He was of an appearance above the average, and handsome still in spite of fifty-odd years of toil and exposure. He rose at Garnet's approach, and, without waiting to be addressed, spoke with an air of genial familiarity.

"I don't usually go a-firin' for trout this late o' night, but the truth is that between the h.e.l.l-fired skeeters and the gals havin' beaux there wasn't much for me to enjoy at home. My name's Goodwin," he added by way of introduction. "They call me Squire all around these parts. I'm the justice o' the peace. So be you're after a warrant?"

The last word affected Garnet very unpleasantly, and he shook his head with such grim emphasis that the Squire perceived he had been mistaken as to the stranger's purpose.

"No?" he remarked. "Well, then, maybe it's fair for me to make another guess." A twinkle shone now in his clear eyes. "Judging from the face that the moon just lighted up there in the bow of your snapper, I don't believe I'd be far wrong in judging ye two to be worldly folks that think a squire's good as a parson. What mout you're name be, stranger?"

At this blunt demand, Garnet again showed traces of embarra.s.sment, but these endured only for an instant. He realized that in this place so remote from the ordinary lanes of travel there could be little danger in divulging his ident.i.ty. So he spoke with brisk confidence.

"My name, sir, is Gifford Garnet, I am a physician. The young lady lying in the launch yonder is my patient. We were so unfortunate as to be wrecked while on a yacht cruising in the waters to the south of here. We are now on our way northward, bound for one of the larger towns, where we shall be able to get transportation home. The young lady is suffering from an injured ankle, and, too, she has been for some time unconscious from a blow on the head received while we were escaping from the yacht.

It is only within the last hour that she has seemed to be again quite normal. We were obliged to lay to in the lower section of the Sound for several hours, waiting for the weather to moderate. Otherwise we would not have been obliged to put in here and beg you for food and lodging.

If you can take care of us over night I shall be only too glad to pay you for your hospitality."

"Pay me for my hospitality!" the Squire exclaimed indignantly. "That's something in my locality that's never been for sale, and can't be bought. You-all must be from the North. I've heard folks from the outside say that folks up there pay for everything, even for a place to hang their hats in public houses. Folks that pay for everything they get lose all love for each other." His tone changed abruptly, and he spoke authoritatively. "Get that young woman out o' the boat and after I make another dip, I'll take ye up and show ye one shack where hospitality ain't for sale. And when you go please remember that you don't leave under any obligation to Squire Goodwin. I will say though, if ye ever catch me in you-all's fix, and ye he'p me out, then I won't offer to pay you for your hospitality. I just don't believe in it!"

The Squire skipped back to his firelight, and the Doctor watched him toss four flopping, wriggling beauties upon the wharf. As the fish fell from the net, the Squire shouted triumphantly:

"Say, Doctor, there's a mornin' meal you-all can't pay for!"

The task of getting Ethel Marion from the boat to the sh.o.r.e was not as difficult as Garnet had antic.i.p.ated. She was buoyed up wonderfully by the thought that comfortable quarters awaited her and good clean food to satisfy an appet.i.te that was fast becoming ravenous. Had it not been for the injured ankle, she could have walked as rapidly as either of the men from the landing stage to the house. But when she rested her full weight on it, she found that it was still painful, so that it was necessary for the Doctor to support her on one side while the Squire gallantly gave his aid on the other.

As they reached the porch, there was a stealthy sound of scurrying and the pattering of bare feet, as the young-men callers slipped away in the darkness to their homes. Then the two young women hastened forward to greet the strangers in true Core Sound style. "Ma" was in bed, they explained, but they themselves, with easy, unaffected kindness proceeded to make the invalid at home. Then one of them hurried into the cook-room to prepare a quick meal.

Ethel Marion, a girl of high society in New York City, and reared in luxury, had hitherto known little of humble homes such as this in which now she was being cared for so generously. As she glanced about her, she saw that the walls were not covered with a paper especially prepared for the purpose, in the manner to which she had been accustomed. Instead, they carried sheets of ordinary newspapers, most of them of a religious character. It was a quaint and indisputable witness to the fact that here she was in the home of a G.o.d-loving, Christian family. All of the furnishings were simple; most of them of great age. Among them were antiques to warm a collector's heart. It was plain that these had been handed down through many generations. Those of later origin were carefully wrought duplicates of the choicest models. In her astonishment amid surroundings so strange and yet so pleasant, with the savor of cooking food in her nostrils, Ethel for the moment almost forgot the mystery and the peril through which she had pa.s.sed--almost forgot, for a fleeting instant, the lover she had summoned to her aid by a message cast into the sea.

CHAPTER XIV

GARNET THE HERO

The dwellers of the Sound Country are early risers. For this reason, Ethel Marion was up and dressed next morning earlier than ever before in her life. The dawn was just breaking when breakfast was announced. One of the buxom girls came to offer her services in dressing the invalid stranger. Then she was a.s.sisted to the porch for a breath of the early morning air, and she exclaimed in delight over the splendid view there unfolded. Far off to the eastward the sun was just climbing up from behind a sand dune on the Banks. For miles up and down the coast the broken sand hills ran in a line north and south, trending the horizon.

These showed free from any vegetation except the scrub growth at their base and the sand of them shone under the rays of the rising sun like molten silver. In the foreground were the blue waters of the Sound now dimpling under the caressing touches of a gentle breeze. Here and there showed high lights from the whitecaps that stood out as souvenirs still of the storm that had pa.s.sed. Off to the right of the small bay upon which the house was built, a tangled ma.s.s of evergreen shrubs offered a vivid note in the color scheme. These were the undergrowth of the huge forest trees, of which the limbs were almost hidden by the clinging wreaths of mistletoe.

The esthetic sense of Ethel was touched to the deeps by this vista of beauty round-about. No wonder that the dwellers in this blessed region lived contented in youth, maturity, and old age. She wondered, rather, that anyone could be cross or ill tempered or evil in any way within the environment of a nature so benign.

She was reluctant when Miss Goodwin gently led her away from the panorama of beauty toward the more sordid pleasure of the breakfast table. As she went, Ethel offered a silent and most devout prayer of grat.i.tude for her preservation and for the kindness she had received from Doctor Garnet and these strangers, whom just now she was very near to loving.

Had it not been for the wish to appease the anxiety of friends at home, Ethel would have been content to remain long in this wonder spot, among a people so simple, so different from those to whom she had been accustomed, who were so little acquainted with the manners and the fashions of a so-called higher society. But, breakfast over, she was the first to suggest that it were best to leave this remote settlement, with all its charms of scenery and the compelling attractiveness of its homely goodness. The nerve-racked Garnet also was anxious to depart. He had rested comparatively well after the excitement and strain of the previous day, and now to an eye not too critical he would have seemed quite normal. Yet, a certain wildness in the expression of his eyes had not wholly disappeared. Now that Ethel was herself again, she perceived that there was something radically wrong with the man. Naturally enough, she attributed this condition on his part to the worry over her welfare, and she even experienced a feeling almost like remorse that she should thus unwittingly have been the cause of suffering on his part.

The Goodwins urged them to remain for a longer rest, but they abandoned their hospitable efforts when Ethel pointed out the necessity of at once relieving the anxiety of her friends concerning her safety. They provided, however, an ample amount of food to be carried by the voyagers, which would suffice them until they reached a town on the coast to the northward, and the entire family went down to the wharf to wish them G.o.d-speed.

As the party approached the landing, the attention of all was called to Shrimp, who hitherto had been neglected. He came walking proudly along the beach toward them from the pier. When the physician explained that the rooster was a pet, the Squire hurried back to the house and returned quickly with a small package of corn. A moment later, the launch was again in motion, while those on sh.o.r.e waved their adieux with handkerchiefs, to which Ethel replied in kind.

Ethel was eager in her praise for every member of the family that had shown them such kindness and hospitality.

"Oh, Doctor," she exclaimed, "just as soon as the new yacht is built, the very first cruise shall be a visit to this beautiful spot. Father must know these plain people who have been such life-savers to us. You, too, Doctor Garnet, shall be one of the party. We'll see if we can't devise some scheme by which to repay them for what they've done."

The physician made no reply. He seemed indeed to be wholly absorbed in meditation. But he aroused with a start from his reverie at the girl's next question.

"Doctor, you know a woman's inquisitiveness! Last night you bade me be patient, and said that after a while you would tell me the whole story of this unfortunate affair. Now, I simply must ask you just one question. Will you answer it?"

"I'll try, Miss Marion," was the answer, given with an air as nonchalant as he could a.s.sume.

"Where are the villains who took part in this affair? Did they go down with _The Isabel_, or did they escape, and are they still at large?"

Garnet looked the girl straight in the eye as he replied in a tone of the utmost sincerity.

"The arch-conspirator escaped. He is probably being hunted by the best detectives in the country. He is sure to be captured eventually, dead or alive."

"Thank you, Doctor," Ethel said gratefully. "And in proof of my thanks, I won't trouble you any more on this subject, which seems to worry and annoy you. Of course, I don't know what dreadful things you were obliged to go through with in order to save yourself and me from harm. Really, I'm not surprised that you don't wish to talk about it. But I do hope they catch the guilty man and punish him as he deserves--hang him, perhaps."

The physician winced at the innocent remark, and vouchsafed no reply.

The launch sped on and on. The wind increased in some degree during mid-forenoon, as is usual in southern waters at this season of the year.

But the little craft was staunchly built, and by taking advantage of the headlands she made fairly good progress.

Garnet was beginning to suffer again from lack of the drug. Ethel had not as yet seen him use the hypodermic needle, nor did he care to have her. But by rapid stages his desire reached such a point that he must either have the relief of morphia or go mad. Then his cunning brain suggested that it would be easy enough to deceive this guileless girl.

So he boldly told her that he was in a highly nervous state and suffering as well from a splitting headache, and that, therefore, he deemed it advisable to take a small injection of morphia, which would undoubtedly relieve him.

Ethel had not the faintest idea that this learned man, of such eminence in his profession, was, in fact, a drug fiend. She had no suspicion of the truth even when she saw the point of the hypodermic syringe penetrate the skin of his forearm. She merely admired the graceful, deft movements of the long and slender fingers.

Nevertheless, the girl could hardly fail to note the change that came almost immediately over the man. Now he became again his usual self, with little, if any, trace of nervousness, with the manner that was affable and sympathetic.

It was a half hour later when Ethel, ever alert, noticed a fisherman's boat laboring clumsily down the Sound. In years agone, it had been equipped with a sail, but now it chugged away industriously under the energy of a wheezing gasoline engine. There were several persons aboard--three men, two women and a baby in arms. During her first glance at the ungainly-looking boat, the beat of the engine ceased, and it was evident from the actions of the man who busied himself with the machinery that the motor had balked. As the launch drew nearer, the girl saw that those in the broken-down craft were in a state of consternation, with their attention centered on the child. She cried out in wonder to the Doctor.

"What in the world can be the matter in that boat? It must have something to do with the baby."

Garnet answered without hesitation.

"Yes, Miss Ethel, I've been watching, and there is certainly something seriously wrong. I'll go close enough to hail them."

The men in the fishing boat began to wave their hats as distress signals, and the Doctor nodded and raised his hand as a signal that he was coming.

When the launch came within hailing distance, one of the men shouted out an explanation. The propeller had become entangled in a piece of floating net, and so rendered useless. The party came from the Tournequin Bay section, where an epidemic of diphtheria was raging. This baby had not improved under the "granny" treatment of the neighborhood, in which there were no doctors. In consequence, it was now being taken to Beaufort to receive the ant.i.toxin--that new remedy for which such miracles were claimed. Even as the man was speaking, the baby was seized with a fit of strangling that brought it almost to the point of death.

Came a transformation scene. Here was no longer Garnet, the crazed drug fiend. In his stead was revealed the man and the physician--he who in times of distress and suffering had always given his services to the best of his ability. In this moment the old instinct rose dominant. He called to them in a loud clear voice.

"I am a physician. If you will permit me I'll come aboard and try to give temporary relief. Something must be done promptly, or the child will die."

In order to save Ethel as far as possible from any danger of contagion, Garnet brought the launch alongside the stern of the fishing boat, since the baby was in the bow. As he stepped aboard the other craft he bade one of the men let the launch drop back astern to full length of the painter. While this was being done, the physician, medicine case in hand, hurried to the child that lay struggling spasmodically in its mother's arms. An instant of examination showed to Garnet's practiced eyes that the throat was almost completely filled with the membrane characteristic of the disease, and that it must be only a matter of minutes before suffocation would ensue unless effective measures for relief were taken. A glance to the sh.o.r.e two miles away told him that the delay in reaching it would prove fatal to his patient's chances. It was evident that if the baby's life were to be saved he must act--and act now. Nor did he hesitate. With lightning-like rapidity he took out his emergency kit of surgeons' tools. He bade the most intelligent-appearing of the men hold the child according to his precise directions. Then, with his coat off and shirt sleeves rolled up, Doctor Garnet braced himself in the tossing boat and performed the operation of tracheotomy, while the mother crouched weeping and praying with her face hidden in her hands.

Presently, the sufferer grew quiet, for now it was able to breathe again. Thanks to the great skill of this man, once again a life had been saved.

The parents of the child were profuse in the expressions of heartfelt grat.i.tude. They would have given what little money they had to this savior of their child. But Garnet, of course, would take no fee for his services. He diverted the chorus of thanks by offering to take in tow the disabled fishing boat and bring it to the sh.o.r.e, whence means could be secured for their going on to Beaufort. He insisted that in spite of what he had done, the baby should be taken to the town, in order to receive treatment with the ant.i.toxin.

Throughout all the scene, Ethel had watched the physician with eyes in which shone pride and affection. It seemed to her that this man was one who fought always to relieve distress according to the best measure of his strength.