CHAPTER VIII

AN ISLAND MYSTERY

When Florence, whose work as physical director required her attention until late hours three nights in the week, arrived, she found the little French girl still dressed as Pierre, curled up in a big chair shuddering in the cold and the dark.

"Wh-what's happened?" She stared at her companion in astonishment.

"N-n-nothing happened!" wailed Petite Jeanne. "That is why I am so very much afraid. They have said not one word to me about the pearls. They believe I have them. They will follow me, shadow me, search this place. Who can doubt it? Oh, _mon Dieu_! Such times! Such troubles!

"And yes!" she cried with a fresh shudder. "There is the slim, dark-faced one who is after me. And how can I know why?"

"You poor child!" Florence lifted her from the chair as easily as she might had she been a sack of feathers. "You shall tell me all about it. But first I must make a fire and brew some good black tea. And you must run along and become Petite Jeanne. I am not very fond of this Pierre person." She plucked at the black coat sleeve. "In fact I never have cared for him at all."

Half an hour later the two girls were curled up amid a pile of rugs and cushions before the fire. Cups were steaming, the fire crackling and the day, such as it had been, was rapidly passing into the joyous realm of "times that are gone," where one may live in memories that amuse and thrill, but never cause fear nor pain.

Jeanne had told her story and Florence had done her best to reassure her, when the little French girl exclaimed: "But you, my friend? Only a few hours ago you spoke of a discovery on the island. What was this so wonderful thing you saw there?"

"Well, now," Florence sat up to prod the fire, "that was the strangest thing! You have been on the island?"

"No, my friend. In the fort, but not on the island."

"Then you don't know what sort of half wild place it is. It's made of the dumping from a great city: cans, broken bricks, clay, everything. And from sand taken from the bottom of the lake. It's been years in the making. Storms have washed in seeds. Birds have carried in others. Little forests of willow and cottonwood have sprung up. The south end is a jungle. A fit hide-out for tramps, you'd say. All that. You'd not expect to find respectable people living there, would you?"

"But how could they?"

"That's the queer part. They could. And I'm almost sure they do. Seems too strange to be true.

"And yet--" She prodded the fire, then stared into the flames as if to see reproduced there pictures that had half faded from her memories. "And yet, Petite Jeanne, I saw a girl out there, quite a young girl, in overalls and a bathing-suit. She was like a statue when I first saw her, a living statue. She went in for a dip, then donned her overalls to dash right into the jungle.

"I wanted to see where she went, so I followed. And what do you think! After following a winding trail for a little time, I came, just where the cottonwoods are tallest, upon the strangest sort of dwelling--if it was a dwelling at all--I have ever seen."

"What was it like?" Jeanne leaned eagerly forward.

"Like nothing on land or sea, but a little akin to both. The door was heavy and without glass. It had a great brass knob such as you find on the cabin doors of very old ships. And the windows, if you might call them that, looked like portholes taken from ships.

"But the walls; they were strangest of all. Curious curved pillars rose every two or three feet apart, to a considerable height. Between these pillars brick walls had been built. The whole was topped by a roof of green tile."

"And the girl went in there?"

"Where else could she have gone?"

"And that was her home?"

"Who could doubt it?"

"America--" Jeanne drew a long breath. "Your America is a strange place."

"So strange that even we who have lived here always are constantly running into the most astonishing things.

"Perhaps," the big girl added, after a brief silence, "that is why America is such a glorious place to live."

"But did you not endeavor to make a call at this strange home?" asked Jeanne.

"I did. Little good it did me! I knocked three times at the door. There was no answer. It was growing dark, but no light shone from those porthole windows. So all I could do was to retrace my steps.

"I had gone not a dozen paces when I caught the sound of a half suppressed laugh. I wheeled about, but saw no one. Now, what do you make of that?"

"It's a sweet and jolly mystery," said Jeanne. "We shall solve it, you and I."

And in dreaming of this new and apparently harmless adventure, the little French girl's troubles were, for the time being at least, forgotten. She slept soundly that night and all her dreams were dreams of peace.

But to-morrow was another day.