There, in the island’s little harbor were turning slowly the lean sides of a destroyer, and even as he looked, there was another burst of flame and smoke, and a whistling five-inch shell burst forty yards from where the natives had stopped.
With a yell of mingled fear and baffled rage, they turned and fled off toward their canoes.
Already, a boat, manned by the lusty arms of a blue-jacketed crew, had put off from the destroyer’s side, and was coming in toward shore.
“Saved!
We are saved!” cried Glendenning, and leaping to his feet he signalled the approaching boat.
Suddenly he paused.
“Damn!” he muttered bitterly.
“Oh, damn!”
“What is it, Bruce?” she asked.
He answered her in a cold harsh voice.
“A destroyer has just entered the harbor.
We are saved, Miss Mullins.
Saved!”
And he laughed bitterly.
“Bruce!
Dearest!
What is it?
Aren’t you glad?
Why do you act so strangely?
We shall have all our life together.”
“Together?” he said, with a harsh laugh.
“Oh no, Miss Mullins.
I know my place.
Do you think old J.
T.
Mullins would let his daughter marry Bruce Glendenning, international vagabond, jack of all trades, and good at none of them?
Oh no.
That’s over now, and it’s good-by.
I suppose,” he said, with a wry smile, “I’ll hear of your marriage to some Duke or Lord, or some of those foreigners some day.
Well, good-by, Miss Mullins.
Good luck.
We’ll both have to go our own way, I suppose.”
He turned away.
“You foolish boy!
You dear bad silly boy!”
She threw her arms around his neck, clasped him to her tightly, and scolded him tenderly. “Do you think I’ll ever let you leave me now?”
“Veronica,” he gasped.
“Do you MEAN it?”
She tried to meet his adoring eyes, but couldn’t: a rich wave of rosy red mantled her cheek, he drew her rapturously to him and, for the second time, but this time with the prophecy of eternal and abundant life before them, their lips met in sweet oblivion . . . .
Ah, me!
Ah, me!
Eugene’s heart was filled with joy and sadness — with sorrow because the book was done.
He pulled his clotted handkerchief from his pocket and blew the contents of his loaded heart into it in one mighty, triumphant and ecstatic blast of glory and sentiment.
Ah, me!
Good old Bruce–Eugene.
Lifted, by his fantasy, into a high interior world, he scored off briefly and entirely all the grimy smudges of life: he existed nobly in a heroic world with lovely and virtuous creatures.
He saw himself in exalted circumstances with Bessie Barnes, her pure eyes dim with tears, her sweet lips tremulous with desire: he felt the strong handgrip of Honest Jack, her brother, his truehearted fidelity, the deep eternal locking of their brave souls, as they looked dumbly at each other with misty eyes, and thought of the pact of danger, the shoulder-to-shoulder drive through death and terror which had soldered them silently but implacably.
Eugene wanted the two things all men want: he wanted to be loved, and he wanted to be famous.
His fame was chameleon, but its fruit and triumph lay at home, among the people of Altamont.
The mountain town had for him enormous authority: with a child’s egotism it was for him the centre of the earth, the small but dynamic core of all life.