CHAPTER XIV - THE YELLOW FLAG

________________________________________________
_ The departing whistle of the yacht Polly struck sharply to the
heart of a desolate figure seated on a bench in the blazing,
dusty, public square of Puerto del Norte, waiting out his first
day of pain. A kiskadee bird, the only other creature foolish
enough to risk the hot bleakness of the plaza at that hour,
flitted into a dust-coated palm, inspected him, put a tentative
query or two, decided that he was of no possible interest, and
left the Unspeakable Perk to his own cogitations.

So deep in wretchedness were the cogitations that he did not hear
the light, hesitant footstep. But he felt in every vein and fiber
the appealing touch on his shoulder.

"Good God! What are YOU doing here?" he cried, leaping to his
feet. There was no awkwardess or shyness in his speech now; only
wonder-stricken joy.

"I came back to see you."

"But the yacht! Your ship!"

"She has left."

"No! She mustn't! Not without you! You can't stay here. It's too
dangerous."

"I must. They think I'm aboard. I left a note for papa. He won't
get it until they're at sea. And they can't come back for me, can
they?"

"No--yes--they must! I must see Stark and Wisner at once."

"To send me away?"

"Yes."

"Without forgiving me?"

"Forgiving? There's no question of that between you and me."

"There is. Fitzhugh told me everything--all about the poor dead
woman."

"Ah, he shouldn't have done that."

"He should!" She stamped a little willful foot. "What else could
he do?"

"Why, yes," he agreed thoughtfully. "I suppose that's so. After
all, a man can't bear the names that Carroll does and go wrong on
the big inner things. He has met his test, and stood it. For he
cares very deeply for you."

"Poor Fitz!" she sighed.

"But here we're wasting time!" he cried in a panic. "Where can I
leave you?"

"Do you want to leave me?"

"Want to!" he groaned. "Can't you understand that I've got to get
you to the yacht!"

"Oh, beetle man, beetle man, don't you WANT me?" she cried
dolorously. "Didn't you mean your note?"

"Mean it? I meant it as I've never meant anything in the world.
But you--what do you mean? Do you mean that you'll--you'll let the
yacht go without you--and--and--and stay here, and m-m-marry me?"

"If you should ask me," she said, half-laughing, half-crying,
"what else could I do? I'm alone and deserted. And there's only
you in the world."

"Miss P-P-Polly," he began, "I--I can't believe--"

"It's true!" she cried, and held out two yearning hands to him.
"And if you stammer and stutter and--and--and act like the
Unspeakable Perk NOW, I'll--I'll howl!"

If she had any such project, the chance was lost on the instant of
the warning, as he caught her to him and held her close.

"Oh!" she cried, trying to push him away. "Do you know, sir, that
this is a public square?"

"Well, I didn't choose it," he reminded her, laughing in pure joy,
with a boyish note new to her ear. "Anyway, there are only us two
under the sun." And he drew her close again, whispering in her
ear.

"Oh--oh, is that the language of medical science?" she reproved.

At this point, generic curiosity overcame the feathered
eavesdropper in the tree above.

"Qu'est-ce qu'il dit?"--"What's he say?"

The girl turned a flushed and adorable face upward.

"I won't tell you. It's for me alone," she declared joyously. "But
you'll never stop saying it, will you, dear?"

"Never, as long as we both shall live. And that reminds me," he
said soberly. "We must arrange about being married."

"Oh, that reminds you, does it?" she mocked. "Just incidentally,
like that."

Boom! Boom! Boom! The mission clock kept patiently at it until its
suggestion struck in.

"Of course!" he cried. "Mr. Lake, the missionary, will marry us.
And we'll have Stark and Wisner for witnesses. How long does it
take a bride to get ready? Would half an hour be enough?"

"It's rather a short engagement," she remarked demurely. "But if
it's all the time we've got--"

"It is. But, darling, we'll have to ride for it afterward, and get
across to the mainland. I've no right to let you in for such a
risk," he cried remorsefully.

"You couldn't help yourself," she teased saucily. "I ran you down
like one of your own beetles. Besides, what does that permit for
the Dutch ship say?"

"That's for myself and a woman--the leper woman. Not for myself
and my wife."

"Well, I'm a woman, aren't I? And it doesn't say that the woman
MUSTN'T be your wife." She blushed distractingly.

"Caesar! Of course it doesn't! What luck! We'll be in Curacao to-
morrow. I must see Wisner about getting us off. But, Polly,
dearest one, you're sure? You haven't let yourself be carried away
by that foolishness of mine yesterday?"

"Sure? Oh, beetle man!" She put her hands on his shoulders and
bent to his ear.

The sulphur-colored winged Paul Pry stuck an impertinent head out
from behind a palm leaf.

"Qu'est-ce qu'elle dit? Qu'est-ce qu'elle dit?"

For the second and last time in his adult life the beetle man
threw a stone at a bird.

Four hours later six powerful black oarsmen rowed a boat
containing two passengers and practically no luggage out across
the huge lazy swells of the Caribbean toward a smudge of black
smoke.

"Look!" cried that one of the passengers who wore huge goggles.
"There goes the flag!"

A square of yellow bunting slid slowly up the pierhead staff of
the dock corporation, and spread in the light shore breeze.

"That's the modern flaming sword," he continued. "The color stirs
something inside me. Ugly, isn't it?"

"It is ugly," she confessed thoughtfully. "Yet it's the flag we
fight under, too, isn't it? And we'd fight for it if we had to,
just as we fought for the other--our own."

"I love your 'we,'" he laughed happily.

She nestled closer to him.

"Are you still hating the Caribbean?"

"I? I'm loving it the second-best thing in the world."

"But I loved it first," she reminded him jealously. "Dearest," she
added, with one of her swift swoops of thought, "what was that
funny title the British Secretary of Legation had?"

"What? Oh, Captain the Honorable Carey Knowles?"

"Yes. Well, I shall have a much nicer, more picturesque title than
that when we come back to Caracuna--dear, dirty, dangerous, queer,
riotous, plague-stricken old Caracuna!"

"Then my liege ladylove intends to come back?" he asked.

"Of course. Some time. And in Caracuna I shall insist on being
Mrs. the Unspeakable Perk."

THE END.
The Unspeakable Perk, by Samuel Hopkins Adams. _


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