The only inmate of the cottage who slept soundly was the vagabond in
the wood-shed. His guardians stood watch and watch as a matter of
habit, but the early morning found them both astir and drinking mugs
of coffee very hot and strong. Their guest had not moved from his
outstretched position on the mattress. He slumbered like a man drugged
or utterly exhausted. O’Shea had spread a blanket over his naked back
and shoulders partly for warmth, but another motive also prompted him.
He wished to hide the cruel disfigurement. It seemed unfeeling to
expose it.
Now by daylight he moved on tiptoe to the mattress and twitched the
blanket aside. O’Shea had lived among hard men and fought his way
through battering circumstances in which physical brutality still
survived to uphold the rude old traditions of the sea. But this sight
made him wince and shiver, and he did not like to look at it. Covering
it with the blanket he fell to wondering, with an intensity of interest
that gripped him more and more strongly, what tragedy was concealed
behind the curtain of this luckless man’s past.
Johnny Kent had agreed that he must be harbored in the cottage for
the present. Their surmise that he was a seafarer made it seem a duty
to befriend him by all means in their power. To spread the tidings in
the village that the pyromaniac had been caught would arouse a storm
of anger and resentment. Amid much clamor and disorder he would be
handcuffed and tied with ropes and triumphantly lugged to the county
jail. The farmers were in no mood to condone his misdeeds on the score
of mental irresponsibility. On the other hand, kindly treatment and
association with those accustomed to follow the sea might awaken his
dormant intelligence and prompt him to reveal something of his shrouded
history.
“It’s an awkward proposition,” sighed Johnny Kent, “but we’ll have to
work it out somehow. Of course I’m sorry for the poor lunatic that
has been man-handled so abominably, and so long as we don’t give him
matches to play with I guess he’s safe to have around. But how can I
keep him hid from my neighbors? They’re as gossipy and curious as a
hogshead of cats.”
“I mean to find out who branded him and why,” was the vehement
assertion of Captain O’Shea.
Shortly after this the stalwart waif in the wood-shed awakened and
his captors were pleased to note that he was still tractable. Indeed,
he greeted them with his confiding, good-natured grin and sat pulling
on his shoes. To their words of greeting, however, he made no reply.
Apparently the plaintive request for a chew of tobacco had been the end
of his conversation.
“He used up all the language in his system,” commented O’Shea. “Maybe
he will not burst into speech again unless I hit him another crack over
the ear.”
Johnny Kent filled a tub with water and indicated the clean clothes
which he had left on the chair. The derelict nodded gratefully and the
others withdrew.
“It wouldn’t do to trust him with a razor, Cap’n Mike,” said the
engineer.
“Pooh! Fetch me the tackle and I will shave him meself. It will make
him look saner anyhow and I want to see what he is like.”
The guest seemed delighted with this thoughtful attention and submitted
to a dose of lather with all the good grace in the world. Bathed,
shaved, clad in one of Johnny Kent’s white suits, he was astonishingly
transformed. A strapping big man he was, and he held himself with
the easy poise of one whose muscles had been trained by hard work on
rolling decks. Strolling into the kitchen, he passed through it and
entered the other rooms, his guardians following to see what he might
do.
At sight of the scrubbed floors, the polished brasswork, the barometer
on the wall, and the simple furnishings so like the cabin of a ship,
his blue eyes showed a flicker of interest and he paused and absently
shoved an inkstand back from the shelf of a desk lest it slide off.
The trick was so significant of his calling that O’Shea needed no more
proof. A tin box filled with matches caught his glance and he instantly
made for them. His demeanor was furtive and cunning. He had become a
different man in a twinkling.
Johnny Kent jumped for him and O’Shea was at his elbow ready for a
tussle. But he permitted the matches to be taken from him without
resistance, and forgot all about them in fingering the spliced hammock
ropes on the porch. A gesture from O’Shea and he returned to the
kitchen and took the chair assigned him for breakfast. The prudent
engineer kept an eye on the knife and fork which the stranger used with
the manners rather of the cabin than the forecastle. O’Shea studied
the rugged, honest features of this red-headed mystery and earnestly
expounded various theories that wandered into blind alleys and led
nowhere at all. The only conjecture which seemed to hang together was
that, in some way or another, the man’s propensity for setting fires
harked back to the time and scene of the terrible blow over the head
which had benumbed his memory and jarred his wits. Before this disaster
overtook him he must have been a fellow ready and courageous, able to
hold his own in the rough-and-tumble world.
“What shall we call him? It’ll be handy to give him some kind of a
name,” suggested Johnny Kent.
“He reminds me of Big Bill Maguire, that was mate of the _Sea Bird_
bark, and fell through a hatch and broke his neck when he came aboard
drunk at Valparaiso. He was a rare seaman when sober.”
“Let’s call him Bill Maguire, then, Cap’n Mike. He likes us and I guess
he intends to sign on with us and hang around.”
“Why don’t you try setting him to work, Johnny? He would make a jewel
of a hired man.”
“Yes. On a fire-proof farm that was insured for all the underwriters
would stand for,” dubiously returned the engineer. “I can’t watch him
every minute.”
Captain Michael O’Shea banged the table with his fist and decisively
exclaimed:
“’Tis in my mind to visit you a day or two longer, Johnny. Curiosity
is fair consuming me. I can see the ugly, wicked marks on this poor
beggar’s back whenever I shut me eyes. It haunts me like a nightmare
that is too monstrous to talk about.”
“I’d give a thousand dollars to fathom it,” roared Johnny Kent. “And
Bill Maguire just sits across the table and grins like a wooden
figger-head.”
“I suppose ye have no Chinamen in your village,” ventured O’Shea.
“Nary a Chink. I’ll bet the children never saw one.”
“And where could we find the nearest one, Johnny? ’Tis our business
to dig up a cock-eyed lad that will impart to us the meaning of the
message that was carved into the back of Bill Maguire. Nor will I know
an easy minute till we have the information.”
Johnny pondered a little and then spoke up with sudden hopefulness:
“Once in a while I’m so sagacious that I surprise myself. The Chinese
ambassador spends his summers on the coast at Poplar Cove. It’s no more
than an hour from here by train. He’s a fat, sociable old party, so
they tell me. And where could you find a better man to solve the riddle
of Bill Maguire?”
“You score a bull’s-eye,” cried O’Shea. “And he will have secretaries
and such, and we will let them all have a try at it.”
“But how will you show ’em Bill’s back? Draw it on paper, or get a
photograph made?”
“Nonsense! Bill will take his back along with us. We will produce the
original human document.”
The engineer was inclined to object to this, but the edicts of Captain
O’Shea were to be obeyed, and to argue was to waste words. The Perkins
boy was summoned from the barn and instructed, by means of thundering
intonations, to stand guard over the farm at peril of his life. He
spent his nights at his own home and had missed the excitement of the
capture of Bill Maguire, wherefore the secret was safely hid from his
inquisitive eyes and ears. He gazed at the robust, silent stranger
with rampant curiosity, but learned nothing beyond the fact that his
employer proposed to be absent for the day with his two guests.
The young Perkins drove them to the railroad station in the two-seated
democrat wagon, Johnny Kent sitting at his side and smothering his
questions. The ticklish business of conveying Bill Maguire through the
village was accomplished without the slightest mishap. He behaved with
flawless dignity and seemed contented with the society of his escort.
During the brief journey by train to Poplar Cove he slouched in his
seat as if half-asleep until the railroad swung across a wide belt of
salt marsh and turned in a northerly direction to follow the coast.
There were glimpses of rocky headlands fringed with surf, of wooded
inlets and white beaches, and now and then a patch of blue ocean and a
far-distant sky-line.
The red-haired man from nowhere was mightily moved by the smell and
sight of the sea. His heavy, listless manner vanished. His rugged face
became more intelligent, more alert. It reflected tides of emotion,
poignant and profound. It was painful to watch him as he scowled and
chewed his lip or brushed away tears that came brimming to his eyes.
It was evident that he struggled with memories and associations that
came and fled like tormenting ghosts before he could lay hold of them.
Again, for a moment, he broke the bonds of his dumbness, and loudly
uttered the words:
“Make for the boat. Don’t mind me. The swine have done for me.”
To O’Shea and Johnny Kent the words were like a flash of lightning
against the black background of night. They revealed the man for
what he had been in his prime, in the full stature of heroic
self-abnegation, thinking of others and not of himself even in the last
extremity. They understood this kind of manhood. It squared with their
own creed. Aglow with sympathy, they plied the derelict with eager
questions, but he only muttered, wearily shook his head, and turned
away to gaze at the sea.
At the Poplar Cove station they hired a carriage and were driven
along the cliff road to the pretentious summer-place occupied by
His Excellency Hao Su Ting and his silk-robed retinue. To escort a
crazy sailor into the august presence of the distinguished diplomat,
and demand a translation of the brand upon his naked back was an
extraordinary performance, taking it by and large. However, the stout
old engineer had no notion of hanging back. He had the fine quality of
courage that is not afraid of ridicule.
As for Captain O’Shea, he was in a wicked temper, and it would fare
ill with the man that laughed at him. His smouldering indignation at
the barbarity inflicted upon the seaman had been just now kindled by
the words which leaped so vividly out of the clouded past and were
winged with so much significance. “Bill Maguire” had unflinchingly
played the cards as the fates dealt them and had paid a price as bitter
as death. The game was unfinished, the account had not been settled.
At this moment O’Shea detested the entire Chinese race and would have
gladly choked the ambassador in a bight of his own pigtail.
The trio walked slowly across the wide lawn and drew near to the
rambling white house of a colonial design to which the Chinese
dignitary had transferred his exotic household. It was for O’Shea to
explain the fantastic errand and gain admittance, wherefore he prepared
to dissemble his hostile emotions and make use of that tact and suavity
which had carried him over many rough places.
Alas for his plan of campaign! It was overturned in a twinkling. The
red-haired sailor followed obediently to the pillared portico which
framed the entrance of the house. O’Shea rang the bell, and his quick
ear detected the soft shuffle of felt-soled shoes. The door was swung
open and there confronted them a Chinese servant in the dress of
his country. At sight of the shaven head, the immobile, ivory-hued
countenance, and the flowing garments of white and blue, the demented
sailor became instantly enraged.
Snarling, he leaped forward with clinched fists and his face was
black with hatred. The wary O’Shea was too quick for him and managed
to thrust him to one side so that his rush collided with the casing of
the door. The frightened servant squealed and scuttled back into the
house. Instead of trying to pursue him, the red-haired man was taken
with a violent fit of trembling, seemingly compounded of weakness and
terror. Before O’Shea and Johnny Kent could collect their wits in this
extremely awkward situation, he wheeled about, dashed between them, and
made for the lawn as if the devil were at his heels.
O’Shea was after him like a shot, the engineer puffing along in the
wake of the chase. The servant’s outcries had alarmed the household.
Out of the front-door came spilling a surprising number of sleek
attachés, secretaries, domestics, and what not. Behind them waddled at
a gait more leisurely none other than His Excellency Hao Su Ting in all
the gorgeous amplitude of his mandarin’s garb. In a chattering group
they paused to watch poor Bill Maguire flee with tremendous strides
in the direction of the roadway, the active figure of Captain O’Shea
steadily gaining on him. Far in the rear labored the mighty bulk of
Johnny Kent.
The fugitive was not in the best of trim for a sustained effort, and he
tired rapidly, swaying from side to side as he ran. Near the outermost
boundary of the ambassador’s grounds, O’Shea was able to overtake and
trip him. Maguire fell headlong, ploughing up the turf, and was so
dazed and breathless that O’Shea was kneeling upon him and shoving a
revolver in his face before he could pull himself together. Then Johnny
Kent came up, and between them they subdued the man’s struggles to
renew his flight.
He made no effort to harm either of them. His befogged mind seemed
to recognize them as his friends and protectors. The one impelling
purpose was to escape from the Chinese. These latter gentlemen now came
hurrying over the lawn to offer aid, evidently surmising that a madman
had broken away from his keepers and possibly had sought the place to
harm His Excellency. Poor Maguire groaned pitifully and renewed his
exertions to release himself, but the weight of two uncommonly strong
men pinioned him to the sod. At a word from the ambassador several of
his retinue hastened to sit upon the captive’s arms and legs. A dapper
young secretary acted as spokesman and inquired in precise, cultivated
English:
“May I trouble you to inform His Excellency why you make all this
commotion on his premises? It is an insane person, or perhaps a
burglar, that you have in your custody?”
“It is an American seafarin’ man and he is a friend of ours,” gravely
answered Captain O’Shea, still keeping a firm grip on the prostrate
Maguire. “He has behaved himself very well till now, but he is impolite
enough to dislike the Chinese.”
“He is not correct in the intellect? Then why have you brought him
here?” asked the secretary.
“To show him to His Excellency,” quoth O’Shea. “’Tis information we
seek, and the man himself is the document in the case.”
“He turned obstreperous most unexpected and sudden,” anxiously put in
Johnny Kent, “and now it’s blamed unhandy to show him to you. I’m kind
of stumped. What about it, Cap’n Mike?”
The secretary might have looked puzzled had he belonged to any other
race, but his face remained polite and inscrutable as he smoothly
protested:
“Your explanation is not clear. I advise you to remove all yourselves
from the premises of His Excellency. He has no interest in you.”
O’Shea was oblivious of the absurd tableau in which he played the
leading rôle. The red-haired sailor was still stretched upon the grass,
and his brace of stanch friends held him at anchor. He was quieter and
the tempest of passion had passed. The Chinese servants who had been
roosting on the outlying parts of his frame withdrew from the scene of
war and rejoined their comrades. As soon as they were beyond the range
of his vision, Maguire subsided and seemed as docile as of yore.
His Excellency Hao Su Ting showed his august back to the turbulent
intruders and paced slowly toward the house. Several of the party
turned to follow him, but the secretary aforesaid, together with a few
of the staff, tarried in order to be sure that the trio of invaders
left the place. Captain Michael O’Shea was not to be thwarted by the
disadvantageous situation in which he found himself. Hustling Maguire
to his feet, he tried to drive it into him with strong words and
meaning gestures that he must be obedient and no harm would come to
him. The revolver was an eloquent argument in itself.
Sensible Johnny Kent turned the sailor about so that he could see
nothing of the Chinese and was facing the cliffs and the sea. In this
position the engineer held him, while O’Shea, seizing the opportune
moment, fairly ripped the coat off the man and pulled up his shirt
to bare his back. It was dramatically done and the effect was
instantaneous. Not a word was said in explanation. None was needed. The
great Chinese character that spread between the man’s shoulder-blades
and down to his waist, showed black and scarred and livid.
The secretary and the other Orientals stood gazing at it without moving
so much as a finger. They said nothing, but one heard their breath come
quick. A kind of whistling sigh escaped the dapper secretary, and his
eyes glittered like two buttons of jet. He was striving to maintain a
composure which had been racked to the foundations. His blood was of
a finer strain than that of the underlings who stood near him, and he
held his ground while they began to edge away in retreat. Presently one
of them broke into a run. The others took to their heels in a panic
route and scampered toward the house, their baggy breeches fluttering,
queues whipping the wind, felt shoes fairly twinkling. From one of them
came back a shrill, wailing, “Ai oh.”
They raced past His Excellency Hao Su Ting, who stood aghast at the
gross disregard of etiquette and vainly commanded them to halt. Nor did
the mad pace slacken until the last of them had dived to cover. O’Shea
forgot his business and grinned with honest enjoyment, but the face of
the secretary, now haggard and parchment-like, recalled him to the task
in hand. This lone Chinese who had withstood the desire to run away was
moving nearer to examine the branded back of the red-haired sailor.
“Ye have all the marks of a man that is sick to the soul with fear,”
grimly observed O’Shea, “but you are too brave to give up to it, and I
admire ye for it. Tell me, have you ever seen a man scarred like that
before?”
The secretary spoke with a visible effort, and his voice had the
rasping edge of intense excitement.
“Yes, I have seen that character, symbol, whatever you will call it--in
my own country. It is most shocking, amazing, to behold it in this way,
inflicted upon an American.”
“Do you need to look at it any longer? Can ye remember it? Will I show
it to His Excellency?” demanded O’Shea.
“I cannot forget it,” slowly replied the other. “No, it is not
necessary to show it to the ambassador. I assure you it is not
necessary. I shall inform him that I have seen it. He will know what it
is. I wish very much that it may not be seen by his illustrious self.”
The words and manner of the secretary conveyed the weightiest
earnestness. He was in an agony of dread lest Hao Su Ting should return
and view the spectacle of the branded man. O’Shea pitied his distress
and was shrewd enough to perceive that nothing would be gained by
opposing him. Maguire was restless, and Johnny Kent had trouble in
sticking fast to him.
“Walk him along toward the railroad station,” said O’Shea to his
comrade. “He will give you no bother once he makes his offing and goes
clear of this Chinese colony. Here’s the gun, if ye need to persuade
him a bit. Wait for me there, Johnny. This young man from Cathay will
have a talk with me.”
“It looks as if you had sort of started things, Cap’n Mike. Aye, aye,
I’ll take Bill in tow and run to moorings with him till you throw up
signal rockets.”
With this reply, which betokened excellent discipline, the engineer
grasped the sailor-man by the arm, and marched him into the road.
O’Shea and the secretary were about to resume their conversation when
the latter’s attention was caught by the beckoning gesture of the
Chinese ambassador, who seemed impatient.
“His Excellency wishes to ask me why there was so much unseemly
excitement by his servants,” said the young man. “I would prefer first
to talk with you, but his command must be obeyed. Your name? Thank
you. I shall have the pleasure of acquainting Captain O’Shea with the
ambassador of China to the United States.”
“’Tis no pleasure for any one concerned, to judge by the symptoms,”
replied the shipmaster.
“I agree with you, my dear sir. But it is something to have spared His
Excellency the sight of the disfigurement which is written on the back
of your most unfortunate friend.”
“Maybe the ambassador could see it from where he stood,” suggested
O’Shea.
“No. His eyes are not of the best without spectacles. He is not a young
man and his health is inferior. To shock him by the sight of something
dreadful to see might have unhappy consequences.”
“But what is the answer? Why was every man of you bowled off his feet?”
exclaimed O’Shea. “’Tis not the way of your people to be afraid of
scars and wounds. Ye deal out some pretty tough punishments to your
criminals.”
“It is advisable that you should pay your respects to His Excellency,”
evasively returned the Chinese.
The ambassador regarded Captain O’Shea with an unfriendly stare until
the secretary, with many low bows, held rapid converse with the
personage in his own language. The elderly statesman and diplomat
grunted incredulously, shook his head in vehement contradiction, and
O’Shea conjectured that he was roundly scolding the young man for
bringing him such an impossible yarn. At length he yielded with a frown
of annoyance and briefly addressed the shipmaster.
“I speak not much English. Come into my house, please.”
He preceded them into a large library with many long windows screened
by bamboo shades. Passing through this, he entered a smaller room
more convenient for privacy. The threshold was a boundary between the
Occident and the Orient. The library looked, for the most part, as
though it belonged in a handsome summer-place of the New England coast,
but this smaller room was as foreign as the ambassador himself. The air
was heavy with the smell of sandal-wood. The massive table and chairs
were of teak and ebony cunningly carved. The walls were hung with
embroideries of crimson and gold, on which grotesque dragons writhed in
intricate convolutions. The pieces of porcelain, jade, and cloisonné
were not many, but they had been fashioned by the artists of dead
dynasties and were almost beyond price. Upon a long panel of silk was
displayed a row of Chinese characters cut from black velvet and sewn
to the fabric. They were merely the symbols of good fortune commonly
to be found in such an environment as this, a sort of equivalent of
the old-fashioned motto, “God Bless Our Home,” but to Captain Michael
O’Shea they carried an uncomfortable suggestion of the handiwork done
upon the back of Bill Maguire.
His Excellency Hao Su Ting seated himself beside the table,
deliberately put on his round spectacles with heavy tortoise-shell
rims, and tucked his hands inside his flowing sleeves. The deferential
secretary stood waiting for him to speak. O’Shea fidgeted and yearned
to break the silence. The air had turned chill with an east wind that
blew strong and damp from the sea. Nevertheless the ambassador found it
necessary to take a handkerchief from his sleeve and wipe the little
beads of perspiration from his bald brow. O’Shea made note of it, and
wondered what powerful emotion moved behind the round spectacles and
calm, benignant countenance of the diplomat.
At length he spoke to the secretary in Chinese and indicated O’Shea
with a slow wave of the hand. The young man translated with some
unreadiness as though endeavoring to bring the words within the bounds
of courtesy.
“His Excellency says that it is impossible, that you are mistaken. He
is not convinced.”
“He calls me a liar?” and O’Shea’s sense of humor was stirred. With his
easy, boyish laugh he added: “’Tis your own reputation for veracity
that needs overhaulin’, me lad. Your own two eyes have seen the thing.
I had the proof, but ye would not let me take the two-legged document
by the collar and fetch him to the house.”
The ambassador turned to the table at his elbow. Upon it was an ink box
and a soft brush used for writing his own language. From a drawer he
withdrew a sheet of rice-paper. Shoving these toward O’Shea, he said
something and the secretary explained:
“He wishes you to write what it is like, the thing that I also have
seen. Please be good enough to oblige.”
The brand was etched in O’Shea’s memory. Without hesitation he picked
up the brush and blazoned the character in broad, firm strokes. For
perhaps a minute His Excellency gazed at it. Then he caught up the
sheet of rice-paper and tore it into small fragments.
“He is now convinced that you and I speak truth,” the secretary
murmured in O’Shea’s ear.
“Well and good. He looks as if it made him unwell. Now can we get down
to business and tackle the mystery of it? It is Chinese writing. What
does it mean? That is me errand.”
His Excellency Hao Su Ting no longer resembled a round-faced Buddha
seated in reposeful meditation upon a throne of teak-wood. The
words came from him in a torrential flow, and the harsh, sing-song
intonations were terribly in earnest. It was a harangue that warned,
expostulated, lamented with all the fervor of an issue that concerned
life and death. It startled O’Shea to behold a man of his unemotional
race, and one so hedged about with the dignity of rank, in this
stormy tide of feeling. It ceased abruptly. The old man sank into his
chair and closed his eyes. The secretary rang a gong for a servant
and ordered tea. Presently the ambassador signified that he wished
to retire to a couch, and others of his staff attended him into the
library and thence to an upper floor of the house.
The secretary returned to join O’Shea and began to explain in his
measured, monotonous way:
“I will now inform you as much as it is permitted to know. It
disappoints you, I am aware, that his Excellency is unable to translate
the writing character which has made so much disturbance. Nor can
I translate it, either into Chinese or English words. My language
is what you call arbitrary, built up of symbols, not letters. This
particular character has been invented to signify some secret purpose.
It has the root-sign for _man_, and also the two curved lines which
mean a _sending_, a _message_. The rest of it is hidden from us. His
Excellency is a scholar of the highest grade among the literati of
China. This character, as a whole, he has never been able to find in
the classics or the dictionaries.”
More puzzled than ever, O’Shea broke in to demand:
“But if nobody knows what it means, why does the sight of it start a
full-sized panic?”
“Many men in China have been found dead, and upon their backs had been
hacked with a sword this strange character. It was thus that the own
brother of His Excellency was discovered, in the court-yard of his
house.”
“I begin to see daylight,” said O’Shea.
“Ah, there is only the blackest darkness,” gravely replied the
secretary. “The branded men have not been coolies, but officials,
merchants, people of station. No precautions avail. It smites them like
the lightning from the sky. The fear of it walks everywhere. And now it
has crossed the sea like an evil shadow.”
“That is not quite right,” was the matter-of-fact comment. “Poor Bill
Maguire got it in China and brought it with him. ’Tis not likely to
trouble you.”
“Never have we heard of a man who lived and walked with this mark upon
his back, Captain O’Shea. All those to whom this fate has happened were
infallibly dead. When they beheld it this afternoon, some of our people
believed they gazed upon a red-haired ghost. I am an educated man, a
graduate of Oxford University, but I tell you my blood turned to water
and my heart was squeezed tight.”
“My friend Maguire is hard to kill,” said O’Shea. “I tried it meself.
So he was put on the list by this damnable whatever-it-is, and the
autograph was carved on him, and he was left for dead! Can ye tell me
any more?”
“It is not in my power to enlighten you. I have known of men who found
this character painted on the posts of their gate-ways. They surrounded
themselves with soldiers and hired guards. They moved not from within
their own walls. And they could not save themselves. They died as I
have described it to you.”
“I have listened to pleasanter yarns. I am greatly obliged to ye,” and
O’Shea was ready to take his departure. “I am afraid I will know no
more unless Bill Maguire uncorks himself and confides the story of his
life.”
“When the time comes it will interest me greatly to be informed of it,”
said the secretary, offering his hand.
“Pass me kind regards to His Excellency and give him my regrets that I
jolted his nervous system. He is a fine old gentleman.”
The shipmaster hastened on foot to the railroad station, where Johnny
Kent was patiently and peacefully awaiting orders. The red-haired
sailor was sitting on a baggage truck and munching peanuts. At sight
of O’Shea he grinned in recognition and waved a greeting hand. The
engineer was eager for tidings, but a train was almost due and he was
briefly assured:
“’Tis a bugaboo tale, Johnny, and we will digest it at our leisure. And
how has Bill behaved himself?”
“As good as gold, Cap’n Mike. But there’s something goin’ on inside
him. His eye looks brighter and he has mumbled to himself several
times. I dunno whether he’s primin’ himself for another explosion or
kind of rememberin’ himself in spots. Anyhow, he has symptoms.”
“We will steer him home as soon as we can, Johnny. He has enjoyed an
exciting afternoon.”
The locomotive whistled and a few minutes later they filed into the
smoking-car. O’Shea fished out a black cigar and his comrade rammed a
charge of cut plug into his old clay pipe. No sooner had they lighted
matches than their irresponsible protégé reached over and snatched
them away. Instead of trying to set fire to the car or to the abundant
whiskers of the old gentleman across the aisle he flung the matches
on the floor and stamped them with his heel. His guardians regarded
him with puzzled surprise, and were not quick enough to restrain him
before he surged among the passengers and plucked from their faces
every lighted cigar, cigarette, and pipe. These he rudely made way with
by grinding them under his feet or tossing them through the windows.
The persons thus outraged were for assaulting him until they perceived
the width of his shoulders, the depth of his chest, and the color of
his hair. The shipmaster and the engineer tackled him like a brace of
foot-ball players, yanked him back to his seat, and calmed the ruffled
travellers with explanations and offers to pay damages. The blue eye
of Bill Maguire was alertly roving to detect the first sign of smoke,
and during the remainder of his journey no one dared to burn the hazy
incense of tobacco.
“You’re a great man for theories, Cap’n Mike,” quoth the bewildered
engineer. “Can you figger what’s happened to Bill?”
“I am on a lee shore this time, Johnny. I would call him a firebug no
longer. He has turned himself into a fire department.”
“That’s precisely it,” excitedly cried the other. “And here’s how I
explain it. He’s had some mighty violent experiences during the last
twenty-four hours, what with your tryin’ to knock his head off and
runnin’ him afoul of those Chinamen which is his pet aversion. His
intellect has jarred a mite loose from its dead centre, but one cog
slipped into reverse gear. In place of settin’ fires, he wants to put
’em out. His machinery ain’t adjusted right, but it’s movin’. Instead
of starting ahead on this conflagration theory of his, he goes full
speed astern.”
“You are a knowing old barnacle,” admiringly exclaimed O’Shea. “This
ought to make Bill an easier problem to handle. The strain of keeping
up with him begins to tell on me.”
“Pshaw, Cap’n Mike, I’ll set him to work on the farm if this latest
spell sticks to him.”
They drove home from the village in the twilight. The Perkins boy had
tarried to do the chores and kindle a fire for supper. He fled without
his hat when the big, silent, red-haired stranger marched into the
kitchen, halted to look at the blazing grate, and promptly caught up a
pail of water from the sink and flooded the stove. Johnny Kent entered
a moment later and gazed aghast at the dripping, sizzling embers. Then
his common-sense got the better of his annoyance and he shouted to
O’Shea:
“Bill’s gear is still reversed. Coax him out on the porch and hold him
there while I get supper. He just put the stove awash.”
O’Shea laughed and took charge of the derelict, while Johnny locked the
kitchen doors and windows and rekindled the fire. Freed from the fear
that the cottage and barn might go up in smoke, the comrades enjoyed
a quiet evening. Maguire was disposed of in the attic bedroom and
insisted on going to bed in the dark.
“He will not wander away,” said O’Shea. “His wits are in a sad mess,
but he knows he has found a friendly anchorage.”
They felt the need of sleep, and Johnny Kent was yawning before he had
heard the end of the interview with His Excellency Hao Su Ting. It
entertained him, but the edge of his interest was blunted. The hapless
sailor in the attic had been struck down and mutilated by some secret
organization of Chinese assassins, and there was no finding out the
meaning of the brand upon his back. It was their trademark. This was
explanation enough. It satisfied the engineer’s curiosity. He had no
great amount of imagination, and although he was ready to share his
last dollar with the helpless Maguire, he felt no further call to
pursue the mystery of his wrongs.
Captain O’Shea was very differently affected. He had not forsaken
the quest of adventure. His soul was not content with cabbages and
cows. The world beyond the horizon was always calling in his ears.
As children are fond of fairy-stories, so his fancy was lured by
the bizarre, the unexpected, the unknown. Your true adventurer is,
after all, only a boy who has never grown up. His desires are wholly
unreasonable and he sets a scandalous example. If you had asked him the
question, this rattle-headed shipmaster would have frankly answered
that nothing could give him more enjoyment than to sail for China and
try to discover how and why the brand had been put on Maguire. Besides,
he had an Irishman’s habit of taking over another man’s quarrel.
“Poor Bill cannot square it himself,” reflected O’Shea. “’Tis the duty
of some one to undertake it for him. It makes an honest man’s blood
boil to think of the black wickedness that was done to him. As long as
the heathen are contented to murder one another ’tis no business of
mine. But an American sailorman--and maybe he is not the only one.”
When he went downstairs in the morning, Johnny Kent was in the
barricaded kitchen and Maguire paced the porch with the air of a man
physically refreshed. He paid no heed to O’Shea, who was amazed to
discover that he was talking to himself. The sounds he made were no
longer inarticulate, but words and fragments of sentences curiously
jumbled. In the stress of great excitement he had previously spoken
with brief coherence, only to lapse into dumbness. Now, however, with
no sudden stimulus to flash a ray of light into his darkened mind, he
was beginning to find himself, to grope for expression like a child
painfully and clumsily learning to read. To the listening O’Shea it
sounded like heaping phrases together in a basket and fishing them out
at random.
The sailor’s voice had lost much of its harshness. Its tones were
rather deep and pleasant. Swinging his long arms as he walked, he kept
repeating such disjointed ideas as these:
“_Heave her short--eleven dollars Mex--no, Paddy Blake--a big wax
doll--all clear forward, sir--stinking river--roll the dice--the
painted joss--a year from home--way enough--Wang Li Fu--die like
rats--sampan, ahoy--no more drinks--good-by, Mary dear--in the paint
locker--the head-devil--fish and potatoes._”
It made O’Shea feel dizzy to listen to this interminable nonsense, but
he followed it most attentively, and stole behind a lilac-bush lest
Maguire should spy him and be diverted from his mad soliloquy. For some
time there was no catching hold of a clew, but at length the shrewd
shipmaster began to sift out certain phrases which were emphasized by
reiteration. They were, in a way, the _motif_ of the jargon, hinting of
impressions most clearly stamped on the man’s mind.
He mentioned again and again “_the painted joss_,” and occasionally
coupled it with reference to “_the stinking river_.” Stress seemed
to be laid also on the proper name _Wang Li Fu_. Many of the other
fragments O’Shea discarded as worthless. Some of them related to
routine duties on shipboard. He hazarded a guess that the sailor was
a married man. At any rate, he had left a “Mary dear,” and it was a
plausible conjecture that he had promised to bring home “a big wax
doll.”
When Maguire became silent O’Shea made for the kitchen and hammered on
the door.
“Is that you, Cap’n Mike?” responded the perturbed accents of Johnny
Kent. “If it’s Bill, he can stay out till breakfast’s cooked. I don’t
want my stove drownded again.”
Reassured, he cautiously admitted the shipmaster who pounded him on the
back and shouted:
“Bill has been leakin’ language from every pore. ’Tis all snarled up
most comical, but I seem to get hold of a loose end now and then.”
“Hooray, Cap’n Mike! It’s just as I said. When you hit him over the ear
it sort of jarred his brain loose. It ain’t fetched clear yet, but he’s
begun to make steam in his crazy fashion. What does he say?”
“Wait till I tow him in to breakfast and maybe he will start up again.”
But Maguire ate in silence and O’Shea could not persuade him to pick up
the rambling monologue. Johnny Kent therefore escorted the sailor to
the garden, gave him a hoe, and thriftily set him to work. He fell to
with the greatest good-will and showed an aptitude which betokened an
earlier acquaintance with this form of husbandry.
After a discussion of some length the engineer exclaimed:
“You’re a bright man, Cap’n Mike, but you haven’t knocked around the
Chinese ports as much as I have. Bill mentioned one or two things
that I can elucidate. Paddy Blake, eh? So he knows Paddy Blake. The
blackguard runs a sailors’ rum-shop in Shanghai. It’s just off the
Bund, as you turn up the street that’s next to the French Concession.
I’ve rolled the dice for drinks there myself and blown my wages and
mixed up in some free-for-all fights that would have done your heart
good.”
“’Tis a glimpse into the fog, Johnny. Maybe this rapscallion of a
Paddy Blake would know poor old Bill if he had a description of him.
We can guess at some of the rest of it. Bill went up a Chinese river
somewhere and got in black trouble ashore. It had to do with a temple
and a joss.”
“One of them big carved wooden idols, Cap’n Mike, painted all red and
yellow and white.”
“And it looks to me as if he stumbled into a headquarters of this bunch
of thugs that has been dealing out sudden death to prominent Chinese
citizens, Johnny. Anyhow, he ran afoul of some kind of a ‘head-devil,’
as he calls it, and was left for dead.”
“Then it’s possible that Bill knows the secret of this organization of
cock-eyed murderers,” excitedly cried the engineer.
“The same notion is in me own mind,” replied O’Shea.
A dusty man just then rode a bicycle into the door-yard and dismounted
to give the shipmaster a yellow envelope.
“I guess you’re Captain Michael O’Shea,” said he. “The station agent
got this telegram for you and asked me to stop and deliver it, seein’
as I was passin’ this way. How are you, Mr. Kent? Seen anything of that
pesky firebug? I see you’ve got a new hired man in the garden.”
“I’m thankful to say the firebug is letting me alone,” gravely answered
the engineer.
“I cal’late he heard the selectmen had offered a reward for him and he
lit out of this neighborhood.”
The messenger departed, and Captain O’Shea, glancing at the telegram,
crumpled it in his fist and vouchsafed with a laugh:
“’Tis from the man in New York, the agent in charge of that voyage to
the Persian Gulf. For political reasons the job is postponed a matter
of six months or so, and maybe it will be declared off altogether. The
charter is cancelled and my contract along with it.”
“I suppose you’re disappointed,” sympathetically began Johnny Kent.
“Not so I shed tears. Something else will turn up. And ’tis me chance
to take a vacation, Johnny. Thanks to our salvage job with the
_Alsatian_ liner, I have more money than is good for me.”
“Now’s your chance to buy that next farm and get it under way,” and the
portly mariner was elated.
O’Shea eyed his comrade as if suspecting that he shared the melancholy
affliction of Bill Maguire.
“You mean well, Johnny,” said he, “but you are subject to delusions.
I will enjoy a vacation after me own heart. With the money that burns
holes in me pockets, I will go frolickin’ out to China and do me best
to find out what happened to Bill Maguire. I suppose I cannot coax ye
to go with me.”
“Pshaw, Cap’n Mike!” and the honest farmer looked surprised. “I’ve
engaged a gang of men to begin cuttin’ my hay next week. And who’s to
look after poor old Bill? I can’t seem to beat it into your head that
I’ve turned respectable. The wilder the job, the better you like it.”
“I have taken quite a fancy to this one,” and O’Shea’s eyes were
dancing. “It has been haunting me, in a way, ever since I caught
sight of the cruel brand and listened to the yarn of those Chinese
gentlemen. As one seafarin’ man to another, I will do what I can to
square the account of Bill Maguire.”
“It’s the first time I ever laid down on you,” sighed Johnny Kent.
“I do not hold it against ye,” warmly returned Captain O’Shea. “And
maybe you ought to stand watch over Bill. It would be cruel to lug him
out to China, for the sight of a pigtail gives him acute fits. And
he would turn crazier than ever. Well, I will go it alone this time,
Johnny. ’Tis a most foolish adventure, and by the same token it pleases
me a lot.”