Part 6 (1/2)

IX

I pity the man who can travel from Dan to Beersheba and cry, ”'Tis all barren.”

STERNE.

They traveled a due west course, crossing the two ranges, wending their way through dim defiles and along precipitous canons, until they saw the sea. Here its mood was summer-like. Even in the short time that had elapsed it had worn itself a broad, smooth beach, and wide tracts of land between the sand and the base of the mountains proved that the earth had been thrown up, or that the water had receded. They had not looked upon the ocean before for many months.

They picketed the burros on the rank, salt gra.s.s, and built their camp-fire early, and while Robin set the potatoes baking, and began her supper preparations, Adam went scouting along the coast. In less than half an hour he came back with a quant.i.ty of clams which he threw down before her as proudly as if they had been foreign battle-flags.

She gave a little feminine shriek of delight.

”Now I know why we brought that inconvenient iron pot,” she said; ”bring it here, please.”

Adam brought it, and watched her slice up onions and potatoes and stir in the various ingredients.

”It is going to be the best chowder you ever tasted,” she said, ”even if we haven't any bacon. When you write the veracious tale of our adventures, Adam, don't put in how many things we ate.”

”They might think it a voracious tale if I did,” he answered, dropping some more b.u.t.ter into his mealy potato. ”Do you remember how the Swiss Family were always worrying for fear they wouldn't have enough to eat?”

”Yes, and how they went out and killed an elephant for breakfast, and a herd of wild pigs for dinner, and had a buffalo apiece for supper.

And don't you remember how, when the boa constrictor killed one of their zebras, little Fritz asked pathetically if boas were good to eat?”

They laughed over their supper, and then having made sure that they were out of reach of the tide, and the fire would keep, and the rifle was close at Adam's elbow, they spread their blankets and said ”good night.” It had been an exciting day.

It was past midnight, and the moon was waning when Adam was wakened by La.s.sie's cold muzzle against his face. He sat up and called to Robin.

There was no answer, and her blankets lay tossed on the other side of the fire. He started up and listened. At first he heard only the sound of the sea; then there came mingled with it the clear notes of her glorious voice. Holding La.s.sie in check he went down to the beach.

Robin stood well out on the s.h.i.+mmering sand, the waves lapping softly almost at her feet, and he heard the plaintive music, and caught the words,--

”Oh, for the wings, for the wings of a dove, Far away, far away, would I fly, and be, and be at rest.”

Her voice quivered when she came to the words, ”In the wilderness build me a nest,” but she sang on, and Adam recalled the words of hymn after hymn, anthem after anthem, for she sang nothing else. He heard the bitter cry of the De Profundis, Handel's triumphant ”I know that my Redeemer liveth,” and then she began, ”He watching over Israel slumbers not nor sleeps.”

His eyes filled, and he saw the tents of his regiment. She had written by every mail, and across her letters, at the top or bottom, she had put those five bars from ”Elijah.” Though he did not believe it, for he had not the early Hebrew ability to see Israel in his own race, and the to be spoiled Philistine in every Filipino, it had comforted him in that sickening campaign. Surely, surely if he, an American ”non-com,” had spared a Filipino now and then, He watching over Israel had not been less merciful.

Her voice died away; it was the first time she had sung that year, though she was a very perfectly trained musician. Indeed in the old days, Adam had first sought her acquaintance because of her music.

Adam returned to the camp; he knew instinctively that she preferred to keep this to herself. He was lying quite still when she came back, and controlled every muscle when she bent over him. She regarded him intently for a moment, then went to her blankets with a heavy sigh that Adam knew was for him. She had sung out her own sorrows.

Their vigils seemed to do them both good, for they shook off their melancholy tendencies, and before the end of the first week their tour was beginning to be thoroughly enjoyable. They did not find cocoanuts and bananas, but they did find plenty of strawberries, and long, p.r.i.c.kly vines that would be covered with raspberries, and wild grapes and choke-cherries and currants, which they planned to transplant, for though the Western coast was more beautiful, and in some respects more convenient than their hedged in valley, they preferred the valley.

Already it had come to mean home.

They traveled about fifty miles southward, to the end of the island, making desultory trips up into the mountains to see if anywhere, on land or sea, there was a friendly wreath of smoke, and every night their watch-fire glowed from the highest peak in their vicinity. The island narrowed to a single range, detached peaks rising here and there from the sea. As they rounded the southernmost point, Adam said, ”We ought to name it; that remarkable Swiss family always named places.”

Robin looked at the bare, stone walls rising sheer above the waves three hundred feet, and her lip curled.