CHAPTER XI.

TWO WARNINGS.

All through breakfast she sat like a woman whose every perception is sharpened by fear. The very ordinariness of that meal, served faultlessly by Salome and another colored woman, only seemed to make her more curiously fearful. The lie about Bermuda, the breathless hurry up the path, the sudden relaxing of the vigilance in Egerton’s eyes as they came out on open ground, were all parts of a puzzle she could not fit together. She sat ready for anything as she ate mechanically; but even she was not prepared for what was coming next.

From her seat at the table she had heard the voices of the sailors as they brought up the endless boxes, heard the thump with which each one was deposited in some back veranda--for solid as the house looked, inside it resembled a whispering gallery. A colored woman came in and told Egerton the things had come. Should the men go?

He rose hastily, and said something from the veranda to the waiting sailors before he turned to the maid.

“Give them breakfast,” he said shortly, “and then we’ll be off!”

We! Even Beryl looked at him, though so far nothing in this strange place had seemed to rouse her from a dull apathy.

“Yes,” Egerton said quietly, “I’m going, too. I shall leave you two ladies in Salome’s charge. I may be gone a month or six weeks. I have some business. But you will be quite comfortable here; it is certainly quiet;” and he laughed in that harsh cackle that was so out of character with his polished voice and manner. The sound of it grated on Andria’s nerves.

“But what,” she began, “I mean, is there no one in the neighborhood--are we alone on this island? What shall I do if Miss Corselas is ill?” She was so confounded she could scarcely speak.

“Salome can look after her. She has all sorts of medicines,” he returned. “Neighbors? No, you have none. You need fear no interruptions in either your work or play.”

“But I thought there were any amount of people in Bermuda!” Beryl had lifted her head and was staring at him with those strange, tawny eyes.

“Bermuda is a big place,” he said, with a slow smile. “You won’t see many people, and I shall come back as soon as I can----” He turned suddenly to Andria, who sat pale and motionless, certain that his coming back would be a long time in arriving. “My leaving you is unavoidable,” he said, as if he knew her thoughts, “and also for the best. You will learn to know each other better without a third person. You may go about as you like, but I may as well tell you that most of the country behind the house is impenetrable scrub, but quite safe if you care to try it.” And it seemed as if his harsh laugh broke out against his will, so quickly did he check it.

“The only things I warn you not to do,” he went on, “are to go out at night, and to go up and down to the shore by that short cut we used this morning. You might easily hurt yourselves there; slip on the rocks, trip on the vines; a hundred things. And Salome will show you a better road when you wish to bathe or sit by the sea. But above everything”--and he lifted his hand impressively, and Andria stared as if she were fascinated where she sat--“do not stay out after sundown, and never, never stir one step outside after dark.”

There was something in his voice that carried warning and conviction.

“If you take my advice,” he continued, a shade less earnestly, “you will not even walk on the upper verandas after nightfall. The lower one you must never think of but by daylight. The air is health itself in the day, but at night it gives fever. You understand?”

“Quite,” said Andria, whiter than a sheet of paper. “Quite.”

“Then I will bid you good-by. It will be no time before you see me again. The days slip by here, you will find.”

He opened the door for them to leave the room, and shook hands with studied courtesy as they passed.

The governess never looked at him; she was quivering with rage.

Beryl was so like him that she might easily be his daughter, and he was leaving her here with a woman of whom he knew less than nothing, whom he had chosen because she had absolutely no qualifications. And leaving her, too, in a place he owned was fever-haunted. If it had been in Andria’s power she would have knocked him down, and taken Beryl at a run to the boat. But, even if she did this, it would avail her nothing.

Beryl was tired out, and one of the colored women showed her to her room.

Andria remained in the dining-room, absorbed in her reflections.

Suddenly she heard the sound of voices on the veranda without. She went to the window, and, screened by the jalousy, saw Egerton and Salome.

“So you haven’t seen anything of him lately?” Egerton was saying.

“No,” answered Salome; “not a hoof of him been round here since summer. Dey won’t be no more accidents dis time. He’s gone, and--dey’s gone, too.”

“Well! that’s good news,” he said slowly; and why did she think there was disappointment in his voice?

“But don’t let those two ladies go out after dark, all the same! There’s fever; remember that!”

“Might as well kill ’em as scare ’em to death,” said the woman shrewdly. “But I’ll lock up every night same as always. Dat nigh shook me into my grave, dat last trouble.”

“See, then, that there’s no more,” he said sternly. “You’re responsible for them till I come back. And I’ll have no talking to them, mind that. You can’t afford to know anything about accidents, and I suppose neither of the others know anything to tell.”

“Not one of ’em.” Her voice shook as if at some horrible memory. “You think I tell what I find, and bury? Nobody knows nothing ’bout dis nigger----”

“But me,” said Egerton slowly. “And what is done here you are responsible for, and you know it.”

She had good reason to. She broke out into a flood of protestations that he cut short; and while the listener stood trying to make sense of them she heard the man’s soft, quick footfall leaving the veranda.

She had no mind to speak to him now. She knew there would be no satisfaction from him; nothing but smooth lies. Before she could move she heard Salome speaking to herself where Egerton had left her.

“‘Take care o’ dem ladies,’ he says,” she broke out in a kind of wail. “‘You’s ’sponsible.’ But who’s going to take care of me, an’ Chloe, an’ Amelia Jane? Nothin’ but our own black skins. Praise de Lawd dis day dat I ain’t white!”

She shuffled off, and Andria went up-stairs, pale and half-distraught. What sixth sense made her sure that all this show of warning, of caution, only covered something that was meant to happen.

“You’re responsible,” he had said to Salome, and a horrible conviction was cold at Andria’s heart. If anything dreadful overtook her and Beryl, Egerton would have washed his hands of it. He had warned them and their keeper!

Sick with apprehension, Andria almost ran against Amelia Jane, waiting, stout and attentive, on the landing.

“You looks terrible tuckered out, missus,” she said respectfully. “Best lie down and rest.”

Andria nodded; and then spoke on a sudden impulse.

“Is this place Bermuda?” she said.

“Law’s sake, missus, certain it is! Didn’t you know dat?” the colored woman said emphatically.

“No,” said Andria slowly, walking past her.