Of a sudden, he heard the wheels of a carriage grate on the gravel beyond the station. Step by step, he went quietly forward till he stood within the shadow of the little building. There, at a corner, he pressed his slim straight body against the wall, listening.
"You are here, Jules?" It was Mr. Swickard speaking in French.
"Yes, Monsieur Leighton."
"Is everything quiet at the Villa Paradis?"
"Quiet, yes—but I do not think he is so well."
Tod heard the manager climb into the carriage. The driver whipped up his horse as they clattered off noisily down a dark road to the left. Tod stumbled on after them in the shadow of the trees. Mr. Leighton ! So the manager of the steamship company had assumed another name while in Antibes. And the man at the Villa Paradis? Who was he? Could it be Neil—Neil, a prisoner?
He increased his pace. Ahead, the carriage turned east along a white sea road that seemed to run straight along the coast to Italy. Jules was probably urging his horse faster; steadily the carriage gained upon the boy. His run became uneven. By golly, in a moment he'd get his second wind! Life on shipboard, however, had not prepared him for this form of marathon. The carriage became a dark blur on the road; the patter of hoofs grew fainter.
He must have run nearly a mile when he slowed down to a walk. His breath came in gasps; his knees trembled. He lurched to the roadside where he dropped exhausted to the ground. Far ahead came the distant sound of hoofbeats; then that was lost in the night and he was alone. He gazed around, strangely incurious. To his right gleamed the rippling surface of the Mediterranean; to his left rose hills covered with orchards. Above, the sky was a luminous blue with a full moon riding low in the heavens; toward the north and east loomed snow-covered peaks from which a sharp wind blew.
His overheated body felt suddenly chill. He rose and, crossing the road, discerned the tracks of a trolley running parallel with the highway. Slowly he advanced, his breath coming steadier every moment. Once the lights of a motor flashed down the road and whizzed by with a quiet, purring sound. After that, silence again enveloped him.
At length he plodded into the shadow of a small tramway shelter. His hands touched a cold wooden bench, protected somewhat from the wind; and here he crouched, chilled and depressed, his arms about his knees. Silently gazing at the unbroken line of sea, he understood how it felt to be alone and friendless in a foreign country. Between him and his home, a sea and a continent encircled half the globe. There were even a hundred miles of coast line between him and that bit of American soil he had trod in the shape of the hardwood decks of the Araby.
The Araby. . . . He remembered, with a little catch in his throat, how snug his quarters appeared in the forecastle. He could see the men lurching down the three steps to their bunks from their first night ashore. He could see the cozy cabin opposite the galley with the cook reading late into the night, and the cat scratching at the door for food. Was Jarvis on board now? Was he wondering what had become of him? Did he intuitively know that Tod Moran would go on and on, searching, searching? For him? Yes—and, although Jarvis didn't know it, for Neil too.
He shivered; but whether from sheer weariness of spirit or from the frosty air, he did not know. He couldn't sleep. Not here, anyway. He rose and struck off toward the east again, trudging slowly on through the moonlit night.
An hour before dawn a peasant in a creaking cart picked him up. Tod lounged gratefully against a sack of onions. The old man, bound for the municipality of Nice with vegetables, flicked the reins of his decrepit horse and chattered amiably in a patois that his passenger could just make out.
"You come from America? I have a cousin there -—in Montreal. Perhaps you know him, hein? No? Well, I'd like to go there too; but it is across the water, is it not? God put me here on this bit of land, and here I shall remain. But what a wonderful people—you Americans! A nation of millionaires! Is it not true?"
He turned and surveyed the boy with a puzzled frown. The impression had no doubt entered his simple mind that his passenger was not in the least like an American millionaire. "How happens it, mon enfant," he added, "that you walk the coast this early morning?"
"My train was late," the boy carefully explained. "I missed the home of my friends."
"What! You have not slept this night? Ah, always have I said you were a strange people, you Americans."
"Do you know any hereabouts, monsieur? A Mr. Leighton?"
The old man shook his head. "There are many foreigners on the Riviera during the season. Do you know the name of his villa? All houses have names, you know."
Tod's sleep-burdened thoughts drifted back to the station at Antibes. "Yes—he did tell me. The Villa Paradis."
"The Villa Paradis! Certainement. Many times have I left potatoes and artichokes there. Yes, I know Jules and Madame Therese." He laughed shrilly. "It is two kilometres ahead. Go to sleep, mon petit ami. I will let you know."
Dawn came. Light spread over the mountains; the wind whipped the surface of the sea into little whitecaps. Tod dozed, while the cart crept drowsily along the road. Gradually, the almost-forgotten odour of orange trees invaded his sleeping senses. Why, he was home—home! Neil was there, gaily coming up the path to the porch, his handsome face jubilant at his arrival. He waved; he shouted. Gay, careless Neil.
Tod stirred. Opening his eyes he saw that they were passing between long rows of villas set in the midst of parks and hedges. Before them crawled other wagons loaded with produce for Nice. The peasant, drawing up the weary sorrel, pointed to a lane on the right which wound away toward the sea.
"That, monsieur, leads to the Villa Paradis," he said.
CHAPTER III
AT THE VILLA PARADIS
TOD walked on, more asleep than awake. The villas ended, the road dwindled to a cart path, a farm was passed on his right hand, and then, before him, lay a rutted cart track leading across a small neck of lowland jutting out into the sea. At the far end, the leaden roof of a house was dimly visible, shrouded in the deep green of trees and garden.
"A lonely place, this Villa Paradis," he thought. As he went impetuously forward his feet sank into the soft warm earth. On each side, a salt marsh crept to the very edge of the roadway; sparse grass waved in tufts here and there; a noisome smell hovered above stagnant pools. Beyond this the ground rose slightly, and here he grew more cautious. Presently, he came to a high iron gate. It stood like a row of spears in his path, flanked by walls, old and gray, that led down to the water on each side. Cut off thus from the mainland by marsh and wall, the villa might have been an island set in the azure Bay of Nice.
With his face pressed furtively to the iron grilling of the gate, Tod saw that the house was almost hidden by tangled growths of trees and underbrush; evidently, the place had long before surrendered to the encroaching marsh. The sun had not yet tipped the mountains; the garden lay in shadow, wet with dripping dew. Two long rows of plane trees lined the grassy drive which curved to the rear; rose bushes grew rank in the garden; weeds lifted exultant heads above the flowers; birds fluttered in the thickets. Over all hung a silence profound and disturbing.