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diff --git a/old/gdlgh10.txt b/old/gdlgh10.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..fdaead1 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/gdlgh10.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5888 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eText of When God Laughs and Other Stories + + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check +the copyright laws for your country before posting these files!! + +Please take a look at the important information in this header. +We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an +electronic path open for the next readers. Do not remove this. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**Etexts Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*These Etexts Prepared By Hundreds of Volunteers and Donations* + +Information on contacting Project Gutenberg to get Etexts, and +further information is included below. We need your donations. + + +Title: When God Laughs and Other Stories + +Author: Jack London + +March, 2001 [Etext #2545] + +CONTENTS + +WHEN GOD LAUGHS +THE APOSTATE +A WICKED WOMAN +JUST MEAT +CREATED HE THEM +THE CHINAGO +MAKE WESTING +SEMPER IDEM +A NOSE FOR THE KING +THE "FRANCIS SPAIGHT" +A CURIOUS FRAGMENT +A PIECE OF STEAK + +The Project Gutenberg Etext When God Laughs et al by Jack London +******This file should be named gdlgh10.txt or gdlgh10.zip****** + +Corrected EDITIONS of our etexts get a new NUMBER, gdlgh11.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, gdlgh10a.txt + + +This etext was prepared by Les Bowler, St. Ives, Dorset from +the 1911 Mills and Boon edition. + +Project Gutenberg Etexts are usually created from multiple editions, +all of which are in the Public Domain in the United States, unless a +copyright notice is included. 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FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END* + + + + + +This etext was prepared by Les Bowler, St. Ives, Dorset from +the 1911 Mills and Boon edition. + + + + + +WHEN GOD LAUGHS, AND OTHER STORIES + + + + +CONTENTS + +WHEN GOD LAUGHS +THE APOSTATE +A WICKED WOMAN +JUST MEAT +CREATED HE THEM +THE CHINAGO +MAKE WESTING +SEMPER IDEM +A NOSE FOR THE KING +THE "FRANCIS SPAIGHT" +A CURIOUS FRAGMENT +A PIECE OF STEAK + + + +WHEN GOD LAUGHS (with compliments to Harry Cowell) + + "The gods, the gods are stronger; time + Falls down before them, all men's knees + Bow, all men's prayers and sorrows climb + Like incense toward them; yea, for these + Are gods, Felise." + +Carquinez had relaxed finally. He stole a glance at the rattling windows, +looked upward at the beamed roof, and listened for a moment to the savage +roar of the south-easter as it caught the bungalow in its bellowing jaws. +Then he held his glass between him and the fire and laughed for joy through +the golden wine. + +"It is beautiful," he said. "It is sweetly sweet. It is a woman's wine, +and it was made for gray-robed saints to drink." + +"We grow it on our own warm hills," I said, with pardonable California +pride. "You rode up yesterday through the vines from which it was made." + +It was worth while to get Carquinez to loosen up. Nor was he ever really +himself until he felt the mellow warmth of the vine singing in his blood. +He was an artist, it is true, always an artist; but somehow, sober, the +high pitch and lilt went out of his thought-processes and he was prone to +be as deadly dull as a British Sunday--not dull as other men are dull, but +dull when measured by the sprightly wight that Monte Carquinez was when he +was really himself. + +From all this it must not be inferred that Carquinez, who is my dear friend +and dearer comrade, was a sot. Far from it. He rarely erred. As I have +said, he was an artist. He knew when he had enough, and enough, with him, +was equilibrium--the equilibrium that is yours and mine when we are sober. + +His was a wise and instinctive temperateness that savoured of the Greek. +Yet he was far from Greek. "I am Aztec, I am Inca, I am Spaniard," I have +heard him say. And in truth he looked it, a compound of strange and +ancient races, what with his swarthy skin and the asymmetry and +primitiveness of his features. His eyes, under massively arched brows, +were wide apart and black with the blackness that is barbaric, while before +them was perpetually falling down a great black mop of hair through which +he gazed like a roguish satyr from a thicket. He invariably wore a soft +flannel shirt under his velvet-corduroy jacket, and his necktie was red. +This latter stood for the red flag (he had once lived with the socialists +of Paris), and it symbolized the blood and brotherhood of man. Also, he +had never been known to wear anything on his head save a leather-banded +sombrero. It was even rumoured that he had been born with this particular +piece of headgear. And in my experience it was provocative of nothing +short of sheer delight to see that Mexican sombrero hailing a cab in +Piccadilly or storm-tossed in the crush for the New York Elevated. + +As I have said, Carquinez was made quick by wine--"as the clay was made +quick when God breathed the breath of life into it," was his way of saying +it. I confess that he was blasphemously intimate with God; and I must add +that there was no blasphemy in him. He was at all times honest, and, +because he was compounded of paradoxes, greatly misunderstood by those who +did not know him. He could be as elementally raw at times as a screaming +savage; and at other times as delicate as a maid, as subtle as a Spaniard. +And--well, was he not Aztec? Inca? Spaniard? + +And now I must ask pardon for the space I have given him. (He is my +friend, and I love him.) The house was shaking to the storm, as he drew +closer to the fire and laughed at it through his wine. He looked at me, +and by the added lustre of his eye, and by the alertness of it, I knew that +at last he was pitched in his proper key. + +"And so you think you've won out against the gods?" he demanded. + +"Why the gods?" + +"Whose will but theirs has put satiety upon man?" he cried. + +"And whence the will in me to escape satiety?" I asked triumphantly. + +"Again the gods," he laughed. "It is their game we play. They deal and +shuffle all the cards . . . and take the stakes. Think not that you have +escaped by fleeing from the mad cities. You with your vine-clad hills, +your sunsets and your sunrises, your homely fare and simple round of +living! + +"I've watched you ever since I came. You have not won. You have +surrendered. You have made terms with the enemy. You have made confession +that you are tired. You have flown the white flag of fatigue. You have +nailed up a notice to the effect that life is ebbing down in you. You have +run away from life. You have played a trick, shabby trick. You have +balked at the game. You refuse to play. You have thrown your cards under +the table and run away to hide, here amongst your hills." + +He tossed his straight hair back from his flashing eyes, and scarcely +interrupted to roll a long, brown, Mexican cigarette. + +"But the gods know. It is an old trick. All the generations of man have +tried it . . . and lost. The gods know how to deal with such as you. To +pursue is to possess, and to possess is to be sated. And so you, in your +wisdom, have refused any longer to pursue. You have elected surcease. +Very well. You will become sated with surcease. You say you have escaped +satiety! You have merely bartered it for senility. And senility is +another name for satiety. It is satiety's masquerade. Bah!" + +"But look at me!" I cried. + +Carquinez was ever a demon for haling ones soul out and making rags and +tatters of it. + +He looked me witheringly up and down. + +"You see no signs," I challenged. + +"Decay is insidious," he retorted. "You are rotten ripe." + +I laughed and forgave him for his very deviltry. But he refused to be +forgiven. + +"Do I not know?" he asked. "The gods always win. I have watched men play +for years what seemed a winning game. In the end they lost." + +"Don't you ever make mistakes?" I asked. + +He blew many meditative rings of smoke before replying. + +"Yes, I was nearly fooled, once. Let me tell you. There was Marvin Fiske. +You remember him? And his Dantesque face and poet's soul, singing his +chant of the flesh, the very priest of Love? And there was Ethel Baird, +whom also you must remember." + +"A warm saint," I said. + +"That is she! Holy as Love, and sweeter! Just a woman, made for love; and +yet--how shall I say?--drenched through with holiness as your own air here +is with the perfume of flowers. Well, they married. They played a hand +with the gods--" + +"And they won, they gloriously won!" I broke in. + +Carquinez looked at me pityingly, and his voice was like a funeral bell. + +"They lost. They supremely, colossally lost." + +"But the world believes otherwise," I ventured coldly. + +"The world conjectures. The world sees only the face of things. But I +know. Has it ever entered your mind to wonder why she took the veil, +buried herself in that dolorous convent of the living dead?" + +"Because she loved him so, and when he died . . ." + +Speech was frozen on my lips by Carquinez's sneer. + +"A pat answer," he said, "machine-made like a piece of cotton-drill. The +world's judgment! And much the world knows about it. Like you, she fled +from life. She was beaten. She flung out the white flag of fatigue. And +no beleaguered city ever flew that flag in such bitterness and tears. + +"Now I shall tell you the whole tale, and you must believe me, for I know. +They had pondered the problem of satiety. They loved Love. They knew to +the uttermost farthing the value of Love. They loved him so well that they +were fain to keep him always, warm and a-thrill in their hearts. They +welcomed his coming; they feared to have him depart. + +"Love was desire, they held, a delicious pain. He was ever seeking +easement, and when he found that for which he sought, he died. Love denied +was Love alive; Love granted was Love deceased. Do you follow me? They +saw it was not the way of life to be hungry for what it has. To eat and +still be hungry--man has never accomplished that feat. The problem of +satiety. That is it. To have and to keep the sharp famine-edge of +appetite at the groaning board. This was their problem, for they loved +Love. Often did they discuss it, with all Love's sweet ardours brimming in +their eyes; his ruddy blood spraying their cheeks; his voice playing in and +out with their voices, now hiding as a tremolo in their throats, and again +shading a tone with that ineffable tenderness which he alone can utter. + +"How do I know all this? I saw--much. More I learned from her diary. +This I found in it, from Fiona Macleod: 'For, truly, that wandering voice, +that twilight-whisper, that breath so dewy-sweet, that flame-winged lute- +player whom none sees but for a moment, in a rainbow-shimmer of joy, or a +sudden lightning-flare of passion, this exquisite mystery we call Amor, +comes, to some rapt visionaries at least, not with a song upon the lips +that all may hear, or with blithe viol of public music, but as one wrought +by ecstasy, dumbly eloquent with desire.' + +"How to keep the flame-winged lute-player with his dumb eloquence of +desire? To feast him was to lose him. Their love for each other was a +great love. Their granaries were overflowing with plenitude; yet they +wanted to keep the sharp famine-edge of their love undulled. + +"Nor were they lean little fledglings theorizing on the threshold of Love. +They were robust and realized souls. They had loved before, with others, +in the days before they met; and in those days they had throttled Love with +caresses, and killed him with kisses, and buried him in the pit of satiety. + +"They were not cold wraiths, this man and woman. They were warm human. +They had no Saxon soberness in their blood. The colour of it was sunset- +red. They glowed with it. Temperamentally theirs was the French joy in +the flesh. They were idealists, but their idealism was Gallic. It was not +tempered by the chill and sombre fluid that for the English serves as +blood. There was no stoicism about them. They were Americans, descended +out of the English, and yet the refraining and self-denying of the English +spirit-groping were not theirs. + +"They were all this that I have said, and they were made for joy, only they +achieved a concept. A curse on concepts! They played with logic, and this +was their logic.--But first let me tell you of a talk we had one night. It +was of Gautier's Madeline de Maupin. You remember the maid? She kissed +once, and once only, and kisses she would have no more. Not that she found +kisses were not sweet, but that she feared with repetition they would cloy. +Satiety again! She tried to play without stakes against the gods. Now +this is contrary to a rule of the game the gods themselves have made. Only +the rules are not posted over the table. Mortals must play in order to +learn the rules. + +"Well, to the logic. The man and the woman argued thus: Why kiss once +only? If to kiss once were wise, was it not wiser to kiss not at all? +Thus could they keep Love alive. Fasting, he would knock forever at their +hearts. + +"Perhaps it was out of their heredity that they achieved this unholy +concept. The breed will out and sometimes most fantastically. Thus in +them did cursed Albion array herself a scheming wanton, a bold, cold- +calculating, and artful hussy. After all, I do not know. But this I know: +it was out of their inordinate desire for joy that they forewent joy. + +"As he said (I read it long afterward in one of his letters to her): 'To +hold you in my arms, close, and yet not close. To yearn for you, and never +to have you, and so always to have you.' And she: 'For you to be always +just beyond my reach. To be ever attaining you, and yet never attaining +you, and for this to last forever, always fresh and new, and always with +the first flush upon us. + +"That is not the way they said it. On my lips their love-philosophy is +mangled. And who am I to delve into their soul-stuff? I am a frog, on the +dank edge of a great darkness, gazing goggle-eyed at the mystery and wonder +of their flaming souls. + +"And they were right, as far as they went. Everything is good . . . as +long as it is unpossessed. Satiety and possession are Death's horses; they +run in span. + + "'And time could only tutor us to eke + Our rapture's warmth with custom's afterglow.' + +"They got that from a sonnet of Alfred Austin's. It was called 'Love's +Wisdom.' It was the one kiss of Madeline de Maupin. How did it run? + + "'Kiss we and part; no further can we go; + And better death than we from high to low + Should dwindle, or decline from strong to weak.' + +"But they were wiser. They would not kiss and part. They would not kiss +at all, and thus they planned to stay at Love's topmost peak. They +married. You were in England at the time. And never was there such a +marriage. They kept their secret to themselves. I did not know, then. +Their rapture's warmth did not cool. Their love burned with increasing +brightness. Never was there anything like it. The time passed, the +months, the years, and ever the flame-winged lute-player grew more +resplendent. + +"Everybody marvelled. They became the wonderful lovers, and they were +greatly envied. Sometimes women pitied her because she was childless; it +is the form the envy of such creatures takes. + +"And I did not know their secret. I pondered and I marvelled. As first I +had expected, subconsciously I imagine, the passing of their love. Then I +became aware that it was Time that passed and Love that remained. Then I +became curious. What was their secret? What were the magic fetters with +which they bound Love to them? How did they hold the graceless elf? What +elixir of eternal love had they drunk together as had Tristram and Iseult +of old time? And whose hand had brewed the fairy drink? + +"As I say, I was curious, and I watched them. They were love-mad. They +lived in an unending revel of Love. They made a pomp and ceremonial of it. +They saturated themselves in the art and poetry of Love. No, they were not +neurotics. They were sane and healthy, and they were artists. But they +had accomplished the impossible. They had achieved deathless desire. + +"And I? I saw much of them and their everlasting miracle of Love. I +puzzled and wondered, and then one day--" + +Carquinez broke off abruptly and asked, "Have you ever read, 'Love's +Waiting Time'?" + +I shook my head. + +"Page wrote it--Curtis Hidden Page, I think. Well, it was that bit of +verse that gave me the clue. One day, in the window-seat near the big +piano--you remember how she could play? She used to laugh, sometimes, and +doubt whether it was for them I came, or for the music. She called me a +'music-sot' once, a 'sound-debauchee.' What a voice he had! When he sang +I believed in immortality, my regard for the gods grew almost patronizing +and I devised ways and means whereby I surely could outwit them and their +tricks. + +"It was a spectacle for God, that man and woman, years married, and singing +love-songs with a freshness virginal as new-born Love himself, with a +ripeness and wealth of ardour that young lovers can never know. Young +lovers were pale and anaemic beside that long-married pair. To see them, +all fire and flame and tenderness, at a trembling distance, lavishing +caresses of eye and voice with every action, through every silence--their +love driving them toward each other, and they withholding like fluttering +moths, each to the other a candle-flame, and revolving each about the other +in the mad gyrations of an amazing orbit-flight! It seemed, in obedience +to some great law of physics, more potent than gravitation and more subtle, +that they must corporeally melt each into each there before my very eyes. +Small wonder they were called the wonderful lovers. + +"I have wandered. Now to the clue. One day in the window-seat I found a +book of verse. It opened of itself, betraying long habit, to 'Love's +Waiting Time.' The page was thumbed and limp with overhandling, and there +I read:-- + + "'So sweet it is to stand but just apart, + To know each other better, and to keep + The soft, delicious sense of two that touch . . . + + O love, not yet! . . . Sweet, let us keep our love + Wrapped round with sacred mystery awhile, + Waiting the secret of the coming years, + That come not yet, not yet . . . sometime . . . + not yet . . . + + Oh, yet a little while our love may grow! + When it has blossomed it will haply die. + Feed it with lipless kisses, let it sleep, + Bedded in dead denial yet some while . . . + Oh, yet a little while, a little while.' + +"I folded the book on my thumb and sat there silent and without moving for +a long time. I was stunned by the clearness of vision the verse had +imparted to me. It was illumination. It was like a bolt of God's +lightning in the Pit. They would keep Love, the fickle sprite, the +forerunner of young life--young life that is imperative to be born! + +"I conned the lines over in my mind--'Not yet, sometime'--'O Love, not +yet'--'Feed it with lipless kisses, let it sleep.' And I laughed aloud, +ha, ha! I saw with white vision their blameless souls. They were +children. They did not understand. They played with Nature's fire and +bedded with a naked sword. They laughed at the gods. They would stop the +cosmic sap. They had invented a system, and brought it to the gaming-table +of life, and expected to win out. 'Beware!' I cried. 'The gods are behind +the table. They make new rules for every system that is devised. You have +no chance to win.' + +"But I did not so cry to them. I waited. They would learn that their +system was worthless and throw it away. They would be content with +whatever happiness the gods gave them and not strive to wrest more away. + +"I watched. I said nothing. The months continued to come and go, and +still the famine-edge of their love grew the sharper. Never did they dull +it with a permitted love-clasp. They ground and whetted it on self-denial, +and sharper and sharper it grew. This went on until even I doubted. Did +the gods sleep? I wondered. Or were they dead? I laughed to myself. The +man and the woman had made a miracle. They had outwitted God. They had +shamed the flesh, and blackened the face of the good Earth Mother. They +had played with her fire and not been burned. They were immune. They were +themselves gods, knowing good from evil and tasting not. 'Was this the way +gods came to be?' I asked myself. 'I am a frog,' I said. 'But for my mud- +lidded eyes I should have been blinded by the brightness of this wonder I +have witnessed. I have puffed myself up with my wisdom and passed judgment +upon gods.' + +"Yet even in this, my latest wisdom, I was wrong. They were not gods. +They were man and woman--soft clay that sighed and thrilled, shot through +with desire, thumbed with strange weaknesses which the gods have not." + +Carquinez broke from his narrative to roll another cigarette and to laugh +harshly. It was not a pretty laugh; it was like the mockery of a devil, +and it rose over and rode the roar of the storm that came muffled to our +ears from the crashing outside world. + +"I am a frog," he said apologetically. "How were they to understand? They +were artists, not biologists. They knew the clay of the studio, but they +did not know the clay of which they themselves were made. But this I will +say--they played high. Never was there such a game before, and I doubt me +if there will ever be such a game again. + +"Never was lovers' ecstasy like theirs. They had not killed Love with +kisses. They had quickened him with denial. And by denial they drove him +on till he was all aburst with desire. And the flame-winged lute-player +fanned them with his warm wings till they were all but swooning. It was +the very delirium of Love, and it continued undiminished and increasing +through the weeks and months. + +"They longed and yearned, with all the fond pangs and sweet delicious +agonies, with an intensity never felt by lovers before nor since. + +"And then one day the drowsy gods ceased nodding. They aroused and looked +at the man and woman who had made a mock of them. And the man and woman +looked into each other's eyes one morning and knew that something was gone. +It was the flame-winged one. He had fled, silently, in the night, from +their anchorites' board. + +"They looked into each other's eyes and knew that they did not care. +Desire was dead. Do you understand? Desire was dead. And they had never +kissed. Not once had they kissed. Love was gone. They would never yearn +and burn again. For them there was nothing left--no more tremblings and +flutterings and delicious anguishes, no more throbbing and pulsing, and +sighing and song. Desire was dead. It had died in the night, on a couch +cold and unattended; nor had they witnessed its passing. They learned it +for the first time in each other's eyes. + +"The gods may not be kind, but they are often merciful. They had twirled +the little ivory ball and swept the stakes from the table. All that +remained was the man and woman gazing into each other's cold eyes. And +then he died. That was the mercy. Within the week Marvin Fiske was dead-- +you remember the accident. And in her diary, written at this time, I long +afterward read Mitchell Kennerly's:-- + + "'There was not a single hour + We might have kissed and did not kiss.'" + +"Oh, the irony of it!" I cried out. + +And Carquinez, in the firelight a veritable Mephistopheles in velvet +jacket, fixed me with his black eyes. + +"And they won, you said? The world's judgment! I have told you, and I +know. They won as you are winning, here in your hills." + +"But you," I demanded hotly; "you with your orgies of sound and sense, with +your mad cities and madder frolics--bethink you that you win?" + +He shook his head slowly. "Because you with your sober bucolic regime, +lose, is no reason that I should win. We never win. Sometimes we think we +win. That is a little pleasantry of the gods." + + + +THE APOSTATE + + "Now I wake me up to work; + I pray the Lord I may not shirk. + If I should die before the night, + I pray the Lord my work's all right. + Amen." + +"If you don't git up, Johnny, I won't give you a bite to eat!" + +The threat had no effect on the boy. He clung stubbornly to sleep, +fighting for its oblivion as the dreamer fights for his dream. The boy's +hands loosely clenched themselves, and he made feeble, spasmodic blows at +the air. These blows were intended for his mother, but she betrayed +practised familiarity in avoiding them as she shook him roughly by the +shoulder. + +"Lemme 'lone!" + +It was a cry that began, muffled, in the deeps of sleep, that swiftly +rushed upward, like a wail, into passionate belligerence, and that died +away and sank down into an inarticulate whine. It was a bestial cry, as of +a soul in torment, filled with infinite protest and pain. + +But she did not mind. She was a sad-eyed, tired-faced woman, and she had +grown used to this task, which she repeated every day of her life. She got +a grip on the bedclothes and tried to strip them down; but the boy, ceasing +his punching, clung to them desperately. In a huddle, at the foot of the +bed, he still remained covered. Then she tried dragging the bedding to the +floor. The boy opposed her. She braced herself. Hers was the superior +weight, and the boy and bedding gave, the former instinctively following +the latter in order to shelter against the chill of the room that bit into +his body. + +As he toppled on the edge of the bed it seemed that he must fall head-first +to the floor. But consciousness fluttered up in him. He righted himself +and for a moment perilously balanced. Then he struck the floor on his +feet. On the instant his mother seized him by the shoulders and shook him. +Again his fists struck out, this time with more force and directness. At +the same time his eyes opened. She released him. He was awake. + +"All right," he mumbled. + +She caught up the lamp and hurried out, leaving him in darkness. + +"You'll be docked," she warned back to him. + +He did not mind the darkness. When he had got into his clothes, he went +out into the kitchen. His tread was very heavy for so thin and light a +boy. His legs dragged with their own weight, which seemed unreasonable +because they were such skinny legs. He drew a broken-bottomed chair to the +table. + +"Johnny," his mother called sharply. + +He arose as sharply from the chair, and, without a word, went to the sink. +It was a greasy, filthy sink. A smell came up from the outlet. He took no +notice of it. That a sink should smell was to him part of the natural +order, just as it was a part of the natural order that the soap should be +grimy with dish-water and hard to lather. Nor did he try very hard to make +it lather. Several splashes of the cold water from the running faucet +completed the function. He did not wash his teeth. For that matter he had +never seen a toothbrush, nor did he know that there existed beings in the +world who were guilty of so great a foolishness as tooth washing. + +"You might wash yourself wunst a day without bein' told," his mother +complained. + +She was holding a broken lid on the pot as she poured two cups of coffee. +He made no remark, for this was a standing quarrel between them, and the +one thing upon which his mother was hard as adamant. "Wunst" a day it was +compulsory that he should wash his face. He dried himself on a greasy +towel, damp and dirty and ragged, that left his face covered with shreds of +lint. + +"I wish we didn't live so far away," she said, as he sat down. "I try to +do the best I can. You know that. But a dollar on the rent is such a +savin', an' we've more room here. You know that." + +He scarcely followed her. He had heard it all before, many times. The +range of her thought was limited, and she was ever harking back to the +hardship worked upon them by living so far from the mills. + +"A dollar means more grub," he remarked sententiously. "I'd sooner do the +walkin' an' git the grub." + +He ate hurriedly, half chewing the bread and washing the unmasticated +chunks down with coffee. The hot and muddy liquid went by the name of +coffee. Johnny thought it was coffee--and excellent coffee. That was one +of the few of life's illusions that remained to him. He had never drunk +real coffee in his life. + +In addition to the bread, there was a small piece of cold pork. His mother +refilled his cup with coffee. As he was finishing the bread, he began to +watch if more was forthcoming. She intercepted his questioning glance. + +"Now, don't be hoggish, Johnny," was her comment. "You've had your share. +Your brothers an' sisters are smaller'n you." + +He did not answer the rebuke. He was not much of a talker. Also, he +ceased his hungry glancing for more. He was uncomplaining, with a patience +that was as terrible as the school in which it had been learned. He +finished his coffee, wiped his mouth on the back of his hand, and started +to rise. + +"Wait a second," she said hastily. "I guess the loaf kin stand you another +slice--a thin un." + +There was legerdemain in her actions. With all the seeming of cutting a +slice from the loaf for him, she put loaf and slice back in the bread box +and conveyed to him one of her own two slices. She believed she had +deceived him, but he had noted her sleight-of-hand. Nevertheless, he took +the bread shamelessly. He had a philosophy that his mother, because of her +chronic sickliness, was not much of an eater anyway. + +She saw that he was chewing the bread dry, and reached over and emptied her +coffee cup into his. + +"Don't set good somehow on my stomach this morning," she explained. + +A distant whistle, prolonged and shrieking, brought both of them to their +feet. She glanced at the tin alarm-clock on the shelf. The hands stood at +half-past five. The rest of the factory world was just arousing from +sleep. She drew a shawl about her shoulders, and on her head put a dingy +hat, shapeless and ancient. + +"We've got to run," she said, turning the wick of the lamp and blowing down +the chimney. + +They groped their way out and down the stairs. It was clear and cold, and +Johnny shivered at the first contact with the outside air. The stars had +not yet begun to pale in the sky, and the city lay in blackness. Both +Johnny and his mother shuffled their feet as they walked. There was no +ambition in the leg muscles to swing the feet clear of the ground. + +After fifteen silent minutes, his mother turned off to the right. + +"Don't be late," was her final warning from out of the dark that was +swallowing her up. + +He made no response, steadily keeping on his way. In the factory quarter, +doors were opening everywhere, and he was soon one of a multitude that +pressed onward through the dark. As he entered the factory gate the +whistle blew again. He glanced at the east. Across a ragged sky-line of +housetops a pale light was beginning to creep. This much he saw of the day +as he turned his back upon it and joined his work gang. + +He took his place in one of many long rows of machines. Before him, above +a bin filled with small bobbins, were large bobbins revolving rapidly. +Upon these he wound the jute-twine of the small bobbins. The work was +simple. All that was required was celerity. The small bobbins were +emptied so rapidly, and there were so many large bobbins that did the +emptying, that there were no idle moments. + +He worked mechanically. When a small bobbin ran out, he used his left hand +for a brake, stopping the large bobbin and at the same time, with thumb and +forefinger, catching the flying end of twine. Also, at the same time, with +his right hand, he caught up the loose twine-end of a small bobbin. These +various acts with both hands were performed simultaneously and swiftly. +Then there would come a flash of his hands as he looped the weaver's knot +and released the bobbin. There was nothing difficult about weaver's knots. +He once boasted he could tie them in his sleep. And for that matter, he +sometimes did, toiling centuries long in a single night at tying an endless +succession of weaver's knots. + +Some of the boys shirked, wasting time and machinery by not replacing the +small bobbins when they ran out. And there was an overseer to prevent +this. He caught Johnny's neighbour at the trick, and boxed his ears. + +"Look at Johnny there--why ain't you like him?" the overseer wrathfully +demanded. + +Johnny's bobbins were running full blast, but he did not thrill at the +indirect praise. There had been a time . . . but that was long ago, very +long ago. His apathetic face was expressionless as he listened to himself +being held up as a shining example. He was the perfect worker. He knew +that. He had been told so, often. It was a commonplace, and besides it +didn't seem to mean anything to him any more. From the perfect worker he +had evolved into the perfect machine. When his work went wrong, it was +with him as with the machine, due to faulty material. It would have been +as possible for a perfect nail-die to cut imperfect nails as for him to +make a mistake. + +And small wonder. There had never been a time when he had not been in +intimate relationship with machines. Machinery had almost been bred into +him, and at any rate he had been brought up on it. Twelve years before, +there had been a small flutter of excitement in the loom room of this very +mill. Johnny's mother had fainted. They stretched her out on the floor in +the midst of the shrieking machines. A couple of elderly women were called +from their looms. The foreman assisted. And in a few minutes there was +one more soul in the loom room than had entered by the doors. It was +Johnny, born with the pounding, crashing roar of the looms in his ears, +drawing with his first breath the warm, moist air that was thick with +flying lint. He had coughed that first day in order to rid his lungs of +the lint; and for the same reason he had coughed ever since. + +The boy alongside of Johnny whimpered and sniffed. The boy's face was +convulsed with hatred for the overseer who kept a threatening eye on him +from a distance; but every bobbin was running full. The boy yelled +terrible oaths into the whirling bobbins before him; but the sound did not +carry half a dozen feet, the roaring of the room holding it in and +containing it like a wall. + +Of all this Johnny took no notice. He had a way of accepting things. +Besides, things grow monotonous by repetition, and this particular +happening he had witnessed many times. It seemed to him as useless to +oppose the overseer as to defy the will of a machine. Machines were made +to go in certain ways and to perform certain tasks. It was the same with +the overseer. + +But at eleven o'clock there was excitement in the room. In an apparently +occult way the excitement instantly permeated everywhere. The one-legged +boy who worked on the other side of Johnny bobbed swiftly across the floor +to a bin truck that stood empty. Into this he dived out of sight, crutch +and all. The superintendent of the mill was coming along, accompanied by a +young man. He was well dressed and wore a starched shirt--a gentleman, in +Johnny's classification of men, and also, "the Inspector." + +He looked sharply at the boys as he passed along. Sometimes he stopped and +asked questions. When he did so, he was compelled to shout at the top of +his lungs, at which moments his face was ludicrously contorted with the +strain of making himself heard. His quick eye noted the empty machine +alongside of Johnny's, but he said nothing. Johnny also caught his eye, +and he stopped abruptly. He caught Johnny by the arm to draw him back a +step from the machine; but with an exclamation of surprise he released the +arm. + +"Pretty skinny," the superintendent laughed anxiously. + +"Pipe stems," was the answer. "Look at those legs. The boy's got the +rickets--incipient, but he's got them. If epilepsy doesn't get him in the +end, it will be because tuberculosis gets him first." + +Johnny listened, but did not understand. Furthermore he was not interested +in future ills. There was an immediate and more serious ill that +threatened him in the form of the inspector. + +"Now, my boy, I want you to tell me the truth," the inspector said, or +shouted, bending close to the boy's ear to make him hear. "How old are +you?" + +"Fourteen," Johnny lied, and he lied with the full force of his lungs. So +loudly did he lie that it started him off in a dry, hacking cough that +lifted the lint which had been settling in his lungs all morning. + +"Looks sixteen at least," said the superintendent. + +"Or sixty," snapped the inspector. + +"He's always looked that way." + +"How long?" asked the inspector, quickly. + +"For years. Never gets a bit older." + +"Or younger, I dare say. I suppose he's worked here all those years?" + +"Off and on--but that was before the new law was passed," the +superintendent hastened to add. + +"Machine idle?" the inspector asked, pointing at the unoccupied machine +beside Johnny's, in which the part-filled bobbins were flying like mad. + +"Looks that way." The superintendent motioned the overseer to him and +shouted in his ear and pointed at the machine. "Machine's idle," he +reported back to the inspector. + +They passed on, and Johnny returned to his work, relieved in that the ill +had been averted. But the one-legged boy was not so fortunate. The sharp- +eyed inspector haled him out at arms length from the bin truck. His lips +were quivering, and his face had all the expression of one upon whom was +fallen profound and irremediable disaster. The overseer looked astounded, +as though for the first time he had laid eyes on the boy, while the +superintendent's face expressed shock and displeasure. + +"I know him," the inspector said. "He's twelve years old. I've had him +discharged from three factories inside the year. This makes the fourth." + +He turned to the one-legged boy. "You promised me, word and honour, that +you'd go to school." + +The one-legged boy burst into tears. "Please, Mr. Inspector, two babies +died on us, and we're awful poor." + +"What makes you cough that way?" the inspector demanded, as though charging +him with crime. + +And as in denial of guilt, the one-legged boy replied: "It ain't nothin'. +I jes' caught a cold last week, Mr. Inspector, that's all." + +In the end the one-legged boy went out of the room with the inspector, the +latter accompanied by the anxious and protesting superintendent. After +that monotony settled down again. The long morning and the longer +afternoon wore away and the whistle blew for quitting time. Darkness had +already fallen when Johnny passed out through the factory gate. In the +interval the sun had made a golden ladder of the sky, flooded the world +with its gracious warmth, and dropped down and disappeared in the west +behind a ragged sky-line of housetops. + +Supper was the family meal of the day--the one meal at which Johnny +encountered his younger brothers and sisters. It partook of the nature of +an encounter, to him, for he was very old, while they were distressingly +young. He had no patience with their excessive and amazing juvenility. He +did not understand it. His own childhood was too far behind him. He was +like an old and irritable man, annoyed by the turbulence of their young +spirits that was to him arrant silliness. He glowered silently over his +food, finding compensation in the thought that they would soon have to go +to work. That would take the edge off of them and make them sedate and +dignified--like him. Thus it was, after the fashion of the human, that +Johnny made of himself a yardstick with which to measure the universe. + +During the meal, his mother explained in various ways and with infinite +repetition that she was trying to do the best she could; so that it was +with relief, the scant meal ended, that Johnny shoved back his chair and +arose. He debated for a moment between bed and the front door, and finally +went out the latter. He did not go far. He sat down on the stoop, his +knees drawn up and his narrow shoulders drooping forward, his elbows on his +knees and the palms of his hands supporting his chin. + +As he sat there, he did no thinking. He was just resting. So far as his +mind was concerned, it was asleep. His brothers and sisters came out, and +with other children played noisily about him. An electric globe at the +corner lighted their frolics. He was peevish and irritable, that they +knew; but the spirit of adventure lured them into teasing him. They joined +hands before him, and, keeping time with their bodies, chanted in his face +weird and uncomplimentary doggerel. At first he snarled curses at them-- +curses he had learned from the lips of various foremen. Finding this +futile, and remembering his dignity, he relapsed into dogged silence. + +His brother Will, next to him in age, having just passed his tenth +birthday, was the ringleader. Johnny did not possess particularly kindly +feelings toward him. His life had early been embittered by continual +giving over and giving way to Will. He had a definite feeling that Will +was greatly in his debt and was ungrateful about it. In his own playtime, +far back in the dim past, he had been robbed of a large part of that +playtime by being compelled to take care of Will. Will was a baby then, +and then, as now, their mother had spent her days in the mills. To Johnny +had fallen the part of little father and little mother as well. + +Will seemed to show the benefit of the giving over and the giving way. He +was well-built, fairly rugged, as tall as his elder brother and even +heavier. It was as though the life-blood of the one had been diverted into +the other's veins. And in spirits it was the same. Johnny was jaded, worn +out, without resilience, while his younger brother seemed bursting and +spilling over with exuberance. + +The mocking chant rose louder and louder. Will leaned closer as he danced, +thrusting out his tongue. Johnny's left arm shot out and caught the other +around the neck. At the same time he rapped his bony fist to the other's +nose. It was a pathetically bony fist, but that it was sharp to hurt was +evidenced by the squeal of pain it produced. The other children were +uttering frightened cries, while Johnny's sister, Jennie, had dashed into +the house. + +He thrust Will from him, kicked him savagely on the shins, then reached for +him and slammed him face downward in the dirt. Nor did he release him till +the face had been rubbed into the dirt several times. Then the mother +arrived, an anaemic whirlwind of solicitude and maternal wrath. + +"Why can't he leave me alone?" was Johnny's reply to her upbraiding. +"Can't he see I'm tired?" + +"I'm as big as you," Will raged in her arms, his face a mass of tears, +dirt, and blood. "I'm as big as you now, an' I'm goin' to git bigger. +Then I'll lick you--see if I don't." + +"You ought to be to work, seein' how big you are," Johnny snarled. "That's +what's the matter with you. You ought to be to work. An' it's up to your +ma to put you to work." + +"But he's too young," she protested. "He's only a little boy." + +"I was younger'n him when I started to work." + +Johnny's mouth was open, further to express the sense of unfairness that he +felt, but the mouth closed with a snap. He turned gloomily on his heel and +stalked into the house and to bed. The door of his room was open to let in +warmth from the kitchen. As he undressed in the semi-darkness he could +hear his mother talking with a neighbour woman who had dropped in. His +mother was crying, and her speech was punctuated with spiritless sniffles. + +"I can't make out what's gittin' into Johnny," he could hear her say. "He +didn't used to be this way. He was a patient little angel. + +"An' he is a good boy," she hastened to defend. "He's worked faithful, an' +he did go to work too young. But it wasn't my fault. I do the best I can, +I'm sure." + +Prolonged sniffling from the kitchen, and Johnny murmured to himself as his +eyelids closed down, "You betcher life I've worked faithful." + +The next morning he was torn bodily by his mother from the grip of sleep. +Then came the meagre breakfast, the tramp through the dark, and the pale +glimpse of day across the housetops as he turned his back on it and went in +through the factory gate. It was another day, of all the days, and all the +days were alike. + +And yet there had been variety in his life--at the times he changed from +one job to another, or was taken sick. When he was six, he was little +mother and father to Will and the other children still younger. At seven +he went into the mills--winding bobbins. When he was eight, he got work in +another mill. His new job was marvellously easy. All he had to do was to +sit down with a little stick in his hand and guide a stream of cloth that +flowed past him. This stream of cloth came out of the maw of a machine, +passed over a hot roller, and went on its way elsewhere. But he sat always +in one place, beyond the reach of daylight, a gas-jet flaring over him, +himself part of the mechanism. + +He was very happy at that job, in spite of the moist heat, for he was still +young and in possession of dreams and illusions. And wonderful dreams he +dreamed as he watched the steaming cloth streaming endlessly by. But there +was no exercise about the work, no call upon his mind, and he dreamed less +and less, while his mind grew torpid and drowsy. Nevertheless, he earned +two dollars a week, and two dollars represented the difference between +acute starvation and chronic underfeeding. + +But when he was nine, he lost his job. Measles was the cause of it. After +he recovered, he got work in a glass factory. The pay was better, and the +work demanded skill. It was piecework, and the more skilful he was, the +bigger wages he earned. Here was incentive. And under this incentive he +developed into a remarkable worker. + +It was simple work, the tying of glass stoppers into small bottles. At his +waist he carried a bundle of twine. He held the bottles between his knees +so that he might work with both hands. Thus, in a sitting position and +bending over his own knees, his narrow shoulders grew humped and his chest +was contracted for ten hours each day. This was not good for the lungs, +but he tied three hundred dozen bottles a day. + +The superintendent was very proud of him, and brought visitors to look at +him. In ten hours three hundred dozen bottles passed through his hands. +This meant that he had attained machine-like perfection. All waste +movements were eliminated. Every motion of his thin arms, every movement +of a muscle in the thin fingers, was swift and accurate. He worked at high +tension, and the result was that he grew nervous. At night his muscles +twitched in his sleep, and in the daytime he could not relax and rest. He +remained keyed up and his muscles continued to twitch. Also he grew sallow +and his lint-cough grew worse. Then pneumonia laid hold of the feeble +lungs within the contracted chest, and he lost his job in the glass-works. + +Now he had returned to the jute mills where he had first begun with winding +bobbins. But promotion was waiting for him. He was a good worker. He +would next go on the starcher, and later he would go into the loom room. +There was nothing after that except increased efficiency. + +The machinery ran faster than when he had first gone to work, and his mind +ran slower. He no longer dreamed at all, though his earlier years had been +full of dreaming. Once he had been in love. It was when he first began +guiding the cloth over the hot roller, and it was with the daughter of the +superintendent. She was much older than he, a young woman, and he had seen +her at a distance only a paltry half-dozen times. But that made no +difference. On the surface of the cloth stream that poured past him, he +pictured radiant futures wherein he performed prodigies of toil, invented +miraculous machines, won to the mastership of the mills, and in the end +took her in his arms and kissed her soberly on the brow. + +But that was all in the long ago, before he had grown too old and tired to +love. Also, she had married and gone away, and his mind had gone to sleep. +Yet it had been a wonderful experience, and he used often to look back upon +it as other men and women look back upon the time they believed in fairies. +He had never believed in fairies nor Santa Claus; but he had believed +implicitly in the smiling future his imagination had wrought into the +steaming cloth stream. + +He had become a man very early in life. At seven, when he drew his first +wages, began his adolescence. A certain feeling of independence crept up +in him, and the relationship between him and his mother changed. Somehow, +as an earner and breadwinner, doing his own work in the world, he was more +like an equal with her. Manhood, full-blown manhood, had come when he was +eleven, at which time he had gone to work on the night shift for six +months. No child works on the night shift and remains a child. + +There had been several great events in his life. One of these had been +when his mother bought some California prunes. Two others had been the two +times when she cooked custard. Those had been events. He remembered them +kindly. And at that time his mother had told him of a blissful dish she +would sometime make--"floating island," she had called it, "better than +custard." For years he had looked forward to the day when he would sit +down to the table with floating island before him, until at last he had +relegated the idea of it to the limbo of unattainable ideals. + +Once he found a silver quarter lying on the sidewalk. That, also, was a +great event in his life, withal a tragic one. He knew his duty on the +instant the silver flashed on his eyes, before even he had picked it up. +At home, as usual, there was not enough to eat, and home he should have +taken it as he did his wages every Saturday night. Right conduct in this +case was obvious; but he never had any spending of his money, and he was +suffering from candy hunger. He was ravenous for the sweets that only on +red-letter days he had ever tasted in his life. + +He did not attempt to deceive himself. He knew it was sin, and +deliberately he sinned when he went on a fifteen-cent candy debauch. Ten +cents he saved for a future orgy; but not being accustomed to the carrying +of money, he lost the ten cents. This occurred at the time when he was +suffering all the torments of conscience, and it was to him an act of +divine retribution. He had a frightened sense of the closeness of an awful +and wrathful God. God had seen, and God had been swift to punish, denying +him even the full wages of sin. + +In memory he always looked back upon that as the one great criminal deed of +his life, and at the recollection his conscience always awoke and gave him +another twinge. It was the one skeleton in his closet. Also, being so +made, and circumstanced, he looked back upon the deed with regret. He was +dissatisfied with the manner in which he had spent the quarter. He could +have invested it better, and, out of his later knowledge of the quickness +of God, he would have beaten God out by spending the whole quarter at one +fell swoop. In retrospect he spent the quarter a thousand times, and each +time to better advantage. + +There was one other memory of the past, dim and faded, but stamped into his +soul everlasting by the savage feet of his father. It was more like a +nightmare than a remembered vision of a concrete thing--more like the race- +memory of man that makes him fall in his sleep and that goes back to his +arboreal ancestry. + +This particular memory never came to Johnny in broad daylight when he was +wide awake. It came at night, in bed, at the moment that his consciousness +was sinking down and losing itself in sleep. It always aroused him to +frightened wakefulness, and for the moment, in the first sickening start, +it seemed to him that he lay crosswise on the foot of the bed. In the bed +were the vague forms of his father and mother. He never saw what his +father looked like. He had but one impression of his father, and that was +that he had savage and pitiless feet. + +His earlier memories lingered with him, but he had no late memories. All +days were alike. Yesterday or last year were the same as a thousand years- +-or a minute. Nothing ever happened. There were no events to mark the +march of time. Time did not march. It stood always still. It was only +the whirling machines that moved, and they moved nowhere--in spite of the +fact that they moved faster. + + + +When he was fourteen, he went to work on the starcher. It was a colossal +event. Something had at last happened that could be remembered beyond a +night's sleep or a week's pay-day. It marked an era. It was a machine +Olympiad, a thing to date from. "When I went to work on the starcher," or, +"after," or "before I went to work on the starcher," were sentences often +on his lips. + +He celebrated his sixteenth birthday by going into the loom room and taking +a loom. Here was an incentive again, for it was piece-work. And he +excelled, because the clay of him had been moulded by the mills into the +perfect machine. At the end of three months he was running two looms, and, +later, three and four. + +At the end of his second year at the looms he was turning out more yards +than any other weaver, and more than twice as much as some of the less +skilful ones. And at home things began to prosper as he approached the +full stature of his earning power. Not, however, that his increased +earnings were in excess of need. The children were growing up. They ate +more. And they were going to school, and school-books cost money. And +somehow, the faster he worked, the faster climbed the prices of things. +Even the rent went up, though the house had fallen from bad to worse +disrepair. + +He had grown taller; but with his increased height he seemed leaner than +ever. Also, he was more nervous. With the nervousness increased his +peevishness and irritability. The children had learned by many bitter +lessons to fight shy of him. His mother respected him for his earning +power, but somehow her respect was tinctured with fear. + +There was no joyousness in life for him. The procession of the days he +never saw. The nights he slept away in twitching unconsciousness. The +rest of the time he worked, and his consciousness was machine +consciousness. Outside this his mind was a blank. He had no ideals, and +but one illusion; namely, that he drank excellent coffee. He was a work- +beast. He had no mental life whatever; yet deep down in the crypts of his +mind, unknown to him, were being weighed and sifted every hour of his toil, +every movement of his hands, every twitch of his muscles, and preparations +were making for a future course of action that would amaze him and all his +little world. + +It was in the late spring that he came home from work one night aware of +unusual tiredness. There was a keen expectancy in the air as he sat down +to the table, but he did not notice. He went through the meal in moody +silence, mechanically eating what was before him. The children um'd and +ah'd and made smacking noises with their mouths. But he was deaf to them. + +"D'ye know what you're eatin'?" his mother demanded at last, desperately. + +He looked vacantly at the dish before him, and vacantly at her. + +"Floatin' island," she announced triumphantly. + +"Oh," he said. + +"Floating island!" the children chorussed loudly. + +"Oh," he said. And after two or three mouthfuls, he added, "I guess I +ain't hungry to-night." + +He dropped the spoon, shoved back his chair, and arose wearily from the +table. + +"An' I guess I'll go to bed." + +His feet dragged more heavily than usual as he crossed the kitchen floor. +Undressing was a Titan's task, a monstrous futility, and he wept weakly as +he crawled into bed, one shoe still on. He was aware of a rising, swelling +something inside his head that made his brain thick and fuzzy. His lean +fingers felt as big as his wrist, while in the ends of them was a +remoteness of sensation vague and fuzzy like his brain. The small of his +back ached intolerably. All his bones ached. He ached everywhere. And in +his head began the shrieking, pounding, crashing, roaring of a million +looms. All space was filled with flying shuttles. They darted in and out, +intricately, amongst the stars. He worked a thousand looms himself, and +ever they speeded up, faster and faster, and his brain unwound, faster and +faster, and became the thread that fed the thousand flying shuttles. + +He did not go to work next morning. He was too busy weaving colossally on +the thousand looms that ran inside his head. His mother went to work, but +first she sent for the doctor. It was a severe attack of la grippe, he +said. Jennie served as nurse and carried out his instructions. + +It was a very severe attack, and it was a week before Johnny dressed and +tottered feebly across the floor. Another week, the doctor said, and he +would be fit to return to work. The foreman of the loom room visited him +on Sunday afternoon, the first day of his convalescence. The best weaver +in the room, the foreman told his mother. His job would be held for him. +He could come back to work a week from Monday. + +"Why don't you thank 'im, Johnny?" his mother asked anxiously. + +"He's ben that sick he ain't himself yet," she explained apologetically to +the visitor. + +Johnny sat hunched up and gazing steadfastly at the floor. He sat in the +same position long after the foreman had gone. It was warm outdoors, and +he sat on the stoop in the afternoon. Sometimes his lips moved. He seemed +lost in endless calculations. + +Next morning, after the day grew warm, he took his seat on the stoop. He +had pencil and paper this time with which to continue his calculations, and +he calculated painfully and amazingly. + +"What comes after millions?" he asked at noon, when Will came home from +school. "An' how d'ye work 'em?" + +That afternoon finished his task. Each day, but without paper and pencil, +he returned to the stoop. He was greatly absorbed in the one tree that +grew across the street. He studied it for hours at a time, and was +unusually interested when the wind swayed its branches and fluttered its +leaves. Throughout the week he seemed lost in a great communion with +himself. On Sunday, sitting on the stoop, he laughed aloud, several times, +to the perturbation of his mother, who had not heard him laugh for years. + +Next morning, in the early darkness, she came to his bed to rouse him. He +had had his fill of sleep all the week, and awoke easily. He made no +struggle, nor did he attempt to hold on to the bedding when she stripped it +from him. He lay quietly, and spoke quietly. + +"It ain't no use, ma." + +"You'll be late," she said, under the impression that he was still stupid +with sleep. + +"I'm awake, ma, an' I tell you it ain't no use. You might as well lemme +alone. I ain't goin' to git up." + +"But you'll lose your job!" she cried. + +"I ain't goin' to git up," he repeated in a strange, passionless voice. + +She did not go to work herself that morning. This was sickness beyond any +sickness she had ever known. Fever and delirium she could understand; but +this was insanity. She pulled the bedding up over him and sent Jennie for +the doctor. + +When that person arrived, Johnny was sleeping gently, and gently he awoke +and allowed his pulse to be taken. + +"Nothing the matter with him," the doctor reported. "Badly debilitated, +that's all. Not much meat on his bones." + +"He's always been that way," his mother volunteered. + +"Now go 'way, ma, an' let me finish my snooze." + +Johnny spoke sweetly and placidly, and sweetly and placidly he rolled over +on his side and went to sleep. + +At ten o'clock he awoke and dressed himself. He walked out into the +kitchen, where he found his mother with a frightened expression on her +face. + +"I'm goin' away, ma," he announced, "an' I jes' want to say good-bye." + +She threw her apron over her head and sat down suddenly and wept. He +waited patiently. + +"I might a-known it," she was sobbing. + +"Where?" she finally asked, removing the apron from her head and gazing up +at him with a stricken face in which there was little curiosity. + +"I don't know--anywhere." + +As he spoke, the tree across the street appeared with dazzling brightness +on his inner vision. It seemed to lurk just under his eyelids, and he +could see it whenever he wished. + +"An' your job?" she quavered. + +"I ain't never goin' to work again." + +"My God, Johnny!" she wailed, "don't say that!" + +What he had said was blasphemy to her. As a mother who hears her child +deny God, was Johnny's mother shocked by his words. + +"What's got into you, anyway?" she demanded, with a lame attempt at +imperativeness. + +"Figures," he answered. "Jes' figures. I've ben doin' a lot of figurin' +this week, an' it's most surprisin'." + +"I don't see what that's got to do with it," she sniffled. + +Johnny smiled patiently, and his mother was aware of a distinct shock at +the persistent absence of his peevishness and irritability. + +"I'll show you," he said. "I'm plum' tired out. What makes me tired? +Moves. I've ben movin' ever since I was born. I'm tired of movin', an' I +ain't goin' to move any more. Remember when I worked in the glass-house? +I used to do three hundred dozen a day. Now I reckon I made about ten +different moves to each bottle. That's thirty-six thousan' moves a day. +Ten days, three hundred an' sixty thousan' moves. One month, one million +an' eighty thousan' moves. Chuck out the eighty thousan'"--he spoke with +the complacent beneficence of a philanthropist--"chuck out the eighty +thousan', that leaves a million moves a month--twelve million moves a year. + +"At the looms I'm movin' twic'st as much. That makes twenty-five million +moves a year, an' it seems to me I've ben a movin' that way 'most a million +years. + +"Now this week I ain't moved at all. I ain't made one move in hours an' +hours. I tell you it was swell, jes' settin' there, hours an' hours, an' +doin' nothin'. I ain't never ben happy before. I never had any time. +I've ben movin' all the time. That ain't no way to be happy. An' I ain't +going to do it any more. I'm jes' goin' to set, an' set, an' rest, an' +rest, and then rest some more." + +"But what's goin' to come of Will an' the children?" she asked +despairingly. + +"That's it, 'Will an' the children,'" he repeated. + +But there was no bitterness in his voice. He had long known his mother's +ambition for the younger boy, but the thought of it no longer rankled. +Nothing mattered any more. Not even that. + +"I know, ma, what you've ben plannin' for Will--keepin' him in school to +make a book-keeper out of him. But it ain't no use, I've quit. He's got +to go to work." + +"An' after I have brung you up the way I have," she wept, starting to cover +her head with the apron and changing her mind. + +"You never brung me up," he answered with sad kindliness. "I brung myself +up, ma, an' I brung up Will. He's bigger'n me, an' heavier, an' taller. +When I was a kid, I reckon I didn't git enough to eat. When he come along +an' was a kid, I was workin' an' earnin' grub for him too. But that's done +with. Will can go to work, same as me, or he can go to hell, I don't care +which. I'm tired. I'm goin' now. Ain't you goin' to say goodbye?" + +She made no reply. The apron had gone over her head again, and she was +crying. He paused a moment in the doorway. + +"I'm sure I done the best I knew how," she was sobbing. + +He passed out of the house and down the street. A wan delight came into +his face at the sight of the lone tree. "Jes' ain't goin' to do nothin'," +he said to himself, half aloud, in a crooning tone. He glanced wistfully +up at the sky, but the bright sun dazzled and blinded him. + +It was a long walk he took, and he did not walk fast. It took him past the +jute-mill. The muffled roar of the loom room came to his ears, and he +smiled. It was a gentle, placid smile. He hated no one, not even the +pounding, shrieking machines. There was no bitterness in him, nothing but +an inordinate hunger for rest. + +The houses and factories thinned out and the open spaces increased as he +approached the country. At last the city was behind him, and he was +walking down a leafy lane beside the railroad track. He did not walk like +a man. He did not look like a man. He was a travesty of the human. It +was a twisted and stunted and nameless piece of life that shambled like a +sickly ape, arms loose-hanging, stoop-shouldered, narrow-chested, grotesque +and terrible. + +He passed by a small railroad station and lay down in the grass under a +tree. All afternoon he lay there. Sometimes he dozed, with muscles that +twitched in his sleep. When awake, he lay without movement, watching the +birds or looking up at the sky through the branches of the tree above him. +Once or twice he laughed aloud, but without relevance to anything he had +seen or felt. + +After twilight had gone, in the first darkness of the night, a freight +train rumbled into the station. When the engine was switching cars on to +the side-track, Johnny crept along the side of the train. He pulled open +the side-door of an empty box-car and awkwardly and laboriously climbed in. +He closed the door. The engine whistled. Johnny was lying down, and in +the darkness he smiled. + + + +A WICKED WOMAN + +It was because she had broken with Billy that Loretta had come visiting to +Santa Clara. Billy could not understand. His sister had reported that he +had walked the floor and cried all night. Loretta had not slept all night +either, while she had wept most of the night. Daisy knew this, because it +was in her arms that the weeping had been done. And Daisy's husband, +Captain Kitt, knew, too. The tears of Loretta, and the comforting by +Daisy, had lost him some sleep. + +Now Captain Kitt did not like to lose sleep. Neither did he want Loretta +to marry Billy--nor anybody else. It was Captain Kitt's belief that Daisy +needed the help of her younger sister in the household. But he did not say +this aloud. Instead, he always insisted that Loretta was too young to +think of marriage. So it was Captain Kitt's idea that Loretta should be +packed off on a visit to Mrs. Hemingway. There wouldn't be any Billy +there. + +Before Loretta had been at Santa Clara a week, she was convinced that +Captain Kitt's idea was a good one. In the first place, though Billy +wouldn't believe it, she did not want to marry Billy. And in the second +place, though Captain Kitt wouldn't believe it, she did not want to leave +Daisy. By the time Loretta had been at Santa Clara two weeks, she was +absolutely certain that she did not want to marry Billy. But she was not +so sure about not wanting to leave Daisy. Not that she loved Daisy less, +but that she--had doubts. + +The day of Loretta's arrival, a nebulous plan began shaping itself in Mrs. +Hemingway's brain. The second day she remarked to Jack Hemingway, her +husband, that Loretta was so innocent a young thing that were it not for +her sweet guilelessness she would be positively stupid. In proof of which, +Mrs. Hemingway told her husband several things that made him chuckle. By +the third day Mrs. Hemingway's plan had taken recognizable form. Then it +was that she composed a letter. On the envelope she wrote: "Mr. Edward +Bashford, Athenian Club, San Francisco." + +"Dear Ned," the letter began. She had once been violently loved by him for +three weeks in her pre-marital days. But she had covenanted herself to +Jack Hemingway, who had prior claims, and her heart as well; and Ned +Bashford had philosophically not broken his heart over it. He merely added +the experience to a large fund of similarly collected data out of which he +manufactured philosophy. Artistically and temperamentally he was a Greek-- +a tired Greek. He was fond of quoting from Nietzsche, in token that he, +too, had passed through the long sickness that follows upon the ardent +search for truth; that he too had emerged, too experienced, too shrewd, too +profound, ever again to be afflicted by the madness of youths in their love +of truth. "'To worship appearance,'" he often quoted; "'to believe in +forms, in tones, in words, in the whole Olympus of appearance!'" This +particular excerpt he always concluded with, "'Those Greeks were +superficial--OUT OF PROFUNDITY!'" + +He was a fairly young Greek, jaded and worn. Women were faithless and +unveracious, he held--at such times that he had relapses and descended to +pessimism from his wonted high philosophical calm. He did not believe in +the truth of women; but, faithful to his German master, he did not strip +from them the airy gauzes that veiled their untruth. He was content to +accept them as appearances and to make the best of it. He was superficial- +-OUT OF PROFUNDITY. + +"Jack says to be sure to say to you, 'good swimming,'" Mrs. Hemingway wrote +in her letter; "and also 'to bring your fishing duds along.'" Mrs. +Hemingway wrote other things in the letter. She told him that at last she +was prepared to exhibit to him an absolutely true, unsullied, and innocent +woman. "A more guileless, immaculate bud of womanhood never blushed on the +planet," was one of the several ways in which she phrased the inducement. +And to her husband she said triumphantly, "If I don't marry Ned off this +time--" leaving unstated the terrible alternative that she lacked either +vocabulary to express or imagination to conceive. + +Contrary to all her forebodings, Loretta found that she was not unhappy at +Santa Clara. Truly, Billy wrote to her every day, but his letters were +less distressing than his presence. Also, the ordeal of being away from +Daisy was not so severe as she had expected. For the first time in her +life she was not lost in eclipse in the blaze of Daisy's brilliant and +mature personality. Under such favourable circumstances Loretta came +rapidly to the front, while Mrs. Hemingway modestly and shamelessly +retreated into the background. + +Loretta began to discover that she was not a pale orb shining by +reflection. Quite unconsciously she became a small centre of things. When +she was at the piano, there was some one to turn the pages for her and to +express preferences for certain songs. When she dropped her handkerchief, +there was some one to pick it up. And there was some one to accompany her +in ramblings and flower gatherings. Also, she learned to cast flies in +still pools and below savage riffles, and how not to entangle silk lines +and gut-leaders with the shrubbery. + +Jack Hemingway did not care to teach beginners, and fished much by himself, +or not at all, thus giving Ned Bashford ample time in which to consider +Loretta as an appearance. As such, she was all that his philosophy +demanded. Her blue eyes had the direct gaze of a boy, and out of his +profundity he delighted in them and forbore to shudder at the duplicity his +philosophy bade him to believe lurked in their depths. She had the grace +of a slender flower, the fragility of colour and line of fine china, in all +of which he pleasured greatly, without thought of the Life Force +palpitating beneath and in spite of Bernard Shaw--in whom he believed. + +Loretta burgeoned. She swiftly developed personality. She discovered a +will of her own and wishes of her own that were not everlastingly entwined +with the will and the wishes of Daisy. She was petted by Jack Hemingway, +spoiled by Alice Hemingway, and devotedly attended by Ned Bashford. They +encouraged her whims and laughed at her follies, while she developed the +pretty little tyrannies that are latent in all pretty and delicate women. +Her environment acted as a soporific upon her ancient desire always to live +with Daisy. This desire no longer prodded her as in the days of her +companionship with Billy. The more she saw of Billy, the more certain she +had been that she could not live away from Daisy. The more she saw of Ned +Bashford, the more she forgot her pressing need of Daisy. + +Ned Bashford likewise did some forgetting. He confused superficiality with +profundity, and entangled appearance with reality until he accounted them +one. Loretta was different from other women. There was no masquerade +about her. She was real. He said as much to Mrs. Hemingway, and more, who +agreed with him and at the same time caught her husband's eyelid drooping +down for the moment in an unmistakable wink. + +It was at this time that Loretta received a letter from Billy that was +somewhat different from his others. In the main, like all his letters, it +was pathological. It was a long recital of symptoms and sufferings, his +nervousness, his sleeplessness, and the state of his heart. Then followed +reproaches, such as he had never made before. They were sharp enough to +make her weep, and true enough to put tragedy into her face. This tragedy +she carried down to the breakfast table. It made Jack and Mrs. Hemingway +speculative, and it worried Ned. They glanced to him for explanation, but +he shook his head. + +"I'll find out to-night," Mrs. Hemingway said to her husband. + +But Ned caught Loretta in the afternoon in the big living-room. She tried +to turn away. He caught her hands, and she faced him with wet lashes and +trembling lips. He looked at her, silently and kindly. The lashes grew +wetter. + +"There, there, don't cry, little one," he said soothingly. + +He put his arm protectingly around her shoulder. And to his shoulder, like +a tired child, she turned her face. He thrilled in ways unusual for a +Greek who has recovered from the long sickness. + +"Oh, Ned," she sobbed on his shoulder, "if you only knew how wicked I am!" + +He smiled indulgently, and breathed in a great breath freighted with the +fragrance of her hair. He thought of his world-experience of women, and +drew another long breath. There seemed to emanate from her the perfect +sweetness of a child--"the aura of a white soul," was the way he phrased it +to himself. + +Then he noticed that her sobs were increasing. + +"What's the matter, little one?" he asked pettingly and almost paternally. +"Has Jack been bullying you? Or has your dearly beloved sister failed to +write?" + +She did not answer, and he felt that he really must kiss her hair, that he +could not be responsible if the situation continued much longer. + +"Tell me," he said gently, "and we'll see what I can do." + +"I can't. You will despise me.--Oh, Ned, I am so ashamed!" + +He laughed incredulously, and lightly touched her hair with his lips--so +lightly that she did not know. + +"Dear little one, let us forget all about it, whatever it is. I want to +tell you how I love--" + +She uttered a sharp cry that was all delight, and then moaned-- + +"Too late!" + +"Too late?" he echoed in surprise. + +"Oh, why did I? Why did I?" she was moaning. + +He was aware of a swift chill at his heart. + +"What?" he asked. + +"Oh, I . . . he . . . Billy. + +"I am such a wicked woman, Ned. I know you will never speak to me again." + +"This--er--this Billy," he began haltingly. "He is your brother?" + +"No . . . he . . . I didn't know. I was so young. I could not help it. +Oh, I shall go mad! I shall go mad!" + +It was then that Loretta felt his shoulder and the encircling arm become +limp. He drew away from her gently, and gently he deposited her in a big +chair, where she buried her face and sobbed afresh. He twisted his +moustache fiercely, then drew up another chair and sat down. + +"I--I do not understand," he said. + +"I am so unhappy," she wailed. + +"Why unhappy?" + +"Because . . . he . . . he wants me to marry him." + +His face cleared on the instant, and he placed a hand soothingly on hers. + +"That should not make any girl unhappy," he remarked sagely. "Because you +don't love him is no reason--of course, you don't love him?" + +Loretta shook her head and shoulders in a vigorous negative. + +"What?" + +Bashford wanted to make sure. + +"No," she asserted explosively. "I don't love Billy! I don't want to love +Billy!" + +"Because you don't love him," Bashford resumed with confidence, "is no +reason that you should be unhappy just because he has proposed to you." + +She sobbed again, and from the midst of her sobs she cried-- + +"That's the trouble. I wish I did love him. Oh, I wish I were dead!" + +"Now, my dear child, you are worrying yourself over trifles." His other +hand crossed over after its mate and rested on hers. "Women do it every +day. Because you have changed your mind or did not know your mind, because +you have--to use an unnecessarily harsh word--jilted a man--" + +"Jilted!" She had raised her head and was looking at him with tear-dimmed +eyes. "Oh, Ned, if that were all!" + +"All?" he asked in a hollow voice, while his hands slowly retreated from +hers. He was about to speak further, then remained silent. + +"But I don't want to marry him," Loretta broke forth protestingly. + +"Then I shouldn't," he counselled. + +"But I ought to marry him." + +"OUGHT to marry him?" + +She nodded. + +"That is a strong word." + +"I know it is," she acquiesced, while she strove to control her trembling +lips. Then she spoke more calmly. "I am a wicked woman, a terribly wicked +woman. No one knows how wicked I am--except Billy." + +There was a pause. Ned Bashford's face was grave, and he looked queerly at +Loretta. + +"He--Billy knows?" he asked finally. + +A reluctant nod and flaming cheeks was the reply. + +He debated with himself for a while, seeming, like a diver, to be preparing +himself for the plunge. + +"Tell me about it." He spoke very firmly. "You must tell me all of it." + +"And will you--ever--forgive me?" she asked in a faint, small voice. + +He hesitated, drew a long breath, and made the plunge. + +"Yes," he said desperately. "I'll forgive you. Go ahead." + +"There was no one to tell me," she began. "We were with each other so +much. I did not know anything of the world--then." + +She paused to meditate. Bashford was biting his lip impatiently. + +"If I had only known--" + +She paused again. + +"Yes, go on," he urged. + +"We were together almost every evening." + +"Billy?" he demanded, with a savageness that startled her. + +"Yes, of course, Billy. We were with each other so much . . . If I had +only known . . . There was no one to tell me . . . I was so young--" + +Her lips parted as though to speak further, and she regarded him anxiously. + +"The scoundrel!" + +With the explosion Ned Bashford was on his feet, no longer a tired Greek, +but a violently angry young man. + +"Billy is not a scoundrel; he is a good man," Loretta defended, with a +firmness that surprised Bashford. + +"I suppose you'll be telling me next that it was all your fault," he said +sarcastically. + +She nodded. + +"What?" he shouted. + +"It was all my fault," she said steadily. "I should never have let him. I +was to blame." + +Bashford ceased from his pacing up and down, and when he spoke, his voice +was resigned. + +"All right," he said. "I don't blame you in the least, Loretta. And you +have been very honest. But Billy is right, and you are wrong. You must +get married." + +"To Billy?" she asked, in a dim, far-away voice. + +"Yes, to Billy. I'll see to it. Where does he live? I'll make him." + +"But I don't want to marry Billy!" she cried out in alarm. "Oh, Ned, you +won't do that?" + +"I shall," he answered sternly. "You must. And Billy must. Do you +understand?" + +Loretta buried her face in the cushioned chair back, and broke into a +passionate storm of sobs. + +All that Bashford could make out at first, as he listened, was: "But I +don't want to leave Daisy! I don't want to leave Daisy!" + +He paced grimly back and forth, then stopped curiously to listen. + +"How was I to know?--Boo--hoo," Loretta was crying. "He didn't tell me. +Nobody else ever kissed me. I never dreamed a kiss could be so terrible . +. . until, boo-hoo . . . until he wrote to me. I only got the letter this +morning." + +His face brightened. It seemed as though light was dawning on him. + +"Is that what you're crying about?" + +"N--no." + +His heart sank. + +"Then what are you crying about?" he asked in a hopeless voice. + +"Because you said I had to marry Billy. And I don't want to marry Billy. +I don't want to leave Daisy. I don't know what I want. I wish I were +dead." + +He nerved himself for another effort. + +"Now look here, Loretta, be sensible. What is this about kisses. You +haven't told me everything?" + +"I--I don't want to tell you everything." + +She looked at him beseechingly in the silence that fell. + +"Must I?" she quavered finally. + +"You must," he said imperatively. "You must tell me everything." + +"Well, then . . . must I?" + +"You must." + +"He . . . I . . . we . . ." she began flounderingly. Then blurted out, "I +let him, and he kissed me." + +"Go on," Bashford commanded desperately. + +"That's all," she answered. + +"All?" There was a vast incredulity in his voice. + +"All?" In her voice was an interrogation no less vast. + +"I mean--er--nothing worse?" He was overwhelmingly aware of his own +awkwardness. + +"Worse?" She was frankly puzzled. "As though there could be! Billy said- +-" + +"When did he say it?" Bashford demanded abruptly. + +"In his letter I got this morning. Billy said that my . . . our . . . our +kisses were terrible if we didn't get married." + +Bashford's head was swimming. + +"What else did Billy say?" he asked. + +"He said that when a woman allowed a man to kiss her, she always married +him--that it was terrible if she didn't. It was the custom, he said; and I +say it is a bad, wicked custom, and I don't like it. I know I'm terrible," +she added defiantly, "but I can't help it." + +Bashford absent-mindedly brought out a cigarette. + +"Do you mind if I smoke?" he asked, as he struck a match. + +Then he came to himself. + +"I beg your pardon," he cried, flinging away match and cigarette. "I don't +want to smoke. I didn't mean that at all. What I mean is--" + +He bent over Loretta, caught her hands in his, then sat on the arm of the +chair and softly put one arm around her. + +"Loretta, I am a fool. I mean it. And I mean something more. I want you +to be my wife." + +He waited anxiously in the pause that followed. + +"You might answer me," he urged. + +"I will . . . if--" + +"Yes, go on. If what?" + +"If I don't have to marry Billy." + +"You can't marry both of us," he almost shouted. + +"And it isn't the custom . . . what. . . what Billy said?" + +"No, it isn't the custom. Now, Loretta, will you marry me?" + +"Don't be angry with me," she pouted demurely. + +He gathered her into his arms and kissed her. + +"I wish it were the custom," she said in a faint voice, from the midst of +the embrace, "because then I'd have to marry you, Ned dear . . . wouldn't +I?" + + + +JUST MEAT + +He strolled to the corner and glanced up and down the intersecting street, +but saw nothing save the oases of light shed by the street lamps at the +successive crossings. Then he strolled back the way he had come. He was a +shadow of a man, sliding noiselessly and without undue movement through the +semi-darkness. Also he was very alert, like a wild animal in the jungle, +keenly perceptive and receptive. The movement of another in the darkness +about him would need to have been more shadowy than he to have escaped him. + +In addition to the running advertisement of the state of affairs carried to +him by his senses, he had a subtler perception, a FEEL, of the atmosphere +around him. He knew that the house in front of which he paused for a +moment, contained children. Yet by no willed effort of perception did he +have this knowledge. For that matter, he was not even aware that he knew, +so occult was the impression. Yet, did a moment arise in which action, in +relation to that house, were imperative, he would have acted on the +assumption that it contained children. He was not aware of all that he +knew about the neighbourhood. + +In the same way, he knew not how, he knew that no danger threatened in the +footfalls that came up the cross street. Before he saw the walker, he knew +him for a belated pedestrian hurrying home. The walker came into view at +the crossing and disappeared on up the street. The man that watched, noted +a light that flared up in the window of a house on the corner, and as it +died down he knew it for an expiring match. This was conscious +identification of familiar phenomena, and through his mind flitted the +thought, "Wanted to know what time." In another house one room was +lighted. The light burned dimly and steadily, and he had the feel that it +was a sick-room. + +He was especially interested in a house across the street in the middle of +the block. To this house he paid most attention. No matter what way he +looked, nor what way he walked, his looks and his steps always returned to +it. Except for an open window above the porch, there was nothing unusual +about the house. Nothing came in nor out. Nothing happened. There were +no lighted windows, nor had lights appeared and disappeared in any of the +windows. Yet it was the central point of his consideration. He rallied to +it each time after a divination of the state of the neighbourhood. + +Despite his feel of things, he was not confident. He was supremely +conscious of the precariousness of his situation. Though unperturbed by +the footfalls of the chance pedestrian, he was as keyed up and sensitive +and ready to be startled as any timorous deer. He was aware of the +possibility of other intelligences prowling about in the darkness-- +intelligences similar to his own in movement, perception, and divination. + +Far down the street he caught a glimpse of something that moved. And he +knew it was no late home-goer, but menace and danger. He whistled twice to +the house across the street, then faded away shadow-like to the corner and +around the corner. Here he paused and looked about him carefully. +Reassured, he peered back around the corner and studied the object that +moved and that was coming nearer. He had divined aright. It was a +policeman. + +The man went down the cross street to the next corner, from the shelter of +which he watched the corner he had just left. He saw the policeman pass +by, going straight on up the street. He paralleled the policeman's course, +and from the next corner again watched him go by; then he returned the way +he had come. He whistled once to the house across the street, and after a +time whistled once again. There was reassurance in the whistle, just as +there had been warning in the previous double whistle. + +He saw a dark bulk outline itself on the roof of the porch and slowly +descend a pillar. Then it came down the steps, passed through the small +iron gate, and went down the sidewalk, taking on the form of a man. He +that watched kept on his own side of the street and moved on abreast to the +corner, where he crossed over and joined the other. He was quite small +alongside the man he accosted. + +"How'd you make out, Matt?" he asked. + +The other grunted indistinctly, and walked on in silence a few steps. + +"I reckon I landed the goods," he said. + +Jim chuckled in the darkness, and waited for further information. The +blocks passed by under their feet, and he grew impatient. + +"Well, how about them goods?" he asked. "What kind of a haul did you make, +anyway?" + +"I was too busy to figger it out, but it's fat. I can tell you that much, +Jim, it's fat. I don't dast to think how fat it is. Wait till we get to +the room." + +Jim looked at him keenly under the street lamp of the next crossing, and +saw that his face was a trifle grim and that he carried his left arm +peculiarly. + +"What's the matter with your arm?" he demanded. + +"The little cuss bit me. Hope I don't get hydrophoby. Folks gets +hydrophoby from manbite sometimes, don't they?" + +"Gave you fight, eh?" Jim asked encouragingly. + +The other grunted. + +"You're harder'n hell to get information from," Jim burst out irritably. +"Tell us about it. You ain't goin' to lose money just a-tellin' a guy." + +"I guess I choked him some," came the answer. Then, by way of explanation, +"He woke up on me." + +"You did it neat. I never heard a sound." + +"Jim," the other said with seriousness, "it's a hangin' matter. I fixed +'m. I had to. He woke up on me. You an' me's got to do some layin' low +for a spell." + +Jim gave a low whistle of comprehension. + +"Did you hear me whistle?" he asked suddenly. + +"Sure. I was all done. I was just comin' out." + +"It was a bull. But he wasn't on a little bit. Went right by an' kept a- +paddin' the hoof out a sight. Then I come back an' gave you the whistle. +What made you take so long after that?" + +"I was waitin' to make sure," Matt explained. "I was mighty glad when I +heard you whistle again. It's hard work waitin'. I just sat there an' +thought an' thought . . . oh, all kinds' of things. It's remarkable what a +fellow'll think about. And then there was a darn cat that kept movin' +around the house all' botherin' me with its noises." + +"An' it's fat!" Jim exclaimed irrelevantly and with joy. + +"I'm sure tellin' you, Jim, it's fat. I'm plum' anxious for another look +at 'em." + +Unconsciously the two men quickened their pace. Yet they did not relax +from their caution. Twice they changed their course in order to avoid +policemen, and they made very sure that they were not observed when they +dived into the dark hallway of a cheap rooming house down town. + +Not until they had gained their own room on the top floor, did they scratch +a match. While Jim lighted a lamp, Matt locked the door and threw the +bolts into place. As he turned, he noticed that his partner was waiting +expectantly. Matt smiled to himself at the other's eagerness. + +"Them search-lights is all right," he said, drawing forth a small pocket +electric lamp and examining it. "But we got to get a new battery. It's +runnin' pretty weak. I thought once or twice it'd leave me in the dark. +Funny arrangements in that house. I near got lost. His room was on the +left, an' that fooled me some." + +"I told you it was on the left," Jim interrupted. + +"You told me it was on the right," Matt went on. "I guess I know what you +told me, an' there's the map you drew." + +Fumbling in his vest pocket, he drew out a folded slip of paper. As he +unfolded it, Jim bent over and looked. + +"I did make a mistake," he confessed. + +"You sure did. It got me guessin' some for a while." + +"But it don't matter now," Jim cried. "Let's see what you got." + +"It does matter," Matt retorted. "It matters a lot . . . to me. I've got +to run all the risk. I put my head in the trap while you stay on the +street. You got to get on to yourself an' be more careful. All right, +I'll show you." + +He dipped loosely into his trousers pocket and brought out a handful of +small diamonds. He spilled them out in a blazing stream on the greasy +table. Jim let out a great oath. + +"That's nothing," Matt said with triumphant complacence. "I ain't begun +yet." + +From one pocket after another he continued bringing forth the spoil. There +were many diamonds wrapped in chamois skin that were larger than those in +the first handful. From one pocket he brought out a handful of very small +cut gems. + +"Sun dust," he remarked, as he spilled them on the table in a space by +themselves. + +Jim examined them. + +"Just the same, they retail for a couple of dollars each," he said. "Is +that all?" + +"Ain't it enough?" the other demanded in an aggrieved tone. + +"Sure it is," Jim answered with unqualified approval. "Better'n I +expected. I wouldn't take a cent less than ten thousan' for the bunch." + +"Ten thousan'," Matt sneered. "They're worth twic't that, an' I don't know +anything about joolery, either. Look at that big boy!" + +He picked it out from the sparkling heap and held it near to the lamp with +the air of an expert, weighing and judging. + +"Worth a thousan' all by its lonely," was Jim's quicker judgment. + +"A thousan' your grandmother," was Matt's scornful rejoinder. "You +couldn't buy it for three." + +"Wake me up! I'm dreamin'!" The sparkle of the gems was in Jim's eyes, and +he began sorting out the larger diamonds and examining them. "We're rich +men, Matt--we'll be regular swells." + +"It'll take years to get rid of 'em," was Matt's more practical thought. + +"But think how we'll live! Nothin' to do but spend the money an' go on +gettin' rid of em." + +Matt's eyes were beginning to sparkle, though sombrely, as his phlegmatic +nature woke up. + +"I told you I didn't dast think how fat it was," he murmured in a low +voice. + +"What a killin'! What a killin'!" was the other's more ecstatic utterance. + +"I almost forgot," Matt said, thrusting his hand into his inside coat +pocket. + +A string of large pearls emerged from wrappings of tissue paper and chamois +skin. Jim scarcely glanced at them. + +"They're worth money," he said, and returned to the diamonds. + +A silence fell on the two men. Jim played with the gems, running them +through his fingers, sorting them into piles, and spreading them out flat +and wide. He was a slender, weazened man, nervous, irritable, high-strung, +and anaemic--a typical child of the gutter, with unbeautiful twisted +features, small-eyed, with face and mouth perpetually and feverishly +hungry, brutish in a cat-like way, stamped to the core with degeneracy. + +Matt did not finger the diamonds. He sat with chin on hands and elbows on +table, blinking heavily at the blazing array. He was in every way a +contrast to the other. No city had bred him. He was heavy-muscled and +hairy, gorilla-like in strength and aspect. For him there was no unseen +world. His eyes were full and wide apart, and there seemed in them a +certain bold brotherliness. They inspired confidence. But a closer +inspection would have shown that his eyes were just a trifle too full, just +a shade too wide apart. He exceeded, spilled over the limits of normality, +and his features told lies about the man beneath. + +"The bunch is worth fifty thousan'," Jim remarked suddenly. + +"A hundred thousan'," Matt said. + +The silence returned and endured a long time, to be broken again by Jim. + +"What in hell was he doin' with 'em all at the house?--that's what I want +to know. I'd a-thought he'd kept 'em in the safe down at the store." + +Matt had just been considering the vision of the throttled man as he had +last looked upon him in the dim light of the electric lantern; but he did +not start at the mention of him. + +"There's no tellin'," he answered. "He might a-ben gettin' ready to chuck +his pardner. He might a-pulled out in the mornin' for parts unknown, if we +hadn't happened along. I guess there's just as many thieves among honest +men as there is among thieves. You read about such things in the papers, +Jim. Pardners is always knifin' each other." + +A queer, nervous look came into the other's eyes. Matt did not betray that +he noted it, though he said-- + +"What was you thinkin' about, Jim?" + +Jim was a trifle awkward for the moment. + +"Nothin'," he answered. "Only I was thinkin' just how funny it was--all +them jools at his house. What made you ask?" + +"Nothin'. I was just wonderin', that was all." + +The silence settled down, broken by an occasional low and nervous giggle on +the part of Jim. He was overcome by the spread of gems. It was not that +he felt their beauty. He was unaware that they were beautiful in +themselves. But in them his swift imagination visioned the joys of life +they would buy, and all the desires and appetites of his diseased mind and +sickly flesh were tickled by the promise they extended. He builded +wondrous, orgy-haunted castles out of their brilliant fires, and was +appalled at what he builded. Then it was that he giggled. It was all too +impossible to be real. And yet there they blazed on the table before him, +fanning the flame of the lust of him, and he giggled again. + +"I guess we might as well count 'em," Matt said suddenly, tearing himself +away from his own visions. "You watch me an' see that it's square, because +you an' me has got to be on the square, Jim. Understand?" + +Jim did not like this, and betrayed it in his eyes, while Matt did not like +what he saw in his partner's eyes. + +"Understand?" Matt repeated, almost menacingly. + +"Ain't we always ben square?" the other replied, on the defensive because +of the treachery already whispering in him. + +"It don't cost nothin', bein' square in hard times," Matt retorted. "It's +bein' square in prosperity that counts. When we ain't got nothin', we +can't help bein' square. We're prosperous now, an' we've got to be +business men--honest business men. Understand?" + +"That's the talk for me," Jim approved, but deep down in the meagre soul of +him,--and in spite of him,--wanton and lawless thoughts were stirring like +chained beasts. + +Matt stepped to the food shelf behind the two-burner kerosene cooking +stove. He emptied the tea from a paper bag, and from a second bag emptied +some red peppers. Returning to the table with the bags, he put into them +the two sizes of small diamonds. Then he counted the large gems and +wrapped them in their tissue paper and chamois skin. + +"Hundred an' forty-seven good-sized ones," was his inventory; "twenty real +big ones; two big boys and one whopper; an' a couple of fistfuls of teeny +ones an' dust." + +He looked at Jim. + +"Correct," was the response. + +He wrote the count out on a slip of memorandum paper, and made a copy of +it, giving one slip to his partner and retaining the other. + +"Just for reference," he said. + +Again he had recourse to the food shelf, where he emptied the sugar from a +large paper bag. Into this he thrust the diamonds, large and small, +wrapped it up in a bandanna handkerchief, and stowed it away under his +pillow. Then he sat down on the edge of the bed and took off his shoes. + +"An' you think they're worth a hundred thousan'?" Jim asked, pausing and +looking up from the unlacing of his shoe. + +"Sure," was the answer. "I seen a dance-house girl down in Arizona once, +with some big sparklers on her. They wasn't real. She said if they was +she wouldn't be dancin'. Said they'd be worth all of fifty thousan', an' +she didn't have a dozen of 'em all told." + +"Who'd work for a livin'?" Jim triumphantly demanded. "Pick an' shovel +work!" he sneered. "Work like a dog all my life, an' save all my wages, +an' I wouldn't have half as much as we got tonight." + +"Dish washin's about your measure, an' you couldn't get more'n twenty a +month an' board. Your figgers is 'way off, but your point is well taken. +Let them that likes it, work. I rode range for thirty a month when I was +young an' foolish. Well, I'm older, an' I ain't ridin' range." + +He got into bed on one side. Jim put out the light and followed him in on +the other side. + +"How's your arm feel?" Jim queried amiably. + +Such concern was unusual, and Matt noted it, and replied-- + +"I guess there's no danger of hydrophoby. What made you ask?" + +Jim felt in himself a guilty stir, and under his breath he cursed the +other's way of asking disagreeable questions; but aloud he answered-- + +"Nothin', only you seemed scared of it at first. What are you goin' to do +with your share, Matt?" + +"Buy a cattle ranch in Arizona an' set down an' pay other men to ride range +for me. There's some several I'd like to see askin' a job from me, damn +them! An' now you shut your face, Jim. It'll be some time before I buy +that ranch. Just now I'm goin' to sleep." + +But Jim lay long awake, nervous and twitching, rolling about restlessly and +rolling himself wide awake every time he dozed. The diamonds still blazed +under his eyelids, and the fire of them hurt. Matt, in spite of his heavy +nature, slept lightly, like a wild animal alert in its sleep; and Jim +noticed, every time he moved, that his partner's body moved sufficiently to +show that it had received the impression and that it was trembling on the +verge of awakening. For that matter, Jim did not know whether or not, +frequently, the other was awake. Once, quietly, betokening complete +consciousness, Matt said to him: "Aw, go to sleep, Jim. Don't worry about +them jools. They'll keep." And Jim had thought that at that particular +moment Matt had been surely asleep. + +In the late morning Matt was awake with Jim's first movement, and +thereafter he awoke and dozed with him until midday, when they got up +together and began dressing. + +"I'm goin' out to get a paper an' some bread," Matt said. "You boil the +coffee." + +As Jim listened, unconsciously his gaze left Matt's face and roved to the +pillow, beneath which was the bundle wrapped in the bandanna handkerchief. +On the instant Matt's face became like a wild beast's. + +"Look here, Jim," he snarled. "You've got to play square. If you do me +dirt, I'll fix you. Understand? I'd eat you, Jim. You know that. I'd +bite right into your throat an' eat you like that much beefsteak." + +His sunburned skin was black with the surge of blood in it, and his +tobacco-stained teeth were exposed by the snarling lips. Jim shivered and +involuntarily cowered. There was death in the man he looked at. Only the +night before that black-faced man had killed another with his hands, and it +had not hurt his sleep. And in his own heart Jim was aware of a sneaking +guilt, of a train of thought that merited all that was threatened. + +Matt passed out, leaving him still shivering. Then a hatred twisted his +own face, and he softly hurled savage curses at the door. He remembered +the jewels, and hastened to the bed, feeling under the pillow for the +bandanna bundle. He crushed it with his fingers to make certain that it +still contained the diamonds. Assured that Matt had not carried them away, +he looked toward the kerosene stove with a guilty start. Then he hurriedly +lighted it, filled the coffee-pot at the sink, and put it over the flame. + +The coffee was boiling when Matt returned, and while the latter cut the +bread and put a slice of butter on the table, Jim poured out the coffee. +It was not until he sat down and had taken a few sips of the coffee, that +Matt pulled out the morning paper from his pocket. + +"We was way off," he said. "I told you I didn't dast figger out how fat it +was. Look at that." + +He pointed to the head-lines on the first page. + +"SWIFT NEMESIS ON BUJANNOFF'S TRACK," they read. "MURDERED IN HIS SLEEP +AFTER ROBBING HIS PARTNER." + +"There you have it!" Matt cried. "He robbed his partner--robbed him like a +dirty thief." + +"Half a million of jewels missin'," Jim read aloud. He put the paper down +and stared at Matt. + +"That's what I told you," the latter said. "What in hell do we know about +jools? Half a million!--an' the best I could figger it was a hundred +thousan'. Go on an' read the rest of it." + +They read on silently, their heads side by side, the untouched coffee +growing cold; and ever and anon one or the other burst forth with some +salient printed fact. + +"I'd like to seen Metzner's face when he opened the safe at the store this +mornin'," Jim gloated. + +"He hit the high places right away for Bujannoff's house," Matt explained. +"Go on an' read." + +"Was to have sailed last night at ten on the Sajoda for the South Seas-- +steamship delayed by extra freight--" + +"That's why we caught 'm in bed," Matt interrupted. "It was just luck-- +like pickin' a fifty-to-one winner." + +"Sajoda sailed at six this mornin'--" + +"He didn't catch her," Matt said. "I saw his alarm-clock was set at five. +That'd given 'm plenty of time . . . only I come along an' put the kibosh +on his time. Go on." + +"Adolph Metzner in despair--the famous Haythorne pearl necklace-- +magnificently assorted pearls--valued by experts at from fifty to seventy +thousan' dollars." + +Jim broke off to swear vilely and solemnly, concluding with, "Those damn +oyster-eggs worth all that money!" + +He licked his lips and added, "They was beauties an' no mistake." + +"Big Brazilian gem," he read on. "Eighty thousan' dollars--many valuable +gems of the first water--several thousan' small diamonds well worth forty +thousan'." + +"What you don't know about jools is worth knowin'," Matt smiled good- +humouredly. + +"Theory of the sleuths," Jim read. "Thieves must have known--cleverly kept +watch on Bujannoff's actions--must have learned his plan and trailed him to +his house with the fruits of his robbery--" + +"Clever--hell!" Matt broke out. "That's the way reputations is made . . . +in the noospapers. How'd we know he was robbin' his pardner?" + +"Anyway, we've got the goods," Jim grinned. "Let's look at 'em again." + +He assured himself that the door was locked and bolted, while Matt brought +out the bundle in the bandanna and opened it on the table. + +"Ain't they beauties, though!" Jim exclaimed at sight of the pearls; and +for a time he had eyes only for them. "Accordin' to the experts, worth +from fifty to seventy thousan' dollars." + +"An' women like them things," Matt commented. "An' they'll do everything +to get 'em--sell themselves, commit murder, anything." + +"Just like you an' me." + +"Not on your life," Matt retorted. "I'll commit murder for 'em, but not +for their own sakes, but for sake of what they'll get me. That's the +difference. Women want the jools for themselves, an' I want the jools for +the women an' such things they'll get me." + +"Lucky that men an' women don't want the same things," Jim remarked. + +"That's what makes commerce," Matt agreed; "people wantin' different +things." + +In the middle of the afternoon Jim went out to buy food. While he was +gone, Matt cleared the table of the jewels, wrapping them up as before and +putting them under the pillow. Then he lighted the kerosene stove and +started to boil water for coffee. A few minutes later, Jim returned. + +"Most surprising," he remarked. "Streets, an' stores, an' people just like +they always was. Nothin' changed. An' me walking along through it all a +millionaire. Nobody looked at me an' guessed it." + +Matt grunted unsympathetically. He had little comprehension of the lighter +whims and fancies of his partner's imagination. + +"Did you get a porterhouse?" he demanded. + +"Sure, an' an inch thick. It's a peach. Look at it." + +He unwrapped the steak and held it up for the other's inspection. Then he +made the coffee and set the table, while Matt fried the steak. + +"Don't put on too much of them red peppers," Jim warned. "I ain't used to +your Mexican cookin'. You always season too hot." + +Matt grunted a laugh and went on with his cooking. Jim poured out the +coffee, but first, into the nicked china cup, he emptied a powder he had +carried in his vest pocket wrapped in a rice-paper. He had turned his back +for the moment on his partner, but he did not dare to glance around at him. +Matt placed a newspaper on the table, and on the newspaper set the hot +frying-pan. He cut the steak in half, and served Jim and himself. + +"Eat her while she's hot," he counselled, and with knife and fork set the +example. + +"She's a dandy," was Jim's judgment, after his first mouthful. "But I tell +you one thing straight. I'm never goin' to visit you on that Arizona +ranch, so you needn't ask me." + +"What's the matter now?" Matt asked. + +"Hell's the matter," was the answer. "The Mexican cookin' on your ranch'd +be too much for me. If I've got hell a-comin' in the next life, I'm not +goin' to torment my insides in this one. Damned peppers!" + +He smiled, expelled his breath forcibly to cool his burning mouth, drank +some coffee, and went on eating the steak. + +"What do you think about the next life anyway, Matt?" he asked a little +later, while secretly he wondered why the other had not yet touched his +coffee. + +"Ain't no next life," Matt answered, pausing from the steak to take his +first sip of coffee. "Nor heaven nor hell, nor nothin'. You get all +that's comin' right here in this life." + +"An' afterward?" Jim queried out of his morbid curiosity, for he knew that +he looked upon a man that was soon to die. "An' afterward?" he repeated. + +"Did you ever see a man two weeks dead?" the other asked. + +Jim shook his head. + +"Well, I have. He was like this beefsteak you an' me is eatin'. It was +once steer cavortin' over the landscape. But now it's just meat. That's +all, just meat. An' that's what you an' me an' all people come to--meat." + +Matt gulped down the whole cup of coffee, and refilled the cup. + +"Are you scared to die?" he asked. + +Jim shook his head. "What's the use? I don't die anyway. I pass on an' +live again--" + +"To go stealin', an' lyin' an' snivellin' through another life, an' go on +that way forever an' ever an' ever?" Matt sneered. + +"Maybe I'll improve," Jim suggested hopefully. "Maybe stealin' won't be +necessary in the life to come." + +He ceased abruptly, and stared straight before him, a frightened expression +on his face. + +"What's the matter!" Matt demanded. + +"Nothin'. I was just wonderin'"--Jim returned to himself with an effort-- +"about this dyin', that was all." + +But he could not shake off the fright that had startled him. It was as if +an unseen thing of gloom had passed him by, casting upon him the intangible +shadow of its presence. He was aware of a feeling of foreboding. +Something ominous was about to happen. Calamity hovered in the air. He +gazed fixedly across the table at the other man. He could not understand. +Was it that he had blundered and poisoned himself? No, Matt had the nicked +cup, and he had certainly put the poison in the nicked cup. + +It was all his own imagination, was his next thought. It had played him +tricks before. Fool! Of course it was. Of course something was about to +happen, but it was about to happen to Matt. Had not Matt drunk the whole +cup of coffee? + +Jim brightened up and finished his steak, sopping bread in the gravy when +the meat was gone. + +"When I was a kid--" he began, but broke off abruptly. + +Again the unseen thing of gloom had fluttered, and his being was vibrant +with premonition of impending misfortune. He felt a disruptive influence +at work in the flesh of him, and in all his muscles there was a seeming +that they were about to begin to twitch. He sat back suddenly, and as +suddenly leaned forward with his elbows on the table. A tremor ran dimly +through the muscles of his body. It was like the first rustling of leaves +before the oncoming of wind. He clenched his teeth. It came again, a +spasmodic tensing of his muscles. He knew panic at the revolt within his +being. His muscles no longer recognized his mastery over them. Again they +spasmodically tensed, despite the will of him, for he had willed that they +should not tense. This was revolution within himself, this was anarchy; +and the terror of impotence rushed up in him as his flesh gripped and +seemed to seize him in a clutch, chills running up and down his back and +sweat starting on his brow. He glanced about the room, and all the details +of it smote him with a strange sense of familiarity. It was as though he +had just returned from a long journey. He looked across the table at his +partner. Matt was watching him and smiling. An expression of horror +spread over Jim's face. + +"My God, Matt!" he screamed. "You ain't doped me?" + +Matt smiled and continued to watch him. In the paroxysm that followed, Jim +did not become unconscious. His muscles tensed and twitched and knotted, +hurting him and crushing him in their savage grip. And in the midst of it +all, it came to him that Matt was acting queerly. He was travelling the +same road. The smile had gone from his face, and there was on it an intent +expression, as if he were listening to some inner tale of himself and +trying to divine the message. Matt got up and walked across the room and +back again, then sat down. + +"You did this, Jim," he said quietly. + +"But I didn't think you'd try to fix ME," Jim answered reproachfully. + +"Oh, I fixed you all right," Matt said, with teeth close together and +shivering body. "What did you give me?" + +"Strychnine." + +"Same as I gave you," Matt volunteered. "It's a hell of a mess, ain't it?" + +"You're lyin', Matt," Jim pleaded. "You ain't doped me, have you?" + +"I sure did, Jim; an' I didn't overdose you, neither. I cooked it in as +neat as you please in your half the porterhouse.--Hold on! Where're you +goin'?" + +Jim had made a dash for the door, and was throwing back the bolts. Matt +sprang in between and shoved him away. + +"Drug store," Jim panted. "Drug store." + +"No you don't. You'll stay right here. There ain't goin' to be any +runnin' out an' makin' a poison play on the street--not with all them jools +reposin' under the pillow. Savve? Even if you didn't die, you'd be in the +hands of the police with a whole lot of explanations comin'. Emetics is +the stuff for poison. I'm just as bad bit as you, an' I'm goin' to take a +emetic. That's all they'd give you at a drug store, anyway." + +He thrust Jim back into the middle of the room and shot the bolts into +place. As he went across the floor to the food shelf, he passed one hand +over his brow and flung off the beaded sweat. It spattered audibly on the +floor. Jim watched agonizedly as Matt got the mustard-can and a cup and +ran for the sink. He stirred a cupful of mustard and water and drank it +down. Jim had followed him and was reaching with trembling hands for the +empty cup. Again Matt shoved him away. As he mixed a second cupful, he +demanded-- + +"D'you think one cup'll do for me? You can wait till I'm done." + +Jim started to totter toward the door, but Matt checked him. + +"If you monkey with that door, I'll twist your neck. Savve? You can take +yours when I'm done. An' if it saves you, I'll twist your neck, anyway. +You ain't got no chance, nohow. I told you many times what you'd get if +you did me dirt." + +"But you did me dirt, too," Jim articulated with an effort. + +Matt was drinking the second cupful, and did not answer. The sweat had got +into Jim's eyes, and he could scarcely see his way to the table, where he +got a cup for himself. But Matt was mixing a third cupful, and, as before, +thrust him away. + +"I told you to wait till I was done," Matt growled. "Get outa my way." + +And Jim supported his twitching body by holding on to the sink, the while +he yearned toward the yellowish concoction that stood for life. It was by +sheer will that he stood and clung to the sink. His flesh strove to double +him up and bring him to the floor. Matt drank the third cupful, and with +difficulty managed to get to a chair and sit down. His first paroxysm was +passing. The spasms that afflicted him were dying away. This good effect +he ascribed to the mustard and water. He was safe, at any rate. He wiped +the sweat from his face, and, in the interval of calm, found room for +curiosity. He looked at his partner. + +A spasm had shaken the mustard can out of Jim's hands, and the contents +were spilled upon the floor. He stooped to scoop some of the mustard into +the cup, and the succeeding spasm doubled him upon the floor. Matt smiled. + +"Stay with it," he encouraged. "It's the stuff all right. It's fixed me +up." + +Jim heard him and turned toward him a stricken face, twisted with suffering +and pleading. Spasm now followed spasm till he was in convulsions, rolling +on the floor and yellowing his face and hair in the mustard. + +Matt laughed hoarsely at the sight, but the laugh broke midway. A tremor +had run through his body. A new paroxysm was beginning. He arose and +staggered across to the sink, where, with probing forefinger, he vainly +strove to assist the action of the emetic. In the end, he clung to the +sink as Jim had clung, filled with the horror of going down to the floor. + +The other's paroxysm had passed, and he sat up, weak and fainting, too weak +to rise, his forehead dripping, his lips flecked with a foam made yellow by +the mustard in which he had rolled. He rubbed his eyes with his knuckles, +and groans that were like whines came from his throat. + +"What are you snifflin' about?" Matt demanded out of his agony. "All you +got to do is die. An' when you die you're dead." + +"I . . . ain't . . . snifflin' . . . it's . . . the . . . mustard . . . +stingin' . . . my . . . eyes," Jim panted with desperate slowness. + +It was his last successful attempt at speech. Thereafter he babbled +incoherently, pawing the air with shaking arms till a fresh convulsion +stretched him on the floor. + +Matt struggled back to the chair, and, doubled up on it, with his arms +clasped about his knees, he fought with his disintegrating flesh. He came +out of the convulsion cool and weak. He looked to see how it went with the +other, and saw him lying motionless. + +He tried to soliloquize, to be facetious, to have his last grim laugh at +life, but his lips made only incoherent sounds. The thought came to him +that the emetic had failed, and that nothing remained but the drug store. +He looked toward the door and drew himself to his feet. There he saved +himself from falling by clutching the chair. Another paroxysm had begun. +And in the midst of the paroxysm, with his body and all the parts of it +flying apart and writhing and twisting back again into knots, he clung to +the chair and shoved it before him across the floor. The last shreds of +his will were leaving him when he gained the door. He turned the key and +shot back one bolt. He fumbled for the second bolt, but failed. Then he +leaned his weight against the door and slid down gently to the floor. + + + +CREATED HE THEM + +She met him at the door. + +"I did not think you would be so early." + +"It is half past eight." He looked at his watch. "The train leaves at +9.12." + +He was very businesslike, until he saw her lips tremble as she abruptly +turned and led the way. + +"It'll be all right, little woman," he said soothingly. "Doctor Bodineau's +the man. He'll pull him through, you'll see." + +They entered the living-room. His glance quested apprehensively about, +then turned to her. + +"Where's Al?" + +She did not answer, but with a sudden impulse came close to him and stood +motionless. She was a slender, dark-eyed woman, in whose face was stamped +the strain and stress of living. But the fine lines and the haunted look +in the eyes were not the handiwork of mere worry. He knew whose handiwork +it was as he looked upon it, and she knew when she consulted her mirror. + +"It's no use, Mary," he said. He put his hand on her shoulder. "We've +tried everything. It's a wretched business, I know, but what else can we +do? You've failed. Doctor Bodineau's all that's left." + +"If I had another chance . . . " she began falteringly. + +"We've threshed that all out," he answered harshly. "You've got to buck +up, now. You know what conclusion we arrived at. You know you haven't the +ghost of a hope in another chance." + +She shook her head. "I know it. But it is terrible, the thought of his +going away to fight it out alone." + +"He won't be alone. There's Doctor Bodineau. And besides, it's a +beautiful place." + +She remained silent. + +"It is the only thing," he said. + +"It is the only thing," she repeated mechanically. + +He looked at his watch. "Where's Al?" + +"I'll send him." + +When the door had closed behind her, he walked over to the window and +looked out, drumming absently with his knuckles on the pane. + +"Hello." + +He turned and responded to the greeting of the man who had just entered. +There was a perceptible drag to the man's feet as he walked across toward +the window and paused irresolutely halfway. + +"I've changed my mind, George," he announced hurriedly and nervously. "I'm +not going." + +He plucked at his sleeve, shuffled with his feet, dropped his eyes, and +with a strong effort raised them again to confront the other. + +George regarded him silently, his nostrils distending and his lean fingers +unconsciously crooking like an eagle's talons about to clutch. + +In line and feature, there was much of resemblance between the two men; and +yet, in the strongest resemblances there was a radical difference. Theirs +were the same black eyes, but those of the man at the window were sharp and +straight looking, while those of the man in the middle of the room were +cloudy and furtive. He could not face the other's gaze, and continually +and vainly struggled with himself to do so. The high cheek bones with the +hollows beneath were the same, yet the texture of the hollows seemed +different. The thin-lipped mouths were from the same mould, but George's +lips were firm and muscular, while Al's were soft and loose--the lips of an +ascetic turned voluptuary. There was also a sag at the corners. His flesh +hinted of grossness, especially so in the eagle-like aquiline nose that +must once have been like the other's, but that had lost the austerity the +other's still retained. + +Al fought for steadiness in the middle of the floor. The silence bothered +him. He had a feeling that he was about to begin swaying back and forth. +He moistened his lips with his tongue. + +"I'm going to stay," he said desperately. + +He dropped his eyes and plucked again at his sleeve. + +"And you are only twenty-six years old," George said at last. "You poor, +feeble old man." + +"Don't be so sure of that," Al retorted, with a flash of belligerence. + +"Do you remember when we swam that mile and a half across the channel?" + +"Well, and what of it?" A sullen expression was creeping across Al's face. + +"And do you remember when we boxed in the barn after school?" + +"I could take all you gave me." + +"All I gave you!" George's voice rose momentarily to a higher pitch. "You +licked me four afternoons out of five. You were twice as strong as I-- +three times as strong. And now I'd be afraid to land on you with a sofa +cushion; you'd crumple up like a last year's leaf. You'd die, you poor, +miserable old man." + +"You needn't abuse me just because I've changed my mind," the other +protested, the hint of a whine in his voice. + +His wife entered, and he looked appealingly to her; but the man at the +window strode suddenly up to him and burst out-- + +"You don't know your own mind for two successive minutes! You haven't any +mind, you spineless, crawling worm!" + +"You can't make me angry." Al smiled with cunning, and glanced +triumphantly at his wife. "You can't make me angry," he repeated, as +though the idea were thoroughly gratifying to him. "I know your game. +It's my stomach, I tell you. I can't help it. Before God, I can't! Isn't +it my stomach, Mary?" + +She glanced at George and spoke composedly, though she hid a trembling hand +in a fold of her skirt. + +"Isn't it time?" she asked softly. + +Her husband turned upon her savagely. "I'm not going to go!" he cried. +"That's just what I've been telling . . . him. And I tell you again, all +of you, I'm not going. You can't bully me." + +"Why, Al, dear, you said--" she began. + +"Never mind what I said!" he broke out. "I've said something else right +now, and you've heard it, and that settles it." + +He walked across the room and threw himself with emphasis into a Morris +chair. But the other man was swiftly upon him. The talon-like fingers +gripped his shoulders, jerked him to his feet, and held him there. + +"You've reached the limit, Al, and I want you to understand it. I've tried +to treat you like . . . like my brother, but hereafter I shall treat you +like the thing that you are. Do you understand?" + +The anger in his voice was cold. The blaze in his eyes was cold. It was +vastly more effective than any outburst, and Al cringed under it and under +the clutching hand that was bruising his shoulder muscles. + +"It is only because of me that you have this house, that you have the food +you eat. Your position? Any other man would have been shown the door a +year ago--two years ago. I have held you in it. Your salary has been +charity. It has been paid out of my pocket. Mary . . . her dresses . . . +that gown she has on is made over; she wears the discarded dresses of her +sisters, of my wife. Charity--do you understand? Your children--they are +wearing the discarded clothes of my children, of the children of my +neighbours who think the clothes went to some orphan asylum. And it is an +orphan asylum . . . or it soon will be." + +He emphasized each point with an unconscious tightening of his grip on the +shoulder. Al was squirming with the pain of it. The sweat was starting +out on his forehead. + +"Now listen well to me," his brother went on. "In three minutes you will +tell me that you are going with me. If you don't, Mary and the children +will be taken away from you--to-day. You needn't ever come to the office. +This house will be closed to you. And in six months I shall have the +pleasure of burying you. You have three minutes to make up your mind." + +Al made a strangling movement, and reached up with weak fingers to the +clutching hand. + +"My heart . . . let me go . . . you'll be the death of me," he gasped. + +The hand thrust him down forcibly into the Morris chair and released him. + +The clock on the mantle ticked loudly. George glanced at it, and at Mary. +She was leaning against the table, unable to conceal her trembling. He +became unpleasantly aware of the feeling of his brother's fingers on his +hand. Quite unconsciously he wiped the back of the hand upon his coat. +The clock ticked on in the silence. It seemed to George that the room +reverberated with his voice. He could hear himself still speaking. + +"I'll go," came from the Morris chair. + +It was a weak and shaken voice, and it was a weak and shaken man that +pulled himself out of the Morris chair. He started toward the door. + +"Where are you going?" George demanded. + +"Suit case," came the response. "Mary'll send the trunk later. I'll be +back in a minute." + +The door closed after him. A moment later, struck with sudden suspicion, +George was opening the door. He glanced in. His brother stood at a +sideboard, in one hand a decanter, in the other hand, bottom up and to his +lips, a whisky glass. + +Across the glass Al saw that he was observed. It threw him into a panic. +Hastily he tried to refill the glass and get it to his lips; but glass and +decanter were sent smashing to the floor. He snarled. It was like the +sound of a wild beast. But the grip on his shoulder subdued and frightened +him. He was being propelled toward the door. + +"The suit case," he gasped. "It's there in that room. Let me get it." + +"Where's the key?" his brother asked, when he had brought it. + +"It isn't locked." + +The next moment the suit case was spread open, and George's hand was +searching the contents. From one side it brought out a bottle of whisky, +from the other side a flask. He snapped the case to. + +"Come on," he said. "If we miss one car, we miss that train." + +He went out into the hallway, leaving Al with his wife. It was like a +funeral, George thought, as he waited. + +His brother's overcoat caught on the knob of the front door and delayed its +closing long enough for Mary's first sob to come to their ears. George's +lips were very thin and compressed as he went down the steps. In one hand +he carried the suit case. With the other hand he held his brother's arm. + +As they neared the corner, he heard the electric car a block away, and +urged his brother on. Al was breathing hard. His feet dragged and +shuffled, and he held back. + +"A hell of a brother YOU are," he panted. + +For reply, he received a vicious jerk on his arm. It reminded him of his +childhood when he was hurried along by some angry grown-up. And like a +child, he had to be helped up the car step. He sank down on an outside +seat, panting, sweating, overcome by the exertion. He followed George's +eyes as the latter looked him up and down. + +"A hell of a brother YOU are," was George's comment when he had finished +the inspection. + +Moisture welled into Al's eyes. + +"It's my stomach," he said with self-pity. + +"I don't wonder," was the retort. "Burnt out like the crater of a volcano. +Fervent heat isn't a circumstance." + +Thereafter they did not speak. When they arrived at the transfer point, +George came to himself with a start. He smiled. With fixed gaze that did +not see the houses that streamed across his field of vision, he had himself +been sunk deep in self-pity. He helped his brother from the car, and +looked up the intersecting street. The car they were to take was not in +sight. + +Al's eyes chanced upon the corner grocery and saloon across the way. At +once he became restless. His hands passed beyond his control, and he +yearned hungrily across the street to the door that swung open even as he +looked and let in a happy pilgrim. And in that instant he saw the white- +jacketed bartender against an array of glittering glass. Quite +unconsciously he started to cross the street. + +"Hold on." George's hand was on his arm. + +"I want some whisky," he answered. + +"You've already had some." + +"That was hours ago. Go on, George, let me have some. It's the last day. +Don't shut off on me until we get there--God knows it will be soon enough." + +George glanced desperately up the street. The car was in sight. + +"There isn't time for a drink," he said. + +"I don't want a drink. I want a bottle." Al's voice became wheedling. +"Go on, George. It's the last, the very last." + +"No." The denial was as final as George's thin lips could make it. + +Al glanced at the approaching car. He sat down suddenly on the curbstone. + +"What's the matter?" his brother asked, with momentary alarm. + +"Nothing. I want some whisky. It's my stomach." + +"Come on now, get up." + +George reached for him, but was anticipated, for his brother sprawled flat +on the pavement, oblivious to the dirt and to the curious glances of the +passers-by. The car was clanging its gong at the crossing, a block away. + +"You'll miss it," Al grinned from the pavement. "And it will be your +fault." + +George's fists clenched tightly. + +"For two cents I'd give you a thrashing." + +"And miss the car," was the triumphant comment from the pavement. + +George looked at the car. It was halfway down the block. He looked at his +watch. He debated a second longer. + +"All right," he said. "I'll get it. But you get on that car. If you miss +it, I'll break the bottle over your head." + +He dashed across the street and into the saloon. The car came in and +stopped. There were no passengers to get off. Al dragged himself up the +steps and sat down. He smiled as the conductor rang the bell and the car +started. The swinging door of the saloon burst open. Clutching in his +hand the suit case and a pint bottle of whisky, George started in pursuit. +The conductor, his hand on the bell cord, waited to see if it would be +necessary to stop. It was not. George swung lightly aboard, sat down +beside his brother, and passed him the bottle. + +"You might have got a quart," Al said reproachfully. + +He extracted the cork with a pocket corkscrew, and elevated the bottle. + +"I'm sick . . . my stomach," he explained in apologetic tones to the +passenger who sat next to him. + +In the train they sat in the smoking-car. George felt that it was +imperative. Also, having successfully caught the train, his heart +softened. He felt more kindly toward his brother, and accused himself of +unnecessary harshness. He strove to atone by talking about their mother, +and sisters, and the little affairs and interests of the family. But Al +was morose, and devoted himself to the bottle. As the time passed, his +mouth hung looser and looser, while the rings under his eyes seemed to puff +out and all his facial muscles to relax. + +"It's my stomach," he said, once, when he finished the bottle and dropped +it under the seat; but the swift hardening of his brother's face did not +encourage further explanations. + +The conveyance that met them at the station had all the dignity and +luxuriousness of a private carriage. George's eyes were keen for the ear +marks of the institution to which they were going, but his apprehensions +were allayed from moment to moment. As they entered the wide gateway and +rolled on through the spacious grounds, he felt sure that the institutional +side of the place would not jar upon his brother. It was more like a +summer hotel, or, better yet, a country club. And as they swept on through +the spring sunshine, the songs of birds in his ears, and in his nostrils +the breath of flowers, George sighed for a week of rest in such a place, +and before his eyes loomed the arid vista of summer in town and at the +office. There was not room in his income for his brother and himself. + +"Let us take a walk in the grounds," he suggested, after they had met +Doctor Bodineau and inspected the quarters assigned to Al. "The carriage +leaves for the station in half an hour, and we'll just have time." + +"It's beautiful," he remarked a moment later. Under his feet was the +velvet grass, the trees arched overhead, and he stood in mottled sunshine. +"I wish I could stay for a month." + +"I'll trade places with you," Al said quickly. + +George laughed it off, but he felt a sinking of the heart. + +"Look at that oak!" he cried. "And that woodpecker! Isn't he a beauty!" + +"I don't like it here," he heard his brother mutter. + +George's lips tightened in preparation for the struggle, but he said-- + +"I'm going to send Mary and the children off to the mountains. She needs +it, and so do they. And when you're in shape, I'll send you right on to +join them. Then you can take your summer vacation before you come back to +the office." + +"I'm not going to stay in this damned hole, for all you talk about it," Al +announced abruptly. + +"Yes you are, and you're going to get your health and strength back again, +so that the look of you will put the colour in Mary's cheeks where it used +to be." + +"I'm going back with you." Al's voice was firm. "I'm going to take the +same train back. It's about time for that carriage, I guess." + +"I haven't told you all my plans," George tried to go on, but Al cut him +off. + +"You might as well quit that. I don't want any of your soapy talking. You +treat me like a child. I'm not a child. My mind's made up, and I'll show +you how long it can stay made up. You needn't talk to me. I don't care a +rap for what you're going to say." + +A baleful light was in his eyes, and to his brother he seemed for all the +world like a cornered rat, desperate and ready to fight. As George looked +at him he remembered back to their childhood, and it came to him that at +last was aroused in Al the same old stubborn strain that had enabled him, +as a child, to stand against all force and persuasion. + +George abandoned hope. He had lost. This creature was not human. The +last fine instinct of the human had fled. It was a brute, sluggish and +stolid, impossible to move--just the raw stuff of life, combative, +rebellious, and indomitable. And as he contemplated his brother he felt in +himself the rising up of a similar brute. He became suddenly aware that +his fingers were tensing and crooking like a thug's, and he knew the desire +to kill. And his reason, turned traitor at last, counselled that he should +kill, that it was the only thing left for him to do. + +He was aroused by a servant calling to him through the trees that the +carriage was waiting. He answered. Then, looking straight before him, he +discovered his brother. He had forgotten it was his brother. It had been +only a thing the moment before. He began to talk, and as he talked the way +became clear to him. His reason had not turned traitor. The brute in him +had merely orientated his reason. + +"You are no earthly good, Al, " he said. "You know that. You've made +Mary's life a hell. You are a curse to your children. And you have not +made life exactly a paradise for the rest of us." + +"There's no use your talking," Al interjected. "I'm not going to stay +here." + +"That's what I'm coming to," George continued. "You don't have to stay +here." (Al's face brightened, and he involuntarily made a movement, as +though about to start toward the carriage.) "On the other hand, it is not +necessary that you should return with me. There is another way." + +George's hand went to his hip pocket and appeared with a revolver. It lay +along his palm, the butt toward Al, and toward Al he extended it. At the +same time, with his head, he indicated the near-by thicket. + +"You can't bluff me," Al snarled. + +"It is not a bluff, Al. Look at me. I mean it. And if you don't do it +for yourself, I shall have to do it for you." + +They faced each other, the proffered revolver still extended. Al debated +for a moment, then his eyes blazed. With a quick movement he seized the +revolver. + +"My God! I'll do it," he said. "I'll show you what I've got in me." + +George felt suddenly sick. He turned away. He did not see his brother +enter the thicket, but he heard the passage of his body through the leaves +and branches. + +"Good-bye, Al," he called. + +"Good-bye," came from the thicket. + +George felt the sweat upon his forehead. He began mopping his face with +his handkerchief. He heard, as from a remote distance, the voice of the +servant again calling to him that the carriage was waiting. The woodpecker +dropped down through the mottled sunshine and lighted on the trunk of a +tree a dozen feet away. George felt that it was all a dream, and yet +through it all he felt supreme justification. It was the right thing to +do. It was the only thing. + +His whole body gave a spasmodic start, as though the revolver had been +fired. It was the voice of Al, close at his back. + +"Here's your gun," Al said. "I'll stay." + +The servant appeared among the trees, approaching rapidly and calling +anxiously. George put the weapon in his pocket and caught both his +brother's hands in his own. + +"God bless you, old man," he murmured ; "and"--with a final squeeze of the +hands--"good luck!" + +"I'm coming," he called to the servant, and turned and ran through the +trees toward the carriage. + + + +THE CHINAGO + + "The coral waxes, the palm grows, but man departs." + --Tahitian proverb. + +Ah Cho did not understand French. He sat in the crowded court room, very +weary and bored, listening to the unceasing, explosive French that now one +official and now another uttered. It was just so much gabble to Ah Cho, +and he marvelled at the stupidity of the Frenchmen who took so long to find +out the murderer of Chung Ga, and who did not find him at all. The five +hundred coolies on the plantation knew that Ah San had done the killing, +and here was Ah San not even arrested. It was true that all the coolies +had agreed secretly not to testify against one another; but then, it was so +simple, the Frenchmen should have been able to discover that Ah San was the +man. They were very stupid, these Frenchmen. + +Ah Cho had done nothing of which to be afraid. He had had no hand in the +killing. It was true he had been present at it, and Schemmer, the overseer +on the plantation, had rushed into the barracks immediately afterward and +caught him there, along with four or five others; but what of that? Chung +Ga had been stabbed only twice. It stood to reason that five or six men +could not inflict two stab wounds. At the most, if a man had struck but +once, only two men could have done it. + +So it was that Ah Cho reasoned, when he, along with his four companions, +had lied and blocked and obfuscated in their statements to the court +concerning what had taken place. They had heard the sounds of the killing, +and, like Schemmer, they had run to the spot. They had got there before +Schemmer--that was all. True, Schemmer had testified that, attracted by +the sound of quarrelling as he chanced to pass by, he had stood for at +least five minutes outside; that then, when he entered, he found the +prisoners already inside; and that they had not entered just before, +because he had been standing by the one door to the barracks. But what of +that? Ah Cho and his four fellow-prisoners had testified that Schemmer was +mistaken. In the end they would be let go. They were all confident of +that. Five men could not have their heads cut off for two stab wounds. +Besides, no foreign devil had seen the killing. But these Frenchmen were +so stupid. In China, as Ah Cho well knew, the magistrate would order all +of them to the torture and learn the truth. The truth was very easy to +learn under torture. But these Frenchmen did not torture--bigger fools +they! Therefore they would never find out who killed Chung Ga. + +But Ah Cho did not understand everything. The English Company that owned +the plantation had imported into Tahiti, at great expense, the five hundred +coolies. The stockholders were clamouring for dividends, and the Company +had not yet paid any; wherefore the Company did not want its costly +contract labourers to start the practice of killing one another. Also, +there were the French, eager and willing to impose upon the Chinagos the +virtues and excellences of French law. There was nothing like setting an +example once in a while; and, besides, of what use was New Caledonia except +to send men to live out their days in misery and pain in payment of the +penalty for being frail and human? + +Ah Cho did not understand all this. He sat in the court room and waited +for the baffled judgment that would set him and his comrades free to go +back to the plantation and work out the terms of their contracts. This +judgment would soon be rendered. Proceedings were drawing to a close. He +could see that. There was no more testifying, no more gabble of tongues. +The French devils were tired, too, and evidently waiting for the judgment. +And as he waited he remembered back in his life to the time when he had +signed the contract and set sail in the ship for Tahiti. Times had been +hard in his sea-coast village, and when he indentured himself to labour for +five years in the South Seas at fifty cents Mexican a day, he had thought +himself fortunate. There were men in his village who toiled a whole year +for ten dollars Mexican, and there were women who made nets all the year +round for five dollars, while in the houses of shopkeepers there were +maidservants who received four dollars for a year of service. And here he +was to receive fifty cents a day; for one day, only one day, he was to +receive that princely sum! What if the work were hard? At the end of the +five years he would return home--that was in the contract--and he would +never have to work again. He would be a rich man for life, with a house of +his own, a wife, and children growing up to venerate him. Yes, and back of +the house he would have a small garden, a place of meditation and repose, +with goldfish in a tiny lakelet, and wind bells tinkling in the several +trees, and there would be a high wall all around so that his meditation and +repose should be undisturbed. + +Well, he had worked out three of those five years. He was already a +wealthy man (in his own country) through his earnings, and only two years +more intervened between the cotton plantation on Tahiti and the meditation +and repose that awaited him. But just now he was losing money because of +the unfortunate accident of being present at the killing of Chung Ga. He +had lain three weeks in prison, and for each day of those three weeks he +had lost fifty cents. But now judgment would soon be given, and he would +go back to work. + +Ah Cho was twenty-two years old. He was happy and good-natured, and it was +easy for him to smile. While his body was slim in the Asiatic way, his +face was rotund. It was round, like the moon, and it irradiated a gentle +complacence and a sweet kindliness of spirit that was unusual among his +countrymen. Nor did his looks belie him. He never caused trouble, never +took part in wrangling. He did not gamble. His soul was not harsh enough +for the soul that must belong to a gambler. He was content with little +things and simple pleasures. The hush and quiet in the cool of the day +after the blazing toil in the cotton field was to him an infinite +satisfaction. He could sit for hours gazing at a solitary flower and +philosophizing about the mysteries and riddles of being. A blue heron on a +tiny crescent of sandy beach, a silvery splatter of flying fish, or a +sunset of pearl and rose across the lagoon, could entrance him to all +forgetfulness of the procession of wearisome days and of the heavy lash of +Schemmer. + +Schemmer, Karl Schemmer, was a brute, a brutish brute. But he earned his +salary. He got the last particle of strength out of the five hundred +slaves; for slaves they were until their term of years was up. Schemmer +worked hard to extract the strength from those five hundred sweating bodies +and to transmute it into bales of fluffy cotton ready for export. His +dominant, iron-clad, primeval brutishness was what enabled him to effect +the transmutation. Also, he was assisted by a thick leather belt, three +inches wide and a yard in length, with which he always rode and which, on +occasion, could come down on the naked back of a stooping coolie with a +report like a pistol-shot. These reports were frequent when Schemmer rode +down the furrowed field. + +Once, at the beginning of the first year of contract labour, he had killed +a coolie with a single blow of his fist. He had not exactly crushed the +man's head like an egg-shell, but the blow had been sufficient to addle +what was inside, and, after being sick for a week, the man had died. But +the Chinese had not complained to the French devils that ruled over Tahiti. +It was their own look out. Schemmer was their problem. They must avoid +his wrath as they avoided the venom of the centipedes that lurked in the +grass or crept into the sleeping quarters on rainy nights. The Chinagos-- +such they were called by the indolent, brown-skinned island folk--saw to it +that they did not displease Schemmer too greatly. This was equivalent to +rendering up to him a full measure of efficient toil. That blow of +Schemmer's fist had been worth thousands of dollars to the Company, and no +trouble ever came of it to Schemmer. + +The French, with no instinct for colonization, futile in their childish +playgame of developing the resources of the island, were only too glad to +see the English Company succeed. What matter of Schemmer and his +redoubtable fist? The Chinago that died? Well, he was only a Chinago. +Besides, he died of sunstroke, as the doctor's certificate attested. True, +in all the history of Tahiti no one had ever died of sunstroke. But it was +that, precisely that, which made the death of this Chinago unique. The +doctor said as much in his report. He was very candid. Dividends must be +paid, or else one more failure would be added to the long history of +failure in Tahiti. + +There was no understanding these white devils. Ah Cho pondered their +inscrutableness as he sat in the court room waiting the judgment. There +was no telling what went on at the back of their minds. He had seen a few +of the white devils. They were all alike--the officers and sailors on the +ship, the French officials, the several white men on the plantation, +including Schemmer. Their minds all moved in mysterious ways there was no +getting at. They grew angry without apparent cause, and their anger was +always dangerous. They were like wild beasts at such times. They worried +about little things, and on occasion could out-toil even a Chinago. They +were not temperate as Chinagos were temperate; they were gluttons, eating +prodigiously and drinking more prodigiously. A Chinago never knew when an +act would please them or arouse a storm of wrath. A Chinago could never +tell. What pleased one time, the very next time might provoke an outburst +of anger. There was a curtain behind the eyes of the white devils that +screened the backs of their minds from the Chinago's gaze. And then, on +top of it all, was that terrible efficiency of the white devils, that +ability to do things, to make things go, to work results, to bend to their +wills all creeping, crawling things, and the powers of the very elements +themselves. Yes, the white men were strange and wonderful, and they were +devils. Look at Schemmer. + +Ah Cho wondered why the judgment was so long in forming. Not a man on +trial had laid hand on Chung Ga. Ah San alone had killed him. Ah San had +done it, bending Chung Ga's head back with one hand by a grip of his queue, +and with the other hand, from behind, reaching over and driving the knife +into his body. Twice had he driven it in. There in the court room, with +closed eyes, Ah Cho saw the killing acted over again--the squabble, the +vile words bandied back and forth, the filth and insult flung upon +venerable ancestors, the curses laid upon unbegotten generations, the leap +of Ah San, the grip on the queue of Chung Ga, the knife that sank twice +into his flesh, the bursting open of the door, the irruption of Schemmer, +the dash for the door, the escape of Ah San, the flying belt of Schemmer +that drove the rest into the corner, and the firing of the revolver as a +signal that brought help to Schemmer. Ah Cho shivered as he lived it over. +One blow of the belt had bruised his cheek, taking off some of the skin. +Schemmer had pointed to the bruises when, on the witness-stand, he had +identified Ah Cho. It was only just now that the marks had become no +longer visible. That had been a blow. Half an inch nearer the centre and +it would have taken out his eye. Then Ah Cho forgot the whole happening in +a vision he caught of the garden of meditation and repose that would be his +when he returned to his own land. + +He sat with impassive face, while the magistrate rendered the judgment. +Likewise were the faces of his four companions impassive. And they +remained impassive when the interpreter explained that the five of them had +been found guilty of the murder of Chung Ga, and that Ah Chow should have +his head cut off, Ah Cho serve twenty years in prison in New Caledonia, +Wong Li twelve years, and Ah Tong ten years. There was no use in getting +excited about it. Even Ah Chow remained expressionless as a mummy, though +it was his head that was to be cut off. The magistrate added a few words, +and the interpreter explained that Ah Chow's face having been most severely +bruised by Schemmer's strap had made his identification so positive that, +since one man must die, he might as well be that man. Also, the fact that +Ah Cho's face likewise had been severely bruised, conclusively proving his +presence at the murder and his undoubted participation, had merited him the +twenty years of penal servitude. And down to the ten years of Ah Tong, the +proportioned reason for each sentence was explained. Let the Chinagos take +the lesson to heart, the Court said finally, for they must learn that the +law would be fulfilled in Tahiti though the heavens fell. + +The five Chinagos were taken back to jail. They were not shocked nor +grieved. The sentences being unexpected was quite what they were +accustomed to in their dealings with the white devils. From them a Chinago +rarely expected more than the unexpected. The heavy punishment for a crime +they had not committed was no stranger than the countless strange things +that white devils did. In the weeks that followed, Ah Cho often +contemplated Ah Chow with mild curiosity. His head was to be cut off by +the guillotine that was being erected on the plantation. For him there +would be no declining years, no gardens of tranquillity. Ah Cho +philosophized and speculated about life and death. As for himself, he was +not perturbed. Twenty years were merely twenty years. By that much was +his garden removed from him--that was all. He was young, and the patience +of Asia was in his bones. He could wait those twenty years, and by that +time the heats of his blood would be assuaged and he would be better fitted +for that garden of calm delight. He thought of a name for it; he would +call it The Garden of the Morning Calm. He was made happy all day by the +thought, and he was inspired to devise a moral maxim on the virtue of +patience, which maxim proved a great comfort, especially to Wong Li and Ah +Tong. Ah Chow, however, did not care for the maxim. His head was to be +separated from his body in so short a time that he had no need for patience +to wait for that event. He smoked well, ate well, slept well, and did not +worry about the slow passage of time. + +Cruchot was a gendarme. He had seen twenty years of service in the +colonies, from Nigeria and Senegal to the South Seas, and those twenty +years had not perceptibly brightened his dull mind. He was as slow-witted +and stupid as in his peasant days in the south of France. He knew +discipline and fear of authority, and from God down to the sergeant of +gendarmes the only difference to him was the measure of slavish obedience +which he rendered. In point of fact, the sergeant bulked bigger in his +mind than God, except on Sundays when God's mouthpieces had their say. God +was usually very remote, while the sergeant was ordinarily very close at +hand. + +Cruchot it was who received the order from the Chief Justice to the jailer +commanding that functionary to deliver over to Cruchot the person of Ah +Chow. Now, it happened that the Chief Justice had given a dinner the night +before to the captain and officers of the French man-of-war. His hand was +shaking when he wrote out the order, and his eyes were aching so dreadfully +that he did not read over the order. It was only a Chinago's life he was +signing away, anyway. So he did not notice that he had omitted the final +letter in Ah Chow's name. The order read "Ah Cho," and, when Cruchot +presented the order, the jailer turned over to him the person of Ah Cho. +Cruchot took that person beside him on the seat of a wagon, behind two +mules, and drove away. + +Ah Cho was glad to be out in the sunshine. He sat beside the gendarme and +beamed. He beamed more ardently than ever when he noted the mules headed +south toward Atimaono. Undoubtedly Schemmer had sent for him to be brought +back. Schemmer wanted him to work. Very well, he would work well. +Schemmer would never have cause to complain. It was a hot day. There had +been a stoppage of the trades. The mules sweated, Cruchot sweated, and Ah +Cho sweated. But it was Ah Cho that bore the heat with the least concern. +He had toiled three years under that sun on the plantation. He beamed and +beamed with such genial good nature that even Cruchot's heavy mind was +stirred to wonderment. + +"You are very funny," he said at last. + +Ah Cho nodded and beamed more ardently. Unlike the magistrate, Cruchot +spoke to him in the Kanaka tongue, and this, like all Chinagos and all +foreign devils, Ah Cho understood. + +"You laugh too much," Cruchot chided. "One's heart should be full of tears +on a day like this." + +"I am glad to get out of the jail." + +"Is that all?" The gendarme shrugged his shoulders. + +"Is it not enough?" was the retort. + +"Then you are not glad to have your head cut off?" + +Ah Cho looked at him in abrupt perplexity, and said-- + +"Why, I am going back to Atimaono to work on the plantation for Schemmer. +Are you not taking me to Atimaono?" + +Cruchot stroked his long moustaches reflectively. "Well, well," he said +finally, with a flick of the whip at the off mule, "so you don't know?" + +"Know what?" Ah Cho was beginning to feel a vague alarm. "Won't Schemmer +let me work for him any more?" + +"Not after to-day." Cruchot laughed heartily. It was a good joke. "You +see, you won't be able to work after to-day. A man with his head off can't +work, eh?" He poked the Chinago in the ribs, and chuckled. + +Ah Cho maintained silence while the mules trotted a hot mile. Then he +spoke: "Is Schemmer going to cut off my head?" + +Cruchot grinned as he nodded. + +"It is a mistake," said Ah Cho, gravely. "I am not the Chinago that is to +have his head cut off. I am Ah Cho. The honourable judge has determined +that I am to stop twenty years in New Caledonia." + +The gendarme laughed. It was a good joke, this funny Chinago trying to +cheat the guillotine. The mules trotted through a coconut grove and for +half a mile beside the sparkling sea before Ah Cho spoke again. + +"I tell you I am not Ah Chow. The honourable judge did not say that my +head was to go off." + +"Don't be afraid," said Cruchot, with the philanthropic intention of making +it easier for his prisoner. "It is not difficult to die that way." He +snapped his fingers. "It is quick--like that. It is not like hanging on +the end of a rope and kicking and making faces for five minutes. It is +like killing a chicken with a hatchet. You cut its head off, that is all. +And it is the same with a man. Pouf!--it is over. It doesn't hurt. You +don't even think it hurts. You don't think. Your head is gone, so you +cannot think. It is very good. That is the way I want to die--quick, ah, +quick. You are lucky to die that way. You might get the leprosy and fall +to pieces slowly, a finger at a time, and now and again a thumb, also the +toes. I knew a man who was burned by hot water. It took him two days to +die. You could hear him yelling a kilometre away. But you? Ah! so easy! +Chck!--the knife cuts your neck like that. It is finished. The knife may +even tickle. Who can say? Nobody who died that way ever came back to +say." + +He considered this last an excruciating joke, and permitted himself to be +convulsed with laughter for half a minute. Part of his mirth was assumed, +but he considered it his humane duty to cheer up the Chinago. + +"But I tell you I am Ah Cho," the other persisted. "I don't want my head +cut off." + +Cruchot scowled. The Chinago was carrying the foolishness too far. + +"I am not Ah Chow--" Ah Cho began. + +"That will do," the gendarme interrupted. He puffed up his cheeks and +strove to appear fierce. + +"I tell you I am not--" Ah Cho began again. + +"Shut up!" bawled Cruchot. + +After that they rode along in silence. It was twenty miles from Papeete to +Atimaono, and over half the distance was covered by the time the Chinago +again ventured into speech. + +"I saw you in the court room, when the honourable judge sought after our +guilt," he began. "Very good. And do you remember that Ah Chow, whose +head is to be cut off--do you remember that he--Ah Chow--was a tall man? +Look at me." + +He stood up suddenly, and Cruchot saw that he was a short man. And just as +suddenly Cruchot caught a glimpse of a memory picture of Ah Chow, and in +that picture Ah Chow was tall. To the gendarme all Chinagos looked alike. +One face was like another. But between tallness and shortness he could +differentiate, and he knew that he had the wrong man beside him on the +seat. He pulled up the mules abruptly, so that the pole shot ahead of +them, elevating their collars. + +"You see, it was a mistake," said Ah Cho, smiling pleasantly. + +But Cruchot was thinking. Already he regretted that he had stopped the +wagon. He was unaware of the error of the Chief Justice, and he had no way +of working it out; but he did know that he had been given this Chinago to +take to Atimaono and that it was his duty to take him to Atimaono. What if +he was the wrong man and they cut his head off? It was only a Chinago when +all was said, and what was a Chinago, anyway? Besides, it might not be a +mistake. He did not know what went on in the minds of his superiors. They +knew their business best. Who was he to do their thinking for them? Once, +in the long ago, he had attempted to think for them, and the sergeant had +said: "Cruchot, you are a fool? The quicker you know that, the better you +will get on. You are not to think; you are to obey and leave thinking to +your betters." He smarted under the recollection. Also, if he turned back +to Papeete, he would delay the execution at Atimaono, and if he were wrong +in turning back, he would get a reprimand from the sergeant who was waiting +for the prisoner. And, furthermore, he would get a reprimand at Papeete as +well. + +He touched the mules with the whip and drove on. He looked at his watch. +He would be half an hour late as it was, and the sergeant was bound to be +angry. He put the mules into a faster trot. The more Ah Cho persisted in +explaining the mistake, the more stubborn Cruchot became. The knowledge +that he had the wrong man did not make his temper better. The knowledge +that it was through no mistake of his confirmed him in the belief that the +wrong he was doing was the right. And, rather than incur the displeasure +of the sergeant, he would willingly have assisted a dozen wrong Chinagos to +their doom. + +As for Ah Cho, after the gendarme had struck him over the head with the +butt of the whip and commanded him in a loud voice to shut up, there +remained nothing for him to do but to shut up. The long ride continued in +silence. Ah Cho pondered the strange ways of the foreign devils. There +was no explaining them. What they were doing with him was of a piece with +everything they did. First they found guilty five innocent men, and next +they cut off the head of the man that even they, in their benighted +ignorance, had deemed meritorious of no more than twenty years' +imprisonment. And there was nothing he could do. He could only sit idly +and take what these lords of life measured out to him. Once, he got in a +panic, and the sweat upon his body turned cold; but he fought his way out +of it. He endeavoured to resign himself to his fate by remembering and +repeating certain passages from the "Yin Chih Wen" ("The Tract of the Quiet +Way"); but, instead, he kept seeing his dream-garden of meditation and +repose. This bothered him, until he abandoned himself to the dream and sat +in his garden listening to the tinkling of the windbells in the several +trees. And lo! sitting thus, in the dream, he was able to remember and +repeat the passages from "The Tract of the Quiet Way." + +So the time passed nicely until Atimaono was reached and the mules trotted +up to the foot of the scaffold, in the shade of which stood the impatient +sergeant. Ah Cho was hurried up the ladder of the scaffold. Beneath him +on one side he saw assembled all the coolies of the plantation. Schemmer +had decided that the event would be a good object-lesson, and so he called +in the coolies from the fields and compelled them to be present. As they +caught sight of Ah Cho they gabbled among themselves in low voices. They +saw the mistake; but they kept it to themselves. The inexplicable white +devils had doubtlessly changed their minds. Instead of taking the life of +one innocent man, they were taking the life of another innocent man. Ah +Chow or Ah Cho--what did it matter which? They could never understand the +white dogs any more than could the white dogs understand them. Ah Cho was +going to have his head cut off, but they, when their two remaining years of +servitude were up, were going back to China. + +Schemmer had made the guillotine himself. He was a handy man, and though +he had never seen a guillotine, the French officials had explained the +principle to him. It was on his suggestion that they had ordered the +execution to take place at Atimaono instead of at Papeete. The scene of +the crime, Schemmer had argued, was the best possible place for the +punishment, and, in addition, it would have a salutary influence upon the +half-thousand Chinagos on the plantation. Schemmer had also volunteered to +act as executioner, and in that capacity he was now on the scaffold, +experimenting with the instrument he had made. A banana tree, of the size +and consistency of a man's neck, lay under the guillotine. Ah Cho watched +with fascinated eyes. The German, turning a small crank, hoisted the blade +to the top of the little derrick he had rigged. A jerk on a stout piece of +cord loosed the blade and it dropped with a flash, neatly severing the +banana trunk. + +"How does it work?" The sergeant, coming out on top the scaffold, had +asked the question. + +"Beautifully," was Schemmer's exultant answer. "Let me show you." + +Again he turned the crank that hoisted the blade, jerked the cord, and sent +the blade crashing down on the soft tree. But this time it went no more +than two-thirds of the way through. + +The sergeant scowled. "That will not serve," he said. + +Schemmer wiped the sweat from his forehead. "What it needs is more +weight," he announced. Walking up to the edge of the scaffold, he called +his orders to the blacksmith for a twenty-five-pound piece of iron. As he +stooped over to attach the iron to the broad top of the blade, Ah Cho +glanced at the sergeant and saw his opportunity. + +"The honourable judge said that Ah Chow was to have his head cut off," he +began. + +The sergeant nodded impatiently. He was thinking of the fifteen-mile ride +before him that afternoon, to the windward side of the island, and of +Berthe, the pretty half-caste daughter of Lafiere, the pearl-trader, who +was waiting for him at the end of it. + +"Well, I am not Ah Chow. I am Ah Cho. The honourable jailer has made a +mistake. Ah Chow is a tall man, and you see I am short." + +The sergeant looked at him hastily and saw the mistake. "Schemmer!" he +called, imperatively. "Come here." + +The German grunted, but remained bent over his task till the chunk of iron +was lashed to his satisfaction. "Is your Chinago ready?" he demanded. + +"Look at him," was the answer. "Is he the Chinago?" + +Schemmer was surprised. He swore tersely for a few seconds, and looked +regretfully across at the thing he had made with his own hands and which he +was eager to see work. "Look here," he said finally, "we can't postpone +this affair. I've lost three hours' work already out of those five hundred +Chinagos. I can't afford to lose it all over again for the right man. +Let's put the performance through just the same. It is only a Chinago." + +The sergeant remembered the long ride before him, and the pearl-trader's +daughter, and debated with himself. + +"They will blame it on Cruchot--if it is discovered," the German urged. +"But there's little chance of its being discovered. Ah Chow won't give it +away, at any rate." + +"The blame won't lie with Cruchot, anyway," the sergeant said. "It must +have been the jailer's mistake." + +"Then let's go on with it. They can't blame us. Who can tell one Chinago +from another? We can say that we merely carried out instructions with the +Chinago that was turned over to us. Besides, I really can't take all those +coolies a second time away from their labour." + +They spoke in French, and Ah Cho, who did not understand a word of it, +nevertheless knew that they were determining his destiny. He knew, also, +that the decision rested with the sergeant, and he hung upon that +official's lips. + +"All right," announced the sergeant. "Go ahead with it. He is only a +Chinago." + +"I'm going to try it once more, just to make sure." Schemmer moved the +banana trunk forward under the knife, which he had hoisted to the top of +the derrick. + +Ah Cho tried to remember maxims from "The Tract of the Quiet Way." "Live +in concord," came to him; but it was not applicable. He was not going to +live. He was about to die. No, that would not do. "Forgive malice"--yes, +but there was no malice to forgive. Schemmer and the rest were doing this +thing without malice. It was to them merely a piece of work that had to be +done, just as clearing the jungle, ditching the water, and planting cotton +were pieces of work that had to be done. Schemmer jerked the cord, and Ah +Cho forgot "The Tract of the Quiet Way." The knife shot down with a thud, +making a clean slice of the tree. + +"Beautiful!" exclaimed the sergeant, pausing in the act of lighting a +cigarette. "Beautiful, my friend." + +Schemmer was pleased at the praise. + +"Come on, Ah Chow," he said, in the Tahitian tongue. + +"But I am not Ah Chow--" Ah Cho began. + +"Shut up!" was the answer. "If you open your mouth again, I'll break your +head." + +The overseer threatened him with a clenched fist, and he remained silent. +What was the good of protesting? Those foreign devils always had their +way. He allowed himself to be lashed to the vertical board that was the +size of his body. Schemmer drew the buckles tight--so tight that the +straps cut into his flesh and hurt. But he did not complain. The hurt +would not last long. He felt the board tilting over in the air toward the +horizontal, and closed his eyes. And in that moment he caught a last +glimpse of his garden of meditation and repose. It seemed to him that he +sat in the garden. A cool wind was blowing, and the bells in the several +trees were tinkling softly. Also, birds were making sleepy noises, and +from beyond the high wall came the subdued sound of village life. + +Then he was aware that the board had come to rest, and from muscular +pressures and tensions he knew that he was lying on his back. He opened +his eyes. Straight above him he saw the suspended knife blazing in the +sunshine. He saw the weight which had been added, and noted that one of +Schemmer's knots had slipped. Then he heard the sergeant's voice in sharp +command. Ah Cho closed his eyes hastily. He did not want to see that +knife descend. But he felt it--for one great fleeting instant. And in +that instant he remembered Cruchot and what Cruchot had said. But Cruchot +was wrong. The knife did not tickle. That much he knew before he ceased +to know. + + + +MAKE WESTING + + Whatever you do, make westing! make westing! + --Sailing directions for Cape Horn. + +For seven weeks the Mary Rogers had been between 5O degrees south in the +Atlantic and 5O degrees south in the Pacific, which meant that for seven +weeks she had been struggling to round Cape Horn. For seven weeks she had +been either in dirt, or close to dirt, save once, and then, following upon +six days of excessive dirt, which she had ridden out under the shelter of +the redoubtable Terra del Fuego coast, she had almost gone ashore during a +heavy swell in the dead calm that had suddenly fallen. For seven weeks she +had wrestled with the Cape Horn graybeards, and in return been buffeted and +smashed by them. She was a wooden ship, and her ceaseless straining had +opened her seams, so that twice a day the watch took its turn at the pumps. + +The Mary Rogers was strained, the crew was strained, and big Dan Cullen, +master, was likewise strained. Perhaps he was strained most of all, for +upon him rested the responsibility of that titanic struggle. He slept most +of the time in his clothes, though he rarely slept. He haunted the deck at +night, a great, burly, robust ghost, black with the sunburn of thirty years +of sea and hairy as an orang-outang. He, in turn, was haunted by one +thought of action, a sailing direction for the Horn: Whatever you do, make +westing! make westing! It was an obsession. He thought of nothing else, +except, at times, to blaspheme God for sending such bitter weather. + +Make westing! He hugged the Horn, and a dozen times lay hove to with the +iron Cape bearing east-by-north, or north-north-east, a score of miles +away. And each time the eternal west wind smote him back and he made +easting. He fought gale after gale, south to 64 degrees, inside the +antarctic drift-ice, and pledged his immortal soul to the Powers of +Darkness for a bit of westing, for a slant to take him around. And he made +easting. In despair, he had tried to make the passage through the Straits +of Le Maire. Halfway through, the wind hauled to the north'ard of north- +west, the glass dropped to 28.88, and he turned and ran before a gale of +cyclonic fury, missing, by a hair's-breadth, piling up the Mary Rogers on +the black-toothed rocks. Twice he had made west to the Diego Ramirez +Rocks, one of the times saved between two snow-squalls by sighting the +gravestones of ships a quarter of a mile dead ahead. + +Blow! Captain Dan Cullen instanced all his thirty years at sea to prove +that never had it blown so before. The Mary Rogers was hove to at the time +he gave the evidence, and, to clinch it, inside half an hour the Mary +Rogers was hove down to the hatches. Her new maintopsail and brand new +spencer were blown away like tissue paper; and five sails, furled and fast +under double gaskets, were blown loose and stripped from the yards. And +before morning the Mary Rogers was hove down twice again, and holes were +knocked in her bulwarks to ease her decks from the weight of ocean that +pressed her down. + +On an average of once a week Captain Dan Cullen caught glimpses of the sun. +Once, for ten minutes, the sun shone at midday, and ten minutes afterward a +new gale was piping up, both watches were shortening sail, and all was +buried in the obscurity of a driving snow-squall. For a fortnight, once, +Captain Dan Cullen was without a meridian or a chronometer sight. Rarely +did he know his position within half of a degree, except when in sight of +land; for sun and stars remained hidden behind the sky, and it was so +gloomy that even at the best the horizons were poor for accurate +observations. A gray gloom shrouded the world. The clouds were gray; the +great driving seas were leaden gray; the smoking crests were a gray +churning; even the occasional albatrosses were gray, while the snow- +flurries were not white, but gray, under the sombre pall of the heavens. + +Life on board the Mary Rogers was gray--gray and gloomy. The faces of the +sailors were blue-gray; they were afflicted with sea-cuts and sea-boils, +and suffered exquisitely. They were shadows of men. For seven weeks, in +the forecastle or on deck, they had not known what it was to be dry. They +had forgotten what it was to sleep out a watch, and all watches it was, +"All hands on deck!" They caught snatches of agonized sleep, and they +slept in their oilskins ready for the everlasting call. So weak and worn +were they that it took both watches to do the work of one. That was why +both watches were on deck so much of the time. And no shadow of a man +could shirk duty. Nothing less than a broken leg could enable a man to +knock off work; and there were two such, who had been mauled and pulped by +the seas that broke aboard. + +One other man who was the shadow of a man was George Dorety. He was the +only passenger on board, a friend of the firm, and he had elected to make +the voyage for his health. But seven weeks of Cape Horn had not bettered +his health. He gasped and panted in his bunk through the long, heaving +nights; and when on deck he was so bundled up for warmth that he resembled +a peripatetic old-clothes shop. At midday, eating at the cabin table in a +gloom so deep that the swinging sea-lamps burned always, he looked as blue- +gray as the sickest, saddest man for'ard. Nor did gazing across the table +at Captain Dan Cullen have any cheering effect upon him. Captain Cullen +chewed and scowled and kept silent. The scowls were for God, and with +every chew he reiterated the sole thought of his existence, which was make +westing. He was a big, hairy brute, and the sight of him was not +stimulating to the other's appetite. He looked upon George Dorety as a +Jonah, and told him so, once each meal, savagely transferring the scowl +from God to the passenger and back again. + +Nor did the mate prove a first aid to a languid appetite. Joshua Higgins +by name, a seaman by profession and pull, but a pot-wolloper by capacity, +he was a loose-jointed, sniffling creature, heartless and selfish and +cowardly, without a soul, in fear of his life of Dan Cullen, and a bully +over the sailors, who knew that behind the mate was Captain Cullen, the +law-giver and compeller, the driver and the destroyer, the incarnation of a +dozen bucko mates. In that wild weather at the southern end of the earth, +Joshua Higgins ceased washing. His grimy face usually robbed George Dorety +of what little appetite he managed to accumulate. Ordinarily this +lavatorial dereliction would have caught Captain Cullen's eye and +vocabulary, but in the present his mind was filled with making westing, to +the exclusion of all other things not contributory thereto. Whether the +mate's face was clean or dirty had no bearing upon westing. Later on, when +5O degrees south in the Pacific had been reached, Joshua Higgins would wash +his face very abruptly. In the meantime, at the cabin table, where gray +twilight alternated with lamplight while the lamps were being filled, +George Dorety sat between the two men, one a tiger and the other a hyena, +and wondered why God had made them. The second mate, Matthew Turner, was a +true sailor and a man, but George Dorety did not have the solace of his +company, for he ate by himself, solitary, when they had finished. + +On Saturday morning, July 24, George Dorety awoke to a feeling of life and +headlong movement. On deck he found the Mary Rogers running off before a +howling south-easter. Nothing was set but the lower topsails and the +foresail. It was all she could stand, yet she was making fourteen knots, +as Mr. Turner shouted in Dorety's ear when he came on deck. And it was all +westing. She was going around the Horn at last . . . if the wind held. +Mr. Turner looked happy. The end of the struggle was in sight. But +Captain Cullen did not look happy. He scowled at Dorety in passing. +Captain Cullen did not want God to know that he was pleased with that wind. +He had a conception of a malicious God, and believed in his secret soul +that if God knew it was a desirable wind, God would promptly efface it and +send a snorter from the west. So he walked softly before God, smothering +his joy down under scowls and muttered curses, and, so, fooling God, for +God was the only thing in the universe of which Dan Cullen was afraid. + +All Saturday and Saturday night the Mary Rogers raced her westing. +Persistently she logged her fourteen knots, so that by Sunday morning she +had covered three hundred and fifty miles. If the wind held, she would +make around. If it failed, and the snorter came from anywhere between +south-west and north, back the Mary Rogers would be hurled and be no better +off than she had been seven weeks before. And on Sunday morning the wind +was failing. The big sea was going down and running smooth. Both watches +were on deck setting sail after sail as fast as the ship could stand it. +And now Captain Cullen went around brazenly before God, smoking a big +cigar, smiling jubilantly, as if the failing wind delighted him, while down +underneath he was raging against God for taking the life out of the blessed +wind. Make westing! So he would, if God would only leave him alone. +Secretly, he pledged himself anew to the Powers of Darkness, if they would +let him make westing. He pledged himself so easily because he did not +believe in the Powers of Darkness. He really believed only in God, though +he did not know it. And in his inverted theology God was really the Prince +of Darkness. Captain Cullen was a devil-worshipper, but he called the +devil by another name, that was all. + +At midday, after calling eight bells, Captain Cullen ordered the royals on. +The men went aloft faster than they had gone in weeks. Not alone were they +nimble because of the westing, but a benignant sun was shining down and +limbering their stiff bodies. George Dorety stood aft, near Captain +Cullen, less bundled in clothes than usual, soaking in the grateful warmth +as he watched the scene. Swiftly and abruptly the incident occurred. +There was a cry from the foreroyal-yard of "Man overboard!" Somebody threw +a life-buoy over the side, and at the same instant the second mate's voice +came aft, ringing and peremptory-- + +"Hard down your helm!" + +The man at the wheel never moved a spoke. He knew better, for Captain Dan +Cullen was standing alongside of him. He wanted to move a spoke, to move +all the spokes, to grind the wheel down, hard down, for his comrade +drowning in the sea. He glanced at Captain Dan Cullen, and Captain Dan +Cullen gave no sign. + +"Down! Hard down!" the second mate roared, as he sprang aft. + +But he ceased springing and commanding, and stood still, when he saw Dan +Cullen by the wheel. And big Dan Cullen puffed at his cigar and said +nothing. Astern, and going astern fast, could be seen the sailor. He had +caught the life-buoy and was clinging to it. Nobody spoke. Nobody moved. +The men aloft clung to the royal yards and watched with terror-stricken +faces. And the Mary Rogers raced on, making her westing. A long, silent +minute passed. + +"Who was it?" Captain Cullen demanded. + +"Mops, sir," eagerly answered the sailor at the wheel. + +Mops topped a wave astern and disappeared temporarily in the trough. It +was a large wave, but it was no graybeard. A small boat could live easily +in such a sea, and in such a sea the Mary Rogers could easily come to. But +she could not come to and make westing at the same time. + +For the first time in all his years, George Dorety was seeing a real drama +of life and death--a sordid little drama in which the scales balanced an +unknown sailor named Mops against a few miles of longitude. At first he +had watched the man astern, but now he watched big Dan Cullen, hairy and +black, vested with power of life and death, smoking a cigar. + +Captain Dan Cullen smoked another long, silent minute. Then he removed the +cigar from his mouth. He glanced aloft at the spars of the Mary Rogers, +and overside at the sea. + +"Sheet home the royals!" he cried. + +Fifteen minutes later they sat at table, in the cabin, with food served +before them. On one side of George Dorety sat Dan Cullen, the tiger, on +the other side, Joshua Higgins, the hyena. Nobody spoke. On deck the men +were sheeting home the skysails. George Dorety could hear their cries, +while a persistent vision haunted him of a man called Mops, alive and well, +clinging to a life-buoy miles astern in that lonely ocean. He glanced at +Captain Cullen, and experienced a feeling of nausea, for the man was eating +his food with relish, almost bolting it. + +"Captain Cullen," Dorety said, "you are in command of this ship, and it is +not proper for me to comment now upon what you do. But I wish to say one +thing. There is a hereafter, and yours will be a hot one." + +Captain Cullen did not even scowl. In his voice was regret as he said-- + +"It was blowing a living gale. It was impossible to save the man." + +"He fell from the royal-yard," Dorety cried hotly. "You were setting the +royals at the time. Fifteen minutes afterward you were setting the +skysails." + +"It was a living gale, wasn't it, Mr. Higgin?" Captain Cullen said, turning +to the mate. + +"If you'd brought her to, it'd have taken the sticks out of her," was the +mate's answer. "You did the proper thing, Captain Cullen. The man hadn't +a ghost of a show." + +George Dorety made no answer, and to the meal's end no one spoke. After +that, Dorety had his meals served in his state-room. Captain Cullen +scowled at him no longer, though no speech was exchanged between them, +while the Mary Rogers sped north toward warmer latitudes. At the end of +the week, Dan Cullen cornered Dorety on deck. + +"What are you going to do when we get to 'Frisco?" he demanded bluntly. + +"I am going to swear out a warrant for your arrest," Dorety answered +quietly. "I am going to charge you with murder, and I am going to see you +hanged for it." + +"You're almighty sure of yourself," Captain Cullen sneered, turning on his +heel. + +A second week passed, and one morning found George Dorety standing in the +coach-house companionway at the for'ard end of the long poop, taking his +first gaze around the deck. The Mary Rogers was reaching full-and-by, in a +stiff breeze. Every sail was set and drawing, including the staysails. +Captain Cullen strolled for'ard along the poop. He strolled carelessly, +glancing at the passenger out of the corner of his eye. Dorety was looking +the other way, standing with head and shoulders outside the companionway, +and only the back of his head was to be seen. Captain Cullen, with swift +eye, embraced the mainstaysail-block and the head and estimated the +distance. He glanced about him. Nobody was looking. Aft, Joshua Higgins, +pacing up and down, had just turned his back and was going the other way. +Captain Cullen bent over suddenly and cast the staysail-sheet off from its +pin. The heavy block hurtled through the air, smashing Dorety's head like +an egg-shell and hurtling on and back and forth as the staysail whipped and +slatted in the wind. Joshua Higgins turned around to see what had carried +away, and met the full blast of the vilest portion of Captain Cullen's +profanity. + +"I made the sheet fast myself," whimpered the mate in the first lull, "with +an extra turn to make sure. I remember it distinctly." + +"Made fast?" the Captain snarled back, for the benefit of the watch as it +struggled to capture the flying sail before it tore to ribbons. "You +couldn't make your grandmother fast, you useless hell's scullion. If you +made that sheet fast with an extra turn, why in hell didn't it stay fast? +That's what I want to know. Why in hell didn't it stay fast?" + +The mate whined inarticulately. + +"Oh, shut up!" was the final word of Captain Cullen. + +Half an hour later he was as surprised as any when the body of George +Dorety was found inside the companionway on the floor. In the afternoon, +alone in his room, he doctored up the log. + +"Ordinary seaman, Karl Brun," he wrote, "lost overboard from foreroyal-yard +in a gale of wind. Was running at the time, and for the safety of the ship +did not dare come up to the wind. Nor could a boat have lived in the sea +that was running." + +On another page, he wrote + +"Had often warned Mr. Dorety about the danger he ran because of his +carelessness on deck. I told him, once, that some day he would get his +head knocked off by a block. A carelessly fastened mainstaysail sheet was +the cause of the accident, which was deeply to be regretted because Mr. +Dorety was a favourite with all of us." + +Captain Dan Cullen read over his literary effort with admiration, blotted +the page, and closed the log. He lighted a cigar and stared before him. +He felt the Mary Rogers lift, and heel, and surge along, and knew that she +was making nine knots. A smile of satisfaction slowly dawned on his black +and hairy face. Well, anyway, he had made his westing and fooled God. + + + +SEMPER IDEM + +Doctor Bicknell was in a remarkably gracious mood. Through a minor +accident, a slight bit of carelessness, that was all, a man who might have +pulled through had died the preceding night. Though it had been only a +sailorman, one of the innumerable unwashed, the steward of the receiving +hospital had been on the anxious seat all the morning. It was not that the +man had died that gave him discomfort, he knew the Doctor too well for +that, but his distress lay in the fact that the operation had been done so +well. One of the most delicate in surgery, it had been as successful as it +was clever and audacious. All had then depended upon the treatment, the +nurses, the steward. And the man had died. Nothing much, a bit of +carelessness, yet enough to bring the professional wrath of Doctor Bicknell +about his ears and to perturb the working of the staff and nurses for +twenty-four hours to come. + +But, as already stated, the Doctor was in a remarkably gracious mood. When +informed by the steward, in fear and trembling, of the man's unexpected +take-off, his lips did not so much as form one syllable of censure; nay, +they were so pursed that snatches of rag-time floated softly from them, to +be broken only by a pleasant query after the health of the other's eldest- +born. The steward, deeming it impossible that he could have caught the +gist of the case, repeated it. + +"Yes, yes," Doctor Bicknell said impatiently; "I understand. But how about +Semper Idem? Is he ready to leave?" + +"Yes. They're helping him dress now," the steward answered, passing on to +the round of his duties, content that peace still reigned within the +iodine-saturated walls. + +It was Semper Idem's recovery which had so fully compensated Doctor +Bicknell for the loss of the sailorman. Lives were to him as nothing, the +unpleasant but inevitable incidents of the profession, but cases, ah, cases +were everything. People who knew him were prone to brand him a butcher, +but his colleagues were at one in the belief that a bolder and yet a more +capable man never stood over the table. He was not an imaginative man. He +did not possess, and hence had no tolerance for, emotion. His nature was +accurate, precise, scientific. Men were to him no more than pawns, without +individuality or personal value. But as cases it was different. The more +broken a man was, the more precarious his grip on life, the greater his +significance in the eyes of Doctor Bicknell. He would as readily forsake a +poet laureate suffering from a common accident for a nameless, mangled +vagrant who defied every law of life by refusing to die, as would a child +forsake a Punch and Judy for a circus. + +So it had been in the case of Semper Idem. The mystery of the man had not +appealed to him, nor had his silence and the veiled romance which the +yellow reporters had so sensationally and so fruitlessly exploited in +divers Sunday editions. But Semper Idem's throat had been cut. That was +the point. That was where his interest had centred. Cut from ear to ear, +and not one surgeon in a thousand to give a snap of the fingers for his +chance of recovery. But, thanks to the swift municipal ambulance service +and to Doctor Bicknell, he had been dragged back into the world he had +sought to leave. The Doctor's co-workers had shaken their heads when the +case was brought in. Impossible, they said. Throat, windpipe, jugular, +all but actually severed, and the loss of blood frightful. As it was such +a foregone conclusion, Doctor Bicknell had employed methods and done things +which made them, even in their professional capacities, shudder. And lo! +the man had recovered. + +So, on this morning that Semper Idem was to leave the hospital, hale and +hearty, Doctor Bicknell's geniality was in nowise disturbed by the +steward's report, and he proceeded cheerfully to bring order out of the +chaos of a child's body which had been ground and crunched beneath the +wheels of an electric car. + +As many will remember, the case of Semper Idem aroused a vast deal of +unseemly yet highly natural curiosity. He had been found in a slum +lodging, with throat cut as aforementioned, and blood dripping down upon +the inmates of the room below and disturbing their festivities. He had +evidently done the deed standing, with head bowed forward that he might +gaze his last upon a photograph which stood on the table propped against a +candlestick. It was this attitude which had made it possible for Doctor +Bicknell to save him. So terrific had been the sweep of the razor that had +he had his head thrown back, as he should have done to have accomplished +the act properly, with his neck stretched and the elastic vascular walls +distended, he would have of a certainty well-nigh decapitated himself. + +At the hospital, during all the time he travelled the repugnant road back +to life, not a word had left his lips. Nor could anything be learned of +him by the sleuths detailed by the chief of police. Nobody knew him, nor +had ever seen or heard of him before. He was strictly, uniquely, of the +present. His clothes and surroundings were those of the lowest labourer, +his hands the hands of a gentleman. But not a shred of writing was +discovered, nothing, save in one particular, which would serve to indicate +his past or his position in life. + +And that one particular was the photograph. If it were at all a likeness, +the woman who gazed frankly out upon the onlooker from the card-mount must +have been a striking creature indeed. It was an amateur production, for +the detectives were baffled in that no professional photographer's +signature or studio was appended. Across a corner of the mount, in +delicate feminine tracery, was written: "Semper idem; semper fidelis." +And she looked it. As many recollect, it was a face one could never +forget. Clever half-tones, remarkably like, were published in all the +leading papers at the time; but such procedure gave rise to nothing but the +uncontrollable public curiosity and interminable copy to the space-writers. + +For want of a better name, the rescued suicide was known to the hospital +attendants, and to the world, as Semper Idem. And Semper Idem he remained. +Reporters, detectives, and nurses gave him up in despair. Not one word +could he be persuaded to utter; yet the flitting conscious light of his +eyes showed that his ears heard and his brain grasped every question put to +him. + +But this mystery and romance played no part in Doctor Bicknell's interest +when he paused in the office to have a parting word with his patient. He, +the Doctor, had performed a prodigy in the matter of this man, done what +was virtually unprecedented in the annals of surgery. He did not care who +or what the man was, and it was highly improbable that he should ever see +him again; but, like the artist gazing upon a finished creation, he wished +to look for the last time upon the work of his hand and brain. + +Semper Idem still remained mute. He seemed anxious to be gone. Not a word +could the Doctor extract from him, and little the Doctor cared. He +examined the throat of the convalescent carefully, idling over the hideous +scar with the lingering, half-caressing fondness of a parent. It was not a +particularly pleasing sight. An angry line circled the throat--for all the +world as though the man had just escaped the hangman's noose--and, +disappearing below the ear on either side, had the appearance of completing +the fiery periphery at the nape of the neck. + +Maintaining his dogged silence, yielding to the other's examination in much +the manner of a leashed lion, Semper Idem betrayed only his desire to drop +from out of the public eye. + +"Well, I'll not keep you," Doctor Bicknell finally said, laying a hand on +the man's shoulder and stealing a last glance at his own handiwork. "But +let me give you a bit of advice. Next time you try it on, hold your chin +up, so. Don't snuggle it down and butcher yourself like a cow. Neatness +and despatch, you know. Neatness and despatch." + +Semper Idem's eyes flashed in token that he heard, and a moment later the +hospital door swung to on his heel. + +It was a busy day for Doctor Bicknell, and the afternoon was well along +when he lighted a cigar preparatory to leaving the table upon which it +seemed the sufferers almost clamoured to be laid. But the last one, an old +rag-picker with a broken shoulder-blade, had been disposed of, and the +first fragrant smoke wreaths had begun to curl about his head, when the +gong of a hurrying ambulance came through the open window from the street, +followed by the inevitable entry of the stretcher with its ghastly freight. + +"Lay it on the table," the Doctor directed, turning for a moment to place +his cigar in safety. "What is it?" + +"Suicide--throat cut," responded one of the stretcher bearers. "Down on +Morgan Alley. Little hope, I think, sir. He's 'most gone." + +"Eh? Well, I'll give him a look, anyway." He leaned over the man at the +moment when the quick made its last faint flutter and succumbed. + +"It's Semper Idem come back again," the steward said. + +"Ay," replied Doctor Bicknell, "and gone again. No bungling this time. +Properly done, upon my life, sir, properly done. Took my advice to the +letter. I'm not required here. Take it along to the morgue." + +Doctor Bicknell secured his cigar and relighted it. "That," he said +between the puffs, looking at the steward, "that evens up for the one you +lost last night. We're quits now." + + + +A NOSE FOR THE KING + +In the morning calm of Korea, when its peace and tranquillity truly merited +its ancient name, "Cho-sen," there lived a politician by name Yi Chin Ho. +He was a man of parts, and--who shall say?--perhaps in no wise worse than +politicians the world over. But, unlike his brethren in other lands, Yi +Chin Ho was in jail. Not that he had inadvertently diverted to himself +public moneys, but that he had inadvertently diverted too much. Excess is +to be deplored in all things, even in grafting, and Yi Chin Ho's excess had +brought him to most deplorable straits. + +Ten thousand strings of cash he owed the Government, and he lay in prison +under sentence of death. There was one advantage to the situation--he had +plenty of time in which to think. And he thought well. Then called he the +jailer to him. + +"Most worthy man, you see before you one most wretched," he began. "Yet +all will be well with me if you will but let me go free for one short hour +this night. And all will be well with you, for I shall see to your +advancement through the years, and you shall come at length to the +directorship of all the prisons of Cho-sen." + +"How now?" demanded the jailer. "What foolishness is this? One short +hour, and you but waiting for your head to be chopped off! And I, with an +aged and much-to-be-respected mother, not to say anything of a wife and +several children of tender years! Out upon you for the scoundrel that you +are!" + +"From the Sacred City to the ends of all the Eight Coasts there is no place +for me to hide," Yi Chin Ho made reply. "I am a man of wisdom, but of what +worth my wisdom here in prison? Were I free, well I know I could seek out +and obtain the money wherewith to repay the Government. I know of a nose +that will save me from all my difficulties." + +"A nose!" cried the jailer. + +"A nose," said Yi Chin Ho. "A remarkable nose, if I may say so, a most +remarkable nose." + +The jailer threw up his hands despairingly. "Ah, what a wag you are, what +a wag," he laughed. "To think that that very admirable wit of yours must +go the way of the chopping-block!" + +And so saying, he turned and went away. But in the end, being a man soft +of head and heart, when the night was well along he permitted Yi Chin Ho to +go. + +Straight he went to the Governor, catching him alone and arousing him from +his sleep. + +"Yi Chin Ho, or I'm no Governor!" cried the Governor. "What do you here +who should be in prison waiting on the chopping-block?" + +"I pray Your Excellency to listen to me," said Yi Chin Ho, squatting on his +hams by the bedside and lighting his pipe from the fire-box. "A dead man +is without value. It is true, I am as a dead man, without value to the +Government, to Your Excellency, or to myself. But if, so to say, Your +Excellency were to give me my freedom--" + +"Impossible!" cried the Governor. "Beside, you are condemned to death." + +"Your Excellency well knows that if I can repay the ten thousand strings of +cash, the Government will pardon me," Yi Chin Ho went on. "So, as I say, +if Your Excellency were to give me my freedom for a few days, being a man +of understanding, I should then repay the Government and be in position to +be of service to Your Excellency. I should be in position to be of very +great service to Your Excellency." + +"Have you a plan whereby you hope to obtain this money?" asked the +Governor. + +"I have," said Yi Chin Ho. + +"Then come with it to me to-morrow night; I would now sleep," said the +Governor, taking up his snore where it had been interrupted. + +On the following night, having again obtained leave of absence from the +jailer, Yi Chin Ho presented himself at the Governor's bedside. + +"Is it you, Yi Chin Ho?" asked the Governor. "And have you the plan?" + +"It is I, Your Excellency," answered Yi Chin Ho, "and the plan is here." + +"Speak," commanded the Governor. + +"The plan is here," repeated Yi Chin Ho, "here in my hand." + +The Governor sat up and opened his eyes. Yi Chin Ho proffered in his hand +a sheet of paper. The Governor held it to the light. + +"Nothing but a nose," said he. + +"A bit pinched, so, and so, Your Excellency," said Yi Chin Ho. + +"Yes, a bit pinched here and there, as you say," said the Governor. + +"Withal it is an exceeding corpulent nose, thus, and so, all in one place, +at the end," proceeded Yi Chin Ho. "Your Excellency would seek far and +wide and many a day for that nose and find it not!" + +"An unusual nose," admitted the Governor. + +"There is a wart upon it," said Yi Chin Ho. + +"A most unusual nose," said the Governor. "Never have I seen the like. +But what do you with this nose, Yi Chin Ho?" + +"I seek it whereby to repay the money to the Government," said Yi Chin Ho. +"I seek it to be of service to Your Excellency, and I seek it to save my +own worthless head. Further, I seek Your Excellency's seal upon this +picture of the nose." + +And the Governor laughed and affixed the seal of State, and Yi Chin Ho +departed. For a month and a day he travelled the King's Road which leads +to the shore of the Eastern Sea; and there, one night, at the gate of the +largest mansion of a wealthy city he knocked loudly for admittance. + +"None other than the master of the house will I see," said he fiercely to +the frightened servants. "I travel upon the King's business." + +Straightway was he led to an inner room, where the master of the house was +roused from his sleep and brought blinking before him. + +"You are Pak Chung Chang, head man of this city," said Yi Chin Ho in tones +that were all-accusing. "I am upon the King's business." + +Pak Chung Chang trembled. Well he knew the King's business was ever a +terrible business. His knees smote together, and he near fell to the +floor. + +"The hour is late," he quavered. "Were it not well to--" + +"The King's business never waits!" thundered Yi Chin Ho. "Come apart with +me, and swiftly. I have an affair of moment to discuss with you. + +"It is the King's affair," he added with even greater fierceness; so that +Pak Chung Chang's silver pipe dropped from his nerveless fingers and +clattered on the floor. + +"Know then," said Yi Chin Ho, when they had gone apart, "that the King is +troubled with an affliction, a very terrible affliction. In that he failed +to cure, the Court physician has had nothing else than his head chopped +off. From all the Eight Provinces have the physicians come to wait upon +the King. Wise consultation have they held, and they have decided that for +a remedy for the King's affliction nothing else is required than a nose, a +certain kind of nose, a very peculiar certain kind of nose. + +"Then by none other was I summoned than His Excellency the Prime Minister +himself. He put a paper into my hand. Upon this paper was the very +peculiar kind of nose drawn by the physicians of the Eight Provinces, with +the seal of State upon it. + +"'Go,' said His Excellency the Prime Minister. 'Seek out this nose, for +the King's affliction is sore. And wheresoever you find this nose upon the +face of a man, strike it off forthright and bring it in all haste to the +Court, for the King must be cured. Go, and come not back until your search +is rewarded.' + +"And so I departed upon my quest," said Yi Chin Ho. "I have sought out the +remotest corners of the kingdom; I have travelled the Eight Highways, +searched the Eight Provinces, and sailed the seas of the Eight Coasts. And +here I am." + +With a great flourish he drew a paper from his girdle, unrolled it with +many snappings and cracklings, and thrust it before the face of Pak Chung +Chang. Upon the paper was the picture of the nose. + +Pak Chung Chang stared upon it with bulging eyes. + +"Never have I beheld such a nose," he began. + +"There is a wart upon it," said Yi Chin Ho. + +"Never have I beheld--" Pak Chung Chang began again. + +"Bring your father before me," Yi Chin Ho interrupted sternly. + +"My ancient and very-much-to-be-respected ancestor sleeps," said Pak Chung +Chang. + +"Why dissemble?" demanded Yi Chin Ho. "You know it is your father's nose. +Bring him before me that I may strike it off and be gone. Hurry, lest I +make bad report of you." + +"Mercy!" cried Pak Chung Chang, falling on his knees. "It is impossible! +It is impossible! You cannot strike off my father's nose. He cannot go +down without his nose to the grave. He will become a laughter and a +byword, and all my days and nights will be filled with woe. O reflect! +Report that you have seen no such nose in your travels. You, too, have a +father." + +Pak Chung Chang clasped Yi Chin Ho's knees and fell to weeping on his +sandals. + +"My heart softens strangely at your tears," said Yi Chin Ho. "I, too, know +filial piety and regard. But--" He hesitated, then added, as though +thinking aloud, "It is as much as my head is worth." + +"How much is your head worth?" asked Pak Chung Chang in a thin, small +voice. + +"A not remarkable head," said Yi Chin Ho. "An absurdly unremarkable head; +but, such is my great foolishness, I value it at nothing less than one +hundred thousand strings of cash." + +"So be it," said Pak Chung Chang, rising to his feet. + +"I shall need horses to carry the treasure," said Yi Chin Ho, "and men to +guard it well as I journey through the mountains. There are robbers abroad +in the land." + +"There are robbers abroad in the land," said Pak Chung Chang, sadly. "But +it shall be as you wish, so long as my ancient and very-much-to-be- +respected ancestor's nose abide in its appointed place." + +"Say nothing to any man of this occurrence," said Yi Chin Ho, "else will +other and more loyal servants than I be sent to strike off your father's +nose." + +And so Yi Chin Ho departed on his way through the mountains, blithe of +heart and gay of song as he listened to the jingling bells of his treasure- +laden ponies. + +There is little more to tell. Yi Chin Ho prospered through the years. By +his efforts the jailer attained at length to the directorship of all the +prisons of Cho-sen; the Governor ultimately betook himself to the Sacred +City to be Prime Minister to the King, while Yi Chin Ho became the King's +boon companion and sat at table with him to the end of a round, fat life. +But Pak Chung Chang fell into a melancholy, and ever after he shook his +head sadly, with tears in his eyes, whenever he regarded the expensive nose +of his ancient and very-much-to-be-respected ancestor. + + + +THE "FRANCIS SPAIGHT" + +(A TRUE TALE RETOLD) + +The Francis Spaight was running before it solely under a mizzentopsail, +when the thing happened. It was not due to carelessness so much as to the +lack of discipline of the crew and to the fact that they were indifferent +seamen at best. The man at the wheel in particular, a Limerick man, had +had no experience with salt water beyond that of rafting timber on the +Shannon between the Quebec vessels and the shore. He was afraid of the +huge seas that rose out of the murk astern and bore down upon him, and he +was more given to cowering away from their threatened impact than he was to +meeting their blows with the wheel and checking the ship's rush to broach +to. + +It was three in the morning when his unseamanlike conduct precipitated the +catastrophe. At sight of a sea far larger than its fellows, he crouched +down, releasing his hands from the spokes. The Francis Spaight sheered as +her stern lifted on the sea, receiving the full fling of the cap on her +quarter. The next instant she was in the trough, her lee-rail buried till +the ocean was level with her hatch-coamings, sea after sea breaking over +her weather rail and sweeping what remained exposed of the deck with icy +deluges. + +The men were out of hand, helpless and hopeless, stupid in their +bewilderment and fear, and resolute only in that they would not obey +orders. Some wailed, others clung silently in the weather shrouds, and +still others muttered prayers or shrieked vile imprecations; and neither +captain nor mate could get them to bear a hand at the pumps or at setting +patches of sails to bring the vessel up to the wind and sea. Inside the +hour the ship was over on her beam ends, the lubberly cowards climbing up +her side and hanging on in the rigging. When she went over, the mate was +caught and drowned in the after-cabin, as were two sailors who had sought +refuge in the forecastle. + +The mate had been the ablest man on board, and the captain was now scarcely +less helpless than his men. Beyond cursing them for their worthlessness, +he did nothing; and it remained for a man named Mahoney, a Belfast man, and +a boy, O'Brien, of Limerick, to cut away the fore and main masts. This +they did at great risk on the perpendicular wall of the wreck, sending the +mizzentopmast overside along in the general crash. The Francis Spaight +righted, and it was well that she was lumber laden, else she would have +sunk, for she was already water-logged. The mainmast, still fast by the +shrouds, beat like a thunderous sledge-hammer against the ship's side, +every stroke bringing groans from the men. + +Day dawned on the savage ocean, and in the cold gray light all that could +be seen of the Francis Spaight emerging from the sea were the poop, the +shattered mizzenmast, and a ragged line of bulwarks. It was midwinter in +the North Atlantic, and the wretched men were half-dead from cold. But +there was no place where they could find rest. Every sea breached clean +over the wreck, washing away the salt incrustations from their bodies and +depositing fresh incrustations. The cabin under the poop was awash to the +knees, but here at least was shelter from the chill wind, and here the +survivors congregated, standing upright, holding on by the cabin +furnishings, and leaning against one another for support. + +In vain Mahoney strove to get the men to take turns in watching aloft from +the mizzenmast for any chance vessel. The icy gale was too much for them, +and they preferred the shelter of the cabin. O'Brien, the boy, who was +only fifteen, took turns with Mahoney on the freezing perch. It was the +boy, at three in the afternoon, who called down that he had sighted a sail. +This did bring them from the cabin, and they crowded the poop rail and +weather mizzen shrouds as they watched the strange ship. But its course +did not lie near, and when it disappeared below the skyline, they returned +shivering to the cabin, not one offering to relieve the watch at the mast +head. + +By the end of the second day, Mahoney and O'Brien gave up their attempt, +and thereafter the vessel drifted in the gale uncared for and without a +lookout. There were thirteen alive, and for seventy-two hours they stood +knee-deep in the sloshing water on the cabin floor, half-frozen, without +food, and with but three bottles of wine shared among them. All food and +fresh water were below, and there was no getting at such supplies in the +water-logged condition of the wreck. As the days went by, no food whatever +passed their lips. Fresh water, in small quantities, they were able to +obtain by holding a cover of a tureen under the saddle of the mizzenmast. +But the rain fell infrequently, and they were hard put. When it rained, +they also soaked their handkerchiefs, squeezing them out into their mouths +or into their shoes. As the wind and sea went down, they were even able to +mop the exposed portions of the deck that were free from brine and so add +to their water supply. But food they had none, and no way of getting it, +though sea-birds flew repeatedly overhead. + +In the calm weather that followed the gale, after having remained on their +feet for ninety-six hours, they were able to find dry planks in the cabin +on which to lie. But the long hours of standing in the salt water had +caused sores to form on their legs. These sores were extremely painful. +The slightest contact or scrape caused severe anguish, and in their weak +condition and crowded situation they were continually hurting one another +in this manner. Not a man could move about without being followed by +volleys of abuse, curses, and groans. So great was their misery that the +strong oppressed the weak, shoving them aside from the dry planks to shift +for themselves in the cold and wet. The boy, O'Brien, was specially +maltreated. Though there were three other boys, it was O'Brien who came in +for most of the abuse. There was no explaining it, except on the ground +that his was a stronger and more dominant spirit than those of the other +boys, and that he stood up more for his rights, resenting the petty +injustices that were meted out to all the boys by the men. Whenever +O'Brien came near the men in search of a dry place to sleep, or merely +moved about, he was kicked and cuffed away. In return, he cursed them for +their selfish brutishness, and blows and kicks and curses were rained upon +him. Miserable as were all of them, he was thus made far more miserable; +and it was only the flame of life, unusually strong in him, that enabled +him to endure. + +As the days went by and they grew weaker, their peevishness and ill-temper +increased, which, in turn, increased the ill-treatment and sufferings of +O'Brien. By the sixteenth day all hands were far gone with hunger, and +they stood together in small groups, talking in undertones and occasionally +glancing at O'Brien. It was at high noon that the conference came to a +head. The captain was the spokesman. All were collected on the poop. + +"Men," the captain began, "we have been a long time without food--two weeks +and two days it is, though it seems more like two years and two months. We +can't hang out much longer. It is beyond human nature to go on hanging out +with nothing in our stomachs. There is a serious question to consider: +whether it is better for all to die, or for one to die. We are standing +with our feet in our graves. If one of us dies, the rest may live until a +ship is sighted. What say you?" + +Michael Behane, the man who had been at the wheel when the Francis Spaight +broached to, called out that it was well. The others joined in the cry. + +"Let it be one of the b'ys!" cried Sullivan, a Tarbert man, glancing at the +same time significantly at O'Brien. + +"It is my opinion," the captain went on, "that it will be a good deed for +one of us to die for the rest." + +"A good deed! A good deed!" the men interjected. + +"And it is my opinion that 'tis best for one of the boys to die. They have +no families to support, nor would they be considered so great a loss to +their friends as those who have wives and children." + +"'Tis right." "Very right." "Very fit it should be done," the men +muttered one to another. + +But the four boys cried out against the injustice of it. + +"Our lives is just as dear to us as the rest iv yez," O'Brien protested. +"An' our famblies, too. As for wives an' childer, who is there savin' +meself to care for me old mother that's a widow, as you know well, Michael +Behane, that comes from Limerick? 'Tis not fair. Let the lots be drawn +between all of us, men and b'ys." + +Mahoney was the only man who spoke in favour of the boys, declaring that it +was the fair thing for all to share alike. Sullivan and the captain +insisted on the drawing of lots being confined to the boys. There were +high words, in the midst of which Sullivan turned upon O'Brien, snarling-- + +"'Twould be a good deed to put you out of the way. You deserve it. +'Twould be the right way to serve you, an' serve you we will." + +He started toward O'Brien, with intent to lay hands on him and proceed at +once with the killing, while several others likewise shuffled toward him +and reached for him. He stumbled backwards to escape them, at the same +time crying that he would submit to the drawing of the lots among the boys. + +The captain prepared four sticks of different lengths and handed them to +Sullivan. + +"You're thinkin' the drawin'll not be fair," the latter sneered to O'Brien. +"So it's yerself'll do the drawin'." + +To this O'Brien agreed. A handkerchief was tied over his eyes, +blindfolding him, and he knelt down on the deck with his back to Sullivan. + +"Whoever you name for the shortest stick'll die," the captain said. + +Sullivan held up one of the sticks. The rest were concealed in his hand so +that no one could see whether it was the short stick or not. + +"An' whose stick will it be?" Sullivan demanded. + +"For little Johnny Sheehan," O'Brien answered. + +Sullivan laid the stick aside. Those who looked could not tell if it were +the fatal one. Sullivan held up another stick. + +"Whose will it be?" + +"For George Burns," was the reply. + +The stick was laid with the first one, and a third held up. + +"An' whose is this wan?" + +"For myself," said O'Brien. + +With a quick movement, Sullivan threw the four sticks together. No one had +seen. + +"'Tis for yourself ye've drawn it," Sullivan announced. + +"A good deed," several of the men muttered. + +O'Brien was very quiet. He arose to his feet, took the bandage off, and +looked around. + +"Where is ut?" he demanded. "The short stick? The wan for me?" + +The captain pointed to the four sticks lying on the deck. + +"How do you know the stick was mine?" O'Brien questioned. "Did you see ut, +Johnny Sheehan?" + +Johnny Sheehan, who was the youngest of the boys, did not answer. + +"Did you see ut?" O'Brien next asked Mahoney. + +"No, I didn't see ut." + +The men were muttering and growling. + +"'Twas a fair drawin'," Sullivan said. "Ye had yer chanct an' ye lost, +that's all iv ut." + +"A fair drawin'," the captain added. "Didn't I behold it myself? The +stick was yours, O'Brien, an' ye may as well get ready. Where's the cook? +Gorman, come here. Fetch the tureen cover, some of ye. Gorman, do your +duty like a man." + +"But how'll I do it," the cook demanded. He was a weak-eyed, weak-chinned, +indecisive man. + +"'Tis a damned murder!" O'Brien cried out. + +"I'll have none of ut," Mahoney announced. "Not a bite shall pass me +lips." + +"Then 'tis yer share for better men than yerself," Sullivan sneered. "Go +on with yer duty, cook." + +"'Tis not me duty, the killin' of b'ys," Gorman protested irresolutely. + +"If yez don't make mate for us, we'll be makin' mate of yerself," Behane +threatened. "Somebody must die, an' as well you as another." + +Johnny Sheehan began to cry. O'Brien listened anxiously. His face was +pale. His lips trembled, and at times his whole body shook. + +"I signed on as cook," Gorman enounced. "An' cook I wud if galley there +was. But I'll not lay me hand to murder. 'Tis not in the articles. I'm +the cook--" + +"An' cook ye'll be for wan minute more only," Sullivan said grimly, at the +same moment gripping the cook's head from behind and bending it back till +the windpipe and jugular were stretched taut. "Where's yer knife, Mike? +Pass it along." + +At the touch of the steel, Gorman whimpered. + +"I'll do ut, if yez'll hold the b'y." + +The pitiable condition of the cook seemed in some fashion to nerve up +O'Brien. + +"It's all right, Gorman," he said. "Go on with ut. 'Tis meself knows yer +not wantin' to do ut. It's all right, sir"--this to the captain, who had +laid a hand heavily on his arm. "Ye won't have to hold me, sir. I'll +stand still." + +"Stop yer blitherin', an' go an' get the tureen cover," Behane commanded +Johnny Sheehan, at the same time dealing him a heavy cuff alongside the +head. + +The boy, who was scarcely more than a child, fetched the cover. He crawled +and tottered along the deck, so weak was he from hunger. The tears still +ran down his cheeks. Behane took the cover from him, at the same time +administering another cuff. + +O'Brien took off his coat and bared his right arm. His under lip still +trembled, but he held a tight grip on himself. The captain's penknife was +opened and passed to Gorman. + +"Mahoney, tell me mother what happened to me, if ever ye get back," O'Brien +requested. + +Mahoney nodded. + +"'Tis black murder, black an' damned," he said. "The b'y's flesh'll do +none iv yez anny good. Mark me words. Ye'll not profit by it, none iv +yez." + +"Get ready," the captain ordered. "You, Sullivan, hold the cover--that's +it--close up. Spill nothing. It's precious stuff." + +Gorman made an effort. The knife was dull. He was weak. Besides, his +hand was shaking so violently that he nearly dropped the knife. The three +boys were crouched apart, in a huddle, crying and sobbing. With the +exception of Mahoney, the men were gathered about the victim, craning their +necks to see. + +"Be a man, Gorman," the captain cautioned. + +The wretched cook was seized with a spasm of resolution, sawing back and +forth with the blade on O'Brien's wrist. The veins were severed. Sullivan +held the tureen cover close underneath. The cut veins gaped wide, but no +ruddy flood gushed forth. There was no blood at all. The veins were dry +and empty. No one spoke. The grim and silent figures swayed in unison +with each heave of the ship. Every eye was turned fixedly upon that +inconceivable and monstrous thing, the dry veins of a creature that was +alive. + +"'Tis a warnin'," Mahoney cried. "Lave the b'y alone. Mark me words. His +death'll do none iv yez anny good." + +"Try at the elbow--the left elbow, 'tis nearer the heart," the captain said +finally, in a dim and husky voice that was unlike his own. + +"Give me the knife," O'Brien said roughly, taking it out of the cook's +hand. "I can't be lookin' at ye puttin' me to hurt." + +Quite coolly he cut the vein at the left elbow, but, like the cook, he +failed to bring blood. + +"This is all iv no use," Sullivan said. "'Tis better to put him out iv his +misery by bleedin' him at the throat." + +The strain had been too much for the lad. + +"Don't be doin' ut," he cried. "There'll be no blood in me throat. Give +me a little time. 'Tis cold an' weak I am. Be lettin' me lay down an' +slape a bit. Then I'll be warm an' the blood'll flow." + +"'Tis no use," Sullivan objected. "As if ye cud be slapin' at a time like +this. Ye'll not slape, and ye'll not warm up. Look at ye now. You've an +ague." + +"I was sick at Limerick wan night," O'Brien hurried on, "an' the dochtor +cudn't bleed me. But after slapin' a few hours an' gettin' warm in bed the +blood came freely. It's God's truth I'm tellin' yez. Don't be murderin' +me!" + +"His veins are open now," the captain said. "'Tis no use leavin' him in +his pain. Do it now an' be done with it." + +They started to reach for O'Brien, but he backed away. + +"I'll be the death iv yez!" he screamed. "Take yer hands off iv me, +Sullivan! I'll come back! I'll haunt yez! Wakin' or slapin', I'll haunt +yez till you die!" + +"'Tis disgraceful!" yelled Behane. "If the short stick'd ben mine, I'd a- +let me mates cut the head off iv me an' died happy." + +Sullivan leaped in and caught the unhappy lad by the hair. The rest of the +men followed, O'Brien kicked and struggled, snarling and snapping at the +hands that clutched him from every side. Little Johnny Sheehan broke out +into wild screaming, but the men took no notice of him. O'Brien was bent +backward to the deck, the tureen cover under his neck. Gorman was shoved +forward. Some one had thrust a large sheath-knife into his hand. + +"Do yer duty! Do yer duty!" the men cried. + +The cook bent over, but he caught the boy's eyes and faltered. + +"If ye don't, I'll kill ye with me own hands," Behane shouted. + +From every side a torrent of abuse and threats poured in upon the cook. +Still he hung back. + +"Maybe there'll be more blood in his veins than O'Brien's," Sullivan +suggested significantly. + +Behane caught Gorman by the hair and twisted his head back, while Sullivan +attempted to take possession of the sheath-knife. But Gorman clung to it +desperately. + +"Lave go, an' I'll do ut!" he screamed frantically. "Don't be cuttin' me +throat! I'll do the deed! I'll do the deed!" + +"See that you do it, then," the captain threatened him. + +Gorman allowed himself to be shoved forward. He looked at the boy, closed +his eyes, and muttered a prayer. Then, without opening his eyes, he did +the deed that had been appointed him. O'Brien emitted a shriek that sank +swiftly to a gurgling sob. The men held him till his struggles ceased, +when he was laid upon the deck. They were eager and impatient, and with +oaths and threats they urged Gorman to hurry with the preparation of the +meal. + +"Lave ut, you bloody butchers," Mahoney said quietly. "Lave ut, I tell +yez. Ye'll not be needin' anny iv ut now. 'Tis as I said: ye'll not be +profitin' by the lad's blood. Empty ut overside, Behane. Empty ut +overside." + +Behane, still holding the tureen cover in both his hands, glanced to +windward. He walked to the rail and threw the cover and contents into the +sea. A full-rigged ship was bearing down upon them a short mile away. So +occupied had they been with the deed just committed, that none had had eyes +for a lookout. All hands watched her coming on--the brightly coppered +forefoot parting the water like a golden knife, the headsails flapping +lazily and emptily at each downward surge, and the towering canvas tiers +dipping and curtsying with each stately swing of the sea. No man spoke. + +As she hove to, a cable length away, the captain of the Francis Spaight +bestirred himself and ordered a tarpaulin to be thrown over O'Brien's +corpse. A boat was lowered from the stranger's side and began to pull +toward them. John Gorman laughed. He laughed softly at first, but he +accompanied each stroke of the oars with spasmodically increasing glee. It +was this maniacal laughter that greeted the rescue boat as it hauled +alongside and the first officer clambered on board. + + + +A CURIOUS FRAGMENT + +[The capitalist, or industrial oligarch, Roger Vanderwater, mentioned in +the narrative, has been identified as the ninth in the line of the +Vanderwaters that controlled for hundreds of years the cotton factories of +the South. This Roger Vanderwater flourished in the last decades of the +twenty-sixth century after Christ, which was the fifth century of the +terrible industrial oligarchy that was reared upon the ruins of the early +Republic. + +From internal evidences we are convinced that the narrative which follows +was not reduced to writing till the twenty-ninth century. Not only was it +unlawful to write or print such matter during that period, but the working- +class was so illiterate that only in rare instances were its members able +to read and write. This was the dark reign of the overman, in whose speech +the great mass of the people were characterized as the "herd animals." All +literacy was frowned upon and stamped out. From the statute-books of the +times may be instanced that black law that made it a capital offence for +any man, no matter of what class, to teach even the alphabet to a member of +the working-class. Such stringent limitation of education to the ruling +class was necessary if that class was to continue to rule. + +One result of the foregoing was the development of the professional story- +tellers. These story-tellers were paid by the oligarchy, and the tales +they told were legendary, mythical, romantic, and harmless. But the spirit +of freedom never quite died out, and agitators, under the guise of story- +tellers, preached revolt to the slave class. That the following tale was +banned by the oligarchs we have proof from the records of the criminal +police court of Ashbury, wherein, on January 27, 2734, one John Tourney, +found guilty of telling the tale in a boozing-ken of labourers, was +sentenced to five years' penal servitude in the borax mines of the Arizona +Desert.--EDITOR'S NOTE.] + + +Listen, my brothers, and I will tell you a tale of an arm. It was the arm +of Tom Dixon, and Tom Dixon was a weaver of the first class in a factory of +that hell-hound and master, Roger Vanderwater. This factory was called +"Hell's Bottom" . . . by the slaves who toiled in it, and I guess they +ought to know; and it was situated in Kingsbury, at the other end of the +town from Vanderwater's summer palace. You do not know where Kingsbury is? +There are many things, my brothers, that you do not know, and it is sad. +It is because you do not know that you are slaves. When I have told you +this tale, I should like to form a class among you for the learning of +written and printed speech. Our masters read and write and possess many +books, and it is because of that that they are our masters, and live in +palaces, and do not work. When the toilers learn to read and write--all of +them--they will grow strong; then they will use their strength to break +their bonds, and there will be no more masters and no more slaves. + +Kingsbury, my brothers, is in the old State of Alabama. For three hundred +years the Vanderwaters have owned Kingsbury and its slave pens and +factories, and slave pens and factories in many other places and States. +You have heard of the Vanderwaters--who has not?--but let me tell you +things you do not know about them. The first Vanderwater was a slave, even +as you and I. Have you got that? He was a slave, and that was over three +hundred years ago. His father was a machinist in the slave pen of +Alexander Burrell, and his mother was a washerwoman in the same slave pen. +There is no doubt about this. I am telling you truth. It is history. It +is printed, every word of it, in the history books of our masters, which +you cannot read because your masters will not permit you to learn to read. +You can understand why they will not permit you to learn to read, when +there are such things in the books. They know, and they are very wise. If +you did read such things, you might be wanting in respect to your masters, +which would be a dangerous thing . . . to your masters. But I know, for I +can read, and I am telling you what I have read with my own eyes in the +history books of our masters. + +The first Vanderwater's name was not Vanderwater; it was Vange--Bill Vange, +the son of Yergis Vange, the machinist, and Laura Carnly, the washerwoman. +Young Bill Vange was strong. He might have remained with the slaves and +led them to freedom; instead, however, he served the masters and was well +rewarded. He began his service, when yet a small child, as a spy in his +home slave pen. He is known to have informed on his own father for +seditious utterance. This is fact. I have read it with my own eyes in the +records. He was too good a slave for the slave pen. Alexander Burrell +took him out, while yet a child, and he was taught to read and write. He +was taught many things, and he was entered in the secret service of the +Government. Of course, he no longer wore the slave dress, except for +disguise at such times when he sought to penetrate the secrets and plots of +the slaves. It was he, when but eighteen years of age, who brought that +great hero and comrade, Ralph Jacobus, to trial and execution in the +electric chair. Of course, you have all heard the sacred name of Ralph +Jacobus, but it is news to you that he was brought to his death by the +first Vanderwater, whose name was Vange. I know. I have read it in the +books. There are many interesting things like that in the books. + +And after Ralph Jacobus died his shameful death, Bill Vange's name began +the many changes it was to undergo. He was known as "Sly Vange" far and +wide. He rose high in the secret service, and he was rewarded in grand +ways, but still he was not a member of the master class. The men were +willing that he should become so; it was the women of the master class who +refused to have Sly Vange one of them. Sly Vange gave good service to the +masters. He had been a slave himself, and he knew the ways of the slaves. +There was no fooling him. In those days the slaves were braver than now, +and they were always trying for their freedom. And Sly Vange was +everywhere, in all their schemes and plans, bringing their schemes and +plans to naught and their leaders to the electric chair. It was in 2255 +that his name was next changed for him. It was in that year that the Great +Mutiny took place. In that region west of the Rocky Mountains, seventeen +millions of slaves strove bravely to overthrow their masters. Who knows, +if Sly Vange had not lived, but that they would have succeeded? But Sly +Vange was very much alive. The masters gave him supreme command of the +situation. In eight months of fighting, one million and three hundred and +fifty thousand slaves were killed. Vange, Bill Vange, Sly Vange, killed +them, and he broke the Great Mutiny. And he was greatly rewarded, and so +red were his hands with the blood of the slaves that thereafter he was +called "Bloody Vange." You see, my brothers, what interesting things are +to be found in the books when one can read them. And, take my word for it, +there are many other things, even more interesting, in the books. And if +you will but study with me, in a year's time you can read those books for +yourselves--ay, in six months some of you will be able to read those books +for yourselves. + +Bloody Vange lived to a ripe old age, and always, to the last, was he +received in the councils of the masters; but never was he made a master +himself. He had first opened his eyes, you see, in a slave pen. But oh, +he was well rewarded! He had a dozen palaces in which to live. He, who +was no master, owned thousands of slaves. He had a great pleasure yacht +upon the sea that was a floating palace, and he owned a whole island in the +sea where toiled ten thousand slaves on his coffee plantations. But in his +old age he was lonely, for he lived apart, hated by his brothers, the +slaves, and looked down upon by those he had served and who refused to be +his brothers. The masters looked down upon him because he had been born a +slave. Enormously wealthy he died; but he died horribly, tormented by his +conscience, regretting all he had done and the red stain on his name. + +But with his children it was different. They had not been born in the +slave pen, and by the special ruling of the Chief Oligarch of that time, +John Morrison, they were elevated to the master class. And it was then +that the name of Vange disappears from the page of history. It becomes +Vanderwater, and Jason Vange, the son of Bloody Vange, becomes Jason +Vanderwater, the founder of the Vanderwater line. But that was three +hundred years ago, and the Vanderwaters of to-day forget their beginnings +and imagine that somehow the clay of their bodies is different stuff from +the clay in your body and mine and in the bodies of all slaves. And I ask +you, Why should a slave become the master of another slave? And why should +the son of a slave become the master of many slaves? I leave these +questions for you to answer for yourselves, but do not forget that in the +beginning the Vanderwaters were slaves. + +And now, my brothers, I come back to the beginning of my tale to tell you +of Tom Dixon's arm. Roger Vanderwater's factory in Kingsbury was rightly +named "Hell's Bottom," but the men who toiled in it were men, as you shall +see. Women toiled there, too, and children, little children. All that +toiled there had the regular slave rights under the law, but only under the +law, for they were deprived of many of their rights by the two overseers of +Hell's Bottom, Joseph Clancy and Adolph Munster. + +It is a long story, but I shall not tell all of it to you. I shall tell +only about the arm. It happened that, according to the law, a portion of +the starvation wage of the slaves was held back each month and put into a +fund. This fund was for the purpose of helping such unfortunate fellow- +workmen as happened to be injured by accidents or to be overtaken by +sickness. As you know with yourselves, these funds are controlled by the +overseers. It is the law, and so it was that the fund at Hell's Bottom was +controlled by the two overseers of accursed memory. + +Now, Clancy and Munster took this fund for their own use. When accidents +happened to the workmen, their fellows, as was the custom, made grants from +the fund; but the overseers refused to pay over the grants. What could the +slaves do? They had their rights under the law, but they had no access to +the law. Those that complained to the overseers were punished. You know +yourselves what form such punishment takes--the fines for faulty work that +is not faulty; the overcharging of accounts in the Company's store; the +vile treatment of one's women and children; and the allotment to bad +machines whereon, work as one will, he starves. + +Once, the slaves of Hell's Bottom protested to Vanderwater. It was the +time of the year when he spent several months in Kingsbury. One of the +slaves could write; it chanced that his mother could write, and she had +secretly taught him as her mother had secretly taught her. So this slave +wrote a round robin, wherein was contained their grievances, and all the +slaves signed by mark. And, with proper stamps upon the envelope, the +round robin was mailed to Roger Vanderwater. And Roger Vanderwater did +nothing, save to turn the round robin over to the two overseers. Clancy +and Munster were angered. They turned the guards loose at night on the +slave pen. The guards were armed with pick handles. It is said that next +day only half of the slaves were able to work in Hell's Bottom. They were +well beaten. The slave who could write was so badly beaten that he lived +only three months. But before he died, he wrote once more, to what purpose +you shall hear. + +Four or five weeks afterward, Tom Dixon, a slave, had his arm torn off by a +belt in Hell's Bottom. His fellow-workmen, as usual, made a grant to him +from the fund, and Clancy and Munster, as usual, refused to pay it over +from the fund. The slave who could write, and who even then was dying, +wrote anew a recital of their grievances. And this document was thrust +into the hand of the arm that had been torn from Tom Dixon's body. + +Now it chanced that Roger Vanderwater was lying ill in his palace at the +other end of Kingsbury--not the dire illness that strikes down you and me, +brothers; just a bit of biliousness, mayhap, or no more than a bad headache +because he had eaten too heartily or drunk too deeply. But it was enough +for him, being tender and soft from careful rearing. Such men, packed in +cotton wool all their lives, are exceeding tender and soft. Believe me, +brothers, Roger Vanderwater felt as badly with his aching head, or THOUGHT +he felt as badly, as Tom Dixon really felt with his arm torn out by the +roots. + +It happened that Roger Vanderwater was fond of scientific farming, and that +on his farm, three miles outside of Kingsbury, he had managed to grow a new +kind of strawberry. He was very proud of that new strawberry of his, and +he would have been out to see and pick the first ripe ones, had it not been +for his illness. Because of his illness he had ordered the old farm slave +to bring in personally the first box of the berries. All this was learned +from the gossip of a palace scullion, who slept each night in the slave +pen. The overseer of the plantation should have brought in the berries, +but he was on his back with a broken leg from trying to break a colt. The +scullion brought the word in the night, and it was known that next day the +berries would come in. And the men in the slave pen of Hell's Bottom, +being men and not cowards, held a council. + +The slave who could write, and who was sick and dying from the pick-handle +beating, said he would carry Tom Dixon's arm; also, he said he must die +anyway, and that it mattered nothing if he died a little sooner. So five +slaves stole from the slave pen that night after the guards had made their +last rounds. One of the slaves was the man who could write. They lay in +the brush by the roadside until late in the morning, when the old farm +slave came driving to town with the precious fruit for the master. What of +the farm slave being old and rheumatic, and of the slave who could write +being stiff and injured from his beating, they moved their bodies about +when they walked, very much in the same fashion. The slave who could write +put on the other's clothes, pulled the broad-brimmed hat over his eyes, +climbed upon the seat of the wagon, and drove on to town. The old farm +slave was kept tied all day in the bushes until evening, when the others +loosed him and went back to the slave pen to take their punishment for +having broken bounds. + +In the meantime, Roger Vanderwater lay waiting for the berries in his +wonderful bedroom--such wonders and such comforts were there that they +would have blinded the eyes of you and me who have never seen such things. +The slave who could write said afterward that it was like a glimpse of +Paradise! And why not? The labour and the lives of ten thousand slaves +had gone to the making of that bedchamber, while they themselves slept in +vile lairs like wild beasts. The slave who could write brought in the +berries on a silver tray or platter--you see, Roger Vanderwater wanted to +speak with him in person about the berries. + +The slave who could write tottered his dying body across the wonderful room +and knelt by the couch of Vanderwater, holding out before him the tray. +Large green leaves covered the top of the tray, and these the body-servant +alongside whisked away so that Vanderwater could see. And Roger +Vanderwater, propped upon his elbow, saw. He saw the fresh, wonderful +fruit lying there like precious jewels, and in the midst of it the arm of +Tom Dixon as it had been torn from his body, well washed, of course, my +brothers, and very white against the blood-red fruit. And also he saw, +clutched in the stiff, dead fingers, the petition of his slaves who toiled +in Hell's Bottom. + +"Take and read," said the slave who could write. And even as the master +took the petition, the body-servant, who till then had been motionless with +surprise, struck with his fist the kneeling slave upon the mouth. The +slave was dying anyway, and was very weak, and did not mind. He made no +sound, and, having fallen over on his side, he lay there quietly, bleeding +from the blow on the mouth. The physician, who had run for the palace +guards, came back with them, and the slave was dragged upright upon his +feet. But as they dragged him up, his hand clutched Tom Dixon's arm from +where it had fallen on the floor. + +"He shall be flung alive to the hounds!" the body-servant was crying in +great wrath. "He shall be flung alive to the hounds!" + +But Roger Vanderwater, forgetting his headache, still leaning on his elbow, +commanded silence, and went on reading the petition. And while he read, +there was silence, all standing upright, the wrathful body-servant, the +physician, the palace guards, and in their midst the slave, bleeding at the +mouth and still holding Tom Dixon's arm. And when Roger Vanderwater had +done, he turned upon the slave, saying-- + +"If in this paper there be one lie, you shall be sorry that you were ever +born." + +And the slave said, "I have been sorry all my life that I was born." + +Roger Vanderwater looked at him closely, and the slave said-- + +"You have done your worst to me. I am dying now. In a week I shall be +dead, so it does not matter if you kill me now." + +"What do you with that?" the master asked, pointing to the arm; and the +slave made answer-- + +"I take it back to the pen to give it burial. Tom Dixon was my friend. We +worked beside each other at our looms." + +There is little more to my tale, brothers. The slave and the arm were sent +back in a cart to the pen. Nor were any of the slaves punished for what +they had done. Indeed, Roger Vanderwater made investigation and punished +the two overseers, Joseph Clancy and Adolph Munster. Their freeholds were +taken from them. They were branded, each upon the forehead, their right +hands were cut off, and they were turned loose upon the highway to wander +and beg until they died. And the fund was managed rightfully thereafter +for a time--for a time only, my brothers; for after Roger Vanderwater came +his son, Albert, who was a cruel master and half mad. + +Brothers, that slave who carried the arm into the presence of the master +was my father. He was a brave man. And even as his mother secretly taught +him to read, so did he teach me. Because he died shortly after from the +pick-handle beating, Roger Vanderwater took me out of the slave pen and +tried to make various better things out of me. I might have become an +overseer in Hell's Bottom, but I chose to become a story-teller, wandering +over the land and getting close to my brothers, the slaves, everywhere. +And I tell you stories like this, secretly, knowing that you will not +betray me; for if you did, you know as well as I that my tongue will be +torn out and that I shall tell stories no more. And my message is, +brothers, that there is a good time coming, when all will be well in the +world and there will be neither masters nor slaves. But first you must +prepare for that good time by learning to read. There is power in the +printed word. And here am I to teach you to read, and as well there are +others to see that you get the books when I am gone along upon my way--the +history books wherein you will learn about your masters, and learn to +become strong even as they. + +[EDITOR'S NOTE.--From "Historical Fragments and Sketches," first published +in fifty volumes in 4427, and now, after two hundred years, because of its +accuracy and value, edited and republished by the National Committee on +Historical Research.] + + + +A PIECE OF STEAK + +With the last morsel of bread Tom King wiped his plate clean of the last +particle of flour gravy and chewed the resulting mouthful in a slow and +meditative way. When he arose from the table, he was oppressed by the +feeling that he was distinctly hungry. Yet he alone had eaten. The two +children in the other room had been sent early to bed in order that in +sleep they might forget they had gone supperless. His wife had touched +nothing, and had sat silently and watched him with solicitous eyes. She +was a thin, worn woman of the working-class, though signs of an earlier +prettiness were not wanting in her face. The flour for the gravy she had +borrowed from the neighbour across the hall The last two ha'pennies had +gone to buy the bread. + +He sat down by the window on a rickety chair that protested under his +weight, and quite mechanically he put his pipe in his mouth and dipped into +the side pocket of his coat. The absence of any tobacco made him aware of +his action, and, with a scowl for his forgetfulness, he put the pipe away. +His movements were slow, almost hulking, as though he were burdened by the +heavy weight of his muscles. He was a solid-bodied, stolid-looking man, +and his appearance did not suffer from being overprepossessing. His rough +clothes were old and slouchy. The uppers of his shoes were too weak to +carry the heavy re-soling that was itself of no recent date. And his +cotton shirt, a cheap, two shilling affair, showed a frayed collar and +ineradicable paint stains. + +But it was Tom King's face that advertised him unmistakably for what he +was. It was the face of a typical prize-fighter; of one who had put in +long years of service in the squared ring and, by that means, developed and +emphasized all the marks of the fighting beast. It was distinctly a +lowering countenance, and, that no feature of it might escape notice, it +was clean-shaven. The lips were shapeless and constituted a mouth harsh to +excess, that was like a gash in his face. The jaw was aggressive, brutal, +heavy. The eyes, slow of movement and heavy-lidded, were almost +expressionless under the shaggy, indrawn brows. Sheer animal that he was, +the eyes were the most animal-like feature about him. They were sleepy, +lion-like--the eyes of a fighting animal. The forehead slanted quickly +back to the hair, which, clipped close, showed every bump of a villainous- +looking head. A nose twice broken and moulded variously by countless +blows, and a cauliflower ear, permanently swollen and distorted to twice +its size, completed his adornment, while the beard, fresh-shaven as it was, +sprouted in the skin and gave the face a blue-black stain. + +Altogether, it was the face of a man to be afraid of in a dark alley or +lonely place. And yet Tom King was not a criminal, nor had he ever done +anything criminal. Outside of brawls, common to his walk in life, he had +harmed no one. Nor had he ever been known to pick a quarrel. He was a +professional, and all the fighting brutishness of him was reserved for his +professional appearances. Outside the ring he was slow-going, easy- +natured, and, in his younger days, when money was flush, too open-handed +for his own good. He bore no grudges and had few enemies. Fighting was a +business with him. In the ring he struck to hurt, struck to maim, struck +to destroy; but there was no animus in it. It was a plain business +proposition. Audiences assembled and paid for the spectacle of men +knocking each other out. The winner took the big end of the purse. When +Tom King faced the Woolloomoolloo Gouger, twenty years before, he knew that +the Gouger's jaw was only four months healed after having been broken in a +Newcastle bout. And he had played for that jaw and broken it again in the +ninth round, not because he bore the Gouger any ill-will, but because that +was the surest way to put the Gouger out and win the big end of the purse. +Nor had the Gouger borne him any ill-will for it. It was the game, and +both knew the game and played it. + +Tom King had never been a talker, and he sat by the window, morosely +silent, staring at his hands. The veins stood out on the backs of the +hands, large and swollen; and the knuckles, smashed and battered and +malformed, testified to the use to which they had been put. He had never +heard that a man's life was the life of his arteries, but well he knew the +meaning of those big upstanding veins. His heart had pumped too much blood +through them at top pressure. They no longer did the work. He had +stretched the elasticity out of them, and with their distension had passed +his endurance. He tired easily now. No longer could he do a fast twenty +rounds, hammer and tongs, fight, fight, fight, from gong to gong, with +fierce rally on top of fierce rally, beaten to the ropes and in turn +beating his opponent to the ropes, and rallying fiercest and fastest of all +in that last, twentieth round, with the house on its feet and yelling, +himself rushing, striking, ducking, raining showers of blows upon showers +of blows and receiving showers of blows in return, and all the time the +heart faithfully pumping the surging blood through the adequate veins. The +veins, swollen at the time, had always shrunk down again, though each time, +imperceptibly at first, not quite--remaining just a trifle larger than +before. He stared at them and at his battered knuckles, and, for the +moment, caught a vision of the youthful excellence of those hands before +the first knuckle had been smashed on the head of Benny Jones, otherwise +known as the Welsh Terror. + +The impression of his hunger came back on him. + +"Blimey, but couldn't I go a piece of steak!" he muttered aloud, clenching +his huge fists and spitting out a smothered oath. + +"I tried both Burke's an' Sawley's," his wife said half apologetically. + +"An' they wouldn't?" he demanded. + +"Not a ha'penny. Burke said--" She faltered. + +"G'wan! Wot'd he say?" + +"As how 'e was thinkin' Sandel ud do ye to-night, an' as how yer score was +comfortable big as it was." + +Tom King grunted, but did not reply. He was busy thinking of the bull +terrier he had kept in his younger days to which he had fed steaks without +end. Burke would have given him credit for a thousand steaks--then. But +times had changed. Tom King was getting old; and old men, fighting before +second-rate clubs, couldn't expect to run bills of any size with the +tradesmen. + +He had got up in the morning with a longing for a piece of steak, and the +longing had not abated. He had not had a fair training for this fight. It +was a drought year in Australia, times were hard, and even the most +irregular work was difficult to find. He had had no sparring partner, and +his food had not been of the best nor always sufficient. He had done a few +days' navvy work when he could get it, and he had run around the Domain in +the early mornings to get his legs in shape. But it was hard, training +without a partner and with a wife and two kiddies that must be fed. Credit +with the tradesmen had undergone very slight expansion when he was matched +with Sandel. The secretary of the Gayety Club had advanced him three +pounds--the loser's end of the purse--and beyond that had refused to go. +Now and again he had managed to borrow a few shillings from old pals, who +would have lent more only that it was a drought year and they were hard put +themselves. No--and there was no use in disguising the fact--his training +had not been satisfactory. He should have had better food and no worries. +Besides, when a man is forty, it is harder to get into condition than when +he is twenty. + +"What time is it, Lizzie?" he asked. + +His wife went across the hall to inquire, and came back. + +"Quarter before eight." + +"They'll be startin' the first bout in a few minutes," he said. "Only a +try-out. Then there's a four-round spar 'tween Dealer Wells an' Gridley, +an' a ten-round go 'tween Starlight an' some sailor bloke. I don't come on +for over an hour." + +At the end of another silent ten minutes, he rose to his feet. + +"Truth is, Lizzie, I ain't had proper trainin'." + +He reached for his hat and started for the door. He did not offer to kiss +her--he never did on going out--but on this night she dared to kiss him, +throwing her arms around him and compelling him to bend down to her face. +She looked quite small against the massive bulk of the man. + +"Good luck, Tom," she said. "You gotter do 'im." + +"Ay, I gotter do 'im," he repeated. "That's all there is to it. I jus' +gotter do 'im." + +He laughed with an attempt at heartiness, while she pressed more closely +against him. Across her shoulders he looked around the bare room. It was +all he had in the world, with the rent overdue, and her and the kiddies. +And he was leaving it to go out into the night to get meat for his mate and +cubs--not like a modern working-man going to his machine grind, but in the +old, primitive, royal, animal way, by fighting for it. + +"I gotter do 'im," he repeated, this time a hint of desperation in his +voice. "If it's a win, it's thirty quid--an' I can pay all that's owin', +with a lump o' money left over. If it's a lose, I get naught--not even a +penny for me to ride home on the tram. The secretary's give all that's +comin' from a loser's end. Good-bye, old woman. I'll come straight home +if it's a win." + +"An' I'll be waitin' up," she called to him along the hall. + +It was full two miles to the Gayety, and as he walked along he remembered +how in his palmy days--he had once been the heavyweight champion of New +South Wales--he would have ridden in a cab to the fight, and how, most +likely, some heavy backer would have paid for the cab and ridden with him. +There were Tommy Burns and that Yankee nigger, Jack Johnson--they rode +about in motor-cars. And he walked! And, as any man knew, a hard two +miles was not the best preliminary to a fight. He was an old un, and the +world did not wag well with old uns. He was good for nothing now except +navvy work, and his broken nose and swollen ear were against him even in +that. He found himself wishing that he had learned a trade. It would have +been better in the long run. But no one had told him, and he knew, deep +down in his heart, that he would not have listened if they had. It had +been so easy. Big money--sharp, glorious fights--periods of rest and +loafing in between--a following of eager flatterers, the slaps on the back, +the shakes of the hand, the toffs glad to buy him a drink for the privilege +of five minutes' talk--and the glory of it, the yelling houses, the +whirlwind finish, the referee's "King wins!" and his name in the sporting +columns next day. + +Those had been times! But he realized now, in his slow, ruminating way, +that it was the old uns he had been putting away. He was Youth, rising; +and they were Age, sinking. No wonder it had been easy--they with their +swollen veins and battered knuckles and weary in the bones of them from the +long battles they had already fought. He remembered the time he put out +old Stowsher Bill, at Rush-Cutters Bay, in the eighteenth round, and how +old Bill had cried afterward in the dressing-room like a baby. Perhaps old +Bill's rent had been overdue. Perhaps he'd had at home a missus an' a +couple of kiddies. And perhaps Bill, that very day of the fight, had had a +hungering for a piece of steak. Bill had fought game and taken incredible +punishment. He could see now, after he had gone through the mill himself, +that Stowsher Bill had fought for a bigger stake, that night twenty years +ago, than had young Tom King, who had fought for glory and easy money. No +wonder Stowsher Bill had cried afterward in the dressing-room. + +Well, a man had only so many fights in him, to begin with. It was the iron +law of the game. One man might have a hundred hard fights in him, another +man only twenty; each, according to the make of him and the quality of his +fibre, had a definite number, and, when he had fought them, he was done. +Yes, he had had more fights in him than most of them, and he had had far +more than his share of the hard, gruelling fights--the kind that worked the +heart and lungs to bursting, that took the elastic out of the arteries and +made hard knots of muscle out of Youth's sleek suppleness, that wore out +nerve and stamina and made brain and bones weary from excess of effort and +endurance overwrought. Yes, he had done better than all of them. There +were none of his old fighting partners left. He was the last of the old +guard. He had seen them all finished, and he had had a hand in finishing +some of them. + +They had tried him out against the old uns, and one after another he had +put them away--laughing when, like old Stowsher Bill, they cried in the +dressing-room. And now he was an old un, and they tried out the youngsters +on him. There was that bloke, Sandel. He had come over from New Zealand +with a record behind him. But nobody in Australia knew anything about him, +so they put him up against old Tom King. If Sandel made a showing, he +would be given better men to fight, with bigger purses to win; so it was to +be depended upon that he would put up a fierce battle. He had everything +to win by it--money and glory and career; and Tom King was the grizzled old +chopping-block that guarded the highway to fame and fortune. And he had +nothing to win except thirty quid, to pay to the landlord and the +tradesmen. And, as Tom King thus ruminated, there came to his stolid +vision the form of Youth, glorious Youth, rising exultant and invincible, +supple of muscle and silken of skin, with heart and lungs that had never +been tired and torn and that laughed at limitation of effort. Yes, Youth +was the Nemesis. It destroyed the old uns and recked not that, in so +doing, it destroyed itself. It enlarged its arteries and smashed its +knuckles, and was in turn destroyed by Youth. For Youth was ever youthful. +It was only Age that grew old. + +At Castlereagh Street he turned to the left, and three blocks along came to +the Gayety. A crowd of young larrikins hanging outside the door made +respectful way for him, and he heard one say to another: "That's 'im! +That's Tom King!" + +Inside, on the way to his dressing-room, he encountered the secretary, a +keen-eyed, shrewd-faced young man, who shook his hand. + +"How are you feelin', Tom?" he asked. + +"Fit as a fiddle," King answered, though he knew that he lied, and that if +he had a quid, he would give it right there for a good piece of steak. + +When he emerged from the dressing-room, his seconds behind him, and came +down the aisle to the squared ring in the centre of the hall, a burst of +greeting and applause went up from the waiting crowd. He acknowledged +salutations right and left, though few of the faces did he know. Most of +them were the faces of kiddies unborn when he was winning his first laurels +in the squared ring. He leaped lightly to the raised platform and ducked +through the ropes to his corner, where he sat down on a folding stool. +Jack Ball, the referee, came over and shook his hand. Ball was a broken- +down pugilist who for over ten years had not entered the ring as a +principal. King was glad that he had him for referee. They were both old +uns. If he should rough it with Sandel a bit beyond the rules, he knew +Ball could be depended upon to pass it by. + +Aspiring young heavyweights, one after another, were climbing into the ring +and being presented to the audience by the referee. Also, he issued their +challenges for them. + +"Young Pronto," Bill announced, "from North Sydney, challenges the winner +for fifty pounds side bet." + +The audience applauded, and applauded again as Sandel himself sprang +through the ropes and sat down in his corner. Tom King looked across the +ring at him curiously, for in a few minutes they would be locked together +in merciless combat, each trying with all the force of him to knock the +other into unconsciousness. But little could he see, for Sandel, like +himself, had trousers and sweater on over his ring costume. His face was +strongly handsome, crowned with a curly mop of yellow hair, while his +thick, muscular neck hinted at bodily magnificence. + +Young Pronto went to one corner and then the other, shaking hands with the +principals and dropping down out of the ring. The challenges went on. +Ever Youth climbed through the ropes--Youth unknown, but insatiable--crying +out to mankind that with strength and skill it would match issues with the +winner. A few years before, in his own heyday of invincibleness, Tom King +would have been amused and bored by these preliminaries. But now he sat +fascinated, unable to shake the vision of Youth from his eyes. Always were +these youngsters rising up in the boxing game, springing through the ropes +and shouting their defiance; and always were the old uns going down before +them. They climbed to success over the bodies of the old uns. And ever +they came, more and more youngsters--Youth unquenchable and irresistible-- +and ever they put the old uns away, themselves becoming old uns and +travelling the same downward path, while behind them, ever pressing on +them, was Youth eternal--the new babies, grown lusty and dragging their +elders down, with behind them more babies to the end of time--Youth that +must have its will and that will never die. + +King glanced over to the press box and nodded to Morgan, of the Sportsman, +and Corbett, of the Referee. Then he held out his hands, while Sid +Sullivan and Charley Bates, his seconds, slipped on his gloves and laced +them tight, closely watched by one of Sandel's seconds, who first examined +critically the tapes on King's knuckles. A second of his own was in +Sandel's corner, performing a like office. Sandel's trousers were pulled +off, and, as he stood up, his sweater was skinned off over his head. And +Tom King, looking, saw Youth incarnate, deep-chested, heavy-thewed, with +muscles that slipped and slid like live things under the white satin skin. +The whole body was a-crawl with life, and Tom King knew that it was a life +that had never oozed its freshness out through the aching pores during the +long fights wherein Youth paid its toll and departed not quite so young as +when it entered. + +The two men advanced to meet each other, and, as the gong sounded and the +seconds clattered out of the ring with the folding stools, they shook hands +and instantly took their fighting attitudes. And instantly, like a +mechanism of steel and springs balanced on a hair trigger, Sandel was in +and out and in again, landing a left to the eyes, a right to the ribs, +ducking a counter, dancing lightly away and dancing menacingly back again. +He was swift and clever. It was a dazzling exhibition. The house yelled +its approbation. But King was not dazzled. He had fought too many fights +and too many youngsters. He knew the blows for what they were--too quick +and too deft to be dangerous. Evidently Sandel was going to rush things +from the start. It was to be expected. It was the way of Youth, expending +its splendour and excellence in wild insurgence and furious onslaught, +overwhelming opposition with its own unlimited glory of strength and +desire. + +Sandel was in and out, here, there, and everywhere, light-footed and eager- +hearted, a living wonder of white flesh and stinging muscle that wove +itself into a dazzling fabric of attack, slipping and leaping like a flying +shuttle from action to action through a thousand actions, all of them +centred upon the destruction of Tom King, who stood between him and +fortune. And Tom King patiently endured. He knew his business, and he +knew Youth now that Youth was no longer his. There was nothing to do till +the other lost some of his steam, was his thought, and he grinned to +himself as he deliberately ducked so as to receive a heavy blow on the top +of his head. It was a wicked thing to do, yet eminently fair according to +the rules of the boxing game. A man was supposed to take care of his own +knuckles, and, if he insisted on hitting an opponent on the top of the +head, he did so at his own peril. King could have ducked lower and let the +blow whiz harmlessly past, but he remembered his own early fights and how +he smashed his first knuckle on the head of the Welsh Terror. He was but +playing the game. That duck had accounted for one of Sandel's knuckles. +Not that Sandel would mind it now. He would go on, superbly regardless, +hitting as hard as ever throughout the fight. But later on, when the long +ring battles had begun to tell, he would regret that knuckle and look back +and remember how he smashed it on Tom King's head. + +The first round was all Sandel's, and he had the house yelling with the +rapidity of his whirlwind rushes. He overwhelmed King with avalanches of +punches, and King did nothing. He never struck once, contenting himself +with covering up, blocking and ducking and clinching to avoid punishment. +He occasionally feinted, shook his head when the weight of a punch landed, +and moved stolidly about, never leaping or springing or wasting an ounce of +strength. Sandel must foam the froth of Youth away before discreet Age +could dare to retaliate. All King's movements were slow and methodical, +and his heavy-lidded, slow-moving eyes gave him the appearance of being +half asleep or dazed. Yet they were eyes that saw everything, that had +been trained to see everything through all his twenty years and odd in the +ring. They were eyes that did not blink or waver before an impending blow, +but that coolly saw and measured distance. + +Seated in his corner for the minute's rest at the end of the round, he lay +back with outstretched legs, his arms resting on the right angle of the +ropes, his chest and abdomen heaving frankly and deeply as he gulped down +the air driven by the towels of his seconds. He listened with closed eyes +to the voices of the house, "Why don't yeh fight, Tom?" many were crying. +"Yeh ain't afraid of 'im, are yeh?" + +"Muscle-bound," he heard a man on a front seat comment. "He can't move +quicker. Two to one on Sandel, in quids." + +The gong struck and the two men advanced from their corners. Sandel came +forward fully three-quarters of the distance, eager to begin again; but +King was content to advance the shorter distance. It was in line with his +policy of economy. He had not been well trained, and he had not had enough +to eat, and every step counted. Besides, he had already walked two miles +to the ringside. It was a repetition of the first round, with Sandel +attacking like a whirlwind and with the audience indignantly demanding why +King did not fight. Beyond feinting and several slowly delivered and +ineffectual blows he did nothing save block and stall and clinch. Sandel +wanted to make the pace fast, while King, out of his wisdom, refused to +accommodate him. He grinned with a certain wistful pathos in his ring- +battered countenance, and went on cherishing his strength with the jealousy +of which only Age is capable. Sandel was Youth, and he threw his strength +away with the munificent abandon of Youth. To King belonged the ring +generalship, the wisdom bred of long, aching fights. He watched with cool +eyes and head, moving slowly and waiting for Sandel's froth to foam away. +To the majority of the onlookers it seemed as though King was hopelessly +outclassed, and they voiced their opinion in offers of three to one on +Sandel. But there were wise ones, a few, who knew King of old time, and +who covered what they considered easy money. + +The third round began as usual, one-sided, with Sandel doing all the +leading, and delivering all the punishment. A half-minute had passed when +Sandel, over-confident, left an opening. King's eyes and right arm flashed +in the same instant. It was his first real blow--a hook, with the twisted +arch of the arm to make it rigid, and with all the weight of the half- +pivoted body behind it. It was like a sleepy-seeming lion suddenly +thrusting out a lightning paw. Sandel, caught on the side of the jaw, was +felled like a bullock. The audience gasped and murmured awe-stricken +applause. The man was not muscle-bound, after all, and he could drive a +blow like a trip-hammer. + +Sandel was shaken. He rolled over and attempted to rise, but the sharp +yells from his seconds to take the count restrained him. He knelt on one +knee, ready to rise, and waited, while the referee stood over him, counting +the seconds loudly in his ear. At the ninth he rose in fighting attitude, +and Tom King, facing him, knew regret that the blow had not been an inch +nearer the point of the jaw. That would have been a knock-out, and he +could have carried the thirty quid home to the missus and the kiddies. + +The round continued to the end of its three minutes, Sandel for the first +time respectful of his opponent and King slow of movement and sleepy-eyed +as ever. As the round neared its close, King, warned of the fact by sight +of the seconds crouching outside ready for the spring in through the ropes, +worked the fight around to his own corner. And when the gong struck, he +sat down immediately on the waiting stool, while Sandel had to walk all the +way across the diagonal of the square to his own corner. It was a little +thing, but it was the sum of little things that counted. Sandel was +compelled to walk that many more steps, to give up that much energy, and to +lose a part of the precious minute of rest. At the beginning of every +round King loafed slowly out from his corner, forcing his opponent to +advance the greater distance. The end of every round found the fight +manoeuvred by King into his own corner so that he could immediately sit +down. + +Two more rounds went by, in which King was parsimonious of effort and +Sandel prodigal. The latter's attempt to force a fast pace made King +uncomfortable, for a fair percentage of the multitudinous blows showered +upon him went home. Yet King persisted in his dogged slowness, despite the +crying of the young hot-heads for him to go in and fight. Again, in the +sixth round, Sandel was careless, again Tom King's fearful right flashed +out to the jaw, and again Sandel took the nine seconds count. + +By the seventh round Sandel's pink of condition was gone, and he settled +down to what he knew was to be the hardest fight in his experience. Tom +King was an old un, but a better old un than he had ever encountered--an +old un who never lost his head, who was remarkably able at defence, whose +blows had the impact of a knotted club, and who had a knockout in either +hand. Nevertheless, Tom King dared not hit often. He never forgot his +battered knuckles, and knew that every hit must count if the knuckles were +to last out the fight. As he sat in his corner, glancing across at his +opponent, the thought came to him that the sum of his wisdom and Sandel's +youth would constitute a world's champion heavyweight. But that was the +trouble. Sandel would never become a world champion. He lacked the +wisdom, and the only way for him to get it was to buy it with Youth; and +when wisdom was his, Youth would have been spent in buying it. + +King took every advantage he knew. He never missed an opportunity to +clinch, and in effecting most of the clinches his shoulder drove stiffly +into the other's ribs. In the philosophy of the ring a shoulder was as +good as a punch so far as damage was concerned, and a great deal better so +far as concerned expenditure of effort. Also, in the clinches King rested +his weight on his opponent, and was loath to let go. This compelled the +interference of the referee, who tore them apart, always assisted by +Sandel, who had not yet learned to rest. He could not refrain from using +those glorious flying arms and writhing muscles of his, and when the other +rushed into a clinch, striking shoulder against ribs, and with head resting +under Sandel's left arm, Sandel almost invariably swung his right behind +his own back and into the projecting face. It was a clever stroke, much +admired by the audience, but it was not dangerous, and was, therefore, just +that much wasted strength. But Sandel was tireless and unaware of +limitations, and King grinned and doggedly endured. + +Sandel developed a fierce right to the body, which made it appear that King +was taking an enormous amount of punishment, and it was only the old +ringsters who appreciated the deft touch of King's left glove to the +other's biceps just before the impact of the blow. It was true, the blow +landed each time; but each time it was robbed of its power by that touch on +the biceps. In the ninth round, three times inside a minute, King's right +hooked its twisted arch to the jaw; and three times Sandel's body, heavy as +it was, was levelled to the mat. Each time he took the nine seconds +allowed him and rose to his feet, shaken and jarred, but still strong. He +had lost much of his speed, and he wasted less effort. He was fighting +grimly; but he continued to draw upon his chief asset, which was Youth. +King's chief asset was experience. As his vitality had dimmed and his +vigour abated, he had replaced them with cunning, with wisdom born of the +long fights and with a careful shepherding of strength. Not alone had he +learned never to make a superfluous movement, but he had learned how to +seduce an opponent into throwing his strength away. Again and again, by +feint of foot and hand and body he continued to inveigle Sandel into +leaping back, ducking, or countering. King rested, but he never permitted +Sandel to rest. It was the strategy of Age. + +Early in the tenth round King began stopping the other's rushes with +straight lefts to the face, and Sandel, grown wary, responded by drawing +the left, then by ducking it and delivering his right in a swinging hook to +the side of the head. It was too high up to be vitally effective; but when +first it landed, King knew the old, familiar descent of the black veil of +unconsciousness across his mind. For the instant, or for the slighest +fraction of an instant, rather, he ceased. In the one moment he saw his +opponent ducking out of his field of vision and the background of white, +watching faces; in the next moment he again saw his opponent and the +background of faces. It was as if he had slept for a time and just opened +his eyes again, and yet the interval of unconsciousness was so +microscopically short that there had been no time for him to fall. The +audience saw him totter and his knees give, and then saw him recover and +tuck his chin deeper into the shelter of his left shoulder. + +Several times Sandel repeated the blow, keeping King partially dazed, and +then the latter worked out his defence, which was also a counter. Feinting +with his left he took a half-step backward, at the same time upper cutting +with the whole strength of his right. So accurately was it timed that it +landed squarely on Sandel's face in the full, downward sweep of the duck, +and Sandel lifted in the air and curled backward, striking the mat on his +head and shoulders. Twice King achieved this, then turned loose and +hammered his opponent to the ropes. He gave Sandel no chance to rest or to +set himself, but smashed blow in upon blow till the house rose to its feet +and the air was filled with an unbroken roar of applause. But Sandel's +strength and endurance were superb, and he continued to stay on his feet. +A knock-out seemed certain, and a captain of police, appalled at the +dreadful punishment, arose by the ringside to stop the fight. The gong +struck for the end of the round and Sandel staggered to his corner, +protesting to the captain that he was sound and strong. To prove it, he +threw two back-air-springs, and the police captain gave in. + +Tom King, leaning back in his corner and breathing hard, was disappointed. +If the fight had been stopped, the referee, perforce, would have rendered +him the decision and the purse would have been his. Unlike Sandel, he was +not fighting for glory or career, but for thirty quid. And now Sandel +would recuperate in the minute of rest. + +Youth will be served--this saying flashed into King's mind, and he +remembered the first time he had heard it, the night when he had put away +Stowsher Bill. The toff who had bought him a drink after the fight and +patted him on the shoulder had used those words. Youth will be served! +The toff was right. And on that night in the long ago he had been Youth. +To-night Youth sat in the opposite corner. As for himself, he had been +fighting for half an hour now, and he was an old man. Had he fought like +Sandel, he would not have lasted fifteen minutes. But the point was that +he did not recuperate. Those upstanding arteries and that sorely tried +heart would not enable him to gather strength in the intervals between the +rounds. And he had not had sufficient strength in him to begin with. His +legs were heavy under him and beginning to cramp. He should not have +walked those two miles to the fight. And there was the steak which he had +got up longing for that morning. A great and terrible hatred rose up in +him for the butchers who had refused him credit. It was hard for an old +man to go into a fight without enough to eat. And a piece of steak was +such a little thing, a few pennies at best; yet it meant thirty quid to +him. + +With the gong that opened the eleventh round, Sandel rushed, making a show +of freshness which he did not really possess. King knew it for what it +was--a bluff as old as the game itself. He clinched to save himself, then, +going free, allowed Sandel to get set. This was what King desired. He +feinted with his left, drew the answering duck and swinging upward hook, +then made the half-step backward, delivered the upper cut full to the face +and crumpled Sandel over to the mat. After that he never let him rest, +receiving punishment himself, but inflicting far more, smashing Sandel to +the ropes, hooking and driving all manner of blows into him, tearing away +from his clinches or punching him out of attempted clinches, and ever when +Sandel would have fallen, catching him with one uplifting hand and with the +other immediately smashing him into the ropes where he could not fall. + +The house by this time had gone mad, and it was his house, nearly every +voice yelling: "Go it, Tom!" "Get 'im! Get 'im!" "You've got 'im, Tom! +You've got 'im!" It was to be a whirlwind finish, and that was what a +ringside audience paid to see. + +And Tom King, who for half an hour had conserved his strength, now expended +it prodigally in the one great effort he knew he had in him. It was his +one chance--now or not at all. His strength was waning fast, and his hope +was that before the last of it ebbed out of him he would have beaten his +opponent down for the count. And as he continued to strike and force, +coolly estimating the weight of his blows and the quality of the damage +wrought, he realized how hard a man Sandel was to knock out. Stamina and +endurance were his to an extreme degree, and they were the virgin stamina +and endurance of Youth. Sandel was certainly a coming man. He had it in +him. Only out of such rugged fibre were successful fighters fashioned. + +Sandel was reeling and staggering, but Tom King's legs were cramping and +his knuckles going back on him. Yet he steeled himself to strike the +fierce blows, every one of which brought anguish to his tortured hands. +Though now he was receiving practically no punishment, he was weakening as +rapidly as the other. His blows went home, but there was no longer the +weight behind them, and each blow was the result of a severe effort of +will. His legs were like lead, and they dragged visibly under him; while +Sandel's backers, cheered by this symptom, began calling encouragement to +their man. + +King was spurred to a burst of effort. He delivered two blows in +succession--a left, a trifle too high, to the solar plexus, and a right +cross to the jaw. They were not heavy blows, yet so weak and dazed was +Sandel that he went down and lay quivering. The referee stood over him, +shouting the count of the fatal seconds in his ear. If before the tenth +second was called, he did not rise, the fight was lost. The house stood in +hushed silence. King rested on trembling legs. A mortal dizziness was +upon him, and before his eyes the sea of faces sagged and swayed, while to +his ears, as from a remote distance, came the count of the referee. Yet he +looked upon the fight as his. It was impossible that a man so punished +could rise. + +Only Youth could rise, and Sandel rose. At the fourth second he rolled +over on his face and groped blindly for the ropes. By the seventh second +he had dragged himself to his knee, where he rested, his head rolling +groggily on his shoulders. As the referee cried "Nine!" Sandel stood +upright, in proper stalling position, his left arm wrapped about his face, +his right wrapped about his stomach. Thus were his vital points guarded, +while he lurched forward toward King in the hope of effecting a clinch and +gaining more time. + +At the instant Sandel arose, King was at him, but the two blows he +delivered were muffled on the stalled arms. The next moment Sandel was in +the clinch and holding on desperately while the referee strove to drag the +two men apart. King helped to force himself free. He knew the rapidity +with which Youth recovered, and he knew that Sandel was his if he could +prevent that recovery. One stiff punch would do it. Sandel was his, +indubitably his. He had out-generalled him, out-fought him, out-pointed +him. Sandel reeled out of the clinch, balanced on the hair line between +defeat or survival. One good blow would topple him over and down and out. +And Tom King, in a flash of bitterness, remembered the piece of steak and +wished that he had it then behind that necessary punch he must deliver. He +nerved himself for the blow, but it was not heavy enough nor swift enough. +Sandel swayed, but did not fall, staggering back to the ropes and holding +on. King staggered after him, and, with a pang like that of dissolution, +delivered another blow. But his body had deserted him. All that was left +of him was a fighting intelligence that was dimmed and clouded from +exhaustion. The blow that was aimed for the jaw struck no higher than the +shoulder. He had willed the blow higher, but the tired muscles had not +been able to obey. And, from the impact of the blow, Tom King himself +reeled back and nearly fell. Once again he strove. This time his punch +missed altogether, and, from absolute weakness, he fell against Sandel and +clinched, holding on to him to save himself from sinking to the floor. + +King did not attempt to free himself. He had shot his bolt. He was gone. +And Youth had been served. Even in the clinch he could feel Sandel growing +stronger against him. When the referee thrust them apart, there, before +his eyes, he saw Youth recuperate. From instant to instant Sandel grew +stronger. His punches, weak and futile at first, became stiff and +accurate. Tom King's bleared eyes saw the gloved fist driving at his jaw, +and he willed to guard it by interposing his arm. He saw the danger, +willed the act; but the arm was too heavy. It seemed burdened with a +hundredweight of lead. It would not lift itself, and he strove to lift it +with his soul. Then the gloved fist landed home. He experienced a sharp +snap that was like an electric spark, and, simultaneously, the veil of +blackness enveloped him. + +When he opened his eyes again he was in his corner, and he heard the +yelling of the audience like the roar of the surf at Bondi Beach. A wet +sponge was being pressed against the base of his brain, and Sid Sullivan +was blowing cold water in a refreshing spray over his face and chest. His +gloves had already been removed, and Sandel, bending over him, was shaking +his hand. He bore no ill-will toward the man who had put him out and he +returned the grip with a heartiness that made his battered knuckles +protest. Then Sandel stepped to the centre of the ring and the audience +hushed its pandemonium to hear him accept young Pronto's challenge and +offer to increase the side bet to one hundred pounds. King looked on +apathetically while his seconds mopped the streaming water from him, dried +his face, and prepared him to leave the ring. He felt hungry. It was not +the ordinary, gnawing kind, but a great faintness, a palpitation at the pit +of the stomach that communicated itself to all his body. He remembered +back into the fight to the moment when he had Sandel swaying and tottering +on the hair-line balance of defeat. Ah, that piece of steak would have +done it! He had lacked just that for the decisive blow, and he had lost. +It was all because of the piece of steak. + +His seconds were half-supporting him as they helped him through the ropes. +He tore free from them, ducked through the ropes unaided, and leaped +heavily to the floor, following on their heels as they forced a passage for +him down the crowded centre aisle. Leaving the dressing-room for the +street, in the entrance to the hall, some young fellow spoke to him. + +"W'y didn't yuh go in an' get 'im when yuh 'ad 'im?" the young fellow +asked. + +"Aw, go to hell!" said Tom King, and passed down the steps to the sidewalk. + +The doors of the public-house at the corner were swinging wide, and he saw +the lights and the smiling barmaids, heard the many voices discussing the +fight and the prosperous chink of money on the bar. Somebody called to him +to have a drink. He hesitated perceptibly, then refused and went on his +way. + +He had not a copper in his pocket, and the two-mile walk home seemed very +long. He was certainly getting old. Crossing the Domain, he sat down +suddenly on a bench, unnerved by the thought of the missus sitting up for +him, waiting to learn the outcome of the fight. That was harder than any +knockout, and it seemed almost impossible to face. + +He felt weak and sore, and the pain of his smashed knuckles warned him +that, even if he could find a job at navvy work, it would be a week before +he could grip a pick handle or a shovel. The hunger palpitation at the pit +of the stomach was sickening. His wretchedness overwhelmed him, and into +his eyes came an unwonted moisture. He covered his face with his hands, +and, as he cried, he remembered Stowsher Bill and how he had served him +that night in the long ago. Poor old Stowsher Bill! He could understand +now why Bill had cried in the dressing-room. + + + + + +End of The Project Gutenberg Etext When God Laughs et al by Jack London + diff --git a/old/gdlgh10.zip b/old/gdlgh10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..ae131bb --- /dev/null +++ b/old/gdlgh10.zip |