I
Randolph Trent stepped from the Stockton boat on the San Francisco
wharf, penniless, friendless, and unknown. Hunger might have been added
to his trials, for, having paid his last coin in passage money, he had
been a day and a half without food. Yet he knew it only by an occasional
lapse into weakness as much mental as physical. Nevertheless, he was
first on the gangplank to land, and hurried feverishly ashore, in that
vague desire for action and change of scene common to such irritation;
yet after mixing for a few moments with the departing passengers, each
selfishly hurrying to some rendezvous of rest or business, he insensibly
drew apart from them, with the instinct of a vagabond and outcast.
Although he was conscious that he was neither, but merely an
unsuccessful miner suddenly reduced to the point of soliciting work or
alms of any kind, he took advantage of the first crossing to plunge into
a side street, with a vague sense of hiding his shame.
A rising wind, which had rocked the boat for the last few hours, had now
developed into a strong sou'wester, with torrents of rain which swept
the roadway. His well-worn working clothes, fitted to the warmer
Southern mines, gave him more concern from their visible, absurd
contrast to the climate than from any actual sense of discomfort,
and his feverishness defied the chill of his soaking garments, as he
hurriedly faced the blast through the dimly lighted street. At the next
corner he paused; he had reached another, and, from its dilapidated
appearance, apparently an older wharf than that where he had landed,
but, like the first, it was still a straggling avenue leading toward the
higher and more animated part of the city. He again mechanically--for a
part of his trouble was a vague, undefined purpose--turned toward it.
In his feverish exaltation his powers of perception seemed to be
quickened: he was vividly alive to the incongruous, half-marine,
half-backwoods character of the warehouses and commercial buildings;
to the hull of a stranded ship already built into a block of rude
tenements; to the dark stockaded wall of a house framed of corrugated
iron, and its weird contiguity to a Swiss chalet, whose galleries were
used only to bear the signs of the shops, and whose frame had been
carried across seas in sections to be set up at random here.
Moving past these, as in a nightmare dream, of which even the turbulency
of the weather seemed to be a part, he stumbled, blinded, panting,
and unexpectedly, with no consciousness of his rapid pace beyond his
breathlessness, upon the dazzling main thoroughfare of the city. In
spite of the weather, the slippery pavements were thronged by
hurrying crowds of well-dressed people, again all intent on their own
purposes,--purposes that seemed so trifling and unimportant beside his
own. The shops were brilliantly lighted, exposing their brightest wares
through plate-glass windows; a jeweler's glittered with precious stones;
a fashionable apothecary's next to it almost outrivaled it with its
gorgeous globes, the gold and green precision of its shelves, and
the marble and silver soda fountain like a shrine before it. All this
specious show of opulence came upon him with the shock of contrast, and
with it a bitter revulsion of feeling more hopeless than his feverish
anxiety,--the bitterness of disappointment.
For during his journey he had been buoyed up with the prospect of
finding work and sympathy in this youthful city,--a prospect founded
solely on his inexperienced hopes. For this he had exchanged the poverty
of the mining district,--a poverty that had nothing ignoble about it,
that was a part of the economy of nature, and shared with his fellow men
and the birds and beasts in their rude encampments. He had given up the
brotherhood of the miner, and that practical help and sympathy which
brought no degradation with it, for this rude shock of self-interested,
self-satisfied civilization. He, who would not have shrunk from asking
rest, food, or a night's lodging at the cabin of a brother miner or
woodsman, now recoiled suddenly from these well-dressed citizens. What
madness had sent him here, an intruder, or, even, as it seemed to him in
his dripping clothes, an impostor? And yet these were the people to whom
he had confidently expected to tell his story, and who would cheerfully
assist him with work! He could almost anticipate the hard laugh or
brutal hurried negative in their faces. In his foolish heart he thanked
God he had not tried it. Then the apathetic recoil which is apt to
follow any keen emotion overtook him. He was dazedly conscious of being
rudely shoved once or twice, and even heard the epithet “drunken lout”
from one who had run against him.
He found himself presently staring vacantly in the apothecary's window.
How long he stood there he could not tell, for he was aroused only by
the door opening in front of him, and a young girl emerging with some
purchase in her hand. He could see that she was handsomely dressed and
quite pretty, and as she passed out she lifted to his withdrawing figure
a pair of calm, inquiring eyes, which, however, changed to a look of
half-wondering, half-amused pity as she gazed. Yet that look of pity
stung his pride more deeply than all. With a deliberate effort he
recovered his energy. No, he would not beg, he would not ask assistance
from these people; he would go back--anywhere! To the steamboat first;
they might let him sleep there, give him a meal, and allow him to work
his passage back to Stockton. He might be refused. Well, what then?
Well, beyond, there was the bay! He laughed bitterly--his mind was sane
enough for that--but he kept on repeating it vaguely to himself, as he
crossed the street again, and once more made his way to the wharf.
The wind and rain had increased, but he no longer heeded them in his
feverish haste and his consciousness that motion could alone keep away
that dreadful apathy which threatened to overcloud his judgment. And he
wished while he was able to reason logically to make up his mind to end
this unsupportable situation that night. He was scarcely twenty, yet it
seemed to him that it had already been demonstrated that his life was
a failure; he was an orphan, and when he left college to seek his own
fortune in California, he believed he had staked his all upon that
venture--and lost.
That bitterness which is the sudden recoil of boyish enthusiasm, and is
none the less terrible for being without experience to justify it,--that
melancholy we are too apt to look back upon with cynical jeers and
laughter in middle age,--is more potent than we dare to think, and
it was in no mere pose of youthful pessimism that Randolph Trent now
contemplated suicide. Such scraps of philosophy as his education had
given him pointed to that one conclusion. And it was the only refuge
that pride--real or false--offered him from the one supreme terror of
youth--shame.
The street was deserted, and the few lights he had previously noted in
warehouses and shops were extinguished. It had grown darker with the
storm; the incongruous buildings on either side had become misshapen
shadows; the long perspective of the wharf was a strange gloom from
which the spars of a ship stood out like the cross he remembered as a
boy to have once seen in a picture of the tempest-smitten Calvary. It
was his only fancy connected with the future--it might have been his
last, for suddenly one of the planks of the rotten wharf gave way
beneath his feet, and he felt himself violently precipitated toward
the gurgling and oozing tide below. He threw out his arms desperately,
caught at a strong girder, drew himself up with the energy of
desperation, and staggered to his feet again, safe--and sane. For with
this terrible automatic struggle to avoid that death he was courting
came a flash of reason. If he had resolutely thrown himself from the
pier head as he intended, would he have undergone a hopeless revulsion
like this? Was he sure that this might not be, after all, the terrible
penalty of self-destruction--this inevitable fierce protest of mind and
body when TOO LATE? He was momentarily touched with a sense of gratitude
at his escape, but his reason told him it was not from his ACCIDENT, but
from his intention.
He was trying carefully to retrace his steps, but as he did so he saw
the figure of a man dimly lurching toward him out of the darkness of the
wharf and the crossed yards of the ship. A gleam of hope came over him,
for the emotion of the last few minutes had rudely displaced his pride
and self-love. He would appeal to this stranger, whoever he was; there
was more chance that in this rude locality he would be a belated sailor
or some humbler wayfarer, and the darkness and solitude made him feel
less ashamed. By the last flickering street lamp he could see that he
was a man about his own size, with something of the rolling gait of a
sailor, which was increased by the weight of a traveling portmanteau
he was swinging in his hand. As he approached he evidently detected
Randolph's waiting figure, slackened his speed slightly, and changed his
portmanteau from his right hand to his left as a precaution for defense.
Randolph felt the blood flush his cheek at this significant proof of
his disreputable appearance, but determined to accost him. He scarcely
recognized the sound of his own voice now first breaking the silence for
hours, but he made his appeal. The man listened, made a slight gesture
forward with his disengaged hand, and impelled Randolph slowly up to the
street lamp until it shone on both their faces. Randolph saw a man a
few years his senior, with a slightly trimmed beard on his dark,
weather-beaten cheeks, well-cut features, a quick, observant eye, and a
sailor's upward glance and bearing. The stranger saw a thin, youthful,
anxious, yet refined and handsome face beneath straggling damp curls,
and dark eyes preternaturally bright with suffering. Perhaps his
experienced ear, too, detected some harmony with all this in Randolph's
voice.
“And you want something to eat, a night's lodging, and a chance of work
afterward,” the stranger repeated with good-humored deliberation.
“Yes,” said Randolph.
“You look it.”
Randolph colored faintly.
“Do you ever drink?”
“Yes,” said Randolph wonderingly.
“I thought I'd ask,” said the stranger, “as it might play hell with you
just now if you were not accustomed to it. Take that. Just a swallow,
you know--that's as good as a jugful.”
He handed him a heavy flask. Randolph felt the burning liquor scald his
throat and fire his empty stomach. The stranger turned and looked down
the vacant wharf to the darkness from which he came. Then he turned to
Randolph again and said abruptly,--
“Strong enough to carry this bag?”
“Yes,” said Randolph. The whiskey--possibly the relief--had given him
new strength. Besides, he might earn his alms.
“Take it up to room 74, Niantic Hotel--top of next street to this, one
block that way--and wait till I come.”
“What name shall I say?” asked Randolph.
“Needn't say any. I ordered the room a week ago. Stop; there's the key.
Go in; change your togs; you'll find something in that bag that'll fit
you. Wait for me. Stop--no; you'd better get some grub there first.”
He fumbled in his pockets, but fruitlessly. “No matter. You'll find a
buckskin purse, with some scads in it, in the bag. So long.” And before
Randolph could thank him, he lurched away again into the semi-darkness
of the wharf.
Overflowing with gratitude at a hospitality so like that of his reckless
brethren of the mines, Randolph picked up the portmanteau and started
for the hotel. He walked warily now, with a new interest in life,
and then, suddenly thinking of his own miraculous escape, he paused,
wondering if he ought not to warn his benefactor of the perils of the
rotten wharf; but he had already disappeared. The bag was not heavy, but
he found that in his exhausted state this new exertion was telling,
and he was glad when he reached the hotel. Equally glad was he in his
dripping clothes to slip by the porter, and with the key in his pocket
ascend unnoticed to 74.
Yet had his experience been larger he might have spared himself that
sensitiveness. For the hotel was one of those great caravansaries
popular with the returning miner. It received him and his gold dust in
his worn-out and bedraggled working clothes, and returned him the next
day as a well-dressed citizen on Montgomery Street. It was hard indeed
to recognize the unshaven, unwashed, and unkempt “arrival” one met on
the principal staircase at night in the scrupulously neat stranger one
sat opposite to at breakfast the next morning. In this daily whirl of
mutation all identity was swamped, as Randolph learned to know.
At present, finding himself in a comfortable bedroom, his first act
was to change his wet clothes, which in the warmer temperature and
the decline of his feverishness now began to chill him. He opened the
portmanteau and found a complete suit of clothing, evidently a foreign
make, well preserved, as if for “shore-going.” His pride would have
preferred a humbler suit as lessening his obligation, but there was no
other. He discovered the purse, a chamois leather bag such as miners and
travelers carried, which contained a dozen gold pieces and some paper
notes. Taking from it a single coin to defray the expenses of a meal, he
restrapped the bag, and leaving the key in the door lock for the benefit
of his returning host, made his way to the dining room.
For a moment he was embarrassed when the waiter approached him
inquisitively, but it was only to learn the number of his room to
“charge” the meal. He ate it quickly, but not voraciously, for his
appetite had not yet returned, and he was eager to get back to the
room and see the stranger again and return to him the coin which was no
longer necessary.
But the stranger had not yet arrived when he reached the room. Over an
hour had elapsed since their strange meeting. A new fear came upon
him: was it possible he had mistaken the hotel, and his benefactor was
awaiting him elsewhere, perhaps even beginning to suspect not only his
gratitude but his honesty! The thought made him hot again, but he was
helpless. Not knowing the stranger's name, he could not inquire without
exposing his situation to the landlord. But again, there was the key,
and it was scarcely possible that it fitted another 74 in another
hotel. He did not dare to leave the room, but sat by the window, peering
through the streaming panes into the storm-swept street below. Gradually
the fatigue his excitement had hitherto kept away began to overcome him;
his eyes once or twice closed during his vigil, his head nodded against
the pane. He rose and walked up and down the room to shake off his
drowsiness. Another hour passed--nine o'clock, blown in fitful, far-off
strokes from some wind-rocked steeple. Still no stranger. How inviting
the bed looked to his weary eyes! The man had told him he wanted rest;
he could lie down on the bed in his clothes until he came. He would
waken quickly and be ready for his benefactor's directions. It was a
great temptation. He yielded to it. His head had scarcely sunk upon the
pillow before he slipped into a profound and dreamless sleep.
He awoke with a start, and for a few moments lay vaguely staring at the
sunbeams that stretched across his bed before he could recall himself.
The room was exactly as before, the portmanteau strapped and pushed
under the table as he had left it. There came a tap at the door--the
chambermaid to do up the room. She had been there once already,
but seeing him asleep, she had forborne to wake him. Apparently the
spectacle of a gentleman lying on the bed fully dressed, even to his
boots, was not an unusual one at that hotel, for she made no comment. It
was twelve o'clock, but she would come again later.
He was bewildered. He had slept the round of the clock--that was natural
after his fatigue--but where was his benefactor? The lateness of the
time forbade the conclusion that he had merely slept elsewhere; he
would assuredly have returned by this time to claim his portmanteau. The
portmanteau! He unstrapped it and examined the contents again. They were
undisturbed as he had left them the night before. There was a further
change of linen, the buckskin bag, which he could see now contained
a couple of Bank of England notes, with some foreign gold mixed with
American half-eagles, and a cheap, rough memorandum book clasped with
elastic, containing a letter in a boyish hand addressed “Dear Daddy”
and signed “Bobby,” and a photograph of a boy taken by a foreign
photographer at Callao, as the printed back denoted, but nothing giving
any clue whatever to the name of the owner.
A strange idea seized him: did the portmanteau really belong to the man
who had given it to him? Had he been the innocent receiver of stolen
goods from some one who wished to escape detection? He recalled now that
he had heard stories of robbery of luggage by thieves “Sydney ducks”--on
the deserted wharves, and remembered, too,--he could not tell why the
thought had escaped him before,--that the man had spoken with an English
accent. But the next moment he recalled his frank and open manner, and
his mind cleared of all unworthy suspicion. It was more than likely that
his benefactor had taken this delicate way of making a free, permanent
gift for that temporary service. Yet he smiled faintly at the return of
that youthful optimism which had caused him so much suffering.
Nevertheless, something must be done: he must try to find the man; still
more important, he must seek work before this dubious loan was further
encroached upon. He restrapped the portmanteau and replaced it under the
table, locked the door, gave the key to the office clerk, saying that
any one who called upon him was to await his return, and sallied forth.
A fresh wind and a blue sky of scudding clouds were all that remained
of last night's storm. As he made his way to the fateful wharf, still
deserted except by an occasional “wharf-rat,”--as the longshore vagrant
or petty thief was called,--he wondered at his own temerity of last
night, and the trustfulness of his friend in yielding up his portmanteau
to a stranger in such a place. A low drinking saloon, feebly disguised
as a junk shop, stood at the corner, with slimy green steps leading to
the water.
The wharf was slowly decaying, and here and there were occasional gaps
in the planking, as dangerous as the one from which he had escaped the
night before. He thought again of the warning he might have given to
the stranger; but he reflected that as a seafaring man he must have been
familiar with the locality where he had landed. But had he landed there?
To Randolph's astonishment, there was no sign or trace of any late
occupation of the wharf, and the ship whose crossyards he had seen dimly
through the darkness the night before was no longer there. She might
have “warped out” in the early morning, but there was no trace of her
in the stream or offing beyond. A bark and brig quite dismantled at an
adjacent wharf seemed to accent the loneliness. Beyond, the open channel
between him and Verba Buena Island was racing with white-maned seas and
sparkling in the shifting sunbeams. The scudding clouds above him drove
down the steel-blue sky. The lateen sails of the Italian fishing boats
were like shreds of cloud, too, blown over the blue and distant bay.
His ears sang, his eyes blinked, his pulses throbbed, with the untiring,
fierce activity of a San Francisco day.
With something of its restlessness he hurried back to the hotel. Still
the stranger was not there, and no one had called for him. The room had
been put in order; the portmanteau, that sole connecting link with his
last night's experience, was under the table. He drew it out again, and
again subjected it to a minute examination. A few toilet articles, not
of the best quality, which he had overlooked at first, the linen, the
buckskin purse, the memorandum book, and the suit of clothes he stood
in, still comprised all he knew of his benefactor. He counted the money
in the purse; it amounted, with the Bank of England notes, to about
seventy dollars, as he could roughly guess. There was a scrap of paper,
the torn-off margin of a newspaper, lying in the purse, with an address
hastily scribbled in pencil. It gave, however, no name, only a number:
“85 California Street.” It might be a clue. He put it, with the purse,
carefully in his pocket, and after hurriedly partaking of his forgotten
breakfast, again started out.
He presently found himself in the main thoroughfare of last night, which
he now knew to be Montgomery Street. It was more thronged than then,
but he failed to be impressed, as then, with the selfish activity of
the crowd. Yet he was half conscious that his own brighter fortune,
more decent attire, and satisfied hunger had something to do with this
change, and he glanced hurriedly at the druggist's broad plate-glass
windows, with a faint hope that the young girl whose amused pity he had
awakened might be there again. He found California Street quickly, and
in a few moments he stood before No. 85. He was a little disturbed
to find it a rather large building, and that it bore the inscription
“Bank.” Then came the usual shock to his mercurial temperament, and for
the first time he began to consider the absurd hopelessness of his clue.
He, however, entered desperately, and approaching the window of the
receiving teller, put the question he had formulated in his mind: Could
they give him any information concerning a customer or correspondent
who had just arrived in San Francisco and was putting up at the Niantic
Hotel, room 74? He felt his face flushing, but, to his astonishment, the
clerk manifested no surprise. “And you don't know his name?” said the
clerk quietly. “Wait a moment.” He moved away, and Randolph saw him
speaking to one of the other clerks, who consulted a large register.
In a few minutes he returned. “We don't have many customers,” he began
politely, “who leave only their hotel-room addresses,” when he was
interrupted by a mumbling protest from one of the other clerks. “That's
very different,” he replied to his fellow clerk, and then turned to
Randolph. “I'm afraid we cannot help you; but I'll make other inquiries
if you'll come back in ten minutes.” Satisfied to be relieved from the
present perils of his questioning, and doubtful of returning, Randolph
turned away. But as he left the building he saw a written notice on
the swinging door, “Wanted: a Night Porter;” and this one chance of
employment determined his return.
When he again presented himself at the window the clerk motioned him to
step inside through a lifted rail. Here he found himself confronted by
the clerk and another man, distinguished by a certain air of authority,
a keen gray eye, and singularly compressed lips set in a closely clipped
beard. The clerk indicated him deferentially but briefly--everybody
was astonishingly brief and businesslike there--as the president. The
president absorbed and possessed Randolph with eyes that never seemed
to leave him. Then leaning back against the counter, which he lightly
grasped with both hands, he said: “We've sent to the Niantic Hotel to
inquire about your man. He ordered his room by letter, giving no name.
He arrived there on time last night, slept there, and has occupied the
room No. 74 ever since. WE don't know him from Adam, but”--his eyes
never left Randolph's--“from the description the landlord gave our
clerk, you're the man himself.”
For an instant Randolph flushed crimson. The natural mistake of
the landlord flashed upon him, his own stupidity in seeking this
information, the suspicious predicament in which he was now placed, and
the necessity of telling the whole truth. But the president's eye was at
once a threat and an invitation. He felt himself becoming suddenly cool,
and, with a business brevity equal to their own, said:--
“I was looking for work last night on the wharf. He employed me to carry
his bag to the hotel, saying I was to wait for him. I have waited since
nine o'clock last night in his room, and he has not come.”
“What are you in such a d----d hurry for? He's trusted you; can't you
trust him? You've got his bag?” returned the president.
Randolph was silent for a moment. “I want to know what to do with it,”
he said.
“Hang on to it. What's in it?”
“Some clothes and a purse containing about seventy dollars.”
“That ought to pay you for carrying it and storage afterward,” said the
president decisively. “What made you come here?”
“I found this address in the purse,” said Randolph, producing it.
“Is that all?”
“Yes.”
“And that's the only reason you came here, to find an owner for that
bag?”
“Yes.”
The president disengaged himself from the counter.
“I'm sorry to have given you so much trouble,” said Randolph
concludingly. “Thank you and good-morning.”
“Good-morning.”
As Randolph turned away he remembered the advertisement for the night
watchman. He hesitated and turned back. He was a little surprised to
find that the president had not gone away, but was looking after him.
“I beg your pardon, but I see you want a night watchman. Could I do?”
said Randolph resolutely.
“No. You're a stranger here, and we want some one who knows the
city,--Dewslake,” he returned to the receiving teller, “who's taken
Larkin's place?”
“No one yet,” returned the teller, “but,” he added parenthetically,
“Judge Boompointer, you know, was speaking to you about his son.”
“Yes, I know that.” To Randolph: “Go round to my private room and wait
for me. I won't be as long as your friend last night.” Then he added to
a negro porter, “Show him round there.”
He moved away, stopping at one or two desks to give an order to the
clerks, and once before the railing to speak to a depositor. Randolph
followed the negro into the hall, through a “board room,” and into a
handsomely furnished office. He had not to wait long. In a few moments
the president appeared with an older man whose gray side whiskers, cut
with a certain precision, and whose black and white checked neckerchief,
tied in a formal bow, proclaimed the English respectability of the
period. At the president's dictation he took down Randolph's name,
nativity, length of residence, and occupation in California. This
concluded, the president, glancing at his companion, said briefly,--
“Well?”
“He had better come to-morrow morning at nine,” was the answer.
“And ask for Mr. Dingwall, the deputy manager,” added the president,
with a gesture that was at once an introduction and a dismissal to both.
Randolph had heard before of this startling brevity of San Francisco
business detail, yet he lingered until the door closed on Mr. Dingwall.
His heart was honestly full.
“You have been very kind, sir,” he stammered.
“I haven't run half the risks of that chap last night,” said the
president grimly, the least tremor of a smile on his set mouth.
“If you would only let me know what I can do to thank you,” persisted
Randolph.
“Trust the man that trusts you, and hang on to your trust,” returned the
president curtly, with a parting nod.
Elated and filled with high hopes as Randolph was, he felt some
trepidation in returning to his hotel. He had to face his landlord with
some explanation of the bank's inquiry. The landlord might consider him
an impostor, and request him to leave, or, more dreadful still, insist
upon keeping the bag. He thought of the parting words of the president,
and resolved upon “hanging on to his trust,” whatever happened. But he
was agreeably surprised to find that he was received at the office with
a certain respect not usually shown to the casual visitor. “Your caller
turned up to-day”--Randolph started--“from the Eureka bank,” continued
the clerk. “Sorry we could not give your name, but you know you
only left a deposit in your letter and sent a messenger for your key
yesterday afternoon. When you came you went straight to your room.
Perhaps you would like to register now.” Randolph no longer hesitated,
reflecting that he could explain it all later to his unknown benefactor,
and wrote his name boldly. But he was still more astonished when the
clerk continued: “I reckon it was a case of identifying you for a
draft--it often happens here--and we'd have been glad to do it for you.
But the bank clerk seemed satisfied with out description of you--you're
easily described, you know” (this in a parenthesis, complimentarily
intended)--“so it's all right. We can give you a better room lower down,
if you're going to stay longer.” Not knowing whether to laugh or to be
embarrassed at this extraordinary conclusion of the blunder, Randolph
answered that he had just come from the bank, adding, with a pardonable
touch of youthful pride, that he was entering the bank's employment the
next day.
Another equally agreeable surprise met him on his arrival there the next
morning. Without any previous examination or trial he was installed at
once as a corresponding clerk in the place of one just promoted to
a sub-agency in the interior. His handwriting, his facility of
composition, had all been taken for granted, or perhaps predicated
upon something the president had discerned in that one quick, absorbing
glance. He ventured to express the thought to his neighbor.
“The boss,” said that gentleman, “can size a man in and out, and all
through, in about the time it would take you and me to tell the color of
his hair. HE don't make mistakes, you bet; but old Dingy--the dep--you
settled with your clothes.”
“My clothes!” echoed Randolph, with a faint flush.
“Yes, English cut--that fetched him.”
And so his work began. His liberal salary, which seemed to him
munificent in comparison with his previous earnings in the mines,
enabled him to keep the contents of the buckskin purse intact, and
presently to return the borrowed suit of clothes to the portmanteau. The
mysterious owner should find everything as when he first placed it in
his hands. With the quick mobility of youth and his own rather mercurial
nature, he had begun to forget, or perhaps to be a little ashamed of his
keen emotions and sufferings the night of his arrival, until that night
was recalled to him in a singular way.
One Sunday a vague sense of duty to his still missing benefactor
impelled him to spend part of his holiday upon the wharves. He had
rambled away among the shipping at the newer pier slips, and had gazed
curiously upon decks where a few seamen or officers in their Sunday
apparel smoked, paced, or idled, trying vainly to recognize the face
and figure which had once briefly flashed out under the flickering wharf
lamp. Was the stranger a shipmaster who had suddenly transferred himself
to another vessel on another voyage? A crowd which had gathered around
some landing steps nearer shore presently attracted his attention. He
lounged toward it and looked over the shoulders of the bystanders down
upon the steps. A boat was lying there, which had just towed in the body
of a man found floating on the water. Its features were already
swollen and defaced like a hideous mask; its body distended beyond all
proportion, even to the bursting of its sodden clothing. A tremulous
fascination came over Randolph as he gazed. The bystanders made their
brief comments, a few authoritatively and with the air of nautical
experts.
“Been in the water about a week, I reckon.”
“'Bout that time; just rucked up and floated with the tide.”
“Not much chance o' spottin' him by his looks, eh?”
“Nor anything else, you bet. Reg'larly cleaned out. Look at his
pockets.”
“Wharf-rats or shanghai men?”
“Betwixt and between, I reckon. Man who found him says he's got an ugly
cut just back of his head. Ye can't see it for his floating hair.”
“Wonder if he got it before or after he got in the water.”
“That's for the coroner to say.”
“Much he knows or cares,” said another cynically. “It'll just be a case
of 'Found drowned' and the regular twenty-five dollars to HIM, and five
to the man who found the body. That's enough for him to know.”
Thrilled with a vague anxiety, Randolph edged forward for a nearer view
of the wretched derelict still gently undulating on the towline. The
closer he looked the more he was impressed by the idea of some frightful
mask that hid a face that refused to be recognized. But his attention
became fixed on a man who was giving some advice or orders and examining
the body scrutinizingly. Without knowing why, Randolph felt a sudden
aversion to him, which was deepened when the man, lifting his head, met
Randolph's eyes with a pair of shifting yet aggressive ones. He bore,
nevertheless, an odd, weird likeness to the missing man Randolph was
seeking, which strangely troubled him. As the stranger's eyes followed
him and lingered with a singular curiosity on Randolph's dress, he
remembered with a sudden alarm that he was wearing the suit of the
missing man. A quick impulse to conceal himself came upon him, but he as
quickly conquered it, and returned the man's cold stare with an anger he
could not account for, but which made the stranger avert his eyes. Then
the man got into the boat beside the boatman, and the two again towed
away the corpse. The head rose and fell with the swell, as if nodding a
farewell. But it was still defiant, under its shapeless mask, that even
wore a smile, as if triumphant in its hideous secret.