The Wings of the Morning Part 27

Her outrageously unbusiness-like utterances, treading fast on the heels of his own melodramatic and written views concerning their property, nettled him greatly. Each downright syllable was a sting to his conscience, but of this Iris was blissfully unaware, else she would not have applied caustic to the rankling wound caused by his momentary distrust of her.

For some time they stood in silence, until the sailor commenced to reproach himself for his rough protest. Perhaps he had hurt her sensitive feelings. What a brute he was, to be sure! She was only a child in ordinary affairs, and he ought to have explained things more lucidly and with greater command over his temper. And all this time Iris's face was dimpling with amus.e.m.e.nt, for she understood him so well that had he threatened to kill her she would have laughed at him.

"Would you mind getting the lamp?" he said softly, surprised to catch her expression of saucy humor.

"Oh, please may I speak?" she inquired. "I don't want to annoy you, but I am simply dying to talk."

He had forgotten his own injunction.

"Let us first examine our mine," he said. "If you bring the lamp we can have a good look at it."

Close scrutiny of the work already done merely confirmed the accuracy of his first impressions. Whilst Iris held the light he opened up the seam with a few strokes of the pick. Each few inches it broadened into a noteworthy volcanic d.y.k.e, now yellow in its absolute purity, at times a bluish black when fused with other metals. The additional labor involved caused him to follow up the line of the fault. Suddenly the flame of the lamp began to flicker in a draught. There was an air-pa.s.sage between cave and ledge.

"I am sorry," cried Jenks, desisting from further efforts, "that I have not recently read one of Bret Harte's novels, or I would speak to you in the language of the mining camp. But in plain c.o.c.kney, Miss Deane, we are on to a good thing if only we can keep it."

They came back into the external glare. Iris was now so serious that she forgot to extinguish the little lamp. She stood with outstretched hand.

"There is a lot of money in there," she said.

"Tons of it."

"No need to quarrel about division. There is enough for both of us."

"Quite enough. We can even spare some for our friends."

He took so readily to this definition of their partnership that Iris suddenly became frigid. Then she saw the ridiculous gleam of the tiny wick and blew it out.

"I mean," she said, stiffly, "that if you and I do agree to go shares we will each be very rich."

"Exactly. I applied your words to the mine alone, of course."

A slight thing will shatter a daydream. This sufficed. The sailor resumed his task of burying the stores.

"Poor little lamp!" he thought. "When it came into the greater world how soon it was snuffed out."

But Iris said to herself, "What a silly slip that was of mine! Enough for both of us, indeed! Does he expect me to propose to him? I wonder what the letter was about which he destroyed as I came back after my bath. It must have been meant for me. Why did he write it? Why did he tear it up?"

The hour drew near when Jenks climbed to the Summit Rock. He shouldered axe and rifle and set forth. Iris heard him rustling upwards through the trees. She set some water to boil for tea, and, whilst bringing a fresh supply of fuel, pa.s.sed the spot where the torn sc.r.a.ps of paper littered the sand.

She was the soul of honor, for a woman, but there was never a woman yet who could take her eyes off a written doc.u.ment which confronted her.

She could not help seeing that one small morsel contained her own name.

Though mutilated it had clearly read--Miss Deane."

"So it _was_ intended for me!" she cried, throwing down her bundle and dropping to her knees. She secured that particular slip and examined it earnestly. Not for worlds would she pick up all the sc.r.a.ps and endeavor to sort them. Yet they had a fascination for her, and at this closer range she saw another which bore the legend--"I love you!"

Somehow the two seemed to fit together very nicely.

Yet a third carried the same words--"I love you!" They were still quite coherent. She did not want to look any further. She did not even turn over such of the torn pieces as had fluttered to earth face downwards.

Opening the front of her bodice she brought to light a small gold locket containing miniatures of her father and mother. Inside this receptacle she carefully placed the three really material portions of the sailor's letter. When Jenks walked down the hill again he heard her singing long before he caught sight of her, sedulously tending the fire.

As he came near he perceived the remains of his useless doc.u.ment. He stooped and gathered them up, forthwith throwing them among the glowing logs.

"By the way, what were you writing whilst I had my bath?" inquired Iris, demurely.

"Some information about the mine. On second thoughts, however, I saw it was unnecessary."

"Oh, was that all?"

"Practically all."

"Then some part was impracticable?"

He glanced sharply at her, but she was merely talking at random.

"Well, you see," he explained, "one can do so little without the requisite plant. This sort of ore requires a crushing-mill, a smelting furnace, perhaps big tanks filled with cyanide of pota.s.sium."

"And, of course, although you can do wonders, you cannot provide all those things, can you?"

Jenks deemed this query to be unanswerable.

They were busy again until night fell. Sitting down for a little while before retiring to rest, they discussed, for the hundredth time, the probabilities of speedy succor. This led them to the topic of available supplies, and the sailor told Iris the dispositions he had made.

"Did you bury the box of books?" she asked.

"Yes, but not in the cave. They are at the foot of the cinchona over there. Why? Do you want any?"

"I have a Bible in my room, but there was a Tennyson among the others which I glanced at in spare moments."

The sailor thanked the darkness that concealed the deep bronze of face and neck caused by this chance remark. He vaguely recollected the manner in which the lines from "Maud" came to his lips after the episode of the letter. Was it possible that he had unknowingly uttered them aloud and Iris was now slily poking fun at him? He glowed with embarra.s.sment.

"It is odd that you should mention Tennyson," he managed to say calmly.

"Only today I was thinking of a favorite pa.s.sage."

Iris, of course, was quite innocent this time.

"Oh, do tell me. Was it from 'Enoch Arden'?"

He gave a sigh of relief. "No. Anything but that," he answered.

"What then?"

"'Maud.'"

"Oh, 'Maud.' It is very beautiful, but I could never imagine why the poet gave such a sad ending to an idyllic love story."

"They too often end that way. Moreover, 'Enoch Arden' is not what you might call exhilarating."