The Pillar of Light Part 25

"Allow me," drawled Pyne. "I'm very glad your sister cla.s.sified him."

Constance suddenly felt her neck and face aflame. Pyne was standing on her left, Enid on her right. The quiet jubilation of Pyne's voice was so unmistakable that Enid, for one instant, withdrew her eyes from the distant ship. A retort was quick on her lips, until she bethought her that the American's statement might have two meanings.

Being tactful withal, she chose her words whilst she bubbled forth:

"He promised to take us for a drive today. That is the dot and dash alphabet father and he are using. If dad requires all the dots I'm sure Jack is monopolizing the dashes. He must be furious about this gale."

Constance, who wanted to pinch Enid severely, had reverted to her normal healthy hue by this time. She dropped her gla.s.ses.

"We are shamefully wasting precious minutes here," she said. "Enid, you and I ought to be in the kitchen."

Then she glanced with cold self-possession at Pyne, who was whistling softly between his teeth as he plied the duster.

"As for you," she said, "I never saw anyone work so hard with less need."

He critically examined the shining burner.

"We Americans are taught to be strenuous," he said smilingly. "That is the only way you can cut in ahead of the other fellow nowadays, Miss Brand."

She almost resigned the contest. That unhappy explanation had delivered her bound into his hands. Yet she strove desperately to keep up the pretence that their spoken words had no ulterior significance.

"Such energy must be very wearing," she said.

"It is--for the other man."

"But in your case it is unnecessary. My father believes we will be here at least forty-eight hours." Then she became conscious that again she had not said exactly what she meant to say. "So you, at any rate, need not wear your fingers to the bone," she added hurriedly.

"Guess it must be a national vice," he said with irritating complacency.

"Just now I feel I have a regular hustle on."

"Your example equals your precepts. Enid, tear yourself from the attractive spectacle. There are eighty-one ravenous people to be fed."

"Sorry you haven't hit upon the real reason of my abounding industry,"

said Pyne, who skipped down the ladder first to give the girls a helping hand as they descended.

"Please tell us. It may be inspiring," said Constance.

"I'm going to ask the boss if I can't take a turn as scullery-maid when I'm through here."

"Then I veto the idea now," she answered. "Enid and I have had a most comfortable nap, and I am certain you have not closed your eyes all night. I will make it my personal business to see that both my father and you lie down for a couple of hours immediately after breakfast."

"Or else there will be a mutiny in the kitchen," chimed in Enid.

"Connie," she whispered, when they were safely out of hearing from the service-room, "I never saw a worse case. Talk about the young men suddenly smitten you read of in novels--"

Her sister whirled round.

"How can you be so silly?" she blazed forth.

"Why did you libel Jack so readily?" t.i.ttered Enid.

The other, utterly routed, went on in dignified silence. She did not speak again until they surveyed the store apportioned for the coming feast.

"Eighty-one!" she murmured. "What a monstrous deal of people for a half-penny worth of bread!"

"What is the use of repining?" sang Enid, with a fortissimo accent on the penultimate syllable. "For where there's a will there's a way.

Tomorrow the sun will be shining, although it is cloudy today."

But Constance was not to be drawn a second time. Her clear brain was troubled by a formless shadow. It banished from her mind all thought of a harmless flirtation with the good-looking youngster who had brought a blush of momentary embarra.s.sment to her fair face.

How dreadful it would be to meet hunger with refusals--perhaps there were worse things in the world than the midnight ordeal of an angry sea.

Indeed, when Pyne did join them in accord with his intention, he soon perceived the extent of the new danger. The stress of the night had only enhanced the need of an ample supply of food. Everybody--even the inmates of the hospital--was outrageously hungry, and the common allotment was half a cup of tea and half a ship's biscuit.

For the midday meal there would be two ounces of meat or bacon, one potato, and another half biscuit with about a wine-gla.s.sful of water.

For supper the allowance was half a cup of cocoa and two ounces of bread, which must be baked during the day. Not quite starvation, this menu, but far from satisfying to strong men and worn-out women.

The _Falcon_, knowing the uselessness of attempting to creep nearer to the Gulf Rock, had gone off with her budget to startle two continents.

Stanhope's last message was one of a.s.surance. He would do all that lay in man's power. The lighthouse soon quieted down to a state of pa.s.sive reaction. Pyne, refusing to be served earlier, carried his own and Brand's scanty meal on a tray to the service-room.

The unwearied lighthouse-keeper was on the balcony, answering a kindly signal from the Land's End, where the coast-guards were not yet in possession of the news from Penzance.

He placed the tray on the writing-desk and contemplated its contents ruefully.

"I guess that banquet won't spoil for keeping," he said to himself.

"I'll just lay round and look at it until the boss quits making speeches by the yard."

A couple of minutes pa.s.sed. Brand was hoisting the last line of flags, when the American heard faltering footsteps on the stairs.

"Don't follow so close, Mamie," said a child's voice. "My arm hurts just 'nuff for anything when I move."

A towzled head of golden hair emerged into the light. It was one of the two little girls, whom Pyne had not seen since they were swung aloft from the sloping deck of the _Chinook_.

Their astonishment was mutual. The child, aged about eight, recognized in him a playmate of the fine days on board ship. She turned with confident cry.

"I told you so, Mamie. It was up. You said down. Here's the big gla.s.s house--and Mr. Pyne."

She quickened her speed, though her left arm was in a sling. Pyne, dreading lest she should fall, hastened to help her.

"I'se all right, Mr. Pyne," she announced with an air of great dignity.

"I make one step at a time. Then I ketch the rail. See?"

"You've got it down to a fine point, Elsie," he said. "But what in the world are those women-folk thinking of to let you and Mamie run loose about the place."

Elsie did not answer until Mamie stood by her side. Judged by appearances, Mamie was a year younger. Apart from the nasty bruise on Elsie's left arm and shoulder, the children had escaped from the horrors of the wreck almost unscathed in body and certainly untroubled in mind.

"Mamie came to my room for breakfast," explained Elsie at last. "We'se awful hungry, an' when we axed for 'nother bixit Mrs. Taylor she began to cry. An' when I said we'd go an' find mamma she cried some more."