chinaman cook, last I saw of 'im, an' that was maybe twenty minutes before the wind hit us, was dead drunk on the floor of the fo'cas'le, an' I shut the transom when I come up to get in the bumboat. I'll lay you what you like that he's there yet, an' the niggers with him. If you saw him, you saw—"
Boskom wagged his head ominously.
"I took it to be the Chinaman, but it may have been one of the others," said Matthew carelessly. "He's a lunatic, whoever he is. You'd better watch out for him at night. He's more like a spook than a man." Matthew thought it as well to arouse Boskom's superstitious emotions, for Mayda's locket must not be desecrated by his hands. "Our breakfast will be getting cold," he went on, walking toward the fire, fifty yards down the beach.
Half-way, he stopped; then ran forward. The fire had been knocked to pieces. The shells of several of the cooked bivalves lay about empty, and the others had been scattered here and there. The spook had raided their meal!
Boskom came up. He stood staring, speechless.
A throaty chuckle came from within the border of the wood. The men wheeled about, and Matthew thought he caught a glimpse of a crooked figure, with a hat-brim slouched over its face, grinning out at him. It withdrew promptly.
He gave chase, Boskom lumbering after. Briers, sharp sticks, pointed stones, thickets, rotten boles of fallen trees impeded him; but his blood was up, and he would have kept on over hot plowshares. The battle zest possessed him.
Hither and thither they went, doubling, dodging. Ever and anon a ghastly visage turned back at Matthew over a deformed shoulder. It was exciting work. The groans and gasps of Boskom sounded in the distance.
Again the chase led to the densest part of the wood, and again the quarry suddenly disappeared; but Matthew was not to be foiled. Panting hard, he pushed forward, put aside the tough stems of a clump of bamboos, and found himself in an open space, about four paces in diameter. In the center, three tall slabs of limestone stood together, and in the area they enclosed was a large rounded boulder. The whole formed a sort of chair. One might pass close by it a hundred times and fail to see it. Matthew saw it now, and he saw something else.
Seated in the chair was the figure of a man, with the head bowed forward, holding something on its knees. It sat motionless, as if in profound meditation, or in sleep. There was no hat on the head, but rusty masses of dark hair hung about the countenance. Matthew stepped closer, and then recoiled in horror. Was this what he had pursued?
The face was that of a skull. The hands were skeleton hands, the yellow skin dried upon them. The figure was the skeleton of a man who had been dead for many years.
Matthew was quick, and had a cool head; but before he could gather his wits sufficiently to recognize that some further development must be at hand, it announced itself. From behind the slab at the back appeared the apparition in the cocked hat and tattered cloak—grisly spoils doubtless filched from the dead buccaneer. It reached out, chattering, caught up from the lap of the figure an oblong object a span and a half in length, and sent it flying straight at Matthew.
The missile was heavy and sharp-cornered, but Matthew caught it with instinctive address. As he did so, the creature that had hurled it made a spring upward, caught the limb of a tree that projected above, and pulled itself swiftly out of sight amid the foliage.
"Damned if it ain't my old hape!" croaked a voice from behind—for Boskom had arrived.
"You'd better catch him," Matthew replied. "You said he was worth a thousand dollars. When you've got him you may keep him—I won't ask for fifty-fifty!"
"He can wait. What you got there, if I may make so bold?"
In the flurry of the moment Matthew had forgotten something. He dropped the box, seized Boskom by the shoulder, and began to drag him in the direction which the "eddicated" chimpanzee seemed to have taken.
"I'm a fool!" he growled. "He's got it on him! Come on! If you know him, he knows you and will come to you. Boskom, I'll give you a thousand dollars in gold, the day we get out of this, and the ape into the bargain, if you catch him, and I get it back! Hurry, man! It 'll be sunset again in six hours!"
"What's the market vally of this 'ere thing he's got on him?" panted Boskom, as a thorn-bush ripped his trousers from the knee to the hip.
"Value? A pawnbroker would give you three dollars on it. If you'd rather wait and ask him, all the better for me! I want it—that's its value!"
Boskom was too breathless to inquire further at that time, and Matthew had no inclination to tell him about the locket. He was convinced that the ape was wearing it round its neck, and his blood boiled with exasperation at the thought.
Several hours later the two men returned to the scattered embers of their breakfast fire; but the chimpanzee was not of their company. Having tasted freedom, he was not yet ready to accept the yoke of civilization. Several times during the chase he had revealed himself to the hunters, and had evidently recognized Boskom, but had only grinned and disappeared in response to the latter's entreaties.
On one occasion Matthew fancied that he had caught the gleam of gold on the animal's breast, and so far forgot his usual humanity as to suggest to Boskom to shoot it; but whatever Boskom's tenderness of heart, his sense of values kept his finger from the trigger. Moreover, the old-fashioned six-shooter, the existence of which he had coyly admitted after it could no longer be denied, though efficient enough in the hands of an expert, would have been an untrustworthy weapon for a person in the shaky condition to which Boskom's unwonted exertions had reduced him; nor would he by any means consent to Matthew's making trial of it.
"'E'll be comin' round after 'e's 'ad 'is little fling," he said. "Me an' the Nobleman is good old pals. We've no call to 'urry 'im."
They proceeded to collect and cook supper. A feast shared promotes sociability. "We may have to spend the rest of our lives here," said Matthew, spearing a boiled mussel with a pointed stick, "and it would clear the air if you told me what you really are and why you were spying on me in Jamaica. What had Anderson's Circus to do with it?"
"My temp'rament is romantic and hartistic, Mr. Madison. I've read the po'ts, an' I've worn the buskin on the applausive stage, sir. Some years back I became hinterested in the lit'ratoor of the buccaneers. Millions of treasure them fellers won, sir, an' what became of it? There weren't no pawnbrokers in these seas; so they buried it, of course, till they'd be ready to come hup north or hover to Europe an' spend it. Then, first thing they know, they gets 'anged or sliced up with cutlases; but the treasure stays buried—mind that! I'll heat my 'at if I don't think some of it's on this same cay we're sittin' on. So, 'earin' that talk o' yours about Nobleman Jack and the jew'ls, I draws my hinf'rences. I camps on your trail, an' destiny, knowin' her man, brings us 'ere together through storm an' flood. If that old toff in the woods over yonder ain't the nobleman 'imself, 'e's one o' that sort, an' the treasure won't be far off. What was that the hape pitched at you?"
Matthew laughed.
"I'm sure I don't know—a bit of quartz, I fancy. I was thinking of something else. You should write a book, Boskom! 'The Veracious Memoirs of Phineas Boskom' would make a hit."
"'Appen it might—at least with some folks," said Boskom thoughtfully.
Supper over, and no dishes to wash or tobacco to smoke, they built up the fire and made themselves as comfortable as they could for the night. Boskom lay on his back and was soon snoring. Matthew, after lying awake for a time, dropped into a light slumber.
Presently he awoke and sat up. Boskom still snored. Matthew laid a few sticks on the fire, and was about to lie down again, when a random thought caused him to change his mind. He rose quietly to his feet and went off into the wood.
There was no wind, and the forest was still. The moon was full, and stood in the zenith overhead.
VII
Whether suggested by a dream, or by other circumstances, Matthew's purpose was to revisit the scene of his late encounter with the chimpanzee. There was an obscure point which he wished to clear up. It would probably amount to nothing, but, as it had got into his head, he would sleep the sounder for having it settled.
He had a good natural sense of direction, and he found it easier than he had expected to make his way through the forest. It was not long before he came in sight of the clump of bamboo; and there, in his ancient stone seat, sat the mysterious presence, its vacant skull bent over its skeleton knees. Nobleman Jack, perhaps—it might be so! After the disastrous sea-fight, the old freebooter might have escaped to this islet; and if one assumed as much as that, why mightn't he have contrived to bring some of his plunder with him?
What was the oblong object that the ape had hurled at his pursuer? Matthew had taken it for granted, as he told Boskom,. that it was a fragment of rock; but Boskom's inquiries had led to a reconsideration of the matter. Why should a moribund pirate encumber himself with a piece of quartz? And the fragment had seemed remarkably symmetrical for a product of unassisted nature.
Then, too, Matthew thought he recalled that when the missile settled in his hands there had come from it a sort of chinking noise, as if it were not a solid mass, but a receptacle, with something in it. He had probably undertaken a wild-goose chase, but if the notion kept one awake, why not see it through?
The ape had thrown the thing over the right shoulder of the skeleton, and Matthew was standing just here when he caught it. Before he had got over his surprise, Boskom had turned up. He had then realized that the ape was escaping with the locket, had thrown down the object, and had given chase. The object, then, ought to be there, said Matthew to himself, pointing; and he looked, and there it was!
He picked it up with the satisfaction of a reasoning mind proving the correctness of its rational processes. He had been right, too, about its symmetrical form. He shook it. It gave out a chinking noise—right, a third time!
With a sigh of content and curiosity, he squatted down in front of the skeleton, on the moss and ferns, and set out to give his find a thorough, scientific examination. The moonlight, falling straight down from overhead, cast an excellent light upon the object of his investigation.
It was made of some sort of metal, tarnished by weather, of a grayish hue—lead, probably. To determine this, he scratched it with a bit of quartz. It was not lead, nor yet pewter, but a nobler substance—silver! It was a silver box, about fifteen inches long by seven in width and five in height. It was carved all over with figures in relief—dragons and goblins, lotus-flowers and mystical emblems. On the lid squatted, with legs crossed—just as Matthew was squatting—and with an oriental leer on his face, a figure of Buddha!
Matthew slowly lowered the box to his crossed shins and stared up at the face of the skeleton. These were plain facts—no imagination or miracle whatever. The box was the famous Seaton treasure-box, precisely as Mayda had described it. How true she was, even in regard to matters of hearsay a hundred years old!
To judge from the noise when it was shaken, it still contained the matchless Seaton jewels, to the value of one hundred thousand pounds, or more! Half a million dollars would no doubt be very acceptable to dear old Devereux Seaton in his present straits, even if his daughter was about to marry Jeff Morton, who was worth several millions. Matthew would present the jewels to Mayda as his wedding-gift—provided, of course, that Providence, which had so wonderfully favored him thus far, extended its benignity far enough to fetch him back to Mona.
Now for a look at the jewels themselves! Diamonds, emeralds, rubies, sapphires—ah, yes, sapphires!—how fine they would look, flashing back the soft splendors of the moon!
"Thanks to you, old sinner!" said Matthew, apostrophizing the unimpassioned mummy on his limestone throne. "You took good care of them, and now you make me your deputy for restoring them. May it take something off your pains and penalties in purgatory!"
He sought for the lock. It was there—quite a peculiar one, of Japanese or Chinese design, no doubt; not such a lock as Matthew had ever seen before. It didn't seem to have been injured by its long seclusion; but where was the key? Matthew searched for it, but after ten or fifteen minutes of earnest investigation it was nowhere to be found; and without it, nothing short of knocking the box to pieces would reveal its contents. Matthew would by no means proceed to such extremities with other people's property—with Mayda's property, indeed!
And after all, supposing he had the key, what right would he have to use it? The box must stay locked till Mayda herself opened it, in whatever manner she might please. Having come to this conclusion, Matthew rose up, with the box under his arm, and confronted the muzzle of Boskom's revolver, with Boskom behind it.
"'Ands hup!" said Boskom.
"That's idiotic!" said Matthew, with irritation. "Can a naked man have concealed weapons on his person? Put down that gun! It might go off."
"Fifty-fifty's the best I'll let you off on," returned Boskom.
Matthew discerned a lack of firmness in the little fat man's tones. All the same, there was some risk.
"Is this box what you're interested in?" he inquired, holding it up.
"Makin' jokes won't do, Mr. Madison," Boskom rejoined, looking as much like a pirate as he knew how. "Keep your distance, sir, and put the box on the ground at your feet. Then retire three paces. You can't bluff me—I'm an old hand! I've killed better men than you—stacks of 'em. If you delay, it won't be fifty-fifty—I'll take it hall! 'Urry, please!"
Matthew eyed him for a moment, and smiled.
"Your mind functions badly, Boskom," he said. "Hold-ups may be pulled off in a New York slum, but not by one castaway to another on a Caribbean cay. We're badly enough off as it is; you would be worse off with me murdered. You couldn't realize on the box till you got back home, and then you'd have to explain to the persons who rescued, you—if you ever were rescued, which is unlikely—how my murder came about. With your previous record of assassinations, that mightn't be easy. A man with his portrait in the Rogues' Gallery is at a disadvantage!"
Boskom flinched at the mention of the Rogues' Gallery. Observing this, Matthew, who had hitherto spoken in an easy, bantering tone, frowned fiercely, stepped forward, and with a "Give me that!" wrenched the revolver from his hand. Boskom turned to flee, but was brought up by the bamboo hedge.
"You wouldn't shoot an 'elpless man, Mr. Madison?" he quavered.
"I shall think it over; but it would be easier burying you in the sand of the beach than here, so march in that direction! How did you get here? I left you snoring."
"I was woke up by the hape chuckin' clam-shells at me, sir, playful like. Likely, when you went off, he plucked up courage. When I see you was gone, I followed him, and he led me 'ere. I was only jokin' with the gun, sir. I like my little joke; but I wouldn't kill a rabbit, an' never did!"
"Did you ever see a cur killed, Boskom? That sometimes happens when they carry their little jokes too far! How near did the ape come to you?"
"It might be a dozen yards, sir. 'E's a bit shy yet."
"Keep moving!" admonished Matthew.
There was silence for a while. It seemed evident that if the chimpanzee were wearing the missing locket, Boskom had not observed it.
"Make it your business to overcome the ape's shyness. Whether I let you live may depend on your success," Madison said finally. "There's a private matter to be settled between him and me. You will make your camp a hundred paces from me on the beach; and mind you keep the fire going! Be up early, and have the breakfast cooked. If you attempt to approach me till I'm ready, you get a bullet. Move along!"
For the scion of a noble English family, Boskom obeyed orders and adopted a menial attitude with remarkable readiness.
"Yes, sir! Quite so, sir! As you please, sir! Your 'umble servant, sir!" was his language.
He sought to ingratiate himself with almost tearful assiduity, and withal appeared to find a certain pleasure in this new relationship, such as one experiences in fondly revisiting the scenes of an earlier and happier period. Matthew, immersed in his own thoughts, paid little attention to him.
The bumboat was drawn up on the beach, and had proved itself capable of weathering a gale. None of the cays between Jamaica and Honduras was more than three hundred miles from one or the other; unless rescue came speedily, he must hazard the adventure. But first the locket! He would not leave the islet without that!
Upon this decision, the warder and his prisoner came out upon the beach, the time, by the stars, being near two o'clock in the morning. It was long enough before sunrise to make a nap worth while; and Matthew, after seeing Boskom properly disposed of, made a wallow for himself in the sand, placed the silver treasure-box and the revolver underneath a mattress of palm-leaves, and lay down upon it.
He knew no more until he was aroused by excited cries from Boskom. He started up. The sun was just above the horizon.
"Have you got that ape?"
"Not just in 'and, sir; but 'e'll be all right, sir. It was 'im woke me, sir. 'E was the first to see it, sir!"
"See what?"
"Yonder, roundin' into the bay, sir! Look for yourself!" crowed Boskom, pointing out over the water and dancing about grotesquely.
Matthew looked, and beheld a schooner yacht, with fair white sails and the pennant of the New York Yacht Club, standing outside the headlands, about half a mile from shore. She came up in the light breeze, and a four-oared boat was lowered and manned, and began to pull toward the beach.
"It was our smoke brought 'em!" Boskom declared joyously. "I kept the fire goin' all night, sir. Shall I serve you your breakfast now, sir?"
"I wish you'd get me a pair of trousers and a clean shirt," said Matthew, with a nervous glance at his legs.
"I'd hoffer you mine gladly, sir, but you look better without 'em than what I would," Boskom said. "If I'd legs like yours, Mr. Madison, I'd return to the stage. There'd be money in it. Classic roles, sir—'Amlet an' Romeo!"
"See if you can't collect that ape!" said Matthew, as the boat drew nearer. "We don't leave here till I've had an interview with him."
"You wouldn't be leavin' without me, would you, sir?" asked Boskom anxiously.
"Do as I tell you!" answered the young man sternly; and the other scuttled off.
The boat pulled in.
"Stern all!" cried the man at the helm—a handsome young chap in white duck, with a vizored cap.
To Matthew the voice had a familiar sound. The rowers shipped their oars; the helmsman stood up, and, stepping from one thwart to another, sprang to the beach. As he advanced upon Matthew, his searching expression gave place to a broad smile.
"Matt, you remind me of the float at the boat-houses, just before we took the eight-oar out," he said cheerfully. "Your muscle above the equator is a bit off, but your legs seem good still. How are you?"
They shook hands.
"Jack, you've put on flesh since you handled the rudder-lines in that Yale race!"
"Matt, old boy, here we are again!"
"Jack, you were always Johnny-on-the-spot!"
But our national stoicism has its limits. After this initial piece of bravado, the two young fellows had to weaken. Matthew's voice broke, and his face quivered. Both of them began to gulp, whimper, and giggle; they hugged each other like wrestlers and thumped each other violently on the back.
"A fellow gets weak," Matthew explained. "I've not had much grub, and—"
"Of course!" said Jefferson Morton. "I came away without breakfast myself!"
They looked at each other affectionately but shamefacedly.
"But you have company," Morton remarked. "Who's the stout party that waddled off? Your man Friday?"
"Boskom, he calls himself. I sent him for the chimpanzee."
"Three of you? A family party! Any others?"
"Nobleman Jack, up in the woods; but he's a skeleton!"
"A skeleton nobleman! I say, is paresis catching on these cays? Do I look sane still? I had a queer feeling as I came ashore!"
"I want a pair of trousers. You have ladies aboard, I suppose?"
"Foreseeing your predicament, I fetched over a suit of mine for you. Tom, that bundle!"
The brawny young mariner thus addressed brought the package. Matthew wore a dubious expression; there was a discrepancy of some five inches between his friend and himself.
"They're too civilized for a buccaneer, but you can get a slop suit in Kingston," Jeff Morton remarked, as the other unfolded the finely tailored garments. "By the way, is there any treasure to be dug up here?"
"About half a million dollars' worth in my bed there, I believe." Matthew seated himself on a stone and began to try to force a leg into the immaculate pantaloons. Jeff stepped over to the open-air bedchamber and kicked aside the palm-leaves.
"Hello! You did capture something, after all!" he exclaimed. "The original leaden casket from the 'Merchant of Venice,' and—what? A lethal weapon from 'Treasure Island'? In connection with the skeleton, the fat valet, and the chimpanzee, this has a sinister look! What have you been up to, boy?"
Matthew was struggling sternly with the eleemosynary attire.
"What induced you to be such a spindle-shanked sawed-off, Jack?" he cried in exasperation. "If I ever got these on, they'd never come off. I should have to die in 'em!"
"Don't be so precipitate. Matt! When we get aboard the Capable Kate, you can change to pajamas; our folks won't mind. But tell me about the box with the lizards carved on it and the little cutie sitting on top. What's inside it?"
"I haven't opened it. It belongs to the Seatons, and I was on my way to them with it."
"You haven't got far to go, then, for I've got 'em on the yacht. And the steward was just sounding the first bell for breakfast when we sighted your smoke. It was a good job, our rounding you up so soon; I'd made up my mind for a month's cruise at least. We made Kingston only a few hours after you left. When that squall came, the old gentleman got anxious about that tub you were in, and I couldn't do less than offer to hunt up your remains. Fortune favors the unselfish, and this is our first port of call."
"The Seatons are on board?"
"They are; and by the way, I want to introduce you to my wife."
There was a pause. Matthew gave a violent pull to the trousers, and they parted in a most inopportune place.
"I won't be able to join you, Jack," he said gloomily. "You can have a suit of man's-size clothes sent over here from Kingston, when you get back. I sha'n't mind staying here a few days more. Yes, I heard you were engaged, but—so you're married already! Best congratulations! Pretty quick work, wasn't it?"
"None too quick for me! You must ask Mrs. Morton for her view of it. She seemed fairly contented when I last saw her, an hour ago. She wants to meet you."
"I have had the pleasure of meeting her already," said Matthew, rather stiffly.
"Oh, I was under the impression— Look here, Matt, did you seriously think you'd be allowed to continue the Robinson Crusoe stunt on account of a pair of breeches? Here, Tom!" He beckoned to the broad-shouldered young giant in waiting. "Do you and Ned get back to the ship and bring out your holiday rig for this gentleman. Tell the folks to go on with breakfast—we'll be along presently. They were my best duds, too!" he added, ruefully contemplating the wreck of his attire. "You were always passionate and headstrong! Hey, here comes your valet with the ape! What a beauty!"
Boskom was approaching down the beach, leading the chimpanzee, now denuded of its borrowed raiment, and hobbling along with symptoms of reluctance. Its captor seemed to be conducting it by a cord tied round its neck.
"My duty to you, gentlemen," he panted, looking quite fagged out. "You'd never believe the time I've 'ad gettin' hold of 'im, sir. Lucky 'e 'ad this bit o' string on him, to fetch 'im along by—and there's a bauble on it, looks like gold, but—"
To everybody's surprise, Matthew gave vent to a guttural cry and sprang at the chimpanzee. The latter, not only surprised, but alarmed, pulled back on his halter, which, being but a silken cord, gave way. The animal made off into the woods at a great pace, and Boskom, who had been pulling in the opposite direction, went over on his back. Matthew pounced upon him like a tiger. There was an obscure and incomprehensible mix-up, and then Matthew arose triumphant, with some object clutched tight in his hand. Boskom, livid with fright, remained sitting on the beach.
"What the mischief is all this about?" exclaimed Morton, laughing at the absurdity of the spectacle, yet disturbed by the suspicion that there must really be something wrong with his friend's mental equilibrium.
Matthew made no reply, but inwardly longed for a pocket in which he might secrete precious articles. Morton's eyes fell upon Boskom. He looked more attentively. Boskom blinked back unresponsive.
"Upon my word, if it isn't old Ferguson, at last!" he cried. "What did you do with the family spoons and forks, Ferg? You old scamp, you! Have you got that charge of buckshot in your left deltoid muscle that I pumped into you by inadvertence when I was a small boy and you were the model of English butlers? Well, the detectives will be waiting at the pier, Ferg, when we make New York, and you'll get a chance to rest up!"
The person thus addressed had not at first recognized in the grown man with a troubadour mustache and a gold-braided yachting-cap the fifteen-year-old boy whom he had known as the son of his employer and the plague of his life. But recognition came; and he had neither spirits nor, indeed, material facts with which to meet the situation.
"Ain't I suffered enough?" was his only reply; and, sitting with his elbows on his knees, he allowed his sinful countenance to sink into his hands.
"This is surely the Port of Strange Encounters!" said Morton, turning to Matthew. "Are any more coming?"
"Not so far as I'm concerned, unless your man brings back something that I can get into decently. I've suffered enough, too!"
"What about a hot breakfast—chopped grapefruit, soft-boiled eggs, tenderloin steak, crisp fried potatoes, smoking hot coffee, strong enough to stand your spoon up in, and the best cigar made in Cuba? We have some of the old gentleman's genuine Vuelta Abajos, and you never tasted anything to compare with 'em. Even my wife, who is very fastidious, asks me to blow the aroma over her way when I'm smoking 'em."
Matthew's jaws ached. Ferguson—if that was his name—uttered a lamentable groan, and rolled over prone on the sand. But the passing reference to Morton's wife had caused an ache not in Matthew's saliva glands only, but in a more noble organ.
"I'd really rather not come, old man," he said, with a pallid look. "I'm on a mission for the Smithsonian, you know—not in the mood for society, and—"
The boat returned. Tom jumped out, with the holiday rig neatly folded on his arm, and presented them to the naked naturalist with a grave bow.
"Human moods are ruled by dress," said Morton. "Now, let's see—first the shirt!"
The fine white flannel, with the low rolled collar and the front emblazoned with "Capable Kate," descended over Matthew's head, and the cuffs covered his hands to the finger-ends.
"Breeches next!"
On being pulled up, they proved to be rather tight across the chest and redundant about the feet, but—
"You never looked half so well," Morton declared. "My wife will fall in love with you. You must let Tom's tailor dress you in future. All aboard, now! Wake up, Ferg! I'll appoint you assistant steward for the trip, but don't make any mistakes with the ship's silver!"
"That chimpanzee!" muttered Matthew, hesitating. "And the skeleton—oughtn't it to be buried?"
"Leave Nobleman Jack to his meditations! As for the chimpanzee, he knows when he's well off. You have the casket? Do you want the gun?"
"It has served its purpose," said Matthew, and tossed it far out into the azure of the bay, where it fell with a farewell plop.
He and Morton took their seats in the stern, and the crew handled the oars.
"If you please, sir, there's Nobleman Jack now!" came from the exposed malefactor in the bows.
They looked over their shoulders.
"Your eyesight must be failing, Ferg; it's the chimpanzee," said Morton.
"It's all the same," said Matthew.
"Oh, a case of metempsychosis!"
"Ah, 'im an' me was true friends! 'E's a bidding me good-by!" groaned the former butler sentimentally.
"Mind your head!" called out Matthew.
The ape had a coconut in his hand, and on reaching the margin of the beach he hurled it after the boat. His aim was true; and as ball-playing had not been among Ferg's accomplishments, it hit him fair on the forehead and knocked him flat in the bottom of the boat, where he remained during the rest of the trip. The ape showed his teeth, dropped to all fours, and cantered back into the forest.
In a few minutes they were close aboard the Capable Kate. The passengers were waving greetings at the rail. Now for the meeting with Mayda—Mrs. Morton! Matthew had his locket safe in the pocket of Tom's trousers; the silver box was on his knees.
"They waited breakfast, after all," observed Jeff Morton as he laid the boat by the gangplank. "Hurrah, folks! We got him!" he called up to the others.
Matthew didn't look up. Jeff preceded him up the ladder. His own progress was embarrassed by the box in his arms and by the superfluous inches of the trousers, on which he trod at every step. On deck at last, he gave a hurried glance at the group. Mayda stood at the left, and at that moment she had crossed her hands over her breast. Matthew was not conscious of distinguishing any one else; yet he was quick-eyed enough to notice that the sapphire ring was no longer on the third finger of Mayda's left hand. There was no other ring, either.
Meanwhile Jeff Morton was stepping forward with a grand air, leading by the hand a very pretty and smiling young lady, upon whom Matthew looked vacantly.
"Elaine," said Jeff, "I present to you my old friend Matthew Madison, who dressed on purpose to meet you! He would have been my best man, but the Smithsonian saw him first. To make up for it, Matt, you may kiss her—just once. She's that most fortunate of her sex—Mrs. Jefferson Morton!"
Mrs. Jefferson Morton arched her delicate dark eyebrows, and her cheeks pinked most becomingly.
Matthew's conduct on this occasion was peculiar.
His eyes dwelt upon the charming young lady in a prolonged and fascinated stare, like that of a small boy observing, for the first time, a camel passing through the eye of a needle. He then stopped and set down on the deck the silver treasure-box. Straightening up again, he gave a hitch to his waistband, till it nearly reached his armpits, and advanced a pace upon Mrs. Jefferson Morton.
Before she could recoil, or be protected by her husband, he had enclosed her in his arms, poised himself above her, so to speak, and then swooped down upon her with a kiss, a smack, a buss such as an eighteenth-century fox-hunting British squire is reported to have been wont to bestow upon a pretty barmaid. Finally he released her to her speechless husband, smiled inanely, and shook hands cordially and quite normally with Mr. and Mrs. Seaton. He came to Mayda last, and said, as he took her hand:
"It wasn't the end, after all!"
VIII
After breakfast was over—during which meal Matthew had entertained his friends with an account of his adventures up to the period of his second visit, by moonlight, to the lair of the dead buccaneer—he reached under the table and brought up the silver box, which he placed ceremoniously in front of Mayda.
"I believe this answers the description of your property," he said. "I couldn't find the key; but perhaps you have a spell to open it!"
Hereupon ensued much interest and excitement. Everybody leaned forward to examine the famous work of art. Mr. Seaton pronounced it to be, beyond question, the identical object stolen by the Baron Johannes Lassalles de Ferronovo, otherwise Nobleman Jack.
"These things are never duplicated," he said. "As for a key," he added, "I never knew of one. If you possess a spell, my dear"—to Mayda—"now is the time to put it forth!"
The good old gentleman was quite exhilarated, in view of this sudden restoration of the ancient Seaton splendor and solvency.
They all looked expectantly at Mayda, who, throughout, had appeared to be the least interested member of the party.
"If I have a spell, I've never known it," said she, her silken fingers wandering over the box. "There seems to be no keyhole; perhaps it opens in some occult way. This little deity on the lid looks as if he had the secret."
"A woman can twist a man around her little finger," Morton observed, glancing at his wife; "why not a deity?"
Mayda, with an impulsive twitch of her head, did something, none could say just what. The deity gave a little jump, there was a click, and the lid of the box stood ajar. The long hidden treasure was about to be revealed.
"I knew she could do it!" said Matthew, delighted.
"Half a million dollars, wasn't it?" asked Morton.
"At present prices they would be worth a good deal more," said Seaton, his aristocratic old visage flushing a little with agreeable anticipation.
"I bid seven hundred and fifty thousand for the whole lot, before looking!" cried Morton, throwing up his hand.
"A million, gold!" Matthew threw in composedly.
"You take it!" rejoined the other, biting off the end of a cigar.
"I don't know that we care to sell," said Mayda coolly.
She lifted the lid. Everybody craned forward to have a glimpse of the jewels. Mrs. Seaton upset her coffee-cup. There was silence; then a general shout. The box was full of pebbles!
"Sold for a million, all the same!" laughed Morton.
"I refused to sell!" corrected Mayda, with a flash of her eyes.
"If they were mine, I wouldn't sell them again for twice a million," said Matthew, frowning.
"What happened, do you suppose?" inquired Mrs. Seaton.
"Fancy Nobleman Jack playing such a mean trick on us!" said Mrs. Morton.
"I suspect the trick was played on him," surmised Matthew, after pondering the matter for a while. "My notion is," he went on, as the others looked at him in surprise, "that some of his officers found out what the box contained, contrived to take the jewels out and substitute pebbles, and when the fight, or mutiny, or whatever it was, took place, they allowed Nobleman Jack to get away with what he supposed to be his booty. He didn't discover the deception till be got to his island. It probably broke his heart, or he may have killed himself; and there he has sat ever since!"
"How terribly tragic and romantic! I'm almost sorry for him," sighed Mrs. Morton.
"His sin found him out!" said Devereux Seaton, with pardonable severity.
"Maybe it was the chimpanzee got 'em, after all," Morton conjectured. "If there's any truth in metempsychosis, what else could you expect? Shall we go back and look?"
"I was reading Emerson last night," returned Mayda, closing the box. "'Set not your foot on graves,' he says."
Matthew gave her a look, but held his peace.
"Well, then," suggested Morton, rising, "suppose we go on deck?"
And up they all went, except that Mayda delayed a minute to leave the box in her room.
The Capable Kate, under a steady breeze, was putting her pretty foot foremost, and the islet of the mysterious presence was becoming a mere tuft of palms in the distance. The company gathered themselves under the awning aft and discussed the events of the morning.
Morton also gave passages from the earlier career of the person who was then called Ferguson. It appeared that after serving as the family butler, impeccable and dignified—except to Jeff, for to the boy of a family no butler is a hero—he decamped with the silver and other valuables, and had never been apprehended, though it was ascertained that he already had a criminal record behind him, and in spite of the fact that Jeff had marked him with a charge of buckshot while loading his gun in the pantry.
"He was a talented old fraud," admitted the narrator. "He used to spout near-extracts from the poets, and he told me he used to be a famous tragic actor in dear old Hengland; but I always knew he was a humbug, and now he's leading man in a tragicomedy of real life. However, if he manages to slip away when I'm not looking, between this and New York, I won't get myself out of breath chasing him. Our silver is gone, like your family jewels, Mr. Seaton; and after the first ten minutes, I'm not revengeful."
"It is annoying, nevertheless," the old gentleman stated sadly.
"We have the box, though," said Mrs. Seaton philosophically.
"How did the chimpanzee get on the ceiba?" Mrs. Morton wished to know.
"He and I were probably born under the same star," replied Matthew. "I'm glad the beast didn't happen to be a tiger, though a tiger couldn't have stolen—" He stopped, and his eyes sought Mayda, who sat a little apart, watching the porpoises over the side. He had his hand in Tom's trouser-pocket, and the locket in his hand. "The rest of Anderson's Arabian Menagerie didn't jump in time as the ceiba went by, I suppose. The tramp steamer and the Señorita must have drifted close together when the gale struck us."
"Mustn't it have been horrible?" cried Mrs. Morton. "Do hurry and get us back to Kingston before another of those tornadoes catches us, Jeff!"
"I'd like to have been in that one!" said Mayda.
She got up languidly as she spoke, and went below.
"Mayda has seemed out of sorts the last few days," remarked her mother.
"Probably she's in love," suggested Jeff.
"She ought to be," declared her father. "She's not a bad-looking girl, if I do say it; but she doesn't seem to become seriously interested in persons of my sex."
Matthew cleared his throat and tilted his hat-brim over his eyes, though he wasn't facing the sun.
"Has she never been engaged?" he inquired casually.
"Dear me, no!" answered Mrs. Seaton. "We met a number of very agreeable gentlemen up in New York on this last visit; but Mayda was more interested in the picture-galleries and the music."
"I wish we had known you were there!" said Matthew.
"Where were you staying?"
"With an old college chum of Mayda's—Madge Trelawney. You never saw two girls so devoted to each other. Madge is a brunette, you know. Girls sometimes form those extravagant attachments. Mayda told me that in college they would wear each other's ornaments, and even exchange frocks."
"Men are a good deal that way, too," said Jeff. "Matt wanted to wear my trousers this morning; but they were too stylish for him, fresh as he was from a life of savagery!"
Mrs. Seaton smiled amiably.
"Madge is to be married next spring," she continued; "and of course she had a great deal to tell Mayda about her fiancé. He's a Mr. Parker—very good family, I believe, and quite well off. He'd given her a beautiful engagement ring—a sapphire; and actually, when we came away, Madge insisted on Mayda's wearing the ring for a month to bring her good luck. She said Mayda always brought good luck, and Mr. Parker was up in Canada on business, and she was afraid something might happen to him. I believe Mayda sent it back just before we started on this trip; she thought it might get mislaid. I don't know what Mr. Parker would have thought of such a thing!"
"Of course, if he'd met Mayda with the ring, he'd have married her. Any decent man would feel bound to," said Jeff. "I'd do it in a minute!" And he dodged a blow which his wife aimed at him with her fan.
"This strong air and the soothing motion make me feel sleepy," Mr. Seaton announced. "I think, Matilda, I'll go below and take a little nap."
"I'll finish this novel. It's been getting very interesting," said the lady, taking from her lap a copy of "The Three Musketeers," provided against the ennui of the voyage from the Kingston Circulating Library. "You ought to read it, Matthew."
"I'm in the midst of a rather interesting one that I picked up four or five days ago," Matthew replied. "I'm just at the point where the man proposes to the girl;" and he also departed via the companionway.
Matthew found Mayda in the cabin, kneeling on the cushioned seat at the side, looking out at the sea through the porthole, the breeze blowing her hair past the curve of her perfect cheek.
"Everybody seems to be busy except you and me," he said, approaching her. "Isn't there anything we can talk about?"
"The weather is very fine after the storm," she said. "Who'd have thought that such innocent-looking little blue waves could have been so terrible?"
"If one wasn't drowned, it makes one glad to be alive, sunshine like this!" he rejoined. "Not long ago I was drifting about on this very spot, not expecting to be alive to-day."
"What does one think of at such a time?"
"For my part, I was thinking of the girl I love."
"Oh! You must be very much in love with her!"
"I don't believe any girl was ever loved so much!" said Matthew, with conviction; and he sat down on the bench beside her.
"Are you going back to her now, to tell her so?"
"I'm going to ask her if she'll promise to marry me."
"Oh! Then you're not engaged to her yet?"
"I met her for the first time only a week ago. It was a case of love at first sight—for me; but I lost track of her. Then unexpectedly, we met again; but I had learned—I had understood—that she was already betrothed. I had noticed that she wore a ring, and I was afraid it was an engagement ring. Later, she herself told me that it was."
Mayda was no longer looking out of the port-hole. She had dropped down beside him on the bench, and her eyes were wide with perplexity.
"But how can this be?" she asked. "A week ago! Then you mean—"
"Yes, you! Who else could it be?"
"But you were engaged to some one! Why, father told me, the day we got back, that you and he had drunk her health the night before, and how impatient you were for your wedding, and that he'd asked you to spend your honeymoon at Mona."
"Stop!" said Matthew. He was staring at her wildly. "Let me think. Oh, this is inconceivable! Don't you see, when he and I spoke of her—the girl I loved—you!—that I didn't know you were his daughter? I was burning to get away to seek her out—to chase her around the world if need be, and I hated being delayed to meet his daughter—that is, you, whom I didn't know to be his daughter then. I was mad to get her away from that uncle of yours who I supposed must be the person she— you, that is—were to be married to against your will—her will, you know! And then she came, and it was you! But that ring—oh, by George!"
He beat his head with his fist. Mayda caught his wrist.
"Don't do that! About that ring—"
"I know! Your blessed mother told me the whole thing up on deck a minute ago. I noticed that you'd taken it off when I came aboard, and it made me hope. For a moment I hardly knew what I was doing."
"You were kissing Mrs. Morton," said Mayda, laughing a little hysterically.
"Was I? I wanted to kiss the whole world, but it was you all the same! Tell me," he said, catching her by both hands, "is that why you kissed the soldier?"
Mayda's eyes fell, and she became all a rose.
"You must have loved me then!" cried Matthew triumphantly.
"Oh, how dare you? I loved you in the dining-car, when you picked up my napkin! And when father told me that horrible story, I wanted to die! And then, when you began flirting with me in the garden—"
"Flirting! Oh, Heaven!"
"Of course I thought it must be flirting, because what else could it be with an engaged man? So I let you think that the ring was my own engagement ring, instead of Madge's; but afterward, when you seemed really to care—oh, how miserable I was!"
"Mayda!"
He took her slowly and irrevocably in his arms, and there were no more words. Immortality was born in the lovers in that embrace, and they saw each other with the eyes of spirits glorified.
The only event of importance on the trip to Kingston was the court martial held in the case of Ferguson, alias Boskom. There was no jury; every one present acted as judge. After he had been convicted, Matthew remembered that he owed him a thousand dollars for capturing the chimpanzee, and was thereby constrained to confess his own theft of Mayda's head from the family photograph-album. This led to a discussion, ending in the decision that the convict should be permitted to choose his own sentence.
He promulgated it promptly. Penal servitude on the Isle of the Mysterious Presence, for life, or until he should disinter the treasure which, he averred, Nobleman Jack had concealed there. The hard labor which he was to perform meanwhile was to consist in going over the cay with pick and shovel, and in teaching the chimpanzee new tricks. The thousand dollars was to be invested in tools with which to do the digging, and in a supply of staple groceries. When the treasure should have been discovered, should it prove to consist of the Seaton jewels, he was faithfully to deliver the same to Mr. and Mrs. Matthew Madison, Jr., and was to receive in return a weekly stipend sufficient to support himself and the chimpanzee in decent comfort for the rest of their natural lives, or during the continuance of good behavior.
It was so ordered by the court.
"And may God have mercy on your soul!" Judge Jefferson Morton added impressively.
As for the wedding, it was fixed for a month ahead, the whole party meanwhile visiting New York for shopping purposes, and to receive the congratulations of friends, including Madge Trelawney and Mr. Parker, who arranged to be married at the same time. The double ceremony was held at Mona, the ancestral residence of the Hon. Devereux Seaton and Matilda, his wife. Mr. and Mrs. Jefferson Morton were in attendance, and the governor of Jamaica and his lady graced the occasion by their presence.
The subsequent fate of the Smithsonian does not concern this narrative, but there is a nursery of rare little pink and white animals on an upper floor of the Madison mansion in New York. Its two head keepers are very happy, and are likely to remain so.
THE END
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published in 1921, before the cutoff of January 1, 1929.
The longest-living author of this work died in 1934, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 89 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.
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