CHAPTER XIV.

THE EYES OUTSIDE THE JALOUSY.

The weather changed that afternoon. A high, hot wind blew from the southwest under a gray sky; the sea thundered on the beach below the house; and as Beryl looked out listlessly, rainlike waterspouts came thrashing down.

“Hateful!” she said pettishly. “I was going out.” Andria, whose bruised foot ached, began to laugh.

“You needn’t laugh! If you do I’ll go still,” she said, with babyish wilfulness.

“It wasn’t that,” said the so-called governess; “it’s only this--do you know that we were supposed to do lessons, and there isn’t a sign of a book in the house! Not even a novel. Amelia Jane has half a Bible, and she says that’s the only book there is.”

“I believe he’s just stuck us here to mold away and die,” returned Beryl quite calmly. “He didn’t care whether I learned anything or not, in spite of his grandfatherly ways. But I’m not going to mold or die either. I like the place!” she continued coolly. “I hope he’ll never come back.”

“You won’t like it long,” muttered Andria to herself. “You won’t have a chance,” for her adventures were heavy on her mind, and it took all her will not to pour them out to this careless listener.

“I like it out, I mean! I didn’t like it indoors much.” Beryl went on, blessedly ignorant of the thoughts in her companion’s mind. “That’s rather funny about the books, but I don’t care. I wouldn’t do any more lessons if we’d a library. All I want to do is to lie under the trees and be lazy.”

“You need it, you poor baby,” said Andria pitifully. For tall and strong as the girl was, she was too thin, and the lovely outline of her pale, warm cheeks too hollow. But in Andria’s mind was that there would be few days to be out of doors in sun or shade; if things went on as now this house would not be their prison alone--their only safety would be inside its stout stone walls.

“Hurrah, here comes tea!” cried Beryl gaily. “Salome, I haven’t anything to do, and it’s raining. Couldn’t Amelia Jane go out and look for my cat?”

The tray clattered on the table. Salome had all but dropped it.

“Cat?” she said. “Cat! Dey ain’t no cats here. For the land’s sake, Miss Ber’l, what you mean?”

“Just what I said,” answered Beryl provokingly. “Why? Don’t you like cats, Salome?”

Salome opened her eyes till they looked all whites.

“Dey ain’t none on de island,” she persisted obstinately. “What you mean? You didn’t bring no cat. I didn’t see none.”

“I did, then, and I didn’t bring it either,” said Beryl, with a cheerful laugh. “The dearest little cat, Salome! I found it on the path on the shore this morning--all yellow with black spots.”

“My gracious sakes, little miss!” said the woman slowly, and Andria saw she was holding herself hard. “Don’t you come and tell ole Salome dem tales.”

“She did find a cat, Salome!” Andria interrupted. “I saw it, too. But it wasn’t like a common cat. I think it was a wild one. Why didn’t you tell me there were wildcats?”

The woman drew her breath so sharply that it was all but a sob.

“Dey ain’t--no wildcats!” she returned faintly.

“I told you so, Andria,” Beryl stuck in gaily, helping herself to tea. “I knew it was tame! It was so soft, and had such sweet fur.”

“You didn’t go for to touch it?” and almost fiercely Salome turned to the girl.

“Why not, if it was only a dream-cat, like you say?” said Beryl, with that goblin look in her queer face. “Salome, you silly woman, of course I did! I played with it for ages.”

“An’ you never seen nothin’ else? Nothin’ ’tall?” she insisted, her big chest heaving.

“No, of course not. Andria said its mother might come and eat us, but she didn’t.”

Andria’s eyes, full of meaning, caught Salome’s from behind Beryl’s shoulder. The colored woman read them like print. If one had not seen, the other had--and been silent. For an instant the black woman looked rebelliously at the white. If the new red-haired mistress meant there should be accidents Salome would have no hand in them. She moved, stiff with angry suspicion, to the front door.

“Guess I’ll lock up now,” she muttered. “Don’t want none o’ dem cats in my kitchen.”

“Salome, don’t shut up!” Beryl cried, running to the nearest window. “My cat may be out there; wait till I look. I’m going to bring the poor thing in out of the rain if it’s there.”

She stared out into the blinding white mist of wild and streaming rain. It was impossible to see through it if there had been fifty cats; against it there was almost no difference in color between the gray tree-trunks and the green leaves, so blanched was the world. Suddenly lightning passed before her eyes, short, white, and vicious through the pearl-white rain, like a striking sword. After it thunder that shook the very earth. Under cover of the deafening peal of it Andria spoke in Salome’s ear.

“Don’t tell her, don’t frighten her,” she whispered. “You and I must take care of her. Oh, Salome, I saw something!”

The woman’s face changed as if by magic. “I was suspicioning you,” she said, banging the door. “I don’t fancy dis place an’ dat’s a fact. But if you don’t, neither, I guess we’ll get over dem--all o’ dem,” she laughed savagely, but Andria caught at her black hand as at the hand of a friend. “I trust you, Salome!” she breathed.

“Fo’ the Lawd, you kin,” said the woman shortly. “But dey ain’t no time now. You wait, missus, till to-night.”

“Oh!” shrieked Beryl. “There’s my cat. I saw it. It’s looking for me. I’ll get it.”

Salome, with a bound that was ludicrous in a stout person who shook as she walked, caught the girl half out of the window. “Does you want to get killed by dat lightning?” she cried authoritatively. “I tell you dey ain’t no playing wid de sword of de Lawd in dis country. See dat!” she cried sharply.

A tall tree was struck as she spoke, and the thunder drowned the fall of it, as the rain quenched its smoking limbs. “Dey ain’t no cats worf frizzling for, I tell you.”

To Andria’s surprise Beryl turned obediently from the window. Salome, with feverish haste, shut up her fortress and lit the lamps.

“Dey’ll be good men drowned in dat wind,” she said soberly. “You pray for dem, Miss Ber’l, instead o’ chasing after no cats.”

A sudden heavy gust against the house corroborated her. The wind would be a hurricane by and by. In the noise of it the woman muttered to herself despairingly. “She see dat cat in daylight--broad daylight. Oh! my soul--and dey’ll be wind to-night. I dunno what I’m gwine do. I daresn’t tell ’em; he’d murder me just like dat if I did. I got to piroot some way out of it.” And she shook her head meaningly as Andria would have followed her from the room.

Chloe and Amelia Jane waited at dinner. Salome was absent doing other things. Strange things enough in that lonely place, far from towns and tramps. The woman was strong as a man, and she worked feverishly at her self-appointed task; piled packing-cases before the doors opening on the lower veranda, put heaps of some strange-smelling, dried herb on the verandas themselves. The top ones she never thought of, knowing nothing of Andria’s vision the night before. When she had finished her poor precautions she regarded them doubtfully enough.

“Broad daylight, and I’d been sure dey was clean gone,” she groaned. “And here it’s night, and de wind risin’. Pray dey’s grit in ole Salome yet! But I ain’t knowing just what to do. Dey tells me red-haired white women is liars, and how do I know ’bout dis one! She kin trust me sure enough, but I ain’t trying no speriments on her.”

Yet that very wind that was racking Salome’s nerves had set Andria’s at rest. There could be no prowling spies on a night like this; not even that strange being, whose leering, mocking face she scarcely dared remember, could be abroad in such a storm. The face had been barely human; animal greed and hatred had been in it, hungry fierceness in its glittering eyes as it grinned at her. She longed to go and pour out her story to Salome, but when she looked into the kitchen all was darkness.

“Salome needn’t have deserted us!” she thought, like a hurt child, and then resolutely banished all fear of their great loneliness in the inclemency of the night.

“Look out!” cried Beryl, as Andria returned to the drawing-room. “See what I’ve found. Isn’t it fun?”

She had from somewhere unearthed a long ugly dagger, very fine and sharp. On the floor she had put a row of oranges, and with unerring aim was throwing the dagger at them. She never missed; each orange as it was struck was nailed to the floor. Andria took the dagger from the orange where it stood quivering. How sharp it was! She had fairly to drag it from the polished board.

“Let me try!” and to her surprise, after the first failure, the thing was easy. Only the fear of breaking the new toy made her stop; she might have need of it.

“I found some cards, too, and a book!” Beryl cried. “Such a funny old book. Listen!” She read aloud from a battered calf octavo: “‘As sure as the turquoise brings love and the amethyst repels it, so does the opal attract misfortune and the beryl bring bad dreams.’ There, the beryl’s me! What kind of a stone is it? I never saw one.”

“It’s green,” said Andria absently; “pale-green; something the color of that wild kitten’s eyes.”

“Then look here!” exclaimed Beryl excitedly. “Is this one? It was shut up in the book. Trust me to rummage round and find things.”

She held up a tarnished gold ring, thin and old, set with a pale-green stone that glittered in the lamplight.

Andria seized it.

“It’s a beryl, certainly,” she said slowly. “I wonder whose it is!”

“It’s mine now,” said Beryl, snatching it and slipping it on her finger. “I’m going to wear it.”

“Bad dreams, the book says, and you’ve no right to it, you know,” said Andria.

“Neither has old Egerton any right to me. I’ll bring him bad dreams, too, if I can. Oh, Andria! Isn’t it pretty? I never wore a ring in my life.”

Andria looked silently at her own bare fingers where once the diamonds had felt heavy. “They didn’t bring happiness,” she said softly. “But you can wear it if you like. Where are the cards? I’ll teach you to play euchre.”

Curiously enough, all Beryl’s nervousness of the night before had vanished. She sat down calmly with her back to the uncurtained windows and bestowed her whole attention on the game. Her left hand, with the cards in it, was held high, with the ring glittering on it, so that if there had been any one to look in they could have seen it plainly. The storm made the house shake, solid as it was, and the noise of it was deafening. There could be no one abroad to-night, yet suddenly Andria seemed to stiffen in her chair.

“Beryl,” she whispered, putting down a card that was all wrong, “there’s the queerest sound in the wind! Like something sniffing at the door. Can’t you hear it?”

“I heard it ages ago,” said Beryl gaily. “Perhaps it’s my cat. Shall I let it in?”

“No! Don’t move. It’s too loud; no kitten could make it. It sounds like a horse sniffing dust and blowing it out again.”

The girl listened.

Very, very soft, in the battering wind, came another sound; a scratch, scratch, scratch at the door.

“It is my kitten! I”--with a curious look in her eyes Beryl had risen--“I must go.”

“You sha’n’t stir,” said Andria, with a sudden ugly gentleness. “You don’t know what’s outside. Come up-stairs; it isn’t safe here.” She caught Beryl’s arm and fairly pushed her from the room, catching up that lean, sharp dagger as she passed it. The instant they were over the threshold the scratching ceased, as if whatever was outside knew they had gone.

Half-way up-stairs a sudden crash as if some one had upset a heavy table stopped both girls short. Fear caught Andria by the throat; silent and dry-lipped she pushed Beryl against the wall and stood in front of her, the dagger in her hand. Had something got in up-stairs? Was she to fight for both their lives--now--on these stairs? The next second she heard Salome’s voice: “Ladies, ladies,” she called frantically, “come up out o’ dat. Oh, my soul! Dey’s smelled de white blood--de white blood!”

“Salome! I thought you’d gone to your own house. What is it?--there’s something--outside at the door.”

“Come up, come up!” The black woman ran down to them, her snowy turban askew on her frizzy hair. “Oh, Miss Holbeach, I been here six years and I never seen nothin’ like dis. Dey’s hunted you down, hunted----” her voice broke horribly.

“What?” said Beryl sharply. She broke from Andria’s hands and ran up-stairs.

Andria tore after her, and stopped short at what she saw.

Beryl was out on the veranda, staring into the darkness. Opposite her, not two yards from her face, something shone through the bar of the jalousies. Two great eyes, green as the stone she had found, glittering, ravenous, were fixed on her; but not even a shadow of the thing in whose head they shone showed against the black storm outside.

“Come in,” said Andria, paralyzed. “Come in! Oh, what is it?”

At the sound of her voice there came a snarl that made her blood cold, but the creature, whatever it was, could not loose its foothold to claw at the bars.

“It’s an animal,” said Beryl, in a queer singsong tone, “I’m not afraid of animals. Go in, or you’ll be killed.”

She walked nearer to those awful eyes, crooning softly to herself. The snarling ceased, but as Andria, in mad fear, leapt after the girl, it broke out so wildly, with such a guttural note of rage, that she screamed. The thing had got foothold! It was clawing at the bars.