Wings of the Wind Part 35

"Well, I didn't, because my father became so insane with fear that he actually struck me, and rushed ash.o.r.e in the frantic hope that you might not have seen my message. He would have killed you had he met you then.

It was in those few minutes that the little love I ever had for him turned to loathing--and that's a frightful thing to say about one's father, so I hope you won't remember it."

"We have a very mutual respect for each other in loathing that gentleman," I announced. "But tell me quickly--were you safe after that?"

"Oh, yes, for I began to temporize. Echochee wanted to kill them, of course--that being her only solution. But I hoped we might manage to escape if they could be put off a few days."

"And you were in the small boat when they tied on the bomb?"

"Heavens, yes. But I'd no idea it was your yacht, even then--although I thought I recognized your friends taking pictures the morning we left Havana, and was about to call to them when my father, always suspicious, burst into my room."

"It must have been h.e.l.lish," I growled.

"It was all of that. And especially as always before he'd tried to be kind--at least, he was extremely deferential. That night at Key West he and the captain left in a small boat, and when they came back I was ordered into it. I think he must have been crazy, really, for he said that he was going to show me what they did to traitors--that was my new name then, you know--and shoved a package of something in my face. The captain cursed him for it--and I'd never before heard him treated with the slightest disrespect, but when I found out what the thing was I hoped it would blow up and destroy us all. I only thank G.o.d that it didn't go off and kill--my rescuer," she murmured.

"Then you did call that it wasn't fair?"

"I had to protest! Oh, but he was a demon then," she added, and I clenched my fists, remembering what Gates had said. "But he used to be kind," she added, sadly, "and I ought to remember him for that, don't you suppose so? We have a wonderful library on the islands, and when I was very young he began my education. Do you know," she looked up, "I still remember my first lesson in grammar? He taught me by the days!"

"Quite a remarkable thing, that, to remember so far back," I smiled, whereupon she made a little grimace. "How do you mean--by the days?"

"I was taught a tomorrow, not alone because I could recognize today but because I remembered yesterday, and was shown how these were the past, present, and future tenses of our lives; that the present participle is Living, and the infinitive is----"

"To love?" I suggested.

"To live," she said evenly, and I bit my tongue. "He made me study awfully hard, but I rather liked it as there wasn't much else to do except play with Echochee, and she became tiresome occasionally. Later he started me at the piano, and the violin, and I loved to work after that. For he's quite a remarkable musician, really! I suppose our library must have a thousand books, and I've read nearly all of them--besides stacks of the modern ones we always brought from our semi-annual cruises 'to the world'--as he used to call those trips.

Don't you simply adore Blasco?"

"I suppose you mean Ibanez," I said, rather pleased at being able to air this familiarity with literary personages.

"Ibanez, then," she casually agreed, "if you prefer calling him by his mother's name."--And, not knowing upon what hazy path this would lead me, I laughingly admitted:

"Well, I've only tackled one of his things, and haven't even finished that yet." Adding, with perhaps a slightly malicious desire to bring her superior knowledge to bay: "You read him in the original, I suppose?"

"Not freely enough to be quite relaxing. But on our cruise last summer we got a very good translation in French--really, much better than the English, I think."

Again I laughed, as a light entered my muddled outlook because of this astonishing information that accounted for much I had not been able to reconcile with her isolated life. From the moment she had mimicked the cook I had been kept in a state of wonderment. I had felt her superiority; I had marveled at the cultivation that clung about her as a royal robe. Now it was explained. Music, literature, languages!

"That night you protested about the bomb," I asked, "did you hear me call?"

Could it have been that some of the animation left her face as she answered slowly:

"Oh, was it you? I heard someone call to a person named Sylvia."

"But--isn't that your name?"

"Oh," she laughed, "I haven't nearly so pretty a name as that!"

I was crazy to be the judge, but asked, instead:

"Did your--father ever explain why he was afraid of detectives?"

"Nothing more than that he was fearfully hunted and persecuted. When I was almost a baby he had to run away because of a political plot. He escaped with me after," her voice lowered, "my mother had been killed by the revolutionists, and we've been hiding here ever since, awaiting the message that will bring him back to be President again; although while the other party is in power its agents would arrest him--and it's been in power for years. Do you know," she looked at me frankly, "I've never forgiven him for letting them kill my mother! Throughout all of my childhood I used to hold indignation meetings with myself and consign him to every imaginable punishment--both for that, and running away without avenging her."

She was quiet then. This news of the South American republic showed what an accomplished liar old Efaw Kotee could be. Very plausible, indeed, and an adequate excuse for keeping her in a potential prison.

"I fear that I've been terribly outspoken," she said at last, with a wistful expression that held both laughter and apology.

"You've been wonderful," I whispered, deliberately turning away my head and gazing out across the prairie. I could not have met her eyes just then.

CHAPTER XIX

ENLIGHTENING A PRINCESS

As gently as I could, after I felt that my voice might be trusted not to betray itself, I told her of Monsieur Dragot's deductions, who we thought she really was--not the daughter of that old scoundrel, at all.

I let her see the record of his crimes, her mother's discovery of the plates, the kidnaping, and, unless something most recent and unexpected had happened, the queen regent of Azuria was waiting at this minute for the little princess to return.

She had been sitting very still, like a child with parted lips enchantingly absorbed by a fairy tale. When I finished she turned her wondering eyes to mine, and gasped:

"It can't be true!"

"I think it is," I said. "I mean that it is so far as Monsieur can judge from the threads of evidence he holds, and what you've told me makes his theory more convincing."

"Oh--and I've called this man Father for so long! You don't suppose he still might be, somehow?"

"There's no somehow about it," I had to smile at this question. "He either is, or isn't; in the same indefeasible sense that white isn't black."

"I didn't mean that he might be just partly, of course," she said so quietly and seriously that I burst out laughing. "But it's awfully hard to understand, all at once! That must account for the subtle antagonism I felt for him. It really accounts for so much!--for the way he encouraged me to spend money, heaps and heaps of it! Why, I've everything I can think of--from Havana, New Orleans and Vera Cruz!"

"He wanted you to spend his large bills so he could get good money in change," I suggested.

"That's obvious now, but suppose I'd been arrested and sent to prison!"

"I won't suppose anything of the kind," I declared, so vigorously that she laughed.

"I do feel like a thief, though," she added soberly. "Why, everything I possess has been bought fraudulently."

"You couldn't help it! Chuck 'em away, if it'll make you feel better!"

"I can't chuck 'em all away," and this time we both laughed.

"You can as soon as we reach New York, and--and----" But as I did not know how to finish this, I stopped; for what had been in my mind was: "When you and I share all I own!"--and, of course, that wouldn't have done to say aloud.

For perhaps a minute she, also, was silent. Then she turned, with the frankest, sweetest manner I have ever seen, and said in a voice of mellifluent charm:

"Do you know that you've been just awfully splendid?"