As It Was in the Beginning

by Philip Verrill Mighels

He lost no time in arranging a number of his snares and traps for the meat of which they were in need. Their camp was made as before on the terrace proper, despite the heat of the sun.

It was not until many of these essential comforts had been once more established that Sidney explored the gallery to determine what destruction had been wrought by his double mine.

Everything stored in the lower depths had been hopelessly buried by the rock. The passage was open for no more than half its former length. His bamboo raft was among the possessions sacrificed to the ruse that had finally succeeded beyond even his wildest dreams. Not ten feet back of his basket-load of treasure the last of the caving had been halted.

When Elaine's robe and couch, their water-jugs, and his last remaining bomb had been once more returned to the earlier camp, practically nothing but the gold and precious stones remained in the gallery. Elaine was aware the trinkets were lying there on view, but so vast was her relief at the vanishment of danger—though it might be temporarily only—she had no desire for gauds and baubles, and no particular curiosity respecting their worth or appearance.

Indeed, these two had endured too much to dwell upon jewels and gold. They were free from menace for a time, but—the future still loomed before them, inimical and obscure. Their life in this tropic exile was still to be faced, day after day.

That morning and long sweet afternoon, however, they passed in restful inactivity, possessed by ineffable thankfulness and a sense of relief that was utterly relaxing to their racked and exhausted nerves. It seemed a strange, impossible state, this peacefulness, security, and freedom to move about once more, alone in their Shalimar. And Grenville knew it was far too good to last.

Yet for several days it seemed as if the propitiating Fates made every possible endeavor to erase from the tablets of their memory all records of the agonies and apprehensions they had recently undergone.

They were wonderful days, for sheer inspiriting beauty. A cool, spicy breeze was wafted, with the sunshine, across the smiling ocean. The jungle was redolent of fragrances of intoxicating sweetness. Down on the beach her leafy bower once more found Elaine idly resting in her hammock, or busily preparing a tempting repast from the once more generous larder.

The girdle of gold she continued to wear in happiness that stole unbidden to her heart—a happiness as subtle and welcome as the perfumes that stole to her senses on the breeze. And when she finally found and plucked a solitary lotus blossom, floating near the estuary's edge, it seemed as if the ecstasy possessing all her nature must bring about some miracle of untold joy and bliss.

Grenville was hardly less transported by the hourly pleasures that day and night alike seemed bearing to this island world, like argosies from Eden. Subconsciously, beneath it all, he knew the boats that had sailed away would one day return, perhaps with more of their species, and better prepared for a swift and merciless revenge. Yet even then he was slow to employ his wits and energies to prepare for another siege, his disinclination for more revolting ordeals casting a lethargy on all his fighting attributes, while days like these, voluptuously serene and toxicant, suggested vast contentment to his spirit.