A Circle In The Sand

A Circle in the Sand by Kate Jordan

Author of "The Kiss of Gold." "The Other House." etc, etc.  Copyright 1898 by the author.

"Armitage, " he said, roused for the moment out of his self reserve, "I almost wish, then, you could love a woman as miserably, as passionately, perhaps as hopelessly, as I do. She is the desire of my life and its greatest good." 

"I knew it The signs never fail. And now I want to talk to you. We might as well here as at the fazenda. "Why don't you sell out to me or to Morgan, take what you've made and go home?"

"Home?" echoed Donald, unable to repress the note of hope and yearning in his voice at sound of that sweet word. "Why?"

"Do you think this" - with a contemptuous gesture toward the group of low, tiled roof buildings and the bare land - "pays for the pain in the heart? As for the money you make, it's not much for the struggle. The days are gone when big fortunes were made in coffee planting. It doesn't matter much whether my bones eventually lie under this sun or Korea's, and it's the same with Morgan. But you - well, there's a woman you love far away from this wilderness. For God's sake, seize your happiness, sell out and go to her."

"I won't," said Donald quietly. "I've a task to accomplish."

"Other than the averaging of a profit of 8 shillings and tuppence on a bag of 60 kilograms?"

"Other than that. I am content with these medium profits. I came here not only to conquer or at least disarm fortune, but to conquer myself. I'll stay the time I intended."

They rode on silently. An old negress with a child on her hip stopped in the middle of the road, her palm outstretched, and, following a curious custom, cried in Spanish:

"Bless me!"

"God bless you!" said Armitage, and he went on.

A cart drawn by goats and filled with firewood passed them. Black vultures as motionless as if fashioned in basalt looked down from the stump of a dead tree as they neared the fazenda.

Close by the details of the place were even more unlovely than the misty whole seen from the hilltop. Cattle grazed loose under the charge of an aged negro squatting in the sun and slumbering with his almost fleshless face against his knee. The gates through which the two men passed were, like everything else about the place, constructed to do what was required of them with the least possible exertion, and having been swung back as if under protest when the horses were pushed against them they returned only half way with a screech eloquent of rusty hinges and stuck fast in a tuft of weeds. A large family of cats too attenuated to frolic strolled languidly around the paved square or sat winking their half blind eyes in the glare. From some of the white laborers' cottages came the smell of pork and frying bread. Over it all the sun flamed hard.

Donald and Armitage alighted at the factory, and from this came the low crooning, the murmur of mixed song, heard wherever the negro works.

"I'm dead for a siesta. My clothes seem weighted with stones," said Armitage, yawning. "I was up before the sun this morning - long before it. So were you," he broke off suddenly, "and, by George, you look dead beat. You'd better go a little easier. Do as I do, Sefain. After your coffee lie down."

"I'm going to," said Donald listlessly.

"Yes, but sleep. Don't lie and think Why don't you go now and let Tomas fetch your coffee at once? It's almost 3."

"After I see Seraphine and find out what that rascal of an agent at the railway had to say in answer to my complaint. Must we keep trusting his honesty in weighing the sacks? I'd as soon trust the devil."

"Ah, what can we do? That's the leakage through which our profits drip. But because time and exertion are as valuable as money in this enervating plague spot we must trust as we go and be cheated from the moment we leave the sacks at the station to the moment they are shipped in Rio. Don't let me think of it. The helplessness of it drives me frantic. It's too hot to object even to being fleeced," and Armitage swung across to Morgan's house, where he knew pork and plantains were waiting for him.

Half an hour later Donald, with hands in trousers pockets and hat tilted lazily over eyes that seemed asleep, went down the stone square to the end farthest from the factory and paused before a small house exactly like the others save that it stood apart, a palm within a few feet throwing a top heavy shadow across its white facade.

Home - that silent, shaded little house of four small rooms where no familiar face ever welcomed him and no voice but his own or his servant's vibrated on the sleepy air. As Donald looked upon it now the quiet place seemed to feel the dissatisfaction rising from his tormented heart and to meet it with almost servile protest.

He had done what he could to make the house habitable. It was even a pretty house when compared with the bare hideousness with which Armitage and Morgan were content. The laced bamboo flaps on the windows made the place swim in gloom as restful after the sunlight as the feeling of a cool hand on the brow. There was matting on the floor, a hammock swung in a corner, some sketches of his own were upon the walls, some books on the mantel shelf. Chief among the books were Anne's and just above them hung a small, unframed pastel he had made, showing her face with the expression he loved best, the eyes glancing sideways, half questioning, tender.

He dropped the big manilla hat to the floor, sank into a cane chair and stretched his body out in a way expressive of unspeakable weariness. Now that his forehead was bared, the sun's strength was seen in the pallor of the skin just below the hair, making a division as sharp as a saber cut.

Armitage was right; he was used up and needed a rest. His hand sought some cigars upon a small table and then slipped back. It would be better not to smoke until Tomas had brought his coffee, Tomas of the many lies, the sickly sweet smile and the coral tipped pendants in objectionable ears.

All sorts of thoughts and half thoughts floated through his mind, the heaviness of the day, the knavery of the Portuguese agent on the Dom Pedro II railway, the wish to make money faster, the surprising words Armitage had spoken on the road, and always, no matter what his surface thought, the fierce and living consciousness of Anne underlying all, the ungovernable longings he had let speak in that last letter to her, the craving for her answer, the constantly recurring waves of homesickness checked by returning determinations to be strong to the end.

One more year of work, and he would have tested himself enough and made enough money to go back to New York. He saw the town plainly and with an unappeasable longing. There were The Citizen offices, the panorama of sparkling bay and clotted smoke against a copper sky seen from its western windows, the brisk crowds on Broadway, snow, furs and violets, but most of all Anne's rooms, the fire light clasping her as in a confidence, and perhaps cold, sweet rain washing a winter plant upon the window sill - cold, cold, sweet rain, not the sticky mist and windless showers falling at intervals in this hot season. He longed to feel its riot and chill against his face and hear the ring of the stone pavements under his tread or to hurry through miles of frosty sunlight to Anne's side -

Tomas entered with the coffee and a dish of peppered chicken, but midway across the room he paused and let his melancholy eyes rest upon his master. He was asleep, his head fallen back and exhaustion marking the features. Sleep was better for him than peppered chicken, Tomas reasoned, and remained considerately quiet, his gaze as melancholy but more watchful as he lifted a piece of the meat to his lips with his fingers and rhythmically licked their brown tips. It was indeed well for his master to slumber on, and if he took another piece there would still be enough.

Before he could materialize the thought voices outside surprised him. He hurried to the door and met the Spanish housekeeper of Senor Morgan about to enter. At a little distance behind her he saw a small group of people, two strange women, evidently "Inglez", and with them Senor Armitage. At the entrance to the court stood an ox cart in which the visitors must have come from the station. The heavy beasts were rubbing their noses together, moving the iron bells upon their collars and sending a lonely clang through the sunlight.

"Mother of God, the señor will be surprised!" Morgan's housekeeper was saying in shrill tones, swaying from hip to hip in her excitement. "He will shout and throw his hat into the air for joy when he knows. Ah, you will all see! Aye, it is wonderful. Out of the way,"stupid pig!" to Tomas. "I am to tell the señor that his love has come to him over thousands of miles."

"The senor sleeps as if the sun had touched him," interposed Tomas with a glance of murder, for he hated the housekeeper, who annoyed his reveries by talking too much and knew so well how to take precise aim when she threw broken crockery at him. "I would not rouse him for the chicken even" -  

"Because, beast, you wanted to eat it yourself! This is more important than food. Let me in!"

Armitage pulled her back and motioned Tomas aside. "Go away, both of you!" he said in a whisper of command.

He tumed to one of the strangers. She was young, dark eyed, a little too white and slender for his idea of beauty and with marks of travel weariness on her face.

"Let your maid wait here. You will find Sefain in this house. They say he is sleeping."

Annie's lids sank for a moment over her eyes as if a throe of insupportable feeling coursed through her, which might have been apprehension, pity or love, and she entered the dim room. She stood with loosely clasped hands and looked down at Donald. Often during the travail of the long journey so impulsively undertaken she had wondered what emotions would come to her in this moment when she faced the struggler who needed and loved her, the man she loved.

Donald's lids showing blue against the broken and sunken face, the clamminess upon the strip of pale forehead, the parched lips parted, the unguarded heart crying out its distress in the fixed expression of sorrow and appeal, were like so many chords around her heart drawing her toward him. She had done right to come to him.

A wild joy filled her as she crossed the room to his side. But though she leaned above him he still slept, not knowing heaven was near. She sank on her knees and laid her cheek upon his drooping hand as she called him clearly twice. Donald started forward, dazed. The reality came in Annie's kiss as she clung to him. THE END.