“I serve only the gods—” The Indian woman straightened to her full height. “Only by their commands must I act. They care nothing for a white skin. Such overthrew their temples, drove forth those who believed in them. If I stepped aside from the appointed path, then would I be powerless—”
That the woman believed in what she said Persis understood. But Askra was continuing:
“What I could do, that I have done. Are you not here? For in all this house you were the only one to answer such summoning as I might use.” Once more she raised her hands to sketch a deliberate gesture in the air, one which Persis could not understand. “You have seen, you feel. Those who have gone can, in a little, work through you. But that is all I can give you, white skin.”
Persis realized that she was nodding as if in agreement. Common sense meant going for help. But she was committed, she realized now, to something the common sense in which she had been drilled all her life could neither answer nor understand. She was forced to do this— and, at the back of her mind, lurked always that strange and eerie feeling that she was under some command, just as Askra averred she herself was. There was no escape now.
The girl swung onto the ladder, the wood under her hands felt wet and beslimed, so she hated the touch of it. But she continued to descend step by hesitating step. When she reached the ledge and faced around she saw that the light came from the left, glimmering dimly from the old escape tunnel.
There was no one in sight and Persis quickly moved back against the wall, so her shoulder scraped along it as that compulsion sent her stumbling ahead toward the tunnel entrance.
“—snug as a weevil in a biscuit.”
The words came out of nowhere loud enough for her to distinguish them at last. While the tone was one of malicious amusement.
“Don’t fret yourself about him, m’dear. We’ve got what we need, and before they wake up and start hunting we shall be safe. Look at him now—the great Captain Leverett tied up like a prime hog on the way to market!”
“Please, Ralph—we should leave—I don’t know how long they’ll sleep—”
Lydia! Much of the habitual assurance was gone out of the girl’s voice. She sounded on the verge of tears.
“Oh, they’ll take a time even after they wake to find their lord and master. And what we’ve got right here, girl, will end all our problems. I did not think Leverett was such a fool to keep so much cash in hand. But once we’re safely married, m’dear, he daren’t raise any squeak about it, now can he—seeing as how this we can claim as your marriage portion.”
“But that other thing-the portfolio?”
“Don’t you fret yourself ’bout that either, m’dear. That’s maybe worth more than what we found in the strongbox—to the right people. We might go to Paris, love—what would you say to that? You’ve been talking how you want to see the world—well, we’ve got the key to do that right here now.”
“But Persis-”
“Persis Rooke, m’dear, hasn’t the faintest hope of getting what that old fool dragged himself down here to grab. A silly woman made a silly will. And the breaking of that, aided by the disappearance of these papers, that is as easy as dipping your hand in this water and flipping off the drops. Kind of him—and her—to keep it all in hand, making the lifting so easy. It’s a duty really, an honest duty to see that will broken. These high and mighty Rookes had it in for Amos. But, you’ll notice, they weren’t so high and mighty that they did not come nosing around for what was never theirs in the first place!”
There was no amusement in his voice now. Instinctively Persis’ hand went to the fan case. Light as Ralph Grillon’s tone remained, there was that in it which added to the cold gnawing in her ever since she had awakened in that seemingly deserted house.
“All right, girl, we’re heading out. Rest well, Mend—” There was a faint splashing sound and then Lydia cried out:
“Don’t, Ralph, you nearly upset the canoe then! Stop it!”
“Did you ever think, Lydia, what might happen if this brother of yours was to die? You’d be a pretty important heiress, wouldn’t you? Here—what are you doing, you little fool!”
“You needn’t try to grab me, Ralph. I know you’re only funning. But you leave Crewe alone. We got what we want—stop playing games, I don’t like it!”
Ralph Grillon laughed. “All right, m’love, you have the saying of it. I’m not a greedy man, leastways not too greedy. We’ve done well enough over this night’s work. Get along into the other dugout now and mind you keep well down. I’ll take us out. Wearing this hat and all they’ll think me that old red witch Crewe makes a house pet of. We’ll be able to get to the south of the island and set up the flares then.”
“What if those are seen, Ralph?”
“They won’t be. I found a place where the rocks cut off the light except seaward. Now—move!”
“What if they find Crewe before your boat comes?”
“No chance of that. I’ve planned this well, m’dear, very well. It’s my big chance—yours, too, of course. Think about Paris, Lydia, and lie still, and all is going to be just as I promised.”
Persis heard noises which she thought came from paddles slipped into the water and out again. The light dimmed and went out. She pushed one fist hard to her mouth. The ledge ended here except for a narrow ridge which in the dark she could not see. To venture along that, slime encrusted as it was, single footed—she could not. But she had to!
In the end she felt her way by inches, hunching along rather in a froglike position, sweeping one guiding hand in the water. She had guessed from Ralph’s words that Crewe had been left helpless in a dugout. But was that moored, or was it drifting free away from her?
Then she barked her knuckles against wood so hard that the blow made her gasp with pain. She felt along what she had discovered—the edge of a canoe, side against the very narrow ledge on which she crouched. But—there was water inside it, too!
With horror Persis plunged her throbbing hand deeper, felt sodden cloth, a body under it. Ralph-Ralph must have known that the dugout would fill-that his victim had been left to drown!
With her other hand the girl jerked free the blade of the false fan, feeling along the wet body with her right. Her fingers met a tangle of wet rope. Not knowing how much time she had, she sawed away at that with the dagger edge. Was Crewe’s head underwater—could he have already drowned?
The body was quiet, cold. But suddenly there was movement, an upflung arm nearly sent her spinning from her perch.
“Please,” she found her voice at that sign of life, “lie still until I can get you free.”
But the arm moved away from her and a moment later there came a hoarse, croaked whisper as if from a throat which had not been recently in use.
“This craft is going to settle in a minute. Get me a handhold-”
Persis waved her hand through the dark, found and caught at a well-muscled forearm which she drew toward her.
“The ridge here—it’s very narrow—” she cautioned.
“I know. But just let me hold on. I think that I can kick off the rope now.”
Splashing sounds suggested that he was doing just that. Then she heard what could only be a sigh of relief.
“That’s done. But with this shoulder I can’t pull myself up—we’ll have to go out the canal entrance.”
“I can get back—find help—” Persis resheathed the dagger, and got to her feet.
“I’m afraid,” though there was no note of fear in his voice when he answered her, “that I can’t hold out that long. If we can swing the dugout over, it may float and support me down to the outside. Only trouble is that I do not think Grillon will be ready to leave until he has made very sure of me.”
“But Lydia would never let him—” Persis began in protest.
The sound out of the dark which answered that might have been a laugh but it was far from expressing any amusement.
“Lydia will soon discover that she is nothing whatever to Ralph Grillon once she has served his purpose. He may make some pretense of a plausible story to appease her, say that the dugout had a leak he did not realize. But he wants me dead just as much as if he faced me with a primed pistol in his hand!”