OUR NIGHT AT MARTINIQUE.

Of course I had to meet Wesson in the morning; and as I could assign no reason for the distrust which I felt, I had to choose between giving him the cut direct and putting on an air of coolness without a real affront. I encountered him on deck, before I had been down to dress, as I went out to take a view of the island of St. Kitts. He murmured something about being glad to see me again, but did not attempt a prolonged conversation. He evidently had not yet ascertained that I was his roommate.

Slightly uneasy to have Miss May so far from me I went as soon as I was dressed to her door and knocked. She was awake and in response to an inquiry said she would be up to breakfast. Luckily she had been given a room alone, due perhaps to a small inducement I had sent in a note left with the agent the day before. As I stood outside I chafed at the restrictions she continually put upon me; and yet I knew very well I had no right to complain. What earthly business had I in the room of a young, unmarried woman, before she was out of bed? The fact that I had been in more than one under similar circumstances did not count in a case like this.

The scornful words of my darling came back to me—the expression she had used at St. Croix. I must put better control on my wild thoughts or I would yet do something she might regard as unpardonable.

The table to which we were assigned in the salon had no especial interest. The other people had become acquainted from their nine days' voyage together and clearly looked upon us as interlopers. For this I was not sorry. Beyond necessary requests to "pass" the butter or the ice, I had nothing to say to them nor they to me; while Miss May's mouth was sealed entirely to conversation.

The succeeding days would have been insufferably dull but for the presence of my idol, as I had been to all the islands on my voyage of three years previous. To show them to her with the confidence of an old traveller was in itself a charm not to be despised. We went ashore together at St. Kitts, and drove extensively; took our turtle dinner at Antigua, where I was much grieved to hear that Mr. Fox, the American consul, with whom I had formerly been acquainted, had died shortly after my previous visit. He was one of the pleasantest men I ever met and an honor to the civil service. A new consul, bound to Guadaloupe, was on board, with his wife—a Chicago man with a French name and the unusual ability to speak the language of the place to which he was accredited. He struck me as much better educated than the average consul and withal a good fellow. In his party, much of the time, were two charming young ladies from Alleghany City, whose father, a German, was taking a well earned vacation from his duties as cashier of a bank there. Had there been any place in my mind that was not filled with Marjorie, I should certainly have tried to become better acquainted with these girls.

I also made a smoking room acquaintance with three delightful fellows, a Mr. T——, from Indianapolis, a Mr. S——, from Greensburg, and a Mr. H——, from Brockton, Mass. The first was an attorney; the second engaged in the theatrical business, and the third a license commissioner. I should be sorry to think I had seen either for the last time.

At Dominica I went ashore very early and engaged two horses for a ride into the mountains, making arrangements with an individual who seemed (actually) to rejoice in the cognomen of "Mr. Cockroach." He announced himself to me as the owner of that title with evident pride and when we came off after breakfast had ready two of as mean animals, judging by appearance, as could be imagined. They endured the long climb, however, remarkably well, and were as easy to sit as a rocking chair. Marjorie unbent herself more than usual when we were in the heart of the hills, with no one near, for the black boy who was supposed to follow us on foot had a way of cutting across the fields and keeping out of sight nearly all the time.

The island of Dominica is very beautiful and I remembered enjoying this ride greatly on my previous visit. The vegetation is thoroughly tropical. The excessive moisture caused by rains which occur daily through most of the year gives to everything a luxuriance not exceeded north of the equator, I believe. The mountain path by which we went is too narrow in most places to ride abreast, but wherever we could get side by side I managed to do so. At such times the sense of companionship was thrillingly delicious, and while I dared not risk offending by becoming too familiar, I managed to play the discreet lover and was very happy.

I thought I was certainly improving. There had been a time, not so very long before, when I would Have planted myself in the lady's way, and exacted tribute before letting her by, trusting to her forgiveness after the deed was done. I would have given much to have dared the same thing now, but the thought did not seriously enter my head. I was certainly growing better under my excellent teacher.

There was one point at which I had a jealous pang, so ridiculous that I think it only right to detail the occurrence. We went out of our way to view a sulphur pit, where the Evil One or some of his satellites have apparently secured an opening to the air from the very Bottomless Pit itself. The atmosphere is charged with fumes, while the deposit bubbles and froths in a way to strike terror into the heart of an infidel. To get a near view, one must be carried across a small stream by a couple of negroes, or—take off his shoes and stockings and wade. Miss May looked somewhat aghast at both propositions, and I allowed the boys to carry me over first, to show her how safe the process was. But, though it might be safe, it was clearly not graceful, for they handled a human being quite as if he were a sack, thinking their duty done if they got him across without dropping him in the brook.

She said, at first, that she believed she would rather wade and sat down to take off her boots. Then, when it came to the hosiery and her fingers had begun to wander toward the fastenings, she had another period of doubt, calling to me to know if there was really anything worth seeing. Finally putting on her boots again, she directed the negroes how to make a sort of "cat's-cradle" chair and arrived safely in that manner.

It was then that I had my pang. For she put both her fair arms around the neck of the bearers to steady herself in transit.

"I shall insist on being one of your porteurs, on your return," I said, as she was placed on her feet. "If you are going to put your arms around the neck of any man in this island it must be myself."

She tried to laugh off the idea, a little nervously, saying she had more confidence in those experienced fellows on the slippery stones than she had in me. I persisted a little longer, till it became evident my expressions were not agreeable. In returning she managed to steady herself by merely touching the shoulders of her bearers, and brought back the smile to my face by calling my attention to the fact, with a comic elevation of her eyebrows. I helped her mount her horse and all the way from there she was kindness itself. On the whole the day was the most delightful I had passed since leaving America.

She was to be my wife! This thought was uppermost in my mind. She must be my wife! I would think of nothing but that blissful culmination.

It was not the time now to press for an affirmative answer. I must make myself more and more agreeable, more indispensable to her. When the hour came that she was about to leave me—when the alternative presented itself to her mind of going back to her unpleasant struggle for bread or becoming the consort of a man she had admitted was not distasteful to her—I had no fear of the result.

The next stop after Dominica is Martinique and here I intended to make a stay of a month at least. My tickets were only purchased as far as this point. Our baggage was taken ashore and, as far as appeared, we had bidden a permanent farewell to the good ship Pretoria.

Again, however, my plans were to be altered.

The Hotel des Bains at St. Pierre, is not by any means a first-class house, but there is something quaint about it that to me has a certain charm. The meals are served in the French style and not at all bad. The beds are immense affairs, and I never yet saw a bed that was too big. In the centre of what might be called the patio, so Spanish is the architecture of the building, is a fish-pond, giving an air of coolness to the entire place.

The patois of the servants is pleasing to my ear. I entered the house in high spirits, remembering a delightful visit there in the former time. The mulatto proprietor recognized me, as did his slightly lighter colored wife, presiding over her duties as only a woman of French extraction can.

"A large room with two beds, I presume?" asked the proprietor, in French, bowing affably to Miss May.

"He asks if we wish a large room with two beds," I said translating his words into English, smilingly, but she evidently did not consider the joke worth laughing at. So I said that we wished two rooms, as near together as possible.

Madame looked up. She was searching, evidently, for the wedding ring that was absent from Marjorie's finger, to explain my decision. A servant was called to attend to us and presently we were established in very comfortable quarters.

As I wanted Miss May to see the island as soon as possible, a carriage was summoned immediately, in which we took the road to Fort de France, where we viewed the statue of the Empress Josephine, erected to commemorate the fact that she was born in that vicinity. We had a nice lunch at a hotel there and took rooms to secure the siesta to which we had both grown accustomed. Then we drove back to St. Pierre, and arrived at the Hotel des Bains in season for dinner.

The Carnival, which lasts here for four or five weeks, had already begun. The streets were crowded with masquers and sounds of strange music filled the air. There was something very odd in this imitation by the negro race of the frivolities of the Latin countries of Europe as a precedent of the forty days of Lent. Miss May viewed it with me from the balcony of a restaurant until nearly ten o'clock. A number of the steamer people were also there and I fancied we were the object of more than ordinary attention from their eyes.

After reaching the hotel again I asked Miss May if she would mind being left alone for an hour or so, while I went to see a peculiar dance. I assured her that the house was absolutely safe. She made no objection and I went with a party of Pretoria people—no women—to witness the spectacle of which I had heard so much. It was not half as entertaining as I had expected, but there were several girls of the MÉtisse variety that well repaid me for going. The MÉtisse is a mixture of races, the original Carib prevailing, one of the most fetching types extant. They were dressed becomingly, in thin gowns, of which silk was at least one of the textures used. On their heads were party-colored handkerchiefs, draped as only a Martinique beauty can drape them.

At the risk of being thought extravagant in my statement I must say they appeared to me strikingly handsome, both in their faces and their lithe figures. I was told that each of those I saw was the mistress of some well-to-do merchant of the place and strictly true to her lover. The dance was not of a kind one would wish to take his sisters to see, but it was evident the negroes put a less libidinous interpretation upon it than the Caucasian visitors. It was one, however, where "a little goes a long way," and before twelve I was in my room at the hotel.

I had just lit the lamp when I was surprised to hear a knock at the door and opened it to find Miss May standing there, with an anxious expression on her face.

"Don't undress," she said, in a slightly shaking voice. "I have been full of all sorts of fears since you went away. I want you to sit up awhile and talk to me."

I accepted the amendment, as they say in deliberative bodies, with the greatest pleasure, for I would rather sit up with her than to sleep on the softest down ever made into a couch. She went to the window, which was innocent of glass, and threw open the wooden shutters.

"What did you hear to disturb you, a mouse?" I asked, jocularly.

"I don't know. The place is full of creepy sounds. The noise in the street continues and every step in the corridors makes the boards creak. Did you enjoy your dance?"

"Not specially," I said. And then I told her of the MÉtisse women I had seen, praising their appearance.

She did not seem to notice what I was saying. She acted as if in constant fear of something unpleasant.

"You do not care to talk as much as you thought you did," I remarked.

"No. I was tired and sleepy, but I did not like to be alone. Why can't I—there wouldn't be any harm, would there?—lie on this smaller bed just as I am, and you can get your sleep over yonder?"

Conflicting sentiments filled my brain as I listened. What a strange woman she was! Alarmed at the least approach on my part, when we were on a steamer deck, a veranda or in a carriage; and now proposing to drop to slumber in my very bedroom, as if it were nothing at all!

A dim suspicion that she meant more than she said forced itself upon me at first. Was I deceiving myself by paying too much attention to her protestations? Had she run away merely for the sake of being pursued?

The best method to prove the truth or falsity of this was to take her strictly at her word, which I decided to do. I told her that the room and everything in it was at her disposal, as she very well knew. She might lie on one bed, or the other, or the floor, or sit in a chair. It was unfortunate that in this house, as I had already learned, there were no rooms with communicating doors, or I would get our quarters changed. She thanked me, as if I was doing her a particular favor, and, curling herself up as she had suggested, was soon, to all appearances, sound asleep.

Then the thoughts she had communicated to me, about the strange noises in the house, entered my own head. I tossed on my pillow, from side to side, sat up and lay down again a hundred times. There were mice enough in the building to satisfy a cat for a year, if noises went for anything. Late lodgers perambulated the halls, met each other and whispered in tones much more disturbing than loud voices would have been. Somebody, doubtless a servant, entered the next room, the one Marjorie had occupied, and moved about there, as if in stocking-feet. She had left her lamp lighted and this individual blew it out, as I could tell from certain signs. When this was done he went away, but returned again presently, repeating the operation several times.

All the nerves in my body quivered with the strain.

I looked at my watch every half hour, by the light of the moon that shone clearly through the open window. I thought I must awaken my companion; the loneliness was becoming unbearable. Nothing but shame prevented me—shame and a disinclination to disturb her calm and regular breathing.

At last I grew a little calmer. And the next I knew Marjorie was standing by my side, with one of her hands on my forehead and saying in whispers that if I was going to take breakfast I would have to think of getting up.

It was after ten o'clock and I had slept the sleep of a tired man for seven hours!