"_Pardieu_, I am sorry--I am sorry," the professor shook his head.
"Don"t let"s talk about it," Tommy replied, as dolefully as the loud tone would permit. "I can"t look at his suffering--really I can"t! It almost kills me! And there"s no remedy, now!" And, when finally the conversation had been diverted to other channels, the streak of light disappeared.
Sometime later Tommy, with, a fine show of indifference, said over his demita.s.se:
"By the way, if we land to-morrow this is your last chance to open that treasure box."
"Treasure box?"
"Yes, the little safe I found tucked down in Efaw Kotee"s trunk. Jack and I intended to tackle it to-night, but since he"s knocked out I"ve lost interest."
"I had not heard of this," the professor cried, his eyes sparkling with all manner of hope and enthusiasm.
"Oh, you heard of it, but just forgot. Anyhow, here it is." He lifted it from the floor and placed it on the table. "You"re welcome to its secrets; I"m satisfied to get home with a whole skin." Whereupon he reached for a recent Key West newspaper, tilted back his chair and settled down to read.
Monsieur"s fingers closed feverishly around the little safe as though it might have held the secret of perpetual youth. After examining it minutely, he sprawled over and prepared to open it by listening for the little metal tumblers to fall into their notches while he slowly turned the combination k.n.o.b. Tommy, I guessed at once, had neatly antic.i.p.ated this after seeing him try it on the big safe in Efaw Kotee"s house and hearing his boast that he could have accomplished it in time. Now, just as he got his ear flattened to the iron door and was almost choking for breath in an agony of listening, the newspaper began to rustle.
"It gets my goat," Tommy irritably exclaimed, "to have a front-page story carried to the inside, where half the time I can"t find it!"
Monsieur, raising his head, politely waited for the noise to cease, as no one could hear the delicate sounds he sought with a newspaper carrying on that way about his head. Yet, when quiet had been once more restored and he was ready to try again, Tommy began another hunt for news.
"Think you can work it?" he casually asked, over his shoulder.
"I--I might, with less noise," the professor suggested.
"Hope my paper doesn"t bother you. This is the only place I have to read since I gave up my room, you know."
Several times more, as Monsieur was holding his breath momentarily expecting the mystery of the combination to dissolve, the paper seemed to be stricken with an ague, till at last, hugging the safe to his chest, he indignantly stalked down the pa.s.sageway and slammed the door of his room after him.
Tommy now arose and walked around his chair, and as I was leaving for my appointed place I saw him start on tiptoe in the direction of Doloria"s stateroom.
Ten minutes later he appeared in the c.o.c.kpit, helped her to the deck, and together they approached. Yet as they drew near the place I was standing she stopped, looking at me in pretty surprise, but came forward again with hands outstretched, saying:
"Oh, Jack, I thought you were terribly, dangerously ill!" And before I could reply Tommy was gurgling, with a fatuous grin:
"Why, hullo, Jack! I see you"re up!"
"Are you better?" she asked, letting her hands rest in mine.
"D"you know," here Tommy interposed, not giving me a chance to answer, "that old whiz-bang devil told Doloria that if she spoke to you, or answered your notes, he"d have you jailed for interfering with a foreign country"s accredited agent? Sure, he did! He stuffed her poor little head full of trumped-up international law that hadn"t a grain of truth in it--to scare her, see? She was afraid to budge!"
"He did that?" I cried.
"Oh, yes, but it doesn"t matter now," she said hurriedly. "Are you really better?"
"Dear me, dear me"--it was Tommy again--"I"ve come up without my cigarettes! You"ll excuse me?" He bowed to her, and left without awaiting the royal consent.
The silence was a trifle awkward when he went, and our eyes seemed to be glued to the spot where he disappeared; but now I turned to her.
"I suppose Echochee was listening to his conversation with Monsieur, and told you. Tommy"s full of ideas, but this is his masterpiece because it unlocked your prison."
"It was I who listened--purposely," she said, without a trace of embarra.s.sment, but laughed a little strangely as she asked: "You weren"t ill, at all?"
"Yes, I honestly was--with unhappiness; but not as near dead as he pretended."
"And you"re in no danger by talking to me?"
"The greatest danger--but not from man-made prisons."
"Oh, it feels so good to be up in this fresh air," she said irrelevantly, raising her face to the sky and taking a deep breath.
"He was a scoundrel to keep you shut in down there," I declared; and then she told me of the old fellow"s fabrications, really such atrocious lies that for a while I was undecided whether to thrash him or laugh. As it turned out, I laughed; because she did.
She had moved to the rail and rested her arms on it, leaning over and looking pensively down at the water. I, also, went to stand by her, but, in turning, my eyes happened to glance through one of the cabin portlights at Tommy. He was seated comfortably in a deep chair, Doloria"s box of candy stood on the table within easy reach, the newspaper was in his hands, a cigarette hung from his lips, and Echochee was just bringing him the basket of fruit I had taken so much care at Key West to have made attractive.
"Picture of Tommy hurrying down for his cigarettes," I whispered. "Peep at him!"
As she leaned forward and the light fell on her serious face, the attractive curves of mischief, always so maddening, touched the corners of her mouth.
"Isn"t he a dear," she murmured. "And there"s nothing in the safe but the captain"s old pipes?"
"That"s all. Tommy"s waiting to soothe the professor when he makes that discovery, and keep him from coming on deck."
She laughed guardedly, but there was no great spirit of fun in either of us, and again we turned back to our contemplation of the water, for a long time looking down at it in moody silence. I instinctively felt that she had not altered her decision.
In the distance off our starboard bow a hairlike line of slowly brightening silver, forerunner of the climbing moon, touched the far horizon. It resembled a shining lake upon a great dark waste, and I told her it was my love trying to light my life that had turned to night without her.
I know we were subdued by the witchery that comes with watching for the moon, because when its dome appeared her fingers gently tightened on my sleeve; nor did we speak until it stood serenely balanced upon the world"s edge, sending to our feet a silvery pathway that twinkled on the waves. And then, by the merest accident of our position as the yacht changed its course among the keys, two far-off pine trees, appearing to move out side by side across the sea, stopped in the center of the moon.
She caught her breath at the unusual beauty of this. That sigh from her, and the mystic night, all but drove me mad. My senses swayed with the throb of some vast indwelling orchestra.
"Let"s take the silvery path," I whispered, putting my arms about her.
"Look, it leads to the gate of our Secret world, where we first found happiness!"
"Oh, dear Jack," she pleaded--but I would not be stopped, and words stumbled over each other in my agony to persuade her.
"It"s Fate--your destiny! I can"t change it, neither can you! It spoke to us beneath our two big pines on the Oasis; it"s speaking to-night--saying you shall never leave me!"
"Oh, but Jack, that"s so impossible! He"ll _make_ me go!"
I saw the glitter of tears upon her cheeks, and answered fiercely:
"He can"t, when I love you as I do!"--and whispered over and over: "Sweetheart, sweetheart, I love you!"
She had not moved. The moon, by this time high enough to have mustered its forces, frosted the yacht into the semblance of a dream-ship, and we might, indeed, have been sailing upon some phantom lake in fairyland. My eyes were pleading for hers until she raised them--and then they could not turn away. Held and blended by a mesmeric force, they began to give and answer question for question, secret for secret. I saw the quick pulsations in her throat, which seemed to be beating in my veins, instead.
"Oh, Jack," she whispered, laughing tremulously, with a subdued madness that was made for such a night as this, "let me go back to Echochee!"
But I could only answer as I had before: