When Cadogan went forward he wished to see something other than the loom
of the low-lying, misty, white berg against the sky. He peered down over
the bow. He bent low his ear to catch the purr of eddying waters.
He turned sharply on his heel, and went below--deep below.
* * * * *
When he reappeared he went straight to his stateroom. Here, in the cabin
sleeping quarters below the promenade deck, nothing disturbing had
happened. When such passengers as were about to turn in became aware of
that slow lurch and easy stoppage, they had stepped out into the
passageways, and asked each other what was the matter; which question
was answered almost immediately by ship's people who came hurrying among
them with reassuring words. "It's nothing, ladies and gentlemen. If you
will go back to your rooms, ladies and gentlemen--it's nothing." And
they had gone back to their rooms.
Cadogan turned on the light in his room, and hauled out his suit-case.
He found a pad of paper, found also a fountain pen, shook the pen to
make sure there was ink in it, let down the covering of the wash-basin
for a desk, laid thereon a small photograph of a beautiful face and head
_en profile_, and began to write. He set down "Dear," and paused. He
smiled faintly, wrote "Helen" after it, and went unhesitatingly on:
This afternoon, over our tea, as I concluded one of my almost
endless monologues, you may remember you said, "You'd better watch
out or some day you will be having your last adventure." Well, I
have had it. Not with this ship--no, no. My last adventure was a
dream of you. I was on the dock, about to board a steamer for South
America, when I saw you step out of your cab. And so I came aboard
here. I am glad I came.
You brushed me in passing, as I stood beside the gangplank trying
not to stare at you; but you did not know that--did you?--although
for an instant I thought you did. It was the conceit of youth, that
thought.
Cadogan held up his pen. The sound of hurrying feet from the passageway,
the noise of fists pounding on doors, of high-pitched voices asking and
answering questions, broke on his ears. He listened, stared at the
air-port for a moment, and resumed his writing:
About this time a steward is pounding on your door and _hin_forming
you that you are to go on deck and be ready to go into the boats.
Nothing serious, he is probably saying. The poor man who tells you
so, I am sure, does not suspect, but whoever told him to carry that
message knew better. Perhaps it is just as well he does not
suspect.
When the steamer stopped that time, it was because she struck on
the submerged shelf of an iceberg. In three hours--or less--she
will go down, and all who happen to be on board will go with her.
They should be able to stow a thousand women and children in the
boats, and these should be picked up soon after daylight, if the
sea stays smooth and the weather clear. To-night's indications were
clear weather and a calm sea for at least another day, so that will
be all right.
You will be in one of the boats, and--safe. It would be like you
not to want to go. If I hear that you do not, then some one will
see that you do go. But I shall not be by you when you leave the
ship, for I do not want you to read in my face that I know I am not
to see you again--nor to bother you in any way. I shall be looking
on as you leave, and what you said to-night will not then matter.
As you go over the side my prayer will go with you.
There came a sharp knock on the door.
"Come!" he called. It was his own steward, who thrust his head past the
door's edge. "Saloon passengers are to go on deck, Mr. Cadogan."
"Why?"
"I 'ave no idea, sir. Orders, sir. I was to hinform the saloon passengers
as how they were to go on deck, and women and children into boats."
"All right. Thank you. And, Hames."
"Yes, sir?"
"You hunt up Miss Huttle's maid, and have her tell Miss Huttle to be
sure to wrap up warm. Be sure she gets that right--to wrap up warm. Two
sets of everything all round. Got that right?"
"Two sets--yes, sir."
"That's all, Hames."
"'K you, sir."
He resumed writing:
And so it has come to write the adieu which I would dread to have
to speak. Four days only have I known you, but a man may build his
life anew in four days, and this last adventure of mine has been
such as in my visionary boyhood days I used to mark out for myself
in rosy dreams.
I have the little snapshot you gave me yesterday. I will have it
with me to the end, and your face in it will be the last thing I
kiss this side of eternity. And so good-by, dear heart, and don't
worry for me. Who lives by the sword, et cetera. It had to come to
some such ending, I suppose, though rather a joke, isn't it, to be
lost on an ocean liner crossing the Atlantic in these days?
To-day with you I saw the sun go down 'twixt purple bars, and what
is the little matter of dying to that? And it is a consolation to
know you will not mourn me. Good night, dear heart, and may God
have ever a tender eye on you.
He sealed the envelope, and very carefully addressed it: "Miss Helen
Huttle," placed it in his inside coat-pocket, kissed the little
photograph, and placed that also in his inside coat-pocket.
He gazed about to see what else. His top-coat lay where he had last
thrown it--across the edge of the berth. He shook his head at it, and
from his wardrobe took a heavy ulster, scanned it approvingly and put it
on. He hauled his steamer trunk out from under his berth, and from a
corner of it dragged a thick wallet. He ran his thumb along the edge of
the bills within it. Large banknotes they were mostly. He stuck the
wallet into his hip pocket. The handle of a magazine pistol peeped up at
him. He took it up, laid it flat in the palm of his hand, shook his
head, and tossed it back. He took one more look around the room, waved
his hand to the walls, and stepped out into the passageway.
A hurrying steward almost bumped into him. It was Hames. "Miss Huttle
was told, sir."
"Good! Now, something else. Later on Miss Huttle will be going into a
boat. Before she goes, be sure you give her this letter. Not now--no.
But up on deck, just before she goes."
"Yes, sir."
Cadogan sought the upper deck by way of the second-cabin quarters. On
the wide staircase he overtook an old couple who, at sight of him, began
talking volubly. She was a little old lady with a confiding smile, and
he a bent and round-backed man with a long, forked beard.
"Vot you t'ink, Mr. Cadogan? He tell me I shell go in der boads."
"And why not, Mrs. Weiscopf?"
"Und vere shell he go?"
"A man of Mr. Weiscopf's age--they may let him go with you."
"I go in der boads?" The old man tried to straighten up. "I shell not go
in der boads. I, mit childrun und grandchildrun, to go in der boads? It
is der foolishness--all der foolishness--dose boads."
"Why, then, shell I go in der boads, Simon?"
"For mens I say der foolishness. All der womans go in der boads,
Meenie."
"I shell not go in der boads mitout you, Simon."
"Go in the boat, and take him with you, if you can, Mrs. Weiscopf,"
whispered Cadogan, and hurried on.
He came onto the boat-deck in the rear of the saloon passengers already
gathered there. The first boat was clear. An officer stood at the stern
of it. "Women and children!" he was calling out, and there was a rush to
fill it.
"I don't see many children," said a voice.
"Do you ever--in saloon?" retorted another.
Cadogan, recognizing the second voice as Meade's, and seeing that he was
also in the rear of the crowd, stepped over beside him.
The boat was filled, and lowered in jumps and jerks. The passengers
moved to the next boat. Half a dozen ship's men and an officer stood by.
"They're taking enough of the crew along," observed Meade.
"Not much gets by you," commented Cadogan.
"It's my business. I'll have to write a story about this later."
"Women and children!" called the officer.
The boat was filled, except for a space for ship's men and the officer
in charge, who stepped quickly in. This boat went down likewise in jumps
and jerks.
In the next boat two men passengers jumped in at the last moment. The
officer in charge seemed not to see them. The crew said nothing.
"Must have friends at court," muttered Meade. "Though why anybody should
choose the staying out all night, half frozen, in those boats I don't
understand, do you? But look--there's the Major marshalling his
battalions. Old ladies and young, pretty and otherwise--instinctively
gallant, the Major," observed Meade.
"We'll remember your friends in New York, Major!" two of the younger
ones chorussed.
"Be sure you do!" he retorted. "And pay your bet with a box of candy
when you're back aboard in the morning. But take care you keep those
rugs around your feet in the meantime." He waved them smilingly down the
side of the ship, but he was not smiling when he had turned his back to
the ship's side, and made his way into the crowd of passengers.
Cadogan shrank back of Meade. It was Miss Huttle who had stepped into
the light, with Drissler in attendance. And not alone Drissler. She was
fully dressed, with heavy furs in addition. Her smile was not less
frequent, and apparently her tongue no less ready than usual, when she
replied to the sallies of her escorts.
The blocks were knocked away clumsily, the falls overhauled bunglingly
for the next boat. Cadogan ached to jump in and show them how to do it.
"The worst of standing here, Meade"--Major Crupp had taken his position
by the side of the journalist--"is that no matter how matters are
handled, we can no more interfere than if we were children in steerage.
And yet some of us, Cadogan here especially, could help out a lot."
"Why can't you jump in there and help?" inquired Meade.
"Discipline. A man whose trade calls above all things for discipline
must be the last of all to interfere with it. There's an officer there
foolishly displaying a revolver, frightening people needlessly. Some
foolish woman--did you hear her?--just said: 'How brave!' Brave! When
his boat is loaded he goes off with it."
"Well, he's welcome, Major. I wouldn't care to be out there all night.
What do you say, Cadogan?"
Cadogan made no answer. He was not losing a finger's crook of Miss
Huttle's actions; and yet he was listening to and studying Meade and
Crupp, old Mrs. Weiscopf and her husband, the ship's officers and men, a
steerage woman with her baby in a shawl--however she came to be
there--everybody and everything within sight and hearing. He could not
help it. If he were one of a file of prisoners to be taken out and shot,
his last curiosity would be to know what everybody was saying and
doing--the executioners, the executed, himself, the spectators.
He noted the parting of bride and groom, and wondered what that groom
would have given to go with her into the boat. He was taking note of
the women who went reluctantly from the sides of their men-folk, and
those who could hardly be held back until their turn came. He studied
the faces of the men who by some mysterious dispensation were allowed to
go into the boats. Some, as they stepped under the cluster of electric
lights, betrayed to him that they knew. Some one in authority had told
them, or, like himself, they had found out for themselves.
It was then that he saw Lavis. A woman with a baby in the shawl had,
with a sublime gesture, abandoned her baby to a woman already in the
boat, so that it might be saved. Lavis was standing behind her when she
did it, and as she lost herself in the crowd, Lavis had looked after her
with such an expression of pity that Cadogan's attention was attracted
anew to him.
When Lavis turned to the circle of light again, his eyes met Cadogan's.
"And you, too, know," thought Cadogan. Lavis came over to him.
"I was wishing I could give that poor woman this big coat of mine,"
began Cadogan; "it might make things a little less miserable for her."
Lavis's eyes thanked him. "I will find her and give it to her." Cadogan
took it off. "I will see you again," said Lavis, and, went off with the
coat.
Cadogan turned in time to see--and it thrilled him--old Mrs. Weiscopf
refusing to go when her turn came. She pointed to the old man. "No, no,"
was the impatient answer from the officer. "But he iss so old," she
pleaded again. She was roughly told to hurry up and get into the boat or
stay behind. She marched back to her old husband, and gripped him
tightly by the arm. The boat left without her.
Cadogan saw these things, and a hundred others, without ever losing
sight of Miss Huttle. On the other side of the ship he knew that a gang
of ship's men were fighting for the possession of a boat for themselves.
He could hear them--half-smothered murmurs, cries, blows. He thought of
going to his room, and getting his automatic pistol, and jumping in
among them. But what good would it do? was his next thought. It would be
only to substitute one set of dead men for another; and, doing it, he
would lose sight of her.
At last she walked over to where the boat was ready to lower. Before she
stepped in she cast a long look above the heads of the crowd. The
thought that she might be looking for him set Cadogan to trembling. She
was pale. He drew farther back into the shadows. He saw her face peering
out again from the crowded hats, toques, and hoods of the close-packed
women as the boat was lowered.
She appeared to be still searching for some one in the crowd as the boat
disappeared below the deck rail. Cadogan forced his way to the rail to
watch it. It was rolled from side to side, bumped against the ship's
side, swung in and out as it descended. While yet some distance above
the water, it stuck. Cadogan could just make it out. The falls had
fouled. With a jerk the stern dropped several feet on the run, and the
boat hung again in air, now with bow up and stern down. There were
screams and shouts. Cadogan was at the rail, ready to leap, when the bow
unexpectedly dropped. The boat was level again. It was in the water and
floating. She was safe away.
Cadogan remained by the rail, tracing the course of the little boat on
the sea. When he could no longer see the shadow of it, nor hear the
voices from it, he still stayed, pursuing in his imagination her course
and position out there on the waters.
When he faced inboard, all the boats were away, and Meade and Crupp were
no longer on deck. He guessed they had gone into the smoking-room.