Her Weight in Gold and others Part 10

"Dead! Dead! Speak to me, Ralph--look up! I love you--I wors.h.i.+p you!

You shall not leave me!"

She kissed the pallid face, caressed the chilling head, sobbing:

"Forgive me--forgive me!"

An hour afterward the clatter of hoofs upon the road aroused her from the semi-conscious condition into which her grief had thrown her.

Through the gathering darkness she saw hors.e.m.e.n approaching--Indian riders! A moment later they were dismounting at her side, and well-known voices were calling to her:

"Are you hurt?"

"What has happened?"

"Killed? My G.o.d!"

It was Farring, Trask and the other plotters, reeking with excitement.

Their horses were wet from the fierceness with which they had been ridden.

"Do not touch him! You have killed him!" she cried, striving to s.h.i.+eld the body from Farring's anxious touch.

"Killed him? Good G.o.d, Kate! where did you meet them!" cried Farring, as Trask pulled her from Studdiford's side.

"Are you not dead?" she finally whispered to the men.

"We? He killed three of them--split their heads! But the wretches put an arrow into him, after all. What a dreadful thing we have done!

Fairly tricked him to his death!" cried poor Trask.

"Then--then it was not you?" cried Kate.

"Heavens, no! We found the Indians dragging their dead from the road, three miles back, and knew that something terrible had happened.

"Thank G.o.d! I am spared that! But he must not die--he shall not! I love him. Do you hear? I love him!"

For three weeks the victim of that ill-fated trick hung between life and death. Surgery was crude in the colonies, and the first evidence of restoration was due more to his rugged const.i.tution than to the skill of his doctors. The poor fellow rolled and tossed upon one of Mrs.

Fortune's soft beds, oblivious to the kind offices of those about him.

They had taken him there at Kate's command, and she had worn herself to a shadow with anguish, love and penitence. She watched him by day and by night--in her restless dreams; her whole existence was in the tossing victim of her folly. Every twitch of that pain-stricken body seemed to show her that he was shrinking from her in hatred. Her pretty face was white and drawn, the blue eyes dark and pitiful, the merry mouth, plaintive in its hopelessness.

And those jovial tricksters--those who had jeered over his lack of courage, the testing of which they had undertaken! They were smitten by their own curses, haunted by their own shame. The fiery Trask, the polished Farring, the ingenious Holmes, with all of Jamestown, prayed for his recovery, and spared no pains to bring to life and health the man who had won that which they had relinquished hope of having--Kate's love. They were tender, sympathetic, helpful--true men and good.

Kate could not forget the look of disgust she had seen upon Studdiford's face as he stood above her with the great sword in his hand. His first thought had been to kill her!

Sitting beside him, bathing the fevered brow, caressing the rumpled hair, holding his restless hands, she could feel her heart thumping like lead, so heavy had it grown in the fear of his awakening.

Finally the doctors told her that he would recover, that the fever was broken. Then came the day when he slept, cool and quiet, no trace of fever, no sign of pain.

It was then that Kate forsook him, burying herself in her distant room, guilty and heart-broken, fearing above all things on earth, the first repellent glance he would bestow upon her. Once, while he slept, she peered through his door, going back to her room and her spinning with tears blinding the plaintive blue eyes.

At last, one day, her mother came from the Captain's room and said to her gently:

"Kate, Captain Studdiford asks why you do not come to see him. He tells me that for three days he has suffered because you have been so unkind.

Go to him, dear; he promises he will not plead his love if it is so distasteful to you!"

Distasteful! The girl grew faint with wonder. Her limbs trembled, her lips parted, her eyes blurred and her ears roared with the rush of blood from her heart.

"Mother!" she whispered, at last, steadying herself against the wall.

"Are you sure, Mother?"

"That he wants you? My child, his eyes fill with tears when he thinks of you. I have seen them moisten as he lies looking from the window."

But Kate was gone.

When Mrs. Fortune opened the door to the sick man's room soon afterward she drew back quickly, closed it again, and, lifting her eyes aloft, murmured:

"G.o.d make them happy!"

MR. HAMSHAW'S LOVE AFFAIR

Mr. Hamshaw was short, bald, pudgy--and fifty-seven. Besides all this, he was a bachelor, and one jolly one, at the time when this narrative opens. He lived in apartments pretty well downtown, where he was looked after with scrupulous care by a j.a.panese valet and an Irish "cook-lady." Mr. Hamshaw was forever discharging his valet and forever re-engaging him. Sago persistently refused to leave at the hour set for his departure, and Mr. Hamshaw finally came to discharge him every evening in order that he might be sure to find him at his post in the morning. Regularly, he would call Sago into the den, very red in the face over some wholly imaginary provocation.

"This ends it, Sago! You go! I've stood it as long as I can--or will.

You leave the place tonight, sir--bag and baggage. I don't want to see your face again. Understand?"

"Yes, sir; very well, sir" Sago would respond with perfect equanimity.

Sago engaged to be very, very English at such distinguished times.

"You go tonight."

"Yes, Mr. Hamshaw. May I ask what I have done to displease you, sir!"

"Never mind, sir! I'll tell you tomorrow. Don't bother me about it today. And, say, if you don't press this dinner coat of mine before tomorrow night I'll discharge you without a recommendation."

"Very good, sir."

Once when Sago threatened to leave unless Ellen, the cook, was dismissed, poor Mr. Hamshaw had a most uncomfortable half-hour. Young Mr. Goodrich from the bank was dining with him at the time. Now it was quite as hard to get rid of Ellen, notwithstanding the fact that she was constantly on the verge of leaving of her own accord, as it was to discharge Sago. The host prayed down to his comfortable boots that the threats of Sago might not grow louder than confidential hisses as he pa.s.sed behind his chair in the capacity of butler, but he was counting without Ellen. There was a long, painful interval between courses, and then Ellen marched in from the kitchen, majestically attired for the street.

"I beg your pardon, Mr. Hamshaw, but this time I go for fair. It's aither me or the Chinee-"

"Blawst yer eyes!" snarled Sago in his very best English, mightily incensed.

"But, Ellen--" began Mr. Hamshaw, bowled over.

"Don't beg me to stay," she cried, glaring at Sago, who glared back safely from behind Mr. Goodrich's chair. "The dago has insulted me for the last toime. I'm sorry, sor, it had to come roight in the middle of dinner, sor, but it couldn't wait."

"Can't you subdue yourself till morning, Ellen? It is--"