The Lady and the Pirate by Emerson Hough (best new books to read txt) 📕

least, I did not hear him....

She was sobbing now, her head on my shoulder, as we sat on the locker seat, and Partial’s head was on the cushion beside us, and he was silent and overjoyed, and tranquilly happy—seeing perhaps, that a quiet home would in the event be his, and that he was going to live happy ever after. And after I drew Helena’s head closer to my face, I kissed her hair.

“Do you love me, Helena?” I asked. “Only the truth now, in God’s name!”

“You know I do,” she said, and I felt her arms about my neck.

“Have you, always?”

“I think so, yes. It seems always.”

“We have been cruel to each other.”

“Yes, are cruel now.”

“How now?”

“You make me say I love you, and yet——”

“You will marry me—right away, soon, Helena—as I am, poor, ragged, without a cent, only myself?”

“Not here,” she smiled.

“At Edouard Manning’s, at once, as soon as we get in?”

“It is duress! I am in the power of a ruffian band! Is it fair? Are you sure I know my mind?”

“I am sure only that I know my own! Tell me, what was in that note I carried, addressed to yon varlet Davidson?”

“Sealed orders!”

“And how does that affect me, Helena. Tell me—I know you love me, and you know that all the rest is small, to that; but as to that wedding part of it, Helena—what do you say?”

She hesitated for an instant. “You want me to—come—to come with honor, as you do?”

“Yes. I’ll take any risk that means with you.”

“Will you take sealed orders, too?”

“Yes.”

“Turn on the lights.”

I reached the switch, and an instant later a dozen high candle-power bulbs flooded the suite with light. With a little cry of dismay Helena sprang away, and stood at my shaving-glass, arranging her hair. Now and then she turned her face just enough to smile at me a little, her eyes dark, languid, heavy lidded, a faint shadow of blue beneath. And now and then her breast heaved, as though it were a sea late troubled by a storm gone by.

“What will auntie say?” she sighed at last.

“What will you say?” I replied.

“Oh, brute, you shall not know! I must have some manner of revenge against a ruffian who has taken advantage of me while I was in his power!”

“Ah, heartless jade!”

“—So you shall wait until we are ashore. I will give you sealed orders——”

“When?”

“Now. And you shall open them at your friend’s house—as soon as we are all settled and straightened after leaving the boat—as soon as——”

“It looks as though it were as soon as you please, not when I please.”

“Harry, it is my revenge for the indignities you have heaped on me. Do you think a girl will submit to that meekly—to be browbeaten, abused, endangered as I have been! No, sir—sealed orders or none. I have only owned I loved you. So many girls have been mistaken about things when—when the moon, or a desert island or—or something has bewitched them. But I haven’t said I would marry you, have I, ever?”

“No. I don’t care about that so much as the other; but I care a very, very great deal about it, too. You, too, are cruel. You are a heartless jade.”

“And you have been a cruel and ruthless pirate.”

“Tell me now!”

“No.” And she evaded me, and gained the door. “I must go. Oh, it’s all a ruin now—Auntie’ll be furious. And what shall I say?”

“Give her sealed orders, and my love! And when do I get mine?”

“In five minutes.”

She was gone.... And after some moments, rapt as I was at her late presence, which still seemed to fill the room like the fragrance, like the fragrance of her hair which still lingered in my senses, I looked about, sighing for that she was gone. Then I noted that our friend Partial had gone with her. “Fie! Partial, after all, you loved her more!” I said to myself.

But in a few moments I heard a faint sound at my door. I opened. There stood Partial in the dusk, gravely wagging his tail, looking at me without moving his head. And I saw that he held daintily in his mouth a dainty note, addressed to me in the same handwriting as that on the note I had sent out from the heartless jade to yon varlet. And it was sealed, and marked with instructions for its opening.... “When You Two Varlets Meet.” No more.

“Peterson,” said I, advancing to the forward deck, where I found him smoking, “I’ve been getting up some correspondence, since we’ll be ashore by to-morrow noon——”

“—I don’t know as to that, Mr. Harry.”

“Well, I know about it. So, tell Williams that, even if he has to work all night, we must be moving as soon as it’s light enough to see. I’ve got a very important message——”

“By wireless, Mr. Harry?” chuckled the old man.

“Yes, by wireless,” (and I looked at Partial, who wagged his tail and smiled). “So I must get into Manning Island the first possible moment to-morrow. And Peterson, as we’ve had so good a run this trip, with no accident or misfortune of any kind, I don’t know but I may make it a month or two extra pay—double—for you and Williams, and even John. And as to Willy, please don’t fire him, Peterson, for his deserting the ship’s cook the other night. In fact, I’m very glad, on the whole, he did. Give him double pay for doing it, Peterson!”

“Ain’t this the wonderful age!” remarked Peterson to a star which was rising over the misty marsh. “Especial, now, that wireless!”

I only patted Partial on the head, and we smiled pleasantly and understandingly at each other. Of course, Peterson could not know what we knew.

CHAPTER XL IN WHICH LAND SHOWS IN THE OFFING

BEFORE the white sea mists had rolled away I was on deck, and had summoned a general conference of my crew.

“’Polyte,” I demanded of our pilot, “how long before your partner will be at the lighthouse, below, there?”

“’Ow long?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, maybe thees day sometam.”

“And how long before he’ll start back with the mail?”

“’Ow long?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, maybe thees same day sometam.”

“And how long will it take him to get back to some post-office with those letters?”

“’Ow long?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, maybe those nex’ day sometam.”

“And then how long to the big railroad to New Orleans?”

“’Ow long?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, maybe those nex’ day too h’also sometam, heem.”

“Then it will be three days, four days, before a letter could get from the lighthouse to New Orleans?”

“’Ow long?”

“Three or four days?”

“Oui, maybe so.”

“And how long will it take us to get in to the plantation of Monsieur Edouard, above, there?”

“’Ow long?”

“Yes.”

“H’I’ll could not said, Monsieur. Maybe three four day—’sais pas.”

“Holy Mackinaw!” I remarked, sotto voce.

“Pardon?” remarked ’Polyte respectfully. “Le Machinaw—que-est-que-ce-que-est, ca?”

“It is my patron saint, ’Polyte,” I explained, and he crossed himself for his mistake.

“Suppose those h’engine he’ll h’ron, we’ll get in four five h’our h’all right, on Monsieur Edouard, yass,” he added. “H’I’ll know those channel lak some books.”

By now Williams—who, judging by certain rappings, hammerings and clankings heard through the cabin walls back and above the engine-rooms, had been at work much of the night—had reported, and much to my pleasure had said he thought we could make it in at least to the Manning dock before further repairs would be needed. To prove which, he went down and “turned her over a time or two,” as he expressed it. Whereupon I gave orders to break out the anchor, and knowing that any Cajun market hunter and shrimp fisher like ’Polyte can travel in any mist or fog before sunup by some instinct of his own, I took a chance and began to feel our way out to the mouth of the Manning channel before the morning mists were gone; so that we were at breakfast by the time the wide and gently rippling bay broke clear below us, and by magic, we saw the oak-crowned heights of the island dead ahead.

Thence on, within the walls of the deep dredged channel, all we had to do was to go sufficiently slow and follow the curves carefully, so that the heavy waves of our boat, larger than any intended for that channel, might not too much endanger the mud walls, or threaten wreckage to the frail stagings leading to the cabins of the half-aquatic trappers and fishers who dwell here in the marshes.

So, at last, after many windings and doublings, we came in at the rear of the timbered slopes, and could see the mansion houses and the offices of the stately old plantation, where dwelt my friend, Edouard Manning, who knew nothing of my coming.

After custom, I signaled loud and often with the boat’s whistle, so that the men might come to the landing for us; and, in order that Edouard himself might be warned, I gave orders to my hardy mates to make proper nautical salute of honor.

“Cast loose the stern-chaser, Jean Lafitte,” said I: “and do you and L’Olonnois load and fire her often as you like until we land; or until you burst her.”

Gleefully they obeyed, and soon the roar of our deck gun echoed formidably along the slopes, as had no gun since the salt-seeking Union navy, in the Civil War, had pounded at the gates of Edouard’s father: and until scores of coots and rail chattered in excited chorus for answer, and long clouds of wild ducks arose and circled over the marsh. Again and again, my bold mates loaded and fired: and now, turning back by chance from my own place at the wheel, I saw that they had assumed full character, and each with a red kerchief bound about his brow, was armed with, I dare not say how many, pistols, dirks, swords and cutlasses thrust through his belt or otherwise suspended on his person.

I saw now the two ladies, their fingers in their ears, also on deck, protesting at this cannonading at their cabin door; and so I raised my hat to a very radiant and radiantly appareled Helena, for the first time that day; and heard the answer of L’Olonnois to the dour protest of Auntie Lucinda.

“We follow Black Bart the Avenger, an’ let any seek to stop us at their per-rul! Jean, run up the flag, while I load her up again.”

And Jean having once more hoisted the skull and cross-bones at our masthead, and assumed a specially savage scowl as he stood with folded arms on our bow deck, we made what a mild imagination might have called rather an impressive entry as we swept into the Manning landing.

I was not surprised to see Edouard himself there, and his wife, and some thirty odd dogs and as many blacks, waiting for us at the wharf. Nor was I surprised to see that all seemed somewhat to marvel at our manner of advent, though I knew that Edouard, through his field-glasses, had recognized both my boat and myself long before we made the last curve and came gently in to the wharf where the grinning darkies could catch our line.

What did surprise me—and perhaps for a time I may have shown surprise—was to see, in all this gay throng, two forms not usual on the Manning landing. One was the elegantly garbed and rather stunning figure of Sally Byington; and the other the robust, full-bodied, gorgeously arrayed form of my old friend, Cal Davidson! How or why they came there I could not for the moment guess.

“’Tis he—yon varlet!” I heard a stern voice hiss at my ear. “Beshrew me, but it shall go hard with him! I’m loading her up with marbles now!” But I had no more