Chapter 20

THE SIGN OF DISTRESS

The next morning before she was awake he arose and made a tour of the beach in quest of shell fish, took a plunge in the cool waters of the bay, and again inspected the little footprints in the sand. He smiled as he placed his own foot, a number nine, beside the dainty imprint. On his way back to the cave he killed a huge turtle, the meat of which he promised should keep them alive for several days, if nothing better could be found. As he turned the bend he saw her standing on the ledge at the mouth of the cave, the wind blowing her hair and skirts freely. He called to her, and she turned her face eagerly in his direction. They met among the trees some distance from the spring.

"Where have you been?" she cried, her cheeks glowing.

"Hunting wild beasts," he replied valiantly.

"Pooh! Wild flowers, you mean. I thought perhaps you had gone off to join the monkeys for an old-time frolic in the trees."

"You won't be so frivolous when I tell you of the narrow escape I have had. See that trusty club? See the blood on it?" They were standing close to each other as he held up the blood-spattered stick.

"Oh, Hugh," she gasped, "is it blood?"

"Life's blood," he answered laconically.

"Not yours, Hugh? You are not hurt?" she cried.

"This is the beast's blood, Tennys. I am not so much as scratched, but it was a frightful encounter," he went on, with well-assumed gravity.

"Tell me about it. Where was it? What was it? Tell me everything," she begged. He took her arm and together they proceeded toward their wild home.

"After breakfast I'll take you around the bend and prove to you my valor."

"But I cannot wait and, besides, you have proved your valor. Do tell me where the blood came from."

"That awful thing plunged from the underbrush upon me so suddenly that I was almost paralyzed," he said soberly. "I didn't have much time to think, and I don't know what I should have done if it had not been for this excellent club, which I had cut for a rather inglorious purpose. With one of the very best strokes a golfer ever made I cracked his skull."

"His skull!"

"Likewise his neck. Then I cut his throat."

"Oh, Hugh!" breathlessly.

"And I'm going back after breakfast to carve him up into roasts, steaks and soups enough to last us for a month."

"Oh, it must have been something gigantic. Was it a rhinoceros?" she cried ecstatically.

"Rhinoceros soup!" he exclaimed in disgust. She was properly contrite. "I'll tell you what I killed, if you'll promise to endure the shock--and not tell any one else." He placed his lips close to her little ear and whispered in awe-struck tones, "A turtle!"

"A turtle! Why, a baby could kill a turtle. You are no longer a hero. Enough to last a month! Hugh Ridgeway, are you delirious?" she exclaimed in fine scorn.

"Wait till you see him. He weighs a ton," he said proudly.

After their breakfast of nuts, fruit and water they started for the little beach, Lady Tennys vastly excited. Her exclamations on seeing the sea monster amused Hugh beyond measure.

"I never dreamed a turtle could be so immense," she cried. "This one must be a thousand years old."

"If he is, we'll have tough steaks," observed he grimly. Later on he carved several fine steaks from the turtle and cleaned the upper shell carefully, wisely concluding to retain it for the usefulness it was sure to afford sooner or later. "There is one thing to be done," said he, when they sat down to rest. "I must climb up that mountain and plant a white flag to show that we are here if a ship should pass. I'll do that as soon as I have rested, provided I can find anything white that is large enough to be seen from a distance."

She looked far out over the harbor for a minute, a tinge of red running to her ears.

"A handkerchief would be too small, wouldn't it?" she asked.

"I'm afraid so," he answered glumly.

Soon afterward she left him and went to the cave, bidding him to await her return. When she came back she carried in her hand a broad piece of white cloth, which she laid before him on the grass. There was a look of modest reluctance in her eyes when he glanced quickly up at them. A cherished underskirt, ripped ruthlessly from waistband to ruffle, making one broad white flag of the finest texture, was her offering.

"Use that, Hugh." She could not resist smiling as she pointed to it.

"It will be the very thing," he said, arising and taking the garment from the ground somewhat carefully.

"It won't hurt you," she said, laughing frankly; whereupon he waved it rudely above his head and pointed to the pinnacle of the rock.

"With this I shall scale the rock and skirt the bay!"

Within ten minutes he was on his way up the incline, carrying his stout stick in his hand, another heavier and stronger one being bound to his back with the white signal attached. She accompanied him to the point where the ascent became difficult and full of danger.

"Be careful, Hugh," she said; "it looks so dangerous. If you find there is any possibility of falling, don't attempt to go to the top. You are so daring, you Americans, that you do not recognize peril at all Promise me, or I shall not allow you to go on."

He looked down into her serious upturned eyes and promised. Then he resumed the ascent, with a queer flutter of adulation in his heart.

From time to time he paused to rest. In each instance he looked below, waving his hand encouragingly to the anxious one who watched him so closely. On, over fierce crags, around grim towers, along steep walls, higher and higher he crawled. Twice he slipped and fell back several feet. When he glanced down, cold perspiration standing on his forehead, he saw her bending with averted face, her hands pressed to her eyes as if she expected his body to come crashing to her feet. With recovered energy he shouted to her, and the quick, glad glance upward was enough to make the remainder of the ascent glorious to him. At last, his hands and knees bleeding, he crawled upon the small, flat top of the mountain, five hundred feet above the breakers, three hundred feet above the woman he had left behind.

The sea wind whistled in his ears as he arose to his feet. His knees trembled and he grew momentarily dizzy as he looked out over the vast, blue plain before him. Fear seized upon him; there came a wild desire to plant his flag and hurry from the death-like summit. Sitting down, he nervously unfastened the pole and flag, looking about as he did so for a place to plant the beacon. For one moment his heart sank only to bound with joy in the next. Almost at his elbow ran a crevasse in the rock, deep and narrow. It was but an instant's work to jam the pole into this crevasse, and the white flag was fluttering to the breeze. He was certain it would be days before the winds could whip it to shreds.

A feeling of helplessness and dismay came over him as he gave thought to the descent. In his eagerness to begin the hazardous attempt, he almost forgot the chief object of his climb to the top--the survey of the surrounding country. As far as he could see there stretched the carpet of forest land, the streak of beach and the expanse of water. In the view there was not one atom of proof that humanity existed within a radius of many miles. Growing calmer, he scanned the wonderful scene closely, intently, hoping to discover the faintest trace of aught save vegetable life, all without reward. He was about to begin the descent when a faint cry came to him from far below. Clinging to the edge of the topmost rock, he looked downward.

Lady Tennys was pointing excitedly toward the little bay on his left. A single glance in that direction filled him with amazement, then consternation. Recklessly he entered upon the descent. Obstacles that had seemed impassable as he thought of them on the summit were passed safely and hurriedly.

How he reached her side so quickly, he could not have explained if he tried, but in less than five minutes he stood with her, clasping her hand and looking anxiously toward the sands on which the great back of the turtle lay upward to the sun.