by Harte, Bret
"And then," she said triumphantly when he paused, "when the sailors see that sign up they know they are coming in the harbor."
Jarman smiled, as he had not smiled since he had been there. He corrected this mistake of her eager haste to show her intelligence, and, taking the telescope, pointed out the other semaphore,—a thin black outline on a distant inland hill. He then explained how HIS signs were repeated by that instrument to San Francisco.
"My! Why, I always allowed that was only the cross stuck up in the Lone Mountain Cemetery," she said.
"You are a Catholic?"
"I reckon."
"And you are an Italian?"
"Father is, but mother was a 'Merikan, same as me. Mother's dead."
"And your father is the fisherman yonder?"
"Yes,—but," with a look of pride, "he's got the biggest boat of any."
"And only you and your family are ashore here?"
"Yes, and sometimes Mark." She laughed an odd little laugh.
"Mark? Who's he?" he asked quickly.
He had not noticed the sudden coquettish pose and half-affected bashfulness of the girl; he was thinking only of the possibility of detection by strangers.
"Oh, he is Marco Franti, but I call him 'Mark.' It's the same name, you know, and it makes him mad," said the girl, with the same suggestion of archness and coquetry.
But all this was lost on Jarman.
"Oh, another Italian," he said, relieved. She turned away a little awkwardly when he added, "But you haven't told me YOUR name, you know."
"Cara."
"Cara,—that's 'dear' in Italian, isn't it?" he said, with a reminiscence of the opera and a half smile.
"Yes," she said a little scornfully, "but it means Carlotta,—Charlotte, you know. Some girls call me Charley," she said hurriedly.
"I see—Cara—or Carlotta Franti."
To his surprise she burst into a peal of laughter.
"I reckon not YET. Franti is Mark's name, not mine. Mine is Murano,—Carlotta Murano. Good-by." She moved away, then stopped suddenly and said, "I'm comin' again some time when the thing is working," and with a nod of her head, ran away. He looked after her; could see the outlines of her youthful figure in her slim cotton gown,—limp and clinging in the damp sea air, and the sudden revelation of her bare ankles thrust stockingless into canvas shoes.
He went back into his cabin, when presently his attention was engrossed by an incoming vessel. He made the signals, half expecting, almost hoping, that the girl would return to watch him. But her figure was already lost in the sand dunes. Yet he fancied he still heard the echoes of her voice and his own in this cabin which had so long been dumb and voiceless, and he now started at every sound. For the first time he became aware of the dreadful disorder and untidiness of its uninvaded privacy. He could scarcely believe he had been living with his stove, his bed, and cooking utensils all in one corner of the barnlike room, and he began to put them "to rights" in a rough, hard formality, strongly suggestive of his convict experience. He rolled up his blankets into a hard cylinder at the head of his cot. He scraped out his kettles and saucepans, and even "washed down" the floor, afterwards sprinkling clean dry sand, hot with the noonday sunshine, on its half-dried boards. In arranging these domestic details he had to change the position of a little mirror; and glancing at it for the first time in many days, he was dissatisfied with his straggling beard,—grown during his voyage from Australia,—and although he had retained it as a disguise, he at once shaved it off, leaving only a mustache, and revealing a face from which a healthier life and out-of-door existence had removed the last traces of vice and dissipation. But he did not know it.
All the next day he thought of his fair visitor, and found himself often repeating her odd remark that she was "not that kind of girl," with a smile that was alternately significant or vacant. Evidently she could take care of herself, he thought, although her very good looks no doubt had exposed her to the rude attentions of fishermen or the common drift of San Francisco wharves. Perhaps this was why her father brought her here. When the day passed and she came not, he began vaguely to wonder if he had been rude to her. Perhaps he had taken her simple remark too seriously; perhaps she had expected he would only laugh, and had found him dull and stupid. Perhaps he had thrown away an opportunity. An opportunity for what? To renew his old life and habits? No, no! The horrors of his recent imprisonment and escape were still too fresh in his memory; he was not safe yet. Then he wondered if he had not grown spiritless and pigeon-livered in his solitude and loneliness. The next day he searched for her with his glass, and saw her playing with one of the children on the beach,—a very picture of child or nymphlike innocence. Perhaps it was because she was not "that kind of girl" that she had attracted him. He laughed bitterly. Yes; that was very funny; he, an escaped convict, drawn towards honest, simple innocence! Yet he knew—he was positive—he had not thought of any ill when he spoke to her. He took a singular, a ridiculous pride in and credit to himself for that. He repeated it incessantly to himself. Then what made her angry? Himself! The devil! Did he carry, then, the record of his past life forever in his face—in his speech—in his manners? The thought made him sullen. The next day he would not look towards the shore; it was wonderful what excitement and satisfaction he got out of that strange act of self-denial; it made the day seem full that had been so vacant before; yet he could not tell why or wherefore. He felt injured, but he rather liked it. Yet in the night he was struck with the idea that she might have gone back to San Francisco, and he lay awake longing for the morning light to satisfy him. Yet when the fog cleared, and from a nearer point, behind a sand dune, he discovered, by the aid of his glass, that she was seated on the sun-warmed sands combing out her long hair like a mermaid, he immediately returned to the cabin, and that morning looked no more that way. In the afternoon, there being no sails in sight, he turned aside from the bay and walked westward towards the ocean, halting only at the league-long line of foam which marked the breaking Pacific surges. Here he was surprised to see a little child, half-naked, following barefooted the creeping line of spume, or running after the detached and quivering scraps of foam that chased each other over the wet sand, and only a little further on, to come upon Cara herself, sitting with her elbows on her knees and her round chin in her hands, apparently gazing over the waste of waters before her. A sudden and inexplicable shyness overtook him. He hesitated, and stepped half-hidden in a gully between the sand dunes.
As yet he had not been observed; the young girl called to the child and, suddenly rising, threw off her red cap and shawl and quietly began to disrobe herself. A couple of coarse towels were at her feet. Jarman instantly comprehended that she was going to bathe with the child. She undoubtedly knew as well as he did that she was safe in that solitude; that no one could intrude upon her privacy from the bay shore, nor from the desolate inland trail to the sea, without her knowledge. Of his own contiguity she had evidently taken no thought, believing him safely housed in his cabin beside the semaphore. She lifted her hands, and with a sudden movement shook out her long hair and let it fall down her back at the same moment that her unloosened blouse began to slip from her shoulders. Richard Jarman turned quickly and walked noiselessly and rapidly away, until the little hillock had shut out the beach.
His retreat was as sudden, unreasoning, and unpremeditated as his intrusion. It was not like himself, he knew, and yet it was as perfectly instinctive and natural as if he had intruded upon a sister. In the South Seas he had seen native girls diving beside the vessels for coins, but they had provoked no such instinct as that which possessed him now. More than that, he swept a quick, wrathful glance along the horizon on either side, and then, mounting a remote hillock which still hid him from the beach, he sat there and kept watch and ward. From time to time the strong sea-breeze brought him the sound of infantine screams and shouts of girlish laughter from the unseen shore; he only looked the more keenly and suspiciously for any wandering trespasser, and did not
turn his head. He lay there nearly half an hour, and when the sounds had ceased, rose and made his way slowly back to the cabin. He had not gone many yards before he heard the twitter of voices and smothered laughter behind him. He turned; it was Cara and the child,—a girl of six or seven. Cara's face was rosy,—possibly from her bath, and possibly from some shame-faced consciousness. He slackened his pace, and as they ranged beside him said, "Good-morning!"
"Lord!" said Cara, stifling another laugh, "we didn't know you were around; we thought you were always 'tending your telegraph, didn't we, Lucy?" (to the child, who was convulsed with mirth and sheepishness). "Why, we've been taking a wash in the sea." She tried to gather up her long hair, which had been left to stray over her shoulders and dry in the sunlight, and even made a slight pretense of trying to conceal the wet towels they were carrying.
Jarman did not laugh. "If you had told me," he said gravely, "I could have kept watch for you with my glass while you were there. I could see further than you."
"Tould you see US?" asked the little girl, with hopeful vivacity.
"No!" said Jarman, with masterly evasion. "There are little sandhills between this and the beach."
"Then how tould other people see us?" persisted the child.
Jarman could see that the older girl was evidently embarrassed, and changed the subject. "I sometimes go out," he said, "when I can see there are no vessels in sight, and I take ray glass with me. I can always get back in time to make signals. I thought, in fact," he said, glancing at Cara's brightening face, "that I might get as far as your house on the shore some day." To his surprise, her embarrassment suddenly seemed to increase, although she had looked relieved before, and she did not reply. After a moment she said abruptly:—
"Did you ever see the sea-lions?"
"No," said Jarman.
"Not the big ones on Seal Rock, beyond the cliffs?" continued the girl, in real astonishment.
"No," repeated Jarman. "I never walked in that direction." He vaguely remembered that they were a curiosity which sometimes attracted parties thither, and for that reason he had avoided the spot.
"Why, I have sailed all around the rock in father's boat," continued Cara, with importance. "That's the best way to see 'em, and folks from Frisco sometimes takes a sail out there just on purpose,—it's too sandy to walk or drive there. But it's only a step from here. Look here!" she said suddenly, and frankly opening her fine eyes upon him. "I'm going to take Lucy there to-morrow, and I'll show you." Jarman felt his cheeks flush quickly with a pleasure that embarrassed him. "It won't take long," added Cara, mistaking his momentary hesitation, "and you can leave your telegraph alone. Nobody will be there, so no one will see you and nobody know it."
He would have gone then, anyway, he knew, yet in his absurd self-consciousness he was glad that her last suggestion had relieved him of a sense of reckless compliance. He assented eagerly, when with a wave of her hand, a flash of her white teeth, and the same abruptness she had shown at their last parting, she caught Lucy by the arm and darted away in a romping race to her dwelling. Jarman started after her. He had not wanted to go to her father's house particularly, but why was SHE evidently as averse to it? With the subtle pleasure that this admission gave him there was a faint stirring of suspicion.
It was gone when he found her and Lucy the next morning, radiant with the sunshine, before his door. The restraint of their previous meetings had been removed in some mysterious way, and they chatted gayly as they walked towards the cliffs. She asked him frankly many questions about himself, why he had come there, and if he "wasn't lonely;" she answered frankly—I fear much more frankly than he answered her—the many questions he asked her about herself and her friends. When they reached the cliffs they descended to the beach, which they found deserted. Before them—it seemed scarce a pistol shot from the shore arose a high, broad rock, beaten at its base by the long Pacific surf, on which a number of shapeless animals were uncouthly disporting. This was Seal Rock, the goal of their journey.
Yet after a few moments they no longer looked at it, but seated on the sand, with Lucy gathering shells at the water's edge, they continued their talk. Presently the talk became eager confidences, and then,—there were long and dangerous lapses of silence, when both were fain to make perfunctory talk with Lucy on the beach. After one of those silences Jarman said:—
"Do you know I rather thought yesterday you didn't want me to come to your father's house. Why was that?"
"Because Marco was there," said the girl frankly.
"What had HE to do with it?" said Jarman abruptly.
"He wants to marry me."
"And do you want to marry HIM?" said Jarman quickly.
"No," said the girl passionately.
"Why don't you get rid of him, then?"
"I can't, he's hiding here,—he's father's friend."
"Hiding? What's he been doing?"
"Stealing. Stealing gold-dust from miners. I never cared for him anyway. And I hate a thief!"
She looked up quickly. Jarman had risen to his feet, his face turned to sea.
"What are you looking at?" she said wonderingly.
"A ship," said Jarman, in a strange, hoarse voice. "I must hurry back and signal. I'm afraid I haven't even time to walk with you,—I must run for it. Good-by!"
He turned without offering his hand and ran hurriedly in the direction of the semaphore.
Cara, discomfited, turned her black eyes to the sea. But it seemed empty as before, no sail, no ship on the horizon line, only a little schooner slowly beating out of the Gate. Ah, well! It no doubt was there,—that sail,—though she could not see it; how keen and far-seeing his handsome, honest eyes were! She heaved a little sigh, and, calling Lucy to her side, began to make her way homeward. But she kept her eyes on the semaphore; it seemed to her the next thing to seeing him,—this man she was beginning to love. She waited for the gaunt arms to move with the signal of the vessel he had seen. But, strange to say, it was motionless. He must have been mistaken.
All this, however, was driven from her mind in the excitement that she found on her return thrilling her own family. They had been warned that a police boat with detectives on board had been dispatched from San Francisco to the cove. Luckily, they had managed to convey the fugitive Franti on board a coastwise schooner,—Cara started as she remembered the one she had seen beating out of the Gate,—and he was now safe from pursuit. Cara felt relieved; at the same time she felt a strange joy at her heart, which sent the conscious blood to her cheek. She was not thinking of the escaped Marco, but of Jarman. Later, when the police boat arrived,—whether the detectives had been forewarned of Marco's escape or not,—they contented themselves with a formal search of the little fishing-hut and departed. But their boat remained lying off the shore.
That night Cara tossed sleeplessly on her bed; she was sorry she had ever spoken of Marco to Jarman. It was unnecessary now; perhaps he disbelieved her and thought she loved Marco; perhaps that was the reason of his strange and abrupt leave-taking that afternoon. She longed for the next day, she could tell him everything now.
Towards morning she slept fitfully, but was awakened by the sound of voices on the sands outside the hut. Its flimsy structure, already warped by the fierce day-long sun, allowed her through chinks and crevices not only to recognize the voices of the detectives, but to hear distinctly what they said. Suddenly the name of Jarman struck upon her ear. She sat upright in bed, breathless.
"Are you sure it's the same man?" asked a second voice.
"Perfectly," answered the first. "He was tracked to 'Frisco, but disappeared the day he landed. We knew from our agents that he never left the bay. And when we found that somebody answering his description got the post of telegraph operator out here, we knew that we had spotted our man and the L250 sterling offered for his capture."
"But that was five months ago. Why didn't you take him then?"
"Couldn't! For we couldn't hold him without the extradition papers from Austr
alia. We sent for 'em; they're due to-day or to-morrow on the mail steamer."
"But he might have got away at any time?"
"He couldn't without our knowing it. Don't you see? Every time the signals went up, we in San Francisco knew he was at his post. We had him safe, out here on these sandhills, as if he'd been under lock and key in 'Frisco. He was his own keeper, and reported to us."
"But since you're here and expect the papers to-morrow, why don't you 'cop' him now?"
"Because there isn't a judge in San Francisco that would hold him a moment unless he had those extradition papers before him. He'd be discharged, and escape."
"Then what are you going to do?"
"As soon as the steamer is signaled in 'Frisco, we'll board her in the bay, get the papers, and drop down upon him."
"I see; and as HE'S the signal man, the darned fool"—
"Will give the signal himself."
The laugh that followed was so cruel that the young girl shuddered. But the next moment she slipped from the bed, erect, pale, and determined.
The voices seemed gradually to retreat. She dressed herself hurriedly, and passed noiselessly through the room of her still sleeping parent, and passed out. A gray fog was lifting slowly over the sands and sea, and the police boat was gone. She no longer hesitated, but ran quickly in the direction of Jarman's cabin. As she ran, her mind seemed to be swept clear of all illusion and fancy; she saw plainly everything that had happened; she knew the mystery of Jarman's presence here,—the secret of his life,—the dreadful cruelty of her remark to him,—the man that she knew now she loved. The sun was painting the black arms of the semaphore as she toiled over the last stretch of sand and knocked loudly at the door. There was no reply. She knocked again; the cabin was silent. Had he already fled?—and without seeing her and knowing all! She tried the handle of the door; it yielded; she stepped boldly into the room, with his name upon her lips. He was lying fully dressed upon his couch. She ran eagerly to his side and stopped. It needed only a single glance at his congested face, his lips parted with his heavy breath, to see that the man was hopelessly, helplessly drunk!
