The Black Pearl

by Mrs. Wilson Woodrow

Mrs. Nitschkan was on her feet in a minute. The board and the cards fell unheeded to the ground. Her small, quick eyes began to roll ominously and show red, and her relaxed figure became immediately tense and alert as that of a panther on guard.

"Trouble's just beginnin' for you," her voice was a mere guttural growl. "A little more sass from you, you double-j'inted jumpin'-jack dancer, and I'll jerk you to the edge of that cliff yonder and throw you down. I'm feelin' particularly good right now," rolling up her sleeves and showing the great knots of swelling muscles on her arms. "Get out of my way."

With one big sweep of her arm she brushed her companion aside as if she had been a fly; but with incredible rapidity Pearl recovered herself and sprang directly before her.

"Then get me out," she taunted, "try it, try it. I'd slip through your fingers like oil. It's no good to flash your over-sized man-muscles on me; I'm made of whip-cord and whalebone. Do you get that?"

Mrs. Nitschkan's courage sprang from a sense of trained and responsive muscles and of tremendous physical strength, but at the sound of that cool voice, those mocking, unwavering eyes, there swept over her an awe of the slighter woman's far higher courage. It was an almost superstitious fear and respect which chilled the hot blood of her passion, the instinctive obedience of the flesh to the indomitable spirit. Reluctantly, against her will and in spite of her anger, the fighting gipsy paid deference to the steel-like, unflinching quality of the Pearl, when, rising above her slender physique, she faced unafraid the brute strength which threatened her, and dominated the situation by sheer consciousness of power.

The gypsy, chilled and subdued, confused by forces she could not understand, fell back a step or two and Pearl seized this opportunity to slip away, calling a careless good-by over her shoulder.

But the depression which had touched her from the time she wakened now lay heavier on her spirit. Her mind reverted to the cards of ill omen and she shivered with a faint chill of apprehension. And as she walked on it seemed to her that the atmosphere was in tune with her mood.

The air was soft, and yet sharp enough to quicken the color in her cheeks, but still indefinably wistful. The song of the wind among the pines, that mountain wind which never ceases to blow, had a sort of sighing pensiveness in its falling cadences. The deep, blue sky dreamed over the russet tree tops and the yellow leaves filled the forest with their flying gold.

And the spirit of the year seemed to have entered into Pearl. She was as wistful as the day, as pensive as the sighing wind. She arrived early at her destination. The sun lay warm in her little bower of encircling pines and she sat down on a fallen log to await Hanson's coming. He could not take her by surprise for, through a little opening in the trees, she could see the trail, it was in plain view.

Sitting down then to wait, she rested her elbow on her knee and her chin in the palm of her hand. It seemed as if the power of anticipation were gone from her. She wondered dully at her own languor, not only of body, but of mind. In a few moments she would see again the man whom she had passionately loved, and in parting from whom she had not dreamed it to be within human possibility so to suffer, and yet, at the prospect of meeting him again, her heart throbbed not one beat faster. She could not even look forward to dancing that night with any excitement or pleasure. She wondered what Seagreave would think of her when he saw her; she would be a vision far more brilliant than any spirit of the autumn woods, and she would wear her emeralds again, the emeralds for which Bob Flick had squandered a fortune. She put up her hand and touched them where they hung about her neck, concealed under her gown, for she wore them night and day, never allowing them to leave her person. Good old Bob! Seagreave had said there were only a few great dancers. Well, she would show him. She could dance; no matter how critical he was, he would have to admit that. And then her heart seemed suddenly to run down with a queer, cold little thrill.