Page:Under three flags; a story of mystery (IA underthreeflagss00tayliala).pdf/318

 "Quick!" he whispers to Louise, as he points the way to temporary safety.

A minute later and they are on the roof of the building, the ladder pulled up, and the scuttle fastened down. Over them floats, from the flagstaff, the glorious banner of their native land, and above that bends a sky of heaven's deepest blue.

"Fairly outwitted!" says Van Zandt. Suddenly he feels a weakness come over him and he sinks upon the sun-baked roof. Then for the first time Louise notices that he is wounded, and she kneels beside him with a very white face.

"It is nothing," he reassures her. With her assistance he removes his coat, tears open the left sleeve of his shirt and discloses a bullet hole in the fleshy part of the arm. It looks more serious than it really is and Louise feels an inclination to faint. But she resists it and proceeds to bind up the still bleeding wound with strips torn from her own silken petticoat. The golden head is very close to the brown one, and as the fair surgeon bends to tie a knot, the soft sweep of her hair steals away all of Van Zandt's well-guarded reserve, and his right arm encircles her in a passionate embrace.

"I love you! I love you!" he whispers.

And Miss Hathaway, being a sensible young woman, who knows what she wants, does not remark upon the "suddenness" of the declaration of love, but presses her red lips to his and tells Phillip that she has loved him ever since she knew him.

But the lovers are brought back to earth by a chorus of yells and picturesque profanity sufficient to supply the captain of a whaling bark for an entire voyage.

"They have discovered our retreat," whispers Van Zandt, as he lifts the scuttle and listens to the tumult below. But he drops it as a bullet crashes through a few inches from his head, and moves out of such dangerous range. Then, as his eyes rest upon the flag above him an idea seizes him—a veritable inspiration. He steps to the flag-staff, detaches the halyards and the stars and stripes come fluttering down to his feet.