CHAPTER XII

It shook his nerve, strained to the tension of breaking. But he rallied his faculties. This was no time for vague terrors, for theories, for hesitation. He moved on swiftly, silently. Nevertheless, as he hurried down the dark flight, he could have sworn he passed some mute presence, some sense of moving.

He burst into the dim twilight of the parlor, but still without a sound. There were two figures at the window, infinitely incongruous of aspect with the scene without, with the frightful crisis, with the imminence of their danger. Both were dressed with some touch of elegance for the evening; Reginald with an incipient relish for his own good points, and in the wan light from the window and the dark shadows within the room Mrs. Faurie was like some antique picture, her gown of a light Pompeian-red silk, of a quasi-Empire effect, a girdle of dark red velvet, and a guimpe of thick, fine white lace to the throat,—yet robbery, arson, murder, faced her at the moment. Reginald, pale with a realization of his helplessness, nevertheless stoutly stood his ground, his arm around her waist.

Without a thought, Desmond passed his arm around her from the other side. “Be quiet, be very quiet. I am here,” he said in a low tone.

Her head drooped on his shoulder and she burst into tears. “How I have wished for you! How I have prayed for you!” she murmured.

“I am here! I am here!” he said again and again. He could only repeat these words. The fact filled the universe.

He was cool, confident, triumphant, despite the desperate odds, despite the awful responsibility that hung upon his judgment. He made his preparations without an instant’s flutter. He waited the significant moment without a pulse of impatience.

Mrs. Faurie, quieted, reassured, in perfect confidence did as he bade her. She stood well up against the wall under the folds of the long and heavy silken curtains, while he placed himself in front of the window, too far withdrawn for his presence to be suggested in the dim light. Not until the yawl had almost reached the steps, not until several of the men had risen to spring upon the veranda, did he raise his rifle and fire. For one moment the flash, the smoke, the report,—deafening in the restricted space of the room,—were the only elements that could claim attention. The next instant the result was apparent. That accurate aim, that steady hand, that cool nerve, had come to Desmond as gifts, unknown until to-day. The ball crashed into the skull of the red-headed, thick-set man he had recognized as Jed Knoxton. He swayed to and fro for a moment, then fell like a stone into the water, leaving the yawl violently rocking, and the rowers doing all they could to prevent her from capsizing.

The return fire came whizzing through the window, but Desmond had stepped aside and the ball crashed against a mirror on the opposite wall. The yawl’s party seemed to have recovered from the surprise at finding a defense attempted for the house, expected to be so easy a prey. They gave no heed to the welterings and writhings of Jed Knoxton in the water at their very gunwales, not able to recover himself, and yet not dead, until at last the relentless Mississippi drowned out the flickerings of life that the rifle had failed to extinguish.

Once more, as they approached, this time with a heady rush, the rifle got in its work. One of the assailants sank down on the very steps of the veranda, and the blood flowed higher than the palpitant waves. An attack from an unexpected quarter further demoralized them. A charge of buckshot from the window across the hall rattled against the timbers of the yawl—with not the best aim in the world, it is true. Reginald had been stationed there in the short interval with a shotgun which happened to be in the hall, and which Desmond hurriedly loaded, directing him to blaze away at random, being careful, as Reginald loved to tell afterward, to warn him to keep from between the muzzle of the gun and himself!

The apparent demonstration of adequate force to make good the defense of the house was too much for the nerve of the river pirates. The yawl was no longer water-tight; the buckshot had riven the wood, here and there, old and rotten. It was filling fast, and this fact threatened their safe retreat. They had intimations of more pressing personal interests than had centred in Mrs. Faurie’s famous emeralds. Suddenly putting about, they disappeared in the mist, leaving one of their comrades drowned in six feet of water at the bottom of the veranda steps, and another lying on the floor, apparently dying, the blood flowing from his mouth and tinging all the waves as they lapped about with a deeper hue than the copper tint of the great river.

It would seem that no cheer of evening could ensue on so grisly a primordium of horrors. Honoria Faurie wrung her hands as she reflected, appalled, that a man had met a terrible doom at her door, and his bloating corpse still lay at the foot of the steps to await there the action of the coroner’s jury, and that another had stretched his lacerated body on her veranda to die a lingering death. But Desmond seemed to have no affinity or toleration for shuddering or tears. He came and went noisily, ordering fires to be rebuilt in the library and parlor. When Bob reappeared, having made the transit from the quarter in an old dugout, the footman was aghast to hear the startling news.

“Ought to have been here, Bob; you missed the time of your life!” cried Desmond, cheerily. “Oh, it was great! And Mr. Reginald Faurie is a _man_, all right, and don’t you forget it. Equal to downing any kind of pirate! Pretty nearly sunk their yawl for them. They will all knuckle down to Great Oaks, after this. We are the pirate tamers here.”

Mrs. Faurie had sunk into a chair before the dead ashes of the parlor fire, her face pallid, her chest heaving, her hands nerveless.

“I wish you would give me a little brandy,” Desmond said to her, “and you would be the better for what Colonel Kentopp calls ‘a weeny teeny nip,’ yourself.” She walked with him to the dining-room, where he detained her upon the pretext that he, himself, wanted to order the belated dinner.

“I need a _good_ dinner,” he said. “I have hardly had a bite since a daylight breakfast.”

The cook was summoned, an immense woman, so tall and so fat that she was apparently immovable. She had been in the house throughout the turmoils. If the skies should fall, she would continue to sit in the open kitchen window and await events. She seemed to do nothing but sit on the sill of the kitchen window, but when she did move it must have been to the purpose, for she was a famous expert,—of an unparalleled excellence. So long did they discuss each dish and compare views and criticise sauces that Mrs. Faurie could scarcely compose herself to wait and listen to these trivial details. It was a distinct hint when she sank into a chair at one side of the old-fashioned mahogany table, the cloth not yet laid, and put her dimpled elbows on the glittering dark red surface and supported her chin in her clasped hands; while Desmond, still booted and spurred and holding his brandy glass, stood before the sideboard, and the cook filled the doorway, beaming with smiles upon a gentleman who knew so well how to appreciate the delicate miracles of her art.

When at last the menu was settled, he turned for its approval to Mrs. Faurie.

“Oh, how can you think of such things at such a moment”—and she shook her head to and fro while the ready tears came—“with a man dying at my door and another dead!”

“The dying man is very comfortable upstairs in a nice clean room and a fresh, tidy bed, where Bob and Seth have no doubt put him by this time, as I ordered. And the other man got his deserts, as no doubt Providence intended he should. We are not going to sentimentalize about them. On the contrary, we are going to ask for the thanksgiving for special mercies to us to be said in the public prayers in our little neighborhood church next Sunday, and I should think you would write to the rector at once so that the request may be received in time. Go into the library, won’t you? and write the note at my desk,—the fire must be blazing there,—while I dress for dinner.”

“Do you have to take the trouble to dress for dinner?”

He spread out his hands in dismay. “Do you want me to come to the table like this,—with my boots full of water and all over mud?”

She still sat at the table and looked at him through her tears, realizing his vital aid, his courageous rescue at the most crucial moment of her life. But his little devices to divert her mind, to sustain her composure, to prevent a morbid reaction of sensibility, all of which she appreciated, touched her in a different way. The one was essential salvation, but the other had so tender, so careful, so individual a thought for her.

“You are so dear!” she said abruptly; “I shall never call you ‘Mr. Desmond’ any more. What is your Christian name? Yes, Edward. You are my dear, _dear_ Edward; like a dear, _dear_ son!”

As she sat at his desk in the library, she was surprised to find how she liked to be there. She wrote her note, and wept some happy tears of gratitude over the occurrence which had taken on the aspect of a merciful deliverance rather than a tragedy; she lingered, fingering the little objects of chirographical use that belonged to him—the paper-weight, the pen, the blotter-holder—and thinking of his thought for her. But for the wholesome influence of his sound intellect her nerves would be shattered by the reaction, she would endure agonies of foolish regret and terror; she would not now have this glow of earnest love to God and confidence and gratitude that made her heart so warm. Yet her equanimity was not entirely restored, and she had a sentiment of recoil when Mr. Stanlett brought a very pallid, harassed, and tremulous face to the window and looked in; then entered by the long sash.

“I am hunting for you, Honoria,” he said in a strained, husky voice. “I am much worried.”

“There is no need, Uncle Clarence.” She was surprised by her full, steady tones. “Edward Desmond will attend to all these troubles. See what a miracle he wrought to-day, by the favor of God. We were at the end of our capacity even to hope.”

“Yes—but, Honoria,” the old man leaned forward as he stood and laid an impressive finger upon the edge of the desk. “This man, Desmond,—I had forgotten his name was Edward, if I ever knew it,—he takes a deal on himself! Without a word to anybody, he ordered this marauder to be put in the blue room upstairs. And there he is now—in the _blue_ room!”

She stared at him in amaze. “And why not the blue room as well as any other?”

He shook his head, and with a gesture of despair struck his high, bony forehead with his outstretched palm.

“I forget! I forget! You do not know!”

She looked at him steadily, sternly, for a moment.

“What is it I do not know, Uncle Clarence?”

He had come around the desk and sat down on a sofa on the opposite side of the crackling fire. It was necessary to turn in her chair to face him, and she looked over her shoulder at him as she sat at the desk. He met her eyes miserably, with a detected, hangdog look, but he had closed his lips resolutely; she saw that he would say no more. His face was bloodless, deathlike in its pallor. He looked very old, with his spare frame, his clear-cut, bony lineaments, his thin, silver hair.

There is something infantile in the infirmities of age. It touched her maternal spirit. No one was making enough of Uncle Clarence,—he had been neglected. He, too, was to-day greatly threatened by overpowering odds; and a man disabled by age and infirmity must feel an appalling helplessness, a pathetic shame, to be no longer of force, of availing courage in the face of physical danger, a source of refuge and protection to the weak. And so great had been the peril, of so terrible an aspect, that it might well have touched his intellect for the time being. She did not press for his answer, albeit she was of an imperious spirit and not accustomed to have her will gainsaid or her words set at naught. She rose and advanced toward him, pained to see how he cringed at the idea of her persistence while he yet massed his pitiful resources, his face hardening, his eyes aglow with an excited gleam, yet terrorized lest his steadfastness fail. He watched with doubt and expectancy, like a beast at bay, as she sat down beside him and laid her hand on his shoulder.

“Don’t be troubled, Uncle Clarence,” she said, in a dulcet tone. “You are hardly yourself, you have been put through so much agitation and suspense to-day.”

He glanced at her ever and anon with excited and furtive eyes, and moistened his lips, but kept silence.

“I will ask no questions that you do not want to answer.” She passed one of her soft white arms around his wrinkled old neck, feeling it stiff and rigid with his tense resolve. Then she laid her cheek on his shoulder. “I love you so much. I can’t endure to see you worried.”

“It is just for you, Honoria. Just for you,” he protested huskily.

“Don’t worry for me, I feel so happy to-night—so happy! as if I had the world in a sling! I think it so strange. To-night—of all the nights in the year! I suppose it is because we had such an escape.” Yet when she thought of the escape, she shuddered.

“I am much worried, Honoria. The—blue—room!”

“If you loved me as much as I love you, you would not worry. Think, Uncle Clarence, how much we are to each other,—almost like father and daughter. We ought to stand by each other.”

“That’s why, Honoria, I have taken my course. For you, my dear! And—the—blue—room!”

“Let it pass for the time, Uncle Clarence,—for the moment. We will ask Mr. Desmond if the man can be moved without injury, and set your mind at rest; though for my life I can’t see that the blue room is less to be desecrated by his presence than any other.”

He held his lips together once more as if afraid of disclosure, and sat stiff, immovable, furtively glancing about with absorbed eyes; and as she with maternal patience drew her soft arm closer about his neck, her head on his shoulder, the glow of the shaded lamp and the flaring fire on the rich tints of her dress, her beauty embellished by her softened expression, the two were a charming illustration of reverend age and filial youth when Desmond, freshly groomed once more, stood a moment by the window ere he entered by the sash.

Desmond was in no mood for concessions. He had assumed control of the household, and he had a strong if not a heavy hand. He declined at once to interfere with the wounded man.

“It might be as much as his life is worth to move him. I am not competent to judge. I am not willing to risk it.”

Her sympathies went out to the old man, inadequate to cope with this masterful, youthful usurper.

“Uncle Clarence seems to desire it,” she said, not without emphasis.

“I cannot imagine a reason sufficient to jeopardize the man’s life,” Desmond rejoined.

“I am not informed, sir, by what theory I am to submit my reasons to you,” said Mr. Stanlett, with stately and satiric dignity.

“Oh, Uncle Clarence,”—Mrs. Faurie started up in alarmed remonstrance,—“think what we owe to Mr. Desmond—how grateful we should be!”

“That is neither here nor there,” said Desmond, maintaining his placidity. “You are the arbiter of events here, Mrs. Faurie, but you _must_ not suffer this man to be moved, and perhaps sacrifice his life—”

“Heavens—no!” she interpolated.

“—Especially before he can be interrogated by the authorities. The information he may give will cause the apprehension and the breaking up of this gang of river pirates, and avoid the accomplishment of such disasters as menaced this house to-day.”

He turned toward Mr. Stanlett, who had risen and stood stiffly, a sort of blight on his face, at one side of the low, old-fashioned marble mantel. “I am disturbed to differ with you, Mr. Stanlett, to urge my views against your preference when you have been so kind to me.”

“My kindness is returned in a way I had not anticipated,” said Mr. Stanlett, coldly.

“Oh, Uncle Clarence, I protest. _Don’t_ mind it, Edward!” She smiled and, leaning over, patted Desmond maternally on the coat-sleeve.

“I _do_ mind it very much—to incur Mr. Stanlett’s disapproval. But, my dear sir, it will be only for a short time. The officers will reach here in the morning. I have sent Jacob off in a dugout with an imperative note to the constable and the coroner; they must come. If the man can be moved, he will be taken to jail; at all events, he can’t be long dying with that hole bored through his lungs. Then the blue room will be once more at your service.”

“_At my service!_” the old man sneered. “You know nothing about it! You only show your ignorance.”

The announcement of the belated dinner put an end to the discussion, and as they filed out, Mrs. Faurie’s face was pale and drawn and altogether unlike itself. But Desmond seemed in high spirits. He begged pardon for asking for a cocktail before the soup, and he praised a certain different combination so that Mr. Stanlett requested that a glass be mixed for him, remonstrating sharply against any dilution, when Desmond good-naturedly diverted his interest by reminding him of the classical apportionment of water with wine, smilingly quoting “Hail, Dionysus: are you Five-and-two?” The mixture proved sufficiently potent, and sent the blood to the old gentleman’s pale cheeks and brought out a gentle dew on his forehead, and predisposed him to enjoy and digest his dinner, to postpone his unrevealed trouble, and to hope for the best.

Desmond developed a spirit of gossip. He recounted the details of the house-party at Dryad-Dene, and Mrs. Faurie and Mr. Stanlett laughed, though slyly, at Chub, who seemed to think that Desmond had committed a great impropriety in mentioning Miss Allandyce’s boyish equestrian costume and describing his embarrassment that he did not later recognize her when accoutred in white silk skirts. Reginald and Horace indulged in great hilarity at this demonstration of the prudish Chub, and Mr. Stanlett was immensely “tickled” by the description of Loring’s sufferings because of the unwelcome reminiscences of the old wood-chopper, Sloper, concerning the millionaire’s family.

“Shows just what a snob Loring has graduated into,” said Mr. Stanlett, his face now pink from Clos Vougeot, the blue room forgotten. “His parents were most reputable, educated, respected people, even if they were not well off, and the only reason they were ever acquainted with such a party as Sloper, as every one knows, is that in this sparsely populated country everybody is acquainted with everybody else. But social differences are now and always have been rigorously maintained.”

He had a keen commercial interest in Desmond’s detail of Regnan’s suspicions that the house-party had been made up to show Dryad-Dene to advantage to Mr. Loring, with charming young people in gala attire enlivening all its highly decorated apartments, and how Regnan resented the idea that he had danced not for his own pleasure, but like a trained dog, for a purpose.

Mrs. Faurie dimpled and beamed, and asked him how the ladies looked and what they wore, now and then checking his description with the exclamation “Impossible!” and setting him to rights with apt conjectures as to fabrics and styles.

“If I were mamma, I’d give a house-party that would mash the Kentopps flat,” said Chub, sturdily. “I’d have up a lot of swell guys from New Orleans and down from St. Louis and Memphis, and then I’d open the ballroom and dance all one day and one night on a stretch, and have a party supper and dinner and breakfast,—and leave the Kentopps out!”

The older boys collapsed over this truculence of the vengeful Chub and his idea of a fashionable entertainment. Mrs. Faurie checked him, though smiling. “Mustn’t bear malice, Chubby. I am too old for a young people’s party.”

“Prettier’n anybody, ain’t she, Mr. Desmond?” said the confident Chub, with his mouth full of salad.

To the tutor’s amazement, he flushed to the roots of his hair at this appeal. He felt the blood mounting and pulsing as it rose, but he was ready with the repetition of Miss Mayberry’s compliment to the “most beautiful woman in the world,” albeit he doubted his good taste in the rehearsal. Mrs. Faurie, however, who had often heard similar appraisements of her attractions, took the remark quite simply, and was absorbed in the interest of recollecting details concerning this Italian count, who was a man of talent and high position, and whom she had often met in notable circles while she was living in Paris. This brought them to a harmonious end of the feast, and when they rose from the table, Desmond proposed a return to the parlor, where Mrs. Faurie countenanced the cigars, and seated herself before the fire in a great fauteuil, her Empire gown of rich yet delicate red enhancing her beauty, her eyes fascinated by the flames, her lovely neck glimpsed through the lace guimpe, her quiet respiration rising and falling calmly, the tumult of fear assuaged that had shaken her heart so few hours ago.

Desmond had taken his station on one end of the sofa, where Chubby also ensconced himself, for out of school hours he had developed a great disposition to loll on his tormentor. The other two boys had seats here too, facing the window, but only the inconsiderate youngest spoke out his sudden surprise.

“Where does all that light come from?”

Mrs Faurie turned her head apprehensively. The verandas were under a steady illumination, and for a distance the murky waters of the overflow showed their constant, sinister palpitation.

“I had those lamps filled and the brackets fastened to the posts,” Desmond said coolly. “I found them by rummaging around upstairs. I suppose they must have been used in some entertainment in the house. There were some reflectors, too, in the ballroom.”

Mr. Stanlett raised himself in his chair, his cigar held out at arm’s length.

“You have no call to go rummaging around the house. It—it—is outrageous! It is—is—intrusive!”

Mrs Faurie had paled. “Do you anticipate another attack on the house to-night?” she asked in agitation.

“No,” said Desmond, “for I am prepared for it.”

Beneath his gay and cheerful exterior, sustaining the spirits of the household lest the palsy of panic overwhelm them and bring down undreamed-of disaster, Desmond had wrestled with some sombre fears, distressing doubts, troublous paucity of resource. There was no boat due to pass, or he would have braved the maddening floods in the primitive dugout to put Mrs. Faurie on board. He had thought of the neighbors, to ring the plantation bell and summon aid. But the neighbors by this time were struggling with the overflow, or seeking to patch sodden and threatened levees. Their own families were exposed to the manifold distresses of high water, and the very fact that marauders were abroad had homing promptings. Besides, he did not wish thus to advertise to the river pirates that the occupants of the mansion felt incapable of its defense. The garrison had already demonstrated its efficiency; the pirates no doubt believed that they had been misinformed as to the unprotected condition of the house; and though Desmond feared an attempt at the rescue of the wounded man, in order that he might not turn state’s evidence, inculpate the gang, and compass their capture, he could rely only on such means as had been equal to the emergency in the afternoon, hoping that this would prove adequate to whatever the night might bring forth. The idea that Mrs. Faurie was the focus of their schemes, the suggestion of wresting from her an order on her bankers and by some nefarious plan rendering her incapable of giving the alarm till it should be honored, filled him with dismay. The possibility suggested abduction, imprisonment, even murder. He had provided against surprise. No boat, no swimmer, could approach the house without becoming instantly visible,—the old ballroom lights playing a part undreamed of in their festive design. He had posted one of the most reliable of the house servants as a lookout on each veranda, and a relief sat in the kitchen, finding royal good cheer in the remainder of the big dinner he had ordered with this view. His rifle was loaded, his pistols at hand, and Reginald had been called aside and, as he protested, given some points concerning the best method of distinguishing the muzzle from the butt of the gun. He had in fact been taught to load, aim, cock the hammer, and pull the trigger, and he had a half dozen buckshot cartridges in his pocket as he lounged on the sofa.

“Won’t the lights attract attention and make navigation easy?” she asked.

“Perhaps; but they will show that we are on the alert and ready for all comers,” said Desmond. Then after a moment of hesitation, “It was an accident that they did not reach the veranda before I did this afternoon. Now, any approach would be detected at a considerable distance.”

Her level eyebrows were drawn. “I had hoped the danger was over,” she said, with a sort of plaintive patience.

“But not the precautions,” he replied, with a smile.

“Why don’t we have up some of the tenants from the quarter? they could spare ten or twelve men.”

He did not tell her that he had already attempted a levy from the quarter, and that the tenants had revolted. For the dead flatboat-man lay alongside the veranda steps with a dog collar and chain around his neck, to keep him from floating away while awaiting the coming of the coroner; this Desmond had been compelled to attach with his own hands. The negroes did not so much fear the living as the dead. They would not undertake to touch the floating body and lift it to the shelter and security of the veranda, there to await the coming of the coroner; they would not wittingly approach the house so long as it was there,—nay, until it should be removed to a distance and to an unknown place. They did not believe that the pirates would dare return, and were not actuated by fear of them, but they were sure that Jed Knoxton would haunt them to their dying day! “I think they are perhaps shy of meddling in our feud,” Desmond replied to her suggestion. “The darkeys always seem doubtful as to whether they are fairly instructed as to the points at issue in any disturbance among white people, and are afraid of getting into trouble with the authorities. They would merely give the sense of strength in numbers, anyhow. We had enough, to-day, and to spare.”

Nevertheless, he had not permitted to depart those whose vocation had caused them to return to the mansion, and who, upon discovering the facts, would have been glad to get away again. They were fain to reconcile themselves to the grim necessity as best they might. The old butler, whose attachment to the family dated from before the war, a man of experience and intelligence, pinned his faith to the Faurie banner in weal or woe. He smartly admonished Bob, his son, to “show some manners,” when the footman was insisting upon putting a goodly quantity of the Mississippi River between himself and the locality where such dreadful deeds were done and which harbored such ghastly visitants, and withdrawing to the quarter. It was not merely that the old butler knew that special duty rendered in time of stress received a special and proportionate reward, for he was long past his prime and had no ambitions disconnected with an aspect of distinction in the Faurie dinner service. But a word to the wise Bob was sufficient. Though under constraint indeed, he cheerfully consented to watch in turn with his father on one side of the house, while Desmond and Reginald kept a lookout through the parlor windows from the front. The cook insisted that naught could approach undiscovered from the east while she sat on the sill of the kitchen window, and Seth, the old-time hostler, who dwelt in a world of Houyhnhnms and rated as slight matters any disasters that did not concern the frog and the fetlock, or threaten spavin or sprain, found his sympathy with mere humanity so indurated by disuse as to be able to stand guard over the wounded pirate to make sure that he did not attempt to escape, that he wanted for naught in comfort, and that no shadowy approach was made toward the house upon the waters viewed from the dormer window, from the hood of which Seth continually scanned the expanse.

“Too many people make confusion and get into each other’s way,” Desmond explained to Mrs. Faurie. “I need only one steady lieutenant like Reginald here. I invited Regnan to return to Great Oaks with me, and I was sorry at first that he did not come. But we are all right without him.”

“I wish I could shoot,” plained Chubby.

“I am going to put a stop to this mollycoddle business, anyhow,” said Desmond, waving away the smoke from his cigar and looking at Mrs. Faurie with challenging, laughing eyes. “Just as soon as we get out of our ark, I am going to have regular target practice three times a week, and teach these boys how to shoot, and then we will borrow Mr. Sloper’s dogs and go on a camp hunt of our own.”

“Oh, little Chubby,” protested Mrs. Faurie, while Chub fairly rolled himself into a ball of chuckling delight, hugging himself as if he felt that he might fly to pieces in the centrifugal force of so much ecstasy.

“Little Chubby is a good plucked one! I was proud of Chub and Horace,—to stand here in the parlor, and hold still without a word, and get in nobody’s way, and make no confusion, and face danger without a protest. Oh, this is a great day for the house of Faurie! We have three men here, rather small-sized and callow as yet,—but _men_, for all that!”

“Oh, you make me feel so proud of them!” cried Mrs. Faurie, laughing and flushing with pleasure.

Suddenly a drear sound—knock! knock! knock! at the front of the house.