Kitabı oku: «Cupid of Campion», sayfa 4
CHAPTER VII
In which the strange tale of Dora, another victim of the Bright-eyed Goddess, is told to Clarence
When Clarence awoke the next morning, it dawned upon him very slowly that he was in the firm grasp of a stronger hand, and, without any effort on his part, walking up and down the greensward at a pace not unworthy of a professional walker. A further survey brought to his notice the gypsies grouped together and eyeing him with interest. At her tent door, Dora, fresh as a dew-washed rose, stood laughing at him heartily. It was Ben, he also realized, who, holding him by arm and collar, was causing him to walk with such tremendous strides.
“I say, Ben, drop it. Let me go. What’s the matter?”
“I’ve been trying to wake you for five minutes,” said Ben smiling and puffing. “I rolled you over first where you were lying in the wagon, and shouted and pounded you; and when you didn’t show any signs of life, I thought you were dead.”
“Well, I’m alive all right,” said Clarence, and, as Ben freed him from an iron grasp, proceeded to rub his eyes.
Pete, who had just brought the horses to the wagon, where his two older sons took them in charge, came running over, snarling like a wildcat, and seizing the boy by both shoulders shook him without mercy. How long the punishment would have lasted, had it depended upon Pete, is problematic; for Clarence, now thoroughly awakened, cleverly slipped down to the ground and sprang between the Gypsy leader’s legs. As he did so, he thoughtfully humped himself in transit, with the result that Pete measured his length on the earth.
“I wish,” gasped Clarence, “that you’d tell me what you want. I’m not a deaf mute.”
Pete sprang for a stick in the bushes; but before he had quite made up his mind which to choose, Ben whispered remonstratingly in his ear. Ben was angry and determined. Bestowing a look of strong disfavor on Clarence, Pete gave an order of some kind to his company, who at once proceeded to break up camp.
“You go and help Dora,” said Ben.
“Good morning, Clarence. How do you feel?” asked the child with a smile and the extended hand of welcome. The roses of dawn were upon her cheeks.
“Feel! I’m sleepy. Why, it is hardly daylight.”
“We always travel early in the morning; it is cooler, and there are not so many people about. Towards noon we camp in some quiet place, generally by the river side; and then about four we go on, again, and keep on going sometimes till it’s too dark to see. Come on now, Clarence; we’ve got to work fast, or Pete will be down on us.”
Under Dora’s direction, Clarence made himself quite useful. He was quick and intelligent. The two had their share of the work finished several minutes before the others.
“Where are we going?” asked Clarence.
“We’re going to zigzag, I suppose,” laughed Dora. “We’ll strike into the country for four or five miles, and then we’ll strike back again, and by the time we’ve pitched our camp tonight at the riverside we may be six or seven miles – at the most ten – further up the river than we are now.”
“Do we ride or walk, Dora?”
“It’s this way: the women and the children stay in the wagon. Pete takes the wagon too, now and then. The men walk and keep a lookout all the time. I generally walk myself; but sometimes I ride. Ben told me that I could walk with you any time I wanted.”
“Ben’s all right,” said Clarence.
In the splendor of a roseate dawn, the party set out. For an hour they pushed into the interior, when, reaching a deeply wooded grove, they halted for breakfast. Within half an hour they were upon their way again; Pete and one of his sons in the advance, then the wagon, behind it Clarence and Dora with Ben and the other gypsies bringing up the rear. The road they were pursuing was overgrown with weeds and neglected – a road, evidently, where few ventured.
“Say, I never enjoyed a breakfast more in my life than that one. Bacon and eggs! I kept on eating them till I saw Pete looking at me pretty hard; and then I just had to quit. You must know, Dora, I’m a very bashful youth.”
“You took five eggs and lots of bacon,” said the candid girl, “and I don’t know how much bread. This morning before you got up, two of the gypsies traded your boat for over fifteen dollars’ worth of provisions. You say you are a bashful youth. I’m glad you told me, for I’m very sure I would never have found it out myself.”
“I manage to conceal all my virtues,” returned the affable lad, smiling broadly. “And now, Dora, if it is all the same to you, I wish you’d be good enough to tell me how you came to be here.”
“It’s a long story.”
“Well, we’ve plenty of time, and if you can stand telling it, I reckon I can stand listening. Were you kidnapped?”
“That’s a hard question to answer, Clarence. The best way will be for me to begin at the beginning.”
“Go ahead.”
“Well, when I was seven years old I made my first Holy Communion. You know what that means, don’t you?”
“I know what you people believe,” answered Clarence. “I’ve read a lot about it. But, say, do you really believe that Christ is present, and that what looks like bread is really His body?”
“Of course I do!” cried Dora resolutely.
“But why?”
“Because Our Lord told us so. That is faith, we believe on the word of God.”
“Well, go on, Miss Theology.”
“After making my first Communion, I started to go every day and I never missed once for over two years. We lived just a little outside of Dayton, Ohio, and I had to walk a mile to the church.”
“You did – and fasting?”
“Of course, and I just loved to go. Last April it was raining almost all the time. It was often hard to get even to church, and the rivers and streams around Dayton kept rising higher and higher. People said that if the rain didn’t stop, there would be a terrible flood. Well, the rain didn’t stop, and one day in May after three days of terrible rain I went to church, received Communion and started home.”
“Were you alone?”
“I was that morning. Generally some one of the family came with me; but the ground was so muddy that morning that my big sister who had intended coming with me backed out.”
“If I’d been there, I’d have gone with you,” volunteered her gallant companion.
“Anyhow, I had hardly got more than half a mile towards my home, when a man and two women came running past me. They were very scared-looking and out of breath. As they passed me the man said, ‘The dam! the dam! It’s broken! Run for your life!’ Just then a lot of other people came running, and I turned around, and do you know what I saw?”
“What?” cried Clarence.
“Men and women and children all running towards me, and further back – maybe it was two or three miles – a sort of a wall of water, and it was moving towards me.”
“Good gracious!” exclaimed Clarence. “What did you do?”
“I started to run and I did run. After a while, I got so out of breath that I began to stagger. I looked behind and it seemed to me that the wall of water was getting closer, and I started to run again. Somehow I hit my foot against a log and fell, rolling over to one side of the road, and when I tried to get up I couldn’t use my foot. I had turned my ankle.”
“Oh, I say,” exclaimed Clarence, “What did you do then?”
“I was scared, and I began to cry.”
“I’d have done that myself,” commented the boy.
“Then I got on my knees and, while the people in crowds were hurrying past me on the road – you see I was to one side where I had fallen – I cried ‘Oh, my dear Mother Mary, be my mother now and save me.’”
“And she did it?” asked the boy.
“I was still kneeling when there came dashing towards me a man on horseback. He saw me and checked the horse, and as he passed me he leaned over like a circus man and caught me up, and then set the horse at breakneck speed, and then I fainted.”
“Gee!” said Clarence.
“The next thing I knew I opened my eyes to find myself in a gypsy camp. It was Ben who had saved me. He had just paid Pete’s fine and got him out of the workhouse. They were all in a hurry to get away, because they were afraid Pete might be arrested for something else he had done. So they started off. Ben told me he would send me back to my parents just as soon as they had pitched camp for the evening. And he meant it too. But when evening came, and he started to get his horse ready, Pete made a fuss, and Pete’s wife stood by him. They all got very angry. Then Pete’s boys took their father’s side. Indeed I thought there was going to be a fight. In the long run, Pete had it all his own way, and Ben came to me and told me to wait a little longer on account of the flood. And I’ve been waiting ever since.”
“Four months?” said Clarence.
“Yes; and never a word from my mother or father. I don’t know whether they are living or dead. Often I cry at night; but then I think of my Blessed Mother and I stop.”
“I don’t blame you for crying,” said Clarence. “And I’ll bet your parents think you’re drowned.”
“There were ever so many people drowned in that flood, I have heard,” said Dora. “Anyhow I ought to be grateful to God for sparing my life.”
“I say, Dora. We’re both in the same boat. You know when I was shoved out into the river in my swimming suit, my clothes were lying on the shore. I’ll bet my ma is crying now.” And Clarence rubbed his shirt sleeves over his eyes.
“I miss my brothers and sisters so much,” continued the girl. “Ben and his wife are good and kind, but I do get so homesick. Sometimes I am so lonely.”
“I haven’t got any sisters to miss me,” pursued the boy. “I had two, but both of them were travelling with pa once in Mexico and they drank some polluted water and died of typhoid fever within two days of each other. And my little brother died when he was five. And now my father and mother will think I am dead, too.”
Again Clarence used his shirt sleeves to wipe his brimming eyes.
“Sometimes Clarence, I dream that I’m home again and that mama is holding me in her arms and kissing me, and then I’m so happy till I wake; and then sometimes I dream that I’m receiving Holy Communion, and I’m as happy as can be.”
“You are?” said Clarence.
“Of course. Why, I have not received Our Lord for months, and I’m – I’m just hungry for Him.”
“Dora, you are a good fellow.”
“You told me that last night.”
“Do you know that I’m thinking seriously of adopting you?”
“What?” cried the girl.
“Adopting you. I’m short on sisters, and you could help to fill the supply.”
“Oh, thank you; you think I’ll do, do you?”
“You’ll do first rate,” answered Clarence tranquilly and failing to detect the mischief in Dora’s glance. “First chance we get to see a lawyer, we’ll have it fixed up. Say, is there no way for us to escape?”
“I’m afraid not; you’ll see for yourself as we go on.”
At this point of the conversation, Pete came running towards them, and catching Dora’s eye, held up his hand.
“What does he want?” Clarence inquired.
“That’s his sign to tell us to get in the wagon.”
“What for?”
“Probably there are some people on the road. Here now, jump in. We have to stay till he tells that we are free to go out.”
For half an hour they remained hidden. They could hear outside strange voices and the passing of some vehicle.
“This is funny,” observed Clarence.
“Do you know, Clarence, that since I joined the gypsies I have never seen a stranger’s face till you came yesterday?”
Clarence meditated for a moment.
“Oh!” he said presently, and with his most engaging smile. “It was worth your while waiting, wasn’t it?”
CHAPTER VIII
In which Clarence enters upon his career as a gypsy, and makes himself a disciple of Dora
Clarence learned in the course of that day a good deal of his companions. It was a divided camp. Pete was the official leader, but his authority was weak. He was a dried-up man with furtive eyes and hang-dog aspect. He had a genius for breaking the law and getting into trouble. If there were twenty ways of doing a thing, Pete invariably chose the least honest. His range as a thief went from chickens to horses. In this, as in all other things, he was ably abetted by his shrewish wife. That remarkable woman had a gift for fortune-telling which was uncanny. It was not without reason that Dora suspected Pete’s wife of having dealings with the devil. The woman had an intense hatred for anything that savored of the Catholic faith. Her eyes, whenever they fell upon Dora, shot forth a baneful light. It was Ben who stood between the child and her malignity.
Ben was of different mould. He was brave, open and kind. A certain gentleness and refinement were observable in him and his wife. Dora noticed these things and pointed them out to Clarence. But she did not tell him, for she did not know it, that it was her presence, her example, her sweetness and modesty, which had, to a great extent, developed in the gypsy couple these lovely qualities.
And, in truth, it was Dora who was, in a sense, the real leader. She was the uncrowned queen. Neat, spotless in attire, graceful of form and of dazzling complexion, she was always fresh and bright and candid and sweet. Upon the perfect features there was a certain indefinable radiance – the radiance one finds so rarely on the faces of those who appear to have been thinking long and lovely thoughts of God and whose “conversation is in heaven.” Dora knew well the companionship of saints and angels. A keen sense of humor, made known now in rippling laughter, now in the twinkling of an eye, showed that the child was wholesomely human. Ben seemed to worship the ground she trod upon; his wife was a no less ardent devotee, and the little children vied with each other in winning her word or smile. Even Pete’s two graceless sons put aside their coarseness and what they could of their evil manners in her winning and dainty presence. Wherever she moved, she seemed to evoke from those she met undreamed-of acts of gentleness and sweetness and love. And indeed before the day was spent, the child unwittingly won a new devotee – Master Clarence himself. Clarence, be it known, was in most respects a normal boy. He was also unusually clean in thought and in word and in life. He had never used a really coarse expression, and he recoiled from any sort of foulness. If one were to ask why this was so, there would be no adequate answer, save that there is no accounting for the uncovenanted graces and mercies of God. A sort of instinct had guided the boy, during his three years at Clermont Academy, in the choice of his companions. He was always seeking the society of those he considered his betters. It took the lad little time to discover that Dora was pure, innocent, gentle, gracious, and high-minded above all whom he had ever met. Before nightfall, he too was her slave.
Let there be no misunderstanding. The reader who considers this a case of puppy love has missed the point. Clarence was at an age and development when the normal boy is little interested in the girl. But to him Dora was something apart. She was set high on a pedestal. She was an ideal. She stood to him for all that was good and beautiful and inspiring in human nature.
As for Dora herself, she had never before encountered a youth so blithe, so debonair, so clever of speech and quick of wit as the young adventurer. She perceived something in the boy of which he himself was scarcely aware – a knightliness, a gallantry that went with high ideals, a serene and lovely purity of heart. She, in turn, placed Clarence upon a pinnacle, and was in intent his devoted slave. Within twenty-four hours, she was unconsciously depending upon him.
On the very afternoon of their first day’s travel, she organized a “Catechism class,” consisting of Clarence, Ben, and his wife. It was held in the wagon and lasted for an hour. Before it was ended, each member knew how to make the sign of the cross, and Master Clarence himself, who had asked many questions and put many objections, was beginning to see that the Catholic Church was not so encrusted with superstitions, as he had supposed, nor in any wise, as he had once held, out of date.
Pete and his wife, upon understanding what was going on, were furious; the woman particularly so. The leader, afraid to wreak vengeance on Dora, singled out Clarence as the victim to his rage. Many a secret blow did the boy receive during the day’s journey.
At nightfall there came a heavy rain. All took shelter in the big tent. Clarence happened to remark how two nights previously he had been engrossed in a wonderful story called Treasure Island.
“What was it about?” asked Ben.
“Do you want me to tell it?”
“Oh, do,” cried Dora. “I haven’t read a story or heard one for ever and ever so long.”
“I like a nice story,” said Dorcas, Ben’s wife, beaming on the lad.
“Tell us Treasure Island,” begged one of the children.
And Clarence, thus adjured, set about recounting that wondrous tale of ships and pirates and buried treasures. At the first words, Pete and his wife left the tent. But the others remained, and listened to a lad who coupled an extraordinary memory with a flow of vivid language. The story was in its first quarter when Pete returned and, to the disappointment of all, announced bedtime. The guitar was brought, Gounod’s Ave Maria sung, and when sleep visited the eyes of Clarence, who kept himself awake to hear Dora’s good-night hymn to the Blessed Mother, it visited a youngster who in twenty-four hours had achieved a partnership with a singularly lovely child in the leadership of a gypsy band.
CHAPTER IX
In which Clarence gets some further knowledge of a shrine, which has much to do with the most important events of this veracious narrative, and pays back the gypsy, Pete with compound interest
It was the third day of Clarence’s experiences as a gypsy. He and Ben and Dorcas had become great friends. Often the young gypsy couple chose to walk with Dora and the boy, and, in their talks, the subject was not infrequently religion. Clarence was quick to grasp the truths of faith, and, indeed, became a sort of assistant professor, supplementing the explanations of Dora with knowledge gained from his own wide range of reading.
Pete and his wife were at no pains to conceal their fury at the turn of events brought about by the arrival of Clarence. There was poison in their looks and venom in their tongues. Ezra made himself a sharer of this unlovely couple’s feelings. He hated Clarence intensely; it was hatred born of envy. The memory of his defeat still rankled. One or the other of these three was always watching the boy, night and day.
On this particular morning, Clarence had, after breakfast, wandered into the forest to gather some flowers for Dora’s altar. The little girl had the day previous brought him into her tent and shown him a little shrine of Our Lady Immaculate.
“I pray before it,” she said, “and I have promised our Blessed Mother that if she have me restored to my home, I will join some Order in her honor where I can give most of my time to prayer and meditation.”
“So you intend to become a contemplative?” asked Clarence, looking at the child with renewed interest.
“If God allows me, Clarence, I’d like to sit at the feet of Our Lord forever.”
“Not for me,” said Clarence, “I’d like to do things. The active life suits me. But really that is one of the great things about your Church.”
“Our Church,” corrected Dora with a smile.
“I can’t say that yet,” said Clarence. “Anyhow, as I was saying, one of the great things about your Church is that it has something to suit the taste of everyone. There’s no end of variety in it. And say, Dora, where do you get all these flowers for your shrine?”
“Ben gets most of them. His wife helps, too. They began doing this long before they thought of becoming Catholics. Ben got me that pretty statue somewhere or other three months ago; and he began bringing flowers almost at once. He built the shrine, too. Whenever he came in up to a few days ago, he always lifted his hat. One day I found him kneeling before it. Since we began instructions, he kneels and makes the sign of the cross.”
“Why don’t you try to get Pete and his wife interested?”
“They never come to my tent; they don’t even know about the shrine. Ben has arranged all that. I believe, if they knew about it, that they would smash the statue in pieces – and as for me, I don’t know what they would do.”
“By George, if I ever can do a good turn for Ben,” exclaimed the boy enthusiastically, “I’ll do it with all my heart. He is so kind and good and gentle. In fact, he seems to be deeply religious.”
“That’s just what I think. His wife is just as good. She has given up fortune-telling, she told me, for good. She says she’d rather starve than do it again. And Ben is figuring now every day how much he has taken dishonestly. He says before he gets baptized he’s going to restore everything that isn’t honestly his.”
“Dora, you’ve done all this.”
“Oh, no, Clarence; I think it must be our Blessed Lady. She hasn’t forgotten a single flower that Ben has brought to her shrine. She’s going to pay him back with interest.”
“You wouldn’t mind, Dora, if I helped gather some flowers, too?”
“Indeed, no; but I want you to do it in honor of the Blessed Virgin.”
“Of course. I’ll get some tomorrow.”
It was in consequence of this conversation, then, that Clarence was wandering in the woods. His quest was disappointing. No flowers greeted his searching eyes. Further and further he wandered. Suddenly, he was roughly seized by the collar from behind, and turning he saw that Pete had him in his vigorous grip, Pete with a branch of willow in his free hand.
“I told you not to try to get away,” snarled the gypsy bringing the branch smartly upon Clarence’s legs.
“Stop that! I wasn’t trying to get away at all.”
For answer, Pete laid the lash unmercifully upon the powerless boy, beating him with all his strength. The pain became so great that Clarence at length unable to restrain himself further burst into a loud cry for mercy.
Pete paused, looking around apprehensively. His keen ear detected the sound of far-off footsteps. Throwing the willow aside, he released his hold on the boy (who sank to the ground writhing in pain) and disappeared in his usually stealthy manner, into the bushes.
It was Ben who had heard the boy’s cry of pain.
“What has happened?” he cried looking with concern upon the writhing lad.
“Pete has given me an awful beating,” answered Clarence, mastering his voice, though the tears were still rolling down his cheeks.
“Why? What did you do?”
“He said I was trying to get away, and I wasn’t. I just came along here looking for flowers for Dora’s shrine. And the worst of it is,” continued the boy with a rueful smile contending with his falling tears, “I didn’t get a single flower.”
“Perhaps that holy woman who is the mother of God will pay you back for every lick you receive. Dora said she is good pay.”
Clarence arose, felt himself gingerly, and breaking into a smile remarked, “If it’s all the same to the Blessed Virgin, I’d prefer to do my trading with her in flowers instead of lashes. Never mind, Mr. Pete, the first chance I get, I’ll fix you all right.”
The chance, it so came to pass, presented itself that very afternoon. They were now some six miles north of the Wisconsin, which they had crossed the preceding day, and had reached a spot on the Mississippi about three miles beyond Prairie du Chien, which is just across the river from McGregor. Clarence, of course, had no idea he was so near the place where his adventures had begun. The boy, still very sore and bruised, again started off along the river’s bank in quest of flowers. Mindful of the beating, he made his way cautiously, warily, determined not to be taken unawares again. Suddenly his alert and attentive ear caught a slight sound. Someone in a grove of trees a few yards above the bank was whittling. Screening himself behind the willows about him, Clarence drew closer, and after a few paces thus taken, discovered Pete, a pipe in his mouth, seated on a log beneath a hollow tree. Pete, as he smoked vigorously, was whittling with a certain air of enjoyment a rather stout branch.
“By Jove,” cried Clarence to himself, “if he’s not getting a rod in pickle for me!” And Clarence felt his legs once more with a tender hand. “He has no right to whack me the way he did. I’m not his son; I’m not in his charge. And I don’t like the look of that rod at all. I wish I could stop him.”
Clarence, securely screened by the bushes, continued to stare and meditate. A bee buzzed by his ear, and then another. Following their flight, he noticed that they disappeared in a hollow of the tree under which the industrious Pete was seated.
Five minutes passed. Pete still smoked and whittled. Then the old leader arose, and with a smile on his countenance, which would in all likelihood throw any child who saw it into convulsions, proceeded to lash the air, holding in his free hand an imaginary victim.
“I guess he thinks it’s myself he’s holding,” murmured the astonished witness of these strange proceedings. “Also, I think I’ll try to find out if there isn’t a bee-hive in that tree.”
As he thus communed with himself, Clarence bent and quickly picked up five stones; then rising, he sent one after the other driving at the hollow spot in the tree. The first stone went wild, the second struck the tree, the third nearly entered the hole, the fourth flew wild, and the fifth – !
So intent was the gypsy upon the imaginary castigation he was inflicting that he was still swishing the air violently when out of the hole flew an army of angry bees. They were not inclined to be dispassionate. Somebody had done them a wrong, and somebody had to suffer for it. The bees were upon the gypsy when he was just putting all his strength into a most vicious swing. He swung that stick no more. With a roar that set the echoes ringing, Pete dropped the stick, and clapping his hands to his head set out at a rate, which, if properly timed, would, no doubt, have created a new record in the way of a fifty-yard dash for the river, into which he plunged with an agility worthy of youth and professional diving.
To the gypsies who, attracted by his yells (for he had yelled all the way to the river’s edge), had gathered on the bank, it appeared that Pete was going in for a long distance swim. In fact, he had almost crossed the river, before he ventured to turn back. Clarence, who had thoughtfully possessed himself of the switch and broken it into minute pieces, was the last to join the eager and mystified watchers.
“What’s the matter?” – “What’s happened?” – These and a dozen similar questions in English and in gypsy patter greeted his arrival.
“I rather think,” said Clarence in his most serious manner, “that Pete must have run up against a swarm of bees, and they weren’t glad to see him. I noticed him a minute ago running for the river with the speed of a deer. It was fine to see him go. It seemed to me that there was a bunch of bees around his head – a sort of a crown of glory – acting as his escort. It’s a pleasure to see a man like Pete run. I’d walk twenty miles to get a treat like that.”
Before Pete had quite achieved his return, Ben called Clarence aside.
“Clarence, you got those bees after Pete.”
“Who told you?”
“Pete’s oldest son; he was watching you. There’s always someone watching you.”
“Great Caesar!” cried Clarence losing all his blitheness, and turning pale as a sheet. “I’m in for it now. He’ll kill me?”
“Why did you do it?”
“I could hardly help it. I saw the old sinner sitting right under a bee’s nest fixing up a switch; and I guessed he was fixing it for me. Then he stood up, and began switching somebody with an unholy joy on his measly old face, and I knew he was switching me. I couldn’t stand for that, and I began letting fly stones at the hole in the tree, and that old pirate was so enjoying the imaginary whipping he was giving me that he didn’t notice a thing till the bees came out in a body and took a hand. It wasn’t so very bad, was it, Ben?”
Ben grinned.
“It was good for him,” he made answer.
“But what am I to do? I don’t want any more whippings like I got this morning.”
“It’s all right for a while, anyhow,” returned Ben. “I’ve told Pete’s son that if he says a word about it to anyone I’ll give him what you would get. I’ve scared him, and he’s promised to keep quiet.”
“Oh, thank you, Ben,” cried Clarence, who had been thoroughly frightened. “You’re splendid; and if ever I can do anything for you and yours, I’ll do it, no matter what. Say, look at the old fox. Isn’t he a sight?”
Pete had just reached dry land. His appearance justified Master Clarence’s remark. Looking at his neck, one might surmise that Pete was suffering from goiter aggravated by an extreme case of mumps. As for his face, it gave one the impression that Pete had engaged in a prize fight, and remained in the ring for several rounds after he had been defeated. Pete, punctuating his steps with a fine flow of profanity, made for the larger tent. He was seen no more that day.
Clarence having made a most unsuccessful attempt to look sympathetic, went to the river and took a swim. Clarence knew the river now; it had no terrors for him. Whenever he went swimming (and he had been doing this several times each day) one or another of the gypsy men followed him into the water.
That evening, having finished, amid great enthusiasm on the part of his auditors, Treasure Island, Clarence contrived to have a few words in private with Dora.
“Dora,” he said, “I’ve been thinking and thinking how you and I can get away together; but I can’t see any way.”
“It’s no use to try,” said Dora.
“But I can get away by myself, I think. I’ve got it figured out.”
“You can!”
“Yes, I think so. Of course, there’s danger in it. But I’d rather die than get another such a whipping as that old buccaneer gave me today. All the same, I hate to leave you here.”
“Don’t take any big risks, Clarence.”
“But if I go, I’ll never forget you; and, if I can, I’ll see that you are freed.”
“You won’t be able to do it. If you were to get free, Pete would use some means or other to spirit me away.”
“We’ll see,” said Clarence. “Will you pray that I may succeed?”
