The Sailor Part 64

Incredible stories were told of him, all of which had the merit of being based upon truth. He would have been a source of pure joy for the things he had done could he ever have been forgiven for the things he hadn't done.

Dinner had been announced a full five minutes, and a frown was slowly submerging the Prince, when Klond.y.k.e sauntered in, his hands deep in his pockets, looking extremely brown and _soigne_ and altogether handsome. By some miracle he was even better turned out than his younger brother.

"Here he is!" cried Silvia.

But the Sailor had no need to be told it was he. This was a Klond.y.k.e he had never known and hardly guessed at, but after a long and miraculous nine years he was again to grasp his hand. Somehow, at the sight of that gay and handsome face, the room and the people in it pa.s.sed away. He could only think of Klond.y.k.e on the quay at Honolulu starting to walk across Asia, and here was his hero brown as a chestnut and splendidly fit and cheerful.

Silvia, with a display of facetiousness, introduced Mr. Harper, the famous author, while the others, amused yet strangely serious, watched their greeting. The Sailor came forward shyly, once again the ship's boy of the _Margaret Carey_. But in his eyes was a look which the eyes of that boy had never known.

The first thing Klond.y.k.e did was to take his hands out of his pockets.

He then stood gazing in sheer astonishment.

"Why ... why, Sailor!"

For the moment, that was all.

The Sailor said nothing, but blind to all things else, stood looking at his friend. It was the old note of the good comrade his ears had cherished a long nine years. Yes, this was Klond.y.k.e right enough.

The hero was still gazing at him in sheer astonishment. He was taking him in in detail: the well cut clothes, the air of neatness, order, and well-being. And then a powerful fist had come out square to meet that of Henry Harper. But not a word pa.s.sed.

It was rather tame, perhaps, for the lookers-on. It was part of the Klond.y.k.e tradition never to take him seriously. An utterly comic greeting had been expected between these two who had sailed before the mast, a greeting absurdly nautical, immensely grotesque. It seemed odd that there should have been nothing of this kind in it.

Those two commonplace words of Klond.y.k.e's were all that pa.s.sed between them--before they went down to dinner, at any rate. And throughout the meal, the eyes of the two sailormen were continually straying to each other to the exclusion of everything else. Somehow, to Henry Harper it was like a fantastic dream that he should be seated in Elysium with the G.o.ddess Athena by his side and the immortal Klond.y.k.e looking at him continually from the head of the table.

All through dinner, Klond.y.k.e was unable to overcome a feeling of astonishment that Henry Harper should be sitting there. He couldn't help listening to all that he said, he couldn't help watching all that he did. It was amazing to hear him talk to Mary and his mother about books and plays and to watch his bearing, which was that of a man well used to dining out. To be sure, Klond.y.k.e was not a close observer, but as far as he could see there was not a single mistake in anything Sailor said or did, yet nine years ago, when he left him in tears on the quay at Honolulu, he was just a waif from the gutter who could neither write nor read.

When the women had returned to the drawing-room and Klond.y.k.e and Edward Ambrose and the Prince sat smoking their cigars, while Henry Harper was content with his usual cigarette, it suddenly grew clear to one of the four that these two sailormen very much desired to be left together.

"Prince," said Edward Ambrose, "let us go and talk Shakespeare and the musical gla.s.ses."

As soon as the door had closed Klond.y.k.e said: "Now, Sailor, you must have a little of this brandy. No refusal." He filled two liqueur gla.s.ses with the fastidious care of one who knew the value of this magic potion. "Sailor"--Klond.y.k.e had raised his own gla.s.s and was looking at him as of old, with eyes that had traversed all the oceans of the world as well as all its continents---"I'm very glad to see you here."

As soon as the gla.s.s touched the lips of Henry Harper, something within him seemed to beat thickly, and then an odd sort of phrase began to roll through his brain. Somehow it brought with it all the sights and the sounds and the odors of the _Margaret Carey_. It was a phrase he had once heard a Yank make use of in the forecastle of that h.e.l.l-ship, and it was to the effect that Klond.y.k.e was a white man from way back.

That was quite true. Klond.y.k.e was a white man from way back. Not that Sailor had ever doubted it for a moment.

XV

To the disappointment of the drawing-room, Klond.y.k.e and the sailorman sat a long time together. They had much to say to one another.

It was Klond.y.k.e, however, who did most of the talking. He had not changed in the least, and he was still the hero of old, yet the Sailor felt very shy and embarra.s.sed at first. But after a while, the magic of the old intercourse returned, and Henry Harper was able to unlock a little of his heart.

"Life is queer," said Klond.y.k.e. "And the more you see of it, the queerer it seems. Take me. If I had been born you, I'd have been as happy as a dead bird swabbing the main deck and shinning up the futtock shrouds and hauling in the tops'ls. And if you had been born me, you'd have been as happy as a dead bird going great guns and doing all sorts of honor to the family. I wanted to go into the Navy, but my mother and the old governor wouldn't stand for it. It must be diplomacy, because the governor had influence, and I was the eldest son and I ought to make use of it. What a job you would have made of that billet! And how you hated the _Margaret Carey_. It was h.e.l.l all the time, wasn't it?"

"Yes," said the Sailor, "just h.e.l.l."

"Still, it helped you to find yourself."

"Yes--if I was worth finding."

"Of course you were."

"Anyhow, I took the advice you gave me," said the Sailor, with his odd simplicity.

"You'd have given it yourself in the end without any help of mine. But it's strange that when I read your book I never guessed that you were the author, and that you were writing about our old coffin ship and the Old Man and the mate ... what was his name?"

"Mr. Thompson."

"Since deceased, I hear."

"Yes."

"One always felt he was a proper cutthroat."

"I'd not be sitting here now, but for Mr. Thompson. I'll tell you."

Klond.y.k.e's eyes began to shine.

In a few words and very simply, the Sailor told the story of the Island of San Pedro.

"I've sometimes thought since," was his conclusion, "that they were just guying me, knowing they could frighten me out of my wits."

"Of course they were," said Klond.y.k.e. "That's human nature. But you had rotten luck ever to come to sea. However, you are in smooth waters now. You'll never have to face the high seas again, my boy."

"I don't know that," said the Sailor, with a sudden sickness of the heart.

"No fear. The wicket's going to roll out plumb. You are the most wonderful chap I have ever met. Now I suppose we had better join the others."

They went upstairs and had a gay reception.

"I wish you would dance a hornpipe or something," said Silvia, "or cross talk as they did on the brigantine _Excelsior_, else we shall none of us believe that either of you have ever been before the mast at all."

"I tell you, Sailor, what we might do," said Klond.y.k.e. "If we can remember the words, we might give 'em that old chantey that was always so useful round the Horn. How does it go?"

Klond.y.k.e sat down at the piano and began to pick out the notes with one finger of each hand.

"'Away for Rio!' I'll sing the solo, if I can remember it, and you sing the chorus, Sailor!"

Such stern protests were raised by those who knew the capacity of Klond.y.k.e's lung power that very reluctantly he gave up this project, yet the very indifferent backing of his shipmate may have carried more weight with him than the pressure of public opinion.

When Edward Ambrose and the Sailor had gone their ways and the others apparently had gone to bed, Klond.y.k.e doffed the coat of civilization in favor of a very faded and generally disreputable Ramblers' blazer, lit his pipe, and then, in the most comfortable chair he could find, began to read again "The Adventures of d.i.c.k Smith on the High Seas."

"Yes, he's a wonderful chap," he kept muttering at intervals. After he had been moved to this observation several times, he was interrupted by the reappearance of the Prince, who looked uncommonly serious, in an elaborate quilted silk smoking jacket that he affected in his postprandial hours.

"This chap Harper," suddenly opened the Prince. "I want to have a word with you about him."