Quick Action

by Robert W. Chambers

  XXIX

  A little later he called to her: she emerged from her tent, and togetherthey sat down on the edge of the Causeway, with the two maps spread overtheir knees.

  That both maps very accurately represented the topography of theimmediate vicinity there could be no doubt; the only discrepancy seemedto lie in the situation of the Maltese cross. On White's map the crossfell well within his half of Lot 210; in Jean Sandys' map it wassituated between her half of 210 and 220.

  Plot it out as they might, using Mr. Munsell's diagram, the result wasalways the same; and after a while they gave up the useless attempt toreconcile the differences in the two maps.

  From where they were sitting together on the Causeway's edge, they werefacing due west. At their feet rippled the clear, deep waters of theswamp, lapping against the base of the Causeway like transparent littlewaves in a northern lake. A slight current disclosed the channel whereit flowed out of the north western edges of the swamp, which was setwith tall cypress trees, their flaring bases like silvery pyramids deepset in the shining ooze.

  East of them the Coakachee flowed through thickets of saw-grass andgreen brier, between a forest of oak, pine, and cedar, bordered on thewestern side by palm and palmetto--all exactly as drawn in the map ofPedro Valdez.

  The afternoon was cloudless and warm; an exquisite scent of blossomscame from the forest when a light breeze rippled the water. Somewhere inthose green and tangled depths jasmine hung its fairy gold from archingbranches, and wild oranges were in bloom. At intervals, when the breezeset from the east, the heavenly fragrance of magnolia grew morepronounced.

  After a little searching he discovered the huge tree, far towering aboveoak and pine and palm, set with lustrous clusters, ivory and palestgold, exhaling incense.

  "Wonderful," she said under her breath, when he pointed it out to her."This enchanted land is one endless miracle to me."

  "You have never before been in the South?"

  "I have been nowhere."

  "Oh. I thought perhaps when you were a child----"

  "We were too poor. My mother taught piano."

  "I see," he said gravely.

  "I had no childhood," she said. "After the public school, it was thebook section in department stores.... They let me go last week. That ishow I came to be in the Heikem galleries."

  He clasped his hands around one knee and looked out across thesemi-tropical landscape.

  Orange-coloured butterflies with wings like lighted lanterns flutteredalong the edges of the flowering shrubs; a lovely purplish-black onewith four large, white polka dots on his wings flitted persistentlyabout them.

  Over the sun-baked Causeway blue-tailed lizards raced and chased eachother, frisking up tree trunks, flashing across branches: a snowy heronrose like some winged thing from Heaven, and floated away into thesilvery light. And like living jewels the gorgeous wood-ducks glided inand out where the water sparkled among the cypress trees.

  "Think," he said, "of those men in armour toiling through these swampsunder a vertical sun! Think of them, starved, haggard, fever racked,staggering toward their El Dorado!--their steel mail scorching theirbodies, the briers and poison-grass festering their flesh; moccasin,rattler, and copperhead menacing them with death at every step; thepoisoned arrows of the Indians whizzing from every glade!"

  "Blood and gold," she nodded, "and the deathless bravery of avarice!That was Spain. And it inflamed the sunset of Spanish glory."

  He mused for a while: "To think of De Soto being here--_here_ on thisvery spot!--here on this ancient Causeway, amid these forests!--toweringin his armour! His plated mail must have made a burning hell for hisbody!"

  She looked down at the cool, blue water at her feet. He, too, gazed atit, curiously. For a few feet the depths were visible, then atranslucent gloom, glimmering with emerald lights, obscured furtherpenetration of his vision. Deep down in that water was what theysought--if it truly existed at all.

  After a few moments' silence he rose, drew the hunting-knife at hisbelt, severed a tall, swamp-maple sapling, trimmed it, and, returning tothe water's edge, deliberately sounded the channel. He could not touchbottom there, or even at the base of the Causeway.

  "Miss Sandys," he said, "there is plenty of room for such a structure asthe Maltese cross is supposed to mark."

  "I wonder," she murmured.

  "Oh, there's room enough," he repeated, with an uneasy laugh. "Supposewe begin operations!"

  "When?"

  "Now!"

  She looked up at him, flushed and smiling:

  "It is going to take weeks and weeks, isn't it?"

  "I thought so before I came down here. But--I don't see why we shouldn'tblow a hole through this Causeway in a few minutes."

  "What!"

  She rose to her feet, slightly excited, not understanding.

  "I could set off enough dynamite right here," he said, stamping his heelinto the white dust, "--enough dynamite to open up that channel into theCoakachee. Why don't I do it?"

  Pink with excitement she said breathlessly: "Did you bring _dynamite_?"

  "Didn't _you_?"

  "I--I never even thought of it. F-fire crackers frighten me. I thoughtit would be all I could do to fire off my shot-gun." And she bit her lipwith vexation.

  "Why," he said, "it would take a gang of men a week to cut through thisCauseway, besides building a coffer-dam." He looked at her curiously."How did _you_ expect to begin operations all alone?"

  "I--I expected to dig."

  He looked at her delicate little hands:

  "You meant to dig your way through with pick and shovel?"

  "Yes--if it took a year."

  "And how did you expect to construct your coffer-dam?"

  "I didn't know about a coffer-dam," she admitted, blushing. After amoment she lifted her pretty, distressed eyes to his: "I--I had noknowledge--only courage," she said.... "And I needed money."

  A responsive flush of sympathy and pity passed over him; she was soplucky, so adorably helpless. Even now he knew she was unconscious ofthe peril into which her confidence and folly had led her--a perilaverted only by the mere accident of his own arrival.

  He said lightly: "Shall we try to solve this thing now? Shall we take achance, set our charges, and blow a hole in this Causeway big enough todrain that water off in an hour?"

  "Could you do _that_?" she exclaimed, delighted.

  "I think so."

  "Then tell me what to do to help you."

  He turned toward her, hesitated, controlling the impulsive reply.

  "To help me," he said, smilingly, "please keep away from the dynamite."

  "Oh, I will," she nodded seriously. "What else am I to do?"

  "Would you mind preparing dinner?"

  She looked up at him a little shyly: "No.... And I am very glad that Iam not to dine alone."

  "So am I," he said. "And I am very glad that it is with _you_ I am todine."

  "You never even looked at me in the galleries," she said.

  "Then--how could I know you were reading Valdez if I never looked atyou?"

  "Oh, you may have looked at the _book_ I was reading."

  "I did," he said, "--and at the hands that held it."

  "Never dreaming that they meant to wield a pick-axe," she laughed, "andencompass your discomfiture. But after all they did neither the one northe other; did they?"

  He looked at the smooth little hands cupped in the shallow pockets ofher white flannel Norfolk. They fascinated him.

  "To think," he said, half to himself, "--to think of those handswielding a pick-axe!"

  She smiled, head slightly on one side, and bent, contemplating her righthand.

  "You know," she said, "I certainly would have done it."

  "You would have been crippled in an hour."

  Her head went up, but she was still smiling as she said: "I'd have gonethrough with it--somehow."

  "Yes," he said slowly. "I believe you would."

  "Not," she added, blushing, "t
hat I mean to vaunt myself or mycourage----"

  "No: I understand. You are not that kind.... It's rather extraordinaryhow well I--I _think_ I know you already."

  "Perhaps you _do_ know me--already."

  "I really believe I do."

  "It's very likely. I am just what I seem to be. There is no mysteryabout me. I am what I appear to be."

  "You are also very direct."

  "Yes. It's my nature to be direct. I am not a bit politic or diplomaticor circuitous."

  "So I noticed," he said smilingly, "when you discussed finance with me.You were not a bit politic."

  She smiled, too, a little embarrassed: "How could I be anything butfrank in return for your very unworldly generosity?" she said. "Becausewhat you offered _was_ unworldly. Anyway, I should have been direct withyou; I knew what I wanted; I knew what you wanted. All I had to do wasto make up my mind. And I did so."

  "Did you make up your mind about me, also?"

  "Yes, about you, also."

  They both smiled.

  She was so straight and slender and pretty in her white flannels andwhite outing hat--her attitude so confident, so charmingly determined,that she seemed to him even younger than she really was--a delightful,illogical, fresh and fearless school-girl, translated by some flash ofmagic from her school hither, and set down unruffled and unstartled uponher light, white-shod feet.

  Even now it amazed him to realise that she really understood nothing ofthe lonely perils lately confronting her in this desolate place.

  For if there were nothing actually to fear from the wild beasts of theregion, _that which the beasts themselves feared_ might have confrontedher at any moment. He shuddered as he thought of it.

  And what would she have done if suddenly clutched by fever? What wouldshe have done if a white-mouthed moccasin had struck her ankle--or if ithad been the diamond-set Death himself?

  "You don't mind my speaking plainly, do you?" he said bluntly.

  "Why, no, of course not." She looked at him inquiringly.

  "Don't stray far away from me, will you?"

  "What?"

  "Don't wander away by yourself, out of sight, while we are engaged inthis business."

  She looked serious and perplexed for a moment, then turned a delicatepink and began to laugh in a pretty, embarrassed way.

  "Are you afraid I'll get into mischief? Do you know it is very kind ofyou to feel that way?... And rather unexpected--in a man who--sat forthree days across the aisle from me--and never even looked in mydirection. Tell me, what am I to be afraid of in this place?"

  "There are snakes about," he said with emphasis.

  "Oh, yes; I've seen some swimming."

  "There are four poisonous species among them," he continued. "That's oneof the reasons for your keeping near me."

  She nodded, a trifle awed.

  "So you will, won't you?"

  "Yes," she said, taking his words so literally that, when they turned towalk toward the tents, she came up close beside him, naively as a child,and laid one hand on his sleeve as they started back across theCauseway.

  "Suppose either one of us is bitten?" she asked after a silence.

  "I have lancets, tourniquets, and anti-venom in my tent."

  Her smooth hand tightened a little on his arm. She had not realised thatthe danger was more than a vague possibility.

  "You have spring water, of course," he said.

  "No.... I boiled a little from the swamp before I drank it."

  He turned to her sternly and drew her arm through his with anunconscious movement of protection.

  "Are you sure that water was properly boiled--_thoroughly_ boiled?" hedemanded.

  "It bubbled."

  "Listen to me! Hereafter when you are thirsty you will use my springwater. Is that understood?"

  "Yes.... And thank you."

  "You don't want to get break-bone fever, do you?"

  "No-o!" she said hastily. "I will do everything you wish."

  "I'll hang your hammock for you," he said. "Always look in your shoesfor scorpions and spiders before you put them on. Never step over afallen log before you first look on the other side. Rattlers lie there.Never go near a swamp without looking for moccasins.

  "Don't let the direct sunlight fall on your bare head; don't eat fruitfor a week; don't ever go to sleep unless you have a blanket on. Youwon't do any of these things, will you?" he inquired anxiously, almosttenderly.

  "I promise. And I never dreamed that there was anything to apprehendexcept alligators!" she said, tightening her arm around his own.

  "Alligators won't bother you--unless you run across a big one in thewoods. Then keep clear of him."

  "I will!" she said earnestly.

  "And don't sit about on old logs or lean against trees."

  "Why? Lizards?"

  "Oh, they're not harmful. But wood-ticks might give you a miserable weekor two."

  "Oh, dear, oh, dear," she murmured, "I am so glad you came here!" Andquite innocently she pressed his arm. She did it because she wasgrateful. She had a very direct way with her.