Gideon's Band Part 56

When at the forward end of the pantry gangway she came upon the twins and "California" and shrank back into hiding, the will was in her hand.

In a tremble between staying and fleeing she heard the gold hunter, as he stood with his hands full of yellow coin, declare himself a Kentuckian and no abolitionist, and therefore understood instantly the significance of Lucian's response:

"One thousand dollars."

Too eager for speech, she glided forth and at the Californian's back halted before her brothers. But he had already smitten a fist into the hungry palm of either twin and was saying as he unburdened it there:

"A hundred on account to you--same to you--balance when you show t.i.tle--she's mine!"

"She's mine!" cried the laughing girl.

The three men stared, but the twins hurried the gold into their pockets while she laughed on to them: "Hand that back. You've got no t.i.tle. This is Uncle Dan's will and she's been mine for eleven years." On the stair close by them she began to step up backward but stopped to add to the Californian: "Take back your money and come trade with mom-a."

The twins showed instant conviction, but to them all dispossession was robbery and Lucian broke out, first on Ramsey, "We don't give back one dime!" then to the Californian, "You pushed it on us and we'll keep it!"

then to Julian, "He hasn't the faintest right to it now in law, morals, or custom!" and then back to the Californian: "You sha'n't ever see a copper of it!"

Ramsey was quick-witted again. She threw the gold hunter a glance which conveyed to him the realization that to leave the money with the twins was to put them at a hopeless disadvantage. Almost as quickly Lucian saw the same thing and flashed it to Julian; but in that brief interval their sister disappeared on the deck above, old Joy following, and while the brothers lost another moment in a motionless contest of impulses the Californian vanished after her. Lucian, with his breath drawn to call up the empty stair, started forward but struck his knee-cap on a light, gilded chair left there by some child. Burning with rage and trembling with nervous exhaustion, he barely saved himself from lunging into two men of slight stature who had just come from a neighboring state-room: a slender old man leaning feebly on a thick-set youth, whom one flash of his eye identified as the commodore and Hugh, though as they pa.s.sed toward the stair they betrayed no sign that they had observed him.

He gave his speechless brother a single look, caught the chair by its back, lifted it over his head, and with a long, smothered cry, half moan, half whine, crashed it down upon the bal.u.s.trade--once--twice--and again, again, hurled the last fragment underfoot, and with eyes streaming stamped, stamped, and stamped, while the commodore and his supporter went on up to the roof and beyond view without a glance behind.

LIV

"CAN'T!"

On handing the will to her mother, Ramsey found her no longer leading the conversation. The senator had the floor, the deck, and, as Ned or Watson might have said, was "drawing all the water in the river." His discourse was to madame and the general alternately, though now and then he included the parson's wife and Mrs. Gilmore.

Ramsey's talent for taking in everything at once was taxed to its limit when at the same time that she attended to him she watched an elegant steamer, one of the Sat.u.r.day-evening boats out of Cincinnati, pa.s.s remotely on the Arkansas side behind Island Thirty-six; marked the return of the Californian as he followed her from his conference with the twins; noted the slow, preoccupied pa.s.sing of Hugh and his grandfather to the captain's room; measured every winged stride of the _Votaress's_ approach toward the Third Chickasaw Bluff; observed--as earlier bidden by the actor--the strange pink and yellow stripes of the bluff's clay face, and recognized in the great bell's landing signal the sad business which had become so half-conscious a habit in the boat's routine. Yet she caught the senator's every word.

Whether a person born in slavery, although seven eighths white, he was saying, was free by law was hardly a practical question, the matter being so nearly independent of any mere statute. For if such a slave sought liberty of an owner inclined to grant it there certainly was no law to prevent its bestowal, whereas if the owner was unwilling the burden of proof would naturally fall upon the slave, who, of course----

"No," said Ramsey, drawing his and every eye and interesting everybody by a sweet maturity of tone to which her mourning dress lent emphasis.

"No, it would not. The judge told me about that on Sunday."

Madame started and smiled. "You h-asked? An' fo' w'at?"

The transient air of maturity failed, and Ramsey's shoulders went up in her more usual manner.

The senator had his question: "What did the judge say?"

"The judge says, where the slave seems to be white the owner must prove she ain't--prove she isn't; but the burden, he says, of getting the case into court----"

"Ah!" The senator was relieved. "Practically the same thing. For no slave can get a case into court without white help, and no decent white man will step between an owner and a slave who confesses to any African blood."

"No-c'ommunity would ssstand it," said the general.

"Now," pursued the senator, "a claim based on pure white blood and charging some palpable mistake or fraud would be different. That would invite a community's sympathy and support. I've heard of such cases." He faced Ramsey again, whose smile implied a query in waiting.

Madame had handed the doc.u.ment to the senator. It was short. He read it in a glance or two and, refolding it, addressed Ramsey again: "This slave girl can neither be set free nor sold, for she's yours, and you're a minor. She seems to have been left to you just for that."

Until her mother spoke, Ramsey was mystified by her gracious bows of satisfaction to the senator and the general, but then she understood and was glad. "Verrie well," said madame, "iv Phylliz be satizfi' to billong to Ramzee----"

"She is," said Mrs. Gilmore. "She's told me so."

"Verrie well, she'll juz' billong. An'"--to the senator--"you'll tell h-all those pa.s.senger' you h-are the fran' of my 'usban' an' fran' of the pewblic an' you 'ave seen thad will, an' Phylliz she's h-all those year' billong to Ramzee, an' tha'z h-all arrange' and h-every-boddie satizfi', ondly those twin' they 'ave not hear' abboud that yet, but you'll see them an' make them satizfi'----"

"They know," called Ramsey and "California," and the latter added to the senator: "They've sold all claim to her, sight unseen, and have got the money; took it from me, before witnesses." Then to the astonished matron he added: "We can fix that in a jiffy, as slick as gla.s.s."

But there the immediate scene diverted every one; the whole group moved to the roof's edge to see the boat land. Then, while her bells still jingled and her wheels yeasted, the company, heart-sick of burials, fell apart. The senator and the general, promising zealous action and the best results, returned to the boiler deck, the parson's wife sought her children, Mrs. Gilmore went down to "Harriet." To s.h.i.+eld madame from the full force of the breeze "California" moved her chair, Joy following with Ramsey's, to the shelter of the great chimney nearest the captain's door, where sympathy itself tended to draw them, and by the time this was done the commodore, again on Hugh's arm, reissued from the captain's room and, at sight of this quartet, paused, turned, and accepted a seat among them.

The first word was Ramsey's: How was the captain?

The best that could be said was that he was "holding out"--or "up"--or "on"--the commodore's voice was weak. He had come away from the captain's bed-side because a convalescent was "only in the way," he said, and because Hugh felt that he belonged on deck if anywhere, though that, the old man fondly added, was less important than Hugh chose to regard it. This unimportance Ramsey recognized by diverting the conversation so far as to announce that "mom-a" had just settled the whole Phyllis business.

"Mighty nigh," the Californian admitted, answering Hugh's quiet glance, while his heart praised the daughter's failure to credit him with his share in the achievement, that being a thing still in progress, whose design he had not fully revealed. The omission seemed to him most maidenly and daughterly. He spoke on, to the two ladies:

"There's a thing or two more----"

"Oh, I'll pay that two hundred dollars!" cried Ramsey.

In animated approval her mother nodded to both.

"Not if the court knows itself," said the modest man, with so winsome a smile that every one noticed how blue were his eyes. "I can trump that,"

he added, musingly.

"What's the other thing? You said a thing or two," asked Ramsey.

"Her wages, ain't it, for eleven years?"

"Ho, ho!" laughed madame in amiable scorn, while----

"Paid!" cried Ramsey. "Mrs. Gilmore's always paid her!"

"Knowin' she was a runaway? and who' from?"

Madame bowed sweetly, yet with an aroused sparkle.

"Humph!" said Ramsey, watching the boat back out and lay her course for Island Thirty-five, "I'd have done as they did, either of them." She stepped into the freshening breeze.

The inquirer's eyes rested on her, bluer than ever.

"Don't you propose to collect?" he asked.

"Most certainly not!" sang Ramsey at full height.

"Not a sou," said madame, looking about in grand amus.e.m.e.nt. "Not a pic-ah-yune--hoh!"