The cabin was in twilight as I again turned to her. She had crawled to the far corner of the couch, and lay staring at the ceiling--waiting.
Here in this dismal room, alone and facing death with a courage amazing to behold, she made a picture which so stirred me that despite earlier wounded feelings I went to her side. The little hands were cold and inert when I took them, but her fingers tightened ever so gently.
"Did he say we"re going down?" she quietly asked, without turning her head.
"Yes," I answered--though both of us spoke in whispers.
"I"m sorry to have been unkind," she said, withdrawing one of her hands and laying it on the back of my own--for Death is a great leveler of conventions.
The pathetic resignation in her voice brought hot tears to my eyes and, raising her fingers to my lips, I murmured:
"You"re the sweetest angel I ever knew!"
For a long time we sat in the gathering darkness, holding to each other as two little children lost in the night. Finally I heard her whisper:
"Why am I not afraid--now?"
I turned and looked down at her; down into those eyes gazing back at me through a magnetizing moisture that drew my face nearer, nearer.
"Because," I said, "we"ve found something which outlives death!"
"Yes," she whispered, as her arms moved sweetly up around my neck--but the next instant they held me off, as she gasped: "Look! Look! The end is here!"
Quite a foot of water was swashing back and forth over the cabin floor, while a steady stream poured down the companionway stairs. Yes, the end was here!
"Take this," she hurriedly pressed into my hand the round bra.s.s frame that held her picture--the frame fashioned after a porthole. "Keep it--then come to me! Swear!"
"I swear," I gasped. "But where shall I find you? In what strange land will you be?"
Her eyes were wide with a frightened look that even in our extremity gave the lie to fear. Through parted, expectant lips a trembling sigh of inexpressible sweetness seemed to carry her answer; it was brought by the mystery of her look, by the clasp of our senses--for I know she did not speak a word:
"I"ll wait beneath the palms on one of many, many islands, Set as emerald jewels in an ever-changing sea; My hammock swings beside a pool of purling, crystal water Whisp"ring to the shadows of a lonely Arcady; The Spanish moss hangs solemn in long streamers from the cypress, The paths are soft and noiseless with dead needles of the pine, The nights are still and fragrant, and I"ll wait----
Ah!" she broke the measure with a despairing cry and struggled to get from my arms, as another voice, far away but familiar, began to call my name. Then slowly my eyes opened and beheld Bilkins looking down at me, in my own stateroom, where my clothes were lying as I had thrown them off the night before.
"I"ve called you twice, sir," he was saying. "It"s almost ten o"clock, and I"m afraid your bath is cold."
"I want it cold," I murmured, staring up at him. "G.o.d, Bilkins, I"ve had a most extraordinary dream!"
"If it"s bad don"t tell it before breakfast, sir, whatever you do! Just hold on a minute, and I"ll bring your tray right in!"
CHAPTER V
"TO THE VERY END!"
I dressed hurriedly, wanting to be on deck and get a more searching view of the yacht near which we had anch.o.r.ed. Stepping out into the c.o.c.kpit, therefore, I looked hungrily toward her mooring place, but it was vacant.
"Where has she gone?" I asked Tommy, who was the only one about.
"The etiquette of this yacht requires its owner first to say "good morning" when he comes up at break of day," he grinned at me accusingly.
"The little professor won eight hundred dollars from the proud Castilian last night--I hope Dame Fortune was as kind to you!"
"She was diverting," I admitted. "Where"s Monsieur now?"
""Sleep. We didn"t turn in till an unholy hour. He got up at seven from force of habit, fussed around a while, took some pictures of the neighborhood and developed them, but by that time the poor old door-mat couldn"t keep his eyes open. Do you know he wept all the way home last night, telling me how good we were to him?"
We laughed.
"But, Tommy, where"s the yacht that was over there yesterday?"
"Her? Oh, she cleared this morning--and listen to me, boy, if you want to see a dream just cast your eye on that last film of Monsieur"s!"
See a dream! Great heavens, if I wanted to see a dream!
He led the way aft to a ribbon of freshly developed film hanging from the boom to dry and, as I gingerly raised it to the light, he went on to explain:
"It was boorish of him, but I"m to blame. We were standing forward after breakfast snapping the harbor when that yacht weighed anchor and swung across our bow less than thirty feet off; and, Jack, with the prettiest girl I ever saw--barring Nell--looking out at us through a porthole.
"Shoot her," I whispered. So he swung his camera and shot, and she gave a darling little gasp and ducked."
I had come to the last negative and there, with the porthole in exact imitation of the round bra.s.s frame, was the same beautiful face of the same beautiful girl I"d left in that wondrous dream!
"Sylvia Graham," I cried.
"The devil," Tommy straightened up. "Graham"s the chap who owns that boat! Gates found it out this morning, but how did you know?"
My eyes were glued to the negative.
"They cleared for Key West, Tommy?"
"So Gates said. Has he told you?"
"I haven"t seen him since yesterday," I murmured, still unable to look away from that strip of gelatine which held the image of my world.
"He didn"t know anything about it yesterday, either," Tommy announced, and I felt him regarding me in some slight amus.e.m.e.nt, as though he thought I had a secret up my sleeve that I was trying to keep from him.
"What"s the cute little idea, son? I"ve told you where she cleared for, now clear me up!"
"Tommy," I let the film swing back and caught him by the shoulders, "Miss Graham"s father carries a photograph like that in the inside pocket of a white flannel coat which hangs behind his stateroom door!"
He looked me up and down, this time more seriously, and murmured:
"Whiz-bang!--but you must have been heroically decorated last night!
Still, I can"t see that it hurt you much, for you look about twice as fit as when we left Miami."
"I"ll bet I didn"t drink an ounce more than you, or Monsieur," I declared. "The facts of the matter are, Tommy, that there"s a lot mighty curious about this picture!"