At Manila where the _Skipping Goone_ laid by three weeks, it was learned
that Captain Utterbourne had just been there and departed. A few hours
sooner, indeed, and they would have encountered him.
As a matter of fact, it was he who had brought Flora down and deposited
her—with express understanding, however, that she was to take a regular
steamer home. “One could hardly expect me to go into tourist traffic this
late in life, could one?” he asked sweetly, his cold lips moving with dry
mirth. And he delicately refrained from guessing the romantic complexion
of her sudden longing to visit Manila.
Yes, the _Star of Troy_ was roving about somewhere in this part of the
world, and the intelligence seemed vaguely to upset the master of the
_Skipping Goone_. A look of the satellite came into his green eyes,
and he felt somehow less in control, even while he snarled the more
convincingly and had perhaps never looked so much like an admiral.
Manila was kind indeed to Mr. Curry and his songbirds, and the engagement
was by no means unprosperous. Then they were under way once more, bound
now for Borneo. However, though brief, it was to prove a voyage more
packed with incident than any thus far.
The winds were mostly head winds, extremely variable, and much time was
lost. During one whole day the wind dropped almost entirely, and rain
poured down. The glass ran low. The air was damp and unseasonably chilly,
with restless little gusts down the murk of the China sea. In the midst
of all this the baby managed to contract a cold.
It wasn’t a very bad cold, but since there was only one baby, to say
nothing of its being a mascot, instant alarm ran through the schooner.
Everybody was ready, quite naturally and humanly, with every sort of
suggested remedy. Mr. Curry contributed a bottle of pine balsam; some one
else recommended camphor dropped on to a lump of sugar; even smelling
salts were advised. The principal topic of conversation became the baby’s
cold.
“I guess it’s nothing much,” said Lili. “He just snivels a little.”
But Jerome was in a state of terrible anxiety. He, of them all, had
nothing to suggest by way of remedy; and yet it seemed to him as though
his very life depended upon the baby’s recovery. They told him it was
absurd to get into such a state over a baby’s cold. “Just wait till the
child has measles and whooping cough before you begin to look so solemn!”
exclaimed the contralto, who knew what she was talking about.
As the baby improved, Jerome was willing to listen to reason. He had
scarcely slept at night, though Lili had taken it a great deal more
sensibly. The baby’s cold was, indeed, no great matter; but just as it
was felt that there was no longer even a remote danger, a mysterious new
combination set in. Nobody seemed to be able to make it out. Breathing
grew laboured, and the pulse was so feeble that they could barely find it.
Alarm returned. Jerome’s heart was again in a state of panic, while Mr.
Curry, in the privacy of his own little cabin, spent a long time on his
knees. “We couldn’t bear it!” he murmured brokenly. “We just couldn’t
bear it!”
Efforts were redoubled. They kept the baby wrapped up in flannel. Then
abruptly the cold disappeared entirely, and the little creature grew
so hot it seemed to burn one’s arms. Each breath meant a sharp brief
struggle. The day before every one had felt so confident; today every one
chilled to a sense of hopelessness charged with foreboding.
The small sufferer struggled through a night and at dawn ceased his
convulsions. Jerome and Lili knew their baby was dead even while last
frantic efforts toward restoration were being made.
The baby was dead, and the whole ship went into profound mourning.
Lili cried like a little bewildered child. So her heart was eased. But
Jerome, at first, could do nothing but stare down, stunned with misery,
at the small lifeless form. When Curry came upon him standing by the
cradle, he drew an impulsive arm about him; for the impresario seemed to
understand about these things better than anybody else.
“Courage, lad,” he said, tears splashing down, and his great chest
heaving. And Jerome could only falter, “Yes,” in a groping way.
Jerome had loved the tiny boy with all his being. He had laid long,
silent plans; had seen the boy grow up; saw himself even standing by Lili
for the sake of the child. He would love him more and more as the years
went on. The sense of warm devotion in Jerome’s heart had been almost
overpowering at times. But now the baby was gone, and the dreams—they
were gone too. It seemed almost like the end of everything.