CHAPTER XII

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It was some time before Grace had recovered sufficiently from the nervous shock of her terrifying encounter with the cobra to be able to get about, and during this period of enforced idleness she was compelled to depend altogether on Armitage. He supplied her with the necessaries and, as well as he was able, administered to her comfort.

Grateful to him for his attentions, it was not long before her feeling of obligation changed into real regard for the man. The dread in which she at first held him had completely disappeared, as was only natural after the services he had rendered her. Twice she owed him her life. That alone was a debt she could never repay. Moreover, he was thoughtful and courteous, and, so far, at least, had shown no disposition to take advantage of her helpless situation. How much worse her position would be if he were not there at all!

But she was too much worried and preoccupied with her own troubles to give her strange companion much thought. She watched him at work, and she ate listlessly the food he brought her, but that was about all the interest she took in anything.

Her one burning desire was to get away. During all her waking hours her thoughts turned only in one direction: how to escape as speedily as possible from this wretched island. As the days went by and no vessel appeared, she began to wonder if they would ever be rescued, or if she was doomed to remain on that remote islet for the rest of her days unable to communicate with her father and mother and friends, who, in ignorance of her fate, had long since given her up as dead. Perhaps in years to come some ship touching at the island in search of water would find, strewed along the beach, her bleached bones and his--picked clean by the vultures. She wept bitterly as she thought of it; her face was bathed in tears of compassion over her misfortune. She was ashamed to let Armitage see that she had been crying, but all day she brooded over her sorrow, and at night she dreamed that he was building a boat stout enough to convey them to the mainland.

Fearful that she would lose all notion of time, she started to count the days, keeping a rough kind of calender by scratching notches at regular intervals on a shell. She notched off the days one by one, her spirits sinking in proportion as their number increased. In her despair she appealed to her companion to reassure her. But Armitage shook his head dubiously. He had little comfort to offer.

"We must be patient," he said grimly. "We're here scarcely a week. Think of those shipwrecked sailors who have been marooned on desert islands for months, even years, often with almost nothing to eat. When finally they were rescued they were not recognizable as men. Their clothes hung upon them in shreds, their hair was matted and over-grown, they had forgotten how to talk, they tore the meat given them with their fingers like famished wolves. We have not so much to complain of. We have plenty of water, enough to eat. It's no use fretting. We must wait patiently. Perhaps we won't have to wait long. Any day our signal-fire may be sighted by a vessel."

They now kept two fires going, one close at hand for their own use, and another much bigger on top of the hill for signaling purposes. The hill-top commanded a superb view of every part of the island, and, viewed from the ocean, it must have been a conspicuous mark for miles. They christened it Mount Hope, for on it Grace centered all her fervent prayers for rescue. It became her Mecca, and each day she made the long and exhausting climb up its precipitous slope in the expectation of seeing steamer smoke or a sail on the distant horizon. But disappointment always awaited her. There was nothing in every direction but dreary, monotonous wastes of heaving water, the boisterous waves dancing in the sunlight as if to mock her misery.

The care of keeping this signal-fire going devolved on Armitage, and it was the day's most important task. The fire was kept banked with damped moss and peat in the daytime, so it would throw off a smoke thick enough to be visible miles away at sea. At night it was made to blaze furiously with the same object in view.

The cave had been deserted long ago. The day following her horrible experience with the serpent, Grace protested hysterically that nothing could induce her to enter the gloomy place again. Sleeping in it, she declared, was utterly out of the question. The cobra was dead, but there was no telling what other reptile as venomous and deadly might again crawl out of the cave's countless holes and recesses. Armitage admitted the possibility, and at once offered to build a cabin for her in the open. It would be far more healthy and comfortable.

She gladly consented, and he went to work with a will. He had no tools, and his construction materials were necessarily of the most primitive character. Happily, the weather continued fine, and, while her new home was in the building, Grace managed as best she could under a temporary shelter.

Selecting a site that was high and dry, Armitage first dug a square hole in the ground three feet deep by about fourteen feet in length and breadth. Each side of the excavation he lined with stone walls made of huge boulders piled one on top of another, and decreasing in weight and size until they reached a height all round of nearly nine feet. The interstices he filled with clay to keep out the wind and rain, and additional strength was secured for the walls by banking up earth on all four exterior sides. It was a herculean task, for each of the big, heavy stones had to be dragged a considerable distance, and the only implement he had to dig with was a crude spade which he made out of a piece of planed wood found among the drift along the shore and sharpened and hardened in fire. Light entered through a door and window, and then came the roof. This he made with heavy limbs of trees equally matched, which rested on top of the stone walls, these in turn being crossed with smaller branches, and the whole covered with a thick thatch of tussac-grass and moss held in place by heavy stones. The floor inside was strewn with tussac-grass to keep the feet dry from the damp earth. There was also a fireplace for logs, with a flue and chimney to carry off the smoke, and before it was ready for occupancy he started a fire, thus driving out the damp and making it dry and inhabitable.

He toiled unceasingly and tirelessly, whistling cheerfully as he worked. As Grace watched him, the thought was impressed upon her more strongly than ever that this man was far happier here amid primeval conditions, thrown upon his own resources, than he had been in a so-called civilized state. Evidently he had no keen desire to be rescued. The thought filled her again with dismay. Not that it would really make any material difference. If succor were coming, they would be rescued whether her mysterious companion wished it or not. But that any human being could be reconciled to spending the remainder of his days on a barren islet in a remote part of the ocean, without clothes, tools, books, or even the bare necessaries of life, was intolerable. A man who could entertain such an idea for a moment could have instincts little superior to a savage.

Often she had watched her strange, moody companion as he worked and wondered what his history was. He was no ordinary seaman--that was evident from his speech and manner. He had certainly known better days. He never spoke of himself, and when tactfully she broached the subject, he abruptly changed the conversation. One day she said to him:

"You weren't always a stoker, were you--you weren't born to that kind of life?"

He stopped in his work, and for a moment looked at her in silence, as if seeking time to frame his answer. Then laconically he said:

"My past life is dead. I live only in the present. Just what I seem I am."

Still unconvinced, she returned to the attack.

"Why did you desert from the steamer in New York?"

He clenched his fist as thus brutally she revived the memory of his past suffering, and in a low tone, which came almost like a hiss from between his set teeth, he said:

"Because I could not stand it any longer--I just couldn't. I was desperate."

"Why did you take to such dreadful work?" she persisted. "Was there nothing else more congenial, less brutalizing that you could do?"

He shook his head.

"No--nothing. There was nothing else." Bitterly he added: "The poor must slave so that the rich may enjoy."

Puzzled, she asked:

"What do you mean?"

"It's no use going into particulars," he replied, almost contemptuously. "You wouldn't understand."

Turning on his heel, he resumed his work on the cabin.

Grace did understand. She understood that there was something in the past life of this man which he did not wish to divulge. She felt that he had suffered, and she was sorry for him. Again she tried to draw him out, but skilfully he parried her questions, and appeared to resent them. Noticing this, she desisted. His past, as far as she was concerned, at any rate, was and must remain a sealed book.

But Grace did not remain silent for all that. She was too much of a woman to permit of that. Seeing that she could get nothing from him, she talked about herself. She chattered about her home in New York, about her friends, about the things which interested her and the things which bored her. He listened as he worked, apparently interested, and when she said that she despised the empty and frivolous amusements of her set and was ambitious to do something more worthy in life, he nodded approvingly. When she had told him everything, once more she attempted to question him in turn, but he relapsed into an obstinate silence.

After a week's continuous toil the cabin was completed. As a finishing touch, he made some furniture for it--a crude table and two three-legged stools. When he had put the bed in place the hut was ready for occupancy. When at last everything was ready, he called out to Grace to come and inspect her new home.

"You'll be comfortable in here," he said cheerily. "At least there are no snakes. I can promise you that."

He waited for her to say something, expecting that she would be pleased.

"It's very nice," she said hesitatingly. "Only----"

"Only what?" he demanded in a tone of disappointment.

"It's too bad to have taken so much pains for so short a time," she said.

He laughed carelessly.

"So short a time?" he echoed. Almost mockingly he asked: "Do you expect to leave here so soon?"

"As soon as I can--you may depend upon that!" she replied determinedly, almost ready to cry.

His indifference angered her. She thought it brutal when he knew how unhappy and miserable she was and how anxious to get back to her family. At that moment she hated him.

"Ah, that's just it!" he exclaimed, with a gesture of impatience. "As soon as you can! But you can't! We're prisoners here--in prison just as securely as though we were behind iron bars. We can't get away."

"But we'll get away some time, won't we?" she gasped.

He shook his head.

"The chances are slim," he replied grimly.

"Then what good is our signal-fire?" she persisted.

"Not much good," he admitted frankly.

Her heart sank. Her face paled, and her lips trembled as she asked:

"Don't you think it'll be seen sooner or later? Ships must pass by here some time."

He shrugged his shoulders.

"Even if they do, they may not see the fire. If a ship passes near this island it would be a great distance away. It would never occur to them to look here for signals. Besides, very few vessels do pass. A ship may not sight our signal for a year, maybe five years, perhaps never. You remember Alexander Selkirk--Robinson Crusoe. He was twenty-eight years on Tobago island--in complete solitude."

Grace gave a low moan of distress.

"At least," he went on, after some hesitation, "we have each other."

This remark angered her. She thought it impertinent. The boldness of his veiled insinuation was more than she could bear. He actually contemplated the possibility of a permanent stay.

"I couldn't stand it," she cried hoarsely, her eyes filled with scalding tears. "I would rather kill my self."

He shrugged his shoulders, and that made her all the more angry.

"You don't care," she went on. "You're willing to sacrifice me because you prefer this kind of existence to the wretched life you've had."

This speech aroused him to action. All his life he had suffered from injustice. This girl, he thought, was like all the others. For a moment, he lost his sang-froid.

"You're unjust!" he replied hotly. "I'm doing all I can. Who built the signal-fire on Mount Hope? I did. Who keeps it going night and day? I do. It's no fun climbing up that steep hill collecting fresh fuel, but I do it. Even in my sleep sometimes I wake up in fright, thinking I may have neglected to throw on enough fuel, fearful that the fire will go out--my last match gone. I work myself into a cold sweat thinking of it. I can't sleep. At last I am unable to stand it any longer. I get up and rush to the hill-top, all for nothing. The signal-fire is still burning brightly. All that time you are sleeping peacefully. Does that look as if I didn't care?"

"Forgive me," she murmured between her tears. "I'm peevish and unreasonable. Forgive me. I'm so unhappy!"

He smiled sympathetically.

"Don't get discouraged," he said kindly. "As long as we're here, it's best to get along as well as we can. It's no use fretting. If help is coming it will come. You'll not mend matters by worrying."

She felt he was right. What use were her tears and her irritation? He was doing all he could. They were in the hands of an inscrutable Providence. As long as the signal-fire was kept burning there was hope.

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