Part 19 (1/2)

”But think of the alligators! Think of the snakes--big, bitey snakes!”

”Gracious!” she exclaimed, eyes growing bigger.

”Indians, too!--unreconciled, sulky Seminoles! Fevers! Mud-puddles!

Spiders! And only fifty dollars a week--”

”I--I'll go,” she stammered.

”Go?” I repeated, grimly; ”then you've exactly two and three-quarter seconds left for preparations.”

Instinctively she raised her little gloved hand and patted her hair.

”I'm ready,” she said, unsteadily.

”One extra second to make your will,” I added, stunned by her self-possession.

”I--I have nothing to leave--n.o.body to leave it to,” she said, smiling; ”I am ready.”

I took that extra second myself for a lightning course in reflection upon effects and consequences.

”It's silly, it's probably murder,” I said, ”but you're engaged! Now we must run for it!”

And that is how I came to engage the services of Miss Helen Barrison as stenographer.

XIV

At noon on the second day I disembarked from the train at Citron City with all paraphernalia--cage, chemicals, a.r.s.enal, and stenographer; an acc.u.mulation of very dusty impedimenta--all but the stenographer. By three o'clock our hotel livery-rig was speeding along the beach at False Cape towards the tall lighthouse looming above the dunes.

The abode of a gentleman named Slunk was my goal. I sat brooding in the rickety carriage, still dazed by the rapidity of my flight from New York; the stenographer sat beside me, blue eyes bright with excitement, fair hair blowing in the sea-wind.

Our railway companions.h.i.+p had been of the slightest, also absolutely formal; for I was too absorbed in conjecturing the meaning of this journey to be more than absent-mindedly civil; and she, I fancy, had had time for repentance and perhaps for a little fright, though I could discover traces of neither.

I remember she left the train at some city or other where we were held for an hour; and out of the car-window I saw her returning with a brand-new grip sack.

She must have bought clothes, for she continued to remain cool and fresh in her summer s.h.i.+rt-waists and short outing skirt; and she looked immaculate now, sitting there beside me, the trace of a smile curving her red mouth.

”I'm looking for a personage named Slunk,” I observed.

After a moment's silent consideration of the Atlantic Ocean she said, ”When do my duties begin, Mr. Gilland?”

”The Lord alone knows,” I replied, grimly. ”Are you repenting of your bargain?”

”I am quite happy,” she said, serenely.

Remorse smote me that I had consented to engage this frail, pink-and-ivory biped for an enterprise which lay outside the suburbs of Manhattan. I glanced guiltily at my victim; she sat there, the incarnation of New York piquancy--a translated denizen of the metropolis--a slender spirit of the back offices of sky-sc.r.a.pers. Why had I lured her hither?--here where the heavy, lavender-tinted breakers thundered on a lost coast; here where above the dune-jungles vultures soared, and snowy-headed eagles, hulking along the sands, tore dead fish and yelped at us as we pa.s.sed.

Strange waters, strange skies--a strange, lost land aquiver under an exotic sun; and there she sat with her wise eyes of a child, unconcerned, watching the world in perfect confidence.

”May I pay a little compliment to your pluck?” I asked, amused.