The Bandbox Part 43

Staff hardly shared his confidence; still, as far as he could judge, the odds were even. Ismay might beat them to Pennymint Centre by train, and might not. If he did, however, it could not be by more than a slight margin; to balance which fact, Staff had to remind himself that two minutes' margin was all that would be required to get the boat away from land, beyond their reach.

"Look here," he put it to Iff: "suppose he does beat us to that boat?"

"Then we'll have to find another."

"There'll be another handy, all ready for us, I presume?"

"Spare me your sarcasm," pleaded Iff; "it is, if you don't mind my mentioning the fact, not your forte. Silence, on the other hand, suits your style cunningly. So shut up and lemme think."

He relapsed into profound meditations, while the car hummed onwards through the moon-drenched s.p.a.ces of the night.

Presently he roused and, without warning, clambered over the back of the seat into the place beside the chauffeur. For a time the two conferred, heads together, their words indistinguishable in the sweep of air.

Then, in the same spry fas.h.i.+on, the little man returned.

"Spelvin's a treasure," he announced, settling into his place.

"Why?"

"Knows the country--knows a man in Barmouth who runs a s.h.i.+pyard, owns and hires out motorboats, and all that sort of thing."

"Where's Barmouth?"

"Four miles this side of Pennymint Point. Now we've got to decide whether to hold on and run our chances of picking up Ismay's boat, or turn off to Barmouth and run our chances of finding chauffeur's friend with boat disengaged. What do you think?"

"Barmouth," Staff decided after some deliberation but not without misgivings.

"That's what I told Spelvin," observed Iff. "It's a gamble either way."

The city was now well behind them, the car pounding steadily on through Westchester. For a long time neither spoke. The time for talk, indeed, was past--and in the future; for the present they must tune themselves up to action--such action as the furious onrush of the powerful car in some measure typified, easing the impatience in their hearts.

For a time the road held them near railroad tracks. A train hurtled past them, running eastwards: a roaring streak of orange light cras.h.i.+ng through the world of cool night blues and purple-blacks.

The chauffeur swore audibly and let out another notch of speed.

Staff sat spellbound by the amazing romance of it all.... A bare eight days since that afternoon when a whim, born of a love now lifeless, had stirred him out of his solitary, work-a-day life in London, had lifted him out of the ordered security of the centre of the world's civilisation and sent him whirling dizzily across three thousand miles and more to become a partner in this wild, weird ride to the rescue of a damsel in distress and durance vile! Incredible!...

Eight days: and the sun of Alison, that once he had thought to be the light of all the world, had set; while in the evening sky the star of Eleanor was rising and blazing ever more brightly....

Now when a man begins to think about himself and his heart in such poetic imagery, the need for human intercourse grows imperative on his understanding; he must talk or--suffer severely.

Staff turned upon his defenseless companion.

"Iff," said he, "when a man's the sort of a man who can fall out of love and in again--with another woman, of course--inside a week--what do you call him?"

"Human," announced Iff after mature consideration of the problem.

This was unsatisfactory; Staff yearned to be called fickle.

"Human? How's that?" he insisted.

"I mean that the human man hasn't got much to say about falling in or out of love. The women take care of all that for him. Look at your Miss Landis--yours as was.... You don't mind my b.u.t.tin' in?"

"Go on," said Staff grimly.

"Anybody with half an eye, always excepting you, could see she'd made up her mind to hook that Arkroyd pinhead on account of his money. She was just waiting for a fair chance to give you the office--preferably, of course, after she'd nailed that play of yours."

"Well," said Staff, "she's lost that, too."

"Serves you both right."

There was a pause wherein Staff sought to fathom the meaning of this last utterance of Mr. Iff's.

"I take it," resumed the latter with a sidelong look--"pardon a father's feelings of delicacy--I take it, you're meaning Nelly?"

"How did you guess that?" demanded Staff, startled.

"Right, eh?"

"Yes--no--I don't know--"

"Well, if you don't know the answer any better 'n that, take a word of advice from an old bird: you get her to tell you. She's known it ever since she laid eyes on you."

"You mean she--I--" Staff stammered eagerly.

"I mean n.o.body knows anything about a woman's heart but herself; but she knows it backwards and all the time."

"Then you don't think I've got any show?"

"Oh, Lord!" complained Iff. "Honest, you gimme a pain. Go on and do your own thinking."

Staff subsided, imagining a vain thing: that the mantle of dignity in which he wrapped himself successfully cloaked his sense of injury. Iff smiled a meaningless smile up at the inscrutable skies. And the moonlit miles slipped beneath the wheels like a torrent of moulten silver.

At length--it seemed as if many hours must have swung cras.h.i.+ng into eternity since they had left New York--Staff was conscious of a perceptible diminution of speed; he was able to get his breath with less effort, had no longer to s.n.a.t.c.h it by main strength from the greedy clutches of the whirlwind. The reeling chiaroscuro of the countryside seemed suddenly to become calm, settling into an intelligible, more or less orderly arrangement of s.h.i.+ning hills and shadowed hollows, spreading pastures and sombre woodlands. The chauffeur flung a few inarticulate words over his shoulder--readily interpreted as announcing the nearness of their destination; and of a sudden the car swung from the main highway into a narrow by-road that ran off to the right. A little later they darted through a cut beneath railroad tracks, and a village sprang out of the night and rattled past them, serenely slumbrous. From this centre a thin trickle of dwellings straggled along their way. Across fields to the left, Staff caught glimpses of a spreading sheet of water, still and silvery-grey....

On a long slant, the road drew nearer and more near to the sh.o.r.es of this arm of the Sound. Presently a group of small buildings near the head of a long landing-stage swam into view. Before them the car drew up with a sigh. The chauffeur jumped down and ran across the road to a house in whose lower story a lighted window was visible. While he hammered at the door, Staff and Iff alighted. A man in his s.h.i.+rt-sleeves came to the door of the cottage and stood there, pipe in mouth, hands in pockets, languidly interjecting dispa.s.sionate responses into the chauffeur's animated exposition of their case. As Staff and Iff came up, Spelvin turned to them, excitedly waving his gauntlets.

"He's got a boat, all right, and a good one he says, but he won't move a foot for less 'n twenty dollars."

"Give you twenty-five if you get away from the dock within five minutes," Iff told the boatbuilder directly.

The man started as if stung. "Jemima!" he breathed, incredulous. Then caution prompted him to extend a calloused and work-warped hand. "Cross my palm," he said.

"You give it to him, Staff," said Iff magnificently. "I'm short of cash."

Obediently, Staff disbursed the required sum. The native thumbed it, pocketed it, lifted his coat from a nail behind the door and started across the road in a single movement.

"You come 'long, Spelvin," he said in pa.s.sing, "'nd help with the boat.

If you gents'll get out on the dock I'll have her alongside in three minutes, 'r my name ain't Bascom."