Chanler came up briskly before we had time to speak further. His
dullness had given place to animation. It was apparent that he had
wasted no time while in his stateroom.
“Let’s go aft, Betty,” he said. “There’s an awning up there, and
deck-chairs, and no wind. Come on.”
I watched them as they went, he, nervous, with unsteady eyes, she,
calm, buoyant, strong. He leaned toward her and talked excitedly, and
I saw that she drew a little away from him.
They did not sit down. I saw Chanler urging her, and she shook her
head and continued to walk to and fro, Chanler following. He was
talking and gesticulating excitedly. She looked at him long and
steadily once, then looked away.
As I turned I found myself face to face with Captain Brack. He had
come down noiselessly from the bridge and was studying me with that
old superior smile on his lips.
“Ah, you idealist, Mr. Pitt!” he said softly.
“Idealist, Captain Brack? Why do you say that?”
“It is in your eyes. It is in the position of your chin; it is all
over you. You are uplifted and exalted for the moment. You feel that
you really are something; you feel strong, is that not so?”
“Perhaps.”
“No, not perhaps, but positively. You feel at this moment that you are
a big, strong man; in reality you are—Mr. Gardner Pitt.” He chuckled
carelessly at the flush that came to my cheek. “I have been watching
you for some seconds, Mr. Pitt; I have seen you swell and think you
were growing. In your calm reason—for you can reason somewhat, Mr.
Pitt—you know that you are not growing; but for the moment you have
allowed your emotions to hypnotize you. You are a victim of your own
emotions. For instance—” he waved his thick hand toward the aft where
Chanler and Miss Baldwin now were promenading together—“you fancy that
in Mr. Chanler’s partner you have been looking at something wonderful
and fine. Is that not so?”
“That is so, captain.”
“Something above the common, raw, crawling stuff of life?”
“Decidedly so.”
“Something which it is not the sphere of reason to grasp, but which
the emotions alone can appreciate?”
“Go on.”
He laughed unctuously.
“Then I have diagnosed your delusion accurately.”
“Are you sure it is a delusion, captain?”
“Yes. Self-hypnosis. What you see is not there.”
Betty turned at this moment so that her face was toward us.
“What do you see back there, Brack?” I asked.
He looked at her steadily; his head was lowered a little, and again
there was in his eyes the look comparable to Garvin’s when he saw the
raw gold.
“I see,” said he slowly, without taking his eyes off Betty, “just what
there is there; a very fine, healthy young specimen of the female of
the species.”
His words were like a dull knife on my nerves, but I controlled
myself.
“Nothing more?” I asked casually.
“No. For there is no more.”
I laughed, and I was conscious of a sensation of relief. The man had
his limitations then, even though one glance from his eyes had left so
strong an impression on Miss Baldwin.
“I feel sorry for you then,” said I. “You are to be pitied for your
lack of imagination.”
He did not take his eyes off Betty.
“No,” he said, “for that is enough to see. It is more than enough. A
fine young woman. Only once or twice in my life have I seen finer. Too
fine to be wasted on a silly ineffectual. Yes, too fine to be won
except by a man.”
He swung around on me and said with a wink:
“I have a feeling, Mr. Pitt, that an interesting voyage lies before
us. And—and a short time ago I didn’t think anything could interest me
much except gold—which means power.”
“Do you feel that we are going to find gold at this alleged gold-field
in the alleged hidden country to which we are going?”
“Naturally. Else we would not be found there now.”
“Have you any positive reason for believing gold is to be found there?
Not that story of the alleged miner,” I hastened on. “You don’t expect
any reasoning being to accept that story as a reason. Have you any
real reason for thinking there is gold at this so-called Kalmut
Fiord?”
His eyebrows raised a trifle and he smiled as one might at a child who
displays unexpected shrewdness.
“You do not have much confidence in the miner’s story, Mr. Pitt?” he
asked.
“The maundering of a delirious man,” I retorted. “Surely you would not
change the purpose of this expedition on such slender information as
that.”
He ceased smiling for a moment.
“I know that there is gold at Kalmut Fiord,” he said. “Does that ease
you?”
“If I knew how you know there is gold there, I would be more
satisfied. And even granting that you know there is gold there—Captain
Brack, you will pardon me—but it scarcely seems in keeping with your
character to cheerfully sail a ship-load of people to this gold-field,
where they will have an equal chance with you to enrich themselves.”
“No?” he said, and his smile was back in its place. “You have sounded
my character then, have you, Mr. Pitt?”
“My dear captain! I am sure you hardly expect to impress even a casual
observer as a man who would freely invite a crowd to share a gold find
with him.”
He laughed, nodding at me approvingly.
“That isn’t bad, Pitt. The sea air sharpens wits. But have you ever
been in the North, away from police officers and courts?”
“Never.”
“Have you ever been in a spot where laws do not reach?”
“No.”
“Well, it is such a place that you are going to now, Pitt. You will
find yourself in a new world, in this hidden country, a world as it
was in the beginning, with the laws of nature the only ones necessary
to consider. In such places gold naturally is attracted to the
strongest man, no matter who digs it out of the ground. Gold, do I
say? Ha! All things to the strong in this place, Pitt. Nature’s law;
all things to the strong, and especially—” he looked again toward the
after deck— “women.”