Part 29 (2/2)

”What's curious?” she asked, opening her eyes languidly. ”Good gracious! Was that a bat that beat on the window?”

”I saw nothing,” I said, disturbed. ”Listen!”

A soft sound against the gla.s.s, as though invisible fingers were feeling the pane--a gentle rubbing--then a tap-tap, all but inaudible.

”Is it a bird? Can you see?” she whispered.

The candle-flame behind us flashed and expired. Moonlight flooded the pane. The sounds continued, but there was nothing there.

We understood now what it was that so gently rubbed and patted the gla.s.s outside. With one accord we noiselessly gathered up the pies and carried them into my room.

Then she walked to the door of her room, turned, held out her hand, and whispering, ”Good-night! A demain, monsieur!” slipped into her room and softly closed the door.

And all night long I lay in troubled slumber beside the pies, a rifle resting on the blankets beside me, a revolver under my pillow. And I dreamed of moths with brilliant eyes and vast silvery wings harnessed to a balloon in which Miss Barrison and I sat, arms around each other, eating slice after slice of apple-pie.

XVII

Dawn came--the dawn of a day that I am destined never to forget. Long, rosy streamers of light broke through the forest, shaking, quivering, like unstable beams from celestial search-lights. Mist floated upward from marsh and lake; and through it the spectral palms loomed, drooping fronds embroidered with dew.

For a while the ringing outburst of bird music dominated all; but it soon ceased with dropping notes from the crimson cardinals repeated in lengthening minor intervals; and then the spell of silence returned, broken only by the faint splash of mullet, mocking the sun with sinuous, silver flashes.

”Good-morning,” said a low voice from the door as I stood encouraging the camp-fire with splinter wood and dead palmetto fans.

Fresh and sweet from her toilet as a dew-drenched rose, Miss Barrison stood there sniffing the morning air daintily, thoroughly.

”Too much perfume,” she said--”too much like ylang-ylang in a department-store. Central Park smells sweeter on an April morning.”

”Are you criticising the wild jasmine?” I asked.

”I'm criticising an exotic smell. Am I not permitted to comment on the tropics?”

Fis.h.i.+ng out a cedar log from the lumber-stack, I fell to chopping it vigorously. The axe-strokes made a cheerful racket through the woods.

”Did you hear anything last night after you retired?” I asked.

”Something was at my window--something that thumped softly and seemed to be feeling all over the gla.s.s. To tell you the truth, I was silly enough to remain dressed all night.”

”You don't look it,” I said.

”Oh, when daylight came I had a chance,” she added, laughing.

”All the same,” said I, leaning on the axe and watching her, ”you are about the coolest and pluckiest woman I ever knew.”

”We were all in the same fix,” she said, modestly.

”No, we were not. Now I'll tell you the truth--my hair stood up the greater part of the night. You are looking upon a poltroon, Miss Barrison.”

<script>