The House Under the Sea Part 4

They were pretty creatures and their dress was like the rest of them.

Short skirts all looped and filled with flowers, toggery above cut out of some white skin, with caps to match and their hair falling in big ramping curls about it--they were for all the world like the dancers you see at a stage play and just as active. And to hear their voices, sweet and musical, floating from ravine to ravine like a choir singing in a place of echoes, aye that was something you might not soon forget.

But what they were doing in such a place, or how they came there, the Lord above alone knew, and not a plain seaman like Jasper Begg.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Like dancers at a stage play.]

"What are they saying, Peter--what do you make of it?" I asked him, under my breath.

"'Tis the French lingo," says he, foolish-like, "and if it's not that, 'tis the German--leastwise no Christian man that I know of could distinguish between 'em."

"Peter," says I, "that's what you learn in the asylum. 'Tis no more the French lingo than your own. Why, hearken to it."

Well, he listened, and soon we heard a pretty echo from the valley, for they'd gone down towards the gardens now; and one word repeated often had as nice a touch of music as I remember hearing. It was just this: "Rosamunda--munda--munda," and you can't think how fresh the young voice sounded in that lonely place, or what a chill it gave a man when he remembered the devils over at the reef and what they'd done to the crew of the Santa Cruz. I do believe to this day that our fellows imagined they'd seen nothing more nor less than an apparition out of the black rocks above them; and it wasn't until I'd spoken to them in good honest English that I got them to go on again.

"Flesh or spirit, that's not a lot to whiten a man's gills," cried I; "why, thunder, Peter Bligh, you're big enough to put 'em all in your pocket, and soft enough they'd lie when they got there. Do you mean to tell me," I asked him, "that four hale and strong men are to be frightened out of their wits by three pretty girls?--and you a religious man, too, Peter! Why, I'm ashamed of you, that I am, lads, right down ashamed of you!"

They plucked up at this, and Peter he made haste to excuse himself.

"If they was Christian men with knives in their hands," says he, "I'd put up a bit of a prayer, and trust to the Lord to shoot 'em; but them three's agen all reason, at this time of night in such a lone place."

"Go on with you, Peter," chimes in Dolly Venn; "three ripping little girls, and don't I wish they'd ask me in to tea! Why, look, they're down by the house now, and somebody with them, though whether it's a man or a woman I really don't pretend to say."

"I'm derned if I don't think it's a lion," says Seth Barker, asking my pardon for the liberty.

We all stood still at this, for we were on the hillside just above the house now; and down on the fair gra.s.s-way below us we espied the three little girls with their torches still burning, and they as deep in talk with a stranger as a man might have been with his own mother. A more remarkable human being than the one these little ladies had happened upon I don't look to see again the world around. Man or lion--G.o.d forgive me if I know what to call him. He'd hair enough, s.h.a.ggy hair curling about his shoulders, to have stuffed a feather bed. His dress was half man's, half woman's. He'd a tattered petticoat about his legs, a seaman's blouse for his body, and a lady's shawl above that upon his shoulders--his legs were bare as a barked tree, and what boots he had should have been in the rag-shop. More wonderful still was it to see the manner of the young ladies towards him--for I shall always call them that--they petted him and fondled him, and one put a mock crown of roses on his head. Then, with that pretty song of theirs, "Rosamunda--munda--munda," they all ran off together towards the northern sh.o.r.e and left us in the darkness, as surprised a party of men as you'll readily meet with.

"Well," says Peter Bligh, and he was the first among us to speak, "yon's a nice shipmate to speak on a quiet road. So help me thunder, but I wouldn't pa.s.s round the tin for him in a beauty show, no, not much! Did ye see the hair of him, captain--did ye see the hair?"

"And the girls kissing him as though he were Apollo," cries Dolly Venn, who, I don't doubt, would have done the kissing willingly himself. But I hushed their talk, and without more ado I went straight down to Ruth b.e.l.l.e.n.den's house. All the strange things we'd seen and heard, the uncanny sights, the firing on the reef, the wild man ash.o.r.e, the little girls from the hills--all these, I say, began to tell me my mistress's story as a written book might never have done. "She's need of me," I said, "sore need; and by G.o.d's help I'll bring her out of this place before to-morrow's sun."

For how should I know what long days must pa.s.s before I was to leave Ken's Island again?

CHAPTER VI

JASPER BEGG MEETS HIS OLD MISTRESS, AND IS WATCHED

I had made up my mind to take every proper precaution before going up to the house where my mistress lived; and with caution in my head I left Seth Barker, the carpenter, up on the hill path, while I set Peter Bligh at the gate of the garden, and posted Dolly Venn round at the northern side, where the men who had looted the Santa Cruz might be looked for with any others that I had no knowledge of. When this was done, and they understood that they were to fire a gun if the need arose, I opened the wicket-gate and crept up the gra.s.s path for all the world like an ill-visaged fellow who had no true business there. Not a sound could I hear in all that place; not a dog barked, nor a human voice spoke. Even the wind came fitful and gusty about the sheltered house; and so quiet was it between the squalls that my own footfall almost could scare me. For, you see, a whisper spoken at the wrong time might have undone all--a clumsy step have cost us more than a man cared to count. We were but four, and, for all I know, there might have been four hundred on Ken's Island. You don't wonder therefore, if I asked myself at times whether to-morrow's sun would find us living or what our misfortune might spell for one I had come so far to serve.

It was very dark in the garden, as I have told you, but two of the windows in the house were lighted up and two golden rings of light thrown out upon the soft gra.s.s I trod. I stood a long time debating which window to knock open--for it was a fearful lottery, I must say--and when I'd turned it over and over in my head, and now made out that it was this window and now plumped for the other, I took up a pebble at last and cast it upon the pane nearest to the door--for that seemed to me the more likely room, and I'd nothing else but common sense to guide me. You may judge of my feelings when no notice was taken of my signal except by a dog, which began to yap like a pup and to make such a scare that I thought every window and every door must be opened that very instant and as many men out on top of me. I said, surely, that it was all up with Jasper Begg that journey; but odd to tell it, the dog gave over at last, and no one showed himself, neither was there any whistle from my company; and I was just making ready to throw another stone when the second light was turned out all of a sudden and, the long window being opened, Ruth b.e.l.l.e.n.den--or, to be more correct, Mme. Czerny--herself came out into the garden, and stood looking round about as though she knew that I was there and had been waiting for me. When at last she saw me she didn't speak or make any sign, but going about to the house again she held the window open for me, and I pa.s.sed into the dark room with her, and there held her hand in mine, I do believe as though I would never let it go again.

"Jasper," says she, in a whisper that was pretty as the south wind in springtime; "Jasper Begg, how could it be any one else! Oh, we must light a candle, Jasper Begg," says she, "or we shall lose ourselves in the dark."

"Miss Ruth," said I, "light or dark, I'm here according to my orders, and the ship's here, and as I said to you before the yellow boy to-day, we're waiting for our mistress to go aboard."

She had her back to me when I said this, and was busy enough drawing the curtains and lighting the lamp again. The light showed me that she wore a rich black gown with fluffy stuff over it, and a bit of a sparkle in the way of diamonds like a band across her parted hair. The face was deceiving, now lighted up by one of the old smiles, now hard set as one who had suffered much for her years. But there was nothing over-womanish in her talk, and we two thrashed it out there, just the same as if Ken's Island wasn't full of devils, and the lives of me and my men worth what a spin of the coin might buy them at.

"You mustn't call me Miss Ruth," says she, when she turned from the lamp and tidied up her writing on the table; "of course you know that, Jasper Begg. And you at my wedding, too--is it really not more than twelve long months ago?"

A sigh pa.s.sed her lips, such a sigh as tells a woman's story better than all the books; and in that moment the new look came upon her face, the look I had seen when the yellow man changed words with her in the morning.

"It's thirteen months three weeks since you went up with Mr. Czerny to the cathedral at Nice," was my next word; "the days go slow on this out-of-the-way sh.o.r.e, I'll be bound--until our friends come, Miss Ruth, until we're sure they haven't forgotten us."

I had a meaning in this, and be sure she took it. Not that she answered me out and away as I wished; for she put on the pretty air of wife and mistress who wouldn't tell any of her husband's secrets.

"Why, yes," she said, very slowly, "the days are long and the nights longer, and, of course, my husband is much away from here."

I nodded my head and drew the chair she'd offered me close to the table. On her part she was looking at the clock as though she wished that the hands of it might stand still. I read it that we hadn't much time to lose, and what we had was no time for fair words.

"Miss Ruth," says I, without more parley, "from what I've seen to-night I don't doubt that any honest man would be glad to get as far as he could from Ken's Island and its people at the first opportunity. You'll pardon what a plain seaman is going to say, and count him none the less a friend for saying it. When you left money in the banker's hands to commission a ship and bring her to this port, your words to me were, 'I may have need of you.' Miss Ruth, you have need of me--I should be no more than a fool if I couldn't see that. You have sore need of me, and if you won't say so for yourself, I take leave to say it for you."

She raised a hand as though she would not hear me--but I was on a clear course now, and I held to it in spite of her.

"Yes," I said, "you've need of your friends to-night, and it's a lucky wind that brought them to this sh.o.r.e. What has pa.s.sed, Miss Ruth, in these months you speak of, it's not for me to ask or inquire. I have eyes in my head, and they show me what I would give my fortune not to see. You're unhappy here, Miss Ruth--you're not treated well."

I waited for her to speak; but not a word would she say. White she was, as a flower from her own garden, and once or twice she shivered as though the cold had struck her. I was just going on to speak again, when what should happen but that her little head went down on the table and she began to sob as though her heart would break.

"Oh, Jasper Begg, how I have suffered, how I have suffered!" said she, between her sobs; and what could I do, what could any man do who would kiss the ground a woman walks upon but has no right or t.i.tle to? Why, hold his tongue, of course, though it hurt him cruelly to do any such thing.

"Miss Ruth," said I, very foolish, "please don't think of that now. I'm here to help you, the ship's here, we're waiting for you to go aboard."

She dried her tears and tried to look up at me with a smile.

"Oh, I'm just a child, just a child again, Jasper," cries she; "a year ago I thought myself a woman, but that's all pa.s.sed. And I shall never go away on your ship, Jasper Begg--never, never. I shall die on Ken's Island as so many have died."

I stood up at this and pointed to the clock.

"Little friend," I said, "if you'll put a cloak about your shoulders and leave this house with me I'll have you safe aboard the Southern Cross in twenty minutes by that clock, as G.o.d is my witness."

It was no boast--for that I could have done as any seaman knows; and you may well imagine that I stood as a man struck dumb when I had her answer.

"Why, yes," she said, "you could put me on board your boat, Captain Jasper, if every step I took was not watched; if every crag had not its sentinel; if there were not a hundred to say 'Go back--go back to your home.' Oh, how can you know, how can you guess the things I fear and dread in this awful place? You, perhaps, because the ship is waiting will be allowed to return to it again. But I, never, never again to my life's end."

A terrible look crossed her face as she said this, and with one swift movement she opened a drawer in the locker where she did her writing, and took from it a little book which she thrust, like a packet, into my hands.

"Read," she said, with startling earnestness, "read that when you are at sea again. I never thought that any other eyes but mine would see it; but you, Jasper, you shall read it. It will tell you what I myself could never tell. Read it as you sail away from here, and then say how you will come back to help the woman who needs your help so sorely."

I thrust the book into my pocket, but was not to be put off like that.

"Read it I will, every line," said I; "but you don't suppose that Jasper Begg is about to sail away and leave you in this plight, Miss Ruth! He'd be a pretty sort of Englishman to do that, and it's not in his const.i.tution, I do a.s.sure you!"

She laughed at my earnestness, but recollecting how we stood and what had befallen since sunset, she would hear no more of it.

"You don't understand; oh, you don't understand!" she cried, very earnestly; "there's danger here, danger even now while you and I are talking. Those who have gone out to the wreck will be coming home again; they must not find you in this house, Jasper Begg, must not, must not! For my sake, go as you came. Tell all that thought of me how I thank them. Some day, perhaps, you will learn how to help me. I am grateful to you, Jasper--you know that I am grateful."

She held out both her hands to me, and they lay in mine, and I was trying to speak a real word from my heart to her when there came a low, shrill whistle from the garden-gate, and I knew that Peter Bligh had seen something and was calling me.