CHAPTER XVII.—Disciplined by a Woman.
Lentala’s Odd Mistake. Beela Finds Me Refractory. The Deep-Laid Plan of Gato. Christopher and I Charged With Service to the Old King.
SLEEP held away that night. The revelations of the privy council had been startling. Some things were clear. One was that the king was a shrewd, easy-going, kindly man, vastly wiser than his subjects, and finding it simpler to rule them by pampering their superstitions than by raising them to his own understanding. Another was that he felt himself on the edge of a crisis, saw no way to avert a possible catastrophe, and was facing it with a paralyzing dread.
Lentala, fresh and radiant, brought our breakfast. Except for her color, not a trace of savagery remained about her. Her dress was a simple house-frock of fine white linen, and of a modern style. Her hair was done exactly like Annabel’s.
It did not improve her appearance. Had she been white, there would have been no touch of the incongruous. But in this fresh, sweet daintiness, much of her savage splendor had been sunk, and I felt a keen disappointment. The former Lentala, for all her barbarity, had never seemed an alien, but more a bringing back to me of a deeply rooted principle fundamental in my heritage.
She appeared to expect a compliment; but how could I be otherwise than sincere with her? Our greetings were pleasant; yet her clothes had set a constraint between us.
“You don’t like my dress, Mr. Tudor?” she ruefully asked.
“It is exquisite, Lentala, and——”
“I made it all myself, from a picture in a book out of your ship! I thought you would like it. Doesn’t Annabel dress this way?”
“Yes; but in the native dress your beautiful, rich color——” I paused in my floundering for a delicate way in which to say it. “Annabel is white, you know,” I blundered.
Foreseeing my explanation, she had turned flutteringly away before my final words came, and was still holding the empty copper tray on which she had brought our breakfast. It fell with a clatter; her back was turned to me when she picked it up in confusion.
“A white woman!” She did not look at me. “Yes, she can wear dainty things and be sweet; but a brown savage woman——”
I had risen from my seat at the table and was advancing toward her. She turned and faced me defiantly, backing away, her eyes flashing. In another second, with a lightning change which showed her near kinship with Beela, she smiled sweetly, and asked with a dash of her old coquetry:
“Would you like Lentala better if she were white and pink like Annabel?”
“How could I like Lentala white more than Lentala brown, since, first and last, it is Lentala that I like?”
She frowned comically in an effort to puzzle some sense out of that speech.
“I mean,” I added, laughing at her perplexity, “that I like Lentala because she is Lentala, not because she isn’t some one else.”
That was another poser, and she made just such a little wry face over it as I had seen Beela make many a time. Her face brightened as she made a dash at a short cut out:
“Do you like me because I’m brown?”
“That is a question! It isn’t because you aren’t white that I like you.”
“Could you like me if I were white?” She stamped impatiently.
“I’d try to,” I sighed.
She made a little pout, stuck up her chin, turned stiffly, and went out with great dignity. It was the Lentala of the feast!
Beela entered when we had finished breakfast. In her rough clothes and tightly bound hair, she made so sharp a contrast to Lentala that, for a moment, I could not think of her as a girl, but as the dear lad whom I had lost. She had none of her brilliant sparkle now, and my heart ached to see the weariness and anxiety that she tried so bravely to conceal.
“What’s afoot for today, dear little brother?” I cheerily inquired.
She was regarding me solemnly. “You’ve had your wish, I suppose. You’ve seen Lentala this morning.”
“Yes. She brought our breakfast. She’s an angel.”
“Pooh!” Beela was bored. “I’ve seen her. She looked a fright in those clothes. Trying to ape Annabel! She ought to have better sense. I know you were disgusted.”
“Beelo!”
“Don’t talk! I know.”
“You are tired and cross this morning, lad.”
She flopped into a chair, very glum. “Women are such fools!” she grumbled.
“Now I am grieved to learn that Lentala is not a woman, for she could never be a fool.”
Beela looked at me with sad reproach, and shook her head.
“Just now,” I went on, “she was a rich red rose sparkling with morning dew. Her smile started all the birds to singing. She——”
“Choseph!” She stamped the floor, much as Lentala had done, but a smile fringed her frown. “You know she made a fright of herself trying to look like Annabel,—and with that ugly brown face!”
“No, no, Beelo. The only trouble was that Lentala is too modest to realize how splendidly perfect she is as Lentala.”
“But wasn’t she still Lentala in those silly clothes?”
“She was as much less Lentala as her effort to be something else succeeded in making her.”
Beela looked puzzled exactly as Lentala had.
“But her heart is broken!” she cried. “She says that you laughed at her, and spoke in riddles!”
“I laughed with her, Beelo, not at her; and the riddles were a bit that I put in my mouth.”
“Why?”
“The temptation to say beautiful things to Lentala that might sound insincere is strong.”
She rose, with a confusion that was half amusement, and tried to hide the light in her eyes.
“Come, Choseph! There is much to do today.”
“I must see Lentala first.”
She could not mistake my seriousness. “Why?” in surprise.
“I won’t have her unhappy over that trifling incident. She is too sensitive,—she misunderstood. I must see her, lad.” I started for the door.
“Choseph!” came breathlessly. “Don’t!”
I turned.
“Don’t look at me that way!” she exclaimed in genuine alarm. Christopher was moving round toward the door for which I had started.
“What way?”
“As though—as though you’d break down doors and kill anybody that stood in your way!”
“I want to see Lentala.”
“You can’t! She—she’s undressed. I’ll tell her. She’ll be satisfied.”
“Will you, lad? Thank you.”
She began making some preparations about the room. “You ought to be kept tied, Choseph,” she said, half to herself. “I never know what you are going to do next.” Yet a sweet note in her voice sounded low.
She came and stood before me, looking me straight in the eyes.
“I was going to give you and Christopher very delicate and important work to do this morning, Choseph, but I’m afraid you’ll do something rash and ruin us all.”
I felt the sting. “Trust me, little brother.”
She shook her head in trouble. “You’re not sly, Choseph; you’re not cunning and patient. Those are what are needed now. You have enough courage.”
“Trust me, lad.”
“You are to meet King Rangan, Choseph, and you are to do everything that he wishes you to do. You may think you ought not.”
“If you say that I ought, I will.”
“I do say so. If you refuse, or show temper, or do anything that a Senatra wouldn’t do, all is lost. Do you understand?”
“I am not a fool, Beelo.”
“Choseph! That was temper.”
“Trust me, lad,” I begged.
“It is very dangerous work—terribly so if you make a mistake.”
“There will be no mistake.”
“The king is much broken. He is growing old, and the problem of the colony is wearing on him. Choseph, will you think of him as kind and gentle, and as meaning well?”
“Yes.”
“And will you watch Christopher? Sometimes he understands more than you or I.”
“I will.”
“Very well.” Beela was much relieved. “Now I’ll explain. The king is failing rapidly. He needs such friends as you and Christopher, and———”
“Such friends as we, when he is holding us as fattening cattle?”
“Choseph!” Beela’s voice rang sharp, and she angrily stamped. Then came a hopeless look.
I took her hands. “Come, dear friend,” I pleaded. “That was the last. I am wholly in your hands. And remember, there is always Christopher.”
She turned away with a sigh, and began to put finishing touches to our efforts at the restoration of neatness in the room. She was evidently gathering herself, for presently she came and took a seat facing me, Christopher standing. Her manner was serious.
“This is the case,” she said: “The king has meant always to be kind to Lentala and me, and we are grateful. We love the queen dearly. We would lay down our lives before permitting any harm to befall them.”
Her emotion made her pause.
“Serious dangers are threatening them now,—more than they suspect,—and these have come because of your people. Before that, only one or two would be cast up from the wrecks. They gave no trouble.”
Horror came into her face, and she looked away.
“I always supposed that they were sent off,” she resumed. “Never once did I suspect the truth until shortly before your party came, and then my affection for the king died in me, and I was sick at heart. I don’t think the queen knows the truth to this day. I think the king would have stopped it long ago, but for Gato, who wanted to use it to keep the natives in savagery. He is a bad man, with great power. When your large party came, he saw a way to break the king, stir the people to rebellion, kill the king and queen, and take the throne himself.”
“Does Gato suspect that you know this about him?” I asked in astonishment.
“No. There is where our safety lies. I never should have suspected him if he hadn’t made love to Lentala and told her that if she would marry him she would soon be queen,—the beast! Then we watched and found out.”
After a thoughtful pause she proceeded:
“Gato is secretly stirring up the people. I have no doubt that he is about ready to strike. His plan will be this, I think: The palace guard are men whom he can trust to do his work; he will kill everybody here, and then take the army into your valley and slaughter all but a few. He will keep those for the sacrifices. It was he that induced the king to use Mr. Vancouver as your traitor. But, unlike the king, he doesn’t care how many natives might be killed in a fight with the colony when he has made himself king.”
She was regarding me curiously.
“And what are Christopher and I to do?” I cheerfully asked.
“Let me tell you some things before that,” she answered, but with hesitancy. “You won’t be hurt with me, Choseph, and you won’t be angry?”
“Assuredly not, dear lad.”
“I told Captain Mason all these things when I went into the valley the last time.” She waited anxiously.
“I am very glad of that,” I brightly answered.
She was much relieved, and with a sudden dash came over and squeezed my hand.
“You are really my dear big brother!” she said, and demurely resumed her seat. “I told him something else,” she went on with more confidence. “It was to have his entire colony ready to move at a moment’s notice,—not to bring anything with them, except all the food they could carry, but to be prepared at any time of the day or night to march in perfect silence out of the valley.”
“To the ship!” I exclaimed.
She smiled. “I advised him to pick some cool, trustworthy men to take charge of the march.”
“He said———?”
“That he already had his men chosen, and was glad that Hobart didn’t have to come out with me. He said it would be the making of Rawley to come, and that you would understand.”
I did at last. There was something almost magical in Captain Mason’s ability to dig the manhood out of men.
“And now for your work and Christopher’s,” resumed Beela. “I will take you to the king as English-speaking natives from the mountains beyond the valley on the west, which you have not seen. As I have told you, the natives there are wilder and fiercer than these, have little intercourse with them, and are largely independent. Their blood has mingled with that of a few castaways, and they are brighter. On this side is the ancient race, simple, gentle, dull. The king is proud of it, and wishes to keep it pure. But he will welcome the other men in this emergency, particularly if they speak English.”
“Has he full confidence in Gato?” I inquired.
“I think he is growing suspicious.”
“And we?”
“You are to be the king’s confidential agents; to find out, independently of Gato, all that is afoot; to be ready to protect the king; and especially to treat with the colony if any trouble should rise from that source. Is it all clear?”
“Nearly. We are to guard the king and maintain his authority at any cost?”
Beela studied me uneasily. “Yes, at any cost,” she slowly answered.
“I was thinking of Gato,” I explained. “We are to resort to any measures with him, however extreme, if we have good reason to think them necessary?”
“Yes,” somewhat anxiously. “What do you mean, Choseph?”
“Anything that may be wise and prudent.”
She glanced down. She made no reply, but gave this warning, still not looking up:
“Take no chances with him. When you strike, which you must, sooner or later, let the blow be swift and sure.”
“What will become of the army when he is out of the way?”
The question troubled her. “It is very uncertain,” she answered. “There may be leaders under him who are in his confidence. They or one of them may take command and lead the army against the palace.”
She sprang to her feet and glanced about.
“Let’s go to the king at once,” she said. “Lentala told him about you and promised to have you there by this time. I fear that Gato has already returned with his report of the Face with its open mouth and purple flame.”
“Just one thing, dear lad,” I interrupted. “I wish to see Lentala first.”
Her adaptability was as quick as a child’s. The seriousness which she had worn flashed into a teasing quirk of the mouth.
“What for?”
“You know very well.”
“Choseph,” she said, solemnly wagging her head at me, “how can you think of girls at such a time as this? Lentala would have too much sense to see you now. Come with me to the king.”