Soldiers of Fortune Part 25

"I am afraid it won't leave a scar," he said, sympathetically.

"Won't it?" asked Langham, in some concern.

The horses had dropped into a walk, and the beauty of the moonlit night put its spell upon the two boys, and the rustling of the great leaves above their heads stilled and quieted them so that they unconsciously spoke in whispers.

Clay had not moved since the horses turned of their own accord into the valley of the palms. He no longer feared pursuit nor any interruption to their further progress. His only sensation was one of utter thankfulness that they were all well out of it, and that Hope had been the one who had helped them in their trouble, and his dearest thought was that, whether she wished or not, he owed his safety, and possibly his life, to her.

She still crouched between his knees upon the broad footboard, with her hands clasped in front of her, and looking ahead into the vista of soft mysterious lights and dark shadows that the moon cast upon the road.

Neither of them spoke, and as the silence continued unbroken, it took a weightier significance, and at each added second of time became more full of meaning.

The horses had dropped into a tired walk, and drew them smoothly over the white road; from behind the hood came broken s.n.a.t.c.hes of the boys'

talk, and above their heads the heavy leaves of the palms bent and bowed as though in benediction. A warm breeze from the land filled the air with the odor of ripening fruit and pungent smells, and the silence seemed to envelop them and mark them as the only living creatures awake in the brilliant tropical night.

Hope sank slowly back, and as she did so, her shoulder touched for an instant against Clay's knee; she straightened herself and made a movement as though to rise. Her nearness to him and something in her att.i.tude at his feet held Clay in a spell. He bent forward and laid his hand fearfully upon her shoulder, and the touch seemed to stop the blood in his veins and hushed the words upon his lips. Hope raised her head slowly as though with a great effort, and looked into his eyes.

It seemed to him that he had been looking into those same eyes for centuries, as though he had always known them, and the soul that looked out of them into his. He bent his head lower, and stretching out his arms drew her to him, and the eyes did not waver. He raised her and held her close against his breast. Her eyes faltered and closed.

"Hope," he whispered, "Hope." He stooped lower and kissed her, and his lips told her what they could not speak--and they were quite alone.

XIV

An hour later Langham rose with a protesting sigh and shook the hood violently.

"I say!" he called. "Are you asleep up there. We'll never get home at this rate. Doesn't Hope want to come back here and go to sleep?"

The carriage stopped, and the boys tumbled out and walked around in front of it. Hope sat smiling on the box-seat. She was apparently far from sleepy, and she was quite contented where she was, she told him.

"Do you know we haven't had anything to eat since yesterday at breakfast?" asked Langham. "MacWilliams and I are fainting. We move that we stop at the next shack we come to, and waken the people up and make them give us some supper."

Hope looked aside at Clay and laughed softly. "Supper?" she said.

"They want supper!"

Their suffering did not seem to impress Clay deeply. He sat snapping his whip at the palm-trees above him, and smiled happily in an inconsequent and irritating manner at nothing.

"See here! Do you know that we are lost?" demanded Langham, indignantly, "and starving? Have you any idea at all where you are?"

"I have not," said Clay, cheerfully. "All I know is that a long time ago there was a revolution and a woman with jewels, who escaped in an open boat, and I recollect playing that I was a target and standing up to be shot at in a bright light. After that I woke up to the really important things of life--among which supper is not one."

Langham and MacWilliams looked at each other doubtfully, and Langham shook his head.

"Get down off that box," he commanded. "If you and Hope think this is merely a pleasant moonlight drive, we don't. You two can sit in the carriage now, and we'll take a turn at driving, and we'll guarantee to get you to some place soon."

Clay and Hope descended meekly and seated themselves under the hood, where they could look out upon the moonlit road as it unrolled behind them. But they were no longer to enjoy their former leisurely progress. The new whip lashed his horses into a gallop, and the trees flew past them on either hand.

"Do you remember that chap in the 'Last Ride Together'?" said Clay.

"I and my mistress, side by side, Shall be together--forever ride, And so one more day am I deified.

Who knows--the world may end to-night."

Hope laughed triumphantly, and threw out her arms as though she would embrace the whole beautiful world that stretched around them.

"Oh, no," she laughed. "To-night the world has just begun."

The carriage stopped, and there was a confusion of voices on the box-seat, and then a great barking of dogs, and they beheld MacWilliams beating and kicking at the door of a hut. The door opened for an inch, and there was a long debate in Spanish, and finally the door was closed again, and a light appeared through the windows. A few minutes later a man and woman came out of the hut, s.h.i.+vering and yawning, and made a fire in the sun-baked oven at the side of the house. Hope and Clay remained seated in the carriage, and watched the flames springing up from the oily f.a.gots, and the boys moving about with flaring torches of pine, pulling down bundles of fodder for the horses from the roof of the kitchen, while two sleepy girls disappeared toward a mountain stream, one carrying a jar on her shoulder, and the other lighting the way with a torch. Hope sat with her chin on her hand, watching the black figures pa.s.sing between them and the fire, and standing above it with its light on their faces, shading their eyes from the heat with one hand, and stirring something in a smoking caldron with the other.

Hope felt an overflowing sense of grat.i.tude to these simple strangers for the trouble they were taking. She felt how good every one was, and how wonderfully kind and generous was the world that she lived in.

Her brother came over to the carriage and bowed with mock courtesy.

"I trust, now that we have done all the work," he said, "that your excellencies will condescend to share our frugal fare, or must we bring it to you here?"

The clay oven stood in the middle of a hut of laced twigs, through which the smoke drifted freely. There was a row of wooden benches around it, and they all seated themselves and ate ravenously of rice and fried plantains, while the woman patted and tossed tortillas between her hands, eyeing her guests curiously. Her glance fell upon Langham's shoulder, and rested there for so long that Hope followed the direction of her eyes. She leaped to her feet with a cry of fear and reproach, and ran toward her brother.

"Ted!" she cried, "you are hurt! you are wounded, and you never told me! What is it? Is it very bad?" Clay crossed the floor in a stride, his face full of concern.

"Leave me alone!" cried the stern brother, backing away and warding them off with the coffeepot. "It's only scratched. You'll spill the coffee."

But at the sight of the blood Hope had turned very white, and throwing her arms around her brother's neck, hid her eyes on his other shoulder and began to cry.

"I am so selfish," she sobbed. "I have been so happy and you were suffering all the time."

Her brother stared at the others in dismay. "What nonsense," he said, patting her on the shoulder. "You're a bit tired, and you need rest.

That's what you need. The idea of my sister going off in hysterics after behaving like such a sport--and before these young ladies, too.

Aren't you ashamed?"

"I should think they'd be ashamed," said MacWilliams, severely, as he continued placidly with his supper. "They haven't got enough clothes on."

Langham looked over Hope's shoulder at Clay and nodded significantly.

"She's been on a good deal of a strain," he explained apologetically, "and no wonder; it's been rather an unusual night for her."

Hope raised her head and smiled at him through her tears. Then she turned and moved toward Clay. She brushed her eyes with the back of her hand and laughed. "It has been an unusual night," she said.

"Shall I tell him?" she asked.

Clay straightened himself unconsciously, and stepped beside her and took her hand; MacWilliams quickly lowered to the bench the dish from which he was eating, and stood up, too. The people of the house stared at the group in the firelight with puzzled interest, at the beautiful young girl, and at the tall, sunburned young man at her side. Langham looked from his sister to Clay and back again, and laughed uneasily.

"Langham, I have been very bold," said Clay. "I have asked your sister to marry me--and she has said that she would."

Langham flushed as red as his sister. He felt himself at a disadvantage in the presence of a love as great and strong as he knew this must be. It made him seem strangely young and inadequate. He crossed over to his sister awkwardly and kissed her, and then took Clay's hand, and the three stood together and looked at one another, and there was no sign of doubt or question in the face of any one of them. They stood so for some little time, smiling and exclaiming together, and utterly unconscious of anything but their own delight and happiness. MacWilliams watched them, his face puckered into odd wrinkles and his eyes half-closed. Hope suddenly broke away from the others and turned toward him with her hands held out.

"Have you nothing to say to me, Mr. MacWilliams?" she asked.

MacWilliams looked doubtfully at Clay, as though from force of habit he must ask advice from his chief first, and then took the hands that she held out to him and shook them up and down. His usual confidence seemed to have forsaken him, and he stood, s.h.i.+fting from one foot to the other, smiling and abashed.

"Well, I always said they didn't make them any better than you," he gasped at last. "I was always telling him that, wasn't I?" He nodded energetically at Clay. "And that's so; they don't make 'em any better than you."

He dropped her hands and crossed over to Clay, and stood surveying him with a smile of wonder and admiration.

"How'd you do it?" he demanded. "How did you do it? I suppose you know," he asked sternly, "that you're not good enough for Miss Hope?

You know that, don't you?"