A Young Man in a Hurry, and Other Short Stories Part 49

She dropped her hands and looked at him. "Thank you for speaking to Calvert," she said, rising hastily; "I have been desperately in need of work. My pride is quite dead, you see--one or the other of us had to die."

She looked down with a gay little smile. "If it wouldn't spoil you I should tell you what I think of you. Meanwhile, as servitude becomes man, you may tie my shoe for me--Marlitt's shoe that pinched you.... Tie it tightly, so that I shall not lose it again.... Thank you."

As he rose, their eyes met once more; and the perilous sweetness in hers fascinated him.

She drew a deep, unsteady breath. "Will you take me home?" she asked.

PASQUE FLORIDA

The steady flicker of lightning in the southwest continued; the wind freshened, blowing in cooler streaks across acres of rattling rushes and dead marsh-gra.s.s. A dull light grew through the scudding clouds, then faded as the mid-day sun went out in the smother, leaving an ominous red smear overhead.

Gun in hand, Haltren stood up among the reeds and inspected the landscape. Already the fish-crows and egrets were flying inland, the pelicans had left the sandbar, the eagles were gone from beach and dune.

High in the thickening sky wild ducks pa.s.sed over Flyover Point and dropped into the sheltered marshes among the cypress.

As Haltren stood undecided, watching the ruddy play of lightning, which came no nearer than the horizon, a squall struck the lagoon. Then, amid the immense solitude of marsh and water, a deep sound grew--the roar of the wind in the wilderness. The solemn paeon swelled and died away as thunder dies, leaving the air tremulous.

"I'd better get out of this," said Haltren to himself. He felt for the breech of his gun, unloaded both barrels, and slowly pocketed the cartridges.

Eastward, between the vast salt river and the ocean, the dunes were smoking like wind-lashed breakers; a heron, laboring heavily, flapped inland, broad pinions buffeting the gale.

"Something's due to happen," said Haltren, reflectively, closing the breech of his gun. He had hauled his boat up an alligator-slide; now he shoved it off the same way, and pulling up his hip-boots, waded out, laid his gun in the stern, threw cartridge-sack and a dozen dead ducks after it, and embarked among the raft of wind-tossed wooden decoys.

There were twoscore decoys bobbing and tugging at their anchor-cords outside the point. Before he had fished up a dozen on the blade of his oar a heavier squall struck the lagoon, blowing the boat out into the river. He had managed to paddle back and had secured another brace of decoys, when a violent gale caught him broadside, almost capsizing him.

"If I don't get those decoys now I never shall!" he muttered, doggedly jabbing about with extended oar. But he never got them; for at that moment a tropical hurricane, still in its infancy, began to develop, and when, blinded with spray, he managed to jam the oars into the oar-locks, his boat was half a mile out and still driving.

For a week the wind had piled the lagoons and lakes south of the Matanzas full of water, and now the waves sprang up, bursting into menacing shapes, knocking the boat about viciously. Haltren turned his unquiet eyes towards a streak of green water ahead.

"I don't suppose this catspaw is really trying to drive me out of Coquina Inlet!" he said, peevishly; "I don't suppose I'm being blown out to sea."

It was a stormy end for a day's pleasure--yet curiously appropriate, too, for it was the fourth anniversary of his wedding-day; and the storm that followed had blown him out into the waste corners of the world.

Perhaps something of this idea came into his head; he laughed a disagreeable laugh and fell to rowing.

The red lightning still darted along the southern horizon, no nearer; the wilderness of water, of palm forests, of jungle, of dune, was bathed in a sickly light; overhead oceans of clouds tore through a sombre sky.

After a while he understood that he was making no headway; then he saw that the storm was shaping his course. He dug his oars into the thick, gray waves; the wind tore the cap from his head, caught the boat and wrestled with it.

Somehow or other he must get the boat ash.o.r.e before he came abreast of the inlet; otherwise--

He turned his head and stared at the whitecaps tumbling along the deadly raceway; and he almost dropped his oars in astonishment to see a gasoline-launch battling for safety just north of the storm-swept channel. What was a launch doing in this forsaken end of the earth? And the next instant developed the answer. Out at sea, beyond the outer bar, a yacht, wallowing like a white whale, was staggering towards the open ocean.

He saw all this in a flash--saw the gray-green maelstrom between the dunes, the launch struggling across the inlet, the yacht plunging seaward. Then in the endless palm forests the roar deepened. Flas.h.!.+

Bang! lightning and thunder were simultaneous.

"That's better," said Haltren, hanging to his oars; "there's a fighting chance now."

The rain came, beating the waves down, seemingly, for a moment, beating out the wind itself. In the partial silence the sharp explosions of the gasoline-engine echoed like volleys of pistol-shots; and Haltren half rose in his pitching boat, and shouted: "Launch ahoy! Run under the lee sh.o.r.e. There's a hurricane coming! You haven't a second to lose!"

He heard somebody aboard the launch say, distinctly, "There's a Florida cracker alongside who says a hurricane is about due." The shrill roar of the rain drowned the voice. Haltren bent to his oars again. Then a young man in dripping white flannels looked out of the wheel-house and hailed him. "We've grounded on the meadows twice. If you know the channel you'd better come aboard and take the wheel."

Haltren, already north of the inlet and within the zone of safety, rested on his oars a second and looked back, listening. Very far away he heard the deep whisper of death.

On board the launch the young man at the wheel heard it, too; and he hailed Haltren in a shaky voice: "I wouldn't ask you to come back, but there are women aboard. Can't you help us?"

"All right," said Haltren.

A horrible white glare broke out through the haze; the solid vertical torrent of rain swayed, then slanted eastward.

A wave threw him alongside the launch; he scrambled over the low rail and ran forward, deafened by the din. A woman in oilskins hung to the companion-rail; he saw her white face as he pa.s.sed. Haggard, staggering, he entered the wheel-house, where the young man in dripping flannels seized his arm, calling him by name. Haltren pushed him aside.

"Give me that wheel, Darrow," he said, hoa.r.s.ely. "Ring full speed ahead!

Now stand clear--"

Like an explosion the white tornado burst, burying deck and wheel-house in foam; a bellowing fury of tumbling waters enveloped the launch.

Haltren hung to the wheel one second, two, five, ten; and at last through the howling chaos his stunned ears caught the faint staccato spat! puff! spat! of the exhaust. Thirty seconds more--if the engines could stand it--if they only could stand it!

They stood it for thirty-three seconds and went to smash. A terrific squall, partly deflected from the forest, hurled the launch into the swamp, now all boiling in shallow foam; and there she stuck in the good, thick mud, heeled over and all awash like a stranded razor-back after a freshet.

Twenty minutes later the sun came out; the waters of the lagoon turned sky blue; a delicate breeze from the southeast stirred the palmetto fronds.

Presently a cardinal-bird began singing in the suns.h.i.+ne.

Haltren, standing in the wrecked wheel-house, raised his dazed eyes as Darrow entered and looked around.

"So that was a white tornado! I've heard of them--but--good G.o.d!" He turned a bloodless visage to Haltren, who, dripping, bareheaded and silent, stood with eyes closed leaning heavily against the wheel.

"Are you hurt?"

Haltren shook his head. Darrow regarded him stupidly.

"How did you happen to be in this part of the world?"

Haltren opened his eyes. "Oh, I'm likely to be anywhere," he said, vaguely, pa.s.sing a shaking hand across his face. There was a moment's silence; then he said:

"Darrow, is my wife aboard this boat?"

"Yes," said Darrow, under his breath. "Isn't that the limit?"

Through the silence the cardinal sang steadily.

"Isn't that the limit?" repeated Darrow. "We came on the yacht--that was Brent's yacht, the _Dione_, you saw at sea. You know the people aboard.

Brent, Mrs. Castle, your wife, and I left the others and took the launch to explore the lagoons.... And here we are. Isn't it funny?" he added, with a nerveless laugh.