A New Sensation Part 28

The Carnival, which lasts here for four or five weeks, had already begun. The streets were crowded with masquers and sounds of strange music filled the air. There was something very odd in this imitation by the negro race of the frivolities of the Latin countries of Europe as a precedent of the forty days of Lent. Miss May viewed it with me from the balcony of a restaurant until nearly ten o'clock. A number of the steamer people were also there and I fancied we were the object of more than ordinary attention from their eyes.

After reaching the hotel again I asked Miss May if she would mind being left alone for an hour or so, while I went to see a peculiar dance. I a.s.sured her that the house was absolutely safe. She made no objection and I went with a party of Pretoria people--no women--to witness the spectacle of which I had heard so much. It was not half as entertaining as I had expected, but there were several girls of the Metisse variety that well repaid me for going. The Metisse is a mixture of races, the original Carib prevailing, one of the most fetching types extant. They were dressed becomingly, in thin gowns, of which silk was at least one of the textures used. On their heads were party-colored handkerchiefs, draped as only a Martinique beauty can drape them.

At the risk of being thought extravagant in my statement I must say they appeared to me strikingly handsome, both in their faces and their lithe figures. I was told that each of those I saw was the mistress of some well-to-do merchant of the place and strictly true to her lover. The dance was not of a kind one would wish to take his sisters to see, but it was evident the negroes put a less libidinous interpretation upon it than the Caucasian visitors. It was one, however, where "a little goes a long way," and before twelve I was in my room at the hotel.

I had just lit the lamp when I was surprised to hear a knock at the door and opened it to find Miss May standing there, with an anxious expression on her face.

"Don't undress," she said, in a slightly shaking voice. "I have been full of all sorts of fears since you went away. I want you to sit up awhile and talk to me."

I accepted the amendment, as they say in deliberative bodies, with the greatest pleasure, for I would rather sit up with her than to sleep on the softest down ever made into a couch. She went to the window, which was innocent of gla.s.s, and threw open the wooden shutters.

"What did you hear to disturb you, a mouse?" I asked, jocularly.

"I don't know. The place is full of creepy sounds. The noise in the street continues and every step in the corridors makes the boards creak.

Did you enjoy your dance?"

"Not specially," I said. And then I told her of the Metisse women I had seen, praising their appearance.

She did not seem to notice what I was saying. She acted as if in constant fear of something unpleasant.

"You do not care to talk as much as you thought you did," I remarked.

"No. I was tired and sleepy, but I did not like to be alone. Why can't I--there wouldn't be any harm, would there?--lie on this smaller bed just as I am, and you can get your sleep over yonder?"

Conflicting sentiments filled my brain as I listened. What a strange woman she was! Alarmed at the least approach on my part, when we were on a steamer deck, a veranda or in a carriage; and now proposing to drop to slumber in my very bedroom, as if it were nothing at all!

A dim suspicion that she meant more than she said forced itself upon me at first. Was I deceiving myself by paying too much attention to her protestations? Had she run away merely for the sake of being pursued?

The best method to prove the truth or falsity of this was to take her strictly at her word, which I decided to do. I told her that the room and everything in it was at her disposal, as she very well knew. She might lie on one bed, or the other, or the floor, or sit in a chair. It was unfortunate that in this house, as I had already learned, there were no rooms with communicating doors, or I would get our quarters changed.

She thanked me, as if I was doing her a particular favor, and, curling herself up as she had suggested, was soon, to all appearances, sound asleep.

Then the thoughts she had communicated to me, about the strange noises in the house, entered my own head. I tossed on my pillow, from side to side, sat up and lay down again a hundred times. There were mice enough in the building to satisfy a cat for a year, if noises went for anything. Late lodgers perambulated the halls, met each other and whispered in tones much more disturbing than loud voices would have been. Somebody, doubtless a servant, entered the next room, the one Marjorie had occupied, and moved about there, as if in stocking-feet.

She had left her lamp lighted and this individual blew it out, as I could tell from certain signs. When this was done he went away, but returned again presently, repeating the operation several times.

All the nerves in my body quivered with the strain.

I looked at my watch every half hour, by the light of the moon that shone clearly through the open window. I thought I must awaken my companion; the loneliness was becoming unbearable. Nothing but shame prevented me--shame and a disinclination to disturb her calm and regular breathing.

At last I grew a little calmer. And the next I knew Marjorie was standing by my side, with one of her hands on my forehead and saying in whispers that if I was going to take breakfast I would have to think of getting up.

It was after ten o'clock and I had slept the sleep of a tired man for seven hours!

CHAPTER XIX.

IT IS A STRANGE IDEA.

The immediate result of the strange proceedings of the night was that Miss May asked me, before we had finished breakfast, whether I cared much about remaining in St. Pierre. She approached the subject with some timidity, saying she did not like to have me make any change in my programme on her account, but added that she would be very glad if I could, without too much sacrifice, go back to the Pretoria and make the break in my journey at some other point.

"Why, my dear girl," I answered, immediately, "if you don't wish to stay here I shall never dream of asking you to do so. Pack up whatever things you have taken from your trunks and we will return to the steamer."

She was gratified and showed it so in every line of her expressive face that I was more than repaid for my decision.

"You are quite willing?" she said, interrogatively.

"Entirely. Where would you suggest that we stop, Barbados? That is the next port where there is a fairly good hotel."

After a little discussion we settled upon Barbados and began the labor of packing. I sent a boy off to the steamer with a request to the purser to give me a berth in some other stateroom than the one I previously had, and to reserve Miss May's room for her. I did not mean to get in with Wesson again if I could help it. That afternoon we spent at the market, which is the most interesting I have ever seen, until the time came to go on board.

"As we may have to tell a falsehood to some inquisitive person," I said, when we were in the rowboat, "let us tell the same one. Fear of yellow fever quarantine is what led us to change our mind about remaining in Martinique; you understand?"

"Yes," said Marjorie, dreamily. "We were to lie to outsiders, if necessary, and always tell the truth to each other."

"Are you doing that as faithfully as you promised?" I asked.

"What do you mean?" she asked, with a violent start.

"Nothing that should induce you to tip the boat over, as you just came near doing," I replied. "I merely asked a question."

"You must believe I am deceiving you in some way, or you would not use that expression," she said, eyeing me narrowly.

"I have a great deal more confidence in you than you have in me," was my answer.

"You can say this--knowing where I pa.s.sed last night!" she said, reproachfully.

"Oh, I don't mean that sort of confidence," I remarked. "I mean the confidence that would make you promise to spend every night as long as you live under the same guardians.h.i.+p."

A little sigh came from the lips of my companion, which had whitened suddenly; the kind of sigh that might mean almost anything. The boatmen were too busy to listen to us, even had they understood a word of English, which they did not.

"Marjorie," I whispered, for I could not resist the desire to hear her say it, "don't you care for me, just a little bit?"

"Please!" was the only word she vouchsafed, and I heeded the request.

We came to the steamer's side, meeting many astonished gazes. I gave the requisite directions to the porters who came down the ladder for the baggage. The purser had a.s.signed me another room, as requested, which was something. Wesson lifted his hat and said "Good-afternoon," when we met, but that was all. If he guessed that I had managed to avoid rooming with him by a set plan he made no remark.

The purser of the Pretoria is young, handsome and obliging. His father, a custom-house officer from Canada, was making a tour on the boat and struck me as a fine type. I learned that another of his sons was a member of the Dominion Parliament.

Capt. McKenzie came up to say he was glad I was going to be on his s.h.i.+p a little longer, which was agreeable, to say the least. I had noticed the Captain before, though I did not get well acquainted with him. He was the sort of man one likes to meet, straightforward, intelligent, understanding his business thoroughly. He knows how to treat the ladies among his pa.s.sengers equally well, too, instead of devoting all his time to a favored group, like so many sea captains. This in itself is enough to make him a marked man in my memory.

The only place we had to call before reaching the island of Barbados was at St. Lucia, where there was little to interest us on sh.o.r.e, but where I was glad to see a troop-s.h.i.+p just arrived from Africa, with a cargo of wives (more or less) of black troops that were serving near Sierra Leone, each one accompanied by a parrot and monkey, beside several small children. The British government had taken them from the West Indies to Africa with their lords (I mean the women) and was now returning them a little in advance of their dusky partners. I asked half a dozen at random if they had ever been legally married and the reply in every case was "No, suh," delivered with a certain pride. The West Indian negro has not yet added matrimony to his list of virtues.

Early on the morning of the day our vessel anch.o.r.ed off Greytown, which is the capital of Barbados, I found on deck Mr. "Eddie" Armstrong, manager of the Marine Hotel, ready to answer questions in relation to that hostelry. "Eddie" told me that he had just the sort of rooms I required for myself and "Miss Carney," and put me under obligations by refraining from cheap insinuations, which nine men out of ten in his position would have made. Later he saw us through the custom-house with expedition and sent us in a carriage to the Marine, which is two miles from the centre, in a breezy and roomy location, just enough removed from the noise of the sea waves.

Miss Byno, at the hotel counter, greeted me with a precise copy of the smile she had worn three years before, while Mr. Pomeroy, the proprietor, said he was glad to see me, exactly as if he meant it. Our apartment consisted of a sitting room and two connecting chambers on the second floor, which were clean, airy and cosy. It was the nearest to "house-keeping," as I remarked to Miss May, of any place we had found.

"We must resume our genealogy to-morrow," she said, as she opened the table and set up the typewriting machine. "We have neglected it dreadfully."