CHAPTER VI.

THE BUNGALOW IN THE HILLS

Personality is a queer thing. Nobody has quite defined it yet. In my wild quest of a plan to save Nanette from herself, without letting her mother know and without compromising her, I came straight to what looked to me like an inevitable decision--I decided to tell O’Shea.

What I thought he could do that I couldn’t do alone, God knows; but the Guards used to feel like that about him.

One fear I had: that he should have started out on whatever mysterious business called him. I raced across to his room. It was in darkness. I went hareing down to the lounge. Dancing was in full swing; no sign of O’Shea. I grabbed the hall porter.

“Has Major O’Shea gone out?”

“No, sir. Not this way.”

I turned, hope reborn--and there stood O’Shea reading a note that a chambermaid had just handed to him!

“O’Shea!” I cried.

He glanced up. His face was very stern. His eyes glinted icily.

“Go and get Kelton,” he said. “Bring him here--alone.”

“But Nanette----”

“I know all about Nanette. Bring Kelton to me.”

I ran. I was under orders. But it was a service of love.

Jack was in the bar--quite alone. He looked at me in a lowering way.

“Nanette’s in danger,” I said briefly. He jumped up. “Come quickly.”

When we got to the hall porter’s sanctum, and he saw who was waiting, he pulled up with a jerk.

“What the hell has _he_ got to do with it?” he demanded.

“Mr. Kelton!”

O’Shea was watching him.

“Well, what is it?”

“This!” O’Shea handed him the note. “You read it, too, Decies.”

Jack and I read together:

Have gone to Gabriel’s bungalow to dance. If you get this in time, will you join us?

Nanette.

Jack crushed the paper into a ball.

“My God! The little fool!” he said. “Why did she send this to _you_?”

O’Shea stared the angry lover down, then:

“Because she is very young,” he answered, without one note of anger. “Don’t blame her, Kelton--and don’t blame me. Blame the customs of to-day. Leave me out. _You_ are going to save her from Da Cunha.”

“Has she started?”

“I fear so.”

“Then where’s the chance? That swine has a Farman racer!”

“True, but he can’t race at night on those roads. It will take him half an hour.”

“We have no car!”

“We don’t need one. I happen to know a route--a mere goat track--by which we can climb to the bungalow almost as quickly as he can drive there.”

“You mean it?” asked Jack hoarsely.

“As it happens, I was about to take a stroll in that direction when this note reached me.”

“Come on!” said Jack.

* * * * *

I have the haziest recollection of that appalling climb. O’Shea knew the way like the palm of his hand. Under a sickle moon that looked so near in its white purity one almost felt one could reach up and grasp it, we climbed, panting and sweating. From the gardens of the valley we broke up through banana plantations where the great bursting pods banged our heads as we stooped to follow that tireless guide. We scaled a sheer hillside steep as a roof. We crawled along a path less than a yard wide, with a gorge yawning hundreds of feet below in which the vineyards shrank to a close green carpet.

We came to the red earth of the uplands. Our feet sank in it as in moss. Pines barred our way, rank on rank. Away to the left, below, beyond, the still sea shone like lapis lazuli.

“Ssh! Quiet!” O’Shea ordered.

We pulled up. I looked at Jack. He might recently have come out of the hot-room in a Turkish bath. His collar was a mere farce; a loop of exhausted linen. I believe I was no more spruce. I looked at O’Shea. That remarkable man appeared to be as well-dressed as usual.

“Single file,” he commanded. “Not a sound.”

We crept on, breathing heavily; and presently, through those sentinel pines on the crest, it reached us--the music of the Savoy orchestra, playing in a distant Strand!

“Thank God! We are in time!” said O’Shea.

We sighted Da Cunha’s bungalow through the thinning trees. Lights shone out from three tall windows fronting on an L-shaped stoop. The windows were open, and O’Shea made his dispositions.

“Kelton,” he directed, “take the window on your right front. Keep out of sight. Wait your moment. Time it. We shall not interfere.” He held out his hand. “This is your chance. Make the most of it.”

Jack grasped the extended hand, and:

“Thank you, sir!” he said.

He went off through the pines, stooping warily.

We gave him time to reach his post; then O’Shea and I made a detour and crept up on to the veranda so that we looked into Da Cunha’s bungalow from a window opposite to that which concealed Jack.

The room was sparsely furnished. It had a polished floor from which the few rugs had been removed. There was champagne in an ice bucket on a buffet. There was the most elaborate and costly wireless set I had ever beheld. A Moorish lamp hanging from the beamed ceiling gave light. I could see two good pictures--both nudes--and a long, deep, cushioned divan. At the Savoy, they were playing Jerome Kern’s “Who,” and Nanette and Da Cunha were dancing to it.

I have said that the none-such danced perfectly. His dancing on this night was inspired--inspired by passion. He did not merely hold Nanette, he enveloped her; with his arms, with his ardent, lascivious eyes.

She swam into view and out of view like a dream-nymph hypnotized by a satyr. Her expression was indefinable as I saw it. A sort of exaltation was there, born of adventure and sensuous music. I could not know whether she had tasted the wine; but there was a dawning doubt, too, a doubt of herself that was not yet fear.

Then the music ceased, and we heard remote applause.

Da Cunha disconnected the set and led Nanette to the divan. He seated himself beside her, smiled, and put his arm around her bare shoulders. She made a little whimsical grimace, but did not protest. Then she glanced at him quickly--and he stooped and kissed her. It was a lingering kiss, which she ended by pushing him away.

Their conversation reached us as a mere murmur; but Nanette imperatively negatived further advances and pointed in the direction of the buffet. Da Cunha shrugged, smiled, and crossed to the ice bucket.

I had both fists so tightly clenched that they hurt; but O’Shea’s hand held my wrist like a human manacle. Jack’s inaction astounded me. Then, under the urge of O’Shea’s iron restraint, I began to think. After all, poor Jack held no rights over Nanette, and he was too unworldly to grasp the inwardness of this scene. She had suffered Da Cunha’s kiss. Jack was still waiting for his cue.

It came shortly after Da Cunha returned with two beaded glasses. I had watched Nanette whilst the man had poured out the wine; and I knew that, at last, pique, rebellion, having died their natural deaths, she realized her position.

He set the glasses on a little coffee table and drew it beside the divan. Nanette asked him to connect up with the Savoy again. He shook his head and smilingly handed her one of the glasses. She put it down, untouched. Da Cunha drained the other, replaced it on the table, and, suddenly throwing himself on his knees, clasped the girl in eager arms and burst into a torrent of passionate speech.

Nanette shrank back on the divan. Da Cunha followed her. He kissed her hands, her arms, her shoulders. He devoured her with his lips.

She writhed in his clasp, uttered a half-stifled cry, and wrenching one arm free, tried to thrust him away.

Then Jack came in.

He covered the course in four running strides, stooped, seized Da Cunha around the neck, and jerked him on to his feet. Whereon followed--catastrophe.

Jack slipped on the polished floor, stumbled, tried to recover--and fell.

Da Cunha twisted about and kicked him above the left temple.

He lay prone.

“Jack!” cried Nanette. “Jack!”

O’Shea’s grip on my wrist was like a vise.

“Wait,” he said. “The boy’s down but he’s not out!”

O’Shea was right. Nanette’s voice recalled him. Da Cunha wore only light dancing shoes.

Jack rolled over, avoided a second swinging kick, and came to his feet, shaking his tawny head like a terrier with a flea in his ear.

“Jack!” cried Nanette again.

She crouched on the divan, wide-eyed. Her shoulder strap had slipped; and Nanette will never know how beautiful I know she is. Even as I saw, guiltily, she readjusted it--and the fight started.

Blood was trickling into Jack’s eyes. He kept dodging and trying to clear his sight. It upset his judgment, beyond a doubt; added to which his skull must have been humming like a beehive. Remember, too, the climb he had put in.

To my intense annoyance, the none-such proved able to box as well as he danced and kicked. He took all a trained fighter’s advantage of Jack’s double handicap. Some punishment came his way, but it was not heavy--and he kept registering killing body blows on his opponent. Jack might have planted a lucky one before it was too late. But Nanette defeated him.

“Jack!” she cried, a sob in her voice. “Don’t let him _beat_ you!”

Half-dazed, the boy paused, dropped his hands--and Da Cunha recorded a tremendous right well below the belt. Jack went down--to stay.

“The dirty swine!” I exclaimed.

O’Shea slipped a revolver into my hand.

“I don’t think there are any servants about to-night,” he said. “But see that I’m not interrupted.”

He stepped in through the open window, twirling his monocle on its black ribbon. It was not pose; it was nerves. The man was human. He was fighting for composure.

Da Cunha faced him, and:

“_You!_” came, as a sort of rapturous sigh, from the divan.

The two men confronted each other for an electric moment; then:

“You are a very dirty fighter, Da Cunha,” said O’Shea smoothly. “But, as you are probably tired, I suggest that you give me the black dispatch-box that you have locked in your bedroom--and we will say no more about it.”

Da Cunha’s expression became complicated. My own brain was revolving like a merry-go-round. This sudden revelation was too much for me--that Da Cunha was a Red agent!

“Go to hell!” was the reply. “Who are you?”

“You are very forgetful,” said O’Shea.

As he spoke, he reached out a long, lazy left. It looked effortless, but it was perfectly timed, perfectly measured. It started in the ball of his suddenly rigid right foot and from there carried every amp. of energy in his body to the point of Da Cunha’s jaw.

There was a pleasant snapping sound. Da Cunha went down like a poleaxed ox.

Nanette sat silent, a second Niobe.

“Decies!” cried O’Shea. “The revolver! We have no time to waste!”

I ran in, passing the weapon to him.

“Attend to Kelton,” he directed. “We must get him away.”

He crossed to a door right of the divan and went into a room beyond, which was dimly lighted.

“Mr. Decies----” Nanette began.

Came the sound of a pistol shot… a second! There followed a splintering crash. Nanette leapt to her feet, and turned--as O’Shea came out again, carrying a small black dispatch-box. He put it on the coffee table.

Jack stirred and groaned. Nanette’s gaze never left O’Shea. And now, timidly approaching him:

“I was mad,” she whispered. “Oh, thank you!” She swayed and sank into his arms, her perfect lips raised to his in offering. “Can you forgive me?”

He held her for a moment, very tenderly, looking into her eyes, then:

“I have nothing to forgive, little girl,” he said. “You have been foolish, but I don’t think you will ever be so foolish again.”

Gently, he set her aside, and:

“Decies,” said he, “lend a hand with Kelton. We will borrow the Farman.”