That first dinner would always remain vivid and clear-cut in Jane Norman's
mind. It was fantastic. To begin with, there was that picturesque stone
image at the head of the table--Cleigh--who appeared utterly oblivious of
his surroundings, who ate with apparent relish, and who ignored both men,
his son and his captor. Once or twice Jane caught his glance--a blue eye,
sharp-pupiled, agate-hard. But what was it she saw--a twinkle or a
sparkle? The breadth of his shoulders! He must be very powerful, like the
son. Why, the two of them could have pulverized this pretty fellow
opposite!
Father and son! For seven years they had not met. Their indifference
seemed so inhuman! Still, she fancied that the son dared not make any
approach, however much he may have longed to. A woman! They had quarrelled
over a woman! Something reached down from the invisible and pinched her
heart.
All this while Cunningham had been talking--banter. The blade would flash
toward the father or whirl upon the son, or it would come toward her by
the handle. She could not get away from the initial idea--that his eyes
were like fire opals.
"Miss Norman, you have very beautiful hair."
"You think so?"
"It looks like Judith's. You remember, Cleigh, the one that hangs in the
Pitti Galleria in Florence--Allori's?"
Cleigh reached for a piece of bread, which he broke and buttered.
Cunningham turned to Jane again.
"Will you do me the favour of taking out the hairpins and loosing it?"
"No!" said Dennison.
"Why not?" said Jane, smiling bravely enough, though there ran over her
spine a chill.
It wasn't Cunningham's request--it was Dennison's refusal. That syllable,
though spoken moderately, was the essence of battle, murder, and sudden
death. If they should clash it would mean that Denny--how easy it was to
call him that!--Denny would be locked up and she would be all alone. For
the father seemed as aloof and remote as the pole.
"You shall not do it!" declared Dennison. "Cunningham, if you force her I
will break every bone in your body here and now!"
Cleigh selected an olive and began munching it.
"Nonsense!" cried Jane. "It's all awry anyhow." And she began to extract
the hairpins. Presently she shook her head, and the ruddy mass of hair
fell and rippled across and down her shoulders.
"Well?" she said, looking whimsically into Cunningham's eyes. "It wasn't
there, was it?"
This tickled Cunningham.
"You're a woman in a million! You read my thought perfectly. I like ready
wit in a woman. I had to find out. You see, I had promised those beads to
Cleigh, and when I humanly can I keep my promises. Sit down, captain!" For
Dennison had risen to his feet. "Sit down! Don't start anything you can't
finish." To Jane there was in the tone a quality which made her compare it
with the elder Cleigh's eyes--agate-hard. "You are younger and stronger,
and no doubt you could break me. But the moment my hand is withdrawn from
this business--the moment I am off the board--I could not vouch for the
crew. They are more or less decent chaps, or they were before this damned
war stood humanity on its head. We wear the same clothes, use the same
phrases; but we've been thrust back a thousand years. And Miss Norman is a
woman. You understand?"
Dennison sat down.
"You'd better kill me somewhere along this voyage."
"I may have to. Who knows? There's no real demarcation between comedy and
tragedy; it's the angle of vision. It's rough medicine, this; but your
father has agreed to take it sensibly, because he knows me tolerably well.
Still, it will not do him any good to plan bribery. Buy the crew, Cleigh,
if you believe you can. You'll waste your time. I do not pretend to hold
them by loyalty. I hold them by fear. Act sensibly, all of you, and this
will be a happy family. For after all, it's a joke, a whale of a joke. And
some day you'll smile over it--even you, Cleigh."
Cleigh pressed the steward's button.
"The jam and the cheese, Togo," he said to the Jap.
"Yess, sair!"
A hysterical laugh welled into Jane's throat, but she did not permit it to
escape her lips. She began to build up her hair clumsily, because her
hands trembled.
Adventure! She thrilled! She had read somewhere that after seven thousand
years of tortuous windings human beings had formed about themselves a thin
shell which they called civilization. And always someone was breaking
through and retracing those seven thousand years. Here was an example in
Cunningham. Only a single step was necessary. It took seven thousand years
to build your shell, and only a minute to destroy it. There was something
fascinating in the thought. A reckless spirit pervaded Jane, a longing to
burst through this shell of hers and ride the thunderbolt. Monotony--that
had been her portion, and only her dreams had kept her from withering.
From the house to the hospital and back home again, days, weeks, years.
She had begun to hate white; her soul thirsted for colour, movement,
thrill. The call that had been walled in, suppressed, broke through.
Piracy on high seas, and Jane Norman in the cast!
She was not in the least afraid of the whimsical rogue opposite. He was
more like an uninvited dinner guest. Perhaps this lack of fear had its
origin in the oily smoothness by which the yacht had changed hands. Beyond
the subjugation of Dodge, there had not been a ripple of commotion. It was
too early to touch the undercurrents. All this lulled and deceived her.
Piracy? Where were the cutlasses, the fierce moustaches, the red
bandannas, the rattle of dice, and the drunken songs?--the piracy of
tradition? If she had any fear at all it was for the man at her
left--Denny--who might run amuck on her account and spoil everything. All
her life she would hear the father's voice--"The jam and the cheese,
Togo." What men, all three of them!
Cunningham laid his napkin on the table and stood up.
"Absolute personal liberty, if you will accept the situation sensibly."
Dennison glowered at him, but Jane reached out and touched the soldier's
sleeve.
"Please!"
"For your sake, then. But it's tough medicine for me to swallow."
"To be sure it is," agreed the rogue. "Look upon me as a supercargo for
the next ten days. You'll see me only at lunch and dinner. I've a lot of
work to do in the chart house. By the way, the wireless man is mine,
Cleigh, so don't waste any time on him. Hope you're a good sailor, Miss
Norman, for we are heading into rough weather, and we haven't much beam."
"I love the sea!"
"Hang it, you and I shan't have any trouble! Good-night."
Cunningham limped to the door, where he turned and eyed the elder Cleigh,
who was stirring his coffee thoughtfully. Suddenly the rogue burst into a
gale of laughter, and they could hear recurrent bursts as he wended his
way to the companion.
When this sound died away Cleigh turned his glance levelly upon Jane. The
stone-like mask dissolved into something that was pathetically human.
"Miss Norman," he said, "I don't know what we are heading into, but if we
ever get clear I will make any reparation you may demand."
"Any kind of a reparation?"--an eager note in her voice.
Dennison stared at her, puzzled, but almost instantly he was conscious of
the warmth of shame in his cheeks. This girl wasn't that sort--to ask for
money as a balm for the indignity offered her. What was she after?
"Any kind of reparation," repeated Cleigh.
"I'll remember that--if we get through. And somehow I believe we shall."
"You trust that scoundrel?" asked Cleigh, astonishedly.
"Inexplicably--yes."
"Because he happens to be handsome?"--with frank irony.
"No." But she looked at the son as she spoke. "He said he never broke his
word. No man can be a very great villain who can say that. Did he ever
break his word to you?"
"Except in this instance."
"The beads?"
"I am quite confident he knows where they are."
"Are they so precious? What makes them precious?"
"I have told you--they are love beads."
"That's rank nonsense! I'm no child!"
"Isn't love rank nonsense?" Cleigh countered. He was something of a
banterer himself.
"Have you never loved anybody?" she shot back at him.
A shadow passed over the man's face, clearing the ironic expression.
"Perhaps I loved not wisely but too well."
"Oh, I'm sorry! I didn't mean----"
"You are young; all about you is sunshine; I myself have gone down among
the shadows. Cunningham may keep his word; but there is always the
possibility of his not being able to keep it. He has become an outlaw; he
is in maritime law a pirate. The crew are aware of it; prison stares them
in the face, and that may make them reckless. If you weren't on board I
shouldn't care. But you are young, vital, attractive, of the type that
appeals to strong men. In the dry stores there are many cases of liquor
and wine. The men may break into the stuff before we reach the Catwick.
That will take ten or twelve days if Cunningham lays a course outside
Formosa. What's his game? I don't know. Probably he will maroon us on the
Catwick, an island I know nothing about, except that it is nearer to
Saigon than to Singapore. So then in the daytime stay where I am or where
Captain Dennison is. Good-night."
Dennison balanced his spoon on the rim of the coffee cup--not a
particularly easy job.
"Whatever shall I do with the jade?" Jane asked, irrelevantly.
"What?"
"The jade necklace. That poor Chinaman!"
"Ling Foo? I wish I had broken his infernal yellow neck! But for him
neither of us would be here. But he is right," Dennison added, with a jerk
of his head toward the door. "You must always be with one or the other of
us--preferably me." He smiled.
"Will you promise me one thing?"
"Denny."
"Will you promise me one thing, Denny?"
"And that is not to attempt to mix it with the scoundrel?"
"Yes."
"I promise--so long as he keeps his. But if he touches you--well, God help
him!"
"And me! Oh, I don't mean him. It is you that I am afraid of. You're so
terribly strong--and--and so heady. I can never forget how you went into
that mob of quarrelling troopers. But you were an officer there; your
uniform doesn't count here. If only you and your father stood together!"
"We do so far as you are concerned. Never doubt that. Otherwise, though,
it's hopeless. What are you going to demand of him--supposing we come
through safely?"
"That's my secret. Let's go on deck."
"It's raining hard, and there'll be a good deal of pitching shortly.
Better turn in. You've been through enough to send the average woman into
hysterics."
"It won't be possible to sleep."
"I grant that, but I'd rather you would go at once to your cabin."
"I wonder if you will understand. I'm not really afraid. I know I ought to
be, but I'm not. All my life has been a series of humdrum--and here is
adventure, stupendous adventure!" She rose abruptly, holding out her arms
dramatically toward space. "All my life I have lived in a shell, and
chance has cracked it. If only you knew how wonderfully free I feel at
this moment! I want to go on deck, to feel the wind and the rain in my
face!"
"Go to bed," he said, prosaically.
Though never had she appeared so poignantly desirable. He wanted to seize
her in his arms, smother her with kisses, bury his face in her hair. And
swiftly upon this desire came the thought that if she appealed to him so
strongly, might she not appeal quite as strongly to the rogue? He laid the
spoon on the rim of the cup again and teetered it.
"Go to bed," he repeated.
"An order?"
"An order. I'll go along with you to the cabin. Come!" He got up.
"Can you tell me you're not excited?"
"I am honestly terrified. I'd give ten years of my life if you were safely
out of this. For seven long years I have been knocking about this world,
and among other things I have learned that plans like Cunningham's never
get through per order. I don't know what the game is, but it's bound to
fail. So I'm going to ask you, in God's name, not to let any romantical
ideas get into your head. This is bad business for all of us."
There was something in his voice, aside from the genuine seriousness, that
subdued her.
"I'll go to bed. Shall we have breakfast together?"
"Better that way."
To reach the port passage they had to come out into the main salon. Cleigh
was in his corner reading.
"Good-night," she called. All her bitterness toward him was gone. "And
don't worry about me."
"Good-night," replied Cleigh over the top of the book. "Be sure of your
door. If you hear any untoward sounds in the night call to the captain
whose cabin adjoins yours."
When she and Dennison arrived at the door of her cabin she turned
impulsively and gave him both her hands. He held them lightly, because his
emotions were at full tide, and he did not care to have her sense it in
any pressure. Her confidence in him now was absolute, and he must guard
himself constantly. Poor fool! Why hadn't he told her that last night on
the British transport? What had held him back?
The uncertain future--he had let that rise up between. And now he could
not tell her. If she did not care, if her regard did not go beyond
comradeship, the knowledge would only distress her.
The yacht was beginning to roll now, for they were making the East China
Sea. The yacht rolled suddenly to starboard, and Jane fell against him. He
caught her, instantly turned her right about and gently but firmly forced
her into the cabin.
"Good-night. Remember! Rap on the partition if you hear anything you don't
like."
"I promise."
After she had locked and latched the door she set about the business of
emptying her kit bags. She hung the evening gown she had worn all day in
the locker, laid her toilet articles on the dresser, and set the brass
hand warmer on the lowboy. Then she let down her hair and began to brush
it. She swung a thick strand of it over her shoulder and ran her hand down
under it. The woman in "Phra the Phoenician," Allori's Judith--and she had
always hated the colour of it! She once more applied the brush, balancing
herself nicely to meet the ever-increasing roll.
Nevertheless, she did feel free, freer than she had felt in all her life
before. A stupendous adventure! After the braids were completed she flung
them down her back, turned off the light, and peered out of the
rain-blurred port. She could see nothing except an occasional flash of
angry foam as it raced past. She slipped into bed, but her eyes remained
open for a long time.
Dennison wondered if there would be a slicker in his old locker. He opened
the door. He found an oilskin and a yellow sou'wester on the hooks. He
took them down and put them on and stole out carefully, a hand extended
each side to minimize the roll. He navigated the passage and came out into
the salon.
Cleigh was still immersed in his book. He looked up quickly, but
recognizing the intruder, dropped his gaze instantly. Dennison crossed the
salon to the companionway and staggered up the steps. Had his father ever
really been afraid of anything? He could not remember ever having seen the
old boy in the grip of fear. What a devil of a world it was!
Dennison was an able seaman. He had been brought up on the sea--seven
years on the first _Wanderer_ and five on the second. He had, in company
with his father, ridden the seven seas. But he had no trade; he hadn't the
money instinct; he would have to stumble upon fortune; he knew no way of
making it. And this knowledge stirred his rancor anew--the father hadn't
played fair with the son.
He gripped the deck-house rail to steady himself, for the wind and rain
caught him head-on.
Then he worked his way slowly along to the bridge. Twice a comber broke on
the quarter and dropped a ton of water, which sloshed about the deck,
drenching his feet. He climbed the ladder, rather amused at the recurrence
of an old thought--that climbing ship ladders in dirty weather was a good
deal like climbing in nightmares: one weighed thousands of pounds and had
feet of lead.
Presently he peered into the chart room, which was dark except for the
small hooded bulbs over the navigating instruments. He could see the chin
and jaws of the wheelman and the beard of old Captain Newton. From time to
time a wheel spoke came into the light.
On the chart table lay a pocket lamp, facing sternward, the light pouring
upon what looked to be a map; and over it were bent three faces, one of
which was Cunningham's. A forefinger was tracing this map.
Dennison opened the door and stepped inside.