Part 24 (2/2)
He turned to her directly. ”Do you like it here, Elaine?”
She would not reply, and therefore demanded, ”Do you?”
”I'm a savage,” he admitted. ”This sort of thing appeals to something in my blood.”
”I know,” she answered, understandingly, ”--building up an empire with your naked hands, unaided--conquering metals and elements--wresting the island's dominion from the brutes. Naturally you love it!”
He reddened. ”I can't make an apple dumpling and make it right! This island's dominion? Great Caesar's frying-pan--this is a regular picnic-ground, with everything on earth provided!”
She smiled. ”And things all made and ready, including tools and powder, not to mention a tiger-skin rug.... You refuse to admit you like it for itself?”
”Like it or not,” he answered, ”we must get away--and home.”
”Home,” she repeated, oddly. ”Home.... I wonder if home will ever seem---- It certainly would be wonderful, a miracle, I think, to see a steamer really coming--and to go on board and have it take us back to--everything--somewhere home---- But we'd sometimes think of this--a little?”
”Probably.”
To save his life, he could not banish thoughts of Fenton.
”I'm sure we would,” murmured Elaine. She gazed away, to the jungle's softened shadows. She wanted to cry out abruptly that she loved it to-night, with a love that could never die. She wanted the comfort of something, she hardly dared wonder what. After another long silence, she finally said, with eyes averted and excitement throbbing in her veins:
”I know the name of this little place--do you?”
”No,” he said, wondering what she might have discovered. ”What do you think it is called?”
It seemed to Elaine her heart pounded out her reply.
”The Isle of Shalimar.”
If Grenville knew the Indian name for Garden, he made no sign that she could read. He made no reply whatsoever, but gazed as before at the sea.
He was turning at last when a low, but distinctly briefer, recurrence of the island's haunting wails arose to disturb the wondrous calm--as well as his peace of mind. There could be no doubt the tidal phenomenon was gradually but steadily failing.
What might occur when it altogether ceased was more than the man could divine. He felt a vague dread of that approaching hour and of what it might develop.
”It must be after midnight,” he said, at last, ”--time for night's ordinary dreams.”
Yet, when he was finally stretched on his bed, he did not lose himself in slumber. Instead he lay thinking of the island's haunting sounds and the cave somewhere underneath the headland.
He had meant to attempt an inspection of this place, if only to gratify a natural curiosity. The thought occurred to him now that, in case of dire necessity, it might afford such a shelter as was not to be found on any other portion of the island. It was not a thing to be neglected. He made up his mind that the following day he would make an exploration.
CHAPTER XXII
A TOMB OF STONE
The ladder that Grenville constructed in the morning was not entirely new. He had found upon testing the original contrivance, made for his seance with the tiger, that, although the creepers had become quite dry, they were neither weak nor brittle.
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