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They had it all determined: Carline was to be wedged away with his friend, a cotton broker that Daisy Nelia's newfound accomplice knew, and Terabon was to be tempted to "do the Palace," and he was to be caught unaware, by Nelia, who wanted to dance with him, dine with him under bright lights, and drink dangerous drinks with him.
She laughed to herself when she thought that Terabon would excuse his going there on the ground of its being right in his line of work, that he must see that place because otherwise he would not know how to describe it. "If I can catch him there!" she thought to herself. She went to Palura's, and Old Mississippi seemed to favour her.
Terabon went up town and bought some clothes, some writing paper, a big blank notebook, and a bottle of fountain-pen ink. With that outfit he returned on board, and a delivery car brought down his share of things to eat.
Rasba asked her to read to them after they had cleared up the dishes, and she took down the familiar volumes and read. Rasba sat with his eyes closed, listening. Terabon watched her face. She seemed to choose the pages at random, and read haphazardly, but it was all delight and all poetry.
Palura knew the consequences of failing to meet the challenge. "Give 'im hell!" someone called. Palura turned and nodded, and a little yelping cheer went up, which ceased instantly. Terabon, observing details, saw that Palura's coat sagged on the near side in the shape of an automatic pistol. He saw, too, that the man's left sleeve sagged round and hard a slingshot or black-jack.
He would take her, protect her, and there would be some way out of the predicament in which they both found themselves. But again she reckoned without the river. How could she know that Terabon and he had come down the Mississippi together? But there he was, chauffeuring for the Prophet! She threw the line, Rasba caught it, drew the two boats together and made them fast.
Terabon shook hands with the two, introduced Carline, and then the hunters cast off and steered away down the stream. They had come more than a thousand miles with the migrating ducks and geese, intercepting them at resting or feeding places. That touch and go impressed Terabon as much as anything he had ever experienced.
She was simply possessed by an indignant feminine impatience to think that Terabon had escaped, and she was angry when she had only that glimpse of him, as with his notebook in hand he raced his pencil across the blank pages, jotting down the details and the hasty, essential impressions as he caught them. She heard the exodus. She heard women sobbing and men gasping as they swore and fled.
"Stillhouse Island, yes, sir. What do you know about that?" "A remarkable woman!" "Yes, sir I I've got some photographs," and Carline turned to a writing desk built into the motorboat. He brought out fifteen or twenty photographs. Terabon looked at them eagerly.
The cotton broker thought it was a good joke, and he explained the whole situation to Terabon and Carline for their entertainment. "Dalkard called in Policeman Laddam and told him to stand in front of Palura's, and tell people to watch out.
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