The Mucker

by Edgar Rice Burroughs

  CHAPTER XIV. THE MUCKER SEES A NEW LIGHT

  TOGETHER the girl and the mucker approached the entrance to theamphitheater. From behind a shoulder of rock they peered down into theforest below them. For several minutes neither saw any cause for alarm.

  "I guess youse must o' been seein' things," said Byrne, drily.

  "Yes," said the girl, "and I see them again. Look! Quick! Down there--tothe right."

  Byrne looked in the direction she indicated.

  "Chinks," he commented. "Gee! Look at 'em comin'. Dere must be a hundredof 'em."

  He turned a rueful glance back into the amphitheater.

  "I dunno as dis place looks as good to me as it did," he remarked. "Doseyaps wid de toad stabbers could hike up on top o' dese cliffs an' makeit a case o' 'thence by carriages to Calvary' for ours in about twoshakes."

  "Yes," said the girl, "I'm afraid it's a regular cul-de-sac."

  "I dunno nothin' about dat," replied the mucker; "but I do know dat ifwe wants to get out o' here we gotta get a hump on ourselves good an'lively. Come ahead," and with his words he ran quickly throughthe entrance, and turning squarely toward the right skirted theperpendicular cliffs that extended as far as they could see to be lostto view in the forest that ran up to meet them from below.

  The trees and underbrush hid them from the head-hunters. There had beendanger of detection but for the brief instant that they passed throughthe entrance of the hollow, but at the time they had chosen the enemyhad been hidden in a clump of thick brush far down the slope.

  For hours the two fugitives continued their flight, passing over thecrest of a ridge and downward toward another valley, until by a smallbrook they paused to rest, hopeful that they had entirely eluded theirpursuers.

  Again Byrne fished, and again they sat together at a one-course meal. Asthey ate the man found himself looking at the girl more and more often.For several days the wonder of her beauty had been growing upon him,until now he found it difficult to take his eyes from her. Thrice shesurprised him in the act of staring intently at her, and each time hehad dropped his eyes guiltily. At length the girl became nervous, andthen terribly frightened--was it coming so soon?

  The man had talked but little during this meal, and for the life of herBarbara Harding could not think of any topic with which to distract hisattention from his thoughts.

  "Hadn't we better be moving on?" she asked at last.

  Byrne gave a little start as though surprised in some questionable act.

  "I suppose so," he said; "this ain't no place to spend the night--it'stoo open. We gotta find a sort o' hiding place if we can, dat a fellowkin barricade wit something."

  Again they took up their seemingly hopeless march--an aimless wanderingin search of they knew not what. Away from one danger to possibledangers many fold more terrible. Barbara's heart was very heavy, foragain she feared and mistrusted the mucker.

  They followed down the little brook now to where it emptied into a riverand then down the valley beside the river which grew wider and moreturbulent with every mile. Well past mid-afternoon they came opposite asmall, rocky island, and as Byrne's eyes fell upon it an exclamation ofgratification burst from his lips.

  "Jest de place!" he cried. "We orter be able to hide dere forever."

  "But how are we to get there?" asked the girl, looking fearfully at theturbulent river.

  "It ain't deep," Byrne assured her. "Come ahead; I'll carry yeh acrost,"and without waiting for a reply he gathered her in his arms and starteddown the bank.

  What with the thoughts that had occupied his mind off and on during theafternoon the sudden and close contact of the girl's warm young bodyclose to his took Billy Byrne's breath away, and sent the hot bloodcoursing through his veins. It was with the utmost difficulty that herestrained a mad desire to crush her to him and cover her face withkisses.

  And then the fatal thought came to him--why should he restrain himself?What was this girl to him? Had he not always hated her and her kind? Didshe not look with loathing and contempt upon him? And to whom didher life belong anyway but to him--had he not saved it twice? Whatdifference would it make? They'd never come out of this savage worldalive, and if he didn't take her some monkey-faced Chink would get her.

  They were in the middle of the stream now. Byrne's arms already hadcommenced to tighten upon the girl. With a sudden tug he strove to pullher face down to his; but she put both hands upon his shoulders and heldhis lips at arms' length. And her wide eyes looked full into the glowinggray ones of the mucker. And each saw in the other's something that heldtheir looks for a full minute.

  Barbara saw what she had feared, but she saw too something else thatgave her a quick, pulsing hope--a look of honest love, or could she bemistaken? And the mucker saw the true eyes of the woman he loved withoutknowing that he loved her, and he saw the plea for pity and protectionin them.

  "Don't," whispered the girl. "Please don't, you frighten me."

  A week ago Billy Byrne would have laughed at such a plea. Doubtless,too, he would have struck the girl in the face for her resistance. Hedid neither now, which spoke volumes for the change that was takingplace within him, but neither did he relax his hold upon her, or takehis burning eyes from her frightened ones.

  Thus he strode through the turbulent, shallow river to clamber up thebank onto the island. In his soul the battle still raged, but he had byno means relinquished his intention to have his way with the girl. Fear,numb, freezing fear, was in the girl's eyes now. The mucker read itthere as plain as print, and had she not said that she was frightened?That was what he had wanted to accomplish back there upon theHalfmoon--to frighten her. He would have enjoyed the sight, but he hadnot been able to accomplish the thing. Now she not only showed thatshe was frightened--she had admitted it, and it gave the mucker nopleasure--on the contrary it made him unaccountably uncomfortable.

  And then came the last straw--tears welled to those lovely eyes. Achoking sob wracked the girl's frame--"And just when I was learning totrust you so!" she cried.

  They had reached the top of the bank, now, and the man, still holdingher in his arms, stood upon a mat of jungle grass beneath a great tree.Slowly he lowered her to her feet. The madness of desire still grippedhim; but now there was another force at work combating the evil that hadpredominated before.

  Theriere's words came back to him: "Good-bye, Byrne; take good careof Miss Harding," and his admission to the Frenchman during that lastconversation with the dying man: "--a week ago I guess I was a coward.Dere seems to be more'n one kind o' nerve--I'm just a-learnin' of theright kind, I guess."

  He had been standing with eyes upon the ground, his heavy hand stillgripping the girl's arm. He looked into her face again. She was waitingthere, her great eyes upon his filled with fear and questioning, like aprisoner before the bar awaiting the sentence of her judge.

  As the man looked at Barbara Harding standing there before him hesaw her in a strange new light, and a sudden realization of the truthflashed upon him. He saw that he could not harm her now, or ever, for heloved her!

  And with the awakening there came to Billy Byrne the withering, numbingknowledge that his love must forever be a hopeless one--that this girlof the aristocracy could never be for such as he.

  Barbara Harding, still looking questioningly at him, saw the change thatcame across his countenance--she saw the swift pain that shot to theman's eyes, and she wondered. His fingers released their grasp upon herarm. His hands fell limply to his sides.

  "Don't be afraid," he said. "Please don't be afraid o' me. I couldn'thurt youse if I tried."

  A deep sigh of relief broke from the girl's lips--relief and joy; andshe realized that its cause was as much that the man had proved true tothe new estimate she had recently placed upon him as that the danger toherself had passed.

  "Come," said Billy Byrne, "we'd better move in a bit out o' sight o' demainland, an' look fer a place to make camp. I reckon we'd orter resthere for a few days till we git in shape ag'in. I know youse
must bedead beat, an' I sure am, all right, all right."

  Together they sought a favorable site for their new home, and it wasas though the horrid specter of a few moments before had never risen tomenace them, for the girl felt that a great burden of apprehension hadbeen lifted forever from her shoulders, and though a dull ache gnawedat the mucker's heart, still he was happier than he had ever beenbefore--happy to be near the woman he loved.

  With the long sword of Oda Yorimoto, Billy Byrne cut saplings and bambooand the fronds of fan palms, and with long tough grasses bound themtogether into the semblance of a rude hut. Barbara gathered leaves andgrasses with which she covered the floor.

  "Number One, Riverside Drive," said the mucker, with a grin, when thework was completed; "an' now I'll go down on de river front an' build deBowery."

  "Oh, are you from New York?" asked the girl.

  "Not on yer life," replied Billy Byrne. "I'm from good ol' Chi; but Ibeen to Noo York twict wit de Goose Island Kid, an' so I knows all aboutit. De roughnecks belongs on de Bowery, so dat's wot we'll call my dumpdown by de river. You're a highbrow, so youse gotta live on RiversideDrive, see?" and the mucker laughed at his little pleasantry.

  But the girl did not laugh with him. Instead she looked troubled.

  "Wouldn't you rather be a 'highbrow' too?" she asked, "and live up onRiverside Drive, right across the street from me?"

  "I don't belong," said the mucker gruffly.

  "Wouldn't you rather belong?" insisted the girl.

  All his life Billy had looked with contempt upon the hated,pusillanimous highbrows, and now to be asked if he would not rather beone! It was unthinkable, and yet, strange to relate, he realized an oddlonging to be like Theriere, and Billy Mallory; yes, in some respectslike Divine, even. He wanted to be more like the men that the woman heloved knew best.

  "It's too late fer me ever to belong, now," he said ruefully. "Yeh gottabe borned to it. Gee! Wouldn't I look funny in wite pants, an' one o'dem dinky, little 'Willie-off-de-yacht' lids?"

  Even Barbara had to laugh at the picture the man's words raised to herimagination.

  "I didn't mean that," she hastened to explain. "I didn't mean that youmust necessarily dress like them; but BE like them--act like them--talklike them, as Mr. Theriere did, you know. He was a gentleman."

  "An' I'm not," said Billy.

  "Oh, I didn't mean THAT," the girl hastened to explain.

  "Well, whether youse meant it or not, it's so," said the mucker. "Iain't no gent--I'm a mucker. I have your word for it, you know--yehsaid so that time on de Halfmoon, an' I ain't fergot it; but youse wasright--I am a mucker. I ain't never learned how to be anything else. Iain't never wanted to be anything else until today. Now, I'd like to bea gent; but it's too late."

  "Won't you try?" asked the girl. "For my sake?"

  "Go to't," returned the mucker cheerfully; "I'd even wear side whiskersfer youse."

  "Horrors!" exclaimed Barbara Harding. "I couldn't look at you if youdid."

  "Well, then, tell me wot youse do want me to do."

  Barbara discovered that her task was to be a difficult one if she wereto accomplish it without wounding the man's feelings; but she determinedto strike while the iron was hot and risk offending him--why she shouldbe interested in the regeneration of Mr. Billy Byrne it never onceoccurred to her to ask herself. She hesitated a moment before speaking.

  "One of the first things you must do, Mr. Byrne," she said, "is to learnto speak correctly. You mustn't say 'youse' for 'you,' or 'wot' for'what'---you must try to talk as I talk. No one in the world speaksany language faultlessly, but there are certain more or less obviousirregularities of grammar and pronunciation that are particularlydistasteful to people of refinement, and which are easy to guard againstif one be careful."

  "All right," said Billy Byrne, "youse--you kin pitch in an' learn mewot--whatever you want to an' I'll do me best to talk like a dude--feryour sake."

  And so the mucker's education commenced, and as there was little elsefor the two to do it progressed rapidly, for once started the mangrew keenly interested, spurred on by the evident pleasure which hisself-appointed tutor took in his progress--further it meant just so muchmore of close companionship with her.

  For three weeks they never left the little island except to gather fruitwhich grew hard by on the adjacent mainland. Byrne's wounds had troubledhim considerably--at times he had been threatened with blood poisoning.His temperature had mounted once to alarming heights, and for a wholenight Barbara Harding had sat beside him bathing his forehead and easinghis sufferings as far as it lay within her power to do; but at last thewonderful vitality of the man had saved him. He was much weakened thoughand neither of them had thought it safe to attempt to seek the coastuntil he had fully regained his old-time strength.

  So far but little had occurred to give them alarm. Twice they had seennatives on the mainland--evidently hunting parties; but no sign ofpursuit had developed. Those whom they had seen had been pure-bloodMalays--there had been no samurai among them; but their savage, warlikeappearance had warned the two against revealing their presence.

  They had subsisted upon fish and fruit principally since they had cometo the island. Occasionally this diet had been relieved by messes ofwild fowl and fox that Byrne had been successful in snaring with aprimitive trap of his own invention; but lately the prey had becomewary, and even the fish seemed less plentiful. After two days of fruitdiet, Byrne announced his intention of undertaking a hunting trip uponthe mainland.

  "A mess of venison wouldn't taste half bad," he remarked.

  "Yes," cried the girl, "I'm nearly famished for meat--it seems as thoughI could almost eat it raw."

  "I know that I could," stated Billy. "Lord help the deer that getswithin range of this old gat of Theriere's, and you may not get evena mouthful--I'm that hungry I'll probably eat it all, hoof, hide, andhorns, before ever I get any of it back here to you."

  "You'd better not," laughed the girl. "Good-bye and good luck; butplease don't go very far--I shall be terribly lonely and frightenedwhile you are away."

  "Maybe you'd better come along," suggested Billy.

  "No, I should be in the way--you can't hunt deer with a gallery, and getany."

  "Well, I'll stay within hailing distance, and you can look for me backany time between now and sundown. Good-bye," and he picked his way downthe bank into the river, while from behind a bush upon the mainland twowicked, black eyes watched his movements and those of the girl on theshore behind him while a long, sinewy, brown hand closed more tightlyupon a heavy war spear, and steel muscles tensed for the savage springand the swift throw.

  The girl watched Billy Byrne forging his way through the swift rapids.What a mighty engine of strength and endurance he was! What a man! Yes,brute! And strange to relate Barbara Harding found herself admiring thevery brutality that once had been repellent to her. She saw him leaplightly to the opposite bank, and then she saw a quick movement in abush close at his side. She did not know what manner of thing had causedit, but her intuition warned her that behind that concealing screen laymortal danger to the unconscious man.

  "Billy!" she cried, the unaccustomed name bursting from her lipsinvoluntarily. "In the bush at your left--look out!"

  At the note of warning in her voice Byrne had turned at her firstword--it was all that saved his life. He saw the half-naked savage andthe out-shooting spear arm, and as he would, instinctively, have duckeda right-for-the-head in the squared circle of his other days, he duckednow, side stepping to the right, and the heavy weapon sped harmlesslyover his shoulder.

  The warrior, with a growl of rage, drew his sharp parang, leaping toclose quarters. Barbara Harding saw Byrne whip Theriere's revolver fromits holster, and snap it in the face of the savage; but to her horrorthe cartridge failed to explode, and before he could fire again thewarrior was upon him.

  The girl saw the white man leap to one side to escape the furious cutaimed at him by his foe, and then she saw him turn with the agilit
y of apanther and spring to close quarters with the wild man. Byrne's left armwent around the Malay's neck, and with his heavy right fist he rainedblow after blow upon the brown face.

  The savage dropped his useless parang--clawing and biting at the mightycreature in whose power he found himself; but never once did thoseterrific, relentless blows cease to fall upon his unprotected face.

  The sole witness to this battle primeval stood spellbound at the sightof the fierce, brutal ferocity of the white man, and the lion-likestrength he exhibited. Slowly but surely he was beating the face of hisantagonist into an unrecognizable pulp--with his bare hands he had metand was killing an armed warrior. It was incredible! Not even Theriereor Billy Mallory could have done such a thing. Billy Mallory! And shewas gazing with admiration upon his murderer!