w: vcm. Am Wti tlVERN EUR M6Mli 35^5 PS3525.0752lv8"'""'"-''''^'^ Tfie voice in the rice, 3 1924 009 600 077 The original of tliis book is in tlie Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924009600077 We paused, side by side, for some moments, before attempting tlie manoeuvre" (P^ge 3) We have read the poets together, Alice in Wonder- land, and Pickwick. Our friendship is growing old as the bills. But it is a one-sided affair. I have had from you, whenever I was minded to use them, food, smoke, drink, bed, a razor, the open fire, and the affectionate welcome, under the hospitable roof: a horse to ride on, a table to write on; new and ad- mired friends, and now and again a nearby look at the celebrated and the great. To meet this preposterous bill I have never had any funds, save affection for you, and belief in you. But I shall not easily square the matter with these; for such funds are yours, too, to draw from, and for many years now and with both hands you have showered them on me. It were laughable to suppose that a grown man should offer, as a return for so much, an incompetent romance (and one of his own into the bargain). Don't suppose it. For this, my friend is not properly a dedication to you, of a book; it is rather an open, and an unashamed confession of bankruptcy. , G. M. Aiken, S. C. CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I Two Bunglers i II The Hunchback 5 III An Independent State ... 20 IV A Prisoner in the Santee . . 31 V The Voice in the Rice ... 38 VI Jailers to Dinner .... 45 VII Lawn Tennis 53 VIII Lord Nairn 60 IX A Drill in Anti-Venom . . 66 X Bitten 76 XI Another Disappointment . . 82 XII A Pretty Talk with Lord Nairn 88 XIII Challenged 95 XIV Tragic End of a Farce . . . loi XV Lord Nairn Leaves His Chair at Home 108 XVI The Next Morning . . . . 121 XVII A Change of Front .... 129 XVIII Just Before the Wedding . . 135 XIX The V^edding 141 XX The Match 148 ILLUSTRATIONS "We paused, side by side, for some moments, before at- TEMPTING TO MANCEUVRE (PaGE 3) . ., Frontispiece FACING PAGE " We had splendid shooting for an HOUR, during which Coffee Pot served us with a delicious break- fast " 14 " Had it not been for the voice in the rice I must have succumbed then and there to one or both of them " 42 "At the landing a very beautiful GIRL, dressed for TENNIS, WAS STEPPING out of A canoe" (Page 55) . - • 72 " He looked very helpless in his chair, AS IF HIS ogress OR GIANT OR CYCLOPS mother HAD deposited HIM THEREIN WHILE SHE RAN TO THEIR MAMMOTH CAVE TO FETCH HIS BOTTLE " (PaGE 6o) IO4 "Then everything stood still" (Page 80) 144 ^^saI^>NC=^^^j!^ I. TWO BUNGLERS The night came on monstrously rough and windy, but clear. I remem- ber how when the S. S. Major Pickins rolled, the stars flew past my port like streams of sparks from the smokestack of a locomotive. You weren't safe in your berth, or out of it. We had on board a number of horses, with their grooms, bound for New York from various winter resorts in the South, and during a particularly violent lurch of the vessel one of these poor beasts fell and splintered its leg, and could be heard screaming with the pain, like a lost soul, until mercifully put to death. The passengers were mostly servants of Northern families, and whether they were more sick than fright- ened, or more frightened than sick, was a question for a more experienced seafarer than myself. We made slow work of it; the anti- quated engine was loose in the pins; the coal supply at Charleston for the run to New York clinkered into obdu- rate masses, impermeable to flame, and the wind and seas came against us like all possessed. If the captain could [I] M ^^ THE VOICE IN THE RICE have seen his way to it he would have turned and run back to port; but he did, not believe that his command could weather a turn. Her best chance was to buck the seas. About midnight the weather thick- ened over one star after another till all were gone. I went on deck. Here was a pretty clean sweep. Two of our port boats were gone, and I noticed (with a wicked clutch at the hand line along the deck-house) that there was no longer a port rail between me and the ocean. But I was determined on one point: that I would not soon again return to my coffin of a berth, with Its stale smells. Its impossible sudden dives and plunges, and its loathsome suggestions of cockroaches and worse. Clinging with all my might and caution to the hand line, and averting my eyes from the dizzyfying gap In the rail, I moved cautiously forward in the lee of the deck-house. When the Major Pickins rolled to starboard I lay, as it were, upon the side of the deck-house, as upon a slant of roof, but when she elevatored down, down to leeward, I could hardly keep a semblance of footing, and was left, to all Intents and purposes, hang- ing by my hands alone. Now and then I could hear, following a thunder- ing concussion forward, the sound of solid water mill-racing aft along the star-board deck, or, from deep within [2] TWO BUNGLERS '^^i the bowels of the ship, the retching f groan of overstrained iron. Presently I was aware of a man pro- . gressing slowly toward me, his face to ^ the deck-house and his hands carefully overhauling the line. When we came close together I was still wondering how ve were to pass each other safely, and the same thought must have been in his head, for, having met, we paused, side by side, for some moments, before at- tempting the manoeuvre. Presently he turned his face toward me; it was wet with sea water; a shrewd, lively face, with a grey moustache and goatee. "We're right off the Santee," he said, or shouted, for there was an infer- nal din going on, " that's why it's so rough. It will be smoother directly. I have been in the pilot-house talking with the captain. Now I am going down to see after my horse — a lovely mare, sir." "Will you pass outside or inside?" I shouted; "whichever you say." " As the older man," he said, his eyes twinkling, " I had better be the pivot, sir. Let us wait until our side of the vessel is about to be uppermost — now, sir — as we are rising — as we are rising." I loosed my left hand and passed it around his back, and once more gripped the line. " So," said he, " keep her so until the next roll." [3] Tf ni w THE VOICE IN THE RICE I waited then until the deck began ; once more to press against the soles of , , my feet; let go my right hand — and/^), Heaven alone knows exactly what hap-^ ,^^ pened. I have thought, however, that -^^^^ as the ship was staggering up from the long roll to leeward, she was suddenly -/beaten down, and back — as a fighter, rising from a knockdown blow, gets to his knees and is once more felled by an adversary who has momentarily passed beyond the restraint of the rules. But I know that while my right hand was holding to nothing, the stranger's weight came suddenly full force against my chest, and tore loose the grip that I had of the line with my left hand — that he turned and clutched me, and that, locked like a pair of dancers, we slipped and revolved in a kind of lugu- brious waltzing, upright, without cry or comment, down the slant of slippery deck, through the long gash in the port rail, and into the sea. The heavy im- pact separated us, and I have never seen that cheery, twinkling face from that day to this, nor known who he was, nor who mourned for him. WM l!\ [4] -i& i A TRAINED journalist will fall over- board (for pay) and describe you cer- j^ tain phases with such excellent judgment W and selection as to give you a proper no- tion of the whole. I am not a trained journalist, and, furthermore, my chute came with unfair suddenness, and I did not enter the sea with a mind focussed to selection before description. What there was left of my mind was wholly taken up with the fact that the water was very much warmer than the air; and it must have been instinct, set to work by this, that started me stripping off my coat, and clutching, as I was rolled and tossed and smothered, after my bootlaces. Not for many seconds, I am sure, did it enter my head to look for the ship or to call for help. From the top of a wave to which I had made a sudden and involuntary ascent I caught a glimpse of the Major Pickins' lights in the windward smother ; and, as I shot downward from the eminence, a choice of cries struggled in my mouth, I had an insane hesitation between "Help" and "Man overboard"; chose the former as the more piercing, -^—^> [5] J ». f mm THE VOICE IN THE RICE and, in the moment of uttering it, had my mouth filled to the brim with water, ^ and never cried out at all. To get undressed obsessed me. And - whenever I could draw two lungs full of air I let the sea have its will of me, the while I ripped at shoelaces and but- . tons, and kicked and twisted myself free of this and that. Being at length naked, and in no fear of becoming wa- ter-logged, I tried to think out a plan. But there was nothing to that. To breathe in well-chosen moments, and to keep afloat with the least possible exer- tion, destroyed all powers of inaugu- ration. I could recollect, but I could not plan. It did not yet occur to me that the chance acquaintance with whom I had gone overboard might be in worse plight than I; might, as against a life- long experience and delight In swim- ming, not have the learning to swim a stroke; might, as against entering the water without any strain, have been crippled from the very outset. It was fifteen or twenty minutes before I thought of these things, and by then I was more tired than I liked, and in no mood to pity another. Nor have I ever thought, perhaps, quite as I should about that sudden drowning of a cheer- ful man in the night. Perhaps I shall. It comes home to me the more as time passes. I never reached the last throes of ex- [6] ■ill THE HUNCHBACK haustion, nor near them. I kept expect- J^^ i"g to. But I was in splendid condition, r A after the long winter of hunting, and^^K^M^ lawn tennis, and a youth full of con- % Wm 1 1 i, w I 1 m w -s— ^> tempt for spirits and tobacco; a good fortune, I must believe, rather than a desert. It was easy enough to keep alive in the big seas, and they must have car- ried me swiftly shoreward; but the sen- sation was of being in mid-ocean, half- way between Charleston and Gibraltar. It was a growing regularity in the waves with which I swam that prompted me to think that I was nearing land, and presently I heard, far ahead, a thunder- ous booming, as of surf upon a beach. Had the undertow been at all commen- surate with the rush and charge of the surf I must have bobbed about in the ofBng until strangled. But I have been more put to it to make a landing at Bailey's Beach in Newport through surf that hardly looked the name. You ad- vance upon a wave, and, when that has escaped from under your clutch, you make a stout fight not to be sucked back- ward; the next wave advances you a little farther; you make a still stouter struggle, and so on. You must swim high, you must save a stroke whenever it is possible, and you must have swum strongly since childhood, and that is all there is to landing through surf — unless in the last shallows you get so rolled [7] THE VOICE IN THE RICE M \fl h m rm- vi -~. ) and choked and battered that you lose all presence of mind and your last ves-'-^kKL tige of strength. _ \X^ I noted with the most dismal forebod- '.-? ^,f/l ings how cold the air was after the water. I was upon a stretch of hard, fine sand; of what extent, whether con- tinent, island or seaward rock, I could not guess. And the gale blowing upon my wet and open-pored nakedness (for I must have sweated profusely in the long swim) froze me to the marrow. I made an effort to find shelter, crossing the upward slope of the beach, and then descending, but only to find my feet among sharp marsh grasses that stuck like bayonets from an oozy mud. The night was dark as pitch, and I dared not advance in that direction. Nothing was open for me then, till daylight, but the beach, and returning I com- menced to run gingerly up and down, swinging my arms violently across my chest, like a New York cab-driver on a winter night. Dawn came at last, showing upon the one hand a wild, white-maned sea, and upon the other, marsh and waterway, and waterway and marsh, and woody island and pond, and pond and woody island. And beneath my feet a splendid speedway, as it were, of white sand stretching inimitably north and south. Had I been an amphibian I must have thought myself upon the very boundar- [8] 'U- / ^^ fl' THE HUNCHBACK les of my paradise, but I was a cold, naked man, heartily sick of the am-r^-A v phibious parts of amphibianism. ,"%^ The discordant cries of gulls rising'''^ y' by thousands from the marshes pierced "^i' the ear. Hundreds of shore birds, tired and discouraged by the storm, fed tamely in the shallow laps of water that ran up the beach after each thunderous bursting of a wave. The marsh at the back of the beach, into which I had in- advertently stepped during the night, was alive with myriads of fiddler-crabs, scuttling busily among the sharp, sparse grasses. I had never seen a region so full of life, nor so lonesome. For want of a better offering I went south along the beach, only to find that it was by no means an illimitable high- way, but was broken and crossed by little streams and rivulets of marsh water, and, within a mile, by a wide river mouth. One thing was of comfort. The loud voice of the wind, as if by some magic of the full tide about to turn, had fallen to a whisper; and here and there through the grey daybreak the sun had stabbed out a ray. In a hollow of sand I found three seagull eggs, fresh enough to swallow; and, with the fear upon me of all known and unknown fevers, I rinsed my parched mouth and throat with river water. Then I retraced my steps and passed a mile or so beyond my [9] 1' fiiva « t\ THE VOICE IN THE RICE landing-place. The shore birds, thanks to the falling wind, and disturbed, no?;^,], v doubt, by me, began now to resuniei ^,\^^ their northern migration, flying In little ^ vll^ flocks from headland to headland of the '^i;;;* beach, or in great flocks and in great e swinging curves out over the still ■' -/wildly-troubled sea. The tide, by now setting out, kept uncovering Inch by inch the black, shellfishy feeding grounds of the gulls; and these fed, fought, piled upon each other, and screamed without decency or regard for the near- ness of man. The swamp on my left became wetter and wetter, until presently It was all water, and I stood at the beginning of a long, narrow lake, that had for Its eastern side banks of reeds and river sand, and for its western, holding straight on like a fine causeway, the beach itself upon which I was stranded. The two shores of the lake seemed to merge half a mile away, but whether or not the beach Itself extended any farther in that direction was guesswork. If not I was so badly shipwrecked that It was not pleasant to think about. What should I do for food when the gulls had finished the business of rais- ing their young, and what in the mean- time for pure water ? My body was no more bare of clothes than my mind of comfort, and while I stood, trying to make head against an [lO] iL I 1 THE HUNCHBACK incipient rising of panic, I heard from 4 the farther end of the lake two reports of a shotgun, very faint, but compact and distinct, and before I had even set out to run toward them they were fol- lowed by two more. My case was not unlike that of the / /many-wiled Odysseus when he heard the f voices of the girls at play; but unlike him I had no branch of a tree with which to cloak my unconventional ad- vance. Yet I so wished to get to the owner of that shotgun, man, woman or child, before that owner got away from me, that I raced along the half-mile of beach in an unabashed delirium of hope ["^ i and excitement. Twice more the shot- gun reported, and I was soon near enough to see that there was an artistic flock of wooden curlew stuck into the beach, beyond the reach of the waves, and convenient to a blind built of driv- ing sea-weeds and jetsam. My burst of speed being spent, I relapsed into a trot, and then walked. When I was within thirty yards of the blind, an old- ish man, very much humped in the back and thin to emaciation, rose, hopped nimbly out, and advanced to meet me — one hand held up, palm forward, with a kind of deprecating gesture, " No hurry, sir — no hurry," he said. " Won't you walk into the blind, sir, and rest yourself?" He had a pleasant, chirping voice, [II] if BK.f THE VOICE IN THE RICE ! );;\ I a clean-shaven skeleton of a face, at J once humorous and bitterish. " And now, sir," said he, when we had shaken hands and were seated in the blind, " don't say that you are a spontaneous creation of these beaches." I told him my misadventure briefly. yj "Well, well," he said; "and are you Z/ warm enough?" What with the running, and the sun now hotly shining, I was; but I apol- ogised for my nakedness. " I assure you," he said, " that to one of Attic proclivities you are wel- come as you are. And a handsome fig- ure you cut running down the beach I You have learned your running in a good school — Harvard — Yale?" "Yale," I said. " When you first appeared," he said, " I called to Coffee Pot. I said : ' Coffee Pot, there is a saying that naked, all men are equal. To disprove it, look yonder. There comes a university man!'" The hunchback turned and spoke to a clump of reeds in a strange tongue. At once from the clump came, fawning and rubbing his hands, a black, formidably big negro. " This is Coffee Pot," said the hunch- back. " He once spilled a boiling pot of coffee upon Lord Nairn. Hence the name. It is one of derision, shame and ignominy. He smarts under it as un- [12] |4 w I' i li KV THE HUNCHBACK der a whip." He spoke again in the strange tongue, and the negro disap- peared among the reeds. '^w^'' " I have told him to make you a cup V. v*^ iMwf^ of coffee, sir," said the hunchback, un,/^ " and to serve you with a little lunch. Since introductions are going " — he Dowed, and laid a hand upon his nar- 'row, peaked chest — " Sir Peter Moore," he said, " at your service." " I am Richard Bourne," I said, " at ypurs." But I wondered how he could be a Sir — for he had no more of an English- man's manner of speech or greeting than I myself; less, if anything. He had, you might say, an isolated effect, as if he had invented himself, his way of doing things, his way while saying things, and even his quality of voice. While coffee was brewing. Sir Peter asked me if I was an athlete in more ways than one. " You are very huge, you know," he said, " and I have seen you run. Do you shoot? " " A little," I said. " Delightful! " he said. " I have an extra gun along — both are by Purdy, sir, of London." He passed me a beau- tiful weapon, which I handled and ad- mired, and put to my shoulder. " Well, sir," he said, " we are miss- ing the shooting. There are shells. I came down because of the storm; for- [13] THE VOICE IN THE RICE tunate for you, sir. There is always fine J birding at this season, after a storm. If Now, sir, if you are loaded we will keep'^'Aj 1/ Aavan " L t if -=— ^^> But almost before the words were out S/k?M of his mouth he had darted to his feet, and fired twice into a wisp of robin- snipe that had suddenly swung over the decoys. Three fell, head over heels. Sir Peter crouched and reloaded. We had splendid shooting for an hour, during which Coffee Pot served us with a delicious breakfast of coffee, bacon, sandwiches, cold corn pone and strawberries. " I keep thinking. Sir Peter," I said, " with immense gratitude, of the change made by you in my mental outlook. Be- ing cast naked away was never my fa- vourite pursuit, whereas I am free to ad- mit that this is." " The breakfast, sir — or the gun- ning?" chirped Sir Peter. " The two in combination," I said, and I asked him if he was on a trip, or if he lived in this part of the world; to which he gave me my own answer — " the two in combination." He explained, however, that he had a house very far back among the marshes; but that for a day or two he had slept in a tent, pitched on the near- est dry land. " When we get to the tent, sir," he said, " you shall have a change of [14] o THE HUNCHBACK clothes; and thus bring your pre-Adam- f ite idyl to a close." "And shall I be forced to lie down'^ and sleep?" I asked, for drowsiness \jj, was getting the better of me. % ** I am inconsiderate — very," he said. "You shall, sir. The cream of the .^>' shooting is over. We shall go at once." He called to Coffee Pot in the strange tongue, and presently we had embarked a pretty canvas canoe, hitherto hid- m den among the reeds, and were being driven by the negro's powerful strokes through a labyrinth of diminutive waterways, that spider-webbed it among the solids and semi-solids of the marshes. " What language," I asked, " do you use when you talk to Coffee Pot? " " The degenerate remnant of his orig- inal African, I suppose," said Sir Peter, " mixed with English unintelligible to an English-speaking person. Our coast negroes speak nothing else, and few of them understand anything else." A little later, to make conversation and keep myself from falling asleep in the canoe, I remarked that Coffee Pot seemed to be a most efficient servant. " What do you have to pay for your labour? " I asked. Sir Peter thought for a moment. "Mr. Bourne," he said, "I have come to certain conclusions in your case, which I have no doubt will be borne out [15] fii'l v'y*l THE VOICE IN THE RICE up river. So I will be frank with you. ./We feed our labourers; but we do not ^ ,^ ///j pay them. In our happy, inaccessible ' ^s^^,Vl.J!/ and amphibious little country we have % l^n/j^ never felt the necessity of giving up our ^.Pj^ W'. slaves. Immediately after the incident j^'J^ from which he derives his name I pur- n^;\, •ifchased Coffee Pot from Lord Nairn. \W/ He is very well treated, very happy, |i'\ ( ^ very efficient, very ignorant. He does not even know that in certain parts of a benighted world other negroes are not slaves." I did not take Sir Peter seriously. Who would? He was amusing him- ...j, \ y \| j self at the expense of a naked and Wl iw,-)^' sleepy stranger; tempting me, as it were, to rise to a somewhat clumsily- baited hook. I refused to rise, and pre- tended to accept his statements as a \ matter of course. But another day was to startle me into knowing that Sir Peter had spoken the truth, and that strictly. I fell asleep in the canoe. When Sir Peter waked me we were in a deeply- bushed cove; there was no view in any direction. I got out of the canoe, blinking and very groggy, and followed Sir Peter along a trail narrow like a deer run. It was very hot away from the ocean, and the bushes were already in dense summer leaf, shutting off the least breath of air. But we had not far to go. The bushes opened presently to right and left, and disclosed a small [i6] THE HUNCHBACK W space of white sand, level as a room floor, from the midst of which sprouted a very ancient, very stunted liveoak, hung with long beards of grey moss. In the shade of the oak was a white tent, and the flaps looped back disclosed a neat canvas cot, made up like a bed, ith a monogramed collar of white sheet turned down over the neck of the blankets. " That is yours, sir,"' said Sir Peter, " for the asking." What if my head overlapped the cot at the one end and my feet at the other? I slept as I hope some day to sleep again. The only light when I awoke came through the open end of the tent from a lantern set in the sand. Sir Peter was crouching near it with his back to me, and seemed to be poking at something with a stick. •' Hello," I called. " So you're awake ! " he answered, but without turning. " Come out here. I've a fine moccasin; the first of the season. A little sluggish, sir, but full of fight." I am afraid the hair stood up on my head. "Where are those clothes you prom- ised me," I answered, " and especially those hip boots made of sheet steel, lined with rawhide? " Sir Peter made a sudden dart with his hand; laughed, rose and turned, [17] %f m ff 1 m • f & I ■iAff: THE VOICE IN THE RICE m m I !.:i holding by the throat a thick, writhing horror — the more horrible for the faint ^ light. ^ I He held it so a moment for me to •; see, then turned and flung it far off Into the night. I heard it land with a crash among the bushes. Sir Peter entered the jtent. " I am afraid you're too big for clothes, after all," he said. " But as there's nothing ahead but boat work I think that if we cut armholes in one blanket, and give you another to cover your bare arms, you'll make out. We sha'n't get to my house before two o'clock, I should say, and I can smuggle you up from the landing without the ladies seeing you." Then came supper, and afterward, in- terminable hours of waking and drows- ing in the canoe, driven by Coffee Pot. We never followed one course for long. We were always turning, it seemed to me, a right-angle corner, and now, you knew rather than saw, so dark it was, we were out on open water with a faint breeze blowing over it, and now voyag- ing through tall, sighing reeds that rasped along the sides of the canoe, and now following some stagnant waterway that writhed about among the stems of trees. Once, in such a place, Sir Peter gave an order to Coffee Pot, who stopped paddling. " Listen," said Sir Peter. [i8] M t lip,. THE HUNCHBACK I could hear abrupt, faint ripplings ■: of water, cautious splashings, and ^-^^MPl within a foot of the canoe at my end a \/^jyi^(p sudden swirling commotion as of a ris- % \9,w w ing fish taking fright. " The whole place seems alive," I said, and was not happy. i/ " Moccasins mostly hereabouts," said Sir Peter. He spoke to Coffee Pot, and we went on. " From April to Christmas," said Sir Peter, " we are very little troubled by trespassers in the Santee. But during the winter months, when the snakes and the alligators are hibernating, we some- times have to stand upon our rights. The great menace to the peace and se- curity of this country is your duck hun- ter.- Where there are ducks he will come, backed, if necessary, by his gov- ernment." Sir Peter spoke bitterly. " If I could invent the means," he said, " I would abolish the whole Atlantic flight of wild fowl." So far as I could see we were still in the wildest of land and water wilder- nesses, when suddenly Coffee Pot ran the canoe alongside of a little float, and Sir Peter hopped nimbly out. " Here we are, sir," he said. " This is Moore House Landing. You shall soon be snug in bed — in your own bed, sir. w '/A I m m If i I i [19] I WOKE in a great double bed of Do- mingo mahogany inlaid with brass. Through the blinds of three east win- dows sunlight streamed; and when I opened these it was to look down upon a brick-walled garden laid into walks edged with ancient box, that radiated from a centre piece of marble — an Italian well curb, I think. Half a dozen vjji negroes were at work among the flower- beds, raking, trimming and gathering flowers. Beyond the garden a screen of mighty liveoaks shut off any further view. The house in which I had passed the night was, like the garden walls, of old Scotch brick, laid with the ends showing, and trimmed with white mar- ble. It was very low, very extensive, I could make out from my window; and a little porch opening on the garden, half-marble columns, half-yellow roses, was a dream of pleasure to the eye. During my sleep some one had en- tered my room and laid out clothes, but they were too big, even for me, and I was told later that they belonged to Lord Nairn, who had loaned them un- til his tailor could better provide me. [20] -vt^ AN INDEPENDENT STATE I i M You may think that by this time I had had enough water, but exploration dls-^, closed a bathroom opening from thcj^x bedroom. It had been a cupboard, I «|, suppose; but now it had its porcelain and nickel fittings, tub and shower, and a frieze of cool fishes in cool, green 'water, English by the look of it, and many rough, blue towels of great size and invitation. So I was a long time luxuriously bathing and dressing, and I had not finished before Sir Peter knocked on my door and came in to wish me good-morning. " I did not disturb you with break- fast," he said, " but you must learn to ring the bells in my house, and if the servants do not understand what you say, they will, at least, gather something from your signs. Now, If you are ready, we will go downstairs." While I was having strawberries and eggs and corn pone and coffee, in a long dining-room of mahogany and Chinese porcelain, with no end of portraits, Sir Peter gave me the news. " I have sent the telegrams you wrote out last night," he said, "to apprise your family of your safety, but they will not actually go until to-morrow, as it is a real journey to the office. I break- fasted with Lord Nairn. He expressed himself as wishing to receive you to- morrow. I had wished to present you to-day. But he is an old man, some- |2i] W Wis THE VOICE IN THE RICE m m I ill I ir f h^K thing of an original, and not to be hec- tored. He thought it best that you-: should first receive more information j frpm me as to the nature of your sur- roundings, and the people among whom you have fallen. " These explanations," he said, " will astonish you no little, and it is just pos- sible that you will be somewhat alarmed at first. To us, of course, they are ev- ery-day matters, and have been for cen- turies." " Nothing but having this breakfast taken away before I am done with it will alarm me. Sir Peter," I said. " There are," said he, " hereabouts hundreds of thousands of such acres as you saw yesterday and passed through last night. Islands in swamps, swamps in islands; waterways in forests, forests where ought to be waterways; and rice, rice, rice, everywhere rice, and the main mouth of the Santee River and all the hundred other mouths. You might leave Moore Landing in a fast motor-boat, with only yourself to steer, and not get yourself out of this region in a month. Have you ever been in the labyrinth at Hampton Court?" I said that I had. "Well," said he, "the labyrinth in whose midst you now find yourself is a million times as big, and a million times more complicated. For instance, sir, if we desired, for some reason or [22] 1 i If I W'' m M i AN INDEPENDENT STATE other, to keep a man prisoner among us we would have only to wish him good- >/., day and let him go." ''4w "Well, Sir Peter," said I, "I am^f ^ having the time of my life. You won't S^ have to keep me prisoner." " I am glad, sir," he said, rather gravely, " to hear you voice such an opinion." Somehow I felt uncomfortable. " It's curious," he said. " You could take me in one of your great blacksmith hands and break me into a thousand pieces — none of the servants would touch you, let us say — and still, here you'd be. It's a curious thought." " Sir Peter," I said jocularly, " in spite of the breakfast you are rapidly alarming me." "Well, well, he said, "a man — • even a hunchback — must do what he can for his — country. And," he said, "this Is my country. Mr. Bourne, we differ In some policies from the States; we, for instance, only allow desirable Immigrants to setde among us. We make them settle. As, for Instance," he went on, " yesterday, when I saw that physique of yours com- ing down the beach as lightly as blown thistledown, I said to myself, ' There's a man we want.' And here you are." Of course I thought that Sir Peter was just being jocular and complimen- tary, m spite of his gravity. Not a [23 1 THE VOICE IN THE RICE P w 1/ ')mk -=^ — =s^ thought of anything seriously intended I against me had as yet entered my head. ^ "I wish," said I, "that you would'^ tell me more about this country of*^ yours." % "Oh, I shall," he said; "I must. < Lord Nairn said : ' Show him as many i ,Y ropes as you can, Sir Peter, as soon as \ you may— your accounts of his appear- ance, of his running, of his shooting, de- light me. Bring him to see me to-mor- row.' " "Who is Lord Nairn?" I asked. "Vulgarly," said Sir Peter, "we speak of him as ' The Governor.' But he is in reality chairman of a committee of three who make our laws. Lady Wrenn Is one member of this com- mittee, and I have the honour to be an- other. " Our little country," he continued, " Is a logical growth. Such provisions as the Royal Governors made for our little territory in the old days never reached us at all. We were obliged then, as now, to be a law to ourselves. Some of our ancestors fought in your revolution against England, but purely as soldiers of fortune. The laws of the newly-made United States reached us, for good or 111, no more than had those of the Royal Governors. There was, therefore, no earthly use in our swear- ing fealty to such a government. We kept out. ,. . . Later our sympa- [24] AN INDEPENDENT STATE thies were, of course, with the State of South Carolina when she seceded, and although many of our young men shed'"3r>VvW their blood for her, we, as a body poli-!i ^~) tic, preserved a strict neutrality. Had \ ) Grant surrendered to Lee we would ^-^ have been no more disturbed than we J , actually were by Lee's surrender to I Grant. We would never have joined the Confederate States, we never ac- knowledge any sovereignty over us by the Union. In these marshes no gov- ernment but our own has ever enforced a law. If, sir, I were caught setting fire to Lord Nairn's barn — which God forbid — who is to punish me? Unless my neighbours, no one. When Lincoln freed the slaves he only freed such /||| slaves as he had the power to free. Ours were in no wise affected. They have never heard of a Civil War or of Lin- coln. "The United States — even in their most populous centres — are only able as yet to punish crime. They do not make so much as a beginning of pre- venting It. Indeed, sir, they have bitten off far more than they can chew this thousand years. " I will give you an example. Sup- pose I were to discover a trespasser on my land. I order him off. He goes. In the United States, unless he were a smaller and a weaker man than I, which is unlikely, he would not go. The [25] f W\ % ■iM'riiA-^ THE yOICE IN THE RICE Government would not put him off for . me, nor make it terrible for him to tres- '' pass again. It is possible that the United States, by a supreme effort, un- willing, let us say, to let well enough alone, might reach us in the Santee, and destroy our property in slaves; but we ywho were scattered would return, reen- slave the blacks, and resume our benef- icent laws and customs." Having finished breakfast Sir Peter led me into the garden, and, seating ourselves in an arbour of yellow roses, he resumed his explanations. "We belong to King George," he said. " But his laws could not, or would not, reach us in any way. We renounced him. Affiliated with South Carolina we renounced her. She could not take care of us. With the North- ern Government we were never in any great sympathy. It did nothing for us. We renounced it; and continued, as we had begun, to govern ourselves. The situation has, of course, arisen from our isolation. Some day, like all small coun- tries, we must go — some day the United States will see in this region a fit sub- ject for drainage, for instance. Mean- while " — Sir Peter smiled on me — " we are sufficient to ourselves." " What you say astonishes me no end, Sir Peter," I said. " Do you mean to tell me that the National Government has no jurisdiction here?" [26] AN INDEPENDENT STATE 1 Our,X% "Or does not choose to have," he ^ said; "or does not know that there is-crx^ any jurisdiction here to be had flag floats boldly over Government House — but who is to see it but our- selves, and the buzzards, and the eagles? J We are not in the public view, and we f avoid publicity like all prudent men. The United States Government has never heard of us," he said, his voice rising; "isn't that enough reason for being the law to ourselves?" " Do you," I asked, " call yourselves a nation? " " We have more humour," said Sir Peter drily; "we know that we are no more than a community of interest; a big secret society, if you like." " Like the Night Riders ? " I was so foolish as to ask. Sir Peter rose, turned his hump upon me, walked away whistling, and pres- ently returned. "I have mastered my evil passions," he said, and once more seated himself. " And I have begged your pardon," I said. " But," he said, " I am not sorry that you have mentioned the Night Riders. If they can exist, and be a law to them- selves, within the very circle of your late Uncle Samuel's railroads, tele- graphs, police, militia, and so on — if, I say, they can exist in all their black wickedness — ^who is to prevent us from [27] M -i^^ ^ THE VOICE IN THE RICE existing in prudence, and decency, and good will? " "That's plausible," I said. "But^^^, why did you say my late Uncle Samuel? %&*] Has there been a cataclysm of which I ^^ have not heard?" , " Among other things," said Sir Peter, " the first need of any govern- ment, however small, is self-preserva- tion. We are not threatened by foreign or internal wars. But we are threat- ened by the immutable laws governing small and isolated populations. The problem confronting us with more and more gravity Is new blood; not only in the upper classes, but among the poorer whites and the negroes. We are ever on the lookout to recruit these classes by new and desirable young men and women. And that," said he, " was why I was so heartily and patriotically re- joiced to see you come running down the beach." It all seemed rather preposterous ; but I was a little shaken by his Instance of the Night Riders. " I am to settle marry? " I asked. "If," said he stiffly, "on closer ac- quaintance we continue to find you worthy, sir." " And if I prefer," said I, a little among you. and to return to my nettled by his tone, own people? " " Mr. Bourne," he said, " I will lend [28] m AN INDEPENDENT STATE you my canoe and Coffee Pot to paddle. A I will instruct him to follow whatever^ i^ V. posely, political and local and full ofl. "ja information. The gentlemen discussed '^ji^J a venture due to arrive in the mouth ^; of the Santee from England; the deplor- ^^fftble growth in activity of " our good '' neighbour the United States " in the revenue service; Lord Nairn's ingenious scheme for dealing with incurable drunkards. " Who is it, Mr. Bourne," asked Sir Peter, " that opposes a man's drinking himself to ruin ? " " His wife and children," I said. "And why do they oppose him?" " Well," I said, " among poor peo- ple I suppose what little money there is goes for drink. I suppose that's the chief reason." " What," said Sir Peter, " would be the attitude of mind of the most arrant teetotaller of a woman if her husband, instead of being obliged to pay for his drinks, received a bonus in cash for each one that he could force himself to swal- low?" " Some women, I am afraid," said I, " would begin to favour drinking." "Women," said Mr. Santee Moore, who had not spoken for some time, " are not good. They are greedy." " So," said Sir Peter, " if there were a bonus placed upon drinking, a man's [35] w I ■m THE VOICE IN THE RICE wife and children would be soon using l3-h I J ^"^^^y vestige of influence they could ■^'^'/j/ /iy bring to bear to make him drink." m/ii^ "Some of them," said Mr. Santee l^"^ Ifwt!/ Moore, "would hold him. The rest 6^ ^ would pour." ' " The weak place," said Sir Peter, ./' is in defining what constitutes an in- /j?' curable drunkard. If it weren't for that we would make the experiment. ^ Perhaps we shall. Lord Nairn will have his way in the matter if he can. He claims that in two months all the in- curable drunkards in the Santee would be dead. As for me," said Sir Peter, " I'm agreeable to the experiment, but Lady Wrenn is formidably opposed." " Lady Wrenn," said Lady Moore, " is said to have an eye on the next elec- tions. She will oppose Lord Nairn for the chairmanship." " It would be a mistake," said Sir Peter, "a fatal mistake, I think, to raise any woman so high. This, by the way, is among ourselves. An unofficial opinion for the benefit of trusted friends." He included me in his quick glance, and I am afraid I was very much flat- tered. After lunch he drew me aside. " You will wish to write to your mother," he said abruptly. " I suggest that you carry the letter when it is written to Lady Moore— to be edited. Write that you are staying with some [36] til I f ? A PRISONER IN THE SANTEE Southern people named Moore — leave m^'4 J 4 °"* *^^ ^^^^ ^"'^ *^^ Ladys — say that DVm m you will visit them indefinitely. Tell her that she may address you in the care of Peter Moore, Esquire, Georgetown, South Carolina." "Sir Peter," I said gravely, "all /joking aside, am I to be kept here "against my will? My correspondence edited and all and all ? " " As to the correspondence," said Sir Peter, " you would not write, inadver- tently even, to injure those who intend you and have shown you nothing but kindness. As to your remaining against your will, I still have every hope that it will not be against your will. As to the rights and wrongs of the matter, Mr. Bourne, I think that if I had left you on yonder ocean beach you would be in a very sad plight. I ask you to re- gard your present situation with pa- ll'/ifl I V'/ tience and with the open mind. If you (iM ;-)// ^ish to quarrel with me I shall be obliged to regard you as ungrateful — I perceive that Lady Moore has fetched her parasol. I fancy you have an en- gagement to go shopping with her." i/f I /'I M {Z7] W0 A W, J ^'The shops in the Santee are not con- veniently situated for shopping. Like all other evidences there of man's pres- ence they are craftily scattered and hid- den. You must go to the oaky heart of one island for your hats; to another island, by a canal through rice fields, for your haberdashery; to a sand acre among long-needle pine trees for qui- nine, tooth-brush, sponge, ammonia and your outfit against snake-bites. The rulers of the little country have arranged so well that only by a guide or by accident could you discover these dispensaries. They are managed by the poorer whites under supervision of the central com- mittee of three; lazily, as is customary in hot countries, but honestly, I am told, and to the advantage of the many. Lady Moore told me that she sup- posed there must be two thousand in- habitants, citizens and slaves, of this country within a country; but that only the slaves — that is, those belonging to the commonwealth who operate the rice plantations — live in communities. Three main islands are given up to them, where they grow a little corn and cot- ton and tobacco for themselves, and [38] I ^ fti^ %■ THE VOICE IN THE RICE whence they sally in boat-loads to work in the public fields. But all families not <3,^V of slaves lived upon their own lands and V '^' waters, often at great distances from one another. From the water, however, we saw ^but an occasional glimpse of houses. Trees have been encouraged to conceal those which must once have stood in plain sight; the old manor houses, of which there are half a dozen. And the newer houses have been built with a main view to concealment. There are no fine landings such as the rich people could afford — only a pile or two driven Into the creek-side mud and a few float- ing planks. Visiting from one island to another is mostly by canoe, there be- ing thousands of channels passable for these, whereas larger boats would lead to more or less congestion in the chief waterways and canals. Twice we passed other canoes in the rice, very close, but we could only hear them. On the second occasion Lady Moore recognised a voice giving an or- der in " sea-coast." And she turned to me with a heightened colour and bright eyes. Then she called out: " Good-evening ! " r(In the Santee they call the whole of the afternoon evening.) And a voice a little way off beyond the compact eight-foot screen of the rice reeds an- swered at once : " Good-evening, Sylvia." ^r THE VOICE IN THE RICE The voice was the coolest, freshest, youngest voice, with a little drawl to It, a little of golden bells, a little of laughter. " Where are you going? " "Home. Where are you going?" ^ "To the chemist." ' " Just been there." "Who's with you?" The voice laughed before answer- ing: " That young Shirley ! " We heard a manlier chuckle. I must suppose that the springs of jealousy within a man are ready to gush at the merest hint of a puncture, for the man's chuckle left me with an alertly quickened heart. I would have liked to blast the reeds between us and discover that he was lame and looked like a monkey. He sounded indolent and handsome and attractive. "May I present Mr. Bourne?" called Lady Moore. " Of course you may." The voice had now a delightful friendliness mixed with mockery. " I'm charmed to meet you, Mr. Bourne." " And I," said I, " am more than charmed to meet — ^Miss Moore." I had made my guess. "Why!"_ cried Lady Moore. "I never mentioned your name to him, Mary." "Then how did he guess? Did a [40] m Si Al THE VOICE IN THE RICE rice-bird whisper my name in your ears, J,/ /^ Mr. Bourne?" Oh, seductive voice! .Wa fk^ " ^^ ^^^ y*^'^'^ voice," said I boldly. jw ^ "There was never any mistaking that ^fp" it was you." Lady Moore burst out laughing. %r "Hurry home, Mary," she said; "it 6«i^vM /I'ilooks to me as if the rice was catching The voice laughed, but unaccompan- ied by the late manlier chuckle. " Good-bye, Sylvia — good-bye, Mr. Bourne " — then a command in " sea- coast," and I could hear the rice-stems rasping against her canoe and see the tops of the rice bending as before a sudden weight of air. We called our l\l good-byes, and I said quietly to Lady Moore : "If I stand up can I see her?" " If you were nine feet high and she stood up in her canoe," said Lady Moore — ^" there goes a moccasin!" lllil W I don't know if one went or not, but all thought of standing up in that or any other canoe vanished from my mind. We did not speak for a hundred yards. Then Lady Moore said sud- denly, but in an unconcerned voice: " I do hope you'll learn to like us, Mr Bourne." " Where you are concerned, Lady Moore," I said, " it is no longer even guesswork. I love you." [41] THE VOICE IN THE RICE Lady Moore laughed. II " If only Mary's voice came up to ^5^^^ the rest of her," she said as one throw- 1^!^ ing a stone aimlessly into the water. I % made no comment, and a few minutes later we had made a landing and were pursuing our way on foot toward the chemist's. It was a very pretty walk through liveoaks and then pines. The chemist's was the only shop at which we found other customers. Here were two young ladies, very pretty, all in white, with white floppy hats and white parasols with which they poked the sand and turned over little stones while they chattered and waited for their purchases to be wrapped up. They were the sisters McMoultrie, after qui- nine and chloroform liniment. Granny had the shakes — wasn't it very early in the spring, Mr. Bourne, for the shakes ? Brother had fallen off the varandah roof and sprained his wrist. They were be- side themselves with excitement, Mr. Bourne, at meeting a brand-new man. They were really heartily tired of all the young men in the Santee. Yes, it was evident that I had been directly sent by Providence. They had great dark eyes which they used from the cool shadows of their hats in the most outrageous and inno- cent rnanner. Had it not been for the voice in the rice, I must have succumbed [42] -=—^^> > ^ THE VOICE IN THE RICE then and there to one or both of them. t Lady Moore stood in the door of the r shop greatly amused with us. The Misses McMoultrie sat upon the step, ' side by side, as like as two sweet peas, and played upon me from under their hats all the heavy artillery of their great, /^ ^ark, innocent eyes. A vine of red ■' ^r roses thrust sharply out of the sand and • was festooned over the door. And in the cool half-light within the shop I could see a glass showcase, great red and blue bottles with gilt labels, and a man all in white, who came and went languidly and announced every now and then that he was just looking for that ball of twine. " Surely," I thought, " here is a strange picture for the heart of a swamp. Three lovely ladies, so simply dressed in white, and yet so smartly that you would pick them out in the crowd at Longchamps or Bailey's Beach; the well-appointed chemist's shop — logs without and all the best drugs within — and the rest but a patch of sand, a stand of pine, and rice and marsh, and swamp, and rice and snakes and alliga- tors, and buzzards and herons and eagles — and no way out ! " We made our purchases and lingered a while in the lengthening shadows, and then the sisters McMoultrie, flashing among the pine-stems, went by one path [43] lii THE VOICE IN THE RICE to their waiting canoe, and we by an- / other to ours, and so back to Sir Peter's ? house — which stood very near the canal '^^\ and of which you could see no vestige I ^^ from the landing. m [44] If M i# Lady Wrenn, Sir Brash Sterling, the Creightons (a young married cou- ple), and Miss Creighton, the groom's sister, came to dinner. I had expected in Lady Wrenn a type of the new wo- man, which, as she herself remarked, is merely the old woman with no taste for apples; but I was agreeably surprised. She was a little creature, with a funny, little, brown face, and round, soft, gol- den-brown eyes, which, when she was listening, had the wistful, dreaming look of a chimpanzee, but which, when she was talking, hardened and sparkled as if studded with bits of broken glass. It was evident from the first that she enjoyed being sarcastic at the expense of others; but she did not hesitate, if she could make a point, to be equally direct and brutal with herself, "Well," she said, when I had been presented (not informally, but with be- coming ceremoniousness as to a person- age), "you have seen two of the mighty ones, Mr. Bourne. Does it sur- prise you to find one of them a hunch- back and one a sort of monkey? " ^ Sir Peter writhed a little and tried [45] THE VOICE IN THE RICE unconsciously to straighten out his poor back. "Don't," said she, seeing him, "you' are straight enough inside Peter. A I hunchback, a monkey and a leviathan," she went on. " I don't wonder that you are a little aghast at becoming one of us. ,But another generation will see hand- some rulers. I don't think Sir Peter has any children, and I know I haven't. We must adopt Mr. Bourne between us, Sir Peter, and put him down in our wills. Then he'll stay willingly enough. What do you think. Brash — will money corrupt this loquacious young giant? " (I had not yet spoken a word.) Sir Brash Sterling said that he thought sufficient money would corrupt any one. He was a burly, red-faced man, with a grey moustache so closely trimmed and so tightly curled into needle-points that it looked less like a growth of individual hair than a thing carved from a block. The hair of his head, too, cut very short in the English military regulation style, had, because of a hyacinthine tendency to curl, a look of solidity. His intonation was very English. " I have, Mr. Bourne," said he, " ten children, of whom I am one. There isn't enough money for us all to be rich, so we take turns. It is my turn now." " It always has been," said Lady Wrenn. " Many a time I've seen little [46] JAILERS TO DINNER Sterlings running barefoot through 1^ J meadows knee-deep in snakes, while Sir Brash was re-silking and re-leathering "^\^ W m & m f y^^\ & ^: his extremities five times a day." \S'f^'}W She left us abruptly and marched %Sfi\S^ straight across the room to the young ^^M Creightons, who managed at all oppor- |\^|i,]^ jftunities to drift to one side. " Come, come, Creightons," she said, "you have a stake in the community; come and hear Mr. Bourne lay down the law " But dinner was announced, and, ex- cept that Sir Peter gave his arm to Lady Wrenn, we entered the dining-room without ceremony. My seat was be- tween Lady Wrenn and Miss Creigh- ton; but it did not matter where any- body sat, as the only conversation pos- sible was with Lady Wrenn. It was curious to watch her eyes, so hard and glinting when she spoke, so soft and monkey-like when she listened. " By the way," said she, turning sud- denly full upon me, " if you are counting on being presented to Lady Nairn to- morrow you will be disappointed." " What has happened to poor Amelia?" asked Lady Moore. " I think," said Lady Wrenn, " that Amelia has about decided to give up." I heard the girl on my right murmur as if she were thinking aloud, " poor little ghost," and I noticed that Sir Peter went whiter than ever in the face [47] -^^^ w i C«^ THE VOICE IN THE RICE and that his thin lips assumed their I most bitterish look. . "Do you mean you think she is dj^:V\ fv ing?" he asked slowly. Sir Brash, ^^^i; Sterling cleared his throat nervously. gV'';';.. " I called early this morning," said '' r JAILERS TO DINNER would not hurt you to hobnob with Lucifer. But it would be better if Lord Nairn were never to see you again. It'Si;! would be better if he never had seen^ ^ you. My dear,' I said, ' I remember % the first time he ever did see you, or ^ just after — ^you were eight. I had busi- |i ness with him. I have forgotten what, k ^ /^ He was in his garden. He had wheeled ^l himself under a peach tree, from I which he had had all the peaches but V one pruned. Poor Lady Nairn, almost as white and sad as she is now, stood by him with one hand on the back of his chair. They were both looking at the one peach, he like a greedy, fat boy, and she was looking because he was. " He must have recognised my step, for he never took his eyes from the peach. ' Letty,' said he, ' have you seen Santee Moore's young daughter ? ' ' Yes,' said I. ' I,' said he, his eyes al- ways on the peach, ' am watching her ripen, Letty. I am watching her ripen.' " " It seems to me," said Lady Moore, very critically for her, " that I would not have told that anecdote to Mary Moore," " My dear," snapped Lady Wrenn, " you might as well try to poison the moon as Mary Moore. She did not even change colour. ' All the same,' she said, 'I think I must speak to him.' 'Well,' said I, 'God knows he will listen to you — ^but, Mary, he will listen 1 49] THE VOICE IN THE RICE lil B only because of the sound of your voice I and for the sake of looking at you.' So we parted at the door and I went up to Amelia. She was lying in her im- mense bed. She looked like a wilted morning-glory laid on the pillow. She didn't model the bedclothes much more than if she had been a sheet of paper. "^ "'Amelia,' I said, 'what is the mat- ter with you ? ' Will you believe me, the poor creature burst into tears — the first I dare say she ever paid to an exis- tence she must owe so many. And she said after a little, for she is too weak to cry long, ' Oh, Letty, he doesn't care that for me! I know it now. And now that I know I think he never cared very much. Perhaps it's because I have never had but the one child and was always mourning for her. But I won't stand in his way, Letty. And now you know what is the matter with me.' I was very sharp with her, poor thing. I said. ' Did you tell this nonsense to Mary Moore?' And she said 'No,' and tried to turn her face away from me. ' Lord Nairn,' I said, ' is very much to blame for very many things; but, my dear, if the moth prefers the rose to the sweet little trailing arbutus, the arbutus may be unhappy about it, as she must, but she mustn't blame the rose.' 'Oh,' she said, 'Letty, who could be jealous of Mary Moore? She was with me just now. When she went [50] m JM JAILERS TO DINNER I thought the sun had gone out of the !,#'room.' ' And then,' I said sharply, ' it ' got to be night and the dog star rose ! ' ' Letty,' she said, and reached for my hand, ' you are always fancying your- self slighted.' ' Well,' said I, ' Amelia, you mustn't take to your bed just be- 7 i^cause the world has come to an end.' Q I gossiped with her, told her about this |: famous Mr. Bourne who had arrived 'f among us and whom I was dying to I meet." Lady Wrenn turned her snapping // eyes full upon me. " She was interested," she said. " I told her that if you were as noble and good as you were reported big and strong we might arrange for you to — to tie the laces of Mary Moore's shoe " I felt myself the centre of all eyes. My heart thumped painfully and I blushed like a tomato. Were they con- sidering me at headquarters, I won- dered, as a possible suitor for — the Voice in the Rice? I was strangely depressed all in the moment. I could remember nothing of all my life btit unworthy things — one after another. Fortunately for my discomposure Lady Wrenn switched her tongue back to Lady Moore. " I gave her the lacto-bacilline tab- lets," she resumed, " and told her how and when to take them. She smiled [51] l{>^ 1 0y ^f3 m 1 ff 'i 5 m Ml W who is to break it. For instance, shoot-\_^ ing would have no terror for me — that 18 to say, no insurmountable terror ; whereas hanging would. Now a negro, ,'if convicted of the crime which we are ^ discussing, is condemned to death ; but he never knows at what moment he is to die, or where — or how. Nor would the other negroes know how, or when, or where. He would be taken into a certain building where the blinds are always closed, and not even his body or any fragments of it would ever be seen to come out. You see this form of punishment works upon the superstitious portion of the negro mind, and," said Sir Peter forcibly, " he dare not. But for the rest, the canoemen are not chosen at haphazard. They are a fine lot." He flung some words of " sea- coast" back to Coffee Pot in the stern, and the latter burst into excited speech and laughter; even ceased paddling so as to slap his great thighs. " There you see," said Sir Peter; "I said, 'Is it true. Coffee Pot, that you are an un- usually fine fellow ? ' And even your ignorance of our jargon cannot be de- ceived as to his answer. No," he con- cluded, " you don't get to be a canoe- man hereabouts until you are a thor- oughly fine fellow. That man of Miss [57] if ir ■i^ 1 THE VOICE IN THE RICE Stevens' — Yap — would jump overboard among moccasins to rescue her hand- kerchief. They are all householders'^"^ and family men." ^^ "At once slaves and householders? " ^ I asked. M " We make it easy for our slaves to ^'\ f acquire and hold property," he said. ™ ' " In many cases it amounts to freedom. And general prosperity is made to re- flect upon the meanest of them. Food and clothing, with which their labours are rewarded, vary in quantity and qual- ity exactly as the times are good or bad. Indeed I think ours is the prettiest ex- ample in the whole wide world of capi- tal and labour living on polite and gracious terms." " Still," said I, " they are slaves." _ " Not if they don't know it," said Sir Peter. "Are you, my dear sir, a slave to some almighty power that made the world, or are you not? " "I am not conscious that I am," said I. " Nor I that I am," said Sir Peter. " But maybe we are, sir. Don't I hear a canoe off to the right?" Some distance off upon some other canal through the rice a canoe was rasping along. I heard one word of " sea-coast " spoken, and my heart com- menced to thump against my ribs. "It's Miss Moore," I said. Sir Peter gave me a puzzled look, [58] I I LAWN TENNIS *' How do you know? " " I've heard her voice once before," I said. " There's no mistaking it." " Well," said he, " we've no time to stop, even for greetings. As it is, Lord Nairn may be impatient with us." "But," I said to myself, "at least Jthat young Shirley is not in that canoe this time," and I caught myself hoping that Mr. Santee Moore, himself, was his daughter's companion. " I am mighty sorry," said Sir Peter presently, "that they were not at the house. But Mary Moore comes and goes, sir^^she comes and goes." V [59] VIII. LORD NAIRN T had grown monstrously hot, for the sun was now at full blaze. But al- though there was here and there shade in Lord Nairn's garden, he himself, in his great pneumatic-tired wheel chair, was taking the sun in the corner made by the north and west walls — a place in which the hot waves zlddied and ed- died like coal gas in a furnace. If I had been led to expect a whale of a man I was disappointed. He was no bigger, I should say, than a hippo- potamus — a paper-white, pink-cheeked man in that region of sunburn and tan. He did not wear a shade hat, but a golfing-cap upon the back of his great round head, with its pale yellow, silk- fine, straight, thin hair. His face was the fat-featured face of a young baby emerged from the weazened wrinkles of the first few weeks of its life; but it was a baby's face as if seen through a magnifying glass. It was an enormous face. He looked very helpless in his chair, as if his ogress or giant or Cyclops mother had deposited him therein while she ran to their mammoth cave to fetch his bottle. He had no hair upon his face, neither eyebrows nor lashes. His [60] M LORD NAIRN pale blue eyes never blinked; not even when he turned them full into the sun,r. j vlhX"! petulantly, as if to say: "Put the, -"*-'^^^'^^ blower on, can't you, and blaze up a tj, little." ^ A thin blanket covered his legs and made a lap in which he had about a » quarter bushel of fine peaches. Now and then he raised one of these to his mouth, disclosed an even set of tiny, milky teeth like those of a child of three, and bit off the sunny side; drop- ping what was left into the brickdust of the garden walk, where it became at once a red mass of ants. To the eye there was something re- volting about the man, something terri- fying and something of unapproachable dignity. His voice had never " gone down," as they say at schools. It was like that of a very well-bred little boy of nine or ten years, very perfect in enunciation and clarity. " I had thought by all accounts," said he, " to be presented with a bigger man. I had planned to get on my feet and measure heights with you for the su- premacy. But you are only six feet two." It was my heightH to an iota, but surprise that he had guessed so shrewdly must have shown in my face. For he said: " Your face asks me how I know your exact height, I will tell you. I [6i] i THE VOICE IN THE RICE m i ¥ know by a mark on the border the exact distance from your heels to where YO^^'^gNl v(V shadow terminates at the exact corner /^)i;s|< of the walk. I know exactly the day of V the year and the time of the day. From <^ these data, sir, a baby could calculate your exact height. How tall do you think I am?" " Seven feet," I said without hesita- tion. " No, sir," said he, " not by an inch. My legs are short in proportion to the rest of me. That is why I am only six feet eleven. Heights interest me im- mensely." I wanted to discuss weights with him, but feared he might not like It. This, too, however, he read in my face as though that had been a transparency with a question printed across it. " I should not have been offended," he said, " If you had asked my weight out loud. With my chair I weigh ex- actly quarter of a ton. But weights and hearts vary. Height is more con- stant. Do you believe in Hell?" He took his chair by the wheels in his great, soft, white hands, twitched them In opposite directions and thus turned himself a little more Into the sun. " I have a creepy, chilly feeling," he said and repeated his question, to which I gave the usual answer of my genera- tion. [62] LORD NAIRN " Neither do I," said Lord Nairn. '} " And a great pity," put in Sir Peter. " I believe in it thoroughly — for others. What earthly pleasure would there be in hating persons and being bullied by them if you didn't feel pretty sure that they would go to Hell when they S^'died?" " How I should sizzle," exclaimed Lord Nairn with some animation, " over a bed of really hot coals ! But you believe in Heaven, Mr, Bourne?" " Yes," I said. " So do I," said he. " I believe in Heaven because I know there are angels." He raised a peach to his mouth and bit ofF the sunny side. " Speaking of angels," said Sir Peter, " it is negligent of me not to have asked sooner after the state of Lady Nairn's health. Lady Wrenn informed us last night at dinner that she was suffering." The pale eyes fixed themselves rigidly upon Sir Peter. " Did Lady Wrenn also inform you — and your guests — what Lady Nairn is suffering from? Did she?" And now the eyes looked rigidly into mine. " Why," said Sir Peter hastily, " you know what a gossip the good little crea- ture is. One takes her statements with salt. Lord Nairn — always with salt." " And you, young sir," said Lord Nairn, " did you swallow Lady Wrenn's accounts with salt?" [63] W^ , , iff i THE VOICE IN THE RICE " I was affected by them," I said. "Come, come, sir," he cried in his ^^k ( high-pitched voice, with a kind of sneer- 4 «^^' ing, domineering, bullying strain to it. ^ "Aren't you man enough to speak frankly?" , My temper rose. " I am man enough," I said,_ " and I hope gentleman enough to dispense with frankness when I consider its use might give pain or do an injustice." He bit off the sunny side of a peach and spat it instantly out. "Not quite mellow," he explained mildly. And addressing me once more : "You have not seen Mary Moore," he said. "When you have seen her, young sir, you will understand why in this world many a man is unkind in spite of himself — or rather, you will understand why many a man must be unkind because of himself. Neverthe- less," he went on more shrilly, " I pro- pose to see justice done — to others on whom I do it — to myself for whom I demand it. Thrice," he cried, " yes- terday I denied Mary Moore as Peter denied Christ, that a sick and wretched woman might have the wish to live on a while. And as I denied by my words, so I was resolved to deny by all my acts." He descended the scale of his voice to its ordinary boyish pitch. " In consequence, gentlemen," he said, "Lady Nairn passed a comfortable [64] ft S -iM» LORD NAIRN fl M li yi night. This you may give out to all ' whom It may concern — old friends, new friends, old enemies, new enemies — as truth of gospel." His lips closed into a crimson cupid's bow. "And," said Sir Peter, "how is Lady Nairn to-day? " P " To-day," came the shrill boy voice, " Lady Nairn is dead." Stranger though I was, there was a something so sardonic and appalling in the manner of this announcement that I fell back a step as if I had been struck a blow. Sir Peter made some lame remarks, a lame excuse or so, and we withdrew. As we turned to go Lord Nairn chose a peach from the pile in his lap and bit off the sunny side. » [65] m ml f^ii We went directly from the garden to Lady Nairn's house, where we were to meet Lady Moore. Lady Wrenn was with her. "Thank Heaven!" exclaimed the latter, " here's Sir Peter, and my re- sponsibilities end. A pretty time I've had of it!" Sir Peter, who was much agitated, told the ladies what Lord Nairn had said to us — about denying Mary Moore to give his wife ease. No one seemed to doubt the chairman's veracity in the least or that he would have kept his word if Lady Nairn had lived. But on the other hand, nobody doubted that, now his wife was dead, he would ride the horse of his passion with loose reins. Sir Peter suggested that it took two to make a wedding. " Yes, yes," said Lady Wrenn, " and suppose he is able to persuade Mary Moore that it is her duty to marry him? You, Mr. Bourne, have perhaps wondered why Leviathan's power is so great among us. That is because you have never heard him persuade. When he persuades he ceases, as you may say, [66] A DRILL IN ANTI-VENOM to put in an appearance, and you are only conscious of a disembodied force .. ,^ that pushes your mind along channels '^kViiVW W i It never travelled in before." L ,,. " I am afraid," said I, " that on the g ' whole Lord Nairn only revolted me." " He has as many sides," said Lady ..ijWrenn, " as he is inches around." "Who was with Lady Nairn when she died?" asked Sir Peter. " She died in Mary Moore's arms," said his wife. " Did Mary see Lord Nairn after- ward? " he asked. *' She saw him just before," said Lady Moore. " She ran to the garden for him, and he wheeled as fast as he could, but was not in time." " So," snapped Lady Wrenn, " he went right back to the garden." " This must have been just before we arrived," said Sir Peter. "Yes," said his wife; " I wonder you didn't meet Mary." "We passed her," said Sir Peter, " but on different channels." " I tried to keep her till you arrived," said Lady Moore, " but she wouldn't wait." " I think," said Lady Wrenn, " that she is afraid — if such a heart as hers can know the feeling of fear." i" Oh," cried Sir Pfeter with great feeling, "why couldn't her life have been settled before this happened ! " [67] '^^^Mk ''■ SJ \m — black is taboo here — and father — with his gouty foot up in a chair — sim- -crr^^ V , , ply dying to hear all the details of every- \3^ f ^ thing. I need not explain, Mr. Bourne, % |^||j-j' that we are the most incessant gossipers in the whole world. You've noticed it. I think it must be in very bad taste; but ;we all like it, and I think it makes us seem human to each other and helps us to stand together and to be faithful. By the way, a child has been bitten by a moccasin over on Great Bear (this was one of the islands given over to a com- munity of slaves) — the poor little thing died in half an hour." " That's the first case this year," said Lady Moore. "Why can't people be more careful! Mr. Bourne," she turned upon me jocosely stern, " where is your ligature? " " In my left inside pocket," I said. " Show it to me ! " I showed her the litde tight roll of rubber bandage that she had bought for me at the chemist's. But she was not yet satisfied. And, Miss Stevens laugh- | | ||/j ing gently all the while, and I tapping pocket after pocket, she fired off a string of interrogations: "Gauze?" "Scal- pel?" "Hypodermic?" "Permanga- nate?" "Strychnine?" " But," I pleaded, " I am almost portly as it is, and these wretched things bulge my pockets, and I am going to leave them in my room." [73] THE VOICE IN THE RICE m *' You are not," said Lady Moore. ^"You are not to stir without them, dare say you sea-gods understand the l^" danger of shark-bites, but you don't " know moccasins." "Does the Sea-God," asked Miss Stevens practically, " know what to do with these things in case some one is bitten?" " Indeed I do," said I, " having sat up half the night and learned Ditmar's pamphlet from beginning to end. Lady Moore made me promise." " Let's hear him," said Miss Stevens sceptically, looking up from the table of flowers which she had continued to sort and arrange. " First," I began nimbly, " apply-the- ligature - a-short-distance-above-the-bite. Thus-the-ligature - should-be-carried-in- a-pocket-that - is-immediately - available, without-a-second's-loss-in-a-fumble. Sec- ond. Enlarge-the-punctures-by-cutting- into-them, at-least-as-deep - as-they-are. Make - two-cuts-over-each, these - cuts crossing-each-other. This-cuttlng-starts- a-flow-o f-the-poisoned-blood ' ' "Don't," said Lady Moore, "it makes me faint." " I don't ask for any more," said Miss Stevens, "if he will only tell me the most important thing of all." " That's too easy," I said. " ' Keep- your-head! ' " 174] '^ i % i A DRILL IN ANTI-VENOM Miss Stevens put down her flowers ,M ( abruptly and shook hands with me. jf„,, nW ('?'''' " ™^" after my own heart," she "^^^i/^iv i wj said to Lady Moore. '•^M'Q/ But Lady Moore said: "I won't have him bitten ! " m m • 1 ! [75] ?'i0 I luncheon, and during the early after- noon, she being busy with a dressmaker and Sir Peter not having returned, I was thrown upon myself for company and amusement. Surely I was the most unguarded prisoner that ever fell among hospitable jailers. I wondered what would become of me if I provisioned a canoe and started off by myself in a general westerly direction. The thought gave me a wretched turn. From what I had already seen of that amphibious labyrinth I felt that to get out of it on his own ignorant guidance would be the lot of but one man out of many, many thousand. Waterways ended in swamps too solid to drive a canoe through, too wet to make a portage over; that would necessitate back-tracking and a detour, that another detour, and so on. Fur- thermore, there were water-floored for- ests to be crossed whose dense foliage hid the heavens and whose tree-trunks showed no influence of the season's weather as moss upon one side and none upon the other, so that a man must have a more artificial compass than any which [76]. If BITTEN Nature provides to progress for long in any given direction. Nevertheless, I , was in no hurry to go — to escape seems^ too serious an expression. I would no^^"^'3;wj' remain indefinitely for any man: that %^iM much I promised myself. But for the 5-{^()ij? present — well, had the way been open ''^^^Mi ,, and the coast clear this once, and this '•^ once only, I must have stayed. I caught myself saying half aloud : " Not till I have seen Mary Moore — not till I have seen Mary Moore." I wrote another letter to my mother, laid it on Lady Moore's writing-table to be edited, wandered about the ground- floor rooms, read at this book and that, and found that time was hanging heav- ily. About four o'clock Lady Moore discovered me nodding in the shady garden porch. I came to with a start and leaped to my feet. " I have looked everywhere for you," she said. " I am out of cold cream, and I thought it would amuse you, perhaps, to go to the chemist for me — would it? " " Wouldn't I choose the opportunity to escape? " I asked. " No," she said, " you wouldn't. Is that what you have been planning all this time? Would it amuse you to go for me? ,You shall have my canoe and man." I was really glad of something to do and said so. She got her parasol and walked to the landing, since I was in- [77] \\\ »- THE VOICE IN THE RICE \M I capable of naming my destination to the paddler in any language that he would \} fi understand. She saw me started and ^-^^W ' told me to be good. ^ ChtI " Do you remember what you arelgo- ■* awI ing for?" she called after me. " Cold cream," I said. , " Mind you don't forget — a large jar. Charge it to Sir Peter." " Won't you give me a little cash just to have in my pocket? " I pleaded. " Not a penny," she said. " Be off with you! " And the tall rice closed about the canoe and folded it, as it were, in a cool shadow. The sisters McMoultrie were at the chemist's, inside the shop this time; and at sight of me each made haste to swallow something that she had In her mouth. The elder gagged and I burst out laughing. "Gum?" I asked. " No," cried the younger Indignantly, " what do you take us for? They were bull's-eyes. You hold them in your mouth until they melt, and then you don't." " Yours melted mighty sudden," I said. The elder McMoultrie put her hand to her throat and said dismally, " I wish mine would. Mine's stuck." % "You ladies appear to live here," I said. [78] BITTEN m But no. It was Granny as usual. Last time Granny had been out of qui- nine for the shakes; this time it was' fever, and she was all out of phenacetin.^ They could never keep drugs in the house two minutes. Where drugs were concerned Granny was like a swarm of locusts out of the Bible, devouring ev- ■ erything. I should see their garden wall. It was a hundred years old, but it looked like new. Granny had licked all the phosphorus off the bricks. Grow simples in the garden? Well, one should rather think one tried. But to what end? As well turn the place full of goats and rabbits. And so much talk at Granny's ex- pense, and much eye-work at mine; so much so that when I finally departed with the cold cream I took a wrong path of many that centred in the clear- ing about the chemist's shop, and came presently to the water at a point from which no canoe was visible. One of my shoelaces had come untied, and as I bent over to tie it the case containing my scalpel hopped from its pocket and fell in the long grass beside the path. With- out thinking I reached for it — some- thing cold moved beneath my fingers, and a hideous, flaming pain pierced my wrist. Very sick and cold I seated myself in the path and took out the rubber liga- ture and bound it very tightly above the [79] m m W, MM ^1 r I THE VOICE IN THE RICE punctures. Then I searched with a stick for my scalpel andby God's grace . was not long in finding it. The cutting -^kM^^^ was nothing, for the pain in my whole ^. p^^jjg left arm was indescribable. I spoke '-' --iM once and said to myself: "Keep your head." Having slashed the punctures across and across and sucked and sucked the wounds, and forced them to bleed and bleed, I washed them in the creek; then filling a folding cup with creek water I dropped in crystals of perman- ganate of potash until the water was stained to the colour of dark-red wine, and washed and washed my wounds. Not till then did weakness and giddiness set in. I began to prepare a hypodermic of strychnine, but the trees on either side the path and the rice across the creek began to lean toward me — slowly at first, but with an accelerated motion like things falling until they had acquired great momentum — then, suddenly, they would be beginning all over from the beginning. But each time they seemed to fall it was a little more to the left and a little faster, until presently the effect was as of a circular movement — faster and faster. Then everything stood still. Then very sedately the trees, the creek, the rice, the end of the path between the trees moved all the way around me as in a kind of solemn sara- band. Just as they were completing a [80] ^^ c^^> BITTEN second revolution they vanished in a 1,^ thundering shower of sparks. ,. I opened my eyes to pitch darkness/Ajk\\v^ [v!;|]1#) 1 was lying on my back. I could hear^~'(Mpf ^'^mp::-' the rippling of water. "k^Jiim "Where am I?" I said. d There was never but the one voice in ff] _^,j the world. It answered : " You are in " *^ my canoe. I am taking you home." " I cannot see you," I said. " Am I blind?" And the voice : " It's night." w m mi -rz ~~i , [8i] '■1 Mm /I /'f !■ !", XI. ANOTHER DISAPPOINTMENT I MUST have fainted, for the next I knew Sir Peter was bending over me, his fingers on my pulse and a watch in his hand. Broad daylight streamed through the open windows of my own bedroom and the percolating air was of a morning freshness tinged with an odour of drugs. My limbs had a kind of numbness, not unpleasant, and my left arm tingled rather than pained; but no cat with but the one life left ever felt weaker. " Pulse Napoleonic," said Sir Peter. " Has been all night." He let my hand drop limply on the bed-clothes, put away his watch and beamed. I had not yet seen his cadaver- ous face so youthful or so smiling. " I wish to compliment you," he said, " on your presence of mind. But an- other time you must not cut so deep. If my niece had not found you you must have bled to death. Your ligature had come loose and you were pumping off enough blood to drive a turbine." " Please — please," I said, " I want to thank Miss Moore for finding me and for bringing me home." [82] •If i m m -^— =s;> ANOTHER DISAPPOINTMENT " Not necessary," said Sir Peter. " We've all thanked her till she's sick of gratitude. Besides, her procedure wasn't especially heroic. She was pass- ing in her canoe — heard groans — landed — felt — knew that it was you — struck pne or two matches to see what was the 'matter — stopped the bleeding — struck the other match so's to have a good look at you — got her man to help roll you to the water — took one end of you — man at other — made a great effort of it — strained the muscles of her back so that she's stiff as a ramrod this morn- ing. And here you are." I told Sir Peter frankly how, embar- rassed by the glances of the sisters Mc- Moultrie, I had taken the wrong path and come by my accident. He told me that the news of it had spread and was already bearing fruit in the most solic- itous inquiries. Even Lord Nairn had sent to ask how I did. And from what I now know he must have been grieved to learn that I did so well. The venom, it seems, had not been given time to get into my circulation; and there was nothing for it but to lie by for a few days, keep my wounds clean and open, and take no risk of blood-poisoning. For to this punctures made even by ser- pents that are not poisonous are won- derfully susceptible. " On the whole," said Sir Peter, " I think that to have been bitten by a moc- [83] i ill THE VOICE IN THE RICE li -iM^lk casin is not the most unlucky thing that J ever happened to you. You will get well in record time and " "And what?" I asked. "Nothing," said Sir Peter. And presently, saying that we had chatted more than was good for me, he left the ,, /f/room whistling: "Hey! the rover; ho! &'x the rover, will you go roving?" I '^ learned later that he, together with 'M Doctor Sumter, had watched all night I by my bed, and that Lady Moore had i come every fifteen minutes for bulletins, / with which she had hurried off to the library where Mary Moore was waiting to hear. And where were these ladies now? Faith, like sensible women, now that the patient's case was no longer danger- ous nor perplexing, they had gone to bed, to sleep off the pet dissipation of their kind, even as man sleeps off the chosen orgies of his. And what is there, oh, ladies, more self-indulgent, more detrimental to health and looks, than to sit up the whole night through and pam- per yourselves with bulletins, and with anxiety, and with pity, and with fear? Once during the day I got out of bed, contrary to Sir Peter's orders, and stag- gered to the escritoire in the corner, and wrote a little note and addressed it to the Blue Room, to be delivered when Miss Moore should wake. There he found me, fallen over upon the envel- [84] N^f. i! ANOTHER DISAPPOINTMENT ope while the ink was still wet — The Blue Room printed in reverse upon my left cheek. Such a scolding as I re- ceived! Not so violent as to excite me, nor yet so lenient as to leave even a re- mote hope of ultimate forgiveness. And furthermore, Miss Moore had i'wakened, greatly refreshed, and had gone home. Should Sir Peter take the note to Lady Moore as second string? She also had sat up all night, but I had not had the thought to write so much as " Boo " to her. No, she hadn't found me bleeding to death. If she had, being a sensible, experienced woman, she would have left me there. She knew well enough what those who cherished vipers in their bosoms must expect. A very searching scolding all around. I was not allowed to leave my room for a week. During this three things happened. Lady Nairn was buried; and I received a letter from my mother, who had moved to our place in the country. Among other things, she wrote : Short of malaria stay where you are. You are fallen among pleasant people and civilised. Here, forty miles from New York, the barn- burnings of last winter are being continued. . . . Three people have seen the firebug at work, but will not bear witness lest their own barns go when he comes out of jail. . . , The country is lovely ; hosts of spring [85] 4W THE VOICE IN THE RICE II m mJv , flowers, and now and then a drunken man in ^' V>/ /0'^ ^ ditch. It is always a pleasure to me to see 1^ yJ my neighbours so drunk that they cannot 'ai^/A y move. They are then less potent for evil, and one knows that their heads will be painful. . . . What a blessing it is that the town went no license at the last election. The tulip tree of which we are so fond has been taken during the winter for firewood by neighbour Blum. There is one log of it left in his front yard — the section containing the hollow where the little screech owl nested. But I have not as yet been able to speak my mind to him, as when he is half drunk he understands nothing but his native German, and when he is wholly drunk he is insensible. I can see him now, from my window, in his river-field. He has planted it to corn this year, and lies as a rule just under the scarecrow. . . . Dog has been poisoned. I had the Vet examine him, and he said that his stomach looked like a fragment of Brussels lace. . . . Poor Dog. Anybody can fish in our brook now, and everybody does. Fortunately it contains no fish. To be serious, my son, there is no law, order or decency — at any rate in our section — within forty miles of City Hall. Why did your great-grandfather leave his country? Be- cause conditions became impossible. We look upon him as a very noble, righteous, puritani- cal sort of hero. But what do we say of per- sons who leave this country because the condi- tions are impossible. We say traitor, faint- heart, pole-cat. As a matter of fact, we are all descended from people who fled from the intolerable. Why more of us haven't inher- ited the sense to do likewise I don't know. ^,,]frj=;/*, But then I have no vote. I will send you the ^-%-^> [86] i» ANOTHER DISAPPOINTMENT copy of the Man without a Country the next time I go to town. Mr. Blum got up just now, moved to the shady side of the scarecrow*^-u and lay down again. If you went to Englandl to live Mr. Blum would say that you were a % traitor. Now the third thing which happened that week was this : I was lying upon my back, just like Mr. Blum, but for a different reason. I had read a whole book through, a novel dealing with New York society, and I was determined to sleep it off at once. I was dozing probably — and then waked widely. There were two voices in the garden. I leaped to the window and looked out through the shutters, but the voices came from close to the house wall to the left. Very cautiously I pushed the shutters open and thrust my head out inch by inch. My heart thumped like a trunk falling downstairs. But the owners of the voices were under the little porch, hidden by the sheets of yellow roses, and as I must have caught the gist of what was being said had I stayed longer it seemed necessary to close the shutters and go back to bed. Presently the voices went into the house. M [87] / A PRETTY TALK WITH LORD NAIRN if I WAS no sooner dressed and about than f I was desired to wait upon Lord Nairn. He wished to see me alone, and neither Sir Peter nor his wife could give a rea- son for it. " We shall not know what he wants with you," Sir Peter said, " until you come back and tell us. And at that he may bind you not to tell." " He will bind me to nothing to which I do not wish to be bound," I said. " I will make you that promise." Lord Nairn was in his garden in the hottest corner. He was in mauve linen from head to foot. " I have sent for you, Mr. Bourne," he said, " to say that I am strongly against detaining persons among us against their will. You will by now in /; all probability be impatient of restraint ) . and wish to go back to your own coun- " try." " I am not conscious of any restraint," I said. " That is not sense," said Lord Nairn. " To a man of character and vigour the fact that he does not even know his own way home must seem an [88] w I A TALK WITH LORD NAIRN impugnment of his personal liberty. If no one guides you out of Santee — then in Santee you live and die." %\\iid "And what is Santee," said I, bear.o|r|9' ing my mother's epistle in mind, " but % Mik an integral part of my own country — ' more lawless than other parts accord- ^ ing to the Constitution and its amend- ments, but an integral part none the less, no matter what itself may have to say on the subject." Lord Nairn rolled his round eyes full into the sun and looked bored. " Just because you are very success- ful smugglers and are able for a time to make negroes work for you without paying them wages doesn't constitute you an independent people," I said. " You have broken the law longer with impunity, that is all." " Is this the tone," piped Lord Nairn, "that you adopt in your conversations with Sir Peter?" "No," said L "If Sir Peter sent for me I should go to him as I have come to you, and he would offer me a chair." " Pirate that he is," commented Lord Nairn. " He is the kindliest and best-man- nered lawbreaker that I know," said I, " with the possible exception of one or two magnates in New York." " I am sorry," said Lord Nairn, with- out taking his eyes from the sun, " that [89] THE VOICE IN THE RICE I have no chair here to offer you." His tone was of a sudden exceedingly cour- teous. " Let us go to the house." '' He set his chair in motion andl wheeled himself rapidly along the path '■ out of the garden and on to a long, brick-floored porch, all In full sunlight, ^i-that extended the length of the south- east front. He gave me a chair and offered refreshments which I declined. " And so, sir," said he, " you feel at home among us." " Absolutely," said I. " And yet," said he, " your place is not here. You are not so quixotic, I sup- pose, as to imagine that by staying you could one day redress our lawlessness, free the negroes like another Lincoln, put an end to our habit of free trade, and bring us of our own acknowledg- ment under the Stars and Stripes? No, sir. The moccasin flag will fly from Government House for many a genera- tion yet." " I have noted," I said, " that it flies within a circle of very tall trees so that it is a matter of real difficulty to get a sight of it." Leviathan broke into a peal of shrill, boyish laughter. "I am liking you better. Bourne," he said presently. "How is your bite?" " Entirely healed, thank you." And I showed him my scars. [90] s' \i, A TALK WITH LORD NAIRN ml " The lucky thing," said Lord Nairn, id " is that in nine hundred and ninety- ^LvM/f) nine million cases out of the ten, a man \ ^^j!/|f is bitten on the arm or leg. It is then ' possible, as it was in your case, to stop the spread of the poison by a tight liga- ture. But if a man were punctured in fthe face he would die inevitably and very horribly — very." He laughed again. " No," he said, " I am wrong, and for the first time in — I cannot re- member how long. You could stop the spread of the poison with the utmost ease. I will patent the method." "What is it?" I asked. " Why," said Lord Nairn, " you take the man who has been bitten in the face and hang him to the nearest tree." " Well," I said, smiling, " if you ever happen to be so bitten, Lord Nairn, I hope that I may be on hand to do the needful for you." " I," said he, " am immune. I have experimented upon myself with snake- venom since my teens, beginning with the merest filtration — a shadow of the stuff — and increasing the dose as I was able to bear it. I had the idea of what's- his-name — the old heathen." He rolled up his sleeve and showed me upon his enormous, hairless, white forearm countless scars of snake-bites. But in no case had one been cut across to let out the poison. I was, naturally, immensely interested. [91] THE VOICE IN THE RICE i , "Are you satisfied?" he asked. »' " It seems to me altogether marvel- lous," I said. " Beyond belief." He showed me his other arm, and there, livid and deep among hosts of old scars, were two fresh punctures. , " I got out of my chair this morning," -said he, " to get those." Between interest and horror I had nothing to say. " Did you suppose that my immense length was merely a freak of Nature? " he asked. " The men of my family were all small. That has been one effect of the poison. Another is my passion for the sun ; my ability to look it in the face, the fact that I never visibly perspire. The pleasure I take, growing more and more with the years, of remaining mo- tionless for hours. And that, I fancy, more than the venom, has to do with my enormous girth." ;'Well," said I, "to be frank, I think yours the most horrid habit I ever heard of." " You are right to call it a habit," said he. " Like all habits it will one day get the better of its victim." He was silent for some moments. And then the shrill, boyish voice — startling after any period of silence: " What are your sensations on seeing a snake? " " Nausea," I said promptly. " Mine," said he, " are the opposite [92] #- A TALK WITH LORD NAIRN ^ ,^^ — hunger. That is what I fear, Bourne. ^ I will confess to you, not for publica^jN'vK^/vf/ " tion, that once or twice I have had the^^^i w^ thought : ' What would be the sensation^ , of swallowing a living snake by the 'X tail?'" (f^\^ I pushed my chair back from him so that its feet squeaked sharply on the bricks. "For God's sake. Lord Nairn," I said, " change the subject." His eyes darted here and there in the shrubbery and the muscles of his cheeks twitched and rippled under the fat in a curious manner. He gave himself a shake and resumed his usual pose of in- dolent immobility. " So," said he, " you don't want to leave us yet? " " Not yet," I said. " That is most agreeable of you," said he. " When you are ready to go, tell me. I sent for you to say that the road is open." " And what of the tales that I would feel in duty bound to tell of the San- tee?" I asked. " Tell them," he said. " Do you mean it? " " I have thought much upon that head," said he, " and I have concluded that your Government, far from arising in its wrath and descending upon us, would not believe a word you said, and, if you protested, would most likely ap- [93] ^ THE VOICE IN THE RICE mi wmy mi i\l point a commission in lunacy to sit upon (your case." And I went away with an absolute | conviction of the truth of Lord Nairn's conclusions. My Government surely, my friends unquestionably, and my mother probably, would put me down 'for an Incorrigible liar. I told Sir Peter the whole of the conversation. He said it was true about the snakes. But why Lord Nairn so evidently wished me to leave the Santee was no plainer to him than it was to me. But to Lady Moore, when we told her, it was plain as day. " He is very subtle in many ways," she said, " and he has had an intuition ! " "And what is this one this time?" mocked Sir Peter. " It is this," she said. " He has con- cluded that not any of us, but Richard here alone, may perhaps stand between him and Mary Moore. Tell me this, Richard," she said, " doesn't she at- tract you immensely already? " " You forget," my lips said, " that I have never seen her." But my expression must have uttered something more committal. For Lady Moore looked at me, and reached up her hands and laid them on my shoul- ders, and looked, and said: " Why— Richard ! " Sir Peter left us hastily, whistling. eS ■ [941 CHALLENGED ^HAT more to me was she whom I loved than a voice? Have you ever been offered shares in a gold mine by an able talker, your imagination work- ing and building upon the promoter's glittering statements until you have fancied yourself into a house upon the Avenue at the very least, roses in all the rooms and an Italian car at the curb, purring? Had they talked me into this love of mine? Was I so simple, so im- pressionable? Or was the voice alone to blame? If I met her face to face and she did not speak, should I know her? Yes. I should know her here in the Santee. There could be no doubt about that. Yes, I should know her any- where; were the meeting deferred to another country where I thought she could not be, still if we met I should know her. Who would not know at a glance the most beautiful, the most rav- ishing, the most rare? But if you doubt that a man could fall in love before so slight an impetus, know that I, to whom the writing of a letter was as the pulling of a tooth, now took to myself pens and paper and [951 THE VOICE IN THE RICE 1 burned candles into the night. I have that mass of writing still, but I wilI'?i;_I;K\.|jW spare you those verses, sonnets and love-l ''^'"QnW songs of which itself is by no means % sparing. Here are excerpts: When they speak of Leviathan or Shirley I feel as if I were entering a cold, damp cellar. When they speak of Mary Moore then I am coming out into the sun. When they couple her name with either of theirs the green and blue world turns red. I have met Shir- ley and played tennis with him. He is a long, big creature, very handsome. He was pinkly courteous to me, but I beat him. Janie McMoultrie says that he has been in love with Mary Moore all his lazy life, and that she is so kind to him because he has been so faithful. Faithful, pooh ! say I ; for the young men have other stories anent his faith- fulness. Like many here — for these people trust each other wondrously to keep secrets — he has made the Grand Tour. They still use that old expres- sion. All the capitals of Europe have smiled upon Shirley and his handsome face and his long purse. Alas, he has a long purse. What have I to offer? But she doesn't care about purses, full or flabby. • • • • • Lord Nairn has again suggested in the most courteous way that I leave the [96] M CHALLENGED country. He fears that, unaccustomed J^ to the climate, I shall take the malaria. "^^^^^ i-y What do I care? I will stay till thisl T^ semi-tropics freezes over, if she stays, ^i^jji^fj, If she tells me to go I will not go un- apy, less she will go with me. I have just told the mirror over the dressing-table p^ that I love her. I selected the mirror because it is in the shape of a heart. I love the mirrors In this house. They have all reflected her loveliness. She was here so much when she was little. This room of mine was hers. Here she had the measles, and here she had the diphtheria that time she nearly died. In yonder basin she has scrubbed her dolls, I dare say, till the paint came off. By yonder great bed she has knelt to say her charming prayers. Why have I not seen her? I think there is a wicked power at work to pre- vent! I scent plots. I smell conspir- acies! Truth will out. She has had a cold. Trojan Helen has one every spring. Yes, she did. You believe me? I thank you. And if the most beauti- ful of antiquity, why not the most beau- tiful of all time? Bless her, oh God, during and between sneezes. She had a little fever with the cold, but that is over. She will be about in a day or so. . • • • • We serenaded her last night. Nellie and Janie McMoultrie, Joan Stevens, [97] HB- THE VOICE IN THE RICE Harry McMoultrie, Shirley and I — met by appointment in the garden under her . window. The window was wide open, ) but there was no light in the room. Janie tiptoed to Mr. Santee Moore's study and asked him if Mary was awake. Yes, she was awake. Lord, how dark it was ! Shirley fell over a box bush and almost gave us away. We did not want her to know that we were there until we burst suddenly into song. We had practised in the afternoon. Janie returning from the study ran plunk into me — and giggled. Almost another give- away. We gathered close together. Joan Stevens, who is calmer than most in moments of supreme excitement, gave us the key in a whispered hum. And, a little raggedly in getting started, but pretty well together and with a fine, brisk rhythm (though I say it as am one of those that shouldn't), we burst clamorously upon the night with: M m iM =S) Gaily the troubadour Touched his guitar, As he was hastening Home from the war. And more slowly, and in my case with very genuine yearning: Singing from Palestine Hither I come; Lady-love, lady-love, We-elcome me home. [98] CHALLENGED And so on. Would she come to the window, I wondered. Could the eye be made to pierce the darkness between ?'^x Almost I hoped she would not come. I*^ '& wanted to see her with all my heart and g^;|^/ soul, but not, oh, not to have my very first sight merely as among those pres- ent. But she didn't come to the window. She spoke to us from deep within the room. She said she was lying down — too comfortable and happy to move. Happy? What had she then to be so happy about? I didn't want her to be so happy all by herself. Oh, she said, our voices sounded heavenly. The night was young, ever so young. Sing on, nightingales. So we sang on and on and ran out of practised channels Into deeps and shallows among which was much floundering and oh-ohing and laughter. Then, for it was growing late, they pushed Shirley and me forward — well under the window. And we sang, side by side, detesting each other very cor- dially : I arise from dreams of thee In the first sweet sleep of night, When the winds are breathing low And the moon is shining bright. I arise from dreams of thee, And a spirit in my feet Has led me, who knows how, To thy chamber window, sweet. And when that was over, once more [99] r!j!i '4 THE VOICE IN THE RICE all together we sang that stately old chanty : il 1/1 Farewell and adieu to you all, Spanish ladies; I )'1.-,T/ Farewell and adieu to you, ladies of Spain. And then we were for departing — • when the voice came from above: ' " Troubadours all," she called gaily, " I am about to fling you a rose, having no moneys by me." Shirley and I edged forward a little, jealously. Silence. Then a sound as of a soft thing hitting a pane of glass and a note of golden laughter and the voice : " I'll try another." We heard it fall at our feet. We scrambled for it. Shirley threw him- self roughly against me. I lost my temper and flung him away as I might an old glove. He came rushing back, mad as a hatter. But I had the rose. He whispered in my ear: "You'll hear from this." Gentlemen and ladies, I have been challenged. I am to fight a duel. You understand? I thank you. That is how I feel about it. Very flippant. • • • • • We parted at the landing, each in his or her canoe — a shadow on the waters —a _ rippling — a rustling this way — a rasping that — vanishment — voices grow- ing fainter and fainter. [loo] XIV. TRAGIC END OF A FARCE ft ftU M It surprised me to learn that the cus- tom of the duello survived among a people in many ways enlightened. For, having received a formal challenge from Mr. Shirley, who named Lord Nairn as his second (though the chal- lenge was brought by a proxy) , I car- ried it at once to Sir Peter with the re- quest to act for me. He said that Shir- ley and I must inevitably have fallen out and he treated the matter with his usual banter and levity. And though I was pleased enough, I am afraid, to fight Shirley, I thought, nevertheless, that Sir Peter showed mighty little concern where a life, perhaps, was at stake. But when I said something about the choice of weapons he laughed out loud. "My dear Richard," he said, "we don't fight with weapons in the Santee. Our population couldn't stand it." "Fists?" I suggested hopefully. "Nonsense," said Sir Peter. "The object of the duello is not to show which of two hot-headed men is the stronger or the more fatal, but to furnish each with an honest chance to obtain satis- faction from the other. If Shirley fights you with his fists what honest or earthly [lOl] i '^w-iy"*i THE VOICE IN THE RICE 'M chance has he of obtaining satisfaction? None." " What is the custom then, Sir Peter?" \ " It is very simple," he said. " The two adversaries face each other. A third party, chosen by the second, is pro- ■ vided with a stop-watch. At the word ' Now ' he starts his watch going, while the contestants try to guess when a min- ute has passed. The one whose guess is nearest is then permitted to strike his adversary an open-handed blow upon the face — the recipient of the blow to stand motionless during its delivery, and afterward if he can. The guessing is then resumed until seven slaps have been exchanged." I was mightily tickled with this no- tion for settling disputes. " But," I said, " it's too easy, Sir Peter. My pulse is as regular as a clock. I have only to keep tab of its beats to " " We bar that," said Sir Peter. " Now suppose we send word to Lord Nairn that we will be at his house this even- ing at sharp five. He will have his prin- cipal there. And you two youngsters may each hope to box the other's ear all the seven times. Have you ever guessed minutes? No? I advise you to practise. It's not easy. Lucky you're not fighting Lord Nairn. He can tell them to the second." [102] TRAGIC END OF A FARCE Sir Peter pulled out his watch and )J gave it to me. U "Carry that into the garden," he, said, " and coach yourself." In the midst of Lord Nairn's garden is an open rectangle made by a closely- cropped hedge of Amor River privet. And here the belligerents met and sa- luted one another very coolly. Lord Nairn was in that corner of the place which the sinking sun still warmed, and I noted with some surprise that his choice for timekeeper — for we had left that detail wholly to him — was Mr. Santee Moore. Considering that at the root our quarrel was about the latter's daughter the arrangement struck me as in bad taste. Having conferred a moment with Lord Nairn, Sir Peter di- rected Mr. Shirley and myself to our places near the centre of the open space, not without a show of dignity and cere- mony. Mr. Santee Moore then re- quested us to remove our hats. I think Shirley must have made a mis- take in removing his hat with his right hand. He must have intended to use his left. Anyway, he lifted his right to his hat and I saw in the palm of it a small square of surgeon's plaster. My first thought was that he had had a hurt, and (for I knew him to be right- handed) that he was showing good sportsmanship in fighting (if you may [103] i THE VOICE IN THE RICE call it that) before it was well. But Aj* my next thought or intuition (it was ff^ more that) was a better one, as events l ^>^^ yn,, proved. I had no reason to suspect % ^1 fY treachery, but I did. Suppose, however, ^ I asked to see the plaster and it should f prove to be nothing but plaster; I ji /? should look all kinds of a suspicious f fool. I knew that I must keep silence ^ at whatever cost. False pride, man's ^ natural love of dignity, made that de- j mand. I must be wrong. And yet I r could have sworn that something in the ! (/ centre of that square of plaster, some minute particle of bright matter, as a crumb of glass, had for one instant re- fracted the light. Furthermore, considering that here was a mere matter of a slap or so in the face, my adversary looked monstrous nervous. Under his clear, brown tan he was the colour of cigar ash. But when he found that my eyes were stead- ily upon his right hand, which hung half closed with its back to me, the ash col- our was wiped out by an upward rush of crimson. "Are you ready, gentlemen?" asked Mr. Santee Moore. We bowed. "Now!" said he, and clicked the lever of his watch. Now a minute is a very long period of time, as I had learned of Sir Peter's timepiece. And I was determined not to speak until after Shirley, even if my [ 104 ] f; I o o a. ' o o o so o O tn c M IS 2 ■-a Uh s Lh r^ ■3 -C3 J3 o .s 'C J3 ID C j: J f 1 v; IE fi w -w- TRAGIC END OF A FARCE judgment claimed that an hour had passed. I knew Shirley to be impetu- ous,, hot-headed and rash. If either of "^ us was to guess short it would be he. \;» ' But he waited — and I waited. And I began to think that he knew what he was about. Surely, I thought, it is a '■minute now, surely. Suddenly: J "Time!" said Shirley. Mr. Santee Moore looked at his watch, but did not change expression. A moment later: "Time!" said I. Mr. Santee Moore smiled. " Sharp work," he said, " gentlemen. Mr. Shirley's guess is short of the min- ute by forty-five seconds; Mr. Bourne's by forty-four — call it." So it was my first turn. Shirley stood motionless, but by no means happy. And I struck him open-handed over his lower left cheek and jaw with all my might and main. He went to the ground as if he had fallen all the way from the clouds — his hands open, his fingers wide apart like star-fish. Lord Nairn smothered an oath and wheeled rapidly toward him. But I had already knelt and taken his right hand in mine. " Look, gentlemen," I said, " and for the honour of your Santee be glad that the first turn was mine." In full sight of all I ripped the plaster from Shirley's hand and gave it to Sir Peter. [105] ¥il IT ly \h — s— =SJ THE VOICE IN THE RICE •' Be careful," I said. Through the plaster, so that the point '^\\m must have pierced my cheek, was thrust i^^% a brass-headed thumb-tack such as ^ x5l thumb-tack such draftsmen use to pin a sheet of paper "^^^ to a drawing-board. But the point and /tlf) shank of this particular tack was '^ "' smeared with a semi-transparent, am- ber-coloured gum. " Unless I am wrong, gentlemen," said Sir Peter — his words came in a kind of tapping staccato — " this has been smeared with a poisonous resin, the secret of which handed down from the Carolina Indians is still known among certain of the old negroes who affect to practise voodoo. It is, yoy may say, a triple extract of moccasin or rattlesnake venom. That, however, is a matter soon proved." Kneeling suddenly by the side of Shirley he thrust the tack Into the lat- ter's cheek to the head. I caught at his arm, but was not in time. Even Lord Nairn, I think, was struck with horror at the deed. And as for Sir Peter, he rose from his horrid work shaking from head to foot. I' I have sworn," he cried in a high voice, "to be just. I have been just. What I did was right " _ Lord Nairn's voice broke In upon him like a wave of something glitter- ing and cold. " Right or wrong," he shrilled, " you [io6] TRAGIC END OF A FARCE hW M)i' (v9 If' ik 1 t S ' n 1 f have proved nothing. He was a dead /, J man before he touched the ground. We , have to thank Mr. Bourne for breaking , a very worthless young man's neck." It was true. I lifted poor misguided Shirley by the shoulders, and his head hung down over his back. / " I heard it crack," said Lord Nairn. Here Mr. Santee Moore put in a word. " For the sake of Shirley's family," said he, " let us agree to forget his treacherous attempt upon Mr. Bourne. But it is in your hands, Mr. Bourne — are we asking too much of you?" " By all means," I said. " I will for- get, or at least I will not speak. Never- theless, I am heartily glad that I have killed him." M lit # [107] w^ LORD NAIRN LEAVES HIS CHAIR AT HOME i \\Vli i XV. Sir Peter and I started home at once, but Mr. Santee Moore remained with Lord Nairn to send out messages to Mr. Shirley's friends and relatives and to make a first disposition of the body. We had not gone far when I found that my mind had changed materially on two points. I was upset almost to the point of nausea to think that I had killed a man, and I no longer thought of Sir Peter as the fiend incarnate. I pitied him rather, he was so terribly agitated and horrorstruck. And it was not un- til I had got him home that he was able to think and speak lucidly. Here, how- ever, he pulled himself together, drank a brandy-and-water, talked privately with Lady Moore for a quarter of an hour, and at last called me into his study. " What has happened, Richard," he said, " has more beneath than appears. In the first place, we must exonerate Shirley in our own minds. Not entirely, but in this way: we must remember that he was weak, a lover, and, I have often thought, more under Lord Nairn's in- [io8] I J^i LORD NAIRN'S CHAIR 111 !<>« f fluence than is human. What he at- tempted may or may not have been the act of a free agent. To my mind, how-'""'^ ever, it was based upon suggestion, hyp-'^ notic, let us say, or, at least, induced '% by a mental power that he was not fit < to resist. I myself make a practice of ♦ not meeting Lord Nairn's eyes when in conference with him." "And I," said I, "believe Lord Nairn responsible — at least for the in- vention. But we shall never know now if the tack was or was not poisoned." " Not positively," said Sir Peter. " Does it matter? " " No," I said. " Tell me. Sir Peter, why was your brother referee? It seemed to me in very questionable taste." " Matters look so serious, my boy," said Sir Peter, " that I will be frank even at my brother's expense. The luxury of his house and way of living is a farce, sir. He is over ears in debt. Lord Nairn holds his paper to a shock- ing amount. Santee is not a bad man. He is in trouble. A man in trouble is never quite himself. Why do we take Lord Nairn's passion for my niece so seriously? Because her father is vastly indebted to Lord Nairn. Because she loves her father to distraction. And be- cause she will save him if she can. And now," said he, " I have exposed this damnable ulcer to you, and you can see [109] mm m THE VOICE IN THE RICE for yourself that it is drawing to a head. , J Now, sir," he said, " I have no desire to , '" see you turned into a burnt offering. So, tales or no tales, I ask for no prom- ises — I will make what effort I can to get you out of the country." " Hum," I said thoughtfully. Mf ^: " Shirley's death will be laid at your IfA/j^ door by his friends and blood relations. \0 The matter of the thumb-tack will re- Hn ceive no especial promulgation, you may \ be sure. We ourselves have rashly agreed to say nothing about it." "And Mary Moore?" I asked. " The chase is closing about her, poor girl," said Sir Peter. He sighed deeply. " She will be forced into marrying Lord Nairn ? " I asked hotly " Oh, it looks so," said Sir Peter. " It looks damnably so. But what is a world without tragedy? We shall all be dust a hundred years hence." " Surely," I said,_ " you and Lady Wrenn can do something." " If it came to war (Sir Peter smiled grimly) we could raise up but one fighter to Lord Nairn's two. You forget^ sir, or you do not know that to the negroes Lord Nairn is the greatest of all the voodoos, past, present or to come. He would go among them with a moccasin hanging to his neck by the teeth — or some such fireworks — and the blacks, if only through thundering fear, would follow him through fire and water." [no] LORD NAIRN'S CHAIR "And for all that," said I, "Mary I J Moore shall not be thrown to that poi- , ///f! r sonoushulk!" ^fm There was no knocking. The door fe (■ m IP Ik THE VOICE IN THE RICE Sir Peter had had two lamps lighted, because the night was hot and sticky. _ But whether his putting the one out was , merely an ordinary domestic act, or whether he suspected the mine that was actually to be exploded by Lord Nairn and was preparing one counter to it, I do not know, but I think the latter. For Having blown the one lamp out he re- turned, not to his former seat, but to a straight-backed chair immediately be- side the other. "Well, Richard," he said, "I can- not agreed with Lord Nairn. I think you will be safe enough in my house for the present, and later whenever you choose to go. I am determined to tell the whole truth about the duel. I will not be particeps criminis." " But I," said Lord Nairn, a metallic note of anger in his voice, " have given my word to say nothing about the mat- ter, as Bourne gave his." " I think that I made no promise," said Sir Peter. " Silence, sir," said Lord Nairn, " in such circumstances was tantamount to consent." "I am not agreed," said Sir Peter firmly. " I will tell the whole truth. And you, Lord Nairn, if you have sworn to say nothing, have not, also, sworn to contradict what I may say. If harm comes to Bourne it shall not be based upon so sickly a point of honour." [114] ! i m I m ml LORD NAIRN'S CHAIR He reached swiftly for a pen and be- gan to write swiftly. ^^^^ " I will send a true account of this r^^"''/^ affair to the Shirleys themselves," said % pifjV he, "^first of all. And if I write notes '^ft all night the truth of it shall go to every person of importance In the San- „/3?tee." " So," said Lord Nairn mildly. He towered In the shadowy room, at once a fearful and a wonderful figure. " So," said he, " the Council disa- grees." " Lady Wrenn would vote with me," put in Sir Peter quickly. He had al- ready addressed his note and com- menced another. " The Council disagrees," went on Lord Nairn without heeding the objec- tion. " So, gentlemen, as chairman I must take it upon myself to be the de- ciding voice. Once and for all, Mi*. Bourne, will you go?" " Once and for all. Lord Nairn," said I, "let us stand upon a basis of facts. You wish me to leave the coun- try, not because as you have reiterated so often you are afraid for me, but be- cause I think you are afraid of me. Fate brought me here, and I think In doing so Fate had a mind to raise up an ob- stacle in your path. And I think. Lord Nairn, that you think so, too. So let us finish with shilly-shallying. I will not go of my own will." [115] THE VOICE IN THE RICE IP "Afraid of you, sir!" piped Lord Nairn in his shrillest voice. "Not, sir, while I have a live moccasin in each of . my jacket pockets." &. ^ I admit that I turned very cold from 2^ head to foot. Lord Nairn laughed, not a pleasant laugh, and after a moment: I " So another kind of fiend," said he, "carries his hypodermic ever handy. Have no fear. I shall not waste my snakes on one who could not appreciate them." He turned, opened the door into the hall and spoke a word of " sea-coast." Four negroes, immense, ugly fellows, black as the Styx, filed into the room. Two of them carried a great piece of fish-netting, each of the others had lengths of half-inch rope over his left arm. " It has seemed at length necessary," said Lord Nairn, " to speed the guest upon his way." Sir Peter rose. " This is an outrage against the law," he said in a ringing voice. " You will find," said Lord Nairn, " that in the Santee I am the law." " That," said Sir Peter bitterly, " has been dawning upon some of us this many a year." "Lord Nairn," said I, "like many other great fellows has a fancy to be an emperor." I stepped quietly to the fireplace and picked up the poker. But [ii6] M, iwi m, LORD NAIRN'S CHAIR I was not destined to fight for my lib- erty. Sir Peter by a lightning sweep of his i^ ' arm sent the lamp by which he was ^ / standing crashing to the floor and we were in pitch darkness. "Bolt!" he cried. /j/ But I had no need of the suggestion. (J Before, I think, Lord Nairn or his ne- f groes had moved an inch I was out of i the window and in the garden. I heard Lord Nairn curse shrilly. The frame of the window was too narrow to afford passage to his great bulk. I took up my stand behind a clipped bush of box over which I could just see. The night, still young, was not very dark when your eyes became used to it. It was the sudden extinguishing of the lamp rather than the actual darkness caused thereby that had had so blinding an effect in the study. I stood and watched the house to see if any one came out, and had not long to wait. A door crashed open on the little garden porch and the tremendous form of Lord Nairn, looking huger than ever in the starlight, came dashing into the garden. Not to his snake eyes had the sudden darkness in the study been impenetrable. He had seen me plunge through the open window, and while endeavouring to follow he must have seen me hide behind the box bush. For now he came Straight at it and, as it seemed, with the [117] \l\ t\ mih THE VOICE IN THE RICE V: X H \(t' swiftness of the wind. They were right J J who said that the monstrous man could use his feet when he wanted to. He ; seemed as light upon them as is thistle- down upon the wind. For a moment or two I was like a thing rooted deep in the ground. I l-thought of the snakes in his pockets and my hair rose into a bristling, electrified pompadour. My whole scalp tickled with it. I do not know how I got over my temporary paralysis, and only know this : that I could hear the breath in the creature's nostrils before I turned and ran — through hedges, over flower-beds and out of the garden gate. Then dash- ing to the left and skirting the garden wall I ran with all my speed for the next corner, turned that, passed the kitchen end of the house and ran along the side which faces the water. And here a lucky thought entered my head. I turned once more sharply, this time to the right, made one great burst of it for the landing, snatched up a canoe, flung it belly down on the water, myself half in, half on it as a lad starts his sled at the top of a hill, and by the impetus was carried twenty yards from shore. Then I got to my knees and picked up the paddle that was by good fortune in the bottom of the canoe. But Lord Nairn, who stood cursing upon the landing which his great weight half submerged, was unable to follow. I Ij % m i LORD NAIRN'S CHAIR There were, it is true, canoes in plenty for those who chose to use them, and the broad-beamed, four-oared barge in-cTsJ which he himself had come with hisj^^ henchmen. But his was not the figure"^ for a canoe, and he knew it. For a second I thought that he was going to plunge into the water and swim ' for it; and for a second I thought that he was going to throw one of his hypo- dermics at me, for he took a thick snake from his pocket, all the while cursing shrilly, and then hesitated and put It back. But presently he recovered himself. And his piping voice came across the stretch of water which I had widened by a spasmodic stroke of the paddle when I saw him put his hand into his pocket. " Well," said he, " you have the bet- ter of it, Mr. Bourne. Did you show me your natural speed or was it only cowardice which furnished you with so pretty a pair of heels? I wouldn't ven- ture far into the rice if I were you. You will only lose yourself and perish miserably. Still, please yourself. I'm not sure but what that would be, on the whole, the safest thing for you to do." He turned without another word and walked slowly back to the house, only to return after a short interval with his four blacks. But I, you may be sure, had retreated into the rice and was [119] =s;) i S' 1 J ',» THE VOICE IN THE RICE But no effort keeping still as a mouse, was made to find me. Lord Nairn seated himself in t)\t^^^f stern of the barge, the negroes took( A-^ their places at the oars and at a word gj^'j of command rowed off into the night at <^v a furious pace. When I could no longer . hear the beat of the oars I paddled to the landing and went back to the house. I was not a heroic figure, even in my own mind, I assure you. But I devoutly thanked my Maker for the pair of legs with which He had furnished me. And Sir Peter, when he saw me safe and sound, opened his thin arms wide and embraced me. viiin That night he had the approaches to w his mansion watched. But no one came. [ 120] NEXT MORNING Though no one came and there was no occurrence to excite apprehension, I passed a sleepless and a wretched night. To owe money that you cannot pay; to have failed in some obligation of kind- ness or courtesy; to be put down wrongly by a word to which you can- not find the answer upon the instant; or, in brief, to have done anything incon- sistent with your own golden opinion of yourself; these things support conscious- ness far into the night. I had run away as a schoolboy with stolen apples runs from the farmer. Nor could the imagining out of a different scene in which I played an unstanding and triumphant part comfort me. Nor did it comfort me that I had fled, not from a man, but from poison. Nothing, it seemed, could ever recover my self- respect for me. I was worse than the hero of the lines: I \| He who fights and runs away Will live to fight another day. which continually ran in my head. For I had not fought before running. I had scampered as a rabbit from a dog. And [ 121 ] // 111 n THE VOICE IN THE RICE when in the morning I joined Sir Peter and Lady Moore at breakfast it was ^^ to greet them with a hanging head. But ,., , t/ they had only approbation for me and , Vi,^ ' a piece of news that made my heart (^ ? beat like a lion's. And I knew that I 2 would not again run away either from poison or man. // " My brother," said Sir Peter, " was H here very early this morning in a state ? of the most lamentable distress. His ' daughter, just recovered from her ill- ness, went yesterday upon business con- nected with the hospital to Lady Wrenn < — was with Lady Wrenn for half an hour and has not been seen or heard of smce. " If she has been abducted by that " I began. But Lady Moore in- terrupted. *' I think that she has run away," she said, " to escape him — and her father." Sir Peter looked grave and nodded. " I must confess," he said, " that my brother's anguish seemed to be of a mixed sort." " I have waited till Richard came down," said Lady Moore, " to show you something. It concerns him more than you." She shook a sheet of note- paper, crumpled and soiled, from her lap and began to smooth it out. " There was a fire in the hbrary," she said, " to take off the morning chill. While San- tee was talking with us he took this note [122] 4 M 1 I fl THE NEXT MORNING from his pocket, crumpled it arid threw it into the fire. But instead of being '^s^VAvft burned the draft carried it up the chim-1 '^^^ ney. You didn't think anything about it, Peter, but / saw him start arid change colour. Being a woman," con- fessed Lady Moore sweetly, " I have ^0 a dozen servants into look for it. Coffee the Pot ^ /f about as much sense of honour as a hen. I sent half grounds to found it." Then, sure of her triumph, she mo- tioned us to her side, and, looking over her shoulder, we read, in a bold, clear hand: -~i> Father dear: A month ago, yes. But now what you ask is impossible. Ruin is a little thing compared to what you ask. A month ago I should have thought it a greater thing. But now I can't. A month ago my duty was all to you. Now it is all to another. Even if I never see him again " Then she hasn't gone to him, who- ever he is ! " exclaimed Sir Peter. The note went on, over the page: This is not a mere inclination, but a thing stronger than all the Santee put together. Tell Lord Nairn, and surely he will think bet- ter of himself and of you and of me. I cannot and I will not marry him. It is better for me to go away. When you can give me that protection which every man owes to a woman fly a white flag from the west gable. I shall manage to see it. Mary. [123] m THE VOICE IN THE RICE " So," said Sir Peter, " a month ago ^:^ she'd 'a' done it." ^\yJ '■'^ " And now," exclaimed his wife, " she *. 0/' won't." { " Now," said Sir Peter, " her duty is to another." / Suddenly the pair turned their eyes upon me. ^(i\ " Oh, it can't be ! " I cried, carried away by the accusation. " Listen to me," said Lady Moore. " You have never seen Mary, Richard. You will never see her as she was. Since she found you and brought you home when you were hurt hers has been a different face. Do you think I'm the only one who has noticed it? If you do, how in Heaven's name do you ac- count for Lord Nairn's efforts to get you out of the country?" "They were else gratuitous," said Sir Peter. " Why should he have put up that beastly job with Shirley? He is not the man to do a murder without what seem to him the gravest reasons. He has assumed a kind of dictatorship," cried the hunchback bitterly, " by de- grees subtly, until his is as absolute a monarchy as exists. But his rule has been on the whole for justice and fair dealing except only in this matter of his passions." " The point is this," said Lady Moore, " that Mary is Richard's for the asking." [ 124] THE NEXT MORNING " I loved her at once," I cried, " that j' first morning in the garden when Sir ^ Peter showed me an opening rose andi ^ said that it did not compare with her. % I don't know why it should be so. It is." , " You were sent," said Lady Moore. I have always maintained that you were sent." " But she can't care for me," I la- mented; "that is an unheard-of impos- sibility." " Oh," said Lady Moore, " she was a changed girl after she brought you in. Every fifteen minutes, all that night, I kept bringing her word that you were holding your own. Once it seemed that you were not so well. And then — I knew. ' Why, Mary,' I said, ' what is this young man to you?' 'What?' said she. ' I knew him well,' she said, ' in Babylon. It would go hard with me,' she said, ' to lose him after ten thousand years.' " I was trembling in every limb. " You never told me," I said. " My dear ! " she exclaimed, " I couldn't until I knew that you cared In the same way." " It was damnably queer," said Sir Peter. " I had not talked with Richard five minutes before I was thinking of Mary. ' Now here's a young man come out of the sea,' I thought, ' bigger and stronger than other young men. Now, [125] n m THE VOICE IN THE RICE I wonder,' I thought, ' if Fate has a finger in this? Pooh!' cried I, ' dress*^ him as other young men, probe him a*^ little and you will be glad enough to be rid of him.' But it was not to be like that. It's, damnably queer," said Sir , Peter. He rose briskly and clapped his hands as if to instil himself with energy. " Now, then," said he, " it remains for us to find Mary and for Richard to marry her out of hand. So much is plain." " Yes," said Lady Moore, " and you should send some one, or go yourself, to see if Santee is flying a white flag from his west gable. There was silence for a time. " Is your brother," I broke out hotly, "capable of treachery to his daughter? Is he capable of flying a white flag, not to bring her back to his protection, but to get her once more in his power? " " If Lord Nairn knows the contents of Mary's note," said Sir Peter, " he will have brought a tremendous pres- sure to bear upon my poor brother." " Cannot you take up your brother's notes? " I asked. He shook his head briefly and named an appalling sum of money. " But, good God I " I said. " Bank- ruptcy may be a narrow and bitter way out, but it is gone through with every day in the year by some one or other." [126] £l "^M THE NEXT MORNING " Not as we go through It," said Sir Peter. " In an extreme case such as my'^^Kft brother's he must become the property I '^ ' of his chief creditor for a term of years. ^ You have seen white men working side by side with negroes in the young rice. .,A11 our slaves are not black, Rlch- ' ard." " And your brother's plan is to sell his daughter into slavery that he him- self may escape doing a man's work with a hoe?" I asked. "Well, hardly that," said Sir Peter; " they would hardly put Santee at that sort of labour. But he might be com- pelled to wait upon those whom he had previously entertained. His alternative would be flight — in which case I have funds in London upon which he could draw in moderation — or suicide. As you say, he is asking a great deal of Mary. But he is, on the other hand, in a desperate case. He has a good knowl- edge of the marshes, but Lord Nairn watches him like a lynx. He has tried flight already — three times — only to be caught and persuaded back; always, of course, without scandal. So you see, sir, there is something to be said for my brother. Now then, I will go to Santee's at once to keep an eye on the west gable. I will leave some one to watch it when I come away. I will be back at noon. You, Richard, had bet- ter take Coffee Pot and make a little [ 127 ] i » THE VOICE IN THE RICE tour in the rice in case Lord Nairn should call again." ^AiK\\l(' " I'll go with him," said Lady Moore. ("W*^ And when Sir Peter had hurried off, ^ y}i " Richard," she said, " I know of a ^^ ^ place — and no one else knows — where g^ 'f-ff ^it is just possible that Mary Moore may 4S)!'3 have gone. Get your hat." K^lf\i I rushed off for my hat almost as swiftly as I had fled from Lord Nairn, and for a Winchester, too, of big cali- bre. But Lady Moore and I were not destined to go upon that excursion. (Wjk [128] CHANGE OF FRONT For when I came back she was fum- bling a great square, white envelope Heavily sealed with red wax, and she was very much excited. " Lord Nairn has not come," she said; "he has sent this instead. Oh, why did Sir Peter go ! " " Is it to Sir Peter? " I asked. " Yes," she said. "Open it, Lady Moore," I said. " This is no time for ceremony." "Ought I?" she said. " I think you must." She ripped open the envelope with a forefinger that shook and read the let- ter through, at first with a puzzled ex- pression, then with a face of wonder and delight. She handed the letter to me and herself unfolded and began to peruse an inclosure that it had con- tained. This is what I read: Believe me, Valued Friend, an old man's passion has boiled itself out. I apologise to you and to Mr. Bourne for my insane at- tempts of last night. There shall be no more violence. You may thank Mary Moore. I have loved her, as all the world knows, since [129] ' '^LiT'^ THE VOICE IN THE RICE 4 't i). Ill I she was a child. But it was not until this morning that I realised that she could not,'=3^k,■ must not, helong to me. A man's passions^ ^) blind him — especially in the case of an old % % man. I have only this morning learned that '^ Mary has placed her affections upon your ^^.J protege, Mr. Bourne; though I have known (as my jealous actions bear witness) that Mr. Bourne's affections have centred about her since he first came among us. Since he has never seen her I do not rightly understand this, but the fact of it is mightily obvious. Natur- ally, though, my affections do not centre about Mr. Bourne. I wish him well only because his well-being is of paramount importance to one whom I love. Had Mr. Bourne not come among us, I must, I think, have married Mary in the end. I begin now to see what an enormity that must have seemed to the world. Let Mr. Bourne take her and go. This last I must insist upon for my own peace of mind. In giving them to each other I shall have done my part ; in departing so that the sight of her happiness with another may not rankle in an old man's breast they will have done theirs. I have thrown your brother's notes into the fire. I have enough. More and more the love of my garden grows upon me. I shall, I must believe, since such is the consensus of human opinion upon the subject, outlive these present and past agitations. I have used what influ- ence I have to promote Mr. Bourne's safety at the hands of those who were attached to poor Shirley, and I think that for the little while that he is to remain in the Santee he may come and go without fear. Do not trouble to an- swer at any length. Let Mr. Bourne fill out and sign the inclosed at his convenience and [130] A CHANGE OF FRONT send it to me. Believe me, sir, an older, a wiser and a kinder man than him you knew Faithfully, Nairn. This is what Lady Moore read and at once handed to me: of , hereby wedlock to m promise to be joined in lawful Mary Moore, she consenting, and within two days thereafter to leave the region of the San- tee, not to return during the lifetime of Lord Nairn unless only upon his invitation so to do. Sign Witnesseth- " He was always an odd stick," said Lady Moore. " But who would have thought of so peaceful an ending? And asking you to bind yourself in writing to marry M^ry!", She laughed out loud. " There is no Ink nearer than the li- brary." I said. " Come, good fairy." " Sha'n't you even wait until Sir Peter comes back? " " Lord Nairn expressly says * at his convenience,' " said I, " and I'd find It mighty inconvenient to wait in such a matter." So we hurried off to the li- brary and I signed and Lady Moore witnessed, and, my real mother not be- ing in reach, I gave her a hug and a kiss. After that we sent off the document [131] W m ml yj-^iih THE VOICE IN THE RICE to Lord Nairn and waited about in a great state and excitement for Sir Peter's return. '^\§^J He came back sooner than he had\^ "^hy'^- romised and his face was grave. % ^i " Santee was not there," he said, "^vVK& nor any word left. There was a nig- ^\-i) It. ger taking down a white flag from the !\ west gable when I arrived. He told me that he had put it up not an hour before; that a httle before I came Mr. Moore had hurried up from the woods and told him to take it down and hur- ried off again. Now, several things may have happened " " First read this," said Lady Moore. " It was addressed to you, but I opened "Did you?" said Sir Peter drily. He read Lord Nairn's letter through. "Where is the inclosure?" he said. " I signed it," said I, " and sent it back to him." " ' Sign in haste,' " said Sir Peter, " ' repent in servitude ' is a Santee prov- erb. What has this precious docu- ment to say for itself? " I repeated it to him, for I had it by heart. " Nothing to repent of in signing that," said I, " for a sane man." " At least," said Sir Peter, but with- out enthusiasm, " the matter of the white flag is now explicable. Mary must have seen it or had word of it as [132] ^^ w lii'^i^ A CHANGE OF FRONT soon as it was displayed. She returned at once and was intercepted by her father and they have gone somewhere^ together. So much is clear." V He frowned and bit his thin lips. " Lord Nairn," he said, " on leaving here last night went at once to Santee's and was in conference with him for an hour. Santee, of course, showed Lord Nairn Mary's note. If at that con- ference they came to the agreement set forth in Lord Nairn's letter to me, why, I ask you, was my brother in such a state of mind when he was here before breakfast this morning?" " Obviously," said Lady Moore, " they came to no agreement." " Not obviously," said Sir Peter. " Possibly, yes, even probably. But, I regret, I see no certainty." " This is possible," I said, " that your brother said nothing to Lord Nairn about his daughter's note or the white flag, but that her note had determined him to fly that flag in good faith to bring her back and to protect her. At the last moment he determined that flight was the better part of protection and so intercepted her and went away with her. It is possible. Sir Peter, that your brother is playing the man." " And," said Sir Peter very drily in- deed, "hence his agitation." He shrugged his shoulders. " Well, it may be as you say. If Santee and Mary are [133] V w M I THE VOICE IN THE RICE i in hiding It may be very difficult to bring about this marriage which Lord Nairn now appears so anxious to make. '"Ak(li%'; They cannot in all probability get outl/YJ^Ir^ of the Santee, but they can remain in it c? a i,fi without discovery — ^well, for a very <• long time." " There is nothing for it, then," said Lady Moore, " but to have patience." " It is possible," said Sir Peter, " that Lord Nairn has also communicated his intentions to my brother this morning, and that Santee has taken his daughter to Lord Nairn's to thank him, possibly — and to see if his notes are really burned up." And this, indeed, seemed to be the truth of the matter. For that after- noon about four o'clock Sir Peter heard as follows from Lord Nairn : " The wedding Is for to-night at eight o'clock," he wrote, " if your candidate can be got ready. It will be at my house. Your brother and Mary Moore are here at the moment. The launch will be in readiness immediately after the wedding supper to pilot the happy pair out of the Santee." lit' m I i [134] XVIII. JUST BEFORE THE WEDDING ^Dear Lady Moore's one anxiety was as to what she should give us for a present. Sir Peter was aggravatingly calm, and I tasted of the eternities that may be contained within the confines of four hours. Four hours would not seem long if at the end of them you were to visit the dentist or to be hanged, but extending between a man and his heart's desire each is an age. I had not enough packing to occupy any length of time. If I had any affairs to setde it could only be done in New York. I did write out a will, leaving all that I was pos- sessed of to my Beloved Wife, Mary, her heirs and assignees for ever, and this I signed and had witnessed in due form by Sir Peter and Lady Moore. I wrote, too, to Mary Moore at Lord Nairn's — the only love-letter that I was ever to write to her — as a bachelor. I shaved. Fifteen minutes later, unsatis- fied with the result, I shaved again. I had nothing more orthodox in which to travel to New York than my brown linen suit, but I could telegraph my mother at the first opportunity to tell her of the marriage and to ask her to [135] f l\\) \y THE VOICE IN THE RICE send more orthodox clothes to the hotel where Mary and I would go from the train. I missed my mother sorely. Though she would be cynical outwardly >^ and in speech, it would hurt her for the % rest of her life, if only a little, not to have been present at my wedding. Of- ten during those ages of waiting and 'thinking I laughed aloud nervously. Many people believe in love after a week; a few believe in it at first sight; but who will believe that it can spring into being when there has been no sight at all? Was Mary dark or was she fair? I only knew that beyond all others she was lovely and beloved. Yet there must have been a leaning upon each other of our spirits, for when at last we met face to face it was without strangeness or awkwardness. If she was more lovely to look upon than the imagination had pictured it is because the imagination is but a faulty instru- ment. About seven o'clock we set out for Lord Nairn's, but in a barge rowed by four negroes and with an awning spread over us and our finery swathed in rub- ber, for It had come on to rain. We were very silent at first; it was to be my last voyage but one among the rice. My friends said that their hearts were a little heavy. And my heart — oh. It wasn't heavy, but it was too full for ut- terance. Once Sir Peter spoke and said [136] \i JUST BEFORE THE WEDDING he hoped that I would not forget them. Once Lady Moore caught my hand In both hers and pressed it affectionately.'crl vfi Shft made me nrnmisp. tn wrtf-p " n1wava» ^/i fy m She made me promise to write " always^ often." Sir Peter asked me If I in- ' tended to tell tales out of school. And I said that rightly or wrongly I would .keep silent so long as I had friends in ' the Santee. " You," I said, " and Miss Stevens, and the McMoultrles, and a few others. But," I said jokingly, " Lord Nairn will become an old-fash- ioned tyrant, and you will all fly to a new land to escape persecution, just as your ancestors fled to this." But Sir Peter took me seriously. " I have feared It for a long time," he said. " I have been sending funds to England as I could spare them — against the rainy day. But I was born in the Santee and It would go hard with my heart to go Into exile." " And he that speaks so bitterly," said Lady Moore, "has a good wife." Sir Peter leaned over and patted her knee. He said nothing, but he whistled softly his favourite: Hey! the rover; Ho! the rover. Will you go roving . . . One by one rain-wearied mosquitoes took shelter In the Inverted hollow of the awning and made their steady and [137] K t THE VOICE IN THE RICE If melancholy music. But they were too bedraggled to bite. Now the rain held up so that you could not tell if it was r: raining or not; again it smote upon the^^ canvas with a sudden roaring. Now ■§ and again the bitter cry of a heron fell, "^ as it were, out of the darkness. It was wonderfully dark. Often, master that he was of those channels, Sir Peter steered into the mud upon one side or the other, and once he made a false turn and we had to back out of an im- passe. He bade one of the negroes light a lantern and stand it in the bows, and it was no sooner in place than he ordered it extinguished. And, indeed, there is nothing more baffling than a lan- tern near at hand on a dark night, dis- torting familiar, near-by objects so as to make them unrecognisable, and, of course, intensifying the darkness that surrounds Its feeble aurora. They use them but little In the Santee. I became terribly restless, fearing that I must be late to my bride and a laggard in her eyes. But Sir Peter only laughed and Lady Moore laughed. For at the very moment that I so expressed myself we were approaching Lord Nairn's landing. A sudden bend re- vealed it lighted by a single lantern, a small stage thrust out from a back- ground of dripping trees, and in the water at either side, leaving the front clear for our landing, a school of barges 1 138 1 W\ HWRjk JUST BEFORE THE WEDDING and canoes. And in midstream a big naphtha launch with a cabin was ma-' noeuvring at a snail's pace to hold her-'^ self in the current until the way was S open for her to be made fast to the landing. She showed no lights and was f discernible half in, half out of the ring extended by the lantern; she was drip- ping wet and shone, here and there, like silver. The rain came down in one of its sud- den, roaring torrents, and they made me wait until that was over before leaving the shelter of the awning. When Sir Peter at length rose from his seat some- thing fell with a thump into the bottom of the barge, and Sir Peter reached for it. "What have you dropped?" asked his wife. " My revolver," said Sir Peter. "Have you yours, Richard?" " Yes," I said. " But why? " said Lady Moore in alarm. " Because," said Sir Peter drily, " as Mr. Shaw says, ' You never can tell.' " Lady Moore came under my um- brella, and clinging tightly to my arm we walked quickly toward the house, Sir Peter following. I have seen many a bridegroom hurrying to the altar and have accom- panied two or three. But I never be- fore heard of one in brown linen and a [139] \i THE VOICE IN THE RICE rubber coat, a lady on his arm, an um- J brella over his head, a revolver in his x>c^y' hip pocket, and an assortment of *^ Ww snake-bite remedies scattered among his others. " My dear boy," said Lady Moore, " I sha'n't see you again alone. Good [h^i^jf A sna n t see you agam aione. uooa \\<'m m^MA ^luck to you. And be good to Mary, \\Wj m \i\ I \ i not ninety-nine times out of the hun- dred, but all the hundred. Remember that to be successful in anything, but more especially in making others happy, it is the hundredth time that counts. Every man will look at your wife all her life, but you must be glad of that and proud of It. It Is only a tribute to the freshest and most spotless beauty that God ever made. I, too, have seen the world in my day, London, Paris, Vienna, New York, and there was never another like Mary." " But, dear Lady Moore," I said, "don't I know that?" l^\ w I* h 1 [140: -?— =SJ WEDDING No SOONER had our feet sounded on the brick floor of the verandah than the hall door was flung open and lights and the sounds of merry voices came forth ; and grinning negroes took our coats and um- brellas and Lady Moore's tiny over- shoes, and one came bearing a smoking negus upon a tray. Then we were ushered into the long drawing-room lighted, as it seemed, by hundreds of candles. And there was Lord Nairn himself, smiling and affable, with a whole garland of girls about his wheeled chair; and about the great punch-bowl at the other end of the room were old and young men in white linen, and there came from them bursts of laugh- ter and the cHcking of glasses. But when the word went around that the bridegroom had arrived your humble servant became the centre of attention. And those whom I knew as friends came with handshakes and kind words; and those whom I had never seen before had pleasant things to say. And there was much laughter because I had signed a paper binding myself to the marriage. Especially the McMoultries teased me. [141] # m if ■ ^\ THE VOICE IN THE RICE They said it was well known that in J/f such matters I was slippery as an eel ; ^ >^ it was not the first match, they dared say, \ ''Q, that I must have consummated had I ■5, f but put my name to a binding agree- } ment. ^ f " Say what you please, people," cried / /i? Janie McMoultrie, " I, too, have known i'5 what It is to listen to this gentleman's r pretty speeches " — she affected to be ^ very bitter. " But / have no document I to prove it. / have only my word against his." But I managed to get a word with Miss Stevens. " Have you seen her? " I asked. " Is she sorry? Is she well?" " She hasn't asked to see any of us," said Miss Stevens; "no, not even me. Her father is with her. And I believe her old mammy has dressed her — and there is Lord Nairn looking for you." I had already, of course, spoken to Lord Nairn and thanked him for his change of attitude; but although he had been courteous and smiling we had I neither of us enjoyed anything about the Interview except Its brevity. I had, indeed, found myself looking, not Into Lord Nairn's face, but at his' jacket pockets, and noting with Intense relief that they were flat to his hips and ap- peared empty. But now he had summoned me to him again. There was only Sir Peter [142] THE WEDDING m f with him and a round-faced man in ' clergymar his waist. Lord Nairn, smiling, was I, ^ clergyman's dress and a white beard to^':^\.Wy waving all others away when I came up '* ^' v'-'Tf He introduced me to the clergyman — the Reverend Doctor Norton — and we .rshook hands. " Mr. Bourne," said Lord Nairn in a quiet, confidential, but very frank tone, " is there any reason why you shouldn'-t be married? It is customary to leave this question open until the service; but, naturally, as your antece- dents and former life are not known to any here, there is no one who can come forward and name an impediment. As it is, we shall have but your word. Yet I believe with Sir Peter that your word given to us now at so solemn a time must be the truth." The pale eyes held mine with much earnestness. Both Sir Peter and Doctor Norton drew closer to hear what I should say. "I have a little property," I said; " there is no other woman in my life, nor any disease. There is no impedi- ment, sir, unless the unwillingness of the bride or the general unworthiness of being so blessed, of which every man has more than his share." Lord Nairn's eyes remained unblink- ing and steady. " I am sure," he said at last, " that you have spoken the truth. I thank you. The ceremony will be in the adjoining [143] THE VOICE IN THE RICE . i roonio It wants still three minutes to (t Nairn rolled his chair into a space left vacant for it in the front row, across the aisle from where we stood. A bride- ^ /^ groom notices strange and unimportant ^ things when he is waiting for his bride, and I took an intense interest in the skill with which Lord Nairn manoeu- vred his cumbersome chair and finally backed it into place between Lady Moore and Lady Wrenn. The doors by which we had entered were now closed by two negroes in white-and-raauve livery, the wild chorus in the hall came to an end and there was silence. Here and there chair-legs squeaked on the floor and dresses rustled as the wearers turned toward the closed doors so as not to miss any details of the bride's entry. "Sir Peter," I whispered faintly, " my legs are going. Am I wobbling much?" " You look steady as a statue," he grinned. " Sir Peter, why is it so cold? " "It's suffocating." So I shivered and shook, with sym- pathy from none. And then suddenly the chorus in the hall burst out with a wedding-march. They had their air of Lohengrin— so [145] THE VOICE IN THE RICE , much I guessed. But the music they r' made of it was not Wagner's. It wasn't even civilised. But It was wonderful. I ' I was delivered on the instant from my shivers and my shaking. My heart smote against my ribs with wild and ,-glad percussions. And then the double p* doors were flung open, and mists cov- ered my eyes, so that I seemed to be fighting to see and not able. I could hear murmurs and half-smothered ex- clamations for all the singing, but not for a moment or two could I see the p^Jj-'dl II bride sweeping slowly up the aisle upon Mr. Santee Moore's arm, and then I I (iv-s \ could not see her face for the cascades ' ' V|l I of lace that fell from the orange-blos- som wreath upon her head. She was tall and stately, so much I could see — so much and the swaying of her white dress, and the tremulous movement of her lace veil. There is an old saying that every woman looks lovely once : in her wed- ding-dress, going to the altar. And so on this occasion there must have been Ijisj ij I ;:j a real loveliness about that tall, grace- ful figure in the white silks and the laces. But when Sir Peter whispered, " Step forward to meet the bride," I had turned cold as a stone and could not move. " Come, sir," he said more loudly so _ that those in the front rows of seats -^ ^^ rid61 THE WEDDING heard him; "what IS the ,0 m must have matter?" iJ Mr. Santee Moore and the bride had <3nI v ( Y reached the head of the aisle and ^ ^'*^' ' paused, hesitating. Mr. M,oore turned ^ to me and signalled with his eyebrows. - I saw beyond them Lord Nairn leaning forward in his chair, a purplish tinge to /j/his vast, pale face. But I did not move. 4 The singing stopped. I heard Doc- tor Norton saying, sotto voce, " Come, sir. Come, sir ! " I saw the bride sway and totter, recover and clutch Mr. Moore's arm. Then, at the very mo- ment when every eye in the room was upon me and Sir Peter urging me for- ward with a pressure of his hand in the small of the back, I found my voice and I cried loudly and wildly: " That is not my Mary Moore I " lH7] XX. THE MATCH It was strange that, of all that com- ..ypany who knew her well, I, who had never seen her, should have been first to know that this was not Mary Moore. Sir Peter's hand tightened on my arm and he said quickly, " I feared a trick, but not this." He made two strides of brother. "Who Is this woman?" fiercely. " Mary Moore," replied tee Moore. You will imagine that there was hub- bub and confusion; and so there was. Yet the guests kept their seats and in a measure acted as audience to the chief performers. Lady Wrenn alone came forward, as befitted her high station, to take a part. "Is this your daughter, sir?" thun- dered Sir Peter. But his brother had not a pat answer to that. He was very pale and his lips twitched as if they were chapped. Lady Wrenn, however, knew the answer. At once gently, firmly and swiftly she lifted the lace veils that concealed the woman's [148] \M In THE MATCH face and flung them back over the woman's head. The face thus revealed was young enough and pretty enougl for that matter, but it was not the izco^^H^, of a gentlewoman and it was pitiable^ with fright. "Pooh!" said Lady Wrenn in her decided voice so that all could hear, " she is Isaac Moore's daughter. Her name is Mary, too. They are poor white trash — aren't you?" The poor girl writhed under the ques- tion and began to cry. But now Lord Nairn, without moving from his chair, played a card in the game. His shrill, penetrating voice pierced the farthest ears in the room. " I have a paper," said he, " signed by the reluctant bridegroom, in which he binds himself to marry Mary Moore provided she is willing. As he has not specified in this agreement which Mary Moore let the ceremony proceed." He laughed a shrill, ghastly laugh. " Nonsense ! " exclaimed Lady Wrenn. " If the bridegroom has a shred of honour," shrilled Lord Nairn, " he will give his hand to Mary Moore and lead her to the altar." Again he laughed his ghastly laugh. And I did come for- ward, for the wretched girl in the bridal raiment was weeping bitterly. " Don't," I said quietly for her ears alone, " please don't. You are no more to blame for all this than the [149] n\. ,n THE VOICE IN THE RICE %/^ m man in the moon. You were forced into it ; everybody knows that. Even if you have been made willing to marry* me you don't want to, do you ? And you j^ mustn't think that because I don't want to marry you that I despise you and want to see you hurt. Please don't cry ^'i so. I'm going to kill Lord Nairn for \\[ 'this in just a minute, then we'll both feel better." " Make them stop billing and coo- ing," cried Lord Nairn, " and get down to business." I turned from the girl and caught Mr. Santee Moore by the hand. "Where is your daughter? " I asked. " I don't know," he faltered. I began to crush his hand and tears came to his eyes and then a moan to his lips. "Where is she?" If he had known exactly he would have told me. I am very sure of that. " In — house," he got out between his clenched teeth, " somewhere — don't know." He went very white and stag- gered backward. Sir Brash Sterling leaped from his seat and kept him from falling. I let go of his hand. " Good people," I said loudly, " Mary Moore is in this house, somewhere, a prisoner. Our Mary Moore. Won't you scatter and find her? And I'll question Lord Nairn," I cried. Some of the men attempted to leave [150] 1 i - s ~ -»> THE MATCH the room, but the double doors being opened disclosed a file of negroes with rifles, and a white man, grave and ' stern, in command. One man thrust aside the curtains covering a win- dow, but turned away with an oath. /Lord Nairn's shrill laugh kept on ring- ^ing in the room like a condition of its heavily-perfumed atmosphere. I faced him as he sat in his great chair and looked him over. Presently he stopped laughing and returned my glance, composedly, with his cold, pale eyes. "Where is she?" I asked arid ap- proached him by a step, shaking my arms free in their sleeves. " Well," said he, " since everybody seems banded against me, she's in this house somewhere." I remembered now that I had a re- volver in my hip pocket and I drew it. "Exactly where?" I asked. "Get out of that chair of yours — I know how good you are on your feet — and lead me to her." He did not answer. His lips closed Into their mocking cupid's bow, at once so babylike and so sinister in the midst of that vast, pale face. How huge he looked ! Even sitting he was taller than many a man standing. " We shall have nothing to fear from your niggers," said I, "when you are dead. That will be when I have counted [iSi] THE VOICE IN THE RICE i( fi? . three — if you do not take me to Mary ./ Moore." -cjj " Let me return you your signature,"^ he said, " since it means nothing." He^ reached for an inner pocket. " Stop," I said sharply, " no more tricks." I heard Sir Peter's voice. " I have him covered, too," he said. "Well," said Lord Nairn, and he smiled now, " your passion seems gen- uine, after all. Since you and Mary Moore are intended obviously for each other you shall go to her." He yawned and raised his hands above his head in a kind of stretch. It must have been a signal to a confederate, for I can be sure that Lord Nairn had no other finger in the mechanics of what fol- lowed. The floor upon which I was standing fell and I fell with it — into darkness. My left foot struck, ringing upon a floor of pavement or cement, but my right heel crushed something soft and unclean that crunched and crackled. The trap-door which had dropped me into Lord Nairn's cellars closed back into place with sharp, steely sounds and I was in pitch darkness. I could not hear a sound of whatever activities may have been taking place in the room above, which I had so unceremoniously quitted. But I heard other things. If I had ever wondered where Lord Nairn in winter-time when it isi cold [IS2 1 f THE MATCH even in the Santee, obtained those fright- ful injections which had become neces- sary to him I had my answer now. There was more to that upon which my right ' fy heel rested than had been crushed. I had killed something, but It could not rest as clean things rest when they are lead. I ground and ground with my leel — ^to the left! — ^to the right 1 — ^to the left! — ^to the right! — ^passion against that which I had killed and hatred of it rising wave on wave — ^to the right! — to the left! Sweat burst from every pore in my body, but not the hot, luxurious sweat of hard exercise in the sun. This had been iced in the polar regions of horror. I could hear other things moving in that cellar all about me — a hissing here as in protest, a louder there as if in an- ger. And then, dispersing fear and hor- ror as the sun disperses cold mist, there came from not far off the Voice. " Don't move! " she said. I didn't move for a litde, but only because of great wonder and exaltation. " I dared not speak sooner," she said. " I was afraid you would try to come to me." " Do you think," I said, " that all the snakes in this that used to be Hell can keep me from coming to you?" I laughed in the dark and went to her. Whether there were few mocca- sins in that place or hundreds I cannot know. It seemed to me that there were [153] THE VOICE IN THE RICE Wj «\u nil I II 1 o Jr-'i f thousands. Be that as it may, God or His agent that is in each man's brain put my careless feet, step after step,'^K,\\jy^' where there was no harm. K^wr " Don't trip," she said. " I'm on a g v4^ table. Lord Nairn put me here. I ^".^ haven't dared move. They can't get up." I reached out in the dark and found the edge of the table, waist high. The revolver with which I had threat- ened Lord Nairn so emptily was still in my right hand. I put it back in my pocket and stepped on to the table. And there we stood a while locked in each other's arms. " Whatever might have happened to us," she said, " can't happen now. I know that." " They were mad," I said, " who thought that stone walls could make prisoners of us. Shall we go now? Or shall I first kiss you again? " Afterward I felt of her face with the tips of my fingers. " It is as I thought," I said. " There is a window back here," she said, " with iron bars. Give me your hand : I will show you." " Stand back," I said, when my hands had found the bars wet with rain. " There is going to be a cataclysm." I wrenched and the bars came away with half a hundred weight of brick and mortar. The next pair came away more easily. [154] h = — =s; THE MATCH 1 m II m, The opening, shoulder high within, was at the level of the ground without. I lifted her through and followed. Then'^; she caught my hand in hers. 6 "This way to the ferry," she whis-T| pered gaily, and hand in hand like two ^<^^|||P children we hurried through the dark "-'^''l'^ ,, and the rain. But even she had a time of it in that pitch blackness to find the landing, for the single lantern had been extinguished or removed. Was I never to see her? Never? Wet bushes struck us across the face ; we found paths only to lose them. And then we guessed that we were in an open place that sloped before us. She spoke a guarded word in " sea-coast," but was answered in English. " It's the captain of the launch," she whispered. " Hurry, Captain," she said, and she laughed. " We slipped off without be- ing seen. Get us away before they find it out and come rushing down to fling rice and old shoes at us." " Hurry it is. Miss Mary," he an- swered and gave a command in " sea- coast " to the engineer. We felt our way aboard and into the cabin. Pres- ently we heard the propeller churning water under the stern of the launch, and a moment later the rippling at the bows and the grating of the launch's sides along the landing told us that we were at last under way. [155] ^ d m m I THE VOICE IN THE RICE The captain spoke in the darkness. \)'/§ " Lord Nairn's orders were to take you to Georgetown. Is that right? " '"■^".iN,!, " Yes," said I, " or any other town ; ""tL in the United States." % Kf; When the captain was gone Mary, who had not moved from the hollow ,.of my arm, spoke: "Have you a match, Richard?" " No," said I in surprise. " Why? " She was silent for a moment, and then, her cheek against mine: "I thought," she said, "that maybe you would like to look at me." And she hid her face. I withdrew my arm gently but firmly, opened the cabin door and called to the captain, asking him for the loan of a match. "Want to light up?" he answered. " We can navigate better without lights, sir — until, of course, we strike more open water, and then it'll be daylight." " It isn't that," I said. " But at the last moment I received a present from my best friend and I want to look at it." He reached me a box of safety- matches and I went back to Mary. The first match that I struck burnt it- self out against the thumb and forefin- ger that held it. But I did not know this at the moment. I only knew that the match had gone vst^, out. [156] «7f if I I AFTER-WORD Of all the persons who figure in this narrative Lord Nairn alone remains ^ among the marshes of the Santee. That IS why I am now at liberty to lay these facts before the public, though not with much hope that the National Govern- ment will look into the case. I shall not be believed, even as Lord Nairn proph- esied, unless here and there by a child. My mother even does not be- lieve me. She says that my wife's beauty has turned my head. The hospitable mansions stand empty in the Santee unless Lord Nairn has had them pulled down. Sir Peter Moore and his Lady are living in Eng- land; Lady Wrenn, too. Sir Brash Sterling and his large family have gone to Argentine, Miss Stevens and Janie McMoultrie with them in the capacity of better halves. My wife's father has disappeared. Nellie and Granny Mc- Moultrie are touring the Continent — Granny, you may be sure, with an eye to visiting all centres where the best drugs are compounded in the greatest quantities. All have fled before the power and the growing wickedness of a man who, having demolished the old order of things, has made intolerable the new. [15?] m -iA -J AFTER-WORD There he sits at this moment, doubt- /fj' less, in his wheel-chair in the hottest ^^^ '^fi/h corner of his garden, served and en- 1 (^ V4m'/ riched by those hundreds of ignorant %pl sea-coast negroes who are his slaves in body and soul, fearing him more than death. There in his corner of the m, M 4 ff United States he sits and laughs at i emancipation, holding men in bondage, smuggling, defying the law and cheat- ing the gallows. It seems to me as if I could see him in all his vastness (he will be in white now, having worn mauve long enough for poor Lady Nairn), his little golf- cap on the back of his huge, baby head and his pale eyes gazing unblinkingly into the furious sun. Now he will lift a peach from the heap in his lap and bite off the sunny side. Or perhaps already the consequence of his frightful habits, which he him- self fore-shadowed, has overtaken him; and he is on his hands and knees in the shrubbery, discovering at last what it feels like to be a great snake and to swallow a lesser by the tail. [158] |w