CHAPTER II
THE SEVEN WIVES
Hardly had the words fallen from the lips of Obadiah Price than the old man straightened himself and stood as rigid as a gargoyle, his gaze penetrating into the darkness of the room beyond Captain Plum, his head inclined slightly, every nerve in him strained to a tension of expectancy. His companion involuntarily gripped the butt of his pistol and faced the narrow entrance through which they had come. In the moment of absolute silence that followed there came to him, faintly, a sound, unintelligible at first, but growing in volume until he knew that it was the last echo of a tolling bell. There was no movement, no sound of breath or whisper from the old man at his back. But when it came again, floating to him as if from a vast distance, he turned quickly to find Obadiah Price with his face lifted, his thin arms flung wide above his head and his lips moving as if in prayer. His eyes burned with a dull glow as though he had been suddenly thrown into a trance. He seemed not to breathe, no vibration of life stirred him except in the movement of his lips. With the third toll of the distant bell he spoke, and to Captain Plum it was as if the passion and fire in his voice came from another being.
"Our Christ, Master of hosts, we call upon Thy chosen people the three blessings of the universe—peace, prosperity and plenty, and upon Strang, priest, king and prophet, the bounty of Thy power!"
Three times more the distant bell tolled forth its mysterious message and when the last echoes had died away the old man's arms dropped beside him and he turned again to Captain Plum.
"Franklin Pierce, President of the United States of America," he repeated, as though there had been no interruption since his companion's question. "The package is to be delivered to him. Now you must excuse me. An important matter calls me out for a short time. But I will be back soon—oh, yes, very soon. And you will wait for me. You will wait for me here, and then I will take you to St. James."
He was gone in a quick hopping way, like a cricket, and the last that Captain Plum saw of him was his ghostly face turned back for an instant in the darkness of the next room, and after that the soft patter of his feet and the strange chuckle in his throat traveled to the outer door and died away as he passed out into the night. Nathaniel Plum was not a man to be easily startled, but there was something so unusual about the proceedings in which he was as yet playing a blind part that he forgot to smoke, which was saying much. Who was the old man? Was he mad? His eyes scanned the little room and an exclamation of astonishment fell from his lips when he saw the leather bag, partly filled with gold, lying where his mysterious acquaintance had dropped it. Surely this was madness or else another ruse to test his honesty. The discovery thrilled him. It was wonderfully quiet out in that next room and very dark. Were hidden eyes guarding that bag? Well, if so, he would give their owner to understand that he was not a thief. He rose from his chair and moved toward the bag, lifted it in his hand, and tossed it back again so that the gold in it chinked loudly. Then he went to the narrow aperture and blocked it with his body and listened until he knew that if there had been human life in the room he would have heard it.
The outer door was open and through it there came to him the soft breath of the night air and the sweetness of balsam and wild flowers. It struck him that it would be pleasanter waiting outside than in, and it would undoubtedly make no difference to Obadiah Price. In front of the cabin he found the stump of a log and seating himself on it where the clear light of the stars fell full upon him he once more began his interrupted smoke. It seemed to him that he had waited a long time when he heard the sound of footsteps. They came rapidly as if the person was half running. Hardly had he located the direction of the sound when a figure appeared in the opening and hurried toward the door of the cabin. A dozen yards from him it paused for a moment and turned partly about, as if inspecting the path over which it had come. With a greeting whistle Captain Plum jumped to his feet. He heard a little throat note, which was not the chuckling of Obadiah Price, and the figure ran almost into his arms. A sudden knowledge of having made a mistake drew Captain Plum a pace backward. For scarcely more than five seconds he found himself staring into the white terrified face of a girl. Eyes wide and glowing with sudden fright met his own. Instinctively he lifted his hand to his hat, but before he could speak the girl sprang back with a low cry and ran swiftly down the path that led into the gloom of the woods.
For several minutes Captain Plum stood as if the sudden apparition had petrified him. He listened long after the sound of retreating footsteps had died away. There remained behind a faint sweet odor of lilac which stirred his soul and set his blood tingling. It was a beautiful face that he had seen. He was sure of that and yet he could have given no good verbal proof of it. Only the eyes and the odor of lilac remained with him and after a little the lilac drifted away. Then he went back to the log and sat down. He smiled as he thought of the joke that he had unwittingly played on Obadiah. From his knowledge of the Beaver Island Mormons he was satisfied that the old man who displayed gold in such reckless profusion was anything but a bachelor. In all probability this was one of his wives and the cabin behind him, he concluded, was for some reason isolated from the harem. "Evidently that little Saintess is not a flirt," he concluded, "or she would have given me time to speak to her."
The continued absence of Obadiah Price began to fill Captain Plum with impatience. After an hour's wait he reentered the cabin and made his way to the little room, where the candle was still burning dimly. To his astonishment he beheld the old man sitting beside the table. His thin face was propped between his hands and his eyes were closed as if he was asleep. They shot open instantly on Captain Plum's appearance.
"I've been waiting for you, Nat," he cried, straightening himself with spring-like quickness. "Waiting for you a long time, Nat!" He rubbed his hands and chuckled at his own familiarity. "I saw you out there enjoying yourself. What did you think of her, Nat?" He winked with such audacious glee that, despite his own astonishment, Captain Plum burst into a laugh. Obadiah Price held up a warning hand. "Tut, tut, not so loud!" he admonished. His face was a map of wrinkles. His little black eyes shone with silent laughter. There was no doubt but that he was immensely pleased over something. "Tell me, Nat—why did you come to St. James?"
He leaned forward over the table, his odd white head almost resting on it, and twiddled his thumbs with wonderful rapidity. "Eh, Nat?" he urged. "Why did you come?"
"Because it was too hot and uninteresting lying out there in a calm, Dad," replied the master of the Typhoon. "We've been roasting for thirty-six hours without a breath to fill our sails. I came over to see what you people are like. Any harm done?"
"Not a bit, not a bit—yet," chuckled the old man. "And what's your business, Nat?"
"Sailing—mostly."
"Ho, ho, ho! of course, I might have known it! Sailing—mostly. Why, certainly you sail! And why do you carry a pistol on one side of you and a knife on the other, Nat?"
"Troublous times, Dad. Some of the fisher-folk along the Northern End aren't very scrupulous. They took a cargo of canned stuffs from me a year back."
"And what use do you make of the four-pounder that's wrapped up in tarpaulin under your deck, Nat? And what in the world are you going to do with five barrels of gun-powder?"
"How in blazes—" began Captain Plum.
"O, to be sure, to be sure—they're for the fisher-folk," interrupted Obadiah Price. "Blow 'em up, eh, Nat? And you seem to be a young man of education, Nat. How did you happen to make a mistake in your count? Haven't you twelve men aboard your sloop instead of eight, Nat? Aren't there twelve instead of eight? Eh, Nat?"
"The devil take you!" cried Captain Plum, leaping suddenly to his feet, his face flaming red. "Yes, I have got twelve men and I've got a gun in tarpaulin and I've got five barrels of gunpowder! But how in the name of Kingdom-Come did you find it out?"
Obadiah Price came around the end of the table and stood so close to Captain Plum that a person ten feet away could not have heard him when he spoke.
"I know more than that, Nat," he whispered. "Listen! A little while ago—say two weeks back—you were becalmed off the head of Beaver Island, and one dark night you were boarded by two boat-loads of men who made you and your crew prisoners, robbed you of everything you had,—and the next day you went back to Chicago. Eh?"
Nathaniel stood speechless.
"And you made up your mind the pirates were Mormons, enlisted some of your friends, armed your ship—and you're back here to make us settle. Isn't it so, Nat?"
The little old man was rubbing his hands eagerly, excitedly.
"You tried to get the revenue cutter Michigan to come down with you, but they wouldn't—ho, ho, they wouldn't! One of our friends in Chicago sent quick word ahead of you to tell me all about it, and—Strang, the king, doesn't know!"
He spoke the last words in intense earnestness.
Then, suddenly, he held out his hand.
"Young man, will you shake hands with me? Will you shake hands?—and then we will go to St. James!"
Captain Plum thrust out a hand and the old man gripped it. The thin fingers tightened like cold clamps of steel. For a moment the face of Obadiah Price underwent a strange change. The hardness and glitter went out of his eyes and in place there came a questioning, almost an appealing, look. His tense mouth relaxed. It was as if he was on the point of surrendering to some emotion which he was struggling to stifle. And Nathaniel, meeting those eyes, felt that somewhere within him had been struck a strange chord of sympathy, something that made this little old man more than a half-mad stranger to him, and involuntarily the grip of his fingers tightened around those of his companion.
"Now we will go to St. James, Captain Plum!"
He attempted to withdraw his hand but Captain Plum held to it.
"Not yet!" he exclaimed. "There are two or three things which your friend didn't tell you, Obadiah Price!"
Nathaniel's eyes glittered dangerously.
"When I left ship this morning I gave explicit orders to Casey, my mate."
He gazed steadily into the old man's unflinching eyes.
"I said something like this: 'Casey, I'm going to see Strang before I come back. If he's willing to settle for five thousand, we'll call it off. And if he isn't—why, we'll stand out there a mile and blow St. James into hell! And if I don't come back by to-morrow at sundown, Casey, you take command and blow it to hell without me!' So, Obadiah Price, if there's treachery—"
The old man clutched at his hands with insane fierceness.
"There will be no treachery, Nat, I swear to God there will be no treachery! Come, we will go—"
Still Captain Plum hesitated.
"Who are you? Whom am I to follow?"
"A member of our holy Council of Twelve, Nat, and lord high treasurer of His Majesty, King Strang!"
Before Captain Plum could recover from the surprise of this whispered announcement the little old man had freed himself and was pattering swiftly through the darkness of the next room. The master of the Typhoon followed close behind him. Outside the councilor hesitated for a moment, as if debating which route to take, and then with a prodigious wink at Captain Plum and a throatful of his inimitable chuckles, chose the path down which his startled visitor of a short time before had fled. For fifteen minutes this path led between thick black walls of forest verdure. Obadiah Price kept always a few paces ahead of his companion and spoke not a word. At the end of perhaps half a mile the path entered into a large clearing on the farther side of which Nathaniel caught the glimmer of a light. They passed close to this light, which came from the window of a large square house built of logs, and Captain Plum became suddenly conscious that the air was filled with the redolent perfume of lilac. With half a dozen quick strides he overtook the councilor and caught him by the arm.
"I smell lilac!" he exclaimed.
"Certainly, so do I," replied Obadiah Price. "We have very fine lilacs on the island."
"And I smelled lilac back there," continued Nathaniel, still holding to the old man's arm, and pointing a thumb over his shoulder. "I smelled 'em back there, when—"
"Ho, ho, ho!" chuckled the councilor softly. "I don't doubt it, Nat, I don't doubt it. She is very fond of lilacs. She wears the flowers very often."
He pulled himself away and Captain Plum could hear his queer chuckling for some time after. Soon they entered the gloom of the woods again and a little later came out into another clearing and Nathaniel knew that it was St. James that lay at his feet. The lights of a few fishing boats were twinkling in the harbor, but for the most part the town was dark. Here and there a window shone like a spot of phosphorescent yellow in the dismal gloom and the great beacon still burned steadily over the home of the prophet.
"Ah, it is not time," whispered Obadiah. "It is still too early." He drew his companion out of the path which they had followed and sat himself down on a hummock a dozen yards away from it, inviting Nathaniel by a pull of the sleeve to do the same. There were three of these hummocks, side by side, and Captain Plum chose the one nearest the old man and waited for him to speak. But the councilor did not open his lips. Doubled over until his chin rested almost upon the sharp points of his knees, he gazed steadily at the beacon, and as he looked it shuddered and grew dark, like a fire-fly that suddenly closes its wings. With a quick spring the councilor straightened himself and turned to the master of the Typhoon.
"You have a good nose, Nat," he said, "but your ears are not so good. Sh-h-h-h!" He lifted a hand warningly and nodded sidewise toward the path. Captain Plum listened. He heard low voices and then footsteps—voices that were approaching rapidly, and were those of women, and footsteps that were almost running. The old man caught him by the arm and as the sounds came nearer his grip tightened.
"Don't frighten them, Nat. Get down!"
He crouched until he was only a part of the shadows of the ground and following his example Nathaniel slipped between two of the knolls. A few yards away the sound of the voices ceased and there was a hesitancy in the soft tread of the approaching steps. Slowly, and now in awesome silence, two figures came down the path and when they reached a point opposite the hummocks Nathaniel could see that they turned their faces toward them and that for a brief space there was something of terror in the gleam he caught of their eyes. In a moment they had passed. Then he heard them running.
"They saw us!" Captain Plum exclaimed.
Obadiah hopped to his feet and rubbed his hands with great glee. "What a temptation, Nat!" he whispered. "What a temptation to frighten them out of their wits! No, they didn't see us, Nat—they didn't see us. The girls are always frightened when they pass these graves. Some day—"
"Graves!" almost shouted the master of the Typhoon. "Graves—and we sitting on 'em!"
"That's all right, Nat—that's all right. They're my graves, so we're welcome to sit on them. I often come here and sit for hours at a time. They like to have me, especially little Jean—the middle one. Perhaps I'll tell you about Jean before you go away."
If Captain Plum had been watching him he would have seen that soft mysterious light again shining in the old councilor's eyes. But now Nathaniel stood erect, his nostrils sniffing the air, catching once more the sweet scent of lilac. He hurried out into the opening, with the old man close behind him, and peered down into the starlit gloom into which the two girls had disappeared. The lovely face that had appeared to him for an instant at Obadiah's cabin began to haunt him. He was sure now that his sudden appearance had not been the only cause of its terror, and he felt that he should have called out to her or followed until he had overtaken her. He could easily have excused his boldness, even if the councilor had been watching him from the cabin door. He was certain that she had passed very near to him again and that the fright which Obadiah had attempted to explain was not because of the graves. He swung about upon his companion, determined to ask for an explanation. The latter seemed to divine his thought.
"Don't let a little scent of lilac disturb you so, young man," he said with singular coldness. "It may cause you great unpleasantness." He went ahead and Nathaniel followed him, assured that the old man's words and the way in which he had spoken them no longer left a doubt as to the identity of his night visitor. She was one of the councilor's wives, so he thought, and his own interest in her was beginning to have an irritating effect. In other words Obadiah was becoming jealous.
For some time there was silence between the two. Obadiah Price now walked with extreme slowness and along paths which seemed to bring him no nearer to the town below. Nathaniel could see that he was absorbed in thoughts of his own, and held his peace. Was it possible that he had spoiled his chances with the councilor because of a pretty face and a bunch of lilacs? The thought tickled Captain Plum despite the delicacy of his situation and he broke into an involuntary laugh. The laugh brought Obadiah to a halt as suddenly as though some one had thrust a bayonet against his breast.
"Nat, you've got good red blood in you," he cried, whirling about. "D'ye suppose you can hate as well as love?"
"Lord deliver us!" exclaimed the astonished Captain Plum. "Hate—love—what the—"
"Yes, hate," repeated the old man with fierce emphasis, so close that his breath struck Nathaniel's face. "You can love a pretty face—and you can hate. I know you can. If you couldn't I would send you back to your sloop with the package to-night. But as it is I am going to relieve you of your oath. Yes, Nat, I give you back your oath—for a time."
Nathaniel stepped a pace back and put his hands on his pockets as if to protect the gold there.
"You mean that you want to call off our bargain?" he asked.
The councilor rubbed his hands until the friction of them sent a shiver up Nathaniel's back. "Not that, Nat—O, no, not that! The bargain is good. The gold is yours. You must deliver the package. But you need not do it immediately. Understand? I am lonely back there in my shack. I want company. You must stay with me a week. Eh? Lilacs and pretty faces, Nat! Ho, ho!—You will stay a week, won't you, Nat?"
He spoke so rapidly and his face underwent so many changes, now betraying the keenest excitement, now wrinkled in an ogreish, bantering grin, now almost pleading in its earnestness, that Nathaniel knew not what to make of him. He looked into the beady eyes, sparkling with passion, and the cat-like glitter of them set his blood tingling. What strange adventure was this old man dragging him into? What were the motives, the reasoning, the plot that lay behind this mysterious creature's apparent faith in him? He tried to answer these things in the passing of a moment before he replied. The councilor saw his hesitancy and smiled.
"I will show you many things of interest, Nat," he said. "I will show you just one to-night. Then you will make up your mind, eh? You need not tell me until then."
He took the lead again and this time struck straight down for the town. They passed a number of houses built of logs and Nathaniel caught narrow gleams of light from between close-drawn curtains. In one of these houses he heard the crying of children, and with a return of his grisly humor Obadiah Price prodded him in the ribs and said,
"Good old Israel Laeng lives there—two wives, one old, one young—eleven children. The Kingdom of Heaven is open to him!" And from a second he heard the sound of an organ, and from still a third there came the laughter and chatter of several feminine voices, and again Obadiah reached out and prodded Nathaniel in the ribs. There was one great, gloomy, long-built place which they passed, without a ray of light to give it life, and the councilor said, "Three widows there, Nat,—fight like cats and dogs. Poor Job killed himself." They avoided the more thickly populated part of the settlement and encountered few people, which seemed to please the councilor. Once they overtook and passed a group of women clad in short skirts and loose waists and with their hair hanging in braids down their backs. For a third time Obadiah nudged Captain Plum.
"It is the king's pleasure that all women wear skirts that come just below the knees," he whispered. "Some of them won't do it and he's wondering how to punish them. To-morrow there's going to be two public whippings. One of the victims is a man who said that if he was a woman he'd die before he put on knee skirts. After he's whipped he is going to be made to wear 'em. By Urim and Thummin, isn't that choice, Nat?"
He shivered with quiet laughter and dived into a great block of darkness where there seemed to be no houses, keeping close beside Nathaniel. Soon they came to the edge of a grove and deep among the trees Captain Plum caught a glimpse of a lighted window. Obadiah Price now began to exhibit unusual caution. He approached the light slowly, pausing every few steps to peer guardedly about him, and when they had come very near to the window he pulled his companion behind a thick clump of shrubbery. Nathaniel could hear the old man's subdued chuckle and he bent his head to catch what he was about to whisper to him.
"You must make no noise, Nat," he warned. "This is the castle of our priest, king and prophet—James Jesse Strang. I am going to show you what you have never seen before and what you will never look upon again. I have sworn upon the Two Books and I will keep my oath. And then—you will answer the question I asked you back there."
He crept out into the darkness of the trees and Nathaniel followed, his heart throbbing with excitement, every sense alert, and one hand resting on the butt of his pistol. He felt that he was nearing the climax of his day's adventure and now, in the last moment of it, his old caution reasserted itself. He knew that he was among a dangerous people, men who, according to the laws of his country, were criminals in more ways than one. He had seen much of their work along the coasts and he had heard of more of it. He knew that this gloom and sullen quiet of St. James hid cut-throats and pirates and thieves. Still there was nothing ahead to alarm him. The old man dodged the gleams of the lighted window and slunk around to the end of the great house. Here, several feet above his head, was another window, small and veiled with the foliage of a vine that clung in dense masses to the log wall. With the assurance of one who had been there before the councilor mounted some object under the window, lifted himself until his chin was on a level with the glass, and peered within. He was there but an instant and then fell back, chuckling and rubbing his hands.
"Come, Nat!"
He stood a little to one side and bowed with mock politeness. For a moment Captain Plum hesitated. Under ordinary circumstances this spying through a window would have been repugnant to him. But at present something seemed to tell him that it was not to satisfy his curiosity alone that Obadiah Price had given him this opportunity. Would a look through that little window explain some of the mysteries of the night?
There came a low whisper in his ear.
"Do you smell lilac, Nat? Eh?"
The councilor was grinning at him. There was a suggestive gleam in his eyes. He rubbed his hands almost fiercely.
In another instant Captain Plum had stepped upon the object beneath the window and parted the leaves. Breathlessly he looked in. A strange scene met his eyes. He was looking into a vast room, illuminated by a huge hanging lamp suspended almost on a level with his head. Under this lamp there was a long table and at the table sat seven women and one man. The man was at the end nearest the window and all that Nat could see was the back of his head and shoulders. But the women were in full view, three on each side of the table and one at the far end. He guessed the man to be Strang; but he stared at the women and as his eyes traveled back to the one facing him at the end of the table he could scarcely repress the exclamation of surprise that rose to his lips. It was the girl whom he had encountered at the councilor's cabin. She was leaning forward as if in an agony of suspense, her eyes the king, her lips parted, her hands clutching at a great book which lay open before her. Her cheeks were flushed with excitement. And even as he looked Captain Plum saw her head fall suddenly forward upon the table, encircled by her arms. The heavy braid of her hair, partly undone, glistened like red gold in the lamplight. Her slender body was convulsed with sobs. The woman nearest her reached over and laid a caressing hand on the bowed head, but drew it quickly away as if at a sharp command.
In his eagerness Nathaniel thrust his face through the foliage until his nose touched the glass. When the girl lifted her head she straightened back in her chair—and saw him. There came a sudden white fear in her face, a parting of the lips as if she were on the point of crying out, and then, before the others had seen, she looked again at Strang. She had discovered him and yet she had not revealed her discovery! Nathaniel could have shouted for joy. She had seen him, had recognized him! And because she had not cried out she wanted him! He drew his pistol from its holster and waited. If she signaled for him, if she called him, he would burst the window. The girl was talking now and as she talked she lifted her eyes. Nathaniel pressed his face close against the window, and smiled. That would let her know he was a friend. She seemed to answer him with a little nod and he fancied that her eyes glowed with a mute appeal for his assistance. But only for an instant, and then they turned again to the king. Not until that moment did Nathaniel notice upon her bosom a bunch of crumpled lilacs.
From below the iron grip of the councilor dragged him down.
"That's enough," he whispered. "That's enough for to-night." He saw the pistol in Nathaniel's hand and gave a sudden breathless cry.
"Nat—Nat—"
He caught Captain Plum's free hand in his.
"Tell me this, Obadiah Price," whispered the master of theTyphoon, "who is she?"
The councilor stood on tiptoe to answer.
"They are the six wives of Strang, Nat!"
"But the other?" demanded Nathaniel. "The other—"
"O, to be sure, to be sure," chuckled Obadiah. "The girl of the lilacs, eh? Why, she's the seventh wife, Nat—that's all, the seventh wife!"