Inside the Lines (Biggers and Ritchie)/Chapter 19
CHAPTER XIX
AT THE QUAY
FIVE o'clock at the quay, and already the new day was being made raucous by the bustle of departure—shouts of porters, tenders' jangling engine bells, thump of trunks dropped down skidways, lamentations of voyagers vainly hunting baggage mislaid. Out in the stream the Saxonia—a clean white ship, veritable ark of refuge for pious Americans escaping the deluge.
In the midst of a group of his countrymen Henry J. Sherman stood, feet wide apart and straw hat cocked back over his bald spot. He was narrating the breathless incidents of the night's dark hour:
"Yes, sir, a soldier comes to our rooms about three-thirty o'clock and hammers on our door. 'Everybody in this hotel's under arrest,' he says. 'Kindly dress as soon as possible and report to Major Bishop in the office.' And we not five hours before the guests of General and Lady Crandall at Government House. What d'you think of that for a quick change?
"Well, gentlemen, we piled down-stairs—with me minus a collar button and havin' to hold my collar down behind with my hand. And what do we find? This chap Almer, with a face like a side of cream cheese, standing in the middle of a bunch of soldiers with guns; another bunch of soldiers surroundin' his Arab boy, who's as innocent a little fellah as ever you set eyes on; and this Major Bishop walkin' up and down, all excited, and sayin' something about somebody's got a scheme to blow up the whole fleet out there. Which might have been done, he says, if it wasn't for that fellah Woodhouse we'd had dinner with just that very evening."
"Who's some sort of a spy. I knew it all the time, you see." Mrs. Sherman was quick to claim her share of her fellow tourists' attention. "Only he's a British spy set to watch the Germans. Major Bishop told me that in confidence after it was all over—said he'd never met a man with the nerve this Captain Woodhouse has."
"Better whisper that word 'spy' soft," Henry J. admonished sotto voce. "We're not out of this plagued Europe yet, and we've had about all the excitement we can stand; don't want anybody to arrest us again just the minute we're sailin'. But, as I was sayin', there we all stood, foolish as goats, until in comes General Crandall, followed by this Woodhouse chap. 'Excuse me, people, for causing you this little inconvenience,' the general says. 'Major Bishop has taken his orders too literal. If you'll go back to your rooms and finish dressin' I'll have the army bus down here to take you to the quay. The Hotel Splendide's accommodations have been slightly disarranged by the arrest of its worthy proprietor.' So back we go, and—by cricky, mother, here comes the general and Mrs. Crandall now!"
Henry J. broke through the ring of passengers, and with a waving of his hat, rushed to the curb. A limousine bearing the governor, his lady and Jane Gerson, and with two bulky hampers strapped to the baggage rack behind, was just drawing up.
"Why, of course we're down here to see you off—and bid you Godspeed to little old Kewanee!" Lady Crandall was quick to anticipate the Shermans' greetings. General Crandall, beaming indulgently on the group of homegoers, had a hand for each.
"Yes—yes," he exclaimed. "After arresting you at three o'clock we're here to give you a clean ticket at five. Couldn't do more than that—what? Regrettable occurrence and all that, but give you something to tell the stay-at-homes about when you get back to—ah"
"Kewanee, lllynoy, General," Sherman was quick to supply. "No town like it this side the pearly gates."
"No doubt of it, Sherman," Crandall heartily agreed. "A quiet place, I'll wager. Think I'd relish a touch of your Kewanee after—ah—life on Gibraltar."
Jane Gerson, who had been standing in the car, anxiously scanning the milling crowd about the landing stage, caught sight of a white helmet and khaki-clad shoulders pushing through the nearer fringes of travelers. She slipped out of the limousine unseen, and waited for the white helmet to be doffed before her.
"I was afraid maybe" the girl began her cheeks suddenly flaming.
"Afraid that, after all, it wasn't true?" the man she had found in war's vortex finished, his gray eyes compelling hers to tell him their whole message. "Afraid that Captain Cavendish might be as vile a deceiver as Woodhouse? Does Cavendish have to prove himself all over again, little girl?"
"No—no !" Her hands fluttered into his, and her lips were parted in a smile. "It's Captain Woodhouse I want to know—always; the man whose pledged word I held to."
"It must have been—hard," he murmured. "But you were splendid—splendid!"
"No, I was not." Tears came to dim her eyes, and the hands he held trembled. "Once—in one terrible moment this morning—when Jaimihr told us you were going to the signal tower—when we waited—waited to hear that awful noise, my faith failed me. I thought you"
"Forget that moment, Jane, dearest. A saint would have denied faith then."
They were silent for a minute, their hearts quailing before the imminent separation. He spoke:
"Go back to the States now; go back and show this Hildebrand person you're a wonder—a prize. Show him what I've known more and more surely every moment since that meeting in Calais. But give him fair warning; he's going to lose you."
"Lose me?" she echoed.
"Inevitably. Listen, girl! In a year my term of service is up, and if the war's over I shall leave the army, come to the States to you, and—and—do you think I could become a good American?"
"If—if you have the proper teacher," the girl answered, with a flash of mischief.
"All aboard for the Saxonia!" It was Consul Reynolds, fussed, perspiring, overwhelmed with the sense of his duty, who bustled up to where the Shermans were chatting with Lady Crandall and the general. Reynolds' sharp eye caught an intimate tableau on the other side of the auto. "And that means you, Miss Step-lively New York," he shouted, "much as I hate to—ah—interrupt."
Jane Gerson saw her two precious hampers stemming a way through the crowd on the backs of porters, bound for the tender's deck. She could not let them out of her sight.
"Wait, Jane!" His hands were on her arms, and he would not let her go. "Will you be my teacher? I want no other."
"My terms are high." She tried to smile, though trembling lips belied her.
"I'd pay with my life," he whispered in a quick gust of passion. "Here's my promise"
He took her in his arms, and between them passed the world-old pledge of man and girl.
THE END