The Plunderer | Page 5

palm, he saw the girl. She came to the open space before the sea, whistling softly to herself an irrepressible, tuneless matin song of youth, and thus she walked unexpectingly into the full power of the relentless dawn. For a moment she halted, blinking, astounded.
"Ah!"
Her exclamation was a cry of the joy of youth. She stood facing the coming day, and the sea and sun; and a puff of morning breeze flung behind her a vagrant strand of golden hair.
She was quite tall, and upon her young figure, long of waist and lithe, yet well-rounded, the thin white dress of the subtropics was but a filament, a feminine accessory to the virgin beauty and the message of her budding womanhood.
Payne heard a soft, heavy step at his back and saw that Higgins, too, had answered the call of dawn.
The girl stood entranced by the spectacle before her. She placed her hands upon her bosom and stood with uplifted visage, like a young goddess of the dawn. She stretched her arms passionately out over the sea and said quite loudly and fervently:
"I love you, I love you!"
In the shadow of the palm Payne and Higgins began to retreat guiltily.
"No use your sticking round, Payne," whispered the engineer. "You're too late; she's took. You heard what she said."
"Sh-h!"
"I love you," repeated the girl with the same ecstatic tone and pose. "Ah! How I love you!"
From the arch over the path there dropped with a swish and crash the ten-foot branch of a coco palm, falling without warning or apparent reason, as the overripe branches of coco palms do fall. The girl whirled round; and Payne was shocked and chilled to the marrow by the sight of her as she faced toward them.
Beautiful she was, her face as beautiful as her vibrant young body, but for the moment she was like a thing at bay. Fear shown in her eyes, not the passing fear of a sudden alarm, but a deep-seated, wearing fear suddenly awakened. Her face was a deadly white. For an instant it seemed to Roger that the depths of her soul were revealed, and at the mystery and dread in her eyes he took a step forward. He did not speak. Her expression baffled him. He stood irresolute for the moment, and in that moment she recovered her poise. She drew herself upright slowly, the red came flowing back into the cream of her cheeks, and she relaxed, leaning her weight upon one foot. As she looked at Roger, and from him to the weather-beaten Higgins and back to Roger, her eyes grew easy with assurance.
She began to smile.
"Didn't know there were tigers or other dangerous beasts on this island, miss," chuckled Higgins. "Say the word and we'll clean 'em out for you."
Neither the girl nor Payne appeared to hear. Payne looked at her without attempting to speak; he had tried to smile and carry the thing off easily, but as their eyes met his lips remained half parted without uttering a word. He looked at her in utter helplessness, caught for the moment, at least, in the grip of a force greater than himself. The girl shot Higgins a smile of understanding and friendliness, but as her eyes came back to Roger's the smile vanished by degrees; and upon her visage for the while was the same look of awesome seriousness as was upon the young man's.
"Mebbe they're gorillas, miss," chuckled Higgins.
She turned, reluctant yet relieved at the release from the tension, and looked at him speculatively.
"Why did you say that?" she asked.
"Gorillas, miss? Pshaw! Don't be afraid; I juggle them for morning exercise. Eh? What?" he continued, as he realized that her expression was not one of jesting. "By the great smoked fish--excuse me for cussin', miss--if it wasn't ridiculous I'd say I'd hit it!"
"Do you know anything about this place?" she asked quietly.
"Not a thing, miss."
"Or about the people round here?"
"No."
"It was strange," she said, "your saying 'tiger' and 'gorilla' just then. It was what I would have said--if I could have spoken."
"I am sorry, very sorry we alarmed you," said Roger. "We didn't want to intrude."
"Oh, I am glad you were here," she cried. "You don't know how glad I was to turn round and see you two instead of----"
"Instead of tigers and gorillas?" laughed Roger. "Oh! I beg your pardon!" he cried in swift contrition at the look which the words brought back to her eyes. "I wouldn't for the world--but, surely--it's impossible; there are no dangerous wild animals on this pretty little key."
"No," she said slowly, looking away from him. "No, there are not any dangerous--wild beasts on this key. It--it was just a morning nightmare." She laughed, looking up. "Perhaps I wasn't thoroughly awake yet." But she shuddered, and swiftly made pretense she