In that gloomy candlelight, the brown, bony face shown forth.
"Allah! Allah! He was descend of Darley, three, four generations. My father's father bred Darley—so Inglish call him—we call him Sultan. Eclipse was greater than Sultan. Ah, that is so!"
That fixed it as far as I was concerned.
"I reckon I'll let you go."
"Dakkil-ak ya Shaykhe!" But I did not know what he was saying.
"Are you hungry?"
"No, malik. Interpreter-man gave me some dates last night."
I thought this might be only pride, for he looked pinched enough, so I brought out my hunk of bread and piece of fried fish. After cutting his rope, I used half the edibles in making him a sandwich, which I handed to him.
"Eat, O Sheik," I told him.
He took a small bite and then a big one. Seeing him munch away, I fixed myself a sandwich to keep him company. I had hardly tasted it when I thought of something.
"O Sheik, the fried fish contains salt."
"Ah!"
"So we have broken bread together and eaten salt."
"By Allah, it is true."
"Doesn't it mean that we have become brothers?"
"More than that, Yan-kee mariner," he answered, choosing his words with care. "We be father and son."
CHAPTER 5
The Gentle Knight
My stay with Suliman, Sheik el Beni Kabir, was not long. If the English chased him here, I could do nothing to help him and I did not want to see him fall into their hands. If any of his shipmates or his rescuer had sudden business with him, my presence would complicate it, if not ruin it. So I shook hands with him in Yankee fashion—he touched his forehead and his heart in a stately gesture —then I took off through the water gate to the shore.
Wanting to share everything with Sophia, I could hardly wait to tell her of the adventure. But long before the day's end, I perceived that I must not. My best hopes hung on our revisiting the cavern and succumbing to its strange charms. If she thought of it as a hiding place for fugitives, it would spoil her play. For me the game was in deadly earnest.
I returned to the cove soon after sunrise, stripped to my breeches, and began a cautious scouting of the cave. Just inside the entrance,
56
lying on a white silk kerchief carefully spread on one of the ferrying boards, I found a curious little memento of Suliman's visit. It was a plait of black horsehair, about ten inches long and an inch wide, each end of which was bent on a brass ring. I had told him I intended to return early this morning to continue my explorations and could not doubt that he meant it for me to keep as a souvenir. Handy enough for securing a pocketknife or a watch or some personal belonging, now it served to free my imagination for a long, pleasant leap. I believed it was from the mane of a great and famous horse. Perhaps he was Darley, whom Suliman called Sultan, forebear of Eclipse.
The money-worthless but meaningful gift convinced me beyond any doubt that Suliman had gone. Still, I searched the cave carefully and thoroughly, this time with the penetrating light of an oil torch. I found no one or anything more of interest; even the happy ghosts of yesterday would not walk, and the rock was cold, and my shadow lonely looking against the wall.
What did all that matter, when, having come out into the sunshine, wrung out my wet breeches and dressed, I caught sight of Sophia light-footed as a young nanny on the clifftop?
She made her way toward me slowly, as though half-inclined to turn back. A level rock about twenty feet above me gave her a good view of the water and a comfortable seat. Finding one beside her, I noticed that she wore a long-sleeved, high-necked, dark blue dress fit for an English governess and a blue bonnet over hair drawn back and fastened in a big roll on the nape of her neck. Still she could not look anything but beautiful, vital, and, in this setting at least, adventurous.
"I came in a carrozza, as a young lady ought—as far as the village," she told me.
"I came on shank's mare," I answered.
"We say we go on the marrowbone stage or by Walker's gig. I mean they're folk sayings—I wouldn't say them any more than I'd say 'bloody.' Well, I do say 'bloody' sometimes—it's so patently low that it's all right, but I never say the worse one—the adverb used as an adjective. And do you think I'd as much as mention its existence to any Englishman? I'd be strangled first."
"My being an American— "
"Changes everything. But Papa would not be as shocked at either one—provided I'd pronounce it like a Cockney—as he would at my saying I came by Walker's gig. Do you understand that?"
I shook my head.
"He'd think it was common, and he demands that I be absolutely apart from, and untouched by, commonness. Poor people who had no horses invented the expression—it still has a folksy sound Papa couldn't stand. You see, common people don't say or do vulgar things—things are vulgar because common people say or do them. I know what you're thinking. High and low have to do a lot of the same things, but the great aristocrats get around this, somehow."
"That looks as though a lot of it is put on."
"No more than any cult is put on. Listen. As late as a quarter of a century ago there were lords in England who went to their chambers and changed their clothes if a common man touched them. Their feeling of being sullied was perfectly real."
"It makes me awful mad."
"You'd better know it, though, so you'll leave me alone."
"Leave you alone sounds like—"
"I am saying it just right. That's what you'll do. You'll go away— and leave me—alone."
"If I do, it will be because you've sent me."
"No, because your ship will have come in."
"Do you want to get close to me now?"
"Yes."
My arms had been aching to hold her, but I had hardly hoped she was in the same boat. Now she did not try to hide the hunger of her mouth seeking mine, and she was neither ashamed nor afraid of her passion. It was a lovely flame that swept through us both, its like unknown to me before these meetings, as it was to her. I need never doubt it was her maiden passion. The wonder was that I had been its waker; only I, Homer Whitman, a seaman late before the mast, had received these gifts.
It was a long time before her first yearnings were satisfied, then I would not let her go. At last she drew away so she could speak.
"Homer, what were you doing in the cave before I came?" she asked.
"Making sure that everything was all right for us to go in. Are you ready?"
"No, we can't go there any more. I'm afraid of being caught."
I marked the last word and was made thoughtful by it.
"I know how that sounds," she went on. "Maybe I should have said disturbed or—better yet—interrupted. But I mean caught. You see, I didn't tell Papa after all. I intended to—but I couldn't. And if we should get to the same point we did before—and he should happen to visit us at that moment—well, as you say, he'd have the advantage."
"You don't imagine he'd follow you—"
"It would be awfully infra dig. It would seem so, that is, until he did it; then his poise would be so perfect, his manner so flawless, his little smile so—but no one can describe that smile—that only you and I would be ashamed."
"If you'll promise to marry me— "
"Don't mention that now. We'll talk it over later."
"I have to tell you that anybody looking for you—especially with a spyglass—could be watching us this minute—"