"Take your places!" shouted the umpire, five minutes before the half hour. The two boats felt their way slowly and cautiously to their positions, which had been determined by careful measurement. After a little backing and filling they got into line, at the proper distance from each other, and sat motionless, their bodies bent forward, their arms outstretched, their oars in the water, waiting for the word.
"Go!" shouted the umpire.
Away sprang the Atalanta, and far behind her leaped the Algonquin, her oars bending like so many long Indian bows as their blades flashed through the water.
"A stern chase is a long chase," especially when one craft is a great distance behind the other. It looked as if it would be impossible for the rear boat to overcome the odds against it. Of course the Algonquin kept gaining, but could it possibly gain enough? That was the question.
As the boats got farther and farther away, it became more and more difficult to determine what change there was in the interval between them. But when they came to rounding the stake it was easier to guess at the amount of s.p.a.ce which had been gained. It was clear that something like half the distance, four lengths, as nearly as could be estimated, had been made up in rowing the first three quarters of a mile. Could the Algonquins do a little better than this in the second half of the race-course, they would be sure of winning.
The boats had turned the stake, and were coming in rapidly. Every minute the University boat was getting nearer the other.
"Go it, Quins!" shouted the students.
"Pull away, Lantas!" screamed the girls, who were crowding down to the edge of the water.
Nearer,--nearer,--the rear boat is pressing the other more and more closely,--a few more strokes, and they will be even, for there is but one length between them, and thirty rods will carry them to the line.
It looks desperate for the Atalantas. The bow oar of the Algonquin turns his head. He sees the little c.o.xswain leaning forward at every stroke, as if her trivial weight were of such mighty consequence,--but a few ounces might turn the scale of victory. As he turned he got a glimpse of the stroke oar of the Atalanta. What a flash of loveliness it was! Her face was like the reddest of June roses, with the heat and the strain and the pa.s.sion of expected triumph. The upper b.u.t.ton of her close-fitting flannel suit had strangled her as her bosom heaved with exertion, and it had given way before the fierce clutch she made at it.
The bow oar was a staunch and steady rower, but he was human. The blade of his oar lingered in the water; a little more and he would have caught a crab, and perhaps lost the race by his momentary bewilderment.
The boat, which seemed as if it had all the life and nervousness of a Derby three-year-old, felt the slight check, and all her men bent more vigorously to their oars. The Atalantas saw the movement, and made a spurt to keep their lead and gain upon it if they could. It was of no use. The strong arms of the young men were too much for the young maidens; only a few lengths remained to be rowed, and they would certainly pa.s.s the Atalanta before she could reach the line.
The little c.o.xswain saw that it was all up with the girls" crew if she could not save them by some strategic device.
"Dolus an virtus quis in hoste requirat?"
she whispered to herself,--for The Terror remembered her Virgil as she did everything else she ever studied. As she stooped, she lifted the handkerchief at her feet, and took from it a flaming bouquet. "Look!"
she cried, and flung it just forward of the track of the Algonquin. The captain of the University boat turned his head, and there was the lovely vision which had a moment before bewitched him. The owner of all that loveliness must, he thought, have flung the bouquet. It was a challenge: how could he be such a coward as to decline accepting it.
He was sure he could win the race now, and he would sweep past the line in triumph with the great bunch of flowers at the stem of his boat, proud as Van Tromp in the British channel with the broom at his mast-head.
He turned the boat"s head a little by backing water. He came up with the floating flowers, and near enough to reach them. He stooped and s.n.a.t.c.hed them up, with the loss perhaps of a second in all,--no more. He felt sure of his victory.
How can one tell the story of the finish in cold-blooded preterites?
Are we not there ourselves? Are not our muscles straining with those of these sixteen young creatures, full of hot, fresh blood, their nerves all tingling like so many tight-strained harp-strings, all their life concentrating itself in this pa.s.sionate moment of supreme effort? No! We are seeing, not telling about what somebody else once saw!
--The bow of the Algonquin pa.s.ses the stern of the Atalanta!
--The bow of the Algonquin is on a level with the middle of the Atalanta!
--Three more lengths" rowing and the college crew will pa.s.s the girls!
--"Hurrah for the Quins!" The Algonquin ranges up alongside of the Atalanta!
"Through with her!" shouts the captain of the Algonquin.
"Now, girls!" shrieks the captain of the Atalanta.
They near the line, every rower straining desperately, almost madly.
--Crack goes the oar of the Atalanta"s captain, and up flash its splintered fragments, as the stem of her boat springs past the line, eighteen inches at least ahead of the Algonquin.
Hooraw for the Lantas! Hooraw for the Girls! Hooraw for the Inst.i.toot!
shout a hundred voices.
"Hurrah for woman"s rights and female suffrage!" pipes the small voice of The Terror, and there is loud laughing and cheering all round.
She had not studied her cla.s.sical dictionary and her mythology for nothing. "I have paid off one old score," she said. "Set down my damask roses against the golden apples of Hippomenes!"
It was that one second lost in s.n.a.t.c.hing up the bouquet which gave the race to the Atalantas.
III. THE WHITE CANOE.
While the two boats were racing, other boats with lookers-on in them were rowing or sailing in the neighborhood of the race-course. The scene on the water was a gay one, for the young people in the boats were, many of them, acquainted with each other. There was a good deal of lively talk until the race became too exciting. Then many fell silent, until, as the boats neared the line, and still more as they crossed it, the shouts burst forth which showed how a cramp of attention finds its natural relief in a fit of convulsive exclamation.
But far away, on the other side of the lake, a birchbark canoe was to be seen, in which sat a young man, who paddled it skillfully and swiftly.
It was evident enough that he was watching the race intently, but the spectators could see little more than that. One of them, however, who sat upon the stand, had a powerful spy-gla.s.s, and could distinguish his motions very minutely and exactly. It was seen by this curious observer that the young man had an opera-gla.s.s with him, which he used a good deal at intervals. The spectator thought he kept it directed to the girls" boat, chiefly, if not exclusively. He thought also that the opera-gla.s.s was more particularly pointed towards the bow of the boat, and came to the natural conclusion that the bow oar, Miss Euthymia Tower, captain of the Atalantas, "The Wonder" of the Corinna Inst.i.tute, was the attraction which determined the direction of the instrument.
"Who is that in the canoe over there?" asked the owner of the spy-gla.s.s.
"That"s just what we should like to know," answered the old landlord"s wife. "He and his man boarded with us when they first came, but we could never find out anything about him only just his name and his ways of living. His name is Kirkwood, Maurice Kirkwood, Esq., it used to come on his letters. As for his ways of living, he was the solitariest human being that I ever came across. His man carried his meals up to him. He used to stay in his room pretty much all day, but at night he would be off, walking, or riding on horseback, or paddling about in the lake, sometimes till nigh morning. There"s something very strange about that Mr. Kirkwood. But there don"t seem to be any harm in him. Only n.o.body can guess what his business is. They got up a story about him at one time. What do you think? They said he was a counterfeiter! And so they went one night to his room, when he was out, and that man of his was away too, and they carried keys, and opened pretty much everything; and they found--well, they found just nothing at all except writings and letters,--letters from places in America and in England, and some with Italian postmarks: that was all. Since that time the sheriff and his folks have let him alone and minded their own business. He was a gentleman,--anybody ought to have known that; and anybody that knew about his nice ways of living and behaving, and knew the kind of wear he had for his underclothing, might have known it. I could have told those officers that they had better not bother him. I know the ways of real gentlemen and real ladies, and I know those fellows in store clothes that look a little too fine,--outside. Wait till washing-day comes!"
The good lady had her own standards for testing humanity, and they were not wholly unworthy of consideration; they were quite as much to be relied on as the judgments of the travelling phrenologist, who sent his accomplice on before him to study out the princ.i.p.al personages in the village, and in the light of these revelations interpreted the b.u.mps, with very little regard to Gall and Spurzheim, or any other authorities.
Even with the small amount of information obtained by the search among his papers and effects, the gossips of the village had constructed several distinct histories for the mysterious stranger. He was an agent of a great publishing house; a leading contributor to several important periodicals; the author of that anonymously published novel which had made so much talk; the poet of a large clothing establishment; a spy of the Italian, some said the Russian, some said the British, Government; a proscribed refugee from some country where he had been plotting; a school-master without a school, a minister without a pulpit, an actor without an engagement; in short, there was no end to the perfectly senseless stories that were told about him, from that which made him out an escaped convict to the whispered suggestion that he was the eccentric heir to a great English t.i.tle and estate.
The one unquestionable fact was that of his extraordinary seclusion.
n.o.body in the village, no student in the University, knew his history.
No young lady in the Corinna Inst.i.tute had ever had a word from him. Sometimes, as the boats of the University or the Inst.i.tute were returning at dusk, their rowers would see the canoe stealing into the shadows as they drew near it. Sometimes on a moonlight night, when a party of the young ladies were out upon the lake, they would see the white canoe gliding ghost-like in the distance. And it had happened more than once that when a boat"s crew had been out with singers among them, while they were in the midst of a song, the white canoe would suddenly appear and rest upon the water,--not very near them, but within hearing distance,--and so remain until the singing was over, when it would steal away and be lost sight of in some inlet or behind some jutting rock.
Naturally enough, there was intense curiosity about this young man. The landlady had told her story, which explained nothing. There was n.o.body to be questioned about him except his servant, an Italian, whose name was Paolo, but who to the village was known as Mr. Paul.
Mr. Paul would have seemed the easiest person in the world to worm a secret out of. He was good-natured, child-like as a Heathen Chinee, talked freely with everybody in such English as he had at command, knew all the little people of the village, and was followed round by them partly from his personal attraction for them, and partly because he was apt to have a stick of candy or a handful of peanuts or other desirable luxury in his pocket for any of his little friends he met with. He had that wholesome, happy look, so uncommon in our arid countrymen,--a look hardly to be found except where figs and oranges ripen in the open air.
A kindly climate to grow up in, a religion which takes your money and gives you a stamped ticket good at Saint Peter"s box office, a roomy chest and a good pair of lungs in it, an honest digestive apparatus, a lively temperament, a cheerful acceptance of the place in life a.s.signed to one by nature and circ.u.mstance,--these are conditions under which life may be quite comfortable to endure, and certainly is very pleasant to contemplate. All these conditions were united in Paolo. He was the easiest; pleasantest creature to talk with that one could ask for a companion. His southern vivacity, his amusing English, his simplicity and openness, made him friends everywhere.
It seemed as if it would be a very simple matter to get the history of his master out of this guileless and unsophisticated being. He had been tried by all the village experts. The rector had put a number of well-studied careless questions, which failed of their purpose. The old librarian of the town library had taken note of all the books he carried to his master, and asked about his studies and pursuits. Paolo found it hard to understand his English, apparently, and answered in the most irrelevant way. The leading gossip of the village tried her skill in pumping him for information. It was all in vain.
His master"s way of life was peculiar,--in fact, eccentric. He had hired rooms in an old-fashioned three-story house. He had two rooms in the second and third stories of this old wooden building: his study in the second, his sleeping-room in the one above it. Paolo lived in the bas.e.m.e.nt, where he had all the conveniences for cooking, and played the part of chef for his master and himself. This was only a part of his duty, for he was a man-of-all-work, purveyor, steward, chambermaid,--as universal in his services for one man as Pushee at the Anchor Tavern used to be for everybody.
It so happened that Paolo took a severe cold one winter"s day, and had such threatening symptoms that he asked the baker, when he called, to send the village physician to see him. In the course of his visit the doctor naturally inquired about the health of Paolo"s master.
"Signor Kirkwood well,--molto bene," said Paolo. "Why does he keep out of sight as he does?" asked the doctor.
"He always so," replied Paolo. "Una antipatia."
Whether Paolo was off his guard with the doctor, whether he revealed it to him as to a father confessor, or whether he thought it time that the reason of his master"s seclusion should be known, the doctor did not feel sure. At any rate, Paolo was not disposed to make any further revelations. Una antipatia,--an antipathy,--that was all the doctor learned. He thought the matter over, and the more he reflected the more he was puzzled. What could an antipathy be that made a young man a recluse! Was it a dread of blue sky and open air, of the smell of flowers, or some electrical impression to which he was unnaturally sensitive?
Dr. b.u.t.ts carried these questions home with him. His wife was a sensible, discreet woman, whom he could trust with many professional secrets. He told her of Paolo"s revelation, and talked it over with her in the light of his experience and her own; for she had known some curious cases of const.i.tutional likes and aversions.