AT TREASURE ISLAND INN

The morning rode in grandly upon the sea. Bedient was early below, and overtook Miss Mallory in the gardens. She seemed particularly virile. A pair of Senora Rey's toy-spaniels were frisking about.

"These are not my favorite kind, but I like dogs," she said.... "How men reveal their earth-binding! A laugh is enough--or a fear, a word, a convention--and you have a complete discovery of limitations."

Bedient fell into her mood. "And what manner of man would he be who could keep hidden from such very old and very wise eyes his covering of clay?"

"First, he would be without vanity," she said readily. "Then, he would do n.o.ble things thoughtlessly and unwatched. He wouldn't be dollar-poisoned, nor could he fail to help all who are poor and whipped, whether wicked or not. And he would have enough intelligence to enfold mine, so I wouldn't be constantly banging against his walls.... In a word, he would be great without knowing it. Do you think I ask a great deal?"

"Yes, but I should like him," Bedient answered.

"And now what is it?" she asked quickly. They had turned upon the main-drive, away from the trees. "I can see you have something to say."

"I shall take up lodgings for the next few days in the city below--at _Treasure Island Inn_. Senor Rey has ordered me out of _The Pleiad_."

Her face colored instantly, and yet she said, "I'm very glad to hear it. At least, you will be safe in _Treasure Island Inn_."

"I had not considered that, Miss Mallory, though I've a great respect for all that you think important.... I still intend to see Jim Framtree--and before the end of 'the four days' spoken of night before last. The fact is, I have nothing else to do. Celestino Rey may mean to start his rebellion then, so there is only to-morrow and next day. It would be next to impossible for me to meet this man with hostilities begun."

She was quite astonished at this stir of action.

"Can't you tell me anything more?" Her appeal was penetrating.

"Only that I've got to see him. It's not to do him harm," he said. "The story isn't altogether mine.... I can't help laughing at this move of Senor Rey's--and yet----"

"It hurts, doesn't it?" she urged.

"Not exactly that, but it makes me all the more determined to get to Framtree."

"I'm glad if it does hurt," she said hastily. "You look like death, but the apathy is gone. Even red rage is better than that. I think you are better. It was about your illness--that I wanted you to tell me....

Good-by."

"I hope," Bedient said suddenly, "that Rey isn't afraid of _you_--that you are clear from the impulse that made him send me downtown."

"I've been careful.... I'll help, if I can. Good-by.... Aren't 'good-bys' hideous?... But we can't be too careful.... At _Treasure Island Inn_?"

"Yes, and where--_you_ couldn't call!"

"But I shall know where you are."

Bedient returned to his rooms, and Miss Mallory resumed her walk.... An hour and a half later, Bedient walked out of the big gate of _The Pleiad_, and down to the city.... For the first time in several days, Celestino Rey breathed long. a.s.sa.s.sination was only one of the things he had feared....

Forty-eight unavailing hours pa.s.sed in _Treasure Island Inn_. This night would bring an end to the mysterious four days. Bedient was at bay before the remnant of what had been and hoped. To his own eyes, he was an abject failure now, even in these physical affairs--he who had dared to arraign New York workers in almost every aspect of their life!

The last beacon of his spirit was blown out in the storm; his mind had long since preyed upon itself, the pith gone from it, through drifting in dark dream-tides; and now he who had been trained from a boy to physical actions weakly succ.u.mbed before the old Spaniard's will and strategy. Yet he could not find it within him greatly to care.

_Treasure Island Inn_ had interested him at first, not so much through its exterior contrast to _The Pleiad_ (which was complete enough for any city to furnish), but because its wretchedness in the sense of money-lack was less than in its moral poverty. Its evils were so open and self-reviling; its pa.s.sages so angular, so suggestive of blood-drip and brooding horror; its rooms so peeled, meagre and creaking--depravity so sincere. Crime certainly had not been spared around the world to furnish its living actors for _Treasure Island Inn_. All the ragtag was there--not a l.u.s.t nor a mannerism missing.

And now that life had cast him into this place, Bedient found himself utterly unable to contend with the squalor of fact and mind; indeed, he was quite as ineffectual as he had been in the midst of the glittering deviltry of _The Pleiad_.... Abased before realities; lost to the meaning of every excellence of his life-training; shattered by psychic revolts; his brain reflecting the strange mirages and singing the vague nothings of starvation--but enumeration only dulls the picture! In every plane of his nature, he was close to the end, forty-eight hours after his arrival at the Inn of the lower city.

Certain things had become mature, irrevocable: That he was a superfluous type in this Western world of his birth; that Beth Truba had left the highway, where pa.s.s the women of earth, to enter his most intimate environs and possess him entirely; that pa.s.sing on, she had left but the stuff of death. The time had been when he would have depreciated in another man the utter weakness into which he had fallen.

Bedient unearthed a companion at _Treasure Island Inn_, one whom he did not doubt for an instant to be the chief of Rey's agents a.s.signed to watch his every movement. But even as a spy, old Monkhouse had helped him to sit tight, during that forty-eight hours. For Monkhouse talked alluringly, incessantly,--and asked only to be with the stranger--and many a time, all unknowing, he banished for the moment some devouring anguish with a tale of disruption told to a turn. The Island did not hold more loyal devotion than his for Dictator Jaffier, to hear Monkhouse tell it; and how Celestino Rey had reached his ripe years, with such hatred in the world, was by no means the least of Equatorian novelties.... Here was a desperado in the sere, shaking for the need of drink, when he first appeared to Bedient. On the final forenoon of the latter's stay at the Inn, he sat with Monkhouse in the big carriage doorway on the street-level. The old man was elaborating a winsome plan to capture the Spaniard at sea; and though Bedient mildly interposed that he wouldn't know what to do with Celestino if he had him,--the conspiracy was unfolded nevertheless:

"You're a good lad," Monkhouse communed. "I belave in you to the seeds.

C'lestin'--an' may Heaven deefin' the walls as I speak his name--has nine an' seventy ways of makin' off with you. Boy, I've known the day in these seas when he'd do it for practice. But he's old now an' tender of hear-rt. He laves it to your good sense to lave him alone. 'Tis well, you trusted no one save old Monkhouse. Adhere to it, lad, or I'll be mournin', one of these gay mornin's, with you gone--an' your name on no pa.s.senger list save--what's the name of that divil of a pilot--Charybdus?"

"Charon?"

"True for you, lad. Charon it is. What with drink an' the sinful climate, I've forgot much that many niver knew."

Monkhouse winked his red lashless lids, and meditated the while, as he pressed the juice of an orange into the third of a cup of white rum, and stirred in a handful of soggy brown sugar.

"Hark to you, boy--come closer," he whispered presently. "Nothin' that sails in these par-rts can sc.r.a.pe the paint of the _Savonarola_. At the same time, you can do nothin' by stayin' ash.o.r.e. What's the puzzle?

'Tis this, lad: you must get one of thim gasolin' launches that move like the divil and smell like the sleepin' sickness! You can get one at the Leeward Isles betchune here an' sun-down.... Listen now, come back in good time, standin' on your own deck, with old Monkhouse for a mate, and three or four clane-eyed American boys lookin' for adventures--an'

hang out at sea waitin' for the _Savonarola_. G.o.d save the day whin he comes! We'll meet him on the honest seaboard in the natural way, where he can't spring the tricks of _The Pleiad_, nor use the slather of yellow naygurs that live off the cold sweat of him----"

Hereupon Monkhouse drained his already empty cup, the sign that another sirocco was sweeping his throat. His mind wandered until it was brought: "Many a man's soul has filtered up through salt-water off these sh.o.r.es, lad, because he talked less of his memories than his troubles--but you won't betray me, boy!... My Gawd, lad, to have C'lestin' in the hold under 'me feet--as he wanst had me--but let that pa.s.s--or lyin' deeper still under the _Savonarola_ with the fishes tuggin' at his carca.s.s. Ah, 'tis deep fathims under the _Savonarola_, me lad----"

Bedient had not been listening for a moment. A _carometa_ was moving slowly toward him, down the _Calle Real,_ and he fancied the flutter of a handkerchief from its side window. It was nearly noon. The dazzle of sunlight upon the gla.s.s of the _carometa_ was in his eyes, so he could not see the face within, but a slim hand signaled again. The vehicle approached with torturing slowness until the dazzle nickered out and he hurried forward to greet Miss Mallory, whose face blanched at the sight of him.

"You look as if you would fall!" she whispered. "But I'm so glad to see you again----"

"I was just going to say it.... It's been dull--and I haven't done----"

He opened the door of the _carometa_.

"Quickly, they're watching from your house," she managed to say between commonplaces, "_pick up that crumpled letter at my foot_!... But it won't do for you to follow the suggestion in it--you're not able!"

"If there's anything to do, I'm able," he declared, tucking the paper into the hollow of his hand.

"We miss you at _The Pleiad_," she said with her usual animation. "I wish I had time for a good talk now, but I'm actually rushed to-day.

I'll see you again, though----"

Bedient sauntered back smiling, and sat down with Monkhouse for a little s.p.a.ce. The eyes he saw were large, red-rimmed and troubled; tales and conspiracies flagged miserably. Bedient chaffed him for having become incoherent, and left shortly for his own room, where he pressed out two of the thinnest possible sheets of paper, closely written on both sides, and made them his own to the least detail:

DEAR MR. BEDIENT:

I hardly know how to begin, I am so excited and have so much to say. (The letter was dated less than two hours before.) Senor Rey, the Glow-worm, the couple known as "the Sorensons," Mr.

Framtree and myself are sailing to-night on the _Savonarola_.

There will also be Chinese, probably three, two to manage the yacht and one for the cabin. I'm not quite sure, but I think we are to have supper aboard. I have been aboard the yacht. The cabin takes up a large part of the hold. There are two doors forward.

The one to the left opens into the galley, and the one to the right opens into the forecastle, where there are three berths for the crew, a few ship's stores, piles of cordage, tackle, chains, etc. The berths, of course, will not be occupied this trip, as we plan to be out only a few hours, and the sailors will be on deck.

There is a fine place for concealment in this forecastle.

(Possibly under the lower bunk; numerous bedding-rolls lying about might be pulled in after one.) The difficulty will be in getting aboard. There is but a single companion-way to the cabin. It will not be locked this afternoon early, but doubtless there will be a servant or two making ready for the sail. Provisions will be boarded this afternoon, as Senor Rey is a bountiful entertainer.

It may happen that the Chinese, in loading the provisions, will be a considerable distance off, or even up the steps to the cliff, for moments at a time. This is the random chance I think of.

The undergrowth is dense on the steep slopes which jut down to the water of the Inlet. One might conceal oneself there, and await the offered chance, not more than twenty or thirty feet from the cabin door. This is the really discouraging part of the whole preliminary, but I may be able to a.s.sist you further at the proper time. There seems absolutely no other way to arrange an interview for you with Mr. Framtree.

As for me, I have learned much at _The Pleiad_. The Spaniard's systems are infamous--a fact that has been terribly impressed upon me. I shall lose my home in _The Pleiad_, but this is the last of the mysterious "four days." It will be better and safer for me to follow the fortunes of the war after this, from the side of the Defenders.