Part 11 (2/2)

I looked. Never again would I have to be told to look. She was framed in a low window off the veranda. The Governor's son was now close behind her. Ubbo was standing on the lawn over near the musicians. We crept nearer. Turning, as if accidentally, she saw him and called to him. ”How is your master, Ubbo, to-night?”

”Marster tell me to say he more happy to-night, Missy.”

”Told you to say, Ubbo?”

”Yes, Missy, marster tell me to say.”

”That's the signal, that sentence,” whispered Captain Blaise.

”That's good. You can go, Ubbo.” She smiled and chatted with the Governor's son then.

”She can't have interpreted the message aright,” I panted.

”Because she did not leap into the air? Trust her--she's Gadsden Cunningham's, her own father's daughter.”

In a few minutes she turned from the Governor's son to his father, from him to her ladys.h.i.+p, and from her without haste to some less distinguished member, and then in the most casual way in the world she strolled inside and from our sight.

Hardly a minute later the signal came: a firefly's flash five times together and three times repeated from the darkened upper story.

Ubbo was with us when the signal came. ”Marster Carpt'n,” he whispered, and handed him a sabre and a pair of duelling pistols. ”Missy send um--an' dey loaded, both um, suh.”

Captain Blaise, taking the sabre and pa.s.sing me the pistols, ordered Ubbo to show the way.

We skirted the grounds and entered by a rear gate a garden where were all sorts of low-growing trees and high-growing shrubs to screen us as we drew near the rear veranda. I saw the white gown with the dark blue sash s.h.i.+ning out from the shrubbery, and then the white and blue drew back. I would have leaped out on the path to follow, but a restraining hand was on my arm. ”Wait, wait!” warned Captain Blaise.

It was the Governor and his son hurrying around the corner of the veranda. ”I do not believe it,” the Governor was saying. ”I cannot credit it. That could not have been his s.h.i.+p which was reported still off the bar at dark--a clumsy galliot of a craft she was described; and besides, he would not dare, a whole squadron cruising within an hour's sail.”

”But he is gone, and we found the guard was overpowered. He does not even know how it happened, and his s.h.i.+p is even now moored in the lagoon, and he himself was with Ha.s.san less than an hour ago. Ha.s.san will say no more until he gets his advance money in the morning. But if we move now, he is caught like a rat in a trap. Why not send word to the squadron? The wind is from the sea again and increasing, and he cannot now recross the bar. If we could get hold of Cunningham's n.i.g.g.e.r, he'll know something. Perhaps we can make him tell. I've sent Charlotte to watch her.” He ran to the corner of the veranda. ”O Ubbo! Where in the devil is he? O Ubbo! Only a few minutes ago he was talking to her out front. Ubbo! O Ubbo!”

A mulatto girl came hurrying from within the house. ”The American missy, I cannot find her. She not in her room, suh.”

”What!” The fat old potentate almost jumped into the air.

But the son kept his head. ”Not in her room, Charlotte? And Ubbo gone, too? Had I not better make the guard ready, sir?”

”Yes, yes; have the guard fall in.”

They rushed around the corner of the veranda and we leaped into the lighted path. She, too, stepped out into the light. ”Captain Blaise, oh, Captain Blaise, you don't know what courage you give us.”

”Miss s.h.i.+ela, you don't know what joy you give us.

”Still the same--but--but who is this?” she cried out like a surprised child. And then she seemed to know without being told, for ”Oh-h, of course, this is Guy,” she said, and smiled as if she had an hour to smile in, and gave me both hands.

”Come,” said Captain Blaise abruptly. And down the rear path we hurried, and, circling the garden, entered the hedged path to the lagoon bank.

All went well until we had to pa.s.s the walk which crossed our path from the front lawn. Here the light of a row of hanging lanterns fell on us.

And they saw us, the Governor and his son and the a.s.sembled guards, and came charging down across the lawn after us. But only two abreast could they come down the path.

<script>