The Island of Love

by Ralph Henry Barbour

 

THE ISLAND OF LOVE

By Richard Stillman Powell

“YOU can see nothing?” asked Doris.

I balanced precariously on the third rail of the straggling fence and searched the horizon with straining eyes. Then my gaze shifted to the intervening wastes. A field of ripening corn spread down the face of the hillside to the fringe of oaks that followed the sluggish river. Here and there a giant of the bottom-land was gone and a glint of deep, placid blue varied the rim of dark green. To the left stretched downward a hill field wherein browsed a herd of sleek, dun-colored Jerseys. To the right the lane crept past the shoulder of the hill, its ochre-dyed soil vivid in the light of the sinking sun. Afar, on every side, rose the mountains, purple with wood-smoke and mist. I turned to Doris.

“Nothing,” I said, hopelessly.

She sighed, and for a moment hid her face in her hands.

“And the wreck?” she whispered.

“Is fast breaking to pieces,” I answered. “I fear we shall be able to save little.”

“The cruel sea!” murmured Doris, with a shudder. For a space we looked disconsolately over the waving corn. Then Doris, who ever since the catastrophe had shamed me with her unflagging hopefulness and bright spirits, smiled bravely and turned away. “Come, let us explore the island. For the present, at least, we are safe.”

I descended cautiously from my lookout and taking up the lunch-basket again followed her up the steep incline, slippery with the fallen needles of the pines, until the summit was reached.

“Do you think,” Doris asked, presently, “that the island is inhabited?”

“I doubt it; there is little in sight with which to sustain life.” Doris tried to look frightened.

“Is there, then, danger of our starving to death here, thousands of miles from home?”

I transferred the basket to the other hand and staggered to the ledge.

“Let us hope for the best,” I answered, lightly, depositing my burden in the shade.

“I wonder,” she continued, as we sat panting beside the basket, “I wonder what time it is.” Thoughtlessly I drew forth my watch.

“No, no!” cried Doris.

I accepted the rebuke, rose and studied the position of the sun. “If we had only thought to bring off the—the——”

“Quadrant,” prompted Doris.

“—sextant,” I continued, in superior tones, “we could have taken an observation. However, I think that it is about a quarter past five.”

“It—it's quite warm, isn't it?” Doris was fanning herself with her hat.

“Quite.” I mopped my forehead with my handkerchief. “If we had only had the forethought to be cast away on an ice-floe somewhere near the North Pole, now——”

Doris treated my levity with silent contempt. “Come,” she commanded, “let us explore.”

I groaned.

“Don't you think it would perhaps be as well to wait until the heat is less intense? I have read somewhere that there is great danger of fever and sunstroke on these South Sea islands.”

“Nonsense!” returned Doris, scathingly, “this isn't a South Sea island; at least, I don't think it is. Please come.”

I obeyed. Together we made a tour of our tiny refuge, keeping close to the rail fence that marked the shore line. In extent the island was perhaps eighty feet wide by one hundred feet long, its general shape being that of an irregular ellipse. There was a sharp descent from the ledge in the centre to the shore on every side. The vegetation consisted principally of pine trees, a species of wild rose and a low-growing bush bearing small berries similar in appearance and taste to the blueberries of our Middle Atlantic States. On the side where we had made our landing there was an open expanse some thirty feet square and covered with short turf.

When we reached the farther side of the island we leaned our arms on the fence and looked down almost on to the roof of Laurel House, nestling far below in a grove of squat oaks. From the out-kitchen a slender spiral of blue smoke rose, and I thought regretfully for a bare moment of Aunt Diana's beaten biscuits. Then I glanced at Doris and forgot aught else. What happier fate could mortal man desire than to be cast away on a desert island with Doris? What were beaten biscuits to the joy of seeing the little shadows flit hither and thither on the white neck as the breeze stirred the tiny tendrils of brown hair; to the supreme delight of watching the light sparkle in the tender blue eyes; to the ...

“I know of what you are thinking,” whispered Doris, suddenly, with a world of sympathy in her sweet voice. I started and wondered anxiously if she did. “Yes,” she continued, “you are thinking that perchance we shall never be rescued; that we shall linger on and on, losing hope as the dreary days go by, until starvation brings a welcome release.”

“I wish it might be so,” I murmured. The blue eyes opened wide. “I'd rather a thousand times starve to death here with you than to—to go home to supper!”

“Stupid!” said Doris; but there was no displeasure in her tones. “Come,” she continued, “let us find the highest point; perhaps we shall sight a sail.”

“Doris,” I murmured, with a touch of displeasure, “can you think of bargains even in the face of death?”

At the summit we climbed to the top of the little ledge and strained our gaze seaward; at least Doris gazed seaward, while I watched the sun-flecks on her cheek. She turned with a gesture of hopeless resignation. “Nothing but water,” she sighed.

“'Water, water everywhere,'” I quoted, “'but not a drop——'”

She clutched my arm.

“Is there not a spring here?” she cried. “Oh, don't say that we are doomed to perish of thirst!”

I glanced fleetingly toward the lunch-basket. Then I shook my head dolefully. “Heaven alone knows,” I muttered.

“But hadn't we better search the island?”

“Well—” it was very warm and the pine-carpeted shade looked inviting—“we might, but—” a radiant idea struck me—“there are always the rocks, you know; we can find rain water in the pools.” I sat down. Doris eyed me doubtfully for an instant; then she too sank on to the pine needles.

“Very well.”

She looked thoughtfully out over the golden cornfield.

“The poor Hilda Jane!” she murmured.

“Eh? Who?” I exclaimed. Doris looked reproachful. “Oh,” I hastened to say, “the ship, to be sure; yes, I fear she is a total wreck ere now.”

“And the poor captain!” continued Doris, sadly.

“And the crew!” I added.

“And the other passengers!”

“And—and the ship's cat!”

“Oh,” she cried, “was there a cat?”

I nodded. Why conceal the truth? “Yes, there was a cat, a pretty Maltese—” Doris dotes on Malteses—“with four white feet. I saw it struggling and battling with the cruel waves just as we left the wreck.” Doris shuddered and looked almost tearful; then:

“But some cats can swim,” she cried, hopefully.

I shook my head. “Not this one; it was blind.”

There was a moment of silence.

“Don't let's have any cat,” whispered Doris, in a stage aside. I agreed. We watched the sun sink behind the purple mountains; that is, Doris watched the sun. I was thinking of a fellow I knew once at college. He was in love with a girl, a girl with dimples. He was a freshman then. He kissed one of the dimples and got his ears soundly boxed, and was in heaven for a week. And now—now heaven was again within reach of the courageous! I sighed.

Doris turned sympathetically. “Are you hungry?”

I watched the nearest dimple greedily. “Very!”

She pulled the basket toward her and spread a snow-white cloth. I abstracted a cork from the neck of a bottle and laid it aside in case we might need it later to lend buoyancy to a raft. Then I filled two glasses. The empty bottle I also retained. We could write a message praying for succor, place it in the bottle and throw the whole far out into the cornfield, in the hope that it would be picked up by a passing ship. Doris looked more cheerful now that the cloth was spread; and even I saw things more hopefully. We smiled across the banquet.

“Will you try some of these mussels?” I asked. They were buttered and contained thin slices of cold tongue or chicken. Doris paused in the act of helping herself to the jelly and looked across inquiringly.

“From the ship's stores,” I said.

She was plainly relieved.

We had, if I remember correctly, besides the mussels and the dewberry jelly, breadfruit, fish that I had caught with an improvised hook and line in the shallow water of a little cove, sea birds' eggs and berries from the low bushes lining the beach.

“Don't you think that this water tastes a little brackish?” asked Doris.

I sipped from my glass reflectively. “A little, perhaps. It—it has a faint bouquet of—of tea.” Doris frowned. “But, of course, it isn't that,” I hastened to add.

“Will you have another piece of cake?” she asked.

“I beg your pardon.”

“Breadfruit, I mean,” she corrected, in confusion. I took another piece. Who could say when we would again taste food? Presently I sighed contentedly and drew out my cigarette case. Doris watched me anxiously.

“Aren't they awfully wet?”

“No, only a little damp. The—the case is waterproof, you know.”

“It doesn't look it,” said Doris.

It didn't, but I wanted a smoke.

“Besides,” I continued, “we were in the water such a short time.”

Doris opened her eyes very wide. “Why, it was hours and hours.”

“Eh? By Jove, so it was! yes, to be sure. But you can see that they're not wet.” I held out the burning cylinder for her inspection. She took it, placed it between her lips, and—choked. The proof was conclusive. She handed it back with averted face.

“It—it's not very wet,” she stammered.

Twilight descended the farther hills. A whippoorwill sang his first notes in the pasture below.

Doris started. “It's getting dark.”

“Yes.” She was exaggerating, for it was yet bright daylight on the hill-top. But I knew my part.

“Suppose—suppose a vessel should pass in the darkness.”

We gazed, terror-stricken, into each other's eyes. Then:

“A fire!” we cried, in a breath. Doris clapped her hands. I leaped—well, I struggled to my feet. In critical moments I am all energy. In a trice I had collected five twigs, eight dead oak leaves and a handful of dry pine needles; in another moment they were alight and crackling merrily. I lay down again and found that by rolling from side to side and stretching my arms to their fullest extent I could replenish the beacon with a minimum of exertion. The sparks floated upward. I am certain that the light would have been visible as far away as the middle of the surging cornfield. Doris looked approval.

“They can't fail to see that.”

“Only a ship manned by blind men would pass it by,” I replied, gravely.

A church bell in the valley rang musically. Below, along the river, blue haze softened the twilight. I tossed a two-inch log on the fire and turned to Doris.

“Do you know,” I said, “this is one of the strangest islands it was ever my good fortune to be cast away on?” Doris emptied the pine needles from my hat and looked properly interested. “Yes, in all my previous experiences of this sort I have invariably found evidences of former habitation; ruins of stone houses, marks of axes on trees, rude graves, sometimes an old iron pot or a rusted gun; very often—” I dropped my voice to a sepulchral tone—“skeletons!”

Doris gave a little shriek and glanced timorously back into the grove. “But—but you told me coming up the lane that you'd never been shipwrecked before in your life.”

“In a way that's true,” I acknowledged, without embarrassment. “But—at various times—in company with Mr. Stevenson, or Mr. Defoe, or Mr. Whiting, or—or others—I have enjoyed shipwreck in all its phases.” I thought Doris looked troubled. “Once,” I continued, “it was on what we called Treasure Island—we had the jolliest sort of a row with a lot of mutineers. On another occasion I made the acquaintance—ahem!—of some very likable people; of course, on that occasion the island was not exactly a desert one.”

“And—I suppose—there were adventures with Indian maidens, and—things like that?” asked Doris, in awfully disinterested tones.

“Well,” I replied, with becoming modesty, “of course there were sometimes women in the case. Once, I recollect, I met a beautiful barefooted maiden with——”

“Minx!” said Doris.

“—wonderful brown eyes; at least, I think they were brown. Her name was—what the deuce was her name? Mr. Whiting introduced me, but—ah, well, it escapes me now. But there was a very pretty romance there.” I sighed a trifle regretfully.

Doris threw things at the fire. “But then that was only in a book,” she said, presently, with a faint accent of relief.

“Yes, only in a book. But, to tell the truth, Doris, I like being cast away in books. You see there is invariably—at least, almost invariably—a beautiful maiden, with whom you fall deeply in love and eventually marry.”

“That's silly,” said Doris, contemptuously.

“Sometimes,” I continued, regarding her over the glowing tip of my cigarette, in which I tried conscientiously to detect a flavor of salt water, “sometimes it happens that the hero and the heroine are cast away on the desert island together. That is even better, according to my views. There you have the love element right from the start. Before the wreck he has loved her in secret, never daring to even hint his passion, and she has looked upon him merely as an acquaintance. But during the fearsome struggle with the angry waves, he and she together in a frail cockleshell—I think that is correct—admiration for his courage and gratitude for his tenderness come to her. And then, when they at last reach the desert island and, full of thanks for their deliverance, sit over their first scanty meal together—just as we did a while back, you know—the knowledge comes to each that henceforth——”

“Hark!” cried Doris.

I harked. Sounds. We rose and stole to the fence—that is to say, the beach—and watched. Soon, afar off, we saw dimly the topmast of an approaching ship ascending the winding lane.

“Saved!” cried Doris, dolefully.

“Saved!” I muttered, crossly.

The rescuers, attracted no doubt by our flaring beacon, approached nearer and nearer. Already the hull was visible. I turned to Doris; we looked at each other; with a common impulse we joined hands and fled to the top of the hill. Panting, we sank behind the security of a scrub pine.

“They may be cannibals,” I muttered.

“Or—or pirates!” whispered Doris.

The ship drew nearer and cast anchor at the edge of the cornfield.

“Whoa!” cried the captain. Then he looked about. “Miss Doris, yo' ma says you better come home now, honey, 'ca'se it's gittin' dark.”

We made no answer. Instead, we huddled together in our place of concealment. Doris had forgotten to withdraw her hand from mine; I had forgotten to remind her. We watched. The captain muttered and glanced around; then he saw the remains of the supper, took a half-hitch with the windlass or cable or something about the whip, drew a corn-cob pipe from his pocket and settled himself comfortably back against the forecastle. It was no use! Rescue stared us in the face!

“I think they are pirates,” I whispered.

“Why?”

“Observe the swarthy hue of the captain.”

Doris giggled. “I reckon we'll have to go,” she sighed.

“Why?” I asked. In some manner my arm had found its way around her waist. Of course, Doris didn't know it; she'd never have permitted it. “Why? Let's stay here forever, Doris!” But she shook her head.

“Don't be silly!” she said, faintly. She may have begun then to suspect that my arm was about her, for she looked a little frightened, I thought. But I wasn't certain, because I was at that moment suffering from something approaching timidity myself.

And then, while the tireless waves washed murmuringly upon the sands, while the sea-birds swirled and circled with plaintive cries against the twilight sky, there, surrounded by leagues and leagues of tossing waters, I whispered to Doris what the hero always whispers to the heroine. And she, realizing, I think, that I was but following precedent, acknowledged the propriety of my words. For she made but the faintest resistance when I kissed her. And ere we crept from our hiding place and faced our rescuers Doris had promised to become cast away with me on that distant shore from which few voyagers return—the Land of Married Life.

Presently our meagre belongings were hoisted over the side of the good ship Surrey, Captain Cesar, Doris and I gained the deck without misadventure, the anchor was weighed, the captain gave the command, “Go 'long, dar!” the sails filled and we glided over the twilight seas toward home, rescued at last.

Doris and I sat hand in hand on the after deck and watched, with something akin to regret, our desert isle slowly disappear from sight beyond the horizon.

“It was a very nice desert island,” murmured Doris.

“Yes,” I whispered.

“And do you know,” she continued, sadly, “we never named it.”

“It is not too late,” I answered, softly. “Let us call it, dear, the Island of Love.”