"Ah, you go about it handsomely! If you wished me to despise you, to hate you, this would be very fit, what you say."
"You may hate me, despise me, Helena. Let it be so. But you shall not ignore me, as you have these three years."
"It was your fault; your wish--as well as my wish. We agreed to that.
Why bring it up again? When the news came that you had quit your profession, and just at the time you had lost all your father's fortune and your own, had turned your back and run away, when you should have stayed and fought--well, do you think a girl cares for that sort of man? No. A man must do something in this world. He mustn't quit. He's got to _fight_."
"Not even if he has nothing to work for?"
"No, not even then. There are plenty of girls in the world----"
"One."
--"And a man mustn't throw away his life for any one woman. That isn't right. He has his work to do, his place to make and hold. That's what a woman wants in a man. But you didn't. Now, you come and say we must forget all the years of off-and-on, all the time we--we--wasted, don't you know? And because I am, for a little while, in your hands, you talk to me in a way of which you ought to be ashamed. You threaten me, a woman. You even almost compromise me. This will make talk. You speak to me as though, indeed, you were a buccaneer, and I, indeed, in your power absolutely. If I did not know you----"
"You do not. Forget the man you knew. I am not he."
She spread out her hands mockingly, and yet more I felt my anger rise.
"I am another man. I am my father, and his great grandfather, and all his ancestors, pirates all. I know what I covet, and by the Lord!
nothing shall stop me, least of all the law. I shall take my own where I find it."
"And now listen!" I concluded. "I am master on this ship, no matter how I got it. Late poor, as you say, I shall be richer soon, for I shall take, law or no law, consent or no consent, what I want, what I will have. And that is you!
"Each day, at eleven, Helena," I concluded, "I shall meet you on the after deck, and shall try to be kind, try to be courteous----"
"Why, Harry----"
"Try to be calm, too. I want to give you time to think. And I, too, must think. For a time, I wondered what was right, in case you had really pledged yourself to another man."
"Suppose I had?" she asked, sphinx-like.
"I will try to discover that. Not that it would make any difference in my plans."
"You would take what was another's?" She still gazed at me, sphinx-like.
"Yes! By the Lord, Helena, my father did, and his, and so would I! So would I, if that were you! Let him fend for himself."
She turned from the rail, her color a little heightened, affected to yawn, stretched her arms.
We were now passing over the bar, slowly, feeling our way, our skiff alongside, and the shelter of the curving, tree-covered bayou banks now beginning to hide us from view, though the bellowing steamer below had not yet entered our bend.
"Who is that boy?" she inquired lazily.
"That, madam, is no less than the celebrated freebooter, Jean Lafitte, who so long made this lower coast his rendezvous."
"Nonsense! And you're filling his head with wild ideas."
"Say not so; 'twas he and your blessed blue-eyed pirate nephew, the cutthroat L'Olonnois, who filled my head with wild ideas."
"How, then?"
"They took me prisoner, on my own--I mean, at the little place where I stop, up in the country. And not till by stern deeds I had won their confidence, did they accept me as comrade, and, at last, as leader--as I may modestly claim to be. And do not think that you can wheedle either of them away from Black Bart. L'Olonnois remembers you spanked him once, and has sworn a bitter vengeance."
"Why did you happen to start sailing down this way?"
"Because I learned Cal Davidson had started--with you."
"And all that way you had it in mind to overtake us?"
"Yes; and have done so; and have taken his ship away from him, and for all I know his bride."
"He was your friend."
"I thought so. I suppose he never knew that you and I used to--well, to know each other, before I lost my money."
"He never spoke of that."
"No difference, unless all for the better, for I shall, now, never give you up to any man on earth."
"And I thought you the best product of our civilization, a man of education, of breeding."
"No, not breeding, unless savagery gives it. I'm civilized no longer.
When you stand near me, and your hair--go below, Helena! Go at once!"
She turned, moved slowly toward her door.
I finished calmly as I could. "To-morrow, at eleven, I shall give you an audience here on the deck. We shall have time. This is a wilderness. You can not get away, and I hope no one will find you.
That is my risk. And oh! Helena," I added, suddenly, feeling my heart soften at the pallor of her face--"Oh, Helena, Helena, try to think gently of me as you can, for all these miles I have followed after you; and all these years I have thought of you. You do not know--you do not know! It has been one long agony. Now go, please. I promise to keep myself as courteous as I can. You and I and Aunt Lucinda will just have a pleasant voyage together until--until that time. Try to be kind to me, Helena, as I shall try to be with you."
Silent, unsmiling, she disappeared beyond her cabin door, nor would she eat dinner even in her cabin, although Aunt Lucinda did; and found the ninety-three was helping her neuralgia.
I know not if they slept, but I slept not at all. The shadows hung black about us as we lay at anchor four miles inland, silent, and with no lights burning to betray us. Now and again, I could hear faint voices of the night, betimes croakings, splashings in the black water about us. It was as though the jungle had enclosed us, deep and secret-keeping. And in my heart the fierce fever of the jungle's teachings burned, so that I might not sleep.
But in the morning Helena was fresh, all in white, and with no more than a faint blue of shadow beneath her eyes. She honored us at breakfast, and made no manner of reference to what had gone on the evening before. This, then, I saw, was to be our _modus vivendi_; convention, the social customs we all had known, the art, the gloss, the veneer of life, as life runs on in society as we have organized it! Ah, she fought cunningly!
"Black Bart," said L'Olonnois, after breakfast as we all stood on deck--Helena, Auntie Lucinda and all--"what's all them things floatin'
around in the water?"
"They look like bottles, leftenant," said I; "perhaps they may have floated in here. How do you suppose they came here, Mrs. Daniver?" I asked.
"How should I know?" sniffed that lady.
"Well, good leftenant, go overside, you and Jean, and gather up all those bottles, and carry them with my compliments to the ladies at their cabin. You can have the satisfaction of throwing them all overboard later on, Mrs. Daniver. Only, remember, that there is no current in the bayou, and they will stay where they fall for weeks, unless for the wind."
"And where shall we be, then?" demanded Auntie Lucinda, who had eaten a hearty breakfast, and I must say was looking uncommon fit for one so afflicted with neuralgia.
"Oh, very likely here, in the same place, my dear Mrs. Daniver," said I, "unless war should break out meantime. At present we all seem to have a very good _modus vivendi_, and as I have no pressing engagements, I can conceive of nothing more charming than passing the winter here in your society." Saying which I bowed, and turning to Helena, "At eleven, then, if you please?"