MISS MALLORY’S MASTERY

Bedient felt the blood warming in his veins. This was the last of “the four” nights. Miss Mallory’s determination to sail with the Spaniard was enough to spur him to attempt joining her; if, indeed, his absolute need to break the deadly ennui had not banished hesitation. He glanced through the letter again, and burned it.

“Monkhouse,” he said below, “I’ve had about enough of Coral City this time, and I’m riding back toward the hacienda this afternoon. I’m leaving a little present for you with the management of the Inn. Some time I’ll send a pony trap down for you, when I’m hungry for more tales

The old man was more mystified than ever, but the business of the Spaniard had to wait until he hunted up the management, with whom his relations had worn thin. Bedient found his servant, ordered the ponies, and the two rode up Calle Real, before one in the afternoon. They passed The Pleiad bluffs, overlooking the Inlet, where the Savonarola lay, and on for a mile or more into the solitude. Here Bedient sent forward his servant with both ponies and let himself down the bluff to follow the shore back.

The sand was white as paper and hot as fresh ashes. The muscles of his face grew lame from squinting in the vivid light. There was not a human being in sight on either length of curving shore, nor a movement in the thickly covered cliffs. The world was silent, except for the languorous wash of the little waves and the breathing of a soft wind in the foliage. For an hour he made his way mostly under cover around the shore to the mouth of the Inlet, from where he could see Jaffier’s gunboat on the watch.

The distance was about a thousand yards back to where the yacht lay. The cut was a natural stronghold, opening sidewise on the face of the shore, so as to be invisible from the open water. It was deep enough for an ocean-liner, but too narrow for a big steamer to enter with her own power. Bedient turned into the thick, thorny undergrowth, which lined the eastern wall of the Inlet, and made his way around its devious curvings, silently and slowly. The growth on the cliffs was so dense in places that he had to crawl. The heat pressed down upon the heavy moist foliage, and drained him like a steam-room. He had wobbled from weakness and the heat in the saddle, even on the breezy highway. Again and again, he halted with shut eyes until his reeling senses righted. The thousand yards from the mouth of the cove to the moorings of the Savonarola wound like a Malay creese with an interrogation point for a handle. The distance consumed an hour, and much of the vitality he had summoned by sheer force of will. He lay panting at last in the smothering thicket, thirty feet from the rear-deck of the Savonarola. Yet there was a laugh in his mind. It was altogether outlandish, when he considered his small personal interest in such an affair.... He thought of the listening eyes of Beth Truba had he told her of such an adventure of his boyhood.... And he thought of the clever and intrepid Adith Mallory, and what she had meant by the last added line of her letter, “I know what you can do.”

Someone was already aboard, for the cabin-door was open. The sliding hatch connected with the thick upright door, so that a single lock sufficed for the cabin, which opened from the aft-deck. The still, deep water of the cove drew Bedient’s eyes constantly, and kept alive the thought of his terrible thirst. The words of old Monkhouse repeated often in his brain, “Ah, ’tis deep fathims under the Savonarola.” He slipped a little steel key from the ring, smiling because it was the key to one of the Carreras cabinets at the hacienda, and placed it in his mouth. He had done the same with a nail when in the small boat with Carreras, the only boat that reached shore from the Truxton. It started the saliva.

There was but one man in the cabin so far, as Bedient ascertained through the ports, a Chinese, and he was sweeping industriously. Miss Mallory’s idea that he steal in, while the boat was being provisioned, seemed a far chance. He might have boarded the craft now, and surprised the oriental in the cabin, but he had no grudge against him, and Rey’s Chinese were not purchasable. He thought of the forlorn last chance to creep back to the mouth of the Inlet where it was narrowest, and wait on a sheltered ledge there for the Savonarola to be ejected with pikes from the crooked mouth. He might leap on the deck as she swung around, but he would then have to face the whole party.

After an interminable period it was past three in the afternoon the Chinese appeared from a cabin, and sat down on the low rail aft, mopping his shaven head. “I don’t wish you any harm, little yellow man,” Bedient thought, “but you’d be most accommodating if you would fall into a faint for a minute or two

At this juncture, Bedient was startled by the clapping of hands from somewhere up the winding steps toward The Pleiad. The Chinese leaped up to listen for a repetition of the signal, which his kind answers the world over. The hands were clapped again, and then the voice:

“Oh, Boy, won’t you come up here for a moment? I’m afraid to climb down all these steps alone with this big package. It must be put aboard for to-night.”

“The unparalleled genius ” Bedient breathed.

The Chinese understood, and stepped ashore quickly. Bedient began to roll forward with the first movement of the boy. The red chalk mark would hardly be needed. He had just torn his finger upon a thorn. Seeing the blood rise, it occurred that one is never without a bit of red. At the base of the bank he turned his eyes upward. The Chinese was plodding up the stairs, the woman holding his mind occupied with words.

Bedient leaped across to the deck, and sank into the cabin of the Savonarola. From the shaded roomy quarter then, he ventured a last look. John Chinaman’s broad back was still toward him, and Miss Mallory was laughing. “How good of you!” she said to the boy. “The steps looked so many and so rickety, and I was all alone. Here’s a peso for you. We’ll be aboard about six.” She laughed again.

“What a bright light to shine upon a man!” Bedient thought, as he covered his bleeding finger with a handkerchief, to avoid leaving a trail in the spotless cabin. He moved forward toward the right compartment, unsteadily; then entered and closed the door.

This was Adith Mallory’s especial afternoon and evening. She was emphatically alive. One of her dearest desires, and one which had long seemed farthest from her, was to do some big thing for Andrew Bedient. The plan was hers, every thought of it, and now she saw him safely stored in the forecastle.

She tried to put away all thoughts of fear. The party, of which she was the blithest, ah, how she loved sailing! stepped on board at six. Framtree was brought to the meeting. Celestino Rey was beguiled from his Pleiad throne, and helped to a seat in this floating Elba. Here, too, came the Sorensons and the Chinese mob-stuff. There is a mob in every drama poor mob that always loses, of untimely arousings, mere bewildered strength in the wiles of strategy. Poor undone mob its head always in the lap of Wit, to be shorn like Samson.... And the Glow-worm that incomparable female facing the South, her great yellow smoldering eyes, filled with the dusky Southern Sea, and who knows what lights and lovers of Buenos Aires, flitting across her dreams?... Had there been absolute need for an ally, Miss Mallory could almost have trusted the Senora.

“We didn’t care to heat up the cabin from the galley,” Senor Rey declared as they descended for supper, “so I have had our repast prepared at The Pleiad, save, of course, the coffee. You will not miss for once the entree, if the cold roast fowl is prime, I am sure. There are compensations.”

“Miss an entree!” Miss Mallory exclaimed. “I could live a week on pickles and lettuce-leaves, to stay at sea in such weather!”

“Astonishingly fine sailor is Miss Mallory,” the Spaniard enthused. “She talked ship with me like a pirate, and knew my Savonarola from boom to steering gear at a glance. You all must thank Miss Mallory for our little excursion to-night.”

The lady in question wondered if the forecastle-door were proof against the voices in the cabin. She did not turn her eyes to it, but happened to note that the Spaniard caught a glance from Jim Framtree, as he spoke his last words; also that Framtree arose, looked aft from the cabin doorway, and turned back with a smile. Miss Mallory followed his eyes a moment later and discovered that Dictator Jaffier’s gunboat had moved. Steam was up; her nose was pointed their way; more still, she was leisurely trailing! Senor Rey did not miss the American woman’s interest.

“The Dictator is always so good about giving the Savonarola armed convoy,” he said.

Miss Mallory became deeply thoughtful, but roused herself, realizing it did not become her in this company. She imagined that the great yellow eyes of the Glow-worm were regarding her with queer contemplative scrutiny. Sorenson felt the call to remark something, and the Savonarola was obvious.

“Fine little craft for a honeymoon,” he observed, “that is, of course, if the lady in question enjoyed sailing. It’s amusing to picture some women on a sailing-trip

“And some men on a honeymoon,” added Miss Mallory.

This delighted Framtree.... Sorenson was rather a ponderous Slav with languages. He was not accustomed to conserve his thirst until dinner-time. Indeed, he had brought aboard on this occasion an appreciation for sparkling refreshments, that had been assiduously cultivated during the long day. Already Sorenson had endangered his domestic peace, through attentions, delicate as you would expect from a bear that walked like a man. These were directed toward the American woman. She broke every shaft with unfailing humor, and girded her repugnance as added strength for the End. There were moments she did not relish. Strain settled with the darkening day. She thought of the face she had seen at her carriage at noon a tortured face and what he had passed through since, cramped in the forecastle! Perhaps he was unconscious from the heat and the suffocating place and from the illness she could never understand.... But in Miss Mallory all these thoughts and conditions drew upon as perfect a nervous organization as could be found anywhere in these complicated days and it was over at last.

Sorenson and his wife followed her on deck after supper, the other three tarrying below. There was no moon. The breeze abaft the beam was a warm, steady pressure that coaxed a whispering of secrets from the sails, and sent the willing craft forward with her bow down to work, and a business-like list. One Chinese was serving below. The remaining two were squatted aft by the wheel. Madame Sorenson took a chair on the cabin-deck, amidship. Miss Mallory moved past her and forward. The thought in her brain was: If Sorenson follows me now, anything that should happen to him is his own fault. She carried playfully a heavy cane, found in the cabin. Sorenson embraced his own disaster in joining her.

“How enticing the water looks!” she observed.

“It does ’pon my word,” said the Russian.

Each noted that the foresail hid the face of Madame Sorenson, although her shoulders were expressive.... The look upon Sorenson’s flushed features held Miss Mallory true to her latest inspiration.

“You are a good swimmer?” she asked in a lowered tone, but carelessly.

“Ah, yes, there are many grand swimmers in my country among the coast men.”

“You must have been on shipboard a great deal, Mr. Sorenson.... One can always tell by the way one acts on a small craft. Many are afraid at first of the low gunwales on a yacht like this.”

Miss Mallory felt the disgust of Madame Sorenson for them both; felt it was deserved. “Ah, yes, Miss Mallory,” he declared, delighted with her and himself and the world.

He raised one foot to the railing, and his manner became all the more at home, as he lifted his cigar with a flourish. “Like our host, I have sailed many seas and not a few with him,” he added.

He was standing close to the rail, directly over the forecastle. Miss Mallory drew a step or two nearer, and announced, as if such a remark had never been thought of:

“What a perfect little thing of her kind the Savonarola is!... I believe she is staunch enough to go anywhere.... Just listen how tight and solid her planking is!”

She would have signaled that instant, but her approach had been Sorenson’s cue for a certain fond attention and endearment, which ended in a briny obfuscation....

It had been such a little push, too. She tossed a lifering after him, saw him come up and catch his stroke as she tapped the deck with her stick the three doubles sharply....

And now a sunburst of small but striking events. Madame Sorenson had not seen, but she launched a scream with the splash. The Chinese, squatted aft, had not seen, but like good servants, with well-ordered minds, they rushed from the wheel to the davits, and proceeded to get a small boat into the water, a temperate thing to do with a man overboard. Miss Mallory did not scream, so as to disturb anybody, but hurried aft, urging the Chinese. “Both go!” she called. “He’s such a big man!”

The boat was launched. Sorenson was swimming his oaths proved that but rapidly receding. The Glow-worm rushed out of the cabin, Framtree following. The latter halted, however, at a sharp command of the Spaniard. Then Miss Mallory heard Bedient’s voice. It was not lifted above the normal tone, and hoarse with thirst.

She craned her head forward from the wheel to peer into the cabin. Bedient’s face was like death. He did not even have a pistol in his hand, but there was a look in his eyes she had never seen in any eyes before, and he was smiling. The disturbance on deck, Bedient’s face and command, had held Rey and Framtree, but the former’s hand now reached toward his hip. Bedient caught it with an incredibly quick movement, and took the gun from the Senor’s pocket.

“Just to reduce tension to a minimum, Senor,” he said.

The third Chinese opened the door from the galley, but a look and gesture from Bedient sent him back, and the lock was turned upon him. Bedient now placed the gun upon the table, and directed his attention to Framtree.

“You made it rather hard for me to have a talk with you, my friend,” he said.

The place was terrible with strain....

There had been a moment, as the Spaniard’s hand crept to his pocket, in which Miss Mallory was powerless with fear, but she could not scream. It was as if Bedient’s eyes had held her, too. She watched the pistol now. It was out of Key’s reach, and he could not rise from a chair without great difficulty. Framtree did not seem to be armed, for which she was greatly attracted to him.... He had started to speak two or three times, but found no words. The appearance of Bedient seemed to have fascinated him for a moment, but now he managed to declare:

“It must have been the Chinese who turned, Senor.... Somebody went overboard I think Sorenson.”

And not until now did Miss Mallory venture to take her eyes from the cabin interior.... Madame Sorenson was fighting windmills of hysteria. Far back there was a blotch in the darkness, and a curious blend of sea-water, Russian and Chinese, as Sorenson was dragged into the boat; back farther still the lights of Jaffier’s gunboat.... And now she found the Glow-worm staring at her, the big face drawing closer, and a rising flame of hope in the strange eyes.

“What have you done, dearest?” she questioned softly.

“He could swim. He told me he could swim,” Miss Mallory heard herself repeating vaguely.