Читать книгу Out of the Primitive - Robert Ames Bennet - Страница 8

Blake turned about and swung away up the ravine. Lord James followed in the half-obliterated path, which led along the edge of a tiny spring rill. The cleft was here closed in on each side with sheer walls of rock from twenty to thirty feet high. At the point where this small box canon intersected the middle of the cliff ridge, the gigantic baobab that Lord James had seen from the steamer, towered skyward, its huge trunk filling a good third of the width of the gorge. Across from it and nearer at hand was a thicket of bamboos, around which the spring rill trickled from a natural basin in the rock.

But the visitor gave scant heed to the natural features of the place. His glance passed from a great antelope hide, drying on a frame, to the bamboo racks on which sun-seared strips of flesh were curing over a smudge fire. Looking to his left, he saw a hut hardly larger than a dog kennel but ingeniously thatched with bamboo leaves. Then his glance was caught and held by a curious contrivance of interwoven thorn branches and creepers, fitted into a high narrow opening in the trunk of the baobab.

"What's that?—hollow tree?" he asked.

"Yes," answered Blake, without turning. "Sixteen-foot room inside. That's where the she-leopard and the cubs were smothered. Fired the gully to drive out the family. All stayed at home and got smothered 'cept old Mr. Leopard. He ran the gantlet. Lord, how he squalled, poor brute! But they'd have eaten us if we hadn't eaten them. He landed in the pool, too scorched to see. Settled him with my club."

"Clubbed him?—a leopard! I say now! A bit different, that, to snipe shooting."

"Well, yes, a trifle different, Jeems—a trifle," conceded Blake.

"My word! What haven't you been through!" burst out the Englishman.

"And to think she, too, went through it all—six weeks of it!"

"That's it!" enthused Blake. "She's the truest, grittiest little girl the sun ever had the good luck to shine on! If she thinks now I can't realize—that I'm not going to do the square thing by her! I've been thinking it all over, Jimmy. I've got it all mapped out what I'm going to do. Wait, though!"

He sprang ahead and pulled at the thorny contrivance that stopped the opening in the baobab trunk. It was balanced midway up, on a crossbar. Almost at a touch, the lower part swung up and outward and the upper half down and inward. He stepped in under it, hesitated a moment, and went on into the hollow, with an exclamation of relief: "No, 't isn't her room any more, thank God!"

Lord James stared. Well as he knew the sterling qualities of his friend, he had never suspected him of such delicacy. He gazed curiously around at the unshapely but flawless sand-glazed earthenware set on a bamboo rack beside the open stone fireplace, at the rough-woven but strong baskets piled together near the foot of the baobab, at the pouch of antelope skin, the grass sombreros, the bamboo spits and forks and spoons—all the many useful utensils that told of the ingenuity and resourcefulness of his friend.

But, most of all, he was interested in the weighty hardwood club leaning against the tree trunk and the great bamboo bow hanging above in a skin sheath beside a quiver full of long feather-tipped arrows. He was balancing the club when Blake came out of the tree-cave, carrying a young cocoanut in one hand, and in the other a small pot seemingly full of dried mud. Lord James replaced the club, and waved his hand around at the camp.

"'Pon my word, Tom," he commented, "you've out-Crusoed old Robinson!"

"Sure!" agreed Blake. "He had a whole shipful of stuff as a starter, while we didn't have anything except my magnifying glass and Win's penknife and keys."

He pulled out a curious sheath-knife made of a narrow ribbon of steel set in a bone back. "How's that for a blade? Big flat British keys—good steel. I welded 'em together, end to end."

"Gad! the pater's private keys!" gasped Lord James. "You don't tell me the rascal was imbecile enough to keep those keys in his pocket?—certain means of identification if he'd been searched!"

"What!" shouted Blake. "Then the duke he cleaned out was your dad. Whew!"

He whirled the mud-stoppered jug overhead and dashed it down at his feet. From amidst the shattered fragments he caught up a dirty cloth that was quilted across in small squares. He held it out to Lord James.

"There you are, Jimmy—my compliments and more or less of your family heirlooms."

"My word!" murmured the earl, catching eagerly at the cloth. "You got the loot from him? That's like you, Tom!"

"Look out!" cautioned Blake. "I opened one square to see what it was he had hidden. You'll find he hadn't been too daffy to melt the settings—keys or no keys. Say, but it's luck to learn they're yours! Hope they're all there."

"All the good ones will be. He couldn't have sold or pawned any of the best stones after we cabled. Gad! won't the pater be tickled! Ah!"

From the open square of which Blake had spoken, his lordship drew out a resplendent ruby. "Centre stone of Lady Anne's brooch!"

He ran his immaculate finger-tips over the many squares in the cloth. "A stone in every one—must be all of the really valuable loot! The settings were out of date—small value. How'd you get it from him, Tom?"

Blake hesitated, and answered in a low tone: "He got hurt the night of the second cyclone. But he wasn't responsible—poor devil! He must have been dotty all along. It didn't show much before—but I felt uneasy. That's why I built that thorn door—so she could bar herself in."

Lord James stared in horrified surprise. "You really do not mean—?"

"Yes—and it almost happened! God!" Again Blake clenched his teeth and the cold sweat burst out on his forehead.

"My word! That's worse than the snake!" murmured Lord James.

"She—she'd left the door up—heat was stifling," explained Blake. "I had gone off north, exploring. The beast was crawling in—But I've got to remember he wasn't responsible—a paranoiac!"

"Ah, yes. And then?" questioned the Englishman, tugging nervously at the tip of his little blond mustache.

"Then—then—" muttered Blake. "He got what was coming to him. Cyclone struck like a tornado. Door whirled down and knocked him out of the opening—smashed him!"

"The end he had earned!"

"Yes—even if he wasn't responsible, he had become just that—a beast. She had saved his life, too—night I ran down to the beach after eating a poison fish. Barricade hadn't been finished. He was down with the fever. They were attacked—jackals, hyenas. She got him safe inside the tree, with the yelling curs jumping at her."

"My word! she did that?—she? Of all the young ladies I've ever known, she was the very last I should have expected—"

"What! you've met her before?" demanded Blake.

"Then she hasn't told you?" replied his friend. "Lady Bayrose was one of my old friends, y'know. Met 'em aboard ship—sailed on the same steamer, after my run home."

"You did?" muttered Blake, in blank astonishment. "You know her?"

"You must have heard me sing out to her from the boat. Yes, I—er—had the voyage with her through the Mediterranean and down the Red Sea. But Lady Bayrose got tiffed at me, and at Aden shifted to a Cape boat. I had to go on to India alone."

"India?" queried Blake.

"Trailing Hawkins. He first went to India. But he doubled back and 'round to Cape Colony."

"So that's why you didn't get here sooner," said Blake.

"Yes. Didn't notice that the Impala was posted. Didn't know either you or Miss Leslie was aboard her until after I learned you'd thrown up the management of that Rand mine. Traced you to Cape Town. Odd that you and she and Hawkins should all have booked on the same steamer!"

"Think so?" said Blake. "I don't. Winthrope—Hawkins, that is—was smooth enough to know he'd not be suspected if travelling as a member of Lady Bayrose's party. He had already wormed himself into her favor. As for me—well, they had come to look at the mine, and I had shown Jenny through the workings. Does that make it clear why I threw up the job and followed them to Cape Town?"

"She had not given you any reason to—surely, not any encouragement?

No, I can't believe it!"

"Course not, you British doughhead! It was all the other way 'round. Think I didn't realize? She, a lady, and me—what I am! But I couldn't help it—I just couldn't help myself, Jimmy. Knew her father, too—all about his millions and how he made them! He did me—twice. You'd think the very name would have turned me. Yet the minute I set eyes on her—say!"

"You're certainly hard hit!" murmured the young earl. He flushed, bit his lip, hesitated, and burst out with impulsive generosity: "Gad, old man! If it's true—if she really—er—has come to love you, I own that you've won her fair and square—all this, y'know." He waved his hand around in a sweeping gesture. "Saved her from all this. Yes—if it's really true!"

Blake looked away, and spoke in a hushed voice: "It's—it's true, Jimmy! Only a little while ago, there on the cliff edge when we saw your steamer, she—she told me. It started yesterday after I bluffed off the lion. You see, she—"

"Lion?" ejaculated Lord James.

"Yes." Blake flung up his head in an impatient gesture. "The beast tried to stalk us. Jumped back into the grass when I circled out at him. I got the grass fired before he screwed up courage to tackle me.—Don't cut in!—It was then that Jenny—she—she tried to say something. But I streaked for home. This morning, though, when I saw we were safe, I was weak enough to let her—speak out."

Lord James hesitated just perceptibly, and then caught his friend's big, ill-used hand in a cordial clasp. "So—you're engaged! Congratulations!"

"If only it was just that!" cried Blake. He flushed red under his thick coat of tan. "I—I suppose I've got to tell you, Jimmy—I must. I need your help to carry out my plan."

"Your plan?" repeated the Englishman wonderingly.

"To save her from—from committing herself. It isn't fair to her to let her do it now. She ought to wait till she gets back home, among her own people. You see she wants to—She—she says that ship captains can—" He caught his breath, and bent nearer, but with his face half averted. His voice sank to an almost inaudible murmur—"that ship captains can marry people."

"Ah!" gasped Lord James. But he recovered on the instant. "Gad! that is a surprise, old man. Always the lady's privilege, though, to name the day, y'know. I shipped a stewardess to wait on the women—had hoped they would all have been saved. She'll do for lady's maid. Also brought along some women's togs, in case of emergencies. As for yourself, between mine and Megg's and his own wardrobes, my man can rig you up a presentable outfit. Clever chap, that Wilton."

"You've gone back to a valet again!" reproached Blake, momentarily diverted. Then his fists clenched and his brows met in a frown of self-disgust. "Lord! for me to forget for a second! Look here, Jimmy, you're clean off. You don't savvy a little bit. Don't you see the point? I can't let her commit herself now—here! You know I can't. It wouldn't be fair to her, and you know it."

Lord James met his look with a clear and unfaltering gaze, and answered steadily: "That all depends on one thing, Tom. If she really loves you—"

"D'you think she's the kind to do it, if she didn't?" demanded Blake. "No, that's not the point, at all. I've tried to be square, so far. She saw what I'm like when I cut loose—there on the ship. I was two-thirds drunk when the cyclone flung us ashore. No excuse—except that all of them had turned me down from the first—there at Cape Town. Yes, she knows just what I'm like when the craving is on me. Yesterday, down there at the south headland, before the lion came around, I gave her some idea of what I've done—all that."

"You've lived a cleaner life than most who're considered eligible!" exclaimed Lord James. "I know that with respect to women, you're the cleanest—"

"Eligible!" broke in Blake. "No man is that, far as she's concerned, unless it's you, Jimmy."

"Chuck it! You're always knocking yourself. But about this plan that's bothering you? Out with it."

"That's talking! All right, here it is, straight—I want you to get back aboard and steam away, fast as you can hike. You can run into Port Mozambique, if you're going north, and arrange for a boat to call by for me."

"You're daft!" cried Lord James. "Daft! Mad as a hatter! Can you fancy for a moment I'd go off and leave you here?"

"Guess you can't help yourself, Jimmy. The most you can do is force me to take to the jungle. You can't get me aboard. I tell you, I've figured it all out. I won't go aboard and let her do—what she's planning to do. You ought to know. Jimmy, that when I say a thing, I mean it. She's not going to set eyes on me again until after she's back in America. Is that plain?"

"Tom—old man! that's like you!" cried the Englishman, and again he gripped the other's rough hand. "I see now what you're driving at. It's a thing few men would have the bigness to do. You're giving up a certainty, because your love for her is great enough, unselfish enough to consider only her good. D'you fancy I could do such a thing? You're risking everything. Shows you're fit, even for her!"

"It's little enough—for her!" put in Blake.

"That's like you to say it," rejoined his friend. "See here, old man. You've made a clean breast of it all. I should be no less candid. You know now that I met her before—was all those weeks with her aboard ship. Need I tell you that I, too, love her?"

"You?" growled Blake. "But of course! I don't blame you. You couldn't help it."

"It's been an odd shuffling of the cards," remarked his friend. "What if—Aren't you afraid there may be a new deal, Tom? If you don't come aboard, she and I will be together at least as far as Zanzibar, and probably all the way to Aden, before I can find some one else to take her on to England."

"What of that?" rejoined Blake. "Think I don't know you're square, after the months we roughed-it together?"

"Then—But I can't leave you here in this hell-hole! You've no right to ask me to do that, Tom. If I could bring my guns ashore and stay with you—But she'll never be more in need of some one, if you insist upon your plan. I say! I have it—We'll slip you aboard after dark. You can lie in covert till we reach Port Mozambique. I trust I'm clever enough to keep her diverted that long. Can put it that you're outfitting—all that, y' know."

"Say, that's not so bad," admitted Blake, half persuaded. "I could slip ashore, soon as we ran into harbor, leaving her a note to tell her why."

"Right-o, Tammas! But wait. I'll go you one better. You can write your note and give it out that you've shifted to another ship. But you'll stay aboard with us, under cover. Of all the steamers that touch at Aden, one will soon come along with parties whom either she or I know. Then off she goes to the tight little island, and we follow after in our little tramp or on another liner. Hey, Tammas?"

"Well, I don't know," hesitated Blake. "It sounds all right."

"It is all right," insisted the younger man. "You'll be aboard the same steamer with her as far as Aden, to keep an eye on me, y'know."

"On you?"

"You'd better. My word, Tom! don't you realize? If you—er—put it off,

I'm bound to try for myself. Can't help it!"

"Think you've got a show, do you?" rallied Blake.

"I fancied I had as much chance as any one, before all this occurred. I at least should have been in the running, had it not been for the wreck—and you."

Blake stood for several moments, with his head down-bent and eyes fixed upon the ground. When he looked up and spoke, his face was grave and his voice deep and low.

"It's all of a piece, Jimmy. I don't blame you. Fact is, it's all the better. I've had all the advantage here. She and I've been living in the Cave Age, and I've proved myself an A-1 cave-man, if I do say it myself. It may be hard for her to get the right perspective of things, even after she's back in her own environment. Understand?"

"I take it, you mean she has seen the display of your strongest and best qualities, in circumstances that did not call for such non-essentials as mere polish—drawing room culture."

"You mean, for all that counts most with ninety-nine per cent of your class and hers," rejoined Blake. "And there's the craving, too. I'll have to fight that out before I'll be fit to let her do anything. Think I don't know the difference between us? No! I'm going to go the limit, Jimmy. I can't do less, and be square to her. So I give you full leave. You're free to play your hand for all there is in it. I'll stay here—"

"No—no! I'll not hear of it, Tom!"

"Yes, you will. I'll stay here, and you'll see her clear through to America—to Chicago—right to her papa's house and in through the door. Understand? I don't make a single condition. You're to try your best to win; and if you do, why—don't you see?—it'll show that this which she thinks is the real thing is all a mistake."

"My word, old man! you'd not give her up without a fight? That wouldn't be like you!"

"It all depends. I won't if it's true she loves me—God! no! I'd go through hell-fire for her!"

"If I know you, Tom, you'll suffer that and more, should the event prove she is mistaken as to the nature of her present feeling."

"What of it?" muttered Blake, with a look that told the other the uselessness of persuasion. "Think I'd let her marry me, long as there's a shadow of a chance of her being mistaken?"

"Very well, then," replied his friend. "You've said your say. Now I'll say mine. I can ease the tedium of Miss Leslie's trip up the coast; and I stand ready to do so—on two conditions. In the first place; you're to come aboard and stay aboard. After I find a chaperon for her at Aden, you're to go on home with me, to visit at Ruthby."

"Excuse me!" said Blake. "I can see myself parading around your ancestral stone-heap with your ducal dad!"

"You not only can, but will," rejoined the earl. "Come now. You'll be allowed to write that note at Port Mozambique, and keep in covert till Miss Leslie is safe off the ship. But you'll do the rest—you'll not stay here. Another thing—you have my word for it now—I shall endeavor no more than yourself to win her, until after she has returned to her home in the States."

"Lord, Jimmy! that's square—to me, I mean. But how about her?"

"No fear," reassured the Englishman. "She's received everywhere. She's been presented—at Court, y'know. If she stays over on this side a bit, there'll be dozens of 'em dancing attendance on her. Come, now; it's all settled."

"Well, I don't know," hesitated Blake.

"I tell you, you'll sail with us, else I shall leave her at Port

Mozambique and come back for you."

"Um-m—if you take it that hard! But are you sure you can keep her satisfied till we put in there?"

"Trust me for that. If she becomes apprehensive, I'll put it that you'd rather be married in port, by the American consul."

"That's no lie. Say, what's the use of waiting till dark? You said there's a stewardess aboard. Jenny will sure be below with her until—until she's ready for the ceremony."

"Quite true, yes. Then it's all settled. At Port Mozambique, your note; you bunk forward, under cover, till Aden; then home with me for a visit; neither of us see her beyond Aden until we follow her to the States."

"Since you insist—yes, it's a go, Jimmy!" agreed Blake. He turned to hasten away along the gorge, past the baobab. "I'll be back soon. Got to pull down that flag."

Lord James followed, and saw him ascend to the cliff crest on the right, up a withered, leafless tree. The trunk had been burned through at the base in such manner that the top had fallen over against the edge of the rocky wall. A pile of stones offered an easy means of reaching the lower branches. The earl climbed up into the top, and watched his friend run forward over the broken ledges of the ridge.

The bamboo flagstaff was wrenched from its supports and lowered amidst a wild commotion of the nesting sea birds. Blake came back at a jog-trot, regardless of the fierce heat of the sun. In his arms were gathered the tattered folds of the signal flag.

"That's one thing I'm going to take away," he said, in response to the other's look of inquiry. "She sewed that leopard-skin dress all by herself, with a thorn for needle, so we could have her skirt for the flag."

"Fancy!" murmured the Englishman. "With a thorn, you say!"

Blake nodded, and followed him down the tree-ladder and back along the cleft to the baobab. There he paused to take down his archery outfit.

"Guess I'll keep these, too, as souvenirs," he remarked. He pointed to the blackened strips of flesh on the curing racks. "May I ask Lord Avondale to stay to dinner?"

"Very kind, I'm sure. But I've a previous engagement," declined his lordship.

"Now, now, Jeems. Needn't turn up your aristocratic nose at first-class jerked antelope. Ought to 've been with us the first three days. Great menu—raw fish, cocoanuts, more cocoanuts, and then, just when we were whetting our teeth for a nice fat snake or an entree of caterpillars, I landed that old papa leopard. Managed to haggle some of the india rubber off his bones. Tough!—but it was filling. All the same, we didn't wear out any more teeth on him after we got up the cleft and found the cubs. They were tender as spring lambs."

"And Miss Genevieve went through all that!"

"Yes. Told you she's the grittiest little girl ever—and a lady! My

God, when I think of it all! . . . Well, she's come through it alive.

What's more, she's not going to suffer any bad consequences from it,

not if I can help it! Come on. Got your heirloom rag?"

"Safe—inside pocket."

"All right, then. Come on. You don't think I'm aching to hang 'round this cursed hole, do you?—now that she's gone!"

He flung his bow and quiver over his shoulder, thrust the signal flag into the skin pouch, and turned to go.

Lord James stepped before him, with hand outstretched.

"One moment, Tom! Here's for home and America—a fair field, and best man wins!"

"It's a go!" cried Blake, gripping the proffered hand. "May she get the one that'll make her happiest!"