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SUANA
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ET
TARVA
VERDAD
ECCLE
RISTO
DEMLA
TAS
ESIAE
COV
CHR
OV.AN
By Exchange








BLACK CÆSAR’S CLAN
A Florida Mystery Story
By ALBERT PAYSON TERHUNE
AUTHOR OF
"Black Gold," etc.
A. L. BURT COMPANY
Publishers
New York
Published by arrangement with George H. Doran Company
Printed in U. S. A.


A13627.5,2,5
HARVARD COLLEGL LIBRARY
BY EXCHANGE
JUL 11926
COPYRIGHT, 1922,
BY GEORGE H. DOBAN COMPANY
BLACK CÆSAR'S CLAN. I
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA


THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED, MOST GRATEFULLY
TO MY FRIEND
JOHN E. PICKETT
EDITOR OF
"THE COUNTRY GENTLEMAN"





FOREWORD
A wiggling, brainless, slimy atom began it. He and
trillions of his kind. He was the Coral Worm (“An-
thozoa,” if you prefer).
He and his tribe lived and died on the sea-bottom;
successive generations piling higher on the skeletons
and lifework-or the life-loafing, for they were lazy
atoms of those that went before. At last the coral
reef crawled upward until in uncharted waters it was
tall enough to smash a wooden ship-keel.
Then, above the surface of the waves it nosed its
way; grayish white, whalebacked. From a hundred
miles distant floated a cigar-shaped mangrove-bud;
bobbing vertically, through the ocean, until it chanced
to touch the new-risen coral reef. The mangrove,
alone of all trees, will sprout and grow in salt water.
The mangrove's trunk, alone of all trunks, is impervi-
ous to the corrosive action of the sea.
At once the bud set to work. It drove an anchor-
root into the reef, then other roots and still others. It
shot up to the height of a foot or two; and thence
sent thick red-brown roots straight downward into
the coral again.
And so on, until it had formed a tangled root-fence
for many yards alongshore. After which, its work
being done, the mangrove proceeded to grow upward
vü


FOREWORD
oral sangerland play wrong
passively but with terrific power, to set at naught all
man's might and wit.
In time, coral sand-spit and mangrove swamp were
cleared for a wonderland playground, of divine cli-
mate whither winter tourists throng by the hundred
thousand. In time, too, these sand-spits and swamps
and older formations of the sunny peninsula furnished
homes and sources of livelihood or of wealth to many
thousands more ;-people, these, to whom Florida is
a Career, not a Resort.
As in every land which has grown swiftly and along
different lines from the rest of the country, there still
are mystery and romance and thrills to be found lurk-
ing among the keys and back of the mangrove-swamps
and along the mystic reaches of sunset shoreline.
With awkward and inexpert touch, my story seeks
to set forth some of these.
Understand, please, that this book is rank melo-
drama. It has scant literary quality. It is not planned
to edify. Its only mission is to entertain you and,
if you belong to the action-loving majority,—to give
you an occasional thrill.
Perhaps you will like it. Perhaps you will not. But
I do not think you will go to sleep over it. There are
worse recommendations than that for any book.
ALBERT PAYSON TERHUNE.
"Sunnybank,”
Pompton Lakes,
New Jersey.





CONTENTS
CHAPTER
PAOL
I THE HIDDEN PATH
THE MAN IN THE DARK .
.
.
.
.
.
.
II
III
THE MOCKING BIRD .
.
.
.
.
.
.
67
THE STRANGER FROM NOWHERE . .
.
TRAPS AND TRAPPER ·
·
·
·
·
119
.
I IN THE DAY OF BATTLE .
147
.
VII
SECRETS
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
173
.
VIII
THE SIEGE .
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
201
IX
THE FIGURE IN WHITE
.
.
.
.
.
.
I
THE GHOST TREE .
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.





CHAPTER I
THE HIDDEN PATH





BLACK CÆSAR’S CLAN
CHAPTER I
THE HIDDEN PATH
VERHEAD sang the steady trade wind; temper-
ing the golden sunshine's heat. To eastward,
under an incredibly blue sky, stretched the more in-
credibly multi-hued waters of Biscayne Bay; the snow-
white wonder-city of Miami dreaming on its shores.
Dividing the residence and business part of the city
from the giant hotels, Flagler Avenue split the mass
of buildings, from back-country to bay. To its west-
ward side spread the shaded expanse of Royal Palm
Park; with its deep-shaded short lane of Australian
pines, its rustling palm trees, its white church and its
frond-flecked vistas of grass.
Here, scarce a quarter-century ago, a sandspit had
broiled beneath an untempered sun. Shadeless, grass-
less, it had been an abomination of desolution and a
rallying-place for mosquitoes. Then had come the
hand of man. First, the Royal Palm Hotel had sprung
into stately existence, out of nothingness. Then other
caravansaries. Palm and pine and vivid lawn-grass
had followed. The mosquitoes had fled far back to
15


16 BLACK CÆSAR’S CLAN
the mangrove swamps. And a rarely beautiful White
City had sprung up.
It was Sunday morning. From the park's bando
stand, William J. Bryan was preaching to his open-air
Sunday School class of tourists; two thousand strong.
Around the bandstand the audience stood or sat in
rapt interest.
The Australian-pine lane, to the rear, was lined with
all manner of automobiles; from limousine to battered
flivver. The cars' occupants listened as best they could
could-through the whirr of sea-planes and the soft
hum of Sabbath traffic and the dry slither of a myriad
grating palm-fronds in the trade-wind's wake to the
preacher's words.
The space of shaded grass, between lane and hotel-
grounds and bandstand, was starred by white-clad chil-
dren; and by men who sprawled drowsily upon the
springy turf, their straw hats tilted above their eyes.
The time was mid-February. The thermometers on the
Royal Palm veranda registered seventy-three. No
rain had fallen in weeks, to mar the weather's perfec-
tion.
"Scientists are spending $5,000,000 to send an ex-
pedition into Africa in search of the 'missing-link'!"
the orator was thundering. “It would be better for
them to spend all or part of that money, in seeking
closer connection with their Heavenly Father, than
with the Brutes!”
A buzz of approval swept the listeners. That same
buzz came irritatingly to the ears of a none-too-sprucely
dressed young man who lay, with eyes shut, under the


THE HIDDEN PATH 19
for the first time since stopping to survey the car. An
unpainted rowboat was drawn up on the beach. Half
way between it and the tangle of woodland behind,
was a man clad only in undershirt and dirty duck
trousers. He was yanking along by the scruff of the
neck a protesting and evidently angry collie.
The man was big and rugged. Weather and sea
had bronzed him to the hue of an Arab. Apparently,
he had sighted the dog; and had run his boat ashore
to capture the stray animal. He handled his prize none
too gently; and his management was calling forth all
the collie's resentment. But as the man had had the
wit to seize the dog by the scruff of the neck and to
keep himself out of the reach of the luckless creature's
vainly snapping jaws, these protests went for nothing.
Within thirty feet of the boat, the dog braced himself
for a new effort to tear free. The man, in anger, planted
a vigorous kick against the collie's furry side. As his
foot was bare, the kick lost much of its potential
power to injure. Yet it had the effect of rousing to
sudden indignation the dusty youth who had stopped
on his tramp from Miami to watch the scene.
"Whose dog is that ?” he demanded, striding for-
ward, from the shade; and approaching the struggling
pair.
"Who the blue blazes are you?” countered the bare-
foot man, his eyes running contemptuously over the
shabby and slight-built figure.
"My name is Brice," said the other. "Gavin Brice.
Not that it matters. And now, perhaps you'll answer
my question. Whose dog is that?"


20 BLACK CÆSAR'S CLAN
"Mine," returned the barefoot man, renewing his
effort to drag the collie toward the boat.
"If he's yours," said Brice, pleasantly, "stop hauling
him along and let him loose. He'll follow you, without
all that hustling. A good collie will always follow.
his master, anywhere."
"When I'm honin' for your jabber," retorted the
other, “I'll come a-askin' for it."
He drew back his foot once more, for a kick. But,
with a lazy competence, Brice moved forward and
gave him a light push, sidewise, on the shoulder. There
was science and a rare knowledge of leverage in the
mild gesture. When a man is kicking, he is on only
one foot. And, the right sort of oblique push will
not only throw him off his balance, but in such a di-
rection that his second foot cannot come to earth in
position to help him restore that balance.
Under the skillfully gentle impact of Brice's shove,
the man let go of the snarling collie and hopped in-
sanely for a second or so, with arms outfung. Then
he sat down ungracefully on the sand.
Scarce had he touched ground when he was up.
But the moment had sufficed for the collie to go free.
Instead of running off, the dog moved over to Brice,
thrust his cool muzzle into the man's hand, and, with
wagging tail, looked up lovingly at him.
A collie has brains; beyond most dogs. And this
collie recognized that the pleasant-voiced, indolent-
looking stranger had just rescued him from a captor
who had been treating him abominably. Wherefore,


THE HIDDEN PATH 21
!
in gratitude and dawning adoration, he came to pay
his respects.
Brice patted the silken head so confidingly upraised
to him. He knew dogs. Especially, he knew collies.
And he was hot with indignation at the needlessly bru-
tal treatment just accorded this splendid beast.
But he had scant time for emotions of any kind.
The beach comber had regained his feet; and in the
same motion had lost his self-control. Head lowered,
fists swinging, he came charging down upon the strip
ling who had the audacity to upset him.
Brice did not await his onset. Slipping lithely
to one side he avoided the bull-rush; all the time talk-
ing in the same pleasantly modulated drawl.
"I saw this dog, earlier in the day," said he, "in a
car, with some people. They drove this way. The
dog must have chewed his cord and then jumped or
fallen out; and strayed here. You saw him, from the
water, and tried to steal him. Next to a vivisectionist,
the filthiest man God ever made is the man who kicks
a dog. It's lucky "
He got no further. Twice, during his short speech,
he had had to twist, with amazing speed, out of the way
of profanity-accompanied rushes. Now, pressed too
close for comfort, he halted, ducked a violent left
swing; and ran from under the flailing right arm of his
assailant.
Then, darting back for fully twenty-five feet, he
cried out, gayly:
“I woui't buy him from you. But I'll fight you for
him, if you like."


22 BLACK CÆSAR’S CLAN
As he spoke, he drew from his pocket a battered
and old-fashioned gold watch. Laying it on the sand,
he went on ::
"How does this strike you as a sporting offer? Win-
ner to take both dog and watch? How about it?":
The other had halted in an incipient charge to take
note of the odd proposition. He blinked at the flash
of the watch's battered gold case in the sunshine. For
the first time, he seemed a trifle irresolute. This eel-
like antagonist, with such eccentric ideas as to sport,
was something outside the beach-comber's experience.
Puzzled, he stood scowling.
"How about it?" queried Brice. "I hope you'll re-
fuse. I'd rather be kicked, any day, than have to fight.
But-well, I wouldn't rather see a good dog kicked.
Still, if you're content with what you've got, we'll call
it a day. I'll take the dog and be moving on."
The barefoot man's bewilderment was once more
merging into wrath, at the amused superiority in Brice's
words and demeanor. He glowered appraisingly at the
intruder. He saw Brice was a half-head shorter than
himself and at least thirty pounds lighter. Nor did
Brice's figure betray any special muscular development.
Apparently, there could be but one outcome to such a
battle.
The man's fists clenched, afresh. His big muscles
tightened. Brice saw the menace and spoke again.
"It's only fair to warn you,” said he, gently, “that I
shall thrash you worse than ever you've been thrashed
before in all your down-at-heel life. When I was a
boy, I saw George Siler beat up five men who tackled


THE HIDDEN PATH
23
him. Siler wasn't a big man. But he had made a
life-study of leverage. And it served him better than
if he'd toted a machine gun. I studied under him.
And then, a bit, under a jiu-jitsu man. You'll have
less chance against me than that poor collie had against
you. I only mention it as a friendly warning. Best
let things rest as they are. Come, puppy !” he chirped
to the highly interested dog. “Let's be on our way.
Perhaps we can find the people who lost you. That's
what I've been wanting to do, all day, you know," he
added, in a lower voice, speaking confidentially to the
dog; and beginning to stroll off toward the woods.
But the barefoot man would not have it so. Now,
he understood. This sissyfied chap, with the high-
and-mighty airs, was bluffing. That was what he was
doing. Bluffing! Did he think for a minute he could
get away with it;—and with the dog?
A swirl of red fury swept to the beach comber's
brain. Wordless, face distorted, he flung himself at
the elusive Brice.
So sudden was his spring that it threatened to take
its victim unaware. Brice's back was turned to the
aggressor; and he was already on his way toward the
woods.
Yet, with but a fraction of an inch to spare, he
turned to face the oncoming human whirlwind. This
time he did not dart back from the rush. Perhaps he
did not care to. Perhaps there was not time.
Instead, with the speed of light, he stepped in; duck-
ing the hammer-fist and plying both hands with bewil-
dering quickness and skill, in a shower of half-arm


24
BLACK CÆSAR'S CLAN
blows at the beach comber's heart and wind. His
strength was wiry and carefully developed; but it was
no match for his foe's. Yet the hail of body-punches
was delivered with all the effect that science and a
perfect knowledge of anatomy could compass.
The beach comber grunted and writhed in sharp
discomfort. Then, he did the one thing possible, by
way of reprisal. Before Brice could dodge out of
his close-quarters position, the other clasped him tight
in his bulgingly powerful arms; gripping the lighter
man to his chest in a hug which had the gruesome
force of a boa-constrictor's; and increasing the pres-
sure with all his weight and mighty strength.
There was no space for maneuvering or for wrig-
gling free. Clear from the ground Brice's feet were
swung. The breath was squeezed out of him. His
elastic strength was cramped and made useless. His
lungs seemed bursting. The pressure on his ribs was
unbearable. Like many a better man he was paying the
price for a single instant of overconfidence.
One arm was caught against his side. The other
was impeded and robbed of all efficient hitting power;
being pinioned athwart his breast. And steadily the
awful pressure was increased. There was no apparent
limit to the beach comber's 'powers of constriction.
The blood beat into Brice's eyes. His tongue began
to protrude from a swollen throat.
Then, all at once, he ceased to struggle; and lay
limp and moveless in the conqueror's grasp. Per-
ceiving which, the beach comber relaxed the pressure;
to let his conquered enemy slide, broken, to the ground.


THE HIDDEN PATH
25
This, to his blank amaze, Gavin Brice neglected to
do. The old ruse of apparent collapse had served its
turn, for perhaps the millionth time. The beach-comber
was aware of a lightning-quick tensing of the slumped
muscles. Belatedly, he knew what had happened; and
he renewed his vise-grip. But he was too late. Eel-
like, Gavin had slithered out of the imprisoning arms.
And, as these arms came together once more, in the
bear-hug, Brice shot over a burning left-hander to the
beach-comber's unguarded jaw. Up flew the big arms
in belated parry; but not soon enough to block a de-
liberately-aimed right swing, which Brice drove whiz-
zing into the jaw's point.
The brace of blows rocked the giant, so that he
reeled drunkenly under their dynamic force. The
average man must have been floored and even knocked
senseless by such well-directed smashes to so vital a
spot. But the beach-comber merely staggered back,
seeking instinctively to guard his battered face; and
to regain his balance.
In at the reeling foe tore Gavin Brice; showering
him with systematic punches to every vulnerable spot
above the belt line. It was merciless punishment; and
it was delivered with rare deftness.
Yet, the iron-bodied man on whom it was inflicted
merely grunted again and, under the avalanche of
blows, managed to regain his balance and plunge back
to the assault. A born fighter, he was now obsessed
with but one idea ;-namely, to destroy this smaller and
faster opponent who was hurting him so outrageously.
As far as the beach comber was concerned, it was


26 BLACK CÆSAR'S CLAN
a murder-battle, now; with no question of mercy asked
or given.
· The collie had been viewing this astounding scene
in eager interest. Never before, in his short life, had
he seen two humans fight. And, even now, he was
not at all certain that it was a fight and not some in-
tensely thrilling game. Thus had he watched two boys
wrestle and box, in his own puppyhood. And, for
venturing to jump into that jolly fracas, he had been
scolded and sent back to his kennel.
Yet, there was something about this clash, between
the giant who had mistreated him and the softer-voiced
man who had rescued him, which spoke of mad excite-
ment; and which stirred the collie's own excitable tem-
perament to the very depths. Dancingly, he pattered
around the fighters, tulip ears cocked, deepset eyes
aglow; his fanfare of barks echoing far back through
the silent woods.
The beach comber, rallying from the dual jaw-bom-
bardment, bored back at his foe; taking the heaviest
and most scientific punishment, in a raging attempt to
gather Brice once more into the trap of his terrible
arms. But Gavin kept just out of reach; moving
with an almost insolent carelessness; and ever flashing
some painful blow to face or to body as he retreated.
Then, as the other charged, Gavin sidestepped with
perfect ease; and, when the beach-comber wheeled
clumsily to face him, threw one foot forward and at
the same time pushed the larger man's shoulder vio-
lently with his open palm. It was a repetition of the
“leverage theory" Gavin had so recently been expound-


28 BLACK CÆSAR’S CLAN
The collie had watched the supposed gambols of
the two men with keen, but impersonal, interest. But
here at last was something he could understand. In-
stinct teaches practically every dog the sinister nature
of a thrown object. The man on the ground had
hurled something at the man whom the collie had be-
gun to love. That meant warfare. To the canine
mind it could mean nothing else.
And, ruff a-bristle and teeth bared, the dog flew at
the beach comber. The latter had followed his throw
by leaping to his feet. But, as he rose, the collie
was at him. For an instant, the furry whirlwind was
snarling murderously at his throat; and the man was
beating convulsively at this unexpected new enemy.
Then, almost before the collie could slash to the
bone one of the hairy big hands that thrust him back-
ward, Gavin Brice had reached the spot in a single
bound; had shoved the dog to one side and was at the
man.
“Clear out, puppy!" he shouted, imperatively. "This
is my meat! When people get to slinging knives,
there's no more sense in handling them with gloves !"
· The debonaire laziness was gone from Brice's voice
and manner. His face was dead-white. His eyes
were blazing. His mouth was a mere gash in the
grim face. Even as he spoke, he had thrust the snarling
collie away; and was at the beach-comber.
No longer was it a question of boxing or of half-
jesting horseplay. The use of the knife had put
this fight on a new plane. And, like a wild beast, Gavin


THE HIDDEN PATH
29
Brice was attacking his big foe. But, unlike a wild
beast, he kept his head, as he charged.
Disregarding the menace of the huge arms, he came
to grips, without striking a single blow. Around him
the beach-comber flung his constricting grasp. But
this time the grip was worthless.
For, Brice's left shoulder jutted out in such manner
as to keep the arms from getting their former hold
around the body itself; and Brice's right elbow held
off the grip on the other side. At the same time the
top of Brice's head buried itself under the beach-
comber's chin, forcing the giant's jaw upward and
backward. Then, safe inside his opponent's guard, he
abandoned his effort to stave off the giant's hold; and
passed his own arms about the other's waist, his hands
meeting under the small of the larger man's back.
The beach comber tried now to use his freed arms to
gain the grip that had once been so effective. But his
clasp could close only over the slope of Brice's back
and could find no purchase.
While the man was groping for the right hold, Ga-
vin threw all his own power into a single move. Tight-
ening his underhold, and drawing in on the small of
the giant's back, he raised himself on his toes, and
pressed the top of his head, with all his might, against
the bottom of the beach-comber's chin.
The trick was not new. But it was fearsomely ef-
fective. It was, as Gavin had explained, all a question
of leverage. The giant's waist was drawn forward.
His chin, simultaneously, was shoved backward. Such
a dual cross pressure was due, eventually, to mean one


30 BLACK CÆSAR'S CLAN
of two things :- either the snapping of the spine or else
the breaking of the neck. Unless the grip could be
broken, there was no earthly help for its victim.
The beach comber, in agony of straining spine and
throat, thrashed wildly to free himself. He strove to
batter the tenacious little man to senselessness. But
he could hit nothing but the sloping back, or aim clum-
sily cramped hooks for the top and sides of Gavin's
protected head.
Meantime, the pressure was increasing, with a coldly
scientific precision. Human nature could not endure
it. In his extremity, the beach comber attempted the
same ruse that had been so successful for Brice. He
slumped, in pseudo-helplessness. The only result was
to enable Gavin to tighten his hold, unopposed by the
tensing of the enemy's wall of muscles.
"I'm through!" bellowed the tortured giant, stran-
glingly; his entire huge body one horror of agony.
“ 'Nuff! I'm " :
He got no further. For, the unspeakable anguish
mounted to his brain. And he swooned.
Gavin Brice let the great body slide inert to the sand.
He stood, flushed and panting a little, looking down at
the hulk he had so nearly annihilated. Then, as the
beach comber's limbs began to twitch and his eyelids to
quiver, Brice turned away.
"Come along, puppy," he bade the wildly excited col-
lie. “He isn't dead. Another couple of seconds and
his neck or his back must have gone. I'm glad he
fainted first. A killing isn't a nice thing to remember,
on wakeful nights;—the killing of even a cur like that.


THE HIDDEN PATH 31
Come on, before he wakes up. I'm going somewhere.
And it's a stroke of golden luck that I've got you to
take with me, by way of welcome.”
He had picked up and pocketed his watch. Now,
lifting the knife, he glanced shudderingly at its ugly
curved blade. Then he tossed it far out into the water.
After which, he chirped again to the gladly following
collie and made off down the beach, toward a loop of
mangrove swamp that swelled out into the water a
quarter-mile farther on.
The dog gamboled gayly about him, as they walked;
and tried to entice him into a romp. Prancing invit,
ingly toward Brice, the collie would then flee from him
in simulated terror. Next, crouching in front of him,
the dog would snatch up a mouthful of sand, growl,
and make pattering gestures with his white forefeet
at Gavin's dusty shoes.
Failing to lure his new master into a frolic, the dog
fell sober and paced majestically alongside him; once
or twice earning an absent-minded pat on the head by
thrusting his muzzle into the cup of the walker's hand.
As they neared the loop of the swamp, the collie
looked back, and growled softly, under his breath.
Gavin followed the direction of the dog's gaze. He
saw the beach comber sit up; and then, with much pain
and difficulty, get swayingly to his feet.
"Don't worry, old chap," Gavin said to the growl.
ing collie. "He's had all he can carry, for one day.
He's not going to follow us. By this time, he'll be-
gin to realize, too, that his face is battered pretty
much to a pulp; and that some of my body-smashes are


32 BLACK CÆSAR'S CLAN
flowering into bruises. I pity him when he wakes up
to-morrow. He'll be too stiff to move an inch, without
grunting. His pluck and his nerve are no match for
his strength. . . . Here we are !” he broke off, begin-
ning to skirt the hither edge of the swamp. “Unless
all my dope is wrong, it ought to be somewhere close
to this."
He walked more slowly; his keen eyes busily probe
ing the impenetrable face of the swamp. He was prac-
tically at the very end of the beach. In front, the
mangroves ran out into the water; and in an unbroken
line they extended far back to landward.
The shining dark leaves made a thick screen, shut-
ting from view the interior of the swamp. The red-
dish roots formed an equally impenetrable fence, two
feet high, all along the edge. It would have been
easier to walk through a hedge of bayonets than to
invade that barrier.
"Where mangroves grow, puppy," exhorted Brice,
"there is water. Salt water, at that. The water
runs in, far, here. You can see that, by the depth of
this mangrove forest. At first glance, it looks like an
impasse, doesn't it? And yet it isn't. Because
He broke off, in his ruminative talk. The collie,
bored perhaps, by standing still so long, had at first
turned seaward. But, as a wavelet washed against
his white forefeet, he drew back, annoyed; and began
aimlessly to skirt the swamp, to landward. Before
he had traveled twenty yards, he vanished.
For a second or so, Gavin Brice stared stupidly at
the phenomenon of the jungle-like wall of mangroves


THE HIDDEN PATH 33
O
that had swallowed a seventy-pound dog. Then his
brow cleared; and a glint .of eagerness came into his
eye. Almost running, he hurried to the spot where
the dog had vanished. Then he halted; and called
softly:
"Come, puppy! Here!"
In immediate obedience to his call, the dog reap-
peared, at the swamp's edge; wagging his plumy tail;
glad to be summoned. Before the collie could stir, Brice
was at his side; taking sharp note of the direction from
which the dog had just stepped out of the mangroves.
In front, the wall of leaves and branches still hung;
seemingly impenetrable. The chief difference between
this spot and any on either side, was that the man-
grove boughs had apparently been trained to hang so
low that the roots were invisible.
Tentatively, Brice drew aside an armful of branches;
just above the waiting dog. And, as though he had
pulled back a curtain, he found himself facing a well-
defined path; cut through the tangled thicket of root
and trunk and bough-a path that wound out of
sight in the dark recesses of the swamps.
Roots had been cleared away and patches of water
filled with them and with earth. Here and there a
plank bridge spanned a gap of deeper water. Alto-
gether-so far as Brice could judge in the fading
light-the path was an excellent bit of rustic engineer-
ing. And it was hidden as cunningly from casual
eyes as ever was a hermit thrush's nest.
Some one had been at much pains and at more ex-
pense, to lay out and develop that secret trail. For it


34 BLACK CÆSAR'S CLAN
is no easy or cheap task to build a sure path through
such a swamp.
From a distance, forests of mangrove seemed to be
massed on rising ground; and to group themselves
about the sides and the crests of knolls. As a matter
of fact, the presence of a mangrove forest is a sign
of the very lowest ground;-ground covered for the
most part by salt tidewater. The lowest pine barren
is higher than the loftiest mangrove wilderness.
3. Gavin Brice's aspect of lassitude dropped from him
like an outworn garment. For hours-except during
his brief encounter with the beach comber-he had
been steadily on the move; and had covered a good
bit of ground. Yet, any one, seeing him as he traversed
the•miles from the Royal Palm Park at Miami, would
have supposed from his gait that he was on some
aimless ramble. Now, alert, quick-stepping, eager,
he made his swift way along the windings of the secret
path.
Light as were his steps, they creaked lamentably
at times on the boards of a bridge-span. More than
once, he heard slitherings, in the water and marsh to
either side; as some serpent or other slimy swamp-
dweller wriggled away, at his passing. The collie
trotted gravely along, just in front of him; pausing
once in a while, as if to make certain the man was
following.
The silence and gloom and sinister solemnity of the
place had had a dampening effect on the dog's gay
spirits. The backward glances at his self-chosen mas-
ter were for reassuring himself, rather than for


THE HIDDEN PATH
35
guidance. Surroundings have quicker and stronger
effect on collies than on almost any other kind of dog.
And these surroundings, very evidently, were not to
the collie's taste. Several times, when the path's width
permitted, he dropped back to Gavin's side, to receive
a word of friendly encouragement or a pat on the head.
Outside of the grove's shadows the sun was sinking.
Not with the glowing deliberation of sunsets in north-
ern latitudes; but with almost indecent haste. In the -
dense shade of the forest, twilight had fallen. But the
path still lay clear. And Brice's footsteps quickened,
as in a race with darkness.
Then, at a twist of the path, the way suddenly grew
lighter. And at another turn, twilight brightened into
clearness. A hundred feet ahead was a thin interlacing
of moonflower vines; compact enough, no doubt, to
prevent a view of the path to any one standing in the
stronger light beyond the grove; but making distinct to
Brice a grassy clearing beyond.
Upon this clearing, the brief bright afterglow was
shining; for the trim grass and shrubs of an upward-
sloping lawn were clearly visible. For some minutes
the water and the swamp underfoot, had given place
to firmer ground; and the character of the trees them-
selves had changed. Evidently, the trail had its end-
ing at that screen of vine-leaves draped between two
giant gumbo-limbo trees at the lawn's verge.
Thirty feet from the vines, Brice slackened his steps.
His lithe body was vibrant with cautious watchfulness.
But, the collie was not inclined to caution. He hailed
with evident relief the sight of open spaces and of light,





42 BLACK CÆSAR'S CLAN
"I don't care to hear any explanations," she cut him
short, sternly. “Your coming along that path could
mean only one thing. You will do as I say :-You will
turn about and make what use you can of the start
I'm offering you. Now "
"I'm sorry," repeated Brice, more determinedly, and
trying hard to keep his twitching face straight. "But
I can't do what you ask. It was hard enough coming
along that path, while the light lasted. If I were to
go back over it in the dark, I'd break my neck on a
million mangrove roots. If it's just the same to you,
I'll take my chances with the pistol. It'll be an easier
death, and in pleasanter company. So, if you really
must shoot—then blaze away!"
He lowered his upraised arms, folding them melo-
dramatically on his breast; while he sought, through
the gloom, to note the effect of his solemnly uttered
speech. The effect was far different and less sensa-
tional than he had expected. At the first sound of his
voice that was audible above the collie's barks, the
girl lowered the revolver and leaned forward to get a
clearer view of his face, beneath the shadow of the
vine-leaves.
"I-I thought she stammered; and added
lamely:
“I thought you were-were-were some one else."
She paused; then she went on with some slight re-
turn of her earlier sternness :
"Just the same, your coming here by that path "
“There is no magic about it,” he assured her, "and
very little mystery. I was taking a stroll along the


THE MAN IN THE DARK 43
shore, when I happened upon that mass of dynamite
and fur and springs, yonder. (In his rare moments
of calm, he is a collie;—the best type of show collie,
at that.) He ran ahead of me, through the tangle of
mangrove boughs. I followed; and found a path. He
seemed anxious to explore the path; and I kept on
following him; until-
The girl seemed for the first time aware of the
dog's noisy presence.
"Oh!" she exclaimed, looking at the rackety and
leaping collie in much surprise. “I thought it was the
stable dog that had treed Simon Cameron! I didn't no-
tice. He Why !" she cried, “that's Bobby Burns!
We lost him, on the way here from the station! My
brother has gone back to Miami to offer a reward for
him. He came from the North, this morning. We
drove into town to get him. On the way out, he must
have fallen from the back seat. We didn't miss him
till we How did you happen to find him?"
"He was on the beach, back yonder,” explained
Brice. "He seemed to adopt me, and I- ".
"Haven't I met you, somewhere?” she broke in,
studying his dim-seen face more intently and at closer
range.
"No," he made answer. “But you've seen me. At
least I saw you. You, and a big man with a gold
beard and a white silk suit, and this collie, were in a
car; listening to Bryan's sermon, this morning. I recog-
nized the collie, as soon as I saw him again. And I
guessed what must have happened. I guessed, too, that
he was a new dog; and that he hadn't learned the way
was


44 BLACK CÆSAR’S CLAN
home, yet. It's lucky I was able to bring him to you.
Or, rather, that he was able to bring himself to you."
"And to think I rewarded you for all your trouble, by
threatening to shoot you !” she said, in sharp contrition.
"Oh, please don't feel sorry for that!” he begged.
"It wasn't really as deadly as you made it seem. That
is an old style revolver, you see ;-vintage of 1880 or..
thereabouts, I should say. Not a self-cocker. And,
you'll notice it isn't cocked. So, even if you had stuck
to your lethal threat and had pulled the trigger ever
so hard, I'd still be more or less alive. You'll excuse
me for mentioning it,” he ended in apology, noting her
crestfallen air. . “Any novice in the art of slaying
might have done the same thing. Shooting people is
an accomplishment that improves with practice.”
Coldly, she turned away, and crossed to where the
collie was beginning to weary of his fruitless efforts to
climb the shinily smooth bark of the giant gumbo-
limbo. Catching him by the collar, she said:
"Bobby! Bobby Burns! Stop that silly barking!
Stop it at once! And leave poor little Simon Cameron
alone! Aren't you ashamed?"
Now, Bobby was not in the least ashamed ;-except
for his failure to reach his elusive prey. But, like
many highbred and highstrung collies, he did not fancy
having his collar seized by a stranger. He did not
resent the act with snarls and a show of teeth, as in the
case of the beach comber. But he stiffened to offended
dignity; and, with a sudden jerk, freed himself from
the little detaining hand.
Then, loftily, he stalked across to Gavin and thrust


THE MAN IN THE DARK 45
his muzzle once more into the man's cupped palm.
As clearly as by a dictionary-ful of words, he had re-
buked her familiarity and had shown to whom he felt
he owed sole allegiance.
While the girl was still staring in rueful indignation
at this snub from her dog, Brice found time and
thought to stare with still greater intentness up the
tree, at a bunch of bristling fur which occupied the
· first crotch and which glared wrathfully down at the
collie.
He made out the contour and bashed-in profile of a
huge Persian cat, silver-gray of hue; dense of coat,
green of eye.
"So that's Simon Cameron?" he queried. “What a
beauty! And what a quaintly Oriental name you've
chosen for him!”
"He is named,” said the girl, still icily, "for a states-
man my parents admired. My brother says our Per-
sian's hair is just the same color as Simon Cameron's
used to be. That's why we named him that. You'll
notice the cat has the beautifullest silvery gray
hair- "
"Prematurely gray, I'm sure," put in Brice, civilly.
She looked at him, in doubt. But his face was grave.
And she turned to the task of coaxing the indignant
Simon Cameron from his tree-refuge.
“Simon Cameron always walks around the grounds
with me, at sunset,” she explained, in intervals of
cajoling the grumpy mass of fluff to descend. “And he
ran ahead of me, to-day, to the edge of the path. That
must have been when Bobby caught sight of him....


46 BLACK CÆSAR’S CLAN
Come, Kitty, Kitty, Kitty!" she coaxed. "Do be a
good little cat; and come down. See, the dog can't
get at you, now. He's being held. Come !"
The allurement of his mistress's voice produced no
stirring effect on the temperamental Simon Cameron.
Beyond leaving the crotch and edging mincingly down-
ward, a yard or so, the Persian refused to obey the
crooning summons. Plastered flat against the tree
trunk, some nine feet above the ground, he miaued
dolefully.
"Hold Bobby's collar," suggested Brice, “and I
think I can get the prematurely grizzled catling to
earth."
The girl came over to where man and dog stood;
and took Bobby Burns by the collar. Brice crossed
to the tree and looked upward at the yowling Simon
Cameron.
"Hello, you good little cat!” he hailed, cooingly.
"Cats always like to be called 'good' you know. All
of us are flattered when we're praised for something
we aren't. A dog doesn't care much about being
called 'good.' Because he knows he is. But a cat. "
As he talked, Gavin scratched gratingly on the tree-
trunk; and gazed up in ostentatious admiration at the
coy Simon Cameron. The Persian, like all his kind,
was foolishly open to admiration. Brice's look, his
crooning voice, his entertaining fashion of scratching
the tree for the cat's amusement—all these proved a
genuine lure. Down the tree started Simon Cameron,
moving backward, and halting coquettishly at every
few inches.


THE MAN IN THE DARK
47
Gavin reached up and lifted the fluffy creature from
the trunk, cradling him in expert manner in the crook
of one arm. Simon Cameron forgot his fear and
purred loudly; rubbing his snub-nose face against his
captor's sleeve.
"Don't feel too much flattered," adjured the girl.
"He's like that, with all strangers. As soon as he has
known most people a day or two, he'll have nothing to
do with them.”
“I know," assented Gavin. "That's a trick of Per-
sian cats. They have an inordinate interest in every
one except the people they know. Their idea of heaven
is to be admired by a million strangers at a time. If
I'd had any tobacco-reek on me, Simon Cameron
wouldn't have let me hold him as long as this. Per-
sian's hate tobacco.”
He set the soothed animal down on the lawn, where,
after one scornful look at the tugging and helpless
dog, Simon Cameron proceeded to rub his arched back
against the man's legs; thus transferring a goodly num-
ber of fluffy gray hairs to Brice's shabby trousers. Tir-
ing of this, he minced off, affectedly, toward the dis-
tant house that stood at the landward end of the
sloping lawn.
As he set the cat down, Brice had stepped out of the
shadows of the grove, into the open. And now, not
only his face, but his whole body was clearly visible
in the dying daylight. The girl's eyes ran appraisingly
over the worn clothes and the cracking and dusty
shoes. Brice felt, rather than saw, her appraisal. And
he knew she was contrasting his costume with his voice


48 BLACK CÆSAR'S CLAN
and his clean-shaven face. She broke the moment of
embarrassed silence by saying:
“You must be tired after your long tramp, from
Miami. Were you walking for fun and exercise; or
are you bound for any especial place?"
He knew she was fencing;-that his clothes made
her wonder if she ought not to offer him some cash
payment for finding her dog ;-a reward she would
never have dreamed of offering, on the strength of
his manner and voice. Also, it seemed, she was seek-
ing some way of closing the interview without dismiss-
ing him or walking away. And he answered with per-
fect simplicity:
"No, I wasn't walking for exercise or fun. There
are better and easier ways of acquiring fun than by
plodding for hours in the hot sunshine. And of
getting exercise, too. I was on my way to Home-
stead or to some farming place along the line; where
I might pick up a job.”
“Oh!"
“Yes. I could probably have gotten a place as dish-
washer or even as a 'bus' or porter, in one of the big
Miami hotels,” he pursued, “or a billet with one of
the dredging gangs in the harbor. But somehow I'd
rather do farm work of some sort. It seems less of
a slump, when a chap is down on his luck; than to
go in for scrubbing or for section-gang hustling.
There are farms and citrus groves, all along here, just
back of the bay. And I'm looking for one of them
where I can get a decent day's work to do and a de-
cent day's wages for doing it."


THE MAN IN THE DARK 49
He spoke with an almost overdone earnestness. The
girl was watching him, attentively; a furrow between
her straight brows. Somehow, her level look made
him uncomfortable. He continued, with a shade less
assurance:
"I was brought up on a farm; though I haven't
been on one since I was eighteen. I might have been
better off if I'd stayed there. Anyhow, when a man's
prospects of starving are growing brighter every day,
a farm-job is about the pleasantest sort of work he
can find.”
"Starving!" she repeated, in something like con-
tempt. "If you had been in this region a little longer
-say, long enough to pronounce the name, 'Miami' as
it's pronounced down here, instead of calling it 'Me-
ah-mee,' as you did—if you'd been here longer, you'd
know that nobody need starve in Florida. Nobody
who is willing to work. There's the fishing; and the
construction gangs; and the groves; and the farms;
and a million other ways of making a living. The
weather lets you sleep outdoors, if you have to.
The "
"I've done it,” he chimed in. "Slept outdoors, I
mean. Last night, for instance. I slept very snugly
indeed; under a Traveler Tree in the gardens of the
Royal Palm Hotel. There was a dance at the hotel. I
went to sleep, under the stars, to the lullaby of a cork-
ing good orchestra. The only drawback was that a
spooning couple who were engineering a 'petting party,'
almost sat down on my head, there in the darkness.
Not that I'd have minded being a settee for them.


50 BLACK CÆSAR’S CLAN
But they might have told one of the watchmen about
my being there. And I'd have had to hunt other
sleeping quarters.”
She did not abate that look of quizzical appraisal.
And again Gavin Brice began to feel uncomfortable
under her scrutiny.
"You have an orange grove, back yonder, haven't
you?” he asked, abruptly; nodding toward a land-
ward stretch of ground shut off from the lawn by a
thickset hedge of oleander.
"How did you know?" she demanded in suspicion.
"By this light you couldn't possibly see
"Oddly enough,” he said, in the pleasant drawling
voice she was learning to like in spite of her better
judgment, "oddly enough, I was born with a service-
able pair of nostrils. There is a scent of orange blos-
soms, hanging fairly strong in the air. It doesn't come
from the mangrove swamp behind me or from the
highroad in front of your house or from the big
garden patch to the south of the lawn. So I made a
Sherlock Holmes guess that it must be over there to
northward; and pretty close. Besides, that's the only
direction the Trade Winds could bring the scent from."
Again, she was aware of a certain glibness in his
tone ;-a glibness that annoyed her and at the same
time piqued her curiosity.
“Yes,” she said, none too cordially. “Our orange
groves are there. Why do you ask?”
"Only,” he replied, “because where there are large
citrus groves on one side of a house and fairly big
vegetable gardens on the other, it means the need for


THE MAN IN THE DARK 51
a good bit of labor. And that may mean a chance for
a job. Or it may not. You'll pardon my suggesting
it."
"My brother needs no more labor," she replied. “At
least, I am quite certain he doesn't. In fact, he has
more men working here now than he actually needs.
I—I've heard him say so. Of course, I'll be glad to ask
him, when he comes back from town. And if you'd
care to leave your address "
“Gladly," said Brice. “Any letter addressed to me,
as 'Gavin Brice, in care of Traveler Tree, rear gardens
of Royal Palm Hotel,' will reach me. Unless, of
course, the night watchmen chance to root me out. In
that case, I'll leave word with them where mail may be
forwarded. In the meantime, it's getting pretty dark;
and I don't know this part of Dade County as well as
I'd like to. So I'll be starting on. If you don't mind,
I'll cross your lawn, and take the main road. It's easier
going, at night than by way of the mangrove swamp
and the beach. Good night, Miss "
"Wait!" she interposed, worry creeping into her
sweet voice. "I–I can't let you go like this. Do you
really mean you have to sleep out of doors and that
you have no money? I don't want to be impertinent,
but "
“ 'Nobody need starve in Florida,'” he quoted,
gravely. “ 'Nobody who is willing to work. The
weather lets you sleep outdoors.' (In which, the
weather chimes harmoniously with my pocketbook.)
And, as I am extremely 'willing to work, it follows
that I can't possibly starve. But I thank you for feel-


52 BLACK CÆSAR'S CLAN
ing concerned about me. It's a long day since a wo-
man has bothered her head whether I live or die. Good
night, again, Miss ".
A second time, she ignored his hint that she tell him
her name. Too much worried over his light words and
the real need they seemed to cover, to heed the subtler
intent, she said, a little tremulously:
"I-I don't understand you, at all. Not that it is
any business of mine, of course. But I hate to think
that any one is in need of food or shelter. Your voice
and your face and the way you talk-they don't fit in
with the rest of you. Such men as yourself don't drift,
penniless, through Lower Florida; looking for day-
laborer jobs. I can't understand "
"Every one who speaks decent English and yet is
down-and-out,” he said, quietly, “isn't necessarily a
tramp or a fugitive from justice. And he doesn't
need to be a man of mystery, either. Suppose, let's
say, a clerk in New York has been too ill, for a long
time, to work. Suppose illness has eaten all his sav-
ings; and that he doesn't care to borrow, when he
knows he may never be able to pay. Suppose his doc-
tor tells him he must go South, to get braced up, and
to avoid a New York February and March. Suppose
the patient has only about money enough to get here;
and relies on finding something to do to keep him in
food and lodging. Well—there's nothing mysterious
or especially discreditable in that, is there? ... The
dew is beginning to fall. And I'm keeping you out
here in the damp. Good night, Miss-Miss ".
“Standish," she supplied, but speaking absently, her


THE MAN IN THE DARK 53
mind still perturbed at his plight. “My name is Stan-
dish. Claire Standish."
"Mine is Gavin Brice," he said. "Good night. Keep
hold of Bobby Burns's collar, till I'm well on my way.
He may try to follow me. Good-by, old chap," he
added, bending down and taking the collie's silken head
affectionately between his hands. “You're a good
dog; and a good pal. But put the soft pedal on the
temperamental stuff, when you're near Simon Cam-
eron. That's the best recipe for avoiding a scratched
nose. By the way, Miss Standish, don't encourage
him to roam around in the palmetto scrub, on your
outings with him. The rattlesnakes have gotten many
a good dog, in Florida. He "
"Mr. Brice !” she broke in. "If I offend you, I can't
help it. Won't you please let me-let me lend you
enough money to keep you going, till you get a good
job? Please do! Of course, you can pay me, as soon
as "
" 'I have not found such faith ;—no, not in Israel!'”
quoted Brice, a new note in his voice which somehow
stirred the embarrassed girl's heart. “You have only
my bare word that I'm not a panhandler or a crook.
And yet you believe in me enough to '
"You will let me?" she urged, eagerly. "Say you
will! Say it."
"I'll make cleaner use of your faith," he returned,
"by asking you to say a good word for me to your
brother, if ever I come back here looking for a job.
No, no!” he broke off, fiercely, before she could an-


54 BLACK CÆSAR'S CLAN
swer. “I don't mean that. You must do nothing of
the kind. Forget I asked it.”
With which amazing outburst, he turned on his
heel, ran across the lawn, leaped the low privet hedge
which divided it from the coral road; and made off at
a swinging pace in the direction of Coconut Grove and
Miami.
"What a fool-and what a cur-a man can make
of himself,” he muttered disgustedly as he strode
along, without daring to look back at the wondering
little white-clad figure, watching him out of sight
around the bend, "when he gets to talking with a wo-
man ;-a woman with—with eyes like hers! They-
why, they make me feel as if I was in church! What
sort of bungling novice am I, anyhow, for work like
this?"
With a grunt of self-contempt, he drove his hands
deep into the pockets of his shabby trousers and
quickened his pace. His fingers closed mechanically
around a roll of bills, of very respectable size, in the
depths of his right-hand pocket. The gesture caused a
litter of small change to give forth a muffled jingle. A
sense of shame crept over the man, at the contact.
"She wanted to lend me money!” he muttered, half-
aloud. “Money! Not give it to me, as a beggar; but
to lend it to me.... Her nose has the funniest little
tilt to it! And she can't be an inch over five feet
tall! . . . I'm a wall-eyed idiot!"
He stood aside to let two cars pass him; one going in
either direction. The lamps of the car from the west,
traveling east, showed him for a moment the occupant


THE MAN IN THE DARK 55
of the car that was moving westward. The brief ray
shone upon a pair of shoulders as wide as a steam-
radiator. They were clad in loose-fitting white silk.
Above them a thick golden beard caught the ray of
shifting light. Then, both cars had passed on; and
Brice was resuming his trudge.
"Milo Standish !” he mused, looking back at the
car as it vanished in a cloudlet of white coral-dust.
"Milo Standish! ... As big as two elephants. ...
'The bigger they are, the harder they fall.'”
The road curved, from the Standish estate, in almost
a “C” formation; before straightening out, a mile to
the north, into the main highway. Gavin Brice had
just reached the end of the “C” when there was a scur-
rying sound behind him, in a grapefruit grove to his
right. Something light and agile scrambled over the
low coral-block wall; and flung itself rapturously on
him.
It was Bobby Burns.
The collie had suffered himself to be led indoors
by the girl whom he had never seen until that morn-
ing; and for whom, thus far, he had formed no af-
fection. But his wistful, deepset dark eyes had fol-
lowed Gavin Brice's receding form. He could not
believe this dear new friend meant to desert him. As
Brice did not stop, nor even look back, the collie
waxed doubtful. And he tugged to be free. Claire
spoke gently to him, a slight quiver in her own voice;
her dark eyes, like his, fixed upon the dwindling dark
speck on the dusky white road.
"No, Bobby!” she said, under her breath, as she


56 BLACK CÆSAR'S CLAN
petted the restless head. "He won't come back. Let's
forget all about it. We both behaved foolishly; you
and I, Bobby. And he-well, let's just call him ec-
centric; and not think about him any more."
She drew the reluctant collie into the house; and
closed the door. But, a few minutes later, when her
back chanced to be turned, and when a maid came
into the room leaving the door ajar, Bobby slipped out.
In another five seconds he was in the road; casting
about for Brice's trail. Finding it, he set off, at a
hand-gallop, nostrils close to the ground. Having
once been hit and bruised, in puppyhood, by a motor
car, the dog had a wholesome respect for such rapid
and ill-smelling vehicles. Thus, as he saw the lights
and heard the engine-purr of one of them, coming
toward him, down the road, he dodged back into the
wayside hedge until it passed. Which is the reason
Milo Standish failed to see the dog he had been hunt-
ing for.
A little later, Brice's scent became so distinct that the
collie could abandon his nose-to-the-ground tactics and
strike across country, by dead-reckoning; guided not
only by his nose but by the sound of Gavin's steps.
Then, in an access of delight, he burst upon the plod-
ding man.
"Why, Bobby!” exclaimed Brice, touched by the
dog's rapture in having found him again. “Why,
Bobby Burns! What on earth made you follow me?
Don't you know I'm not your master? Don't you,
Bobby?”


THE MAN IN THE DARK 57
He was petting the frisking collie as he talked. But
now he faced about.
"I've got to take you back to her, old man!” he in-
formed the highly interested dog. “You belong to
her. And she'll worry about you. I'll just take you
into the dooryard or to the front lawn or whatever it
is; and tie you there; so some one will find you. I don't
want to get my plans all messed up by another talk
with her, to-night. It's a mean trick to play on you;
after you've taken all the trouble to follow me. But
you're hers. After this rotten business is all over,
maybe I'll try to buy you. It's worth ninety per cent
of your value to have had you pick me out for your mas-
ter. Any man with cash enough can be a dog's owner,
Bobby. But all the cash in the world won't make him
the dog's master without the dog's own consent. Ever
stop to think of that, Bobby?”
As he talked, half incoherently, to the delighted col-
lie, Gavin was retracing his way over the mile or so
he had just traversed. He grudged the extra steps.
For the day had been long and full of exercise. And
he was more than comfortably tired. But he kept on;
wondering vexedly at the little throb of eagerness in
his heart as Claire Standish's home at last bulked dimly
into view around the last curve of the byroad.
Bobby Burns trotted happily beside him; reveling
in the man's occasional rambling words, as is the flat-
tering way collies have when they are talked to, fa-
miliarly, by the human they love. And so the two
neared the house; their padding footsteps noiseless in
the soft white dust of the road.


58
BLACK CÆSAR’S CLAN
There were lights in several windows. One strong
ray was cast full across the side lawn; penetrating al-
most as far as the beginning of the forest at the rear.
Toward this vivid beam, Gavin bent his steps; fumbling
in his pocket as he went, for something with which
to tie Bobby to the nearest tree.
As he moved forward and left the road for the close-
cropped grass of the lawn, he saw a dim white shadow
advancing obliquely in his direction. And, for an in-
stant, his heartbeats quickened, ever so slightly. Then,
he was disgusted with his own fatuousness. For the
white form was double the size of Claire Standish.
And he knew this was her brother; crossing from the
garage to a door of the house.
The big man swung along with the easy gait of
perfect physical strength. And as the window, whence
flowed the light-ray, was alongside the door he in-
tended to enter, his journey toward the house lay in
the direct path of the ray.
Brice, in the darkness, just inside the gateway, stood
moveless and waited for him to traverse the hundred
feet or so that remained between him and the veranda.
The collie fidgeted, at sight of the man in white; and
began to growl, inquiringly, far down in his throat.
Gavin patted Bobby Burns reassuringly on the
head; to quiet him. He was of no mind to introduce
himself at the Standish home, a second time, as the
returner of a runaway dog. Wherefore, he sought
to remain unseen; and to wait with what patience he
could until the householder should have gone indoors.
Apparently, on reaching home, Standish had driven


THE MAN IN THE DARK 59
the car to the garage and had pottered around there
for some minutes before starting for the house. He
was carrying something loosely in one hand; and he
did not seem in any hurry.
"My friend,” said Gavin, soundlessly, "if a girl
like Claire Standish was waiting for me, beyond that
shaft of light, I'd make the trip in something better
than no time at all. But then-she's not my sister;
thank the good Lord!”
He grinned at his own silly thoughts concerning
the girl he had talked to for so brief a time. Yet he
found himself looking at her elder brother with a
certain reluctant friendliness, on her account.
Suddenly, the grin was wiped from his face; and
he was tense from head to foot.
Standish, on his way homeward, was strolling
past a clump of dwarf shrubbery. And, idly watching
him, Gavin could have sworn that one end of the
shrubbery moved.
Then, he was no longer in doubt. The bit of dark-
ness detached itself from the rest of the shrubbery;
as Milo lounged past; and it sprang, catlike, at the un-
suspecting man's back.
Into the path of light it leaped. In the same atom
of time, Gavin Brice shouted aloud in sharp warning;
and dashed forward; the collie at his side.
But he was fifty feet away. And his shout served
only to make Standish halt, staring about him.
It was then that the creature from the shrubbery
made his spring. He struck venomously at Standish,


60 BLACK CÆSAR’S CLAN
from behind. And Gavin could see, in the striking
hand, a glitter of steel.
Standish-warned perhaps by sound, perhaps by in-
stinct—wheeled half-way around. Thus the knife-
blow missed its mark between his shoulder-blades. Not
the blade, but the fist which gripped it, smote full on
Standish's shoulder. The deflected point merely shore
the white coat from neck to waist.
There was no scope to strike again. And the assail-
ant contented himself with passing his free arm gar-
rotingly around Standish's neck, from behind; and
leaping upward, bringing his knees into the small of
the victim's back.
Here evidently was no amateur slayer. For, even
as the knife-thrust missed its mark, he had resorted to
the second ruse;—and before Standish could tum
around far enough to avert it.
Down went the big man, under the strangle-hold
and knee-purchase. With a crash that knocked the
breath out of him and dazed him, he landed on his
back; his head smiting the sward with a resounding
thwack.
His adversary, once more, wasted not a jot of time.
As Standish struck ground, the man was upon him;
knife again aloft; poised above the helpless Milo's
throat.
And it was then that Gavin Brice's flying feet
brought him to the scene.
As he ran he had heard a door open. And he knew
his warning shout had reached the ears of some one in
the house,-perhaps of Claire. But he had no time


THE MAN IN THE DARK
61
nor thought for anything, just then; except the stark
need of reaching Milo Standish before the knife could
strike.
He launched himself, after the fashion of a football
tackle, straight for the descending arm. And, for a
few seconds all three men rolled and wallowed and
fought in a jumble of flying arms and legs and
heads.
Brice had been lucky enough or dextrous enough to
catch the knife-wielder's wrist and to wrench it far to
one side, as it whizzed downward. With his other hand
he had groped for the slayer's throat.
Then, he found himself attacked with a maniac fury
by the man whose murderous purpose he had thwarted.
Still gripping the knife-wrist, he was sore put to it to
fend off an avalanche of blows from the other arm and
of kicks from both of the assailant's deftly plied
feet.
Nor was his task made the easier by the fact that
Milo Standish had recovered from the momentary
daze; and was slugging impartially at both the men who
rolled and tossed on top of him.
This, for a short but excessively busy space of mo-
ments. Then, wriggling free of Milo's impeding and
struggling bulk, Brice gained the throat-hold he sought.
Still holding to the ground the wrist of the knife-
hand, he dug his supple fingers deep into the man's
throat; disregarding such blows and kicks as he could
not ward off.
There was science in his ferocious onslaught. And
his skilled fingers had found the windpipe and the


62
BLACK CÆSAR'S CLAN
carotid artery as well. With such force as Brice was
able to exert, the other's breath was shut off; while
he was all but paralyzed by the digging pressure
into his carotid.
Such a grip is well understood by Japanese athletes;
though its possibilities and method are unknown to the
average Occidental. Rightly applied, it is irresistible.
Carried to its conclusion, it spells sudden and agonizing
death to its victim.
And Gavin Brice was carrying it to the conclusion,
with all the sinew and science of his trained arms.
The knifer's strength was gorilla-like. But that
strength, at every second, was rendered more and more
futile. The man must have realized it. For, all at
once, he ceased his battery of kicks and blows; and
struggled frantically to tear free.
Each plunging motion merely intensified the pain
and power of the relentless throat-grip that pinioned
him. And, strangling and panic-struck, he became
wilder in his fruitless efforts to wrench loose. Then,
deprived of breath and with his nerve-centers shaken,
he lost the power to strive.
It was the time for which Gavin had waited. With
perfect ease, now, he twisted the knife from the failing
grasp; and, with his left hand, he reën forced the throat-
grip of his right. As he did so, he got his legs under
him and arose; dragging upward with him the all but
senseless body of his garroted foe.
It had been a pretty bit of work, from the start; and
one upon which his monkey-faced Japanese jiu-jitsu


THE MAN IN THE DARK 63
instructor would have lavished a grunt of ap-
proval.
He had conquered an armed and muscular enemy by
his knowledge of anatomy and by applying the simple
grip he had learned. And now, the heaving half-
dead murderer was at his mercy.
Gavin swung the feebly twitching body out, more
fully into the streak of light from the house; noting,
subconsciously that the light ray was twice as broad
as before, by reason of the door's standing open.
But, before he could concentrate his gaze on the
man he held, he saw several million other things. And
all the several million were multi-hued stars and burst-
ing bombs.
The entire universe seemed to have exploded and to
have chosen the inside of his brain as the site for such
annoying pyrotechnics. Dully he was aware that his
hands were loosening their death-grip and that his arms
were falling to his sides. Also, that his knees had
turned to hot tallow and were crumbling, under him.
None of these amazing phenomena struck him as at
all interesting. Indeed, nothing struck him as worth
noting. Not even the display of myriad shooting stars.
It all seemed quite natural; and it all lasted for the
merest breath of time.
Through the universe of varicolored lights and ex-
plosions, he was aware of a woman's cry. And, some-
how, this pierced the mist of his senses; and found
its way to his heart. But only for an instant.
Then, instead of tumbling to earth, he felt himself


64 BLACK CÆSAR'S CLAN
sinking down, uncountable miles, through a cool dark-
ness. The dark was comforting, after all that both-
ersome display of lights.
And, while he was still falling, he drifted into a dead
sleep.


CHAPTER III
THE MOCKING BIRD





CHAPTER III
THE MOCKING BIRD
A FTER centuries of unconsciousness, Gavin Brice
n began to return, bit by bit, to his senses.
The first thing he knew was that the myriad shoot-
ing stars in his head had changed somehow into a
myriad shooting pains. He was in torment. And he
was deathly sick.
His trained brain forced itself to a semblance of
sanity; and he found himself piecing together vaguely
the things that had happened to him. He could re-
member seeing Milo Standish strolling toward the
veranda in the shaft of light from the window;-
then the black figure which detached itself from the
shrubbery and sprang on the unheeding man;—and his
own attempt to turn aside the arm that wielded the
knife.
But everything else was a blank.
Meanwhile, the countless shooting pains were merg-
ing into one intolerable ache. Brice had no desire to
stir or even to open his eyes. The very thought of
motion was abhorrent. The mere effort at thinking
was painful. So he lay still.
Presently, he was aware of something that touched
his head. And he wondered why the touch did not


68 BLACK CÆSAR'S CLAN
add to his hurt, but was soothing. Even a finger's
weight might have been expected to jar his battered
skull.
But there was no jar to this touch. Rather was it
cooling and of infinite comfort. And now he realized
that it had been continuing for some time.
Again he roused his rebellious brain to action; and
knew at last what the soothing touch must be. Some
one was bathing his forehead with cool water. Some
one with a lightly magnetic touch. Some one whose
fingers held healing in their soft tips.
And, just above him, he could hear quick, light
breathing; breathing that was almost a sob. His un-
seen nurse was taking her job not only seriously but
compassionately. That was evident. It did not jibe
with Gavin's slight experience with trained nurses.
Wherefore, it puzzled him.
But, perplexity seemed to hurt his brain as much
as did the effort to piece together the shattered frag-
ments of memory. So he forbore to follow that train
of thought. And, again, he strove to banish mentality
and to sink back into the merciful senselessness from
which youth and an iron-and-whalebone constitution
were fighting to rouse him.
But, do what he would to prevent it, consciousness
was creeping more and more in upon him. For, now,
he could not only follow the motions of the wondrously
gentle hand on his forehead, but he could tell that his
head was not on the ground. Instead, it was resting
on something warm; and it was elevated some inches
above the grass. He recalled a war-chromo of a


THE MOCKING BIRD 69
wounded soldier whose head rested on the knee of a
Red Cross nurse;-a nurse who sat on the furrowed
earth of a five-color battlefield, where all real life
army regulations forbade her to set foot.
Was he that soldier? Was he still in the hell of the
Flanders trenches? He had thought the war was
over; and that he was back in America;—in America
and on his way South on some odd and perilous busi-
ness whose nature he could not now recall.
Another few seconds of mental wandering; and he
was himself again; his mind functioning more and
more clearly. With returning strength of brain came
curiosity. Where was he? How did he chance to be
lying here; his head in some sobbing woman's lap?
It didn't make sense!
With instinctive caution, he parted his eyelids, ever
so slightly; and sought to peer upward through his
thick lashes. The effort was painful; but less so than
he had feared. Already, through natural buoyancy
or else by reason of the unseen nurse's ministra-
tions, the throbbing ache was becoming almost bearable.
At first, his dazed eyes could make out nothing.
Then he could see, through his lashes, the velvety
dark blue of the night sky and the big white Southern
stars shining through a soft cloud. Inconsequentially,
his vagrant mind recalled that, below Miami, the
Southern Cross is smudgily visible on the horizon,
somewhere around two in the morning. And he won-
dered if he could descry it, if that luminous cloud
were not in the way.
Then, he knew it was not a cloud which shimmered


70 BLACK CÆSAR’S CLAN
Tas a Wom
between his eyes and the stars. It was a woman's
filmy hair.
And the woman was bending down above him, as
he lay with his head on her knee. She was bending
down; sobbing softly to herself; and bathing his
aching head with water from a bowl at her side.
He was minded to rouse himself and speak; or at
least to get a less elusive look at her shadowed face;
when running footsteps sounded from somewhere.
And again by instinct, Brice shut his eyes and lay
moveless.
The footsteps were coming nearer. They were
springy and rhythmic; the footsteps of a powerful
man.
Then came a panting voice out of the darkness :
"Oh, there you are!" it exclaimed. “He got away.
Got away, clean. I reached the head of the path, not
ten feet behind him. But, in there, it's so black I
couldn't see anything ahead of me. And I had no
light; worse luck! So he ".
A deep-throated growl interrupted him ;-a growl
so fierce and menacing that Gavin once more half-
parted his eyes, in sudden curiosity.
From beside his feet, Bobby Burns was rising. The
collie had crouched there, evidently, with some idea
of guarding Brice from further harm. He did not
seem to have resented the woman's ministrations. But
he was of no mind to let this man come any closer to
his stricken idol.
Brice was sore tempted to reach out his hand and
give the collie a reassuring pat and to thank him for


THE MOCKING BIRD
71
the loyal guard he had been keeping. Now, through
the mists of memory, he recalled snarls and the bruis-
ing contact of a furry body, during the battle he so
dimly remembered; and that once his foe had cried
out, as though at the impact of rending teeth.
Yes, Bobby Burns, presumably, had learned a lesson
since his interested but impersonal surveillance of
Gavin's bout with the beach comber, earlier in the
afternoon. He had begun to learn that when grown
men come to a clinch, it is not mere play.
And Brice wanted to praise the gallant young dog.
for coming to his help. But, as before, instinct and!
professional experience bade him continue to "play
dead.”
"What's that?" he heard the man demand, in sur-
prise; as Bobby snarled again and stood threateningly
between him and the prostrate Brice.
The woman answered. And at the first sound of
her voice, full memory rushed back on Gavin in a
flood. He knew where he was; and who was holding
his head on her knee. The knowledge thrilled him,
unaccountably. With mighty effort he held to his
pose of inert senselessness.
"That's Bobby Burns," he heard Claire saying in
reply to her brother's first question. "He's guarding
Mr. Brice. When I ran out here with the water and
the cloths, I found him standing above him. But-oh,
Milo "
"Brice?" snapped Milo Standish, glowering on the
fallen man his sister was brooding over. "Brice?
Who's Brice? D’you mean that chap? Lucky I got
- - -
-
-
-


172 BLACK CÆSAR'S CLAN
him, even if the other one did give me the slip! Let
me take a look at him. If I hadn't happened to be
bringing the monkey-wrench from the garage to fix
that shelf-bolt in the study, I'd never have been able
to get even one of them. I yanked free of them, while
they were trying to down me; and I let this one have it
with the wrench. Before I could land on the
other "
"Milo!” she broke in, after several vain attempts
to still his vainglorious recital. "Milo! You've in-
jured-maybe you've killed the man who saved you
from being stabbed to death! Yet you "
"What are you talking about ?” he demanded, bewil-
dered. “These two men set on me in the dark, as I
was coming from
“This man, here—Mr. Brice” she flamed, "has
saved you from being killed. Oh, go and telephone for
a doctor! Quickly! And send one of the maids out
here with my smelling salts. He ".
“Thanks !" returned her brother, making no move
to obey. “But when I phone, it'll be to the police.
Not to a doctor. I don't know what notion you may
have gotten of this fracas. But "
"Oh, we're wasting such precious time !" she cried.
“Listen! I heard a shout. I was on my way to the
veranda to see what was detaining you. For I had
heard your car come in, quite a while before that.
I opened the door. And I was just in time to see
some man spring on you, with a knife in his hand.
Then Mr. Brice came running from the gateway; just
as the man threw you down and lifted his knife to


THE MOCKING BIRD 73
stab you. Mr. Brice dragged him away from you
and throttled him; and knocked the knife out of his
hand. I could see it ever so plainly. For it was
all in that big patch of light. Just like a scene on a
stage. Then, Mr. Brice got to his feet, and swung
the man to one side, by the throat. And as he did,
you jumped up, too; and hit him on the head with that
miserable wrench. As he fell, I could see the other
man stagger off toward the path. He was so weak,
at first, he could hardly move. I cried out to you,
but you were so busy glaring down at the man who
had saved your life that you didn't think to start after
the other one till he had gotten strength enough to
escape from you. Then I went for water to "
“Good Lord!" groaned Standish, agape. “You're
-you're sure-dead sure you're right?”
"Sure?" she echoed, indignantly. “Of course I'm
sure. I- "
"Hold that measly dog's collar," he broke in. “So!
I don't care to be bitten. I've had my share of knocka-
bout stuff, for one day.”
Stooping, he picked up Brice as easily as though
Gavin had been a baby; and with rough tenderness
carried him toward the house.
"There are a lot of things, about all this, that I
don't understand," he continued, irritably, as Claire
and the still-growling but tight-held Bobby followed
him to the veranda. “For instance, how that dog
happens to be here and trying to protect a total stranger.
For, Bcbby only got to Miami, from New Jersey, by
this morning's train. He can't possibly know this man.


74 BLACK CÆSAR'S CLAN
how but all that can any one yox
That's one thing. Another is, how this-Brice, did you
say his name is ?-happened to be Johnny-on-the-spot
when the other chap tried to knife me. And how you
happen to know him by name. He's dressed more like a
day-laborer than like any one you'd be likely to meet.
... But all that can wait. The thing now is to find
how badly he's hurt."
They had reached the veranda; and Standish carried
his burden through an open doorway, which was
blocked by a knot of excitedly inquisitive servants.
A sharp word from Standish sent them whisperingly
back to the kitchen regions. Milo laid Brice down on
a wicker couch in the broad, flagged hallway; and ran
his fingers over the bruised head.
Gavin could hear Claire, in a nearby room, telephon-
ing.
"Hold on, there!" called Standish, as his sister gave
the operator a number. “Wait! As well as I can
tell, at a glance, there doesn't seem to be any fracture.
He's just knocked out. That's all. A mild concussion
of the brain, I should think. Don't call a doctor; un-
less it turns out to be more serious. It's bad enough
for the servants to be all stirred up like this, and to
blab-as they're certain to—without letting a doctor
in on it, too. The less talk we cause, the better."
Reluctantly, Claire came away from the telephone
and approached the couch.
"You're sure?" she asked, in doubt.
"I've had some experience with this sort of thing,
on the other side,” he answered. “The man will come


THE MOCKING BIRD
75
to himself in another few minutes. I've loosened his
collar and belt and shoelaces. He "
"Have you any idea who could have tried to kill
you?" she asked, shuddering.
"Yes!” he made sullen answer. "And so have you.
Let it go at that.”
"You—you think it was one of
"Hush!” he ordered, uneasily. "This fellow may
not be quite as unconscious as he looks. Sometimes,
people get their hearing back, before they open their
eyes. Come into the library, a minute. I want to speak
to you. Oh, don't look like that, about leaving him
alone! He'll be all right, I tell you! His pulse is
coming back, strong. Come in here."
He laid one big arm on her slight shoulder and led
her, half-forcibly, into the adjoining room. Thence,
Gavin could hear the rumble of his deep voice. But
he could catch no word the man said; though once he
heard Claire speak in vehement excitement;—and
could hear Milo's harsh interruption and his command
that she lower her voice.
Presently, the two came back into the hall. As
Standish neared the couch, Gavin Brice opened his
eyes, with considerable effort; and blinked dazedly
up at the gigantic figure in the torn and muddy white
silk suit.
Then Brice's blinking gaze drifted to Claire; as she
stood, pale and big-eyed, above him. He essayed a
feeble smile of recognition; and let his glance wander
in well-acted amazement about the high-ceiled hallway.
"Feeling better?” queried Milo. “Here, drink this."


76 BLACK CÆSAR’S CLAN
Gavin essayed to speak. His pose was not wholly
assumed. For his head still swam and was intolerably
painful.
He sipped at the brandy which Standish held to his
sagging lips. And, glancing toward Claire, he smiled;
a somewhat wavery and wan smile.
"Don't try to say anything !" she begged. "Wait
till you are feeling better.”
"I'm—I'm all right," he assured her, albeit rather
shakily; his voice seeming to come from a distance.
"I got a rap over the head. And it put me out, for a
while. But, I'm collecting the pieces. I'll be as good
asmas new, in a few minutes."
The fragments of dialogue between brother and sis-
ter had supplemented his returning memory. Mentally,
he was himself again; keen, secretive, alert; every bit
of him warily on guard. But he cursed the fact that
Standish had drawn Claire into the library, out of
earshot, when he spoke of the man who had attacked
him.
Then, with a queer revulsion of feeling, he cursed
himself for an eavesdropper; and was ashamed of hav-
ing listened at all. For the first time, he began to hate
the errand that had brought him to Florida.
Bobby Burns caused a mild diversion, as Brice's
voice trailed away. At Gavin's first word, the collie
sprang from his self-appointed guard-post at the foot
of the couch; and came dancing up to the convalescent
man; thrusting his cold nose rapturously against
Brice's face, trying to lick his cheek; whimpering in
joy at his idol's recovery.


THE MOCKING BIRD 77
With much effort Gavin managed to stroke the
wrigglingly active head; and to say a reassuring word
to his worshiper. Then, glancing again at Claire,
he explained :
"I'd done about a mile toward Miami when he
overtook me. There was no use in trying to send
him home. So I brought him. Just as we got to the
gate, here "
"I know," intervened Claire, eager to spare him the
effort of speech. “I saw. It was splendid of you,
Mr. Brice! My brother and I are in your debt for
more than we can ever hope to pay."
"Nonsense!” he protested. “I made a botch of the
whole thing. I ought- "
"No," denied Milo. "It was I who made a botch
of it. I owe you not only my life but an apology.
It was my blow, not the other man's, that knocked
you out. I misunderstood, and "
"That's all right!” declared Gavin. "In the dim light
it's a miracle we didn't all of us slug the wrong men.
He stopped. Claire had been working over some-
thing on a table behind him. Now she came forward
with a cold compress for his abraded scalp. Skillfully,
she applied it; her dainty fingers wondrously deft.
"Red Cross?” asked Brice, as she worked.
"Just a six-month nursing course, during the war,"
she said, modestly; adding: “I didn't get across."
"I'm sorry," said Gavin. "I mean, for the poor
chaps who might have profited by such clever bandag-
ing. ... Yes, that's a very dull and heavy com-
- -
-
-
-
-
_-


78 BLACK CÆSAR'S CLAN
pliment. I know it. But—there's a lot of gratitude
behind it. You've made this throbbing old head of
mine feel ever so much better, Miss Standish.”
Milo was looking bewilderedly from one to the
other; as if trying to understand how this ill-clad man
chanced to be on such terms of acquaintanceship with
his fastidious little sister. Claire read his look of in-
quiry; and said:
"Mr. Brice found Bobby Burns, this afternoon, and
brought him home to me. It was nice of him, wasn't
it? For it took him ever so far out of his way.”
Gavin noted that she made no mention of his having
come to the Standish home by way of the hidden
path. It seemed to him that she gave him a glance of
covert appeal; as though beseeching him not to mention
it. He nodded, ever so slightly; and took up the
narrative, as she paused for words.
"I saw Miss Standish and yourself, at Miami, this
morning,” said he, "and the collie, here, on the back seat
of your car. Then, this afternoon, as I was walking
out in this direction, I saw the dog again. I recognized
him; and I guessed he had strayed. So he and I made
friends. And as we were strolling along together,
we met Miss Standish. At least, I met her. Bobby
met a prematurely gray Persian cat, with the dreamy
Bagdad name of 'Simon Cameron. By the time the
dog and cat could be sorted out from each other "
“Oh, I see !” laughed Milo. “And I don't envy you
the job of sorting them. It was mighty kind of you
to "
He broke off and added, with a tinge of anxiety:


THE MOCKING BIRD
179
“You say you happened to be walking near here.
Are you a neighbor of ours ?”
"Not yet," answered Gavin, with almost exaggerated
simplicity. “But I was hoping to be. You see I was
out looking for a job in this neighborhood."
"A job?” repeated Milo; then, suspiciously: "Why
in this neighborhood, rather than any other? You say
you were at Miami- ".
"Because this chanced to be the neighborhood I was
wandering in,” replied Gavin. "As I explained to Miss
Standish, I'd rather do some kind of outdoor work.
Preferably farm work. That's why I left Miami.
There seemed to be lots of farms and groves, here-
abouts."
"Yet you were on your way back toward Miami,
when Bobby overtook you? Rather a long walk,
for
"A long walk," gravely agreed Brice. "But safer
sleeping quarters when one gets there. Up North, one
can take a chance, and sleep in the open; almost any-
where except on a yellow-jacket's nest. Down here,
I've heard, rattlesnakes are apt to stray in upon one's
slumbers. Out in the country, at least. There aren't
any rattlesnakes in the Royal Palm's gardens. Besides,
there's music; and there's the fragrance of night
jasmine. Altogether, it's worth the difference of ten
or twelve miles of tramping."
"You're staying at the Royal Palm, then?”
"Near it,” corrected Brice. “To be exact, in the
darkest corner of its big gardens. The turf is soft


80 BLACK CÆSAR'S CLAN,
and springy. The solitude is perfect, too-unless
some night-watchman gets too vigilant.”
He spoke lightly, even airily; through his pain and
weakness. But, as before, his every faculty was on
guard. A born and trained expert in reading human
nature, he felt this giant somehow suspected him and
was trying to trap him in an inaccuracy. Wherefore,
he fenced, verbally; calmly confident he could outpoint
his clumsier antagonist.
"You don't look like the kind of man who need
sleep out of doors,” replied Standish, speaking slowly,
as one who chooses his every word with care; and with
his cold blue eyes unobtrusively scanning Gavin's bat-
tered face. “That's the bedroom for bums. You
aren't a bum. Even if your manner, and the way you
fought out yonder, didn't prove that. A bum doesn't
walk all this way and back, on a hot day ;-unless for
a handout. And you— ".
"But a handout is just what I asked for,” Gavin
caught him up. “When I brought Bobby Burns back
I traded on the trifling little service by asking Miss
Standish if I could get a job here. It was impertinent
of me, I know. And I was sorry as soon as I'd done
it. But she told me, in effect, that you were 'firing, not
hiring. So I
“Why did you want a job with me?" insisted
Standish. “Rather than with any of a dozen farmers
or country-house people along here?”
And, this time, any fool could have read the stark
suspicion in his tone and in the hard blue eyes.
"For several reasons," said Brice, coolly. "In the


THE MOCKING BIRD 81
first place, I had brought home your dog. In the
second, I had taken a fancy to him, as he had to me;
and it would be pleasant working at a place where I
could be with such a chum. In the third place, Miss
Standish was kind enough to say pretty much the same
things about me that you've just said. She knew I
wasn't a tramp, who might be expected to decamp with
the lawn-mower or the spoons. Another landowner
might not have been so complimentary; when I ap-
plied for work and had no references. In the fourth,
you seem to have a larger and more pretentious place
here than most of your near neighbors. I-I can't
think of any better reasons, just now.”
"H'm!”.mused Standish, frowning down on the re-
cumbent man, and then looking across in perplexity at
Claire.
What he read in the girl's eyes seemed to shame
him, just a little. For, as he turned back to Gavin,
there was an apologetic aspect on his bearded face.
Brice decided to force the playing. Before his host
could speak or Claire could interfere, he rose to a
sitting position; with some effort and more pain; and,
clutching the head of the couch, lurched to his feet.
"No, no!" called Claire, running forward to sup-
port him as he swayed a bit. "Don't try to stand! Lie
down again! You're as white as a ghost."
But Gavin drew courteously away from her sup-
porting arm and faced Milo.
“I can only thank you," said he, "for patching me
up so well. I'm a lot better, now. And I've a long
way to go. So, I'll be starting. Thanks, again, both
But Gavin dute as white as any to stand! Lie


82 BLACK CÆSAR'S CLAN
of you. I'm sorry to have put you to so much bother."
He reeled, cleverly, caught at the couch-head again;
and took an uncertain step toward the door. But now,
not only Claire but her brother barred his way.
"Don't be an idiot!" stormed Milo. “Why, man,
you couldn't walk a hundred yards, with that groggy
head on your shoulders! You're all beaten up.
You'll be lucky if you're on your feet in another three
days. What sort of cur do you think I am, to let you
go like this; after all you've done for me, to-night?
You'll stay with us till to-morrow, anyhow. And then,
if you still insist on going back to Miami, I'll take you
there in the car. But you're not going a step from
here, to-night. I- "
Gavin strove to mutter a word of disclaimer; to take
another wavering stride toward the front door. But
his knees gave away under him. He swayed forward;
and must have fallen, had not Milo Standish caught
him.
"Here,” Milo bade his sister, as he laid the limp
body back on the couch. “Go and tell the maids to
get the gray room ready as quickly as possible. I'll
carry him up there. It was rotten of me to go on
catechizing him, like that, and letting him see he was
unwelcome. But for him, I'd be ".
“Yes," answered Claire, over her shoulder, as she
hurried on her errand. "It was 'rotten.' And more
than that. I kept trying to signal you to stop. You'll
- you'll give him work, here, won't you, please?”
"We'll talk about that, afterward,” he said, un-
graciously. "I suppose it's the only thing a white man
about that s won't you,
graciously. ad


THE MOCKING BIRD
85
"Good time and good luck and good health to you,
from us all. Jack O'G.”
Gavin knew well the contents of the card; having
written it and mailed it to himself on the eve of his
departure from the North. It was as mild and non-
committal a form of identification as he could well
have chosen.
Standish read the banal message on the soiled card;
then restored cash and postal to their respective
pockets. After which he stood frowning down in
puzzled conjecture on the moveless Gavin.
"Well, old chap!” soliloquized Brice. "If that evi-
dence doesn't back up all I said about myself, nothing
will. But, for the Lord's sake, don't help yourself to
a pipeful of tobacco, till I have time to plant the loot
deeper in the jar!"
He heard the light footfalls of women, upstairs;
where Claire, in person, seemed to be superintending
the arrangement of his room. At the sound, a twinge
of compunction swept Brice. But, at memory of her
brother's stealthy ransacking of an unconscious guest's
clothes, the feeling passed, leaving only a warm battle-
thrill.
Drowsily, he opened his eyes; and stared with blank
wonder up at Milo. Then, shamefacedly, he mum-
bled :
"I—I hope I wasn't baby enough to-to keel over,
Mr. Standish ?”
"That's all right," answered Milo. "It was my
fault. I was a boor. And, very rightly, you decided
you didn't care to stay any longer under my roof.


86 BLACK CÆSAR’S CLAN
But your strength wasn't up to your spirit. So you
fainted. I-I want to apologize for speaking as I
did. I'm mighty grateful to you, for your service to
me, this evening. And my sister and I want you to
stay on here, for the present. When you're feeling
more like yourself, we'll have a chat about that job.
I think we can fix it, all right. Nothing big, of
course. Nothing really worth your while. But it may
serve as a stopgap; till you get a chance to look around
you."
"If nothing better turns up,” suggested Brice, with
a weak effort at lightness, "you might hire me as a
bodyguard."
"As a—a what?” snapped Milo, in sharp suspicion;
the geniality wiped from face and voice with ludicrous
suddenness. "A ?”
"As a bodyguard,” repeated Gavin, not seeming to
note the change in his host. "If you're in the habit of
being set upon, often, as you were, this evening-
you'll be better off with a good husky chap to act
as "
“Oh, that?” scoffed Milo, in ponderous contempt.
“That was just some panhandler, who thought he
might knock me over, from behind; and get my watch
and wallet. The same thing isn't likely to happen
again in a century. Florida is the most law-abiding
State in the Union. And Dade County is perhaps
the most law-abiding part of Florida. One would
need a bodyguard in New York City, more than here.
There have been a lot of holdups there."
Gavin did not reply. His silence seemed to annoy


THE MOCKING BIRD 87
Milo; who burst forth again, this time with a tinge
of open amusement in his contempt:
"Besides - even if there were assassins lurking be-
hind every bunch of palmetto scrub, in the county-
do you honestly think a man of your size could do
very much toward protecting me? I'm not bragging.
But I'm counted one of the strongest men in "
"To-night,” said Brice, drily, “I managed to be of
some slight use. Pardon my mentioning it. If I
hadn't been there, you'd be carrying eight inches of
cold steel, between your shoulders. And-pardon
me, again-if you'd had the sense to stay out of the
squabble a second or so longer, the man who tackled
you would be either in jail or in the morgue, by this
time. I'm not oversized. But neither is a stick of
dynamite. An automatic pistol isn't anywhere as big
as an old-fashioned blunderbuss. But it can outshoot
and outkill the blunderbuss, with very little bother.
Think it over. And, while you're thinking, stop to
think, also, that a 'panhandler' doesn't do his work
with a knife. He doesn't try to stab a man to death,
for the sake of the few dollars the victim may happen
to have in his pockets. That sort of thing calls for
pluck and iron nerves and physical strength. If a
panhandler had those, he wouldn't be a panhandler.
Any more than that chap, to-night, was a panhandler.
My idea of acting as a bodyguard for you isn't bad.
Think it over. You seem to need one."
"Why do you say that?" demanded Milo, in one of
his recurrent flashes of suspicion.
"Because,” said Gavin, "we're living in the twen-


88 BLACK CÆSAR'S CLAN
tieth century and in real life; not in the dark ages and
in a dime novel. Nowadays, a man doesn't risk capital
punishment, lightly, for the fun of springing on a total
stranger, in the dark, with a razor-edge knife. Mr.
Standish, no man does a thing like that, to a stranger;
or without some mighty motive. It is no business of
mine to ask that motive or to horn in on your private
affairs. And I don't care to. But, from your looks,
you're no fool. You know, as well as I do, that that
was no panhandler or even a highwayman. It was an
enemy whose motive for wanting to murder you,
silently and surely, was strong enough to make him
willing to risk death or capture. Now, when you
say you don't need a bodyguard - Well, it's your
own business, of course. Let it go at that, if you
like."
Long and silently Milo Standish looked down at
the nonchalant invalid. Above, the sounds of women's
steps and an occasional snatch of a sentence could be
heard. At last, Milo spoke.
“You are right,” said he, very slowly, and as if
measuring his every word. “You are right. There
are one or two men who would like to get this land
and this house and_and other possessions of mine.
There is no reason for going into particulars that
wouldn't interest you. Take my word. Those reasons
are potent. I have reason to suspect that the assault
on me, this evening, is concerned with their general
plan to get rid of me. Perhaps-perhaps you're right,
about my need of a bodyguard. Though it's a humili-
ating thing for a grown man-especially a man of my


THE MOCKING BIRD : 89
size and strength—to confess. We'll talk it over, to-
morrow; if you are well enough."
Brice nodded, absently; as if wearied with the exer-
tion of their talk. His eyes had left Milo's; and had
concentrated on the man's big and hairy hands. As
Milo spoke of the supposititious criminals who desired
his possessions enough to do murder for them, his fists
clenched, tightly. And to Brice's memory came a wise
old adage:
"When you think a man is lying to you, don't watch
his face. Any poker-player can make his face a mask.
Watch his hands. Ten to one, if he is lying, he'll
clench them."
Brice noted the tightening of the heavy fists. And
he was convinced. Yet, he told himself, in disgust,
that even a child of six would scarce have needed such
confirmation that the clumsily blurted tale was a lie.
He nodded again, as Milo looked at him with a
shade of anxiety.
The momentary silence was broken by footsteps on
the stairs. Claire was descending. Brice gathered
his feet under him and sat upright. It was easier,
now, to do this; and his head had recovered its feeling
of normality, though it still ached ferociously.
At the same instant, through the open doorway,
from across the lawn in the direction of the secret
path, came the quaveringly sweet trill of a mocking
bird's song. Despite himself, Gavin's glance turned
toward the doorway.
"That's just a mocker,” Milo explained, loudly, his
face reddening as he looked in perturbation at his


CHAPTER IV
THE STRANGER FROM NOWHERE





CHAPTER IV
THE STRANGER FROM NOWHERE
TOR a moment, Brice stared, agape and helplessly
T flustered, as Standish proceeded to thrust his
meerschaum's rich-hued bowl into the tobacco jar.
Then, apparently galvanized into action by the ap-
proach of Claire from the stairway, he stepped rapidly
forward to meet her.
As though his shaky powers were not equal to the
task, he reeled, lurched with all his might against the
unprepared Standish and, to regain his balance, took
two plunging steps forward.
He had struck Milo at such an angle as to rap the
latter's right elbow with a numbing force that sent
the pipe flying half way across the hall. The tobacco
jar must have gone, too; had not one of Gavin's out-
flung hands caught it in mid-air; as a quarterback
might catch a football.
Unable to recover balance and to check his own
momentum, Brice scrambled awkwardly forward.
One stamping heel landed full on the fallen meer-
schaum; flattening and crumbling the beautiful pipe
into a smear of shapeless clay-fragments.
At the sight, Milo Standish swore loudly and came
charging forward in a belated hope of saving his be-
93


94 BLACK CÆSAR’S CLAN
loved pipe from destruction. The purchase of that
meerschaum had been a joy to Milo. Its coloring had
been a long and careful process. And now, this
bungler had smashed it into nothingness!
Down on hands and knees went the big man; fum-
bling at the fragments. Claire, knowing how her
brother valued the pipe, ran to his side; in eager
sympathy.
Gavin Brice came to a sliding standstill against a
heavy hall-table. On this he leaned heavily, for a mo-
ment or so, above the tobacco jar he had so luckily
salvaged from the wreckage. His back to the preoc-
cupied couple, he flashed his sensitive fingers into the
jar; collecting and thrusting into his pockets the watch
and the thick roll of bills and as much of the small
change as his fast-groping fingertips could locate,
By the time Milo looked up in impotent wrath,
from his inspection of the ruined meerschaum, Gavin
had turned toward him and was babbling a torrent
of apology for his own awkwardness. Milo was
glumly silent; as the contrite words beat about his
ears. But Claire, shamed by her brother's ungracious-
ness, spoke up, courteously, to relieve the visitor's dire
embarrassment.
"Please don't be unhappy about it, Mr. Brice," she
begged. "It was just an accident. It couldn't be
helped. I'm sure my brother- ",
"But- stammered Gavin.
"Oh, it's all right!” grumbled Milo, scooping up the
handful of crushed meerschaum. “Let it go at that.
I- "


STRANGER FROM NOWHERE 95
Again, the mocking bird notes fluted forth through
the early evening silences; the melody coming, as
before, from the direction of the grove's hidden path.
Milo stopped short in his sulky speech. Brother and
sister exchanged a swift glance. Then Standish got
to his feet and approached Gavin.
"Here we've kept you up and around, when you're
still too weak to move without help!” he said in very
badly done geniality. “Take my arm, and I'll help
you upstairs. Your room's all ready for you. If
you'd rather, I can carry you. How about it?"
But a perverse imp of mischief entered Gavin Brice's
aching head.
"I'm all right, now," he protested. "I feel fifty
per cent better. I'd much rather stay down here with
you and Miss Standish, for a while; if you don't mind.
My nerves are a bit jumpy, from that crack over the
skull; and I'd like them to quiet down, before I go to
bed.”
Again, he was aware of that look of covert anxiety,
between sister and brother. Claire's big eyes strayed
involuntarily toward the front door. And her lips
parted for some word of urgence. But, before she
could speak, Milo laughed loudly, and caught Gavin
by the arm.
"You've got pluck, Brice!” he cried, admiringly.
"You're ashamed to give up and go to bed. But
you're going, just the same. You're going to get a
good night's rest. I don't intend to have you fall sick,
from that tap I gave you with the wrench. Come on!


STRANGER FROM NOWHERE 97
rising, with strange energy for so dazed and broken
an invalid, he left the room and followed him toward
the head of the stairs. His light foot fall was sound-
less on the matting, as he went.
He reached the top of the stairs, just as Milo ar-
rived at the bottom. Claire was standing in the
veranda doorway, shading her eyes and peering out
into the darkness. But, at sound of her brother's
advancing tread, she turned and ran back to him;
meeting him as he reached the bottom of the stair;
and clasping both hands anxiously about his big fore-
arm.
She seemed about to break out in excited, even
frightened speech; when, chancing to raise her eyes,
she saw Gavin Brice calmly descending from the hall
above. At sight of him, her eyes dilated. Milo had
begun to speak. She put one hand warningly across
her brother's bearded mouth. At the same moment
Gavin, halting midway on the stairs, said with depre-
catory meekness :
"You didn't tell me what time to be ready for break-
fast. I'd hate to be late, and
He got no further. Nor did he seek to. His ears
had been straining to make certain of the ever ap-
proaching sound of footsteps across the lawn. Now,
an impatient tread echoed on the veranda; and a man's
figure blocked the doorway.
The newcomer was slender, graceful, with the form
of an athletic boy, rather than of a mature man. He
was pallid and black eyed. His face had a classic
beauty which, on second glance, was marred by an


98 BLACK CÆSAR'S CLAN
almost snakelike aspect of the small black eyes and a
sinister smile which seemed to hover eternally around
the thin lips. His whole bearing suggested something
serpentine; in its grace and a smoothly 'half-jesting
deadliness.
So much the first glimpse told Brice as he stood
there on the stairs and surveyed the doorway. The
second look showed him the man was clad in a strik-
ingly ornate yachting costume. Gavin's mind, ever
taught to dissect trifles, noted that, in spite of his
yachtsman-garb, the stranger's face was untanned;
and that his long slender hands with their super-
sensitive fingers, were as white and well-cared-for as
a woman's.
Yachting, in Florida waters, at any time of year,
means either a thick coat of tan or an exaggerated
sunburn. This yachtsman had neither.
Scarce taller than a lad of fifteen, yet his slender
figure was sinuous in its every line; and its grace be-
tokened much wiry strength. His face was that of a
man in the early thirties;- all but his eyes. They
looked as old as the Sphinx's.
He stood, for an instant, peering into the room;
trying to focus his night-accustomed eyes to the light.
Evidently, the first objects he saw clearly were Milo
and Claire, standing with their backs to him, as they
stared upward in blank dismay at the guest they had
thought safely disposed of for the night.
"Well ?" queried the man at the door ;-and at sound
of his silken, bantering voice, brother and sister spun
about in surprise, to face him.


STRANGER FROM NOWHERE 99
"Well?" he repeated; and now there was a touch of
cold rebuke in the silken tones. “Is this the way you
keep a lookout for the signals ? I might very well have
walked in on a convention of half of Dade County;
for all the guard that was kept. I compliment "
And now, he broke off short in his sneering reproof;
as his eyes chanced upon Gavin, half way down the
stairs.
For a second or more, no one spoke or moved.
Claire and her brother had an absurdly shamefaced
appearance of two bad children caught in mischief by
a stern and much-feared teacher. Into the black depths
of the stranger's eyes flickered a sudden glint like that
of a striking rattlesnake's. But at once his face was
a slightly-smiling mask, once more. And Gavin was
left doubting whether or not he had really seen that
momentary gleam of murder behind the smiling eyes.
It was Claire who first recovered herself.
"Good evening, Rodney," she said, with a gracious-
ness, which all-but hid her evident nerve strain. "You
stole in on us so suddenly you startled me. Mr.
Brice, this is Mr. Rodney Hade.”
As Gavin bowed civilly and as Hade returned the
salutation with his eternal smile, Milo Standish came
sufficiently out of his own shock of astonishment to
follow his sister's mode of greeting the new visitor.
With the same forced joviality he had used in coercing
Brice to go to bed, he sauntered over to the smiling
Hade; exclaiming: -
“Why, hello, old man! Where did you blow in
from? You must have come across from your house


100 BLACK CÆSAR'S CLAN
on foot. I didn't hear the car. ... I want you to
know Brice, here. I was tackled by a holdup man, out-
side, yonder, a while ago. And he'd have gotten me,
too; if Brice hadn't sailed into him. In the scrimmage
I made a fool of myself, as usual; and slugged the
wrong man with a monkey wrench. Poor Brice's re-
ward, for saving my life, was a broken head. He's
staying the night with us. Hem "
The big man had spoken glibly, but with a nervous-
ness which, more and more, cropped out through his
noisy joviality. Now, under the coldly unwavering
smile of Hade's snakelike eyes, he stammered; and
his booming voice trailed away to a mumble. Again,
Claire sought to mend the rickety situation. But, now,
Gavin Brice forestalled her. Passing one hand over
his bandaged forehead, he said:
"If you'll forgive me having butted in, again, I'll
go up to my room. I'm pretty shaky, you see. I just
wanted to know what time breakfast is to be; and if I
can borrow one of your brother's razors in the morn-
ing."
“Breakfast is at seven o'clock," answered Claire.
“Thats a barbarously early hour, I suppose, for a New
Yorker like you. But down here, from six to ten is
the glorious part of the day. Besides, we're farmers,
you know. Don't bother to try to wake, so early,
please. I'll have your breakfast sent up to you. Good
night."
"I'll look in on you, before I go to bed,” called
Milo, after him, as he started up the stairs for the


STRANGER FROM NOWHERE 101
second time. “And I'll see that shaving things are left
in your bathroom. Good night.”
Hade said nothing; but continued to pierce the un-
bidden guest with those gimlet-like smiling black eyes
of his. His face was expressionless. Gavin returned
to the upper hall, and walked with needless heaviness
toward the room assigned to him. Reaching its door
he opened and then shut it loudly; himself remaining
in the hallway. Scarce had the door slammed, when
he heard, from below, Rodney Hade's voice raised in
the sharp question:
“What does this mean? You've dared to ?
"What the blazes else could I do?" blustered Milo
-though under the bluster ran a thread of placating
timidity. “He saved my life, didn't he? I was tackled
by "
“For one thing," suggested Hade, "you could have
hit a little harder with the wrench. If a blow is worth
hitting at all, it's worth hitting to kill. You have the
strength of an elephant; and the nerve of a sheep."
"Rodney!" protested Claire, indignantly. “Hem "
"I've seen his face, somewhere,” went on Hade, un-
heeding. “I could swear to that. I can't place it, yet.
But I shall. Meantime, get rid of him. And now
I'll hear about this attack on you. ... Come out on
the veranda. This hall reeks of iodine and liniment
and all such stuff. It smells like a hospital ward
Come outside.”
Despite the unvarying sweet smoothness of his dic-
tion, he spoke as if giving orders to a. servant. But
apparently neither of the two Standishes resented his


102 BLACK CÆSAR'S CLAN
dictation. For Brice could hear them follow Hade out
of the house. And from the veranda, presently, came
the booming murmur of Standish's voice in a recital
of some kind.
Gavin reopened his bedroom door and entered.
Shutting the door softly behind him, he made a brief
mental inventory of the room; then undressed and got
into bed. Ten minutes later Miles Standish came into
the room, carrying fresh dressings and a bottle of
lotion. Gavin roused himself from a half-doze and
was duly grateful for the dexterous applying of the
new bandages to his bruised scalp.
"You work like a surgeon,” he told Milo.
"Thanks," returned Standish, drily, making no other
comment on the praise.
His task accomplished, Standish bade his guest a
curt good night; and left the room. A minute later,
Gavin got up and stole to the door to verify a faint
sound he fancied he had heard. And he found he had
been correct in his guess. For the door was locked,
from the outside.
Brice crept to the windows. The room was in dark-
ness; and, unseen, he could look out on the darkness
of the night. As he looked, a faint reddish spot of fire
appeared in the gloom, just at the beginning of the
lawn. Some one, cigar in mouth, was evidently keep-
ing a watch on his room's windows. Gavin smiled to
himself; and went back to bed.
"Door locked, windows guarded," he reflected,
amusedly. “I owe that to Mr. Hade's orders. Seen
me before, has he? I'll bet my year's income he'll


STRANGER FROM NOWHERE 103
never remember where or when or how. At that, he's
clever, even to think he's seen me. It looks as if I had
let myself in for a wakeful time, down here, doesn't
it? But I'm getting the tangled ends all in my hands;
-as fast as I had any right to hope. That rap on the
skull was a godsend. He can't refuse me a job after
my fight for him. No one could. I-oh, if it wasn't
for the girl, this would be great! What can a girl,
with eyes like hers, be doing in a crowd like this?
I'd—I'd have been willing to swear she was-was-
one of the women whom God made. And now !
Still, if a woman lets herself in for this kind of thing,
she can't avoid paying the bill. Only--if I can save
her, without- Oh, I'm turning into a mushy
fool, in my old age! . . . And she sobbed, when she
thought I was killed! ... I've got to get a real
night's rest; if I want to have my wits about me,
to-morrow."
He stretched himself out luxuriously in the cool
bed; and in less than five minutes, he was sleeping as
sweetly and as deeply as a child. Long experience in
the European trenches and elsewhere had taught him
the rare gift of slumbering at will; a gift which had
done much toward keeping his nerves and his facul-
ties in perfect condition. For, sleep is the keynote to
more than mankind realizes.
The sun had risen when Gavin Brice awoke. Apart
from stiffness and a very sore head, his inured system
was little the worse for the evening's misadventures.
A cold shower and a rubdown and a shave, in the


104 BLACK CÆSAR'S CLAN
adjoining bathroom, cleared away the last mists from
his brain.
He dressed, quickly; glanced at his watch and saw the
hour was not quite seven. Then he faced his bedroom
door, and hesitated.
"If he's a born idiot,” he mused, “it's still locked.
If he isn't, it's unlocked and the key has been taken
away. I've made noise enough, while I was dressing."
He turned the knob. The door opened, readily.
The key was gone. In the hallway, outside the room,
and staring up at him from widely shallow green eyes,
sat Simon Cameron, the big Persian cat.
"That's a Persian, all over, Simon my friend," said
Brice, stooping down to scratch the cat's furry head
in greeting. "A Persian will sit for hours in front of
any door that's got a stranger behind it. And he'll
show more flattering affection for a stranger than for
any one he's known all his life. Isn't that true, Simon?"
By way of response, the big cat rubbed himself lux-
uriously against the man's shins; purring loudly. Then,
at a single lithe spring, he was on Gavin's shoulder ;
making queer little whistling noises and rubbing his
head lovingly against Brice's cheek. Gavin made his
way downstairs, the cat still clinging to his shoulder ;
fanning his face with a swishing gray foxlike tail,
digging curved claws back and forth into the cloth of
his shabby coat; and purring like a distant railroad
train.
Only when they reached the lower hallway did the cat
jump from his shoulder and with a flying leap land on
the top of a nearby bookcase. There, luxuriously,


STRANGER FROM NOWHERE 105
Simon Cameron stretched himself out in a shaft of sun-
light; and prepared for a nap.
Brice went on to the veranda. On the lawn, scarce
fifty feet away, Claire was gathering flowers for the
breakfast table. Very sweet and dainty was she in
the flood of morning sunshine; her white dress and
her burnished hair giving back waves of radiance from
the sun's strong beams.
At her side walked Bobby Burns. But, on first
sound of Brice's step on the porch, the collie looked
up and saw him. With a joyous bark of welcome,
Bobby came dashing across the lawn and up the steps.
Leaping and gamboling around Gavin, he set the echoes
ringing with a series of trumpet-barks. The man
paused to pet his adorer and to say a word of friendli-
ness; then ran down the steps toward Claire who was
advancing to meet him. Her arms were full of scarlet
and golden blossoms.
"Are you better?" she called, noting the bandage
on his head had been replaced by a neat strip of plaster.
“I hoped you'd sleep longer. Bobby Burns ran up to
your room and scratched at the door, as soon as I let
him into the house this morning. But I made him come
away again. Are "
"He left a worthy substitute welcoming-committee,
there; in the shape of Simon Cameron,” said Gavin.
"Simon was overwhelmingly cordial to me;for a
Persian. . . . I'm all right again, thanks," he added.
"I had a grand night's rest. It was fine to sleep in a
real bed, again. I hope I'm not late for breakfast?"


106 BLACK CÆSAR'S CLAN
A shade of embarrassment flitted over her eyes;
and she made answer:
"My brother had to go into Miami, on-on business.
So he had breakfast, early. He'll hardly be back be-
fore noon, he says. So you and I will have to break-
fast without him. I hope you don't mind?”
As there seemed no adequate reply to this useless
question, the man contented himself with following her,
wordlessly, into the cool house. She seemed to bring
light and youth and happiness indoors with her; and
the armful of flowers she carried filled the dim hall-
way with perfume.
Breakfast was a simple meal; and soon eaten. Brice
brought to it only a moderate appetite; and was an-
noyed to find his thoughts centering themselves about
the slender white-clad girl across the table from him,
rather than upon his food or even upon his plan of
campaign. He replied in monosyllables to her pleasant
table-talk; and when his eye chanced to meet hers,
he had an odd feeling of guilt.
She was so pretty, so little, so young, so adorably
friendly and innocent in her every look and word!
Something very like a heartache began to manifest
itself in Gavin Brice's supposedly immune breast. And
this annoyed him, more than ever. He told himself
solemnly that this girl was none of the wonderful
things she seemed to be; and that he was an idiot for
feeling as he did.
To shake free from his unwonted reverie, he asked
abruptly, as the meal ended:
“Would you mind telling me why you drew a re-


108 BLACK CÆSAR’S CLAN
spect one of them. We can start whenever you're
ready."
Ten minutes later, they had left the lawn behind
them; and had passed through the hedge into the first
of the chain of citrus groves. In front of them
stretched some fifteen acres of grapefruit trees.
“This is the worst soil we have,” lectured Claire, evi-
dently keenly interested in the theme of agriculture,
and glad of an attentive listener. “It is more coral
rock than anything else. That is why Milo planted it
in grapefruit. Grapefruit will grow where almost
nothing else will, you know. Why, last year wasn't
by any means a banner season. But he made $16,000
in gross profits off this one grapefruit orchard alone.
Of course that was gross, and not net. But it ".
"Is there so much difference between the two ?” he
asked, innocently. “Down here, I mean. Up North,
we have an idea that all you Floridians need do is
to stick a switch into the rich soil; and let it grow.
We picture you as loafing around in dreamy idleness till
it's time to gather your fruit and to sell it at egregious
prices to us poor Northerners.”
"It's a lovely picture," she retorted. “And it's ex-
actly upside down; like most Northern ideas of Flor-
ida. When it comes to picking the fruit and shipping
it North—that's the one time we can loaf. For we
don't pick it or ship it. That's done for us, on con-
tract. It's our lazy time. But every other step is a
fight. For instance, there's the woolly white fly and
there's the rust mite and there's the purple scale, and
there are a million other pests just as bad. And we


STRANGER FROM NOWHERE 109
have to battle with them, all the time. And when we
spray with the pumping engine, the sand is certain to
get into the engine and ruin it. And when we "
"I had no notion that— "
"No Northerners have,” she said, warming to her
theme. “I wish I could set some of them to scrubbing
orange-trunks with soap-and-water, and spraying acre
after acre, as we do; in a wild race to keep up with the
pests;—knowing all the time that some careless grove-
owner next door may let the rust mite or the black
fly get the better of his grove and let it drift over into
ours. Then, there's always the chance that a grove may
get so infected that the government will order it de-
stroyed, -wiped out. . . . I've been talking just about
the citrus fruits ;—the grapefruit and the tangeloes
and oranges and all that. Pretty much the same thing
applies to all our crops, down here. We've as many
blights and pests and weather-troubles as you have in
the North. And, now and then, even in Dade County,
we get a frost that does more damage than a forest
fire."
As she talked, they passed out of the grapefruit
grove; and came to a plantation of orange trees.
“These are the joy of Milo's heart,” she said with
real pride, waving her little hand toward the well-
ranked lines of blossoming and bearing young trees.
“Last year, he cleared up, from this five-acre plot alone,
more than
"Excuse me," put in Gavin. "I don't mean to be
rude. But, since he's made such a fine grove of it
and takes such pride in its looks, why doesn't he send


STRANGER FROM NOWHERE 111
They make a splendid mulch. Wild hay is good, too.
So is straw. But the pine-needles are cheapest and
easiest to get. The rain soaks down through them
into the ground. And they keep the sun from drawing
it back again. Besides, they keep down weeds, in fields
where we don't want weeds. See !" she ended, point-
ing to a new grove they were approaching.
Gavin noted that here the orange tree rows were
alternated with rows of strawberry plants.
"That was an idea of Milo's, too,” she explained.
“It's 'intercrop' farming. And he's done splendidly
with it, so far. He thinks the eel-worm doesn't get
at the berry-plants as readily, here, as in the open; but
he's not sure of that, yet. He's had to plant cowpeas
on one plot, to get rid of it.”
"The experiment of intercropping orange trees with
strawberries isn't new," said Brice, thoughtlessly.
"When the plants are as thick as he's got them here, it's
liable to harm the trees, in the course of time. Two
rows, at most, are all you ought to plant between the
tree-ranks. And that mulch, over there, is a regular
Happy Home for crickets. If Standish isn't care-
ful
The girl was staring up at him in astonishment.
And Gavin was aware for the first time that he had
been thinking aloud.
"You see,” he expounded, smiling vaingloriously
down at her, “I amused myself, at the Miami library
Saturday, by browsing over a sheaf of Government
plant reports. And those two solid facts stuck in my


112 BLACK CÆSAR'S CLAN
memory. Now, won't I be an invaluable aide to your
brother, if I can remember everything else, as easily?"
Still puzzled, she continued to look up at him.
"It's queer that a man who has just come down
here should remember such a technical thing," said
she. “And yesterday, you warned me against letting
Bobby Burns wander in the palmetto scrub; for fear
of rattlesnakes. I- "
"That deep mystery is also easy to solve,” he said.
"In the smoker, on the way South, several men were
telling how they had lost valuable hunting dogs, here-
abouts, from rattlesnakes. I like Bobby Burns. So
I passed along the warning. What are those queer
trees ?” he asked, shifting the dangerous subject. “I
mean the ones that look like a mixture of horse-chest-
nut and "
“Avocadoes,” she answered, interest in the task of
farm-guide making her forget her momentary bewil-
derment at his scraps of local knowledge. “They're
one of our best crops. Sometimes a single avocado
will sell in open market here for as much as forty cents.
There's money in them, nearly always. Good money.
And the spoiled ones are great for the pigs. Then
the Northern market for them-
"Avocadoes ?” he repeated, curiously. "There! Now
you see how much I know about Florida. From this
distance, their fruits look to me exactly like alligator
pears or ”
Again, her laugh interrupted him.
“If only you'd happened to look in one or two more
government reports at the library,” she teased, "you'd


STRANGER FROM NOWHERE 113
ar-
know that an avocado and an alligator pear are the
same thing."
"Anyhow," he boasted, picking up a gold-red fruit
at the edge of a smaller grove, they were passing,
"anyhow, I know what this is; without being told.
I've seen them a hundred times in the New York mar-
kets. This is a tangerine."
"In that statement,” she made judicial reply, "you've
made only two mistakes. You're improving. In the
first place, that isn't a tangerine; though it looks like
one or would if it were half as large. That's a king
orange. In the second place, you've hardly ever seen
them in any New York market. They don't transport
as well as some other varieties. And very few of
them go North. Northerners don't know them. And
they miss a lot. For the king is the most delicious
orange in the world. And it's the trickiest and hardest
for us to raise. See, the skin comes off it as easily
as off of a tangerine; and it breaks apart in the same
way. The rust mite has gotten at this one. See that
russet patch on one side of it? You'll often see it
on oranges that go North. Sometimes, they're russet,
all over. That means the rust mite has dried the oil in
the skin and made the skin thinner and more brittle.
It doesn't seem to injure the taste. But it ".
"There's a grand tree, over toward the road," he
said, his attention wandering. “It must be nearly a
century old. It has the most magnificent sweep of
foliage I've seen since I left the North. What is it?"
“That?" she queried. “Oh, that's another of Milo's
prides. It's an Egyptian fig. 'Ficus Something-or-


114 BLACK CÆSAR'S CLAN,
other.' Isn't it beautiful? But it isn't a century old.
It isn't more than fifteen years old. It grows tremen-
dously fast. Milo has been trying to interest the au-
thorities in Miami in planting lines of them for shade
trees and having them in the city parks. There's
nothing more beautiful. And nothing, except the Aus-
tralian pine, grows faster. . . . There's another of
Milo's delights," she continued, pointing to the left.
"It's ever so old. The natives around here call it 'The
Ghost Tree.'”
They had been moving in a wide circle, through the
groves. Now, approaching the house from the other
side, they came out on a grassy little space, on the
far edge of the lawn. In the center of the space stood
a giant live-oak, towering as high as a royal palm;
and with mighty boughs stretching out in vast sym-
metry on every side. It was a true forest monarch.
And, like many another monarch, it was only a ghost
of its earlier grandeur.
For, from every outflung limb and from every tiniest
twig, hung plumes and festoons and stalactites of gray
moss. For perhaps a hundred years the moss had
been growing thus, on the giant oak; first in little
bunches and trailers that were scarce noticeable and
which affected the forest monarch's appearance and
health not at all.
Then, year by year, the moss had grown and had
taken toll of the bark and sap. At last it had killed
the tree on which it fed. And, its own source of life
being withdrawn, itself had died.
So, now, the gaunt tree with its symmetrical spread


116 BLACK CÆSAR’S CLAN
grove walled in. He's never even let me go in there.
SA "
A deafening salvo of barks from Bobby Burns broke
in on her recital. The collie had caught sight of Si-
mon Cameron, mincing along the lawn; and he gave
rapturous and rackety chase. Claire ran after them,
crying out to the dog to desist. And Gavin took ad-
vantage of the brief instant when her back was turned
to him.
His fingers, in slipping along the wall, had encoun-
tered a rotting spot at the juncture of two palings.
Pushing sharply against this, he forced a fragment of
the decayed wood inward. Then, quickly, he shoved
aside the tangle of vines and applied one eye to the
tiny aperture.
"A secret orange-grove, eh?” he gasped, under his
breath. “Good Lord! Was she lying to me or did
she actually believe him when he lied to her?”


CHAPTER V
TRAPS AND TRAPPER


120 BLACK CÆSAR'S CLAN
sand-barren, scattered with gaunt pines and floored
with harsh palmetto-scrub. Strewn here and there,
through this sandy expanse, lovely oases, locally known
as “hammocks”; usually in hollows; and consisting of
several acres of rich soil, where tropic and sub-tropic
trees grow as luxuriantly as in a jungle; where un-
dergrowth and vine run riot; where orchid and air-
plant and wondrous-hued flowers blaze through the
green gloom of interlaced foliage.
This, roughly, is a bird's-eye glimpse of the south-
eastern stretch of Florida; a region of glory and
glow and fortunes and mystery. (Which is perhaps
a momentary digression from our story; but will serve,
for all that, to fix its setting more vividly in the eyes
of the mind.)
When Milo Standish came back from Miami, that
noon, he professed much loud-voiced joy at seeing his
guest so well recovered from the night's mishaps. At
lunch, he suggested:
"I am running across to Roustabout Key, this after-
noon, in the launch. It's an island I bought, a few
years ago. I keep a handful of men there, to work a
grapefruit grove and a mango orchard and some other
stuff I've planted. I go over to it, every week or so.
Would you care to come along ?”.
He spoke with elaborate carelessness; and looked
anywhere except at his guest. Gavin, not appearing
to note the concealed nervousness of his host's voice
and manner, gave eager consent. And, at two o'clock,
they set forth.


TRAPS AND TRAPPER 121
.
They drove, in Milo's car, a half-mile or more to
southwestward, along the road which fronted the house.
Then, turning into a sand byway which ran crookedly
at right angles to it, and which skirted the southern end
of the mangrove-swamp, they headed for the sea. An-
other half-mile brought them to a handkerchief-sized
beach; much like that on the other side of the swamp,
where Gavin had found the hidden path. Here, on
mangrove-wood piles, was a short pier, with a boat-
house at its far end.
“I keep my launch and my fishing-boats in there,”
explained Milo, as he climbed out of the car. “If it
wasn't for that pesky swamp, I could have had this
pier directly back of my house; and saved a lot of dis-
tance.”
“Why not cut a road through the swamp?" sug-
gested Brice, following him along the pier.
Again Standish gave vent to that great laugh of
his;-a laugh outwardly jovial; but as hollow as a
shell.
“Young man,” said he, "if ever you try to cut your
way through an East Coast mangrove-swamp, you'll
find out just how silly that question is. A swamp, like
that, might as well be a quick-sand; for all the chance
a mortal has of traveling through it.”
Gavin made no reply. Again, he was visualizing the
cleverly engineered path from the beach-edge to Milo's
lawn. And he recalled Claire's unspoken plea that he
say nothing to Standish about his chance discovery of
it. He remembered, too, the night-song of the mock-


122 BLACK CÆSAR'S CLAN
ing-bird, from the direction of that path; and the ad-
vent of Rodney Hade from it.
Milo had unlocked the boat-house; and was at work
over a fifteen-foot steel motorboat which was slung
on chains above the water. A winch and well-con-
structed pulleys-and-chains made simple the labor of
launching it in so quiet a sea.
Out they fared, into the gleaming sunlit waters of
the bay. Far to eastward gleamed the white city of
Miami; and nearer, across the bay from it, the emerald
stretch of key, with Cape Florida and the old Span-
ish Light on its southern point and the exquisite “gol-
den house” of Mashta shining midway down its shore-
line. Miles to eastward gleamed the gray viaduct;
the grain elevator outlines of the Flamingo rising yel-
low above a fire-blue sea.
"I used to hear great stories about this region, years
ago," volunteered Brice, as the launch danced over the
transparent water, past Ragged Keys, and bore south-
ward. “I heard them from a chap who used to win-
ter hereabouts. It was he who first interested me in
Florida. He says these keys and inlets and changing
channels used to be the haunts of Spanish Main
pirates."
"They were," said Milo. "The pirates knew these
waters. The average merchant skipper didn't. They'd
build signal flares on the keys, to lure ships onto the
rocks; and then loot them. At least, that was the
everyday (or everynight) amusement of their less ven-
turesome members and their women and children. The
more adventurous used to overhaul vessels, skirting the


TRAPS AND TRAPPER 123
coast, to and from Cuba and Central America. They'd
sally out from their hiding-places among the keys and
lie in wait for the merchant-ships. If the prey was
weak enough they'd board and ransack her and make
her crew walk the plank;-(that's how Aaron Burr's
beautiful daughter is supposed to have died, on her
way North, you know;)—and if the ship showed fight
or seemed too tough a handful, the pirates hit on a
surer way of capture. They'd turn tail and run. The
merchant ship would give chase; for there were fat
rewards out for the capture of the sea rovers, you
know. The pirates would head for some strip of water
that seemed perfectly navigable. The ship would fol-
low; and would pile up on a sunken reef that the
pirates had just steered around."
“Clever work!"
"They were a thrifty and shrewd crowd, those old-
time black-flaggers. After they were wiped out, the
wreckers still reaped their fine harvest by signaling
ships onto reefs at night. Their descendants live down
among some of the keys, still. We call them 'conchs,'
around here. They're an illiterate, uncivilized, furtive,
eccentric lot. And they pick up some sort of living
off wrecked ships and off what cargo washes ashore
from the wrecks. A missionary went down there and
tried to convert them. He found the 'conch' children
already had religion enough to pray, every night, ‘Lord,
send a wreck! The conchs gather a lot of plun-
der, every year. They- ".
“Do they sell it, or claim salvage on it, or ?"
"Not they. That would call for too much brain


124 BLACK CÆSAR’S CLAN
and education and for mixing with civilization. They
wear it, or put it to any crazy use they can think of.
For instance, fifty sewing-machines were in the cargo
of a tramp steamer, bound from Charleston to Brazil,
one winter. She ran ashore, a few miles south of
here. The conchs got busy with the plunder. The
cargo was a veritable godsend to them. They used
the sewing machines as anchors for their boats. An-
other time, a box of shoes washed ashore. They were
left-hand shoes, all of them. The right-hand box
must have landed somewhere else. And a hundred
conchs blossomed forth with brand new shoes. They
could wear the left shoe, of course; with no special
bother. And they slit down the vamp of the shoe they
put on the right foot; so their toes could stick out and
not be cramped. A good many people think they still
lure ships ashore, by flares. But the lighthouse service
has pretty well put a stop to that.”
"This chap I was speaking about,—the fellow who
told me so much about this region,” said Gavin, “told
me there is supposed to be pirate gold buried in more
than one of these keys.”
"Rot!" snorted Milo, with needless vehemence. "All
poppycock! Look at it, sanely, for a minute; and
you'll see that all the yarns of pirate gold—including
Captain Kidd's—are rank idiocy. In the first place, the
pirates never seized any such fabulous sums of money
as they were credited with. The bullion ships always
went under heavy man-o'-war escort. When pirates
looted some fairly rich merchant ship, there were
dozens of men to divide the plunder among. And they


TRAPS AND TRAPPER 125
sailed to the nearest safe port, to blow it all on an
orgy. Of course, once in a blue moon, they buried
or hid the valuables they got from one ship, while
they went after another. And if they chanced to sink,
or be captured and hanged, during such a raid, the
treasure remained hidden. If they survived, they
blew it. That's the one off-chance of there ever being
any buried pirate treasure. And there would be pre-
cious little of it, at that. A few hundred dollars worth,
at most. No, Brice, this everlasting legend of buried
treasure is fine, in a sea-yarn. But in real life it's
buncombe."
"But this same man told me there were stories of
bullion ships and even more modern vessels carrying a
money cargo, that sank in these waters, during storms
or from running into reefs,” pursued Brice, with no
great show of interest; as he leaned far overside for
a second glimpse at a school of five-foot baracuda
which lay basking on the snowy surface of the sand,
two fathoms below the boat. “That, at least, sounds
probable, doesn't it?”.
"No," snapped Milo, flushing angrily, and his brow
creasing, “it doesn't. These water are traversed, every
year by thousands of craft of all sizes. The water is
crystal clear. Any wrecked ship could be seen at the
bottom. Why, everybody has seen the hull of that old
tramp steamer, a few miles above here. It's in deep
water, at that. What chance ?"
“Yet there are hundreds of such stories afloat,” per-
sisted Brice. "And there are more yarns of buried
treasure among the keys than there are keys. For in-


126 BLACK CÆSAR’S CLAN
stance, didn't old Cæsar, the negro pirate, hang out
here, somewhere?”
Milo laughed again; this time with a maddening
tolerance.
"Oh, Cæsar ?'' said he. “To be sure. He's as much
a legend of these keys as Lafitte is of New Orleans.
He was an escaped slave; who scraped together a
dozen fellow-ruffians, black and white and yellow
mostly yellow-about a century ago; and stole a long-
boat or a broken-down sloop; and started in at the
trade of pirate. He didn't last long. And there's no
proof he ever had any special success. But he's the
sea-hero of the conchs. They've named a key and a
so-called creek after him; and in my father's time,
there used to be an old iron ring in a bowlder, known
as 'Cæsar's Rock.' The ring was probably put there
by oystermen. But the conchs insisted Cæsar used
to tie up there. Then there's the 'Pirates' Punchbowl,'
off Coconut Grove. Cæsar is supposed to have dug
that. He "
An enormous sailfish-dazzlingly metallic blue and
silver-broke from the calm water, just ahead; and
whirled high in air; smiting the bay again with a
splash that sounded like a gunshot.
“That fellow must have been close to seven feet
long," commented Milo, as the two men watched the
churned water where the fish had struck. "He's the
kind you see, when you aren't trolling. He's after a
school of ballyhoos or mossbunkers. ... There's
Roustabout Key. Just ahead," he finished, as their
launch rounded an outcrop of rock and came in view


128 BLACK CÆSAR'S CLAN
turist. Yet, despite this eccentricity of aspect, some-
thing about the obsequiously hurrying man struck
Brice as familiar. And, all at once, he recognized him.
This was the big beach comber with whom Gavin had
fought, barely twenty-four hours earlier. The man
bore bruises and swellings a-plenty, on his rugged fea-
tures; where Brice's whalebone blows had crashed.
And they had distorted his face almost past recogni-
tion. He moved, too, with manifest discomfort; as if
all his huge body were as sore as his visage.
"Hello, Roke!" hailed Milo, genially; then, in amaze,
"what in thunder have you been doing to yourself?
Been trying to stop the East Coast Flyer? Or did
you just get into an argument with one of the channel
dredges?"
"Fell,” said Roke, succinctly, jerking his thumb back
toward the corrugated iron hut. “Climbed my roof
to mend a leak. Fell. My face hit every bump. Then
I landed on a pile of coconuts. I'm sore all over.
I- "
He gurgled, mouthingly; as his swollen eyes chanced
to light on Gavin Brice, who was just following Milo
from the launch to the float. And his discolored and
unshaven jaw went slack.
"Oh, Brice," said Standish, carelessly. “This is my
foreman here;-Perry Roke. As a rule he looks like
other people; except that he's bigger. Just now, his
cravings for falling off corrugated roofs have done
things to his face. Shake hands with him. If you like
the job I'm going to offer you, he and you will be side-
partners over here."


TRAPS AND TRAPPER 129
Gavin faced his recent adversary; grinning pleasantly
up at the battered and scowling face; and noting that
the knife-sheath at Roke's hip was still empty.
"Hello!” he said, civilly, offering his hand.
Roke gulped, again; went purple; and, with sud-
den furious vehemence, grabbed at the proffered hand;
enfolding it in his own monstrous grip in an industri-
ous attempt to smash'its every bone.
But, reading the intent with perfect ease, Brice
shifted his own hand, ever so little and, with nimbly
practised fingers, eluded the crushing clasp; at the
same time slipping his thumb over the heel of Roke's
clutching right hand and letting his three middle
fingers meet at the exact center of that hand's back.
Then, tightening his hold, he gave an almost imper-
ceptible twist. It was one of the first and the simplest
of the tricks his jiu-jitsu instructor had taught him.
And, as ever with an opponent not prepared for it,
the grip served.
To the heedlessly watching Standish, he seemed
merely to be accepting the invitation to shake hands
with Roke. But, the next instant, under the apparently
harmless contact, Roke's big body veered sharply to
one side, from the hips upward; and a bellow of rag-
ing pain broke from his puffed lips.
“Oh, I beg your pardon!” cried Brice in quick con-
trition. “You must have hurt your hand, when you
fell off that roof. I'm sorry if I made it worse.”
Nursing his wrenched wrist, Roke glowered hide
ously at the smiling Gavin. Brice could feel no com-
punction for his own behavior. For he remembered


130 BLACK CÆSAR’S CLAN
the hurled knife and the brutal kicking of the dog.
Yet, he repented him of the hand-twisting trick. For,
if he and Roke were expected to work together, as Milo
had said, he had certainly made a most unfortunate
beginning to their acquaintanceship; and just now he
had added new and painful aggravation to his earlier
offense.
Milo was surveying the sufferer with no great pity;
as Roke bent over his hurt wrist.
"Too bad !" commented Standish. “I suppose that
will put a crimp in your violin-playing for a while.”
Turning to Gavin, who looked in new surprise at
the giant on hearing of this unexpected accomplish-
ment, Milo explained:
"I hired Roke to run this key for me and keep the
conchs and the coons at work. But I've got a pretty
straight tip that, as soon as my back is turned, he cuts
indoors and spends most of his day whanging at that
disreputable old violin of his. And when Rodney
Hade comes over here, I can't get a lick of work out
of Roke, for love or money. Hade is one of the best
amateur violinists in America; and he's daft on playing.
He drops in here, every now and then-he has an in-
terest with me in the groves—and as soon as he
catches sight of Roke's violin, he starts playing it.
That means no more work out of Roke, till Hade
chooses to stop. He just stands, with his mouth wide
open ;-hypnotized. Can't drag him away, for a
second. Hey, Roke?”
Roke had ceased nursing his wrist and had listened


TRAPS AND TRAPPER 131
with sheepish amusement to his employer's guying.
But at this question, he made answer:
"I'm here, now."
He jerked the thumb of his uninjured hand toward
a spic-and-span launch which lay moored between two
sodden scows; and then nodded in the direction of the
corrugated iron hut, among the trees.
Listening—though the wind set the wrong way for
it-Brice could hear faintly the strains of a violin,
played ever so softly and with a golden wealth of
sweetness. Even at that distance, by listening closely,
he could make out a phrase or so of Dvorak's "Hia-
watha' music from the "New World Symphony."
Milo's loud laugh broke in on his audition and on the
suddenly rapt look upon Roke's bruised face.
"Come along!” said Standish, leading the way
toward the house. “Music's a fine thing, I'm told.
But it doesn't spray a grapefruit orchard or keep
the scale off of mango trees. Come up to the house.
I want to show you over the island and have a chat
with you about the job I have in mind."
As Milo strode on, the two others fell in step be-
hind him. Brice lowered his voice and said to the
sulking Roke:
"That collie belongs to Mr. Standish. I did you a
good turn, it seems, by keeping you from stealing him.
You'd have been in a worse fix than you are, now;
if Mr. Standish had come over here to-day and found
him on the island.”
Roke did not deign to reply; but moved a little far-
ther from the speaker.


TRAPS AND TRAPPER 122
133
"You saw me, last night,” returned Gavin, still won-
dering at this man's dictatorial attitude toward the ag-
gressive Milo Standish, and at Milo's almost cringing
acceptance of it. “I was at the Standishes, I was
just starting for bed when you dropped in. Miss
Standish introduced
"I'm not speaking about last night,” curtly inter-
rupted Hade; though his voice was as soft as ever and
his masklike face was set in its everlasting smile. "I
mean, where did I run across you, before last night?"
"Well, Mr. Bones," answered Gavin, with flippant
insolence. “Dat am de question propounded. Where
did you-all run acrost me, befo' las' night?”
Milo and Roke stirred convulsively; as if scandal-
ized that any one should dare speak with such impu-
dence to Hade. Rodney himself all but lost the eternal
smile from his thin lips: and his voice was less suave
than usual as he said:
"I don't care for impertinence;-especially from em-
ployees. You will bear that in mind. Now, you will
answer my question. Where did I see you?”
“If you can't remember,” countered Gavin, "you can
hardly expect me to. I live in New York. I have
lived there or thereabouts for a number of years. I
was overseas-stationed at Bordeaux and then at
Brest-for a few months in 1918. As a boy I lived
on my father's farm in northern New York State;
near Manlius. That's the best answer I can give you.
If it will make you recall where you've seen memmall
right. If not, I'm afraid I can't help you out. In
any case, what does it matter? I don't claim to be


134 BLACK CÆSAR'S CLAN
anybody especial. I have no references. Mr. Standish
knows that. If he's willing to give me some sort of job
in spite of such drawbacks, it seems to be entirely his
affair."
"The job I had-have-in mind for you," spoke up
Milo, at a glance from Hade, "is on this key, here.
I need an extra man in the main storehouse; to oversee
the roustabouts there. At this season, Roke is too busy
outdoors to keep the right kind of eye on them. The
pay won't be large, to start with. But, if you make
good at it, I may have something better to offer you, on
the mainland. Or I may not. In any case, I under-
stand this is only a stopgap, for you; and that you are
down here for your health. If you are interested in
the idea, well and good. If not- ".
He paused and glanced at Hade as if for prompting.
Throughout his harangue, Standish had given Brice
the impression of a man who recites a lesson taught
him by another. Now Hade took up the tale.
"I think,” said he, smilingly-his momentary impa-
tience gone“I think, before answering—in fact be-
fore coming down to terms and other details—you
might perhaps care to stroll around the island a little;
and get an idea of it for yourself. It may be you
won't care to stay here. It may be you will like it
very much. Mr. Standish and I have some routine
business to talk over with Roke. Suppose you take
a walk over the place? Roke, assign one of the men
to go with him and show him around.”
With instant obedience, Roke started for the door.
Indeed, he had almost reached it, before Hade ceased


TRAPS AND TRAPPER 135
speaking. Gavin raised his brows at this swift antici-
pation of orders. And, into his mind came an odd
thought
"You seemed surprised to see me, this afternoon,"
said he as he followed Roke to the porch and closed the:
door behind them. "Yet Mr. Hade had told you I
was coming here. He had told you; and he had told
you to have some one ready to show me over the
island.”
As he spoke, Gavin indicated with a nod a man who
was trotting across the sandy clearing toward them.
"Didn't know it was you!" grunted Roke, too sur-
prised by the direct assertion, to fence. "Said some
feller would come with Mr. Standish. Hem How'd.
you know he told me?” he demanded in sudden angry
bewilderment.
"There !” exclaimed Gavin, admiringly. “I knew
we'd chat along as lovingly as two turtle doves, when
once we'd get really started. You're quite a talker,
when you want to be, Rokie my lad! If only you
didn't speak as if you were trying to save words on
a telegram. Here's the chap you'd ordered to be cruis-
ing in the offing as my escort, eh?” as the barefoot
roustabout reached the porch. “All right. Good-by.”
Leaving the grumbling and muttering Roke scowling
after him, Brice stepped out onto the sand to meet
the newcomer. The roustabout, apparently, belonged
to the conch tribe of which Milo had spoken. Thin,
undersized, swarthy, with features that showed a trace
of negro and perhaps of Indian blood as well, he had
a furtive manner and seemed to cringe away from the


TRAPS AND TRAPPER 137
Hade's; and that Hade's doing it to have a bit of fun
with you. So I'm to lead you around awhile; showing
you the plant and such. Then I'm to take you to the
second storage hut and tell you we've got a new kind
of avocado stored in there; and let you go in ahead of
me; and I'm to slam the spring-lock door on you."
“H'm! That all, Davy?"
“Yes, sir. Except of course that it's a lie. Hade
don't play jokes or have fun with any one. If he's
trying to keep you locked up here a while, it's most
likely a sign he don't want you on the mainland, for
some reason. Maybe that sounds foolish. But it's
all the head or tail I can make out of it, sir."
"It doesn't ‘sound foolish,'” contradicted Brice.
“As it happens, it's just what he wants to do. I don't
know just why. But I mean to find out. He wants me
away from a house over there. A house I had a lot
of trouble in getting a foothold in. It's taken me the
best part of a month. And, now I don't mean to spend
another month in getting back there."
"No, sir,” said Davy, respectfully; still plodding on,
in front, and with head and shoulders bent. "No, sir.
Of course. But if you'll let me ask, sir-does Hade
know? Does he suspicion you? If that's why he's
framed this, then Roustabout Key is no place for you.
No more is Dade County. He ".
"No," returned Gavin, smiling at the real terror that
had crept into the other's tone. "He doesn't know.
And I'm sure he doesn't suspect. But he has a nu-
tion he's seen me, somewhere. And he's a man who
doesn't take chances. Besides, he wants me away,


138 BLACK CÆSAR’S CLAN
from the Standish house. He wants every outsider
away from it. And I knew this would be the likeliest
place for him to maroon me. That's why I sent you
word. ... I'm a bit wobbly in my beliefs about the
Standishes ;-one of them, anyhow. Now, where's this
storehouse prison of mine?"
"Over there, sir, to the right. But- ".
“Take me over there. And walk slowly. I've some
things to say to you, on the way; and I want you to
get them straight, in your memory."
“Yes, sir," answered the conch; shifting his course,
so as to bring his steps in a roundabout way toward
the squat storeroom. “And, before you begin, there's
an extra key to the room, under the second packing
box to the right. I made it from Roke's own key,
when I made duplicates of all the keys here. I put it
there this morning. In case you should want to get
out, you can say you found it lying on the floor there.
I rusted all the keys I made, so they look old. He'll
likely think it's an extra key that was lost somewhere
in there."
"Thanks,” said Gavin. “You're a good boy. And
you've got sense. Now listen :-"
Talking swiftly and earnestly, he followed Davy
toward the square little iron building; the conch out-
wardly making no sign that he heard. For, not many
yards away, a handful of conchs and negroes were at
work on a half-completed shed.
Davy came to the store-room door; and opened
it. Then, turning to Brice, he said aloud, in the
wretched dialect of his class :


TRAPS AND TRAPPER 139
"Funny avocado fruits all pile up in yon. Mighty
funny. Make yo’ laugh. Want to go see? Look!"
He swung wide the iron door and pointed to the al-
most totally dark interior.
“Funny to see, in yon," he said invitingly. "Never
see any like 'em, befo'. I strike light for you. Arter
you, my boss."
One or two men working on the nearby shed had
stopped their labor and were glancing covertly toward
them.
"Oh, all right!” agreed Brice, his uninterested voice
carrying well, though it was not noticeably raised. "It
seems a stuffy sort of hole. But I'll take a look at it,
if you like. Where's that light you're going to strike?
It " .
As he spoke, he sauntered into the storeroom. His
lazy speech was cut short by the clangorous slam-
ming of the iron door behind him. Conscientiously
he pounded on the iron, and yelled wrathful commands
to Davy to open. Then, when he thought he had
made noise enough to add verity to his rôle and to free
the conch from any onlooker's suspicion, he desisted.
Groping his way through the dimness, to the nearest
box, he sat down, philosophically, to wait.
"Well," he mused, sniffing in no approval at all at
the musty air of the place, and peering up at the single
eight-inch barred window that served more for ven-
tilation than for light, "Well, here we are. And here,
presumably, we stay; till Standish and Hade go back
to the mainland. Then I'm to be let out, by Roke,
with many apologies for Davy's mistake. There'll


140 BLACK CÆSAR’S CLAN
be no way of getting back. The boats will be hidden
or padlocked. And here I'll stay, with Roke for a
chum, till whatever is going on at Standish's house is
safely finished with. It's a pretty program. If I can
get away, to-night, without Roke's finding it out till
morning-
His eyes were beginning to accustom themselves to
the room. Its corners and farther reaches and most
of its floor were still invisible. But, by straining his
gaze, he could just make out the shapes of a crate or
two and several packing boxes, close to the wall. The
central space was clear. In spite of the stuffiness,
there was a damp chill to the gloomy place; by contrast
to the vivid sunlight and the sweep of the trade-winds,
outside.
Gavin stretched himself out at full length on the long
box; and prepared to take a nap. First, he reached
toward the next box-the one under which Davy had
told him the key was hidden--and moved it an inch or
so, to make certain it was not full enough to cause him
any especial effort in case he should not be released until
next day and should have need of the key. Then, he
shut his eyes; and let himself drift toward slum-
ber.
It was perhaps two hours later when he was roused
from a light doze, by hearing something strike the
concrete floor of his prison, not six feet from his
head. The thing had fallen with a slithering, uneven
sound; such as might be made by the dropping of a
short length of rope.


TRAPS AND TRAPPER 141
Brice sat up. He noted that the room was no longer
light enough to see across. And he glanced in the di-
rection of the window. Its narrow space was blocked
by something. And as he looked, he heard a second
object slither to the floor.
"Some one's dropping things down here, through that
ventilator," he conjectured
And, at the same moment a third fall sounded, fol-
lowed almost at once by a fourth. Then, for a second,
the window space was clear; only to be blocked again,
as the person outside returned to his post. And, in
quick succession, three more objects were sent slither-
ing down to the floor. After which, the window was
cleared once more; and Brice could hear receding steps.
But he gave no heed to the steps. For, as the last
of the unseen things had been slid through the aper-
ture, another sound had focused all his attention; and
had sent queer little quivers up his spine.
The sound had been a long-drawn hiss.
And Gavin Brice understood. Now he knew why
the softly falling bodies had slithered so oddly down
the short distance between window and floor. And he
read aright the slippery crawling little noises that had
been assailing his ears.
The unseen man, outside, had thrust through the ven-
tilator not less than seven or eight snakes; carried
thither, presumably, in bags.
Crouching on his long box, Gavin peered about him.
Faintly, against the dense gray of the shadowy floor,
he could see thick ropelike forms twisting sinuously


142 BLACK CÆSAR'S CLAN
to and fro; as if exploring their new quarters or seek-
ing exit. More than once, as these chanced to cross one
another's path, that same long-drawn hiss quavered
out into the dark silences.
And now, Brice's nostrils were assailed by a sick-
ening smell, as of crushed cucumbers. And at the
odor, his fists tightened, in new fear. For, no ser-
pents give off that peculiar odor, except members of
the pit-viper family.
'They're not rattlesnakes," he told himself. “For
a scared or angry rattler would have this room vibrat-
ing with his whirr. We're too far south for copper-
heads. The the only other pit-viper I ever heard of
in Florida is the cotton-mouth moccasin!”
At the realization, he was aware of a wave of physi-
cal terror that swept him like a breath of ice.
Without restoratives at hand, the moccasin's bite is
certain death. The plan had been well thought out. At
the very first step, the frantic prisoner might reasonably
be relied on to encounter one or more of the crawling
horrors. The box on which he crouched was barely
eighteen inches high. The next box-under which
rested the key—was several feet away. The door was
still farther off.
Truly, Standish and Hade appeared to have hit on
an excellent plan for getting rid of the man they
wanted out of the way! It would be so easy for Roke
to explain to possible inquirers that Brice had chanced
to tread on a poisonous snake, in his wanderings about
the key!


CHAPTER VI
IN THE DAY OF BATTLE





CHAPTER VI
IN THE DAY OF BATTLE
A S Gavin Brice sat, with feet drawn up under him,
11 listening to the gruesome slither of the mocca-
sins along the concrete floor just below, he was
gripped, for a minute, by irresistible terror.
It was all so simpleso complete! And he had been
calmly self-confident of his ability to command the situ-
ation ;-to play these people's own game and to beat
them at it. Grinning and open-eyed, he had marched
into the trap. He had been glad to let Hade and
Standish think him safely out of their way; and had
planned so confidently to return by stealth to the main-
land that night and to Milo's house!
And now—they had had absolutely no difficulty in
caging him; and in arranging that he should be put
forever out of their way. The most stringent inquiry
-should any such be made—could only show that he
had been bitten once or more by a deadly snake. Any
post-mortem would bear out the statement.
It was known to every one that many of the keys
even several miles from the mainland-are infested
by rattlesnakes and by other serpents; though how
such snakes ever got to the islands is as much of a
mystery to the naturalist world as is the presence of
147


IN THE DAY OF BATTLE 149
rich at his filthy trade of selling out his country's se..
crets, and who had been caught at last by merest chance.
The prisoner had glanced smilingly about the half-lit
room, as he came in. For the barest fraction of a
second, his gaze had flickered over Gavin Brice and
the three other officers who stood there in the shadow.
Then, with that same easy, confident smile on his mask-
like, pallid face, the spy had turned his glittering black
eyes on the officers at the courtmartial table.
"Gentlemen," he had said, amusedly, "you need
not go through the farce of trying me. I am guilty.
I say this with no bravado and with no fear. Because
the bullet has never been molded and the rope has
never been plaited that can kill me. And the cell is not
yet made that can hold me.”
He had said it smilingly; and in a velvet suave
voice. Yes, and he had made good his boast. For
condemned to die at daylight-he had escaped from his
ill-constructed prison room in the chateau, a little be-
fore dawn; and had gotten clean away, after killing
one of his guards.
"He never set eyes on me, except for that instant,
there in the shadows,” Brice found himself reflecting
for the hundredth time. "And there were all the
others with me. Yet, last night, he recalled my face.
It's lucky he didn't recall where he'd seen it. Or-
perhaps he did.”
With a start, he came out of his half-hypnotic daze;
-a daze which had endured but a few seconds. And
once more his rallying will-power and senses made


IN THE DAY OF BATTLE 151
First, the key must be found. Then the door must
be reached and opened. In the way of both enterprises
writhed a half dozen or more deadly snakes. And to
the problem of winning past them alive and getting
to his enemy, Gavin Brice bent his trained faculties.
The box whereon he sat was covered with loose
boards, nailed down only at one end; a long strip of
thin iron or copper binding the one unopened edge. So
much his groping fingers told him. Moving to one
corner of the box top, he pushed aside a board and
plunged his hand into the interior. It was as he had
hoped. According to custom, when the box had been
emptied, the jute and shredded paper stuffing of its con-
tents had been thrust back into it, for future use.
Feverishly, Gavin began to pull forth great handfuls
of paper and of excelsior. These he piled onto the
box top. Then, exerting all his skilled strength, he
tugged at the narrow iron strip which bound, length-
wise, one side of the box.
This task was by no means easy; for the nails were
long. And the iron's sharp edges cut cruelly into the
tugging fingers. But, inch by inch, he tore it free.
And, at the end of three minutes he was strengthening
and testing a willowy five-foot strip of metal. Laying
this across his knees, and fishing up another double
handful of the packing paper and jute, he groped in
his pockets with bleeding fingertips; for a match.
He found but one. Holding it tenderly, he scraped
its surface against his nail;—a trick he had picked up
in the army. The sulphur snapped and ignited; the
wooden sliver burning freely in that windless air.


152 BLACK CÆSAR'S CLAN
Giving it a good start, he touched the point of flame
to the piled jute and paper in front of him. It caught,
in an instant. Still holding the lighted match, he re-
peated this ticklish process, time after time; tossing
handfuls of the blazing stuff down onto the floor at
his side.
In two minutes more, he had a gayly-flaming pile of
inflammable material burning high there. Its gleam
lightened every inch of the gloomy room. It brought
out into hideous clearness the writhing dark bodies of
the crawling moccasins; even to the patches of white
at their lips which gave them their sinister name of
"cottonmouths." Fat and short and horrible to look
upon, they were; as they slithered and twisted here
and there along the bright-lit floor or coiled and hissed
at sight of the flame and of the fast plying hand and arm
of the captive just above them.
But Brice had scant eyes or heed for them. Now
that his blaze was started past danger of easy ex-
tinction, he plunged both hands again into the box.
And now, two handfuls at a time, he began to cast forth
more and more of the stuffing.
With careful aim, he threw it. Presently, there was
a wide line of jute and paper extending from the main
blaze across to the next box. Then, another began to
pile up, in an opposite direction, toward the door. The
fire ran greedily along these two lines of fuel.
Meantime, the room was no longer so clearly lighted
as at first. For, the smoke billowed up to the low roof;
and in thick waves poured out through the small ven-
tilator. Such of it as could not find this means of
6
.


IN THE DAY OF BATTLE 153
outlet doubled back, floorward; filling the room with
chokingly thick fumes which wellnigh blinded and
strangled the man, and blotted out all details of shape
and direction. .
But, already, Gavin Brice had slipped to the floor;
his thin-shod feet planted in the midst of the blaze;
whose flames and sparks licked eagerly at his ankles
and legs.
Following the trail of fire which led to the box, Gavin
strode through the very center of this blazing path;
heedless of the burns. Well did he know the snakes
would shrink away from actual contact with the
fire. And he preferred surface burns to a fatal bite
in ankle or foot.
As he reached the box, its corners had already
caught fire from the licking flames below. Heaving
up the burning receptacle, Brice looked under it. There
lay the rusty key, just visible through the lurid smoke
glare. But, not ten inches away from the far side of
it, coiled a moccasin; head poised threateningly, as the
box grazed it under Gavin's sharp heave.
Stooping, Brice snatched up a great bunch of the
flaming paper and flung it on the serpent's shining
coils. In practically the same gesture he reached with
lightning quickness for the key.
By a few inches he had missed his hurried aim for
the moccasin. He had intended the handful of fire to
land on the floor just in front of it; thus causing it to
shrink back. Instead, the burning particles had fallen
stingingly among its coils.
The snake twisted its arrow-shaped head, as if to


IN THE DAY OF BATTLE 155
wrenched from the box as a possible weapon. And,
though the impact cut Brice's fingers afresh, the snake
lay twisting wildly and harmlessly, with a cloven spine.
Over the writhing body sprang Gavin Brice and
out into the sandy open; filling his smoke-tortured
lungs with the fresh sunset air, and blinking away
the smoke-damp from his stinging eyes.
It was then he beheld, running toward him, three
men. Far in the van was Roke-his attention no
doubt having been caught by the smoke pouring through
the ventilator. The two others were an undersized
conch and a towering Bahama negro. All three carried
clubs; and a pistol glittered in Roke's left hand.
Ten feet from the reeling Gavin, Roke opened fire.
But, as he did not halt when he pulled trigger, his
shot went wild. Before he could shoot again or bring
his club into action, Brice was upon him. Gavin smote
once and once only, with the willowy metal strip. But
he struck with all the dazzling speed of a trained saber
fencer.
The iron strip caught Roke across the eyes, smart-
ingly and with a force which blinded him for the mo-
ment and sent him staggering back in keen pain. The
iron strip doubled uselessly under the might of the
blow; and Gavin dropped it and ran.
At top speed he set off toward the dock. The conch
and the negro were between him and the pier; and
from various directions other men were running. But
only the Bahaman and the little conch barred his actual
line of progress. Both leaped at him, at the same time;
as he came dashing down on them.


156 BLACK CÆSAR’S CLAN
The conch was a yard or so in front of the negro.
And now the fugitive saw the Bahaman's supposed
cudgel was an iron crowbar which he wielded as easily
as a wand. The negro leaped and at the same time
struck. But, by some queer chance, the conch, a yard
ahead of him, lost his own footing in the shifty sand,
just then, and tumbled headlong.
He fell directly in the Bahaman's path. The negro
stumbled over him and plunged earthward; the iron
bar flying harmless from his grasp.
"Good little Davy!" apostrophized Brice; as he
hurdled the sprawling bodies and made for the dock.
The way was clear; and he ran at a pace which would
not have disgraced a college sprinter. Once, glancing
back over his shoulder, he saw the Bahaman trying
blasphemously to disentangle his legs from those of
the prostrate and wriggling Davy. He saw, too, Roke
pawing at his cut face with both hairy hands; and heard
him bellowing confused orders which nobody seemed to
understand.
Arrived at the dock, Gavin saw that Standish's launch
was gone. So, too, was the gaudy little motorboat
wherein Rodney Hade had come to the key. Two bat-
tered and paintless motor-scows remained; and one or
two disreputable rowboats.
It was the work of only a few seconds for Brice to
cut loose the moorings of all these craft and to thrust
them far out into the blue water; where wind and tide
could be trusted to bear them steadily farther and
farther from shore.
Into the last of the boats—the speedier-seeming of


IN THE DAY OF BATTLE 157
the two launches—Gavin sprang, as he shoved it free
from the float. And, before the nearest of the island
men could reach shore, he had the motor purring. Sat-
isfied that the tide had caught the rest of the fleet and
that the stiff trade-wind was doing even more to send
the derelict boats out of reach from shore or from pos-
sible swimmers, he turned the head of his unwieldy
launch toward the mainland; pointing it northeastward
and making ready to wind his course through the
straits which laced the various islets lying between him
and his destination.
"They'll have a sweet time getting off that key, to-
night,” he mused in grim satisfaction. "And, unless
they can hail some passing boat, they're due to stay
there till Hade or Standish makes another trip out.
... Standish!"
At the name, he went hot with wrath. Now that he
had achieved the task of winning free from his prison
and from his jailors, his mind swung back to the man
he had rescued and who had sought his death. Anger
at the black infamy burned fiercely in Brice's soul.
His whole brain and body ached for redress, for physi-
cal wild-beast punishment of the ingrate. The impulse
dulled his every other faculty. It made him oblivious
to the infinitely more important work he had laid out
for himself.
No man can be forever normal, when anger takes the
reins. And, for the time, Gavin Brice was deaf and
blind to every motive or caution; and centered his
entire faculties on the yearning to punish Milo Stan-
dish. He had fought like a tiger and had risked his


158 BLACK CÆSAR'S CLAN
own life, to save Standish from the unknown as-
sailant's knife thrust. Milo, in gross stupidity, had
struck him senseless. And, now, coldbloodedly, he had
helped to plan for him the most terrible form of
death by torture to which even an Apache could have
stooped. Small wonder that righteous indignation
flared high within the fugitive!
Straight into the fading glory of the sunset, Brice
was steering his wallowing and leaky launch. The
boat was evidently constructed and used for the trans-
porting of fruit from the key to the mainland. She
was slow and of deep draught. But she was cutting
down the distance, now, between Gavin and the shore.
He planned to beach her on the strip of sand at the
bottom of the mangrove swamp; and to make his way
to the Standish house through the hidden path, whose
existence Milo had that day poohpoohed. He trusted
to luck and to justice, to enable him to find the man
he sought, when once he should reach the house.
His only drawback was the fear lest he encounter
Claire, as well. In his present wrathful frame of mind
he had no wish to see or speak with her; and he hoped
that she might not mar, by her presence, his encounter
with her brother.
Between two keys wallowed his chugging boat, and
into a stretch of clear water beyond. Then, skirting
a low-lying reef, Gavin headed direct toward the distant
patch of yellowish beach which was his objective.
The sun's upper edge was sinking below the flat
skyline. Mauve shadows swept over the aquamarine
expanse of rippling water. The horizon was dyed a


IN THE DAY OF BATTLE 159
blood-red which was merging into ashes of roses. On
golden Mashta played the last level rays of the dying
sun, caressing the wondrous edifice as though they
loved it. The subtropical night was rushing down
upon the smiling world ;-and, as ever, it was descend-
ing without the long sweet interval of twilight that
northern lands know.
Gavin put the tub to top speed, as the last visible
obstacle was left behind. Clear water lay between him
and the beach. And he was impatient to step on land.
Under the fresh impetus the rolling craft panted and
wheezed, and made her way through the ripples at a
really creditable pace.
As the shadows thickened, Brice half-arose in his
seat to get a better glimpse of a little motorboat which
had just sprung into view from around the mangrove-
covered headland that cut off the view of Standish's
mainland dock. The boat, apparently, had put off
from that pier, and was making rapid speed out into
the bay, almost directly toward him. He could descry
a figure sitting in the steersman's seat. But, by that
ebbing light, he could discern only its blurred outline.
Before Gavin could resume his seat, he was flung
forward upon his face in the bottom of his scow. The
jar of the tumble knocked him breathless. And, as
he scrambled up, on hands and knees, he saw what
had happened.
Foolish is the boatman who runs at full speed in
some of the southwestern reaches of Biscayne Bay-
especially at dusk---without up-to-date chart or a per-
fect knowledge of the bay's tricky soundings. For the


100
160
BLACK CÆSAR'S CLAN
coral worm is tireless; and the making of new reefs is
without end.
The fast-driven launch had run, bow-on, into a
tooth of coral, barely ten inches under the surface of
the smooth water. And, what with her impetus and
the half-rotted condition of her hull, she struck with
such force as to rip a hole in her forward quarter;
wide enough to stick a derby hat through.
In rushed the water; filling her in an incredibly short
time. Settling, by the head, under the weight of this
inpouring flood, she toppled off the tooth of reef, and
slid free. Then, with a wallowing dignity, she pro
ceeded to sink.
The iron sheathing on her keel and hull had not
been strong enough, in its rusted state, to resist the
hammer-blow of the reef. But it was heavy enough,
together with her big metal steering apparatus, to
counterbalance any buoyant qualities left in the wooden
frame.
And, down she went; waddling like a fat and pon-
derous hen, into a twenty-foot nest of water.
Gavin had wasted no time in the impossible feat of
baling her or of plugging her unpluggable leak. As
she went swayingly toward the bottom of the bay, he
slipped clear of her and struck out through the tepid
water.
The mangrove swamp's beach was a bare half-mile
away. And the man knew he could swim the inter-
vening space, with ease. Yet the tedious delay of it
all irked him and fanned to a blind fury his rage
against Milo. Moreover, now, he could not hope to


IN THE DAY OF BATTLE 161
reach the hidden path before real darkness should set
in. And he did not relish the idea of traversing its
blind mazes without a glimmer of daylight to guide
him.
Yet, he struck out, stubbornly, doggedly. As he
passed the tooth of coral that had wrecked his scow,
the reef gave him a painful farewell scrape on one
kicking knee. He swam on, fuming at this latest
annoyance.
Then, to his ears came the steady purr of a motor-
boat. It was close to him, and coming closer.
"Boat ahoy!” he sang out, treading water and rais-
ing himself as high as possible, to peer about him
through the dusk.
"Boat ahoy !” he called again, shouting, to be heard
above the motor's hum. "Man overboard! Ten dol-
lars if you'll carry me to the mainland!”
And now he could see, against the paler hue of the
sky, the dark outlines of the boat's prow. It was
bearing down on him. Above the bow's edge, he
could make out the vague silhouette of a head and
upper body.
Then, into his memory flashed something which the
shock of his upsetting had completely banished. He
recalled the motorboat which had darted, arrow-like,
out from around the southern edge of the mangrove
swamp; and which he had been watching when his
scow went to pieces on the reef.
If this were the same boat-if its steersman chanced
to be Milo Standish, crossing to the key to learn if
his murder-plot had yet culminated so much the


IN THE DAY OF BATTLE
163
"Miss Standish !” sputtered Gavin, aghast. “Miss
Standish!”
For å moment they stood staring at each other
through the darkness; wordless, breathing hard.
Their quick breath, and the trickling of fifty runnels
of water from Gavin's drenched clothes into the
bottom of the once-tidy boat, alone broke the tense
stillness of sky and bay. Then-
"You're safe? You're not harmed ?" panted the
girl.
And the words brought back with a rush, to Gavin
Brice, all he had been through.
"Yes,” he made harsh answer, trying to steady
his rage-choked voice. “I am safe. I am not harmed.
Apart from a few fire-blisters on my ankles and the
charring of my clothes, and the barking of one knee
against a bit of submerged coral, and the cutting of
my fingers rather badly, and a few more minor mis-
chances I'm quite safe and none the worse for the
Standish family's charming hospitality. And, by the
way, may I suggest that it might have been better for
your brother or the gentle-hearted Mr. Hade to run
across to the key to get news of my fate; instead of
sending a girl on such an errand ? It's no business
of mine, of course. And I don't presume to criticize
two such noble heroes. But surely they ought not
have sent you. If their kindly plan had worked out
according to schedule, I should not have been a pretty
sight for a woman to look at, by this time. I- "
"I—I don't understand half of the things you're
saying !" she cried, shrinking from his taunting tone


164 BLACK CÆSAR'S CLAN
as from a fist-blow. “They don't make any sense to
me. But I do see why you're so angry. And I don't
blame you. It was horrible! Horrible! It ".
"It was all that,” he agreed, drily, breaking in on
her quivering speech and steeling himself against
its pitiful appeal. “All that. And then some. And
it's generous of you not to blame me for being just
the very tiniest least bit riled by it. That helps. I
was afraid my peevishness might displease you. My
temper isn't what it should be. If it were, I should
be apologizing to you for getting your nice boat all
sloppy, like this.”
"Please!" she begged. "Please! Won't you please
try not to-to think too hardly of my brother? And
won't you please acquit me of knowing anything of it?
I didn't know. Honestly, Mr Brice, I didn't. When
Milo came back home without you, he told me you
had decided to stay on at Roustabout Key, to help
Roke; till the new foreman could come from Home-
stead.”
“Quite so," assented Gavin, his voice as jarring as
a file's. “I did. And he decided that I shouldn't
change my mind. He "
"It wasn't till 'half an hour ago," she hurried on,
miserably, “that I knew. I was coming down stairs.
Milo and Rodney Hade were in the music-room to-
gether. I didn't mean to overhear. But oh, I'm so
glad I did !”
"I'm glad it could make you so happy," he said.
“The pleasure is all yours.”
"All I caught was just this:" she went on. "Rod-


IN THE DAY OF BATTLE 165
ney was saying: 'Nonsense! Roke will have let him out
before now. And there are worse places to spend a
hot afternoon in than locked snugly in a cool store-
room.'"
"Are there?” interpolated Brice. "I'd hate to test
that."
"All in a flash, I understood," she continued, her
sweet voice struggling gallantly against tears. “I knew
Rodney didn't want us to have any guests or to have
any outsiders at all at our house. He was fearfully
displeased with us, last night, for having you there.
It was all we could do to persuade him that the man
who had saved Milo's life couldn't be turned out of
doors or left to look elsewhere for work. It was only
when Milo promised to give you work at the key, that he
stopped arguing and being so imperative about it.
And when I heard him speak, just now, about your
being locked in a store room, there, I knew he had
done it to prevent your coming back here for a while.”
"Your reasoning was most unfeminine in its correct-
ness," approved Gavin, still forcing himself to resist
the piteous pleading in her voice.
He could see her flinch under the harshness of his
tone, as she added:
“And all at once I realized what it must mean to you
and what you must think of us after all you'd done
for Milo. And I knew how a beast like Roke would
be likely to treat you, when he knew my brother and
Rodney had left you there at the mercy of his com-
panionship. There was no use talking to them. It
might be hours before I could convince them and make


166 BLACK CÆSAR'S CLAN
them go or send for you. And I couldn't bear to have
you kept there all that time. So I slipped out of the
house and ran to the landing. Just as I got out into the
bay, I saw you coming through that strait, back there.
I recognized the fruit launch. And I knew it must
be you. For nobody from the key would have run at
such speed toward that clump of reefs. You capsized,
before I could get to you; and "
She shuddered; and ceased to speak. For another
moment or two there was silence between them. Gavin
Brice's mind was busy with all she said. He was dis-
secting and analyzing her every anxious word. He
was bringing to bear on the matter not only his trained
powers of logic, but his knowledge of human nature.
And, all at once, he knew this trembling girl was in
no way guilty of the crime attempted against him.
He knew, too, from the speech of Hade's which she
had just repeated, that Standish, presumably had had
no part in the attempted murder; but that that detail
had been devised by Hade for Roke to put into execu-
tion. Nor, evidently, had Davy been let into the
secret by Roke.
In a few seconds, Brice had revised his ideas as to
the afternoon's adventures; and had come to a sudden
decision. Speaking with careful forethought and with
a definite object in view, he said:
"Miss Standish, I do not ask pardon for the way
I spoke to you, just now. And when you've heard why,
you won't blame me. I want to tell you just what hap-
pened to me, to-day, from the time I set foot on Rousta-
bout Key, until I boarded this boat of yours. When


IN THE DAY OF BATTLE 167
you realize that I thought your brother and probably
yourself were involved in it to the full, you'll under-
stand, perhaps, why I didn't greet you with overmuch
cordiality. Will you listen?"
She nodded her head, wordless; not trusting her voice
to speak further. And she sank back into the seat
she had quitted. Brice seated himself on the thwart
near her; and began to speak; while the boat, its
power still shut off, bobbed lazily on a lazier sea.
Tersely, yet omitting no detail except that of his
talk with Davy, he told of the afternoon's events. She
heard, wide-eyed and breathing fast. But she made
no interruption; except, when he came to the episode
of the moccasins, she cried aloud in horror; and
caught unconsciously his lacerated hand between her
own warm palms.
The clasp of her fingers, unintentional as it was, sent
a strange thrill through the man; and, for an instant,
he wavered in his recital. But he forced himself to
continue. And, after a few seconds, the girl seemed
to realize what she was doing. For she withdrew her
hands, swiftly; and clasped them together in her lap.
As he neared the end of his brief story, she raised
her hands again. But they did not seek his. Instead,
she covered her horrified eyes with them; and she
shook all over.
When he had finished, he could see she was fighting
for self-control. Then, in a flood, the power of speech
came back to her.
"Oh!" she gasped, her flower-face white and drawn,


168 BLACK CÆSAR'S CLAN
in the faint light. "Oh, it can't be. It can't! There
must be a hideous mistake, somewhere!"
"There is," he agreed, with a momentary return to
his former manner. “There was one mistake. I made
it; by escaping. Otherwise, the plan was flawless.
Luckily, a key had been left on the floor. And luckily,
I got hold of it. Luckily, too, I had a match with me.
And, if there are sharks as near land as this, luckily
you happened to meet me as I was swimming for shore.
As to mistakes . Have you a flashlight?"
From her pocket, she drew a small electric torch she
had had the foresight to pick up from the hall table as
she ran out. Gavin took it and turned its rays on
his wet ankles. His shoes and trouser-legs still showed
clear signs of the scorching they had received. And
his palms were cut and abraded.
"If I had wanted to make up a story,” said he, "I
could have devised one that didn't call for such painful
stage-setting."
"Oh, don't!" she begged. “Don't speak so flippantly
of it! How can you? And don't think, for one in-
stant, that I doubted your word. I didn't. But it
didn't seem possible that such a thing Mr. Brice!"
she broke off, earnestly. "You mustn't-you can't
think that Milo knew anything of this! I mean about
the-the snakes and all. He is enough to blame-he
has shamed our hospitality and every trace of grati-
tude enough—by letting you be locked in there at all
and by consenting to have you marooned on the key.
I'm not trying to excuse him for that. There's no
excuse. And without proof I wouldn't have believed


IN THE DAY OF BATTLE 169
it of him. But at least you must believe he had no
part in-in the other
"I do believe it,” said Gavin, gently, touched to the
heart by her grief and shame. “At first, I was certain
he had connived at it. But what you overheard proves
he didn't."
“Thank you,” she said, simply.
This time it was his hand that sought hers. And,
even as she, he was unconscious of the action.
"You mustn't let this distress you so," he soothed,
noting her effort to fight back the tears. “It all came
out, safely enough. But I think I've paid to-day for
my right to ask such a question-how does it happen
that you and your brother-you, especially-can have
sunk to such straits that you take orders, meekly, from
a murderer like Rodney Hade, and that you let him
dictate what guests you shall or shan't receive ?"
She shivered, all over.
"I-I have no right to tell you," she murmured.
"It isn't my secret. I have no right to say there is
any secret. But there is! And it is making my life a
torture! If only you knew-if only there were some
one I could turn to for help or even for advice! But
I'm all alone, except for Milo. And lately he's changed
so! "
She broke down, all at once, in her valiant attempt
at calmness. And, burying her face in her hands
again, she burst into a tempest of weeping. Gavin
Brice, a lump in his own throat, drew her to him. And
she clung to his soaked coat lapels, hiding her head
on his drenched breast.


170 BLACK CÆSAR'S CLAN
There was nothing of love or of sex in the action,
She was simply a heartbroken child seeking refuge in
the strength of some one older and stronger than she.
Gavin realized it; and he held her to him and comforted
her as though she had been his little sister.
Presently the passion of convulsive weeping passed;
leaving her broken and exhausted. Gavin knew the
girl's powers of mental resistance were no longer
strong enough to overcome her need for a comforter
to whom she could unburden her soul of its miserable
perplexities.
She had drawn back from his embrace, but she still
sat close to him, her hands in his; pathetically eager
for his sympathy and aid. The psychological mo-
ment had come, and Gavin Brice knew it. Loathing
himself for the rôle he must play and vowing solemnly
to his own heart that she should never be allowed to
suffer for any revelation she might make, he said,
with a gentle insistence:
“Tell me."





CHAPTER VII
SECRETS
THERE was a short silence. Brice looked anx-
1 iously through the gathering darkness at the
dimly seen face so near to his own. He could not
guess, for the life of him, whether the girl were
silent because she refused to tell him what he sought
so eagerly to know; or whether she were still fighting
to control her voice.
As he sat gazing down at her, there was something
so tiny, so fragile, so helplessly trustful about her;
that it went straight to the man's heart. He had
played and schemed and risked life itself for this cru-
cial hour;-for this hour when he should have swept
aside the girl's possible suspicions and enlisted her
complete sympathy for himself and could make her
trust him and feel keen remorse for the treatment he
had received.
Yes he had achieved all this. And he had done
infinitely more. He had awakened in her heart a sense
of loneliness and of need for some one in whom she
might confide.
He had done all this, had Gavin Brice. And, though
he was not a vain man, yet he knew he had done it
cleverly. But, somehow-even as he waited to see if
173


174 BLACK CÆSAR'S CLAN
the hour for full confidences were indeed ripe he was
not able to feel the thrill of exultation which should be-
long to the winner of a hard-fought duel. Instead, to
his amazement, he was aware of a growing sense of
shame ;-of disgust at having used such weapons
against any woman ;-especially against this girl whose
whiteness of soul and of purpose he could no longer
doubt.
Then, through the silence and above the soft lap-
lap-lap of water against the idly drifting boat's side,
Claire drew a deep breath. She threw back her
drooping shoulders and sat up, facing the man. And
in the dusk, Gavin could see the flash of resolve in
her great eyes.
"Yes!" she said, impulsively. "Yes. I'll tell you.
If it is wrong for me to tell, then let it be wrong.
I'm sick of mystery and secrets and signals and sus-
pense, and—oh, I'm sick of it all! And it's—it's splen-
did of you to want to help me ;-after what has hap-
pened to you through meeting me! It's your right to
know."
She paused for breath. And again Gavin wondered
at his own inability to feel a single throb of gladness
at having come so triumphantly to the end of this par-
ticular road. Glumly, he stared down at the vibrant
little figure beside him.
"There is some of it I don't know, myself," she be-
gan. “And lately I've found myself wondering if all
I really know is true; or whether they have been de-
ceiving me about some of it. I have no right to feel
that way, I suppose, about my own brother. But he's


SECRETS
175
tan-
so horribly under Rodney Hade's influence, and "
Again, she paused; seeming to realize she was wan-
dering from the point. And she made a fresh start.
"It all began as an adventure, a sort of game, more
than in earnest,” she said. “At least, looking back,
that's the way it seems to me, now. As a wonderfully
exciting game. You see, everything down here was so
thrillingly exciting and interesting to me, even then.”
"I see."
"If you don't mind,” she added, “I think I can
make you understand it all the better, if you'll let me
go back to the beginning. I'll make it as short as I
can.”
“Yes."
"I had been brought up in New York, except when
we were in Europe or when I was away at school. My
father and mother never let me see or know anything
of real life. Dad was old, even as far back as I can
remember. Mother was his second wife. Milo's
mother was his first wife; and she died ever so long ago,
Milo is twenty years older than I am. Milo came
down here on a cruise, when he got out of college. And
he fell in love with this part of the country. He per-
suaded Dad to buy him a farm here; and he has spent
fifteen years in building it up to what it is, now. He
and my mother didn't-didn't get on awfully well, to-
gether. So Milo spent about all his time down here;
and I hardly ever saw him. Then Dad and Mother
died, within a day of each other, during the flu epi-
demic. And Milo came on, for the funeral, of course,
and to wind up the estate. Then he wanted me to


176 BLACK CÆSAR'S CLAN
come down here and live with him. He said ne was
lonely. And I was still lonelier,
"I came here. And I've been here ever since. It
is a part of the world that throws a charm around
every one who stays long enough under its spell. And
I grew to loving it as much as Milo did. We had a
beautiful life here, he and I and the cordial, lovable
people who became our friends. It was last spring
that Rodney Hade came to see us. Milo had known
him, slightly, down here, years ago. He came back
here-nobody knows from where;-and rented a house,
the other side of Coconut Grove; and brought his
yacht down to Miami Harbor. Almost right away,
he seemed to gain the queerest influence over Milo.
It was almost like hypnotism. And yet, I don't alto-
gether wonder. He has an odd sort of fascination
about him. Even when he is discussing his snakes."
"His snakes?"
"He has three rooms in his house fitted up as a
reptile zoo. He collects them from everywhere. He
says—and he seems to believe it—that they won't
hurt him and that he can handle them as safely as if
they were kittens. Just like that man they used to
have in the post office up at Orlando, who used to
sit with his arms full of rattlesnakes and moccasins,
and pet them.”
“Yes,” said Gavin, absentmindedly, as he struggled
against an almost overmastering impulse which was
gripping him. “I remember. But at last one of his
pets killed him. He "
"How did you know?” she asked, surprised. "How


SECRETS
177
in the world should a newcomer from the North know
about "
“Oh, I read it in a Florida dispatch to one of the
New York papers," he said, impatient at his own blun-
der. "And it was such a strange story it stuck in my
memory. It- "
"Well," resumed Claire, "I think I've made you
understand the simple and natural things that led up to
it all. And now, I'll tell you everything ;-at least
everything I know about it. It's it's a gruesome sort
of story, and-and I've grown to hate it all so !”
She quivered. Then, squaring her young shoulders
again, she continued:
"I don't ask you to believe what I'm going to tell
you. But it's all true. It began this way:
"One night, six months ago, as Milo and I were
sitting on the veranda, we heard a scream-a hideous
sound it was—from the mangrove swamp. And a
queer creature in drippy white came crawling out
of- "
“Wait!"
Brice's monosyllable smashed into the current of
her scarce-started narrative with the jarring sudden-
ness of a pistol shot. She stared up at him in amaze.
For, seen through the starlight, his face was working
strangely. And his voice was vibrant with some mighty
emotion.
"Wait!' he repeated. “You shan't go on. You
shan't tell me the rest. I'm a fool. For I'm throwing
away the best chance that could have come to me. I'm


178
BLACK CÆSAR'S CLAN
throwing it away with my eyes open, and because I'm
a fool.”
"I–I don't understand," she faltered, bewildered.
"No," he said roughly. “You don't understand.
That's just why I can't let you go on. And, because
I'm a fool, I can't play out this hand, where every card
is mine. I'll despise myself, always, for this, I suppose.
And it's a certainty that I'll be despised. It means an
end to a career I found tremendously interesting. I
didn't need the money it brought. But I- "
“What in the world are you talking about?" she de-
manded, drawing a little away from him.. "IL "
: “Listen," he interrupted. “A lot of men, in my line
and in others, have come a cropper in their careers,
because of some woman. But I'm the first to come
such a cropper on account of a woman with a white
soul and the eyes of a child;- a woman I scarcely
know, and who has no interest in me. But, to-night, I
shall telegraph my resignation. Some saner man can
take charge. There are enough of our men massed in
this vicinity to choose from. I'm going to get out of
Florida and leave the game to play itself to an end,
without me. I'm an idiot to do it. But I'd be worse
than an idiot to let you trust me and let you tell me
things that would wreck your half-brother and bring
sorrow and shame to you. I'm through! And I can't
even be sorry."
"Mr. Brice," she said, gently, "I'm afraid your ter-
rible experiences, this afternoon and last evening, have
unsettled your mind, a little. Just sit still there, and
rest. I am going to run the boat to shore and "


SECRETS
179
"You're right,” he laughed, ruefully, as he made way
for her to start the engine. "My experiences have ‘un-
settled' my mind. And now that I've spoiled my own
game, I'll tell you the rest-as much of it as I have
a right to. It doesn't matter, any longer. Hade knows
-or at least suspects. That's why he tried to get
me killed. In this century, people don't try to have
others killed, just for fun. There's got to be a pow-
erful motive behind it. Such a motive as made a man,
last evening, try to knife your half-brother. Such a
motive as induced Hade to get me out of the way.
He knows. Or he suspects. And that means the
crisis must come, almost at once. The net will close.
Whether or not it catches him in it."
The boat was started and had gotten slowly under
way. During its long idleness it had been borne some
distance to southwestward by tide and breeze. Her
work done, Claire turned again to Gavin.
"Don't try to talk,” she begged-as she had begged
him on the night before. "Just sit back and rest."
"Even now, you don't get an inkling of it,” he mur.
mured. “That shows how little they've taken you into
their confidence. They warned you against any one
who might find the hidden path; and they even armed
you for such an emergency. Yet they never told you
the Law might possibly be crouching to spring on the
Standish place, quite as ferociously as those other
people who are in the secret and who want to rob
Standish and Hade of the loot! And, by the way," he
went on, pettishly, still smarting under his own re-
nunciation, "tell Hade with my compliments that if he


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181
Brice tried to ignore the pitiful pleading the child-
like tremor-in her sweet voice. But it cut to the soul
of him. And he replied, brusquely:
"I let you think I was a dead-broke work-hunter.
I did that, because I needed to get into your brother's
house; to make certain of things which we suspected
but couldn't quite prove. I am the ninth man, in the
past two months, to try to get in there. And I'm the
second to succeed. The first couldn't find out anything
of use. He could only confirm some of our ideas.
That's the sort of a man he is. A fine subordinate;
but with no genius for anything else except to obey
orders. I was the only one of the nine, with brains,
who could win any foothold there. And now I'm
throwing away all I gained;-because one girl happens
to be too much of a child (or of a saint) for me to lie
to! I've reason to be proud of myself;—haven't I ?”
"Who are you?" she asked, dully bewildered under
his fierce tirade of self-contempt. "Who are you?
What are you?”
"I'm Gavin Brice,” he said. “As I told you. But
I'm also a United States Secret Service official-which
I didn't tell you."
"No!” she stammered, shrinking back. "Oh, no!"
He continued, briskly:
"Your brother, and your snake-loving friend Rodney
Hade, are working a pretty trick on Uncle Sam. And
the Federal Government has been trying to block it
for the past few months. There are plenty of us
down here, just now. But, up to lately, nothing's been


182 BLACK CÆSAR'S CLAN
accomplished. That's why they sent me. They knew
I'd had plenty of experience in this region.”
"Here? In Florida ? But- ".
"I spent all my vacations at my grandfather's place,
below Coconut Grove, when I was in school and in
college and for a while afterward; and I know this
coast and the keys as well as any outsider can;-even
if I was silly enough to let my scow run into a reef,
to-night, that wasn't here in my day. They sent me
to take charge of the job and to straighten out its mix-
ups and to try to win where the others had bungled.
I was doing it, too,—and it would have been a big
feather in my cap, at Washington,—when my good
sense went to pieces on a reef named Claire Standish;
-a reef I hadn't counted on, any more than I counted
on the reef that stove in my scow, an hour ago."
She strove to speak. The words died in her parched
throat. Brice went on:
"I've always bragged that I'm woman-proof. I'm
not. No man is. I hadn't met the right woman. That
was all. If you'd been of the vampire type or the
ordinary kind, I could have gone on with it, without
turning a hair. If you'd been mixed up in any of the
criminal part of it at all—as I and all of us supposed
you must be I'd have had no scruples about using any
information I could get from you. But-well, to-night,
out here, all at once I understood what I'd been deny-
ing to myself ever since I met you. And I couldn't
go on with it. You'll be certain to suffer from it,
in any case. But I'm strong enough at the Depart-
ment to persuade them you're innocent. I- "


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185
“You have no right to say so. He has committed no
crime. He has broken no law.”
Again he looked down, searchingly, into her angry
little face, as it confronted him so fiercely in the star-
light. And he knew she was sincere.
"Miss Standish,” he said, slowly. "You believe you
are telling the truth. Your half-brother understood
you too well to let you know what he was really up to.
He and Hade concocted some story—I don't know
what—to explain to you the odd things going on in
and around your home. You are innocent. And you
are ignorant. It cuts me like a knife to have to open
your eyes to all this. But, in a very few days, at most,
you are bound to know.”
"If you think I'll believe a word against my brother
- especially from a self-confessed spy—
"No?” said Gavin. "And you're just as sure of
Rodney Hade's noble uprightness as of your broth-
er's?”
"I'm not defending Rodney Hade," said Claire. "He
is nothing to me, one way or the other. He "
"Pardon me,” interposed Brice. "He is a great deal
to you. You hate him and you are in mortal fear of
him."
"If you spied that out, too ".
"I did,” he admitted. “I did it, in the half-minute
I saw you and him together, last evening. I saw a
look in your eyes—I heard a tone in your voice-as
you turned to introduce me to him—that told me all
I needed to know. And, incidentally, it made me want
to smash him. Apart from that-well, the Department


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187
my tongue out, sooner than make you so unhappy.
Please believe that, won't you?"
There was an earnest depth of contrition in his voice
that checked the icy retort she had been about to make.
And, emboldened by her silence, he went on:
"Hade needed your brother and the use of your
brother's house and land. He needed them, impera-
tively, for the scheme he was trying to swing. ...
That was why he got Standish into his power, in the
first place. That was why he forced or wheedled him
into this partnership. The Standish house was built
-in its original form-more than a hundred years ago.
In the days when Dade County and all this end of
Florida were in hourly dread of Seminole raids from
the Everglade country; and where every settler's house
must be not only his castle, but "
“I'm sorry to have to remind you," she broke in, ,
freezingly, “that I asked you not to speak to me.
Surely you can have at least that much chivalry;
when I am helpless to get out of hearing from you.
You say you are willing to confront my brother with
this—this-ridiculous charge. Very well. Till then,
I hope you won't- "
"All right,” he said, gloomily. "And I don't blame
you. I'm a bungler, when it somes to saying things to
women. I don't know so very much about them. I've
read that no man really understands women. And cer-
tainly I don't. By the way, the boat's run opposite that
spit of beach at the bottom of your mangrove swamp.
If you're in a hurry, you can land there; and we can go


188 BLACK CÆSAR’S CLAN
to the house by way of the hidden path. It will cut
off a mile or so. You have a flashlight. Som "
He let his voice trail away; frozen to silence by the
rigidly hostile little figure outlined at the other end of
the boat by the tumble of phosphorus in their wake.
Claire roused herself, from a gloomy reverie, enough
to shift the course of the craft and to head it for the
dim-seen sandspit that was backed by the ebony dark-
ness of the mangrove swamp.
Neither of them spoke again, until, with a swishing
sound and a soft grate of the light-draught boat,
the keel clove its way into the offshore sand and the
craft came to coughing halt twenty feet from land.
Claire roused herself, from a gloomy reverie in
which she had fallen. Subconsciously, she had ac-
cepted the man's suggestion that they take the short cut.
And she had steered thither, forgetful that there was
no dock and no suitable landing place for even so light
a boat anywhere along the patch of sandy foreshore.
Now, fast aground, she saw her absent-minded
error. And she jumped to her feet, vainly reversing
the engine in an effort to back free of the sand wherein
the prow had wedged itself so tightly. But Gavin
Brice had already taken charge of the situation.
Stepping overside into the shallow water, he picked
up the astounded and vainly protesting girl, bodily;
holding her close to him with one arm; while, with his
free hand he caught the painter and dragged the boat
behind him into water too low for it to float off until
the change of tide.
It was the work of a bare ten seconds; from the time


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189
he stepped into the shallows until he had brought
Claire to the dry sand of the beach.
"Set me down!” she was demanding sternly, for the
third time, as she struggled with futile repugnance to
slip from his gently firm grip. "- "
"Certainly,” acquiesced Gavin, lowering her to the
sand, and steadying her for an instant, until her feet
could find their balance. “Only please don't glare at
me as though I had struck you. I didn't think you'd
want to get those little white shoes of yours all wet.
So I took the liberty of carrying you. My own shoes,
and all the rest of me, are drenched beyond cure, any-
how. So another bit of immersion didn't do me any
harm."
He spoke in a careless, matter-of-fact manner; and
as he talked he was leading the way up the short beach,
toward the northernmost edge of the mangrove swamp.
Claire could not well take further offence at a service
which apparently had been rendered to her out of the
merest common politeness. So, after another icy look
at his unconscious back, she followed wordlessly in
Brice's wake.
Now that he was on dry land again and on his way
to the house where, at the very least, a stormy scene
might be expected, the man's spirits seemed to rise,
almost boyishly. The blood was running again through
his veins. The cool night air was drying his soaked
clothes. The prospect of possible adventure stirred
him.
Blithely he sought the shoreward entrance to the
hidden path, by the mental notes he had made of its


190 BLACK CÆSAR'S CLAN
exact whereabouts when Bobby Burns had happened
upon its secret. And, in another half-minute he had
drawn aside the screen of growing boughs and was
standing aside for Claire to enter the path.
"You see,” he explained, impersonally, “this path
is a very nice little mystery. But, like most mysteries,
it is quite simple, when once you know your way in and
out of it. I knew where it was when I was a kid, but
I couldn't remember the spot where it came out, here.
Back yonder, a bit to northward, I came upon Roke, yes-
terday. I gather he had been visiting your house or
Hade's; by way of the hidden path; and was on his way
back to his boat, to return to Roustabout Key; when he
happened upon Bobby Burns—and then on me. He must
have wondered where I vanished to. For he couldn't
have seen me enter the path. Maybe he mentioned that
to Hade, too, this afternoon. If Hade thought I knew
the path, he'd think I knew a good deal more. ...
By the way,” he added, to the ostentatiously unlisten-
ing Claire, “that's the second time you've stumbled.
And both times, you were too far ahead for me to
catch you. This is the best part of the path, too
the straightest and the least dark part. If we stumble
here, we'll tumble, farther on, unless you use that
flashlight of yours. May I trouble you to ?"
"I forgot,” she said stiffly, as she drew the torch
from her pocket and pressed its button.
The dense black of the swamp was split by the light's
white sword; and softer beams from its sharp radiance
illumined the pitch-dark gloom for a few yards to
either side of the tortuous path. The shadows of the


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191
man and the woman were cast in monstrous grotesquely
floating shapes behind them as they moved forward.
"This is a cheery rambling-place," commented Gavin.
"I wonder if you know its history? I mean, of course,
before Standish had it recut and jacked up and bridged,
and all that? This path dates back to the house's first
owners in the Seminole days I was telling you about.
They made it as a quick getaway, to the water, in case
a war-party of Seminoles should drop in on them from
the Everglades. I came through here, once-oh, it
must be twenty years ago I was a school-kid, at the
time. An old Seminole chief, with the picturesque In-
dian name of Aleck, showed it to me. His dad once
cut off a party of refugees, somewhere along here, on
their way to the sea; and deleted them. Several of
the modern Seminoles knew the path, he said. But
almost no white men. ... Get that queer odor, and
that flapping sound over to the left? That was a 'gator.
And he seems to be fairly big and alive, from the racket
he made. Lucky we're on the path and not in the un-
dergrowth or the water !"
He talked on, as though not in the least concerned
as to whether or not she might hear or heed. And,
awed by the gruesome stillness and gloom of the place,
Claire had not the heart to bid him be silent. Any
sound was better, she told herself, than the dead
noiselessness of the surrounding forest.
"That's the tenth mosquito I've missed," cheerily
resumed Brice, slapping futilely at his own cheek. “In
the old days, they used to infest Miami. Now they're
driven back into the swamps. But they seem just as


192 BLACK CÆSAR'S CLAN
industrious as ever; and every bit as hungry. It must
be grand to have such an appetite.”
As Claire disregarded this flippancy, he fell silent,
for a space; and together they moved on, through the
thick of the swamp. Then
“There's something I've been trying to figure out,"
he recommenced, speaking more to himself than to
Claire. "There must be some sort of sense to all the
signaling Hade does when he comes out of this swamp,
onto your lawn. If it was only that he doesn't want
casual visitors to know he has come that way, he could
just as well go around by the road to the south of the
swamp; and come openly to the house, by the front.
And, if things are to be moved to or from the house,
they could go by road, at night, as well as through here.
There must be something more to it all. And, I have
an idea I know what it is.... That enclosed space,
with the high palings and the vines all over it, to the
north of your house ;-I think you said that was a
little walled orchard where Standish is experimenting
on some 'ideal' orange; and that he is so jealous of the
secret process that he won't even let you set foot in it.
The funny part of it is:
He stopped short. Claire had been walking a few
yards in advance; and they had come out on the widest
part of the trail, about midway through the woods.
To one side of the beaten path was a tiny clearing.
This clearing was strewn thick with a tangle of fallen
undergrowth, scarce two feet high at most.
And they reached it, the girl gave a little cry of
fright and stepped back, her hands reaching blindly


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193
toward Gavin, as if for support or comfort. The
gesture caused her to drop the flashlight. Its button
was "set forward,” so it did not go out as it fell. In-
stead, it rolled in a semi-circle, casting its ray momen-
tarily in a wide irregular arc as it revolved. Then it
came to a stop, against an outcrop of coral, with a force
that put its sensitive bulb permanently out of business.
But, during that brief circular roll of the light,
Gavin Brice caught the most fleeting glimpse of the
sight that had caused Claire to cry out and shrink back
against him.
He had seen, for the merest fraction of a second, the
upper half of a man's body-thickset and hairy,-up-
right, on a level with the ground; as though it had
been cut in two and the legless trunk set up there.
By the time Brice's eyes could focus fairly upon
this very impossible sight, the half-body had begun
to recede rapidly into the earth, like that of an angle-
work which a robin pulls halfway out of the lawn and
then loses its grip on.
In practically the same instant, the rolling ray of
light moved past the amazing spectacle; and less than
a second later bumped against the fragment of coral
-the bump which smashed its bulb and left the two
wanderers in total darkness for the remainder of their
strange pilgrimage.
Claire, momentarily unstrung, caught Gavin by the
arm and clung to him. He could feel the shudder of
her slender body as it pressed to his side for protec-
tion.
"What—what was it?" she whispered, tremblingly,


194 BLACK CÆSAR’S CLAN
"What was it? Did I really see it? It-it couldn't
be! It looked-it looked like ama body that had been
cut in half-and-and "
"It's all right," he whispered, reassuringly; pass-
ing his arm unchidden about her slight waist. "Don't
be frightened, dear! It wasn't a man cut in half. It
was the upper half of a man who was wiggling down
into a tunnel hidden by that smother of underbrush.
... And here I was just wondering why people
should bother to come all the way through this path,
instead of skirting the woods! Answers furnished
while you wait!"
Before he spoke, however, he had strained his ears
to listen. And the quick receding and then cessation of
the sound of the scrambling body in the tunnel had
told him the seen half and the unseen half of the in-
truder had alike vanished beyond earshot, far under
ground.
“But what ?" began the frightened girl.
Then she realized for the first time that she was
holding fast to the man whom she had forbidden to
speak to her. And she relinquished her tight clasp on
his arm.
"Stand where you are, a minute,” he directed. "He's
gone. There's no danger. He was as afraid of us
as you were of him. He ducked, like a mud-turtle,
as soon as he saw we weren't the people he expected.
Stay here, please. And face this way. That's the
direction we were going in; and we don't want to get
turned around. I've got to crawl about, on all fours,


196 BLACK CÆSAR’S CLAN
much toward me as I felt toward those snakes of
Hade's, this afternoon? You have a right to, of
course. But-well, it makes me sorry I ever escaped
from there.”
The sincerity, the boyish contrition in his voice,
touched her, unaccountably. And, on impulse, she
spoke.
“I asked you to say those things about Milo, to his
face,” she began, hesitantly. “I did that, because I
was angry;–because I didn't believe a word of them,
and because I wanted to see you punished for slander-
ing my brother. I-I still don't believe a single word
of them. But I believe you told them to me in good
faith, and that you were misinformed by the Federal
agents who cooked up the absurd story. And—and I
don't want to see you punished, Mr. Brice," she fal-
tered, unconsciously tightening her clasp on his arm.
“Milo is terribly strong. And his temper is so quick!
He might nearly kill you. Take me as far as the end
of the path; and then go across the lawn to the road,
instead of coming in. Please do!”
"That is sweet of you," said Gavin, after a moment's
pause, wherein his desire to laugh struggled with a far
deeper and more potent emotion. "But, if it's just the
same to you, I'd rather-
"But he is double your size," she protested, “and
he is as strong as Samson. Why, Roke, over at the
Key, is said to be the only man who ever outwrestled
him! And Roke has the strength of a gorilla.”
Gavin Brice smiled grimly to himself in the dark-
ness, as he recalled his own test of prowess with Roke.


CHAPTER VIII
THE SIEGE





BLACK CÆSAR'S CLAN
look out for any one coming that way. That's why
you held me up, when I came through here, yesterday.
These must be people you know by sight. For you told
me you took me for some one else. This chap, back
yonder, knows the hidden path. And now it seems he
knows the tunnel, too. If I'm right in thinking that
tunnel leads to the secret orchard enclosure, back of
your house, then I fancy Standish may be visited,
during the next half hour. And, unless I'm mistaken,
I heard more than one set of bare feet scurrying down
that tunnel just now. Our friend with the bashed-in
face was apparently the last of several men to slip into
the tunnel; and we happened along as he was doing it.
If he recognized you and saw you had a man as an
escort, he must know we're bound for your house.
And he and the rest are likely to hurry to get there
ahead of us. That's why I've been walking you off
your feet, in spite of the darkness, ever since we left
him."
"I-I only saw him for the tiniest part of a second,"
said Claire, glancing nervously through the darkness
behind her. “And yet I'm almost sure he was a Cæsar.
He "
"A Cæsar ?" queried Gavin, in real perplexity.
“That's the name the Floridian fishermen give to
the family who live on Cæsar's Estuary,". she ex-
plained, almost impatiently. “The inlet that runs up
into the mangroves, south of Cæsar's Rock and
Cæsar's Creek. Cæsar was an oldtime pirate, you
know. These people claim to be descended from him;
and they claim squatter's rights on a tract of marsh-


THE SIEGE
203
and-mangrove land down there. They call them-
selves all one family; but it is more like a clan. Black
Cæsar's clan. They have intermarried and others have
joined them. It's a sort of community. They're
really little better than conchs; though they fight any
one who calls them conchs.”
"But what ?
“Oh, Milo and Rodney Hade leased some land from
the government, down there. And that started the
trouble."
Brice whistled, softly.
"I see," said he. "I gather there had been rumors
of treasure, among the Cæsars there always are,
along the coast, here and the Cæsars hadn't the wit
to find the stuff. They wouldn't have. But they
guarded the place and always hoped to trip over the
treasure some day. Regarded it as their own, and all
that. 'Proprietary rights' theory, passed on from
fathers to sons. Then Standish and Hade leased the
land, having gotten a better hint as to where the
treasure was. And that got the Cæsars riled. Then
the Cæsars get an inkling that Standish and Hade have
actually located the treasure and are sneaking it to
Standish's house, bit by bit. And then they go still-
hunting for the despoilers and for their ancestral
hoard.”
"Why !" cried Claire, astounded. “That's the very
thing you stopped me from telling you! If you knew,
all the time "
"I didn't,” denied Brice. "What you said, just
now, about the Cæsars, gave me the clew. The rest


THE SIEGE
205
But Milo explained to me it had to be taken away again,
right off; for fear of fire or thieves or "
“And you don't know where it was taken to ?”
"No. Except that Rodney has been shipping it
North. But they promised me that as soon "
"I see !” he answered, as a stumble over a root cut
short her words and made her cling to him more
tightly. “You are an ideal sister. You'd be an ideal
wife for a scoundrel. You would be a godsend to
any one with phoney stock to sell. Your credulity is
perfect. And your feminine curiosity is under lots
better control than most women's. I suppose they
told you this so-called treasure is in the form of ingots
and nuggets and pieces-of-eight and jewels-so-rich-and-
rare, and all the rest of the bag of tricks borrowed from
Stevenson's 'Treasure Island'? They would !"
She showed her disrelish for his Aippant tone, by
removing her hand from his arm. But at once the
faint hiss of a snake as it glided into the swamp from
somewhere just in front of them made her clutch his
wet sleeve afresh. His hints as to the nature of the
treasure had roused her inquisitiveness to a keen
point. Yet, remembering what he had said about her
praiseworthy dearth of feminine curiosity, she ap-
proached the subject in a roundabout way.
"If it isn't gold bars and jewels and old Spanish
coins, and so forth,” said she, seeking to copy his
bantering tone, "then I suppose it is illicit whiskey?
It would be a sickening anticlimax to find they were
liquor-smugglers.”
"No," Brice reasured her, "neither Standish nor


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207
“The shortest way to the house,” called the girl, over
her shoulder, “is the way I'm going now.”
"But, Miss Standish!” he protested. “Please "
She did not answer. As he had bent to pat the col-
lie, she had broken into a run; and now she was half
way across the lawn, on her way to the lighted veranda.
Vexed at her disobedience is not taking his advice and
absenting herself from impending trouble, Gavin Brice
followed. Bobby Burns gamboled along at his side,
leaping high in the air in an effort to lick Brice's face;
setting the night astir with a fanfare of joyous bark-
ing; imperiling Gavin's every step with his whisking
body; and in short conducting himself as does the
average high-strung collie whose master breaks into
a run.
The noise brought a man out of the hallway onto
the veranda; to see the cause of the racket. He was
tall, massive, clad in snowy white, and with a golden
beard that shone in the lamplight. Milo Standish, as
he stood thus, under the glow of the veranda lights, was
splendid target for any skulking marksman. Claire
seemed to divine this. For, before her astonished
brother could speak, she called to him:
“Go indoors! Quickly, please!"
Bewildered at the odd command, yet impressed with
its stark earnestness, Milo took a wondering step
backward, toward the open doorway. Then, at sight
of the running man, just behind his sister, he paused.
Claire's lips were parted, to repeat her strange order,
as she came up the porch steps; but Gavin, following
her, called reassuringly:


208 BLACK CÆSAR'S CLAN
"Don't worry, Miss Standish. They don't use guns.
They're knifers. The conchs have a holy horror of
firearms. Besides, a shot might bring the road patrol.
He's perfectly safe.”
As Gavin followed her up the steps and the full
light of the lamps fell on his face, Milo Standish stared
stupidly at him, in blank dismay. Then, over his
bearded face, came a look of sharp annoyance.
"It's all right, Mr. Standish,” said Gavin, reading
his thoughts as readily as spoken words. "Don't be
sore at Roke. He didn't let me get away. He did his
best to keep me. And my coming back isn't as unlucky
for you as it seems. If the snakes had gotten me,
there's a Secret Service chap over there who would
have had an interesting report to make. And you'd
have joined Hade and Roke in a murder trial. So,
you see, things might be worse.”
He spoke in his wonted lazily pleasant drawl, and
with no trace of excitement. Yet he was studying
the big man in front of him, with covert closeness.
And the wholly uncomprehending aspect of Milo's
face, at mention of the snakes and the possible murder
charge, completed Brice's faith in Standish's inno-
cence of the trick's worst features.
Claire had seized her brother's hand and was draw-
ing the dumfounded Milo after her into the hallway.
And as she went she burst forth vehemently into the
story of Brice's afternoon adventures. Her words
fairly fell over one another, in her indignant eager-
ness. Yet she spoke wellnigh as concisely as had
Gavin when he had recounted the tale to her.


THE SIEGE
209
Standish's face, as she spoke, was foolishly vacant.
Then, a lurid blaze began to flicker behind his ice-blue
eyes; and a brickish color surged into his face. Wheel-
ing on Gavin, he cried, his voice choked and hoarse:
"If this crazy yarn is true, Brice, I swear to God I
had no knowledge or part in it! And if it's true, the
man who did it shall
"That can wait,” put in Brice, incisively. “I only
let her waste time by telling it, to see how it would hit
you and if you were the sort who is worth saving.
You are. The Cæsar crowd has found where the
tunnel-opening is,-the masked opening, back in the
path. And the last of them is on his way here, under-
ground. The tunnel comes out, I suppose, in that high-
fenced enclosure behind the house, the enclosure with
the vines all over it and the queer little old coral
kiosk in the center, with the rusty iron door. The
kiosk that had three bulging canvas bags piled along-
side its entrance, this morning ;-probably the night's
haul from the Cæsar's Estuary cache, waiting for Hade
to get a chance to run it North. Well, a bunch of the
Cæsars are either in that enclosure by now, or forcing
a way out through the rusty old rattletrap door of the
kiosk. They— "
"The Cæsars?" babbled Standish. “What--what
‘kiosk' are you talking about?-I- That's a planta-
tion for
"Shut up!” interrupted Brice, annoyed by the piti-
ful attempt to cling to a revealed secret. “The time
for bluffing is past, man! The whole game is up.
You'll be lucky to escape a prison term; even if you


THE SIEGE
211
job. The bags are still there, aren't they? He couldn't
move them, except under cover of darkness. He'll
come for them to-night. . . . He'll be too late."
Working, as he cast the fragmentary sentences over
his shoulder, Gavin nevertheless glanced often enough
at Standish's face to make certain from its foolishly
dismayed expression that each of his conjectures was
correct. Now, finishing his task, he demanded:
"Your servants? Are they all right? Can you
trust them? Your house servants, I mean.”
"Y-yes,” stammered Milo, still battling with the
idea of bluffing this calmly authoritative man. “Yes.
They're all right. But where you got the idea "
“How many of them are there? The servants, I
mean.”
"Four," spoke up Claire, returning from her fin-
ished work, and pausing on her way to do like duty
for the upstairs windows. "Two men and two wo-
men."
“Please go out to the kitchen and see everything is
all right, there," said Brice. "Lock and bar everything.
Tell your two women servants they can get out, if they
want to. They'll be no use here; and they may get
hysterical; as they did, last night when we had that
scrimmage outside. The men-servants may be useful.
Send them here."
Before she could obey, the dining room curtains were
parted; and a black-clad little Jap butler sidled into
the hallway, his jaw adroop, his beady eyes astare with
terror; his hands washing each other with invisible
soap-and-water.


THE SIEGE
213
hallway; and, with a final heave, tossed him bodily
down the veranda steps. Then, closing the door, and
checking Bobby Burns's eager yearnings to charge
out after his beloved deity's victim, Brice exclaimed:
"There! That's one thing well done. We're better
off without a coward like that. He'd be getting under
our feet all the time; or else opening the doors to the
Cæsars, with the idea of currying favor with them.
Where did you ever pick up such an arrant little
poltroon? Most Japs are plucky enough.”
"Hade lent him to us," said Milo, evidently im-
pressed by Brice's athletic demonstration against the
little Oriental. "Sato worked for him, after Hade's
regular butler fell ill. He "
"H'm!" mused Brice. "A hanger-on of Hade's,
eh? That may explain it. Sato's cowardice may have
been a bit of rather clever acting. He saw no use in
risking his neck for you people when his master wasn't
here. It was no part of his spy work to "
"Spy work?" echoed Standish, in real astonish-
ment. “What ?"
"Let it go at that,” snapped Brice, adding as Claire
reëntered the room, followed by the lanky house-man,
“All secure in the kitchen quarters, Miss Standish?
Good! Please send this man to close the upstairs
shutters, too. Not that there's any danger that the
Cæsars will try to climb, before they find they can't get
in on this floor. The sight of the barred shutters will
probably scare them off, anyway. They're likely to
be more hungry for a surprise rush, than for a siege
with resistance thrown in. If


214
BLACK CÆSAR'S CLAN
He ceased speaking; his attention caught by a sight
which, to the others, carried no significance, whatever.
Simon Cameron, the insolently lazy Persian cat, had
been awakened from a nap in a rosebasket on the top
of one of the hall bookcases. The tramping of feet,
the scrambling ejection of the Jap butler, the clanging
shut of many metal blinds all these had interfered
with the calm peacefulness of Simon Cameron's slum-
bers.
Wherefore, the cat had awakened; had stretched
all four shapeless paws out to their full length in
luxurious flexing, and had then arisen majestically to
his feet and had stretched again; arching his fluffy
back to an incredible height. After which, the cat had
dropped lightly to the floor, five feet below his resting
place; and had started across the hall in a mincing
progress toward some spot where his cherished nap
could be pursued without so much disturbance from
noisy humans.
All this, Brice had seen without taking any more
note of it than had the two others. But now, his gaze
fixed itself on the animal.
Simon Cameron's flowingly mincing progress had
brought him to the dining room doorway. As he was
about to pass through, under the curtains, he halted,
sniffed the air with much daintiness; then; turned
to the left and halted again beside a door which flanked
the diningroom end of the wide hall.
For an instant Simon Cameron stood in front of
this. Then, winding his plumed tail around his hips,
he sat down, directly in front of the door; and viewed


THE SIEGE
215
com it
the portal interestedly, as though he expected a mouse
to emerge from it.
It was this seemingly simple action which had so
suddenly diverted Gavin from what he had been say-
ing. He knew the ways of Persian cats; even as he
knew the ways of collies. And both forms of knowl-
edge had more than once been of some slight use to
him.
Facing Milo and Claire, he signed to them not to
speak. Then, making sure the house-man had gone
upstairs, he walked up to Claire and whispered, point-
ing over his shoulder at the door which Simon
Cameron was guarding :
"Where does that door lead to?"
The girl almost laughed at the earnestness of his
question, following, as it did, upon his urgent signal
for silence.
"Why,” she answered, amusedly, "it doesn't lead
anywhere. It's the door of a clothes closet. We keep
our gardening suits and our raincoats and such things
in there. Why do you ask?”
By way of reply, Gavin crossed the hall in two
silent strides; his muscles tensed and his head lowered.
Seizing the knob, he flung the closet door wide open,
wellnigh sweeping the indignant Simon Cameron off
his furry feet.
At first glance, the closet's interior revealed only
a more or less orderly array of hanging raincoats and
aprons and overalls. Then, all three of the onlooking
humans focused their eyes upon a pair of splayed and


216 BLACK CÆSAR'S CLAN
grimy bare feet which protruded beneath a somewhat
bulging raincoat of Milo's.
Brice thrust his arm in, between this coat and a
gardening apron; and jerked forth a silently squirm-
ing youth, perhaps eighteen years old; swarthy and
undersized.
"Well!” exclaimed Gavin, holding his writhing
prize at arm's length, “Simon Cameron must have a
depraved taste in playmates, if he tries to choose this
one! A regular beach combing conch! Probably a
clay-eater, at that.”
He spoke the words with seeming carelessness, but
really with deliberate intent. For the glum silence of
a conch is a hard thing for any outsider to break down.
He recalled what Claire had said of the Cæsars' fierce
distaste for the word “conch.” Also, throughout the
South, “clay-eater,” has ever been a fighting word.
Brice had not gauged his insults in vain. Instantly,
the captive's head twisted, like that of a pinioned pit-
terrier, in a frenzied effort to drive his teeth into the
hand or arm of his captor. Failing this, he spluttered
into rapid-fire speech.
"Ah'm not a conch!” he rasped, his voice sounding
as rusty as an unused hinge. “Ah'm a Cæsar, yo'
dirty Yank! Tuhn me loose, yo'! Ah ain't hurt
nuthin'."
"How did you get in here?” bellowed Milo, ad-
vancing threateningly on the youth, and swinging aloft
one of his hamlike fists.
The intruder stiffened into silence and stolid rigidity.


THE SIEGE
217
Unflinchingly, he eyed the oncoming giant. Brice
motioned Standish back.
“No use," said he. "I know the breed. They've
been kicked and beaten and hammered about, till a
licking has no terrors for them. This sweet soul will
stay in the silences, till-
Again, he broke off speaking. And again on ac-
count of Simon Cameron. The cat, recovering from
the indignity of being brushed from in front of the
opening door, had returned to his former post of
watching; and now stood, tail erect and back arched,
staring up at the prisoner out of huge round green
eyes. The sight of a stranger had its wonted lure for
the Persian.
The lad's impotently roving glance fell upon
Simon Cameron. And into his sullen face leaped stark
terror. At sight of it, Gavin Brice hit on a new idea
for wringing speech from the captive.
He knew that the grossly ignorant wreckers and
fisherfolk of the keys had never set eyes on such an
object as this; nor had so much as heard of Persian
cats' existence. The few cats they had seen were of
course of the alley-variety; lean and of short and
mangy coat. Simon Cameron's halo of wide-fluffing
silver-gray fur gave him the appearance of being double
his real size. His plumed cheeks and tasseled ears and
dished profile and, above all, the weirdly staring green
eyes—all combined to present a truly frightful ap-
pearance to a youth so unsophisticated as this and to
any one as superstitious and as fearful of all unknown
things as were the conchs in general.


218 BLACK CÆSAR'S CLAN
Now this conci, take mv
"Standish,” said Brice, "just take my place for a
minute as holder of this conch's very ragged shirt
collar. So! Now then :- "
He stepped back, and picked up Simon Cameron in
his arms. The cat did not resent the familiarity;
Gavin still being enough of a stranger in the house to
be of interest to the Persian. But the round green eyes
still remained fixed with unwinking intensity upon the
newer and thus more interesting arrival. Which is the
way of a Persian cat.
Brice held Simon Cameron gingerly, almost re-
spectfully; standing so the huge eyes were able to
gaze unimpeded at the gaping and shaking boy. Then,
speaking very slowly, in a deep and reverent voice, he
intoned:
"Devil, look mighty close at that conch, yonder !
Watch him, so's you'll always remember him! Put
the voodoo on him, Devil. Haunt him waking, haunt
him sleeping. Haunt him eating, haunt him drinking.
Haunt him standing and sitting, haunt him lying and
kneeling. Rot his bones and his flesh and "
A howl of panic terror from the youth interrupted
the solemn incantation. The prisoner slumped to his
knees in Standish's grasp, weeping and jabbering for
mercy. Brice saw the time was ripe for speech and
that the captive's stolid nerve was gone. Turning on
him, he said, sternly:
"If you'll speak up and answer us, truthfully, I'll
make this ha'nt take off the curse. But if you lie, in
one word, he'll know it and he'll tell me, and and


THE SIEGE
219
then I'll turn him loose on you. It's your one chance.
Want it?"
The youth fairly gabbled his eagerness to assent.
“Good !” said Brice, still holding Simon Cameron,
lest the supposed devil spoil everything by rubbing
against the prisoner's legs and purring. “First of
all:-how did you get in here?”
The boy gulped. Gavin bent his own head toward
the cat and seemed about to resume his incantation.
With a galvanic jump, the youth made answer
"Came by the path. Watched till the dawg run out
in the road to bark at suthin'. This man," with a jerk
of his head toward his captor, “this man went to the
road after him. I cut across the grass, yonder, and
got in. They come back. I hid me in there."
"H'm! Why didn't you come by way of the tunnel,
like the other Cæsars?”.
"Pop tol me not to. Sent me ahead. Said
mebbe they moughtn't git in here if the doors was
locked early. Tol me to hide me in the house an' let
'em in, late, ef they-all couldn't git in no earlier; or
ef they couldn't cotch one of the two cusses outside
the house."
"Good strategy!” approved Brice. “That explains
why they haven't rushed us, Standish. They came
here in force, and most likely (if they've gotten out
of the enclosure, yet) they've surrounded the house;
waiting for you or Hade to come in or go out. If
that doesn't work, they plan to wait till you're asleep;
and then get in, by this gallant youngster's help, and
cut your throat at their leisure and loot the house and


220 BLACK CÆSAR'S CLAN
take a good leisurely hunt for the treasure. It calls
for more sense than I thought they had. . :. How
did they find the tunnel ?” he continued, to the prisoner.
"They been a-huntin' fer it, nigh onto one-half of
a year," sulkily returned the boy. “Pop done found
it, yest'dy. Stepped into it, he did, a walkin' past.”.
“The rumor of that tunnel has been hereabout for
over a century,” explained Brice, to the Standishes.
"Just as the treasure-rumors have. I heard of it when
I was a kid. The Cæsars must have heard it, a thou-
sand times. But, till this game started, there was no
impetus to look for it, of course. The tunnel is sup
posed to have been dug, just after that Seminole war-
party cut off the refugees in the path. By the way,
Miss Standish, I didn't mention it while we were still
there; but the mangrove-swamp is supposed to be
haunted by the ghosts of those killed settlers."
Brother and sister glanced at each other; almost in
guilt, as it seemed to the observing Brice. And Claire
said, shortly:
“I know. Every one around here has heard it.
Some of the negroes and even some of the more
ignorant crackers declare they have heard screams
from the swamp on dark nights and that white figures
have been seen flitting-
"So?" queried Brice. "Back in the boat, you were
starting to tell me how you sat on the veranda, one
night, and heard a cry in the swamp and then saw a
white figure emerge from the path. Yes? I have a
notion that that white figure was responsible for the
cry; and that your brother and Rodney Hade were re-


THE SIEGE
221
sponsible for both. Wasn't that a trick to scare off
any chance onlookers, when some of the treasure was
to be brought here?”
"Yes," admitted Claire, shamefacedly; and she
added : "Milo hadn't told me anything about it. And
Rodney thought I was at a dance at the Royal Palm
Hotel, that evening. I had expected to go, but I had
a headache. When the cry and the white form
frightened me so, Milo had to tell me what they
both meant. That was how I found out, first, that
they ”
"Claire!" cried Standish in alarmed rebuke.
"It's all right, Standish," said Gavin. "I know all
about it. A good deal more than she does. And none
of it from her, either. We'll come to that, later. Now
for the prisoner."
Turning to the glumly scowling youth, he resumed:
“How many of them are there in this merry little
midnight murder party?"
"I dunno," grunted the boy.
“Devil, is that true?" gravely asked Gavin, bending
again toward Simon Cameron.
"Six !" babbled the lad, eagerly. - "Pop and "
"Never mind giving me a census of them,” said
Brice. "It wouldn't do me any good. I've left my
copies of 'Who's Who' and Burke's Peerage at home.
And they figured Mr. Standish and Mr. Hade would
both be here, to-night?”
"Most nights t'other one comes," said the boy.
"I laid out yonder and heern him, one night. Whistles


222 BLACK CÆSAR'S CLAN
like he's a mocking-bird, when he gits nigh here. I
told Pop an' them about that. They
"By the way," asked Gavin, "when your Pop came
back from finding the tunnel, last night, was he in
pretty bad shape? Hey? Was he?".
"He were," responded the captive, after another
scared look at Simon Cameron. “He done fell into
the tunnel, arter he step down it. An' he bust hisself
up, suthin' fierce, round the haid an' the th’oat.
Не —
"I see," agreed Brice.
Then, to Standish:
"I think we've got about all out of the charming
child that we can expect to. Suppose we throw him
out?"
“Throw him out?" echoed Milo, incredulously.
"Do you mean, set him free? Why, man he'd "
“That's exactly what I mean," said Gavin. "I agree
with Cæsar-Julius Cæsar, not the pirate. Cæsar
used to say that it was a mistake to hold prisoners.
They must be fed and guarded and they can do in-
calculable mischief. We've turned this prisoner inside
out. We've learned from him that six men are lurk-
ing somewhere outside, on the chance that you or
Rodney Hade may come out or come in; so that they
can cut you both off, comfortably, out there in the
dark, and carry on their treasure-hunt here. Failing
that, they plan to get in here, when you're asleep; All
this lad can tell them is that you are on your guard;
and that there are enough of us to hold the house
against any possible rush. He can also tell them,"


THE SIEGE
223
pursued Gavin, dropping back into his slowly solemn
diction, "about this devil—this ha'nt—that serves us;
and of the curse—the voodoo-he can put on them all
if they try to harm us. We'll let him go. He was
sent on, by the path; because he went some time ahead
of the rest; and he didn't know the secret of the tunnel.
In fact, none of them could have known just where it
ended here. But they'll know by now. He can join
them, if they're picketing the house. And he can tell
them what he knows.”
Strolling over to the front door, he unbarred it and
opened it wide, standing fearlessly in its lighted
threshold.
"Pass him along to me,” he bade Standish. "Or,
you can let him go. He won't miss the way out.”
"But,” argued Milo, stubbornly retaining his grip
on the ragged shirt collar, “I don't agree with you.
I'm going to keep him here and lock him up, till "
He got no further. The sight of the open door
leading to freedom was too much for the youth's
stolidity. Twisting suddenly, he drove his yellow
teeth deep into the fleshy part of Standish's hand.
And, profiting by the momentary slackening of Milo's
grasp, he made one wildly scrambling dive across the
hall; vaulting over the excited Bobby Burns (and
losing a handful of his disreputable trousers to the
dog's jaws, in the process) and volleying over the
threshold with the speed of an express train.
While Standish nursed his sorely-bitten hand, Brice
watched the lad's lightning progress across the lawn.


THE SIEGE
225
For-sweet, faint, yet distinct to them all-the
soaring notes of a mocking-bird's song swelled out on
the quiet of the night.
“Rodney Hade!” gasped Standish. “It's his first
signal. He gives it when he's a hundred yards from
the end. Good Lord! And he's going to walk straight
into that ambush! It's--it's sure death for him!”





CHAPTER IX
THE FIGURE IN WHITE


--


230 BLACK CÆSAR’S CLAN
III.
studying him, saw with vivid clearness the weakness
of character which had made this man the dupe and
victim of Hade, and which had rendered him helpless
against the wiles of a master-mind.
But if Standish hesitated, Claire did not. After
one look of scornful pity at her wavering half-brother,
she moved swiftly past him to the threshold. There
was no hint of hesitation in her free step as she ran
to the rescue of the man who had ruined Milo's career.
And both onlookers knew she would brave any and
all the dire perils of the lurking marauders, in order
to warn back the unconsciously oncoming Hade.
As she sped through the doorway, Brice came to
himself, with a start. Springing forward, he caught
the flying little figure and swung it from the ground.
Disregarding Claire's violent struggles, he bore her
back into the house; shutting and locking the door
behind her and standing with his back to it.
“You can't go, Miss Standish!” he said, in stern
command, as if rebuking some fractious child. "Your
little finger is worth more than that blackguard's whole
body. Besides," he added, grimly, "mocking birds,
that sing nearly three weeks ahead of schedule, must
be prepared to pay the bill.”
She was struggling with the door. Then, realizing
that she could not open it, she ran to the nearest win-
dow which looked out on the lawn and the path-head.
Tugging at the sash she flung it open; and next fell
to work at the shutter-bars. As she threw wide the
shutters, and put one knee on the sill, Milo Standish


THE FIGURE IN WHITE 231
caught her by the shoulder. Roughly drawing her
back into the room, he said:
"Brice is right. It's not your place to go. It would
be suicide. Useless suicide, at that. I'd go, myself.
But-but "
“ 'They that take up the sword shall perish by the
sword,'” quoted Gavin, tersely. “The man who sets
traps must expect to step into a trap some day. And
those Cæsars will be more merciful assassins than the
moccasin snakes would have been. ... He's taking
plenty of time, to cover that last hundred yards. Per-
haps he met the conch boy, running back; and had
sense enough to take alarm.”
"Not he," denied Standish. “That fool boy was so
scared, he'd plunge into the brush or the water, the
second he heard Rodney's step. Those conchs can
keep as mum as Seminoles. He'd never let Rodney
see him or hear him. He "
Standish did not finish his sentence. Into his slow-
moving brain, an idea dawned. Leaning far out of the
window and shouting at the top of his enormous lungs,
he bawled through the night:
"Hade! Back, man! Go back! They'll kill you !"
The bull-like bellow might have been heard for half
a mile. And, as it ceased, a muffled snarling, like a
dog's, came from the edge of the forest; where waited
the silent men whose knives were drawn for the killing.
And, in the same instant, from the head of the path,
drifted the futing notes of a mocking bird.
Disregarding or failing to catch the meaning of the
thickly-bеllowed warning, Rodney Hade was advanc-


THE FIGURE IN WHITE 233
Standish vaulted over the sill and out onto the
veranda. But there he came to a halt. For there was
no further need for him to throw away his own life
in the belated effort at rescue.
The three black figures had regained their feet.
And, on the trampled lawn-edge in front of them lay
a huddle of white; with darker stains splashed here
and there on it. The body lay in an impossible posture
-a posture which Nature neither intends nor permits.
It told its own dreadful story, to the most uninitiated
of the three onlookers at the window.
With dragging feet, Milo Standish turned back, and
reëntered the house, as he had gone out of it.
"I am a coward!” he said, heavily. "I could have
saved him. Or we could have fought, back to back,
till we were killed. It would have been a white man's
way of dying. I am a coward !"
He sank down in a chair and buried his bearded face
in his hands. No one contradicted him or made any
effort at comfort. Claire, deathly pale, still crouched
forward, staring blindly at the moveless white figure
at the head of the path.
"Peace to his soul!” said Brice, in a hushed voice;
adding under his breath: "If he had one!"
Then, laying his hand gently on Claire's arm, he
drew her away from the window and shut the blinds
on the sight which had so horrified them.
“Go and lie down, Miss Standish,” he bade her.
“This has been an awful thing for you or any other
woman to look on. Take a double dose of aromatic
spirits of ammonia; and tell one of the maids to bring


THE FIGURE IN WHITE 235
made me believe he had a charmed life. His death
means freedom to me ;-glorious freedom! It's for
my own foul cowardice that I'm grieving. The
cowardice that held me here while a man's life might
have been saved by me. That's going to haunt me as
long as I live."
"Bosh!” scoffed Gavin. "You'll get over it. Self-
forgiveness is the easiest blessing to acquire. You're
better of it, already; or you couldn't talk so glibly
about it. Now, about this treasure-business: You
know, of course, that you'll have to drop it;-that
you'll have to give up every cent of it to the Govern-
ment? If you can't find the cache, up North, where
Hade used to send it when he lugged it away from
here, it is likely to go a bit hard with you. I'm going
to do all I can to get you clear. Not for your own
sake, but for your sister's. But you'll have to 'come
through, clean,' if I'm to help you. Now, if you've got
anything to say~ "
He paused, invitingly. Milo gaped at him, the big
bearded face working convulsively. Nerves wrenched,
easily dominated by a stronger nature, the giant was
struggling in vain to resume his pose of not under-
standing Brice's allusions. Presently, with a sigh, that
was more like a grunt of hopelessness, he thrust his
fingers into an inner pocket of his waistcoat; and drew
forth a somewhat tarnished silver dollar. This he
held toward Gavin, in his wide palm.
Brice took the coin from him and inspected it with
considerable interest. In spite of the tarnish and
the ancient die and date, its edges were as sharp and


236 BLACK CÆSAR'S CLAN
its surface as unworn as though it had been minted
that very year. Clearly, this dollar had jingled in no
casual pockets, along with other coins; nor had it been
sweated or marred by any sort of use.
“Do you know what that is ?" asked Milo.
“Yes," said Brice. "It is a United States silver
dollar, dated '1804.'"
"Do you know its value?" pursued Milo. “But of
course you don't. You probably think it is worth its
weight in silver and nothing more.”
"It is, and it isn't,” returned Gavin. "If I were
to take this dollar, to-night, to the right groups of
numismatists, they would pay me anywhere from
$3,000 to $7,000 for it.”
"Oh!” exclaimed Standish, in visible surprise. “You
know something about numismatics, then?”
"Just a little," modestly admitted Brice. "In my
work, one has to have a smattering of it. For instance
-if I remember rightly—there are only three of these
1804 silver dollars generally known to be in existence.
That is why collectors are ready to pay a fortune for
authentic specimens of them, in good condition. Yes,
a smattering of numismatics may come in handy, at
times. So does sailor lore. It did, for instance, with
a chap I used to know. He had read up, on this special
dollar. He was dead-broke. He was passing the
Gloucester waterfront, one day; and saw a dockful of
rotting old schooners that were being sold at auction
for firewood and for such bits of their metal as weren't
rusted to pieces. He read the catalog. Then he
telegraphed to me to wire him a loan of one hundred


THE FIGURE IN WHITE 237
dollars. For the catalog gave the date of one schoon-
er's building as 1804. He knew it used to be a hard-
and-fast custom of ship-builders to put a silver dollar
under the mainınast of every vessel they built;-a dol-
lar of that particular year. He bought the schooner
for $70. He spent ten dollars in hiring men to rip
out her mast. Under it was an 1804 dollar. He sold
it for $3,600.”
"Since you know so much about the 1804 dollar,"
went on Milo, catechizingly, “perhaps you know why
it is so rare? Or perhaps you didn't add a study of
American history to your numismatics ?”.
“The commonly accepted story goes,” said Brice,
taking no heed of the sneer, “that practically the whole
issue of 1804 dollars went toward the payment of the
Louisiana Purchase money; when Uncle Sam paid
Napoleon Bonaparte's government a' trifle less than
$15,000,000 (or under four cents an acre) for the
richest part of the whole United States. Payment was
made in half a dozen different forms,-in settlement
of anti-French claims and in installment notes; and so
forth. But something between a million and two
million dollars of it is said to have been paid in silver."
"Are you a schoolmaster, Mr. Brice?” queried Milo,
who seemed unable to avoid sneering in futile fashion
at the man who was dominating his wavering will-
power.
"No, Mr. Standish,” coolly replied the other. "I am
Gavin Brice, of the United States Secret Service. *
Standish's bearded jaw dropped. He glanced fut-


238 BLACK CÆSAR'S CLAN
tively about him, like a trapped rat. Gavin continued,
authoritatively:
"You've nothing to fear from me, as long as you
play straight. And I'm here to see that you shall.
Two hours ago, I was for renouncing my life-work
and throwing over my job. Never mind why. I've
changed my mind, now. I'm in this thing to the finish.
With Hade out of the game, I can see my way
through."
"But-
"Now I'll finish the yarn you were so gradually
leading up to with those schoolboy questions of yours.
French statesmen claimed, last year, that something
over a million dollars of the Louisiana purchase money
was never paid to France. That was money, in the
form of silver dollars, which went by sea. In skirting
the Florida coast-probably on the way from some
mint or treasury in the South-one or more of the
treasure ships parted from their man-o'-war escorts
in a hurricane; and went aground on the southeastern
Florida reefs. The black pirate, Caesar, and his cut-
throats did the rest.
“This was no petty haul, such as Cæsar was ac-
customed to; and it seems to have taken his breath
away. He and his crew carried it into Caesar's
Estuary—not Caesar's Creek-an inlet, among the
mangrove swamps. They took it there by night; and
sank it in shallow water, under the bank. There they
planned to have it until it might be safe to divide it and
to scatter to Europe or to some place where they could
live in safety and in splendor. Only a small picked


240 BLACK CÆSAR’S CLAN
Government, and that Uncle Sam means to have them
back?"
Standish still gaped at him, with fallen jaw and
bulging eyes. Gavin went on:
"Knowing Hade's record and his cleverness as I do,
I can guess how he was going to swing the hoard when
he finished transporting all of it to safety. Prob-
ably, he'd clear up a good many thousand dollars by
selling the coins, one at a time, secretly, to collectors
who would think he was selling them the only 1804
dollar outside the three already known to be in exist-
ence. When that market was glutted, he was due to
melt down the rest of the dollars into bar silver.
Silver is high just now, you know. Worth almost
double what once it was. The loot ought to have been
much the biggest thing in his speckled career. How
much of it he was intending to pass along to you, is
another question. By the way—the three canvas bags
he left out by the kiosk ought to do much toward
whetting the Cæsars' appetite for the rest. It may
even key them up to rushing the house before morn-
ing."
"We'll be ready for them!" spoke up Standish,
harshly; as though glad to have a prospect of restoring
his broken self-respect by such a clash.
“Quite so," agreed Gavin, smiling at the man's new
ardor for battle. “It would be a pleasant little brush
if it weren't for your sister. Miss Standish has seen
about enough of that sort of thing for one night. If
she weren't a thoroughbred, with the nerves of a thor-
oughbred and the pluck as well, she'd be a wreck; from


242 BLACK CÆSAR'S CLAN
have relied on the local watchmen, of course. But their
absence needn't bother us, overmuch.”
"What do you mean?"
Before Gavin could answer, a stifled cry from the
hallway above brought both men to attention. It was
followed by a sound of lightly running feet. And
Claire Standish appeared at the stair-top. She was
deathly pale; and her dark eyes were dilated with
terror.
Gavin ran up the steps to meet her. For she swayed
perilously as she made her way down toward the
men.
“What is it?" demanded Milo, excitedly. “What's
happened?"
Claire struggled visibly to regain her composure.
Then, speaking with forced calmness, she said:
"I've just seen a ghost! Rodney Hade's ghost !"
The two looked at her in dumb incomprehension.
Then, without a word, Milo wheeled and strode to the
window from which they had watched the tragedy.
Opening the shutter, he peered out into the moonlight.
"Hade's still lying where he fell,” he reported,
tersely. “They haven't even bothered to move him.
You were dreaming. If "
"I wasn't asleep," she denied, a trace of color be-
ginning to creep back into her blanched cheeks. "I
had just lain down. I heard or thought I hearda
sound on the veranda roof. I peeped out through the
grill of the shutter. There, on the roof, not ten feet
away from me, stood Rodney Hade. He was dressed


THE FIGURE IN WHITE 243
in rags. But I recognized him. I saw his face, as
clearly as I see yours. Hem "
“One of the Cæsars," suggested Brice. “They found
the lower windows barred and they sent some one up,
to see if there was any ingress by an upper window.
The porch is easy to climb, with all those vines. So
is the whole house, for that matter. He "
"It was Rodney Hade!” she insisted, shuddering.
"I saw his face with the moonlight on it "
"And with a few unbecoming scratches on it, too,
from the underbrush and from those porch vines,"
chimed in a suave voice from the top of the stairs.
"Milo, next time you bar your house, I suggest you
don't forget and leave the cupola window open. If it
was easy for me to climb up there from the veranda
roof, it would be just as easy for any of our friends
out yonder.”
Down the stairs-slowly, nonchalantly,-lounged
Rodney Hade.
His classic mask of a face was marred by one or
two scratches and by a smudge of dirt. But it was as
calm and as eternally smiling as ever. In place of his
wontedly correct, if garish, form of dress, he was clad
in ragged calico shirt and soiled drill trousers whose
lower portions were in ribbons. All of which formed
a ludicrous contrast to his white buckskin yachting
shoes and his corded white silk socks.
Claire and the two men stood staring up at him in
utter incredulity. Bobby Burns broke the spell by
bounding snarlingly toward the unkempt intruder.


244 BLACK CÆSAR'S CLAN
Brice absentmindedly caught the dog's collar as Bobby
streaked past him on his punitive errand.
"Hade!” croaked Standish, his throat sanded with
horror. "Hade! I-we-we saw you-murdered !”
Hade laughed pleasantly.
"Perhaps the wish was father to the thought?” he
hinted, with an indulgent twinkle in his perpetual
smile. "I hate mysteries. Here's an end to this one:
I was on my way along the path, when a young fellow
came whirling around a bend and collided with me.
The impact knocked him off his feet. I collared him.
He didn't want to talk. But," the smile twisting up-
ward at one corner of the mouth in a look which did
not add to the beauty of the ascetic face, "I used per-
suasion. And I found what was going on here. I
stripped off my outer clothes, and made him put them
on. Then I put my yachting cap on him and pulled it
low over his eyes. And I bandaged his mouth with
my handkerchief, to gag him. Then I walked him
along, ahead of me. I gave the signal. And I stuck
my cigarette in his hand and shoved him through the
screen of vines. They finished him, poor fool! I had
no outer clothes of my own. So I went back and put
on his. Then I slipped through that chuckleheaded ag-
gregation out there and-here I am.”
As he finished speaking, he turned his icy smile upon
Gavin Brice.
"Roke signaled a fruit boat, Mr. Brice," said he,
"and came over to where my yacht was lying; to tell me
you had gotten loose. That was why I came here, to-
night. He seems to think you know more than a man


246 BLACK CÆSAR'S CLAN
I said, goes. And it goes for my sister, too. Doesn't
it, dear girl?”
For answer, Claire caught her brother's big hand
in both of hers, and raised it to her lips. A light of
happiness transfigured her face. Milo pulled away
his hand, bashfully, his eyes misting at her wordless
praise for his belatedly manly action.
“Good !” he approved, passing his arm about her
and drawing her close to him. "I played the cur
once, this evening. It's good to know I've had enough
pluck to do this one white thing, to help make up
for it."
He faced Gavin; head thrown back, giant shoulders
squared, eyes alight.
"Mr. Brice," he said, clearly. “Through you, I sur-
render to the United States Government. I'll make a
signed confession, any time you want it. I'm your
prisoner."
Gavin shook his head.
"The confession will be of great service, later," said
he, “and, as state's evidence, it will clear you from any
danger of punishment. But you're not my prisoner.
Thanks to your promise of a confession. I have a pris-
oner, here. But it is not you.”
"No?” suavely queried Hade, whose everlasting
smile had not changed and whose black eyes remained
as serene as ever, through the declaration of rebellion
on the part of his satellite. “If Standish is not your
prisoner, he'll be the State of Florida's prisoner, by
this time to-morrow; when I have lodged his raised
check with the District Attorney. Think that over,


THE FIGURE IN WHITE 247
Standish, my dear friend. Seven years for forgery is
not a joyous thing; even in a Florida prison. Here,
in the community where your family's name has been
honored, it will come extra hard. And on Claire, here,
too. Mightn't it be better to think that over, a min-
ute or so; before announcing your virtuous intent?
Mightn't- "
"Don't listen to him, Milo!” cried the girl, seizing
Standish's hand again in an agony of appeal, and smil-
ing encouragingly up into his sweating and irreso
lute face. “We'll go through any disgrace, together,
You and I. And after it's all over, I'll give up my
whole life to making you happy; and helping you to
get on your feet again."
“There'll be no need for that, Miss Standish," said
Brice. "Of course, Hade can foreclose his mortgage
on your half-brother's property and call in Standish's
notes, --if he's in a position to do it; which I don't
think he will be. But, as for the raised check, why,
he's threatening Standish with an empty gun. Hade,
if ever you get home again, look in the compartment
of your strongbox where you put the red-sealed en-
velope with Standish's check in it. The envelope is
still there. So are the seals. The check is not. You
can verify that, for yourself, later; perhaps. In the
meantime, take my word for it.”
A cry of delight from Claire-a groan from Stan-
dish that carried with it a world of supreme relief
broke in upon Gavin's recital. Paying no heed to
either of his hosts, Brice walked across to the un-


248 BLACK CÆSAR’S CLAN
movedly smiling Hade; and placed one hand on the
latter's shoulder.
"Mr. Hade," said he, quietly, "I am an officer of
the Federal Secret Service. I place you under arrest,
on charges of "
With a hissing sound, like a striking snake's, Rod-
ney Hade shook off the detaining hand. In the same
motion, he leaped backward, drawing from his torn
pocket an automatic pistol.
Brice, unarmed, stood for an instant looking into
the squat little weapon's black muzzle; and at the
gleaming black eyes in the ever-smiling white face be-
hind it.
He was not afraid. Many times, before, had he
faced leveled guns; and, like many another war-vet-
eran, he had outgrown the noi mal man's dread of such
weapons.
But as he was gathering his strength for a spring at
his opponent,-trusting that the suddenness and unex-
pectedness of his onset might shake the other's aim,
-Rodney Hade took the situation into his own hands.
Not at random had he made that backward leap. Still
covering Gavin with his pistol, he flashed one hand
behind him and pressed the switch-button which con-
trolled the electric lights in the hallway and the ad-
joining rooms.
Black darkness filled the place. Brice sprang for-
ward through the dark, to grapple with the man. But
Hade was nowhere within reach of Brice's outflung
arms. Rodney had slipped, snakelike, to one side;
foreseeing just such a move on the part of his foe.


250 BLACK CÆSAR'S CLAN
which Hade, in escaping, had thrust across the closed
doorway in anticipation of just such a move.
Over went the couch, under the double impetus. By
catching at the doorway frame, Gavin barely managed
to save himself from a nasty fall. The dog disentangled
himself from an avalanche of couch cushions and
made furiously for the veranda steps.
But Brice summoned him back. He was not minded
to let Bobby risk life from knife-cut or from strong,
strangling hands; out there in the perilous shadows be-
yond the lawn. And he knew the futility of follow-
ing Hade, himself, among merciless men and through
labyrinths with whose windings Rodney was far more
familiar than was he. So, reluctantly, he turned back
into the house. A glance over the moonlit lawn revealed
no sign of the fugitive.
"I'm sorry," he said to Standish, as he shut the
door behind him and patted the fidgetingly excited
Bobby Burns on the head. "I may never have such a
good chance at him again. And your promise of a
confession was the thing that made me arrest him.
Your evidence would have been enough to convict him.
And that's the only thing that could have convicted
him or made it worth while to arrest him. He's worked
too skillfully to give us any other hold on him.'...
I was a thickwitted idiot not to think, sooner, of call-
ing to Bobby. I'd stopped him, once, when he went
for Hade; and of course he wouldn't attack again, right
away, without leave. A dog sees in the dark, ten times
as well as any man does. Bobby was the solution. And
I forgot to use him till it was too late. With a collie


252 BLACK CÆSAR'S CLAN
music-room. Over and over, a dozen times, they had
reviewed their position, from all angles. And they
had come to the conclusion that the sanest thing to do
was to wait in comfortable safety behind stoutly shut-
tered windows until the dawn of day should bring the
place's laborers back to work. Daylight, and the
prospect of others' presence on the grounds, was cer-
tain to disperse the Cæsars. And it would be ample
time then to go to Miami and to safer quarters; while
Gavin should start the hunt after Rodney Hade. The
two men had agreed to divide the night into watches.
“One of the torpedo-boat destroyers down yonder,
off Miami, can ferret out Hade's yacht and lay it by the
heels, in no time,” explained Brice. "His house is
watched, always, lately. And every port and railroad
will be watched, too. The chief reason I want to get
hold of him is to find where he has sent the treasure.
You have no idea, either of you?"
"No," answered Milo. “He explained to me that
he was sending it North, to a place where nobody could
possibly find it; and that, as soon as it was all there,
he'd begin disposing of it. Then we were to have our
settlement, after it was melted down and sold.”
“Who works with him? I mean, who helps him
bring the stuff here? Who, besides you, I mean?”
· "Why, his yacht-crew," said Milo. "They're all
picked men of his own. Men he has known for years
and has bound to himself in all sorts of ways. He
has only eleven of them, for it's a small yacht. But
he says he owns the souls of each and every one of
the lot. He pays them double wages and gives them


THE FIGURE IN WHITE 253
a fat bonus on anything he employs them on. They're
nearly all of them men who have done time; and "
"A sweet aggregation, for this part of the twentieth
century !" commented Gavin. "I wish I'd known
about all that,” he added, musingly. “I supposed you
and one or two men like Roke were the only-
"Roke is more devoted to him than any dog could
be," said Claire. “He worships him. And, speaking
of dogs, I left Bobby Burns in the kitchen, getting
his supper. I forgot all about him.”
She set down Simon Cameron, who was drows-
ing in her lap; and got to her feet. As she did so, a
light step sounded in the hallway, outside. Gavin
jumped up and hurried past her.
He was just in time to see Rodney Hade cross the
last yard or so of the hallway; and unlock and open the
front door.
The man had evidently entered the house from above;
though all the shutters were still barred and the door
from the cupola had later been locked. Remembering
the flimsy lock on that door, Gavin realized how Hade
could have made an entrance.
But why Hade was now stealing to the front door
and opening it, was more than his puzzled brain could
grasp. All this flashed through Brice's mind, as he
caught sight of his enemy; and at the same time he was
aware that Hade was no longer clad in rags; but wore
a natty white yachting suit.
Before these impressions had had full time to regis-
ter themselves on Gavin's brain, he was in motion. This


CHAPTER X
THE GHOST TREE


258 BLACK CÆSAR’S CLAN
smash a path through the rushline of a vastly inferior
team.
Hade cried out to his men; and drew his pistol. But
even as he did so, the momentarily glimpsed Gavin
was lost to his view; amid the jostling and jostled
sailors.
Past the loosely crowding men, Brice ripped his way;
and out onto the veranda which he cleared at a bound.
Then, running low, but still at top speed, he sped
around the bottom of the porch; past the angle of the
house and straight for the far side.
He did not make for the road; but for the enclosure
into which he had peeped that morning; and for the
thick shade which shut off the moon's light.
Now, he ran with less caution. For, he knew the
arrival of so formidable a body of men must have
been enough to send the Cæsars scattering for cover.
Before he reached the enclosure he veered abruptly
to one side; dashing across a patch of moonlit turf;
and heading for the giant live oak that stood gauntly
in its center.
Under the “Ghost Tree's” enormous shade he came
to a stop; glancing back to see if the direction of his
headlong flight had been noted. Above him towered
the mighty corpse of what had once been an ancestral
tree. He remembered how it had stood there, bleakly,
under the morning sunlight;—its myriad spreading
branches and twigs long since killed by the tons of
parasitical gray moss which festooned its every inch of
surface with long trailing masses of dead fuff.
Not idly had Brice studied that weird tree and its


260 BLACK CÆSAR'S CLAN
ing wood broke forth on the night air like the purr of
fifty machine guns.
But Gavin Brice had not waited to gaze on what
was perhaps the most marvelous display of pyrotech-
nics ever beheld on the Florida coast. At first touch
of flame to the first festoon of moss, he had taken to
his heels.
Claire Standish gazed in unbelieving horror at the
seemingly panic flight of the man who had so strangely
dominated her life and her brother's, during these
past few hours. He had faced death at Rodney Hade's
pistol; he had been lazily calm at the possibility
of a rush from the Cæsars. He had shown himself
fearless, amusedly contemptuous of danger. Yet here
he was fleeing for his very life and leaving the Stan-
dishes at the mercy of the merciless!
More;-unless she had deceived herself, grossly,
Claire had seen in his eyes the lovelight that all his
assumption of indifference had not been able to quench.
She had surprised it there, not once but a score of
times. And it had thrilled her, unaccountably. Yet,
in spite of that, he was deserting her in her moment
of direst peril!
Then, through her soul surged the gloriously, di-
vinely, illogical Faith that is the God-given heritage
of the woman who loves. And all at once she knew this
man had not deserted her; that right blithely he would
lay down his life for her. That, somehow or other,
he had acted for her good. And a feeling of calm ex-
ultation filled her.


THE GHOST TREE : 261
Hade stood in the doorway, barking sharp commands
to several of his men; calling to them by name. And
at each call, they obeyed; like dogs at their master's
bidding. They dashed off the veranda, in varying di-
rections, at a lurching run, in belated pursuit of the
fleeing Brice.
Then, for the first time, Hade faced about and con-
fronted the unflinching girl and Standish who had
lumbered dazedly out of the library and who stood
blinking at Claire's side.
Lifting his yachting cap, with exaggerated courtesy,
Hade bowed to them. The eternal smile on his face
was intensified; as he glanced from one to the other of
the pair.
"Well,” he said, and his black eyes strayed as if by
accident to Claire's face, “our heroic friend seems to
have cracked under the strain, eh? Cut and ran, like
a rabbit. Frankly, my dear Milo, you'd do better to
put your reliance on me. A man who will run away,
with a woman looking on, too and leaving you both
in the lurch; after promising to "
There was a clatter on the veranda; and Roke's
enormous bulk shouldered its way through what was
left of the group of sailors; his roustabout costume at
ugly variance with their neat attire.
"Did you find him?" demanded Hade, turning at the
sound.
"No!" panted Roke, in keen excitement. "But we'd
better clear out, Boss! All Dade County's liable to be
here in another five minutes. The old Ghost Tree's
on fire. Listen! You can hear -- "


262 BLACK CÆSAR'S CLAN
He finished his staccato speech by lifting his hand
for silence. And, in the instant's hush could be heard
the distant roar of a million flames.
"He didn't desert us !" cried the girl, in ecstatic
triumph. “I knew he didn't! I knew it! He "
But Hade did not stop to hear her. At a bound he
reached the veranda and was on the lawn below; run-
ning around the side of the house with his men trail-
ing at his heels.
Out in the open, he halted; staring aghast at the
column of fire that soared heavenward and filled the
night with lurid brightness. Back to him, one by one,
came the four sailors he had sent in pursuit of Gavin.
And, for a space, all stood gazing in silence at the
awesome spectacle.
Roke broke the spell by tugging at Hade's coat; and
urging eagerly:
"Best get out, at the double-quick, Boss! This blaze
is due to bring folks a-runnin', an' !"
"Well?" inquired Hade, impatiently. "What then?
They'll find us looking at a burning tree. Is there any
law against that? I brought you and the crew ashore,
to-night, to help shift some heavy furniture that came
from up North last week. On the way, we saw this
tree and stopped to look at it. Where's the crime in
that? You talk like a ”.
"But if the Standishes blab "
“They won't. That Secret Service sneak has bolted.
Without him to put backbone in them, they'll eat out
of my hand. Don't worry. They- ".
"Here comes some of the folks, now," muttered


THE GHOST TREE
263
Roke, as running figures began to appear from three
sides. “We'd be safer to "
His warning ended in a gurgle of dismay.
From three points the twenty-five or thirty new ar-
rivals continued to run forward. But, at a word from
some one in front of them, they changed their direction;
and wheeled in triple column, almost with the pre-
cision of soldiers.
The shift of direction brought them converging, not
upon the tree, but upon the group of sailors that stood
around Hade. It was this odd change of course which.
had stricken Roke dumb.
And now he saw these oncomers were not farm-
hands or white-clad neighbors; and that there were no
women among them. They were men in dark clothes;
they were stalwart of build and determined of aspect.
There was a certain confident teamwork and air of
professionalism about them that did not please Roke
at all. Again, he caught at his master's arm. But he
was too late.
Out of nothingness, apparently, darted a small fig-
ure, directly behind the unsuspecting Hade. It was
as though he had risen from the earth itself.
With lightning swiftness, he attached himself to Rod-
ney's throat and right arm, from behind. Hade gave a
convulsive start; and, with his free hand reached back
for his pistol. At the same time Roke seized the
dwarfish stranger.
Then, two things happened, at once.
Roke wallowed backward, faint with pain and with
one leg numb to the thigh; from an adroit smiting of


264 BLACK CÆSAR’S CLAN
his instep. The little assailant's heel had come down
with trained force on this nerve center. And, for the
moment, Roke was not only in agony but powerless.
The second thing to happen was a deft twist from the
imprisoning arm that was wrapped around Hade's
throat from behind. At the pressure, Rodney's grop-
ing hand fell away from his pistol pocket; and he him-
self toppled, powerless, toward the ground; the skilled
wrench of the carotid artery and the nerves at the side
of the throat paralyzing him with pain.
Roke, rolling impotently on the earth, saw the little
fellow swing Hade easily over his shoulder and start for
the house. At the same time, he noted through his
semi-delirium of agony that the stalwart men had
borne down upon the knot of gaping sailors; and, at
pistol-muzzle, had disarmed and handcuffed them.
It was all over in less than fifteen seconds. But not
before Roke's beach combing wits could come to the
aid of his tortured body. Doubling himself into a
muscular ball, he rolled swiftly under the shadow of a
sprawling magnolia sapling; crouching among the vine
roots which surround it. There, unobserved, he lay;
hugging the dark ground as scientifically as any Semi-
nole; and moving not an eyelash.
From that point of vantage, he saw the dark-clothed
men line up their sullen prisoners and march them off
to the road, where, a furlong below, the fire revealed
the dim outlines of several motor cars. Other men, at
the direction of the same leader who had commanded
the advance, trooped toward the house. And, as this


THE GHOST TREE 265
leader passed near the magnolia, Roke knew him for
Gavin Brice.
From the edge of the veranda, Claire and Standish
had witnessed the odd drama. Wordless, stricken
dumb with amazement, they gazed upon the fire-illu-
mined scene. Then, toiling across the grass toward
them came the little man who had overcome Rodney
Hade. On his shoulders, as unconcernedly as if he
were bearing a light sack, he carried the inert body of
his victim. Straight past the staring brother and sister
he went, and around the house to the front steps.
Milo started to follow. But Claire pointed toward
a clump of men who were coming along not far behind
the little burden-bearer. At their head, hurried some
one whose figure was silhouetted against the waning
tree-glare. And both the watchers recognized him.
Nearing the veranda, Brice spoke a few words to
the men with him. They scattered; surrounding the
house. Gavin came on alone. Seeing the man and
girl above him, he put his hands up to the rail and
vaulted lightly over it, landing on the floor beside them.
“Come!” he said, briefly, leading the way around the
porch to the front door.
They followed; reaching the hallway just in time
to see the little man deposit his burden on the couch.
And both of them cried out in astonishment. For the
stripling who had reduced Rodney Hade to numb
paralysis was Sato, their own recreant Japanese butler.
At sight of them, he straightened himself up from
the couch and bowed. Then, in flawless English,-far


266 BLACK CÆSAR'S CLAN
crac.dowly recover; "he erstwhile he ning; while
different from the pigeon-talk he had always used for
their benefit,he said respectfully, to Gavin:
"I brought him here, as you said, sir. He's coming
around, all right. After the pressure is off the carotid,
numbness doesn't last more than two minutes."
"Sato !” gasped Claire, unbelieving; while Milo
gurgled, wordless. The erstwhile butler turned back to
the slowly recovering Hade. Brice laughed at their
crass astonishment.
"This is one of the best men in the Service," he
explained. "It was he who took a job under Hade
and who got hold of that raised check. Hade passed
him on to you, to spy for him. He "
"But," blithered Standish, "I saw him tackle Hade,
before all the crew. He was playing with death. Yet,
when you tackled him, this evening, he was scared
helpless."
"He was 'scared into coming into the room and
asking in Japanese for my orders," rejoined Brice. "I
gave the orders; when you thought I was airing my
Jap knowledge by bawling him out. I told him to
collect the men we'd posted; to phone for others; and
to watch for the signal of the burning tree. If the
Cæsars weren't going to attack in force, I saw no
need in filling the house with Secret Service agents.
But if they should attack, I knew I could slip out, as
far as that tree, without their catching me. When
Hade's tea-party arrived, instead, I gave the signal.
It was Sato who got my message across to the key,
this morning, too. As for my pitching him out of here,
this evening,—well, it was he who taught me all I know


THE GHOST TREE
269
That sentence won't be imposed, in full, I imagine ; in
times of peace. But your war record will earn you an
extra sentence that will come close to keeping you in
Atlanta Penitentiary for life. I believe I am the only
member of the Department who knows that Major
Heidenhoff of the Wilhelmstrasse and Rodney Hade
are the same man. If I can be persuaded to keep that
knowledge from my superiors, in return for full in-
formation as to where the 1804 dollars are cached
those you've already taken from the inlet-and if
the mortgage papers on this place are destroyed
well- ?”
“H'm!” mused Hade, his black eyes brooding and
speculative. “H'm! That calls for a bit of rather care-
ful weighing. How much time will you give me to
think it over and decide? A week?"
"Just half an hour, retorted Gavin. “My other men,
who took your silly band of cutthroats to jail, ought
to be back by then. I am waiting here till they report;
and no longer. You have half an hour. And I ad-
vise you to make sane use of it.”
Hade got slowly to his feet. The smile was gone
from his lips. His strange black eyes looked inde-
scribably tired and old. There was a sag to his alert
figure.
"It's hard to plan a coup like mine," he sighed, "and
then to be bilked by a man with not one-tenth my brain.
Luck was with you. Blind luck. Don't imagine you've
done this by your wits."
As he spoke he shuffled heavily to the adjoining
music-room; and let his dreary gaze stray toward its


270 BLACK CÆSAR’S CLAN
two windows. On the veranda, framed in the newly
unshuttered window-space, stood four Secret Service
men, grimly on guard.
Hade strode to one window after the other, with the
cranky mien and action of a thwarted child; and
slammed the shutters together, barring out the sinister
sight of his guards. Gavin did not try to prevent him
from this act of boyish spite. The master-mind's reac-
tion, in its hour of brokenness, roused his pity.
From the windows, Hade's gloomy eyes strayed to
the piano. On it lay a violin case. He picked it up
and took out an age-mellowed violin.
"I think clearer when I play," he said, glumly, to
Brice. "And I've nearly a million dollars' worth of
thinking to do in this half hour. Is it forbidden to
fiddle? Milo's father paid $4,000 for this violin. It's
a genuine Strad. And it gives me peace and clear
vision. May I play, or ?"
“Go ahead, if you want to," vouchsafed Gavin, fan-
cying he read the attempt of a charlatan to remain pic-
turesque to the end. “Only get your thinking done,
and come to a decision before the half hour is up. And,
by the way, let me warn you again that those men out
there have orders to shoot, if you make a move to
escape."
“No use in asking you to play my accompaniments,
Claire?” asked Hade, in pathetic attempt at gayety as
he walked to the hallway door. “No? I'm sorry. No-
body else ever played them as you do.”
He tried to smile. The effort was a failure. He
yanked the curtains shut that hung between music


THE GHOST TREE 271
room and hall. Then, at a gesture from Gavin, he
pulled them halfway open again; and, standing in the
doorway, drew his bow across the strings.
Gavin sat down on the long hall couch, a yard out-
side the music-room door; beside Claire and the still-
stupefied Milo. The Jap took up his position back of
them, alert and tense as a fox terrier. The three Se-
cret Service men in the front doorway stood at atten-
tion, yet evidently wondering at the prisoner's queer
freak.
From under the deftly wielded bow, the violin wailed
forth into stray chords and phrases; wild, unearthly,
discordant. Hade, his face bent over the instrument,
swayed in time with its undisciplined rhythm.
Then, from dissonance and incoherence, the music
merged into Gounod's Ave Maria. And, from sway-
ing, Hade began to walk. To and fro, urged by the
melody, his feet strayed. Now he was in full view,
between the half-open curtains. Now, he was hidden
for an instant; and then he was crossing once more
before the opening.
His playing was exquisite. More-it was authori-
tative, masterly, soaring. It gripped the hearers'
senses and heartstrings. The beauty and dreaminess of
the Ave Maria flooded the air with loveliness. Brice
listened, enthralled. Down Claire's cheek rolled a tear-
drop, of whose existence she was not even aware.
The last notes of the melody throbbed away. Brice
drew a long breath. Then, at once the violin spoke
again. And now it sang forth into the night, in the


272 BLACK CÆSAR'S CLAN
Schubert Serenade;-gloriously sweet; a surge of
passionate tenderness.
Back and forth, under the spell of his own music,
wandered Hade. Then he stopped. Gavin leaned for-
ward. He saw that Hade was leaning against the
piano, as he played. His head was bowed over the
instrument as though in reverence. His black eyes
were dreamy and exalted. Gavin sat back on the couch
and once more gave himself over to the mystic enthrall-
ment of the music. The Serenade wailed itself into
silence with one last hushedly exquisite tone. Brice
drew a long breath; as of a man coming out of a
trance.
Simon Cameron had jumped into Claire's lap. But,
receiving no attention from the music-rapt girl, the
cat now dropped to the floor, and started toward the
stairs.
At the same time, the violin sounded anew. And
Gavin frowned in disappointment. For, no longer was
it singing its heart out in the magic of an immortal
melody. Instead, it swung into the once-popular
strains of "Oh, Promise Me!"
And now it seemed as though Hade were wantonly
making fun of his earlier beautiful playing and of the
effect he must have known it had had upon his hearers.
For he played heavily, monotonously; more like a
dance-hall soloist than a master. And, as though his
choice of an air were not sharp enough contrast to his
other selections, he strummed amateurishly and without
a shred of technique or of feeling.
Jarring as was the result upon Brice, it seemed even


THE GHOST TREE
275
Miss Standish, will you please go somewhere else for
five minutes ? This is not going to be a pretty sight.”
As the girl turned, obediently yet reluctantly, from
the room, the Jap, with a smile of perfect bliss on his
yellow face, advanced toward Roke.
The big man wheeled, contemptuously, upon him.
Sato sprang at him. With a hammerlike fist, Roke
smote at the oncoming pigmy. The arm struck, to its
full length. But it did not reach its mark, nor return
to the striker's side. By a queerly crablike shift of his
wiry body, the Jap had eluded the blow; and had fas-
tened upon the arm, above the elbow and at the wrist.
A cross-pull wrench of the Jap's body brought a
howl of pain from Roke and sent him floundering help-
lessly to his knees; while the merest leverage pressure
from his conqueror held him there. But the Jap was
doing more. The giant's arm was bending backward
and sideways at an impossible angle. Nor could its
owner make a move to avert the growing unbearable
torture. It was one of the simplest, yet one of the
most effective and agonizing, holds in all jiu-jitsu.
Thirty Seconds of it, and Roke's bull-like endurance
went to pieces under the strain. Raucously and blub-
beringly he screeched for mercy. The Jap continued
happily to exert the cross-pull pressure.
“Will you speak up?" queried Brice, sickened at
the sight, but steeling himself with the knowledge of
the captive's crimes and of the vast amount at stake.
Roke rolled his eyes horribly, grinding his yellowed
teeth together to check his own cries. Then, sobbingly,
he blurted:


276 BLACK CÆSAR'S CLAN
"Yes! Lemme loose !"
"Not till you tell,” refused Gavin. "Quick, now!"
"Second panel from left-hand window," moaned the
stricken and anguished Roke. “Push beading up and
then to right. He's—he's safe away, by now, anyway,”
he blubbered, in self-justification of the confession
which agony had wrung from him. “All you'll get is
the-the- "
And, the pain having eaten into his very brain, he
yelled incoherently.
Ten minutes later, Milo Standish sought out his
sister, in the upper room whither she had fled, in fear,
to escape from the racket of Roke's outcries.
“Listen!” he jabbered boyishly, in utter excitement.
"Brice made him tell how Rodney got out! How
d'you s'pose ? One of the old panels, in the music
room, slides back, and there's a flight of stone steps
down to a cellar that's right alongside our regular
cellar, with only a six inch cement-and-lath wall be-
tween. It leads out, to the tunnel. Right at that
turn where the old-time shoring is. The shoring hides
a little door. And we never dared move the props
because we thought it held up the tunnel-roof. It's all
part of the old Indian-shelter stunts that this house's
builders were so daft about, a hundred years ago.
Hade must have blundered on it or studied it out, one
of those times when he used to go poking around in
the tunnel, all by himself. And ".
"Did Mr. Brice find him?” interposed Claire.
"Not he!” said Milo, less bouyantly. "Rodney had
a good ten minutes start of us. And with a start like


THE GHOST TREE
277
that, they'll never lay hands on him again. He's got
too much cleverness and he knows too many good hid-
ing places. But Brice found the next best thing.
You'd never guess! Rodney's secret cache for the
treasure was that walled-up cellar. It's half full of
canvas bags. Right under our feet, mind you; and
we never knew a thing about it. I supposed he was
shipping it North in some way. Roke says that Rod-
ney kept it there because, when he got it all, he was
going to foreclose and kick us out; and then dispose
of it at his leisure. The swine !"
“Oh!"
“The crypt seems to have been a part of our own
cellar till it was walled off. It "
"But how in the world did Roke ?”
“He was with the crew. Rodney and he went to-
gether to the yacht for them. The Secret Service
men didn't get him, in the round-up. He crept as
close to the house as he dared. And he heard Rodney
sounding the signal alphabet they had worked up, on
the violin. He got into the tunnel and so to the cellar;
and then sneaked up, and took Rodney's place at fid-
dling. He seems to have been as willing to sacrifice
himself for his master as any dog would have been.
Or else he counted on Brice's not having any evi-
dence to hold him on. :
"By the way, do you remember that conch, Davy,
over at Roustabout Key? Brice says he's a Secret
Service man. He and Brice used-to fish together, off
the keys, when they were boys. Davy volunteered for
the war. And Brice made good use of him, over


280 BLACK CÆSAR'S CLAN
Now, getting rid of her partner on some pretext,
she had gone out into the softly illumined gardens ta
be alone with the yearning and heartache she could not
shake off. Then, fearing lest Milo, or some other of
the men she knew, might come in search of her and
wonder at her desire to mope alone under the stars,
she had turned back to the hotel.
As she mounted the last stair to the veranda, a man
in dinner clothes stepped forward from one of the
porch's great white pillars; and advanced to meet her.
"There's a corner table at the Café de la Paix, in
Paris," he greeted her, striving to control his voice
and to speak lightly, "that every one on earth must
pass by, sooner or later. The front veranda of the
Royal Palm is like that. Soon or late, everybody
crosses it. When I got back this afternoon, I heard
you had left home and that you were somewhere in
Miami. I couldn't find you. So I came here and
waited.”
Claire had halted, at first sound of Gavin Brice's
pleasantly slow voice; and she stood facing him, wide-
eyed and pale; her breath failing.
"I had to go to Washington to make my report,"
said he, speaking low and fast. “I came back to you
by the first train I could catch. Didn't you know I
would ?"
"Yes,” she breathed, her gaze still lost in his. "Yes.
I-I knew."
And now she realized she had known; even while she
had told herself she would never see him again.


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