The Port of Adventure. C. N. Williamson
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everything she wanted, except one thing. Perhaps she had that too, yet she was not sure: and she could hardly wait to be sure. Nobody but Nick could make her so, and he ought to be in joyful haste to do it. He was not cold blooded. One could not look at Nick and think him that, yet to her he sometimes seemed indifferent. Carmen made herself believe that it was his respect which held him back. How desperately she wanted to know! Yet there was a strange pleasure in not knowing, such as she might never feel again, when she was sure.
Suddenly, far off, there was a rustling in the bamboo forest. A figure like a shadow, but darker than other shadows, moved in the distance. Carmen's heart jumped. She took a step forward, then stopped. It was not Nick Hilliard after all, but old Simeon Harp, the squirrel poisoner, coming from the direction of Nick's ranch, bringing her a message, maybe. She felt she could not possibly bear it if Nick were not coming, and she hated him at the bare thought that he might send an excuse at the last moment.
"What is it, Sim?" she called out sharply, as the queer, gnarled figure of the old man hobbled nearer.
"Nothing, my lady," Simeon Harp answered in the husky voice of one who is or has been a drunkard. "Nothing, only I was over at Nick's finishin' up a bit of my work, and he said, would I tell you he was sorry to be late. He's had somebody with him all afternoon, and no time to pack till just now. But he'll be along presently."
Harp was an Englishman, with some fading signs about him of decent birth, decent education and upbringing, but such signs were blurred and almost obliterated by the habits which had degraded him. He would have been dead or in prison or the poorhouse years ago if Carmen had not chosen to rescue him, more through a whim than from genuine charity. Her mother's people had been English, and somehow she had not cared to see an Englishman thrown to the dogs in this country which was not hers nor his. In days when her word was law for the infatuated and brutal man whose death anniversary it now was, this bit of human driftwood—failure, drunkard, rascal—had been found trespassing on the ranch. If Carmen had not chosen to show her power over old "Grizzly Gaylor" by protecting the poor wretch, Harp would have met the fate he probably deserved. But she had amused herself, and saved him. Sick and forlorn, he had been nursed back to something like health in the house of one among many gardeners. Since then he had been her slave, her dog. He called her "my lady," and she rather liked the name. She liked the worshipping admiration in the red-lidded eyes which had once been handsome, and she believed, what he often said, that there was nothing on earth he wouldn't do for her. Once or twice the thought had pierced her brain like a sharp needle, that perhaps he had already done a thing for her—a great thing. But it was better not to know, not even to guess. Fortunately the idea had apparently never occurred to any one else, and of course it never could now. Yet there had been a very curious look in Simeon Harp's eyes a year ago when—— … Not that it proved anything. There was always a more or less curious look in his eyes. He was altogether a curious person, perhaps a little mad, or, at any rate, vague. Especially was he vague about his reasons for leaving his native land to emigrate to America. He said it was so long ago, and he had gone through so much, that he had forgotten. There are some things it is as well to forget. Since Carmen had known him, Simeon Harp had tried his luck as a water diviner, but failing, sometimes when he most wished to succeed, in that profession, he had now definitely settled down as squirrel poisoner to the neighbourhood. Those pests to farmers and ranchmen, ground squirrels, had given the strange old man a chance to build up a reputation of a sort. As a squirrel poisoner he was a brilliant success.
"Who gave you permission to call Mr. Hilliard 'Nick'?" Carmen asked, not very sternly, for she was pleased to have news from the other ranch. After all, if Nick had had a visitor he might not be to blame.
"Why, everybody calls him 'Nick'," explained Simeon, huskily. "But I won't, if it isn't your will, my lady."
"Oh, I don't care, if he doesn't. Only——" she broke off, slightly confused. Even to this old wretch she could not say, "It isn't suitable that you should use my future husband's Christian name as if he were down on the same level with a man like you." She could not be sure that Nick would be her husband, though it seemed practically certain. Besides, if Hilliard was "Nick" to everybody, it was a token of his popularity; and Nick himself was the last man to forget that he had risen to his present place by climbing up from the lowest rung of the ladder—the ladder of poverty. She could not imagine his "putting on airs," as he would call it, though she thought it might be better if he were less of the "hail-fellow-well-met," and more of the master in manner among his own cattlemen, and particularly with the wild riff-raff that had rushed to his land with the oil boom.
"Who was with him—some man, I suppose?" she asked of the squirrel poisoner, who stood quietly adoring her with eyes dimmed by drink and years. He had so settled down on his rheumatic old joints that he had become dwarfish in stature as well as gnarled in shape, and looked a gnomelike thing, gazing up at the tall young woman.
"Oh, yes, it was a man, of course," Simeon assured her. "There couldn't be any women for him who knows you, it seems to me, my lady. And you were never as handsome as you are this night. It warms the heart to set eyes on you, like the wine you give me on your birthdays, to drink your health."
Carmen was pleased with praise, even a squirrel poisoner's praise. She could never have too much.
"You needn't wait for my birthday," she laughed. "I don't mean to have another for a good long time, Sim! You can have some of that wine to-night."
"Thank you, my lady. It's an anniversary, too," he mumbled, lowering his husky voice for the last words. But Carmen heard them. "You remember that!" she exclaimed, without stopping to think, or perhaps she would not have spoken.
"Oh, yes, my lady, I remember," he said. "There's reasons—several good reasons—why I shan't forget that as long as I live. You see, things was gettin' pretty bad for you, and so——"
"Don't let's talk of it, Sim!" she broke in sharply.
"No, my lady, we won't," he agreed. "I was only goin' to say, things bein' so bad made what happened a matter for rejoicin' and not sorrow, to those who wish you well. That's all—that's all, my lady."
"Thank you, Sim. I know you're fond of me—and grateful," Carmen said. "Things were bad. I don't pretend to grieve. I shouldn't even have worn mourning, if Madame Vestris, the great palmist in San Francisco, hadn't told me it would bring me ill luck not to. I'm glad the year's up. I hate black! This is a better anniversary than a silly old birthday, Sim!"
"Yes, and that reminds me, my lady," said Simeon, "that I've put together enough perfect skins of the squirrels I've killed without the dope to make the grand automobile coat I've been promisin' you so long. Got the last skin cured to-day, as it happened. Maybe, that'll bring you good luck!"
"Oh, I hope so!" she cried.
"Here's Nick—Mr. Hilliard," Harp announced, nodding his gray head in the direction of the oleander path, to which Carmen's back was turned as she stood.
She wheeled quickly, and saw a tall young man coming toward her, with long strides. Instantly, she forgot Simeon Harp, and did not even see him as he hobbled away, pulling on to his head the moth-eaten cap of squirrel fur which he always wore, summer and winter, as if for a sign of his trade.
II. NICK
Nick Hilliard snatched off his sombrero as he came swinging along the oleander path. He was tall, fully six feet in height, and looked taller than he was, being lean and hard, with long straight legs which could carry him very fast over great stretches of country. Also he had a way of holding his head high, a way which a man gets if he is in the habit of gazing toward far horizons. He had a well-cut nose, a good chin, and a mouth that meant strength of purpose, though some of his friends laughed at him for a "womanish" curve of the upper lip. Luckily Nick did not mind being laughed at by his friends. His face was almost as brown as his hair, for the sun had darkened the one and bleached the other; but the hair was nice hair, with a glow of auburn in it, which contrasted not uninterestingly