“I know.”
“Yes,” he whispered, “you do know that all I have said is only a longer way of saying that I love you.”
“Through stress and doubt,” she murmured, “you think I will find the way? — with perhaps the blood of many nations in my veins, with all their transmitted emotions, desires, passions for my inheritance?... It is my only heritage. They did not even leave me a name; only a capacity for every human error, with no knowledge of what particular inherited failing I am to contend with when temptation comes. Do you wonder I am sometimes lonely and afraid?”
“You darling!” he said under his breath.
“Hush; that is forbidden. You know perfectly well it is. Are you laughing? That is very horrid of you when I’m trying so hard not to listen when you use forbidden words to me. But I heard you once when I should not have heard you. Does that seem centuries ago? Alas for us both, Ulysses, when I heard your voice calling me under the Southern stars! Would you ever have spoken if you knew what you know now?”
“I would have told you the truth sooner.”
“Told me what truth?”
“That I love you, Calypso.”
“You always answer like a boy! Ah, well I — if you knew how easily a girl believes such answers!”
He bent his head, raising her bare fingers to his lips. A tiny shock passed through them both; she released her hand and buried it in the folds of her kilt.
There was a pale flare of moonlight behind the forest; trunks and branches were becoming more distinct. A few moments later the Indian, bending low, came creeping back without a sound, and straightened up in the fathomless shadow of the oak, motioning Shiela and Hamil to rise.
“Choo-lee,” he motioned with his lips; “Ko-la-pa-kin!”
Lips close to Hamil’s ear she whispered: “He says that there are seven in that pine. Can you see them?”
He strained his eyes in vain; she had already found them and now stood close to his shoulder, whispering the direction.
“I can’t make them out,” he said. “Don’t wait for me, but take your chance at once.”
“Do you think I would do that?”
“You must! You have never shot a turkey—”
“Hush, silly. What pleasure would there be in it without you? Try to see them; look carefully. All those dark furry blotches against the sky are pine leaves, but the round shadowy lumps are turkeys; one is quite clearly silhouetted, now; even to his tail—”
“I believe I do see!” murmured Hamil. “By Jove, yes! Shiela, you’re an angel to be so patient.”
“I’ll take the top bird,” she whispered. “Are you ready? We must be quick.”
“Ready,” he motioned.
Then in the dim light one of the shadowy bunches rose abruptly, standing motionless on the branch, craning a long neck into the moonlight.
“Fire!” she whispered; and four red flashes in pairs split the gloom wide open for a second. Then roaring darkness closed about them.
Instantly the forest resounded with the thunderous racket of heavy wings as the flock burst into flight, clattering away through leafy obscurity; but under the uproar of shot and clapping wings sounded the thud and splash of something heavy crashing earthward; and the Indian, springing from root to tussock, vanished into the shadows.
“Two down!” said the girl, unsteadily. “Oh, I am so thankful that you got yours!”
They exchanged excited handclasps of mutual congratulation. Then he said:
“Shiela, you dear generous girl, I don’t believe I hit anything, but I’ll bet that you got a turkey with each barrel!”
“Foolish boy! Of course you grassed your bird! It wasn’t a wing shot, but we took what fate sent us. Nobody can choose conditions on the firing line. We did our best, I think.”
“Wise little Shiela! Her philosophy is as fascinating as it is sound!” He looked at her half smiling, partly serious. “You and I are on life’s firing line, you know.”
“Are we?”
“And under the lively fusillade of circumstances.”
“Are we?”
He said: “It will show us up as we are.... I am afraid for us both.”
“If you are — don’t tell me.”
“It is best to know the truth. We’ve got to stay on the firing line anyway. We might as well know that we are not very sure of ourselves. If the fear of God doesn’t help us it will end us. But—” He walked up to her and took both her hands frankly. “We’ll try to be good soldiers; won’t we?”
“Yes.”
“And good comrades — even if we can’t be more?”
“Yes.”
“And help each other under fire?”
“Yes.”
“You make me very happy,” he said simply; and turned to the Seminole who was emerging from obscurity, shoulders buried under a mass of bronzed feathers from which dangled two grotesque heads.
One was a gobbler — a magnificent patriarch; and Shiela with a little cry of delight turned to Hamil: “That’s yours! I congratulate you with all my heart!”
“No, no!” he protested, “the gobbler fell to you—”
“It is yours!” she repeated firmly; “mine is this handsome, plump hen—”
“I won’t claim that magnificent gobbler! Little Tiger, didn’t Miss Cardross shoot this bird?”
“Gobbler top bird,” nodded the Seminole proudly.
“You fired at the top bird, Shiela! That settles it! I’m perfectly delighted over this. Little Tiger, you stalked them beautifully; but how on earth you ever managed to roost them in the dark I can’t make out!”
“See um same like tiger,” nodded the pleased Seminole. And, to Shiela: “Pen-na-waw-suc-chai! I-hoo-es-chai.” And he lighted his lantern.
“He says that the turkeys are all gone and that we had better go too, Mr. Hamil. What a perfect beauty that gobbler is! I’d much rather have him mounted than eat him. Perhaps we can do both. Eudo skins very skilfully and there’s plenty of salt in camp. Look at that mist!”
And so, chattering away in highest spirits they fell into file behind the Seminole and his lantern, who, in the thickening fog, looked like some slim luminous forest-phantom with great misty wings atrail from either shoulder.
Treading the narrow way in each other’s footsteps they heard, far in the darkness, the gruesome tumult of owls. Once the Indian’s lantern flashed on a snake which rose quickly from compact coils, hissing and distending its neck; but for all its formidable appearance and loud, defiant hissing the Indian picked up a palmetto fan and contemptuously tossed the reptile aside into the bog.
“It’s only a noisy puff-adder,” said Shiela, who had retreated very close against Hamil, “but, oh, I don’t love them even when they are harmless.” And rather thoughtfully she disengaged herself from the sheltering arm of that all too sympathetic young man, and went forward, shivering a little as the hiss of the enraged adder broke out from the uncongenial mud where he had unwillingly landed.
And so they came to their horses through a white mist which had thickened so rapidly that the Indian’s lantern was now only an iridescent star ringed with rainbows. And when they had been riding for twenty minutes Little Tiger halted them with lifted lantern and said quietly:
“Chi-ho-ches-chee!”
“Wh-at!” exclaimed the girl, incredulous.
“What did he say?” asked Hamil.
“He says that he is lost!”
Hamil stared around in dismay; a dense white wall shut out everything; the Indian’s lantern at ten paces was invisible; he could scarcely see Shiela unless she rode close enough to touch his elbow.
“Catch um camp,” observed Little Tiger calmly. “Loose bridle! Bimeby catch um camp. One horse lead. No be scared.”
So Hamil dismounted and handed his bridle to the Indian; then Shiela cast her own bridle loose across the pommel, and touching her horse with both heels, rode forward, hands in her jacket pockets. And Hamil walked beside her, one arm on the cantle.
Into blank obscurity the horse moved, bearing to the left — a direction which seemed entirely wrong.
“Catch um camp,” came the Indian’s amused voice through the mist from somewhere close behind.
“It doesn’t seem to me that this is the right direction,” ventured Shiela doubtfully. “Isn’t it absurd? Where are you, Mr. Hamil? Come closer and keep in touch with my stirrup. I found you in a fog and I really don’t want to lose you in one.”
She dropped one arm so that her hand rested lightly on his shoulder.
“This is not the first mist we’ve been through together,” he said, laughing.
“I was thinking of that, too. They say the gods arrive and go in a mist. Don’t go.”
They moved on in silence, the horse stepping confidently into the crowding fog. Once Hamil stumbled over a root and Shiela’s hand slipped around his neck, tightening a moment. He straightened up; but her hand slid back to his coat sleeve, resting so lightly that he could scarce feel the touch.
Then the horse stumbled, this time over the tongue of the camp wagon. Little Tiger was right; the horse had brought them back.
Hamil turned; Shiela swung one leg across the pommel and slipped from her saddle into his arms.
“Have you been happy, Shiela?”
“You know I have.... But — you must release me.”
“Perfectly happy?”
“Ah, yes. Don’t you know I have?” ... And in a low voice: “Release me now — for both our sakes.”
She did not struggle nor did he retain her by perceptible force.
“Won’t you release me?”
“Must I?”
“I thought you promised to help me — on the firing line?” She forced a little laugh, resting both her hands on his wrists against her waist. “You said,” she added with an effort at lightness, “that we are under heavy fire now.”
“The fire of circumstances?”
“The cross-fire — of temptation.... Help me.”
His arms fell; neither moved. Then a pale spark grew in the mist, brighter, redder, and, side by side, they walked toward it.
“What luck!” cried Gray, lifting a blazing palmetto fan above his head. “We got ten mallard and a sprig! Where’s your game? We heard you shoot four times!”
Shiela laughed as the Seminole loomed up in the incandescent haze of the camp fire, buried in plumage.
“Dad! Dad! Where are you? Mr. Hamil has shot a magnificent wild turkey!”
“Well, upon my word!” exclaimed Cardross, emerging from his section; “the luck of the dub is proverbial! Hamil, what the deuce do you mean by it? That’s what’ I want to know! O Lord! Look at that gobbler! Shiela, did you let this young man wipe both your eyes?”
“Mine? Oh, I almost forgot. You see I shot one of them.”
“Which?”
“It happened to be the gobbler,” she said. “It was a mere chance in the dark.... And — if my section is ready, dad — I’m a little tired, I think. Good night, everybody; good night, Mr. Hamil — and thank you for taking care of me.”
Cardross, enveloped in blankets, glanced at Hamil.
“Did you ever know anybody so quick to give credit to others? It’s worth something to hear anybody speak in that fashion.”
“That is why I did not interrupt,” said Hamil.
Cardross looked down at the dying coals, then directly at the silent young fellow — a long, keen glance; then his gaze fell again on the Seminole fire.
“Good night, sir,” said Hamil at last.
“Good night, my boy,” replied the older man very quietly.
CHAPTER XIII
THE SILENT PARTNERS
Late one evening toward the end of the week a somewhat battered camping party, laden with plump, fluffy bunches of quail, and plumper strings of duck, wind-scorched, sun-burnt, brier-torn and trail-worn, re-entered the patio of the Cardross villa, and made straight for shower-bath, witch-hazel, fresh pyjamas, and bed.
In vain Jessie Carrick, Cecile, and their mother camped around Shiela’s bed after the tray was removed, and Shiela’s flushed face, innocent as usual of sunburn, lay among the pillows, framed by the brown-gold lustre of her hair.
“We had such a good time, mother; Mr. Hamil shot a turkey,” she said sleepily. “Mr. Hamil — Mr. H-a-m-i-l” — A series of little pink yawns, a smile, a faint sigh terminated consciousness as she relaxed into slumber as placid as her first cradle sleep. So motionless she lay, bare arms wound around the pillow, that they could scarcely detect her breathing save when the bow of pale-blue ribbon stirred on her bosom.
“The darling!” whispered Mrs. Carrick; “look at that brier mark across her wrist! — our poor little worn-out colleen!”
“She was not too far gone to mention Garret Hamil,” observed Cecile.
Mrs. Cardross looked silently at Cecile, then at the girl on the bed who had called her mother. After a moment she bent with difficulty and kissed the brier-torn wrist, wondering perhaps whether by chance a deeper wound lay hidden beneath the lace-veiled, childish breast.
“Little daughter — little daughter!” she murmured close to the small unheeding ear. Cecile waited, a smile half tender, half amused curving her parted lips; then she glanced curiously at Mrs. Carrick. But that young matron, ignoring the enfant terrible, calmly tucked her arm under her mother’s; Cecile, immersed in speculative thought, followed them from the room; a maid extinguished the lights.
In an hour the Villa Cardross was silent and dark, save that, in the moonlight which struck through the panes of Malcourt’s room, an unquiet shadow moved from window to window, looking out into the mystery of night.
The late morning sun flung a golden net across Malcourt’s bed; he lay asleep, dark hair in handsome disorder, dark eyes sealed — too young to wear that bruised, loose mask so soon with the swollen shadows under lid and lip. Yet, in his unconscious features there was now a certain simplicity almost engaging, which awake, he seemed to lack; as though latent somewhere within him were qualities which chance might germinate into nobler growth. But chance, alone, is a poor gardener.
Hamil passing the corridor as the valet, carrying a tray, opened Malcourt’s door, glanced in at him; and Malcourt awoke at the same moment, and sat bolt upright.
“Hello, Hamil!” he nodded sleepily, “come in, old fellow!” And, to the valet: “No breakfast for me, thank you — except grape-fruit! — unless you’ve brought me a cuckootail? Yes? No? Stung! Never mind; just hand me a cigarette and take away the tray. It’s a case of being a very naughty boy, Hamil. How are you anyway, and what did you shoot?”
Hamil greeted him briefly, but did not seem inclined to enter or converse.
Malcourt yawned, glanced at the grape-fruit, then affably at Hamil.
“I say,” he began, “hope you’ll overlook my rotten behaviour last time we met. I’d been dining at random, and I’m usually a brute when I do that.”
“Oh, it’s all right,” said Hamil, looking at the row of tiny Chinese idols on the mantel.
“No rancour?”
“No. Only — why do you do it, Malcourt?”
“Why do I do which? The wheel or the lady?”
“Oh, the whole bally business? It isn’t as if you were lonely and put to it. There are plenty of attractive girls about, and anybody will take you on at Bridge. Of course it’s none of my affair — but we came unpleasantly close to a quarrel — which is my only excuse.”
Malcourt looked at him thoughtfully. “Hamil, do you know, I’ve always liked you a damn sight better than you’ve liked me.”
Hamil said, laughing outright: “I never saw very much of you to like or dislike.”
Malcourt smiled, stretched his limbs lazily, and lighted a cigarette.
“As a matter of fact,” he said, “you think I’m worse than I am, but I know you are worse than you think, because I couldn’t even secretly feel friendly toward a prig. You’ve had a less battered career than I; you are, in consequence, less selfish,
less ruthless, less cynical concerning traditions and illusions. You’ve something left to stick to; I haven’t. You are a little less intelligent than I, and therefore possess more natural courage and credulity. Outside of these things we are more or less alike, Hamil. Hope you don’t mind my essay on man.”
“No,” said Hamil, vastly amused.
“The trouble with me,” continued Malcourt, “is that I possess a streak of scientific curiosity that you lack; which is my eternal undoing and keeps me poor and ignobly busy. I ought to have leisure; the world should see to it that I have sufficient leisure and means to pursue my studies in the interest of social economy. Take one of my favourite experiments, for example. I see a little ball rattling around in a wheel. Where will that ball stop? You, being less intellectual than I, don’t care where it stops. I do. Instantly my scientific curiosity is aroused; I reason logically; I evolve an opinion; I back that opinion; and I remain busy and poor. I see a pretty woman. Is she responsive or unresponsive to intelligently expressed sentiment? I don’t know. You don’t care. I do. My curiosity is piqued. She becomes to me an abstract question which scientific experiment alone can elucidate—”
Hamil, leaning on the footboard of the bed, laughed and straightened up.
“All right, Malcourt, if you think it worth while—”
“What pursuit, if you please, is worthier than logical and scientific investigations?”
“Make a lot of honest money and marry some nice girl and have horses and dogs and a bully home and kids. Look here, as Wayward says, you’re not the devilish sort you pretend to be. You’re too young for one thing. I never knew you to do a deliberately ungenerous act—”
“Like most rascals I’m liable to sentimental generosity in streaks? Thanks. But, somehow, I’m so damned intelligent that I can never give myself any credit for relapsing into traditional virtues. Impulse is often my executive officer; and if I were only stupid I’d take great comfort out of it.”
Works of Robert W Chambers Page 382
