The Lighted Match
Page 33He 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
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.
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
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."