The Burning Bridge by Philip Verrill Mighels (the best novels to read TXT) 📕

him out when he hunted or wandered in the jungle.

It was not until one of those incomparable mornings, with the tropic greenery fresh as a breath over clover, that he finally heard the notes she had prisoned in her bosom break forth in clear, sweet utterance, as crystal bright as the sun.

He paused in the screen of ferns and palms to partake of her wild, sweet rapture. And how lightly and gladly she sang!

"Come out, come out, my dearest dear,
    Come out and greet the sun!
The birds awake on tree and brake,
    The merry May's begun!

"Come out and drink the diamond dew,
    Come out and tread the lea!
The world is all awake, and you
    Are all the world to me!"

All that was starved in his nature stirred in response to the song. His blood leaped faster, its glow like that of rich and sense-delighting wine. A vivid memory of the one lawless kiss he had dared to snatch from Elaine's red lips inflamed a sweet desire.

He had called her his sweetheart, called her his mate, for the frenzy of joy, the ecstasy, her nature had wrought upon his own. He felt to-day his claim had been proved, by their life alone with God. They had worked and fought and planned the days away together, like a mated pair fresh created and cast to an Eden of the sea. They belonged to one another.

Love had come at last to Elaine—a love to match the strength and purpose of his own—a love overwhelming, natural, unabashed—was their rightful heritage. Its holiness gave it sanction; its rightness made it as pure as fire that makes hard metal molten.

He started slowly towards the hill whereon Elaine was busied. He halted, however, hidden from view by a new banana foliage, wondrously unrolling. Another song was floating on the air.

"Pale hands I loved, upon the Shalimar,
    Where are you now? Who lies beneath thy spell?
Whom do you lead on rapture's roadway jar
    Before you agonize them, in farewell?

"Pale hands I loved, upon the Shalimar,
    Where are you now? Where are you now?"

The mad intoxication of his senses rocked him strangely, there in the thicket. He saw the gleam of the jeweled girdle that spanned Elaine's lithe figure, as she moved about on the brink of the terrace above. Once again his heart struck mightily against its walls, as it had the first day she had worn this gold, by way of a maid's confession.

He knew at last her Shalimar was a wild little garden of love, to be sacredly shared between them. Excited to trembling he started again to join her at the cavern. Before he could come to the foot of the trail she suddenly ran to the terrace-edge, looking down like a vision of despair.

"Sidney!" she cried, "another Dyak boat! I've just this minute seen the sail!"

Ready to curse the merciless Fates, as well as his own recent laziness, which had made calamity possible, Grenville ran swiftly up the mended trail and followed Elaine to the tree.

The sail was certainly plain enough to see, far out in the purple waters. It was, to all appearances, bearing directly down upon the island. But, as Grenville watched, it altered shape. His face showed a sign of relaxing.

"I don't believe it's a Dyak craft," he told her, hoarsely. "It looks like—— I think it's a yacht."

CHAPTER XLV THE LAST BOMB

It certainly was a modern yacht that the two of them saw, straining their eyes to identify the stranger roving afar in their waters.

A trick of the sun, or perhaps her paint, had concealed both masts and funnel for a time, presenting only a rakish angle of her prow and quarter, incredibly like a sail of the shape the Dyaks employ.

But, if eager excitement surged uninterruptedly through the pulses of the two ragged exiles, there on the barren headland, the bitterness of vain disappointments promptly began their inroads to its centers. The yacht was not only in great apparent haste, but was heading far off to the eastward, with not the slightest curiosity respecting the tiny island of whom no one could give a good report.

The flagpole was gone—and a new one had been neglected. There was no time now to erect another, as Grenville realized. He stood with Elaine on the brink of the rock, frantically waving his arms and cap, and even a large banana leaf, while the slender distant visitor came abreast them and continued straight ahead.

"They've got to see! They've got to!" he cried, in the desperate plight of mind begotten by this promise thus mercilessly snatched away.

Suddenly abandoning all other possible devices, he ran to his powder "magazine," where the last of the bombs was stored. He came with it hugged against his breast, in thoughtless and dangerous proximity to the firebrand clutched in his fist.

"Run back!" he said. "I haven't time to make it thoroughly safe!"

But Elaine remained to see him lower it down on the broken rocks, where the cave had formerly existed. She waited, indeed, till he lighted the fuse and drew her away towards the shelter.

His eyes were on the distant yacht, fast fading once more from their vision. The bomb must have failed. The fuse was deficient, he was sure. He started back to recover the thing and make it certain of explosion.

Then it burst, and flung shattered fragments along all the face of the wall.

Grenville was watching the distant yacht with fixed, almost frenzied, expression.

"They haven't heard!" he groaned, despairingly. "They're going faster than before!"

It certainly seemed as if the hurried stranger would no more halt than would a fiery meteor overdue at some cosmic appointment.

Then of a sudden, from its bow, broke a pure-white cloud of smoke. She had answered with the small brass piece employed to fire a salute. Her prow was turned before the sound came dully across the waters. Sobbing and laughing together, in sudden relief, Elaine sank down on her knees, among the bowlders, to watch this deliverance come.

CHAPTER XLVI A GIFT REFUSED

The yacht was the "Petrel," luxurious hobby of Sir Myles Kemp, diverted from her homeward course by the merest whim of her owner to run up northward for a day while Sir Myles should inspect the rubber plantation and estate of his old fellow-officer, Captain Williams, who was not even present at the place.

The inspection was never made. The utter amazement occasioned by the chance discovery of the exiles of Three-Hill Island, plus their story of its fateful occupation, completely overshadowed all else in the minds of the "Petrel's" commander and crew, whose one idea was to assist the castaways home with the greatest speed of which steel and steam were capable. The picture the pair presented as they came aboard—Elaine amazingly tattered, a supple, tanned, incredibly sweet and womanly little figure—Grenville, a bearded, active master of the wild, clad in the skin of a cheeta for a coat, and bearing a richly colored tiger-skin, rolled up to contain a hundredweight of treasure—was one that Sir Myles was destined never to forget. He was likewise always destined to misunderstand the emotions with which, as they steamed away at last, Elaine looked back, with tears in her eyes, at the unpeopled Isle of Shalimar, so green in its purple setting, presenting its headland to the sea with that lone tree reared above its summit.

Grenville, too, had seen her eyes—and he more nearly comprehended.

By great good-fortune much of Lady Kemp's wardrobe had been left aboard the yacht. She and Elaine must have been of a size, to judge from the manner in which her yachting apparel and her dainty boudoir adjusted themselves to the form of the girl whom Sir Myles began forthwith to treat as he might a daughter.

The "Petrel" was put about and headed for Colombo—the nearest port at which an Orient steamer would be likely to be encountered. It was not until after dinner had been served and his guests had been made as thoroughly comfortable as warm-hearted hospitality, admiration for the two of them, and exceptional thoughtfulness could compass that Sir Myles related the accepted fate of the "Inca," from the wreck of which they escaped.

The news had gone forth that she foundered, and not a soul was saved. A few insignificant pieces of wreckage had been found afloat, far from the unknown ledge of rock the earthquake had lifted in the sea, but no one till now had heard so much as a theory as to what had been her fate.

That some such intelligence must have been sent to the worried and waiting relatives and friends beyond the seas, both Grenville and Elaine had long before comprehended, despite the preoccupation engrossing their minds all these many age-long weeks. But now, when at length they were homeward bound, the facts presented an aspect which there had been no occasion to prepare against while struggling for existence on the island.

There was one thought only in their minds. It was Fenton, and what he might have done when that news had expended its shock. And what would be the outcome of the story, now that the home-coming journey was resumed—now that he, Sidney Grenville, could at last complete and discharge his original commission?

He faced the business hardly more calmly than did Elaine. No argument possible to him now, respecting the warning Fenton had received, availed to allay and satisfy his haunting sense of honor. The man had matured on Shalimar, and his soul had been refined.

But what strange days those were that now succeeded! How they robbed him of his happiness, as they brought him nearer home! His spirits sank and would not rise, the nearer Colombo was approached. He told himself then, once he could wire, acquaint Gerald Fenton with the fact they were safe, and would soon be with him, he would come to some peace of mind.

But, when at length the wire was sent, he experienced no such relief. Relief, indeed, had failed to come when for three days and nights the Orient boat had been plowing across the Indian Ocean, rushing headlong from the tropic heat to the distant ports beyond.

He thought, perhaps, if he informed Elaine, the business would be settled. He attempted that day to introduce the subject, but in vain. Elaine was so sparklingly happy! He postponed the ordeal for the night.

The moon had returned to the skies again, bringing to the wanderers ineffable memories of other nights, when peace lay tranquilly fragrant on the world of their Shalimar. He detected its subtle influence on the ever-vivacious little woman who had shared his perils and his joys.

Elaine was softly thrilling to the spell of it all as she halted beside him, finally, on a strip of the deck abandoned to their uses. She felt that the atmosphere was overcharged, and wondered what might be impending. To still the pounding of her heart she leaned on the taffrail, ecstatically in touch with Grenville's arm. She spoke of the wonder of the night.

"Yes," drawled Grenville, in his old dry way, "great facilities here for manufacturing nights—— I wired Gerald from Colombo."

For a moment Elaine was puzzled by this wholly irrelevant remark. Then her heart began to rock uneasily.

"You—wired we were coming home?"

"Wired I was fetching you home, after unavoidable delay."

She recognized the difference between the way that she and he had expressed the principal fact. She felt herself, as it were, already surrendered to a man grown singularly foreign to her nature. It seemed to her incredible that Sidney and she should ever again be parted, or work out their several destinies in any manner save together—especially after all he had said and even done.

"Was that—all you said?" she asked him, faintly.

"No. I said I'd be best man—or something of the sort."

Elaine felt something leaden go down to the point of her heart.

"You wanted him to know that you had no idea—— You wanted Gerald to understand——" She could not finish her sentence. Her face was hotly flaming, but at least