Romance Island

by Zona Gale

  CHAPTER XIV

  THE ISLE OF HEARTS

  The room in which St. George was looking was long and lofty and hungwith pale tapestries. White pillars supporting the domed whiteceiling were wound with garlands. The smoke from a little brazentripod ascended pleasantly, and about the windows stirred in thefaint wind draperies of exceeding thinness, woven in looms stilledcenturies ago.

  Olivia was crossing before the windows. She wore a white gown strewnwith roses, and she seemed as much at home on this alienmountain-top as she had been in her aunt's drawing-room at theBoris. But her face was sad, and there was not a touch of thepiquancy which it had worn the night before in the throne-room, norof its delicious daring as she had sped past him in the big Yaquetouring car. Save for her, the room was deserted; it was as if theprince had come to the castle and found the Sleeping Princess theonly one awake.

  If in that supreme moment St. George had leaped forward and takenher in his arms no one--no one, that is, in the fairy-tale of whatwas happening--would greatly have censured him. But he stood withoutfor a moment, hardly daring to believe his happiness, hardly knowingthat her name was on his lips.

  He had spoken, however, and she turned quickly, her look uncertainlyseeking the doorway, and she saw him. For a moment she stood still,her eyes upon his face; then with a little incredulous cry thatthrilled him with a sudden joyous hope that was like belief, shecame swiftly toward him.

  St. George loved to remember that she did that. There was no waitingfor assurance and no fear; only the impulse, gloriously obeyed, togo toward him.

  He stepped in the room, and took her hands in his and looked intoher eyes as if he would never turn away his own. In her face was adawning of glad certainty and welcome which he could not doubt.

  "You," she cried softly, "you. How is it possible? But how is itpossible?"

  Her voice trembled a little with something so sweet that it racedthrough his veins with magic.

  "Did you rub the lamp?" he said. "Because I couldn't help coming."

  She looked at him breathlessly.

  "Have you," he asked her gravely, "eaten of the potatoes of Yaque?And are you going to say, 'Off with his head'? And can you tell mewhat is the population of the island?"

  At that they both laughed--the merry, irrepressible laugh of youthwhich explains that the world is a very good place indeed and thatone is glad that one belongs there. And the memory of that breakfaston the other side of the world, of their happy talk about what wouldhappen if they two were impossibly to meet in Yaque came back tothem both, and set his heart beating and flooded her face withdelicate colour. In her laugh was a little catching of the breaththat was enchanting.

  "Not yet," she said, "your head is safe till you tell me how you gothere, at all events. Now tell me--oh, tell me. I can't believe ituntil you tell me."

  She moved a little away from the door.

  "Come in," she said shyly, "if you've come all the way from Americayou must be very tired."

  St. George shook his head.

  "Come out," he pleaded, "I want to stand on top of a high mountainand show you the whole world."

  She went quite simply and without hesitation--because, in Yaque, themaddest things would be the truest--and when she had stepped fromthe low doorway she looked up at him in the tender light of thegarden terrace.

  "If you are quite sure," she said, "that you will not disappear inthe dark?"

  St. George laughed happily.

  "I shall not disappear," he promised, "though the world were to turnround the other way."

  They crossed the still terrace to the parapet and stood looking outto sea with the risen moon shining across the waters. The light windstirred in the cedrine junipers, shaking out perfume; the greatfairy pile of the palace rose behind them; and before them lay themonstrous moon-lit abyss than whose depths the very stars, warm andfriendly, seemed nearer to them. To the big young American in blueserge beside the little new princess who had drawn him over seas thedream that one is always having and never quite remembering wassuddenly come true. No wonder that at that moment the patient Amorywas far enough from his mind. To St. George, looking down uponOlivia, there was only one truth and one joy in the universe, andshe was that truth and that joy.

  "I can't believe it," he said boyishly.

  "Believe--what?" she asked, for the delight of hearing him say so.

  "This--me--most of all, you!" he answered.

  "But you must believe it," she cried anxiously, "or maybe it willstop being."

  "I will, I will, I am now!" promised St. George in alarm.

  Whereat they both laughed again in sheer light-heartedness. Then,resting his broad shoulders against a prism of the parapet, St.George looked down at her in infinite content.

  "You found the island," she said; "what is still more wonderful youhave come here--but _here_--to the top of the mountain. Oh, did youbring news of my father?"

  St. George would have given everything save the sweet of the momentto tell her that he did.

  "But now," he added cheerfully, and his smile disarmed this of itsover-confidence, "I've only been here two days or so. And, though itmay look easy, I've had my hands full climbing up this. I ought tobe allowed another day or two to locate your father."

  "Please tell me how you got here," Olivia demanded then.

  St. George told her briefly, omitting the yacht's ownership,explaining merely that the paper had sent him and that Jarvo andAkko had pointed the way and, save for that journey down nebulousways in the wake of her veil the night before, sketching theincidents which had followed his arrival upon the island.

  "And one of the most agreeable hours I've had in Yaque," hefinished, "was last night, when you were chairman of the meeting.That was magnificent."

  "You _were_ there!" cried Olivia, "I thought--"

  "That you saw me?" St. George pressed eagerly.

  "I think that I thought so," she admitted.

  "But you never looked at me," said St. George dolefully, "and I hadon a forty-two gored dress, or something."

  "Ah," Olivia confessed, "but I had thought so before when I knew itcouldn't be you."

  St. George's heart gave a great bound.

  "When before?" he wanted to know ecstatically.

  "Ah, before," she explained, "and then afterward, too."

  "When afterward?" he urged.

  (Smile if you like, but this is the way the happy talk goes in Yaqueas you remember very well, if you are honest.)

  "Yesterday, when I was motoring, I thought--"

  "I was. You did," St. George assured her. "I was in the prince'smotor. The procession was temporarily tied up, you remember. Did youreally think it was I?"

  But this the lady passed serenely over.

  "Last night," she said, "when that terrible thing happened, who wasit in the other motor? Who was it, there in the road when I--was ityou? Was it?" she demanded.

  "Did you think it was I?" asked St. George simply.

  "Afterward--when I was back in the palace--I thought I must havedreamed it," she answered, "and no one seemed to know, and _I_didn't know. But I did fancy--you see, they think father has takenthe treasure," she said, "and they thought if they could hide mesomewhere and let it be known, that he would make some sign."

  "It was monstrous," said St. George; "you are really not safe herefor one moment. Tell me," he asked eagerly, "the car you werein--what became of that?"

  "I meant to ask you that," she said quickly. "I couldn't tell, Ididn't know whether it turned aside from the road, or whether theydropped me out and went on. Really, it was all so quick that it wasalmost as if the motor had stopped being, and left me there."

  "Perhaps it did stop being--in this dimension," St. George could nothelp saying.

  At this she laughed in assent.

  "Who knows," she said, "what may be true of us--_nous autres_ in theFourth Dimension? In Yaque queer things are true. And of course younever can tell--"

  At this St. George turned toward her
, and his eyes compelled hers.

  "Ah, yes, you can," he told her, "yes, you can."

  Then he folded his arms and leaned against the stone prisms again,looking down at her. Evidently the magician, whoever he was, did notmind his saying that, for the palace did not crumble or the mooncease from shining on the white walls.

  "Still," she answered, looking toward the sea, "queer things _are_true in Yaque. It is queer that you are here. Say that it is."

  "Heaven knows that it is," assented St. George obediently.

  Presently, realizing that the terrace did not intend to turn into acloud out-of-hand, they set themselves to talk seriously, and St.George had not known her so adorable, he was once more certain, aswhen she tried to thank him for his pursuit the night before. He hadomitted to mention that he had brought her back alone to the Palaceof the Litany, for that was too exquisite a thing, he decided, to bespoiled by leaving out the most exquisite part. Besides, there wasenough that was serious to be discussed, in all conscience, in spiteof the moon.

  "Tell me," said St. George instead, "what has happened to you sincethat breakfast at the Boris. Remember, I have come all the way fromNew York to interview you, Mademoiselle the Princess."

  So Olivia told him the story of the passage in the submarine whichhad arrived in Yaque two days earlier than _The Aloha_; of the firsttrip up Mount Khalak in the imperial airship; of Mrs. Hastings'frantic fear and her utter refusal ever to descend; and of what sheherself had done since her arrival. This included a most practicalaccount of effort that delighted and amazed St. George. No wonderMrs. Hastings had said that she always left everything "executive"to Olivia. For Olivia had sent wireless messages all over the islandoffering an immense reward for information about the king, herfather; she had assigned forty servants of the royal household toengage in a personal search for such information and to report toher each night; she had ordered every house in Yaque, not exceptingthe House of the Litany and the king's palace itself, to be searchedfrom dungeon to tower; and, as St. George already knew, she hadbrought about a special meeting of the High Council at noon thatday.

  "It was very little," said the American princess apologetically,"but I did what I could."

  "What about the meeting of the High Council?" asked St. Georgeeagerly; "didn't anything come of that?"

  "Nothing," she answered, "they were like adamant. I thought ofoffering to raise the Hereditary Treasure by incorporating theisland and selling the shares in America. Nobody could ever havefound what the shares stood for, but that happens every day. Halfthe corporations must be capitalized chiefly in the FourthDimension. That is all," she added wearily, "save that day afterto-morrow I am to be married."

  "That," St. George explained, "is as you like. For if your fatheris on the island we shall have found him by day after to-morrow, atnoon, if we have to shake all Yaque inside out, like a paper sack.And if he isn't here, we simply needn't stop."

  Olivia shook her head.

  "You don't know the prince," she said. "I have heard enough toconvince me that it is quite as he says. He holds events in thehollow of his hand."

  "Amory proposed," said St. George, "that we sit up here and throwpebbles at him for a time. And Amory is very practical."

  Olivia laughed--her laugh was delicious and alluring, and St. Georgecame dangerously near losing his head every time that he heard it.

  "Ah," she cried, "if only it weren't for the prince and if we hadnews of father, what a heavenly, heavenly place this would be, wouldit not?"

  "It would, it would indeed," assented St. George, and in his hearthe said, "and so it is."

  "It's like being somewhere else," she said, looking into the abyssof far waters, "and when you look down there--and when you look up,you nearly _know_. I don't know what, but you nearly know. Perhapsyou know that 'here' is the same as 'there,' as all these peoplesay. But whatever it is, I think we might have come almost as nearknowing it in New York, if we had only known how to try."

  "Perhaps it isn't so much knowing," he said, "as it is being whereyou can't help facing mystery and taking the time to be amazed.Although," added St. George to himself, "there are things that onefinds out in New York. In a drawing-room, at the Boris, forinstance, over muffins and tea."

  "It will be delightful to take all this back to New York," Oliviavaguely added, as if she meant the fairy palace and the fairy sea.

  "It will," agreed St. George fervently, and he couldn't possiblyhave told whether he meant the mystery of the island or the mysteryof that hour there with her. There was so little difference.

  "Suppose," said Olivia whimsically, "that we open our eyes in aminute, and find that we are in the prince's room in McDougleStreet, and that he has passed his hand before our faces and made usdream all this. And father is safe after all."

  "But it isn't all a dream," St. George said softly, "it can'tpossibly all be a dream, you know."

  She met his eyes for a moment.

  "Not your coming away here," she said, "if the rest is true Iwouldn't want that to be a dream. You don't know what courage thiswill give us all."

  She said "us all," but that had to mean merely "us," as well. St.George turned and looked over the terrace. What an Arabian night itwas, he was saying to himself, and then stood in a sudden amazement,with the uncertain idea that one of the Schererazade magicians hadanswered that fancy of his by appearing.

  A little shrine hung thick with vines, its ancient stone chipped anddefaced, stood on the terrace with its empty, sightless niche turnedtoward the sea. Leaning upon its base was an old man watching them.His eyes under their lowered brows were peculiarly intent, but hislook was perfectly serene and friendly. His stuff robe hung instraight folds about his singularly erect figure, and his beard andhair were not all grey. But he was very old, with incredibly brownand wrinkled flesh, and his face was vacant, as if the mind wereasleep.

  As he looked, St. George knew him. Here on the top of this mountainwas that amazing old man whom he had last seen in the banquet hallat the Palace of the Litany--that old Malakh for whom Olivia had sounexplainably interceded.

  "What is that man doing here?" St. George asked in surprise.

  "He is a mad old man, they said," Olivia told him, "down there theycall him Malakh--that means 'salt'--because they said he alwaysweeps. We had stopped to look at a metallurgist yesterday--he hadsome zinc and some metals cut out like flowers, and he was makingthem show phosphorescent colours in his little dark alcove. The oldman was watching him and trying to tell him something, but themetallurgist was rude to him and some boys came by and jostled himand pushed him about and taunted him--and the metallurgist actuallyexplained to us that every one did that way to old Malakh. So Ithought he was better off up here," concluded Olivia tranquilly.

  St. George was silent. He knew that Olivia was like this, buteverything that proved anew her loveliness of soul caught at hisheart.

  "Tell me," he said impulsively, "what made you let him stay lastnight, there in the banquet hall?"

  She flushed, and shook her head with a deprecatory gesture.

  "I haven't an idea," she said gravely, "I think I must have done itso the fairies wouldn't prick their feet on any new sorrow. One hasto be careful of the fairies' feet."

  St. George nodded. It was a charming reason for the left hand togive the right, and he was not deceived.

  "Look at him," said St. George, almost reverently, "he looks like ashade of a god that has come back from the other world and found hisshrine dishonoured."

  Some echo of St. George's words reached the old man and he caughtat it, smiling. It was as if he had just been thinking what hespoke.

  "There are not enough shrines," he said gently, "but there are fartoo many gods. You will find it so."

  Something in his words stirred St. George strangely. There was aboutthe old creature an air of such gentleness, such supreme repose anddetachment that, even in that place of quiet, his presence made akind of hush. He was old and pallid and fragile, but there lingeredwithin h
im, while his spirit lingered, the perfume of all fine andgentle things, all things of quietude. When he had spoken the oldman turned and moved slowly down the ways of strange light, betweenthe fallen temples builded to forgotten gods, and he seemed like thevery spirit of the ancient mountain, ignorant of itself and knowingall truth.

  "How strange," said St. George, looking after him, "how unutterablystrange and sad."

  "That is good of you," said Olivia. "Aunt Dora and Antoinettethought I'd gone quite off my head, and Mr. Frothingham wanted toknow why I didn't bring back some one who could have been called asa witness."

  "Witness," St. George echoed; "but the whole place is made ofwitnesses. Which reminds me: what is the sentence?"

  "The sentence?" she wondered.

  "The potatoes of Yaque," he reminded her, "and my head?"

  "Ah well," said Olivia gravely, "inasmuch as the moon came up in theeast to-night instead of the west, I shall be generous and give youone day's reprieve."

  "Do you know, I _thought_ the moon came up in the east to-night,"cried St. George joyfully.

  * * * * *

  It was half an hour afterward that Amory's languid voice fromsomewhere in the sky broke in upon their talk. As he came towardthem across the terrace St. George saw that he was miraculously notalone.

  Afterward Amory told him what had happened and what had made himabide in patience and such wondrous self-effacement.

  When St. George had left him contemplating the far beauties of thelittle blur of light that was Med, Mr. Toby Amory set a match to oneof his jealously expended store of Habanas and added one more aromato the spiced air. To be standing on the doorstep of a king'spalace, confidently expecting within the next few hours to assist inlocating the king himself was a situation warranting, Amory thought,such fragrant celebration, and he waited in comparative content.

  The moon had climbed high enough to cast a great octagonal shadow onthe smooth court, and the Habana was two-thirds memory when,immediately back of Amory, a long window opened outward, releasingan apparition which converted the remainder of the Habana into afiery trail ending out on the terrace. It was a girl of rather morethan twenty, exquisitely petite and pretty, and wearing a ruffleyblue evening gown whose skirt was caught over her arm. She stoppedshort when she saw Amory, but without a trace of fear. To tell thetruth, Antoinette Frothingham had got so desperately boredwithindoors that if Amory had worn a black mask or a cloak of flameshe would have welcomed either.

  For the last two hours Mrs. Medora Hastings and Mr. AugustusFrothingham had sat in a white marble room of the king's palace,playing chess on Mr. Frothingham's pocket chess-board. Mr.Frothingham, who loathed chess, played it when he was tired so thathe might rest and when he was rested he played it so that he mightexercise his mind--on the principle of a cool drink on a hot day anda hot drink on a cool day. Mrs. Hastings, who knew nothing at allabout the game, had entered upon the hour with all the suavecomplacency with which she would have attacked the making of a pie.Mrs. Hastings had a secret belief that she possessed great aptitude.

  Antoinette Frothingham, the lawyer's daughter, had leaned on thehigh casement and looked over the sea. The window was narrow, anddeep in an embrasure of stone. To be twenty and to be leaning inthis palace window wearing a pale blue dinner-gown manifestlysuggested a completion of the picture; and all that evening it hadbeen impressing her as inappropriate that the maiden and the castletower and the very sea itself should all be present, with nopossibility of any knight within an altitude of many hundred feet.

  "The dear little ponies' heads!" Mrs. Hastings had kept saying."What a poetic game chess is, Mr. Frothingham, don't you think?That's what I always said to poor dear Mr. Hastings--at least,that's what he always said to me: 'Most games are so _needless_, butchess is really up and down poetic'"

  Mr. Frothingham made all ready to speak and then gave it up insilence.

  "Um," he had responded liberally.

  "I'm sure," Mrs. Hastings had continued plaintively, "neither he norI ever thought that I would be playing chess up on top of a volcanoin the middle of the ocean. It's this awful feeling," Mrs. Hastingshad cried querulously, "of being neither on earth nor under thewater nor in Heaven that I object to. And nobody can get to us."

  "That's just it, Mrs. Hastings," Antoinette had observed earnestlyat this juncture.

  "Um," said Mr. Frothingham, then, "not at all, not at all. We haveall the advantages of the grave and none of its discomforts."

  Whereupon Antoinette, rising suddenly, had slipped out of the whitemarble room altogether and had found the knight smoking inloneliness on the very veranda.

  Amory put his cap under his arm and bowed.

  "I hope," he said, "that I haven't frightened you."

  He was an American! Antoinette's little heart leaped.

  "I am having to wait here for a bit," explained Amory, not withoutvagueness.

  Miss Frothingham advanced to the veranda rail and contrived a shyscrutiny of the intruder.

  "No," she said, "you didn't frighten me in the least, of course.But--do you usually do your waiting at this altitude?"

  "Ah, no," answered Amory with engaging candour, "I don't. ButI--happened up this way." Amory paused a little desperately. In thatsoft light he could not tell positively whether this was MissHolland or that other figure of silver and rose which he had seen inthe throne room. The blue gown was not interpretative. If she wasMiss Holland it would be very shabby of him to herald the surprise.Naturally, St. George would appreciate doing that himself. "I'mlooking about a bit," he neatly temporized.

  Antoinette suddenly looked away over the terrace as her eyes methis, smiling behind their pince-nez. Amory was good to look at, andhe had never been more so than as he towered above her on the stepsof the king's palace. Who was he--but who was he? Antoinettewondered rapidly. Had a warship arrived? Was Yaque taken? Orhad--she turned eyes, round with sudden fear, upon Amory.

  "Did Prince Tabnit send you?" she demanded.

  Amory laughed.

  "No, indeed," he said. Amory had once lived in the South, and heaccented the "no" very takingly. "I came myself," he volunteered.

  "I thought," explained Antoinette, "that maybe he opened a door inthe dark, and you walked out. It _is_ rather funny that you shouldbe here."

  "You are here, you know," suggested Amory doubtfully.

  "But I may be a cannibal princess," Antoinette demurely pointed out.It was not that her astonishment was decreasing; but why--modernityand the democracy spoke within her--waste the possibilities of asituation merely because it chances to be astonishing? Moments ofmystery are rare enough, in all conscience; and when they do arriveall the world misses them by trying to understand them. Which ismanifestly ungrateful and stupid. They do these things better inYaque.

  "You maybe," agreed Amory evenly, "though I don't know that I evermet a desert island princess in a dinner frock. But then, I am abeginner in desert islands."

  "Are you an American?" inquired Antoinette earnestly.

  Amory looked up at the frowning facade of the king's palace, and hecould have found it in his heart to believe his own answer.

  "I'm the ghost," he confessed, "of a poor beggar of a Phoenician whoused to make water-jars in Sidon. I have been condemned to plow thehigh seas and explore the tall mountains until I find the PitifulPrincess. She must be up at the very peak, in distress, and I--"

  Amory stopped and looked desperately about him. Would St. Georgenever come? How was he, Amory, to be accountable for what he told ifhe were left here alone in these extraordinary circumstances?

  Then Antoinette lightly clapped her hands.

  "A ghost!" she exclaimed with pleasure. "Miss Holland hoped theplace was haunted. A Phoenician ghost with an Alabama accent."

  She had said "Miss Holland hoped."

  "Aren't you--aren't you Miss Holland?" demanded Amory promptly, ajoyful note of uncertainty in his voice.

  Antoinette shook her head.

  "N
o," she said, "though I don't know why I should tell you that."

  From Amory's soul rolled a burden that left him treading air onMount Khalak. She was not Miss Holland. What did he care how longSt. George stayed away?

  "I am Tobias Amory," he said, "of New York. Most people don't knowabout the Sidonian ghost part. But I've told you because I thought,perhaps, you might be the Pitiful Princess."

  Antoinette's heart was beating pleasantly. Of New York! How--oh, howdid he get here? Was there, then, a wishing-stone in that windowembrasure where she had been sitting, and had the knight comebecause she had willed it? How much did he know? How much ought sheto tell? Nothing whatever, prudently decided the lawyer's daughter.

  "I've had, I'm almost certain, the pleasure of seeing you before,"imparted Amory pleasantly, adjusting his pince-nez and looking downat her. She was so enchantingly tiny and he was such a giant.

  "In New York?" demanded Antoinette.

  "No," said Amory, "no. Do desert island princesses get to New Yorkoccasionally, then? No, I think I saw you in Yaque. Yesterday. In asilver automobile. Did I?"

  Antoinette dimpled.

  "We frightened them all to death," she recalled. "Did we frightenyou?"

  "So much," admitted Amory, "that I took refuge up here."

  "Where were you?" Antoinette asked curiously. Really, he was veryamusing--this big courtly creature. How agreeable of Olivia to stayaway.

  "Ah, tell me how you got here," she impetuously begged. "Desertisland people don't see people from New York every day."

  "Well then, O Pitiful Princess," said the Shade from Sidon, "it waslike this--"

  It was easy enough to fleet the time carelessly, and assuredly thathigh moon-lit world was meant to be no less merry than the golden.Whoever has chanced to meet a delightful companion on some silververanda up in the welkin knows this perfectly well; and whoever hasnot is a dull creature. But there are delightful folk who are wontto suspect the dullest of harbouring some sweet secret, some senseof "those sights which alone (says the nameless Greek) make lifeworth enduring," and this was akin to such a sight.

  After a time, at Antoinette's conscientious suggestion, theystrolled the way that St. George had taken. And to Olivia and themissing adventurer over by the parapet came Amory's soft query:

  "St George, may I express a friendly concern?"

  "Ah, come here, Toby," commanded St. George happily, "her Highnessand I have been discussing matters of state."

  "Antoinette!" cried Olivia in amazement. From time immemorialroyalty has perpetually been surprised by the behaviour of itsladies-in-waiting.

  "I've been remembering a verse," said Amory when he had beenpresented to Olivia, "may I say it? It goes:

  "'I'll speak a story to you, Now listen while I try: I met a Queen, and she kept house A-sitting in the sky.'"

  "Come in and say it to my aunt," Olivia applauded. "Aunt Dora isdying of ennui up here."

  They crossed the terrace in the hush of the tropic night. Throughthe fairy black and silver the four figures moved, and it was as ifthe king's palace--that sky thing, with ramparts of air--had atlength found expression and knew a way to answer the ancientglamourie of the moon.