His Unknown Wife by Louis Tracy (little readers .TXT) 📕

Singularly his close acquaintance with the San Juan patois proved most helpful. It occurred to him that this might be so, as the root words of Indian tribes throughout the South American continent have undergone fewer changes than would have been the case among civilized peoples. Many were in use among the Spanish half-castes on the ranch, and this aborigine grasped their meaning at once. Good linguist though he was, however, Maseden failed to extract more than a glimmering of sense from her uncouth accents.

But none could fail to be impressed by her relief when the boat was afloat and traveling east. They soon quitted the channel between the islands and entered the wide expanse of Nelson Straits. The weather was fine, and a steady wind from the southwest encouraged Maseden to rig the sail.

Having a wholesome respect for the Pacific tides, he meant to hug the coast of Hanover Island. But after studying the clouds intently for an hour, the Indian girl signified that she wished to be lifted in her hammock. She then pointed to some small islands just distinguishable on the horizon, and apparently situated in the middle of the straits.

She saw the hesitancy in Maseden’s face, and by this time had evidently singled him out as the leader of the party. Then she turned to Nina Forbes, and her gestures said as plainly, no doubt, as her words:

“If 7 can’t persuade him, perhaps you can. Tell him to take the course I recommend.”

For some reason Nina’s cheeks grew scarlet under the brown tan of constant exposure to the whether, nor did a pronounced wink by Sturgess at Madge tend to restore her composure. But she met the Indian girl’s appeal with seeming nonchalance and bravely ignored the obvious inference.

“I suppose she thinks that I may exercise some influence in the matter, Alec,” she said, striving in vain to suppress a nervous little laugh. “I do honestly believe she means well. She is extraordinarily grateful to us. I have been watching her, and there is a dog-like devotion in her eyes when we render any little service that is reassuring.”

“Those islets out there may be bare rocks,” protested Maseden. He had little knowledge of sailing boats, and hesitated at a long trip in these fickle waters.

“Perhaps that is why she wishes us to go that way. They lie due east, and that is something in their favor.”

Still was he dubious, largely owing to the intervening stretch of open sea, but again he essayed to question their would-be pilot.

The girl was quite emphatic in her direction as to the course, and equally opposed to the more cautious method he favored. A good deal of this was expressed in pantomime, but it was none the less understandable.

Finally, finding that the others had faith in her, Maseden nodded to Madge, who was at the tiller, as the rudder had been shipped when the sail was hoisted; and the boat was put across the wind. The Indian girl smiled, and was satisfied. They lifted her down to her place amidships, where her head rested on the package of treasure, and she remained there contentedly many hours.

Long before the violet-hued blurs in front took definite shape as a group of two fair-sized islands, with trees, lying among a great many stark rocks, sticking straight up out of the sea, the voyagers became aware of at least one good reason for their guide’s choice of direction. The coast of Hanover Island began to fall away sharply to the northeast, and a wide gap opened up between it and the nearest land, a gap which must have been crossed in any event.

Maseden himself was the first to admit that they had been given sound advice.

Luckily the wind remained steady, and brought their craft on at a fair pace against a falling tide. Nevertheless it was a long sail, far longer than any of them had anticipated, and the shadows were deepening when the men again lifted the Indian girl level with the gunwale to find out if she could recommend the safest way of approaching a particularly forbidding shore.

She understood at once what they wanted, and indicated a narrow channel between two gigantic outlying rocks. Though it was precisely the one of three possible waterways which no stranger would have chosen, they did not dream now of disputing her judgment. The passage was made more easily than they had counted on, and a second time was their faith justified, because a strip of white beach soon showed on the line where trees and sea met.

The boat was run ashore, and a fire was lighted. The weather had become much colder, probably owing to the absence of shelter from the hills under which they had camped during the past month. The Indian girl offered no objection to the fire. In fact, when laid near it in a sand hollow, she fell asleep long before any of them.

The boat, of course, had to be safeguarded, as they landed at low water. Were it not for a fissure in the rock which permitted them to row fully a quarter of a mile nearer highwater mark than would have been possible otherwise, they must have devoted a wearisome time to the task of hauling her in as the tide rose. Fortunately, there was no heavy surf. The reefs they had seen some fifteen miles to the westward had broken up the long Pacific rollers, and the breeze was not strong enough to disturb this inland sea.

Nina and Madge elected to sleep on the sand.

“You can have too much of a good thing,” explained Madge laughingly, “and, greatly as I prize our ark, I am tired of it to-day. Every bone in my body is aching.”

They had, of course, given up each skin and strip of canvas they possessed in order to render the Indian girl more comfortable during the voyage, and a ship’s boat can be a most irksome conveyance in such circumstances.

When the tide was high Sturgess and Maseden, before they, too, turned in, rose to make sure that the anchor could not drag during the night, and Sturgess electrified his friend by choosing that odd moment to allude to the Cartagena marriage.

“Say, Alec,” he said, “you sure have had the time of your life ever since you were hauled off to San Juan and sentenced to be shot.”

Maseden imagined that the New Yorker was merely referring to the incidents following the shipwreck.

“I don’t see exactly how life has been more of a sizzle for me than for you and the girls,” he said.

“Ah, come off it, Alec!” laughed the other. “You know better than that. But I guess I’ll have to hand the explanation on a tray. Madge and Nina have told the facts about your wedding. Gosh! What a jolt it must have given you to find your wife on board the Southern Cross!”

“You know?” gasped Maseden.

“Yep. They up and told me while you were gathering firewood. Nina said she had promised you to put the full hand on the table at the first opportunity. She’s done it.”

“Nina! Didn’t Madge say anything?”

“You bet your life. She was tickled to death. It’s been worrying her no end.”

“May I ask-”

“No, you mayn’t. It was square of you, Alec, to insist that I should come in on the inside track. Of course, I wasn’t born and bred in little old New York for nothing, and I had my doubts a while back. One day, too, you were within an ace of blurting out the whole yarn. I remember it well. I’m glad now you didn’t. It would have made things kind of difficult for me. But both girls are a bit shy where you’re concerned. You don’t blame ‘em, do you?”

Maseden was absolutely bewildered. Sturgess was an irresponsible, devil-may-care fellow in many respects, but these effervescent qualities cloaked a fine sensibility, and it was astounding to find him treating the matter so lightly.

“I-I hardly know what to say,” he stammered.

“Say nothing. The tangle will straighten out in time. We’re going to win through all right, so let us forget the San Juan affair till it overtakes us. You ain’t going to switch off from Nina on to Madge, I guess, so you and I won’t quarrel, and the other kinks in the chain will sort themselves if we all go easy.”

“Tell me this. What was the cause of the marriage?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?” Each word was a crescendo of astonishment.

“No. What business is it of mine, anyhow?”

“But you yourself have told me that you mean to marry Madge.”

“Sure as death.”

“Yet-”

“Sorry, Alec. I’ve promised to keep mum. Suppose we leave it at that.”

“What is there to keep mum about?”

“Hanged if I can tell you, though you yourself haven’t been what you might call bursting with information during the past month.”

“It was a woman’s secret, C. K.”

“And that’s just how I size it up at this sitting.”

Sturgess’s logic was unanswerable, but Maseden was in high dudgeon as he strode back to the camp-fire. He was far more angry with Nina than with Madge. He suspected that Madge simply followed her sister’s instructions, and the injustice of this steady refusal of confidence was aggravated by the fact that Sturgess seemed to know more about the ins and outs of the affair now than he did.

True, the New Yorker said he was still in ignorance of the motive which led up to the marriage, yet he had hinted at the possession of knowledge withheld from the man who had saved their lives not once but a dozen times. Nina was to blame. Maseden was certain of that. He would have liked to shake her.

As it happened, she was either sound asleep or pretending it, so he, too, curled up in the sand and slept till long after dawn.

The new day began with an unexpected difficulty. The Indian girl was cheerful as a grig during breakfast. She ascertained their names, which she pronounced fairly well. “Nina” she had no trouble with. “Madge” she made into “Mad-je.” Maseden was “Ah-lek,” and Sturgess “See-ke.” Her own name had a barbarous sound, if, indeed, it was a name at all; so Madge christened her “Topsy,” which seemed to please her. But her light-heartedness vanished when she saw preparations being made to renew the voyage. She protested volubly, pointed to a colony of seals and well-filled bedsof oysters, and generally implied an earnest desire to remain on the island.

Eastward, it would appear, were other “bad men” and “much smoke,” but, whatsoever her motive, Maseden sternly overruled her. She was greatly distressed when placed on board the boat, and sulked for a couple of hours. As the coast drew near, however, she evinced renewed anxiety, and signified that she would act as pilot again.

The land seemed to be a replica of seaward islands; a fast-running tidal stream passed due east between two gaunt promontories. According to Maseden’s reckoning the straits they were now entering should open into Smyth’s Channel, and he bent his wits to the task of getting Topsy to understand that he wanted to meet one of the big ships which follow that route.

He believed she understood, but there could be no doubting she was so deeply concerned as to the probable whereabouts of the inhabitants of the coast region that she gave little heed to the wishes of her rescuers.

Oblivious of the pain she must be enduring, she contrived to perch herself in the bows, and scanned each bay and