Quick Action Part 41

He looked over his private list until he found it. And this is what he read concerning it:

_Valdez, Pedro--Journal of. Translated by Thomas Bangs, of Philadelphia, in 1760. With map. Two copies, much worn and damaged by water. Several pages missing from each book._

Pedro Valdez was a soldier of fortune serving with Cortez in Mexico and with De Soto in Florida. Nothing more is known of him, except that he perished somewhere in the semi-tropical forests of America.

Thomas Bangs, an Englishman, pretended to have discovered and translated the journal kept by Valdez. After the journal had been translated--if, indeed, such a doc.u.ment ever really existed--Bangs pretended that it was accidentally destroyed.

Bangs' translation and map are considered to be works of pure imagination. They were published from ma.n.u.script after the death of the author.

Bangs died in St. Augustine of yellow fever, about 1760-61, while preparing for an exploring expedition into the Florida wilderness.

Mildly edified, White glanced again at the girl across the aisle, and was surprised to see how her interest in the volume had altered her features. Tense, breathless, utterly absorbed in the book, she bent over the faded print, leaning close, for the sickly light that filtered through the gla.s.s roof scarcely illumined the yellow pages at all.

The curiosity of White was now aroused; he opened the gla.s.s case beside him, fished out his copy of the book, opened it, and began to read.

For the first few minutes his interest was anything but deep: he read the well-known pages where Bangs recounts how he discovered the journal of Valdez--and it sounded exceedingly fishy--a rather poorly written fairy-tale done by a man with little invention and less imagination, so worn out, hackneyed and trite were the incidents, so obvious the coincidences.

White shrugged his shoulders and turned from the preface to what purported to be the translation.

Almost immediately it struck him that this part of the book was not written by the same man. Here was fluency, elegance of expression, ease, the simplicity of a soldier who had something to say and but a short time in which to say it. Even the apparent clumsiness of the translation had not deformed the work.

Little by little the young man became intensely interested, then absorbed. And after a while the colour came into his face; he glanced nervously around him; suppressed excitement made his hands unsteady as he unfolded the enclosed map.

From time to time he referred to the map as he read; the rain roared on the gla.s.s roof; the light grew dimmer and dimmer.

At five o'clock the galleries closed for the day. And that evening, sitting in his hall-bedroom, White made up his mind that he must buy "The Journal of Valdez" if it took every penny that remained to him.

The next day was fair and cold; fas.h.i.+on graced the Octavo de Folio exhibition; White had no time to re-read any pa.s.sages or to re-examine the map, because people were continually asking to see and handle the books in his case.

Across the aisle he noticed that his pretty neighbour was similarly occupied. And he was rather glad, because he felt, vaguely, that it was just as well she did not occupy her time in reading "The Journal of Valdez." Girls usually have imagination. The book might stir her up as it had stirred him. And to no purpose.

Also, he was glad that n.o.body asked to look at the Valdez copy in his own case. He didn't want people to look at it. There were reasons--among others, he wanted to buy it himself. He meant to if fifteen hundred dollars would buy it.

White had not the remotest idea what the book might bring at auction. He dared not inquire whether the volume was a rare one, dreading even to call the attention of his fellow employees to it. A word _might_ arouse their curiosity.

All day long he attended to his duties there, and at five he went home, highly excited, determined to arrive at the galleries next morning in time enough to read the book a little before the first of the public came.

And he did get there very early. The only other employee who had arrived before him was the red-haired girl. She sat by her case reading "The Journal of Valdez." Once she looked up at him with calm, clear, intelligent eyes. He did not see her; he hastily unlocked his case and drew out the coveted book. Then he sat down and began to devour it. And so utterly and instantly was he lost amid those yellow, time-faded pages that he did not even glance across the aisle at his ornamental neighbour. If he had looked he would have noticed that she also was buried in "The Journal of Valdez." And it might have made him a trifle uneasy to see her look from her book to him and from him to the volume he was perusing so excitedly.

It being the last day that the library was to be on view before the sale, fas.h.i.+on and monomania rubbed elbows in the Heikem Galleries, crowding the well known salons morning and afternoon. And all day long White and his neighbour across the aisle were busy taking out books and ma.n.u.scripts for inspection, so that they had no time for luncheon, and less for Valdez.

And that night they were paid off and dismissed; and the auctioneer and his corps of a.s.sistants took charge.

The sale took place the following morning and afternoon. White drew from the bank his fifteen hundred dollars, breakfasted on bread and milk, and went to the galleries more excited than he had ever been before in his long life of twenty-three years. And that is some time.

It was a long shot at Fortune he meant to take--a really desperate chance. One throw would settle it--win or lose. And the idea scared him badly, and he was trembling a little when he took his seat amid the perfumed gowns of fas.h.i.+on and the white whiskers of high finance, and the shabby vestments of monomania.

Once or twice he wondered whether he was crazy. Yet, every throb of his fast-beating heart seemed to summon him to do and dare; and he felt, without even attempting to explain the feeling to himself, that now at last Opportunity was loudly rapping at his door, and that if he did not let her in he would regret it as long as he lived.

As he glanced fearfully about him he caught sight of his pretty neighbour who had held sway across the aisle. So she, too, had come to watch the sale! Probably for the excitement of hearing an auctioneer talk in thousands.

He was a little surprised, nevertheless, for she did not look bookish--nor even intellectual enough to mar her prettiness. Yet, wherever she went she would look adorable. He understood that, now.

It was a day of alarms for him, of fears, shocks, and frights innumerable. With terror he heard the auctioneer talking in terms of thousands; with horror he witnessed the bids on certain books advance by thousands at a clip. Five thousand, ten thousand, twenty thousand were bid, seen, raised, called, hiked, until his head spun and despair seized him.

What did he know about Valdez? Either volume might bring fifty thousand dollars for all he knew. Had he fifty thousand he felt, somehow, that he would have bid it to the last penny for the book. And he came to the conclusion that he was really crazy. Yet there he sat, glued to his chair, listening, shuddering, teeth alternately chattering or grimly locked, while the very air seemed to reek of millions, and the incessant gabble of the auctioneer drove him almost out of his wits.

Nearer and nearer approached the catalogued numbers of the two copies of Valdez; pale and desperate he sat there, his heart almost suffocating him as the moment drew near. And now the time had come; now the celebrated Mr. Heikem began his suave preliminary chatter; now he was asking confidently for a bid.

A silence ensued--and whether it was the silence of awe at the priceless treasure or the silence of indifference White did not know. But after the auctioneer had again asked for a bid he found his voice and offered ten dollars. His ears were scarlet when he did it.

"Fifteen," said a sweet but tremulous voice not far from White, and he looked around in astonishment. It was his red-haired vis-a-vis.

"Twenty!" he retorted, still labouring under his astonishment.

"Twenty-five!" came the same sweet voice.

There was a silence. No other voices said anything. Evidently n.o.body wanted Valdez except himself and his red-haired neighbour.

"Thirty!" he called out at the psychological moment.

The girl turned in her chair and looked at him. She seemed to be unusually pale.

"Thirty-five!" she said, still gazing at White in a frightened sort of way.

"Forty," he said; rose at the same moment and walked over to where the girl was sitting.

She looked up at him as he bent over her chair; both were very serious.

"You and I are the only two people bidding," he said. "There are two copies of the book. Don't bid against me and you can buy in the other one for next to nothing--judging from the course this one is taking."

"Very well," she said quietly.

A moment later the first copy of Valdez was knocked down to James White.

An indifferent audience paid little attention to the transaction.

Two minutes later the second copy fell to Miss Jean Sandys for five dollars--there being no other bidder.

White had already left the galleries. Lingering at the entrance he saw Miss Sandys pa.s.s him, and he lifted his hat. The slightest inclination of her pretty head acknowledged it. The next moment they were lost to each other's view in the crowded street.

Clutching his battered book to his chest, not even daring to drop it into his overcoat for fear of pickpockets, the young fellow started up Broadway at a swinging pace which presently brought him to the offices of the Florida Spanish Grants Company; and here, at his request, he was ushered into a private room; a map of Seminole County spread on the highly polished table before him, and a suave gentleman placed at his disposal.

"Florida," volunteered the suave gentleman, "is the land of perpetual suns.h.i.+ne--the land of milk and honey, as it were, the land of the orange----"

"One moment, please," said White.

"Sir?"

They looked at each other for a second or two, then White smiled: