The Firing Line by Robert W. Chambers

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"Well, what I want to know is where you had time to learn all this?" he
persisted.

"From my tame Seminole, if you please."

"Your Seminole!"

"Yes, indeed, my dear, barelegged, be-turbaned Seminole, Little Tiger. I
am now twenty, Mr. Hamil; for ten years every winter he has been with us
on our expeditions. A week before we start Eudo Stent goes to the
north-west edge of the Everglades, and makes smoke talk until he gets a
brief answer somewhere on the horizon. And always, when we arrive in
camp, a Seminole fire is burning under a kettle and before it sits my
Little Tiger wearing a new turban and blinking through the smoke haze
like a tree-lynx lost in thought."

"Do you mean that this aboriginal admirer of yours has already come out
of the Everglades to meet you at your camp?"

"Surely he is there, waiting at this moment," she said. "I'd as soon
doubt the stars in their courses as the Seminole, Coacochee. And you
will see very soon, now, because we are within a mile of camp."

"Within a mile!" he scoffed. "How do you know? For the last two hours
these woods and glades have all looked precisely alike to me. There's no
trail, no blaze, no hills, no valleys, no change in vegetation, not the
slightest sign that I can discover to warrant any conclusion concerning
our whereabouts!"

She threw back her head and laughed deliciously.

"My pale-face brother," she said, "do you see that shell mound?"

"Is that hump of rubbish a shell mound?" he demanded scornfully.

"It certainly is; did you expect a pyramid? Well, then, that is the
first sign, and it means that we are very near camp.... And can you not
smell cedar smoke?"

"Not a whiff!" he said indignantly.

"Can't you even _see_ it?"

"Where in Heaven's name, Shiela?"

Her arm slanted upward across his saddle: "That pine belt is _too_ blue;
do you notice it now? That is smoke, my obstinate friend."

"It's more probably swamp mist; I think you're only a pretty
counterfeit!" he said, laughing as he caught the volatile aroma of
burning cedar. But he wouldn't admit that she knew where she was, even
when she triumphantly pointed out the bleached skull of an alligator
nailed to an ungainly black-jack. So they rode on, knee to knee, he
teasing her about her pretended woodcraft, she bantering him; but in his
lively skirmishes and her disdainful retorts there was always now an
undertone which they both already had begun to detect and listen for:
the unconscious note of tenderness sounding at moments through the
fresh, quick laughter and gayest badinage.

But under all her gaiety, at moments, too, the dull alarm sounded in her
breast; vague warning lest her heart be drifting into deeper currents
where perils lay uncharted and unknown.

With every intimate and silent throb of warning she shivered,
responsive, masking her growing uncertainty with words. And all the
while, deep in her unfolding soul, she was afraid, afraid. Not of this
man; not of herself as she had been yesterday. She was afraid of the
unknown in her, yet unrevealed, quickening with instincts the parentage
of which she knew nothing. What might be these instincts of inheritance,
how ominous their power, their trend, she did not know; from whom
inherited she could never, never know. Would engrafted and acquired
instincts aid her; would training control this unknown heritage from a
father and a mother whose very existences must always remain without
concrete meaning to her?

Since that dreadful day two years ago when a word spoken inadvertently,
perhaps maliciously, by Mrs. Van Dieman, made it necessary that she be
told the truth; since the dazed horror of that revelation when, beside
herself with grief and shame, she had turned blindly to herself for
help; and, childish impulse answering, had hurled her into folly
unutterable, she had, far in the unlighted crypt of her young soul,
feared this unknown sleeping self, its unfolded intelligence, its
passions unawakened.

Through many a night, wet-eyed in darkness, she had wondered whose blood
it was that flowed so warmly in her veins; what inherited capacity for
good and evil her soul and body held; whose eyes she had; whose hair,
and skin, and hands, and who in the vast blank world had given colour to
these eyes, this skin and hair, and shaped her fingers, her mouth, her
limbs, the delicate rose-tinted nails whitening in the clinched palm as
she lay there on her bed at night awake.

The darkness was her answer.

And thinking of these things she sighed unconsciously.

"What is it, Shiela?" he asked.

"Nothing; I don't know--the old pain, I suppose."

"Pain?" he repeated anxiously.

"No; only apprehension. You know, don't you? Well, then, it is nothing;
don't ask me." And, noting the quick change in his face--"No, no; it is
not what you think. How quickly you are hurt! My apprehension is not
about you; it concerns myself. And it is quite groundless. I know what I
must do; I _know_!" she repeated bitterly. "And there will always be a
straight path to the end; clear and straight, until I go out as nameless
as I came in to all this.... Don't touch my hand, please.... I'm trying
to think.... I can't, if we are in contact.... And you don't know who
you are touching; and I can't tell you. Only two in all the world, if
they are alive, could tell you. And they never will tell you--or tell
me--why they left me here alone."

With a little shiver she released her hand, looking straight ahead of
her for a few moments, then, unconsciously up into the blue overhead.

"I shall love you always," he said. "Right or wrong, always. Remember
that, too, when you think of these things."

She turned as though slowly aroused from abstraction, then shook her
head.

"It's very brave and boyish of you to be loyal--"

"You speak to me as though I were not years older than you!"

"I can't help it; I am old, old, sometimes, and tired of an isolation no
one can break for me."

"If you loved me--"

"How _can_ I? You _know_ I cannot!"

"Are you afraid to love me?"

She blushed crimson, saying: "If I--if such a misfortune--"

"Such a misfortune as your loving me?"

"Yes; if it came, I would never, never admit it! Why do you say these
things to me? Won't you understand? I've tried so hard--so hard to warn
you!" The colour flamed in her cheeks; a sort of sweet anger possessed
her.

"Must I tell you more than I have told before you can comprehend the
utter impossibility of any--love--between us?"

His hand fell over hers and held it crushed.

"Tell me no more," he said, "until you can tell me that you dare to
love!"

"What do you mean? Do you mean that a girl does not do a dishonourable
thing because she dares not?--a sinful thing because she's afraid? If it
were only that--" She smiled, breathless. "It is not fear. It is that a
girl _can_ not love where love is forbidden."

"And you believe that?"

"Believe it!"--in astonishment.

"Yes; do you believe it?"

She had never before questioned it. Dazed by his impatience, dismayed,
she affirmed it again, mechanically. And the first doubt entered as she
spoke, confusing her, awakening a swarm of little latent ideas and
misgivings, stirring memories of half-uttered sentences checked at her
entrance into a room, veiled allusions, words, nods, that she remembered
but had never understood. And, somehow, his question seemed a key to
this cipher, innocently retained in the unseen brain-cells, stored up
without suspicion--almost without curiosity.

For all her recent eloquence upon unhappiness and divorce, it came to
her now in some still subtle manner, that she had been speaking
concerning things in the world of which she knew nothing. And one of
them, perhaps, was love.

Then every instinct within her revolted, all her innate delicacy, all
the fastidious purity recoiled before the menace of his question. Love!
Was it possible? Was this that she already felt, _love_? Could such
treachery to herself, such treason to training and instinct arise within
her and she not know it?

Panic-stricken she raised her head; and at sight of him a blind impulse
to finish with him possessed her--to crush out that menace--end it for
ever--open his eyes to the inexorable truth.

"Lean nearer," she said quietly. Every vestige of blood had left her
face.

"Listen to me. Two years ago I was told that I am a common foundling.
Under the shock of that--disclosure--I ruined my life for ever.... Don't
speak! I mean to check that ruin where it ended--lest it spread
to--others. Do you understand?"

"No," he said doggedly.

She drew a steady breath. "Then I'll tell you more if I must. I ruined
my life for ever two years ago!... I must have been quite out of my
senses--they had told me that morning, very tenderly and pitifully--what
you already know. I--it was--unbearable. The world crashed down around
me--horror, agonized false pride, sheer terror for the future--"

She choked slightly, but went on:

"I was only eighteen. I wanted to die. I meant to leave my home at any
rate. Oh, I know my reasoning was madness, the thought of their
charity--the very word itself as my mind formed it--drove me almost
insane. I might have known it was love, not charity, that held me so
safely in their hearts. But when a blow falls and reason goes--how can
a girl reason?"

She looked down at her bridle hand.

"There was a man," she said in a low voice; "he was only a boy then."

Hamil's face hardened.

"Until he asked me I never supposed any man could ever want to marry me.
I took it for granted.... He was Gray's friend; I had always known
him.... He had been silly sometimes. He asked me to marry him. Then he
asked me again.

"I was a debutante that winter, and we were rehearsing some theatricals
for charity which I had to go through with.... And he asked me to marry
him. I told him what I was and he still wished it."

Hamil bent nearer from his saddle, face tense and colourless.

"I don't know exactly what I thought; I had a dim notion of escaping
from the disgrace of being nameless. It was the mad clutch of the
engulfed at anything.... Not with any definite view--partly from fright,
partly I think for the sake of those who had been kind to a--a
foundling; some senseless idea that it was my duty to relieve them of a
squalid burden--" She shook her head vaguely: "I don't know exactly--I
don't know."

"You married him."

"Yes--I believe so."

"Don't you _know_?"

"Oh, yes," she said wearily, "I know what I did. It was that."

And after he had waited for her in silence for fully a minute she said
in a low voice:

"I was very lonely, very, very tired; he urged me; I had been crying. I
have seldom cried since. It is curious, isn't it? I can feel the tears
in my eyes at night sometimes. But they never fall."

She passed her gloved hand slowly across her forehead and eyes.

"I--married him. At first I did not know what to do; did not realise,
understand. I scarcely do yet. I had supposed I was to go to mother and
dad and tell them that I had a name in the world--that all was well with
me at last. But I could not credit it myself; the boy--I had known him
always--went and came in our house as freely as Gray. And I could not
convince myself that the thing that had happened was serious--had really
occurred."

"How did it occur?"

"I will tell you exactly. We were walking home, all of us, along Fifth
Avenue, that winter afternoon. The avenue was gay and densely crowded;
and I remember the furs I wore and the western sunset crimsoning the
cross-streets, and the early dusk--and Jessie ahead with Cecile and the
dogs. And then he said that now was the time, for he was going back to
college that same day, and would not return before Easter--and he urged
it, and hurried me--and--I couldn't think; and I went with him, west, I
believe--yes, the sky was red over the river--west, two blocks, or
more.... There was a parsonage. It lasted only a few minutes.... We took
the elevated to Fifty-ninth Street and hurried east, almost running.
They had just reached the Park and had not yet missed us.... And that is
all."

"All?"

"Yes," she said, raising her pale face to his. "What more is there?"

"The--man."

"He was as frightened as I," she said simply, "and he went back to
college that same evening. And when I had become still more frightened
and a little saner I wrote asking him if it was really true. It was.
There seemed to be nothing to do; I had no money, nor had he. And there
was no love--because I could not endure even his touch or suffer the
least sentiment from him when he came back at Easter. He was a boy and
silly. He annoyed me. I don't know why he persisted so; and finally I
became thoroughly exasperated.... We did not part on very friendly
terms; and I think that was why he did not return to us from college
when he graduated. A man offered him a position, and he went away to try
to make a place for himself in the world. And after he had gone, somehow
the very mention of his name began to chill me. You see nobody knew. The
deception became a shame to me, then a dull horror. But, little by
little, not seeing him, and being young, after a year the unreality of
it all grew stronger, and it seemed as though I were awaking from a
nightmare, among familiar things once more.... And for a year it has
been so, though at night, sometimes, I still lie awake. But I have been
contented--until--_you_ came.... Now you know it all."

"All?"

"Every word. And now you understand why I cannot care for you, or you
for me."

He said in a deadened voice: "There is a law that deals with that sort
of man--"

"What are you saying?" she faltered.

"That you cannot remain bound! Its monstrous. There is a law--"

"I cannot disgrace dad!" she said. "There is no chance that way! I'd
rather die than have him know--have mother know--and Jessie and Cecile
and Gray! Didn't you understand that?"

"You must tell them nevertheless, and they must help you."

"Help me?"

"To free yourself--"

Flushed with anger and disdain she drew bridle and faced him.

"If _this_ is the sort of friendship you bring me, what is your love
worth?" she asked almost fiercely. "And--I cared for you--cared for the
man I believed you to be; bared my heart to you--wrung every secret from
it--thinking you understood! And you turn on me counselling the law,
divorce, horrors unthinkable!--because you say you _love_ me!... And I
tell you that if I loved you--dearly--blindly--I could not endure to
free myself at the expense of pain--to them--even for your sake! They
took me, nameless, as I was--a--a foundling. If they ever learn what I
have done I shall ask their pardon on my knees, and accept life with the
man I married. But if they never learn I shall remain with them--always.
You have asked me what chance you have. Now you know! It is useless to
love me. I cared enough for you to try to kill what you call love last
night. I cared enough to-day to strip my heart naked for you--to show
you there was no chance. If I have done right or wrong I do not
know--but I did it for your sake."

His face reddened painfully, but as he offered no reply she put her
horse in motion and rode on, proud little head averted. For a few
minutes neither he nor she spoke, their horses pacing neck and neck
through the forest. At last he said: "You are right, Shiela; I am not
worth it. Forgive me."

She turned, eyes level and fearless. Suddenly her mouth quivered.

"Forgive _me_," she said impulsively; "you are worth more than I dare
give you. Love me in your own fashion. I wish it. And I will care for
you very faithfully in mine."

They were very young, very hopeless, deeply impressed with one another,
and quite inexperienced enough to trust each other. She leaned from her
saddle and laid her slim bare hands in both of his, lifting her gaze
bravely to his--a little dim of eye and still tremulous of lip. And he
looked back, love's tragedy dawning in his gaze, yet forcing the smile
that the very young employ as a defiance to destiny and an artistic
insult in the face of Fate; that Fate which looks back so placid and
unmoved.

"Can you forgive me, Shiela?"

"Look at me?" she whispered.

* * * * *

A few moments later she hastily disengaged her hand.

"There seems to be a fire, yonder," he said; "and somebody seated before
it; your Seminole, I think. By Jove, Shiela, he's certainly
picturesque!"

A sullen-eyed Indian rose as they rode up, his turban brilliant in the
declining sunshine, his fringed leggings softly luminous as woven cloth
of gold.

"He--a--mah, Coacochee!" said the girl in friendly greeting. "It is good
to see you, Little Tiger. The people of the East salute the Uchee
Seminoles."

The Indian answered briefly and with dignity, then stood impassive, not
noticing Hamil.

"Mr. Hamil," she said, "this is my old friend Coacochee or Little Tiger;
an Okichobi Seminole of the Clan of the Wind; a brave hunter and an
upright man."

"Sommus-Kala-ne-sha-ma-lin," said the Indian quietly; and the girl
interpreted: "He says, 'Good wishes to the white man.'"

Hamil dismounted, turned and lifted Shiela from her saddle, then walked
straight to the Seminole and offered his hand. The Indian grasped it in
silence.

"I wish well to Little Tiger, a Seminole and a brave hunter," said Hamil
pleasantly.

The red hand and the white hand tightened and fell apart.

A moment later Gray came galloping up with Eudo Stent.

"How are you, Coacochee!" he called out; "glad to see you again! We saw
the pine tops blue a mile back."

To which the Seminole replied with composure in terse English. But for
Mr. Cardross, when he arrived, there was a shade less reserve in the
Indian's greeting, and there was no mistaking the friendship between
them.

"Why did you speak to him in his own tongue?" asked Hamil of Shiela as
they strolled together toward the palmetto-thatched, open-face camp
fronting on Ruffle Lake.

"He takes it as a compliment," she said. "Besides he taught me."

"It's a pretty courtesy," said Hamil, "but you always do everything more
graciously than anybody else in the world."

"I am afraid you are biassed."

"Can any man who knows you remain non-partisan?--even your red Seminole
yonder?"

"I am proud of that conquest," she said gaily. "Do you know anything
about the Seminoles? No? Well, then, let me inform you that a Seminole
rarely speaks to a white man except when trading at the posts. They are
a very proud people; they consider themselves still unconquered, still
in a state of rebellion against the United States."

"What!" exclaimed Hamil, astonished.

"Yes, indeed. All these years of peace they consider only as an armed
truce. They are proud, reticent, sensitive, suspicious people; and there
are few cases on record where any such thing as friendship has existed
between a Seminole and a white man. This is a genuine case; Coacochee is
really devoted to dad."

The guides and the wagon had now arrived; camp was already in the
confusion and bustle of unloading equipage and supplies; picket lines
were established, water-jars buried, blankets spread, guns, ammunition,
rods, and saddles ranged in their proper places.

Carter unsheathed his heavy cane-knife and cut palmetto fans for
rethatching where required; Eudo Stent looked after the horses; Bulow's
axe rang among the fragrant red cedars; the Indian squatted gravely
before a characteristic Seminole fire built of logs, radiating like the
spokes of a cart-wheel from the centre which was a hub of glowing coals.
And whenever it was necessary he simply shoved the burning log-ends
toward the centre where kettles were already boiling and sweet potatoes
lay amid the white ashes, and a dozen wild ducks, split and skewered and
basted with pork, were exhaling a matchless fragrance.

Table-legs, bench-legs, and the bases of all culinary furniture, like
the body of the camp, were made out of palmetto logs driven into the
ground to support cedar planks for the tops.

And it was seated at one of these tables, under the giant oaks, pines,
and palmettos, that Shiela and Hamil ate their first camp-repast
together, with Gray and his father opposite.

Never had he tasted such a heavenly banquet, never had he dreamed of
such delicacies. Eudo Stent brought panfuls of fried bass, still
sizzling under the crisp bacon; and great panniers woven of green
palmetto, piled high with smoking sweet potatoes all dusty from the
ashes; and pots of coffee and tea, steaming and aromatic.

Then came broiled mallard duck, still crackling from the coals, and
coonti bread, and a cold salad of palm cabbage, nut-flavored,
delectable. Then in the thermos-jugs were spring water and a light
German vintage to mix with it. And after everything, fresh oranges in a
nest of Spanish moss.

Red sunlight struck through the forest, bronzing bark and foliage;
sombre patches of shade passed and repassed across the table--the
shadows of black vultures soaring low above the camp smoke. The waters
of the lake burned gold.

As yet the approach of sunset had not stirred the water-fowl to
restlessness; dark streaks on the lake gleamed white at moments as some
string of swimming ducks turned and the light glinted on throat and
breast. Herons stood in the shallows; a bittern, squawking, rose from
the saw-grass, circled, and pitched downward again.

[Illustration: "Never had he tasted such a heavenly banquet."]

"This is a peaceful place," said Cardross, narrowing eyes watching
the lake through the haze of his pipe. "I almost hate to disturb it with
a gun-shot; but if we stay here we've got to eat." And, turning toward
the guides' table where they lounged over their after-dinner pipes:
"Coacochee, my little daughter has never shot a wild turkey. Do you
think she had better try this evening or go after the big duck?"

"Pen-ni-chah," said the Seminole quietly.

"He says, 'turkey-gobbler,'" whispered Shiela to Hamil; "'pen-nit-kee'
is the word for _hen_ turkey. Oh, I _hope_ I have a chance. You'll pair
with me, won't you?"

"Of course."

Cardross, listening, smiled. "Is it yelping or roosting, Little Tiger?"

"Roost um pen-ni-chah, aw-tee-tus-chee. I-hoo-es-chay."

"He says that we can roost them by and by and that we ought to start
now," whispered the girl, slightly excited. "Dad, Mr. Hamil has never
shot a wild turkey--"

"Neither have I," observed her father humourously.

"Oh, I forgot! Well, then--why can't we all--"

"Not much! No sitting in swamps for me, but a good, clean, and easy boat
in the saw-grass. Gray, are you going after ducks with me or are you
going to sit with one hopeful girl, one credulous white man, and one
determined red man on a shell heap in a bog and yawn till moonrise?
Ducks? Sure! Well, then, we'd better be about it, my son."

The guides rose laughing, and went about their duties, Carter and Bulow
to clean up camp, Eudo Stent with Cardross, senior and junior, carrying
guns and shell cases down to the landing where the boats lay; and
Shiela and Hamil to mount the two fresh led-horses and follow the
Seminole into the forest.

"Shame on your laziness, dad!" said Shiela, as Cardross looked after her
in pretended pity; "anybody can shoot ducks from a boat, but it takes
real hunters to stalk turkeys! I suppose Eudo loads for you and Gray
pulls the triggers!"

"The turkey you get will be a water-turkey," observed Cardross; "or a
fragrant buzzard. Hamil, I'm sorry for you. I've tried that sort of
thing myself when younger. I'm still turkeyless but wiser."

"You'd better bring Eudo and let us help you to retrieve yourself!"
called back Shiela.

But he refused scornfully, and she waved them adieu; then, settling in
her stirrups, turned smilingly to Hamil who brought his horse alongside.

"Dad is probably right; there's not much chance for us this way. But if
there is a chance Little Tiger will see that we get it. Anyway, you can
try the ducks in the morning. You don't mind, do you?"

He tried to be prudent in his reply.

CHAPTER XII

THE ALLIED FORCES

Through the glades the sun poured like a red searchlight, and they
advanced in the wake of their own enormous shadows lengthening
grotesquely with every stride. Tree trunks and underbrush seemed afire
in the kindling glory; the stream ran molten.

Then of a sudden the red radiance died out; the forest turned ashy; the
sun had set; and on the wings of silence already the swift southern dusk
was settling over lake and forest. A far and pallid star came out in the
west; a cat-owl howled.

At the edge of an evil-looking cypress "branch" they dismounted, drew
gun from saddle-boot, and loaded in silence while the Indian tethered
the horses.

Then through the thickening twilight they followed the Seminole in file,
Hamil bringing up the rear.

Little Tiger had left turban, plume, and leggings in camp; the
scalp-lock bobbed on his head, bronzed feet and legs were bare; and,
noiseless as a cypress shadow in the moonlight, he seemed part of it
all, harmonious as a wild thing in its protective tints.

A narrow tongue of dry land scarcely three inches above the swamp level
was the trail they followed. All around tall cypress trees, strangely
buttressed at the base, rose pillar-like into obscurity as though
supporting the canopy of dusk. The goblin howling of the big cat-owl
pulsated through the silence; strange gleams and flashes stirred the
surface of the bog. Once, close ahead, a great white bird, winged like
an angel, rose in spectral silence through the twilight.

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