CHAPTER IV

Hermione, that strenuous nymph, was in the habit of early rising for a row in her little skiff, finishing up with a plunge. After that, bed again, where she devoured bacon and eggs, coffee, and perhaps kippers or haddock.

Sometimes Paula accompanied her, but never Cécile. This luxurious beauty had no taste for cold and sticky Maine sea-water. She liked hers warm and fresh, in a tub at about ten. As for Captain Bell, he never appeared on deck when in port until after déjeûner, which was served at twelve. None of the family got to bed before midnight, usually playing bridge until all hours. When there were no guests, Hermione and Cécile always played against Paula and their father. This may have been the reason why the eldest and youngest sister were not particularly devoted chums.

The morning after the dinner episode of the salt-cellar, Hermione was up as usual at about six. For these matutinal excursions she always wore her bathing-suit, a simple but exceedingly becoming costume of cucumber-green trimmed with maroon and an apology for a skirt which reached to a little above her pretty knees. Her hair was snugly coiffed in a dark crimson kerchief, and, taking her, as sailors say, full and bye, Hermione was well worth getting up at sunrise to see.

As a general thing ladies are not supposed to appear on the deck of a yacht before eight bells, but the _Shark_ was more of a home than a yacht, and Hermione sent the steward to prepare the way before her. Captain Heldstrom was always up, and Hermione was, under his strict injunction, never to go where she could not be sighted from the schooner.

Usually the girl contented herself with pulling about the harbour, taking her plunge alongside on her return. Sometimes, however, when lying in some wild and picturesque harbour, she would land on the beach to explore or perhaps have a try for snipe with her little 16-bore. Often she gathered wild-flowers for the breakfast table, and taking it altogether, these early morning rambles were the best part of Hermione's day.

On this particular occasion, she decided for a stroll along the shore on the eastern side of the bay, and as the place looked promising for birds, she took her gun and a game-bag containing a few cartridges. As she went on deck the quartermaster told her that Captain Heldstrom had gone ashore on some business of the vessel, for Captain Bell had announced that the _Shark_ was in for a couple of weeks continually under way, and it was generally understood that this was a sporting attempt to shake off the Pilot-fish. In fact, bets as to the success of the undertaking were already in process of registry.

Olesen helped her into her skiff, and Hermione pulled away in the direction of the beach, reflecting naughtily to herself that since Heldstrom was ashore she might take advantage of the fact to have a look at the salt marsh on the other side of a strip of dwarf pines growing almost to the water's edge. The night before she had observed flocks of snipe and plover circling this marsh, also a bunch of curlew, and being a very good shot, she did not see what was to prevent her from getting a good bag. True, the whole place was preserved by the Shoal Harbour Gun and Fish Club, of which her father was not a member, but to Hermione this fact merely added zest to her expedition.

Halfway to the beach she passed within about two hundred yards of the _Daffodil_, at which she looked curiously. Nobody was in sight, and the dinghy was hanging out astern. "Lazy beast!" thought Hermione, with the contempt of the early riser for the sloths who are still in bed.

She fetched up at the beach, a good mile from the _Shark_, and leaped ashore, grapnel in one hand and her little double-barrelled gun in the other. The tide was well out, and on reaching a point whence she could look over into the little lagoon, with its encircling strip of marsh, Hermione could see several flocks of plover and big snipe weaving here and there, like motes of dust eddying in the breeze, while their clear whistlings reached her, sharp and sweet in the morning air.

She passed quickly over the crest of the beach and hurried toward a point some quarter of a mile distant, where the pine-scrub grew down to skirt the sedge. As the tide was far out, Hermione judged that, in all probability, the sedge was full of feeding birds, so she loaded her gun and started in to beat out the rim of the marsh.

Scarcely had she gone fifty feet when up sprang a big yellow-leg snipe, rising straight in the air as though propelled less by its wings than the spring from the long, powerful legs. He was not to be missed under the conditions. Hermione's gun flew to her shoulder, her quick eye glanced along the shining barrel, and making quite sure, she fired. The very centre of the charge found the unfortunate bird, and down it dropped, straight as a plummet.

Another rose to the left. Hermione fired and missed. The two reports had aroused the marsh, however, and the air was filled with flying birds and their shrill, startled calls. A bunch of splendid golden plover, rising from the other side of the lagoon, began to circle the place, and Hermione, her breath coming quickly and her eyes like sapphires, drew back into the shelter of the pines. Straight toward her came the plover; then, within easy range, Hermione stepped suddenly from her blind and threw up her gun. The birds immediately bunched, as she knew they would, and for a moment appeared to pause undecided in their flight. Picking a plover in the centre of the bunch, Hermione fired; then, as the flock swerved, she fired again. It was a splendid opportunity, and for a moment Hermione held her breath at the results of her shot. Plover seemed literally to rain from the sky. Some were quite dead, others merely winged, and as they fell high up where the grass was short, Hermione was very busy for a few moments, loading and beating about for the wounded.

One bird escaped into the tall grass. It seemed useless to look for him, so with her game-bag bulging with the prizes already secured, Hermione decided that, since she had been making a good deal of a fusillade and the place was, after all, a preserve, it might be just as well modestly and hastily to withdraw. Also, to tell the truth, the sight of the beautiful dead birds, their glorious plumage stained and blood-soaked, rather sickened her. It was quite one thing to shoot at a flying bird and another to pursue him with relentless ferocity when a wounded fugitive upon the ground, finally to secure his mangled and bloody corpse. Hermione found herself suddenly sickened with the sport. The thought of the wounded little plover hiding in the sedge, perhaps dying slowly of its hurts, gave her a very uncomfortable sensation in her throat. For the instant she felt a hot desire to fling her gun into the marsh and hunt no more.

"I'm finished..." she said, aloud. "Hereafter I stick to the clay-pigeon trap on the _Shark's_ quarter-deck. This is a nasty business."

Filled with remorse she took one of the plover from her game-bag and stood for a moment looking at it as it lay in her hand. The tears sprang suddenly to her eyes. Here was a little creature which a moment before had been so joyously full of life, now a sad, bloodstained martyr to the lust of killing. Hermione stamped her small, sandalled foot.

"It's downright wicked..." she cried aloud.

"Yeah..." came a harsh, nasal voice from directly behind her; "it air daownright wicked ... to shoot on posted graound."

Sadly startled, Hermione swung about and beheld a tall, bleak, forbidding figure, whose harsh, Yankee face was quite lacking in the dry, semi-humorous quality which is to be found in so many of his type, and which the irony of his words might have led one to expect. On the contrary, it was a cruel, sneering face, with small, swinish eyes and thin, straight lips, smooth-shaven and of the expression which one associates with the witch-burners of earlier days.

The man carried no gun, but held in one hand a stout cudgel. His costume was that of the vicinity, but above the visor of his battered ship's cap were the letters:--"S.H.G. & F.C." Hermione understood at once that he was a game-keeper.

The blood rushed to her face. It is always embarrassing to be taken in the act of conscious wrong-doing, but particularly so when one happens to be a young lady in a very syncopated bathing suit. Moreover, there was a quality in the man's regard which angered and embarrassed her; a sort of sneering contempt, such as a brutal officer of the law might direct toward some depraved unfortunate who was dead to all common decency. Hermione suddenly felt as one does in some silly dream where one finds one's self in the middle of a ball-room or addressing a public meeting in a night-gown. Worst of all, she knew that she was in the wrong.

The game-keeper looked her up and down, slowly and with insulting deliberation. Hermione felt her embarrassment and fright give way to anger.

"Well..." said she, "what do you want?"

"What do I want, hey? Wa'al, fust off I want that gun o' your'n and them birds. After that, I want you to take a leetle walk with me and talk a mite to the sup'ntendent. That's what I want, young woman."

Hermione stared. She had had a vague idea that, if discovered by any of the club people, the worst that could happen would be the indignity of getting "warned off." Even this, she had thought, would probably be done politely and with due apologies. But to be haled like a thief before the superintendent ... and that in her bathing suit, was so extreme a measure as to arouse her ridicule and anger.

"Indeed!" said she, scornfully. "You don't want very much, do you?"

The man scowled. "I don't want no more than what I'm a-goin' to git!" he answered.

Hermione's eyes began to darken. The rich blood glowed through her clear olive skin.

"You think so?" she retorted. "Then let me tell you that you will get nothing but my name and address. I am Miss Bell, and my father is Captain Bell, of the schooner-yacht _Shark_. If the club wants to do anything about this it can go ahead and do it."

The game-keeper gave her a sullen look.

"The club _is_ goin' to do somethin' abaout it," said he, "and it's goin' to do it right naow and through me. I'm the game-warden, and I got my orders. You'll hev to come along o' me to the sup'ntendent, and that's all there is abaout it. Like's not he'll let ye off with a warnin' ... that's none o' my affair. So hand over that gun and come along, quiet and peaceable."

"Look here," cried Hermione, fiercely, "do you think I'm going to be taken in like a thief?"

"Wa'al ... ye _air_ a thief, ain't ye? Them birds belong to the club."

Hermione stamped her foot. The man's ugly manner was beginning to get away with her temper, never any too docile under provocation.

"Take your old birds!" said she, and tumbled them out upon the ground. "And let me tell you that when I go back and Captain Heldstrom learns how I've been treated, he'll come over here and wring your neck as if it belonged to one of those snipe! And if you think I'm going with you ... like this..."

Anger stifled her speech at the mere idea. The game-keeper hunched his shoulders with a sneer.

"If you can come ashore half naked to shoot the club's snipe and plover," said he, "it won't hurt ye none to go a mite further and see the sup'ntendent..." His voice took an impatient rasp. "Come, I've jawed here long enough ... will you come, 'r hev I got to drag ye tha'ar by main force?"

He took a step toward her. Hermione, light on her feet as a Spartan girl, might have saved herself by flight. But the sneering brutality of the man had torn from her the last, lingering grip she had upon a temper which had many times been the cause of her undoing. With an inarticulate little cry she sprang back, and scarcely realising what she did, threw the gun to her shoulder.

"You beast!" she cried, through her set teeth. "You try to lay hand on me and I'll blow your head off!"

Now, the game-keeper, surly brute though he may have been, came of stern and rigid Puritan stock, and once having decided upon what was his duty, meant to carry it out at all costs. He saw that the superb young huntress in front of him was beside herself with fury, and he fully realised that he was taking a terrific chance of being terribly wounded if not killed in his tracks. In spite of this, though the colour faded under his mahogany tan, his lean jaw set squarely, lips tightened, and he began to walk steadily toward Hermione.

He was within three paces when the girl heard a brushing noise in the pines, directly behind her. The game-keeper stopped short, and Hermione, who had raised her gun to cover his chest, saw his eyes travel past her to fill with amazement at something which he saw beyond. Half-fainting and with knees that tottered under her, the girl turned to look upon a splendid, Olympic figure standing against the dark background of the pines.

"The Pilot-fish!" gasped Hermione, under her breath.

She lowered the gun, and stood with her legs swaying under her unsteadily, staring dumbly at Applebo. Vaguely, she felt that he had arrived barely in time to save her from committing a very terrible act, though whether or not she would actually have pulled the trigger is doubtful. The chances are that at the critical moment Hermione would either have flung aside the gun or else fired in the air, and then very likely would have had a fit of hysterics, which might have proved more alarming to the harsh longshoreman than a whole battery of weapons.

Applebo stood for a moment looking from the girl to the man, his eyebrows, which were very bushy for one of his youth, drawn down over his yellow eyes, and a straight line cut vertically between them. At first glance he gave the impression of a beautifully chiselled statue in light bronze. He was clad in a swimming costume which would have been quite _de rigueur_ on any beach, but the material, originally some shade of yellow or sienna, had finally acquired the tone of the sun-tanned skin. Yet there was nothing startling or offensive in effect, for so beautifully was the strong, lithe body moulded that it suggested less a mortal man than some splendid, pagan demi-god.

Applebo stepped forward to Hermione's shoulder ... and the group became complete. God and goddess they looked, she dark, tropical, vivid of colouring; he a sort of golden-hued Apollo. So striking was the effect and so beautiful that even the harsh, unlovely warden may have felt certain rudimentary stirrings of appreciation.

"Gosh-all-sufficiency!" he growled. "Thar's the he-one! Ain't it the fashion to wear clothes no more?"

"Shut your face!" quoth Applebo, unpoetically. "What d'ye mean by bothering this lady? You ought to be ashamed of yourself!"

"Huh! ..." growled the keeper; "you're a nice one to talk about bein' ashamed, ain't ye? You and your fee-male critter..."

Hermione, still staring in a fascinated way at Applebo, caught the sudden flame in the amber eyes. Something swept past her with a rush like the charge of a Nubian lion. There was a flash of bare limbs, a snarl or two, the flutter of clothing, and a body which looked all arms and legs gyrating in the air ... and there was the keeper rolling over and over grotesquely as a shot rabbit and, a little to one side, stood Applebo, his body half bent, big arms crooked, and the yellow mane hanging about his ears, watching the fallen man like a cat about to spring.

[Illustration: There was the keeper rolling over and over grotesquely as a shot rabbit]

The keeper scrambled to his feet and stood for a moment pale and tottering, one hand on the other shoulder and a scowl on his deep-lined face.

"Pull your freight...!" said Applebo, in his deep bass, "or I'll tear your ugly head off!"

Thus, no doubt, may Achilles have admonished Agamemnon, though Homer puts the speech in different words. The game-keeper was no coward, but neither was he a fool, and although his tawny antagonist had not struck him, the sensations of the contact were those of disputing the right of way with a rapidly moving motor-car. The keeper looked the situation over, but could see no good in it. Moreover, he saw a sudden yellow flame in the blinking eyes fastened upon him. Without a word the man turned and slouched off into the pines.

Applebo glanced quickly at Hermione.

"Sit down!" said he. "You look white."

Hermione's usually robust limbs seemed to collapse beneath her, and she dropped to the pine-strewn sand.

"You got here just in time!" said she, tremulously. "I might have shot him."

"I doubt it," said Applebo, "your gun muzzle was weaving figure eights. It would have served him right if you had ... and I'd have sworn to anything."

Hermione laughed hysterically, then glanced up at the poet. He was standing a couple of paces away, his arms folded on his chest, his eyes looking out across the marsh.

"It's silly of me to be so upset..." said Hermione, and covered her face with her hands. "I'll be all right in a minute."

"Did you know the place was posted?" asked Applebo.

"Yes..."

"Then you really haven't any kick coming."

"What...!" Hermione's hands dropped to her sides, and she stared at him in amazement. Applebo glanced back indifferently, and she scarcely recognised the sleepy face and blinking eyes.

He pointed to the birds which she had tumbled out of her game-bag.

"Taken with the goods ... and I must say, you did pretty well for three shots. Do you like to kill things? It seems rather awful to me ... especially in a woman, to slaughter little birds and animals for fun. And I suppose you would raise an awful howl about vivisection."

Hermione sat bolt upright. The colour came back to her pale cheeks, and her violet eyes began to darken with anger. All sense of faintness was swept away as if by magic. Applebo was not looking at her; he was standing straight as a young poplar, his shoulder turned to her, sleepily contemplating the marsh.

"If you feel that way about it," said Hermione, hotly, "I wonder you came to my rescue."

"I was rescuing the game-keeper. Besides, I am under obligation to you people on the _Shark_ for letting me tag you around. What a lovely bit of colour over there, on the other side of the lagoon! Sometimes I wish that I were a painter instead of a poet. However, if I can't paint it I can write an ode to it when I get back aboard my boat."

"Why don't you write a satire on women sportsmen?"

"That would not be polite. Besides, the idea is not an agreeable one. The thought of Diana has always been unpleasant to me."

"You are not very gallant."

"Gallantry," said the poet, "is the vain demonstration of superior effectiveness on the part of the male. It is more complimentary to accept a woman on the same footing."

"Do you call bombarding her with silly verses 'accepting her on the same footing'?" snapped Hermione, whose astonishment was giving way to irritation.

"Ah..." There came the slightest flicker from Applebo's blinking eyes. "So Hermione has told you that I have been sending her verses? I had an idea, for some reason, that she would keep it to herself."

He continued his contemplative observation of the marsh. Hermione gasped and stared. For whom did he take her?

"Hermione did not tell anybody," she managed to say.

"But you guessed? That is better. I am glad that Hermione did not tattle ... even though she sent back all of my verses."

Hermione did not at once reply. She was busily trying to adjust to her mind the idea that this extraordinary individual, who for three months had been sending her impassioned love-poems, did not even know her by sight!

"Why did you write verses to Hermione?" she asked. "Because her name rhymed with 'sea' and 'thee' and 'lea' and 'me'?"

Applebo turned to regard her with a flicker of interest.

"You are rather quick on a rhyme yourself, aren't you?" he observed. "No, I wrote verses to Hermione because I was in love with her."

"Indeed...!"

"Yes, I fell in love with her at first sight."

Hermione leaned forward, clasped her hands in front of her shapely legs, and looked at the poet through narrowed lids. The colour had returned, and her violet eyes were beginning to dance mischievously. Mr. Applebo was not looking at her. Indeed, she had already observed this peculiar disinclination on his part, and it puzzled her.

"Are you still in love with Hermione?" she asked.

"No; she sent back my verses."

"How did you happen to fall in love with her?"

"It was last winter. Walking down Fifth Avenue to my club for breakfast, I sometimes overtook her. An acquaintance who joined me one day told me who she was. You were all down south at the time, and Hermione was stopping with your aunt. I fell in love with her walk. _Vera incessu patuit dea_..." He threw her one of his brief glances. "Your walk is rather like hers; a sort of family resemblance."

"But less graceful...?"

"You are more of a mortal maid."

"Which is a way of saying more of a lump!" snapped Hermione. "Do you know which of the others _I_ am?"

"That is too easy," said Applebo, sleepily. "You are Cécile, the beauty of the family."

"Thank you."

"And the flirt ... so it is said."

"My reputation is as bad as that?"

"Everybody knows you smashed up Huntington Wood. He is one of the few men whom I care to claim as a friend. You have broken up others, too, have you not?"

"I wonder you dare to talk to me," said Hermione.

"I would like to be smashed up. It would help my verse. If you don't mind, I believe I will transfer my devotion to you. This entails no obligation on your part ... except to read my verses."

Hermione stared up at him suspiciously. Applebo was standing as straight as a mast, his fine profile turned to her. Hermione made a little motion as though to rise. If the poet observed it he gave no sign, and she was obliged to scramble to her feet without the aid of the strong grasp which, for some peculiar reason, she craved. Up she sprang, a dark flush on either cheek and her red lips pouting. Hermione was not accustomed to such neglect. Her crimson-turbaned head came a little above the poet's shoulder. Still his eyes evaded her.

"I don't know that I am so keen for a cavalier who thinks more of his verse than he does of its object," said she.

"That's because you are a flirt," said Applebo. "Really, though, it would be a good moral tonic for you."

"To receive love-poems?"

"From a man who was in love with you purely in the abstract."

"But where's the fun?"

"That's so..." Applebo assented, and looked at her with slightly more interest as at one suggesting a new idea. Something in Hermione's eyes seemed to catch his own and hold them. The sleepy lids opened a little wider and a golden flame darted out toward the deep violet ones so close to his own. Inflammable stuff it must have found, yet it did not tarry to set this alight, but coursed on until Hermione felt it tingling through every nerve and fibre. It was quite a new sensation, this, yet carried with it something anciently familiar, so that while startled she was not shocked, but merely confused and rendered slightly incoherent in her thoughts. And then, as though this were not liberty enough, here came Applebo's deep bass, resonant yet soft as the purr of a cat, stealing in to assault her reason through another breach, the auditory one. Hermione, for the second time that day, found her usually stable impulses all adrift.

"You are uncommonly lovely," said Applebo. "What a pity that you must be such a coquette. Is Hermione like that?"

Hermione stamped her little sandalled foot.

"Do you take everything on hearsay?" she snapped. "One would give you credit for more originality."

"That is the reason I am so surprised. You do not look ruthless. But then..." He glanced back at the lagoon, "one can never tell. No doubt, it is not your fault. You have probably been horribly spoiled. Most men would want to spoil you."

"Would you?"

"As long as you were good."

"And if I were bad?"

There was a short silence. "I think," said Applebo, "that it is time that you were getting back aboard the _Shark_; your people might be anxious."

Hermione bit her lips with vexation. She had quite forgotten everything but the poet.

"You are quite right," said she, icily.

"I will walk with you as far as your boat," said Applebo.