Fate Knocks at the Door Part 36

She drained a gla.s.s of wine, and sank into a chair in a still huddled fashion. There was something unnatural in the fixed inclination of her head. She had betrayed herself, and watched Rey now out of the corners of her eyes--and in dissolving fear--quivering under his stare and voice. Madame Sorenson was sitting near, dazed from sensational expenditure, her lips moving without sound. There was something hideous in the tension, and in the whole cabin arrangement. Framtree had taken a seat across the aft doorway. He could turn from the woman at the wheel to the light with a movement of his head. He appeared to be much mixed in mind and resigned to await developments. Bedient stood silently watching these changes of position. Miss Mallory felt she must scream before many minutes. She wanted Bedient to know all the fears that distressed her, but dared not speak lest she betray the weakness of their position as she saw it. Once she thought Framtree was laughing at her.

"What a pleasant little party!" Rey remarked at length. "Too bad you can't join us, Miss Mallory." And now he turned to Bedient with a scornful laugh: "Why don't you use your men in the forecastle to man the ship, and relieve the lady at the wheel?"

"They are off watch, Senor," Bedient said, smiling.

"How tired they are! How silently they rest!" the Spaniard replied softly, and his long hands caressed each other.

Framtree glanced from Bedient to Miss Mallory, who realized with added dread that the forecastle bubble was p.r.i.c.ked. She wondered how he had conveyed the impression that others were behind.

"Better let me help you with the wheel, Miss Mallory," Framtree said, decently enough.

"No."

"Shall I get you a gla.s.s of wine?"

"No."

Rey seemed to have caught a sudden hope. At least, Miss Mallory imagined so; and that he tried to cover it with words.

"Mr. Bedient," he said pleasantly, "I do not wish to under-rate your genius in the least, but I should like to pay a compliment to your remarkable fellow-worker."

"I have several to pay, as well, Senor."

"I should be glad for her to hear," Rey added.

"If you mean me," Miss Mallory called, "I am listening intently."

The Spaniard leaned forward, appearing to cover his eyes with his fingers. Miss Mallory could hardly restrain a scream for Bedient to look out for the pistol, but nothing happened. Senor Rey sat back and began reminiscently:

"I was sailing and garnering in these waters before either of you men, and certainly before any of the women present, were alive. I made Equatoria interesting, and a delightful place to live. I have met in the old days, sometimes in strategy, sometimes in open warfare, the most crafty and daring seamen the world could send to the Caribbean.

All, to the last man, I have overmatched in strength and cleverness. A ship has at last changed hands beneath my feet. It is well. I have lived long and am content. Only, I wish to say that it is a bright pleasure to think that no man, however brilliant or daring, outgeneraled me--but a delightful American girl."

"It's a tribute that I shall always remember, Senor," Miss Mallory responded, "and one that comes from a master of his profession."

Out of this pleasantry brewed a change. The Spaniard stared from face to face for several seconds. What came over him cannot be told--a break in his fine control; a sudden realization that he was whipped; a resurgence of all the shattered strategies in his brain, many of which certain others of the party did not yet understand; his doubt of Framtree, or his inability to reach the weapon,--the exact point which goaded him to black disorder was never known, but the fury of it concentrated upon the Glow-worm. Her mortal fear attracted it.

The look he turned upon her was demoniacal, harrowing as a dream of h.e.l.l. All else stopped--words, thoughts, even hearts. Miss Mallory craned down to see. The Sorenson woman panted as one dying of thirst.

The Senora shrank back. Her face seemed dim, fallen, but she could not lose his eyes. Rey was speaking, leaning forward in his chair, and heaping words upon her like clods upon a corpse:

"... But to-night, things were spoken which could only have come to them--through you! Celestino Rey has been outgeneraled by a clever American girl, but he has also been betrayed by a South American cat--the tortoise-sh.e.l.l of a bagnio-litter----"

Both white men commanded him to stop. The Spaniard turned a glance from Framtree to Bedient.... The woman at the wheel, straining downward, saw the Glow-worm rise with an appalling shudder, as the eyes of her lord left her; saw her body huddle forward toward him, her hands fumbling in her hair.

"My dear Bedient," the Spaniard was saying, "I regret this domestic scene. You must excuse a man who has so recently discovered his Glow-worm to be a scorpion----"

The crouching figure of the woman--in the rage she had prayed for, and as she had prayed for it, _with his eyes turned away_--hurled forward as one diving into the sea. The flying body seemed huge in the little cabin. The concentration of her weight struck him in the throat. His head whipped back like a flaunted arm. The chair had been screwed to the floor, but the weight of impact ripped the fastenings out of the heavy planking. Backward Rey was borne, beneath a stabbing creature whose cries were as some b.e.s.t.i.a.l mystery of the dark.

It was Framtree who tore her loose, and tightened upon her wrist until the fingers opened and the little knife--concealed how long in her hair?--dropped like a feather to the carpet. Swiftly it had let out the life of the Spaniard.... Bedient opened the galley-door at a gesture from the woman. The Chinese came forth.

"It was I--your mistress, Boy--who killed the Senor. You may look. Then fix him quickly, so he will sink. I want him to sink!" she panted.

Bedient waited for Framtree to look up. The eyes of the two men met.

"The first and last chance of war in Equatoria is eliminated," Bedient said.

Presently he moved out of the cabin, and sat down beside Miss Mallory.

Each had held out a hand to the other, but they had not words.

The place was being made clean within.... The Glow-worm could not be silent, muttered constantly to the Chinese. "... You shall go back to South America with me. I shall be very good to you.... Oh, do open some wine, Boy! I am so very thirsty!" and on, until she saw the face of Framtree, moodily watching. She sank into a chair shuddering, and covered her face. "Don't look at me so horribly!" she cried. "Ask Senorita Mallory about it--ask her about me."

He jerked up, but did not answer at once. The Glow-worm screamed at him to speak.

Framtree crossed the cabin, and dropped his huge hand upon her shaking shoulder.

"I have nothing to say, Senora.... It was a matter between you and him.... But I'm glad to help you. It bowled me over a little, that's all."

His voice was big in the hush that had fallen upon the cabin....

Framtree helped the Chinese carry forth the weighted body.... As it paused for an instant on the gunwale, the searchlight from Jaffier's gunboat flicked athwart the _Savonarola_--sinister tableaux in its ghostly light.... Without a sound the Glow-worm fell backward to the cabin floor, as if touched by the finger of the Destroying Angel.

Bedient worked upon her until consciousness was restored.

"What next in this terrible night?" Miss Mallory asked in an awed voice, when Bedient rejoined her.

"Such an end has hung over him for more years than we have lived," he said. "I call it rather wonderful--as it came about. Hundreds of men will continue to live because of this death. It means an end of war-making, the release of this turbulent spirit."

Bedient turned to the light. She saw the red stain upon the breast of his coat.

He glanced down, and felt in the inner pocket. "It's the red chalk," he said with a laugh. "It got crushed somehow, and it was oily. The forecastle melted it."

...Plainly at this moment they both heard the sound of a steamer's screw--ahead. But there were no lights. Bedient took the wheel and brought the _Savonarola_ sheering away to the south of the sound, which had stopped abruptly.

Nothing was seen, not even a denser shadow in the moonless dark.

Framtree joined them, and they waited expectantly for Jaffier's index of light to pick up the mystery. Ten minutes pa.s.sed before the gunboat, following doggedly, and whipping her light over sea, suddenly uncovered the dark from a big tramp steamer, aimed at the Inlet. For an instant it was lost again, but the searchlight swept back, groped until the tramp was caught, and this time held--in all her unlit wickedness.

"Framtree," said Bedient, "I believe we are about to lose our convoy----"

"Looks that way," Framtree replied. "Miss Mallory has steered----"

"Miss Mallory has steered--Equatoria off a revolutionary shoal,"

Bedient finished.

"You mean the Senora----?" Miss Mallory intervened.

"No."

"I'm very tired and stupid; please tell me in little words," she pleaded.

"You changed the ship's course?"