The Black Pearl

by Mrs. Wilson Woodrow

CHAPTER XV

The sun-flooded hillside showed plainly the path of the avalanche; blank, featureless it lay, without sheltering tree or rock to diversify its bald monotony. But it was bare no longer, for the brown earth was covering her nakedness with a delicate mist of green. Beyond the sweep of the avalanche the maples were swinging their tassels, and the swelling buds of the oaks and aspens showed that they were almost ready to burst into leaf; the air was full of bird calls and fluttering wings, and the breeze, although chill, seemed ineffably soft in comparison with its recent rigorous blasts.

Pearl and Seagreave had gone but a short distance from the cabin when suddenly Pearl shielded her eyes with her hand. "Look," she cried excitedly, and pointed to two men who were standing down by the bridge evidently awaiting them, "I can't quite see from here, but it is, it must be, Bob and Pop."

She almost flew down the hill after that, and Seagreave, his face suddenly set in lines of determination, kept pace with her. He had noticed, even if she had not, that those two motionless figures at the bridge had not advanced one step to meet her, but were maintaining an attitude portentously watchful, it seemed to him, and boding ill for the warmth and spontaneity of the welcome she so evidently expected.

But Pearl appeared to see nothing of this, and as she drew near the two who awaited her, she would have flown like a bird into her father's arms. But before she could throw her arms about him he caught her wrists and pushed her back a step or two anything but gently.

"Why weren't you down at the bridge last night?" he asked sternly. The old man had changed since the avalanche. There were anxious deep hollows about his eyes which were at once brighter and more sunken than ever. His parchment skin looked livid and lifeless and his mouth had tightened until it was drawn in and pinched.

"Why weren't you down at the gully waiting for us?" he asked again. "The bridge was across at midnight. The boys have been working night and day to get you out, and this is the way you act, hiding up there in that cabin like you'd as lief stay there as not."

"Yes, Pearl, why weren't you down to meet us?" Bob Flick spoke for the first time, his slow, soft voice was placating and yet it was evident that his sympathies were with Gallito. "The boys had the place all lit up with torches while they worked, and your Pop and I waited half the night for you down here. Why didn't you come?" Neither of the men had so far even glanced at Seagreave, but ignored him as thoroughly as if he were not there.

Pearl looked at Flick a moment in frowning incomprehension. Petted, spoiled child that she was, she could not bear to be scolded where she had expected a rapturous welcome. From Flick to her father she glanced, and then back again. "What's the matter with you two?" she cried. "Are you mad just because I didn't come chasing down the hill in the dead of night? How did I know that the boys were going to get the bridge across at midnight?"

"Because, if you'd been the sort of girl you ought to be, you wouldn't have stayed a minute longer in that cabin than you could have helped. You'd have stood down by the gully all night long just to show the folks in the camp that you wouldn't stay in that cabin after there was any chance at all for you to get away," Gallito answered her before Bob Flick got a chance. "What made you stay up there? You and him, too," he pointed one, long, gnarled forefinger at Seagreave, "have got to answer me that question. And there's another one, too, and you'll answer it."

Again Pearl stared at him, and again she turned her puzzled eyes on Bob Flick. Then, as the meaning of their attitude flashed over her, she fell back a pace or two, her face grown white. "Dios!" she murmured, with stiff lips, a sob rising in her throat.

Then she tossed high her head in hot resentment. Her mouth was set in a thin scarlet line of obstinacy, her eyes burned, but their expression was unreadable. With a slow movement of her body, expressing infinite scorn, she swung away from her father and her lover and, with her eyes upon the far, blue ranges, superbly ignored them.

Bob Flick shot a warning glance at Gallito, who was about to speak, and took a hasty step forward. "Look here, Pearl," he said conciliatingly, "don't mind your Pop. The strain on him's been awful. It's been hard on all of us. You sure gave us some terrible days, not knowing whether you were alive or dead, but we all kind of figured from the direction that the snow-slide took that it missed the cabin, and we wouldn't believe anything else but that you were as much alive as ever and as anxious to see us as we were to see you. And, Pearl, listen," striving to divert her gaze from those dim, blue ranges, "we ain't been idle. There's some great news for you. You tell her, Gallito."

"Yes," the Spaniard's tone softened a little and he lifted his head with a touch of pride, "it sure is great news. I been in correspondence with Sweeney and he opened up the matter of a contract again. I been dickering with him just the same as if we knew that you were safe and alive. I wouldn't let myself think anything else; and the result, Pearl," he paused, his eyes scanning her face, "the result is that he's just doubled his offer of last year and will play you over a circuit twice as big, the cities only. How does that strike you?"

But there was no answering enthusiasm on Pearl's face, not even a gleam of interest. Gallito and Flick looked at each other in dismay. Her indifference was genuine, they saw that clearly. There was no affected disdain in her manner of receiving the news. It was simply a matter which did not touch her at all.

Seeing this, a slow, burning flush crept up into her father's face, his jaws worked. "Pearl, did you hear?" he demanded, "because if you didn't, you'd better pay attention, and pay attention quick. I've accepted for you, given my word to Sweeney that if you were alive you'd take this offer. And now you and me are going to leave Colina within a few hours, and you're going to leave for good. Understand?"

She smiled in slow, indifferent scorn and answered nothing, and her attitude maddened Gallito. "What do you mean by acting this way?" he cried. "Let's get down to it. Why weren't you down at the gully last night? Wouldn't he let you?" Again he pointed an accusing finger at Seagreave, who stood a little apart watching the scene with folded arms. "Pearl, you answer me, for I'm going to ask you that question straight out now. Ain't you just as good as when you came?"

But Pearl's seven or seventeen devils were in full possession of her now, and one of them, the demon of silence, stood her in good stead, for she knew intuitively that this attitude of non-explanation would prove far more irritating to her inquisitors than the vials of her wrath poured freely upon them.

But Gallito was in a white fury by this time. "By God!" he cried again, "you will answer me. You will tell me, and tell me now."

"I'll be hanged first," she flashed the words at him as a snake darts its fangs.

"And I'll be hanged if you'll ask her such questions before me," cried Seagreave, speaking for the first time.

Her father looked at him with a slow and bitter smile, then he gave a little nod of acrid comprehension. "You keep out of this, Harry Seagreave," he said, in a low, cold, deadly voice. "This is between the girl and me. Pearl, you come with me—now. We leave Colina, as I told you, within a few hours. You come now." He took a step or two down the hill as if expecting that she would follow him.

A wailing wind blew down from the peaks. The mocking bark of a coyote sounded near at hand in those wild solitudes, a bird flew from one tree to another, and the sound of a breaking twig was like a pistol shot.

Moments passed and still Pearl had not obeyed her father's command. It was not repeated, which was characteristic of Gallito. He merely waited until at last she lifted her eyes and unwaveringly met his. "I'm not going," she said clearly.

Harry made a quick, impetuous step toward her, but before he could reach her, her father had caught her by the wrist again and swept her aside.

"Look here, Gallito," cried Seagreave, "since she won't explain, you've got to listen to me. I—"

"I've told you to keep out of this, Seagreave," interrupted Gallito, in his harsh, grating voice. "I'll deal with you later."

But at the sound of Seagreave's voice the color had come back to Pearl's cheek, the light to her eyes. Hands on hips, she swung her skirts and surveyed Bob Flick and her father with a scornful, slanting gaze. "I didn't know that there was anybody in the world that would dare ask me such questions, even you, Pop. And making arrangements with Sweeney without waiting to consult me! And ordering me to leave Colina on two or three hours' notice! Dios!" She spread her hands out on either side of her as if pushing away an impossible thing. "I can hardly believe it. I didn't answer you, Pop, nor you, Bob, because I was trying hard to take things in. But now," she turned to Seagreave, her head lifted higher yet in the glory of joy and pride, "I'm not going to leave Colina—yet, and I'm not going to sign up with Sweeney; am I, Harry?"

Seagreave passed her father and was beside her in two strides. "You're going to do as you please," he said.

She leaned toward him, smiling, her fugitively sweet, tantalizing smile; and, oblivious of the others, Seagreave caught her to him as if he would hold her against the world.

And, seeing this, Bob Flick turned and walked down the hill with never a backward glance.

Not so Gallito; his eyes had darkened, those fierce hawk's eyes; his face was livid. "Pearl," his voice grated in his throat, "you can't make a fool of both me and yourself like this. You are a fool of a woman like all the rest, and because I have the bad luck to be your father I must save you from your own madness. You've got your big chance, the chance you've been waiting for, and you're not going to throw it away now, just because you been staying up in that cabin alone with him until you've lost your wits about him." He indicated Seagreave with a contemptuous jerk of the thumb.

"Seagreave," in cold fury, "you're a damned thief to take advantage of her this way. Now, Pearl, you come on."

He seized her by the wrist and would have drawn her roughly from Harry's encircling arm. She resisted, and Harry, in the strength of his indignation, unloosed the old man's grasp and drew her hastily away. But the touch of his hands had roused in Gallito fresh rage, and with almost unbelievable quickness he lifted his heavy, gnarled stick and swung it above Seagreave's head. Harry leaped back, near, perilously near, the edge of the ravine. The soft, moist earth crumbled beneath his feet; for a second he tottered on the edge, and then went down like a shot.

Pearl stood arrested in that first, quick rush of hers, frozen, gazing in wild unbelief at the spot where Harry had disappeared. As for Gallito, he also gazed almost uncomprehendingly, until the expression of surprise on his livid face gave way to a saturnine and vindictive satisfaction.

"He did it himself," he muttered, "the fool! I never touched him." Then, shrugging his shoulders and spreading out his hands as if well content to leave the matter to fate, he turned and began to walk down the hill, still muttering as he went.

This roused Pearl from her momentary trance. "Father," she cried wildly, "you must help me. You tried to hurt him and now you've got to help me. We must get him. Father, father," she babbled, running after him, "you must stay, you must help me, you must. You can't go and leave him. Oh, stay, stay, and I'll do anything, anything in the world. I'll sign the contract. I'll do anything."

But Gallito went on as if he did not hear her. His own belief was that Harry was done for. There was not one chance in a thousand that he was alive, one chance in a million, considering the depth of the ravine. Well, better so. His conscience was clear. He had not struck him, but had merely lifted his stick in self-defense after Seagreave had laid hands on him. As for Pearl, she would eventually turn to him and agree to his wishes, there was nothing else for her to do. In the meantime, by leaving her to herself, he avoided the unpleasant sound and sight of her grief and reproaches. Therefore, in spite of her passionate pleading, he went on.

And Pearl, finally realizing that she could hope nothing from him, turned and ran back to the ravine. There she threw herself flat on the ground and, groaning and sobbing, drew herself to the edge of the cliff and gazed down into those depths of purple shadow. Much of the snow still lingered, and for a moment in the white, dazzling glare of the sunlight on the steep walls, she could see nothing. Then, as her eye became accustomed to those flashing refractions of light, she gave a loud, sobbing cry, her whole body became strangely limp and inert. For one dreadful moment she feared that she was going to faint. Then she drew on all the strength of her will and was herself again, ready in that moment of poignant relief to dare anything, do anything to save him.

For quite plainly she saw Harry. Instead of whirling down into those impenetrable depths and being buried in the mass of snow at the bottom, he had been caught almost miraculously on the out-curving trunks of two or three young pine trees growing close together and springing from a narrow out-cropping ledge of rock. It was not so very far down, at most not more than thirty feet. "Harry," she cried, "Harry," sending her voice ringing down the chasm; but he did not even stir at the sound, only the narrow walls gave back the echoes. The silence struck the chill of a new terror to her heart, and she sprang to her feet, gazing wildly about her in every direction.

"I must have help. I must have help," she muttered. But, oh, it would take so long to get men from the camp, and all the time she would be gone he would be lying there silent and motionless, perhaps—no, she shuddered, she would not even think the word.

Once more she sent her seeking, despairing gaze over the hillside, and then uttered a sharp, muffled exclamation, for, rising above the jagged walls of the ravine, and not many feet away, climbing, agilely and rapidly, she saw a man. A moment more and she bent forward in a state half of relief and half of superstitious terror, muttering a prayer, almost believing that it was a vision; and then, with a relief beyond all speech, she saw that it was José. She could not be mistaken.

He had pulled himself over the cliff by this time and had cautiously risen to his feet. Up and down the hill and in every direction he sent his sweeping, careful gaze, his far-sighted eyes taking in every detail of the landscape. Then he came toward Pearl, over the bare, brown earth, running low.

"Oh, José, José," she cried, almost hysterical in her relief, "Harry is down there," pointing to the cliff, "hurt, and you must help me get him up, you must."

"Carramba! So that was the noise and screaming I heard in my rock cell yonder, just as I was about to creep out and take a little air. I would not have dared to come so far if I had not seen you here alone." He threw himself on the ground and looked over the cliff. "Saints and devils! It is true. Poor Harry! But you and I cannot get him up alone."

"But we can, we must," she cried imperatively. "Go to his cabin quickly and bring some ropes. There is plenty of strong rope there. You can run more quickly than I. Go."

"But the risk." José shook his head dubiously. "I shall be in full sight all the way."

"What of it?" she cried frantically. "The moments pass and we are doing nothing. No one will see you. Oh, go." Then, as he still hesitated, a sudden thought struck her. She tore open the neck of her gown and drew out the little black leather bag of loose stones. "Look!" she pulled it open and held it out to him that he might see the gleaming jewels inside. "There, will that make it worth your while? They are yours, José, if you will only go."

With a low exclamation of surprise and admiration, José bent over them. Then he looked at Pearl, his eyes alive with darting gleams of avarice. He would have risked his life any time, almost without a thought, in order to gain them, and here without his even lifting a finger, they had fallen into his hands, straight out of heaven. It was evidently a reward for the patience with which he had borne the long days that he had lain hidden in Gallito's rock-hewn chamber in the Mont d'Or.

"It shall never be said of Crop-eared José that he left a friend in distress," he exclaimed virtuously, and, stuffing the little bag in his pocket, sped up the hill.

Uttering broken expressions of relief, Pearl again threw herself flat on the ground and gazed over the edge of the cliff. And, as she lay thus, moaning out passionately tender words which Harry, lying motionless and unconscious, could not hear, a sudden thought struck her. She would go to him. She looked down, far down where those rocky walls lost themselves in indefinite hazes and shuddered; but another glance at Harry and courage flowed to her again. She saw where, on the narrow projecting ledge and on the trunks of those up-springing pines, she could get a foothold near him, if it were but possible for her to climb down. Scanning the wall closely, it seemed to her rough and jagged enough for her to do so with comparative safety.

Just as she reached this decision, she heard a faint holloo from the same direction in which José had come and, turning her head quickly, she saw Mrs. Nitschkan hastening over the hill toward her.

"Gosh a'mighty!" exclaimed the gypsy, when she had come within speaking distance. "What kind of a howdy-do is this? I brought up a bite for José to eat and, although I've stood down there whistling my head off, he never poked his head out of the ground, the jack-rabbit! And the next thing I see is you lying flat in the mud."

"Oh, Nitschkan!" Tears of relief were streaming down Pearl's face. "Thank God that you've come. Harry fell over the cliff. We can see him, and José's gone to the cabin to get ropes."

With many exclamations of surprise Mrs. Nitschkan peered over the edge of the ravine. "Saved by them little sticks of pine trees and a piece of rock no wider than my foot! Ain't that the workings of Providence for you!"

"Is he—is he—do you think he is—" Pearl's voice broke in anguish.

"No, I don't. He ain't lookin' that way," said Mrs. Nitschkan, with such force and heartiness that Pearl was immediately reassured. "He's jus' got the sense knocked out of him. I don't jus' see yet how we're goin' to get the ropes fastened to him, so's he can be drug up."

"I'm going down to him. I'll fasten them."

"You! And yet I don't know but what it ain't best. It'll take all the strength José and I've got to draw him up careful and not go bumping him too much against the rocks."

Pearl took off her shoes, then, shutting her lips tightly and reassuring herself with the knowledge that the rock was rough and she was sure-footed, she lowered herself over the side of the ravine and reached for a foothold. Presently she found it, and then another. Slowly, with cut and bleeding hands, she made her way down. Half way, perhaps, she grasped a little bush which seemed to spring securely from the cliff and held tightly to this until she could grasp another jutting point of rock and then another bush, until at last, with a great sobbing sigh, she found her feet planted on what seemed sure ground. It was the trunks and the outspreading branches of the same pine trees which held Seagreave. She took a second to draw a long breath, and then, holding cautiously to a little branch, she bent over him.

With infinite tenderness she attempted to straighten out one leg which was doubled beneath him, but he moaned and sighed so that she desisted, seeing from the limp way that it lay that it was broken. He had evidently fallen on his back; and like a dagger zig-zagging its way through her heart was the thought, "What if that, too, were broken?"

Oh, how should they get him up without injuring him further and cruelly hurting him with the ropes. And he must be so cold. She shivered herself in the damp, icy air of this ravine. She called up to Mrs. Nitschkan to swing down to her her long cape, which she had discarded before beginning her climb. The gypsy did so carefully, but just as she let the end of it go a gust of wind swept it in slow circles down the ravine.

Mrs. Nitschkan uttered more or less profane exclamations of disgust; but Pearl said nothing. After her first feeling of intense disappointment, a new idea had come to her, and she hastened to act upon it. As quickly as she could with her torn fingers she unfastened her gown and slipped out of it, and then, unheeding Mrs. Nitschkan, who was scolding her like a magpie, she threw it over Seagreave, tucking it about him as best she could. The breath of the snow-damp air upon her shoulders and arms was like a bath of ice water, but she scarcely noticed it, for she heard Mrs. Nitschkan welcoming José.

"Holding cautiously to a little branch, she bent over him."

He and the gypsy immediately began swinging great coils of rope over the cliff.

"Can you get the ropes under him, Pearl, and tie 'em in a kind of cradle?" called Mrs. Nitschkan.

"Of course," she answered, "if you and José will tell me how."

Then, under their direction, she managed to bind the ropes securely about Seagreave, moaning and weeping herself at the pain she evidently caused him, although he did not so far recover consciousness as to realize what was happening to him. When she had finished, she caught another swinging end of rope which they threw her and climbed up the cliff. She took a moment or two to get her breath, and then slowly and with all the care possible under the circumstances, they drew Seagreave up.

"Dios!" cried José, panting, "it is well that you two are so strong, because we have yet to get him to the cabin. Fortunately I, also, have great strength."

After some discussion it was finally decided that Pearl was to hasten on ahead and build up the fires and heat water, while Mrs. Nitschkan and José carried Harry up the hill.

It was for them a slow and difficult progress, but the cabin was finally reached and the gypsy and José laid him on his bed, undressed him and examined his injuries.

Presently Mrs. Nitschkan came into the outer room, where Pearl cowered beside the fire, her hands over her face. She caught imploringly at the other woman's skirt. "Oh, Nitschkan, what is it? Will he live? Tell me, tell me, quick."

"Things might be better and they might be worse, but," with rough good will, "you ain't no call to wear mourning yet. His back ain't hurt serious, but his left leg and his right arm are both broken and he's an awful lot cut and bruised, especially about the back and the head. I can set a leg myself, as good as most, and many a one have I done, but those that I've set 'em for don't always seem to have as good use of their limbs after as before. So if you want him as good as new again, you'd better have a doctor."

"Yes," agreed José, who had come into the room. "They are bad breaks. I, too, can set a leg or an arm, but, as you say, Nitschkan, those for whom I have done it have usually been ungrateful enough not to use them right."

Pearl staggered to her feet. "I will go," she said, "if you two will only stay here and look after him, while I am gone. Oh dear José, promise me that you will not leave Nitschkan alone. You can hide here in the cabin when you see me coming with the doctor."

José's fingers touched the little black bag in his pocket. "Saints and devils!" he cried, expanding his chest, "only a dog would refuse you. Of course I will stay."