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Out of the Primitive

R >> Robert Ames Bennet >> Out of the Primitive




"Not he! I fancy I ought to know, if any one. Knocked about with him,
half 'round the world. I dare say he's told you."

"Would it be like him to claim the credit of your friendship? No!
Before, on the steamer, we had mistaken him to be--to be what he
appears to strangers--rough, almost uncouth. Yet even that frightful
morning--it was among the swamps, ten miles or more up the coast. He
carried us safe out of them, me nearly all the way--out of the bog and
water, safe to the palms; and he as much tortured with thirst as were
we!"

"Fancy! No joke about that--thirst!"

"Yet it was only the beginning of what he did for us. Starvation and
wild beasts and snakes and the fever--he saved us from all. Yet he had
nothing to begin with--no tools or weapons, only his burning glass.
Can you wonder that I--that I--"

She stopped and looked down, the color mounting swiftly under the dark
coat of tan that covered the exquisite complexion he remembered so
pleasantly.

"My word!" he remonstrated, amazed and disquieted. "Surely not that!
It's--it's impossible! It can't be possible!"

"Do you think so?" she whispered. "If you but knew the half--the
tenth--of what he has done!"

The rusty side of the tramp loomed up above them. The boat crew flung
up their oars, and Lord James steered in alongside, under the sling
that was being lowered for the rescued lady. She pointed up at it, and
met the reproachful, half-dazed glance of her companion with a look of
compassionate regret for his disappointment. Yet she made no effort to
conceal the love for his friend and rival that shone with tender
radiance from her candid eyes.

"You should know him--his true, his real self!" she said. "Hasten
back. Do not delay to come aboard with me. Hasten ashore and to the
cleft. See for yourself."

She caught the descending sling with a dexterity that astonished him,
and seated herself in it before he could rise to assist her.

"Haul away," she called in a clear voice that held no note of
timidity. Those above at the tackle hastened to obey. As she was swung
upwards, she looked down at the earl and waved him to put off.

"Hasten!" she urged. "Do not wait. I am all right now. Even if he is
returning, go to the cleft and see."

He shook his head, and waited until she had been hauled up the ship's
side. But as her little moccasined feet cleared the bulwarks and Meggs
himself leaned out to draw her inboard, he signed the oarsmen to
thrust off again.

Knowing the course, they made direct for the end of the sunken ledge.
Blake had not returned, nor was he anywhere in sight. They skirted in
along the rocky slope of the cliff foot to where it curved away into
the sand beach of the plain. Lord James sprang ashore alone and
hastened inland along the base of the cliffs.

A brisk walk of ten minutes over the sandy plain brought him to the
grove at the foot of the cleft. In the midst of the trees was a pool,
half choked with the dried mud and rubbish of a recent flood from the
ravine. The wash had obliterated all tracks below; but there were
traces of a trail leading up the ravine over a four-foot ledge. He
took the rock at a bound, and hastened on upwards between the lofty
walled sides of the cleft.

At the first turn he was brought to an abrupt halt. From side to side,
between two outjutting corners of rock, the ravine had been barricaded
with a twelve-foot _boma_ of thorn scrub. It was a fence high enough
and strong enough to stop even a hungry lion. In the centre was a low
opening, partly masked by the dry spiky fronds of a small date palm.

"Gad!" murmured the Englishman. "Some of Tom's engineering! And she
said he started without weapons or tools--on this coast! . . . Yet for
him to have won her--No, no, it's impossible! impossible! American or
not, she's a lady--thoroughbred! He's a true stone, but in the rough--
uncut, unpolished! A girl of her breeding--He's worth it, 'pon my
word, he is; though I never would have fancied that she, of all girls
--She's so different. No! it's impossible! it can't be! Must be pure
fancy on her part--gratitude. It can't be anything more!"

A heavy step sounded on the far side of the barrier, and a deep voice
called out to him: "Hello, there! That you, Jimmy? Thought it about
time you were due. What you doing?--telling yourself how to climb
over? Abase yeh noble knee to the dust and crawl through, me lud."

Without pausing to reply, Lord James stooped and crept through the
narrow passage under the thorny wall. As he straightened up on the
inner side, Blake caught and gripped his hand in a big calloused palm.

"Jimmy!" he exclaimed, his pale blue eyes glistening with the soft
light of deep friendship. "Jimmy boy! to think you beat 'em to it! I
figured ten to one odds that it was a tramp chartered by Papa Leslie--
And then to see you pop up in the sternsheets, spic and span as a
laundry ad! When you sang out--Lord!"

"Ring off, bo! Those're my fingers you're mashing!" objected the
victim.

As Blake released him, he stepped aside and ran his eye up and down
the sinewy rag-and-skin-clad form of the engineer. He nodded
approvingly.

"Lean, hard as nails, no sign of fever--and after six weeks on this
beastly coast! How'd you do it, old man? You're fit--deuced fit!"

"Fit to give pointers to the Wild Man from Borneo," chuckled Blake. He
drew out a silver cigarette case and snapped open the lid. "See those
little beauties?--No! hands off! Good Lord! those're my arrow tips,
soaking in snake poison! A scratch would do for you as sure as a drink
of cyanide. Brought down an eland with one of those little points--
antelope big as a steer."

"Poison! fancy now!" exclaimed Lord James.

"Yes; from a puff adder that almost got Miss Jenny--fellow big as my
leg. Struck at her as she bent to pick an amaryllis. If it had so much
as grazed her hand or arm--God!"

He looked away, his teeth clenched together and the sweat starting out
on his broad forehead. What he thought of Genevieve Leslie was plainly
evident in his convulsed face and dilated eyes. If he could be so
overwrought by the mere remembrance of a danger that she had escaped,
he must love her, not as most men love, but with all the depth and
strength of his powerful nature. Lord James's lips pressed together
and his gray eyes clouded with pain.

"Close shave, heh?" he muttered.

"Yes," replied Blake. He drew in a deep breath, and added, "Not the
first, though, nor the last. But a miss is as good as a mile, hey,
Jimmy boy?"

"Gad, old man, that sounds natural! Can't say you look it, though--not
altogether. Must get you aboard and into another style of fine
raiment. Fur trousers not good form in this climate, y'know. You
picked up that shirt at a remnant counter, I take it. Come aboard.
Must mow that alfalfa patch before any one suspects you're trying to
raise a beard."

The friendly banter seemed to have the contrary effect from that
intended. Blake's face darkened.

"Good Lord, no!" he rumbled. "Go aboard with her? What d'you take me
for?"

"Give you my word, I don't take you at all," replied the puzzled
Englishman.

"What! Hasn't she told you? But of course she wouldn't--unless she saw
you alone," muttered Blake. "Come on up the canon. I've thought it all
out--just what must be done. But it'll take some time to explain.
Wait! Did you come alone?--any one follow you?"

"No. Told 'em to stay near the boat."

"Just the same, I'll make sure," said Blake. He dived into the
barricade passage, and quickly reappeared, dragging at the butt of the
date palm. "There, me lud; the door is shut. Nobody is going to walk
in on our private conference now. Come on."




CHAPTER III

LORD AND MAN


Blake turned about and swung away up the ravine. Lord James followed
in the half-obliterated path, which led along the edge of a tiny
spring rill. The cleft was here closed in on each side with sheer
walls of rock from twenty to thirty feet high. At the point where this
small box canon intersected the middle of the cliff ridge, the
gigantic baobab that Lord James had seen from the steamer, towered
skyward, its huge trunk filling a good third of the width of the
gorge. Across from it and nearer at hand was a thicket of bamboos,
around which the spring rill trickled from a natural basin in the
rock.

But the visitor gave scant heed to the natural features of the place.
His glance passed from a great antelope hide, drying on a frame, to
the bamboo racks on which sun-seared strips of flesh were curing over
a smudge fire. Looking to his left, he saw a hut hardly larger than a
dog kennel but ingeniously thatched with bamboo leaves. Then his
glance was caught and held by a curious contrivance of interwoven
thorn branches and creepers, fitted into a high narrow opening in the
trunk of the baobab.

"What's that?--hollow tree?" he asked.

"Yes," answered Blake, without turning. "Sixteen-foot room inside.
That's where the she-leopard and the cubs were smothered. Fired the
gully to drive out the family. All stayed at home and got smothered
'cept old Mr. Leopard. He ran the gantlet. Lord, how he squalled, poor
brute! But they'd have eaten us if we hadn't eaten them. He landed in
the pool, too scorched to see. Settled him with my club."

"Clubbed him?--a leopard! I say now! A bit different, that, to snipe
shooting."

"Well, yes, a trifle different, Jeems--a trifle," conceded Blake.

"My word! What haven't you been through!" burst out the Englishman.
"And to think she, too, went through it all--six weeks of it!"

"That's it!" enthused Blake. "She's the truest, grittiest little girl
the sun ever had the good luck to shine on! If she thinks now I can't
realize--that I'm not going to do the square thing by her! I've been
thinking it all over, Jimmy. I've got it all mapped out what I'm going
to do. Wait, though!"

He sprang ahead and pulled at the thorny contrivance that stopped the
opening in the baobab trunk. It was balanced midway up, on a crossbar.
Almost at a touch, the lower part swung up and outward and the upper
half down and inward. He stepped in under it, hesitated a moment, and
went on into the hollow, with an exclamation of relief: "No, 't isn't
her room any more, thank God!"

Lord James stared. Well as he knew the sterling qualities of his
friend, he had never suspected him of such delicacy. He gazed
curiously around at the unshapely but flawless sand-glazed earthenware
set on a bamboo rack beside the open stone fireplace, at the rough-
woven but strong baskets piled together near the foot of the baobab,
at the pouch of antelope skin, the grass sombreros, the bamboo spits
and forks and spoons--all the many useful utensils that told of the
ingenuity and resourcefulness of his friend.

But, most of all, he was interested in the weighty hardwood club
leaning against the tree trunk and the great bamboo bow hanging above
in a skin sheath beside a quiver full of long feather-tipped arrows.
He was balancing the club when Blake came out of the tree-cave,
carrying a young cocoanut in one hand, and in the other a small pot
seemingly full of dried mud. Lord James replaced the club, and waved
his hand around at the camp.

"'Pon my word, Tom," he commented, "you've out-Crusoed old Robinson!"

"Sure!" agreed Blake. "He had a whole shipful of stuff as a starter,
while we didn't have anything except my magnifying glass and Win's
penknife and keys."

He pulled out a curious sheath-knife made of a narrow ribbon of steel
set in a bone back. "How's that for a blade? Big flat British keys--
good steel. I welded 'em together, end to end."

"Gad! the pater's private keys!" gasped Lord James. "You don't tell me
the rascal was imbecile enough to keep those keys in his pocket?--
certain means of identification if he'd been searched!"

"What!" shouted Blake. "Then the duke he cleaned out was your dad.
_Whew!_"

He whirled the mud-stoppered jug overhead and dashed it down at his
feet. From amidst the shattered fragments he caught up a dirty cloth
that was quilted across in small squares. He held it out to Lord
James.

"There you are, Jimmy--my compliments and more or less of your family
heirlooms."

"My word!" murmured the earl, catching eagerly at the cloth. "You got
the loot from him? That's like you, Tom!"

"Look out!" cautioned Blake. "I opened one square to see what it was
he had hidden. You'll find he hadn't been too daffy to melt the
settings--keys or no keys. Say, but it's luck to learn they're yours!
Hope they're all there."

"All the good ones will be. He couldn't have sold or pawned any of the
best stones after we cabled. Gad! won't the pater be tickled! Ah!"

From the open square of which Blake had spoken, his lordship drew out
a resplendent ruby. "Centre stone of Lady Anne's brooch!"

He ran his immaculate finger-tips over the many squares in the cloth.
"A stone in every one--must be all of the really valuable loot! The
settings were out of date--small value. How'd you get it from him,
Tom?"

Blake hesitated, and answered in a low tone: "He got hurt the night of
the second cyclone. But he wasn't responsible--poor devil! He must
have been dotty all along. It didn't show much before--but I felt
uneasy. That's why I built that thorn door--so she could bar herself
in."

Lord James stared in horrified surprise. "You really do not mean--?"

"Yes--and it almost happened! God!" Again Blake clenched his teeth and
the cold sweat burst out on his forehead.

"My word! That's worse than the snake!" murmured Lord James.

"She--she'd left the door up--heat was stifling," explained Blake. "I
had gone off north, exploring. The beast was crawling in--But I've got
to remember he wasn't responsible--a paranoiac!"

"Ah, yes. And then?" questioned the Englishman, tugging nervously at
the tip of his little blond mustache.

"Then--then--" muttered Blake. "He got what was coming to him. Cyclone
struck like a tornado. Door whirled down and knocked him out of the
opening--smashed him!"

"The end he had earned!"

"Yes--even if he wasn't responsible, he had become just that--a beast.
She had saved his life, too--night I ran down to the beach after
eating a poison fish. Barricade hadn't been finished. He was down with
the fever. They were attacked--jackals, hyenas. She got him safe
inside the tree, with the yelling curs jumping at her."

"My word! she did that?--she? Of all the young ladies I've ever known,
she was the very last I should have expected--"

"What! you've met her before?" demanded Blake.

"Then she hasn't told you?" replied his friend. "Lady Bayrose was one
of my old friends, y'know. Met 'em aboard ship--sailed on the same
steamer, after my run home."

"You did?" muttered Blake, in blank astonishment. "You know her?"

"You must have heard me sing out to her from the boat. Yes, I--er--had
the voyage with her through the Mediterranean and down the Red Sea.
But Lady Bayrose got tiffed at me, and at Aden shifted to a Cape boat.
I had to go on to India alone."

"India?" queried Blake.

"Trailing Hawkins. He first went to India. But he doubled back and
'round to Cape Colony."

"So that's why you didn't get here sooner," said Blake.

"Yes. Didn't notice that the _Impala_ was posted. Didn't know either
you or Miss Leslie was aboard her until after I learned you'd thrown
up the management of that Rand mine. Traced you to Cape Town. Odd that
you and she and Hawkins should all have booked on the same steamer!"

"Think so?" said Blake. "I don't. Winthrope--Hawkins, that is--was
smooth enough to know he'd not be suspected if travelling as a member
of Lady Bayrose's party. He had already wormed himself into her favor.
As for me--well, they had come to look at the mine, and I had shown
Jenny through the workings. Does that make it clear why I threw up the
job and followed them to Cape Town?"

"She had not given you any reason to--surely, not any encouragement?
No, I can't believe it!"

"Course not, you British doughhead! It was all the other way 'round.
Think I didn't realize? She, a lady, and me--what I am! But I couldn't
help it--I just couldn't help myself, Jimmy. Knew her father, too--all
about his millions and how he made them! He did me--twice. You'd think
the very name would have turned me. Yet the minute I set eyes on her--
say!"

"You're certainly hard hit!" murmured the young earl. He flushed, bit
his lip, hesitated, and burst out with impulsive generosity: "Gad, old
man! If it's true--if she really--er--has come to love you, I own that
you've won her fair and square--all this, y'know." He waved his hand
around in a sweeping gesture. "Saved her from all this. Yes--if it's
really true!"

Blake looked away, and spoke in a hushed voice: "It's--it's true,
Jimmy! Only a little while ago, there on the cliff edge when we saw
your steamer, she--she told me. It started yesterday after I bluffed
off the lion. You see, she--"

"Lion?" ejaculated Lord James.

"Yes." Blake flung up his head in an impatient gesture. "The beast
tried to stalk us. Jumped back into the grass when I circled out at
him. I got the grass fired before he screwed up courage to tackle me.
--Don't cut in!--It was then that Jenny--she--she tried to say
something. But I streaked for home. This morning, though, when I saw
we were safe, I was weak enough to let her--speak out."

Lord James hesitated just perceptibly, and then caught his friend's
big, ill-used hand in a cordial clasp. "So--you're engaged!
Congratulations!"

"If only it was just that!" cried Blake. He flushed red under his
thick coat of tan. "I--I suppose I've got to tell you, Jimmy--I must.
I need your help to carry out my plan."

"Your plan?" repeated the Englishman wonderingly.

"To save her from--from committing herself. It isn't fair to her to
let her do it now. She ought to wait till she gets back home, among
her own people. You see she wants to--She--she says that ship captains
can--" He caught his breath, and bent nearer, but with his face half
averted. His voice sank to an almost inaudible murmur--"that ship
captains can marry people."

"Ah!" gasped Lord James. But he recovered on the instant. "Gad! that
_is_ a surprise, old man. Always the lady's privilege, though, to
name the day, y'know. I shipped a stewardess to wait on the women--had
hoped they would all have been saved. She'll do for lady's maid. Also
brought along some women's togs, in case of emergencies. As for
yourself, between mine and Megg's and his own wardrobes, my man can
rig you up a presentable outfit. Clever chap, that Wilton."

"You've gone back to a valet again!" reproached Blake, momentarily
diverted. Then his fists clenched and his brows met in a frown of
self-disgust. "Lord! for me to forget for a second! Look here, Jimmy,
you're clean off. You don't savvy a little bit. Don't you see the
point? I can't let her commit herself now--here! You know I can't. It
wouldn't be fair to her, and you know it."

Lord James met his look with a clear and unfaltering gaze, and
answered steadily: "That all depends on one thing, Tom. If she really
loves you--"

"D'you think she's the kind to do it, if she didn't?" demanded Blake.
"No, that's not the point, at all. I've tried to be square, so far.
She saw what I'm like when I cut loose--there on the ship. I was two-
thirds drunk when the cyclone flung us ashore. No excuse--except that
all of them had turned me down from the first--there at Cape Town.
Yes, she knows just what I'm like when the craving is on me.
Yesterday, down there at the south headland, before the lion came
around, I gave her some idea of what I've done--all that."

"You've lived a cleaner life than most who're considered eligible!"
exclaimed Lord James. "I know that with respect to women, you're the
cleanest--"

"Eligible!" broke in Blake. "No man is that, far as she's concerned,
unless it's you, Jimmy."

"Chuck it! You're always knocking yourself. But about this plan that's
bothering you? Out with it."

"That's talking! All right, here it is, straight--I want you to get
back aboard and steam away, fast as you can hike. You can run into
Port Mozambique, if you're going north, and arrange for a boat to call
by for me."

"You're daft!" cried Lord James. "Daft! Mad as a hatter! Can you fancy
for a moment I'd go off and leave you here?"

"Guess you can't help yourself, Jimmy. The most you can do is force me
to take to the jungle. You can't get me aboard. I tell you, I've
figured it all out. I won't go aboard and let her do--what she's
planning to do. You ought to know. Jimmy, that when I say a thing, I
mean it. She's not going to set eyes on me again until after she's
back in America. Is that plain?"

"Tom--old man! that's like you!" cried the Englishman, and again he
gripped the other's rough hand. "I see now what you're driving at.
It's a thing few men would have the bigness to do. You're giving up a
certainty, because your love for her is great enough, unselfish enough
to consider only her good. D'you fancy I could do such a thing? You're
risking everything. Shows you're fit, even for her!"

"It's little enough--for her!" put in Blake.

"That's like you to say it," rejoined his friend. "See here, old man.
You've made a clean breast of it all. I should be no less candid. You
know now that I met her before--was all those weeks with her aboard
ship. Need I tell you that I, too, love her?"

"You?" growled Blake. "But of course! I don't blame you. You couldn't
help it."

"It's been an odd shuffling of the cards," remarked his friend. "What
if--Aren't you afraid there may be a new deal, Tom? If you don't come
aboard, she and I will be together at least as far as Zanzibar, and
probably all the way to Aden, before I can find some one else to take
her on to England."

"What of that?" rejoined Blake. "Think I don't know you're square,
after the months we roughed-it together?"

"Then--But I can't leave you here in this hell-hole! You've no right
to ask me to do that, Tom. If I could bring my guns ashore and stay
with you--But she'll never be more in need of some one, if you insist
upon your plan. I say! I have it--We'll slip you aboard after dark.
You can lie in covert till we reach Port Mozambique. I trust I'm
clever enough to keep her diverted that long. Can put it that you're
outfitting--all that, y' know."

"Say, that's not so bad," admitted Blake, half persuaded. "I could
slip ashore, soon as we ran into harbor, leaving her a note to tell
her why."

"Right-o, Tammas! But wait. I'll go you one better. You can write your
note and give it out that you've shifted to another ship. But you'll
stay aboard with us, under cover. Of all the steamers that touch at
Aden, one will soon come along with parties whom either she or I know.
Then off she goes to the tight little island, and we follow after in
our little tramp or on another liner. Hey, Tammas?"

"Well, I don't know," hesitated Blake. "It sounds all right."

"It _is_ all right," insisted the younger man. "You'll be aboard
the same steamer with her as far as Aden, to keep an eye on me,
y'know."

"On you?"

"You'd better. My word, Tom! don't you realize? If you--er--put it
off, I'm bound to try for myself. Can't help it!"

"Think you've got a show, do you?" rallied Blake.

"I fancied I had as much chance as any one, before all this occurred.
I at least should have been in the running, had it not been for the
wreck--and you."

Blake stood for several moments, with his head down-bent and eyes
fixed upon the ground. When he looked up and spoke, his face was grave
and his voice deep and low.

"It's all of a piece, Jimmy. I don't blame you. Fact is, it's all the
better. I've had all the advantage here. She and I've been living in
the Cave Age, and I've proved myself an A-1 cave-man, if I do say it
myself. It may be hard for her to get the right perspective of things,
even after she's back in her own environment. Understand?"

"I take it, you mean she has seen the display of your strongest and
best qualities, in circumstances that did not call for such non-
essentials as mere polish--drawing room culture."

"You mean, for all that counts most with ninety-nine per cent of your
class and hers," rejoined Blake. "And there's the craving, too. I'll
have to fight that out before I'll be fit to let her do anything.
Think I don't know the difference between us? No! I'm going to go the
limit, Jimmy. I can't do less, and be square to her. So I give you
full leave. You're free to play your hand for all there is in it. I'll
stay here--"

"No--no! I'll not hear of it, Tom!"

"Yes, you will. I'll stay here, and you'll see her clear through to
America--to Chicago--right to her papa's house and in through the
door. Understand? I don't make a single condition. You're to try your
best to win; and if you do, why--don't you see?--it'll show that this
which she thinks is the real thing is all a mistake."

"My word, old man! you'd not give her up without a fight? That
wouldn't be like you!"

"It all depends. I won't if it's true she loves me--God! no! I'd go
through hell-fire for her!"

"If I know you, Tom, you'll suffer that and more, should the event
prove she is mistaken as to the nature of her present feeling."

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