Complete weird tales of.., p.737
Complete Weird Tales of Robert W Chambers, page 737
He mused for a while: “To think of De Soto being here — here on this very spot! — here on this ancient Causeway, amid these forests! — towering in his armour! His plated mail must have made a burning hell for his body!”
She looked down at the cool, blue water at her feet. He, too, gazed at it, curiously. For a few feet the depths were visible, then a translucent gloom, glimmering with emerald lights, obscured further penetration of his vision. Deep down in that water was what they sought — if it truly existed at all.
After a few moments’ silence he rose, drew the hunting-knife at his belt, severed a tall, swamp-maple sapling, trimmed it, and, returning to the water’s edge, deliberately sounded the channel. He could not touch bottom there, or even at the base of the Causeway.
“Miss Sandys,” he said, “there is plenty of room for such a structure as the Maltese cross is supposed to mark.”
“I wonder,” she murmured.
“Oh, there’s room enough,” he repeated, with an uneasy laugh. “Suppose we begin operations!”
“When?”
“Now!”
She looked up at him, flushed and smiling:
“It is going to take weeks and weeks, isn’t it?”
“I thought so before I came down here. But — I don’t see why we shouldn’t blow a hole through this Causeway in a few minutes.”
“What!”
She rose to her feet, slightly excited, not understanding.
“I could set off enough dynamite right here,” he said, stamping his heel into the white dust, “ — enough dynamite to open up that channel into the Coakachee. Why don’t I do it?”
Pink with excitement she said breathlessly: “Did you bring dynamite?”
“Didn’t you?”
“I — I never even thought of it. F-fire crackers frighten me. I thought it would be all I could do to fire off my shot-gun.” And she bit her lip with vexation.
“Why,” he said, “it would take a gang of men a week to cut through this Causeway, besides building a coffer-dam.” He looked at her curiously. “How did you expect to begin operations all alone?”
“I — I expected to dig.”
He looked at her delicate little hands:
“You meant to dig your way through with pick and shovel?”
“Yes — if it took a year.”
“And how did you expect to construct your coffer-dam?”
“I didn’t know about a coffer-dam,” she admitted, blushing. After a moment she lifted her pretty, distressed eyes to his: “I — I had no knowledge — only courage,” she said.... “And I needed money.”
A responsive flush of sympathy and pity passed over him; she was so plucky, so adorably helpless. Even now he knew she was unconscious of the peril into which her confidence and folly had led her — a peril averted only by the mere accident of his own arrival.
He said lightly: “Shall we try to solve this thing now? Shall we take a chance, set our charges, and blow a hole in this Causeway big enough to drain that water off in an hour?”
“Could you do that?” she exclaimed, delighted.
“I think so.”
“Then tell me what to do to help you.”
He turned toward her, hesitated, controlling the impulsive reply.
“To help me,” he said, smilingly, “please keep away from the dynamite.”
“Oh, I will,” she nodded seriously. “What else am I to do?”
“Would you mind preparing dinner?”
She looked up at him a little shyly: “No.... And I am very glad that I am not to dine alone.”
“So am I,” he said. “And I am very glad that it is with you I am to dine.”
“You never even looked at me in the galleries,” she said.
“Then — how could I know you were reading Valdez if I never looked at you?”
“Oh, you may have looked at the book I was reading.”
“I did,” he said, “ — and at the hands that held it.”
“Never dreaming that they meant to wield a pick-axe,” she laughed, “and encompass your discomfiture. But after all they did neither the one nor the other; did they?”
He looked at the smooth little hands cupped in the shallow pockets of her white flannel Norfolk. They fascinated him.
“To think,” he said, half to himself, “ — to think of those hands wielding a pick-axe!”
She smiled, head slightly on one side, and bent, contemplating her right hand.
“You know,” she said, “I certainly would have done it.”
“You would have been crippled in an hour.”
Her head went up, but she was still smiling as she said: “I’d have gone through with it — somehow.”
“Yes,” he said slowly. “I believe you would.”
“Not,” she added, blushing, “that I mean to vaunt myself or my courage — —”
“No: I understand. You are not that kind.... It’s rather extraordinary how well I — I think I know you already.”
“Perhaps you do know me — already.”
“I really believe I do.”
“It’s very likely. I am just what I seem to be. There is no mystery about me. I am what I appear to be.”
“You are also very direct.”
“Yes. It’s my nature to be direct. I am not a bit politic or diplomatic or circuitous.”
“So I noticed,” he said smilingly, “when you discussed finance with me. You were not a bit politic.”
She smiled, too, a little embarrassed: “How could I be anything but frank in return for your very unworldly generosity?” she said. “Because what you offered was unworldly. Anyway, I should have been direct with you; I knew what I wanted; I knew what you wanted. All I had to do was to make up my mind. And I did so.”
“Did you make up your mind about me, also?”
“Yes, about you, also.”
They both smiled.
She was so straight and slender and pretty in her white flannels and white outing hat — her attitude so confident, so charmingly determined, that she seemed to him even younger than she really was — a delightful, illogical, fresh and fearless school-girl, translated by some flash of magic from her school hither, and set down unruffled and unstartled upon her light, white-shod feet.
Even now it amazed him to realise that she really understood nothing of the lonely perils lately confronting her in this desolate place.
For if there were nothing actually to fear from the wild beasts of the region, that which the beasts themselves feared might have confronted her at any moment. He shuddered as he thought of it.
And what would she have done if suddenly clutched by fever? What would she have done if a white-mouthed moccasin had struck her ankle — or if it had been the diamond-set Death himself?
“You don’t mind my speaking plainly, do you?” he said bluntly.
“Why, no, of course not.” She looked at him inquiringly.
“Don’t stray far away from me, will you?”
“What?”
“Don’t wander away by yourself, out of sight, while we are engaged in this business.”
She looked serious and perplexed for a moment, then turned a delicate pink and began to laugh in a pretty, embarrassed way.
“Are you afraid I’ll get into mischief? Do you know it is very kind of you to feel that way?... And rather unexpected — in a man who — sat for three days across the aisle from me — and never even looked in my direction. Tell me, what am I to be afraid of in this place?”
“There are snakes about,” he said with emphasis.
“Oh, yes; I’ve seen some swimming.”
“There are four poisonous species among them,” he continued. “That’s one of the reasons for your keeping near me.”
She nodded, a trifle awed.
“So you will, won’t you?”
“Yes,” she said, taking his words so literally that, when they turned to walk toward the tents, she came up close beside him, naïvely as a child, and laid one hand on his sleeve as they started back across the Causeway.
“Suppose either one of us is bitten?” she asked after a silence.
“I have lancets, tourniquets, and anti-venom in my tent.”
Her smooth hand tightened a little on his arm. She had not realised that the danger was more than a vague possibility.
“You have spring water, of course,” he said.
“No.... I boiled a little from the swamp before I drank it.”
He turned to her sternly and drew her arm through his with an unconscious movement of protection.
“Are you sure that water was properly boiled — thoroughly boiled?” he demanded.
“It bubbled.”
“Listen to me! Hereafter when you are thirsty you will use my spring water. Is that understood?”
“Yes.... And thank you.”
“You don’t want to get break-bone fever, do you?”
“No-o!” she said hastily. “I will do everything you wish.”
“I’ll hang your hammock for you,” he said. “Always look in your shoes for scorpions and spiders before you put them on. Never step over a fallen log before you first look on the other side. Rattlers lie there. Never go near a swamp without looking for moccasins.
“Don’t let the direct sunlight fall on your bare head; don’t eat fruit for a week; don’t ever go to sleep unless you have a blanket on. You won’t do any of these things, will you?” he inquired anxiously, almost tenderly.
“I promise. And I never dreamed that there was anything to apprehend except alligators!” she said, tightening her arm around his own.
“Alligators won’t bother you — unless you run across a big one in the woods. Then keep clear of him.”
“I will!” she said earnestly.
“And don’t sit about on old logs or lean against trees.”
“Why? Lizards?”
“Oh, they’re not harmful. But wood-ticks might give you a miserable week or two.”
“Oh, dear, oh, dear,” she murmured, “I am so glad you came here!” And quite innocently she pressed his arm. She did it because she was grateful. She had a very direct way with her.
* * *
XXX
WHEN THEY CAME to their tents he went into hers, slung her hammock properly, shook a scorpion out of her slippers, and set his heel on it; drove a non-poisonous but noisy puff-adder from under her foot-rug, the creature hissing like a boiling kettle and distending its grey and black neck.
Terrified but outwardly calm, she stood beside him, now clutching his arm very closely; and at last her tent was in order, the last spider and lizard hustled out, the oil cook-stove burning, the tinned goods ready, the aluminum batterie-de-cuisine ranged at her elbow.
“I wonder,” he said, hesitating, “whether I dare leave you long enough to go and dig some holes with a crow-bar.”
“Why, of course!” she said. “You can’t have me tagging at your heels every minute, you know.”
He laughed: “It’s I who do the tagging.”
“It isn’t disagreeable,” she said shyly.
“I don’t mean to dog every step you take,” he continued, “but now, when you are out of my sight, I — I can’t help feeling a trifle anxious.”
“But you mustn’t feel responsible for me. I came down here on my own initiative. I certainly deserve whatever happens to me. Don’t I?”
“What comfort would that be to me if anything unpleasant did happen to you?”
“Why,” she asked frankly, “should you feel as responsible for my welfare as that? After all, I am only a stranger, you know.”
He said: “Do you really feel like a stranger? Do you really feel that I am one?”
She considered the proposition for a few moments.
“No,” she said, “I don’t. And perhaps it is natural for us to take a friendly interest in each other.”
“It comes perfectly natural to me to take a v-very v-vivid interest in you,” he said. “What with snakes and scorpions and wood-ticks and unboiled water and the actinic rays of the sun, I can’t very well help worrying about you. After all,” he added lucidly, “you’re a girl, you know.”
She admitted the accusation with a smile so sweet that there could be no doubt of her sex.
“However,” she said, “you should entertain no apprehensions concerning me. I have none concerning you. I think you know your business.”
“Of course,” he said, going into his tent and returning loaded with crow-bar, pick-axe, dynamite, battery, and wires.
She laid aside the aluminum cooking-utensils with which she had been fussing and rose from her knees as he passed her with a pleasant nod of au revoir.
“You’ll be careful with that dynamite, won’t you?” she said anxiously. “You know it goes off at all sorts of unexpected moments.”
“I think I understand how to handle it,” he reassured her.
“Are you quite certain?”
“Oh, yes. But perhaps you’d better not come any nearer — —”
“Mr. White!”
“What!”
“It is dangerous! I don’t like to have you go away alone with that dynamite. You make me very anxious.”
“You needn’t be. If — in the very remote event of anything going wrong — now don’t forget what I say! — but in case of an accident to me, you’ll be all right if you start back to Verbena at once — instantly — and take the right-hand road — —”
“Mr. White!”
“Yes?”
“I was not thinking of myself! I was concerned about you!”
“Me? — personally?”
“Of course! You say you have me on your mind. Do you think I am devoid of human feeling?”
“Were you — really — thinking about me?” he repeated slowly. “That was very nice of you.... I didn’t quite understand.... I’ll be careful with the dynamite.”
“Perhaps I’d better go with you,” she suggested irresolutely.
“Why?”
“I could hold a green umbrella over you while you are digging holes. You yourself say that the sun is dangerous.”
“My sun-helmet makes it all right,” he said, deeply touched.
“You won’t take it off, will you?”
“No.”
“And you’ll look all around you for snakes before you take the next step, won’t you?” she insisted.
He promised, thrilled by her frank solicitude.
A little way up the path he paused, looked around, and saw her standing there looking after him.
“You’re sure you’ll be all right?” he called back to her.
“Yes. Are you sure you will be?”
“Oh, yes!”
They made two quick gestures of adieu, and he resumed the path. Presently he turned again. She was still standing there looking after him. They made two gestures of farewell and he resumed the path. After a while he looked back. She — but what’s the use!
When he came to the spot marked for destruction, he laid down his paraphernalia, seized the crow-bar, and began to dig, scarcely conscious of what he was about because he had become so deeply absorbed in other things — in an-other thing — a human one with red hair and otherwise divinely endowed.
The swift onset of this heavenly emotion was making him giddy — or perhaps it was unaccustomed manual labor under a semi-tropical sun.
Anyway he went about his work blindly but vigorously, seeing nothing of the surrounding landscape or of the immediate ground into which he rammed his crow-bar, so constantly did the charming vision of her piquant features shut out all else.
And all the time he was worrying, too. He thought of snakes biting her distractingly pretty ankles; he thought of wood-ticks and of her snowy neck; of scorpions and of the delicate little hands.
How on earth was he ever going to endure the strain if already, in these few hours, his anxiety about her welfare was assuming such deep and portentous proportions! How was he going to stand the worry until she was safe in the snakeless, tickless North again!
She couldn’t remain here! She must go North. His mind seemed already tottering under its new and constantly increasing load of responsibility; and he dug away fiercely with his bar, making twice as many holes as he had meant to.
For he had suddenly determined to be done with the job and get her into some safe place, and he meant to set off a charge of dynamite that would do the business without fail.
Charging and tamping the holes, he used caution, even in spite of his increasing impatience to return and see how she was; arguing very justly with himself that if he blew himself up he couldn’t very well learn how she was.
So he attached the wires very carefully, made his connections, picked up the big reel and the remainder of his tools, and walked toward the distant tents, unreeling his wire as he moved along.
She was making soup, but she heard the jangle of his equipment, sprang to her feet, and ran out to meet him.
He let fall everything and held out both hands. In them she laid her own.
“I’m so glad to see you!” he said warmly. “I’m so thankful that you’re all right!”
“I’m so glad you came back,” she said frankly. “I have been most uneasy about you.”
“I’ve been very anxious, too,” he said. Then, drawing an unfeigned sigh of relief: “It does seem good to get back again!” He had been away nearly half an hour.
She examined the wire and the battery gingerly, asking him innumerable questions about it.
“Do you suppose,” she ended, “that it will be safe for you to set off the charge from this camp?”
“Oh, perfectly,” he nodded.
“Of course,” she said, half to herself, “we’ll both be blown up if it isn’t safe. And that is something!”
And she came up very close when he said he was ready to fire, and laid her hand on his arm. The hand was steady enough. But when he glanced at her he saw how white she had become.
“Why, Jean!” he said gently. “Are you frightened?”
“No.... I won’t mind it if I may stand rather near you.” And she closed her eyes and placed both hands over her ears.
“Do you think I’d fire this charge,” he demanded warmly, “if there was the slightest possible danger to you? Take down your hands and listen.”
