The Pagan Madonna Part 37

Denny! Why, she loved Denny! And she had not known it consciously until this moment. Because some presciential instinct warned her that Denny was either dead or badly hurt!

The narrowness of the pa.s.sage gave Cleigh one advantage--none of the men could get behind him. Sometimes he surged forward a little, sometimes he stepped back, but never back of the line he had set for himself. By and by Jane forced her gaze to the deck to see what it was that held him like a rock. What she saw was only the actual of what she had already envisaged--Denny, either dead or badly hurt!

What had happened was this: Six of the crew, those spirits who had succ.u.mbed to the secret domination of the man Flint--the drinkers--had decided to celebrate the last night on the _Wanderer_. Their argument was that old man Cleigh wouldn't miss a few bottles, and that it would be a long time between drinks when they returned to the States; and never might they again have so easy a chance to taste the juice of the champagne grape. Where was the harm? Hadn't they behaved like little Fauntleroys for weeks? They did not want any trouble--just half a dozen bottles, and back to the forepeak to empty them. That wouldn't kill the old man. They wouldn't even have to force the door of the dry-stores; they had already learned that they could tickle the lock out of commission by the use of a bent wire. Young, restless, and mischievous--none of them bad. A bit of laughter and a few bars of song--that was all they wanted. No doubt the affair would have blown itself out harmlessly but for the fact that Chance had other ideas. She has a way with her, this Pagan Madonna, of taking off the cheerful motley of a jest and subst.i.tuting the Phrygian cap of terror, subitaneously.

Dennison had lain down on the lounge in the main salon. Restless, unhappy, bitter toward his father, he had lain there counting the throbs of the engine to that point where they mysteriously cease to register and one has to wait a minute or two to pick up the throb again.

For years he had lived more or less in the open, which attunes the human ear to sounds that generally pa.s.s unnoticed. All at once he was sure that he had heard the tinkle of gla.s.s, but he waited. The tinkle was repeated.

Instinct led him at once to the forward pa.s.sage, and one glance down this was sufficient. From the thought of a drunken orgy--the thing he had been fearing since the beginning of this mad voyage--his thought leaped to Jane. Thus his subsequent acts were indirectly in her defense.

"What the devil are you up to there?" he called.

The unexpectedness of the challenge disconcerted the men. They had enough loot. A quick retreat, and Dennison would have had nothing to do but close the dry-stores door. But middle twenties are belligerent rather than discreet.

"What you got to say about it?" jeered one of the men, shifting his brace of bottles to the arms of another and squaring off.

Dennison rushed them, and the melee began. It was a strenuous affair while it lasted. When a strong man is full of anger and bitter disappointment, when six young fellows are bored to distraction, nothing is quite so satisfying as an exchange of fisticuffs. Dennison had the advantage of being able to hit right and left, at random, while his opponents were not always sure that a blow landed where it was directed.

Naturally the racket drew Cleigh to the scene, and he arrived in time to see a champagne bottle descend upon the head of his son. Dennison went down.

Cleigh, boiling with impotent fury, had gone to bed, not to sleep but to plan; some way round the rogue, to trip him and regain the treasures that meant so much to him. Like father, like son. When he saw what was going on in the pa.s.sage he saw also that here was something that linked up with his mood. Of course it was to defend the son; but without the bitter rage and the need of physical expression he would have gone for the hidden revolver and settled the affair with that. Instead he flew at the men with the savageness of a gray wolf. He was a tower of a man, for all his sixty years; and he had mauled three of the crew severely before Cunningham arrived.

Why had the mutinous six offered battle? Why hadn't they retreated with good sense at the start? Originally all they had wanted was the wine. Why stop to fight when the wine was theirs? In the morning none of them could answer these questions. Was there ever a rough-and-tumble that anybody could explain lucidly the morning after? Perhaps it was the false pride of youth; the bitter distaste at the thought of six turning tail for one.

Cunningham fired a shot at the ceiling, and a dozen of the crew came piling in from the forward end of the pa.s.sage. The fighting stopped magically.

"You fools!" cried Cunningham in a high, cracked voice. "To put our heads into hemp at the last moment. If anything happens to young Cleigh, back to Manila you go with the yacht! Clear out! At the last moment!" It was like a sob.

Jane, still entranced, saw Cleigh stoop and put his arms under the body of his son, heave, and stand up under the dead weight. He staggered past her toward the main salon. She heard him mutter.

"G.o.d help me if I'm too late--if I've waited too long! Denny?"

That galvanized her into action, and she flew to the light b.u.t.tons, flooding both the dining and the main salons. She helped Cleigh to place Dennison on the lounge. After that it was her affair. Dennison was alive, but how much alive could be told only by the hours. She bathed and bandaged his head. Beyond that she could do nothing but watch and wait.

"I wouldn't mind--a little of that--water," said Cunningham, weakly.

Cleigh, with menacing fists, wheeled upon him; but he did not strike the man who was basically the cause of Denny's injuries. At the same time Jane, looking up across Dennison's body, uttered a gasp of horror. The entire left side of Cunningham was drenched in blood, and the arm dangled.

"Flint had a knife--and--was quite handy with it."

"For me!" she cried. "For defending me! Mr. Cleigh, Flint caught me on deck--and Mr. Cunningham--oh, this is horrible!"

"You were right, Cleigh. The best-laid plans of mice and men! What an a.s.s I am! I honestly thought I could play a game like this without hurt to anybody. It was to be a whale of a joke. Flint----"

Cunningham reached blindly for the nearest chair and collapsed in it.

An hour later. The four of them were still in the main salon. Jane sat at the head of the lounge, and from time to time she took Dennison's pulse and temperature. She had finally deduced that there had been no serious concussion. Cleigh sat at the foot of the lounge, his head on his hands.

Cunningham occupied the chair into which he had collapsed. Three ugly flesh wounds, but nothing a little time would not heal. True, he had had a narrow squeak. He sat with his eyes closed.

"Why?" asked Jane suddenly, breaking the silence.

"What?" said Cleigh, looking up.

"Why these seven years--if you cared? I heard you say something about being too late. Why?"

"I'm a queer old fool. An idea, when it enters my head, sticks. I can't shift my plans easily; I have to go through. What you have witnessed these several days gives you the impression that I have no heart. That isn't true. But we Cleighs are pigheaded. Until he was sent to Russia he was never from under the shadow of my hand. My agents kept me informed of all his moves, his adventures. The mistake was originally mine. I put him in charge of an old scholar who taught him art, music, languages, but little or nothing about human beings. I gave him a liberal allowance; but he was a queer lad, and Broadway never heard of him. Now I hold that youth must have its fling in some manner or other; after thirty there is no cure for folly. So when he ran away I let him go; but he never got so far away that I did not know what he was doing. I liked the way he rejected the cash I gave him; the way he scorned to trade upon the name. He went clean. Why? I don't know. Oh, yes, he got hilariously drunk once in a while, but he had his fling in clean places. I had agents watching him."

"Why did he run away?" asked Jane.

"No man can tell another man; a man has to find it out for himself--the difference between a good woman and a bad one."

"I play that statement to win," interposed Cunningham without opening his eyes.

"There was a woman?" said Jane.

"A bad one. Pretty and clever as sin. My fault. I should have sent him to college where he'd have got at least a glimmer of life. But I kept him under the tutor until the thing happened. He thought he was in love, when it was only his first woman. She wanted his money--or, more properly speaking, mine. I had her investigated and found that she was bad all through. When I told him boldly what she was he called me a liar. I struck him across the mouth, and he promptly knocked me down."

"Pretty good punch for a youngster," was Cunningham's comment.

"It was," replied Cleigh, grimly. "He went directly to his room, packed, and cleared out. In that he acted wisely, for at that moment I would have cast him out had he come with an apology. But the following day I could not find him; nor did I get track of him until weeks later. He had married the woman and then found her out. That's all cleared off the slate, though. She's been married and divorced three times since then."

"Did you expect to see him over here?"

"In Shanghai? No. The sight of him rather knocked me about. You understand? It was his place to make the first sign. He was in the wrong, and he has known it all these seven years."

"No," said Jane, "it was your place to make the first advance. If you had been a comrade to him in his boyhood he would never have been in the wrong."

"But I gave him everything!"

"Everything but love. Did you ever tell him a fairy story?"

"A fairy story!" Cleigh's face was the essence of bewilderment.

"You put him in the care of a lovable old dreamer, and then expected him to accept life as you knew it."

Cleigh rumpled his cowlicks. A fairy story? But that was nonsense! Fairy stories had long since gone out of fashion.

"When I saw you two together an idea popped into my head. But do you care for the boy?"

"I care everything for him--or I shouldn't be here!"

Cunningham relaxed a little more in his chair, his eyes still closed.

"What do you mean by that?" demanded Cleigh.

"I let you abduct me. I thought, maybe, if I were near you for a little I might bring you two together."