The Lighted Match - Page 33/142

He took her in his arms, and the spangle-crowned gipsy head fell heavily

on his shoulder. She stretched up both arms towards the stars, and the

moonlight glinted from her gilt bracelets.

"Somewhere beyond the Milky Way," she murmured, then collapsed like a

tired child and lay still.

"Dearest," he whispered, "I'll tell you a secret." He paused and

listened to the rhythmic cylinders throbbing a racing pulse; he looked

back at the white band of road that was being flung out behind them like

thread from a falling spool. He held her fiercely to him and kissed her.

"I'll tell you a secret. You are being stolen. The Isis is waiting in

a little cove, and there is steam in her engines, and a chaplain on

board. If it's necessary I shall run up the skull and cross-bones at her

masthead. Do you hear?" Then, with a less piratical voice: "Dearest, I

love you."

She looked up drowsily into his eyes. "You don't have to be such a

boa-constrictor," she suggested. "You are not a cave-man, after all, you

know, if you are taking a lady without asking her." Then she

contentedly whispered: "I'm going to sleep." And she did.

As the car at last swept around a curve and took the shore road, Benton

caught, far away as yet, the red and green glint of tiny port and

starboard lights on the bridge of the Isis, and the long ruby and

emerald shafts quivering beneath in the calm waters of the bay. In the

light of a low moon, swinging down the midnight sky, the trim silhouette

of the yacht stood out boldly.

Cara, after sleeping through the rowboat stage of the journey, awoke on

the deck of the Isis and gazed wonderingly about. In her ears was the

sound of anchor chains upon the capstan.

"Is it a dream?" she asked.

"It is a dream to me, but I am going to make it real," he responded.

She went to the rail. He followed her.

"I shouldn't have let you, but I was so tired," she said, "I hardly knew

where the dream began and the reality ended. Ah, I wish the dream could

come true."

"This one is to come true, Cara," he whispered.

She shook her head. "Stand still!" she commanded.

He was bending forward with his elbows on the rail. Suddenly, with

something like a stifled sob, she caught his head in both arms and held

him close, so close that he heard her heart pounding and her breath

coming with spasmodic gasps. He put out his arms, but she held him off.

"No, no; don't touch me now--only listen!"

He waited a moment before she spoke again.

"You said I was your prisoner." Her voice dropped in a tremor as though

the tears would prevail, but she steadied it and went on. "I wish I

were. Always I am your prisoner, but I must go back. It is because it is

written."