Part 20 (1/2)
”Unless you're h.e.l.l-bent on sticking around here to get your head bashed in--I venture respectfully to suggest that you consign yourself to my competent care.”
”Meaning--?”
”I've got a bungalow down on Long Island--a one-horse sort of a bachelor affair--and I'm going to run down there this evening and stay awhile.
There's quiet, no society and good swimming. Will you come along and be my guest until you grow tired of it?”
Whitaker looked his prospective host over with a calculating, suspicious eye.
”I ought to be able to take care of myself,” he grumbled childishly.
”Granted.”
”But I've a great mind to take you up.”
”Sensibly spoken. Can you be ready by three? I'll call with the car then, if you can.”
”Done with you!” declared Whitaker with a strong sense of relief.
As a matter of fact, he was far less incredulous of Ember's theory than he chose to admit.
X
THE WINDOW
Though they left New York not long after three in the afternoon, twilight was fast ebbing into night when the motor-car--the owner driving, Whitaker invalided to the lonely grandeur of the tonneau--swept up from a long waste of semi-wooded countryside, spa.r.s.ely populated, b.u.mped over railroad tracks, purred softly at sedate pace through the single street of a drowsy village, and then struck away from the main country road.
Once clear of the village bounds, as if a.s.sured of an un.o.bstructed way, Ember gave the motor its head; with a long, keen whine of delight it took the bit between its teeth and flung away like a thoroughbred romping down the home-stretch. Its headlights clove a path through darkness, like a splendid sword; a pale s.h.i.+ning ribbon of road seemed to run to the wheels as if eager to be devoured; on either hand woodlands and desolate clearings blurred into dark and rus.h.i.+ng walls; the wind buffeted the faces of the travellers like a soft and tender hand, seeking vainly if with all its strength to withstand their impetus: only the wonderful wilderness of stars remained imperturbable.
Whitaker, braced against the jolting, s.n.a.t.c.hed begrudged mouthfuls of air strong of the sea. From time to time he caught fugitive glimpses of what seemed to be water, far in the distances to the right. He had no very definite idea of their whereabouts, having neglected through sheer indifference to question Ember, but he knew that they were drawing minute by minute closer to the Atlantic. And the knowledge was soothing to the unquiet of his soul, who loved the sea. He dreamed vaguely, with yearning, of wave-swept sh.o.r.es and their sonorous silences.
After some time the car slowed to a palpitant pause at a spot where the road was bordered on one hand by a woods, on the other by meadow-lands running down to an arm of a bay, on whose gently undulant surface the flame-tipped finger of a distant lighthouse drew an undulant path of radiance.
Ember jumped out to open a barred gate, then returning swung the car into a clear but narrow woodland road. ”Mine own domain,” he informed Whitaker with a laugh, as he stopped a second time to go back and close the gate. ”Now we're shut of the world, entirely.”
The car crawled cautiously on, following a path that, in the searching glare of headlights, showed as two parallel tracks of white set apart by a strip of livid green and walled in by a dense tangle of scrub-oak and pine and second growth. Underbrush rasped and rattled against the guards. Outside the lighted way arose strange sounds audible above even the purring of the motor--vast mysterious whisperings and rustlings: stealthy and murmurous protests against this startling trespa.s.s.
Whitaker bent forward, inquiring: ”Where are we?”
”Almost there. Patience.”
Whitaker sat back again, content to await enlightenment at the pleasure of his host. Really, he didn't much care where they were: the sense of isolation, strong upon his spirit, numbed all his curiosity.
He reckoned idly that they must have threaded a good two miles of woodland, when at length the car emerged upon a clearing and immediately turned aside to the open doorway of a miniature garage.
For the first time in five hours he was aware of the hush of Nature; the motor's song was ended for the night.
The clearing seemed no more than a fair two acres in extent; the forest hemmed it in on three sides; on the fourth lay water. Nor was it an unqualified clearing; a hundred yards distant the lighted windows of a one-story structure shone pleasantly through a scattering plantation of pine.