Black Caesar's Clan Part 17

The mangrove swamp's beach was a bare half-mile away. And the man knew he could swim the intervening s.p.a.ce with ease. Yet the tedious delay of it all irked him and fanned to a blind fury his rage against Milo. Moreover, now, he could not hope to reach the hidden path before real darkness should set in.

And he did not relish the idea of traversing its blind mazes without a glimmer of daylight to guide him.

Yet he struck out, stubbornly, doggedly. As he pa.s.sed the tooth of coral that had wrecked his scow the reef gave him a painful farewell sc.r.a.pe on one kicking knee. He swam on fuming at this latest annoyance.

Then to his ears came the steady purr of a motorboat. It was close to him and coming closer.

"Boat ahoy!" he sang out treading water and raising himself as high as possible to peer about him through the dusk.

"Boat ahoy!" he called again, shouting to be heard above the motor's hum. "Man overboard! Ten dollars if you'll carry me to the mainland!"

And now he could see against the paler hue of the sky. the dark outlines of the boat's prow. It was bearing down on him.

Above the bow's edge he could make out the vague silhouette of a head and upper body.

Then into his memory flashed something which the shock of his upsetting had completely banished. He recalled the motorboat which had darted, arrow-like, out from around the southern edge of the mangrove swamp, and which he had been watching when his scow went to pieces on the reef.

If this were the same boat--if its steersman chanced to be Milo Standish crossing to the key to learn if his murderplot had yet culminated--so much the better! Man to man, there between sea and sky in the gathering gloom, they could settle the account once and for all.

Perhaps Standish had recognized him. Perhaps he merely took him for some capsized fisherman. In either event, a swimming man is the most utterly defenseless of all creatures against attack from land or from boat. And Gavin was not minded to let Standish finish his work with boat-hook or with oar. If he and his foe were to meet it should be on even terms.

The boat had switched off power and was coming to a standstill. Gavin dived. He swam clean under the craft, lengthwise, coming up at its stern and farthest from that indistinct figure in the prow.

As he rose to the surface he caught with both hands the narrow overhang of the stern, and with a mighty heave he hoisted himself hip-high out of the water.

Thence it was the work of a bare two seconds for him to swing himself over the stern and to land on all fours in the bottom of the boat. The narrow craft careened dangerously under such treatment. But she righted herself, and by the time he had fairly landed upon the cleated bottom. Brice was on his feet and making for the prow. He was ready now for any emergency and could meet his adversary on equal terms.

"Mr. Brice!" called the boat's other occupant, springing up, her sweet voice trembling and almost tearful. "Oh, thank G.o.d you're safe! I was so frightened!"

"Miss Standish!" sputtered Gavin, aghast. "Miss Standish!"

For a moment they stood staring at each other through the darkness, wordless, breathing hard. Their quick breath and the trickling of fifty runnels of water from Gavin's drenched clothes into the bottom of the once-tidy boat alone broke the tense stillness of sky and bay. Then:

"You're safe? You're not harmed?" panted the girl.

And the words brought back with a rush to Gavin Brice all he had been through.

"Yes," he made harsh answer trying to steady his rage-choked voice. "I am safe. I am not harmed. Apart from a few fire-blisters on my ankles and the charring of my clothes and the barking of one knee against a bit of submerged coral and the cutting of my fingers rather badly and a few more minor mischances--I'm quite safe and none the worse for the Standish family's charming hospitality. And, by the way, may I suggest that it might have been better for your brother or the gentle-hearted Mr. Hade to run across to the key to get news of my fate, instead of sending a girl on such an errand? It's no business of mine, of course. And I don't presume to criticize two such n.o.ble heroes. But surely they ought not have sent you. If their kindly plan had worked out according to schedule. I should not have been a pretty sight for a woman to look at, by this time. I--"

"I--I don't understand half of the things you're saying!" she cried, shrinking from his taunting tone as from a fist-blow. "They don't make any sense to me. But I do see why you're so angry. And I don't blame you. It was horrible! Horrible! It--"

"It was all that," he agreed drily, breaking in on her quivering speech and steeling himself against its pitiful appeal. "All that. And then some. And it's generous of you not to blame me for being just the very tiniest least bit riled by it. That helps. I was afraid my peevishness might displease you. My temper isn't what it should be. If it were I should be apologizing to you for getting your nice boat all sloppy like this."

"Please!" she begged. "Please! Won't you please try not to--to think too hardly of my brother? And won't you please acquit me of knowing anything of it? I didn't know.

Honestly. Mr Brice. I didn't. When Milo came back home without you he told me you had decided to stay on at Roustabout Key to help Roke, till the new foreman could come from Homestead."

"Quite so," a.s.sented Gavin, his voice as jarring as a file's.

"I did. And he decided that I shouldn't change my mind.

He--"

"It wasn't till half an hour ago," she hurried on, miserably, "that I knew. I was coming down stairs. Milo and Rodney Hade were in the music-room together. I didn't mean to overhear.

But oh, I'm so glad I did!"

"I'm glad it could make you so happy," he said. "The pleasure is all yours."

"All I caught was just this:" she went on. "Rodney was saying: 'Nonsense! Roke will have let him out before now.

And there are worse places to spend a hot afternoon in than locked snugly in a cool storeroom.'"

"Are there?" interpolated Brice. "I'd hate to test that."

"All in a flash. I understood," she continued, her sweet voice struggling gallantly against tears. "I knew Rodney didn't want us to have any guests or to have any outsiders at all at our house. He was fearfully displeased with us last night for having you there. It was all we could do to persuade him that the man who had saved Milo's life couldn't be turned out of doors or left to look elsewhere for work. It was only when Milo promised to give you work at the key that he stopped arguing and being so imperative about it. And when I heard him speak just now about your being locked in a store room there. I knew he had done it to prevent your coming back here for a while."

"Your reasoning was most unfeminine in its correctness,"

approved Gavin, still forcing himself to resist the piteous pleading in her voice.

He could see her flinch under the harshness of his tone as she added:

"And all at once I realized what it must mean to you and what you must think of us--after all you'd done for Milo. And I knew how a beast like Roke would be likely to treat you when he knew my brother and Rodney had left you there at the mercy of his companionship. There was no use talking to them. It might be hours before I could convince them and make them go or send for you. And I couldn't bear to have you kept there all that time. So I slipped out of the house and ran to the landing. Just as I got out into the bay. I saw you coming through that strait back there. I recognized the fruit launch. And I knew it must be you. For n.o.body from the key would have run at such speed toward that clump of reefs. You capsized before I could get to you, and--"

She shuddered, and ceased to speak. For another moment or two there was silence between them. Gavin Brice's mind was busy with all she said. He was dissecting and a.n.a.lyzing her every anxious word. He was bringing to bear on the matter not only his trained powers of logic but his knowledge of human nature.

And all at once he knew this trembling girl was in no way guilty of the crime attempted against him. He knew, too, from the speech of Hade's which she had just repeated, that Standish presumably had had no part in the attempted murder, but that that detail had been devised by Hade for Roke to put into execution. Nor, evidently had Davy been let into the secret by Roke.

In a few seconds Brice had revised his ideas as to the afternoon's adventures, and had come to a sudden decision.

Speaking with careful forethought and with a definite object in view, he said:

"Miss Standish. I do not ask pardon for the way I spoke to you just now. And when you've heard why you won't blame me, I want to tell you just what happened to me today from the time I set foot on Roustabout Key, until I boarded this boat of yours. When you realize that I thought your brother and probably yourself were involved in it to the full you'll understand, perhaps, why I didn't greet you with overmuch cordiality. Will you listen?"

She nodded her head, wordless, not trusting her voice to speak further. And she sank back into the seat she had quitted.

Brice seated himself on the thwart near her, and began to speak, while the boat, its power still shut off bobbed lazily on a lazier sea.

Tersely, yet omitting no detail except that of his talk with Davy, he told of the afternoon's events. She heard, wide-eyed and breathing fast. But she made no interruption, except when he came to the episode of the moccasins she cried aloud in horror, and caught unconsciously his lacerated hand between her own warm palms.

The clasp of her fingers, unintentional as it was, sent a strange thrill through the man, and, for an instant, he wavered in his recital. But he forced himself to continue.

And after a few seconds the girl seemed to realize what she was doing. For she withdrew her hands swiftly, and clasped them together in her lap.

As he neared the end of his brief story she raised her hands again. But they did not seek his. Instead she covered her horrified eyes with them, and she shook all over.

When he had finished he could see she was fighting for self-control. Then, in a flood, the power of speech came back to her.

"Oh!" she gasped, her flower-face white and drawn, in the faint light. "Oh, it can't be. It can't! There must be a hideous mistake somewhere!"

"There is," he agreed, with a momentary return to his former manner. "There was one mistake. I made it, by escaping.

Otherwise the plan was flawless. Luckily, a key had been left on the floor. And luckily, I got hold of it. Luckily, too, I had a match with me. And, if there are sharks as near land as this, luckily you happened to meet me as I was swimming for sh.o.r.e. As to mistakes--. Have you a flashlight?"

From her pocket she drew a small electric torch she had had the foresight to pick up from the hall table as she ran out.

Gavin took it and turned its rays on his wet ankles. His shoes and trouser-legs still showed clear signs of the scorching they had received. And his palms were cut and abraded.

"If I had wanted to make up a story," said he. "I could have devised one that didn't call for such painful stage-setting."