Into the Primitive Part 22

"Look here, young man, don't you forget you called me a cad once before. I can stand a good deal from a sick man; but I'll give it to you straight, you'd better cut that out. Call me a brute or a savage, if that'll let off your steam; but, understand, I'm none of your English kinds."

Again Winthrope spoke, this time in a fretful whine.

Blake replied with less anger: "That's so; and I'm going to show you that I'm the real thing when it comes to being a sport. Give you my word, I'll make no move till you're through the fever and on your legs again. What I'll do then depends on my own sweet will, and don't you forget it. I'm not after her fortune. It's the lady herself that takes my fancy. Remember what I said to you when you called me a cad the other time. You had your turn aboard s.h.i.+p. Now I can do as I please; and that's what I'm going to do, if I have to kick you over the cliff end first, to shut off your pesky interference."

The girl crouched back into the withered foliage, dazed with terror.

Again she heard Blake speak. He had dropped into a bitter sneer.

"No chance? It's no nerve, you mean. You could brain me, easy enough, any night--just walk up with a club when I'm asleep. Trouble is, you're like most other under dogs--'fraid that if you licked your boss, there'd be no soup bones. So I guess I'm slated to stay boss of this colony--grand Poo Bah and Mikado, all in one. Understand? You mind your own business, and don't go to interfering with me any more!

. . . . Now, if you've stared enough at the lady's skirt--"

The threat of discovery stung the girl to instant action. With almost frantic haste, she scrambled down to the lower branches, and sprang to the ground. She had never ventured such a leap even in childhood. She struck lightly but without proper balance, and pitched over sideways.

Her hands chanced to alight upon the remnants of leopard skin. Great as was her fear, she stopped to gather all together in the edge of her skirt before darting up the cleft.

At the baobab she turned and gazed back along the cliff edge. Before she had time to draw a second breath, she caught a glimpse of Blake's palm-leaf hat, near the crown of the ladder tree.

"O-o-h!--he didn't see me!" she murmured. Her frantic strength vanished, and a deathly sickness came upon her. She felt herself going, and sought to kneel to ease the fall.

She was roused from the swoon by Blake's resonant shout: "Hey, Miss Jenny! where are you? We've got your laundry on the pole in fine shape!"

The girl's flaccid limbs grew tense, and her body quivered with a shudder of dread and loathing. Yet she set her little white teeth, and forced herself to rise and go out to face the men. Both met her look with a blank stare of consternation.

"What is it, Miss Genevieve?" cried Winthrope. "You're white as chalk!"

"It's the fever!" growled Blake. "She's in the cold stage. Get a pot on. We'll--"

"No, no; it's not that! It's only--I've been frightened!"

"Frightened?"

"By a--a dreadful beast!"

"Beast!" repeated Blake, and his pale eyes flashed as he sprang across to where his bow and arrows and his club leaned against the baobab.

"I'll have no beasts nosing around my dooryard! Must be that skulking lion I heard last night. I'll show him!" He caught up his weapons and stalked off down the cleft.

"By Jove!" exclaimed Winthrope; "the man really must be mad. Call him back, Miss Genevieve. If anything should happen to him--"

"If only there might!" gasped the girl.

"Why, what do you mean?"

She burst into a hysterical laugh. "Oh! oh! it's such a joke--such a joke! At least he's not a hyena--oh, no; a brave beast! Hear him shout!

And he actually thinks it's a lion! But it isn't--it's himself! Oh, dear! oh, dear! what shall I do?"

"Miss Genevieve, what do you mean? Be calm, pray, be calm!"

"Calm!--when I heard what he said? Yes; I heard every word! In the top of the tree--"

"In the tree? Heavens! Miss--er--Miss Genevieve!" stammered Winthrope, his face paling. "Did you--did you hear all?"

"Everything--everything he said! What shall I do? I am so frightened!

What shall I do?"

"Everything _he_ said?" echoed Winthrope.

"You spoke too low for me to hear; but I'm sure you faced him like a gentleman--I must believe it of you--"

Winthrope drew in a deep breath. "Ah, yes; I did, Miss Genevieve--I a.s.sure you. The beast! Yet you see the plight I am in. It is a nasty muddle--indeed it is! But what can I do? He is strong as a gorilla.

Really, there is only one way--no doubt you heard him taunt me over it. I a.s.sure you I should not be afraid--but it would be so horrid--so cold-blooded. As a gentleman, you know--"

"No; it is not that!" broke in the girl. "He is right. Neither of us has the courage--even when he is asleep."

"My dear Miss Genevieve, this beast instinct to kill--"

"Yes; but think of him. If he is a beast, he is at least a brave one.

While we--we haven't the courage of rabbits. I thought you called yourself an English gentleman. Are you going to stand by, and not lift a finger?"

"Really, now, Miss Genevieve, to murder a man--"

"Self-defence is not a crime--self-preservation. If you have a spark of manhood--"

"My dear--"

"For Heaven's sake, if you can't do anything, at least keep still! Oh, I'm sure I shall go mad! If only I had been drowned!"

"Ah, yes, to be sure. But really now, what you ask is a good deal for a man to risk. The fellow might wake up and murder me! Should I take the risk, might I--er--expect some manifestation of your grat.i.tude, Miss Genevieve?"

"Of course! of course! I should always--"

"I--ah--refer to the--the--bestowal of your hand."

"My hand? I-- Would you bargain for my esteem? I thought you a gentleman!"

"To be sure--to be sure! Who says I am not? But all is fair in love and war, you know. Your choice is quite free. I take it, you will not consider his--er--proposals. But if you do not wish my aid, you have another way of escape--that is--at least other women have done it."

The girl gazed at him, her eyes dilating with horror as she realized his meaning.

"No, no; not that!" she gasped. "I want to live--I've a right to live! Why, I'm only just twenty-two--I--"

"Hus.h.!.+" cautioned Winthrope. "He's coming back. Be calm! There will be time until I get over this vile malaria. It may be that he himself will have the fever."

"He will not have the fever," replied the girl, in a hopeless tone, and she leaned back listlessly against the baobab, as Blake swung himself up, frowning and sullen, and flung his weapons from him.

"Bah!" he grumbled, "I told you that brute was a sneak. I've chased clean down to the pool and into the open, and not a smell of him. Must have hiked off into the tall gra.s.s the minute he heard me."

"If only he had gone off for good!" murmured Miss Leslie.

"Maybe he has; though you never can count on a sneak. Even you might be able to shoo him off next time; but, like as not, he'd come along when we were all out calling, and clean out our commissary. Guess I'll set to and run up a barricade down there where the gully is narrowest.