Wings of the Wind

by Credo Fitch Harris

"No," I cried. "But for two days I can't tell you how I love you; how you're the very breath of my life, the control of my brain and body and soul, how I'll finally win you against everything! I'll see you, and be with you, but for two long, weary, interminable days I can't tell you that!"

"Mightn't you," she smiled, a wee bit naughtily, "remind me each morning of those things you must not tell me during the two long, weary, interminable days? Then you wouldn't be so likely to forget, and break your contract."

"Temptress! I wish we'd walked to the fort!" For, while we stood out of hearing, we were still in sight of the others.

"So do I," she laughed now, her eyes expressive of a most fascinating wickedness, a daredeviltry born of the knowledge that the proximity of outsiders made her safe. Tommy says that girls often take this unfair advantage of a fellow. Then Monsieur, believing the time for explanations should be up, came toward us.

At three o'clock our cavalcade started across the prairie for Efaw Kotee's settlement. Tommy and Monsieur were keen to see it, and especially was the latter keyed up to ransack the place for proofs and information. Smilax led, keeping away from the graves. Doloria had made no reference to casualties, accepting them as an unfortunate necessity, and only once asked about the old chief's fate.

I looked back at the Oasis growing small behind us and a great sorrow came over me. It was not easy to leave the place where I had found such happiness, the place sacred to our vows, our first dwelling together beneath God's tent! It lay green and peaceful, but now upon a blackened sea. And, like that flame-swept land, so was my flame-swept heart; the fire of a resistless passion had passed over it, leaving amid the ashes one spot of beauty. She, also, had stopped to look at it and, as she turned away, our eyes met.

When we approached the islands I went forward with Tommy and Smilax, leaving Gates to command the rear guard composed of his two sailors, Bilkins and Monsieur. Echochee, supremely content to have found Doloria, remained at her side.

Four of the attacking party had escaped and might well have returned to their houses. We favored the theory, too, that Efaw Kotee had remained there, expecting his band to capture us; so, if the fugitives were with him, they could by now have prepared a formidable resistance. We therefore went warily up to a certain point and waited while Smilax crawled forward to reconnoiter.

He returned saying that three punts were on our side, from which he believed the men had not come back but were still putting as much distance between themselves and us as possible. Tommy thought the punts might mean a trap and, although Smilax shook his head in doubt at this, we brought up one of the sailors to cover our crossing in case of an attack. Then, scrambling down the steep bank, in less than a minute we stood upon the island stronghold. No shot had been fired, no sign of life existed anywhere. Running to the nearest cabin we hastily searched it, and ran to the next, and in this way came finally to the old chief's bungalow. Here we halted, as if some horrible magic had turned us to stone.

Efaw Kotee, naked to the waist, a few dried smears of blood around his mouth, was there to meet us. His lips munched the air, as a very old man who interminably chews on nothing, and his chest rose convulsively, then rested several seconds before renewing its struggle for breath. He was repulsive beyond all human description; for, stretched as an animal skin to dry, legs and arms pulled wide apart with buckskin thongs, he had been fastened head down on the wall beside his door. Yet this was not all. Hanging at the end of a string—in fact, now resting inertly against his cheek—was the scarlet, black and yellow ringed body of a coral snake, the deadly elaps. Its head had been severed and lay upon the floor directly underneath.