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Updated: July 26, 2025
There was no haste in his movements as he slipped back the bolts, rather the studied deliberation of purpose of a man armed against all emergency. But the door burst inwards against him the moment he opened it, and one of his subalterns, young Harley, almost fell into his arms. Merryon steadied him with the utmost composure. "Halloa, Harley! You, is it? What's all this noise about?"
"This is the garment of respectability," she declared. "It isn't much of a fit, is it? But I shall grow to it in time. Do you know, I believe I'm going to like being your wife?" "Why?" said Merryon. She laughed that laugh of irrepressible gaiety that had surprised him before. "Oh, just because I shall so love fighting your battles for you," she said. "It'll be grand sport."
It was glistening with rain-drops and looked like the head of some small, furry animal. As if aware of that straight regard, the dancer presently spoke, without turning or moving an eyelid. "What you are doesn't matter to any one except yourself. And what I am doesn't matter either. It's just nobody's business." "I see," said Merryon. A faint smile crossed his grim, hard-featured face.
"Think so?" said Merryon. "Oh, you bet!" said the Dragon-Fly, with gay confidence. "Men never know how to fight. They're poor things men!" He himself laughed at that his grim, grudging laugh. "It's a world of fools, Puck," he said. "Or knaves," said the Dragon-Fly, wisely. And with that she stretched up her arms above her head and laughed again.
He kissed the red lips hotly, with the savage freedom of a nature long restrained. "Who has a greater right?" he said, with fiery exultation. She did not answer him. But at the first touch of his lips upon her own she resisted no longer, only broke into agonized tears. And suddenly Merryon came to himself was furiously, overwhelmingly ashamed. "God forgive me!" he said, and let her go.
Before they had covered twenty yards another frightful spasm of pain came upon Merryon, racking his whole being, depriving him of all his powers, wresting from him every faculty save that of suffering.
When, a month after her coming, the scourge of the Plains caught her, as was inevitable, he felt as if his new-found kingdom had begun already to depart from him. For a few days Puck was seriously ill with malaria. She came through it with marvellous resolution, nursed by Merryon and his bearer, the general factotum of the establishment.
"My name," he said, speaking in a peculiarly soft voice that somehow reminded Merryon of the hiss of a reptile, "is Leo Vulcan. You have heard of me? Perhaps not. I am better known in the Western Hemisphere. You ask me what I want?" He raised a brown, hairy hand and pointed straight at the girl in Merryon's arms. "I want my wife!"
You led him on." She gave a little nervous laugh against his breast. "I never meant to, Billikins. I I don't much like men as a rule." "You manage to conceal that fact very successfully," he said. She laughed again rather piteously. "You don't know me," she whispered. "I'm not like that all through." "I hope not," said Merryon, severely.
Merryon left the mess early, tramping back over the dusty road, convinced that the downpour for which they all yearned was at hand. There was no moonlight that night, only a hot blackness, illumined now and then by a brilliant dart of lightning that shocked the senses and left behind a void indescribable, a darkness that could be felt.
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