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  III

  I ENGAGE THE ENEMY

  It was fortunate that I slept well in my narrow berth on board theRufus Smith, for the next day was one of trial. Aunt Jane hadrecovered what Mr. Tubbs, with deprecating coughs behind his hand,alluded to as her sea-legs, and staggered forth wanly, leaning onthe arm of Miss Higglesby-Browne. Yes, of Miss Browne, while I,Aunt Jane's own niece, trotted meekly in the rear with a cushion.Already I had begun to realize how fatally I had underrated thelady of the hyphen, in imagining I had only to come and see andconquer Aunt Jane. The grim and bony one had made hay while thesun shone--while I was idling in California, and those criminallysupine cousins were allowing Aunt Jane to run about New York at herown wild will. Miss Higglesby-Browne had her own collar and tag onAunt Jane now, while she, so complete was her perversion, fairlyhugged her slavery and called it freedom. Yes, she talked abouther Emancipation and her Soul-force and her Individuality,prattling away like a child that has learned its lesson well.

  "Mercy, aunty, what long words!" I cried gaily, sitting down besideher and patting her hand. Usually I can do anything with her whenI pet her up a bit. But the eye of Miss Higglesby-Browne was onher--and Aunt Jane actually drew a little away.

  "Really, Virginia," she said, feebly endeavoring to rise to theoccasion as she knew Miss Browne would have her rise, "really,while it's very nice to see you and all that, still I hope yourealize that I have had a--a deep Soul-experience, and that I am nolonger to be--trifled with and--and treated as if I were--amusing.I am really at a loss to imagine why you came. I wrote you that Iwas in the company of _trusted friends_."

  "Friends?" I echoed aggrievedly. "Friends are all very well, ofcourse, but when you and I have just each other, aunty, I think itis unkind of you to expect me to stay thousands of miles away fromyou all by myself."

  "But it was you who sent me to New York, and insisted on my stayingthere!" she cried. Evidently she had been living over her wrongs.

  "Yes--but how different!" I interrupted hastily. "There were thecousins--of course I have to spare you sometimes to the rest of thefamily!" Aunt Jane is strong on family feeling, and frequentlyreproaches me with my lack of it.

  But in expecting Aunt Jane to soften at this I reckoned withoutMiss Higglesby-Browne. A dart from the cold gray eyes galvanizedmy aunt into a sudden rigid erectness.

  "My dear Virginia," she said with quavering severity, "let meremind you that there are ties even dearer than those ofblood--soul-affinities, you know, and--and, in short, in my dearfriend Miss Higglesby-Browne I have met for the first time in mylife with a--a Sympathetic Intelligence that understands Me!"

  So that was Violet's line! I surveyed the Sympathetic Intelligencewith a smiling interest.

  "Really, how nice! And of course you feel quite sure that on yourside you thoroughly understand--Miss Higglesby-Browne?"

  Miss Browne's hair was rather like a clothesbrush in her mildestmoods. In her rising wrath it seemed to quiver like a lion's mane.

  "Miss Harding," she said, in the chest-tones she reserved forcritical moments, "has a nature impossible to deceive, becauseitself incapable of deception. Miss Harding and I first met--onthis present plane--in an atmosphere unusually favorable tosoul-revelation. I knew at once that here was the appointedcomrade, while in Miss Harding there was the immediate recognitionof a complementary spiritual force."

  "It's perfectly true, Virginia," exclaimed Aunt Jane, beginning tocry. "You and Susan and everybody have always treated me as if Iwere a child and didn't know what I wanted, when the fact is Ialways have known _perfectly well_!" The last words issued in awail from the depths of her handkerchief.

  "You mean, I suppose," I exploded, "that what you have alwayswanted was to go off on this perfectly crazy chase after imaginarytreasure!" There, now I had gone and done it. Of course it was myred hair.

  "Jane," uttered Miss Higglesby-Browne in deep and awful tones, "doyou or do you not realize how strangely prophetic were the warningsI gave you from the first--that if you revealed our plans malignantInfluences would be brought to bear? Be strong, Jane--cling to theDynamic Thought!"

  "I'm clinging!" sniffed Aunt Jane, dabbing away her tears. I neversaw any one get so pink about the eyes and nose at the smallestsign of weeping, and yet she is always doing it. "Really,Virginia," she broke out in a whimper, "it is not kind to say, Isuppose, but I would just as soon you hadn't come! Just when I waslearning to expand my individuality--and then you come and somehowmake it seem so much more difficult!"

  I rose. "Very well, Aunt Jane," I said coldly. "Expand all youlike. When you get to the bursting point I'll do my best to savethe pieces. For the present I suppose I had better leave you tocompany so much more favorable to your soul development!" And Iwalked away with my head in the air.

  It was so much in the air, and the deck of the _Rufus Smith_ was sounstable, that I fell over a coil of rope and fetched up in thearms of the Honorable Cuthbert Vane. Fortunately this occurredaround the corner of the deck-house, out of sight of my aunt andMiss Browne, so the latter was unable to shed the lurid light onthe episode which she doubtless would if she had seen it. Mr. Vanestood the shock well and promptly set me on my feet.

  "I say!" he exclaimed sympathetically, "not hurt, are you? Beastlynuisance, you know, these ropes lying about--regular man-traps, Icall 'em."

  "Thanks, I'm quite all right," I said, and as I spoke two largegenuine tears welled up into my eyes. I hadn't realized till Ifelt them smarting on my eyelids how deeply hurt I was at theunnatural behavior of Aunt Jane.

  "Ah--I'm afraid you are really not quite all right!" returned theHonorable Cuthbert with profound concern. "Tell me what's thematter--please do!"

  I shook my head. "It's nothing--you couldn't help me. It'sjust--Aunt Jane."

  "Your aunt? Has she been kicking-up a bit? I thought she lookedrather a mild sort."

  "Oh--mild! That's just it--so mild that she has let this awfulHigglesby-Browne person get possession of her body and soul."

  "Oh, I say, aren't you a bit rough on Miss Browne? Thought she wasa rather remarkable old party--goes in strong for intellect and allthat, you know."

  "That's just what fooled Aunt Jane so--but, I thought a man wouldknow better." My feathers were ruffled again.

  "Well, fact is, I'm not so much up in that sort of thing myself,"he admitted modestly. "Rather took her word for it and all that,you know. There's Shaw, though--cleverest chap going, I assureyou. I rather fancy Miss Browne couldn't pull the wool over _his_eyes much."

  "She evidently did, though," I said snappishly, "since he's let herrope him in for such a wild goose chase as this!" In my heart Ifelt convinced that the clever Mr. Shaw was merely Miss Browne'spartner in imposture.

  "Oh, really, now. Miss Harding, you don't think it's that--thatthe thing's all moonshine?" He stared at me in grieved surprise.

  "Why, what else can it be?" I demanded, driven by my wrongs to thecruelty of shattering his illusions. "Who ever heard of a pirate'streasure that wasn't moonshine? The moment I had read Aunt Jane'sletter telling of the perfectly absurd business she was setting outon I rushed down by the first boat. Of course I meant to take herback with me, to put a stop to all this madness; but I was toolate--and you're glad of it, I dare say!"

  "I can't help being glad, you know," he replied, the color risingto his ingenuous cheeks. "It's so frightfully jolly having youalong. Only I'm sorry you came against your will. Rather fancyyou had it in your head that we were a band of cutthroats, eh?Well, the fact is I don't know much about the two chaps Miss Brownepicked up, though I suspect they are a very decent sort. That oddfish, Captain Magnus, now--he was quite Miss Browne's own find, Iassure you. And as to old H. H.--Tubbs, you know--Miss Browne metup with him on the boat coming down. The rum old chap got on hersoft side somehow, and first thing she had appointed him secretaryand treasurer--as though we were a meeting of something. Shaw wasquite a bit upset about it. He and I were a week later inarriving--ca
me straight on from England with the supplies, whileMiss Browne fixed things up with the little black-and-tan countrythat owns the island. I say, Miss Harding, you're bound to likeShaw no end when you know him--he's such a wonderfully clever chap!"

  I had no wish to blight his faith in the superlative Mr. Shaw, andsaid nothing. This evidently pained him, and as we stood leaningon the rail in the shadow of the deck-house, watching the bluewater slide by, he continued to sound the praises of his idol. Itseemed that as soon as Miss Browne had beguiled Aunt Jane intofinancing her scheme--a feat equivalent to robbing an infant-classscholar of his Sunday-school nickel--she had cast about for aworthy leader for the forthcoming Harding-Browne expedition. Allthe winds of fame were bearing abroad just then the name of acertain young explorer who had lately added another continent ortwo to the British Empire. Linked with his were other names, thoseof his fellow adventurers, which shone only less brightly than thatof their chief. One Dugald Shaw had been among the great man'smost trusted lieutenants, but now, on the organizing of the secondexpedition, he was left behind in London, only half recovered of awound received in the Antarctic. The hook of a block and tacklehad caught him, ripped his forehead open from cheek to temple, andfor a time threatened the sight of the eye. Slowly, under the careof the London surgeons, he had recovered, and the eye was saved.Meanwhile his old companions had taken again the path of glory, andwere far on their way back to the ice-fields of the South Pole.Only Dugald Shaw was left behind.

  "And so," the even voice flowed on, "when I ran on to him in Londonhe was feeling fearfully low, I do assure you. A chap of his sortnaturally hates to think he's on the shelf. I had known him sinceI was a little 'un, when we used to go to Scotland for ourholidays, and he would be home from sea and staying with his cousinat the manse. He'd make us boats and spin all sorts of yarns, andwe thought him a bigger man than the admiral of the fleet.

  "Well, old Shaw was fancying there was nothing for it but to goback to his place with the P. & O., which seemed a bit flat afterwhat he'd been having, and meant he would never get beyond beingthe captain of a liner, and not that for a good many years to come,when a cable came from this Miss Higglesby-Brown offering himcommand of this expedition. As neither of us had ever heard ofMiss Higglesby-Browne, we were both a bit floored for a time. ButShaw smoked a pipe on it, and then he said, 'Old chap, if they'llgive me my figure, I'm their man.' And I said, 'Quite so, oldchap, and I'll go along, too.'

  "I had to argue quite a bit, but in the end the dear old boy let mecome--after wiring the pater and what not. And I do assure you,Miss Harding, it strikes me as no end of a lark--besides expectingit to put old Shaw on his feet and give us hatfuls of money allround."

  Well, it was a plausible story, and I had no doubt, so far as theHonorable Cuthbert was concerned, an absolutely truthful one. Thebeautiful youth was manifestly as guileless as a small boy playingpirate with a wooden sword. But as to Mr. Shaw, who could tellthat it hadn't after all been a trumped-up affair between MissBrowne and him--that his surprise at the message was not assumed tothrow dust in the eyes of his young and trusting friend? Are eventhe most valiant adventurers invariably honest? Left behind by hiscompanions because of his injury, his chance of an enduring famecut off, with no prospects but those of an officer on an oceanliner, might he not lend a ready ear to a scheme for plucking a fatand willing pigeon? So great was my faith in Aunt Jane'sgullibility, so dark my distrust of Miss Browne, that all connectedwith the enterprise lay under the cloud of my suspicion. TheHonorable Mr. Vane I had already so far exculpated as to wonder ifhe were not in some way being victimized too; but Mr. Shaw, aftereven a casual glimpse of him, one couldn't picture as a victim. Ifelt that he must have gone into the enterprise with his eyes opento its absurdity, and fully aware that the only gold to be won byanybody must come out of the pocket of Aunt Jane.

  As these reflections passed through my mind I looked up and saw thesubject of them approaching. He lifted his helmet, but met my eyesunsmilingly, with a sort of sober scrutiny. He had the tanned skinof a sailor, and brown hair cropped close and showing a trace ofgray. This and a certain dour grim look he had made me at firstconsider him quite middle-aged, though I knew later that he was notyet thirty-five. As to the grimness, perhaps, I unwillinglyconceded, part of it was due to the scar which seamed the righttemple to the eyebrow, in a straight livid line. But it was a grimface anyway, strong-jawed, with piercing steel-blue eyes.

  He was welcomed by Mr. Vane with a joyous thump on theshoulder-blade. "I say, old man, Miss Harding has turned out to bethe most fearful doubting Thomas--thinks the whole scheme quite madand all that sort of thing. I'm far too great a duffer to converther, but perhaps you might, don't you know?"

  Mr. Shaw looked at me steadily. His eyes were the kind that seemto see all and reveal nothing. I felt a hot spark of defiancerising in my own.

  "And indeed it is too bad," he said coolly, "that the trip shouldnot be more to Miss Harding's liking." The rough edges of hisScotch burr had been smoothed down by much wandering, but you knewat once on which side of the Solway he had seen the light.

  "It is not a question of my liking," I retorted, trying to preservean unmoved and lofty demeanor, though my heart was beating ratherquickly at finding myself actually crossing swords with theredoubtable adventurer, this man who had often faced death, I couldnot refuse to believe, as steadily as he was facing me now.

  "It is not at all a question of my liking or not liking the trip,but of the trip itself being--quite the wildest thing ever heard ofout of a story-book." Harsher terms had sprung first to my lips,but had somehow failed to get beyond them.

  "Ah--yet the world would be the poorer if certain wild trips hadnot been taken. I seem to remember one Christopher Columbus, forinstance."

  By a vivid lightning-flash of wrath I felt that this adventurer waslaughing at me a little under his sober exterior--even stirring meup as one does an angry kitten.

  "Yes," I flared out, "but Columbus did not inveigle a confiding oldlady to go along with him!" Of course Aunt Jane is not, properlyspeaking, an old lady, but it was much more effective to pose heras one for the moment.

  It was certainly effective, to judge by the sudden firm setting ofhis mouth.

  "Lad," he said quietly, "lend a hand below, will you? They areoverhauling some of our stuff 'tween decks."

  He waited until the Honorable Cuthbert, looking rather dazed, hadretired. We stood facing each other, my breath coming ratherhurriedly. There was a kind of still force about this masteredanger of the dour Scot, like the brooding of black clouds that atany moment may send forth their devastating fire. Yet I myself wasnot endowed with red hair for nothing.

  "Miss Harding," he said slowly, "that was a bitter word you said."

  My head went up.

  "Bitter, perhaps," I flung back, "but is it not true? It is for youto answer."

  "No, it is not for me to answer, because it is not for you to ask.But since you talk of inveigling, let me give the history of myconnection with the expedition. You will understand then that Ihad nothing to do with organizing it, but was merely engaged to domy best to carry it through to success."

  "I have already heard a version of the matter from Mr. Vane."

  "And you think he is in the conspiracy too?" "Certainly not," Ireplied hastily. "I mean--of course, I know he told me exactlywhat he believes himself."

  "Yes, you would take the lad's word, of course." This with a slightbut significant emphasis of which he was perhaps unconscious."Then I suppose you consider that he was inveigled too?"

  "I am not required to consider Mr. Vane's status at all," I repliedwith dignity. "It is my aunt whom I wish to protect." Andsuddenly to my dismay my voice grew husky. I had to turn my headaside and blink hard at the sea. I seemed to be encounteringfearful and unexpected odds in my endeavor to rescue Aunt Jane.

  He stood looking down at me--he was a big man, though of lesserheight than the superb Cuthbert--in a way I couldn't
quiteunderstand. And what I don't understand always makes meuncomfortable.

  "Very well," he said after a pause. "Maybe your opportunity willcome. It would be a pity indeed if Miss Harding were to require noprotecting and a young lady here with such a good will to it. Butif you will take the suggestion of a man of rather broaderexperience than your own, you will wait until the occasion arises.It is bad generalship, really, to waste your ammunition like this."

  "I dare say I am not a master of strategy," I cried, furious atmyself for my moment of weakness and at him for the softening tonewhich had crept into his voice. "I am merely--honest. And when Isee Aunt Jane hypnotized--by this Violet person--"

  "And indeed I have seen no reason to think that MissHigglesby-Browne is not a most excellent lady," interrupted Mr.Shaw stiffly. "And let me say this, Miss Harding: here we are alltogether, whether we wish to be or no, and for six weeks or more onthe island we shall see no faces but our own. Are we to be dividedfrom the beginning by quarrels? Are maybe even the men of us to beset by the ears through the bickering of women?"

  Like the nick of a whip came the certainty that he was thinking ofthe Honorable Cuthbert, and that I was the rock on which theirDavid-and-Jonathan friendship might split. Otherwise I supposeMiss Higglesby-Browne and I might have clawed each other foreverwithout interference from him.

  "Really," I said with--I hope--well-simulated scorn, "since I amquite alone against half a dozen of you, I should think you couldcount on putting down any rebellion on my part very easily. Irepeat, I had no other object in coming along--though I was really_kidnaped_ along--than to look after my aunt. The affairs of theparty otherwise--or its personnel---do not interest me at all. Asto the treasure, of course I know perfectly well that there isn'tany."

  And I turned my back and looked steadily out to sea. After amoment or two I heard him turn on his heel and go away. It wasnone too soon, for I had already begun to feel unostentatiously formy handkerchief. Any way, I had had the last word--

  The rest of my day was lonely, for the beautiful youth, probably bymalevolent design, was kept busy between decks. Mr. Tubbs dancedattendance on Aunt Jane and Miss Browne, so assiduously that Ialready began to see some of my worst fears realized. There wasnothing for me to do but to retire to my berth and peruse atattered copy of _Huckleberry Finn_ which I found in the cabin.

  At dinner, having the Honorable Cuthbert at my elbow, it was easierthan not to ignore every one else. The small keen eyes of Mr.Tubbs, under his lofty and polished dome of thought, watched usknowingly. You saw that he was getting ready to assume abless-you-my-children attitude and even to take credit somehow asmatch-maker. He related anecdotes, in which, as an emissary ofCupid, he played a benevolent and leading role. One detected, too,a grin, ugly and unmirthful, on the unprepossessing countenance ofCaptain Magnus. I was indifferent. The man my gaiety was intendedfor sat at the far end of the table. I had to wipe out the memoryof my wet eyes that afternoon.

  Directly dinner was at an end, remorselessly he led the HonorableCuthbert away. I retired to Huckleberry Finn. But a face with ascar running to the eyebrow looked up at me from the pages, and Iheld colloquies with it in which I said all the brilliant andcutting things which had occurred to me too late.

  I was thus engaged when a cry rang through the ship: "Land ho!"