IV
THE ISLE OF FORTUNE
I dropped my book and ran on deck. Every one else was alreadythere. I joined the row at the rail, indifferent, for the moment,to the fact that to display so much interest in their ridiculousisland involved a descent from my pinnacle. Indeed, the chillaltitude of pinnacles never agrees with me for long at a time, sothat I am obliged to descend at intervals to breathe the air on thecommon level.
The great gleaming orb of the tropic moon was blinding as the sun.Away to the faint translucent line of the horizon rolled aninfinity of shining sea. Straight ahead rose a dark conical mass.It was the mountainous shape of Leeward Island.
Everybody was craning to get a clearer view. "Hail, isle ofFortune!" exclaimed Miss Browne. I think my aunt would not havebeen surprised if it had begun to rain doubloons upon the deck.
"I bet we don't put it over some on them original Argonaut fellers,hey?" cried Mr. Tubbs.
Higher and higher across the sky-line cut the dark crest of theisland as the freighter steamed valiantly ahead. She had a mannerall her own of progressing by a series of headlong lunges, followedby a nerve-racking pause before she found her equilibrium again.But she managed to wallow forward at a good gait, and the islandgrew clearer momently. Sheer and formidable from the sea rose aline of black cliffs, and above them a single peak threw its shadowfar across the water. Faintly we made out the white line of thebreakers foaming at the foot of the cliffs.
We coasted slowly along, looking for the mouth of the little bay.Meanwhile we had collected our belongings, and stood grouped aboutthe deck, ready for the first thrilling plunge into adventure. Myaunt and Miss Browne had tied huge green veils over their corkhelmets, and were clumping about in tremendous hobnailed boots. Icould not hope to rival this severely military get-up, but I had ablue linen skirt and a white middy, and trusted that my small stockof similar garments would last out our time on the island. All theluggage I was allowed to take was in a traveling bag and agunny-sack, obligingly donated by the cook. Speaking of cooks, Ifound we had one of our own along, a coal-black negro with grizzledwool, an unctuous voice, and the manners of an old-school familyretainer. So far as I know, his name was Cookie. I suppose he hadreceived another once from his sponsors in baptism, but if so, itwas buried in oblivion.
Now a narrow gleaming gap appeared in the wall of cliffs, and thefreighter whistled and lay to. There began a bustle at the davits,and shouts of "Lower away!" and for the first time it swept over methat we were to be put ashore in boats. Simultaneously this factswept over Aunt Jane, and I think also over Miss Browne, for I sawher fling one wild glance around, as though in search of someimpossible means of retreat. But she took the blow in a grimsilence, while Aunt Jane burst out in lamentation. She would not,could not go in a boat. She had heard all her life that smallboats were most unsafe. A little girl had been drowned in a lakenear where she was visiting once through going in a boat. Whydidn't the captain sail right up to the island as she had expectedand put us ashore? Even at Panama with only a little way to go shehad felt it suicidal--here it was not to be thought of.
But the preparations for this desperate step went on apace, and noone heeded Aunt Jane but Mr. Tubbs, who had hastened to succorbeauty in distress, and mingled broken exhortations to courage withhints that if his opinion had been attended to all would be well.
Then Aunt Jane clutched at Mr. Shaw's coat lapel as he went by, andhe stopped long enough to explain patiently that vessels of thefreighter's size could not enter the bay, and that there really wasno danger, and that Aunt Jane might wait if she liked till the lastboat, as it would take several trips to transfer us and ourbaggage. I supposed of course that this would include me, andstood leaning on the rail, watching the first boat with Mr. Shaw,Captain Magnus and the cook, fade to a dark speck on the water,when Mr. Vane appeared at my elbow.
"Ready, Miss Harding? You are to go in the next boat, with me. Iasked especially."
"Oh, thanks!" I cried fervently. He would be much nicer than Mr.Tubbs to cling to as I went down--indeed, he was so tall that if itwere at all a shallow place I might use him as a stepping-stone andsurvive. I hoped drowning men didn't gurgle very much--meanwhileMr. Vane had disappeared over the side, and a sailor was lifting meand setting my reluctant feet on the strands of the ladder.
"Good-by, auntie !" I cried, as I began the descent. "Don't blameyourself too much. Everybody has to go some time, you know, andthey say drowning's easy."
With a stifled cry Aunt Jane forsook Mr. Tubbs and flew to therail. I was already out of reach.
"Oh, Virginia!" she wailed. "Oh, my dear child! If it should bethe last parting!"
"Give my jewelry and things to Bess's baby!" I found strength tocall back. What with the wallowing of the steamer and the naturalinstability of rope-ladders I seemed a mere atom tossed about in aswaying, reeling universe. _What will Aunt Jane do_? flashedthrough my mind, and I wished I had waited to see. Then the armsof the Honorable Mr. Vane received me. The strong rowers benttheir backs, and the boat shot out over the mile or two of brightwater between us and the island. Great slow swells lifted us. Wedipped with a soothing, cradle-like motion. I forgot to be afraid,in the delight of the warm wind that fanned our cheeks, of themoonbeams that on the crest of every ripple were splinteredto a thousand dancing lights. I forgot fear, forgot MissHigglesby-Browne, forgot the harshness of the Scotch character.
"Oh, glorious, glorious!" I cried to Cuthbert Vane.
"Not so dusty, eh?" he came back in their ridiculous English slang.Now an American would have said _some little old moon that_! Wecertainly have our points of superiority.
All around the island white charging lines of breakers foamed onragged half-seen reefs. You saw the flash of foam leaping half theheight of the black cliffs. The thunder of the surf was in ourears, now rising to wild clamor, fierce, hungry, menacing, nowdying to a vast broken mutter. Now our boat felt the lift of thegreat shoreward rollers, and sprang forward like a living thing.The other boat, empty of all but the rowers and returning from theisland to the ship, passed us with a hail. We steered warily awayfrom a wild welter of foam at the end of a long point, and shotbeyond it on the heave of a great swell into quiet water. We werein the little bay under the shadow of the frowning cliff's.
At the head of the bay, a quarter of a mile away, lay a broad whitebeach shining under the moon. At the edge of dark woods beyond afire burned redly. It threw into relief the black moving shapes ofmen upon the sand. The waters of the cove broke upon the beach ina white lacework of foam.
Straight for the sand the sailors drove the boat. She struck itwith a jar, grinding forward heavily. The men sprang overboard,wading half-way to the waist. And the arms of the HonorableCuthbert Vane had snatched me up and were bearing me safe and dryto shore.
The sailors hauled on the boat, dragging it up the beach, and I sawthe Scotchman lending them a hand. The hard dry sand was crunchingunder the heels of Mr. Vane. I wriggled a little and Apollo, whohad grown absent-minded apparently, set me down.
Mr. Shaw approached and the two men greeted each other in theiroffhand British way. As we couldn't well, under the circumstances,maintain a fiction of mutual invisibility, Mr. Shaw, with a certainobvious hesitation, turned to me.
"Only lady passenger, eh? Hope you're not wet through. Cookie'smaking coffee over yonder."
"I say, Shaw," cried the beautiful youth enthusiastically, "MissHarding's the most ripping sport, you know! Not the least nervousabout the trip, I assure you."
"I was," I announced, moved to defiance by the neighborhood of Mr.Shaw. "Before we started I was so afraid that if you had listenedyou might have heard my teeth chattering. But I had at least thecomforting thought that if I did go to my end it would not besimply in pursuit of sordid gain!"
"And indeed that was almost a waste of noble sentiment under thecircumstances," answered the dour Scot, with the fleeting shadow ofan enraging smile. "Such disappointingly c
alm weather as it is!See that Miss Harding has some coffee, Bert."
I promised myself, as I went with Mr. Vane toward the fire, thatsome day I would find the weapon that would penetrate theScotchman's armor--and would use it mercilessly.
Cookie, in his white attire, and with his black shining face andivory teeth gleaming in the ruddy firelight, looked like aconverted cannibal--perhaps won from his errors by one of Mr.Vane's missionary Johnnies. He received us with unctuous warmth.
"Well, now, 'clar to goodness if it ain't the li'le lady! How comeyou git ashore all dry lak you is? Yes, sah, Cookie'll git you-allsome'n hot immejusly." He wafted me with stately gestures to aseat on an overturned iron kettle, and served my coffee with an airappropriate to mahogany and plate. It was something to see himwait on Cuthbert Vane. As Cookie told me later, in the course ofour rapidly developing friendship, "dat young gemmun am sure one obde quality." To indicate the certainty of Cookie's instinct, MissHigglesby-Browne was never more to him than "dat pusson." and thecold aloofness of his manner toward her, which yet never sank toimpertinence, would have done credit to a duke.
On the beach Mr. Shaw, Captain Magnus and the sailors were toiling,unloading and piling up stores. Rather laggingly, Apollo joinedthem. I was glad, for a heavy fatigue was stealing over me.Cookie, taking note of my sagging head, brought me somebody'sdunnage bag for a pillow. I felt him drawing a tarpaulin over meas I sank into bottomless depths of sleep.
I opened my eyes to the dying stars. The moon had set. Blackshapes of tree and boulder loomed portentous through the ashendimness that precedes the dawn. I heard men shouting, "Here shecomes!" "Stand by to lend a hand!" In haste I scrambled up andtore for the beach. I must witness the landing of Aunt Jane.
"Where are they, where are they?" I demanded, rubbing my sleepyeyes.
"Why didn't you stay by the fire and have your nap out?" asked Mr.Shaw, in a tone which seemed to have forgotten for the moment to befrigid--perhaps because I hadn't yet waked up enough to have myquills in good pricking order.
"Nap? Do you think that for all the treasure ever buried by apirate I would miss the spectacle of Aunt Jane and Miss Brownearriving? I expect it to compensate me for all I have suffered onthis trip so far."
"See what it is, Bert," exclaimed the Scotchman, "to have a trulygentle and forgiving nature--how it brings its own reward. I'mafraid you and I miss a great deal in life, lad."
The beautiful youth pondered this.
"I don't know," he replied, "what you say sounds quite fit andproper for the parson, and all that, of course, but I fancy you area bit out in supposing that Miss Harding is so forgiving, old man."
"I didn't know that _you_ thought so badly of me, too!" I saidtimidly. I couldn't help it--the temptation was too great.
"I? Oh, really, now, you can't think that!" Through the dusk I sawthat he was flushing hotly.
"Lad," said the Scotchman in a suddenly harsh voice, "lend a handwith this rope, will you?" And in the dusk I turned away to hidemy triumphant smiles. I had found the weak spot of my foe--as Mr.Tubbs might have said, I was wise to Achilles's heel.
And now through the dawn-twilight that lay upon the cove the boatdrew near that bore Mr. Tubbs and his fair charges. I saw thethree cork helmets grouped together in the stern. Then the foamingfringe of wavelets caught the boat, hurled it forward, seemed allbut to engulf it out leaped the sailors. Out leaped Mr. Tubbs, anddisappeared at once beneath the waves. Shrill and prolonged rosethe shrieks of my aunt and Miss Higglesby-Browne. Valiantly Mr.Shaw and Cuthbert Vane had rushed into the deep. Each now appearedstaggering up the steep, foam-swept strand under a strugglingburden. Even after they were safely deposited on the sand. MissBrowne and my aunt continued to shriek.
"Save, save Mr. Tubbs!" implored Aunt Jane. But Mr. Tubbs,overlooked by all but this thoughtful friend, had cannily savedhimself. He advanced upon us dripping.
"A close call!" he sang out cheerfully. "Thought one time old Nephad got a strangle-hold all right. Thinks I, I guess there'll besomething doing when Wall Street gets this news--that old H. H. isfood for the finny denizens of the deep!"
"Such an event, Mr. Tubbs," pronounced Violet, who had recoveredher form with surprising swiftness, "might well have sent itsvibrations through the financial arteries of the world!"
"It would have been most--most shocking!" quavered poor Aunt Janewith feeling. She was piteously striving to extricate herself fromthe folds of the green veil.
I came to her assistance. The poor plump little woman wastrembling from head to foot.
"It was a most--unusual experience," she told me as I unwound her."Probably extremely--unifying to the soul-forces and all that, asMiss Browne says, but for the moment--unsettling. Is my helmet onstraight, dear? I think it is a little severe for my type of face,don't you? There was a sweet little hat in a Fifth Avenueshop--simple and yet so chic. I thought it just the thing, butMiss Browne said no, helmets were always worn--Coffee? Oh, my dearchild, how thankful I shall be!"
And Aunt Jane clung to me as of yore as I led her up the beach.