"Why not the dark?" said she. "Dark is softer than
light--tenderer--dearer than light. From the dark up here, away up here
in the wind and storm, we can watch the ships go by, you and I. And you
love me so. You've loved me so long, Ray."
"I never have!" I struck out at her. "I don't! I don't!"
Her voice was lower than ever, but there was the same laughing pity in
it. "Oh yes, you have." And she was near me again.
"I have?" I yelled. "I'll show you! I'll show you if I have!"
I got another match, sir, and scratched it on the brass. I gave it to
the first wick, the little wick that's inside all the others. It bloomed
like a yellow flower. "I _have_?" I yelled, and gave it to the next.
Then there was a shadow, and I saw she was leaning beside me, her two
elbows on the brass, her two arms stretched out above the wicks, her
bare forearms and wrists and hands. I gave a gasp:
"Take care! You'll burn them! For God's sake----"
She didn't move or speak. The match burned my fingers and went out, and
all I could do was stare at those arms of hers, helpless. I'd never
noticed her arms before. They were rounded and graceful and covered with
a soft down, like a breath of gold. Then I heard her speaking close to
my ear.
"Pretty arms," she said. "Pretty arms!"
I turned. Her eyes were fixed on mine. They seemed heavy, as if with
sleep, and yet between their lids they were two wells, deep and deep,
and as if they held all the things I'd ever thought or dreamed in them.
I looked away from them, at her lips. Her lips were red as poppies,
heavy with redness. They moved, and I heard them speaking:
"Poor boy, you love me so, and you want to kiss me--don't you?"
"No," said I. But I couldn't turn around. I looked at her hair. I'd
always thought it was stringy hair. Some hair curls naturally with damp,
they say, and perhaps that was it, for there were pearls of wet on it,
and it was thick and shimmering around her face, making soft shadows by
the temples. There was green in it, queer strands of green like braids.
"What is it?" said I.
"Nothing but weed," said she, with that slow, sleepy smile.
Somehow or other I felt calmer than I had any time. "Look here," said I.
"I'm going to light this lamp." I took out a match, scratched it, and
touched the third wick. The flame ran around, bigger than the other two
together. But still her arms hung there. I bit my lip. "By God, I will!"
said I to myself, and I lit the fourth.
It was fierce, sir, fierce! And yet those arms never trembled. I had to
look around at her. Her eyes were still looking into mine, so deep and
deep, and her red lips were still smiling with that queer, sleepy droop;
the only thing was that tears were raining down her cheeks--big, glowing
round, jewel tears. It wasn't human, sir. It was like a dream.
"Pretty arms," she sighed, and then, as if those words had broken
something in her heart, there came a great sob bursting from her lips.
To hear it drove me mad. I reached to drag her away, but she was too
quick, sir; she cringed from me and slipped out from between my hands.
It was like she faded away, sir, and went down in a bundle, nursing her
poor arms and mourning over them with those terrible, broken sobs.
The sound of them took the manhood out of me--you'd have been the same,
sir. I knelt down beside her on the floor and covered my face.
"Please!" I moaned. "Please! Please!" That's all I could say. I wanted
her to forgive me. I reached out a hand, blind, for forgiveness, and I
couldn't find her anywhere. I had hurt her so, and she was afraid of
me, of _me_, sir, who loved her so deep it drove me crazy.
I could see her down the stair, though it was dim and my eyes were
filled with tears. I stumbled after her, crying, "Please! Please!" The
little wicks I'd lit were blowing in the wind from the door and smoking
the glass beside them black. One went out. I pleaded with them, the same
as I would plead with a human being. I said I'd be back in a second. I
promised. And I went on down the stair, crying like a baby because I'd
hurt her, and she was afraid of me--of _me_, sir.
She had gone into her room. The door was closed against me and I could
hear her sobbing beyond it, broken-hearted. My heart was broken too. I
beat on the door with my palms. I begged her to forgive me. I told her I
loved her. And all the answer was that sobbing in the dark.
And then I lifted the latch and went in, groping, pleading.
"Dearest--please! Because I love you!"
I heard her speak down near the floor. There wasn't any anger in her
voice; nothing but sadness and despair.
"No," said she. "You don't love me, Ray. You never have."
"I do! I have!"
"No, no," said she, as if she was tired out.
"Where are you?" I was groping for her. I thought, and lit a match. She
had got to the door and was standing there as if ready to fly. I went
toward her, and she made me stop. She took my breath away. "I hurt your
arms," said I, in a dream.
"No," said she, hardly moving her lips. She held them out to the match's
light for me to look and there was never a scar on them--not even that
soft, golden down was singed, sir. "You can't hurt my body," said she,
sad as anything. "Only my heart, Ray; my poor heart."
I tell you again, she took my breath away. I lit another match. "How can
you be so beautiful?" I wondered.
She answered in riddles--but oh, the sadness of her, sir.
"Because," said she, "I've always so wanted to be."
"How come your eyes so heavy?" said I.
"Because I've seen so many things I never dreamed of," said she.
"How come your hair so thick?"
"It's the seaweed makes it thick," said she smiling queer, queer.
"How come seaweed there?"
"Out of the bottom of the sea."
She talked in riddles, but it was like poetry to hear her, or a song.
"How come your lips so red?" said I.
"Because they've wanted so long to be kissed."
Fire was on me, sir. I reached out to catch her, but she was gone, out
of the door and down the stair. I followed, stumbling. I must have
tripped on the turn, for I remember going through the air and fetching
up with a crash, and I didn't know anything for a spell--how long I
can't say. When I came to, she was there, somewhere, bending over me,
crooning, "My love--my love--" under her breath like, a song.
But then when I got up, she was not where my arms went; she was down the
stair again, just ahead of me. I followed her. I was tottering and dizzy
and full of pain. I tried to catch up with her in the dark of the
store-room, but she was too quick for me, sir, always a little too quick
for me. Oh, she was cruel to me, sir. I kept bumping against things,
hurting myself still worse, and it was cold and wet and a horrible noise
all the while, sir; and then, sir, I found the door was open, and a sea
had parted the hinges.
I don't know how it all went, sir. I'd tell you if I could, but it's all
so blurred--sometimes it seems more like a dream. I couldn't find her
any more; I couldn't hear her; I went all over, everywhere. Once, I
remember, I found myself hanging out of that door between the davits,
looking down into those big black seas and crying like a baby. It's all
riddles and blur. I can't seem to tell you much, sir. It was all--all--I
don't know.
I was talking to somebody else--not her. It was the Inspector. I hardly
knew it was the Inspector. His face was as gray as a blanket, and his
eyes were bloodshot, and his lips were twisted. His left wrist hung
down, awkward. It was broken coming aboard the Light in that sea. Yes,
we were in the living-room. Yes, sir, it was daylight--gray daylight. I
tell you, sir, the man looked crazy to me. He was waving his good arm
toward the weather windows, and what he was saying, over and over, was
this:
"_Look what you done, damn you! Look what you done_!"
And what I was saying was this:
"_I've lost her_!"
I didn't pay any attention to him, nor him to me. By and by he did,
though. He stopped his talking all of a sudden, and his eyes looked like
the devil's eyes. He put them up close to mine. He grabbed my arm with
his good hand, and I cried, I was so weak.
"Johnson," said he, "is that it? By the living God--if you got a woman
out here, Johnson!"
"No," said I. "I've lost her."
"What do you mean--lost her?"
"It was dark," said I--and it's funny how my head was clearing up--"and
the door was open--the store-room door--and I was after her--and I guess
she stumbled, maybe--and I lost her."
"Johnson," said he, "what do you mean? You sound crazy--downright crazy.
Who?"
"Her," said I. "Fedderson's wife."
"_Who?_"
"Her," said I. And with that he gave my arm another jerk.
"Listen," said he, like a tiger. "Don't try that on me. It won't do any
good--that kind of lies--not where _you're_ going to. Fedderson and his
wife, too--the both of 'em's drowned deader 'n a door-nail."
"I know," said I, nodding my head. I was so calm it made him wild.
"You're crazy! Crazy as a loon, Johnson!" And he was chewing his lip
red. "I know, because it was me that found the old man laying on Back
Water Flats yesterday morning--_me!_ And she'd been with him in the
boat, too, because he had a piece of her jacket tore off, tangled in his
arm."
"I know," said I, nodding again, like that.
"You know _what_, you _crazy, murdering fool_?" Those were his words to
me, sir.
"I know," said I, "what I know."
"And _I_ know," said he, "what _I_ know."
And there you are, sir. He's Inspector. I'm--nobody.