THE OPEN BOAT

1

BELLAIR was athirst. The fact that he had taken a deep drink less than

a half-hour before, did not prevail altogether against it. In the very

presence of Stackhouse there was a psychological intensity of thirst.

The master sat hunched and obscene in the stern of the boat, patting

the wet folds of his shirt--a pure desire-body, afraid of death, afraid

of thirst, afraid of the fear of thirst and death. Picturesqueness and

personality were gone from him; romance and the strange culture of the

man, for the eyes of Bellair; the old wonder, too, which the seas and

the islands of the seas had given him. Bellair could not forget the

ankles, the moving of those bare masses up and down, as Stackhouse

had clung at the same time to the small boat and the gunwale of the

_Jade_. What a poison to past tales--this present passion and method of

self-salvation. He was less than a beast, in retaining the effigy of a

man.

Bellair turned to Fleury. Like swift pleasant rays in the dark, the

last scenes of the main-deck recurred. Again he marvelled at the

falsity of his first judgments, by which he had formerly set so much,

and so complacently. It had seemed a fat face to him at first, a face

out of true with the world, the face of an easy man who placates things

as they are, because he was not trained to see the evil of them and

give them fight. All that was remembered with difficulty, even for this

moment of contrast. It would not come again. Fleury had stood up in

the crisis, a man to tie to. He would never be the same again in look

or action or intonation; as Stackhouse could never be the same. Fleury

had risen and put on a princely dimension; the other had lost even that

uncertain admirableness of gross animalism.

The preacher was leaning forward toward the knees of the woman, talking

to the babe. Bellair imagined its eyes wide-open and sober; certainly

it was still. The mother’s face was partly turned away. Fleury said:

“He is having his adventures. He will be a great man. He will have the

world at his finger-tips, when he is as old as we are--and then his

real work will begin. For when we know enough of the world, we turn to

God.”

The note of the preacher in this did not embarrass Bellair, as it

would have done before the _Jade’s_ sinking.

“He will be a great power,” Fleury went on, for the heart of the

mother. “These things which for him pass unconsciously, will form him

nevertheless. They will do their work within; and when he is grown he

will know what to do and say.”

“How do you know?” the mother asked.

“Chiefly because I believe in you,” he answered.

“I want him to live,” she said.

“We want that, too,” said Fleury.

Bellair felt himself nodding in the dark.

“If he is to be a great man, he will have to live through his first--at

least, through this adventure.”

The meaning came very pure to Bellair. It had to do with crackers and

water for the nourishment of the child. So strong and sure was her own

fortitude that she did not need to say she was thinking only of food

and drink for him. It meant to Bellair, “If I cannot nurse him, he will

die.”

He regarded the length and beam of the small boat. It was not more

than eighteen feet long--and only the Polar seas could be emptier than

this vast southern ocean. The nights would be more easily endured, but

the days, one long burning. Still it would not be torrid heat; they

were too far south for that. The thought of storm, he kept in the

background of his mind. They all did. Roughly estimated, there was

food and water enough for them to live without great agony for a week,

possibly for a day or two over, but Stackhouse was not a part of this

consideration. He could not live a week without an abnormal consumption

of water....

Fleury was talking about the stars. They would see Venus before dawn,

he said; the great one in their meridian now was Jupiter. “If we had a

marine-glass, we would be able to see his moons.... That,” he pointed

to the brightest of the fixed stars, a splendid yellow gleam in the

east, “that is Canopus, never seen north of the Gulf States at Home.

It’s so mighty that our little earth would turn molten in ten seconds

if it came as near as our sun.”

Bellair leaned toward him listening. The preacher pointed out the

Southern Cross, and Alpha Centauri, almost the nearest of the sun’s

neighbours.

Their thoughts groped naturally to such things. In the full realisation

of their helplessness, they looked up. The background was a deep

fleckless purple. Bellair hadn’t known the great stars of the northern

skies, much less these splendid strangers. The brimming closeness

of the dark sea harrowed the landsman’s heart of him; and there was

something as great or greater than the actual terror of ultimate

submerging. It was the fear of the fear; the same that causes men

to leap from high places through the very horror of the thought of

leaping. The water lapped the clinkered sides of the small boat. He

touched it. His flesh took from the coolness something that numbed the

pervading alarm; a message which the wet hand sensed, but the brain

could not interpret. The presence of the others forward sustained him;

Stackhouse in the stern was the downpull; thus Bellair was in the

balance.

It was yet far from dawn; certainly no lighter, but Bellair could see

better. The woman was looking away. He knew that he would see her so,

until the last day of her life--that profile of serene control, that

calm, far-seeing gaze.... What gave her this quiet power?... Already

the thoughts of the three were intimate matters to all. It seemed very

natural now to ask Fleury what gave the woman such strength.

“It’s the sense that all is well, in spite of this physical

estrangement from the world,” the preacher said. “Bellair, it’s the

sense that nothing matters but the soul. It’s not belief; it’s knowing.

She has lost the sense of self. _She is through talking._ It is

finished with her. We talk, because it is not finished in us--but it is

being accomplished. We talk because we want that peace; when it comes

we will not talk, but live it. It is exactly opposite to _desire_; you

can see that----”

Yes, Bellair could see that. He had but to turn back in his seat to

confront Stackhouse wringing his heavy twitching hands and begging for

water, begging like a leper, now that a face turned to him--the most

frightful picture of the work of desire and the fear of desire, that

the world or the underworld could furnish. Less than two hours before

he had drunk a quart and wasted a pint in his greed; and behind Bellair

was the silent woman and Fleury, thinking of others, full of the good

of the world.... In the worldliness that came to him from Stackhouse,

the intimacy of the matter they had just talked about seemed startling.

“One can’t help but notice what _you get from somewhere_--and what the

woman has,” Bellair added.

* * * * *

They were in the grey mystery of dawn--alone, for they had drifted, and

the sailors in the other boat had begun to row at once. Stackhouse was

lifted a little, brought nearer, possibly by the tension, which they

all came to know so well--the tension of that grey hour, before the day

reveals the sea.

“It was my ship,” he whimpered. “It was my hamber--McArliss was mine

and the service----”

“You’d have had them all yet, but you amused yourself watching poor

McArliss fall into the drink. You would have had it all--just the same

this morning--for he would never have hit the reef on duty----”

It was Bellair who spoke, and the thing had suddenly appeared very

clear to him. Stackhouse did not falter from the present, his huge head

darting east and west to stare through the whitening film.

“It was my hamber. There is room here at my feet. It was little, yet

meant so much. I should not have troubled you----”

The lack of it seemed suddenly to hurt him even more poignantly.

“You will all go to hell with your talk of beace,” he declared, looking

between them but at no pair of eyes. “I will go first, what with the

drink dying out, but you will not be long. There is hell for me, but

for all alike. You may live days--but the longer, the more hell. And

you will all come at last--to the long deep drink of the brine----”

“Oh, come now, Stackhouse,” said Bellair. “It may not turn out so

badly. You’ve had luck before. You’ve talked much to me of luck--and

deaths of others. If it’s your turn--face it as your innumerable

friends faced it.”

The man was undone before them. The flesh of his jaws stood out, as if

pulled by invisible fingers. His heavy lips rubbed together, so that

they turned from the sight of them.

“There was room in the boat for that basket of rum,” he called out

insanely. “It was all to me. There is no talk of God for me--rum was

all I had!... I would have been so quiet. It would have been here at my

feet, but for that fool who talks of God, and can never know the thirst

of men.”

Fleury turned to him, his face deeply troubled. It occurred to Bellair

that there was something to what Stackhouse said. Fleury, in kicking

back the hamper, had kept the devil of Stackhouse from entering the

boat, and Stackhouse served no other.... More and more it was twisting

his brain, as young alligators twist at a carcass.

“I would have had it here between my knees. And I would have had the

little bottle from the cabin--the last that boots you to sleep----”

“And so that is what you sent her back for--sent her to her death----”

“You lie. She was held here--trying to get the hamber to me. There

would have been time. She would have gone and come. She would have been

here now----”

Bellair and Fleury glanced at each other.

“I am rotted with drink--and will drink the brine first, but you

will follow me. You will bring it up with your hands and drink--and

drink----”

He was looking at Fleury now. The intensity of thirst in the spectacle

of him--the presence of that vast galvanism of thirst--was like a

burning sun in their throats. The baby cried, and the mother drew him

shudderingly to her breast. Fleury swallowed hard, his face haggard

and drawn in the daybreak. He went over and took his seat before the

monster. Bellair was tempted to ask him to be easy, but there was no

need. Fleury turned and drew a cup of water and handed it to the other.

Bellair’s jaws ached cruelly from the drain of empty glands.

“We should pity you, Stackhouse,” he said, “but we are not facing

death now. You fill the boat with thirst--you fill the sea--with your

thinking drink and talking drink--until you bring a cry of thirst

to the little child. It’s as if we had gone sixty hours--instead of

six----”

He talked on for the sake of the woman. Stackhouse drank and grew

silent. Bellair felt better and braver--even though the full light

revealed nothing but empty sea and heavenly sky.

2

Bellair surveyed his world as the dawn came up.... Thirst and

fasting; possibly, the end.... The peculiar part of his open boat

contemplations, no two were alike. Physical denial hurried him from one

plane to another from which he regarded his world--his two worlds, for

Stackhouse behind was one, and his friends forward, another; the one

drawing his love, courage and finest ideals; the other, repression

of self, lest he wear himself out in hatred. They were not talkers in

front. He had not seen quite the entire fulfilment of Fleury’s meaning

about talking until late moments. The Faraway Woman invariably said

little; the child was the silentest of all; Fleury had met this demon

and put it away. Stackhouse had talked and talked, and to the pictures

he made with words, he belonged not at all, but to unspeakable things.

Bellair remembered his own talk to Filbrick. It made him writhe. He had

become crossed and complicated and ineffective that day. He had not

talked in the straight line of heart and brain. He saw that a man who

talks that which he is not, is less than nothing, as Stackhouse was

less than nothing.

“How far are we from anywhere, Bellair?” Fleury asked.

“We weren’t supposed to strike land before Chatham or Bounty

Island--two days’ sail this side of New Zealand, as I understand it.

We lost land six--a week ago to-day--_Madre de Dios_, McArliss called

it--off the west Coast of South America. With good wind McArliss

planned to sight the Islands off New Zealand in three weeks. We had

a week’s good sailing until yesterday--so we are a fortnight, as the

_Jade_ reckoned, from--_your home_.”

Bellair turned to the woman. She did not speak.

“Do you suppose we struck coral?” Fleury asked.

The subject seemed very hopeless. “I saw the charts in McArliss’ cabin.

No reefs were charted according to our passage. We may have been

off our course. But I do not understand. The mate took our bearings

yesterday noon. I do not know what he reported to the Captain----”

“It may have been a sunken wreck that we struck,” said Fleury.

Bellair had thought of that. He turned to Stackhouse, who might have

had something to say, but the other stared at them balefully--at their

faces, not meeting their eyes. Either he had not followed their words,

or chose to take no part.

“If we are in the course of any ships at all, it would be of one

passing our route, from the Horn to the Islands,” Fleury added. “I

doubt if it would do us any good to row. We must not tax our strength.

If we are off our course, we cannot tell whether it is to the north or

south, so nothing is positively to be gained. It’s a question of hands

up. The other boat set out for somewhere at once. If they find ship

they will tell the story----”

It appeared a useless recounting of obvious things. Bellair had thought

this out bit by bit several times without finding the least substance

to tie to. Fleury’s addition merely accentuated the bleakness of their

position.

“Still,” the preacher added, “if there is nothing for us to do in the

way of struggle--the rest is simplified. We may be thoroughly tested,

but I feel a strange confidence of our ultimate delivery. I thought of

it before we had parted from the _Jade_. It came to me again in the

night. I believe it now. We do not belong to the deep--not all of us.”

Bellair wondered at the strength which came from this. He placed his

trust upon this man, as one having familiarity with a source which he

personally did not draw from. The preacher’s words were designed to

cheer the woman, but he could not let them pass as merely for that.

Fleury had a conviction, or he would not have spoken so.

The air grew cooler during the long closing of that first day.

Bellair thought of his overcoat which lay in a roll under the narrow

planking forward where the woman sat. The bundle of New York papers

dropped out, as he drew the garment forth. He opened one of the papers

laughingly.... The headlines were like voices from another world. The

abyss between the real and the unreal yawned before his eyes now in

the open boat. New York seemed to be fighting in prints for things so

little and unavailing. So little ago, he, Bellair, had moved among

them, as among things that counted. Now what was real was the woman’s

courage and the substance of Fleury’s faith, and the hope that came

from the immensity. The deep contrasts of life held Bellair.

As the message of the press came up to his eyes, he sunk into queer

apathy, believed himself dreaming when he read his own name. He was not

startled; even that was not his, but an invention like the clicking

of a watch, which marks off an illusion of the illusion time.... An

afternoon paper, dated the second day after his departure from New

York; a brief statement of his departure with certain funds of Lot

& Company; one item of a thousand dollars, several others suspected

missing.... There was a follow story in the next day’s issue: Bellair

as yet unfound, was believed to have gone to the Cobalt; Bessie Brealt,

a professional singer, had passed an hour or two with the missing man

on the eve of his flight. He had spent money recklessly.... This was

all.

He dumped the papers overside, and was sorry afterward; still, there

was not physical energy in him to explain, nor comprehension in the

other two for such details. Lot & Company had sacrificed him to ward

off disclosures he might make. Possibly Attorney Jackson had suggested

the step. It was very clear. Even if the station-porter had not mailed

his letter, they would have found his order of release in the safe. It

was a part of the other world--proper business from Lot & Company’s

point of view. He was marked a thief in his small circle. He seemed

to see the face of the boarding-house woman as she heard the news.

She would search her house.... And Bessie Brealt.... The tempter,

notoriety, was responsible for her small, mean part. It wasn’t an

accident. She must have looked at his card and told, for the reporters

would not have come to her.... It began to hurt him, mainly because of

the thoughts and dreams of helping her, which had come to him since,

especially here in the open boat. She had fallen into one of the little

tricks of New York--to break into print at any cost. There wasn’t much

reality in the rest, nor much chance of his needing New York again.

* * * * *

... Three and a child in a small boat. The pale moon-crescent, her

bow to the sinking sun, appeared higher in the west. What a cosmic

intervention--since last night when he had seen her first arc and the

earth-shine from the deck of the _Jade_! And what a supper he had gone

down to afterward! There was wrench in that--an age since then.... No

one had spoken for a long time. Bellair wondered if the man and woman

thought of food as he did.

Three and a child in the empty sea, and the great suns of night were

coming forth in the deepening dusk. They were strangers, but more

real than the sea. This was not like the earth at all; and yet the

_Jade_ had been of the earth. Her fabric had contained the bond that

held from port to port. Stars and sea--one more real than the other,

and different, too, for there was horror in looking down, but hope in

looking up. Something in his breast answered the universality--but

quailed before the deep.

... Just now Bellair, lifting his overcoat to draw it closer around

him, sensed its unaccustomed weight on the left. His hand sped thither,

touched the full bottle of Bourbon whiskey purchased in Savannah. His

hand remained with it a moment. A shudder passed through the small boat

from Stackhouse, who had come to from another hideous sleep.

3

Bellair stared into the sea. No one had spoken for many minutes. It was

close to noon. Though all that had to do with memory since the sinking

of the _Jade_ was treacherous, according to his recounting, it was but

the second day; that is, the mother-ship had gone down in the heart of

night before last.... Bellair had given away to temptation, when he let

his eyes sink into the depths. He had fought it for hours, and knew

that nothing good would come of it, but there was so much to fight, he

had not the further strength for this.

The sea was calm on the surface, but there appeared a movement below,

so vast and unhurried, that it was like some planetary function.

There seemed a draw of the depths southward, an under-movement toward

the Pole. At times a cloud of purple would rise from far beneath and

shut off his peering, like the movement of blueing in a laundry-tub

before it is well-diffused. It came to him that this was but a denser

cloud-land--an ocean of condensed clouds, moved not by winds alone,

but the stirring of the earth’s mysterious inner attractions, which

in their turn were determined by the sun and moon and stars. It was

all orderly, but he, Bellair, was out of order. And such a little

thing--a quart of cool water, and any one of the thousands of meals he

had thoughtlessly, gratelessly bought and paid for--thousands consumed

with a book at hand, or a paper to keep his mind off the perfunctory

routine of feeding himself. Hundreds of meals he had taken, because

it was the hour, and a cigar was more pleasurable afterward; meals in

his room--paper packages of food, pails of ice, chilled bottles with

a mist forming on them; saloon lunches, plates of colored sausages,

creamy-rose slices of ham, tailored radishes and herring pickled in

onions.... There was not a fish in the sea, not a movement but the

blueing, and that slide of the under-ocean river to the Pole.

Yet there _was_ something in there--an end to this disorder. It would

take all he had left--the good air. It was like a knife or a gun or a

poison-pill.... The movement below was so strong that it would grip

him, shut him from the air, and leave him slithering along toward the

Pole, sometimes sinking sideways, and then rising, forever seeking his

balance ... not forever. He pictured himself in a school of herring,

thousands of bright lidless eyes, thousands of bubbles, like eyes, from

their mouths opening and shutting--he slithering sideways--his hands

moving in the tugs and pressures. They would cease to dart from his

movements, understanding them as the ground-birds know the wind in the

grass. Lips and eye-lids and nostrils--they would have food. Food was

the great event of the day to all things--except men. Men ate by the

clock, ate to smoke, ate to soften the hearts of women ... yet after

all food was food.... Or one big fish.... Or two fighting for him....

Or one finding him lying still, a slow fanning of fins against the

purple pressures, watching to be sure--then the strike.... Once he had

examined a minnow after the strike of a bass.... Where would _he_ be

in that strike--or in that herring school-room--not that slithering

sideways thing--but _he_? Would he be watching humorously, or back

in the cage with Mr. Sproxley, or in Bessie’s bedroom? Was it all a

myth about that other _he_? It seemed a myth with his stomach sinking,

tightening like a dripping rag between a pair of mighty elbows. In the

centre of the rag was a compressed cork, and in the cork, a screw was

twisting.

Cork--that made him think of the whiskey. He turned from the water

to the coat under the seat, his eyes blinking. His bare foot moved

painfully to the coat and along the breast to the pocket, to the hard

hump of the bottle.

His eyes suddenly filled with the figure of Stackhouse, whose attitudes

were an endless series of death tableaus, as his stories had also

pictured. His face had broken out into more beard, his eyes glazed,

body shapeless, like clothing stuffed with hair. His hands held the

primal significance of birth and death. They lay upon his limbs, the

thumbs drawn into the palms, the first and little fingers of each

pointing straight down. Bellair thought of how death contracts the

thumb, and how infants come with their thumbs in-drawn.

Also his mind was played upon by two distinct series of

emotions--Stackhouse representing one set; Fleury and the Faraway Woman

signifying the other. He swung from power to power. Then his concern

and fascination for Stackhouse changed from loathing and the visible

tragedy, to a queer passage of conjecture regarding the worldwide

processes which had nourished that huge body to its fall. In fact,

Bellair’s favourite restaurants returned to mind like a pageant;

the little inns on the Sound that he used to go summer Saturday

afternoons; the one place in Staten where there were corn-cakes and

a view of the shipping; the myriad eating and drinking places of New

York; and from them all, one shop of chop and chicken-broils where the

miracles were done on wood-embers, so that even the smoke that filled

the place was seasoned nutriment.

“They certainly knew how to buy,” he muttered aloud.

It was a kind of moan, and he added quickly: “I beg your pardon.”

Fleury and the woman regarded him with silent kindness.

“I was just thinking of a man I knew--a buyer of canned goods,” he

explained hastily. “The bargains in canned-goods he had a way of

pulling off! There wasn’t a man in New York who could bring in lines of

stuff at the figure he copped--a little runt of a man named Blath, who

knew his business----”

Fleury leaned back as if reaching for support, his quiet smile not a

little tender. His two browned hands came forward to Bellair’s knees,

and he said with a devoted smile:

“I’ll not forget that in a hurry.... Blath, you say his name was?”

Bellair knew well that he had not kept his mental pictures from

Fleury’s mind. His entire consciousness had been in steam and woodsmoke

having to do with broiling meat. The three were worn thin, worn to

fine receptivity, and caught one-another’s thought without effort of

many words.... Though he did not turn, a shock of pity came to him now

for the master. He had meant to save the opening of the whiskey for the

next dawn, vaguely thinking that if they should find the sea empty once

more, there would be that false strength to fall back upon. Stackhouse

could not live more than a day or two longer. He was torn by devils,

his only surcease being the snap of consciousness from time to time.

The whiskey had been upon Bellair’s mind like a curse. He wanted its

force for himself, but never really meant to use it, had not even given

the temptation leeway. His lot was cast with the forward forces; they

would not have touched the contents of his bottle. This did not change

the desire, however.

4

The third day. Bellair was light-headed from the scarcity of crackers.

Yesterday had been a mingled thirst and hunger day, but this was

characterised by hunger incessant. To-morrow he anticipated with dread

another thirst horror, and after that, no hunger at all, but mighty

agony that knew but the one word, _Water_. The keen airs of night and

morning, and the sterilised burning of the noons, constantly fanned

and stimulated the natural demands of the body.... He had forgotten

the newspapers. Bessie’s face came before him--something of her deep

heart-touching tones which changed him.

“There must be a great woman there--a great fine woman--like this one.”

He did not turn. It may have been the first concession from his

every-day faculties of this woman’s actual beauty. He had already

granted this deeper within, where the understandings of men are wiser,

but harder to get at. Certain hours had shown him the clear quality

of saints and martyrs; and he had seen in pure life-equation that the

child was worth his life or Fleury’s. He would have given his, as most

white men would, but it was different to see the value and rightness of

it....

There was now an unspeakable need in the stern. He drew the bottle from

the overcoat-pocket at his feet, without turning. Fleury and the woman

watched him. He cut the small wires with his knife, tore off the wafer,

half-expectant of some sound from behind.... The day was ending. The

young moon newly visible in the dusk began its curve into the west from

a higher point in the sky....

There was a screw in Bellair’s knife. It sank noiselessly into the

cork, but the first creak of the stopper against the glass brought the

jolt. They all felt it--as if the great body had fallen from a dream.

Stackhouse was staring at the thing in Bellair’s hands, his tongue

visible, his face filling with light. He rubbed his eyes, the

beginnings of articulation deep in his throat. He was trying to make

himself believe it was not a vision. That harrowed them. A pirate would

have pitied him--reptile desire imaged not in the face alone, but in

the hands and all. Bellair poured a big drink in a tin-cup. Fleury

passed him a gill of water. Stackhouse drained the cup with a cry.

Something earth-bound slowly left his face. In contrast it grew mild

and reckonable; but within an hour he was wild with pain, and dangerous

for night was falling. In the light of the moon there was treachery.

Bellair and Fleury sat together in the centre. The other’s bulk was

great and the boat small. In becoming custodian of a bottle of whiskey,

Bellair now required help. He wished it in the sea, but there was a

pang of cruelty about that. The new force that animated Stackhouse

had to be reckoned with. It was both cunning and destructive. There

was no murder in their hearts.... Stackhouse drew his feet under him,

helping them with his hands; his eyeballs turned upward from the agony

of cramps in his limbs; then he sank forward on his knees. The craft of

desire had turned from fighting to speech. The moon was grey upon his

breast and gleamed from his eyes.

“You will listen to a man who is dying. Yes, Bellair, you will

listen--who listened to me so much.... Give me drink, so I can talk----”

“It may save you--but not if you take it all at once.”

The creature winced, but his passion moved to its appointed ends. He

drew forth the large brown wallet they had often seen; rubbed it in his

hands, until his fingers could feel; then opened the leather band. From

one receptacle he lifted a thick package of bank-notes.

“I liked you, Bellair--almost as I liked one Belding. I could have done

much for you. I hate _that_ man, for he has made my death hard----”

His face turned toward Fleury, but did not meet the preacher’s eyes.

“The _Jade_ brought a sweet cargo to Ameriga, and Stackhouse does

not bank in New York.... Bellair, I want to drink--so the talk will

come----”

So absurd was the sound of cargo and banking that Bellair thought his

mind had wandered again, yet he said:

“You are better. You cannot drink each hour. If this is to help you,

you must be sane.”

“I have something to say of imbortance--you will help me, Bellair. It

is for you.”

The faces of Fleury and the mother gave him no help. They were kind,

but the thing seemed beneath them, as if they were waiting for him to

come back from it.

“You have stood by that man, and not by me,” Stackhouse said hoarsely.

“So that I meant to toss this in the sea at the last--this and all the

papers----”

He lifted the bank-notes and showed him the collection of

separately-banded documents.

“I am a rich man, and I have no heir. I had thought of you, but you

turned away from me and did not continue to listen. You went to him

of the breachings--but you have now what is needful for me and I will

bay. I have no heir. I said that before. I dell you now. A dying man

does not lie. There are papers to make you rich, for I have other

fortunes. Look, I will toss it into the sea--if you do not give me that

bottle----”

Bellair laughed at him.

“These are thousand dollar notes--there are fifty of them----”

Bellair turned aside for an instant. Money and papers of more

money--these were very far from fanning excitement in his breast. A

loaf and a jug of fresh water were real; the moon’s higher appearance

each night, and the majestic plan of the night-suns, these were real.

Fleury, the woman and the babe, lost in the brimming darkness of

earth’s ocean--they were real. Like the stars they had to do with the

mighty Conceiver of it all. They were a part of the Conception--and so

they were real--but the dollars of men....

“And do you know what I will do--after I have tossed this into the sea?”

The question brought him back quickly.

“No, Stackhouse,” he answered.

“I will come for you and dake that bottle. I am big. I have strength. I

will dake it--or you will kill me--and that will be the end----”

Bellair thought of that. There was a pistol in his coat. He did not

want to use it. He believed Stackhouse would do as he said.

“For God’s sake, Bellair----”

“If I give it to you--oh, not for that rubbish!” he pointed to the

wallet. “If I give it to you--you will die more quickly----”

“That is what I want.”

“But it is not our way----”

Stackhouse tore loose from his shirtpocket the heavy gold watch and its

heavier chain, dropped the whole into one of the folds of the wallet to

weight it down. “It will sink,” he said.

“To hell with it----”

“For God’s sake, Bellair!” Stackhouse moaned, his arm rising with the

wallet and falling again.

At that instant Bellair thought of Bessie Brealt and her career.... He

turned to Fleury and the Mother. They were regarding him with kindest

concern--as if he were a loved one who could not fail to do well in any

event. Then he thought of the work that Fleury might do--the preacher

who had finished with talk, and was so eager to act.... And just then,

the little child turned to him from the mother’s breast--a puzzled

look, but calm, and a flicker of the damp upper lip, as if it would

like to smile, but was not sure.

Bellair held out the whiskey. The wallet was thrust in his hands for

reception of the bottle--a frenzied transaction.

They begged him to spare it for his own peace. They gave him water, but

poor Stackhouse could not live with the stuff in his hands. In fifteen

minutes the bottle was drained, and then the monster wept.

5

The night roved on like a night in still mountains. The young moon had

sunk behind the sea. Jupiter in meridian glory seemed trying to bring

his white fire to the dying red of Antares.... A dark night of stars

now, since the upstart moon had left the deeper purple. Most of all,

Bellair was fascinated by the great yellow gleam of Canopus. It was

a dry, pure dark--no drip in that night--but a thirsty horror in the

saline lapping of the ocean against the planks.

Stackhouse was headless in the shadow, his piglike breathing a part

of all. Fleury, the mother and the child slept; the preacher’s head

close to the knees of the woman. Bellair marked that, and that Fleury

loved her. At times the preacher’s whole life seemed an effort to make

her eat and drink; and as for Fleury himself it often appeared that he

required no better nutriment than that of conferring food and water

upon the others. As custodian, he claimed authority for his action....

Bellair thought long of Bessie. He was watching the east at last for

Venus to arise ahead of the sun....

... But Bessie became blurred. He did not understand. Either his

brain had another picture, or the original of the singing girl was

fading.... A New York voice, no passion, but ambition, an excellent

voice--and such a beautiful, girlish breast.... Bellair tried to

shake this coldness from him. This was not being true. He had a faint

suspicion that a man’s woman is more apt to depart from him while he

is at her side than when he is away. It is because another has come,

if passion for the old dies, when one is away. Alone and apart, man is

more ardent, in fact, unless a new picture composes.... He thought of

Davy Acton, the office boy at Lot & Company’s, that wistful, sincere

face--and then Bellair gave way to the night.

This was a new sensation. It came from the hunger and thirst. He could

_let go_. The purple immensity would then take him. A half-hour, even

an hour, would pass. It was not sleep, very different from that. He was

not altogether lost. A little drum-beat would come back to him from the

mighty revery-space, and his heart would answer the beat. He seemed to

be on the borderland of the Ultimate Secret; and invariably afterward

he was amazed at what he had been--so sordid and sunken and depraved

was the recent life he had known.

“But I was what the days and years seemed to want of me,” he muttered.

That was the gall of it. Days and years are betrayers; all the

activities of the world are betrayers. He glimpsed the great patience

of the scheme. Only man makes haste. Myriad pressures, subtle and

still-voiced, tighten upon a man, bringing just the suggestion that all

is not well with him. Then there are the more obvious pressures--fever,

desire, the death of a man’s loves--to make him stop and look and

listen. But so seldom does he relate these to the restlessness of his

soul. Rather he attributes them to the general misery of life. He has

been taught to do so--the false teaching.... For general misery is not

the plan of life. If _children_ could only be taught that it is all

superbly balanced, the plan perfect; that not a momentary stress of

suffering comes undeserved; that the burden of all suffering is to make

a man change!... A sentence came so clearly to him that even his lips

formed it.

“The plan of life is for joy!”

He saw the need of every hundredth man at least, arising to repeat

this sentence around the world--arising from his pain and husks like

the Younger Son, and returning to the joy of the Father’s House....

Something was singing in him from his thought of _children_.

“We’re too old,” he thought, meaning the millions of men caught in

the world as he had been, “but the children could learn. They could

change----”

He had turned to the bow. Fleury was a nearer shadow, sitting, head

bowed forward. The Mother’s head lay back against Bellair’s coat, the

child across her knees.... That faint grey light was about her. He had

not noted this at first; it seemed to have come from the moment of

contemplation--something like starlight, something like the earth-shine

that Fleury explained. Her lips were parted, and her eyes seemed held

shut, not as if she slept but as if she were thinking of something dear

to her--her face wasted a little.

He saw it more clearly than the faintness of the light would

suggest--and to Bellair’s breast came a sudden sense of her expectancy.

It seemed she were awake, but lying back with eyes shut awaiting a

lover, her face wasted a little from the burning of expectation. For

a moment it was very beautiful to him. Then all was spoiled--for the

personal entered. Almost before he had any volition in the matter, his

mind had flashed across the interval of space between them--as if he

were the one to bring that token to the parted lips.

He shook his head with impatience, and the miseries of the hour rushed

home to his mind.

... Fleury was awake and they were whispering, the woman still asleep.

“The plan of the world is for joy,” Bellair said wearily. “We are all

taught that it is a vale of tears--that’s the trouble--taught that we

must grab what we can.”

“If we won’t learn from joy--we’ve got to take the pain,” said the

preacher. “We’ve got to get out of the conception of time and space as

the world sees it to catch a glimpse of the joy of the plan. We are

in the midst of a superb puzzle. To those who see only the matter and

not the meaning, life is an evil country, a country of dragons and

monsters. But there’s a soul to it all, and man has a soul. If a man

begins to use his soul to see and think with, the puzzle begins to

unfold. A man’s soul isn’t of matter. It’s a pilgrim come far, far to

go--very eager to get this particular journey through matter ended----”

“But why make the journey?”

“To learn evil.”

“The Younger Son wasted himself afield----”

“Was he not placed afterward above the elder in the Father’s heart?”

Fleury asked. “Could he not appreciate the Father’s House better than

him who had not left it? Man is greater than angels--that’s hinted at

everywhere in the Scriptures. Angels are unalloyed good. The man who

has mastered matter becomes a creative force. All the great stories

of the world tell the same story--the wanderings of Ulysses, the

tasks of Hercules. The soul’s mastery of each task and escape from

each peril and illusion is an added lesson--finally the puzzle breaks

open. The adventurer sees the long journey of the soul, not this

little earth-crossing. He sees that his misery now is but a dip of the

valley--that the long way is a steadily rising road--that the plan _is_

for joy.”

It came home to him closer than ever before that night. His soul had

tried to express itself and ordain his higher ways these many years,

but he had lost his way in the world. He perceived that all men lose

their way; that he had suddenly been shaken apart so he could see.

It was luck in his case--the misery at Lot & Company’s, the singing

of Bessie Brealt, the unparalleled contrasts here in the open boat.

But why should he be shown, and not the millions of other imprisoned

men? Was this a part of the great patience of the scheme again? Would

something happen to each man in due season, some force in good time to

help him to rise and be free?

“The man who ties himself to the pilgrim--and not the sick little

chattering world creature--suddenly finds that he has but one job,”

Fleury said presently. “He’s got to tell about it----”

The world suddenly smote Bellair.

“Why, men would say a man was crazy if he told the things we have

thought this night,” he said, leaning forward. “Maybe we are a bit

unsound. Perhaps these are illusions we are harbouring--vagaries

from drying up and wasting away, similar to the vagaries of

alcohol--doubtless----”

* * * * *

It was like waking from a dream--the horrible sounds now from the

stern. Bellair heard Fleury’s voice. Turning, he saw Venus before

anything else. It was the thought that he had fallen into the revery

with, and had to be finished on the way out.

Under that superb vision of morning, Stackhouse was kneeling, his

breast against the rail,--bringing up to his mouth great palm-fuls of

brine.

6

The things that happened in the open boat on this fourth day are not

altogether to be explained. A metaphysician from the East explained

a similar visitation--but like many explanations of the East, the

foundations of his discussion were off the ground. He did not begin

with stuff that weighs-up avoirdupois. The West can weigh the moon

and estimate the bulk of Antares’ occulted companion, but in cases

where _things_ cease to be weighable, our side of the world sits back

with the remark, “It is well enough to hypothecate the immaterial,

but what’s the good of it when you can’t see it?” Also when the East

gently suggests an opinion, the West rises to declare, “Why, you people

haven’t got gas or running water in your houses.”

Now occasionally there comes a time when the Western eye sees something

that it can’t touch or smell exactly, and it is easier to disbelieve

its own senses than to change its point of view for an Eastern one.

Accordingly it says, “I was crazy with the heat,” or as Bellair was

prone to explain away the visitation of this day, “The thirst and the

hunger had got to me.”

There follows, without further peroration, an unheated narrative of

what _appeared_ to take place on that fourth day:

As was expected from drinking the brine, Stackhouse went mad. The

look of the great creature, his very identity, changed, went out from

him, and something else came in. This happens when a dog goes mad. We

have had to reckon with it in our own families. If that which we knew

passes, without something foreign taking its place, the result would

be a mere inert mass waiting for death. The alienists have given us

the word _obsession_ to explain that which comes instead, making an

obscenity and violence of that which we knew. In the olden days these

Enterers were known as demons. A man named Legion was beset with them,

and Another with a strong will came and, according to the story, freed

Legion. That which had defiled him entered a herd of swine, the bars of

which were somehow down at the time....

They had ceased to hate Stackhouse. The old Master was gone into who

knows what long feeding dream? This was merely his body that they

watched for an hour or two in the forenoon. In fact, Bellair had

studied the departure with some detachment. He was sitting as usual in

the centre of the boat, glad that the Stackhouse agony was done. There

was a moment in which it appeared that death was stealing in rapidly,

and another in which a new kind of life entered the body--as vandals

enter to despoil a house after the tenant has moved away.

The hunched body had suddenly reached for him like a great ape. Bellair

had felt the crippling force of the touch, and an almost equal force

from the thought that flashed in his mind--to use the pistol.... The

boat had rocked beneath them. The blackness of much blood was in

Bellair’s brain. The struggle was brief. Through it all, Bellair heard

the cries of the child. Just as he was ready to fail, the monster sat

back, his teeth snapping in his beard--the huge hands feeling for him,

as one blinded.

“Change places with me, Bellair.”

This was from Fleury--midforenoon that fourth day. Bellair obeyed

because he was afraid of the pistol at hand.

“I don’t want to kill him,” he panted.

“It will not come to that,” Fleury answered.

It was then that the transfer of seats was made. Bellair relied

vaguely upon the preacher’s greater strength which was not of limb and

shoulder. The monster dropped to his knees to renew the fight.

“Be still,” Fleury commanded. “Be still and rest----”

Stackhouse himself would not have faltered before that voice of

Fleury’s, but there was a force in it that prevailed for a moment upon

the obsession. The air was full of strain.... They heard the heart in

the poor body. The blue-tipped hands were upraised from the bottom of

the boat--the face was toward them. Bellair and the Faraway Woman could

see only the back of Fleury’s head. The strain was like a vice in the

open boat.

Bellair contemplated the mystery: that this force, lower and more

destructive than Stackhouse, could be managed and subdued in part by

the energy of another’s will-power, when Stackhouse himself would have

required brute strength.... He thought he understood what was going

on, though he would likely have scouted the same had some one told him.

In any event, Fleury was quieting the complicated thing before him....

They heard the heart-beats rise and sink, the hands often lifting from

the bottom. The entire passage of the battle was magnified before their

eyes. Hours passed. Fleury scarcely turned.

So far there is nothing to call in the Eastern metaphysicians, but

the day was not done, nor the dying galvanism of the monster. The

afternoon was still bright, when the great hairy head cocked itself

up differently--the eyes stretching open and suddenly filled with

yellow-green light, the colour of squash-pulp close to the rind, but a

transparent light, that gathered the rays of the day in its expiring

lucency, and held their own eyes--a lidless horror lifted from its

belly. The woman must have seen the change at the same instant, for her

cry blended with the voice of Bellair. As one, they understood that

this was a different force for Fleury to meet--a wiser, more ancient

and terrific force, from the bowels of the world of evil possibly,

without relation to Stackhouse, but with a very thrilling relation to

them.

The whole face had a different look. It was rising higher. The hands

were braced upon the grating, pushing the body up. They were accustomed

to the loosed havoc of bestiality which Stackhouse had left upon his

features--but this that looked out from his eyes was knit and intent.

Fleury’s hand groped back.

“It will not answer me,” he was saying. “This is different. It will not

obey me. Take my hand, Bellair.... Yes, and take hers with the other.

We must drive it out.”

Weariness more than death was in the speech. He had struggled for

hours. It was the voice of a man who had fought to his soul’s end.

Bellair held his hand and the woman’s, but felt himself the betrayer.

This had come _for him_! He was the prophet lying still while the

sailors deliberated. They must cast him into the sea, before this thing

could be willed into quiescence. Concentration on his part was broken

by this conviction.

The body of Stackhouse was lifted to its knees--the different face

looking out of the eyes. They sat before it like terrified children;

the eyes found them one after another, steadily, with unearthly frigid

humour, like some creative force of evil, integrated of the ages,

charged with intrepid will, a ruling visitant that would tarry but an

instant for the climax.

It was not human, save in the shape and feature for their recognition;

its difference from the human was its frank knowing destructiveness.

Humanity is mainly unconscious of the processes of evil; _this had

chosen_. This was of the pull of the earth, and knew its power. It

seemed known to Bellair as if from some ancient meeting. He could never

have remembered, however, without this return. It was devoid of sex,

which seemed to bring to him some old deep problem that took its place

with his ineffable fear of the presence.

So Bellair sat between them, holding their hands, but powerless to

help.... It was higher, looking out of the eyes of the body, in strange

solution with the fallen humanity of the face they knew. And Bellair

knew _he_ was responsible.

“You must depart. You do not belong here,” a voice said. Bellair could

not tell if it were Fleury’s or the woman’s or his own. It may have

been merely a thought.

The thing had uprisen now. It lurched in the sway of the boat. Fleury

and he were standing to meet the body that hurled itself forward....

Water dashed over them. They were beneath the monster. Bellair felt

more than the crush of the weight of flesh, a force kindred to

electricity, but not electric, a smothering defiling dynamics, that

despoiled him by the low, cold depth of its vibration, rather than by

the fierce fury of it. Then he thought of the woman’s child. It came to

him like a pure gleam. The child must live. The thought was very real,

out of the self, but not _for_ self.... It seemed that he heard the

heart of Stackhouse break, and the demon hiss away.

Bellair looked up from the bottom of the boat. The woman’s face was

very close, his face between her hands.

“... Yes, come back to us!” she was saying. “Oh, we could not live

without you----”

It did not seem real to him for a moment. He turned from her merciful

eyes. Fleury was sitting there in the centre, holding the child with

hands that trembled. The boat rode lightly, though water lay in the

bottom. He turned farther. Yes, the seat in the stern was empty.

“He is dead?” Bellair whispered.

“Yes,” she answered.

“And we did not kill him,” Fleury added.

“But how did he get overside?”

“You helped,” they told him.

He did not remember. “And the child?”

“The little Gleam is all right. All is well with us, Bellair.”

Something of the encounter returned now. “I do not belong here with

you,” he said. “The thing--at the last--came for me----”

Then he realised how absurd this would sound--as if some ogre had come.

Yet they understood.

“I thought it had come for me,” the woman answered quietly. “I said

that, and _he_----”she turned with a smile to the preacher,“--and he

said the same--that it had come for him. We will forget that. Something

freed us----”

Bellair turned to the child.

“It was the little Gleam who freed us,” Fleury said.

“How did you get that name?” Bellair asked.

“You said it.”

“How long have I been lying here?”

“Ten minutes.”

He rested a moment longer.... The woman was sane, the child unhurt.

Stackhouse was dead, and they had not murdered him. It was the fourth

sunset.... Bellair sat up and turned his eyes to the sea.

The great body was near. It would not sink. They tried to row, but

were too weak to pull far. The calm sea would not cover it from their

eyes.... Even the birds did not come to it, and there was no tugging

from the deep.

The terrible battle of the day had left them whimpering--drained men,

in the pervading calm of the sea, under the dry cloudless heat and

light of the sky. Fleury and Bellair looked at each other and their

eyes said: “We did not murder him.” They looked again and found the

woman saner than they. They turned over her shoulder to the blotch

upon the sea. It floated high, drifted with them. They could not speak

connectedly, but longed for the night.... At last, they heard her voice:

“It is very great to me to know that there are such men in the world.

As a little girl in New Zealand I used to picture such heroes--such

brothers and heroes. I came to doubt it afterward, and that was evil in

me. I see now that the dream was true----”

They listened like two little boys.

“See, the cool is coming!” she added. “The child is glad, too.

To-night, we will talk!”

“You will tell us a story?” Fleury said.

“Yes, when it is darker. It is all so safe and quiet now. We are all

one.”

That meant something to Bellair. Later when it was dark, and they had

supped, he said:

“It’s good--the way you count me in, but you shouldn’t. I don’t belong,

much as I’d like to. I misjudged you at first. I misjudged Fleury--and

him----” he pointed over her shoulder to the sea.

“It will be gone in the morning,” she whispered, patting his hand. “We

are three--and the child.”

“Three, and God bless you,” said Fleury. “Three and the little

Gleam----”

“The Gleam,” the woman repeated, holding the child closer. “I love

that.”

“We are three and we follow the Gleam.”

7

Fleury took the child. The Faraway Woman sat straight in her seat, so

that Bellair wondered at her strength. Her strength came to him. The

deeps of his listening were opened to her low voice. The story came

to them with all the colour and contour of her thought-pictures--a

richness from the unspoken words which cannot be given again:

“It’s about a little girl whom I will call Olga,” she said. “That is

really her name, and the story is the little girl’s truly. I shall only

tell part of it to-night, for it is long and I would only tell you the

happy part--to-night.

“Olga’s father and mother and the other children lived in a low house

by the open road that led to Hamilton. He raised sheep for a living on

the rolling pasture-lands near the Waikata river, a hundred miles south

of Auckland.... Yes, Olga was born in New Zealand--the youngest of a

houseful of sisters. They belong more to the latter part of the story

which I shall not tell to-night--just the happy part to-night.... The

first thing that Olga remembered as belonging to the Great Subject was

spoken by her father one evening when they were all together at their

supper of bread and milk:

“‘... One never knows. It is best not to turn away any stranger, not

even if he is shabby and ill-looking. I heard of a house where a

stranger was turned away. They were not bad people, but supper was

over, the things put aside, and the woman was very tired. The stranger

was taken in at the next house, and in the morning he seemed different

to them--not shabby or ill-looking at all, but rested and laughing,

with bright lights about his hair. Always afterward, that house was

blest, but the other house went on in its misery and labour. One never

knows. It is best not to turn any stranger away.’

“Now Olga understood that from beginning to end. Many times before she

had tried to follow the talk at the table, but the words would come

too fast, and she would fall away to her own manner of seeing things.

This talk simplified many matters for her, and seemed greatly to be

approved. So in the evenings she began to watch for _her_ guest up the

long level road that led to Hamilton. All that summer Olga thought of

it and watched, though she was very little and only five. Sometimes

when it was not yet dark she would venture forth a few steps and

stare up the long road, until the house of their distant but nearest

neighbour was all blurred in the night. Just behind her cottage in the

other direction, the road dipped into a ravine, and the trees grew up

from it, shutting off the distance. No place could be more wonderful

than the ravine at midday, for the shades were quickened with birds,

bees, flowers and much beside that only Olga saw, but its enchantment

was too keen for the evening, and the night came there very quickly.

“Her Guest would never come from the ravineway, but from the long, open

road--Olga was sure of this. Yet when stopping to think, she became

afraid he would not be allowed to pass the neighbour’s house. Their

little Paul was her frequent playmate, and Paul’s father and mother

were most good and hospitable people, the last on the Hamilton road

to let a stranger go by, without food and shelter. And Paul would

be looking, for he was almost always interested in her things....

But perhaps they would be in at supper and not see the stranger; or

perhaps he would not want to stop there, but would know that _she_ was

watching. She made very certain that he would not get by her house

unobserved.

“Spring had come again. The pale blue hepaticas were peeping into

bloom. There was one day that ended in Olga’s most wonderful night. The

sun had gone down, but not the light. The sky was crowded with rich

gold like the breast of the purple martin--flickerings of beautiful

light in the air, as if little balls of happiness were bursting of

themselves. The shadows were soft on the long road; the tiles of the

neighbour’s low house were like beaten gold, and the perfume of the

hyacinths flooded everywhere into the silence. All that heaven could

ever be was in that broad splendour and sweetness--the ravine a soft

purple stillness behind, and a faint mist of red falling in the distant

gold.

“He was coming. She knew him for The Guest from afar. The neighbours’

house was already dimmed, but the stranger was clear, so that she knew

he had passed their door. She ran forth to meet him, and no one called

to her from behind. It seemed all made for her--the evening so sweet

and vast and perfect. One of her little loose shoes came off as she

hurried, but she did not stop. The single one made her running clumsy,

so she kicked that free too. He must not think she was a little lame

girl.... He was farther than she thought; she had never come so far

alone in the evening. And yet how clearly she could see him....

“He must be very tired, for sometimes he was on one side of the road,

and sometimes on the other. He was quite old, and his step unsteady,

yet he carried his cane and did not use it.... His head was uncovered.

Now she knew why his steps were so unsteady. He was looking upward as

he walked--upward and around quite joyously, the glow of the sky upon

his white beard and hair--so that he did not see her coming, and her

bare feet were silent on the road.

“She felt very little as she touched his cane.

“‘Won’t you come to our house to rest? Oh, please----’

“‘Yes, yes,’ he answered, but did not look down.

“‘Our house is near--won’t you come?’ she asked again, and turning, she

was surprised how far it was, but not afraid, and no one called to her.

“‘Oh, yes,’ he answered.

“‘But I am down here----’

“‘Bless me--are you?’

“He did not seem to see her very well, but tried to follow her voice,

his eyes looking past her, and to the side, his great hands groping

for her gently. Olga spoke again and touched his hands. Then he really

saw her, and she sighed with relief, because his eyes filled with the

gentlest love she had ever seen--seemed to rest upon her and enclose

her at the same time. The gladdest smile of welcome had come to his

face. Both her hands were in his groping ones, but now she turned and

led him. There was silence as they walked, and Olga asked:

“‘But what were you looking for--you were looking up, you know?’

“‘Was I, dear?’

“‘Yes, and what were you looking for?’

“‘I was looking for my mother,’ he said.

“Olga thought how old she must be, and she wanted to cry.... _Her_

mother made the stranger very welcome, and her father stood back

against the wall smiling in a way that she always remembered, and

without lighting his pipe until after the stranger had finished his

meal. There was golden butter and the dark bread that is the life of

the peasants, a pitcher of fresh milk and a bite of that cheese which

is brought forth only on Sundays or holidays. They pressed him to eat

more, saying that he must be in need of food after his journey, but it

was very little that he really took. He smiled and looked with peace

from face to face, but Olga had pulled her stool back into the shadows,

for she did not wish to intrude. He had not seen so much of the others.

“A chair was brought to the hearth, for it was now dark and there was a

little fire burning against the damp coolness of evening. They waited

in vain for him to speak. It was as if he had come home. To Olga he was

intensely memorable sitting there in the firelight. The others would

draw near, and he leaned forward and looked into their faces smilingly,

but it was not the same.... Now he was looking and looking around the

room. He found her, and held out his hands. She heard her mother say,

‘This is Olga’s guest.’

“She had not believed his old arms could be so strong. With one hand he

held her, while the other patted her shoulder softly, slowly,--as if

he had everything he desired. All about her was the firelight and the

strange joyous whiteness of him--his throat and collar and beard all

lustrous white. In his arms there was something she had never known,

even from her mother--a deep and limitless joy, as if the world were

all good, and nothing could possibly happen that would not be the right

good thing.

“Then she became afraid her breast would burst, for the happiness was

more and more. It had to do with the future, such a far distance of

seeing, all rising and increasingly good--until Olga had to slip down

from his knees, because the happiness in and through her was more than

she could bear.

“‘I will come back,’ she said hoarsely.

“Outdoors she waited until the stars had steadied and were like the

stars she knew, for they had been huge and blazing at first; then she

returned and he stretched out his hands to her, and she heard her

mother say, ‘Surely, this is Olga’s guest.’

“She did not remember how she got into her little bed. She heard the

birds in the vines, and it was golden day when she awoke. Suddenly she

knew that she had slept too long, that she would find him gone.... She

thought of her little brown shoes on the road, but some one must have

brought them in, for there they were by the bed.... He was no longer in

the house, but she did not weep. There had been so much of wonder and

beauty. She looked into her mother’s face, but did not ask. The mother

smiled, as if waiting for her to speak. The other children must have

been told, for they did not speak.

“A thousand times Olga wished that she had awakened in time; often it

came to her that she had not done all she could for her guest, but

there was never real misery about it, and she was never quite the same

after that perfect night. She thought it out bit by bit every day, but

it was long, long afterward before she spoke, and this was to an elder

sister, who--it was most strange and pitiful to Olga--seemed to have

forgotten it all----”

The Faraway Woman reached for the child, and held it close and

strangely. Fleury offered her water, but she took just a sup and bade

them finish the cup. “That was the happy part,” she added in a whisper,

her back moving slowly to and fro, as she held the child high. “It

might all have been happier, but Olga was not quite like the others.

They did not tell her what they knew, and Olga never could tell them

what she felt. Another time--some happy time--I will tell you, who are

so good--you will understand the rest of the story----”

“Would you tell us if Olga’s guest came again?” the preacher asked.

“Yes, he came again,” she said softly.

Bellair sat still for several moments. Then he leaned forward and

touched the child’s dress.

8

They made an appearance of drinking (with a cracker in hand) at

midnight, but it was for the sake of the woman--a sup of tepid water.

The long night sailed by. Slowly the moon sank--that dry moon,

brick-red and bulbous, as it entered the western sea. All was still in

the little boat. Bellair was ready to meet his suffering. He could not

sleep--because the woman was near. That was the night that her quality

fixed itself for all time exemplary in his heart.

The little story had revealed to him a new sanctuary. He loved it and

the little Gleam; as for that, he loved Fleury, too. It was a strange

resolving of all separateness that had come to him from these friends.

More than ever thrilling it had come, with Stackhouse out of the boat

and since the story had been made his.

She had been frightened by his loss of consciousness at the end of the

battle. He had awakened looking into her eyes. He scarcely dared to

recall what she had said in her anxiety, but it was an extraordinary

matter of value. What a mother she was; and what a little girl lived

in that story, and now!... That little girl was still in her heart.

The recent days in the open boat had not spoiled her; nor the recent

years of loneliness and tragedy. Out of it all had come certain perfect

works--the babe in her arms, her own fortitude and fearlessness of

death; the little girl still in her eyes and heart. Bellair saw that a

man loves the child in a woman, quite as much as a woman loves the boy

in a man.... She had said that Fleury and he were brothers and heroes.

He knew better in his own case. Still she had said it, adding that the

discovery of such men to her was a part of the very bloom of life....

Bellair was not thinking the personal relation now. Fleury and she

were mated in his own thoughts. From the beginning, this was so; and

yet he did not ask more. He had come to believe from their glorious

humanity (so strange to him and unpromising in the beginning)--that the

world was crowded with latent values which, once touched and quickened

into life, would make it a paradise.

That was the substance of the whole matter. He must never forget it.

The human values which he had met in these were secret in thousands,

perhaps in millions, of hearts, and needed only breaking open by stress

and revelation--to bring the millennium to old Mother Earth, and open

her skies for the plan of joy. Bellair impressed this upon his mind

again, so he would not forget--then fell asleep.

She was first awake in the distance-clearing light. She arose

carefully, so as not to awaken the men and the child, and stared long

in every quarter. There was no ship, no land, no cloud; and yet a trace

of happiness on her thin face, as she sat down. Fleury was rousing. She

had expected that; for through their strange sympathy several times

before he had awakened with her, or soon after. She bent forward and

whispered a good-morning, and added:

“It is gone----”

“Surely?”

“Yes.”

“Thank God.”

The preacher breathed deeply, contemplated their faces one after

another. From Bellair lying in the stern, his eyes turned significantly

to the woman’s, and his own lit with zeal.... Bellair was on the

borderland then, coming up through the fathoms of dream. Already he

felt the heat; the sun had imparted its ache to his eyes. The three

were half-blinded by the long brilliance of the cloudless days on the

sea.... Bellair was trying to speak, but could not because of the parch

in his throat. Moreover, no thoughts could hold him--not even Bessie.

She came to mind, pink and ineffectual, lost in her childish things.

She had failed this way before....

There was a cup to his lips. He smelled the water, and wanted it as he

wanted decency and truth--as he wanted to be brave and fit to be one of

the three. It almost crazed him, the way he wanted it--but it would be

taking it from her. All the violence of one-pointed will was against

the cup. He pushed it away.

“Don’t, Bellair,” said Fleury. “You’ll spill it. Drink----”

“I won’t. Take it away.”

“You must drink. It is yours.”

“Yes, he must drink,” said the woman.

Bellair sat up. Fleury was holding the cup to his lips.

“It is gone from behind,” said the preacher. “Drink your water. I

have. I will speak to you after you drink.”

He stared at them, and at the open sea behind her. Then it came to him,

as if from Fleury’s mind, to obey.... Fleury then served the woman.

They ate a cracker together; at least it seemed so. Then Fleury spoke:

“We have the child to serve--that is our first thought; therefore we

must think of the child’s mother first. As for her other part, as our

companion, she will be one with us, of course. We have been here five

full days, and we have not been allowed, by the presence of him who

is gone--and may God rest and keep that--we have not been allowed to

do the best we could in this great privilege of being together and

drawing close to reality. Many have gone without food and drink for ten

days--to come close to God. There is food here and water--to keep us in

life. This is what I would say: We must change our point of view.”

He paused, and their eyes turned from one to another. The child’s face

seemed washed in the magic of morning. The preacher added:

“We must cease to regard ourselves as suffering, as creatures in want,

as starving or dying of thirst. Rather, as three souls knit, each to

the other, who have entered upon a pilgrimage together--a period of

simple austerity to cleanse and purify our bodies the better to meet

and sense reality, and to approach with a finer sensitiveness, than

we have ever known--the mystery and ministry of God.... So we are not

suffering, Bellair. We are not suffering--”

He turned to the woman.

“We are chosen ones. This is our wilderness. When we are ready--God

will speak to us. We are very far from the poor needs of the body--for

this is the time and period of our consecration. God bless you

both--and the Gleam.”

9

It was the seventh evening, the cool coming in. Bellair could not feel

his body below his lungs, unless he stopped to think. The child was

on his knee, his hands holding it. The little face was browned, but

very clear and bright. Bellair’s hands against the child’s dress were

clawlike to his own eyes, like the hands of a black man very aged. He

could move his fingers when he thought of it, but he did not know if

they moved unless he watched. The effort of steadying the child he did

not feel in his arms, but in his shoulders. It was like the ache in his

eyes. No tears would come, but all the smart of tears’ beginnings; and

the least little thing would bring it about. He had to stop between

words and wait for his throat to subside--in the simplest saying.

He saw everything clearly. The open boat was like a seat lifted a

trifle above the runways of the world. He could see them, as one in the

swarming paths beneath could never hope to see. It was all good, but

the pain and the pressure of them all!... Bessie Brealt in pain and

pressure; Davy Acton in the hard heavy air; Broadwell who was trying

to be a man at Lot & Company’s; the old boarding-house woman who had

forgotten everything but her rooms--her rooms moving with shadows whom

she never saw clearly and never hoped to understand--shadows that

flitted, her accounts never in order, her rooms never in order....

There had been people in there whom he never saw--one girlish voice

that awakened in the afternoon and sang softly, a most subdued and

impossible singing. She worked nights at a telephone switch-board--the

night-desires of the great city passing through her--and she sang

to the light of noon when it came to the cage.... Sunday afternoons

when it was fine, a bearded man emerged from a back-room, emerged

with a cane and cigarette case. Always on the front steps he lit the

cigarette....

Bellair now couldn’t smoke.... Once there had been moaning in a lower

back room, moaning night and morning from a woman. He was not sure if

it were the millinery woman, or the one who worked in Kratz’s. The

moaning stopped and as he passed through the hall, he heard a doctor

say to the landlady:

“King Alcohol.”

Just that.... He saw the millinery woman afterward, so it wasn’t

she.... The air in the old halls was of a character all its own. It

was stronger than the emanations from any of the rooms. The separate

currents lost their identity like streams in the ocean, like souls

in Brahma.... How strangely apart he had kept all that five years! A

face not seen before in the halls, and he did not know if it were a

newcomer or old. So few came to the board to dine--the chorus-woman

from the Hippodrome, who came up nightly from the water.... He saw

the view from his window--over the roofs and areas. It was a wall of

windows--dwellers in the canyon sides; boxes of food hanging out,

clothing out to freshen itself in the dingy and sluggish airs--the

coloured stockings and the faces that looked out. Everything was

monotonous but the faces--faces grim and sharp--faces of kittens and

bulls and rabbits and foxes, faces of ferrets, sleek faces, torn faces,

red and brutal, white and wasted faces; faces of food and drink, faces

of hunger and fear; the drugged look; few tears but much dry yearning,

and not a face of joy.

There was no joyousness and peace in the lower runways, but pain and

heavy pressures.... Bellair saw himself moving among those halls again,

not a stranger, but with a hand, a smile, a dollar. No one would moan

for days without his knowing. He would find day-work for the little

telephone miss, and send orders for hats to the milliner. He would

awaken that shadow of all the shadows, the landlady, with kindness and

healing. He would call across the windowed cavern.... They would say,

“Come over and help us,” and he would rush down stairs, and around

into other streets, and faces there would be ready to show him. He

saw it all clearly, such as it was, but no facts. They would not call

to him. They would not be healed. They would take a dollar, but say

he was cracked. He could move about passing forth a dollar here and

there--that was all. They would welcome him at Lot & Company’s if he

passed it out quietly enough. The dollar would go into the Sproxley

system and emerge unbroken to the firm itself, there to be had and held

and marked down in the house of Lot--Jabez, Nathan, Eben, Seth, each

a part, the jovial Mr. Rawter a small but visible part--one hundred

Sproxley-measured cents.... Davy Acton wouldn’t get one, nor Broadwell,

nor the girls upstairs. The firm would not encourage him passing beyond

the cage of Mr. Sproxley.... There were many who wanted food and drink

and hats--hats----”

He was with Bessie Brealt now ... that night and the kiss. It was

another life.... He went back to those who needed food--New York so

full of food. Then he felt the heavy wallet against his breast--one

paper in there would fill the open boat with food....

“My God,” he said.

* * * * *

He didn’t try to explain.... Sometimes he fell into a little dream as

he sat. Once he was drinking at the narrow throat of a green bottle,--a

magic bottle whose base was in the sea, and the trickle that passed

through was freshened drop by drop. But it was a trick like all else

in the world and the drops passed with agonising slowness. He came to,

sucking hard upon his brass key, his mouth ulcered from it.... There

were times in the long days that he hungered for the stars almost

as for drink; times in the night when the stars bored him like some

man-pageantry that he had seen too much of; times when the thought

of God was less than the thought of water; and times when the faith

and the glory of the spirit of the world made thirst a thing to laugh

at, and death whimsical and insignificant.... Sometimes in the night,

he fancied the woman was Bessie Brealt. It would come like a little

suspicion first hardly stirring his faculties; finally it would be

real--that the singing girl was there, all but her song. He would sit

up rubbing his eyes in rebellion. Once he had spoken to be sure.

“Yes, it is I,” she said huskily, and the voice was not Bessie

Brealt’s.

10

They did not speak of ships. Through the wakeful night hours they

watched for the lights of ships, but they did not speak of vigils.

Their eyes were straining for uncharted shores during the days,

but they did not speak of land; nor of rain, though they watched

passionately the change and movement of wind and cloud.

It is true that they suffered less in the days that followed the

passing of Stackhouse. The underworld was gone from the seat in the

stern; sunlight and sea air had cleansed it from the boat. They were

weaker, but pangs of thirst were weaker, too. Small pieces of metal

in their mouths kept the saliva trickling. The real difference was an

exaltation which even Bellair shared at times, and which had come to

them the fifth morning with Fleury’s talk, and with refining intensity

since.

The child was well; his imperative founts still flowing. She was pure

mother; it was the child that was nourished first, not her own body.

She was first in the passion for his preservation. Indeed, she would

have told them at once had any change threatened him. But she was the

soul of the fasting too; the austerity of it found deep sanction within

her; and there were moments in which she bewildered Bellair, for she

became bright with the vitality which is above the need of bread.

Fleury talked of God, as Stackhouse had talked of death. Indeed, there

was a contrasting intoxication in the days and nights of the preacher,

but one without hideous reaction.

“There comes a moment,” he said, “when I am alone--when you two are

asleep--that I feel the weakness. I drink and eat--perhaps more than my

share. But when we are all together--sitting here as now, talking and

sustaining one another--oh, it seems I was never so happy.”

Bellair suspected that this talk of lapses into abandonment while

others slept was an effort to make their minds easy on the subject of

his share. Both the Mother and Bellair doubted this; it preyed upon

them. In the main they were one solution, each separate quality of

their individualism cast into a common pool for the sustaining of a

trinity.

“It changes the whole order,” Fleury declared. “Why, whole crowds have

died of hunger--in half the number of days that holy men and women have

fasted as a mere incident of their practice toward self-mastery. This

is our consecration.”

Bellair found it true. He had ceased to marvel at himself. Deep

reconstruction was advanced within him; and a strange loyalty

and endurance prospered from the new foundations. If this were

self-hypnosis--very well; if madness--very well, too; at least, it

was good to possess, seven, eight, nine days in an open boat, on a

one-fifth ration of water and food. To Bellair, who felt himself

inferior to the others, it appeared that they already lived what he was

thrillingly thinking out. He remembered his first thoughts of them--in

the cold worldly manner of a fellow-traveller. It was almost as far as

a man’s emotion can swing, from what he thought of them now. Before

God, he believed he was right now, and wrong then. Certainly he would

test it out, if he lived to move among men again.

He thought often about the child’s voice--at the moment that the heart

of Stackhouse broke--as the point of his turning and salvation. This

furnished a clue to many things, though he did not miss the fact that

the world would smile at his credulity in accepting such a dispensation

as real. The world would say that he had been driven to far distances

of illusion by thirst and hunger; in fact, that anything which he had

seen, other than the original entity in the eyes of Stackhouse, was a

part of the illusion. Bellair considered this, and also that in every

instance of late in which he had held the world’s point of view he

had been proven wrong. He granted the world its rights to think as it

chose, but accepted the dispensation.

There had been good and evil within him. The balance had turned in

favour of the good, with that cry. It had turned from the self. The

purpose of the Enterer had been to keep him _in_ the self. It had come

from the unfathomed depths of evil--that purpose and the devil which

he saw. Bellair had heard repeatedly that some such _dweller_ appeared

to each man who makes an abrupt turn from the life of flesh to the

life of the spirit. Each of the three had seen something foreign in

the eyes of Stackhouse. It is true they had not talked of it; possibly

to each it was different in its deadliness; perhaps theirs was not the

demon _he_ saw, since Fleury and the woman were much farther on the way

than he, but they had been good enough to share responsibility for the

visitation. Indeed, the Faraway Woman could not have been acting, since

a cry came from her the instant _it_ appeared.

This he loved to study: that his thought of the child had balanced the

whole issue against the intruder; that something within him had brought

that saving grace of selflessness out of chaos. It was a squeak, he

invariably added, but it had shown him enough, opening the way. There

must be such a beginning in every man; in fact, there must come an

instant of choice; an instant in which a man consciously chooses his

path, weighing all that is past against the hope and intellectual

conception of a better life.

Bellair brooded upon this a great deal, especially on the ninth day,

and that was the day, Fleury talked--the holiest of their days in the

open boat. Bellair found many things clearer afterwards. As soon as he

understood fully, he meant to close it all, so far as his own relation

was concerned. In its very nature it must be given to others, must be

turned to helpfulness. It was a sort of star-dust which did not adhere

to self, but sought places of innocence to shine from, and used every

pure instrument for its dissemination. The key to the whole matter was

the loss of the sense of self. Having accepted this, Bellair knew that

he must go up into Nineveh, so to speak. He trembled.

“We learn by austerities apart,” Fleury said, “and then we return

to men with the story. We are called up the mountain to witness the

transfiguration, and then are sent with the picture down among men. Oh,

no, we are not permitted to remain, nor build a temple up there. First

we receive; then we must give. We must lose the sense of self in order

to receive; and having received, we do not want the sense of self.

This is the right and left hand of prayer--pure selfless receptivity,

then tireless giving to others. It is the key to the whole scheme of

life--mountain and valley, ebb and flow, night and day, winter and

summer, the movement of the lungs and the heart and the soul. We cannot

receive while our senses are hot with desire; therefore we must become

delicate and sensitive. Having received, we must make the gift alive

through action. Dreaming is splendid; the dreamer receives. The dreamer

starts all things; but the dreamer becomes a hopeless ineffectual if

he does not make his dreams come true in matter. That is it. We are

here to make matter follow the dream. That’s why the spirit puts on

flesh--that’s why we are workmen. Action is the right hand of thought.”

The preacher was ahead of him in these thoughts. So often he said just

what Bellair needed, the exact, clearing, helpful thing. For instance,

Bellair had followed his own fascinating conviction that the world

is full of secret values; that the world is ready to pull together,

only it requires a certain stimulus from without--some certain message

that would reach and unify all. Fleury tightened the matter by his

expression of it:

“The socialists are doing great good. The church is still doing good;

the societies that have turned to the East have heard the great

message; even in commerce there is a new life; everywhere in the world,

the sense of having found _some new spirit_ which works to destroy

the sense of self. If one great figure should come now--come saying,

‘You are all good. You are all after the same thing. One way is as

good as another--only come.’... What we need is for some one to touch

the chord for us--to give us the key, as to an orchestra of different

instruments. We are all making different notes; and yet are ready for

the harmony--some of us intensely eager for the harmony. The great need

is for a Unifier.... It seems that we, here in the small boat, can see

America so much clearer, than when we were there----”

Bellair had felt this a thousand times.

“The greatest story in the world is the story of the coming of a

Messiah--the one who may chord for us. I think He will come. He will

come out of the East, his face like the morning sun turned to the West.

Don’t you see--we are all like atoms of steel in a chaos? You know what

happens when a voltage of electricity is turned upon a bar of steel?

Order comes to the chaos; the atoms sing, all turned the same way. That

Voice must come--that tremendous voltage of spiritual electricity--that

will set us all in harmony--all with our tails down stream.”

And Fleury finished it all by pointing out what had happened to them

in the small boat. They had lost separateness; they were each for the

others.

“That’s what must happen in America, in the world,--the pull of

each for the whole--the harmony. You have seen an audience in the

midst of great message or great music--they weep together. They cry

out together. They are all one. That’s the story. That is what must

happen. It will happen when the Unifier comes. It is the base of

all gospel--that we are all one in spirit. Don’t you see it--every

message from the beginning of time has told it? All one--all one--our

separateness is our suffering, our evil. To return to the House of Our

Father--that is the end of estrangement.”

... And Fleury was the one who had ceased to talk. But he had acted,

too.... They saw that he was held by some power of his giving to them.

He was like light. He had given the whole material force of his body to

hold off that destruction which had come with the dying of Stackhouse.

He had not eaten, even as they had eaten. They feared for him, because

he was the centre and mainspring of their pilgrimage. Especially this

haunt became more grippable in the heart of the ninth night.... There

was a small tin of water left, less than three pints, very far from

clean; and somewhat less than a pound of crackers. Bellair awoke to

find Fleury gone from his place between him and the woman. He was in

the stern, in the old seat of Stackhouse, praying. ... Fleury met the

tenth day with an exaltation that awed Bellair and the woman; and there

came from it a fear to Bellair’s heart that had nothing to do with

self, nor with the Mother, nor the Gleam.

They were all weak, and two men utterly weak. Through their will and

denial, and the extraordinary force and health of her own nature, the

child had not yet been dangerously denied. It had become a sort of

natural religion with the three--a readiness to die for the Gleam.

“This is our last day,” said Fleury, before the western horizon was

marked clear.... The Faraway Woman told them another story of what the

wise old shepherd dog told the puppies--that it was better to begin on

crackers and water--and end on cookies and cream....

11

Bellair believed about this being the last day. The authority was quite

enough, but there was still something akin to eternity in the possible

space of another daylight and distance. The announcement did not bring

him an unmixed gladness, for the mysterious fear of the night haunted

him--the thing that had come to him under the full and amazing moon

while Fleury prayed.... Day revealed no sign. They sat speechless and

bowed under the smiting noon--the little boat in the wide, green deep

under a fleckless, windless sky, proud of its pure part in infinite

space.

That was the day the child moaned, as significantly for the ears of

men, as for the mother. He was a waif to look at--the little heart at

times like one of them in stoicism--then nestling to the mother-breast

and the turning away in astonishment and pain. The Mother’s eyes were

harrowing.

“This is our last day,” Fleury repeated.

“I believe you,” she said.

“Then drink and eat----”

“I did--it is--it is--oh, I did!”

“Land or rain or a ship, I do not know--but this is the last day----”

Bellair regarded him, between his own wordless vapourings of

consciousness. The preacher was like a guest, not of earth

altogether--like one who would come in the evening.... Yes, that was

it. He was like the old man who came to Olga, only young and beautiful.

It did not occur to Bellair now that he was regarding his friend with

a quality of vision that a well-fed man never knows.... That which he

had fancied placid and boyish was knit and masterful. The cheeks and

temples were hollowed, but the eyes were bright. There is a brightness

of hunger, of fever, of certain drugs, but these were as different as

separate colours--and had not to do with this man’s eyes. Nothing that

Bellair knew but starlight could be likened--and not all starlight.

There was one star that rose late and climbed high above and a little

toward the north--solitary, remote, not yellow nor red nor green nor

white, as we know it--yet of that whiteness which is the source of all.

Bellair had forgotten the name, but Fleury’s eyes made him think of it.

... The woman’s head was lying back. Something that Bellair had noted

a hundred times, without bringing it actually into his mind’s front,

now appeared with all the energy of a realisation. Her throat was

almost too beautiful. The diverging lines under the ear, one stretching

down to the shoulder, the other curving forward around the chin, were

shadowed a little deeper from her body’s wasting, but the beauty was

deeper than flesh, the structure itself classic. It was the same as

when he had noted her finger-nails. Beauty had brought him a kind of

excitement, and something of hostility--as if he had been hurt terribly

by it long ago. But this was different; these details had come one

by one, as he was ready. Her integrity had entered his heart before

each outer symbol. He had not seen her at all at first; recalled the

queer sense of hesitation in raising his eyes across the table in the

cabin of the _Jade_. He had studied her face in the open boat, but

something seemed to blur his eyes when she turned to him to speak. Two

are required for a real understanding. As yet they had not really met,

not yet turned to each other in that searching silence which fathoms.

But the details were dawning upon him. Perhaps that was the way of the

Faraway Woman--to dawn upon one.

* * * * *

The day was ending--their shadows long upon the water. Fleury raised

his hand as he said:

“It is surer to me than anything in the world----”

“What, Fleury?” Bellair asked, though there was but one theme of the

day.

“That this is our last day in the open boat.”

Bellair did not answer. His own voice had a hideous sound to him and

betrayed his misery.

“It was the _too-great light_--that I saw,” the preacher added huskily.

“It began last night as I prayed. I saw that this was the last day for

us--but more----”

“I saw something about you as you prayed,” the woman said.

Fleury surprised them now, taking a sup of water. They saw that he had

something to say about God and the soul of man--that was the romance he

worshipped. They listened with awe. In Bellair’s heart, at least, there

was a conviction that tightened continually--that they were not long to

hear the words of the preacher.

“... For two years I have been in the dark and could not pray. Before

that I prayed with the thought of self, which is not prayer. I could

not stay as a church leader without praying. I said I would pray when

I could pray purely for them. I told them, too, that I could not look

back in service and adoration to the Saviour of another people who

lived two thousand years ago. They called me a devil and a blasphemer.

For two years, I have tried to serve instead of to pray, but no one

would listen, no one would have me. They said I was insane, and at

times I believed it. At last, it came to me that I must go away--to

the farthest part of the world----”

He turned yearningly to the woman.

“And then you came with your strength and faith.”

Now to Bellair:

“And you came with the world in your thoughts, and I made the third.

We went down into the wilderness together--with that other of the

underworld. _It was a cosmos._ It has shown me all I can bear. Last

night, it came to me that I _could_ pray for you. It came simply,

because I loved you enough----”

His face moved from one to the other, his hand fumbling the dress of

the child beside him.

“It was very clear. As soon as I loved you enough, I could pray for

you, without thought of self. It was the loss of the self that made it

all so wonderful. And as I prayed, the light came, and the Saviour I

had lost, was in the light. And the light was Ahead; and this message

from Him, came to my soul:

“_I am here for those who look ahead; and for those who turn back

two thousand years, I am there. Those who love one another find me

swiftly._”

Bellair scarcely heard him. Fleury’s eyes were light itself. The man’s

inner flame had broken through. Something incandescent was within him;

something within touched by the “glittering plane.” But it did not

mean future years together. Bellair had wanted that.... Fleury smiled

now, his eyes lost in the East. He lifted his hand.

“It always comes from the East,” he said strangely.

Bellair had searched that horizon a few moments ago. He knew exactly

how the East had looked--a thin luminous grey line on the green,

brightening to Prussian blue, then to vivid azure. He dared not look

now, but watched the woman.

Straining and terror were in her eyes--then sudden light, a miracle of

light and hope, then her cry.

Bellair seemed to see it in her mind--the smudge upon the

horizon--before he turned. It was there--a blur on the thin grey line.

To lift the oars was like raising logs of oak, but he shipped the pair

at last, listening for the words of the others and watching their

faces. It seemed simpler than straining his eyes to the East. Fleury

tried to raise the overcoat from the bottom of the boat, but it fell

from his hands, and he sank back smiling:

“It doesn’t matter,” he said. “They’re coming. They’ll see us soon.”

To Bellair it was like seeing a ghost, that smile of Fleury’s. It meant

something that in the future would be quite as important to him as the

ship’s bearing down to lift them up. He pulled toward the east--felt

the old fainting come, pulled against that,--to the east, until a

low, thundering vibration was all about him, like the tramp of death.

Perhaps it was that--the thought flickered up into form out of the deep

blur.... He was drinking water again. This time he did not fight.

“You may as well have yours, Bellair, man,” Fleury was saying, “and you

need not row. They’re coming. It’s a ship coming fast. There is light

for them to see us well--if they do not already----”

“But you haven’t drunk!”

“Bless you, I’ll drink now.”

The woman handed him the water. The cup was in his hand. He covered

merely the bottom of the cup, and made much of it as if it were a full

quart.

“The fact is--I’m not thirsty,” he said pitifully, when he saw their

faces.

“You’re all in,” Bellair said in an awed tone.

* * * * *

Through the prolonged ending of that day Bellair watched the steamer

near, but his thoughts were not held to the beauty of her form, nor

the pricking out at last of her lights. He stood against the bare pole

in the dusk, and waved and called--his voice little and whimsical. It

seemed to falter and cling within their little radius, then run back

to his ears--a fledgeling effort. But the deep baying of the steamer

answered at last. Even that could not hold Bellair’s thoughts.... She

was coming straight toward them now. If it were death and illusion, so

be it; at least that is what he saw.

“It would be all right--except for him,” Bellair said to the woman.

“I tell you all is well,” said Fleury. “Only I ask----”

“Yes,” they said, when he paused.

“Don’t let them separate us--when we are on board the ship to-night.

I want to be with you both to-night--we three who have seen so much

together--and the little man.”

... They heard her bells and the slackening of the engines. She was

coming in softly like an angel, bringing the different life, a return

to earth it was. The woman was weeping. Bellair could not have spoken

without tears....

Just now through the evening purple, he saw _that_ star in the east,

off the point of the steamer’s prow.

“Fleury,” he said, “tell me--what is that one--that pure one--I have

forgotten?”

The preacher’s eyes followed his finger.

“That is Spika--Spika of the Virgin,” he said.

12

The engine had stopped. She neared in the deep dusk, a harp of lights,

and with the steady sound of a waterfall.... She was just moving.

There was a hail from the heights.

“Hai!” answered Bellair. It was a poor, broken sound.

Now they felt the strange, different heat of the

steamer--earth-heat--and a thousand odours registered on their clean

senses--milk and meat, coal-smoke, and the steam of hot ashes,

perfumes, metal and paint.... A hoarse voice called down:

“Are any of you sick--infectious?”

“No--just hunger and thirst--clean as a new berth.”

It was Bellair again.

“Stay off well. We’re putting down a ladder. Watch the green light.”

They saw it come down to them--to the very water. Then they were

uplifted. This was the world coming back--but a changed world. A great

kindness had come over all men. Bellair saw the tears in the eyes of

the people gathered on the deck. He almost expected to see Bessie

Brealt there.... Perhaps the change had come from her singing.... There

was a choke in the voices of the people gathered around them.

“Please,” he managed to say, “don’t keep us apart to-night--we three.

Please let us be together.”

And down the deck-passage he heard the voices of women, and among

them, the Faraway Woman’s voice, in answer:

“Yes, I will go with you thankfully--but not for long. My companions

and I must be together very soon. We three--to-night--it is promised

between us.”

There was no voice from Fleury.

The kindness of every one, that was like a poignant distress to

Bellair. He dared not speak; in fact, there was danger of him breaking

down even without words. The eyes about him were searching, in their

eagerness to help. An Englishman came forward at intervals and gripped

his hand; a German spoke to others of the remarkable condition of

the boat and its three, after ten days; another German moved in and

out helping, without any words, though his eyes lifted Bellair over

several pinches of emotion. The American ship-doctor was the best

of all; young, gruff, humorous, quick-handed, doing and saying the

right thing.... They brought him stimulants and sups of water by the

teaspoon. The merest aroma of thin broth in the bottom of a tea-cup

was lifted to his lips. He was helped to a hot bath; a splendid quiet

friendliness about it all. Now it occurred to Bellair that they were

tremendously eager to hear his story. He wanted to satisfy them....

“It was the fifth day--that Stackhouse died,” he was saying, though he

was mistaken. “Perhaps you’ve heard of him ... owns a lot of ships and

islands down here.... That was the climax for us. He died hard and he

was a big man--but we did not murder him.... His body did not sink....”

There was a boom of running water in the bathroom; the steam rising.

Bellair’s voice was ineffectual. The face of the ship-surgeon bent to

him in the steam, saying:

“Cut it--there’s plenty of time.... Leave it all to us.... I say, lean

back. You’ve got a bath coming. Guess you’ve never been on a sick-list

before. We can wait for the story.”

Bellair did try to lean back. One by one, the sheathes of will power

that he had integrated in the past ten days relaxed. It was strange to

feel them go. They had come hard, and they were correspondingly slow

to ease in their grip. He had to be told again and again--to be helped

to rest. It was good to think that a man does not lose such hard-won

strength more easily than it comes--that one, in fact, has to use the

same force to relax with. It was all delightful, this friendliness, the

ease of his body, and the giving--the giving into human arms of great

kindliness, and the sense of the others being cared for similarly. They

had fixed a berth for him, when he said:

“You know we are to be together to-night. It was a compact between

us----”

The surgeon was out and in. It occurred to Bellair that he was

attending the other two.... He repeated his wish to the surgeon about

joining the others as soon as possible.

“They’re all alike,” the latter said. “They’re all thinking about

getting together again.... Good God, man, you’ve had ten days of steady

company. You ought to sleep----”

“It is a compact between us.... Is he--is he?”

It came to Bellair that this man might be able to tell him the truth,

but the surgeon was now at the door speaking to one of the Germans. He

vanished without turning....

* * * * *

They were together later in one of the empty cabins of the German

liner, _Fomalhaut_, bound for Auckland; and only the American doctor

came and went. The child was asleep in the berth beside Fleury. The two

others sat near.

The extraordinary moonlight of the night before, when Bellair had

awakened to find the preacher at prayer, had left the spirit of its

radiance upon Fleury’s face. It was there now--and such a different

face from which his eyes, falsified by New York, had seen at first.

This was the real Fleury--this lean, dark, white-toothed gamester,

features touched by some immortal glow from that orient moon; whose

smile and the quality of every word and gesture, had for him a gleam

of inspiration and the nobility of tenderness. The man had risen in

Fleury--that was the secret. And this that had risen in Fleury could

not die.

But the flesh was dying. Bellair had known it in the dusk while the

steamer neared. He knew that the woman understood--from her face which

leaned toward the berth continually, from the suffering in her eyes

and the dilation of sensitive nostrils.... For ten days, as much as he

could, Fleury had betrayed himself. Custodian of the food and water,

he had served them well. And that day of the Stackhouse passing--if it

were not all a hideous dream, as Bellair fancied at times--he had not

given a balance of strength that had not returned, to fight off the

will of the Intruder.

The flesh was dying, but this that had risen in Fleury could not die.

Their other companion had gone down, clothed in hair and filth and the

desire of a beast, taking the remnant of the man with it.

Thus it had come to Bellair--the vivid contrast of cavern and high

noon. It was all in the two deaths, the enactment of the second, as yet

unfinished.... New York and all life moved with countless tricks and

lures to make a man lose his way, lose his chance to rise and die with

grace like this. New York was like one vast Lot & Company.

Fleury’s head was upon the knees of the woman. Bellair had not seen

her take him. For this last hour, the three were as one. There was a

cry from Bellair that the woman heard all her days:

“Oh, Fleury, do you have to go?”

So far as time measures, the silence was long before Fleury answered,

and then only to say:

“Take my hand, Bellair.”

He came up from a deep dream to obey. It had been as if he were out

under the stars again,--Fleury talking from the shadows near the

woman--the rest, vastness and starlight.

“It’s the _too-great_ light, Bellair. It came when I could stand it.

As soon as I could love you enough I could pray. It is the loss of the

sense of self that made it wonderful. The Light and His voice came from

ahead.

“‘_I am here for those who look ahead, and for those who turn back

two thousand years, I am there. Those who love one another find me

swiftly._’... This is dying of happiness.”

In the silence, the low lights of the cabin came back for their eyes.

They heard him say at the last:

“... I love you both and respect and thank you both. We found our

happiness in the open boat.... And Bellair, when you go back to New

York, do not stay too long. It is right for you to go, but do not stay

too long.... And dear Bellair--always follow the Gleam.”

The Doctor came. It was his step in the passage that roused them. He

bent to the face, then searched the eyes of the woman. She could not

find his.... Bellair was puzzled. The head was in her lap, yet the

preacher seemed behind them, and still with something to say. They were

not sure at first that it was the Doctor who asked:

“Why did you not call me?”

He repeated the question.

“He told us--you would come afterward,” Bellair said in a dazed way.

“Yes, he wanted it so,” said the woman.

The Doctor stared at them. “Are you two going to pull off anything

further to-night, or are you going to get the rest you need, and attend

to the nourishment you need?”

“We’re under orders now, Doctor,” said Bellair....

“If I should want him in the night--if I should be frightened, you

would let him come?”

It was the Faraway Woman who asked this of the Doctor, her hand

touching Bellair’s sleeve.

“Why, of course,” the Doctor answered quickly.

“We’ve been together in strange things,” Bellair explained. “And now

you see, our friend is gone.”

* * * * *

The door was open between their cabins, but Bellair was not called.

Once he heard the child cry, but it was quickly hushed.... He

thought it must be near morning at last, and went on deck. He was not

suffering, except from lassitude, deep languor and numbing strangeness

that Fleury was not near him--that the woman was not sitting in her

place forward.... It was just after midnight, the moon still high,

the weather the same. ... He was not seen. Three men were seated

smoking in the lee of one of the engine-room funnels, the light from

the dining-saloon on their knees. The Doctor joined them, and said

presently:

“... It’s a bit deep for me. They’ve been in an open boat ten days. Old

Stackhouse, well-known down here, died of thirst the fourth or fifth

day, but these two and the infant have lived through it. The preacher

looked all right, but seems to have suffered a fatal case of happiness

since we lifted him aboard. The two knew it was coming apparently, and

arranged for me to be absent.... It appears that they made a sort of

pilgrimage to Mecca out of thirst and starvation, and got away with

it----”

Bellair withdrew softly.

In the long next forenoon when he could not rise, he wished he had gone

into that open door, when he was on his feet last night. Sometimes

half-dreamily he wished he were back in the open boat, because she

was always there. Something had taken establishment in his character

from that ten days. She had never failed--in light or dark, in the

twilights of dawn and evening, in moon and star and sunlight--always

there; disclosing leisurely some new aspect of beauty for him. He

understood now that one does not begin to see clearly any object until

one is attracted to it--that all the cursory _looking at things_ around

the world will not bring them home to the full comprehension.

... He could call to her, but it was like telephoning. He had never

liked that, and beside he was not the master of his voice. It would

not go straight, but lingered in corners, broke pitifully--so that he

knew it frightened her--and the meanings in his mind which he could not

speak, pressed the tears out of his eyes.... Then there was pain. His

body astonished him. He had merely been weak and undone last night, but

to-day.... And he knew that she was suffering, not from any sound from

her cabin, but because she did not come. Then _they_ had to feed the

child. This filled him with a rebellion so sharp that it recalled him

to full faculties for a second. He had to smile at his absurdity.

The second day it was the same, but the third Bellair arose; and when

she heard his step, her call came. It was still early morning. He found

the child before he looked into her face.

“I am ashamed to be so weak,” she said. “But to-day--a little later--he

said I could rise. We are to be on deck for a half-hour after dinner,

he told me.”

“The little Gleam----” said Bellair....

She was whiter, more emaciated than when they sighted the

_Fomalhaut_. There had been a crisis that they had not expected in

the relinquishment of their will-powers.... Yet he saw how perfectly

her face was fashioned.... Her hand came up to him, warm from the

child, the sleeve falling back to her shoulder--held toward him, palm

upward. As he took it, all strangeness and embarrassment left him, and

he was something that he had not been for five years, something from

the Unknowable. But that was not all. He looked into her eyes and met

something untellably familiar there.

A most memorable moment to Bellair.

* * * * *

They were on deck together in the afternoon, the American doctor

helping them. They heard sacred music--as he walked between them aft.

They reached the rail of the promenade overlooking the main-deck.... A

service was being intoned in German. Passengers and crew were below,

and in the midst--leaded and sewn in canvas, in the cover of a flag----

The sound that came from the woman was not to be interpreted. She

turned and left them. Bellair would have followed but he felt a

courtesy due the Doctor, who had arranged for them not to miss the

ceremony. Perhaps he had held the ceremony until they could leave the

cabin. Yet Bellair had already turned away.

“Good God----” said the American. “You people have got me stopped. I

thought this was a trinity outfit--that we picked up.”

Bellair took his hand. “It was--but our friend left us.”

The Doctor glanced at him curiously, and pointed down to the body

already upon the rail. “I suppose _that_ has nothing to do with him?”

he remarked.

“Not now--not to watch,” said Bellair.

“I’ll understand you sometime,” the other added. “Go to her. You’ll

probably find her waiting for you forward.”

* * * * *

Bellair lay in his berth that night, the open door between, and he

thought of that first real look that had passed between them. “I’m not

just right yet from the open boat,” he reflected. “I’m all let down

from starvation, a bit wild with dreams and visions, but I saw old joys

there and old tragedies, and mountains and deserts and--most of all,

partings. I wonder what I’ve got to do with them all? It seemed to me

that I belonged to some of those partings--as if I had hungered with

her before and belonged to her now--and yet----”

Fleury came into his thoughts. “They were certainly great together. It

seemed to me that I did not belong when they were together; and yet,

this morning as I looked down at her--well, something of expectancy was

there----”

Bellair found himself lying almost rigid in the intensity of his hope.

Then his thoughts whirled back to New York--all unfinished. There was

something in his heart for Bessie--and something in the wallet for

Bessie. That was in the original conception, and he must not fail in

that; and then he must clean that name, Bellair, from the black mark

Lot & Company had traced across it. For a moment he fell to wondering

just how he would go about that. Lot & Company was tight and hard to

move.... A moment later he was somewhere in an evil and crowded part of

New York, in the dark, Davy Acton holding him fast by the hand.

“... something of expectancy.”... Was it in her eyes, or in her lips?

Her whole face came to him now, a picture as clear as life. He had

dwelt upon her eyes before--and that billowy softness of her breast, as

she lay--he had not thought of that. It was like something one says to

another of such moment, that only the meaning goes home--the words not

remembered until afterward. And her mouth--it was like a girl’s, like a

mother’s too, so tender and _expectant_. ... That word thrilled him. It

was the key to it all.

He was farther and farther from sleep--listening at last with such

intensity that it seemed she must call.