My Brave and Gallant Gentleman Part 19

"How did you get here then?"

Her blunt questioning was rather disconcerting.

"Oh! I walked it," I answered lightly, with a grin.

Her voice changed. "You're trying to be smart," she reprimanded.

"Sorry," I said, in a tone of contrition, "for I am not a bit smart in spite of my trying. Well,--I swam across from the wharf over there."

She looked up. "Being smart some more."

"No!--it is true."

She measured the distance from the island to the wharf with her eye.

I remarked, some time ago, that her hair was of the darkest shade of brown. I was wrong;--there was a darker hue still, and that was in her eyes; while her skin was of that attractive combination, olive and pink.

"Gee!--that was some swim.

"How are you going to get back?" she continued, in open friendliness.

"Swim!"

"Ain't you tired?"

"I was winded a bit when I got here, but I am all right again," I answered.

"You're an Englishman?"

"How did you guess it?" I asked, as if I were giving her credit for unearthing a great mystery.

Before answering, she sat down on the gra.s.s, clasping her hands over her knees. I squatted a short distance from her.

"Only Englishmen go swimming hereabouts in the morning."

"Do you often stumble across stray, swimming Englishmen?" I asked in banter.

"No!--but three summers ago there were some English people staying in that house at the wharf that's now closed up:--the one next Horsfal's, and they were in the water so much, they hardly gave the fish a chance.

It was the worst year we ever had for fis.h.i.+ng."

I laughed, and she looked up in surprise.

"Then we had an English surveyor staying with us for a month last year.

He was crazy for the water. He went in for half an hour every morning and before his breakfast, too. You don't find the loggers or any of the settlers doing silly stunts like that. No, siree.

"Guess you're a surveyor?"

"No!"

"Or maybe a gentleman up for shooting and fis.h.i.+ng? Can't be though, for there ain't any launches in the Bay. Yes, you are, too, for I saw a launch in yesterday."

"I hope I am always a gentleman," I said, "but I am not the kind of gentleman you mean. I have no launch and no money but what I can earn.

I am the new man who is to look after Mr. Horsfal's Golden Crescent property. I shall be more or less of a common country storekeeper after to-day."

"Heard about that store from old Jake. Granddad over home was talking about it, too. It'll be convenient for the Camps and a fine thing for the settlers up here."

She jumped up. "Well,--I guess I got to beat it, Mister----"

"George Bremner," I put in.

"My name's Rita;--Rita Clark. I stay over at the ranch there, the one with the red-roofed houses. This island's named Rita, too."

"After you?"

"Ya!--guess so!"

She did not venture any more.

"Been here long?" I asked.

"Long's I can remember," she answered.

"Like it?"

"I love it. It's all I got. Never been away from it more'n three times in my life."

There was something akin to longing in her voice.

"I love it all the same,--all but that over there."

As she spoke, she s.h.i.+vered and pointed away out to the great perpendicular rock, with its jagged, devilish, shark-like teeth, which rose sheer out of the water and stood black, forbidding and snarling, even in the suns.h.i.+ne, to the right, at the entrance to the Bay, a quarter of a mile or so from the far horn of Golden Crescent.

"You don't like rocks?"

"Some rocks," she whispered, "but not 'The Ghoul.'"

"The Ghoul," I repeated with a shudder. "Ugh!--what a name. Who on earth saddled it with such a horrible name?"

"n.o.body on earth. Guess it must have been the devil in h.e.l.l, for it's a friend of his."

Her face grew pale and a nameless horror crept into her eyes.

"It ain't nice to look on now,--is it?"

"No!" I granted.

"You want to see it in the winter, when there's a storm tearing in, with the sea cras.h.i.+ng over it in a white foam and,--and,--people trying to hang on to it. Oh!--I tell you what it is,--it's h.e.l.lish, that's all. It's well named The Ghoul,--it's a robber of the dead."

"Robber of the dead!--what do you mean?"