The Destroying Angel

The girl rose quickly. "Do you mind waiting a little? I mustn't neglect my dishes, and – if you don't mind – I'd rather not be left alone any longer than necessary. You know…"

She ended with a nervous laugh, depreciatory.

"Why, surely. And I'll help with the dish-cloth."

"You'll do nothing of the sort. I'd rather do it all myself. Please." She waved him back to his chair with a commanding gesture. "I mean it – really."

"Well," he consented, doubtful, "if you insist…"

She worked rapidly above the steaming dish-pan, heedless of the effects upon her hands and bared arms: busy and intent upon her business, the fair head bowed, the cheeks faintly flushed.

Whitaker lounged, profoundly intrigued, watching her with sober and studious eyes, asking himself questions he found for the present unanswerable. What did she mean to him? Was what he had been at first disposed to consider a mere, light-hearted, fugitive infatuation, developing into something else, something stronger and more enduring? And what did it mean, this impression that had come to him so suddenly, within the hour, and that persisted with so much force in the face of its manifest impossibility, that he had known her, or some one strangely like her, at some forgotten time – as in some previous existence?

It was her voice that had made him think that, her voice of marvellous allure, crystal-pure, as flexible as tempered steel, strong, tender, rich, compassionate, compelling… Where had he heard it before, and when?

And who was she, this Miss Fiske? This self-reliant and self-sufficient woman who chose to spend her summer in seclusion, with none but servants for companions; who had comprehension of machinery and ran her motor-boat alone; who went for lonely swims in the surf at dawn; who treated men as her peers – neither more nor less; who was spied upon, shadowed, attacked, kidnapped by men of unparalleled desperation and daring; who had retained her self-possession under stress of circumstance that would have driven strong men into pseudo-hysteria; who now found herself in a position to the last degree ambiguous and anomalous, cooped up, for God only knew how long, upon a lonely hand's-breadth of land in company with a man of whom she knew little more than nothing; and who accepted it all without protest, with a serene and flawless courage, uncomplaining, displaying an implicit and unquestioning faith in her companion: what manner of woman was this?

At least one to marvel over and admire without reserve; to rejoice in and, if it could not be otherwise, to desire in silence and in pride that it should be given to one so unworthy the privileges of desiring and of service and mute adoration…

"It's almost dark," her pleasant accents broke in upon his revery. "Would you mind lighting the lamp? My hands are all wet and sticky."

"Assuredly."

Whitaker got up, found matches, and lighted a tin kerosene lamp in a bracket on the wall. The windows darkened and the walls took on a sombre yellow as the flame grew strong and steady.

"I'm quite finished." The girl scrubbed her arms and hands briskly with a dry towel and turned down her sleeves, facing him with her fine, frank, friendly smile. "If you're ready…"

"Whenever you are," he said with an oddly ceremonious bow.

To his surprise she drew back, her brows and lips contracting to level lines, her eyes informed with the light of wonder shot through with the flashings of a resentful temper.

"Why do you look at me so?" she demanded sharply. "What are you thinking…?" She checked, her frown relaxed, her smile flickered softly. "Am I such a fright – ?"

"I beg your pardon," he said hastily. "I was merely thinking, wondering…"

She seemed about to speak, but said nothing. He did not round out his apology. A little distance apart, they stood staring at one another in that weird, unnatural light, wherein the glow from the lamp contended garishly with the ebbing flush of day. And again he was mute in bewildered inquiry before that puzzling phenomenon of inscrutable emotion which once before, since his awakening, had been disclosed to him in her mantling colour, in the quickening of her breath, and the agitation of her bosom, in the timid, dumb questioning of eyes grown strangely shy and frightened.

And then, in a twinkling, an impatient gesture exorcised the inexplicable mood that had possessed her, and she regained her normal, self-reliant poise as if by witchcraft.

"What a quaint creature you are, Hugh," she cried, her smile whimsical. "You've a way of looking at one that gives me the creeps. I see things – things that aren't so, and never were. If you don't stop it, I swear I shall think you're the devil! Stop it – do you hear me, sir? And come build our bonfire."

She swung lithely away and was out of the house before he could regain his wits and follow.

"I noticed a lot of old lumber around the barn," she announced, when he joined her in the dooryard – "old boxes and barrels and rubbish. And a wheelbarrow. So you won't have far to go for fuel. Now where do you purpose building the beacon?"

He cast round, peering through the thickening shades of dusk, and eventually settled upon a little knoll a moderate distance to leeward of the farm-house. Such a location would be safest, even though the wind was falling steadily with the flight of the hours; and the fire would be conspicuously placed for observation from any point in the north and east.

Off in the north, where Whitaker had marked down the empurpled headland during the afternoon, a white light lanced the gloom thrice with a sweeping blade, vanished, and was replaced by a glare of angry red, which in its turn winked out.

Whitaker watched it briefly with the finger-tips of his right hand resting lightly on the pulse in his left wrist. Then turning away, he announced:

"Three white flashes followed by a red at intervals of about ten seconds. Wonder what that stands for!"

"What is it?" the girl asked. "A ship signalling?"

"No; a lighthouse – probably a first-order light – with its characteristic flash, not duplicated anywhere along this section of the Atlantic coast. If I knew anything of such matters, it would be easy enough to tell from that just about where we are. If that information would help us."

"But, if we can see their light, they'll see ours, – won't they? – and send to find out what's the matter."

"Perhaps. At least – let's hope so. They're pretty sure to see it, but as to their attaching sufficient importance to it to investigate – that's a question. They may not know that the people who live here are away. They may think the natives here are merely celebrating their silver wedding, or Roosevelt's refusal of a third term, or the accession of Edward the Seventh – or anything."

"Please don't be silly – and discouraging. Do get to work and build the fire."

He obeyed with humility and expedition.

As she had said, there was no lack of fodder for the flames. By dint of several wheelbarrow trips between the knoll and the farmyard, he had presently constructed a pyre of impressive proportions; and by that time it was quite dark – so dark, indeed, that he had been forced to hunt up a yard lantern, carrying the which the girl had accompanied him on his two final trips.

"Here," he said clumsily, when all was ready, offering her matches. "You light it, please – for luck."

Their fingers touched as she took the matches. Something thumped in his breast, and a door opened in the chambers of his understanding, letting in light.

Kneeling at the base of the pyre, she struck a match and applied it to a quantity of tinder-dry excelsior. The stuff caught instantly, puffing into a brilliant patch of blaze; she rose and stood back, en silhouette, delicately poised at attention, waiting to see that her work was well done. He could not take his gaze from her.

So what he had trifled and toyed with, fought with and prayed against, doubted and questioned, laughed at and cried down, was sober, painful fact. Truth, heart-rending to behold in her stark, shining beauty, had been revealed to him in that moment of brushing finger-tips, and he had looked in her face and known his unworthiness; and he trembled and was afraid and ashamed…

Spreading swiftly near the ground, the flames mounted as quickly, with snappings and cracklings, excavating in the darkness an arena of reddish radiance.

The girl retreated to his side, returning the matches.

A tongue of flame shot up from the peak of the pyre, and a column of smoke surpassed it, swinging off to leeward in great, red-bosomed volutes and whorls picked out with flying regiments of sparks.

"You'd think they couldn't help understanding that it's a signal of distress."

"You would think so. I hope so. God knows I hope so!"

There was a passion in his tones to make her lift wondering eyes to his.

"Why do you say that – that way? We should be thankful to be safe – alive. And we're certain to get away before long."

"I know – yes, I know."

"But you spoke so strangely!"

"I'm sorry. I'd been thinking clearly; for the first time, I believe, since I woke up."

"About what? Us? Or merely me?"

"You. I was considering you alone. It isn't right that you should be in this fix. I'd give my right hand to remedy it!"