Far away, that same moon was watching another scene--a ship on the
Southern sea throbbing its way to New York.
It was a steamer just out of Rio, its drawing rooms and upper decks
filled with tourists doubly happy because they were going home.
On the steerage deck below, in the apron of a kitchen worker, a man was
standing with his elbows on the rail--an uncertain figure in the
moonlight. Once when he turned to look at the deck above, a lamp shone
upon him. If you had been there you would have seen that while a beard
covered much of his face, his cheeks were wasted and his eyes looked as
though he needed rest.
He turned his glance out over the sea again, looking now to the north
star and now to the roadway of ripples that led to the moon.
"I wonder if Rosa's asleep," he thought. "Eleven o'clock. She ought to
be. It's a good school. She's lucky. So was I, that the old gentleman
didn't get my letter...."
On the deck above, a violin and harp were accompanying a piano.
"That's where I ought to be--up there," he thought, "not peeling potatoes
and scouring pans down here. All I have to do is to go up and announce
myself...." He smiled--a grim affair. "Yes, all I have to do is to go up
and announce myself.... They'd take care of me, all right!"
He lifted his hand and thoughtfully rubbed his beard.
"As long as I stick to Russian, I'm safe. Nicholas Rapieff--nobody has
suspected me now for fifteen years. Paul Spencer's dead--dead long ago.
But, somehow or other, I have taken it into my head that I would like to
see the place where he was born...."
His glance were on the ripples that led to the moon.
"I wonder if the orchard is still back of the house," he thought, "and
the winesap tree I fell out of. I wonder if old Hutch is dead yet. I
remember he carried me in the house, and the very next week I knocked the
clock down on him.... I wonder if that swimming hole is still there where
the river turns below the dam. That was the best of all.... I remember
how I liked to lie there--an innocent kid--and dream what I was going to
do when I was a man.... Lord in Heaven, what wouldn't I give to dream
those dreams again...."
On the upper deck the dance had come to an end.
"Time to turn in," thought Paul.
He crossed to the steerage door and a moment later the moon was shining
on an empty deck.