Sonnie-Boy's People Part 41

"I've been fighting for more than my life, or yours, and----"

His right arm had been hanging loosely down by his side. He snapped his right wrist against his hip. The coat, in a tight ball, was jolted into the man's face, just as Cadogan's left arm shot up and caught the man's pistol wrist. His open right hand followed the coat and gripped the man's throat. He had no mind for a scuffle which would attract attention, nor did he wish the man when he dropped overboard to fall too near his raft; so, with his finger to the man's windpipe, he bore him along the pa.s.sageway toward the stern of the ship. The tide was setting that way. The man was kicking out with both legs, striking out with his free hand. Cadogan held the man's arm over the rail the while he twisted the pistol wrist. The revolver dropped overboard. Cadogan took a fresh hold of him, spun around with him, and let him fly. He went where the revolver went.

Cadogan, arrived back at his raft, found a man standing by the falls and calling down to somebody below: "How is it now?"

There was no answer. The man by the falls repeated his question. Only silence from below.

Cadogan was looking for his coat, when the man grasped the falls and swiftly lowered himself over the side. Cadogan let be his coat and slid down the falls after him. His feet fetched up against the man's fingers.

He pressed with all his weight. The man cursed softly, let go his hold, and fell into the sea. Cadogan dropped after him. When the man came up Cadogan gripped him by the throat and held him under water.

The dim outline of another fellow was standing erect on the end of the little raft. "Norrie, me lad," he was saying in a cold voice, "it's a tidy little floater with nice warm blankets, but it will never hold up two." Cadogan could see a long spanner, or bar, held ready on the shoulder of the man on the raft. The man in the water was now twining his legs about him, whereupon, still clinging to his man, Cadogan dived, porpoise-like, head down into the sea. When he felt his feet under he kicked once, twice, three times powerfully. Deep down he went.

He came up alone.

He clung to one of the hooks of the falls to get his breath. A cap floated up to him. Smiling grimly, he set it on his head. The man on the end of the raft poised himself above him and aimed the long spanner at the cap. Cadogan diverted the blow with his free forearm, and before the other could recover wrenched the spanner from him and dropped it into the sea.

"Oh, ho! that's how it is, is it, Norrie, me lad?" He swung one foot viciously at Cadogan's hand where it was gripped around the hook.

Cadogan swooped again with his free hand, caught the man by the swinging ankle, and hauled him off the raft. He released his grip of the man's ankle, only to shift it to his throat. The man seized Cadogan's free wrist with both hands. Cadogan, hanging to the hook with one hand and gripping the man's throat with the other, continued to squeeze the man's throat. The man's legs kicked convulsively. Cadogan continued to squeeze. When the legs stopped kicking, Cadogan forced the head under water and eased up on his grip. Bubbles rose up and burst on the surface. Cadogan placed his ear close to the water to hear. When he could no longer hear the bubbles he loosed his grip.

With hands to the falls and feet against the ship's side, Cadogan climbed to the deck where he had left his coat. He found it kicked to one side and trampled upon. But the little photograph was still there--in the inside pocket.

He took off his cap, the cap of the drowned man, while he kissed the little photograph. "Coming, coming, oh, coming!" he murmured.

"Have you room for a pa.s.senger?" came in a man's voice from the dark.

Cadogan whirled. "Pa.s.senger? Pa.s.senger! I've fought and schemed and--Oh!"

It was Lavis, and, clinging to his hand, was somebody in a man's long ulster.

"It's the woman--you remember her?--who pa.s.sed her baby boy into the boat so that he would be saved."

Cadogan said nothing.

"A few minutes ago I found her. She was weeping for her baby. I asked her why she should be weeping now that her baby was safe, and she answered me: 'But who will be there to give him the breast when he wakes?'"

Cadogan rested his left hand, with the fingers clinched around the cap, on the ship's rail.

"If Christ on earth were to be with us once more," went on Lavis softly, "would he not say again: 'Greater love hath no man than this'?

'Who will be there to give him the breast when he wakes?'--and she about to die. Have you room for her as a pa.s.senger on your raft?"

"It will bear only one."

Lavis waited.

Cadogan unloosed the fingers of the hand on the rail. The cap dropped into the sea.

"She shall be the one," he said presently.

In the rosy flush of a beautiful dawn a lone woman on a tiny raft drifted down to her crying baby and gave him suck.