By the World Forgot: A Double Romance of the East and West

by Cyrus Townsend Brady

She said that she would join him on the strand, and he was confident that somehow she would, and that her presence would bring him fortune; yet, what would happen if she came? His own condition would be changed for the worse immediately, since he would have no friend above to look after his interests. It was to her influence alone that he could look for food. If she were with him, her open defiance of Kobo, Hano, and the others might, and probably would, result in the abandonment of them both. Yet, illogically, but naturally, he longed for her presence as never before. He was proud of her wit and courage, and he longed to tell her that--and other things. He did not think any of the islanders, unless it were Hano, would dare descend into the harbor, which he shrewdly suspected was as taboo as the temple. If any did come, they would have to come one by one, and he could deal with them, if necessary.

The day was almost gone. Before nightfall he was minded to do one thing. He clambered around the rocks to the outer edge of the island and stared eagerly at the barrier. Yes, there on the reef, where it had been hurled or lifted by an unusually great wave or tide coming at the same time, lay the wreck of the whaleboat. It had been firmly fixed on the jagged rocks of the barrier, and as it was just above the assault of any but the highest seas coming at the full flood of the tide, it was still in much the same condition as when he had left it some months before.

There was no way by which he could repair the boat and make it seaworthy. It was of no earthly use to him, yet the sight of it gave him strange comfort. It was something which somehow tied him to his own land and people. He waded and swam out to it and looked it over carefully, observing before he did so that the copper tanks which he had taken from the boat and put in the niche where he had slept the first night on the island, were still there and apparently in good condition. With some vague idea that it might be well if he replaced them in the boat, he swam back across the lagoon, launched the tanks, which floated, proving that they were air-tight; paddled across the lagoon a third time and set them back in their compartments. In one instance, the after end, he found this difficult as he had been compelled to break the catches aft to get it out, but at the other end, the bow compartment, he experienced no trouble. The boards had warped, but by exerting all his strength he got the clamps caught and the tanks replaced. Exactly why he did it, or what he expected from it, he could not tell, but, at any rate, it was occupation. The boat could not take anyone anywhere, but, unless the clamps broke, the tanks would keep it afloat, even if awash, if it were ever washed off that reef.

He got back to the ledge when night fell with the startling suddenness of the tropics. He had made up his mind to sleep where he had slept before: beneath the ledge; but thought better of it. He decided that he ought to be where he had been seen last in case Truda should make any effort to communicate with him. He reasoned, naturally enough, that such an effort would have to be made in the dark to avoid observation. The air at the bottom of the great cylinder, its sides rising about him like the walls of a tower, was cooler than he had been accustomed to. He emptied the mat-like sack, or basket, piling its precious contents high up on the rocks, above any possible tide, and, after he had made a very frugal meal, although he was ravenously hungry after all he had gone through, he ripped the mat apart, hollowed a place for himself in the sand, drew the mat over him and lay there thinking; and, for the first time in days, Stephanie Maynard came into his mind!

Now, there was no disloyalty to Truda in his thoughts of the other woman. He realized that he never had loved her, and he was pretty confident that she had never loved him. The marriage which had been arranged had been one of convenience, purely. He was glad that he had escaped; glad for every experience except that terrible one in the cabin of the Susquehanna. He wondered if, in her heart, Stephanie would not be glad also, and George Harnash. Little things which he had not noticed at the time bulked larger in his imagination now, and he wondered if his friend had not been more interested in his former betrothed than any one had suspected. He thought whimsically that it would be a strange thing if Stephanie and George married eventually, and then his thoughts went further.

Suppose they could prevail upon old Maynard to consent, they might come to search for him as a wedding trip on the great Maynard yacht, the Stephanie. It would be strange, he thought, lifting his head and peering seaward, to wake up some morning and find the yacht in the offing. He knew that was absurd. If he were to get off that island, it would have to be by some other means, and the possibility of escape had grown much fainter since his present misfortune. Well, whatever had been back of that shanghaiing process, and he was as bitterly resentful over it as if it had not brought him happiness, it had resulted in his meeting with the sweetest and most innocent woman on earth, whose love for him had led her to the most amazing sacrifices and exhibitions of courage.

It was a singular commentary on the man's mind that he was as bitter against the men who had shanghaied him as if only misery and sorrow had come to him. He had promised himself many a time if he ever did get free and could find out who was responsible, it would go hard with that man. He would not let the law take charge of his vengeance. He would make it a personal matter. One does not live in the forecastle of a hell-ship like the Susquehanna, where there is no law but that of force, and no right but that of the strong, without getting a new view of individual relation to individual and to the mass. Nor does one live in a tropic island with no law at all, except the taboos of vague superstition, without intensifying that personal element.

Presently, Beekman's thoughts turned to Truda. Lightly, he forgot Stephanie. All his hardships, the horrors of that forecastle, the tragedy of that cabin, even the events of the day, faded from his mind. He saw her white-skinned, golden-haired, blue-eyed and passing fair. He recalled her passionate devotion, her wit, her courage. He stared upward to the top of the cliff, cutting a black line across the stars at the place where he had seen her for the first time. He could shut his eyes and see her still. He tried it again and again, and by and by his eyes did not open. He fell sound asleep.

He was not aware that in the still watches of the night a figure bent over him. Someone knelt beside him. A listening ear was held close to him as if seeking for reassurance that he breathed, and then there was a stealthy withdrawal and the figure slipped down upon the sand and sat watching him. It was not until the sun struck through the entrance upon his face that he opened his eyes. The first object that met his vision was Truda. She was half seated, half reclining on the sand just out of touch, looking at him as she had watched throughout the night.

"Truda," he cried, raising himself at once and throwing aside the mat, "how did you come here?"