Part 33 (1/2)
”I--I thought his anger quite natural, after I had so rudely--and so many people are given to brooding-- But if he was violent to you--”
”My dear Miss Genevieve, I hold nothing against the miserable fellow. At such times he is not--er--responsible, you know. Let us give the fellow full credit--that is why he himself built your door.”
”Oh, but I can't believe it! I can't believe it!” cried the girl.
”It's not possible! He's so strong, so true and manly, so kind, for all his gruffness!”
”Ah, my dear!” soothed Winthrope, ”that is the pity of it. But when a man must needs be his worst enemy, when he must needs lead a certain kind of life, he must take the consequences. To put it as delicately as possible, yet explain all, I need only say one word--paranoia.”
Miss Leslie gathered up her day's outfit with trembling fingers, and went to mount the cliff.
After waiting a few minutes Winthrope walked hurriedly through the cleft, and climbed the tree-ladder with an agility that would have amazed his companions. But he did not draw himself up on the cliff. Having satisfied himself that Miss Leslie was well out toward the signal, he returned to the baobab, and proceeded to examine Blake's door with minute scrutiny.
That evening, shortly before dark, Blake came in almost exhausted by his journey. Few men could have covered the same ground in twice the time. It had been one continuous round of gra.s.s jungle, thorn scrub, rocks, and swamp. And for all his pains, he brought back with him nothing more than the discouraging information that the back-country was worse than the sh.o.r.e. Yet he betrayed no trace of depression over the bad news, and for all his fatigue, maintained a tone of hearty cheerfulness until, having eaten his fill, he suddenly observed Miss Leslie's frigid politeness.
”What's up now?” he demanded. ”You're not mad 'cause I hiked off this morning without notice?”
”No, of course not, Mr. Blake. Nothing of the kind. But I--”
”Well,-what?” he broke in, as she hesitated. ”I can't, for the world, think of anything else I've done--”
”You've done! Perhaps I might suggest that it is a question of what you haven't done.” The girl was trembling on the verge of hysterics.
”Yes, what you've not done! All these weeks, and not a single attempt to get us away from here, except that miserable signal; and I as good as put that up! You call yourself a man! But I--I--” She stopped short, white with a sudden overpowering fear.
Winthrope looked from her to Blake with a sidelong glance, his lips drawn up in an odd twist.
There followed several moments of tense silence; then Blake mumbled apologetically: ”Well, I suppose I might have done more. I was so dead anxious to make sure of food and shelter. But this trip to-day--”
”Mr.--Mr. Blake, pray do not get excited--I--I mean, please excuse me.
I'm--”
”You're coming down sick!” he said.
”No, no! I have no fever.”
”Then it's the sun. Yet you ought to keep up there where the air is freshest. I'll make you a shade.”
She protested, and withdrew, somewhat hurriedly, to her tree.
In the morning Blake was gone again; but instead of a note, beside the fire stood the smaller antelope skin, converted into a great bamboo-ribbed sunshade.
She spent the day as usual on the headland. There was no wind, and the sun was scorching hot. But with her big sunshade to protect her from the direct rays, the heat was at least endurable. She even found energy to work at a basket which she was attempting to weave out of long, coa.r.s.e gra.s.s; yet there were frequent intervals when her hands sank idle in her lap, and she gazed away over the s.h.i.+mmering gla.s.sy expanse of the ocean.
In the afternoon the heat became oppressively sultry, and a long slow swell began to roll sh.o.r.eward from beyond the distant horizon, showing no trace of white along its oily crests until they broke over the coral reefs. There was not a breath of air stirring, and for a time the reefs so checked the rollers that they lacked force to drive on in and break upon the beach.
Steadily, however, the swell grew heavier, though not so much as a cat's-paw ruffled the dead surfaces of the watery hillocks. By sunset they were rolling high over both lines of reefs and racing sh.o.r.eward to break upon the beach and the cliff foot in furious surf. The still air reverberated with the booming of the breakers. Yet the girl, inland bred and unversed in weather lore, sat heedless and indifferent, her eyes fixed upon the horizon in a vacant stare.
Her reverie was at last disturbed by the peculiar behavior of the seafowl. Those in the air circled around in a manner strange to her, while their mates on the ledges waddled restlessly about over and between their nests. There was a shriller note than usual in their discordant clamor.
Yet even when she gave heed to the birds, the girl failed to realize their alarm or to sense the impending danger. It was only that a feeling of disquiet had broken the spell of her reverie; it did not obtrude upon the field of her conscious thought. She sighed, and rose to return to the cleft, idly wondering that the air should seem more sultry than at mid-day. The peculiar appearance of the sun and the western sky meant nothing more to her than an odd effect of color and light. She smilingly compared it with an attempt at a sunset painted by an artist friend of the impressionist school.