“Mrs. Pryor!” Persis hurried to the housekeeper’s side, dropping her hand on the woman’s shoulder. As she had done to awaken Molly out of the nightmare, she shook her gently. But somehow she already knew that Mrs. Pryor was in no natural sleep.
And, when the stout body nearly toppled from the chair, Persis was forced to set down the candle and resettle the housekeeper as comfortably as she could. Her charge did not even mutter in answer, and Persis had no idea as to how to rouse her.
She went to Molly. Again unconsciousness defeated her. While the coldness within her grew. This was no illness, the girl began to believe—rather it was planned. Had they been drugged? That queer taste of the drink which still lingered somehow in her own mouth—but she had swallowed very little of that. She looked around for any evidence that Mrs. Pryor or Molly had been served such—but there was nothing but water in the carafe on the bed table.
Shubal—Without much hope, Persis went to the next chamber. She was not surprised to find the old man sleeping as heavily as the other two. But why—?
She could find no answer to what seemed to her the strangest happening in this house. Lydia and the Captain were gone, these three so deeply asleep she could not hope to rouse them. What had happened?
It took all her courage to move toward the staircase once more. Every few steps she paused to listen. The silence was like the dark, it fed her imagination—too well. She dared not lose control, she dared not!
Step by hesitant step she went down into the hall onto which her own chamber opened. The doors of both the Captain’s and Lydia’s rooms were wide open as she had left them, and she hurried by what seemed like caverns of darkness, to descend once more.
The outer door onto the veranda was closed and there was no light—not anywhere. Irresolute, Persis paused—she needed more than just a single candle which flickered now and then to threaten her with complete dark. She lit the lamp standing on the table in the front hallway. It was more awkward to carry, but the wider glow from it was heartening.
Now hesitatingly she began a systematic search of the rooms, only to discover dark emptiness. The drawing room with its wealth of salvaged luxury, the dining room—its table bare of any sign that anyone had eaten here—the small room which she knew Captain Leverett kept as his office.
It was when she stood in the doorway of that, holding the lamp high enough so that the light would reach as far as possible, that she saw what fed her fear.
There was a strongbox pulled to the middle of the floor, its lid thrown open on emptiness. And on the desk, papers had been swept from pigeonholes so that some had shifted to the floor. Robbery!
But such a suggestion did not fit somehow, or at least she was missing some important fact. Robbery on an island controlled by Captain Leverett—with no escape possible—that would be the act of a madman. But—where was Captain Leverett? Her heart gave a quick, hard beat.
Suppose he had heard—suppose in his one-armed condition, weakened by his ordeal, he had struggled out of bed and confronted the invader? What would—? Persis refused to allow her imagination looser rein.
Robbery here—and the portfolio gone—the drugging of the household—or those she had so far found—someone had known a great deal—had dared much. And only one person came to mind—Ralph Grillon!
With Lydia also gone—
But how could she have agreed to the despoiling of her own brother? Lydia might be angry with Crewe for his interference in her life, but Persis could not readily believe that a sister could so betray a brother. Unless Ralph had far more influence over her than they had even guessed. But why then had he tried to use her, Persis, to reach Lydia?
She closed the door of the office firmly and moved toward the kitchen quarters. Mam Rose, Sukie, the other maids—if none of them were there—then she must find her way to the hotel and rouse the men there. Even to be able to plan that act heartened her.
Persis pushed open the kitchen door. Here there was light, for a fire burned low. But no sign of those she sought. Except—
The girl froze. Something moved on the hearth, uncoiling as might a serpent. A head was raised and eyes caught and held hers in a straight gaze.
Askra!
The Indian woman was not wearing her mask. But she moved deliberately as if she knew that her will would keep Persis exactly where she was.
Slowly Askra raised an arm which was nearly stick thin, the fingers at the end of it seeming like roots pulled unwillingly from the soil. She made a gesture between them, not beckoning Persis to her, but rather as if some ritual existed in their night meeting.
Then Askra spoke.
“The old ways—what think you of the old ways, white skin?” She held her head a little to one side as if she were indeed a bird of prey, her heavy nose a beak poised to strike.
“What old ways?” Somehow Persis was able to summon up her courage to the point she could ask that question. But within she understood—that dream! Only how could this old woman know what she had dreamed?
Askra did not even answer that question. Her contemptuous eyes said Persis knew, that she would force the girl to admit that knowledge.
“Sacred place, a long time the gods breathed here,” Askra continued. “Then the gods turned away their faces; they sent wild ones who were not of the People. And those slew until the blood colored the ground, the sea. But no good came to them of that killing—for the gods looked not to them afterward. Those answered only to us—us of the People!” She balled her fist to strike at her flat chest. “I can still call the gods and those eaters of snakes know it! I can summon up the call. When I so do those who have eyes and ears open in their dreams—they can see and hear. Even as you did.”
Now she advanced a step or two. “You have that in you which answers to old troubles, ancient ways. Were you of the blood—then I would open the knowledge to you. But you are not of the People—therefore that which should be a gift for you is rather a burden heavy to bear. You shall dream, but that dreaming you cannot control.”
“I will not—!” Again Persis pushed her courage to what seemed to her to be the highest point she could reach.
“You cannot stop it.” There was malicious satisfaction in the old woman’s eyes, the girl thought. As if Askra could and would use terrifying dreams as weapons against those of that other race who had supplanted her people. But Persis needed information, not warnings.
“Where are they all-the Captain-Lydia-?” She was surprised, pleased that she could insert such a fierce note into her demand.
Askra’s deep-set eyes no longer held her pinned; rather it was as if the Indian woman herself was momentarily at a loss.
“There has been evil walking here.” Again she made one of those gestures which had meaning for her if not for Persis. “I heard—I came—He who has been a friend is in danger.”
Inspiration moved the girl to a quick question:
“Captain Leverett?”
The Indian witch produced from within her blouse a small bag of leather thonged together, from which dangled the stubs of worn feathers, a loop of small shells pierced into beads. This she held between palms pressed closely together, raised level to her mouth as she blew upon it, and murmured in so low a whisper that Persis could make out only the faintest of sounds.
“What has happened to Captain Leverett?” Persis demanded again—louder, in an attempt to break through the other’s preoccupation, get some sensible answer.
Askra eyed her over that bag. But any emotion in her dark eyes was unreadable. Then she said:
“He will die.”
The words were so baldly spoken and with such finality that, for a long second, they did not even make an impression on Persis. Then the lamp wavered in her hand.
“What do you mean!” She advanced threateningly on the woman as she would not have done a moment or so earlier. It was plain Askra knew something. “What has happened here?”
“His enemy came and found doors opened for him. There are always those who believe lies, because they desire to do so. They have taken him because they want what he has—”
“Indians!” Persis remembered the warnings from the cutter. But surely Indians would not have left them—she, Mrs. Pryor, the servants sleeping—they would not—
“Those!” Askra’s return was scornful. “They do not dare to beach their canoes on this land. They know that I have the calling of the Old Ones and that even now I can bring their ending. No, it is among his own household that he should have searched for danger. Yet to it he was as blind as the Great Chief long ago when he was warned that the younger wife, taken from the outlanders—the evil ones—had not been cleansed of their darkness. Even as she betrayed her lord, so has the Captain been betrayed.”