ARP TAYLOR had sent a false message to Williams and had had the two passengers, who he guessed were Francis Davenant and his “daughter”—known to him as relatives whom Grahame, jealous of his isolation, did not want to see—brought ashore.
Perhaps Carp Taylor, with an itch for deviltry, didn't himself quite know what he was up to; though in also sending word to Williams that I was helping pick a crew that would go out with the ship and bring her back, there was probably at the back of his head the vague idea of rushing natives and Portuguese on board in the guise of a crew and seizing her, evening an old score, getting reward-money and renown, and also control of a valuable schooner.
There appears to be a kind of masonry among the devil's disciples that plunges them even when strangers into sullen fellowship and plot-weaving. When Davenant stepped on the landing he shook a fist at the Sally Martin and cursed Williams. In some moments then of quick speech, questions and answers, Davenant and Carp Taylor were in agreement as to what should happen to Williams.
Davenant's fury at him seemed to have displaced, for the time at least, revenge toward Grahame, whom he had sought half-way across the world.
As they came into the room I tried to stand up, with my face twisted back over my shoulder. My knees were limber and my feet heavy—from sitting so long, probably.
I threw out a steadying, groping hand and touched Davenant. He did not notice; he, almost madly, was already talking. But I jerked my hand back with the shuddering impression of having touched something snaky. Gripping the foot of Grahame's bed, I stood there, holding on tightly.
Dula and Eunice—distinct as figures from a tableau of Night and Day—were side by side. Eunice trembled and on her face was a frozen look of fearfulness. She was frightened but baffled too.
The evil that the world has in it was abruptly appearing before her. She did not understand, but she was afraid; also dazed by many surprising things. She held on to Dula's arm, and Dula's fingers were pressed reassuringly against the fragile hand that held her arm.
Eunice had met them at the door. Carp Taylor had tried to make some kind of introduction—something awkward about being “relatives”—and Dula had glided forward with hands out, saying:
“I am your sister!”
Laulai had at first thought Eunice was a woman with no tongue, one that couldn't speak. She was so silent.
Eunice did not believe it, of course; or more likely did not think of disbelieving it, of taking it literally. Her utter loneliness of life would have made any woman of her own race endearingly welcome and given her the dazed impression of the miraculous.
It would probably never have occurred to her to follow the men into her father's room. But she followed Dula. She knew, perhaps psychically, that Dula was strong and wise. For all of the forced blooming of the tropics, Eunice was little more than a child, and a handful of dirt spread out on an oceanic mountain had been her world. When a woman is utterly innocent she has little left besides the urge to be loved, guided, sheltered, and an eagerness to trust.
Dula stood there alert, tense, her eyes on Grahame in a fascinated sort of way—her whole being concentrated in a kind of agonized suspense as to what he would reply to Davenant. And as I remember her through the shifting haze that dings to that room her attitude was not that of some one awaiting a decision so much as that of some one withholding judgment.
Davenant, as he came into the room, with a sweep of his hand had seemed to discard all the hate between him and Grahame. At least that was his offer in words as he cut interruptingly through the awkward effort at some kind of explanation begun by Carp Taylor.
Williams was to be caught and Davenant was to be given the right to kill him. Those were the terms of the peace offer flung impassionedly at Grahame. Davenant took it for granted that Grahame was not only wishful on any terms of wiping out the grudge between them, but that he would be eager to end Hurricane Williams.
The shock of surprise, that put a quite stupid expression on Grahame's face when the door had opened, rapidly gave way to a look of absorbed interest. Then his two thin, wasted hands stroked the drooping mustache, pulling the ends back along the lines of his prominent jawbone.
He grinned. He laughed. For the length of such a moment as a gambler feels while the dice are falling, I could not tell what that laugh meant—whether pleased acquiescence or pleased scorn.
A second later and there was no doubt. He was jeering at Davenant.