Wings of the Wind Part 45

"I'm glad that crescendo of horrors is over--if you'll allow a kind of musical term; but I've got music in my soul to-day."

"It's a funny time for music," I grumbled, "--except funeral marches."

"By the way, did you find out about that other funeral march?"

"No, I forgot," I confessed. "Don't bother me, Tommy; I feel like the devil."

"I know it," he gave my arm a squeeze--for Tommy possessed that characteristic making for a community of mind and spirit that did not wait for explanations. "I know it," he repeated, "but you _look_ a whole lot better--really like your old self! Now, what's the trouble? If you're worrying about the ruins we created back there, cut it out! I'm not bothered over the one or two I might have got! Fact is, n.o.body knows which of us. .h.i.t which, anyway. So what is it? I'm not asking, merely insisting!"

So I told him pretty much everything, as one chum can to another.

"You mean she may listen to the little gezabo and go back?" he asked.

"I mean just that. She will if she thinks it has a bigger claim on her.

I know how square she is!"

"Besides being square," he said thoughtfully, "there's also something in the make-up of woman that I've never understood: her apparent hankering after sacrifice. When it comes to a show-down between heart and conscience, she'll follow the conscience ten to one--if she's straight.

Look at it," he swept his arm toward the prairie, as if innumerable instances were in sight of us. "See the sweet-faced old ladies who never wrote 'Mrs.' before their names--not that they've missed anything, G.o.d knows, but just look at 'em! All because some over-finicky parent didn't approve, no doubt! And see the heart starvation stamped on 'daughter's'

face, because 'father' was nearly bankrupt and she _did_ write 'Mrs.' to save him! Taking them in retrospect, it's a question if the thing they called sacrifice wasn't plain d.a.m.n foolishness. Why, h.e.l.l, Jack, d'you mean to say that the professor and his musty European customs--oh, I can't be profane enough!--the English language is trifling and inadequate! But I'm going to take a hand in this courtship, myself!"

"For a gregarious animal, Tommy, you're something of a wonder," I began to laugh, because it was like myrrh and frankincense blown upon my doubts and fears to hear him talk.

We went quietly on after this. Our boots made no noise in the soft earth, and thus silently we approached the fort; then halted. For on the farther side, hidden by the walls, a man was speaking in tones of earnestness, yet at that very instant a voice interrupted him.

"I wish you wouldn't persist in talking now," it said irritably, "I'm too unhappy over the lives which most have been lost, and----"

"But Your Serenity must realize that lives are nothing. The new destiny that----"

"Oh, I know what you'd say," the voice cried. "But don't give me any more arguments, for Heaven's sake! They're utterly useless and, besides, you might convince me!"

Softly we tiptoed away and, when at a safe distance I stopped to rub my arm where Tommy's fingers had been digging into it, he whispered:

"That didn't sound sacrificy, did it?"

"The old fellow hasn't struck his pace, yet," I answered doubtfully.

"Well," Tommy looked back toward the fort, "the pressure's high enough for one day. She needs another rescuing. You go and speed up the grub."

So, whistling the Charpentier love song, he left me.

CHAPTER XXIV

GERMAN CRUELTY

At the kitchen fire Echochee was busily preparing food for a company now swelled to ten, and Smilax had dropped in rank to an a.s.sistant. I saw from her activity that this was not a fortunate moment to interrupt, yet there are some few things in life more important than a well-turned meal, and I therefore advanced, wishing to speak in the presence of our two sailors who hovered near with lips that all but drewled in antic.i.p.ation of the feast.

"I want to remind each of you," I said, "not to tell the princess that any one was killed. Let it go that a few were scratched, and the rest got away. You get the idea? I don't want her shocked."

My men understood at once, but Echochee, never taking her eyes from the sizzling skillets, asked:

"What you mean--'shocked'?"

"I mean horrified, terrified--sorry," I answered, rather put to it how else to explain.

"Ugh! She already sorry; cry some, say ve'y bad. Me say ve'y good. She all right now. You through?"

And, since I was through, she gave another grunt, leaving me with the suspicion that she thought I was a very small boy.

When finally the others came in sight Doloria walked at the side of Tommy, while Monsieur followed in some discomfiture of mind. His hair was tousled, and his eyes were thoughtful. From this, and the grin on Tommy's face, I judged that all was not going well for him and, in a more happy frame of mind, I went out to meet them.

"Mr. Davis has been telling me a strange story," she smiled at me.

"He's full of strange stories," I warned her. "Don't take him seriously--ever!"

"But I know he was serious this time--weren't you?" The corners of her mouth were tell-tales of merriment as she turned to him.

"Shall we let Jack in on it?" he asked, the grin on his face widening.

"Do you think we'd better?" She was laughing outright now, with an alluring spirit of confidence; so I knew that she approved my estimate of Tommy and had taken him into her heart as for many years he had lived in mine.

But women always loved Tommy--perhaps because he loved them. If some far-reaching providence had not endowed him with a well-developed sense of honor to go hand in hand with his attractiveness, more girls would have looked after him through tears than toward him with gladness.

Whatever his loves and secret affairs, he always played above the board and never cheated; so they could trust him if he won, and pet him if he lost. Taken altogether, he was rather a lucky beggar, who learned early in life that the golden key which unlocks a woman's heart is Secrecy--and this they seemed to know by some divine, or devilish, insight.

Before he now had a chance to answer her question, Monsieur caught up with us.

"Ah, my boy Jack," he grasped my hands, forgetting his ill humor to beam on me. "For lack of opportunity I have not expressed my grat.i.tude!

Azuria is your debtor! I, who have the authority, say it!"

"Thank you," I replied, "but that debt was cancelled early this morning when its Princess saved me from a.s.sa.s.sination."

"Good Lord," Tommy cried, in despair, "he's spilled the beans! Jack, you bone-head, we----"

"Be quiet, sir," she commanded, turning beautifully pink and giving me ten thousand messages in a single look.

"Then come on," Tommy said, beginning to draw her away by the hand, "let's go off and think up another!"

"My boy Tommy," the professor sternly reproved him, "she is of royal blood!"

"You said something that time," he imperturbably replied. "Come on, Princess!" And laughingly she went with him.

"_Pardieu_," the old fellow pulled at his beard, "that s.e.x is like a cyclone--the nearer I get the faster I am twisted! But just as her mother was at that age--yes, quite!" He sighed.

"Is she going back with you?" I asked, feeling a malicious joy in the question after the last look she gave me.

"_Certainement_, there is no other way! Thus far I have not tried to persuade her, but merely presented a few minor facts. Yes, she will go."