The Garden of Eden Part 36

He turned aside into the trees briskly, and the moment he was out of sight of the girl he called softly: "Joseph!"

He repeated the call after a trifling wait before he saw the big man coming unconcernedly through the trees toward him. Joseph came close before he stopped--very close, as a man will do when he wishes to make another aware of his size, and from this point of vantage, he looked over Connor from head to foot with a glance of lingering and insolent criticism. The gambler was somewhat amused and a little alarmed by that att.i.tude.

"Now, Joseph," he said, "tell me frankly why you're dodging me about the valley. Waiting for a chance to throw stones?"

His smile remained without a reflection on the stolid face of the servant.

"Benjamin," answered the deep, solemn voice, "I know all!"

It made Connor peer into those broad features as into a dim light. Then a moment of reflection a.s.sured him that Joseph could not have learned the secret.

"Haneemar, whom you know," continued Joseph, "has told me about you."

"And where," asked Connor, completely at sea, "did you learn of Haneemar?"

"From Abraham. And I know that this is the head of Haneemar."

He brought out in his palm the little watch-charm of carved ivory.

"Of course," nodded Connor, feeling his way. "And what is it that you know from Haneemar?"

"That you are evil, Benjamin, and that you have come here for evil. You entered by a trick; and you will stay here for evil purposes until the end."

"You follow around to pick up a little dope, eh?" chuckled Connor. "You trail me to find out what I intend to do? Why don't you go to David and warn him?"

"Have I forgotten the whip?" asked Joseph, his nostrils trembling with anger. "But the good Haneemar now gives me power and in the end he will betray you into my hands. That is why I follow you. Wherever you go I follow; I am even able to know what you think! But hearken to me, Benjamin. Take back the head of Haneemar and the bad luck that lives in it. Take it back, and I shall no longer follow you. I shall forget the whip. I shall be ready to do you a service."

He extended the little piece of ivory eagerly, but Connor drew back. His superst.i.tions were under the surface of his mind, but, still, they were there, and the fear which Joseph showed was contagious.

"Why don't you throw it away if you're afraid of it, Joseph?"

"You know as I know," returned Joseph, glowering, "that it cannot be thrown away. It must be given and freely accepted, as I--oh fool--accepted it from you."

There was such a profound conviction in this that Connor was affected in spite of himself. That little trinket had been the entering wedge through which he had worked his way into the Garden and started on the road to fortune. He would rather have cut off his hand, now, than take it back.

"Find some one else to take it," he suggested cheerily. "I don't want the thing."

"Then all that Abraham told me is true!" muttered Joseph, closing his hand over the trinket. "But I shall follow you, Benjamin. When you think you are alone you shall find me by turning your head. Every day by sunrise and every day by the dark I beg Haneemar to put his curse on you. I have done you no wrong, and you have had me shamed."

"And now you're going to have me bewitched, eh?" asked Connor.

"You shall see."

The gambler drew back another pace and through the shadows he saw the beginning of a smile of animal-cunning on the face of Joseph.

"The devil take you and Haneemar together," he growled. "Remember this, Joseph. I've had you whipped once. The next time I'll have you flayed alive."

Instead of answering, Joseph merely grinned more openly, and the gambler, to forget the ape-face, wheeled and hurried out from the trees.

The touch of nightmare dread did not leave him until he rejoined Ruth on the higher terrace.

They found the patio glowing with light, the table near the fountain, and three chairs around it. David came out of the shadow of the arcade to meet them, and he was as uneasy as a boy who had a surprise for grown-ups. He had not even time for a greeting.

"You have not seen your room?" he said to Ruth. "I have made it ready for you. Come!"

He led the way half a pace in front, glancing back at them as though to reprove their slowness, until he reached a door at which he turned and faced her, laughing with excitement. She could hardly believe that this man with his childish gayety was the same whose fury had terrified the servants that same afternoon.

"Close your eyes--close them fast. You will not look until I say?"

She obeyed, setting her teeth to keep from smiling.

"Now come forward--step high for the doorway. So! You are in. Now wait--now open your eyes and look!"

She obeyed again and saw first David standing back with an anxious smile and the gesture of one who reveals, but is not quite sure of its effect.

Then she heard a soft, startled exclamation from Connor behind her. Last of all she saw the room.

It was as if the walls had been broken down and a garden let inside--it gave an effect of open air, sunlight and wind. Purple flowers like warm shadows banked the farther corners, and out of them rose a great vine draping the window. It had been torn bodily from the earth, and now the roots were packed with damp moss, yellow-green. It bore in cl.u.s.ters and single flowers and abundant bloom, each blossom as large as the mallow, and a dark gold so rich that Ruth well-nigh listened for the murmur of bees working this mine of pollen. From above, the great flowers hung down against the dull red of the sunset sky; and from below the distant treetops on the terrace pointed up with glimmers of the lake between.

There was only the reflected light of the evening, now, but the cuplike blossoms were filled to the brim with a glow of their own.

She looked away.

A dapple deerskin covered the bed like the shadow under a tree in mid-day, and the yellow of the flowers was repeated dimly on the floor by a great, tawny hide of a mountain-lion. She took up some of the purple flowers, and letting the velvet petals trail over her finger tips, she turned to David with a smile. But what Connor saw, and saw with a thrill of alarm, was that her eyes were filling with tears.

"See!" said David gloomily. "I have done this to make you happy, and now you are sad!"

"Because it is so beautiful."

"Yes," said David slowly. "I think I understand."

But Connor took one of the flowers from her hand. She cried out, but too late to keep him from ripping the blossom to pieces, and now he held up a single petal, long, graceful, red-purple at the broader end and deep yellow at the narrow.

"Think of that a million times bigger," said Connor, "and made out of velvet. That'd be a design for a cloak, eh? Cost about a thousand bucks to imitate this petal, but it'd be worth it to see you in it, eh?"

She looked to David with a smile of apology for Connor, but her hand accepted the petal, and her second smile was for Connor himself.

_CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE_

When they went out into the patio again, David had lost a large part of his buoyancy of spirits, as though in some subtle manner Connor had overcast the triumph of the room; he left them with word that the evening meal would soon be ready and hurried off calling orders to Zacharias.

"Why did you do it?" she asked Connor as soon as they were alone.

"Because it made me mad to see a stargazer like that turning your head."

"But didn't you think the room was beautiful?"