The Window-Gazer Part 15

I did not see it either. And yet I felt that I should like to hurry.

"We certainly will not go unless you wish," I began. But Li Ho interrupted me in his colorless way.

"Alice same go this eveling," he said blandly. "No take 'Tillic.u.m'

tomolla. Velly busy tomolla. Velly busy next day. Velly busy all week."

"Look here," I said, "you'll do exactly what your mistress tells you."

His celestial impudence was making me hot. But Desire stopped me. "It's no use," she explained. "I have really no authority. And he means what he says. We must go tonight or wait indefinitely."

I was eager to be gone. But it went against the grain to be hustled off by a Chinaman. Perhaps my face showed as much, for Desire went on. "You needn't feel like that about it. He doesn't intend to be impudent. He probably thinks he has a very real reason for getting us away. And Li Ho's reasons are liable to be good ones. We had better go."

The rest of the day was uneventful, save for the incident of Sami. I think I told you about Sami, didn't I? A kind of brown familiar who follows Desire about. He is a baby Indian as much a part of the mountain as the leaping squirrels and not nearly so tame. He is the one thing here that I think Desire is sorry to leave. And for this reason I hoped he wouldn't appear before we were gone. I had done all my packing--easy enough since I had scarcely unpacked--and I could hear Desire moving about doing hers. The place seemed particularly peaceful.

I could, have felt almost sorry to leave my cool, bare room with its tree-stump for a table and all the forest just outside. But as I sat there by the window there came upon me, for the second time that day, a mounting hurry to be gone. There was nothing to account for it, but I distinctly felt an inward "Hurry! Hurry!" So propelling was it that only the knowledge that the "Tillic.u.m" would not float until high tide kept me from finding Desire and begging her to come away at once. I did go so far as to wander restlessly down into the garden where she had gone to feed the chickens. Perhaps I would have gone farther and mentioned my misgivings but just then Sami came and I forgot all about them. I don't believe I have ever seen any child so frightened as that little Indian! He simply fell through the bushes behind the chicken house and shot, like a small, brown catapult, into Desire's arms. His round face was actually grey with fear. And he huddled in her big ap.r.o.n s.h.i.+vering, for all the world like some terrified animal.

Naturally the first thing to do was to get the thing that had frightened him. An axe seemed a likely weapon, so, picking it up, I slid into the bushes at the point where Sami had come out of them.

Perfect serenity was there! The afternoon light lay golden on the moss above the fallen trees. No hidden scurrying in the underbrush told of wild, wood things hastening to safety from some half-sensed danger. No broken branches or trampled earth told of any past or present struggle.

There was no trace of any fearsome creature having pa.s.sed along that peaceful trail.

I searched thoroughly and found nothing. On my way back to the clearing I met Li Ho.

'"Find anything, Li Ho?" I asked eagerly.

The Celestial grinned.

"Find honorable self," said he. "Missy she send. Missy heap scared along of you."

"Nonsense!" I said. "I can take care of myself. Even if it had been a bear, I had an axe."

"Bear!" said Li Ho. And then he laughed. Did you ever hear a Chinaman laugh? I never had. Not this Chinaman anyway. It was so startling that I forgot what I was saying. Next moment I could have sworn that he had not laughed at all.

We found Sami, much comforted, sitting upon Desire's lap, a thing he could seldom be induced to do. At our entrance he began to s.h.i.+ver again but soon quieted. Desire had tried questioning but it was of no use. He either couldn't, or wouldn't, say anything about what had frightened him. Desire was inclined to think that he did not know. But I was not so sure. It's a fairly well established fact that children simply can't speak of certain terrors. And the more frightened they are the more powerful is the inhibition. In any case it was useless to question Sami so we fed him instead and presently he went to sleep.

I suppose we all forgot him. I know I did. One doesn't elope every day.

And it was never Sami's way to insist upon his presence as ordinary children do. Li Ho departed to tinker with the "Tillic.u.m" and afterwards returned to give us a late supper. Desire kept out of my way. One might almost have thought that she was shy--if so, a most perplexing development. For why should she feel shy? It wasn't as if we had not put the whole affair on a perfectly business basis. Perhaps there is some elemental magic in names, so that, to a woman, the very word "marriage" has power to provoke certain nervous reactions?

However that may be, even Desire forgot Sami. We left the house just as the clearing began to grow brighter with light from the still hidden moon, and we were halfway down to the boat landing before anyone thought of him. Oddly enough it was I who remembered. "Sami!" I exclaimed, with a little throb of nameless fear. "We have forgotten Sami."

Desire, I thought, looked surprised and somewhat vexed at her oversight. But displayed no trace of the consternation which had suddenly fallen on me.

"He is all right," she said. "He will sleep till morning unless his mother comes for him."

"Where you leave um?" asked Li Ho briefly. He had already set down the bag he was carrying.

"In my own bed."

"Me go get!" said Li Ho.

But I had not waited. I had started to "go get" myself. The sense of breathless hurry was on me again. I did not pause to argue that the child was perfectly safe. I forgot that I had ever been lame. Perhaps that sciatic nerve is only mortal mind anyway. When I came out into the clearing the cottage was turning silver in the first rays of the full moon. Very peaceful and secure it looked. And yet I hurried!

I made no noise. To myself I explained this by a desire not to waken the youngster. No use frightening him. I stole, as quietly as one of his own ancestors, to the foot of the stairs. The door of Desire's room was open. I could see a moonlit bar across the dark landing....

I think I went straight up that stair. I hope so. You know that one of my worst nervous troubles has been a dread that I might fail in some emergency? I dread a sort of nerve paralysis.... But I got up the stair. The fear that seemed to push me back wasn't personal, or physical--one might call it psychic fear, only that the word explains nothing.... I looked in at the open door. There seemed to be nothing there but the moonlight. The room must have been almost as bare as my own. But over on the far side, beyond the zone of the window, was the dim whiteness of a bed. I could see nothing clearly--but the Fear was there. I dragged, actually dragged, my feet across the floor--my sight growing clearer, until at last--I saw!

I think I shouted, but it was so like a nightmare that I may not have made a sound.... The dragging weight must have left my feet as I sprang forward ... but it is all confused! And the whole thing lasted only a minute.

In that minute I had seen what I would have sworn was not human. Even while I knew It for the little old man with the umbrella, I had no sense of its humanness. Something bent above the bed--the old man's face was there, the thin figure, the white hair, and yet it seemed the wildest absurdity to call the Fury who wore them by any human name.

The eyes looked at me--eyes without depth or meaning--eyes like bits of blue steel reflecting the light of Tophet--, incarnate evil, blazing, peering ... I caught a glimpse of long, thin hands, like claws, around the folded umbrella, a flash of something bright at the ferrule ... and then the picture dissolved like an image pa.s.sing from a dimly lighted screen. Before I could skirt the bed, whatever had been upon the other side of it had melted into the darkness beyond the moon. I bent over the bed. Sami was there--Sami, rolled shapelessly in the concealing bedclothes, his round face hidden in the pillow, his black hair just a blot of darkness on the white.... It might have been Desire lying there! ...

I found the door through which the Thing had slipped. But it was useless to try to follow. There was no one in the house nor in the moonlit clearing. And Desire and Li Ho were waiting on the trail. I picked up the still sleeping child and blundered down to them.

It seemed incredible to hear Desire's laugh.

"Good gracious!" she said. "You're carrying him upside down."

She had had no hint of danger. But with Li Ho it was different. He fell back beside me when Desire had relieved me of the child. I could feel his inscrutable eyes upon my face.

"You see um," said Li Ho. It was an a.s.sertion, not a question.

I nodded.

"No be scare," muttered he. "Missy all safe. Everything all safe now.

Li Ho go catch um. Li Ho catch um good. All light--tomolla."

"You mean you can manage him and he'll be all right tomorrow?" I said.

"But--what is it!"

The Celestial shrugged.

"Muchy devil maybe. Muchy moon-devil, plaps. Velly bad."

"There's a knife in that umbrella, Li Ho."

But though his eyes looked blandly into mine, I couldn't tell whether this was news to Li Ho or not....

Well, that's the story. I've written it down while it's fresh, sparing comment. Desire sang as we crossed the Inlet; little, low s.n.a.t.c.hes of song with a hint of freedom in them. She had made her choice and it is never her way to look back. The old "Tillic.u.m" rattled and chugged and the damp crept in around our feet. But the water was a path of gold and the sky a bowl of silver--and as an example of present day elopements it had certainly been fairly exciting.

Yours, Benis.

CHAPTER XIII

Desire Spence bent earnestly over the writing pad which lay open upon her knee.

"Mrs. Benis Hamilton Spence," she wrote. And then: