The Great Quest Part 25

"I think, sir," said Arnold Lamont, soberly and precisely, "that you mistake our errand."

He looked at us a long time without saying more, then he quietly remarked, "I hope so."

His cold, measured words repelled us and set us at an infinite distance from him.

We looked at one another and then at him, and he in turn studied us.

We four--for Mr. Severance had accompanied us, although as usual he scarcely opened his mouth--saw a man whose iron-gray hair indicated that he was a little beyond middle age. The lamp that burned beside him revealed a strong, rather sad face; the book at his elbow was a Bible. It came to me suddenly that he was a missionary.

"You give us chill welcome, sir," said Gideon North. "What, then, will you have us do to prove that we are not what you believe us?"

"Your leaders who were here a little while ago," our host replied, "tried their best to prove it--and failed. Indeed, had I not seen them, I should more readily believe you. It is not the first time that I have seen some of them, you must remember."

Gideon North bit his lip. "Have you considered," he asked, "that we may not be in accord with them?"

"A man must be known by the company he keeps."

"We are in _neither_ sympathy nor accord with them."

"It is a virtue, sir, no matter what your circ.u.mstances, to be at least loyal to your a.s.sociates. If you so glibly repudiate your friends, on what grounds should a stranger trust you?"

At that Gideon North got up all hot with temper. "Sir," he cried, "I will not stay to be insulted."

"Sir," the man returned, "I have insulted, and would insult, no one."

"Of that, sir," Gideon North responded, "I will be my own judge."

"Captain North," said Arnold, "have patience. One moment and we--"

Turning in the door, which he had reached in two strides, our captain cried hotly, "Come, men, come! I tell you, come!"

Mr. Severance followed him in silence; Arnold stepped forward as if to restrain him, and I, left for a moment with the missionary, turned and faced him with all the dignity of which I was master.

"I am sorry that you think so ill of us," I said.

"I am sorry," he replied, "to see a youth with an honest face in such a band as that."

I could think of no response and was about to turn and go, when I suddenly remembered our lost cabin boy.

"Can you, in any case," I asked, "tell me what has become of our cabin boy, Willie MacDougald?"

"Of whom?"

"Of Willie MacDougald--the little fellow that came ash.o.r.e to-day?"

"Did he not return to the brig?"

"No."

The man stepped forward.

"No," I repeated, "I have not seen him since."

"Then," he returned, "you are not likely ever to see him again."

"What do you mean?" I demanded. "What has happened? Where is he?"

Getting no answer, I looked around the room at the chairs and tables and pictures,--they had an air of comfort that made me miserably homesick,--and at the well-trimmed lamp from which the light fell on the Bible. Then I turned and went out into the darkness.

What had befallen that hardened little wretch? Where under the canopy of heaven could he be? I cared little enough for the mere fate of Willie MacDougald; but as a new indication of the extremes to which Matterson and Gleazen would go, his disappearance came at a time that made it singularly ominous.

As I stood, thus pondering, on the rough porch from which I was about to step down and stride into the darkness, where I could make out the figures of negroes of all ages moving restlessly just beyond the light that shone from the windows, I received such a start as seldom has come to me. A hand touched my arm so quietly that for a moment I nearly had an illusion that that miserable little sinner, Willie MacDougald, had returned from the next world to haunt me in this one; a low voice said in my ear, "Stay here with us."

I turned. Just beside me stood the girl whom I had seen in the canoe.

"Stay here," she repeated. "They have gone."

I stammered and tried to speak, and for the first time in my life I found that my tongue was tied.

A step rustled in the gra.s.s just under the porch; something touched the floor beside my foot; then a huge black hand brushed gently over my shoe and up my leg, and a black, grotesque face, with rolling eyes and round, slightly parted lips, looked up at me, so close to my hand that unconsciously I s.n.a.t.c.hed it away lest it be bitten.

Startled nearly out of my wits by this amazing apparition, I gave a leap backward and crashed against the wall, at which the absurd negro uttered a shrill whistle of surprise.

The girl tossed her head and stamped her foot, and spoke to the negro in a low voice, which yet was clear enough and sharp enough to send him without a sound into the darkness.

For a moment the lights from the window shone full upon her, and I saw that she was proud as well as comely, and spirited as well as generous. The toss and the stamp showed it; the quick, precise voice confirmed it; and withal there was a twinkle of kindliness in her eyes that would have stormed the heart of a far more sophisticated youth than I. Such spirit is little, if at all, less fascinating to a young man than beauty; and when spirit and beauty go hand in hand, he must be a crabbed old bachelor indeed who can withstand the pair.

Whatever my theories of life, as I had long since revealed them to Arnold Lamont, I was no Stoic; and though at the time I was too excited to be fully aware of it, I thereupon fell, to the crown of my head, in love.

As the negro vanished, she turned on me with that same, queenly lift of her head.

"Well, sir, will you stay?"

"Why should I stay?" I managed at last to ask.

She looked me straight in the eye, "You're not of their kind," she replied. "Father himself thinks that."

For the moment I was confused, and thought only of Arnold and Gideon North.

"You and he are wrong," I stiffly responded. "I _am_ their kind, and I am proud to be their kind."

"Oh," she said, "oh! I beg your pardon."

A hurt look appeared in her eyes and she stepped back and turned away.

All at once I remembered that she had never seen Arnold and Gideon North; that she had not meant them at all; that she had meant Gleazen and Matterson. It was at the tip of my tongue to cry out to her, to call her back, to tell her the whole truth about our party on board the brig Adventure. I had drawn the very breath to speak, when Gideon North's voice summoned me from the darkness:

"Joe, Joe Woods! Where are you?"