When the Birds Begin to Sing Part 44

"You are a very vulgar woman," exclaimed Eleanor. "I hope I shall never see you again."

"Don't use that word 'vulgar,'" she replies, "it's so low cla.s.s."

"You don't mind what you say to me because I am alone and unprotected,"

cries Eleanor with almost childish petulance, the tears glistening in her angry eyes. "If Carol was here, he would defend me."

"Carol," she laughs, "who is the staunch and gallant Carol?"

But Eleanor will not answer; she feels desperately affronted, and turns away.

The women walk in opposite directions; the day is dying.

"Well! you are back safely; any adventures?" asks Quinton, as she enters the house pale and weary.

Eleanor sinks into a chair, slowly unwinds her veil, and flings her hat impatiently upon the sofa. She is so seriously put out, that for the moment she dares not trust herself to speak.

"Anything the matter, eh?"

Eleanor clears her throat.

"Yes."

Quinton sits bolt upright from his lounging att.i.tude.

"What?" he says, staring at her intently.

Then she recounts her scene with Paulina, word for word, while Quinton listens breathlessly.

"Her horse _shot from under her_?" he cries, as if that is of far more importance than Eleanor's narrow escape.

"Yes, dear, wasn't it awful? It might have been you or me! I do believe the masked man is on the warpath, only he went for _her_ this time instead. It may be a lunatic, for every act seems so perfectly motiveless."

"I told you not to venture out," he says, his face reddening with annoyance. "You _would_ go against my wishes, and suffered for it accordingly. The idea of getting into conversation, and actually deigning to quarrel with a stranger. It was most humiliating and lowering. Another time if you meet this 'Paulina,' as you call the white Amazon, kindly avoid her. This merely confirms me in the conviction which has grown upon me lately, that this place is no longer fit for us to dwell in. I, for one, am sick of it, and long for a taste of clubdom and life again."

"Oh! Carol!" she exclaims, and the words are wrung from her like a sharp cry.

"Don't look so absurdly miserable, my dear," he says hastily, dreading a scene with all the shrinking of his cowardly nature. "I won't say anything to vex you again. I was only cross; forgive me."

Eleanor's heart goes out to him with all the old yearning tenderness.

Forgive him! Why, she would forgive Carol anything--he is her all.

She falls on her knees at his side, and draws down his face for a kiss.

As she does so, the sound of a loud, rich, stirring voice, swelling out on the evening air, reaches them. They exchange hurried glances, start to their feet, and look cautiously out.

It is "Paulina," swaggering down the hill with a devil-may-care mien, her gun still over her shoulder, her hands in her pockets.

They catch the words, which ring full and clear:

"And constancy lives in realms above, And life is th.o.r.n.y and youth is vain; And to be wroth with one we love Doth work like madness in the brain."

"She _is_ like a 'troll,'" murmurs Eleanor, "shrieking in the night."

"A magnificent creature," says Carol. "Quite a picture!"

His eyes are riveted on the retreating form!

CHAPTER XXI.

BY A ROUTE OBSCURE AND LONELY, HAUNTED BY ILL ANGELS ONLY.--_E. A. Poe_.

Eleanor is taking her siesta, wrapt in dreams of Carol and love. No thought of evil disturbs her rest, for to-day the clouds seem to have blown over. Carol has been tender and adoring as of old, he speaks no more of the dreaded up-rooting, but is peaceful and content. Yet while she lies in fancy-land--asleep--she cannot see him in the room below, a look of excitement on his face while he writes with feverish haste on a large sheet of flimsy paper.

The words reel rapidly off his quill, he never pauses, and his eyes are aglow with the fire of energy.

Quamina, who has been in the verandah, enters with a tray of cooling drinks and places them by his elbow. She has never seen the Sahib writing before, she did not know he could hold a pen, and his engrossed att.i.tude awakes her curiosity and suspicion. He does not hear her come in till she puts the gla.s.ses beside him, then he pushes them away and tells her to go.

Quamina steals across the room.

Why is the Sahib writing? It is not his way. His quill flies like a thing possessed across the paper, and when he pauses it is to wipe the drops of perspiration from his heated brow.

"This is the Sahib's hour for sleep," thinks Quamina. "It is a secret message that he writes at such a time, when his wife is absent, dreaming in the other room." She steals into the verandah and watches.

A sudden idea comes to her ignorant mind, which, as she turns it over in her brain, amounts to a firm conviction.

[Ill.u.s.tration: She steals into the verandah and watches.]

"The Sahib is making a compact with the devil. He is frightened of that tall spirit in the black mask, and is coming to terms with him.

Maybe he will offer his house and his servants, his wife even, to be himself released from the terror of that grim presence."

Quamina shakes from head to foot. Her white teeth rattle. Surely the Sahib's face is taking the likeness of the Evil one, as he sits alone, or why does a sinister smile flit across his lips, while he perpetually pauses to listen, and look nervously towards the door? Once he rises, opens it, standing a moment, looking towards Eleanor's room. But there is no sound, and he returns to his desk rea.s.sured.

Finally the letter ends. He folds it carefully, looking at the dashing signature with some pride. He takes up a red seal, strikes a light, and drops a huge round of burning wax upon the envelope.

"The deed is done," thinks trembling Quamina; "the devil has been written to. He will scan those hasty words in his unholy abode, and bargain with the Sahib, till an arrangement shall be made."

Her suspicions increase as Quinton, listening once more at the door, s.n.a.t.c.hes up a hat with a guilty air, creeping out into the broiling sun.

Quamina by this time is wild with curiosity, and as Carol hastens down the hill, the letter in his hand, she follows stealthily at a discreet distance.

"Perhaps he will give it himself to the devil. Ah, the poor Sahib!"

she mutters.

Quinton never pauses till he is out of sight of the bungalow; then turning to his right he places the sealed envelope in a crevice of a rock, hidden from sight.

Quamina watches wonderingly the post-box of the devil.