The Cassowary Part 12

"No sor."

"Then don't take any. You must be clear-headed when you go before the Commission. Here's a gallon of water, good water it is. You must drink it all before ten o'clock."

Pat looked dismayed. "Oi'll try sor."

Then began the struggle. Pat washed down his breakfast at once, very salt-broiled mackerel--which Wheaton had brought,--with the usual potatoes and a big beefsteak. After that every five minutes, Wheaton forced the poor fellow to drink a gla.s.s of water. At half-past nine the gallon was done. Pat, like the tea-drinkers of Ebenezer Chapel, "swelled wisibly." But Wheaton made him drink more water.

"Oi feel loike a fishpond, sor," he complained.

They hurried to the nearest Turkish bath and Pat stripped and got upon the scales. He weighed one hundred and sixty-five pounds and three ounces. Pat was perspiring violently.

"If you sweat, I'll murder you!" said Wheaton.

They appeared before the Commission, Wheaton watching everything like a hawk, his heart in his mouth as the weighing test came. One hundred and sixty-five pounds and one ounce! There was no getting around it!

"Pat," said Wheaton, later, "You're on the force now and you've had a lesson in practical politics. You ought to be a sergeant in no time."

"Politics is aisy," said Pat, "but Oi'm thinkin' Oi'll be changin' me diet. Oi'm forninst beer and bread and b.u.t.ther forever--an'" he added, reflectively, "Oi dunno but wather, too!"

"He's making a good policeman," concluded the Commissioner.

So ended the relation of Pat's experience, and, a little later, the laughing group in the smoking room dissolved itself. Stafford sought his berth, largely recovered from his discontent and more like his reliant self. But he was not a.s.sured as to his dreams. Would his conscience be with him still? Could the line of conventional demarcation between him and the Far Away Lady be rigorously preserved, even in them?

But no dreams came to him at once. He could not sleep at first but struggled with himself. He was tumultuous and impatient with his environment and obligations, all, seemingly, standing in the way of his happiness. He was lost, utterly, in the old conflict which comes with the hesitation between the recognized right and wrong, the accepted thing at the time in the age of the earth in which he lived? To his aid, he quoted to himself the sayings of the keen thinkers, the abstract reasoners: he thought of Anatole France: "What is morality? Morality is the rule of custom and custom is the rule of habit. Morality is, then, the rule of habit. Morality changes, continually with custom, of which it is only the general idea." He thought of the others, too, of one who reasoned from the fact that there were a Jewish morality, a Christian morality, a Buddhist morality, and all that. In his half sleep he mumbled; "Why, Reason is the thing," and then he added mumblingly and reflectively, "but then we have learned that there is a right and reason must end by being right. There is a right--we know that; we feel it--and we know what it is. It is, largely, a subordination, a regard for others. We cannot quite justify ourselves for any selfishness by quoting some great law of nature. Conscience, somehow, has become the greatest of these laws."

And so, vaguely and jumblingly, as his senses oozed into sleep, he quoted failingly, the cold thinkers. Then the real dreams came to him, but they were misty and bizarre. He was with the Far Away Lady, but the surroundings were all strange and she was most elusive. They were in a great house and he could hear her voice but he could not find her, though he searched from room to room. Then they were in a forest where there were many flowers and tall trees and she was a bird somewhere up in the trees and he could hear her singing, but he could not see her amid the foliage. And, finally, they were where there was much shrubbery and where he could see her plainly enough, but she was at a distance and as he followed she would disappear among the roses down some garden path. All was most tantalizing and fantastic. And so his night pa.s.sed.

CHAPTER XIV

A TEST OF ATt.i.tUDE

What are they going to do, a man and a woman who have met and loved in the past, and have separated conscientiously, when brought together again under extraordinary circ.u.mstances, after each has felt that loving and of real living had been denied, and endured it all for years? What is going to happen when, because of one of the accidents of life and of one of the great accomplishing conditions, such two as this have been, once more, thrown, figuratively, into each other's arms?

This man had saved this woman's life yesterday, stumbling upon her after all this separation, after he done a man's work in another hemisphere and had, disappointed with life, supposed the chapter closed. Now he was to meet her at the breakfast table. What must be the demeanor of these two toward each other now? Be a.s.sured neither of them knew, not even the woman,--and in foreseeing as to such a situation a woman knows more, by some instinct, than a man may learn in a thousand years.

She knew that they would meet that morning. That was the inevitable, after yesterday. Anything else would have been a foolish affectation. He knew, as well, that he must go in to that breakfast table and sit opposite her and that then they must face together a situation delicately psychological and dangerous and altogether fascinating--from a philosopher's point of view. It was not perhaps, quite so fascinating to these two people with what we call conscience and the possession of what makes the greatness of humanity, whether it appertain to man or woman. There is no s.e.x to n.o.bility.

She was sitting there, divinely sweet, as he stalked in. She was sitting there, divinely sweet, because she was made that way, and never did Stafford realize it more. The years had taken from her gentle beauty not the slightest toll.

She bloomed this fair morning--it was only moderately fair, by the way--as there entered the man who had saved her life the day before and with whom in the past hers had been the closest understanding of her life. To the eye she was merely placid and infinitely enchanting. The man did not appear to such advantage. He entered blunderingly and doubtful.

There were, of course, the usual expression of morning courtesies and then they settled down to a fencing which was but a lovingness as vast as unexpressed. They talked of a variety of things but there was no allusion even so near as Saturn, to what was lying close against the hearts of both. We are rather fine but we are unexplainable sometimes, we men and women whom Nature made so curiously.

As a matter of fact, this one of the most forceful of men and one of the most sweet and desirable of women said practically nothing throughout the entire breakfast. They did not even refer to the grim incident of the dog and the grapple, which had been something worth while. Had the thing been less they would have talked about it. But, to them, by an indefinable knowing, this matter was something too great to consider at the present moment. And, so, unconsciously, understanding each other, they consigned themselves to ordinary table talk.

But we cannot always command lack of remembrance and get obedience.

There is something better. Nature has her ways. One of her ways is to have given us eyes, and how she did place us under her soft thumb when she did that!

They said very little, but they looked into each other's eyes. They couldn't help that very well. Then the laws of life worked themselves out. It is a way they have.

What are you going to do with a woman's eyes? Inside the depths of a woman's eyes, lurking lovingly, sometimes, are all the revelations that must come when the time comes and reflect themselves into the looking-gla.s.ses G.o.d provides to tell us of the thoughts of others. There are different women and different eyes, of course. We must take our chances on that.

And, so as said, they did not even refer to the happenings of the day before or of any of the context of all that had occurred. They did not refer to the great hound. They talked of nothing but of things incidental. She asked him when they would probably be released from their snow imprisonment and he told her that it would be within two days.

And, so they separated and had practically said nothing.

But eyes, as announced, are the most astonishing things. They had talked a great deal that morning. As we human beings are made, they are a little the neatest and finest expression of all there is in life. They hold and send forth the beaconing flash from every intellectual and loving light-house in the world. They are, with what they say, the confessional between any two human beings, man and woman, in the world.

They are the mediums of revelation. No wonder that those who know want sometimes, foolishly, it may be, to die when to them comes a physical blindness which may not be remedied.

And this man and woman looked into each other's eyes, he hardly comprehending at first but having the great consciousness come to him at last, she doubtless understanding sooner, and even more acutely.

Intelligent fluttering of the heart is what might possibly be said of her. She was alarmed and yet, from another point of view, entirely without fear. She realized the situation better than did he. Ever since the world was first firmly encrusted out of the steaming fog woman has been the braver of the two in our love affairs.

Exceedingly clever as these two people were, there is no opportunity to do any exceedingly brilliant work in telling all about them. Brought down to its last a.n.a.lysis, theirs was but the plain, old-fashioned love which has stood the test of all the centuries and which, in our modern English and American times, has the flavor of the hollyhocks which grow about the front fence and the old-fashioned pinks in the yard and a lot of other things. We have new ways in other things, but love has not changed much since the time of Egypt. Doubtless it was about the same way before.

"What is the day of the week, please," had been Stafford's last utterance. She did not even reply. She looked back into his eyes and that look, if it could have been weighed, could have been considered by nothing but Troy weight, the jeweller's weight, and then it would have been too coa.r.s.e for the occasion and the demand.

And so they separated and had practically said nothing.

Not the great Sultan Schariar, when listening to the fair Scheherazade, as she prolonged her life from day to day and finally saved it by the fascination of her stories; not the august hearer, as Sinbad the Sailor described his marvelous adventures; not Margaret of Angouleme, as she gathered the more lettered ladies and gallants of her court and induced them to add to the gayety of nations by the relation of brisk and risque experiences; not d.i.c.kens, as he spun the threads himself of his Tales of a Wayside Inn, had a more keen enjoyment than the Colonel listening to the words of his drafted and mustered volunteers. He fairly glowed appreciation and satisfaction. As Stafford entered the Ca.s.sowary, he perceived that the Colonel was still recruiting.

CHAPTER XV

A SAMOAN IDYL

Among the pa.s.sengers from one of the other coaches who had occasionally visited the Ca.s.sowary and listened as the novel symposium progressed was a brown-bearded, middle-aged gentleman with a tanned face and merry eye.

That he was of the navy the Colonel had soon learned, and to the naval officer he now addressed himself:

"Lieutenant, you, necessarily, have visited many parts of the world and must have become acquainted with the facts of many a pretty romance or rough adventure. I believe you mentioned the circ.u.mstance that you were stationed for a time in the Samoan islands. Can you tell us a tale of Samoa?"

The Lieutenant smiled: "I'll tell you a tale of Samoa, a little one," he said. "I was a witness to its main incident, and it interested me. It was this way:

A SAMOAN IDYL

Una Loa was a Samoan girl, and she was fair to look upon. They have festivities in their season in Samoa as we have here, and, as here, there are rivalries among the young women. There are tests of beauty, too, and she who can show the most beautiful headdress of flowers is counted the most charming among the maidens. She is as the Jersey heifer which takes the first prize at the annual fair in some prosperous county; she is as the lithe and graceful and beautiful creature who doesn't fall over her train at the receptions at the Court of England; she is an adornment to the society in which she moves, and, in Samoa, it must of course be the best society, must consist of those who enter into the contest exhibiting the sublimity of all head-gear--for head-gear is a woman's glory.

There was stationed upon one of the islands of the Samoan Group--there is no use of mentioning the island in particular--a young gentleman who had been sent out under the auspices of the Department of Agriculture of the United States, and, to speak more definitely, from that branch of the Department which is known as the Weather Bureau. His business was to sit at the top of a somewhat illy-constructed tower and note the variations of wind and temperature and all that sort of thing, and then send his report to the Department at Washington, when he could catch a steamer, which didn't always often happen, for this was some time ago.

Still he sat up in the tower and took notes and glowered, and made the best of things, and the work in this region of mild lat.i.tude and much la.s.situde did not wear upon him to such an extent that he could not fall in love, not in the purely abstract way that he loved some things either, as for instance, the equation of the parabola, but vigorously and deeply.

He fell in love to such an extent that he became personally interested in the contest among the fair Samoans as to whom among the belles should show the most ardent and effective floral decoration of her ma.s.s of hair on the day appointed.