Part 14 (1/2)

Pedro had gone to the village for his supplies and his two days of mild Minorcan dissipation, and Melvyna, beguiled and cajoled by the chaffing of the two young men, at last consented, and not only packed the lunch-basket with careful hand, but even donned for the occasion her ”best bonnet,” a structure trimmed in Vermont seven years before by the experienced hand of Miss Althy Spears, the village milliner, who had adorned it with a durable green ribbon and a vigorous wreath of artificial flowers. Thus helmeted, Mme. Gonsalvez presided at the stern of the boat with great dignity. For they were in the safe well-appointed little yacht belonging to the two gentlemen, the daring paroquet having been left at home tied to the last of a low heap of rocks that jutted out into the water in front of the light-house, the only remains of the old stone dock built by the Spaniards long before.

Sister St. Luke was with them of course, gentle and frightened as usual. Her breath came quickly as they neared the reef, and Carrington with a sure hand guided the little craft outside into the surf, and rounding a point, landed them safely in a miniature harbor he had noted there. Keith had counted the days, and felt sure that the answer from the convent would come soon. His offer--for he had made it his alone without Carrington's aid--had been munificent; there could be but one reply. The little Sister would soon go back to the lime tree, the white rosebush, the doves, the old organ that was ”so large”--all the quiet routine of the life she loved so well; and they would see her small oval face and timid dark eyes no more for ever. So he took her for a last walk down the reef, while Melvyna made coffee, and Carrington, having noticed a dark line floating on the water, immediately went out in the boat, of course to see what it was.

The reef had its high backbone, like the island. Some day it would be the island with another reef outside, and the light-house beach would belong to the mainland. Down the stretch of sand toward the sea the pelicans stood in rows, toeing a mark, solemn and heavy, by the hundreds--a countless number--for the reef was their gathering place.

”They are holding a conclave,” said Keith. ”That old fellow has the floor. See him wag his head.”

In and out among the pelicans, and paying no attention to them and their conclave, sped the sickle-bill curlews, actively probing everywhere with their long, grotesque, sickle-shaped bills; and woe be to the burrowing things that came in their way. The red-beaked oyster bird flew by, and close down to the sea skimmed the razor-bill shear-water, with his head bent forward and his feet tilted up, just grazing the water with his open bill as he flew, and leaving a s.h.i.+ning mark behind, as though he held a pencil in his mouth and was running a line. The lazy gulls, who had no work to do, and would not have done it if they had, rode at ease on the little wavelets close in sh.o.r.e. The Sister, being asked, confessed that she liked the lazy gulls best.

Being pressed to say why, she thought it was because they were more like the white doves that sat on the old stone well-curb in the convent garden.

Keith had always maintained that he liked to talk to women. He said that the talk of any woman was more piquant than the conversation of the most brilliant men. There was only one obstacle: the absolute inability of the s.e.x to be sincere, or to tell the truth, for ten consecutive minutes. To-day, however, as he wandered to and fro whither he would on the reef, he also wandered to and fro whither he would in the mind, and the absolutely truthful mind too, of a woman. Yet he found it dull! He sighed to himself, but was obliged to acknowledge that it _was_ dull. The lime tree, the organ, the Sisters, the Sisters, the lime tree, the organ; it grew monotonous after a while. Yet he held his post, for the sake of the old theory, until the high voice of Melvyna called them back to the little fire on the beach and the white cloth spread with her best dainties. They saw Carrington sailing in with an excited air, and presently he brought the boat into the cove and dragged ash.o.r.e his prize, towed behind--nothing less than a large shark, wounded, dead, after a struggle with some other marine monster, a sword fish probably. ”A man-eater,” announced the captor. ”Look at him, will you? Look at him, Miss Luke!”

But Miss Luke went far away, and would not look. In truth he was an ugly creature; even Melvyna kept at a safe distance. But the two men noted all his points; they measured him carefully; they turned him over, and discussed him generally in that closely confined and exhaustive way which marks the masculine mind. Set two women to discussing a shark, or even the most lovely little brook trout, if you please, and see how far off they will be in fifteen minutes!

But the lunch was tempting, and finally its discussion called them away even from that of the shark. And then they all sailed homeward over the green and blue water, while the white sand hills shone silvery before them, and then turned red in the sunset. That night the moon was at its full. Keith went out and strolled up and down on the beach. Carrington was playing fox-and-goose with Mme. Gonsalvez on a board he had good-naturedly constructed for her entertainment when she confessed one day to a youthful fondness for that exciting game. Up stairs gleamed the little Sister's light. ”Saying her prayers with her lips, but thinking all the time of that old convent,” said the stroller to himself, half scornfully. And he said the truth.

The sea was still and radiant; hardly more than a ripple broke at his feet; the tide was out, and the broad beach silvery and fresh. ”At home they are buried in snow,” he thought, ”and the wind, is whistling around their double windows.” And then he stretched himself on the sand, and lay looking upward into the deep blue of the night, bathed in the moonlight, and listening dreamily to the soft sound of the water as it returned slowly, slowly back from the African coast. He thought many thoughts, and deep ones too, for his mind was of a high order; and at last he was so far away on ideal heights that, coming home after midnight, it was no wonder if, half unconsciously, he felt himself above the others; especially when he pa.s.sed the little Sister's closed door, and thought, smiling not unkindly, how simple she was.

The next morning the two men went off in their boat again for the day, this time alone. There were still a few more questions to settle about that shark, and, to tell the truth, they both liked a good day of unenc.u.mbered sailing better than anything else.

About four o'clock in the afternoon Melvyna, happening to look out of the door, saw a cloud no bigger than a man's hand low down on the horizon line of the sea. Something made her stand and watch it for a few moments. Then, ”Miss Luke! Miss Luke! Miss Luke! Miss Luke!” she called quickly. Down came the little Sister, startled at the cry, her lace work still in her hand.

”Look!” said Melvyna.

The Sister looked, and this is what she saw: a line white as milk coming toward them on the water, and behind it a blackness.

”What is it?” she asked.

”A tornader,” said Melvyna with white lips. ”I've only seen one, and then I was over in the town; but it's awful! We must run back to the thicket,” Seizing her companion's arm, the strong Northern woman hurried her across the sand, through the belt of sand hills, and into the thicket, where they crouched on its far side close down under the protecting backbone. ”The bushes will break the sand, and the ridge will keep us from being buried in it,” she said. ”I dursn't stay on the sh.o.r.e, for the water'll rise.”

The words were hardly spoken before the tornado was upon them, and the air was filled with the flying sand, so that they could hardly breathe.

Half choked, they beat with their hands before them to catch a breath.

Then came a roar, and for an instant, distant as they were, they caught a glimpse of the crest of the great wave that followed the whirlwind.

It seemed to them mountains high, and ready to engulf the entire land.

With a rus.h.i.+ng sound it plunged over the keeper's house, broke against the lower story of the tower, hissed across the sand, swallowed the sand hills, and swept to their very feet, then sullenly receded with slow, angry muttering. A gale of wind came next, singularly enough from another direction, as if to restore the equipoise of the atmosphere.

But the tornado had gone on inland, where there were trees to uproot, and houses to destroy, and much finer entertainment generally.

As soon as they could speak, ”Where are the two out in the sail boat?”

asked the Sister.

”G.o.d knows!” answered Melvyna. ”The last time I noticed their sail they were about a mile outside of the reef.”

”I will go and see.”

”Go and see! Are you crazy? You can never get through that water.”

”The saints would help me, I think,” said the little Sister.

She had risen, and now stood regarding the watery waste with the usual timid look in her gentle eyes. Then she stepped forward with her uncertain tread, and before the woman by her side comprehended her purpose she was gone, ankle-deep in the tide, knee-deep, and finally wading across the sand up to her waist in water toward the light-house.