Out of the Primitive | Page 7

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.