A Woman Named Smith Part 22

When I explained that I couldn't sell he offered to compromise on two of the carved marble mantels, the library tiles, and two inlaid tables, "at double what you'd get from anybody else." And when I wouldn't even let him have these trifles, he was disgusted and took no pains to conceal it. He was rude to Alicia, who snubbed him with terrible thoroughness, a proceeding which made him call loudly for his "bill" and his car. The last we heard of him was his bullying voice bawling at his sullen chauffeur.

"That pig," said The Author to me, with fury, "is undoubtedly the lineal descendant of the one Gadarene swine that hadn't decency enough to rush down the slope with the rest of the herd and drown himself."

Busy as I was, it wasn't over easy for me to find time to revisit that brown and sweet-smelling spot in the Forest of Arden where on a gray afternoon, I had met Nicholas Jelnik and received from him a kiss on the palm, and a broken coin. And I wanted to go back there, as ghosts may desire to revisit the glimpses of the moon.

That is why, on the first free afternoon I had, I changed into the selfsame brown frock, put on the brown hat with the yellow quill in it, and slipped out of Hynds House alone. It wasn't a gray afternoon this time, but a clear, bright, sun-shiny one, all blue and gold and green, and with the pleasantest of friendly winds a-frolicking, and a pine-scented air with a pungent and a vital bite to it.

I went along the highroad for a while, crossed the weedy, ferny ditch that separated it from the fallow fields beyond, and struck into the deserted foot-path that leads to the Enchanted Wood.

It was very lonesome, very peaceful. I could see the pine-trees I love swaying and rocking against the blue, blue sky; I could catch the low-hummed tune they crooned to themselves and the winds; I could sniff a thousand woodsy odors. Spears of sunlight made bright blobs on the brown gra.s.s; and every littlest bush and shrub wore a shimmering halo, as you see the blessed ones backgrounded in old pictures. There was a bird twittering somewhere; occasionally a twig snapped with a quick, secret sharpness; and once a thin brown rabbit took to his heels, right under my feet.

I stopped from time to time to sense the feel of the afternoon, to drink the air and be healed. In a few minutes I should be within the forest and hear the little brook giggling to itself as it scurried over its brown pathway. And then I heard--something--and turned.

The deep and weedy ditch, crowded with high stalks of last year's goldenrod and fennel, edged all that pathway, draining the entire field. Crawling snakelike through it he had followed me. And now here he was, suddenly erect on the path behind me, looking at me with narrowed eyes under his flat forehead.

I wasn't afraid--at first. Nothing like him had ever crossed my path, and I stared at him with more of disgust and aversion than terror.

He was tall and bony, immensely powerful, and his black skin showed with a grayish shine upon it through the rents in his rags. His gray-black, h.o.r.n.y toes protruded through what once had been shoes, and a shapeless, colorless felt hat covered his bullet head. His corded black arms emerged from the torn sleeves of his checked shirt, and his hairy chest was naked. There came from him an indescribable reek of tobacco, whisky, filthy clothes, and the beastlike odor of an unclean body. He was beardless, and his gorilla-like nostrils twitched, his forehead wrinkled. His eyes were mere pin-points, with a sort of red glare far back in them; his mouth was like a dirty red muzzle. He was a prowling tramp, of the worst sort.

Involuntarily he stopped in his tracks as I faced him, his hands hanging loosely at his sides. His eyes swept greedily over me--silver mesh-purse, wrist-watch, the brooch at my throat, the rings on my fingers.

"Whut yuh doin' hyuh, w'ite lady?" he asked in a thick voice, and grinned. And quite suddenly such a fear as I had not dreamed could be felt by a mortal took me by the heart and squeezed it as with an iron hand.

"Whut foh yuh come by mah field, lil w'ite lady?" he purred. "Ah'm takin' lil snooze in de ditch gra.s.s, an' dey yuh comes, wakin' me up! Whut yuh wake me up for, w'ite gal?" Leering, he began with a gliding, stealthy movement to advance.

"Stop!" cried I, in a voice that wasn't mine, it was so sharp and thin and reedy. "Go back--where you came from! Don't you dare to take another step! Go back!"

The hands hooked into outstretched claws. His head sunk between his shoulders. Of the eyes, only red pin-points showed in the twitching face. I stood stone-still, struck into utter immobility. My brain was trying to urge me to fly, fly! This is the Black Death, Sophy!

the Black Death!

He, too, stood of a sudden stone-still, as if rooted to the ground.

His eyes widened, and stared, as if he saw something over and beyond me. I didn't dare turn my head. It might be a trick, to divert attention for a fatal second.

The claws clenched into balled fists, the lips drew back, showing blackened and decayed teeth. Bristling like an aroused beast, his forehead wrinkling, his nostrils twitching, he made an inarticulate, growling, brute-like noise in his throat. His head twisted sideways.

Of a sudden the sweat burst out upon his face, and he began to back away, warily.

And then something swift and dark sped by, bounding on light and flying feet; something that must have come from my forest. It was The Jinnee! G.o.d be praised, it was The Jinnee, his dark robe giving an odd effect of flying, his eyes living vengeance, his face like Fate carved in ebony.

I saw him leap, and close in upon the horror; I heard a sort of wolfish yapping. The Black Death disappeared. And then I, too, was falling, falling into infinite blackness and blankness, with one red flash when I struck my head.

Half-conscious, half-hearing, altogether unseeing, I thought there were two Voices near me. I couldn't understand what they said. One of the Voices was gently and persistently applying cold and soothing applications to my forehead. Another Voice chafed my hands. I thought one said, "Achmet," and the other replied, "Sahib." I knew I must be dreaming. But it was a pleasant dream enough.

Quite suddenly somebody said in good, anxious English:

"Thank G.o.d! you are better!"

I had opened my eyes. There was the whish-whish-whishing little brook, the good brown pines, with their heavenly odor. And there was the face of Nicholas Jelnik, bent over me. And beside him, gravely concerned and troubled, Boris.

I looked from one to the other, both so clear-eyed, so kind, so _safe_; and then I remembered.

"Sophy! Sophy!" He had his arms around me, in a close, protecting clasp, while Boris pawed my skirts, and cried over me in loving, honest dog fashion, and licked my wet cheek with his affectionate tongue. I slipped my arm around the big dog's neck, and clung to the two of them. And it seemed to me that while I clung thus, with my head bent and my face hidden, one of them kissed my hair.

"It never occurred to me--that there might be danger for you," he was whispering. "To have that horror come near you--oh, my G.o.d! Oh, my G.o.d!"

I was terrified at sight of his face, dead-white, with eyes of steel, and straight lips, and pinched nostrils; the terrible face of the avenging white man, a face as inexorable as judgment. I hid my own before it, and trembled; and yet was glad that I had seen it.

I stammered: "There was--a devil--and then a Jinnee came. And I heard--sounds. Then I fell. Did--did The Jinnee--" My voice died in my throat.

His eyes were ice, his mouth a grim, pale line.

"That has been attended to," he said composedly.

He blamed himself for having been thoughtless. "But I was so glad to have you come here, that afternoon, that I could think of nothing else!" And it seemed that this particular bit of woodland was his, bought because its quiet beauty pleased him. He was in the habit of coming here frequently; it had never occurred to him that danger could lurk near it.

"I thought I heard--somebody calling somebody else 'Achmet.'" I told him, confusedly. "And there was a Jinnee, really there was. And two Voices. Who brought me here? Did you find me, over there?"

"You were not hard to carry," he said evasively.

"But The Jinnee?"

"The Jinnee did exactly what a good Jinnee always does, his duty.

Having done it, he disappeared. Didn't I tell you you're not to think of what's happened? It is finished," said Mr. Jelnik, peremptorily.

I asked no more questions.

"Do you think you are able to walk now?" he asked.

I tried to, with shaking knees. At the edge of the field I grew faint again, and staggered, and was unpleasantly sick.

"You simply cannot appear in Hynds House in this shape, and invite comment and question," said Mr. Jelnik, anxiously. His fine brows wrinkled. "I have it: you will stop at my house for a few minutes, and I'll give you a cordial, that will put you to rights."

I went staggering along beside him, making desperate efforts to hold myself erect. The pathway squirmed and wriggled like a snake, the trees and bushes bowed, the sky bobbed up and down.

He took me by by-paths so cunningly hidden that you might pa.s.s up and down the highroad daily and never suspect their existence. We went between ca.s.senas and cedars and young laurels, branchy to the roots. And then I was walking down a path bordered with Lombardy poplars; and then I was sitting on a couch in Mr. Jelnik's living-room, while he bathed my face with scented water, and afterward held a small gla.s.s to my lips. The fluid I swallowed went tingling through my whole body like friendly fire.

I stole a woman-glance around the room that The Author had been so anxious to investigate. It was altogether a man's room, the scoured floor partly covered with a handsome rug, and the divan on which I was sitting covered with another. On both sides of the big fireplace were crowded book-shelves, above which hung weapons gathered from the four corners of the earth. There were two or three deep, comfortable arm-chairs, a square table, a couple of Winchesters in a corner, and near the window a flat, old-fashioned desk, above which hung two small portraits, evidently his parents, for the gentleman with stars and crosses on his braided uniform, a sword at his side, and a plumed hat in his hand, bore a striking resemblance to Mr.

Jelnik; and the stately blond lady had a family resemblance to Doctor Richard Geddes.

Mr. Jelnik touched a bell near the door, and a tall, copper-colored man in spotless white appeared. At the merest gesture of an uplifted finger the copper-colored one bowed, vanished, and returned ten minutes later with a tiny cup of black coffee and a couple of thin wafers.

"I shall have to insist upon the coffee; and I advise the wafers,"

said Mr. Jelnik, pleasantly. So I drank the coffee, nibbled the wafers, and felt better.

The copper-colored man, standing still as a statue, waited until I had finished, took the cup, bowed, and disappeared. He was a stately impressive person, rather like a shah in disguise. Mr. Jelnik addressed him as "Daoud."

I had risen. I was trying to straighten my sadly flattened brown hat, and to smooth my frock, stained with damp earth, and water. A quick step sounded on the porch, somebody knocked, and without waiting for an answer, opened the door, impatiently, and strode into the room. With a fold of my disheveled frock in my hand, I looked up and met the angry and astonished eyes of The Author.