H A MODUS VIVENDI

As good fortune would have it, we swung in, opposite the screened
mouth of Henry's Bayou, at a time when the stream was free of all
craft that might have observed us, although far across the forest we
could see a black column of smoke, marking a river steamer coming up.

"Quick with that long boat, Lafitte," I ordered; and he drew our old
craft alongside as we slowed down. "Get over yonder and sound for a
bar. Take the boat hook. If you get four feet, we'll try it."

My hardy young ruffian was nothing if not prompt, nor was he less
efficient than the average deck-hand. It was he who did the sounding
while Willie, our factotum, pulled slowly in toward the mouth of the
old river bed. I watched them through the glasses, noting that rarely
could Lafitte find any bottom at all with the long shaft of the boat
hook. "She's all right, Peterson," said I. "Follow on in, slowly--I
don't want that steamer yonder to catch us."

"_Why_ don't you?" A voice I should know, to which all my body would
thrill, did I hear it in any corner of the world, spoke at my elbow.
I started for a half instant before I made reply, looking into her
dark eyes, sensible again of the perfume most delirium-producing for a
man: the scent of a woman's hair.

"Because, Helena," said I, "I wish our boat to lie unnoticed for a
time, till the hue and cry has lulled a bit."

"And then?" She bent on me her gaze, so difficult to resist, and
smiled at me with the corners of her lips, so subtly irresistible. I
felt a rush of fire sweep through all my being, and something she must
have noted, for she gave back a bit and stood more aloof along the
rail.

"And then," said I savagely, "this boat runs by all the towns, till we
reach the Gulf, and the open sea."

"And then?"

"And then, Helena, we sail the ocean blue, you and I."

"For how long?"

"Forever, Helena. Or, at least, until----"

"Until when?"

"Until you say you will marry me, Helena."

She made no answer now at all beyond a scornful shrug of her
shoulders. "Suppose I can not?" she said at last.

"If you can not, all the same you must and shall!" said I. "You shall
be prisoner until you do."

"Is there no law for such as you?"

"No. None on the high sea. None in my heart. Only one law I know any
more, Helena--I who have upheld the law, obeyed it, reverenced it."

"And that?"

"The law of the centuries, of the forest, of the sea. The law of love,
Helena."

"Ah, yo