The Pagan Madonna Part 33

Blood surged into Dennison's throat; a murderous fury boiled up in him; but he remembered in time what these volcanic outbursts had cost him in the past. So he did not rush to the chart house. Cunningham would lash him with ridicule or be forced to shoot him. But his rage carried him as far as the wireless room. He could hear the smack of the spark, but that was all. He tried the door--locked. He tried the shutters--latched.

Cunningham's man was either calling or answering somebody. Ten minutes inside that room and there would be another tale to tell.

In the end Dennison spent his fury by travelling round the deck until the sea and sky became like pearly smoke. Then he dropped into a chair and fell asleep.

Cunningham had also watched through the night. The silent steersman heard him frequently rustling papers on the chart table or clumping to the bridge or lolling on the port sills--a restlessness that had about it something of the captive tiger.

Retrospection--he could not break the crowding spell of it, twist mentally as he would; and the counter-thought was dimly suicidal. The sea there; a few strides would carry him to the end of the bridge, and then--oblivion.

And the girl would not permit him to enact this thought. He laughed. G.o.d had mocked him at his birth, and the devil had played with him ever since. He had often faced death hotly and hopefully, but to consider suicide coldly!

A woman who had crossed his path reluctantly, without will of her own; the sort he had always ignored because they had been born for the peace of chimney corners! She--the thought of her--could bring the past crowding upon him and create in his mind a suicidal bent!

Pearls! A great distaste of life fell upon him; the adventure grew flat.

The zest that had been his ten days gone, where was it?

Imagination! He had been cursed with too much of it. In his youth he had skulked through alleys and back streets--the fear of laughter and ridicule d.o.g.g.i.ng his mixed heels. Never before to have paused to philosophize over what had caused his wasted life! Too much imagination! Mental strabismus!

He had let his over-sensitive imagination wreck and ruin him. A woman's laughter had given him the viewpoint of a careless world; and he had fled, and he had gone on fleeing all these years from pillar to post. From a shadow!

He was something of a monster. He saw now where the fault lay. He had never stayed long enough in any one place for people to get accustomed to him. His d.a.m.nable imagination! And there was conceit of a sort. Probably n.o.body paid any attention to him after the initial shock and curiosity had died away. There was Scarron in his wheel chair--merry and cheerful and brave, jesting with misfortune; and men and women had loved him.

A moral coward, and until this hour he had never sensed the truth! That was it! He had been a moral coward; he had tried to run away from fate; and here he was at last, in the blind alley the coward always found at the end of the run. He had never thought of anything but what he was--never of what he might have been. For having thrust him unfinished upon a thoughtless rather than a heartless world he had been trying to punish fate, and had punished only himself. A wastrel, a roisterer by night, a spendthrift, and a thief!

What had she said?--reknead his soul so that it would fit his face? Too late!

One staff to lean on, one only--he never broke his word. Why had he laid down for himself this law? What had inspired him to hold always to that?

Was there a bit of gold somewhere in his grotesque make-up? A straw on the water, and he clutched it! Why? Cunningham laughed again, and the steersman turned his head slightly.

"Williams, do you believe in G.o.d?" asked Cunningham.

"Well, sir, when I'm holding down the wheel--perhaps. The screw is always edging a ship off, and the lighter the ballast the wider the yaw. So you have to keep hitching her over a point to starboard. You trust to me to keep that point, and I trust to G.o.d that the north stays where it is."

"And yet legally you're a pirate."

"Oh, that? Well, a fellow ain't much of a pirate that plays the game we play. And yet----"

"Ah! And yet?"

"Well, sir, some of the boys are getting restless. And I'll be mighty glad when we raise that old Dutch bucket of yours. They ain't bad, understand; just young and heady and wanting a little fun. They growl a lot because they can't sleep on deck. They growl because there's nothing to drink. Of course it might hurt Cleigh's feelings, but I'd like to see all his grog go by the board. You see, sir, it ain't as if we'd just dropped down from Shanghai. It's been tarnation dull ever since we left San Francisco."

"Once on the other boat, they can make a night of it if they want to. But I've given my word on the _Wanderer_."

"Yes, sir."

"And it's final."

Cunningham returned to his chart. All these cogitations because a woman had entered his life uninvited! Ten days ago he had not been aware of her existence; and from now on she would be always recurring in his thoughts.

She was not conscious of it, but she was as a wild thing that had been born in captivity, and she was tasting the freedom of s.p.a.ce again without knowing what the matter was. But it is the law that all wild things born in captivity lose everything but the echo; a little freedom, a flash of what might have been, and they are ready to return to the cage. So it would be with her.

Supposing--no, he would let her return to her cage. He wondered--had he made his word a law simply to meet and conquer a situation such as this?

Or was his hesitance due to the fear of her hate? That would be immediate and unabating. She was not the sort that would bend--she would break. No, he wasn't monster enough to play that sort of game. She should take back her little adventure to her cage, and in her old age it would become a pleasant souvenir.

He rose and leaned on his arms against a port sill and stared at the stars until they began to fade, until the sea and the sky became like the pearls he would soon be seeking. A string of gla.s.s beads, bringing about all these events!

At dawn he went down to the deck for a bit of exercise before he turned in. When he beheld Dennison sound asleep in the chair, his mouth slightly open, his bare feet standing out conspicuously on the foot rest, a bantering, mocking smile twisted the corners of Cunningham's lips.

Noiselessly he settled himself in the adjacent chair, and cynically hoping that Dennison would be first to wake he fell asleep.

The _Wanderer's_ deck toilet was begun and consummated between six and six-thirty, except in rainy weather. Hose, mops, and holystone, until the teak looked as if it had just left the Rangoon sawmills; then the bra.s.s, every k.n.o.b and piping, every latch and hinge and port loop. The care given the yacht since leaving the Yang-tse might be well called ingratiating.

Never was a crew more eager to enact each duty to the utmost--with mighty good reason.

But when they came upon Dennison and Cunningham, asleep side by side, they drew round the spot, dumfounded. But their befuddlement was only a t.i.the of that which struck Cleigh an hour later. It was his habit to take a short const.i.tutional before breakfast; and when he beheld the two, asleep in adjoining chairs, the fact suggesting that they had come to some friendly understanding, he stopped in his tracks, as they say, never more astonished in all his days.

For as long as five minutes he remained motionless, the fine, rugged face of his son on one side and the amazing beauty of Cunningham's on the other. But in the morning light, in repose, Cunningham's face was tinged with age and sadness. There was, however, no grain of pity in Cleigh's heart. Cunningham had made his bed of horsehair; let him twist and writhe upon it.

But the two of them together, sleeping as peacefully as babes! Dennison had one arm flung behind his head. It gave Cleigh a shock, for he recognized the posture. As a lad Dennison had slept that way. Cunningham's withered leg was folded under his sound one.

What had happened? Cleigh shook his head; he could not make it out.

Moreover, he could not wake either and demand the solution to the puzzle.

He could not put his hand on his son's shoulder, and he would not put it on Cunningham's. Pride on one side and distaste on the other. But the two of them together!

He got round the impa.s.se by kicking out the foot rest of the third chair.

Immediately Cunningham opened his eyes. First he turned to see if Dennison was still in his chair. Finding this to be the case, he grinned amiably at the father. Exactly the situation he would have prayed for had he believed in the efficacy of prayer.

"Surprises you, eh? Looks as if he had signed on with the Great Adventure Company."

His voice woke Dennison, who blinked in the sunshine for a moment, then looked about. He comprehended at once.

With easy dignity he swung his bare feet to the deck and made for the companion; never a second glance at either his father or Cunningham.

"Chip of the old block!" observed Cunningham. "You two! On my word, I never saw two bigger fools in all my time! What's it about? What the devil did he do--murder someone, rob the office safe, or marry Tottie Lightfoot?

And Lord, how you both love me! And how much more you'll love me when I become the dear departed!"

Cleigh, understanding that the situation was a creation of pure malice on Cunningham's part--Cleigh wheeled and resumed his tramp round the deck.

Cunningham plowed his fingers through his hair, gripped and pulled it in a kind of ecstasy. Cleigh's phiz. The memory of it would keep him in good humour all day. After all, there was a lot of good sport in the world. The days were all right. It was only in the quiet vigils of the night that the uninvited thought intruded. On board the old Dutch tramp he would sleep o'nights, and the past would present only a dull edge.

If the atoll had cocoanut palms, hang it, he would build a shack and make it his winter home! _Dolce far niente!_ Maybe he might take up the brush again and do a little amateur painting. Yes, in the daytime the old top wasn't so bad. He hoped he would have no more nonsense from Flint. A surly beggar, but a necessary p.a.w.n in the game.

Pearls! Some to sell and some to play with. Lovely, tenderly beautiful pearls--a rope of them round Jane Norman's throat. He slid off the chair.

As a fool, he hung in the same gallery as the Cleighs.

Cleigh ate his breakfast alone. Upon inquiry he learned that Jane was indisposed and that Dennison had gone into the pantry and picked up his breakfast there. Cleigh found the day unspeakably dull. He read, played the phonograph, and tried all the solitaires he knew; but a hundred times he sensed the want of the pleasant voice of the girl in his ears.

What would she be demanding of him as a reparation? He was always sifting this query about, now on this side, now on that, without getting anywhere.

Not money. What then?

That night both Jane and Dennison came in to dinner. Cleigh saw instantly that something was amiss. The boy's face was gloomy and his lips locked, and the girl's mouth was set and cheerless. Cleigh was fired by curiosity to ascertain the trouble, but here again was an impa.s.se.

"I'm sorry I spoke so roughly last night," said Dennison, unexpectedly.