The Unspeakable Perk

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"May I ask you another question, Mr. Per--I beg your pardon, Dr.
Pruyn?" said the visitor, almost timidly.

"Perkins will do." The other smiled wanly. "Ask me anything you
want to."

"Why did you run away that day on the tram-car?"

"To avoid trouble, of course."

"You? Why, you go about searching for dangerous and difficult
jobs. That won't do!"

"Not at all. It's only when I can't get away from them. But I
couldn't risk arrest then. Some one would surely have recognized
me as Luther Pruyn. You see, I've been here before."

"Then I don't see why they didn't identify you, anyway."

"Three years ago I was much heavier, and wore a full beard. Then
these glasses, besides being invaluable for protection, are a
pretty thorough disguise."

"So they are. But the game is up now."

"Yes." The scientist drew the sheet back over the dead woman. "I
suppose the sharp-shooters who did the job will report me safely
out of the way. It's only a question of when the burial party will
come for me."

"Then, why are we waiting?" cried Carroll.

"I couldn't leave her lying here," replied the other simply.

The sound of rhythmical labor came back to Carroll's memory.

"You were digging her grave?"

The other nodded. Carroll, stiffly, for his knifed arm was
painful, got out of his coat.

"Where's an extra spade?" he asked.

When their labor was over, and the leper laid beneath the leveled
soil, Carroll cut two branches from a near-by tree, trimmed them,
bound them in the form of a cross, and fixed the symbol firmly in
the earth at the dead woman's head.

"That was well thought of," said the scientist. "I'm afraid that
wouldn't have occurred to me."

"You can get word to Senor Raimonda?" asked Carroll.

His host nodded. A long silence followed. Carroll broke it:--

"Then there is no further secrecy about this?"

"About what?"

"Her identity." He pointed to the grave.

"No; I suppose not. Why?"

"Because Miss Brewster has a right to know."

"Do you propose to tell her?"

"Yes."

"Very well," agreed the scientist, after a pause for
consideration. "But not until after the yacht is at sea."

Carroll did not reply directly to this.

"What shall you do?"

"Get out, if I can. I'm ordered to Curacao. Wisner left word for
me."

"Come down the mountain with me."

"Impossible. There are matters here to be attended to."

"Then when will you come down?"

"Before you sail. I must be sure that you get off."

"You'll come to the yacht, then?"

"No."

"I think you should. There are reasons why--why--Miss Brewster--"

"It isn't a question that I can argue," the other cut him off. "I
can't do it." There was so much pain in his voice that Carroll
forbore to press him. "But I'll ask you to take a note."

Carroll nodded, and his host, disappearing within the quinta,
returned almost at once with an envelope on which the address was
written in pencil. The Southerner took it and rose from the porch,
where he had flung himself to rest.

"Perkins," he said, with some effort, "I've thought and said some
hard things about you."

"Naturally enough," murmured the other.

"Do you want me to apologize?"

The scientist stared. "Do you want me to thank you for to-night's
work?" he countered.

"No."

"Well--"

"All right."

The two men, different in every quality except that of essential
manhood, smiled at each other with a profound mutual
understanding. There was a silent handshake, and Carroll set off
down the mountain toward the sunrise glow.

XIII

LEFT BEHIND

Dawn crested, poised, and broke in a surf of splendor upon the
great mountain-line that overhangs Puerto del Norte. Where, at
the corporation dock, there had lurked the shadow of a yacht,
gray-black against blue-black, there now swung a fairy ship of
purest silver, cradled upon a swaying mirror. Tiny insects,
touched to life by the radiance, scuttled busily about her decks
and swarmed out upon the dock. The seagoing yacht Polly had
awakened early.

Down the mule path that forms the shortest cut from the railway
station straggled a group of minute creatures. To one watching
from the mountain-side with powerful field-glasses--such as, for
example, a convinced and ardent hater of the Caribbean Sea, curled
up with his back against a cold and Voiceless rock--it might have
appeared that the group was carrying an unusual quantity of hand
luggage. Yet they were not porters; so much, even at a great
distance, their apparel proclaimed. The pirates of porterdom do
not get up to meet five-o'clock-in-the-morning specials in
Caracuna.

The little group gathered close at the pier, then separated, two
going aboard, and the others disappearing into sundry streets and
reappearing presently at the water-front with other figures. The
human form cannot be distinctly seen, at a distance of three
miles, to rub its eyes; neither can it be heard to curse; but
there was that in the newer figures which suggested a sudden and
reluctant surrender of sleeping privileges. Had our supposititious
watcher possessed an intimate and contemptuous knowledge of
Caracuna officialdom, he would have surmised that lavish sums of
money had been employed to stir the port and customs officials to
such untimely activity.

But not money or any other agency is potent to stir Caracunan
officialdom to undue speed. Hence the observer from the heights,
supposing that he had a personal interest in the proceedings,
might have assured himself of ample time to reach the coast before
the formalities could be completed and the ship put forth to sea.
Had he presently humped himself to his feet with a sluggish
effort, abandoned his field-glasses in favor of a pair of large
greenish-brown goggles, and set out on a trail straight down the
mountains, staggering a bit at the start, a second supposititious
observer of the first supposititious observer--if such cumulative
hypothesis be permissible--might have divined that the first
supposititious observer was the Unspeakable Perk, going about
other people's business when he ought to have been in bed. And so,
not to keep any reader in unendurable suspense, it was.

While the Unspeakable Perk was making his way down the dim and
narrow trail, another equally weary figure shambled out from the
main road upon the flats and made for the landing. The apparel of
Mr. Preston Fairfax Fitzhugh Carroll was in a condition that he
would have deemed quite unfit for one of his station, had he been
in a frame of mind to consider such matters at all. He was not.
Affairs vastly more weighty and human occupied his mind. What he
most wished was to find Miss Polly Brewster and unburden himself
of them.

At the entrance to the pier, he was detained by the American
Consul. Cluff came running down the long structure in great
strides.

"Moses, Carroll! I'm glad to see you! Where've you been?"

A week earlier, the scion of all the Virginias would have resented
this familiarity from a professional athlete. But neither Mr.
Carroll's mind nor his heart was a sealed inclosure. He had
learned much in the last few days.

"Up on the mountain," he said. "For Heaven's sake, give me a
drink, Cluff!"

The other produced a flask.

"You do look shot to pieces," he commented. "Find Perk--Pruyn?"

"Yes. I'll tell you later. Where's Miss Brewster?"

"In her stateroom. Asleep, I guess. Said she wanted rest, and
nobody was to disturb her till we sail."

"When do we start?"

"Eight o'clock, they say. That means ten. Will Dr. Pruyn get
here?"

"He isn't going with us."

"Oh, no. I forgot his Dutch permit. Well, he'd better use it
quick, or he'll go in a box when he does go. I wouldn't insure his
life for a two-cent stamp in this country."

"You wouldn't if you'd seen what I saw last night," said the
Southerner, very low.

Wisner, the busy, efficient little consul, who had been arranging
with the officials for Carroll's embarkation, now returned,
bringing with him a viking of a man whom he introduced as Dr.
Stark, of the United States Public Health Service.

"Either of you know anything about Dr. Pruyn?" he inquired
anxiously.

"He's on his way down the mountain now," said Carroll.

"Good! He's ordered away, I'm glad to say. Just got the message."

"Then perhaps he will go out with us," said Cluff, with obvious
relief. "I sure did hate to think of leaving that boy here, with
the game laws for goggle-eyed Americans entirely suspended."

"No. He's ordered to Curacao to stay and watch. We've got to get
him out to the Dutch ship somehow."

"Couldn't the yacht take him and transfer him outside?" asked
Carroll.

"Mr. Carroll," said Dr. Stark earnestly, "before this yacht is
many minutes out from the dock, you'll see a yellow flag go up
from the end of the corporation pier. After that, if the yacht
turns aside or comes back for a package that some one has left, or
does anything but hold the straightest course on the compass for
the blue and open sea--well, she'll be about the foolishest craft
that ever ploughed salt water."

"I suppose so," admitted Carroll. "Well, I have matters to look
after on board."

Into Mr. Carroll's cabin it is nobody's business to follow him. A
man has a right to some privacy of room and of mind, and if the
Southerner's struggle with himself was severe, at least it was of
brief duration. Within half an hour, he was knocking at Polly
Brewster's door.

"PLEASE go 'way, whoever it is," answered a pathetically weary
voice.

"Miss Polly, it's Fitzhugh. I have a note for you."

"Leave it in the saloon."

"It's important that you see it right away."

"From whom is it?" queried the spent voice.

"From Dr. Pruyn."

"I--I don't want to see it."

"You must!" insisted her suitor.

"Did he say I must?"

"No. I say you must. Forgive me, Miss Polly, but I'm going to wait
here till you say you'll read it."

"Push it under the door," said the girl resignedly.

He obeyed. Polly took the envelope, summoned up all her spirit,
and opened it. It contained one penciled line and the signature:--

Good-bye. All my heart goes with you forever. L. P.

Something fluttered from the envelope to her feet. She stooped and
picked it up. It was the tiniest and most delicate of orchids,
purple, with a glow of gold at its heart. To her inflamed pride,
it seemed the final insult that he should send such a message and
such a reminder, without a word of explanation or plea for pardon.
Pardon she never would have granted, but at least he might have
had the grace of shame.

"Have you read it?" asked the patient voice from without.

"Yes. There is no answer."

"Dr. Pruyn said there wouldn't be."

"Then why are you waiting?"

"To see you."

"Oh, Fitz, I'm too worn out, and I've a splitting headache. Won't
it wait?"

"No." The voice was gently inflexible.

"More messages?"

"No; something I must tell you. Will you come out?"

"I suppose so."

Her tone was utterly listless and limp. Utterly listless and limp,
she looked, too, as she opened the door and stood waiting.

"Miss Polly, it's about the woman at Perkins's--at Dr. Pruyn's
house."

Her eyes dilated with anger.

"I won't hear! How dare you come to me--"

"You must! Don't make it harder for me than it is."

She looked up, startled, and noted the haggard lines in his face.

"I'll hear it if you think I should, Fitz."

"She is dead."

"Dead? His--his wife?"

"She wasn't his wife. She was a helpless leper, whom he was trying
to cure with some new serum. He had to do it secretly because
there is a law forbidding any one to harbor a leper."

"Oh, Fitz!" she cried. "And she died of it?"

"No. They killed her. Last night."

"They? Who?"

"Government agents, probably. They were after Pruyn."

"How horrible! And--and Mrs. Pruyn. Where was she?"

"There isn't any Mrs. Pruyn. There never was."

"But the Dutch permit! It was for Dr. Pruyn and his wife."

"Sherwen misread the form. So did I. It read for Dr. Pruyn and a
woman. He hoped to take her to Curacao and complete his
experiment."

"That's what he meant when he spoke of being lawless, and I've
been thinking the basest things of him for it!" The girl, dazed by
a flash of complete enlightenment, caught at Carroll's arm with
beseeching hands. "Where is he, Fitz?"

"On his way down the mountain. Perhaps down here by now."

"He's coming to the ship?" she asked.

"No; he doesn't expect to see you again. He was coming down to
make sure that we got off safely."

"Fitz, dear Fitz, I must see him!"

"Miss Polly," he said miserably, "I'll do anything I can."

"Oh, poor Fitz!" she cried pityingly, her eyes filling with tears.
"I wish for your sake it wasn't so. And you have been so splendid
about it!"

"I've tried to make amends, and play fair. It hasn't been easy.
Shall I go back and look for him? It's a small town, and I can
find him."

"Yes. I'll write a note. No; I won't. Never mind. I'll manage it.
Fitz, go and rest. You're worn out," she said gently.

Back into her stateroom went Miss Polly. From that time forth no
man saw her nor woman, either, except perhaps her maid, and maids
are dark and discreet persons on occasion. If this particular one
kept her own counsel when she saw a trim but tremulous figure drop
lightly over the starboard rail of the Polly far forward, pick up
a small traveling-bag from the pier, step behind the opportune
screen of a load of coffee on a flat car, and reappear to view
only as a momentary swish of skirt far away at the shore end; if
this same maid told Mr. Thatcher Brewster, half an hour later,
that Miss Polly was asleep in her stateroom, and begged that she
be disturbed on no account, as she was utterly worn out, who shall
blame her for her silence on the one occasion or her speech on the
other? She was but obeying, albeit with tearful misgivings, duly
constituted authority.

Eight o'clock struck on the bell of the little Protestant mission
church on the tiny plaza; struck and was welcomed by the echoes,
and passed along to eventual silence. Within two minutes after,
there was a special stir and movement on the pier, a corresponding
stir and movement on board the trim craft, a swishing of great
ropes, and a tooting of whistles. White foam churned astern of
her. A comic-supplement-looking pelican on a buoy off to port
flapped her a fantastic farewell. The blockade-defying yacht
Polly was off for blue waters and the freedom of the seas.

On the shore, feeling woefully helpless and alone, she who had
been the jewel and joy of the Polly bit her lips and closed her
eyes, in a tremulous struggle against the dismal fear:--

"Suppose he doesn't love me, after all!"

XIV

THE YELLOW FLAG

The departing whistle of the yacht Polly struck sharply to the
heart of a desolate figure seated on a bench in the blazing,
dusty, public square of Puerto del Norte, waiting out his first
day of pain. A kiskadee bird, the only other creature foolish
enough to risk the hot bleakness of the plaza at that hour,
flitted into a dust-coated palm, inspected him, put a tentative
query or two, decided that he was of no possible interest, and
left the Unspeakable Perk to his own cogitations.

So deep in wretchedness were the cogitations that he did not hear
the light, hesitant footstep. But he felt in every vein and fiber
the appealing touch on his shoulder.

"Good God! What are YOU doing here?" he cried, leaping to his
feet. There was no awkwardness or shyness in his speech now; only
wonder-stricken joy.

"I came back to see you."

"But the yacht! Your ship!"

"She has left."

"No! She mustn't! Not without you! You can't stay here. It's too
dangerous."

"I must. They think I'm aboard. I left a note for papa. He won't
get it until they're at sea. And they can't come back for me, can
they?"

"No--yes--they must! I must see Stark and Wisner at once."

"To send me away?"

"Yes."

"Without forgiving me?"

"Forgiving? There's no question of that between you and me."

"There is. Fitzhugh told me everything--all about the poor dead
woman."

"Ah, he shouldn't have done that."

"He should!" She stamped a little willful foot. "What else could
he do?"

"Why, yes," he agreed thoughtfully. "I suppose that's so. After
all, a man can't bear the names that Carroll does and go wrong on
the big inner things. He has met his test, and stood it. For he
cares very deeply for you."

"Poor Fitz!" she sighed.

"But here we're wasting time!" he cried in a panic. "Where can I
leave you?"

"Do you want to leave me?"

"Want to!" he groaned. "Can't you understand that I've got to get
you to the yacht!"

"Oh, beetle man, beetle man, don't you WANT me?" she cried
dolorously. "Didn't you mean your note?"

"Mean it? I meant it as I've never meant anything in the world.
But you--what do you mean? Do you mean that you'll--you'll let the
yacht go without you--and--and--and stay here, and m-m-marry me?"

"If you should ask me," she said, half-laughing, half-crying,
"what else could I do? I'm alone and deserted. And there's only
you in the world."

"Miss P-P-Polly," he began, "I--I can't believe--"

"It's true!" she cried, and held out two yearning hands to him.
"And if you stammer and stutter and--and--and act like the
Unspeakable Perk NOW, I'll--I'll howl!"

If she had any such project, the chance was lost on the instant of
the warning, as he caught her to him and held her close.

"Oh!" she cried, trying to push him away. "Do you know, sir, that
this is a public square?"

"Well, I didn't choose it," he reminded her, laughing in pure joy,
with a boyish note new to her ear. "Anyway, there are only us two
under the sun." And he drew her close again, whispering in her
ear.

"Oh--oh, is that the language of medical science?" she reproved.

At this point, generic curiosity overcame the feathered
eavesdropper in the tree above.

"Qu'est-ce qu'il dit?"--"What's he say?"

The girl turned a flushed and adorable face upward.

"I won't tell you. It's for me alone," she declared joyously. "But
you'll never stop saying it, will you, dear?"

"Never, as long as we both shall live. And that reminds me," he
said soberly. "We must arrange about being married."

"Oh, that reminds you, does it?" she mocked. "Just incidentally,
like that."

Boom! Boom! Boom! The mission clock kept patiently at it until its
suggestion struck in.

"Of course!" he cried. "Mr. Lake, the missionary, will marry us.
And we'll have Stark and Wisner for witnesses. How long does it
take a bride to get ready? Would half an hour be enough?"

"It's rather a short engagement," she remarked demurely. "But if
it's all the time we've got--"

"It is. But, darling, we'll have to ride for it afterward, and get
across to the mainland. I've no right to let you in for such a
risk," he cried remorsefully.

"You couldn't help yourself," she teased saucily. "I ran you down
like one of your own beetles. Besides, what does that permit for
the Dutch ship say?"

"That's for myself and a woman--the leper woman. Not for myself
and my wife."

"Well, I'm a woman, aren't I? And it doesn't say that the woman
MUSTN'T be your wife." She blushed distractingly.

"Caesar! Of course it doesn't! What luck! We'll be in Curacao to-
morrow. I must see Wisner about getting us off. But, Polly,
dearest one, you're sure? You haven't let yourself be carried away
by that foolishness of mine yesterday?"

"Sure? Oh, beetle man!" She put her hands on his shoulders and
bent to his ear.

The sulphur-colored winged Paul Pry stuck an impertinent head out
from behind a palm leaf.

"Qu'est-ce qu'elle dit? Qu'est-ce qu'elle dit?"

For the second and last time in his adult life the beetle man
threw a stone at a bird.

Four hours later six powerful black oarsmen rowed a boat
containing two passengers and practically no luggage out across
the huge lazy swells of the Caribbean toward a smudge of black
smoke.

"Look!" cried that one of the passengers who wore huge goggles.
"There goes the flag!"

A square of yellow bunting slid slowly up the pierhead staff of
the dock corporation, and spread in the light shore breeze.

"That's the modern flaming sword," he continued. "The color stirs
something inside me. Ugly, isn't it?"

"It is ugly," she confessed thoughtfully. "Yet it's the flag we
fight under, too, isn't it? And we'd fight for it if we had to,
just as we fought for the other--our own."

"I love your 'we,'" he laughed happily.

She nestled closer to him.

"Are you still hating the Caribbean?"

"I? I'm loving it the second-best thing in the world."

"But I loved it first," she reminded him jealously. "Dearest," she
added, with one of her swift swoops of thought, "what was that
funny title the British Secretary of Legation had?"

"What? Oh, Captain the Honorable Carey Knowles?"

"Yes. Well, I shall have a much nicer, more picturesque title than
that when we come back to Caracuna--dear, dirty, dangerous, queer,
riotous, plague-stricken old Caracuna!"

"Then my liege ladylove intends to come back?" he asked.

"Of course. Some time. And in Caracuna I shall insist on being
Mrs. the Unspeakable Perk."

THE END

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