CHAPTER XVI.

IN THE WOODS OF PARADISE.

“Drink to the men that were broken! They were better men than you.”

Scorching morning sun on a barren point of rock and sand, and on great waves that thudded and broke emerald-green and white on the wet beach; and nothing else to tell of the past night’s storm.

Nothing, unless if any one had shaded their eyes to gaze at the beach, where the hot air quivered, they might have seen a huddled thing lying there just out of the reach of the waves; a thing that last night had been a man, and to-day--motionless, lax, it seemed but the body that some one had cast aside. If something did move in the bushes, it did not disturb that quiet sleeper in the sun.

“Experience keeps a dear school, but fools will learn in no other.”

Brian Heriot had been put into the Guards at twenty, had lived as gaily as if money grew on every bush, till the crash came and undeceived him. His father died without a will, and his elder brothers quietly threw him over. The new Lord Heriot was a Plymouth brother and a philanthropist; he had no money to waste on idle young butterflies in the Guards. The Honorable Brian Heriot grinned without much mirth when he realized his position. He disgusted his dear friends by calmly taking what little money he had to pay his debts, and then, without a word to any one, quietly “went under.” His old haunts knew him no more; people forgot him, no one troubling to remember that if Lord Heriot was a pious prig, Brian, his brother, was a born adventurer.

Strange lands, strange occupations knew him. He grew very tanned, very handsome, with a look in his face that made women turn their heads as he passed. But he made no money, only kept body and soul together; a rolling stone that yet did not go down-hill. For he kept his soft speech and manner, his good heart that hated cruelty and a lie. Somehow he had drifted to Fayal, and there being penniless, if cheerful, had shipped on a small coasting-vessel that gathered cargo for the European steamers.

That was a week ago. This morning there was neither vessel, cargo, nor crew; nothing but Brian Heriot washed ashore almost dead. He had swum till he could swim no more; that was all he knew. That, and a great crashing of water, and utter darkness. But the very wave that had stunned him had cast him high and dry like a bit of driftwood on the sandy point where he lay.

As the sun warmed him he stirred, ever so faintly.

Had something touched him? Stooped over him with clammy fingers on his bare throat? He tried to open his eyes, but he saw only one fleeting shimmer of sun on water before they closed again. There was a deadly heaviness in his limbs, an utter indifference in his brain; he did not know whether he was alive or dead, and did not care. Presently he knew he was dreaming.

He thought he was lying in hot, hot sun, on hotter sand, and turned away from the hungry sea that pounded in his ears. And just before his eyes stood a girl; a tall girl in white, with a great veil of dusky hair streaming over her. Round her feet played two jaguar cubs, and in her arms was a third, that she cuddled and crooned to as if it were a child. Step by step she came close to him, and over her shoulder there peered from the bushes another face that leered and laughed as if in malice. A dreadful fright for the girl came over Brian Heriot, but in his nightmare he could not stir. He tried to shout, and the dream went. Something wet and cool on his head roused him; a shadow that was heaven came between him and the sun; a girl’s voice scolded something that seemed to be running and jumping over him.

With an effort that racked every bone Brian Heriot sat up, and stared about him. Half his dream was true. He was on a beach, a wet handkerchief was bound on his head, but there was no one there.

“Please come back!” he said. “I won’t hurt you,” and then laughed ruefully. Sick and dizzy, with a cut head and a wrenched ankle, he certainly would not hurt any one. “Oh, do come back!” he cried again, with a kind of vexed impatience, and wished he could remember some Portuguese instead of this useless English.

But even as he spoke the bushes parted, and a girl slipped out of them. She stood looking at him with great eyes almost as yellow as topaz, and he saw the color come and go in her creamy cheeks.

“I thought you were Mr. Egerton at first,” she said slowly, almost sullenly. “Did you come with him? Is he back?”

Ill and exhausted as he was, the incongruity of the thing made him stare. Where had he got to, that a girl played with jaguar cubs and spoke in English?

“I don’t know any one named Egerton,” he said, propping himself up on one arm. “My name’s Heriot.”

“How did you get here? You really mean you don’t know him?”

“I mean I never heard of him,” he answered stupidly. “I got here because my ship was wrecked last night. If you hadn’t waked me I think I should have had a touch of sun.”

“You must get out of it,” said the girl quickly. She twisted her hair into a knot, as if she had just remembered it. As she did so a ring on her finger glittered green, and at the sight of it something in the bushes drew back sharply.

At the rustle she bounded like a frightened child closer to the man in the sand, whose eyes were so blue in his handsome face, handsome in spite of blood-stains.

“Did you see anything besides me, a little while ago?” she whispered. “Quick, tell me!”

“I thought I saw a man,” he answered, surprised. “But I wasn’t myself; I don’t know.”

She put her hand on his shoulder, and to his amaze he felt it tremble.

“So did I!” she whispered, lower still. “Get up. I’ll help you. I’ll take you with me. But,” suspiciously, “you mean what you say? Mr. Egerton didn’t send you?”

“No one sent me.” He forgot she was a girl, and spoke with rough truth as to a man. “God knows you haven’t much choice when you’re washed overboard. I didn’t mean to come. Why should I lie about it?”

“Most people,” she said composedly, “lie. But”--she stopped, listened--“come, come away!” she cried. “I’m afraid here.”

“You can’t be afraid of much,” he answered, full of wonder. “I saw you playing with jaguar cubs just now, unless I dreamed it.”

The girl laughed. That rough denial of Egerton had somehow made her trust the man. “Those were my cats. I’m not afraid of animals. I hate people, though, except Andria.”

“By George!” thought Heriot, “I’d rather face ten men than one jaguar. Who is the girl? And who’s Andria? I knew one Andria, but----” He smiled at the idea; it could not be she!

“You don’t know anything about animals.” She had read his face with a queer anger. Turning from him, she began to croon, very low, and at a call a yellow, white, black-spotted kitten came out of the bushes. But it only rubbed against her skirt and bounded away. Beryl Corselas grew pale.

“Come,” she said, and took his hand. “Can you walk?”

“Yes.” He got on his feet and gritted his teeth with the pain in his ankle. “Is it far?”

“Yes; I don’t know,” she said absently, staring round her. Who was calling the cats that they would not stay with her? What horrible face had she seen for one instant through the bushes? “Don’t let go my hand!” she said suddenly, childishly; and Heriot, for all his pain, saw that this girl who played with jaguars was frightened.

But as he went with her up what was surely a path, though not worn by shod feet, the feeling that it was all a dream came over him again. If it had not been for the pain in his foot he might have been Adam walking with Eve in Eden for the loneliness and the beauty of the place. The wet scrub was a mass of flowers, gorgeous butterflies swam through thickets of white and rose heaths, strange blossoms flaunted in his face. And never in all his days had he seen a beauty so strange as that of the girl who led him by the hand. Yet for all its unlined youth the face was pathetic, tragic; the dull rose lips were lips that had tasted grief.

“What do you mean by saying you’re afraid of people?” he said, the pain in his ankle making him talk, for fear he should groan.

“Animals are simple; I understand them,” she returned, without slackening her pace. “People all have an animal in them. I see it in their faces, but an animal turned bad. Mother Felicitas was a white wolf.”

“You are not afraid of me?” He was afraid himself of her answer.

“No!” she answered carelessly. “No more than I would be of a dog. Come on!”

Heriot had stopped. He leaned against a tree, faint with pain. He would cheerfully have given a thousand pounds for a drink.

“You’ll have to wait,” he said ruefully. “I mean I will. There’s something wrong with my foot.”

With feverish haste the girl picked up a stick that lay on the path and shoved it into his hand. “It’s green, it won’t break. Use it for a walking-stick,” she ordered. “And try to hurry. Don’t you know there’s something following us?”

He had not heard a sound.

“What sort of thing?”

“Something dumb,” she whispered, “that leers and jabbers, and I can’t manage it, for I’m afraid.”

Heriot put his hand in his trousers pocket. His pistol was gone.

“Walk ahead,” he said, setting his teeth. And as she obeyed he heard behind him a faint rustling that grew no nearer. He limped on in purgatory from the heat and his foot. His head swam as the sweat poured off him. If it had not been for the terror of the girl with him he would have sat down and waited for what was following them rather than have walked another step.

Suddenly she cried out, and, reaching back for his hand, fairly dragged him after her. They were out of the scrub, standing at the edge of a great, open meadow, with trees scattered over it. As in a dream he saw a white house, quite near; nearer still a black woman and a white running to them. He was so dizzy that he reeled and nearly pulled the girl backward as she clutched his hand.

“Beryl!” cried a voice high and sweet. “Oh, Beryl, where have you been--who’s that?” asked Andria, with a quick note of startled surprise.

The whole world swam before Mr. Heriot’s eyes. He tried to steady himself, to speak.

“Mrs. Erle,” he began, quite calmly, and fainted dead away on the grass at Andria’s feet.