Mr. Achilles Part 17

"I saw a _beautiful_ b.u.t.terfly once!" she said. But the woman did not hear. She had pa.s.sed out of the shed--around the corner--and was looking after the chickens outside--her voice clucking to them lightly. The child moved toward the b.u.t.terfly, absorbed in s.h.i.+ning thought. "It was a _beautiful_ b.u.t.terfly--" she said softly, "in a Greek shop." The wings of the b.u.t.terfly rose and circled vaguely and pa.s.sed behind her, and she wheeled about, peering up into the dark shed. She saw the yellow wings--up there--poise themselves, and wait a minute--and sail toward the light outside.... But she did not turn to follow its flight--Across the brown boards of the shed--behind a pile of lumber, against the wall up there--a head had lifted itself and was looking at her. She caught her breath--"I saw a b.u.t.terfly once!" she repeated dully. It was half a sob--The head laid a long, dark finger on its lip and sank from sight.... The child wheeled toward the open light--the woman was coming in, her hands filled with eggs. "I must carry these in," she said briskly. She looked at the child. "You can stay and play a little while--if you want to. But you must not go away, you know."

"I will not go away," said the child, breathless.

So the woman turned and left her--and the child's eyes followed her.

x.x.xII

AND A VOICE

"Can you hear me, little Miss Harris?" The voice came from the dusky shed, high up against the wall.

But the child did not turn her head. "Yes--Mr. Achilles--I can hear you very well," she said softly.

"Don't look this way," said the voice. "Get down and look at the chickens--and listen to what I tell you."

The child dropped obediently to her knees, her head a little bent, her face toward the open light outside.

The woman, going about her work in the kitchen, looked out and saw her and nodded to her kindly--

The child's lips made a little smile in return. They were very pale.

"I come to take you home," said the voice. It was full of tenderness and Betty Harris bent her head, a great wave of homesickness sweeping across her.

"I can't go, Mr. Achilles." It was like a sob. "I can't go. They will kill you. I heard them. They will kill _anybody_--that comes--!" She spoke in swift little whispers--and waited. "Can you hear me say it?"

she asked. "Can you hear me say it, Mr. Achilles?"

"I hear it--yes." The voice of Achilles laughed a little. "They will not kill--little lady, and you go home--with me--to-night." The voice dropped down from its high place and comforted her.

She reached out little hands to the chickens and laughed tremulously. "I am afraid," she said softly, "I am afraid!"

But the low voice, up in the dusk, steadied her and gave her swift commands--and repeated them--till she crept from the dim shed into the light and stood up--blinking a little--and looked about her--and laughed happily.

And the woman came to the door and smiled at her. "You must come in,"

she called.

"Yes--Mrs. Seabury--" The child darted back into the shed and gathered up the spoon and basin from the board and looked about her swiftly. In the slatted box, the mother hen clucked drowsily, and wise cheeps from beneath her wings answered bravely. The child glanced at the box, and up at the dusky boards of the shed, peering far in the dimness. But there was no one--not even a voice--just the high, tumbled pile of boards--and the few nests along the wall and the mother hen clucking cosily behind her slats--and the wise little cheeps.

x.x.xIII

"WAKE UP, MRS. SEABURY!"

The child lay with her hands clasped, breathing lightly. The sound of voices came drowsily from the kitchen... she must not go to sleep! She sat up and leaned toward the little window that looked out to the north.

Through the blackness the stars twinkled mistily, and she put her foot carefully over the edge of the bed and slipped down. The window was open--as far as the small sash allowed--and a warm, faint breeze came across the plain to her. She leaned against the sill, looking out. It was not far to the ground.... But she could see only vague blackness down there, and she looked again up to the twinkling stars.... They were little points of light up there, and she looked up trustfully while the warm wind blew against her. Her heart was beating very hard--and fast--but she was not afraid.... Mr. Achilles had said--not to be afraid--and he was waiting--down there in the blackness to take her home. She crept back to bed and lay down--very still. In the room below there was a sc.r.a.ping of chairs and louder words--and footsteps....

Someone had opened the door under her window and the smell of tobacco came up. Her little nose disdained it--and listened, alert. Footsteps went out into the night and moved a little away on the gravel and came back, and the door closed. She could hear the bolt click to its place and the footsteps shuffle along the hall. The voices below had ceased and the house was still--she was very sleepy now. But he had said--Mr.

Achilles had said.... She winked briskly and gave herself a little pinch under the clothes--and sat up. It was a sharp little pinch--through many thicknesses of clothes. Under the coa.r.s.e nightgown b.u.t.toned carefully to the throat, she was still wearing the red and green plaids and all her day clothes. Only the clumsy shoes, slipped off, stood by the bed, waiting for her. Her hand reached down to them cautiously, and felt them--and she lay down and closed her eyes. There was a step on the stairs--coming slowly. Betty Harris grew very still. If Mrs. Seabury came in and stood and looked at her... she must cry out--and throw her arms around her neck--and tell her _everything_! She could not hurt Mrs.

Seabury.... Mr. Achilles had said they would not hurt her. She had asked him that--three times, herself--and Mr. Achilles had said it--no one should hurt Mrs. Seabury--if Betty went away.... She held her breath....

The footsteps had come across the room--to her door--they waited there... then they moved on--and she drew a free breath. Her heart thumped to the vague movements that came and went in the next room--they pottered about a little, and finally ceased and a light, indrawn breath blew out the lamp--a hand was groping for the handle of her door--and opening it softly--and the bare feet moved away. The bed-springs in the next room creaked a little and everything was still. Betty Harris had a quick sense of pain. Mrs. Seabury was kind to her! She had been so kind that first day, when they brought her in out of the hot sun, and she had stumbled on the stairs and sobbed out--Mrs. Seabury had picked her up and carried her up the stairs and comforted her... and told her what it meant--these strange harsh men seizing her in the open suns.h.i.+ne, as they swept past--covering her mouth with hard hands and hurrying her out of the city to this stifling place. She loved Mrs. Seabury. Perhaps they would put her in prison... and _never_ let her out--and Mollie would not get well. The child gave a little, quick sob, in her thought, and lay very still. Mollie had been good once, and wicked men had hurt her...

and now her mother could not help her.... But Mr. Achilles said--yes--he said it--no one should hurt her.... And with the thought of the Greek she lay in the darkness, listening to the sounds of the night.... There was a long, light call somewhere across the plain, a train of heavy Pullmans pus.h.i.+ng through the night--the sound came to the child like a whiff of breath, and pa.s.sed away... and the crickets chirped--high and shrill. In the next room, the breathing grew loud, and louder, in long, even beats. Mrs. Seabury was asleep! Betty Harris sat up in bed, her little hands clinched fast at her side. Then she lay down again--and waited... and the breathing in the next room grew loud, and regular, and full.... Mrs. Seabury was very tired! And Betty Harris listened, and slipped down from the bed, and groped for her shoes--and lifted them like a breath--and stepped high across the floor, in the dim room. It was a slow flight... tuned to the long-drawn, falling breath of the sleeper--that did not break by a note--not even when the brown hand released the latch and a little, sharp click fell on the air.... "Wake up, Mrs. Seabury! Wake up--for Mollie's sake--wake up!" the latch said.

But the sleeper did not stir--only the long, regular, dream-filled, droning sleep. And the child crept down the stair--across the kitchen and reached the other door. She was not afraid now--one more door! The men would not hear her--they were asleep--Mrs. Seabury was asleep--and her fingers turned the key softly and groped to the bolt above--and pushed at it--hard--and fell back--and groped for it again--and tugged... little beads of sweat were coming on the brown forehead. She drew the back of her hand swiftly across them and reached again to the bolt. It was too high--she could reach it--but not to push. She felt for a chair, in the darkness--and lifted it, without a sound, and carried it to the door and climbed up. There was a great lump in her throat now.

Mr. Achilles did not know the bolt would stick like this--she gave a fierce, soft tug, like a sob--and it slid back. The k.n.o.b turned and the door opened and she was in the night.... For a moment her eyes groped with the blackness. Then a long, quiet hand reached out to her--and closed upon her--and she gave a little sob, and was drawn swiftly into the night.

x.x.xIV

THE FLIGHT OF STARS

"Is that you, Mr. Achilles?" she asked--into the dark.

And the voice of Achilles laughed down to her. "I'm here--yes. It's me.

We must hurry now--fast. Come!"

He gripped the small hand in his and they sped out of the driveway, toward the long road. Up above them the little stars blinked down, and the warm wind touched their faces as they went. The soft darkness shut them in. There was only the child, clinging to Achilles's great hand and hurrying through the night. Far in the distance, a dull, sullen glow lit the sky--the city's glow--and Betty's home, out there beneath it, in the dark. But the child did not know. She would not have known which way the city lay--but for Achilles's guiding hand. She clung fast to that--and they sped on.

By and by he ran a little, reaching down to her--and his spirit touched hers and she ran without fatigue beside him, with little breathless laughs--"I--like--to run!" she said.

"Yes--come--" He hurried her faster over the road--he would not spare her now. He held her life in his hand--and the little children--he saw them, asleep in their dreams, over there in the glow.... "Come!" he said. And they ran fast.

It was the first half hour he feared. If there was no pursuit, over the dark road behind them, then he would spare her--but not now. "Come!" he urged, and they flew faster.

And behind them the little house lay asleep--under its stars--no sign of life when his swift-flas.h.i.+ng glance sought it out--and the heart of Achilles stretched to the miles and laughed with them and leaped out upon them, far ahead.... He should bring her home safe.

Then, upon the night, came a sound--faint-stirring wings--a long-drawn buzz and rush of air--deep notes that gripped the ground, far off--and the pulse of pounding wheels--behind them, along the dark road.... And Achilles seized the child by the shoulder, bearing her forward toward the short gra.s.s--his quick-running hand thrusting her down--"Lie still!"

he whispered. The lights of the car had gleamed out, swaying a little in the distance, as he threw his coat across her and pressed it flat. "Lie still!" he whispered again, and was back in the road, his hand feeling for the great banana knife that rested in his s.h.i.+rt--his eye searching the road behind. There was time--yes--and he turned about and swung into the long, stretching pace that covers the miles--without hurry, without rest. The roar behind him grew, and flashed to light--and swept by--and his eye caught the face of the chauffeur, as it flew, leaning intently on the night; and in the lighted car behind him, flashed a face--a man's face, outlined against the gla.s.s, a high, white face fixed upon a printed page--some magnate, travelling at his ease, sleepless...

thundering past in the night--unconscious of the Greek, plodding in the roadside dust.

Achilles knew that he had only to lift his hand--to cry out to them, as they sped, and they would turn with leaping wheel. There was not a man, hurrying about his own affairs, who would not gladly stop to gather up the child that was lost. Word had come to Philip Harris--east and west--endless offers of help. But the great car thundered by and Achilles's glance followed it, sweeping with it--on toward the city and the dull glow of sky. He was breathing hard as he went, and he plunged on a step--two steps--ten--before he held his pace; then he drew a deep, free breath, and faced about. The knife dropped back in his breast, and his hand sought the revolver in his hip pocket, crowding it down a little. He had been sure he could face them--two of them--three--as many as might be. But the car had swept on, bearing its strangers to the city... and the little house on the plain was still asleep. He had a kind of happy superst.i.tion that he was to save the child single-handed.

He had not trusted the police... with their great, foolish fingers. They could not save his little girl. She had needed Achilles--and he had held the thread of silken cobweb--and traced it bit by bit to the place where they had hidden her. He should save her!

He glanced at the stars--an hour gone--and the long road to tramp. He ran swiftly to the child in the gra.s.s and lifted the coat and she leaped up, laughing--as if it were a game; and they swung out into the road again, walking with swift, even steps. "Are you tired?" asked Achilles.

But she shook her head.

His hand in his pocket, in the darkness, had felt something and he pressed it toward her--"Eat that," he said, "you will be hungry."

She took it daintily, and felt of it, and turned it over. "What is it?"

she asked. Then she set her small teeth in it--and laughed out. "It's chocolate," she exclaimed happily. She held it up, "Will you have a bite, Mr. Achilles?"

But Achilles had drawn out another bit of tin-foil and opened it. "I have yet more," he said, "--two--three--six piece. I put here in my pocket, every day--I carry chocolate--till I find you. Every day I say, 'she be hungry, maybe--then she like chocolate'--"

She nibbled it in happy little nibbles, as they walked. "I didn't eat any supper," she said. "I was too happy--and too afraid, I guess. That was a long time ago," she added, after a minute.

"A long time ago," said Achilles cheerfully. He had taken her hand again, and they trudged on under the stars.