The Lady and the Pirate, Emerson Hough [best time to read books TXT] 📗

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

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

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

“Of course,” said she coloring. “I didn’t know but what Partial might be hungry.”

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

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

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

“What’s wrong with you?” she asked, frowning slightly, as it seemed to me.

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

Her eyes grew damp slowly. “I didn’t mean it,” said she.

“Then why did you say it?”

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

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

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

“I didn’t think,” said she, after a little while.

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

“What do you mean, Harry?” she asked quietly.

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

“And what then?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Jimmy, I can’t!” I heard her say. “There isn’t any sugar.”

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

“But I haven’t any pan.”

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

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

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

“Oh, all right, Jimmy,” she said listlessly. “I’ll make them, if you like.”

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

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

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

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

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

It was a land of plenty, and any but a man in my situation might well have been content there for many days. Content was not in my own soul. I was up by dawn and busy about the boats, before any sign of life was visible around the tent or the canvas shelter. But since the sun rose warm, it yet was early when we met at John’s breakfast fire. I felt myself a shabby figure, for in my haste I had forgotten my razors; and by now my clothing was sadly soiled and stained, even the