When did she risk her life for you

'YOUR darling!' said Stephen, with a sort of laugh. 'Any man can say that, I suppose; any man can. I know this, she was MY darling before she was yours; and after too. If anybody has a right to call her his own, it is I.' 'You talk like a man in the dark; which is what you are. Did she ever do anything for you? Risk her name, for instance, for you?' Yes, she did,' said Stephen emphatically. 'Not entirely. Did she ever live for you--prove she could not live without you--laugh and weep for you?' 'Yes.' 'Never! Did she ever risk her life for you--no! My darling did for me.' 'Then it was in kindness only. When did she risk her life for you?' 'To save mine on the cliff yonder. The poor child was with me looking at the approach of the Puffin steamboat, and I slipped down. We both had a narrow escape. I wish we had died there!' 'Ah, but wait,' Stephen pleaded with wet eyes. 'She went on that cliff to see me arrive home: she had promised it. She told me she would months before. And would she have gone there if she had not cared for me at all?' 'You have an idea that Elfride died for you, no doubt,' said Knight, with a mournful sarcasm too nerveless to support itself. 'Never mind. If we find that--that she died yours, I'll say no more ever.' 'And if we find she died yours, I'll say no more.' 'Very well--so it shall be.' The dark clouds into which the sun had sunk had begun to drop rain in an increasing volume. 'Can we wait somewhere here till this shower is over?' said Stephen desultorily. 'As you will. But it is not worth while. We'll hear the particulars, and return. Don't let people know who we are. I am not much now.' They had reached a point at which the road branched into two--just outside the west village, one fork of the diverging routes passing into the latter place, the other stretching on to East Endelstow. Having come some of the distance by the footpath, they now found that the hearse was only a little in advance of them.

in a voice so hollow that the man

Presently they began to come out, two and two; and under the rays of the lamp they were seen to bear between them a light-coloured coffin of satin-wood, brightly polished, and without a nail. The eight men took the burden upon their shoulders, and slowly crossed with it over to the gate. Knight and Stephen went outside, and came close to the procession as it moved off. A carriage belonging to the cortege turned round close to a lamp. The rays shone in upon the face of the vicar of Endelstow, Mr. Swancourt--looking many years older than when they had last seen him. Knight and Stephen involuntarily drew back. Knight spoke to a bystander. 'What has Mr. Swancourt to do with that funeral?' 'He is the lady's father,' said the bystander. 'What lady's father?' said Knight, in a voice so hollow that the man stared at him. 'The father of the lady in the coffin. She died in London, you know, and has been brought here by this train. She is to be taken home to-night, and buried to-morrow.' Knight stood staring blindly at where the hearse had been; as if he saw it, or some one, there. Then he turned, and beheld the lithe form of Stephen bowed down like that of an old man. He took his young friend's arm, and led him away from the light. Chapter 40 'Welcome, proud lady.' Half an hour has passed. Two miserable men are wandering in the darkness up the miles of road from Camelton to Endelstow. 'Has she broken her heart?' said Henry Knight. 'Can it be that I have killed her? I was bitter with her, Stephen, and she has died! And may God have NO mercy upon me!' 'How can you have killed her more than I?' 'Why, I went away from her--stole away almost--and didn't tell her I should not come again; and at that last meeting I did not kiss her once, but let her miserably go. I have been a fool--a fool! I wish the most abject confession of it before crowds of my countrymen could in any way make amends to my darling for the intense cruelty I have shown her!'

the house as an old friend any more than you can

He turned and said to her, "I thought you were in the vault below us; but that could have only been a dream of mine. Come on." Then she came on. And in brushing between us she chilled me so with cold that I exclaimed, "The life is gone out of me!" and, in the way of dreams, I awoke. But here we are at Camelton.' They were slowly entering the station. 'What are you going to do?' said Knight. 'Do you really intend to call on the Swancourts?' 'By no means. I am going to make inquiries first. I shall stay at the Luxellian Arms to-night. You will go right on to Endelstow, I suppose, at once?' 'I can hardly do that at this time of the day. Perhaps you are not aware that the family--her father, at any rate--is at variance with me as much as with you. 'I didn't know it.' 'And that I cannot rush into the house as an old friend any more than you can. Certainly I have the privileges of a distant relationship, whatever they may be.' Knight let down the window, and looked ahead. 'There are a great many people at the station,' he said. 'They seem all to be on the look-out for us.' When the train stopped, the half-estranged friends could perceive by the lamplight that the assemblage of idlers enclosed as a kernel a group of men in black cloaks. A side gate in the platform railing was open, and outside this stood a dark vehicle, which they could not at first characterize. Then Knight saw on its upper part forms against the sky like cedars by night, and knew the vehicle to be a hearse. Few people were at the carriage doors to meet the passengers --the majority had congregated at this upper end. Knight and Stephen alighted, and turned for a moment in the same direction. The sombre van, which had accompanied them all day from London, now began to reveal that their destination was also its own. It had been drawn up exactly opposite the open gate. The bystanders all fell back, forming a clear lane from the gateway to the van, and the men in cloaks entered the latter conveyance. 'They are labourers, I fancy,' said Stephen. 'Ah, it is strange; but I recognize three of them as Endelstow men. Rather remarkable this.'

all nature wearing the cloak that

Stephen's naturally gentle nature was touched, and it was in a troubled voice that he said, 'Yes, yes. I am unjust in that--I own it.' 'This is St. Launce's Station, I think. Are you going to get out?' Knight's manner of returning to the matter in hand drew Stephen again into himself. 'No; I told you I was going to Endelstow,' he resolutely replied. Knight's features became impassive, and he said no more. The train continued rattling on, and Stephen leant back in his corner and closed his eyes. The yellows of evening had turned to browns, the dusky shades thickened, and a flying cloud of dust occasionally stroked the window--borne upon a chilling breeze which blew from the north-east. The previously gilded but now dreary hills began to lose their daylight aspects of rotundity, and to become black discs vandyked against the sky, all nature wearing the cloak that six o'clock casts over the landscape at this time of the year. Stephen started up in bewilderment after a long stillness, and it was some time before he recollected himself. 'Well, how real, how real!' he exclaimed, brushing his hand across his eyes. 'What is?' said Knight. 'That dream. I fell asleep for a few minutes, and have had a dream--the most vivid I ever remember.' He wearily looked out into the gloom. They were now drawing near to Camelton. The lighting of the lamps was perceptible through the veil of evening--each flame starting into existence at intervals, and blinking weakly against the gusts of wind. 'What did you dream?' said Knight moodily. 'Oh, nothing to be told. 'Twas a sort of incubus. There is never anything in dreams.' 'I hardly supposed there was.' 'I know that. However, what I so vividly dreamt was this, since you would like to hear. It was the brightest of bright mornings at East Endelstow Church, and you and I stood by the font. Far away in the chancel Lord Luxellian was standing alone, cold and impassive, and utterly unlike his usual self: but I knew it was he. Inside the altar rail stood a strange clergyman with his book open. He looked up and said to Lord Luxellian, "Where's the bride?" Lord Luxellian said, "There's no bride." At that moment somebody came in at the door, and I knew her to be Lady Luxellian who died.

together for the remaining distance

Smith then perceived that to their train was attached that same carriage of grand and dark aspect which had haunted them all the way from London. 'You are going on, I suppose?' said Knight, turning to Stephen, after idly looking at the same object. 'Yes.' 'We may as well travel together for the remaining distance, may we not?' 'Certainly we will;' and they both entered the same door. Evening drew on apace. It chanced to be the eve of St. Valentine's--that bishop of blessed memory to youthful lovers--and the sun shone low under the rim of a thick hard cloud, decorating the eminences of the landscape with crowns of orange fire. As the train changed its direction on a curve, the same rays stretched in through the window, and coaxed open Knight's half-closed eyes. 'You will get out at St. Launce's, I suppose?' he murmured. 'No,' said Stephen, 'I am not expected till to-morrow.' Knight was silent. 'And you--are you going to Endelstow?' said the younger man pointedly. 'Since you ask, I can do no less than say I am, Stephen,' continued Knight slowly, and with more resolution of manner than he had shown all the day. 'I am going to Endelstow to see if Elfride Swancourt is still free; and if so, to ask her to be my wife.' 'So am I,' said Stephen Smith. 'I think you'll lose your labour,' Knight returned with decision. 'Naturally you do.' There was a strong accent of bitterness in Stephen's voice. 'You might have said HOPE instead of THINK,' he added. 'I might have done no such thing. I gave you my opinion. Elfride Swancourt may have loved you once, no doubt, but it was when she was so young that she hardly knew her own mind.'

Rose darted down the steps before astonished

   "I'm not afraid. Girls are not good for much generally, but you never used to mind a little wet and played cricket like a good one. Can't you ever do that sort of thing now?" asked the boy, with a pitying look at these hapless creatures debarred from the joys and perils of manly sports.    "I can run still and I'll get to the gate before you, see if I don't." And, yielding to the impulse of the moment, Rose darted down the steps before astonished Jamie could mount and follow.    He was off in a moment, but Rose had the start, and though old Sheltie did his best, she reached the goal just ahead, and stood there laughing and panting, all rosy with fresh October air, a pretty picture for several gentlemen who were driving by.    "Good for you, Rose!" said Archie, jumping out to shake hands while Will and Geordie saluted and Uncle Mac laughed at Jamie, who looked as if girls had risen slightly in his opinion.      "I'm glad it is you, because you won't be shocked. But I'm so happy to be back I forgot I was not little Rose still," said Atalanta, smoothing down her flying hair.    "You look very like her, with the curls on your shoulders in the old way. I missed them last night and wondered what it was. How are Uncle and Phebe?" asked Archie, whose eyes had been looking over Rose's head while he spoke toward the piazza, where a female figure was visible among the reddening woodbines.    "All well, thanks. Won't you come up and see for yourselves?"    "Can't, my dear, can't possibly. Business, you know, business. This fellow is my right-hand man, and I can't spare him a minute. Come, Arch, we must be off, or these boys will miss their train," answered Uncle Mac, pulling out his watch.    With a last look from the light-haired figure at the gate to the dark-haired one among the vines, Archie drove away and Jamie cantered after, consoling himself for his defeat with apple number two.

There was only one boy now

   "Yes, indeed, and speaking of angels, one is apt to hear the rustling of their wings," added Rose, as a shrill whistle came up the avenue accompanied by the clatter of hoofs.    "It is the circus!" cried Phebe gaily as they both recalled the red cart and the charge of the Clan.      There was only one boy now, alas, but he made noise enough for half a dozen, and before Rose could run to the door, Jamie came bouncing in with a "shining morning face," a bat over his shoulder, a red and white jockey cap on his head, one pocket bulging with a big ball, the other overflowing with cookies, and his mouth full of the apple he was just finishing off in hot haste.    "Morning! I just looked in to make sure you'd really come and see that you were all right," he observed, saluting with bat and doffing the gay cap with one effective twitch.    "Good morning, dear. Yes, we really are here, and getting to rights as fast as possible. But it seems to me you are rather gorgeous, Jamie. What do you belong to a fire company or a jockey club?" asked Rose, turning up the once chubby face, which now was getting brown and square about the chin.    "No, ma'am! Why, don't you know? I'm captain of the Base Ball Star Club. Look at that, will you?" And, as if the fact were one of national importance, Jamie flung open his jacket to display upon his proudly swelling chest an heart-shaped red flannel shield decorated with a white cotton star the size of a tea plate.    "Superb! I've been away so long I forgot there was such a game. And you the captain?" cried Rose, deeply impressed by the high honor to which her kinsman had arrived.      "I just am, and it's no joke you'd better believe, for we knock our teeth out, black our eyes, and split our fingers almost as well as the big fellows. You come down to the Common between one and two and see us play a match, then you'll understand what hard work it is. I'll teach you to bat now if you'll come out on the lawn," added Jamie, fired with a wish to exhibit his prowess.    "No, thank you, captain. The grass is wet, and you'll be late at school if you stay for us."

you and want to begin where we left off

   "I really do. You are so little altered, except to grow big, that I don't feel at all strange with you and want to begin where we left off."    "That will be capital. Good night, Cousin," and to her great amazement, he gave her a hearty kiss.    "Oh, but that is not the old way at all!" cried Rose, stepping back in merry confusion while the audacious youth assumed an air of mild surprise as he innocently asked: "Didn't we always say good night in that way? I had an impression that we did and were to begin just as we left off."    "Of course not. No power on earth would have bribed you to do it, as you know well enough. I don't mind the first night, but we are too old for that sort of thing now."    "I'll remember. It was the force of habit, I suppose, for I'm sure I must have done it in former times, it seemed so natural. Coming, Father!" and Mac retired, evidently convinced he was right.    "Dear old thing! He is as much a boy as ever, and that is such a comfort, for some of the others have grown up very fast," said Rose to herself, recalling Charlie's sentimental airs and Archie's beatified expression while Phebe sang. Chapter 2 Old Friends With New Faces    "IT is so good to be home again! I wonder how we ever made up our minds to go away!" exclaimed Rose as she went roaming about the old house next morning, full of the satisfaction one feels at revisiting familiar nooks and corners and finding them unchanged.    "That we might have the pleasure of coming back again," answered Phebe, walking down the hall beside her little mistress, as happy as she.    "Everything seems just as we left it, even to the rose leaves we used to tuck in here," continued the younger girl, peeping into one of the tall India jars that stood about the hall.    "Don't you remember how Jamie and Pokey used to play Forty Thieves with them, and how you tried to get into that blue one and got stuck, and the other boys found us before I could pull you out?" asked Phebe, laughing.

I'll keep my eye on you upon one condition

   Mac was peering at her with a shrewd smile on his lips, but such a kindly look behind the glasses that she found both words and glance very pleasant and answered merrily, "I am glad you approve of me, and much obliged for your care of my early youth. I hope to be a credit to you and depend on your keeping me straight, for I'm afraid I shall be spoilt among you all."    "I'll keep my eye on you upon one condition," replied the youthful mentor.    "Name it."      "If you are going to have a lot of lovers around, I wash my hands of you. If not, I'm your man."    "You must be sheep dog and help keep them away, for I don't want any yet awhile and, between ourselves, I don't believe I shall have any if it is known that I am strong-minded. That fact will scare most men away like a yellow flag," said Rose, for, thanks to Dr. Alec's guardianship, she had wasted neither heart nor time in the foolish flirtations so many girls fritter away their youth upon.    "Hum! I rather doubt that," muttered Mac as he surveyed the damsel before him.    She certainly did not look unpleasantly strong-minded, and she was beautiful in spite of her modest denials. Beautiful with the truest sort of beauty, for nobility of character lent its subtle charm to the bloom of youth, the freshness of health, the innocence of a nature whose sweet maidenliness Mac felt but could not describe. Gentle yet full of spirit, and all aglow with the earnestness that suggests lovely possibilities and makes one hope that such human flowers may have heaven's purest air and warmest sunshine to blossom in.    "Wait and see," answered Rose; then, as her uncle's voice was heard in the hall, she held out her hand, adding pleasantly, "The old times are to begin again, so come soon and tell me all your doings and help me with mine just as you used to do."    "You really mean it?" And Mac looked much pleased.  

I'm only hearty and happy

   Evidently interested in the new discovery, Mac placidly continued, "Do you know, it seems as if I never really saw a girl before, or had any idea what agreeable creatures they could be. I fancy you are a remarkably good specimen, Rose."    "No, indeed! I'm only hearty and happy, and being safe at home again may make me look better than usual perhaps, but I'm no beauty except to Uncle."    " 'Hearty and happy' that must be it," echoed Mac, soberly investigating the problem. "Most girls are sickly or silly, I think I have observed, and that is probably why I am so struck with you."    "Of all the queer boys you are the queerest! Do you really mean that you don't like or notice girls?" asked Rose, much amused at this new peculiarity of her studious cousin.    "Well, no, I am only conscious of two sorts noisy and quiet ones. I prefer the latter, but, as a general thing, I don't notice any of them much more than I do flies, unless they bother me, then I'd like to flap them away, but as that won't do, I hide."    Rose leaned back and laughed until her eyes were full. It was so comical to hear Mac sink his voice to a confidential whisper at the last words and see him smile with sinful satisfaction at the memory of the tormentors he had eluded.    "You needn't laugh it's a fact, I assure you. Charlie likes the creatures, and they spoil him. Steve follows suit, of course. Archie is a respectful slave when he can't help himself. As for me, I don't often give them a chance, and when I get caught I talk science and dead languages till they run for their lives. Now and then I find a sensible one, and then we get on excellently."    "A sad prospect for Phebe and me," sighed Rose, trying to keep sober.    "Phebe is evidently a quiet one. I know she is sensible, or you wouldn't care for her. I can see that she is pleasant to look at, so I fancy I shall like her. As for you, I helped bring you up, therefore I am a little anxious to see how you turn out. I was afraid your foreign polish might spoil you, but I think it has not. In fact, I find you quite satisfactory so far, if you don't mind my saying it. I don't quite know what the charm is, though. Must be the power of inward graces, since you insist that you have no outer ones."

to give access to the interior of

"There," exclaimed Pencroft, "our iron-clads can come here after all! They would not run aground!" "Indeed," said Gideon Spilett, "this gulf is a regular abyss, but, taking into consideration the volcanic origin of the island, it is not astonishing that the sea should offer similar depressions." "One would say too," observed Herbert, "that these cliffs were perfectly perpendicular; and I believe that at their foot, even with a line five or six times longer, Pencroft would not find bottom." "That is all very well," then said the reporter, "but I must point out to Pencroft that his harbor is wanting in one very important respect! " "And what is that, Mr. Spilett?" "An opening, a cutting of some sort, to give access to the interior of the island. I do not see a spot on which we could land." And, in fact, the steep lava cliffs did not afford a single place suitable for landing. They formed an insuperable barrier, recalling, but with more wildness, the fiords of Norway. The "Bonadventure," coasting as close as possible along the cliffs, did not discover even a projection which would allow the passengers to leave the deck. Pencroft consoled himself by saying that with the help of a mine they could soon open out the cliff when that was necessary, and then, as there was evidently nothing to be done in the gulf, he steered his vessel towards the strait and passed out at about two o'clock in the afternoon. "Ah!" said Nab, uttering a sigh of satisfaction. One might really say that the honest Negro did not feel at his ease in those enormous jaws. The distance from Mandible Cape to the mouth of the Mercy was not more than eight miles. The head of the "Bonadventure" was put towards Granite House, and a fair wind filling her sails, she ran rapidly along the coast. To the enormous lava rocks succeeded soon those capricious sand dunes, among which the engineer had been so singularly recovered, and which seabirds frequented in thousands.

a way which would make the entrance of

"Well," said Pencroft, "this bay would make admirable roads, in which a whole fleet could lie at their ease!" "What is especially curious," observed Harding, "is that the gulf has been formed by two rivers of lava, thrown out by the volcano, and accumulated by successive eruptions. The result is that the gulf is completely sheltered on all sides, and I believe that even in the stormiest weather, the sea here must be as calm as a lake." "No doubt," returned the sailor, "since the wind has only that narrow entrance between the two capes to get in by, and, besides, the north cape protects that of the south in a way which would make the entrance of gusts very difficult. I declare our 'Bonadventure' could stay here from one end of the year to the other, without even dragging at her anchor!" "It is rather large for her!" observed the reporter. "Well! Mr. Spilett," replied the sailor, "I agree that it is too large for the 'Bonadventure,' but if the fleets of the Union were in want of a harbor in the Pacific, I don't think they would ever find a better place than this!" "We are in the shark's mouth," remarked Nab, alluding to the form of the gulf. "Right into its mouth, my honest Nab!" replied Herbert, "but you are not afraid that it will shut upon us, are you?" "No, Mr. Herbert," answered Neb, "and yet this gulf here doesn't please me much! It has a wicked look!" "Hallo!" cried Pencroft, "here is Neb turning up his nose at my gulf, just as I was thinking of presenting it to America!" "But, at any rate, is the water deep enough?" asked the engineer, "for a depth sufficient for the keel of the 'Bonadventure' would not be enough for those of our iron-clads." "That is easily found out," replied Pencroft. And the sailor sounded with a long cord, which served him as a lead-line, and to which was fastened a lump of iron. This cord measured nearly fifty fathoms, and its entire length was unrolled without finding any bottom.

over this new and inexplicable incident

Fortunately, although the wind was strong the sea, being sheltered by the land, did not run very high. They had then little to fear from the waves, which always endanger small craft. The "Bonadventure" would doubtlessly not have capsized, for she was well ballasted, but enormous masses of water falling on the deck might injure her if her timbers could not sustain them. Pencroft, as a good sailor, was prepared for anything. Certainly, he had great confidence in his vessel, but nevertheless he awaited the return of day with some anxiety. During the night, Cyrus Harding and Gideon Spilett had no opportunity for talking together, and yet the words pronounced in the reporter's ear by the engineer were well worth being discussed, together with the mysterious influence which appeared to reign over Lincoln Island. Gideon Spilett did not cease from pondering over this new and inexplicable incident, the appearance of a fire on the coast of the island. The fire had actually been seen! His companions, Herbert and Pencroft, had seen it with him! The fire had served to signalize the position of the island during that dark night, and they had not doubted that it was lighted by the engineer's hand; and here was Cyrus Harding expressly declaring that he had never done anything of the sort! Spilett resolved to recur to this incident as soon as the "Bonadventure" returned, and to urge Cyrus Harding to acquaint their companions with these strange facts. Perhaps it would be decided to make in common a complete investigation of every part of Lincoln Island. However that might be, on this evening no fire was lighted on these yet unknown shores, which formed the entrance to the gulf, and the little vessel stood off during the night. When the first streaks of dawn appeared in the western horizon, the wind, which had slightly fallen, shifted two points, and enabled Pencroft to enter the narrow gulf with greater ease. Towards seven o'clock in the morning, the "Bonadventure," weathering the North Mandible Cape, entered the strait and glided on to the waters, so strangely enclosed in the frame of lava.

That was a lucky idea of mine

"What will you do then?" "I shall try to keep in the offing until the flood, that is to say, till about seven in the evening, and if there is still light enough I will try to enter the gulf; if not, we must stand off and on during the night, and we will enter to-morrow at sunrise." "As I told you, Pencroft, we will leave it to you," answered Harding. "Ah!" said Pencroft, "if there was only a lighthouse on the coast, it would be much more convenient for sailors." "Yes," replied Herbert, "and this time we shall have no obliging engineer to light a fire to guide us into port!" "Why, indeed, my dear Cyrus," said Spilett, "we have never thanked you; but frankly, without that fire we should never have been able--" "A fire?" asked Harding, much astonished at the reporter's words. "We mean, captain," answered Pencroft, "that on board the 'Bonadventure' we were very anxious during the few hours before our return, and we should have passed to windward of the island, if it had not been for the precaution you took of lighting a fire the night of the 19th of October, on Prospect Heights." "Yes, yes! That was a lucky idea of mine!" replied the engineer. "And this time," continued the sailor. "unless the idea occurs to Ayrton, there will be no one to do us that little service!" "No! No one!" answered Cyrus Harding. A few minutes after, finding himself alone in the bows of the vessel, with the reporter, the engineer bent down and whispered,-- "If there is one thing certain in this world, Spilett, it is that I never lighted any fire during the night of the 19th of October, neither on Prospect Heights nor on any other part of the island!" Things happened as Pencroft had predicted, he being seldom mistaken in his prognostications. The wind rose, and from a fresh breeze it soon increased to a regular gale; that is to say, it acquired a speed of from forty to forty-five miles an hour, before which a ship in the open sea would have run under close- reefed topsails. Now, as it was nearly six o'clock when the "Bonadventure" reached the gulf, and as at that moment the tide turned, it was impossible to enter. They were therefore compelled to stand off, for even if he had wished to do so, Pencroft could not have gained the mouth of the Mercy. Hoisting the jib to the mainmast by way of a storm-sail, he hove to, putting the head of the vessel towards the land.

do as you think best

"I think that we shall be obliged to do so, whether we like it or not," answered Pencroft, "for the sky looks very threatening towards the west. Dirty weather is coming on!" "At any rate we have a favorable wind for reaching Cape Mandible," observed the reporter. "A very fine wind," replied the sailor; "but we must tack to enter the gulf, and I should like to see my way clear in these unknown quarters." "Quarters which appear to be filled with rocks," added Herbert, "if we judge by what we saw on the south coast of Shark Gulf." "Pencroft," said Cyrus Harding, "do as you think best, we will leave it to you." "Don't make your mind uneasy, captain," replied the sailor, "I shall not expose myself needlessly! I would rather a knife were run into my ribs than a sharp rock into those of my 'Bonadventure!'" That which Pencroft called ribs was the pan of his vessel under water, and he valued it more than his own skin. "What o'clock is it?" asked Pencroft. "Ten o'clock," replied Gideon Spilett. "And what distance is it to the Cape, captain?" "About fifteen miles," replied the engineer. "That's a matter of two hours and a half," said the sailor, "and we shall be off the Cape between twelve and one o'clock. Unluckily, the tide will be turning at that moment, and will be ebbing out of the gulf. I am afraid that it will be very difficult to get in, having both wind and tide against us." "And the more so that it is a full moon to-day," remarked Herbert, "and these April tides are very strong." "Well, Pencroft," asked Harding, "can you not anchor off the Cape?" "Anchor near land, with bad weather coming on!" exclaimed the sailor. "What are you thinking of, captain? We should run aground, of a certainty!"

and peeped forth from the doorway into the street

And then her deep distrust of Gerald reawakened; in spite of his seriously desperate air, which had a quality of sincerity quite new in her experience of him, she could not be entirely sure that, in asserting utter penury, he was not after all merely using a trick to get rid of her. She sprang up, threw the book on the bed, and seized her gloves. She would follow him, if she could. She would do what she had never done before--she would spy on him. Fighting against her lassitude, she descended the long winding stairs, and peeped forth from the doorway into the street. The ground floor of the hotel was a wine-shop; the stout landlord was lightly flicking one of the three little yellow tables that stood on the pavement. He smiled with his customary benevolence, and silently pointed in the direction of the Rue Notre Dame de Lorette. She saw Gerald down there in the distance. He was smoking a cigar. He seemed to be a little man without a care. The smoke of the cigar came first round his left cheek and then round his right, sailing away into nothing. He walked with a gay spring, but not quickly, flourishing his cane as freely as the traffic of the pavement would permit, glancing into all the shop windows and into the eyes of all the women under forty. This was not at all the same man as had a moment ago been spitting angry menaces at her in the bedroom of the hotel. It was a fellow of blithe charm, ripe for any adventurous joys that destiny had to offer. Supposing he turned round and saw her? If he turned round and saw her and asked her what she was doing there in the street, she would tell him plainly: "I'm following you, to find out what you do." But he did not turn. He went straight forward, deviating at the church, where the crowd became thicker, into the Rue du Faubourg Montmartre, and so to the boulevard, which he crossed. The whole city seemed excited and vivacious. Cannons boomed in slow succession, and flags were flying. Sophia had no conception of the significance of those guns, for, though she read a great deal, she never read a newspaper; the idea of opening a newspaper never occurred to her. But she was accustomed to the feverish atmosphere of Paris. She had lately seen regiments of cavalry flashing and prancing in the Luxembourg Gardens, and had much admired the fine picture. She accepted the booming as another expression of the high spirits that had to find vent somehow in this feverish empire. She so accepted it and forgot it, using all the panorama of the capital as a dim background for her exacerbated egoism.

and she was almost sure that he really

"If that's the way you're going to talk--all right!" he snapped, furious. Evidently he was baffled. She kept silence. She was determined to see what he would do in the face of her inaction. "You know, I'm not joking," he pursued. "We shall starve." "Very well," she agreed. "We shall starve." She watched him surreptitiously, and she was almost sure that he really had come to the end of his tether. His voice, which never alone convinced, carried a sort of conviction now. He was penniless. In four years he had squandered twelve thousand pounds, and had nothing to show for it except an enfeebled digestion and a tragic figure of a wife. One small point of satisfaction there was--and all the Baines in her clutched at it and tried to suck satisfaction from it--their manner of travelling about from hotel to hotel had made it impossible for Gerald to run up debts. A few debts he might have, unknown to her, but they could not be serious. So they looked at one another, in hatred and despair. The inevitable had arrived. For months she had fronted it in bravado, not concealing from herself that it lay in waiting. For years he had been sure that though the inevitable might happen to others it could not happen to him. There it was! He was conscious of a heavy weight in his stomach, and she of a general numbness, enwrapping her fatigue. Even then he could not believe that it was true, this disaster. As for Sophia she was reconciling herself with bitter philosophy to the eccentricities of fate. Who would have dreamed that she, a young girl brought up, etc? Her mother could not have improved the occasion more uncompromisingly than Sophia did-- behind that disdainful mask. "Well--if that's it ...!" Gerald exploded at length, puffing. And he puffed out of the room and was gone in a second. Chapter 4 A Crisis For Gerald II She languidly picked up a book, the moment Gerald had departed, and tried to prove to herself that she was sufficiently in command of her nerves to read. For a long time reading had been her chief solace. But she could not read. She glanced round the inhospitable chamber, and thought of the hundreds of rooms--some splendid and some vile, but all arid in their unwelcoming aspect--through which she had passed in her progress from mad exultation to calm and cold disgust. The ceaseless din of the street annoyed her jaded ears. And a great wave of desire for peace, peace of no matter what kind, swept through her.

She cared little if it whipped him to fury

"Are you going to have the decency to answer my question, or aren't you?" "What question?" Her vibrating voice was low and restrained. "Will you write to your people?" "For money?" The sarcasm of her tone was diabolic. She could not have kept the sarcasm out of her tone; she did not attempt to keep it out. She cared little if it whipped him to fury. Did he imagine, seriously, that she would be capable of going on her knees to her family? She? Was he unaware that his wife was the proudest and the most obstinate woman on earth; that all her behaviour to him was the expression of her pride and her obstinacy? Ill and weak though she felt, she marshalled together all the forces of her character to defend her resolve never, never to eat the bread of humiliation. She was absolutely determined to be dead to her family. Certainly, one December, several years previously, she had seen English Christmas cards in an English shop in the Rue de Rivoli, and in a sudden gush of tenderness towards Constance, she had despatched a coloured greeting to Constance and her mother. And having initiated the custom, she had continued it. That was not like asking a kindness; it was bestowing a kindness. But except for the annual card, she was dead to St. Luke's Square. She was one of those daughters who disappear and are not discussed in the family circle. The thought of her immense foolishness, the little tender thoughts of Constance, some flitting souvenir, full of unwilling admiration, of a regal gesture of her mother,--these things only steeled her against any sort of resurrection after death. And he was urging her to write home for money! Why, she would not even have paid a visit in splendour to St. Luke's Square. Never should they know what she had suffered! And especially her Aunt Harriet, from whom she had stolen! "Will you write to your people?" he demanded yet again, emphasizing and separating each word. "No," she said shortly, with terrible disdain. "Why not?" "Because I won't." The curling line of her lips, as they closed on each other, said all the rest; all the cruel truths about his unspeakable, inane, coarse follies, his laziness, his excesses, his lies, his deceptions, his bad faith, his truculence, his improvidence, his shameful waste and ruin of his life and hers. She doubted whether he realized his baseness and her wrongs, but if he could not read them in her silent contumely, she was too proud to recite them to him. She had never complained, save in uncontrolled moments of anger.

that he had long since ceased to

She was ready to pay the price of pride and of a moment's imbecility with a lifetime of self-repression. It was high, but it was the price. She had acquired nothing but an exceptionally good knowledge of the French language (she soon learnt to scorn Gerald's glib maltreatment of the tongue), and she had conserved nothing but her dignity. She knew that Gerald was sick of her, that he would have danced for joy to be rid of her; that he was constantly unfaithful; that he had long since ceased to be excited by her beauty. She knew also that at bottom he was a little afraid of her; here was her sole moral consolation. The thing that sometimes struck her as surprising was that he had not abandoned her, simply and crudely walked off one day and forgotten to take her with him. They hated each other, but in different ways. She loathed him, and he resented her. "What do I expect you to do?" he repeated after her. "Why don't you write home to your people and get some money out of them?" Now that he had said what was in his mind, he faced her with a bullying swagger. Had he been a bigger man he might have tried the effect of physical bullying on her. One of his numerous reasons for resenting her was that she was the taller of the two. She made no reply. "Now you needn't turn pale and begin all that fuss over again. What I'm suggesting is a perfectly reasonable thing. If I haven't got money I haven't got it. I can't invent it." She perceived that he was ready for one of their periodical tempestuous quarrels. But that day she felt too tired and unwell to quarrel. His warning against a repetition of 'fuss' had reference to the gastric dizziness from which she had been suffering for two years. It would take her usually after a meal. She did not swoon, but her head swam and she could not stand. She would sink down wherever she happened to be, and, her face alarmingly white, murmur faintly: "My salts." Within five minutes the attack had gone and left no trace. She had been through one just after lunch. He resented this affection. He detested being compelled to hand the smelling-bottle to her, and he would have avoided doing so if her pallor did not always alarm him. Nothing but this pallor convinced him that the attacks were not a deep ruse to impress him. His attitude invariably implied that she could cure the malady if she chose, but that through obstinacy she did not choose.

And though this was but a seeming

The accent, at once ironic and listless, in which she put this question, showed that strange and vital things had happened to Sophia in the four years which had elapsed since her marriage. It did really seem to her, indeed, that the Sophia whom Gerald had espoused was dead and gone, and that another Sophia had come into her body: so intensely conscious was she of a fundamental change in herself under the stress of continuous experience. And though this was but a seeming, though she was still the same Sophia more fully disclosed, it was a true seeming. Indisputably more beautiful than when Gerald had unwillingly made her his legal wife, she was now nearly twenty-four, and looked perhaps somewhat older than her age. Her frame was firmly set, her waist thicker, neither slim nor stout. The lips were rather hard, and she had a habit of tightening her mouth, on the same provocation as sends a snail into its shell. No trace was left of immature gawkiness in her gestures or of simplicity in her intonations. She was a woman of commanding and slightly arrogant charm, not in the least degree the charm of innocence and ingenuousness. Her eyes were the eyes of one who has lost her illusions too violently and too completely. Her gaze, coldly comprehending, implied familiarity with the abjectness of human nature. Gerald had begun and had finished her education. He had not ruined her, as a bad professor may ruin a fine voice, because her moral force immeasurably exceeded his; he had unwittingly produced a masterpiece, but it was a tragic masterpiece. Sophia was such a woman as, by a mere glance as she utters an opinion, will make a man say to himself, half in desire and half in alarm lest she reads him too: "By Jove! she must have been through a thing or two. She knows what people are!" The marriage was, of course, a calamitous folly. From the very first, from the moment when the commercial traveller had with incomparable rash fatuity thrown the paper pellet over the counter, Sophia's awakening commonsense had told her that in yielding to her instinct she was sowing misery and shame for herself; but she had gone on, as if under a spell. It had needed the irretrievableness of flight from home to begin the breaking of the trance. Once fully awakened out of the trance, she had recognized her marriage for what it was. She had made neither the best nor the worst of it. She had accepted Gerald as one accepts a climate. She saw again and again that he was irreclaimably a fool and a prodigy of irresponsibleness. She tolerated him, now with sweetness, now bitterly; accepting always his caprices, and not permitting herself to have wishes of her own.

he was convinced that he had before

"When?" asked the engineer quickly, and it was evident that this question was uttered without consideration, for he had not yet examined the stranger who addressed him. But after having with a penetrating eye observed the open face of the sailor, he was convinced that he had before him an honest man. "Who are you?" he asked briefly. Pencroft made himself known. "Well," replied Harding, "and in what way do you propose to escape?" "By that lazy balloon which is left there doing nothing, and which looks to me as if it was waiting on purpose for us--" There was no necessity for the sailor to finish his sentence. The engineer understood him at once. He seized Pencroft by the arm, and dragged him to his house. There the sailor developed his project, which was indeed extremely simple. They risked nothing but their lives in its execution. The hurricane was in all its violence, it is true, but so clever and daring an engineer as Cyrus Harding knew perfectly well how to manage a balloon. Had he himself been as well acquainted with the art of sailing in the air as he was with the navigation of a ship, Pencroft would not have hesitated to set out, of course taking his young friend Herbert with him; for, accustomed to brave the fiercest tempests of the ocean, he was not to be hindered on account of the hurricane. Captain Harding had listened to the sailor without saying a word, but his eyes shone with satisfaction. Here was the long-sought-for opportunity--he was not a man to let it pass. The plan was feasible, though, it must be confessed, dangerous in the extreme. In the night, in spite of their guards, they might approach the balloon, slip into the car, and then cut the cords which held it. There was no doubt that they might be killed, but on the other hand they might succeed, and without this storm!--Without this storm the balloon would have started already and the looked-for opportunity would not have then presented itself. "I am not alone!" said Harding at last. "How many people do you wish to bring with you?" asked the sailor. "Two; my friend Spilett, and my servant Neb." "That will be three," replied Pencroft; "and with Herbert and me five. But the balloon will hold six--" "That will be enough, we will go," answered Harding in a firm voice.

and the aeronauts calculated that they

The Governor authorized the attempt. A balloon was manufactured and placed at the disposal of Forster, who was to be accompanied by five other persons. They were furnished with arms in case they might have to defend themselves when they alighted, and provisions in the event of their aerial voyage being prolonged. The departure of the balloon was fixed for the 18th of March. It should be effected during the night, with a northwest wind of moderate force, and the aeronauts calculated that they would reach General Lee's camp in a few hours. But this northwest wind was not a simple breeze. From the 18th it was evident that it was changing to a hurricane. The tempest soon became such that Forster's departure was deferred, for it was impossible to risk the balloon and those whom it carried in the midst of the furious elements. The balloon, inflated on the great square of Richmond, was ready to depart on the first abatement of the wind, and, as may be supposed, the impatience among the besieged to see the storm moderate was very great. The 18th, the 19th of March passed without any alteration in the weather. There was even great difficulty in keeping the balloon fastened to the ground, as the squalls dashed it furiously about. The night of the 19th passed, but the next morning the storm blew with redoubled force. The departure of the balloon was impossible. On that day the engineer, Cyrus Harding, was accosted in one of the streets of Richmond by a person whom he did not in the least know. This was a sailor named Pencroft, a man of about thirty-five or forty years of age, strongly built, very sunburnt, and possessed of a pair of bright sparkling eyes and a remarkably good physiognomy. Pencroft was an American from the North, who had sailed all the ocean over, and who had gone through every possible and almost impossible adventure that a being with two feet and no wings would encounter. It is needless to say that he was a bold, dashing fellow, ready to dare anything and was astonished at nothing. Pencroft at the beginning of the year had gone to Richmond on business, with a young boy of fifteen from New Jersey, son of a former captain, an orphan, whom he loved as if he had been his own child. Not having been able to leave the town before the first operations of the siege, he found himself shut up, to his great disgust; but, not accustomed to succumb to difficulties, he resolved to escape by some means or other. He knew the engineer-officer by reputation; he knew with what impatience that determined man chafed under his restraint. On this day he did not, therefore, hesitate to accost him, saying, without circumlocution, "Have you had enough of Richmond, captain?" The engineer looked fixedly at the man who spoke, and who added, in a low voice,-- "Captain Harding, will you try to escape?"

had long since given his freedom

The two Americans had from the first determined to seize every chance; but although they were allowed to wander at liberty in the town, Richmond was so strictly guarded, that escape appeared impossible. In the meanwhile Captain Harding was rejoined by a servant who was devoted to him in life and in death. This intrepid fellow was a Negro born on the engineer's estate, of a slave father and mother, but to whom Cyrus, who was an Abolitionist from conviction and heart, had long since given his freedom. The once slave, though free, would not leave his master. He would have died for him. He was a man of about thirty, vigorous, active, clever, intelligent, gentle, and calm, sometimes naive, always merry, obliging, and honest. His name was Nebuchadnezzar, but he only answered to the familiar abbreviation of Neb. When Neb heard that his master had been made prisoner, he left Massachusetts without hesitating an instant, arrived before Richmond, and by dint of stratagem and shrewdness, after having risked his life twenty times over, managed to penetrate into the besieged town. The pleasure of Harding on seeing his servant, and the joy of Neb at finding his master, can scarcely be described. But though Neb had been able to make his way into Richmond, it was quite another thing to get out again, for the Northern prisoners were very strictly watched. Some extraordinary opportunity was needed to make the attempt with any chance of success, and this opportunity not only did not present itself, but was very difficult to find. Meanwhile Grant continued his energetic operations. The victory of Petersburg had been very dearly bought. His forces, united to those of Butler, had as yet been unsuccessful before Richmond, and nothing gave the prisoners any hope of a speedy deliverance. The reporter, to whom his tedious captivity did not offer a single incident worthy of note, could stand it no longer. His usually active mind was occupied with one sole thought--how he might get out of Richmond at any cost. Several times had he even made the attempt, but was stopped by some insurmountable obstacle. However, the siege continued; and if the prisoners were anxious to escape and join Grant's army, certain of the besieged were no less anxious to join the Southern forces. Among them was one Jonathan Forster, a determined Southerner. The truth was, that if the prisoners of the Secessionists could not leave the town, neither could the Secessionists themselves while the Northern army invested it. The Governor of Richmond for a long time had been unable to communicate with General Lee, and he very much wished to make known to him the situation of the town, so as to hasten the march of the army to their relief. Thus Jonathan Forster accordingly conceived the idea of rising in a balloon, so as to pass over the besieging lines, and in that way reach the Secessionist camp.

having traveled over the whole world

The newspapers of the Union, such as the New York Herald, are genuine powers, and their reporters are men to be reckoned with. Gideon Spilett ranked among the first of those reporters: a man of great merit, energetic, prompt and ready for anything, full of ideas, having traveled over the whole world, soldier and artist, enthusiastic in council, resolute in action, caring neither for trouble, fatigue, nor danger, when in pursuit of information, for himself first, and then for his journal, a perfect treasury of knowledge on all sorts of curious subjects, of the unpublished, of the unknown, and of the impossible. He was one of those intrepid observers who write under fire, "reporting" among bullets, and to whom every danger is welcome. He also had been in all the battles, in the first rank, revolver in one hand, note-book in the other; grape-shot never made his pencil tremble. He did not fatigue the wires with incessant telegrams, like those who speak when they have nothing to say, but each of his notes, short, decisive, and clear, threw light on some important point. Besides, he was not wanting in humor. It was he who, after the affair of the Black River, determined at any cost to keep his place at the wicket of the telegraph office, and after having announced to his journal the result of the battle, telegraphed for two hours the first chapters of the Bible. It cost the New York Herald two thousand dollars, but the New York Herald published the first intelligence. Gideon Spilett was tall. He was rather more than forty years of age. Light whiskers bordering on red surrounded his face. His eye was steady, lively, rapid in its changes. It was the eye of a man accustomed to take in at a glance all the details of a scene. Well built, he was inured to all climates, like a bar of steel hardened in cold water. For ten years Gideon Spilett had been the reporter of the New York Herald, which he enriched by his letters and drawings, for he was as skilful in the use of the pencil as of the pen. When he was captured, he was in the act of making a description and sketch of the battle. The last words in his note-book were these: "A Southern rifleman has just taken aim at me, but--" The Southerner notwithstanding missed Gideon Spilett, who, with his usual fortune, came out of this affair without a scratch. Cyrus Harding and Gideon Spilett, who did not know each other except by reputation, had both been carried to Richmond. The engineer's wounds rapidly healed, and it was during his convalescence that he made acquaintance with the reporter. The two men then learned to appreciate each other. Soon their common aim had but one object, that of escaping, rejoining Grant's army, and fighting together in the ranks of the Federals.

One of the most distinguished was

The curious circumstances which led to the escape of the prisoners were as follows: That same year, in the month of February, 1865, in one of the coups de main by which General Grant attempted, though in vain, to possess himself of Richmond, several of his officers fell into the power of the enemy and were detained in the town. One of the most distinguished was Captain Cyrus Harding. He was a native of Massachusetts, a first-class engineer, to whom the government had confided, during the war, the direction of the railways, which were so important at that time. A true Northerner, thin, bony, lean, about forty-five years of age; his close-cut hair and his beard, of which he only kept a thick mustache, were already getting gray. He had one-of those finely-developed heads which appear made to be struck on a medal, piercing eyes, a serious mouth, the physiognomy of a clever man of the military school. He was one of those engineers who began by handling the hammer and pickaxe, like generals who first act as common soldiers. Besides mental power, he also possessed great manual dexterity. His muscles exhibited remarkable proofs of tenacity. A man of action as well as a man of thought, all he did was without effort to one of his vigorous and sanguine temperament. Learned, clear-headed, and practical, he fulfilled in all emergencies those three conditions which united ought to insure human success--activity of mind and body, impetuous wishes, and powerful will. He might have taken for his motto that of William of Orange in the 17th century: "I can undertake and persevere even without hope of success." Cyrus Harding was courage personified. He had been in all the battles of that war. After having begun as a volunteer at Illinois, under Ulysses Grant, he fought at Paducah, Belmont, Pittsburg Landing, at the siege of Corinth, Port Gibson, Black River, Chattanooga, the Wilderness, on the Potomac, everywhere and valiantly, a soldier worthy of the general who said, "I never count my dead!" And hundreds of times Captain Harding had almost been among those who were not counted by the terrible Grant; but in these combats where he never spared himself, fortune favored him till the moment when he was wounded and taken prisoner on the field of battle near Richmond. At the same time and on the same day another important personage fell into the hands of the Southerners. This was no other than Gideon Spilen, a reporter for the New York Herald, who had been ordered to follow the changes of the war in the midst of the Northern armies. Gideon Spilett was one of that race of indomitable English or American chroniclers, like Stanley and others, who stop at nothing to obtain exact information, and transmit it to their journal in the shortest possible time.

did not permit them to sit

Everything breathed of peace and plenty. Almost would one with proper childhood recollections listen for a church-going bell, search for spires and cottage roofs among the trees. Slim columns of smoke rose straight into the motionless air. The very sun seemed to have abated its African fierceness, and to have become mild. Some of these things Kingozi learned from Cazi Moto; some from the Leopard Woman; each after his kind. About a half-mile away a number of warriors in single file walked across the wide valley and disappeared in the forest to the left. They carried heavy spears and oval shields painted in various designs. A fillet bound long ostrich plumes that slanted backward on either side the head; and as they walked forward in the rather teetery fashion of the savage dandy these plumes waved up and down in rhythm. "M'tela," said the _shenzi_ goatherd waving his hand abroad. They camped at the edge of a pleasant grove near running water. The donkey that the Leopard Woman rode fell to the tall lush grasses with a thankfulness beyond all expression. All the safari was in high spirits. They saw _potio_ in sight again; and, immediately, long grass for beds. Visitors came in shortly--a dozen armed men, like the warriors seen earlier in the day, and a dignified older man who spoke a sufficient Swahili. Kingozi received these in a friendly fashion, did not permit them to sit, but at once began to cross-question them. The Leopard Woman emerged from her tent. "Stay where you are," Kingozi called to her in decided tones. "You must in this permit me to judge of expediencies. I forbid you to hold any communication with these people. I hope you will not make it necessary for me to take measures to see that my wishes are carried out." She showed no irritation, not even at the "forbid," but smiled quietly, and without reply returned to her tent. "Yes," said the old man, "this was M'tela's country, these were M'tela's people." He disclaimed having been sent by M'tela. At this point Kingozi, apparently losing all interest, dismissed them into the hands of Cazi Moto. The latter, previously instructed, took his guests to his own camp. There he distributed roast meat, one _balauri_ of coffee to the old man, and many tales, some of them true. These people had never before laid eyes on a white man, but naturally, at this late date in African history, all had heard more or less of the phenomenon. Cazi Moto found that the distinction between _Inglishee_ and _Duyche_ was known. He left a general impression that Kingozi was the favourite son of the King, come from sheer friendship and curiosity to see M'tela, whose fame was universal. For two hours the warriors squatted, or walked about camp examining with carefully concealed curiosity its various activities and strange belongings. Then all disappeared. No more people appeared that day.

The earth was soft and moist under

"Good!" cried Kingozi. "There has been little or no trading here!" One of the goatherds went with them as guide to M'tela. "Without doubt," Kingozi surmised, "others have run on to warn M'tela of our coming." Their way led on a gentle, steady up grade without steep climbs. The hills, at first only scattered, low hummocks, became higher, more numerous, closed in on them; until, before they knew it, they found themselves walking up the flat bed of a canon between veritable mountains. The end of the view, the Leopard Woman said, was shut by a frowning, unbroken rampart many thousands of feet high. "Then we are due for a climb," sighed Kingozi. "These native tracks never hunt for a grade! When they want to go up, why up they go!" But the head of the canon, instead of stopping against the wall, bent sharply to the left. A "saddle" was disclosed. Toward this the hard-beaten track led. Shortly it began to mount steeply, and shortly after it entered a high forest growing on the abrupt slopes. Here it was cool and mysterious, with green shadows, and the swing of rope vines, and the sudden remoteness of glimpsed skies. The earth was soft and moist under foot; so the dampness of it rose to the nostrils. Vines and head-high bracken and feather growths covered the ground. In every shallow ravine were groves of tree ferns forty feet tall. A silence dwelt there, a different silence from that of the veldt at night; compounded of a few simple elements, such as the faint, incessant drip of hidden waters and occasional loud, hollowly echoing noises such as the bark of a colobus or the scream of a hyrax. There were birds, rare, flashing, brilliant, furtive birds, but they said nothing. Through this forest on edge the path led steeply upward. Sometimes it was almost perpendicular; sometimes it took an angle; sometimes--but rarely-- it paused at a little ledge wide enough to rest nearly the whole safari at once. For an hour and a half they climbed, then topped the rim of the escarpment and emerged from the forest at the same time. Immediately they were a thousand leagues from the Africa they knew. A gently rolling country stretched out before them with sweeps of green grass shoulder high, and compact groves of trees as though planted. For miles it undulated away until the very multitude of its low, peaceful hills shut in the horizon. Cattle grazed in the wide-flung hollows, and little herds of game; goats and sheep dotted the hills. The groves of trees were very green.

safari for the third time crawled

"These are better," he said; "and _qua heri_, Simba. If you do these things well, large _backsheeshi_ for you all." "_Qua heri, bwana_" said Simba, and was gone. Chapter 24 M'tela's Country To the bewilderment of the Leopard Woman the pace of the safari now slackened. Heretofore the marches had been stretched to the limit of endurance; now the day's journey was as leisurely as that of a sportsman's caravan. It started at daybreak, to be sure, but it ended at noon, unless exigencies of water required an hour or two additional. As a matter of fact, Kingozi knew that he had done everything possible. If Simba & Co. succeeded, then there was no immediate hurry; if they failed, hurry would be useless. Bibi-ya-chui noticed the absence of two such prominent members of the safari as Simba and Mali-ya-bwana, of course, but readily accepted Kingozi's explanation that he had sent them "as messengers." The little safari for the third time crawled its antlike way across the immensities of the veldt. Cazi Moto managed to keep them supplied with meat, but at an excessive expenditure of cartridges. As he used the Leopard Woman's rifle, this did not so much matter, for she was abundantly supplied. At last the blue ranges rose before them; each day's journey defined their outlines better. The foothills began to sketch themselves, to separate from the ranges, finally to surround the travellers with the low swells of broken country. Running water replaced the still water- holes. Cazi Moto reported herds of goats in the distance. One evening several of the goatherds ventured into camp. They spoke no Swahili, but at the name M'tela they nodded vigorously, and at the mention of Kabilagani they pointed at their own breasts. "I wish I had eyes!" cried Kingozi petulantly. "What kind of people are they?" The Leopard Woman told him as best she could--tall, well-formed, copper in hue, of a pleasing expression, clad scantily in goat skins. "Their ornaments, their arms?" cried Kingozi with impatience. "They are poor people," replied Bibi-ya-chui. "They have armlets of iron beaten out, and necklaces of shell fragments or bone. They carry spears with a short blade, broad like a leaf." "Their armlets are not of wire? They have no cowrie shells?" "No, it is beaten iron----"

followed out of sight of the safari

"Yes, _bwana_." "It is important that you make yourself a _shenzi_. This magic is a bad magic otherwise. Then at the moment I have named, Simba as a _shenzi_ will take this magic bone and hold it out to _Bwana_ Nyele saying nothing. _Bwana_ Nyele will say words, perhaps in Swahili which Simba will understand; perhaps in some other language which he will not understand. Simba must point thus; and then must start in that direction. _Bwana_ Nyele will follow a few steps. Then Simba will say: 'Many more, _bwana_, over there only a little distance.'" Kingozi uttered this last sentence in atrocious Swahili. "You must say it in just that way, like a _shenzi_. Say it." Simba repeated the words and accent. "Yes, that is it. Then say nothing more, no matter what he asks; and do not let him touch the magic bone. Point. He will follow you; and when he has followed out of sight of the safari you will all seize him and tie him fast. The rest is as I have commanded." "How does _bwana_ know how these things will happen thus?" breathed Simba in awestricken tones. "It is a magic," replied Kingozi gravely. Over and over he drilled them until the details were thoroughly understood. Then he dismissed them and leaned back with a sigh. The plan was simple, but ought to work. At the moment of making camp Winkleman would be less apt than at any other time to take with him an escort-- especially if his interest or cupidity were aroused--for every one would be exceedingly busy. And no fear about the interest and cupidity! The "magic" bone Kingozi had confided to Simba was a fragment of a Pleistocene fossil. Kingozi himself valued it highly, but he hoped and expected to get it back. It made excellent bait, which no scientist could resist. Of course there might be a second white man with Winkleman, but from the reported size of the latter's safari he thought not. All in all, Kingozi had great reliance in his magic. At the end of fifteen minutes Simba came to report. "All is ready, _bwana_," he said, "and we start now. But if _bwana_ could let me take a lantern, which I have in my hand, we could travel also at night." The lantern, as Kingozi well knew, was not for the purpose of casting light in the path, but as some slight measure of protection against lions. "Let me have it," he ordered. It was passed into his hands, and proved to be one of the two oil lanterns kept for emergencies. But Kingozi sent the headman for one of the candle lanterns in everyday use, and a half-dozen short candles.

He could sense the stir of interest in

"Then you must keep _Bwana_ Nyele and these two _shenzis_ close in camp, hidden where their safari cannot find them. And after two weeks you must send two men to M'tela's to find me, and to tell me where you are hidden. Now is all that understood? You, Simba, tell me what you are to do." "Mali-ya-bwana, myself, six men and these _shenzis_ travel to where the safari of _Bwana_ Nyele marches. When we are near that safari we tie up the two _shenzis_. Then we get _Bwana_ Nyele and tie him up in a secret camp. Then after two weeks we send two men to tell the _bwana_ where we are. But, _bwana_, how do we get _Bwana_ Nyele?" "That I will tell you soon. One thing you forgot: you must reach the _Duyche_ before he gets into M'tela's country. This means travel night and day-- fast travel. Can this be done?" "We shall pick good men, _bwana_, runners of the Wakamba. We shall do our best." "Good. Each man four days' _potio_, and what biltong he can use. Simba, take my small rifle and fifty cartridges. Take some snuff, beads, and wire--only a little--to trade for _potio_ if you meet with other people. Understood?" "Yes, _bwana_." "Cazi Moto," he directed, "bring me the small box of wood from my _sandoko_." He slid the cover off this box when it was delivered into his hands, fumbled a moment, and held up an object. "What is this?" he asked. "It is a bone, _bwana_." "Yes, it is a bone; but it is more. It is a magic. With this you will take _Bwana_ Nyele." He could sense the stir of interest in the three men before him. "Listen carefully. This is what you must do. When you have come near to this safari, you must follow it until it has put down its loads and is just about to make camp. Not a rest period on the road; not after camp is made--just at the moment when the men begin to untie the loads, when they begin to pitch the tents. That is the magic time. Understand?" "Yes, _bwana_," they chorused breathlessly. "Simba must be ready. He must take off his clothes, and he must oil his body and paint it, and put on the ornaments of a _shenzi_ of this country. For that purpose he must take with him the necklace, the armlets, anklets, and belt that I traded for with the _shenzis_, and which Cazi Moto will get from my tent. Do you know the style of painting of these _shenzis_ of the plains, Simba?"

but the lure of the well-dressed company

"I wish I could persuade you," urged Morrell. "I wonder where Mimi is. I know Mrs. Morrell ought to call, and all that sort of thing, but this is not a conventional place. We live next door, y'know. Do be delightful and neighbourly, and come!" Nan hesitated; but the lure of the well-dressed company, so thoroughly at ease with one another, was irresistible in the reaction. She accepted. Chapter 11 The Keiths arrived to find the Morrells' informal party in full blast. The front parlour was filled with a number of people making a great noise. Out of the confusion Mrs. Morrell arose and came to them, as they stood where the China-man had abandoned them. "Mimi" Morrell was a tall woman, not fat, but amply built, with a full bust and hips. Her hair was of the peculiar metallic golden blond that might or might not have been natural; her skin smooth and white, but coarse in grain, would look better at night than by daylight. Her handsome, regular features were rather hard and set in their expression when in absolute repose, but absolute repose was rare to them. In action they softened to a very considerable feminine allurement. She moved with decision, and possibly her general attitude smacked the least bit of running things. She gave the impression of keeping an eye open for everything going on about her. To Nan she seemed tremendous, overwhelming, and a little magnificent. Immediately, without introductions, the whole party moved through the double doors into the dining-room. There they took their places at a table set out lavishly with food and drink in great quantity. Mrs. Morrell explained in her high level voice that servants and service were always dispensed with at her Sunday nights. She rather carelessly indicated a seat to Mrs. Keith, and remarked to Keith that he was to sit next herself. Otherwise the party distributed itself. Ben Sansome promptly annexed the chair next to Nan, and started in to make himself agreeable. A complete freemasonry obtained among all the party. There was a great deal of shouting back and forth, from one end of the table to the other. Each seemed to have a nickname. One young man was known exclusively as "Popsy," another answered as "Zou-zou," a third was called "Billy Goat"; a very vivid, flashing young woman was "Teeny," and so on. They conversed, or rather shouted, to a great extent by means of catch words or phrases, alluding evidently to events the purport of which the Keiths could by no possibility guess.

had snuggled down into a compact ball

Nan was in raptures over the whole episode, but especially over the puppy. The latter, with the instantaneous adaptability of extreme youth, had snuggled down into a compact ball, and was blinking one hazy dark blue eye upward at his new mistress. "Weren't they nice people," cried Nan, "and wasn't it an adventure? And isn't he just the dearest, cutest little thing? You're not a little Spanish dog any more, you know. You're a--what is it they call us?--oh, yes! You're a gringo now. Why, that's a fine idea! Your name is Gringo!" And Gringo he became henceforth. "What kind of a dog is he?" she asked. Keith grinned sardonically. "Of course I do not know his honoured father," said he, "so I cannot offer an opinion as to that half of him. But on his mother's side he is bloodhound, bulldog, collie, setter, pointer, St. Bernard, and Old English sheepdog." "Which?"' asked Nan puzzled. "All," asserted Keith. Now suddenly the sun was blotted out. They looked back: a white bank of fog was rolling in from the sea. It flowed over the hills like a flood, reaching long wisps down into the hollows, setting inertly in the flats and valleys, the upper part rolling on and over in a cascade. Beneath its shadow the warmth and brightness of the world had died. "It strikes me we're going to be cold," remarked Keith, urging forward the horse. The roadbed became more solid, and they trotted along freely. The horse, also, was anxious to get home. Signs of habitations thickened. The wide waste hills of the ranchos had been left behind. Here and there were outlying dwellings, or road houses, the objectives of pleasure excursions of various sorts and degrees of respectability from the city. From one of the latter came a hail. "Oh, Keith! I say, Keith!" From a group of people preparing to enter a number of vehicles two men came running. Ben Sansome and Morrell, somewhat out of breath, came alongside. They were a little flushed and elevated, but very cordial, and full of reproaches that Keith had so entirely dropped out of sight during the past week. "I tell you, you must come over to our house for supper," said Morrell finally. "Everybody comes." "The Morrells' Sunday night suppers are an institution," supplemented Sansome.

working them up to a wild state of

The little animals proceeded at once to roll one another over, growling fiercely, charging uncertainly about, gazing indeterminately through their blue infantile eyes. The mother left her position at Nan's knee to hover over them; turning them over with her nose, licking them, skipping nimbly sidewise when they charged down upon her with an idea of nourishment. Nan was enchanted. She left the bench to stoop to their level, tumbling them over on their backs; playfully boxing their ears, working them up to a wild state of yapping enthusiasm. "The little darlings!" she cried; "just see their fat little tummies! And their teeth are just like needles. No, no, you mustn't! You'll tear my flounces! Look, Milton, see this little rascal pull at my handkerchief!" Her cheeks were flushed, and as she looked up laughing from beneath her hat, she made a very charming picture. "You like," stated the Californian woman with conviction. After a while it became time to go. Vaqueros brought out the horse and harnessed it to the buggy. Keith made a movement to offer payment, but correctly interpreted the situation and refrained. They mounted the vehicle. "_Muchas gracias!_" Nan enunciated slowly. This effort was received with an admiring acclaim that flushed Nan with an inordinate pride. She had picked up the phrase from hearing it used at table. The fat woman came forward, one of the puppies tucked under her arm. In spite of her apparently unwieldy size she moved gracefully and lightly. "You like?" she inquired, holding the squirming puppy at arm's length. "_Si, si, muchas gracias!_" cried Nan eagerly, and employing at once all her Spanish vocabulary. She deposited the puppy in her lap and reached out to shake hands. Keith flicked the horse with his whip. He, too, had recollected a word of Spanish, and he used it now. "_Adios!_" he shouted. But their hosts had a better phrase. "_Vaya Con Dios!_" they cried in chorus.

one most enormously fat

"_Si! si! si!_" they cried. Several started to unharness the horse. Others held out their hands. After a moment's hesitation Nan accepted their aid and descended. Keith's performance was evidently considered a great joke. On the low veranda were two women, one most enormously fat, the other young and lithe. They were dressed almost exactly alike, their blue--black hair parted smoothly over their foreheads but built up to a high structure behind, filmy _rebosas_ over high combs, and skirts with many flowered flounces. They both had soft, gentle eyes, and they were both so heavily powdered that their complexions were almost blue. All the men explained to them at once. The younger answered gayly; the older listened with entire placidity. But when the account was finished, she reached out to pat Nan's hand, and to smile reassuringly. Various foods and a flask of red wine were brought. There was no constraint, for Keith threw himself with delighted abandon into experiments with sign language. "_Esta simpatica_," the Californians told each other over and again. Their manners were elaborate, dignified, deliberate, and beautiful. Keith, ordinarily rather direct and brusque, to Nan's great amusement became exactly like them. They outvied each other. The women touched smilingly the stuff of Nan's gown, and directly admired her various feminine trappings. She, thus encouraged, begged permission to examine more closely the lace of the _rebosas_ or the beautiful embroidery on the shawls. A little feeling of intimacy drew them all together, although they understood no word of each other's language. One of the dogs now approached and gravely laid its nose on Nan's knee, gazing up at her with searching soft eyes. The older woman cried out scandalized, but Nan shook her head, and patted the beast's nose. "You like?" asked the woman. "Why, you do talk English!" cried Nan. But either these two words were all the woman had, or she was unwilling to adventure further. "You like?" she repeated again, after a moment, and then, observing Nan's interest, she uttered a command to one of the numerous ragged small boys standing about. The urchin darted away, to return after a moment with a basket, which he emptied on the ground. Four fuzzy puppies rolled out. "Oh, the darlings!" cried Nan.

invisible city over the hills

He told her that the mountain over the way must be Tamalpais; that the pearl-gray, far-off hills must be Contra Costa; that the distant dim peak was undoubtedly Mount Diabolo. She repeated the syllables after him softly, charmed by their music. Simultaneously they discovered that they were hungry. The wind whipped in from the sea. An outpost tent or so marked the distant invisible city over the hills. Keith turned his horse's head toward them. They drove back across what are now the Presidio hills. But in a hollow they came upon another ranch house, like the first--low, white, red roofed, covered with vines. Keith insisted on driving to it. A number of saddled horses dozed before the door, a half-dozen dogs sprawled in the dust, fowls picked their way between the horses' legs or over the dogs' recumbent forms. At the sound of wheels several people came from the shadow of the porch into the open. They proved to be Spanish Californians dressed in the flat sombreros, the short velvet jackets, the slashed trousers, and soft leather _zapatos_. The men, handsome, lithe, indolent, pressed around the wheels of the buggy, showing their white teeth in pleasant smiles. "Can we get anything to eat here?" asked Keith. They all smiled again most amiably. The elder swept off his hat with a free gesture. "_A piedes ouestros, senora_," he said, "_pero no hablo Ingles. Habla usted Espanol?_" Keith understood the last three words. "No," he shook his head violently, "no _Espanol_. Hungry." He pointed to Nan, then to himself: "She, me, hungry." This noble effort brought no results, except that the Californians looked more politely distressed and solicitous than ever. "They don't understand us," murmured Nan; "don't you think we'd better drive on?" But Keith, who had now descended from the buggy, resorted to sign language. He rubbed his stomach pathetically and pointed down his open mouth; as an afterthought he rubbed the horse's belly; then, with apparent intention, he advanced toward Nan. A furious red inundated her face and neck, and she held her little parasol threateningly between them. Everybody burst into laughter.

but his father held him down

Toni looked over the edge, down a hundred-foot drop to where the sea boiled among jagged rocks. Kit struggled, but his father held him down, and eventually he became still. Stanley got slowly to his feet and pulled Kit up. Kit's eyes were shut. He was shaking with emotion, like someone in a fit. "It's over," Stanley said. He put his arms around his son and held him. "It's all over now." They stood like that on the edge, with the wind blowing their hair, until Kit stopped shaking. Then, gently, Stanley turned him around and led him back toward the house. * * * THE family was in the living room, stunned and silent, still not sure that the nightmare was over. Stanley was talking to the Inverburn ambulance service on Kit's mobile phone while Nellie tried to lick his hands. Hugo lay on the couch, covered in blankets, while Olga bathed his wounds. Miranda was doing the same for Tom and Ned. Kit lay on his back on the floor, eyes closed. Craig and Sophie talked in low voices in a corner. Caroline had found all her rats and sat with their cage on her knees. Toni's mother sat next to Caroline with the puppy in her lap. The Christmas tree twinkled in the corner. Toni called Odette. "How far away did you say those helicopters were?" "An hour," Odette replied. "But that was then. As soon as the snow stopped, I moved them. Now they're at Inverburn, waiting for instructions. Why?" "I've caught the gang and I've got the virus back, but—" "What, on your own?" Odette was amazed. "Never mind that. The important man is the customer, the one who's trying to buy this stuff and use it to kill people. We need to find him." "I wish we could." "I think we can, if we act fast. Could you send a helicopter to me?" "Where are you?" "At Stanley Oxenford's house, Steepfall. It's right on the cliff exactly fifteen miles north of Inverburn. There are four buildings in a square, and the pilot will see two crashed cars in the garden." "My God, you have been busy."

He was never going to make it

Toni felt for a pulse in Daisy's neck. It was there, but weak. "She's still alive—just." Craig said, "I've got her gun. It's empty, anyway." They were all right, Toni decided. She looked ahead to the crashed Mercedes. Kit had climbed out. She ran toward him. Stanley followed close behind. Kit started to run away, along the drive, heading for the woods; but he was battered and shaken by the crash, and he ran erratically. He was never going to make it, Toni could see. After a few paces he staggered and fell. He seemed to realize that he could not escape that way. Scrambling to his feet, he changed direction and turned toward the cliff. Toni glanced into the Mercedes as she passed it. Nigel lay in a crumpled heap, eyes open with the blank stare of the dead. That accounted for the three thugs, Toni thought: one tied up, one unconscious, and one dead. Only Kit was left. Kit slipped on the icy drive, staggered, regained his balance, and turned around. He took the perfume spray from his pocket and held it out like a gun. "Stop, or I'll kill us all," he said. Toni and Stanley stopped. Kit's face was all pain and rage. Toni saw a man who had lost his soul. He might do anything: kill his family, kill himself, destroy the world. Stanley said, "It won't work out here, Kit." Toni wondered if that were true. Kit had the same thought, and said, "Why not?" "Feel this wind," Stanley said. "The droplets will disperse before they can do any harm." "To hell with it all," Kit said, and he threw the bottle high in the air. Then he turned around, jumped over the low wall, and ran full tilt at the cliff edge a few feet away. Stanley jumped after him. Toni caught the perfume bottle before it hit the ground. Stanley leaped through the air, hands stretched out in front of him. He almost got Kit by the shoulders, but his hands slipped. He hit the ground, but managed to grab one leg and grip it tight. Kit fell to the ground with his head and shoulders jutting out over the edge of the cliff. Stanley jumped on top of him, holding him down with his weight.

car with her arm and fired repeatedly

"You bastard!" Daisy screamed after the car, and she leveled her pistol. Kit accelerated past the crashed Ferrari and along the curving driveway that ran beside the cliff top. Craig watched, frozen, as Daisy took aim. Her hand was steady, despite the pain she was in. She squeezed off a shot, and Craig saw a rear side window shatter. Daisy tracked the speeding car with her arm and fired repeatedly, cartridge cases spewing from the ejection slot of the gun. A line of bullet holes appeared in the car's side, then there was a different kind of bang. A front tire blew out and a strip of rubber flew through the air. The car continued in a straight line for a second. Then it slewed sideways, its hood plowing into the piled snow at the side of the drive, sending up a fantail of white. The back swung out and crashed into the low wall that ran along the cliff edge. Craig heard the metallic scream of tortured steel. The car skidded sideways. Daisy kept firing, and the windshield shattered. The car went into a slow roll, tilting sideways, seeming to hesitate, then toppling over onto its roof. It slid a few feet upside down then came to a stop. Daisy stopped shooting and fell backwards, her eyes closed. Craig stared at her. The gun fell from her hand. Sophie started to cry. Craig reached across Daisy. He watched her eyes, terrified that they would open at any moment. His hand closed over the warm gun. He picked it up. He held it in his right hand and put his finger into the trigger guard. He pointed it at a spot exactly between Daisy's eyes. All he cared about was that this monster should never threaten him and Sophie and their family ever again. Slowly, he squeezed the trigger. The gun clicked on an empty magazine. * * * KIT was lying flat on the inside roof of the overturned car. He felt bruised all over, and his neck hurt as if he had twisted it, but he could move all his limbs. He managed to right himself. Nigel lay beside him, unconscious, possibly dead. Kit tried to get out. He pulled the handle and pushed at the door, but it would not move. Something had jammed in the crash. He hammered madly at it with his fists, with no result. He jabbed at the button of the electric window, but nothing happened. He thought frantically that he might be imprisoned until the fire brigade arrived to cut him out, and he suffered a moment of panic and despair. Then he saw that the windshield was crazed. He shoved at it with his hand and easily pushed out a big section of broken glass.

Kit increased pressure on the pedal

Kit put the automatic gearshift into drive and touched the accelerator pedal. The car seemed to strain forward, but did not move. The plow had stopped a couple of feet away, and snow was piled two feet high in front of the bumper. Kit increased pressure on the pedal as the car labored to move the snow out of the way. "Come on!" Kit said. "This is a Mercedes, it ought to be able to shift a few pounds of snow! How big is the damn engine, anyway?" He pressed a little harder, but he did not want the wheels to lose traction and begin to spin. The car eased forward a few inches, and the piled-up snow seemed to crack and shift. Kit looked back. His father and Toni stood outside the house, watching. They would come no closer, Kit guessed, because they knew Nigel had the guns. The car suddenly sprang forward as the snow gave way. Kit felt a soaring elation as he accelerated along the cleared driveway. Steepfall had seemed like a jail from which he would never escape—but he had. He passed the garage—and saw Daisy. He braked reflexively. Nigel said, "What the hell?" Daisy was walking toward them, supported by Craig on one side and by Ned's sulky daughter, Sophie, on the other. Daisy's legs dragged uselessly behind her, and her head was a mass of blood. Beyond them was Stanley's Ferrari, its sensuous curves battered and deformed, its gleaming blue paintwork scraped and scratched. What the hell had happened there? "Stop and pick her up!" Nigel said. Kit remembered how Daisy had humiliated him and almost drowned him in her father's pool only yesterday. "Fuck her," he said. He was at the wheel, and he was not going to delay his escape for her. He put his foot down. * * * THE long green hood of the Mercedes seemed to lift like the head of an eager horse, and it leaped forward. Craig had only a second to act. He grabbed the hood of Sophie's anorak with his right hand and pulled her to the side of the drive, moving the same way himself. Because they were tangled up with Daisy, she moved with them, and all three fell into the soft snow beside the track, Daisy screaming in pain and rage. The car shot past, missing them by inches, and Craig glimpsed his Uncle Kit at the wheel. He was flabbergasted. Kit had nearly killed him. Was it intentional, or had Kit known that Craig had time to get out of the way?

holding his bleeding right shoulder

Kit met his father's gaze. He saw anger there, as he expected, but also grief. Stanley looked the way he had when Mamma Marta died. Too bad, Kit thought angrily; he brought this on himself. "Too late now for apologies," he said harshly. "I wasn't going to apologize," Stanley said sadly. Kit looked at Nigel, sitting on the floor, holding his bleeding right shoulder with his left hand. That explained the two gunshots that had caused Kit to arm himself with the spray before coming back into the kitchen. Nigel struggled to his feet. "Ah, bollocks, it hurts," he said. Kit said, "Hand over the guns, Toni. Quick, or I'll press this nozzle." Toni hesitated. Stanley said, "I think Kit means what he says." "On the table," Kit said. She put the guns on the kitchen table, beside the briefcase that had contained the perfume bottle. Kit said, "Nigel, pick them up." With his left hand, Nigel picked up a gun and stuffed it into his pocket. He took the second, hefted it, then, with sudden speed, smashed it across Toni's face. She cried out and fell back. Kit was furious with him. "What do you think you're doing?" he cried. "There's no time for that! We have to get going." "Don't you give me orders," Nigel said harshly. "This cow shot me." Kit could tell from Toni's face that she thought she was about to die. But there was no time to enjoy revenge. "That cow ruined my life, but I'm not hanging around to punish her," Kit said. "Knock it off!" Nigel hesitated, staring malevolently at Toni. Kit said, "Let's go!" At last Nigel turned away from Toni. "What about Elton and Daisy?" "To hell with them." "We should tie up your old man and his tart." "You stupid fool, don't you realize we're out of time?"

then you'll have to go back and amend

Finally, he said, "I think the Judge would want you to have some of it." "Oh you do?" "Yes. We'll need some of it now to finish fixing up the place, probably twenty-five thousand or so. What if you, me, and Forrest split the remainder? " "Twenty-five each?" "Yep. What do you think?" "You're not running it through the estate?" she asked. She knew the law better than Harry Rex. "Why bother? It's cash, nobody knows about it, and if we report it then half will go for taxes." "And how would you explain it?" she asked, as always, one step ahead. They used to say that Claudia would have the case decided before the lawyers began their opening statements. And the woman loved money. Clothes, perfume, always a late-model car, and all these things from a poorly paid court reporter. If she was drawing a state pension, it couldn't be much. "It cannot be explained," Ray said. "If it's from gambling, then you'll have to go back and amend his tax returns for the past years," she said, quickly on board. "What a mess." "A real mess." The mess was quietly put to rest. No one would ever know about her share of the money. "We had a case once," she said, gazing across the front lawn. "Over in Tippah County, thirty years ago. A man named Childers owned a scrap yard. He died with no will." A pause, a long drag on the cigarette. "Had a bunch of kids, and they found money hidden all over the place, in his office, in his attic, in a utility shed behind his house, in his fireplace. It was a regular Easter egg hunt. Once they'd scoured every inch of the place, they counted it up and it was about two hundred thousand dollars. This, from a man who wouldn't pay his phone bill and wore the same pair of overalls for ten years." Another pause, another long puff. She could tell these stories forever. "Half the kids wanted to split the money and run, the other half wanted to tell the lawyer and include the money in the probate. Word leaked out, the family got scared, and the money got added to the old man's estate. The kids fought bitterly. Five years later all the money was gone - half to the government, half to the lawyers."

of conversation and took a break

"No. I still don't believe it." "The money came from somewhere, Claudia. And something tells me it was dirty, otherwise he would have included it with the rest of his assets." "And if he won at gambling he would have considered that dirty, don't you think?" Indeed, she knew the Judge better than anyone. "Yes, and you?" "Sounds like Reuben Atlee to me." They finished that round of conversation and took a break, both rocking gently in the cool shade of the front porch, as if time had stopped, neither bothered by the silence. Porch-sitting allowed great lapses while thoughts were gathered, or while there was no thinking at all. Finally Ray, still plodding through an unwritten script, mustered the courage to ask the toughest question of the day. "I need to know something, Claudia, and please be honest." "I'm always honest. It's one of my faults." "I have never questioned my father's integrity." "Nor should you now." "Help me out here, okay." "Go on." "Was there anything on the side - a little extra from a lawyer, a slice of the pie from a litigant, a nice backhander as the Brits like to say?" "Absolutely not." "I'm throwing darts, Claudia, hoping to hit something. You don't just find a hundred thousand dollars in nice crisp bills tucked away on a shelf. When he died he had six thousand dollars in the bank. Why keep a hundred buried?" "He was the most ethical man in the world." "I believe that." "Then stop talking about bribes and such." "Gladly" She lit another cigarette and he left to fill up the tea glasses. When he returned to the porch Claudia was deep in thought, her gaze stretching far beyond the street. They rocked for a while.

she said with no doubts whatsoever

"A hundred thousand." He watched her face and eyes closely. Surprise registered, but not shock. He had a script so he pressed on. "His records are meticulous, checks written, deposits, ledgers with every expense, and this money seems to have no source." "He never kept a lot of cash," she said slowly. "That's what I remember too. I have no idea where it came from, do you?" "None," she said with no doubts whatsoever. "The Judge didn't deal in cash. Period. Everything went through the First National Bank. He was on the board for a long time, remember?" "Yes, very well. Did he have anything on the side?" "Such as?" "I'm asking you, Claudia, you knew him better than anyone. And you knew his business." "He was completely devoted to his work. To him, being a chancellor was a great calling, and he worked very hard at it. He had no time for anything else." . "Including his family," Ray said, then immediately wished he had not. "He loved his boys, Ray, but he was from a different generation." "Let's stay away from that." "Let's." They took a break and each regrouped. Neither wanted to dwell on the family. The money had their attention. A car eased down the street and seemed to pause just long enough for the occupants to see the For Sale sign and take a long look at the house. One look was enough because it sped away. "Did you know he was gambling?" Ray asked. "The Judge? No." "Hard to believe, isn't it? Harry Rex took him to the casinos once a week for a while. Seems as if the Judge had a knack for it and Harry Rex did not." "You hear rumors, especially about the lawyers. Several of them have gotten into trouble over there." "But you've heard nothing about the Judge?"