launched his dugout and piled in, the natives laughing a good deal, for I
wasn’t used to their tipsy little pirogues. I paddled, while Sali looked
through a glass-bottomed box for a good spot. When he found it, he went
over the side with a weight to a depth of forty or fifty feet, while I
watched through the box to see if he was all right and kept a lookout
for shark. I had tried it once, myself, in shallower water and had got
nicely stung by a poison fish for my efforts. Sali had many such scars
and seemed used to it. But he told me to be careful of the giant clams,
careful of the coral and particularly leery of the whip-tail ray, which
can give you a bad cut with their barb.
“Sali worked more than he should; but he brought back good oyster. I was
having a hell of a good time in spite of the stinks, and looked like one
of the divers with my loincloth and my skin crusted with salt. Then it
happened.” Martin looked at his ring again and continued.
“Sali had just left the ocean bed when I saw a black fin circle the bow
of the boat. From his back, the shark was a big one. I began smacking
the water with an iron pole, trying to frighten him away or attract his
attention to the other side of the dugout, and to warn Sali, who was
coming up fast.
“But just as the boy hit the surface, the shark struck him and Sali’s
head went under. I jumped over the side and got him by the hair. When I
brought him above water and could see his face, it looked as though it
were frozen. He didn’t say anything or make any effort, and I couldn’t
get him in the canoe; but when I clamped his hand on the gunwhale he held
to it like a child, and I climbed into the boat by the stern, hoping the
beast wouldn’t come back till I’d pulled the lad in. Finally, I got him
by the wrist and managed to haul him in without capsizing. He looked down
at his body at the place where his leg had been, for it was off high
up next the hip. Then he looked at me and smiled, while two big tears
ran down his cheeks.” Martin stopped again and choked. “I hope, Rio, it
was because he was shocked out of his wits. I stripped off my loincloth
and tried, as only a desperate man can do, to get a tourniquet around
a place where I didn’t even have a stub to work on. At last, I started
to shove my fist up the hole where the blood was spurting; and then,
realizing that I was going mad myself, I grabbed a paddle and headed for
the mother-boat like a demon. A pretty picture, eh, Rio?” said Martin
bitterly. “A naked white man, as bloody by this time as the Sudanese,
racing through the Red Sea with a dying boy who thought I could make him
live—for that was what he kept saying all the time.”
“Cut it,” said Rio, his face hard. “Did you get him to the boat alive?”
“Yes,” answered Martin. “The nakhuda and another Arab hoisted him aboard
and we laid him on the deck, out of the sun, with his head propped up.
There were only minutes left, with nothing to do but magic; so I rubbed
his wrists and whispered the Lord’s Prayer to him. It sounded all right
on that blistering deck, or must have done so, for Sali kept smiling and
repeating the words—the sound of the words after me.... ‘Our Father which
art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name.’ ... Then his face changed—I saw it
coming. He spoke thinly to the nakhuda, who knelt down and cut the string
around the boy’s neck which held this amulet.” Martin pointed to the
charm on his finger. “Sali took it, and with that hopeless, sweet trust
glazed on his eyes forever, held it out to me that death-like second
before death.”
Martin cleared his throat and looked down at the grass.
After watching him for a moment Rio said quietly, “That’s the last time
I’ll ever ask about a ring. I done it once before, and I ought to know
better.”
“What happened?” asked Martin.
Rio took his time, and scanned the harbor before he spoke.
“I shipped out of Liverpool,” he said at last, “because I had to once,
on a vessel bound for the Solomon Islands. My watch partner looked like
a Limey, but he was a shanty Irishman from Philadelphia. I never could
quite make ’im out. We had two hours in Lisbon on the trip South, and
he give a kid two bits American to get off a spittoon in a Portugee gin
mill. He told me it made him nervous, seein’ a boy sit like that. Well,
we had some sour wine and some biscuits before I seen his ring. It was a
wide gold band on his left middle finger, and somehow I asked him about
it. He grinned and looked pretty sick; but he said it was for Maud. I
took another drink and lit up a cigarette because I couldn’t see no woman
with _him_. He called himself ‘Philadelphia Dick,’ but the city would’ve
killed ’im for it, since he was the ugliest bastard I ever seen, with a
skin like tripe and a red eyelid that hung down like a lantern over his
left eye. He knowed I didn’t believe that Maud stuff, and that damned
eyelid dropped down like he was laughin’ at me, while he chewed on a
biscuit with the ring wigglin’ all the time under his Harp nose.
“We sailed, soon after, for undetermined cargo on the Solomon’s. Every
man of us got fed up after we got there, for it was ‘lay to, and wait
for orders.’ We had the ship so clean she ached, and finally we got
shore-leave. The second engineer hammered me out a barb and Chips fixed
an ironwood shaft for me, so I had a good harpoon to try on the bass and
some red trout I seen around there. Philadelphia Dick grinned and looked
sick again when he heard I was goin’ fishin’; but he and a couple of
other sailors come along.
“It was a small atoll I picked near the mainland; so we rolled up our
pants and waded to the belt of coral to have a look at the lagoon. The
water was still; but all the fish I could see was small for my spear.
One of the boys though, who was standin’ between me and Dick, slapped me
on the arm and reached quick for the harpoon; and then I could see the
water break a ways out, and a turtle come up from the shallows. It was
a big one—about three hundred pounds—and we all got down on our knees
and stayed quiet, except Philadelphia Dick. He stood there with his jaw
droppin’ and his skin turnin’ so red that his loose eyelid hung down,
limp and white, like a blossom.
“The turtle waded up pretty slow, takin’ its own damned way like they
always do, till the guy that had my spear seen it was time. He jumped up
and run toward the creature, raisin’ his arm to let the turtle have it
through the eye. But he never made it,” Rio added slowly. “Philadelphia
Dick hit him in the cheek and then in the nose, which broke so we could
all hear it snap—even the damned turtle, who crawled on up like nothin’
had happened. Well, we stood there like a bunch of god-damned fools, like
the guy who’d been clipped, while the turtle come on till she stood right
in front of Philadelphia Dick. By God!—they watched each other till it
made us feel in the way somehow, and we got the hell out of there. Once,
the guy with the bloody face turned round and looked back at Dick and the
turtle. ‘She took his eye, Rio,’ he said to me, funny-like. And I said,
‘Yeah—that’s Maud.’ ‘Maud?’ he said, still lookin’ funny, and we went
back to the ship.
“Philadelphia Dick didn’t come back that night; but a native brought
’im alongside the next mornin’ and he come up the Jacob’s ladder like a
snake. The Chinee cook seen ’im first and turned green. For Dick’s eyelid
was down to his cheek like it had been sewed there, and his good eye was
too cold for a man. But the worst thing was the look of his Irish nose
that had been tilted up for thirty-five years—till then—but that had bent
overnight into a hook as sharp as the creature’s we was all thinkin’ of.
By the mercy of God, we sailed that evenin’ for Sarawak. Philadelphia
Dick was at the steam winch when I seen ’im last; but five minutes later
nobody could find ’im on the ship. When we got to Borneo the Devil
himself must’ve reversed our sailing orders; for we was sent back to the
Solomons, though the sailors hadn’t no stomach for it, I can tell you.
The galley boy, more scared than silly, said somethin’ about Maud, and
got the back of the hand from one of the men. Most of us, though, took
this jinx along with the bugs and the sour bread; but we was all steppin’
like the Chief’s cat when we hove to about the place where Philadelphia
Dick had jumped ship. We was all by the rail expectin’ somethin’, and we
got it. A couple of turtles drifted in about midships and out of the long
green we watched two beaks come up. One was Maud, the other a stranger.
The god-damned Chinee cook yelled out and pointed. I seen the fella—a
wide blue turtle with a heavy, forward shell. He scratched Maud (who
looked pretty wise) with his right flipper and lifted the other one at
us. The damned Chinee yelled again and we seen why; for there was a gold
band like a barrel hoop, high up on that blue turtle’s port leg, where no
human hand could’ve put it.” Rio stopped.
“And then?” asked Martin.
“And then a film come over that fella’s left eye and dropped down like
our shipmate’s—and sure enough, there was Philadelphia Dick, hatin’ our
guts, but tickled; and with all of us lookin’ on and wonderin’, he winked
at us again and sounded, with his arm under Maud’s belly.”
Rio cleared his throat and looked out at the water. For a few minutes,
the two men remained quiet until Rio, glancing at Martin, saw that his
friend was hunched forward, his head down, still staring at the grass,
and that his eyes were wet.
“For God’s sake, Martin,” he said.
Martin put his hand under his chin and regarded the other with a look so
brief and yet so haunting that Rio held his tongue.
A Green Circle ship was leaving the harbor. The word NOMAD was painted on
her bow.
“I made a trip on her one time,” said Rio, pointing, and changing the
subject deliberately. “Old Hungry was the steward. God! What food!”
Martin straightened up and leaned back against the hard, wooden bench.
“I never saw you when you couldn’t eat,” he said, smiling a little.
“This wasn’t no different,” replied Rio, grinning with satisfaction. “I
got chummy with the galley boy and lived handsome. I ate the Old Man’s
oranges and drank the chief engineer’s ale.”
Martin looked amused.
“Did the kid supply you with romance, too?” he asked.
Rio regarded him strangely.
“No,” he stated, after a moment, “but that brings somethin’ to mind.
Maybe you know the answer, my educated friend.”
“Perhaps,” said Martin, in a dry tone.
Rio shifted his position, moving back out of the sun.
“I was in Santa de Marina last trip, as you know,” he said. “There was a
girl, and a boy.” He stopped talking abruptly and removed his cap long
enough to wipe away the perspiration which had gathered on the band. “By
God, I can’t finish it!” he added vehemently.
Martin was silent.
Rio thought for a moment, then sighed and went on.
“Yeah, it’s hard tellin’. There was somethin’ funny about the girl. Funny
in a nice way. And she was screwy, too.” He wrinkled up his nose. “She
made me dance pretty, but I could see she wasn’t tryin’ to.”
“In the Street of Curtains?” asked Martin.
“Yeah. But she don’t belong there,” said Rio, his voice rising. “I don’t
believe I’ll leave her there.”
“That sounds just right,” observed his friend.
“You ain’t heard the story,” said Rio quietly.
“That’s right. The boy?”
Rio shook his head.
“He’s tougher to figure than his sister.”
Martin glanced up, interested for the first time.
“His sister was the girl?”
“His sister was the girl,” repeated Rio. “The boy—well—I never knowed no
kid like him—” He stopped and stared at his friend. “Unless——”
“Unless it was myself, Rio?” supplied Martin, a hard smile on his lips.
“Since you’ve said it—yeah.” Rio looked out at the harbor again. “I give
the girl all the money I had, and went back to the ship with the boy. On
the way, there was a tree in flower—” He turned sharply on Martin and
took hold of his shoulder. “Say,” he said in a low, intense voice, “what
the hell’s wrong with me, Martin? By God, I want the truth!”
Martin could see astonishment and resentment in Rio’s face; also a
desperate sense of fear.
“There isn’t anything wrong with you, Rio,” he said calmly. “I’ve been
afraid, too. And I’ve been sick with anger at the extremes. But if God
Almighty granted you one precious moment, as I believe He did, and you
didn’t spend it, you can get down on your damned knees with the rest of
the dilettantes and say your A B C’s to Heaven the rest of your life
without getting another.” Martin’s face was now so flushed with an anger
he could not understand that it was as dark as Rio’s.
The frown had left Rio’s face. Infinitely puzzled, yet reassured, he
stared at his friend.
“You can still talk, can’t you, Martin? You can still make me believe
you. Yeah, even when you lie, you make me feel better.”
“Yes,” said Martin, “I can still talk. For I have a problem myself.
Perhaps you can help me with it.”
“Shoot,” said Rio, relief in his voice.
“It’s about Carol. I’ll try to make it quick for I know you don’t like
him.”
“D’you?”
“Never mind about that. Here’s the point. Things are getting a little
mixed up in our fashionable set. Drew kept down the friction, but he went
away and I can’t say that I blame him.”
Rio grinned.
“He didn’t cut down the friction on me,” he said, patting his back and
grimacing. “But I’m not sore at him.” Rio laughed out loud. “He’s too
damned pretty. Anyway, what about Carol?”
Martin leaned over and spoke confidentially.
“I can’t tell you now, but I saw it,” he said, in a low voice. “Carol’s
bound for it,” he went on moodily. “What a shame!”
Rio swung around to stare at his friend. His own mouth was open, and his
soft brown eyes were as wide, as honest and as startled as those of a
besieged mare.
“I’ll be god-damned!” he whispered, and turned away from Martin to stare
out to sea. He stuck out his tongue and pulled at his ears. Then, after a
moment, he settled back on the bench and regarded Martin with a worried
expression. The sun disappeared behind a sailboat and in the bay, Liberty
grew darker. A salt wind came up from the harbor and the shadow of the
Aquarium now covered all that section of the Battery.
_CHAPTER XXII_
It was uncomfortably warm in the room where Martin was working on his
type. He tried it awhile longer, then put aside his papers and went to
the roof.
There were two women lying on a blanket taking a sun bath. They were in
bathing suits and had the straps pulled down over their shoulders. Martin
had to pass them to get to the opposite side of the porch. So he excused
himself and only glanced at them briefly. But his presence apparently
irritated them. One of the women, dark-haired and older than the other,
seemed particularly annoyed. She laid her hand on the younger girl’s arm
and whispered something audibly and caustically to her friend. The remark
was in such bad taste that Martin turned around and surveyed them coolly.
A dog was lying on the blanket with the women. He was little and white.
He was young and curious and friendly. He trotted over to Martin,
observed his white slacks, then looked back at his own coat. He sniffed
at the slacks and raised his head, and all the while, Martin stood
quietly and looked at him. The dog’s eyes were brown. His legs were
sturdy. Martin wanted to put his hand on the little head. He had done
it before with animals. It was a sort of blessing. He wanted to say, “I
like you. Don’t let yourself be destroyed by these people.” But he did
not move. The women would object. They would speak sharply and the puppy
would be ashamed.
Blood filled Martin’s head. He had worked late the night before and he
was tired. Anger shook his mind. Once more he looked across the roof at
the women. Then he knelt to the dog. Holding the nervous head between
his hands he watched the brown eyes. In his own was reflected an heroic
poem—an attainable star. Martin did not beg nor did he demand. He showed
the small one something greater than pettings and soft food. He showed
him hard winds, ice and sun; his wolf-like ancestors—their smoky, torn
fur. The dog became quiet, watching intently. He made no sound.
Martin held him patiently, listening with him to the soft pad of feet on
the leaves above and around them. The dog’s brown eyes grew wider, older,
and became lost....
Martin stood up and regarded the women, thinking, “Symbols of a denatured
civilization! Men linked together are strung, it is true, on the rock of
a fool’s evolution. But in them tragedy, strength and beauty neutralize
the distortion—while across from me, on the roof, grope the clowns, the
mimics, playing music they can never understand. The chords they touch
turn black....”
The older woman called the dog to her. She put her arm around him and
called him “Willie.” It was not the word. It was her eyes, and her mouth,
and the way her hands worked. “It is an indictment of womanhood,” thought
Martin. The woman looked at him; and seeing him stand so cold and full of
hatred, she held the dog tighter. She held his fur and his body tighter;
but Willie had gone. He was standing by a campfire. His hair was singed
and there was a red line across his shoulders. His eyes were tired and
glad with dreams.
Every woman feels biological change. It is her first lesson and her last.
Although she often misinterprets her intuitive strength, she possesses
it. This woman looked at Willie. She could not smell the singed hair nor
see the red line; but she did see his eyes. A sadness, a real sorrow was
in her. She turned from the dog to Martin who stood contemptuous and
erect, and she turned away.
“Now am I right,” Martin asked himself, observing in spite of his anger
this dark woman’s passion, “to condemn the ovary that cries out for
its sister?—and absolve by ritual the formulated counterpart in man?”
He stood there, pondering in this procession of new thought. “And am I
wrong, that I can’t feel the love that topples ethics, puts wire in soft
fingers with one breath!... Why can’t I feel the music of one breast upon
another? And why do I call such music ‘black,’ when I might taste much
softer lips than mine upon much softer lips?... These dismal cries—two
sheer stockings ripped from their garters and one frightened voice
saying, ‘God! Make it straight with me!’—while the other, frantically
tries syntheses and fluctuating pose....” Martin watched the slender
clouds beyond the black roofs for a moment, then went below.
* * * * *
Martin was drowsing on the couch in his room when there was a rap at the
door which he had left open. He glanced up sleepily. Roberts was standing
there, an attempted smile only accentuating his moroseness.
“Come on in,” said Martin cordially, sitting up. “Have a chair. That
one’s the most comfortable.” He pointed to the rocker.
“Damn comfort,” replied Roberts, nevertheless sitting down. He was
thinner. There was an harassed expression on his face which Martin had
never seen before. “I dare say you’re surprised at my coming here,” he
continued.
“No,” said Martin, frankly good-humored. “And I’m glad to see you.”
The adviser waved the words away.
“Don’t be social, in heaven’s name. It isn’t in your make-up. And if
_you’re_ not surprised, I am, considering the attitude you’ve taken
toward me lately.”
Martin laughed, stood up and stretched and offered him a cigarette.
“Don’t be a damned grouch, Roberts. You never got an attitude you didn’t
ask for. Light up, and I’ll show you some work I’m doing. It’s too hot to
fight.”
“Stop talking like a hussy,” said the adviser as he took the cigarette.
His face was damp and his hand was shaking.
Martin half-closed his eyes and there was a curious line about his mouth.
Then he laughed again and held out a lighted match.
“What’s so amusing?” asked Roberts, holding his hand against his cheeks
which seemed to be burning. “Is it this squalor you’re living in, or is
it I? You’re steeped in sin, Martin; but this is the first time I’ve felt
the flatness of hypocrisy.” There lay his mistake. He’d struck a heel
softer than he knew. For with every flaw Martin had, he hated the word
just spoken the most. His entire appearance changed and his cheeks became
as white as Roberts’ were red.
“Are you here as a friend?” he asked.
The changed timbre of Martin’s voice seemed to stabilize Roberts.
“As a friend.” The adviser was serious. “I have something that should
interest you vitally.” He regarded Martin, who still seemed unresponsive.
“Don’t underestimate this,” Roberts continued severely. “I happen to know
that Carol is following you.” He waited intently for the effect of this
speech upon his listener.
“I suspected as much,” answered Martin. “In fact, I found him at it one
night and asked him up.”
“What?” cried Roberts, shocked, amazed, with every thread of jealousy
burning in his face. “Good God, Martin! The man’s dangerous. I know him
better than you do. He’s pathological. He’ll stop at nothing. And you
permitted him—you saw him here, alone?”
“Yes,” said Martin dryly. “All, all alone.”
Roberts stood up, propped his stick in a corner and walked the length
of the room. His head was lowered; he was absorbed as if debating with
himself. At last, he turned swiftly.
“You don’t want to die, do you?” he asked, staring.
“No.”
“Then watch out.”
“For what?”
“For that kind of impudence which incurs my displeasure.”
Martin leaned back against the head of the couch, put his chin on his
hands and looked solemnly at his visitor.
“Have you lost your mind?” he asked.
Roberts’ mouth opened and shut as though he were in rarefied air. Then he
sat down again and looked at his hand which was still shaking.
“Martin,” he whispered, “I’m frightened.”
“I’m not astonished at that.” Martin sat up. “Roberts!” he cried
earnestly. “It’s imperative that you get your thoughts out of this
channel!”
“There _is_ no other channel,” interrupted the adviser. “I’m humiliated,
degraded—but there is no other channel.”
“Very well,” said Martin. “I won’t try to persuade you to think
differently then. But I do ask you to give me the real purpose of this
call.”
“I came to warn you.”
“Against Carol, or yourself?”
Roberts did not answer. His face was set and all the color had drained
out of it.
Martin observed him closely.
“You’ve had some bad nights, my friend.”
The adviser wiped his forehead.
“Yes. Bad nights. That I should live—for this!” He looked about him
wildly.
Martin sat up straighter.
“Overlook the This, my mad companion, and look for That!”[4]
Roberts stared at him with amazement rising to horror.
“Destroyer of words!” he said. “My God! You destroyer of sand and clay
and rock that make the brilliant hills!”
“Yes. Destroyer.” Martin nodded in agreement.
Roberts got up, holding unsteadily to the arm of the chair.
“I’ll leave you to your destiny!” he cried with savage vehemence.
“Unless it’s interwoven,” answered Martin coldly.
The adviser’s eyes grew bright as though with fever.
“Again, your hatred in your words.”
Martin nodded once more.
“That’s right.”
“What will you do if I don’t permit you——” Roberts stopped.
“Propose something,” commanded Martin, rising.
“I do.” The adviser picked up his stick and walked uncertainly toward
the door. As he turned, he seemed to be smiling. “I _have_ proposed
something.”
With an easy stride Martin went to him. He took the stick from his hand
and placed it against the wall. He reached for the door and closed it.
Deliberately, he caught Roberts by the waist and bent him backwards until
he fell. Then he poured one bitter kiss after another—his teeth cutting
the adviser’s tender lips and cheeks, his sweat falling like molecules of
light.
Roberts screamed and turned his face away.
_CHAPTER XXIII_
One quiet evening Deane and Martin walked down to a street Exhibit in
the Village. Since Roberts’ visit to Martin, Deane had felt a melancholy
restlessness about the man she loved; and on this evening, with small
stationary clouds in the west prolonging the summer twilight, she tried
with careful intrigue to bring him back again.
They walked the long way—past odd, forsaken streets; past streets with
checkered, foreign signs; past junk shops, curio shops; past streets
where old furniture, silverware and books were on display within
the dusty, ill-kept windows; past lending libraries; past a little
half-street with quiet, mysterious houses; past streets that wandered
helplessly about until, faced with some busy thoroughfare, they paused
abruptly, bewildered, and of necessity came to their end. There was one
street built like a dagger, with a single row of trees across it for
its hilt. There were crooked streets, dirty streets, smart streets;
streets attempting to be gay and failing miserably; streets falling over
themselves; scrambled streets; streets running pell-mell at last into
Greenwich Square.