Part 19 (1/2)

”Yes, Saint Pierre is glowing like a brazier,” he said. ”I was ash.o.r.e last night for awhile. The people blame the mountain. Old Pelee has been acting up--showering the town with ash every little while lately. It's the taint of sulphur that spoils the air.”

She turned apprehensively toward the volcano. _La Montague Pelee_, over the red-tiled roofs of Saint Pierre, looked huge like an Emperor of the Romans. Paled in the intense morning light, he wore a delicate ruching of white cloud about his crown. They stepped ash.o.r.e on the Sugar Landing where Paula found a carriage to take her to the _Hotel des Palms_, a rare old plantation-house on the _Morne d'Orange_, recently converted for public use.

The ponies were ascending the rise in _Rue Victor Hugo_, at the southern end of the city, when Paula discovered the little Catholic church she had imaged for so many weeks, _Notre Dame des Lourdes_, niched away in the crowded streets with a Quebec-like quaintness, and all the holier from its close a.s.sociation with the lowly shops. From these walls had risen the spiritual house of Father Fontanel--her far bright beacon....

The _porteuses_, said to be the lithest, hardiest women of the occident, wore a pitiable look of fatigue, as they came down from the hill-trails, steadying the baskets upon their heads. The pressure of the heat, and the dispiriting atmosphere revealed their effects in the distended eyelids and colorless, twisted lips of the burden-bearers.

The ponies at length gained the eminence of the _Morne d'Orange_, and ahead she saw the broad, white plantation-house--_Hotel des Palms_. To the right was the dazzling, turquoise sea where the _Fruitlands_ lay large among the s.h.i.+pping, and near her a private sea-going yacht, nearly as long and angelically white. The broad verandas of the hotel were alluring with palms; the walls and portcullises were cooled with embroidering vines. Gardens flamed with poinsettias and roses, and a shaded grove of mango and India trees at the end of the lawn, was edged with moon flowerets and oleanders. Back of the plantation-house waved the sloping seas of cane; in front, the Caribbean. On the south rose the peaks of Carbet; on the north, the Monster.

Paula had hardly left the veranda of magnificent vistas two hours later, when the friendly captain of the _Fruitlands_ approached with an elderly American, of distinguished appearance, whom he presented--Mr. Peter Stock, of Pittsburg.

”Since you are to leave us here, Miss Wyndam,” the captain added, ”I thought you would be glad to know Mr. Stock, who makes an annual cruise around these Islands--and knows them better than any American I've encountered yet. Yonder is his yacht--that clipper-built beauty just a bit in from the liner.”

”I've already been admiring the yacht,” Paula said, ”and wondering her name. There's something Venetian about her dazzling whiteness in the soft, deep blue.”

”I get it exactly, Miss Wyndam--that 'mirage of marble' in the Italian sky.... My craft is the _Saragossa_.” His eyelids were tightened against the light, and the voice was sharp and brisk. His face, tropically tanned, contrasted effectively with the close-cropped hair and mustache, l.u.s.trous-white as his s.h.i.+p.... Paula having found the captain's courtesy and good sense invariable during the voyage, gladly accepted his friend, who proved most interesting on the matter of Pelee.

”I've stayed here in Saint Pierre longer now than usual,” he told her, pointing toward the mountain, ”to study the old man yonder. Pelee, you know, is identified with Martinique, much the same as the memory of Josephine; yet the people of the city can't seem to take his present disorder seriously. This is cataclysmic country. h.e.l.l--I use the word to signify a geological stratum--is very close to the surface down here.

All these lovely islands are merely ash-piles hurled up by the great subterranean fires. The point is, Lost Atlantis is apt to stir any time under the Caribbean--and rub out our very pretty panorama.”

”You regard this as an entertainment worth waiting for?” Paula asked.

The vaguest sort of a smile pa.s.sed over his eyes and touched his lips.

”Pelee and I are very old friends. I spoke of the volcanic origin of these islands in the way of suggesting that any seismic activity in the archipelago--Pelee's present internal complaint, for instance,--should be taken significantly. Saint Pierre would have been white this morning--except for the heavy rain before dawn.”

”You mean volcanic ash?”

”Exactly.”

”That explains the white sc.u.m I saw in the gutters, driving through the city.... But it isn't altogether a novelty, is it, for the mountain to behave this way?”

”From time to time in the past ten days, Miss Wyndam, Pelee has had a session of grumbling.”

”I mean as a usual thing----”

He turned to her abruptly and inquired, ”Didn't you know that there hasn't been a sound from Pelee for twenty years before the month of April now ending?”

This gave intimacy to the disorder. Mr. Stock was called away just now, but after dinner that night he joined Paula again on the great veranda.

”Ever been in Pittsburg?” he asked.

”No.”

”I've only to shut my eyes in this second-hand air--to think I'm back among the steel mills of the lower Monongahela.”

”The moon looks like beaten egg,” Paula said with a slight s.h.i.+ver. ”They must be suffering down in the city. You're the expert on Pelee, Mr.

Stock, please tell me more about him.”

He had been regarding the new moon, low and to the left of the Carbet peaks. It had none of the sharpness of outline peculiar to the tropics, but was blurred and of an orange hue, instead of silvery. ”It's the ash-fog in the air which has the effect of a fine wire screen,” he explained. ”We'll have a white world to-morrow, if it doesn't rain.”