The Cup of Fury Part 72

The abandoned world abandoned all its G.o.ds, and men fought men in the name of mankind.

Even against the plague the churchfolk were refused permission to pray together. Christian Scientists published full pages of advertising protesting against the horrid situation, but n.o.body heeded.

The ship of state lurched along through the mingled storms, mastless, rudderless, pilotless, priestless, and everybody wondered which would live the longer, the ship or the storm.

And then Mamise sneezed. And the tiny at-choo! frightened her to the soul of her soul. It frightened the riveting-crew as well. The plague had come among them.

"Drop them tongs and go home!" said Sutton.

"I've got to help finish my ship," Mamise pleaded.

"Go home, I tell you."

"But she's to be launched day after to-morrow and I've got to christen her."

"Go home or I'll carry you," said Sutton, and he advanced on her. She dropped her tongs and ran through the gusty rain, across the yard, out of the gate, and down the muddy paths as if a wolf pursued.

She flung into her cottage, lighted the fires, heated water, drank a quart of it, took quinine, and crept into her bed. Her tremors shook the covers off. Sweat rained out of her pores and turned to ice-water with the following ague.

The doctor came. Sutton had gone for him and threatened to beat him up if he delayed. The doctor had nothing to give her but orders to stay in bed and wait. Davidge came, and Abbie, and they tried to pretend that they were not in a worse panic than Mamise.

There were no nurses to be spared and Abbie was installed. In spite of her malministrations or because of them, Mamise grew better. She stayed in bed all that day and the next, and when the morning of the launching dawned, she felt so well that Abbie could not prevent her from getting up and putting on her clothes.

She was to be woman again to-day and to wear the most fashionable gown in her wardrobe and the least masculine hat.

She felt a trifle giddy as she dressed, but she told Abbie that she never felt better. Her only alarm was the difficulty in hooking her frock at the waist. Abbie fought them together with all her might and main.

"If being a workman is going to take away my waistline, here's where I quit work," said Mamise. "As Mr. Dooley says, I'm a pathrite, but I'm no bigot."

Davidge had told her to keep to her room. He had telephoned to Polly Widdicombe to come down and christen the ship. Polly was delayed and Davidge was frantic. In fact, the Widdicombe motor ran off the road into a slough of despond, and Polly did not arrive until after the ship was launched from the ways and the foolhardy Mamise was in the hospital.

When Davidge saw Mamise climbing the steps to the launching-platform he did not recognize her under her big hat till she paused for breath and looked up, counting the remaining steep steps and wondering if her tottering legs would negotiate the height.

He ran down and haled her up, scolding her with fury. He had been on the go all night, and he was raw with uneasiness.

"I'm all right," Mamise pleaded. "I got caught in the jam at the gate and was nearly crushed. That's all. It's glorious up here and I'd rather die than miss it."

It was a sight to see. The shipyard was ma.s.sed with workmen and their families, and every roof was crowded. On a higher platform in the rear the reporters of the moving-picture newspapers were waiting with their cameras. On the roof of a low shed a military band was tootling merrily.

And the sky had relented of its rain. The day was a masterpiece of good weather. A brilliant throng mounted to the platform, an admiral, sea-captains and lieutenants, officers of the army, a Senator, Congressmen, judges, capitalists, the jubilant officers of the ship-building corporation. And Mamise was the queen of the day. She was the "sponsor" for the ship and her name stood out on both sides of the prow, high overhead where the launching-crew grinned down on her and called her by her _nom de guerre_, "Moll."

The moving-picture men yelled at her and asked her to pose. She went to the rail and tried to smile, feeling as silly as a Sunday-school girl repeating a golden text, and looking it.

Once more she would appear in the Sunday supplements, and her childish confusion would make throngs in moving-picture theaters laugh with pleasant amus.e.m.e.nt. Mamise was news to-day.

The air was full of the hubbub of preparation. Underneath the upreared belly of the ship gnomes crouched, pounding the wedges in to lift the hull so that other gnomes could knock the shoring out.

There was a strange fascination in the racket of the sh.o.r.es falling over, the dull clatter of a vast bowling-alley after a ten-strike.

Painters were at work brushing over the spots where the sh.o.r.es had rested.

Down in the tanks inside the hull were a few luckless anonymities with search-lights, put there to watch for leaks from loose rivet-heads.

They would be in the dark and see nothing of the festival. Always there has to be some one in the dark at such a time.

The men who would saw the holding-blocks stood ready, as solemn as clergymen. The cross-saws were at hand for their sacred office. The sawyers and the other workmen were overdoing their unconcern. Mamise caught sight of Sutton, lounging in violent indifference, but giving himself away by the frenzy of his jaws worrying his quid and spurting tobacco juice in all directions.

There was reason, too, for uneasiness. Sometimes a ship would not start when the blocks were sawed through. There would be a long delay while hydraulic jacks were sought and put to work to force her forward. Such a delay had a superst.i.tious meaning. n.o.body liked a ship that was afraid of her element. They wanted an eagerness in her get-away. Or suppose she shot out too impetuously and listed on the ways, ripping the scaffolding to pieces like a whale thrashing a raft apart. Suppose she careened and stuck or rolled over in the mud. Such things had happened and might happen again. The _Mamise_ had suffered so many mishaps that the other ship crews called her a hoodoo.

At last the hour drew close. Davidge was a fanatic on schedules. He did not want his ship to be late to her engagement.

"She's named after me, poor thing," said Mamise. "She's bound to be late."

"She'll be on time for once," Davidge growled.

In the older days with the old-fashioned ships the boats had gone to the sea like brides with trousseaux complete. The launching-guests had made the journey with her; a dinner had been served aboard, and when the festivities were ended the waiting tugs had taken the new ship to the old sea for the honeymoon.

But nowadays only hulls were launched, as a rule. The mere husk was then brought to the equipping-dock to receive her engines and all her equipment.

The _Mamise_ was farther advanced, but she would have to tie up for sixty days at least. The carpenters had her furniture all ready and waiting, but she could not put forth under her own steam for two months more.

The more reason for impatience at any further delay. Davidge went along the launching-platform rails, like a captain on the bridge, eager to move out of the slip.

"Make ready!" he commanded. "Stand by! Where's the bottle? Good Lord!

Where's the bottle?"

That precious quart of champagne was missing now. The bottle had been prepared by an eminent jeweler with silver decoration and a silken net. The neck would be a cherished souvenir thereafter, made into a vase to hold flowers.

The bottle was found, a cable was lowered from aloft and the bottle fastened to it.

Davidge explained to Mamise for the tenth time just what she was to do. He gave the signal to the sawyers. The snarl of the teeth in the holding-blocks was lost in the noise of the band. The great whistle on the fabricating-plant split the air. The moving-picture camera-men cranked their machines. The last inches of the timbers that held the ship ash.o.r.e were gnawed through. The sawyers said they could feel the ship straining. She wanted to get to her sea. They loved her for it.

Suddenly she was "sawed off." She was moving. The rigid mountain was an avalanche of steel departing down a wooden hill.

Mamise stared, gasped, paralyzed with launch-fright. Davidge nudged her. She hurled the bottle at the vanishing keel. It broke with a loud report. The wine splashed everywhichway. Some of it spattered Mamise's new gown.

Her muscles went to work in womanly fashion to brush off the stain.

When she looked up, ashamed of her homely misbehavior, she cried:

"O Lord! I forgot to say, 'I christen thee _Mamise_.'"

"Say it now," said Davidge.

She shouted the words down the channel opening like an abyss as the vast hulk diminished toward the river. Far below she could see the water leap back from the shock of the new-comer. Great, circling ripples retreated outward. Waves fought and threw up bouquets of spume.

The chute smoked with the heat of the ship's pa.s.sage and a white cloud of steam flew up and followed her into the river.

She was launched, beautifully, perfectly. She sailed level. She was water-borne.