Mathison, his pipe dead in his teeth, leaned against the starboard rail
and stared with unseeing eyes. It was Sunday, the first day out of
Manila. The northeast trade was blowing briskly and the blue Pacific
flashed and tumbled.
Loneliness. Never had he known anything like this before. A sudden
inexplicable craving for crowds, talk, laughter ... women! With Bob at
his elbow, night after night, he hadn't been conscious of a void in his
life. Woman. No doubt he was a madman, a kind of super-madman, to have
held out as long as he had. Nerves. It was quite possible that the
craving would subside and he would become normal, once his raw nerves
had steadied down.
His errand was in jeopardy. He would soon need all of his cunning, all
his strength, to pull through. He had set for himself something more
than the mere rôle of a secret messenger. He had buckled on the sword
of Nemesis. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. He was letting his
grief dig in too deeply. He must find some diversion shortly or he was
done for.
He had had to fight Morgan bitterly to win his point. Morgan maintained
that the arrival of the blue-print in Washington would be vengeance
enough for any reasonable man. In the end, however, he had surrendered,
reluctantly agreed not to disturb the passengers beyond careful scrutiny
of their passports. But why had the taciturn Morgan chuckled, thwacked
him jovially on the shoulder, and continued chuckling as he went down
the gang-plank just before it was hauled aboard? Mathison was still
mystified over this peculiar conduct.
Anyhow, one thing was off his mind. That long, thick manila envelope was
in the purser's safe. It did not matter that the purser might still be
cudgeling his brains as to the why and wherefore of the remarkable
decorations on the face of that envelope for which the owner had not
required a receipt of deposit.
There were twenty-one first-class passengers and eighty steerage.
Mathison had applied himself intensively to the memorization of the
twelve descriptions in that little red book of Hallowell's. None of the
first-class passengers tallied. It was conceivable that his enemies
would keep under cover until they were ready to strike; and nowhere
could they keep hidden so well as in the steerage, among the Chinese,
Japanese, Filipinos, and Russians.
They had found Paolo in the Pasig River, a hundred gold in his pocket,
conclusive evidence of two things--that the servant had betrayed his
master and had known too much for the safety of the men who had bribed
him.
Mathison knocked the dottle from his pipe, turned toward the
smoking-room, when he saw a book coming along the deck, flopping and
bumping like a gull with a broken wing. He recovered it. Probably it
belonged to some passenger aft the smoke-room. _The Life of the Bee_:
Maeterlinck. There was nothing on the fly-leaf to indicate the
ownership, however. He tucked it under his arm and walked aft.
In a steamer-chair between the port and starboard projections of the
deck-house was a woman. He recognized her as the old lady who occupied
the cabin opposite to his on the main deck. A gray cashmere shawl was
wrapped about her head and shoulders. The rest of her body was snug in
the folds of a plaid rug. A wisp of gray hair, the sport of the wind,
was fluttering, now across her forehead, now above the edge of the
shawl. She wore a pair of mandarin spectacles with amber lenses.
Mathison could not tell whether she was asleep or awake. Nevertheless he
approached. The craving for companionship was not to be denied.
"I beg your pardon," he began, "but perhaps this book is yours. It came
galloping around to starboard from this direction."
"Thank you. I saw it start on its journey, but I was too lazy to go
after it." She held out her hand--concealed in a gray cotton glove--and
he laid the book on it.
It did not occur to him then, but it did later, that the voice was
singularly rich and full for one who appeared to be well along in the
'sixties. But he was not unaware of the fact that breeding and education
may preserve the tonal quality of a voice through life.
"You ought to have a chair in a more comfortable place," he suggested;
"out where the sun is."
"That's just my difficulty. The sun bothers my eyes, and I'm obliged to
find nooks where it cannot reach me. We old folks have to be careful.
Won't you sit down?"
He opened a chair and sat on the foot-rest, conscious of a vague
exhilaration; it was the human look of her and the human sound of her
voice.
"My name is Mathison."
"And mine is Chester--Mrs. Hattie M. Chester. My cabin is opposite
yours. If a submarine should pop up, you'll promise to come for me?"
"I promise. But there won't be any subs over here except in dreams."
"Something to scare naughty children with. I see."
The hint of raillery convinced Mathison that there was a vigorous,
fearless personality under the shawl and the rug. What a curious spot to
select! Swinging gray shadows that passed and repassed, baffling
scrutiny in a most amazing manner.
The conversation turned upon the war, and here again she surprised him
by her clear understanding of what was happening to the world.
"You've a son over in France?" he ventured.
"No, unfortunately. But if I had a thousand sons, I'd disown them one
and all if they weren't over there. Once upon a time white men worshiped
many gods. To-day where are they? To-morrow we shall laugh when one
speaks of kings. The Teuton idea did not invade Belgium so much as it
dug its own grave.... Oh, if I were a man!"
Mathison smiled--something he hadn't expected ever to do again! He asked
her what she was doing alone in this part of the world. She had had a
nervous breakdown in the spring, and her doctor had advised her to take
a long sea voyage.
"And where else could I take a sea voyage? I always wanted to see India,
China, Japan. I suppose you are going back to enlist?"
"No, I am going home to fight. I am already in the service."
"What arm?"
"The navy. I have been transferred to the Atlantic," he admitted,
frankly. "I'm to command a destroyer in British waters."
"Splendid! And you are traveling in mufti?"
"A special dispensation." He sought a safer channel. "You are rather
brave, to tour this part of the world these days."
"Gray hairs go safely anywhere. Besides, I've a French maid who is
something of a grenadier. I am not afraid of anything ... except
ghosts!"
This time Mathison laughed. He was positively enjoying himself. Then he
recollected that he hadn't fed Malachi. He rose.
"I've a little parrakeet in the cabin, and I've forgotten to feed him."
"Does he talk?"
"In three languages--Hindustani, Spanish, and Yankee."
"Bring him up. One like those I saw in Agra, flying about in the ruined
fort?"
"Yes; green, with a lemon collar. I'll bring him up this afternoon at
tea."
"To-morrow morning. The sun is in this corner in the afternoon."
"You ought to walk."
"I shall ... at night."
"I'll bring the bird up to-morrow, then."
"And thanks for returning the book."
This was the beginning of what may be written down as one of the most
amazing situations ever devised by Fate. The woman behind those amber
spectacles was young, and it was the youth of her that drew Mathison,
though he was utterly unconscious of this fact--drew him morning after
morning as the magnetic pole draws the needle of the compass.
By the time the ship reached Honolulu and went on his depression was a
thing of memory; his nerves became normal; he was more alive than he had
been in years. With all the cunning of her superb art she made her lure
one of motherhood, so irresistible that he no longer bothered his head
over her avoidance of sunlight or the fact that if he saw her at night
it was by the port rail, her back to the moonshine. There was one clear
thought regarding her: what a comrade she must have been to the man she
once called husband! Whimsical, deeply learned, sound in philosophy,
humorous, and unafraid: she made him think of his mother; and all the
tenderness he had bottled up in his lonely heart these fourteen years
went out to her. Lightly he fell into the habit of calling her Mother,
and in her turn she called him Boy.
For all the pleasure and satisfaction he found in this companionship,
there was a line and he never crossed it. Of his own affairs he was
remarkably reserved. Several times--merely as a test--she laid traps for
him, but each time he evaded them. Morgan--to whom she had gone sensibly
with a frank confession--had summed up this odd handsome young man: "He
is likely to fool you. Under that amiable exterior there is a lot of
blood and iron stuff. Always keep that in mind. Just now he is in a bad
shape. Get him out of it. He's a bit of a mollycoddle where women are
concerned, but among men he is an ace."
Had Mathison been of her world--a world to which she was returning
gladly, though she had left it indifferently enough--he would soon have
seen through her art, clever and vigilant as it was. She could not
disguise the slender youthfulness of her foot. No hand sixty-odd years
old could be so firmly fleshed. The gray glove hid nothing. But his
guilelessness served to carry her over a rather shaky bridge.
On the third night out of Honolulu--it was near eleven--Mathison stood
in the little shelter between one of the life-boats and the rail, whence
he could look down into the waist, at the recumbent forms of the
steerage passengers who were sleeping on deck. Night after night he had
watched from this lookout; but moonlight and starlight had a way of
dissolving and blotting out salients.
To-night, however, his persistence was rewarded. From the black
rectangle of the companion door a Chinese woman, apparently of high
caste, stepped forth. She stood poised for a moment, then trotted across
to starboard and laid her arms on the broad teak rail. She wore a
radiant jacket, full of gold thread which caught the moonshine and threw
it back--a spider-web hung with dew. She was smoking a cigarette.
He knew China; and suddenly he sensed something wrong, and discovered
the flaw. No Chinese woman, high or low, ever wore such a thing on her
head. Mathison couldn't have named it; but a white woman would have had
no difficulty. It was a dainty boudoir cap.
One of the recumbent forms on the deck rose slowly. A big man, with
blouse, boots, and cap of the Russian soldier; the peak of the cap was
drawn well down. He lounged over to the Chinese woman, and the two began
to talk. Presently Mathison heard the woman laugh. It was unmistakably
Occidental laughter.
So! For a long time Mathison stared, but he was too far away to gather
an impression such as might count in the future. Sooner or later he
would see the face of this Chinese woman who laughed--white. He would
never forget Morgan's description of the woman called The Yellow Typhoon
... the woman who had tried to break Bob Hallowell and might have been
one of the contributing causes of his death. Old Bob! An eye for an eye,
a tooth for a tooth! Let them begin the play. He was ready.
He had reasoned, and with sound logic, that his enemies might not strike
at all while crossing, to lull him into a false sense of security, so
that once they stepped ashore they might find he had grown careless,
overconfident. One thing, they would never be able to get into his cabin
when he was out of it. The night and day stewards--dependable Japs--had
been liberally subsidized. One or the other was invariably on guard up
to the hour Mathison turned in for the night. With the Manila envelope
in the purser's safe, the human wall around his cabin, an attack would
have small chance of success. No doubt they were already aware of his
precautions.
On the night before making San Francisco, however, he was given an
insight as to the patience and Machiavellian range of the Teuton forces
opposing him. It was twelve when he turned in--an hour later than usual.
As he came abreast his cabin companionway, he stopped, rocked to the
bottom of his soul. The Japanese steward was plunging toward him at top
speed. Mathison spread out his arms, but the little brown man dipped,
eluded him, and flashed up the main companion.
Against the opposite side of the cabin companionway stood the gray lady
... Malachi's cage hugged tightly to her bosom!