CHAPTER XI - PRESTO CHANGE!

________________________________________________
_ After the battle, Miss Brewster reviewed her troops, and took
stock of casualties, in the patio. None of the allied forces had
come off scatheless. Galpy, whose injuries had at first seemed the
most severe, responded to a stiff dose of brandy. A cut across the
scientist's head had been hastily bandaged in a towel, giving him,
as he observed, the appearance of a dissipated Hindu. To Von
Plaanden's indignant disgust, his military splendor was seriously
impaired by a huge "hickey" over his left eye, the memento of a
well-aimed rock. Cluff had broken a finger and sprained his wrist.
Mr. Brewster was anxious to know if any one had seen two teeth of
his on the pavement or whether he was to look for later digestive
indications of their whereabouts. Both of the young cricketers had
been battered and bruised, though it was nothing, they gleefully
averred, to what they had meted out. And Carroll had a nasty-
looking knife-thrust in his shoulder.

All of them were disheveled, dilapidated, and grimy to the last
degree, except the Hochwaldian, who still sat his horse, which he
had ridden into the patio. But Miss Polly said to herself, with a
thrill of pride, that no woman need wish a more gallant and
devoted band of defenders. Leaning over them from the inner
railing of the balcony, she surveyed them with sparkling eyes.

"It was magnificent!" she cried. "Oh, I'm so proud of you all! I
could hug you, every one!"

"Better come down from there, Polly," said her father anxiously.
"Some of those ruffians might come back."

"Not to-day," said Sherwen grimly. "They've had enough."

"That is correct," confirmed Von Plaanden. "Nevertheless, there
may be disorder later. Would it not be better that you go to the
British Legation, Fraulein?"

"Not I!" she returned. "I stay by my colors. And now I'm going to
disband my army."

Stretching out her hand to a vase near her, she drew out a rose of
deepest red and held it above Von Plaanden.

"The color of my country," said Von Plaanden gravely. "May I take
it for a sign that I am forgiven?"

"Fully, freely, and gladly," said the girl. "You have put a debt
upon us all that I--that we can never repay."

"It is I who pay. You will not think of me too hardly, for my one
breach?"

"I shall think of you as a hero," said the girl impetuously. "And
I shall never forget. Catch, O knight."

The rose fell, and was caught. Von Plaanden bowed low over it.
Then he straightened to the military salute, and so rode out of
the door and out of the girl's life.

"Men are strange creatures," mused the philosopher of twenty. "You
think they are perfectly horrid, and suddenly they show their
other side to you, and you think they are perfectly splendid. I
wish I knew a little more about real people."

She confessed to no more specific thought, but as she descended
the stairs to bid farewell to the blushing and deprecatory
Britons, she was eager to have it over with, and to come to speech
with her beetle man, who had so strangely flamed into action. The
Unspeakable Perk! As the name formed on her lips, she smiled
tenderly. With sad lack of logic, she was ready to discard every
suspicion of him that she had harbored, merely on the strength of
his reckless outbreak of patriotism. She looked about the patio,
but he was not there. Sherwen came out of a side door, his face
puckered with anxiety.

"Where is Mr. Perkins?" she asked.

"In there." He nodded back over his shoulder. "Your father is with
him. Perhaps you'd better go in."

With a chill at her heart, Polly entered the room, where Mr.
Brewster bent a troubled face over a head swathed in reddened
bandages.

Very crumpled and limp looked the Unspeakable Perk, bunched
humpily upon the little sofa. His goggles had fallen off, and lay
on the floor beside him, contriving somehow to look momentously
solemn and important all by themselves. His face was turned half
away, and, as Polly's gaze fell upon it, she felt again that queer
catch at her heart.

"Wouldn't know it was the same chap, would you?" whispered Mr.
Brewster.

The girl picked up the grotesque spectacles, cradling them for an
instant in her hands before she put them aside and leaned over the
quiet form.

"Came staggering in, and just collapsed down there," continued her
father huskily. "Lord, I wouldn't lose that boy after this for a
million dollars!"

"Why do you talk that way?" she demanded sharply. "What has
happened? Did he faint?"

"Just collapsed. When I tried to rouse him, he kicked me in the
chest," replied the magnate, with somber seriousness.

"Oh, you goose of a dad!" There was a tremulous note in Polly's
low laughter. "That's all right, then. Can't you see he's dead for
sleep, poor beetle man?"

"Do you think so?" said Mr. Brewster, vastly relieved. "Hadn't I
better go out for a doctor, and make sure?"

She shook her head.

"Let him rest. Hand me that pillow, please, dad."

With soft little pushes and wedges she worked it under the
scientist's head. "What a dreadful botch of bandaging! He looks so
pale! I wonder if I couldn't get those cloths off. Lend me your
knife, dad."

Gently as she worked, the head on the pillow began to sway, and
the lips to move.

"Oh, let me alone!" they muttered querulously.

The eyes opened. The Unspeakable Perk gazed up into the faces
above him, but saw only one, a face whose tender concern softened
it to a loveliness greater even than when he had last seen it. He
tried to rise, but the hands that pressed him back were firm and
quick.

"Lie still!" bade their owner.

A thin film of color mounted to his cheeks.

"I--I--beg your pardon," he stammered. "I--I--d-didn't know--"

"Don't be a goose!" she adjured him. "It's only me."

"Yes, that's the trouble." He closed his eyes again, and began to
murmur.

"What does he say?" asked Mr. Brewster, lowering his head and
almost falling over backward as his astonished ears were greeted
by the slowly intoned rhythm:--

"Scarab, tarantula, doodle-bug, flea."

"Delirious!" exclaimed the magnate. "Clean off his head! How does
one find a doctor in this town?"

"No need, dad," his daughter reassured him. "It's just a--a sort
of game."

"Game! Did you hear what he said?"

"Well, a kind of password. It's all right, Dad. It is, really."

Still undecided, Mr. Brewster stared at the injured man.

"I don't know--" he began, when the eyes opened again.

"Feeling better?" inquired Polly briskly.

"Yes. The charm works perfectly."

"Anything I can do, or get, for you, my boy?" inquired Mr.
Brewster, stepping forward.

"What's in the ice-box?" asked the other anxiously.

"Oh!" cried the girl in distress. "He's starving! When did you eat
last?"

"I can't exactly remember. It was about five this morning, I
think. A banana, and, as I recall it, a small one."

"Dad!" cried the girl, but that prompt and efficient gentleman was
already halfway to the cook, dragging Sherwen along as
interpreter.

"He'll get whatever there is in the shortest known time," the girl
assured her patient. "Trust dad. Now, you lie back and let me fix
up a fresh bandage."

"You'd have made a great trained nurse," he murmured, as she
adjusted the clean strips that Sherwen had sent in. "Don't pin my
ear down. It's got to help hold my goggles on."

"The dear funny goggles!" Picking them up, she patted them with
dainty fingers, before setting them aside. He watched her
uneasily, much in the manner of a dog whose bone has been taken
away.

"Do you mind giving them back?" he said.

"But you're not going to wear them here," she protested.

"I've got so used to them," he explained apologetically, "that I
don't feel really dressed without them."

She handed them back and he adjusted them to the bandages. "For
the present, rest is prescribed you know," said she.

"Oh, no!" he declared. "As soon as I've had something to eat, I'll
go. There are a hundred things to be done. Where are my gloves?"

"What gloves? Oh, those white abominations? Why on earth do you
wear them?" Her glance fell upon his right hand, which lay half-
open beside him. "Oh--oh--oh!" she cried in a rising scale of
distress. "What have you done to your hands?"

He reddened perceptibly.

"Nothing."

"Nothing, indeed! Tell me at once!"

"I've been rowing."

"Where to?"

"Oh, out to a ship."

"There aren't any ships, except the Dutch warship. Was it to her?"

"Yes."

"To carry our message--MY message?"

He squirmed.

"I'm awfully sleepy," he protested. "It isn't fair to cross-
examine a witness--"

"When was it?" his ruthless interrogator broke in.

"Night before last."

"How far?"

"How can I tell? Not far. A few miles."

"And back. And it took you all night," she accused.

"What if it did?" he cried peevishly. "A man's got to have some
relief from work, hasn't he? It was livelier than sitting all
night with one's eye glued to a microscope barrel!"

"Oh, beetle man, beetle man! I don't know about you at all. What
kind of a strange queer creature are you? Have you wings, Mr.
Beetle Man?"

Suddenly she bent over and laid her soft lips upon the scarified
palm. The Unspeakable Perk sat up, with a half-cry.

"Now the other one," said the girl. Her face was a mantle of rose-
color, but her eyes shone.

"I won't! You shan't!"

"The other one!" she commanded imperiously.

"Please, Miss Brewster--"

A noise at the door saved him. There stood Thatcher Brewster,
magnate, multi-millionaire, and master of men, a huge tray in his
hands.

"Beefsteak, fried potatoes, alligator pear, fresh bread, REAL
butter, coffee, AND cake," he proclaimed jovially. "Not to mention
a cocktail, which I compounded with my own skilled hands. Are you
ready, my boy? Go!"

The Unspeakable Perk leaped from his couch.

"Food!" he cried. "Real American food! The perfume of it is a
square meal."

"You're much gladder to see it than you were me," pouted Miss
Polly.

"I'm not half as afraid of it," he admitted. "Mr. Brewster, your
health."

"Here's to you, my boy. Now I'll leave you with your nurse, and
make my final arrangements. We're off by special in the morning."

"That's fine!" said the scientist.

But Miss Polly Brewster caught the turn of his head in her
direction, and saw that his fork had slackened in his hand.
Something tightened around her heart.

As he went, her father considered her for a moment, and wondered.
Never before had he seen such a look in her eyes as that which she
had turned on the queer, vivid stranger so busily engaged at the
tray. Polly, and this obscure scientist! After the kind of men
whom the girl had known, enslaved, and eluded! Absurd! Yet if it
were to be--Mr. Brewster reviewed the events of the afternoon--
well, it might be worse.

"By the Lord Harry, he's a MAN, anyway!" decided Thatcher
Brewster.

Meanwhile, the subject of his musings began to feel like a man
once more, instead of like a lath. Having wrought havoc among the
edibles, he rose with a sigh.

"If I could have one hour's sleep," he said mournfully, "I'd be
fit as a cricket."

"You shall," said the girl. "Mr. Sherwen says he won't let you out
of the house until it's dark. And that's fully an hour."

"I ought to be on my way back now."

"Back where? To your mountains?"

"Yes."

"You'd be recognized and attacked before you could get out of the
city. I won't let you."

"That wouldn't do, for a fact. Perhaps it would be safer to wait.
I've made enough trouble for one day by my blunder-headed
thoughtlessness."

"Is that what you call rescuing the flag?"

"Oh, rescuing!" he said slightingly. "What difference does it make
what vermin like that mob do? Just for a whim, to endanger all of
you."

She stared at him in amaze and suspicion. But he was quite honest.

"MY whim," she reminded him.

"Yes; I suppose it was," he admitted thoughtfully. "When I saw you
crying, I lost my head, and acted like a child."

"Then it was all my fault?"

"Oh, I don't say that. Certainly not. I'm master of my own
actions. If I hadn't wanted--"

"But it was my fault this much, anyway, that you wouldn't have
done it except for me."

"Yes; it was your fault to that extent," he said honestly. "I hope
you don't mind my saying so."

"Oh, beetle man, beetle man!" She leaned forward, her eyes deep-
lit pools of mirth and mockery and some more occult feeling that
he could not interpret. "Would it scare you quite out of your
poor, queer wits if I were to HUG you? Don't call for help. I'm
not really going to do it."

"I know you're not," said he dolefully. "But about that row, I
want to set myself right. I'm no fool. I know it took a certain
amount of nerve to go down there. And I was even proud of it, in a
way. And when Von Plaanden turned and gave me the salute before he
went away, I liked it quite a good deal."

"Did he do that? I love him for it!" cried the girl.

"But my point is this, that what I did wasn't sound common sense.
Now if Carroll had done it, it would have been all right."

"Why for him and not for you?"

"Because those are his principles. They're not mine."

"I wish you weren't quite so contemptuous of poor Fitz. It seems
hardly fair."

"Contemptuous of him? I'd give half my life to be in his place
after to-morrow."

"Why?" There was a flutter in her throat as she put the question.

"Because he's going with you, isn't he?"

"So are you, if you will."

"I can't."

"Father won't go without you, I believe. Won't you come, if I ask
you?"

"No."

"Work, I suppose," said the girl; "the work that you love better
than anything in the world."

"You're wrong there." His voice was not quite steady now. "But
it's work that has to have my first consideration now. And there
is one special responsibility that I can't evade, for the present,
anyway."

"And afterward?" She dared not look at him as she spoke.

"Ah, afterward. There's too much 'perhaps' in the afterward down
here. We science grubbers on the outposts enlist for the term of
the war," he said, smiling wanly.

"How can I--can we go and leave you here?" she demanded
obstinately.

"Oh, give me a square meal once in a while, and a night's rest
here and there, and I'll do well enough."

"Oh, dear! I forgot your sleep. Here I've been chattering like a
magpie. Take off your coat and lie down on that sofa at once."

"Where shall I find you when I wake up?"

"Right where you leave me when you fall asleep."

"Oh, no! You mustn't wear yourself out watching over me."

"Hush! You're under orders. Give me the coat." She hung it on the
back of a chair. "Not another word now. And I'll call you when
time is up."

He closed his eyes, and the girl sat studying his face in the dim
light, graving it deep on her inner vision, seeking to formulate
some conception of the strange being so still and placid before
her. How had she ever thought him ridiculous and uncouth? How had
she ever dared to insult him by distrust? What did it matter what
other men, estimating him by their own sordid standards, said of
him? As if her thought had established a connection with his, he
opened his eyes and sat up.

"I knew there was something I wanted to ask you," he said. "What
did your 'Never, never, never' mean?"

"A foolish misunderstanding that I'm ashamed of."

"Was it that--that woman-gossip business?"

"Yes. I was stupid. Will you forgive me?"

"What is there to forgive? Some time, perhaps, you'll understand
the whole thing."

"Please don't let's say anything more about it. I do understand."

This was not quite true. All that Polly Brewster knew was that,
with those clear gray eyes meeting hers, she would have believed
his honor clean and high against the world. The presence of the
woman, even that dress fluttering in the wind, was susceptible of
a hundred simple explanations.

"Ah, that's all right, then." There was relief in his tone. "Of
course, in a place like this there is a lot of gossip and
criticism. And when one runs counter to the general law--"
"Counter to the law?"

"Yes. As a rule, I'm not 'beyond the pale of law,'" he said,
smiling. "But down here one isn't bound by the same conventions as
at home."

The girl's hand went to her throat in a piteous gesture.

"I--I--don't understand. I don't want to understand."

"There's got to be a certain broad-mindedness in these matters,"
he blundered on, with what seemed to her outraged senses an
abominable jauntiness. "But the risk was small for me, and, of
course, for her, anything was better than the other life. At that,
I don't see how the truth reached you. What is it, Miss Polly?"

Rage, grief, and shame choked the girl's utterance.

Without a word, she ran from the room, leaving her companion a
prey to troubled wonder.

In the patio, she turned sharply to avoid a group gathered around
Galpy, who, with a patch over one eye, was trying to impart some
news between gasps.

"Got it from the bulletin board of La Liberdad," he cried.
"Killed; body gone; devil to pay all over the place."

"What's that?" demanded the Unspeakable Perk, running out,
coatless and goggleless.

"There's been another riot, and Dr. Luther Pruyn is killed,"
explained Sherwen.

"Who says so?"

"Bulletin board--La Liberdad--just saw it," panted Galpy.

"Nonsense! It's a bola"

"The whole city is ringing with it. They say it was a plot to get
him out of the way to stop quarantine. The Foreign Office is
buzzing with inquiries, and Puerto del Norte is burning up the
wires."

"Puerto del Norte! How did they hear?"

"Telephone, of course. I hear Wisner is coming up," said Sherwen.

"I've got to get a wire to the port at once," cried the scientist.
"At once!"

"You! What for?"

"To stop off Wisner. To tell him it isn't so."

"You're excited, my boy," said Mr. Brewster kindly. "Better lie
down again."

"It's true, right enough," said the Englishman. "Sir Willet's
cochero saw the mob get him."

"When? Where?" asked Fitzhugh Carroll.

"Haven't got any details, but the Government admits it."

"I don't care if the President and his whole cabinet swear to it,"
vociferated the Unspeakable Perk. "It's a fake. How can I get
Puerto del Norte, Mr. Sherwen?"

"You can't get it at all for any such purpose. How do you know
it's a fake?"

"How do I know? Oh, dammit! I'M Luther Pruyn!"

He snatched off his glasses and faced them.

The little group stood petrified. Mr. Brewster was first to
recover.

"Crazy, poor chap!" he said. "Luther Pruyn was my classmate."

"That's my father, Luther L."

"Proofs," said Sherwen sharply.

"In my coat pocket. In the room. Can I have your wire, Mr.
Sherwen?"

"It's cut."

"Come to the railway wire," offered Galpy. "My eye! Wot a game!"

The two men ran out, the scientist leaving behind coat and
goggles.

"It was our little mix-up that started the rumor," said Carroll
thoughtfully. "Somebody recognized Perk--Dr. Pruyn."

"When his glasses fell off," said CLuff. "They're some disguise."

"He's Luther Pruyn, sure enough!" said Mr. Sherwen, emerging from
the room. "Here's the proof." He held out an official-looking
document. "An order from the Dutch Naval Office, made out in his
name."

"What does it say?" asked Carroll.

"I'm not much of a hand at Dutch, but it seems to direct the
blockading warship to receive Dr. Luther Pruyn and wife and convey
them to Curacao."

"And wife!" exclaimed Cluff loudly. He whistled as a vent to his
amazement. "That explains all the talk about a woman--a lady in
his quinta on the mountains?"

"Apparently," said Carroll. "May I see that document, Mr.
Sherwen?"

The American representative handed him the paper. As he was
studying it, Galpy reentered, still scant of breath from
excitement and haste. "He's gone back to the mountains," he
announced. "Sent word for you to get to the port before dawn, if
you have to walk. See Mr. Wisner there. He'll arrange everything."

"Will Mr. Perk--Dr. Pruyn be there?" asked Mr. Brewster.

"He didn't say."

"But he's gone without his coat!"

"And goggles," said Cluff.

"And his pass," added Sherwen.

"Trust him to come back for them when he gets ready. He's a rum
josser for doing things his own way. Now, about the train." And
Galpy outlined the plan of departure to the men, who, except
Carroll, had gathered about him. The Southerner, unnoticed, had
slipped into the room where the scientist's coat lay. Coming out
by the lower door, he was intercepted by Miss Polly Brewster. He
interpreted the misery in her face, and turned sick at heart with
the pain of what it told him.

"You heard?" he asked.

She nodded. "Is it true? Did you see the permit yourself?"

"Yes. Here it is."

"I don't want to see it. It doesn't matter," she said, with utter
weariness in her voice. "When do we leave? I want to go home. Send
father to me, please, Fitz."

Mr. Brewster came to her, bearing the news that the sailing was
set for the morrow.

"I'm glad to know that Dr. and Mrs. Pruyn are provided for," she
remarked, so casually that the troubled father drew a breath of
relief, concluding that he must have misinterpreted the girl's
interest in the man behind the goggles.

On his way to the patio, he passed through the room where the
scientist had lain. He came out looking perturbed.

"Has any one been in that room just now?" he asked Sherwen.

"Not that I've seen."

"The coat and the other things are not there."

Inquiry and search alike proved unavailing. Not until an hour
later did they discover that Carroll had also disappeared. Sherwen
found a note from him on the office desk:--

Please look after my luggage. Will join the others at the yacht
to-morrow.

P. F. F. C. _

Read next: CHAPTER XII - THE WOMAN AT THE QUINTA

Read previous: CHAPTER X - THE FOLLY OF PERK

Table of content of Unspeakable Perk


GO TO TOP OF SCREEN

Post your review
Your review will be placed after the table of content of this book