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diff --git a/43186-0.txt b/43186-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c68ebc5 --- /dev/null +++ b/43186-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6587 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 43186 *** + + WALKING SHADOWS + + _SEA TALES AND OTHERS_ + + BY ALFRED NOYES + + + NEW YORK + FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY + PUBLISHERS + + _Copyright, 1918, by_ + Alfred Noyes + + _Copyright, 1918, by_ + Frederick A. Stokes Company + + _All Rights Reserved_ + + + + +CONTENTS + + + CHAPTER PAGE + + PRELUDE xi + + I. THE LIGHT-HOUSE 1 + + II. UNCLE HYACINTH 28 + + III. THE CREATIVE IMPULSE 82 + + IV. THE MAN FROM BUFFALO 117 + + V. THE _Lusitania_ WAITS 138 + + VI. THE LOG OF THE _Evening Star_ 151 + + VII. GOBLIN PEACHES 177 + + VIII. MAY MARGARET 205 + + IX. MAROONED 249 + + X. THE GARDEN ON THE CLIFF 281 + + XI. THE HAND OF THE MASTER 292 + + + + +WALKING SHADOWS + + + + +_Prelude_ + + + Of those who fought and died + Unreckoned, undescried, + Breaking no hearts but two or three that loved them; + Of multitudes that gave + Their memories to the grave, + And the unrevealing seas of night removed them; + + Of those unnumbered hosts + Who smile at all our boasts + And are not blazed on any scroll of glory; + Mere out-posts in the night, + Mere keepers of the light, + Where history stops, let shadows weave a story. + + Shadows, but ah, they know + That history's pomp and show + Are shadows of a shadow, gilt and painted. + They see the accepted lie + In robes of state go by. + They see the prophet stoned, the trickster sainted. + + And so my shadows turn + To truths that they discern + Beyond the ordered "facts" that fame would cherish. + They walk awhile with dreams, + They follow flying gleams + And lonely lights at sea that pass and perish. + + Not tragic all indeed, + Not all without remede + Of clean-edged mirth. Our Rosalie of laughter, + The bayonet of a jest, + May pierce the devil's breast, + And give us room and time for grief, here-after. + + So let them weep or smile + Or kneel, or dance awhile, + Fantastic shades, by wandering fires begotten; + Remembrancers of themes + That dawn may mock as dreams. + Then let them sleep, at dawn, with the forgotten. + + + + +WALKING SHADOWS + + + + +I + +THE LIGHT-HOUSE + + +The position of a light-house keeper, in a sea infested by submarines, +is a peculiar one; but Peter Ramsay, keeper of the _Hatchets' Light_, +had reasons for feeling that his lonely tower, six miles from the +mainland, was the happiest habitation in the world. + +At five o'clock, on a gusty October afternoon, of the year 1916, Peter +had just finished his tea and settled down, with a pipe and the last +number of the _British Weekly_, for five minutes' reading, before he +turned to the secret of his happiness again. Precisely at this moment, +the Commander of the U-99, three miles away to the north, after making +sure through his periscope that there were no patrol boats in the +vicinity, rose to the surface, and began to look for the _Hatchets'_. +He, too, had reasons for wishing to get inside the light-house, if only +for half an hour. It was possible only by trickery; but he thought it +might be done under cover of darkness, and he was about to reconnoiter. + +When he first emerged, he had some difficulty in descrying his goal +across that confused sea. His eye was guided by a patch of foam, larger +than the ordinary run of white-caps, and glittering in the evening sun +like a black-thorn blossom. As the sky brightened behind it, he saw, +rising upright, like the single slim pistil of those rough white petals, +the faint shaft of the light-house itself. + +He stole nearer, till these pretty fancies were swallowed up in the +savagery of the place. It greeted him with a deep muffled roar as of a +hundred sea-lions, and the air grew colder with its thin mists of spray. +The black thorns and white petals became an angry ship-wrecking ring of +ax-headed rocks, furious with surf; and the delicate pistil assumed the +stature of the Nelson Column. + +It made his head reel to look up at its firm height from the tossing +conning-tower, as he circled the reef, making his observations. He noted +the narrow door, twenty feet up, in the smooth wall of the shaft. There +was no way of approaching it until the rope-ladder was let down from +within. But, after midnight, when the custodian's wits might be a little +drowsy, he thought his plan might succeed. He noted the pool on the +reef, and the big boulder near the base of the tower. There was only one +thing which he did not see, an unimportant thing in war-time. He did not +see the beauty of that unconscious monument to the struggling spirit of +man. + +Its lofty silence and endurance, in their stern contrast with the tumult +below, had touched the imagination of many wanderers on that sea; for it +soared to the same sky as their spires on land, and its beauty was +heightened by the simplicity of its practical purpose. But it made no +more impression on Captain Bernstein than on the sea-gulls that mewed +and swooped around it. + +When his observations were completed, the U-99 sheered off and +submerged. She had to lie "doggo," at the bottom of the sea, for the +next few hours; and there were several of her sisters waiting, a mile or +so to the north, on a fine sandy bottom, to compare notes. Two of these +sisters were big submarine mine-layers of a new type. The U-99 settled +down near them, and began exchanging under-water messages at once. + +"If you lay your mines properly, and lie as near as possible to the +harbor mouth, you can leave the rest to me. They will come out in a +hurry, and you ought to sink two-thirds of them." This was the final +message from Captain Bernstein; and, shortly after eight o'clock, all +the other submarines moved off, in the direction of the coast. The U-99 +remained in her place, till the hour was ripe. + +About midnight, she came to the surface again. Everything seemed +propitious. There were no patrols in sight; and, in any case, Captain +Bernstein knew that they seldom came within a mile of the light-house, +for ships gave it a wide berth, and there was not likely to be good +hunting in the neighborhood. This was why the U-boats had found it so +useful as a rendezvous lately. + +It was a moonless night; and, as the U-99 stole towards the _Hatchets'_ +for the second time, even Captain Bernstein was impressed by the +spectacle before him. Against a sky of scudding cloud and flying stars, +the light-house rose like the scepter of the oldest Sea-god. The mighty +granite shaft was gripped at the base by black knuckles of rock in a +welter of foam. A hundred feet above, the six-foot reflectors of solid +crystal sheathed the summit with fire, and flashed as they revolved +there like the facets of a single burning jewel. + +"They could be smashed with a three-inch gun," thought Bernstein, "and +they are very costly. Many thousand pounds of damage could thus be done, +and perhaps many ships endangered." But he concluded, with some regret, +that his other plans were more promising. + + * * * * * + +It was long past Peter's usual bedtime; but he was trimming his oil +lamp, just now, in his tiny octagonal sitting-room, half-way up the +tower. He had been busy all the evening, with the secret of his +happiness, which was a very queer one indeed. He was trying to write a +book, trying and failing. His papers were scattered all over the worn +red cloth that tried--and failed--to cover his oak table, exactly as +poor Peter's language was trying to clothe his thought. Indeed, there +were many clues to his life and character in that room, which served +many purposes. It had only one window, hardly larger than the +arrow-defying slits of a Norman castle. It was his kitchen, and a +cooking-stove was fitted compactly into a corner. It was his library; +and, facing the window, there was a book-shelf, containing several +tattered volumes by Mark Rutherford; a Bible; the "Impregnable Rock of +Holy Scripture," by Gladstone; the "First Principles" of Herbert +Spencer; and the Essays of Emerson. There was also a small volume, bound +in blue leather, called "The Wonders of the Deep." The leather binding +was protected by a brown paper jacket, for it was a prize, awarded by +the Westport Grammar School, in 1864, to Peter Ramsay, aged fourteen, +for his excellence in orthography. This, of course, was the beginning of +all his dreams; and it was still their sustainment, though the death of +his father, who had been the captain of a small coasting steamer, had +thrown Peter on the world before he was fifteen, and ended his hopes of +the scholarship, which was to have carried him eventually to the +heights. + +The bound volumes were buttressed between piles of the _British Weekly_. +The only picture on the wall was a framed oleograph of Gladstone, his +chief hero, though Peter had long ago renounced the theology of the +Impregnable Rock. Whether the great statesman deserved this worship or +not is a matter for historians. The business of this chronicle is to +record the views of Peter, and these were quite clear. + +He was restless to-night. It was his sixty-sixth birthday, and it +reminded him that he was behindhand with his great work. Nobody else had +reminded him of it, for he was quite alone in the world. He was +beginning to wonder, almost for the first time, whether he was really +destined to fail. He had begun to look his age at last; but he was a +fine figure of a man still. His white hair and flowing white beard +framed a face of the richest mahogany brown, in which the blood mantled +like wine over the cheek-bones. His deep eyes, of the marine blue, that +belongs only to the folk of the sea, were haunted sometimes by visionary +fires, like those in the eyes of an imaginative child. He might have +posed for the original fisherman of his first name. Of course, he was +regarded as a little eccentric by the dwellers on the coast, whom he had +often amazed by what they called his "innocence." The red nosed landlord +of the _Blue Dolphin_ had often been heard, on Sundays, to say that we +should all do well if we were as innocent as Peter. When he visited the +little town of Westport (which was now a naval base), the urchins in the +street sometimes expressed their view of the matter by waiting until he +was safely out of hearing, and then crowing like cocks. + +Nobody knew of Peter Ramsay's secret, or the urchins might not have +waited at all, and even the kindest of his friends would have regarded +him as daft. But the comedy was not without its tragic aspect. Peter +Ramsay may have been cracked, but it was with the peculiar kind of crack +that you get in the everlasting hills, a rift that shows the sky. With +his imperfect equipment and hopeless lack of technique, he was trying to +write down certain truths, for the lack of which the civilized world, at +that moment, was in danger of destruction. + +This does not mean that Peter was the sole possessor of those truths. He +was only one among millions of simple and unsophisticated souls, all +over the world, who possessed those truths dumbly, and knew, with +complete certainty, that their intellectual leaders, for the most part, +lacked them, or had lost them in a multitude of details. These dumb +millions were right about certain important matters; and their leaders, +for all their dialectical cleverness, had lost sight of the truth which +has always proceeded _ex ore infantium_. It was the tragedy of the +twentieth century, and it had culminated in the tragedy of philosophical +Germany. There were certain features of modern books, modern paintings, +and modern music, that mopped and mowed like faces through the bars of a +mad-house, clamoring for dishonor and brutality in every department of +life. These things could not be dissociated from the international +tragedy. They were its heralds. Peter Ramsay was one of those obscure +millions who were the most important figures in Armageddon because they, +and they alone, in our modern world, had retained the right to challenge +the sophistries of Germany. They had not needed the war to teach them +the reality of evil; and if they had sinned, they had never for a moment +tried to prove that they did right in sinning. + +Peter knew all this, though he would not have said it in so many words. +In his book, he was trying to meet the main onset of all those +destructive forces. He had realized that the modern world had no faith, +since the creeds had gone into the melting pot; and he was trying to +write down, plainly, for plain men, exactly what he believed. + +He turned over the red-lined pages of the big leather-bound ledger, half +diary, half commonplace book, in which, for the last forty years, he had +made his notes. It was a queer medley, beginning with passages written +in his youth, that recalled many of his old struggles. There was one, in +particular, that always reminded him of a school friend named Herbert +Potts, who had eventually won the coveted scholarship. They used to go +for walks together, over the hills, and talk about science and religion. + +"So you don't believe there is any future life," Peter had said to him +one day. + +"Not for the individual," replied Herbert Potts, adjusting his glasses, +with a singularly intellectual expression. + +"But if there is none for the individual, it means the end of all we are +fighting for, because the race will come to an end, eventually," said +Peter. "Why, think, Potts, think, it means that all your progress drops +over a precipice at last. It means that instead of the Figure of Love, +we must substitute the Figure of Death, stretching out his arms and +saying to the whole human race, 'Come unto _Me_! Suffer little children +to come unto _Me_!'" + +"I am afraid all the evidence points that way," said Potts, and as he +had just passed the London matriculation examination, the words rang +like a death-knell in Peter's foolish heart. He remembered how the words +had recurred to him in his dreams that night, and how he awoke in the +gray dawn to find that his pillow was wet with tears. + +There were many other memories in his book, memories of the long +struggle, the wrestling with the angel, and at last the music of that +loftier certainty which he longed to impart. + +A little after midnight, he threw aside the hopeless chaos of the +manuscript, into which he had been trying to distil the essence of his +scrap-book. He rose and went upstairs to his bedroom on the next floor. +It was a little smaller than his sitting-room, and contained a camp-bed, +a wash-stand, with a cracked blue jug and basin, and a chest of +drawers. Over the head of the bed was a photogravure reproduction of +_The Light of the World_; and on the wall, facing it, an illuminated +prayer: _Lighten our darkness, we beseech Thee, O Lord_! Under this, +affixed to the wall, was the telephone which connected the _Hatchets'_ +with the Naval Station on the coast, by an under-sea wire. + +But in spite of this modern invention, Peter Ramsay had quietly gone +back through the centuries. He looked as if he were talking to a very +great distance indeed, a distance so great that it became an immediate +presence. (Do not mathematicians declare that if you could throw a stone +into infinity, it would return to your hand?) He was kneeling down by +the bed, clasping his hands, lifting his face, closing his eyes, and +moving his lips, exactly like a child at his prayers. + +It is an odd fact, and doubtless it would have fortified the great +ironic intellects of our day (though seventy feet in this unfathomable +universe may hardly be reckoned as depth) to know that in the darkness +of the reef outside, seventy feet below, four shadowy figures had just +landed from a collapsible boat, belonging to the U-99. Three of them +were now hauling it out of reach of the waves. The fourth was Captain +Bernstein. He stood, fingering his revolver, and looking up at the two +lighted windows. + +Concerning these things, Peter received no enlightenment; but he rose +from his knees with a glowing countenance, and hurried down to his work +again. + +"I'll begin at the beginning," he muttered. + +He took a clean sheet of paper and headed it: _Chapter I_. Under this, +he wrote the first four words of the Bible: "_In the beginning, God_." +Then he crossed them out, and wrote again: "_First Principles_," as a +better means of approach to the moderns. + +He consulted his ledger, and decided that a certain paragraph, written +long ago, must take the first place in his book. He wrote it down just +as it stood. + +"We have forgotten the first principles of straight thinking--the +axioms. We have forgotten that the whole is greater than the part. Hence +comes much fallacy among modern writers, even great ones, like that +pessimist who has said that man, the creature, possesses more nobility +than that from which he came. + +"One thing must be acknowledged as _known_, even by agnostics,--namely, +that if we have experienced here on earth the grandeurs of the soul of +Beethoven and Shakespeare, there must be at the heart of things, before +ever this earth was born, something infinitely greater. It is infinitely +greater because it is the Producer--not the Product. + +"There are some who say that this is only putting the mystery back a +stage. This is not a true statement. The mystery is that there should be +anything in existence at all. The moment you have a grain of sand in +existence, the impossible has happened, and the miracle of the things +that we see around us can only be referred to some primal miracle, +greater than all, because it contained all their possibilities within +itself. + +"Beyond this, we are all agnostics. But our reason, building on what we +see around us, carries us thus far. Modern thinkers have reversed this +process. They begin with man as the summit, and explain him by something +less. This again they explain by something less; and slowly whittle away +all the visible universe till they arrive at the smallest possible +residuum. There is no more tragic spectacle in this age than that of +the philosophers who, like Herbert Spencer, having reduced the whole +universe to a nebula, try to bridge the gulf between this nebula and +nothingness. The great intellect of Spencer grovels below the mental +capacity of a child of ten as he makes this absurd attempt, announcing +that perhaps the primal nebula might be conceived as thinning itself out +until nothingness were reached. It is the agnostics who evade the issue. +For there are certain things here and now which we must accept. We know +that Love and Thought are greater than the dust to which we consign +them. There is only one choice before us. Either there is nothing behind +these things, or else there is everything behind them. If we say that +there is nothing behind them, all our human struggle goes for nothing. +We abandon even the axioms of our reason, and we are doubly traitors to +the divine light that lives in every man. If we say that there is +everything behind the universe, each of us has his own private door into +that divine reality, the door of his own heart." + +At this moment three of the shadowy figures on the reef below were +ensconcing themselves behind a boulder of rock, close to the base of +the tower, and the fourth figure was groping about on the reef, +collecting a handful of stones. + +"I have heard men say," Peter continued, "that they cannot believe in a +God who would permit all the suffering on this earth, or else he must be +a limited God who cannot help himself. + +"This is another question involving the freedom of the will. How long +would a world hold together if we could all depend on a miracle to help +us at every turn, or even to save the innocent from the consequences of +our guilt? Those who ask the question usually assume that our sufferings +here are the end of all. The fact that the opposite assumption accords +better with our sense of justice is surely no reason for denying it, +especially when it follows from the answer given in the first paragraph. +These men, asking for miraculous proof of omnipotence, to save the world +from suffering, are asking for nothing less than the abolition of law in +the universe; and it is only in law that freedom can be found. The +rising of the sun cannot be timed to suit each individual; but this is +what modern thinkers demand. They say that an all-powerful God could do +even this. When they have settled between themselves exactly what they +wish, doubtless the Almighty could answer their prayer. Till then, it is +better to say 'Thy law is a lantern unto my feet.'" + +At this moment a stone came through the little window behind Peter. The +glass scattered itself in splinters all over his red tablecloth. He +leapt to his feet, blew the lamp out, and went to the window. He could +see nothing in the darkness at first; but as he stood and listened, he +thought he heard a voice in the pauses of the wind, crying for help. + +Instantly, he hurried out and down the winding stair to the narrow door. +He shot back the great bolts, and opened it. He stood there fifteen feet +above the rocks, framed in the opening, his white hair and beard blowing +about him, as he peered to right and left. + +"Come down and help us, for God's sake!" the voice cried again. + +And as Peter's eyes grew accustomed to the darkness, he saw a dark +figure crawling laboriously over the reef to the foot of the tower, +where it fell as if in a faint. Peter's only thought was that a fishing +boat had foundered. He dropped the rope ladder at once and descended. +He stooped over the fallen man. In the same flash of time, he recognized +that this was an enemy seaman, and three more shadowy figures leapt from +their hiding-place behind a boulder of rock and gripped him. + +"There is no cause for fear," said their leader, rising to his feet. +"Our boat has foundered; but we shall die of cold if we stay out here. +You must take us into the light-house." + +Peter regarded them curiously, saying nothing. The leader went up the +ladder, and beckoned to the others, who ordered Peter to go next, and +then followed him. + +"I regret that it was necessary to smash your window," said Captain +Bernstein, as the queer group gathered round the lamp in Peter's living +room. "But we might have died out there on a night like this, before you +could have heard us shouting. We shall not harm you, although there are +four of us. We are in danger ourselves. My friends and I are sick of +this work; and, if we are sure of good treatment, we are prepared to +help the British with all the information in our possession." + +"How did you escape from the submarine?" said Peter. + +"We were alone on deck," replied Bernstein, "and we took our chance of +swimming for the _Hatchets'_." + +Peter surveyed the four drenched figures thoughtfully. One of them was +not realistic enough to satisfy him. There were several obviously dry +patches about the shoulders. + +"There's a pool on the reef," said Peter at last to this man. "Did you +find it too cold?" + +A change came over Bernstein's face at once. + +"There's no time to be wasted," he said. "If you want to help your +country, go to your telephone and give this message to the naval base, +exactly as I tell it to you. You must say you have just sighted three +submarines, two hundred yards due north of the _Hatchets'_ light. You +must say that you have sighted them yourself, because they would not +take our word for it; and you must not say anything about our being here +at present. If you depart from these instructions, you will be shot +instantly. Now, then, go to your telephone and speak." + +Peter gathered up his beloved leather-bound book from the table, and +held it under his arm. It was his most precious possession, and the +protective act was quite unconscious. Then, for the second time that +night, he went into his bedroom, followed by the four Germans. He was +white and shaking. He could not understand what these men were after, +and the message they proposed seemed to be useful to his own side. After +all, the only kind of message that he could send would be something very +like it. He might as well deliver it, since these crazy autocrats had +decided that it must be given thus, and not otherwise. + +He laid the precious book down on the bed, turned to the telephone, and +lifted the receiver to his ear. As he did so, the cold muzzle of a +revolver pressed against his right temple. The first buzzings of the +telephone resolved themselves into a voice from the coast of England, +asking what he wanted. Then, it seemed as if a new light were thrown +upon the character of the words he was about to speak. He knew +instinctively that, if he spoke them, he would be working for the enemy. + +In the same instant, he saw exactly what he must do. + +"This is Peter Ramsay speaking," he said, "from the _Hatchets' Light_. I +have just sighted three submarines due north of the _Hatchets'_." + +He paused. Then, with a rush, he said: + +"Trap! Germans in light-house, forcing me to say this!" + +The hand of one of his captors struck down the hook of the receiver. In +the same instant, the shot rang out, and Peter Ramsay dropped sidelong, +a mere bundle of old clothes and white hair, dabbled with blood. + +The German at the telephone replaced the receiver on the hook which he +was still holding down. + +"Crazy old fool," muttered Bernstein. He was staring at the red-lined +scrap-book on the bed. It lay open at a page describing in Peter's big +sprawling hand, an open-air service among some Welsh miners which he had +once witnessed, a memorial service on the day of Gladstone's funeral. He +had been greatly impressed by their choral singing of what was supposed +to be Gladstone's favorite hymn, and it ended with a quotation: + + "_While I draw this fleeting breath, + When my eyelids close in death, + When I soar through tracts unknown, + See Thee on Thy Judgment Throne, + Rock of Ages, cleft for me. + Let me hide myself in Thee._" + +The murderer stooped and laid the revolver near the right hand of the +dead man. One of his men touched him on the elbow as he did it, and +pointed to Peter's own old-fashioned revolver on the little shelf beside +the bed. Captain Bernstein nodded and smiled. The idea was a good one, +and he put Peter's own revolver in his stiffening fingers. He had just +succeeded in making it look quite a realistic suicide, when the +telephone bell rang sharply, making him start upright, as if a hand were +laid upon his shoulder. He took the receiver again and listened. + +"Can't hear," he said, trying to imitate Peter's gruff voice. "No--I +dropped the telephone on the floor--no--it was a mistake--no--I said +three submarines--two hundred yards due north of the _Hatchets' +Light_--all right, sir." + +He hung the receiver up again, and looked at the others. + +"We may succeed yet," he said. "Come quickly." + +A minute later they were standing on the lee of the reef. Bernstein +blew a whistle thrice. It was answered from the darkness by another, +shrill as the cry of a sea-gull; and in five minutes more, the four men +and the collapsible boat were aboard their submarine. It submerged at +once, and went due south at twelve knots an hour below the unrevealing +seas. + + * * * * * + +Commander Pickering, the officer on duty at the naval base, was not sure +whether it was worth while paying any attention to the message from the +old man at the _Hatchets'_. He went to the window and looked at the +starry flash of the light-house in the distance. + +"Old Peter probably sighted a school of porpoises. They frightened him +into a fit," he said. + +The two men of the naval reserve who were waiting for orders, watched +him like schoolboys expecting a holiday; but he could not make up his +mind. He left the window and studied the big chart on the wall, where +the movements of a dozen submarines were marked in red ink from point to +point as the daily reports came in, till the final red star announced +their destruction. He chewed his lip as he pondered. There was a fleet +of submarine destroyers in Westport Harbor at this moment, but they had +only just come in from a long spell, and he was loath to turn them out +on a wild-goose chase. + +"Confound the old idiot," he muttered again. "He can't even talk +straight. Wanted to say that he had seen submarines, and starts +jabbering about Germans in the light-house. Ring him up again, Dawkins, +and find out whether he is drunk or talking in his sleep." + +Dawkins went to the telephone. For five minutes, he alternately growled +into the mouth-piece and moved the hook up and down. + +"Don't get any answer at all, sir." + +"That's queer. He can't be asleep yet after that beautiful +conversation." + +Commander Pickering went to the window again with his night-glasses. + +"Damned if there isn't a light in both his rooms, and it's getting on +for two o'clock in the morning. There's something rum happening. We'll +take a sporting chance on it, and make a regular sweep of the bay. I'll +go out to the _Hatchets'_ myself on the _Silver King_. I think the old +boy is dotty, and I suppose the Admiral will have my scalp for it +to-morrow; but there's just one chance in a hundred thousand that Mr. +Peter Ramsay did spot a squadron of U-boats. If so, we may as well +strafe them properly." + +He went to the telephone himself this time, and began issuing orders all +over the base. His final sentence was an after-thought, an echo and an +elaboration of the queer warning he had received from the _Hatchets'_. + +"Don't go straight out. Make a sweep round by the south. There may be a +trap; and you may as well let the dirigibles go ahead of you and do some +scouting." + + * * * * * + +"It often happens with these chaps," said Commander Pickering to +Dawkins, as they stood in Peter's bedroom an hour before dawn. "It's the +lonely life that does it. They ought always to have a couple of men in +these places; and, if it hadn't been for the war, of course, there would +have been two men at the _Hatchets'_. Look here, at all this stuff. The +poor chap had religious mania or something. See what he has written on +these scraps of paper, twenty or thirty times over, every blessed text +he could find about lanterns and lights, and it's all mixed up with bits +from Herbert Spencer on the Unknowable." + +"It was well known all over Westport," said Dawkins, "that old Peter had +a screw loose about religion, but he seemed such a reliable old boy. You +don't think he could have seen anything to set him off like, sir? It +seems funny that the door was left open like that." + +"Lord knows what he may have been playing at before he did this. We'd +better go upstairs, and have a look at the light." + +The two men plodded up the steep winding stair, poking into every corner +on their way up, till they emerged on the little railed platform under +the great crystal moons of the lantern. The glare blinded them. + +"Turn those lights off," said Commander Pickering. + +Dawkins ducked into the tower and obeyed. + +Half a dozen patrol boats, each with its tiny black gun, at bow and +stern, were cruising to and fro over rough seas, that looked from that +height very much like the wrinkles on poor old Peter's gray face. +Another sailor hauled himself to the platform, breathing hard from the +ascent, and saluted. + +"A telephone message for you, sir," he said. "There's been a lot of +mines discovered off the point. We should have run straight into them, +if we had neglected your warning and steered a straight course out." + +Commander Pickering looked at Dawkins in silence. Far away to eastward, +the dawn was breaking, red as blood, through a low fringe of ragged gray +clouds. In a few moments the crystal moons of the _Hatchets' Light_ were +afire with it, and breaking it up into the colors of the rainbow round +the black figures of the three men. + +"We'll have to apologize to Peter," said Dawkins at last. + +"It was a very lucky coincidence," said Commander Pickering; and he led +the way downstairs at a smart pace to Peter's room again. + +"There's no doubt that he shot himself," he said. "Look at all this. The +man was stark mad. See what he has written on the title-page, under his +own name: '_Thou art Peter; and upon this rock I will build my +Church_.'" + + + + +II + +UNCLE HYACINTH + + +On a bright morning, early in the year 1917, Herr Sigismund Krauss, +secret agent for the German Government, stopped at the entrance of +Harrods' Stores, looked at himself in one of the big mirrors, thought +that he really did look a little like Bismarck, and adjusted his tie. To +relieve the tension, let it be added that this scene was not enacted in +London, but in the big branch of Harrods' that had recently been opened +in Buenos Aires. + +Nevertheless, it was because it looked so very much like the London +branch that it had rasped the nerves of Herr Krauss. He was in a very +nervous condition, owing to the state of his digestive system, and he +was easily irritated. He had been annoyed in the first place because the +German houses in Buenos Aires were unable to sell him several things +which he thought necessary for the voyage he was about to take across +the Atlantic. He had been almost angry when the bald-headed Englishman +who had waited on him in Harrods' advised him to buy a safety waistcoat. +All that he needed for his safety was the fraudulent Swedish passport, +made out in the name of Erik Neilsen, which he carried in his breast +pocket. + +"I am an American citizen," he said, complicating matters still further. +"I am sailing to Barcelona on an Argentine ship, vich the Germans are +pledged nod to sink." + +"This is the exact model of the waistcoat that saved the life of Lord +Winchelsea," said the Englishman. "I advise you to procure one. You +never know what those damned Germans will do." + +Here was a chance of raising a little feeling against the United States, +and Herr Krauss never lost an opportunity. He pretended to be even more +angry than he really was. + +"That is a most ungalled-for suggestion to a citizen of a neutral +guntry," he snorted. "I shall report id to the authorities." + +These mixed emotions had disarranged his tie. But he had obtained all +that he wanted, and when he emerged into the street the magic of the +blue sky and the brilliance of the sunlight on the stream of motor cars +and gay dresses cheered him greatly. After all, it was not at all like +London; and there were still places where a good German might speak his +mind, if he did not insist too much on his allegiance. + +He was in a great hurry, for his ship, the _Hispaniola_, sailed that +afternoon. When he reached his hotel he had only just time enough to +pack his hand luggage and drive down to the docks. His trunk had gone +down in advance. It was very important, indeed, that he should not miss +the boat. There was trouble pending, which might lead to his arrest if +he remained in Argentina for another week; and there was urgent--and +profitable--work for him to do in Europe. + +In his cab on the way to the docks he examined the three letters which +had been waiting for him at the hotel. Two of them were requests for a +settlement of certain bills. "They can wait," he murmured to himself +euphemistically, "till after the war." + +The third letter ran thus: + + _Dear Erik: Bon voyage! Most amusing news. Operation successful. + Uncle Hyacinth's appetite splendid. Six meals daily._ + + _Yours affectionately,_ + + _Bolo._ + +This was the most annoying thing of all. Herr Krauss knew nothing about +any operation. He knew even less about Uncle Hyacinth; and in order to +interpret the message he would require the code--Number Six, as +indicated by the last word but two, and the code was locked up in his +big brass-bound steamer trunk. It was not likely to be anything that +required immediate attention. He had received a number of code messages +lately which did not even call for a reply. It was merely irritating. + +When he reached the docks he found that his trunk was buried under a +mountain of other baggage on the lower deck of the _Hispaniola_, and +that he would not be able to get at it before they sailed. He had just +ten minutes to dash ashore and ring up the German legation on the +telephone. He wasted nearly all of them in getting the right change to +slip into the machine. A most exasperating conversation followed. + +"I wish to speak to the German minister." + +"He is away for the week-end. This is his secretary." + +"This is Sigismund Krauss speaking." + +"Oh, yes." + +"I have received a message about Uncle Hyacinth." + +"I can't hear." + +"Uncle Hyacinth's appetite!" This was bellowed. + +"Oh, yes." The voice was very cautious and polite. + +"I want to know if it's important." + +"Whose appetite did you say?" + +"Uncle Hyacinth's!" This was like Hindenburg himself thundering. + +There seemed to be some sort of consultation at the other end of the +wire. Then the reply came very clearly: + +"I'm sorry, but we cannot talk over the telephone. I can't hear anything +you say. Please put your question in writing." + +It was an obvious lie for any one to say he could not hear the +tremendous voice in which Herr Krauss had made his touching inquiry; but +he fully understood the need for caution. He had tapped too many wires +himself to blame his colleagues for timidity. He had only a minute to +burst out of the telephone booth and regain the deck, before the +gang-planks were hoisted in and the ship began to slide away to the open +sea. + +He was more than annoyed, he was disgusted, to find that half the people +on board were talking English. Two or three of them, including the +captain, were actually British subjects; while the purser, a few of the +stewards and several passengers were citizens of the United States. + +It was late that evening and the shore lights had all died away over the +pitch-black water when the brass-bound trunk belonging to Mr. Neilsen, +as we must call him henceforward, was carried into his stateroom by two +grunting stewards. The mysterious letter could be of no use to the +Fatherland now, and he certainly did not expect it to be important from +a selfish point of view. Also, he was hungry, and he did not hurry over +his dinner in order to decode it. It was only his curiosity that +impelled him to do so before he turned in; but a kind of petrefaction +overspread his well-fed countenance as the significance of the message +dawned upon him. He sat on a suitcase in his somewhat cramped quarters +and translated it methodically, looking up the meaning of each word in +the code, like a very unpleasant schoolboy with a dictionary. He was +nothing if not efficient, and he wrote it all down in pencil on a sheet +of note-paper, in two parallel columns, thus: + + _Bon voyage_ _U-boats_ + + _Most_ _Instructed_ + + _Amusing_ _Sink_ + + _News_ _Argentine_ + + _Operation_ _Ships_ + + _Successful_ _Destruction_ + + _Uncle Hyacinth's_ _Hispaniola_ + + _Appetite_ _Essential_ + + _Splendid_ _Cancel_ + + _Six_ _Code number_ + + _Meals_ _Passage_ + + _Daily_ _Immediately_ + +Perhaps to make sure that his eyes did not deceive him Mr. Neilsen wrote +the translation out again mechanically, in its proper form, at the foot +of the page, thus: + + _U-boats instructed sink Argentine ships. Destruction Hispaniola + essential. Cancel passage immediately._ + +It seemed to have exactly the same meaning. It was ghastly. He knew +exactly what that word "destruction" meant as applied to the +_Hispaniola_. He had been present at a secret meeting only a month ago, +at which it was definitely decided that it would be inadvisable to carry +out a certain amiable plan of sinking the Argentine ships without +leaving any traces, while an appearance of friendship was maintained +with the Argentine Government. Evidently this policy had suddenly been +reversed. There would be a concentration of half a dozen U-boats, a +swarm of them probably, for the express purpose of sinking the +_Hispaniola_, just as they had concentrated on the _Lusitania_; but in +this case there would be no survivors at all. The ship's boats would be +destroyed by gunfire, with all their occupants, because it was necessary +that there should be no evidence of what had happened; and necessity +knows no law. There was no chance of their failing. They would not dare +to fail; and he himself had organized the system by which the most +precise information with regard to sailings was conveyed to the German +Admiralty. + +He crushed all the papers into his breast pocket and hurried up on deck. +It was horribly dark. At the smoking-room door he met one of the ship's +officers. + +"Tell me," said Mr. Neilsen, "is there any possibility of our--of our +meeting a ship--er--bound the other way?" + +The officer stared at him, wondering whether Mr. Neilsen was drunk or +seasick. + +"Certainly," he said; "but it's not likely for some days on this +course." + +"Will it be possible for me to be taken off and return? I have found +among my mail an important letter. A friend is very ill." + +"I'm afraid it's quite impossible. In the first place we are not likely +to meet anything but cattle ships till we are in European waters." + +"Oh, but in this case, even a cattle ship--" said Mr. Neilsen with great +feeling. + +"It is impossible, I am afraid, in any case. It is absolutely against +the rules; and in war-time, of course, they are more strict than ever." + +"Even if I were to pay?" + +"Time is not for sale in this war, unfortunately. It's _verboten_," said +the officer with a smile; and that of course Mr. Neilsen understood at +once. + +He was naturally an excitable man, and his inability to obtain his wish +made him feel that he would give all his worldly possessions at this +moment for a berth in the dirtiest cattle boat that ever tramped the +seas, if only it were going in the opposite direction. + +He returned to his stateroom almost panic-stricken. He sat down on the +suitcase and held his head between his hands while he tried to think. He +was a slippery creature and his fellow countrymen had often admired his +"slimness" in former crises; but it was difficult to discover a cranny +big enough for a cockroach here, unless he made a clean breast of it to +the captain. In that case he would be incriminated with all the +belligerents and most of the neutrals. There would be no place in the +world where he could hide his head, except perhaps Mexico. He would +probably be penniless as well. + +At this point in his cogitations there was a knock on the door, which +startled him like a pistol shot. He opened it a cautious inch or +two--for his papers were all over his berth--and a steward handed him a +telegram. + +"This was waiting for you at the purser's office, sir," he said. "The +mail has only just been sorted. If you wish to reply by wireless you can +do so up to midnight." The man was smiling as if he knew the contents. +There had been some jesting, in fact, about this telegram at the office. + +A gleam of hope shot through Mr. Neilsen's chaotic brain as he opened +the envelope with trembling fingers. Perhaps it contained reassuring +news. His face fell. It simply repeated the former sickening message +about Uncle Hyacinth. But the steward had reminded him of one last +resource. + +"Yes," he said, trying hard to be calm; "I shall want to send a reply." + +"Here is a form, sir. You'll find the regulations printed on the back." + +Mr. Neilsen closed the door and sank, gasping, on to the suitcase to +examine the form. The regulations stated that no message would be +accepted in code. This did not worry him at first, as he thought he +could concoct an apparently straightforward and harmless message with +the elaborate vocabulary of his Number Six. But the code had not been +intended for agonizing moments like these. It abounded in commercial +phrases, medical terms and domestic greetings; and though there were a +number of alternative words and synonyms it was not so easy as he had +expected to make a coherent message which should be apparently a reply +to the telegram he had received. After half an hour of seeking for the +_mot juste_ which would have melted the heart of a Flaubert, he arrived +at the purser's office with wild eyes and handed in the yellow form. + +"I wish to send this by Marconi wireless," he said. + +The purser tapped each word with his pencil as he read it over: + + _Splendid. Most--amusing. Use--heaps--butter. Congratulate--Uncle + Hyacinth._ + + _Love._ + + _Erik._ + +"I beg your pardon, sir," said the purser, "but we can only accept +messages _en clair_." + +"It is as clear as I can make it," said Mr. Neilsen; and he was telling +the truth. "It is the answer to the telegram which was handed to me on +board." + +"It looks a little unusual, sir." + +"It is gonnected with an unusual operation," said Mr. Neilsen, who was +getting thoroughly rattled, "and goncerns the diet of the batient." + +"I see," said the purser. "Well, I'll take your word for it, sir, and +tell the operator." + +At this moment the steward, who had entered Mr. Neilsen's stateroom +during his absence, was laying out that gentleman's pyjamas on his +berth. He shook them out in order to fold them properly; and in doing so +he shook a round ball of paper on to the floor. He unrolled it and +discovered two parallel columns of words, which gave a new meaning to +the telegram. He put it in his pocket, looked carefully round the room, +took all the torn scraps out of the wastepaper basket and put those also +in his pocket. Then he went out, just in time to avoid meeting Mr. +Neilsen, and trotted by another companionway to the purser's office. + +Ten minutes later a consultation was held in the captain's cabin. The +two messages and the scraps of paper were spread out on the table, while +the purser took another large, clean sheet, on which he jotted down as +many of the words as could be deciphered, together with their +equivalents, in two parallel columns, almost as neat as those of Mr. +Neilsen himself. When he had finished there was a very nice little +vocabulary--though it was only a small part of the code; and in a very +short time they were staring in amazement at the full translation of the +messages concerning Uncle Hyacinth. Then they proceeded to business. + +Captain Abbey was an Englishman who had commanded many ships in many +parts of the world. He had worked his way up from before the mast, and +in moments of emotion he was still inclined to be reckless with his +aitches. He was very large and red-faced, and looked as the elder Weller +might have looked if he had taken to the sea in youth. Captain Abbey was +not a vindictive man; but the _Hispaniola_ was the finest ship he had +yet commanded, and the opportunity had come to him as a result of the +war and the general dearth of neutral skippers who were ready to take +risks. He was not anxious to lose the ship on his first voyage, and his +face grew redder and redder as he sat reading the messages on the table. + +"What's the translation of '_onions_'?" he said. + +"I think it means '_abroad_,' according to this column," said the +purser. + +"Put it down. Now, what does '_tonsils_' mean?" + +"_Tonsils? Tonsils?_ Oh, yes; here we are. It means '_von Tirpitz_.'" + +"The devil it does," said Captain Abbey. + +"And what does '_meat_' mean?" + +"'_German_,' I think." + +"And '_colossal_'?" + +"I had it here a moment ago. Ah, '_colossal_' means _twenty_." + +"Just like 'em," said the captain. "Here's _appendix_! I suppose they +find these medical terms useful. How do you translate that?" + +"_Appendix?_ H'm; let me see. Appendix means _false_." + +"'E deserves to 'ave it cut out with a blunt saw, blast 'is eyes. And +what d'you make of this message 'e's just 'anded in?" + +"As far as I can make it out this is the translation: 'Cancel +instructions sink; message too late; aboard _Hispaniola_.'" + +"And the lily-livered little skunk wanted to get orf and save his own +'ide! But 'e was quite ready to let the rest of us go to 'ell! There are +twenty women and four children aboard, too; and we're guaranteed by the +German Government! It would serve 'im right if we made 'im walk the +plank, like they used to do. But drowning's too good for 'im. If we put +'im in irons 'e'll know we're on the watch, and that'll ease 'is mind +too much. I know what to do with 'im when we get 'im on the other side. +But in the meantime we'll give that little bit of sauerkraut a taste of +'is own medicine. 'Ere's the idea: We've got enough of the code to work +it. We'll give him another radiogram to take to bed with 'im to-night. +'Ow's this? Steward, get me one of them yellow telegraph forms and one +of the proper envelopes. We'll fix it all up in good shape. And, look +'ere, steward; not a word about this to any one, you understand?" + +The steward departed on his errand. Captain Abbey took another sheet of +paper and laboriously, with tongue outthrust, constructed a sentence, +consulting the purser's two columns from time to time, and occasionally +chuckling as he altered or added a word. + +The purser slapped his thighs with delight as he followed the work over +the captain's shoulder; and when the form arrived he wrote out the +captain's composition in a very large, clear hand, with the fervor of a +man announcing good news. Then he licked the flap of the yellow +envelope, closed it, addressed it and handed it to the steward. + +"Give this wireless message to Mr. Neilsen in half an hour. Tell him it +has just arrived. If there is any reply to-night he must send it before +twelve o'clock." + +"I 'ope that will make 'im sit up and think," said Captain Abbey. "I'll +consider what steps I'd better take to save the ship; and then I shall +probably 'ave a wireless or two of my own to send elsewhere." + +Mr. Neilsen was greatly excited when the steward knocked at his door and +handed him the second wireless message. He opened it with trembling +fingers and read: + + _Still more successful. Uncle Hyacinth's tonsils removed. Appetite + now colossal. Bless him. Taking large quantities frozen meat._ + +He could hardly wait to translate it. He sat down on his suitcase again, +and spelled it out with the help of his Number Six, word by word, +refusing to believe his eyes, refusing even to read it as a consecutive +sentence till the bottom of the two parallel columns had been reached, +thus: + + _Still_ _Impossible_ + + _More_ _Total_ + + _Successful_ _Destruction_ + + _Uncle Hyacinth's_ _Hispaniola_ + + _Tonsils_ _Von Tirpitz_ + + _Removed_ _Advises_ + + _Appetite_ _Essential_ + + _Now_ _Squadron_ + + _Colossal_ _Twenty_ + + _Bless him_ _Submarines_ + + _Taking_ _Waiting_ + + _Large_ _Appropriate_ + + _Quantities_ _Death_ + + _Frozen_ _Good_ + + _Meat_ _German_ + + _Best_ _Enviable_ + + _Greetings_ _Position_ + +This was hideous. He remembered all that he had done all over the world +in the interests of the Fatherland. He remembered the skilful way in +which long before the war he had stirred up feeling in America against +Japan, and in Japan against both America and England. He remembered the +way in which he had manipulated the peace societies in the interest of +militarism. He had spent several years in London before the war, and he +believed he had helped to make the very name of England a reproach in +literary coteries; so that current English literature, unless it went +far beyond honest criticism of English life, unless indeed it manifested +a complete contempt for that pharisaical country and painted it as +rotten from head to foot, lost caste among the self-enthroned British +intellectuals. + +It was very easy to do this, because, though English editors paid +considerable attention to their leading articles, some of them did not +care very much what kind of stuff was printed in their literary columns; +and they would allow the best of our literature, old and new, and the +most representative part of it, to be misrepresented by an anonymous +Sinn Feiner in half a dozen journals simultaneously. The editors were +patriotic enough, but they didn't think current literature of much +importance. He had been able, therefore, to quote extracts from +important London journals in the foreign press. + +He had been helped, too, by lecturers who drew pensions from the British +Government for their literary merits, and told American audiences that +the one flag they loathed was the flag of the land that pensioned them. +He had reprinted these utterances, together with the innocent bleatings +of the intellectuals, and scattered them all over the world in pamphlet +form. He had marked passages in their books and sent them to friends. +Thousands of columns were devoted to them in the newspapers of foreign +countries, while the English press occasionally referred to them in +brief paragraphs, announcing to a drugged public at home that the +vagaries of these writers were of no importance. He had carried out the +program of his country to the letter, and poisoned the intellectual +wellsprings. + +No grain of poison was too small. He had even written letters to the +newspapers in Scotland, which had stimulated the belief of certain +zealous Scots that whenever the name of England was used it was intended +as a deliberate onslaught upon the Union. There was hardly any +destructive force or thought or feeling, good, bad or merely trivial, +which he had not turned to the advantage of Germany and the disadvantage +of other nations. Then when the war broke out he had redoubled his +activities. He was amazed when he thought of the successful lies he had +fostered all over the world. He had plotted with Hindus on the coast of +California, and provided them with the literature of freedom in the +interests of autocracy. He worked for dissension abroad and union in +Germany. He was hand-in-glove with the I. W. W. He was idealist, +socialist, pacifist, anarchist, futurist, suffragist, nationalist, +internationalist and always publicist, all at once, and for one cause +only--the cause of Germany. + +And this was the gratitude of the--of the--swine! Well, he would teach +them a lesson. God in heaven! There was only one thing he could do to +save his skin. He would send them an ultimatum! It was their last +chance. He shivered to think that it might be his own! + +But it was not so easy as he thought it would be to burn all his boats. +It cost him two days and two nights of tortuous thinking before he could +bring himself to the point. At eleven o'clock on the third night the +purser brought the captain a new message, which Mr. Neilsen had just +handed in to be despatched by wireless. It ran as follows: + + _Continue treatment. Vastly amusing. Uncle Hyacinth's magnificent + constitution stand anything. Apply mustard. Try red pepper._ + +The group that met to consider this new development included three +passengers, whom the captain had invited to share what he called the +fun. They were a Miss Depew, an American girl who was going to Europe to +do Red Cross work; and a Mr. and Mrs. Pennyfeather, English residents of +Buenos Aires, with whom she was traveling. The message, as they +interpreted it, ran as follows: + + _Unless instructions to sink Hispaniola countermanded, shall inform + captain. No alternative. Most important papers my possession._ + +"Good!" said Captain Abbey. "'E's beginning to show symptoms of +blackmail. I'd send this message on, only we're likely to make a bigger +bag by keeping quiet. We'll let 'im 'ave the reply to-morrow morning. +What shall we do to 'im next?" + +"Shoot him," said Miss Depew with complete calm. + +"Oh, I want to 'ave a little fun with 'im first," said Captain Abbey. +"I'm afraid you 'aven't got much sense of humor, Miss Depew." + +"Do you think so?" she said. She was of the purest Gibson type, and +never flickered an innocent eyelash or twisted a corner of her red +Cupid's bow of a mouth as she drawled: "I think it would be very +humorous indeed to shoot him, now that we know he is a German." + +"Well, after 'is trying to leave us without warning 'e deserves to be +skinned and stuffed. But we're likely to make much more of it if we keep +'im alive for our entertainment. Besides, 'e's going to be useful on +the other side. Now, what do you think of this for a scheme?" + +The heads of the conspirators drew closer round the table; and Mr. +Neilsen, wandering on deck like a lost spirit, pondered on the tragic +ironies of life. The thoughtless laughter that rippled up to him from +the captain's cabin filled him with no compassion toward any one but +himself. It was merely one more proof that only the Germans took life +seriously. All the same, if he could possibly help it, he was not going +to let them take his own life. + + +II + +There was no radiogram for Mr. Neilsen on the following day; and he was +perplexed by a new problem as he walked feverishly up and down the +promenade deck. + +Even if he received an assurance that the _Hispaniola_ would be spared, +how could he know that he was being told the truth? Necessity, as he +knew quite well, was the mother of murder. It was very necessary, +indeed, that his mouth should be sealed. Besides, he had more than a +suspicion that his use was fulfilled in the eyes of the German +Government, and that they would not be sorry if they could conveniently +get rid of him. He possessed a lot of perilous knowledge; and he wished +heartily that he didn't. He was tasting, in fact, the inevitable hell of +the criminal, which is not that other people distrust him, but that he +can trust nobody else. + +He leaned over the side of the ship and watched the white foam veining +the black water. + +"Curious, isn't it?" said dapper little Mr. Pennyfeather, who stood near +him. "Exactly like liquid marble. Makes you think of that philosophic +Johnny--What's-his-name--fellow that said 'everything flows,' don't you +know. And it does, too, by Jove! Everything! Including one's income! +It's curious, Mr. Neilsen, how quickly we've changed all our ideas about +the value of human life, isn't it? By Jove, that's flowing too! The +other morning I caught myself saying that there was no news in the +paper; and then I realized that I'd overlooked the sudden death of about +ten thousand men on the Western Front. Well, we've all got to die some +day, and perhaps it's best to do it before we deteriorate too far. Don't +you think so?" + +Mr. Neilsen grunted morosely. He hated to be pestered by these gadflies +of the steamer. He particularly disliked this little Englishman with the +neat gray beard, not only because he was the head of an obnoxious bank +in Buenos Aires, but because he would persist in talking to him with a +ghoulish geniality about submarine operations and the subject of death. +Also, he was one of those hopeless people who had been led by the +wholesale slaughter of the war to thoughts of the possibility of a +future life. Apparently Mr. Pennyfeather had no philosophy, and his +spiritual being was groping for light through those materialistic fogs +which brood over the borderlands of science. His wife was even more +irritating; for she, too, was groping, chiefly because of the fashion; +and they both insisted on talking to Mr. Neilsen about it. They had +quite spoiled his breakfast this morning. He did not resent it on +spiritual grounds, for he had none; but he did resent it because it +reminded him of his mortality, and also because a professional quack +does not like to be bothered by amateurs. + +Mrs. Pennyfeather approached him now on the other side. She was a faded +lady with hair dyed yellow, and tortoise-shell spectacles. + +"Have you ever had your halo read, Mr. Neilsen?" she asked with a sickly +smile. + +"No. I don't believe in id," he said gruffly. + +"But surely you believe in the spectrum," she continued with a ghastly +inconsequence that almost curdled the logic in his German brain. + +"Certainly," he replied, trying hard to be polite. + +"And therefore in specters," she cooed ingratiatingly, as if she were +talking to a very small child. + +"Nod at all! Nod at all!" he exploded somewhat violently, while Mr. +Pennyfeather, on the other side, came to his rescue, sagely repudiating +the methods of his wife. + +"No, no, my dear! I don't think your train of thought is quite correct +there. My wife and I are very much interested in recent occult +experiments, Mr. Neilsen. We've been wondering whether you wouldn't join +us one night, round the ouija board." + +"Id is all nonsense to me," said Mr. Neilsen, gesticulating with both +arms. + +"Quite so; very natural. But we got some very curious results last +night," continued Mr. Pennyfeather. "Most extraordinary. The purser was +with us, and he thought it would interest you. I wish you would join +us." + +"I should regard id as gomplete waste of time," said Mr. Neilsen. + +"Surely, nothing can be waste of time that increases our knowledge of +the bourne from which no traveler returns," replied the lyric lips of +Mrs. Pennyfeather. + +"To me the methods are ridiculous," said Mr. Neilsen. "All this +furniture removal! Ach!" + +"Ah," said Mr. Pennyfeather, "you should read What's-his-name. You know +the chap, Susan. Fellow that said it's like a shipwrecked man waving a +shirt on a stick to attract attention. Of course it's ridiculous! But +what else can you do if you haven't any other way of signaling? Why, man +alive! You'd use your trousers, wouldn't you, if you hadn't anything +else? And the alternative--drowning--remember--drowning beneath what +Thingumbob calls 'the unplumbed salt, estranging sea.'" + +"Eggscuse me," said Mr. Neilsen; "I have some important business with +the captain. I must go." + +Mr. Neilsen had been trying hard to make up his mind, despite these +irrelevant interruptions. He had received no assurance by wireless, and +he had convinced himself that even if he did receive one it would be +wiser to inform the captain. But there were many difficulties in the +way. He had taken great care never to do anything that might lead to the +death penalty--that is to say, among nations less civilized than his +own. But there was that affair of the code. It might make things very +unpleasant. A dozen other suspicious circumstances would have to be +explained away. A dozen times he had hesitated, as he did this morning. +He met the captain at the foot of the bridge. + +"Ah, Mr. Neilsen," said Captain Abbey with great cordiality, "you're the +very man I want to see. We're 'aving a little concert to-night in the +first-class dining room on behalf of the wives and children of the +British mine sweepers and the auxiliary patrols. You see, though this is +a neutral ship, we depend upon them more or less for our safety. I +thought it would be pleasant if you--as a neutral--would say just a few +words. I understand that they've rescued a good many Swedish crews from +torpedoed ships; and whatever view we may take of the war we 'ave to +admit that these little boats are doing the work of civilization." + +Mr. Neilsen thought he saw an opportunity of ingratiating himself, and +he seized it. He could broach the other matter later on. "I vill do my +best, captain." + +"'Ere is a London newspaper that will tell you all about their work." + +Mr. Neilsen retired to his stateroom and studied the newspaper +fervently. + +The captain took the chair that evening, and he did it very well. He +introduced Mr. Neilsen in a few appropriate words; and Mr. Neilsen spoke +for nearly five minutes, in English, with impassioned eloquence and a +rapidly deteriorating accent. + +"Dese liddle batrol boads," he said in his peroration, "how touching to +the heart is der vork! Some of us forget ven ve are safe on land how +much ve owe to them. But no matter vot your nationality, ven you are on +the high seas, surrounded with darkness and dangers, not knowing ven you +shall be torpedoed, vot a grade affection you feel then to dese liddle +batrol boads! As a citizen of Sweden I speak vot I _know_. The ships of +my guntry have suffered much in dis war. The sailors of my guntry have +been thrown into the water by thousands through der submarines. But dese +liddle batrol boads, they save them from drowning. They give them +blankets and hot goffee. They restore them to their veeping mothers." + +Mr. Neilsen closed amid tumultuous applause, and when the collection was +taken up by Miss Depew his contribution was the largest of the evening. + +The rest of the entertainment consisted chiefly of music and recitation. +Mr. Pennyfeather contributed a song, composed by himself. Typewritten +copies of the words were issued to the audience; and a very fat and +solemn Spaniard accompanied him with thunderous chords on the piano. +Every one joined in the chorus; but Mr. Neilsen did not like the song at +all. It was concerned with Mr. Pennyfeather's usual gruesome subject; +and he rolled it out in a surprisingly rich barytone with the gusto of a +schoolboy: + + _If they sink us we shall be + All the nearer to the sea! + That's no hardship to deplore! + We've all been in the sea before._ + + _Chorus_: + + _And then we'll go a-rambling, + A-rambling, a-rambling, + With all the little lobsters + From Frisco to the Nore._ + + _If we swim it's one more tale, + Round the hearth and over the ale; + When your lass is on your knee, + And love comes laughing from the sea._ + + _Chorus_: + + _And then we'll go a-rambling, + A-rambling, a-rambling, + A-rambling through the roses + That ramble round the door._ + + _If we drown, our bones and blood + Mingle with the eternal flood. + That's no hardship to deplore! + We've all been in the sea before._ + + _Chorus_: + + _And then we'll go a-rambling, + A-rambling, a-rambling, + The road that Jonah rambled + And twenty thousand more._ + +"Now," said Mr. Pennyfeather, holding out his hands like the conductor +of a revival meeting, "all the ladies, very softly, please." + +The solemn Spaniard rolled his great black eyes at the audience, and +repeated the refrain _pianissimo_, while the silvery voices caroled: + + _With all the little lobsters + From Frisco to the Nore._ + +"Now, all the gentlemen, please," said Mr. Pennyfeather. The Spaniard's +eyes flashed. He rolled thunder from the piano, and Mr. Neilsen found +himself bellowing with the rest of the audience: + + _The road that Jonah rambled + From Hull to Singapore, + And twenty thousand, thirty thousand, + Forty thousand, fifty thousand, + Sixty thousand, seventy thousand, + Eighty thousand more!_ + +It was an elaborate conclusion, accompanied by elephantine stampings of +Captain Abbey's feet; but Mr. Neilsen retired to his room in a state of +great depression. The frivolity of these people, in the face of his +countrymen, appalled him. + +On the next morning he decided to act, and sent a message to the captain +asking for an interview. The captain responded at once, and received +him with great cordiality. But the innocence of his countenance almost +paralyzed Mr. Neilsen's intellect at the outset, and it was very +difficult to approach the subject. + +"Do you see this, Mr. Neilsen?" said the captain, holding up a large +champagne bottle. "Do you know what I've got in this?" + +"Champagne," said Mr. Neilsen with the weary pathos of a logician among +idiots. + +"No, sir! Guess again." + +"Pilsener!" + +"No, sir! It's plain sea water. I've just filled it. I'm taking it 'ome +to my wife. She takes it for the good of 'er stummick, a small wineglass +at a time. She always likes me to fill it for her in mid-Atlantic. She's +come to depend on it now, and I wouldn't dare to go 'ome without it. I +forgot to fill it once till we were off the coast of Spain. And, would +you believe it, Mr. Neilsen, that woman knew! The moment she tasted it +she knew it wasn't the right vintage. Well, sir, we shall soon be in the +war zone now. But you are not looking very well, Mr. Neilsen. I 'ope +you've got a comfortable room." + +"I have reason to believe, captain, that there will be an attempt made +by the submarines to sink the _Hispaniola_," said Mr. Neilsen abruptly. + +"Nonsense, my dear sir! This is a neutral ship and we're sailing to a +neutral country, under explicit guarantees from the German Government. +They won't sink the _Hispaniola_ for the pleasure of killing her +superannuated English captain." + +"I have reason to believe they intended to--er--change their bolicy. I +was not sure of id till I opened my mail on the boad; but--er--I have a +friend in Buenos Aires who vas in glose touch--er--business +gonnections--with members of the German legation; he--er--advised me, +too late, I had better gancel my bassage. I fear there is no doubt they +vill change their bolicy." + +"But they couldn't. There ain't any policy! The Argentine Republic is a +neutral country. You can't make me believe they'd do a thing like that. +It wouldn't be honest, Mr. Neilsen. Of course, it's war-time; but the +German Government wants to be honorable, don't it--like any other +government?" + +"I don'd understand the reasons; but I fear there is no doubt aboud the +facts," said Mr. Neilsen. + +"Have you got the letter?" + +"No; I thought as you do, ad first, and I tore id up." + +"Was that why you wanted to get off and go back?" the captain inquired +mercilessly. + +"I gonfess I vas a liddle alarmed; but I thought perhaps I vas unduly +alarmed at the time. I gouldn't trust my own judgment, and I had no ride +to make other bassengers nervous." + +"That was very thoughtful of you. I trust you will continue to keep this +matter to yourself, for I assure you--though I consider the German +Government 'opelessly wrong in this war--they wouldn't do a dirty thing +like that. They're very anxious to be on good terms with the South +American republics, and they'd ruin themselves for ever." + +"But my information is they vill sink the ships vithoud leaving any +draces." + +"What do you mean? Pretend to be friendly, and then--Come, now! That's +an awful suggestion to make!" + +At these words Mr. Neilsen had a vivid mental picture of his +conversation with the bald-headed Englishman in Harrods'. + +"Do you mean," the captain continued, waxing eloquent, "do you mean +they'd sink the ships and massacre every blessed soul aboard, regardless +of their nationality? Of course I'm an Englishman, and I don't love 'em, +but that ain't even murder. That's plain beastliness. It couldn't be +done by anything that walks on two legs. I tell you what, Mr. Neilsen, +you're a bit overwrought and nervous. You want a little recreation. +You'd better join the party to-night in my cabin. Mr. and Mrs. +Pennyfeather are coming, and a very nice American girl--Miss Depew. +We're going to get a wireless message or two from the next world. Ever +played with the ouija board? Nor had I till this voyage; but I must say +it's interesting. You ought to see it, as a scientific man. I understand +you're interested in science, and you know there's no end of +scientists--big men too--taking this thing up. You'd better come. Half +past eight. Right you are!" + +And so Mr. Neilsen was ushered out into despair for the rest of the day, +and booked for an unpleasant evening. He had accepted the captain's +invitation as a matter of policy; for he thought he might be able to +talk further with him, and it was not always easy to secure an +opportunity. In fact, when he thought things over he was inclined to +feel more amiably toward the Pennyfeathers, who had put the idea of +psychical research into the captain's head. + +Promptly at half past eight, therefore, he joined the little party in +the captain's cabin. Miss Depew looked more Gibsonish than ever, and she +smiled at him bewitchingly; with a smile as hard and brilliant as +diamonds. Mrs. Pennyfeather looked like a large artificial +chrysanthemum; and she examined his black tie and dinner jacket with the +wickedly observant eye of a cockatoo. Three times in the first five +minutes she made his hand travel over his shirt front to find out which +stud had broken loose. They had driven him nearly mad in his stateroom +that evening, and he had turned his trunk inside out in the process of +dressing, to find some socks. + +Moreover, he had left his door unlocked. He was growing reckless. +Perhaps the high sentiments of every one on board had made him trustful. +If he had seen the purser exploring the room and poking under his berth +he might have felt uneasy, for that was what the purser was doing at +this moment. Mr. Neilsen might have been even more mystified if he had +seen the strange objects which the purser had laid, for the moment, on +his pillow. One of them looked singularly like a rocket, of the kind +which ships use for signaling purposes. But Mr. Neilsen could not see; +and so he was only worried by the people round him. + +Captain Abbey seemed to have washed his face in the sunset. He was +larger and more like a marine Weller than ever in his best blue and +gilt. And Mr. Pennyfeather was just dapper little Mr. Pennyfeather, with +his beard freshly brushed. + +"You've never been in London, Miss Depew?" said Captain Abbey +reproachfully, while the Pennyfeathers prepared the ouija board. "Ah, +but you ought to see the Thames at Westminster Bridge! No doubt the +Amazon and the Mississippi, considered as rivers, are all right in their +way. They're ten times bigger than our smoky old river at 'ome. But the +Thames is more than a river, Miss Depew. The Thames is liquid 'istory!" + +As soon as the ouija board was ready they began their experiment. Mr. +Neilsen thought he had never known anything more sickeningly +illustrative of the inferiority of all intellects to the German. He +tried the ouija board with Mrs. Pennyfeather, and the accursed thing +scrawled one insane syllable. + +It looked like "cows," but Miss Depew decided that it was "crows." Then +Mrs. Pennyfeather tried it with Captain Abbey; and they got nothing at +all, except an occasional giggle from the lady to the effect that she +didn't think the captain could be making his mind a blank. Then Mr. +Pennyfeather tried it with Miss Depew--with no result but the obvious +delight of that sprightly middle-aged gentleman at touching her polished +finger tips, and the long uneven line that was driven across the paper +by the ardor of his pressure. Finally Miss Depew--subduing the glint of +her smile slightly, a change as from diamonds to rubies, but hard and +clear-cut as ever--declared, on the strength of Mr. Neilsen's first +attempt, that he seemed to be the most sensitive of the party, and she +would like to try it with him. + +Strangely enough Mr. Neilsen felt a little mollified, even a little +flattered, by the suggestion. He was quite ready to touch the finger +tips of Miss Depew, and try again. She had a small hand. He could not +help remembering the legend that after the Creator had made the rosy +fingers of the first woman the devil had added those tiny, gemlike +nails; but he thought the devil had done his work, in this case, like an +expert jeweler. Mr. Neilsen was always ready to bow before efficiency, +even if its weapons were no more imposing than a manicure set. + +The ouija board was quiet for a moment or two. Then the pencil began to +move across the paper. Mr. Neilsen did not understand why. Miss Depew +certainly looked quite blank; and the movement seemed to be independent +of their own consciousness. It was making marks on the paper, and that +was all he expected it to do. + +At last Miss Depew withdrew her hand and exclaimed: "It's too +exhausting. Read it, somebody!" + +Mr. Pennyfeather picked it up, and laughed. + +"Looks to me as if the spirits are a bit erratic to-night. But the +writing's clear enough, in a scrawly kind of way. I'm afraid it's utter +nonsense." + +He began to read it aloud: + + "Exquisitely amusing! Uncle Hyacinth's little appendix----" + +At this moment he was interrupted. Mr. Neilsen had risen to his feet as +if he were being hauled up by an invisible rope attached to his neck. +His movement was so startling that Mrs. Pennyfeather emitted a faint, +mouselike screech. They all stared at him, waiting to see what he would +do next. + +But Mr. Neilsen recovered himself with great presence of mind. He drew a +handkerchief from his trousers pocket, as if he had risen only for that +purpose. Then he sat down again. + +"Bardon me," he said; "I thought I vas aboud to sneeze. Vat is the rest +of id?" + +He sat very still now, but his mouth opened and shut dumbly, like the +mouth of a fish, while Mr. Pennyfeather read the message through to the +end: + + "Exquisitely amusing! Uncle Hyacinth's little appendix cut out. + Throat enlarged. Consuming immense quantities pork sausages; also + onions wholesale. Best greetings. Fond love. Kisses." + +"I'm afraid they're playing tricks on us to-night," said Mr. +Pennyfeather. "They do sometimes, you know. Or it may be fragments of +two or three messages which have got mixed." + +"Hold on, though!" said the captain. "Didn't you send a wireless the +other day, Mr. Neilsen, to somebody by the name of Hyacinth?" + +"Well--ha! ha! ha! It was aboud somebody by that name. I suppose I must +have moved my hand ungonsciously. I've been thinking aboud him a great +deal. He's ill, you see." + +"How very interestin'," cooed Mrs. Pennyfeather, drawing her chair +closer. "Have you really an uncle named Hyacinth? Such a pretty name for +an elderly gentleman, isn't it? Doesn't the rest of the message mean +anything to you, then, Mr. Neilsen?" + +He stared at her, and then he stared at the message, licking his lips. +Then he stared at Captain Abbey and Miss Depew. He could read nothing in +their faces but the most childlike amusement. The thing that chilled his +heart was the phrase about onions. He could not remember the meaning, +but it looked like one of those innocent commercial phrases that had +been embodied in the code. Was it possible that in his agitation he had +unconsciously written this thing down? + +He crumpled up the paper and thrust it into his side pocket. Then he +sniggered mirthlessly. Greatly to his relief the captain began talking +to Miss Depew, as if nothing had happened, about the Tower of London; +and he was able to slip away before they brought the subject down to +modern times. + + +III + +Mr. Neilsen may have been a very skeptical person. Perhaps his intellect +was really paralyzed by panic, for the first thing he did on reaching +his stateroom that night was to get out the code and translate the +message of the ouija board. It was impossible that it should mean +anything; but he was impelled by something stronger than his reason. He +broke into a cold sweat when he discovered that it had as definite a +meaning as any of the preceding messages; and though it was not the kind +of thing that would have been sent by wireless he recognized that it was +probably far nearer the truth than any of them. This is how he +translated it: + + "Imperative sink _Hispaniola_ after treacherous threat. Wiser + sacrifice life. Otherwise death penalty inevitable. Flight abroad + futile. Enviable position. Fine opportunity hero." + +He could not understand how this thing had happened. Was it possible +that in great crises an agitated mind two thousand miles away might +create a corresponding disturbance in another mind which was +concentrated on the same problem? Had he evolved these phrases of the +code out of some subconscious memory and formed them into an +intelligible sentence? Trickery was the only other alternative, and that +was out of the question. All these people were of inferior intellect. +Besides, they were in the same peril themselves; and obviously ignorant +of it. His code had never been out of his possession. Yet he felt as if +he had been under the microscope. What did it mean? He felt as if he +were going mad. + +He crept into his berth in a dazed and blundering way, like a fly that +has just crawled out of a honey pot. After an hour of feverish tossing +from side to side he sank into a doze, only to dream of the bald-headed +man in Harrods' who wanted to sell him a safety waistcoat, the exact +model of the one that saved Lord Winchelsea. The most hideous series of +nightmares followed. He dreamed that the sides of the ship were +transparent, and that he saw the periscopes of innumerable submarines +foaming alongside through the black water. He could not cry out, though +he was the only soul aboard that saw them, for his mouth seemed to be +fastened with official sealing wax--black sealing wax--stamped with the +German eagle. Then to his horror he saw the quick phosphorescent lines +of a dozen torpedoes darting toward the _Hispaniola_ from all points of +the compass. A moment later there was an explosion that made him leap, +gasping and fighting for breath, out of his berth. But this was not a +dream. It was the most awful explosion he had ever heard, and his room +stank of sulphur. He seized the cork jacket that hung on his wall, +pulled his door open and rushed out, trying to fasten it round him as he +went. + +When the steward arrived, with the purser, they had the stateroom to +themselves; and after the former had thrown the remains of the rocket +through the porthole, together with the ingenious contrivance that had +prevented it from doing any real damage under Mr. Neilsen's berth, the +purser helped him with his own hands to carry the brass-bound trunk down +to his office. + +"We'll tell him that his room was on fire and we had to throw the +contents overboard. We'll give him another room and a suit of old +clothes for to-morrow. Then we can examine his possessions at leisure. +We've got the code now; but there may be lots of other things in his +pockets. That's right. I hope he doesn't jump overboard in his fright. +It's lucky that we warned these other staterooms. It made a hellish row. +You'd better go and look for him as soon as we get this thing out of the +way." + +But it was easier to look for Mr. Neilsen than to find him. The steward +ransacked the ship for three-quarters of an hour, and he began to fear +that the worst had happened. He was peering round anxiously on the boat +deck when he heard an explosive cough somewhere over his head. He looked +up into the rigging as if he expected to find Mr. Neilsen in the +crosstrees; but nobody was to be seen, except the watch in the crow's +nest, dark against the stars. + +"Mr. Neilsen!" he called. "Mr. Neilsen!" + +"Are you galling me?" a hoarse voice replied. It seemed to come out of +the air, above and behind the steward. He turned with a start, and a +moment later he beheld the head of Mr. Neilsen bristling above the +thwarts of Number Six boat. He had been sitting in the bottom of the +boat to shelter himself from the wind, and some symbolistic Puck had +made him fasten his cork jacket round his pyjamas very firmly, but +upside down, so that he certainly would have been drowned if he had been +thrown into the water. + +"It's all right, Mr. Neilsen," said the steward. "The danger is over." + +"Are ve torpedoed?" The round-eyed visage with the bristling hair was +looking more and more like Bismarck after a debauch of blood and iron, +and it did not seem inclined to budge. + +"No, sir! The shock damaged your room a little, but we must have left +the enemy behind. You had a lucky escape, sir." + +"My Gott! I should think so, indeed! The ship is not damaged in any +vay?" + +"No, sir. There was a blaze in your room, and I'm afraid they had to +throw all your things overboard. But the purser says he can rig you out +in the morning; and we have another room ready for you." + +"Then I vill gum down," said Mr. Neilsen. And he did so. His bare feet +paddled after the steward on the cold wet deck. At the companionway they +met the shadowy figure of the captain. + +"I'm afraid you've 'ad an unpleasant upset, Mr. Neilsen," he said. + +"Onbleasant! It vos derrible! Derrible! But you see, captain, I vas +correct. And this is only the beginning, aggording to my information. I +hope now you vill take every bre-caution." + +"They must have mistaken us for a British ship, Mr. Neilsen, I'm afraid. +I'm having the ship lighted up so that they can't mistake us again. You +see? I've got a searchlight playing on the Argentine flag aloft; and +we've got the name of the ship in illuminated letters three feet high, +all along the hull. They could read it ten miles away. Come and look!" + +Mr. Neilsen looked with deepening horror. + +"But dis is madness!" he gurgled. "The _Hispaniola_ is marked, I tell +you, marked, for gomplete destruction!" + +The captain shook his head with a smile of skepticism that withered Mr. +Neilsen's last hope. + +"Very vell, then I should brefer an inside cabin this time." + +"Yes. You don't get so much fresh air, of course; but I think it's +better on the 'ole. If we're torpedoed we shall all go down together. +But you're safer from gunfire in an inside room." + +The unhappy figure in pyjamas followed the steward without another word. +The captain watched him with a curious expression on his broad red face. +He was not an unkindly man; and if this German in the cork jacket had +not been so ready to let everybody else aboard drown he might have felt +the sympathy for him that most people feel toward the fat cowardice of +Falstaff. But he thought of the women and children, and his heart +hardened. + +As soon as Mr. Neilsen had gone below, the lights were turned off, and +the ship went on her way like a shadow. The captain proceeded to send +out some wireless messages of his own. In less than an hour he received +an answer, and almost immediately the ship's course was changed. + +It was a strange accident that nobody on board seemed to have any +clothes that would fit Mr. Neilsen on the following day. He appeared at +lunch in a very old suit, which the dapper little Mr. Pennyfeather had +worn out in the bank. Mr. Neilsen was now a perfect illustration of the +schooldays of Prince Blood and Iron, at some period when that awful +effigy had outgrown his father's pocket and burst most of his buttons. +But his face was so haggard and gray that even the women pitied him. At +four o'clock in the afternoon the captain asked him to come up to the +bridge, and began to put him out of his misery. + +"Mr. Neilsen," he said, "I'm afraid you've had a very anxious voyage; +and, though it's very unusual, I think in the circumstances it's only +fair to put you on another ship if you prefer it. You'll 'ave your +chance this evening. Do you see those little smudges of smoke out +yonder? Those are some British patrol boats; and if you wish I'm sure I +can get them to take you off and land you in Plymouth. There's a statue +of Sir Francis Drake on Plymouth 'Oe. You ought to see it. What d'you +think?" + +Mr. Neilsen stared at him. Two big tears of gratitude rolled down his +cheeks. + +"I shall be most grateful," he murmured. + +"They're wonderful little beggars, those patrol boats," the captain +continued. "Always on the side of the angels, as you said so feelingly +at the concert. They're the police of the seas. They guide and guard us +all, neutrals as well. They sweep up the mines. They warn us. They pilot +us. They pick us up when we're drowning; and, as you said, they give us +'ot coffee; in fact, these little patrol boats are doing the work of +civilization. Probably you don't like the British very much in Sweden, +but--" + +"I have no national brejudices," Mr. Neilsen said hastily. "I shall +indeed be most grateful." + +"Very well, then," said the captain; "we'll let 'em know." + +At half past six, two of the patrol boats were alongside. They were the +_Auld Robin Gray_ and the _Ruth_; and they seemed to be in high feather +over some recent success. + +Mr. Neilsen was mystified again when he came on deck, for he could have +sworn that he saw something uncommonly like his brass-bound trunk +disappearing into the hold of the _Auld Robin Gray_. He was puzzled also +by the tail end of the lively conversation that was taking place between +Miss Depew and the absurdly young naval officer, with the lisp, who was +in command of the patrols. + +"Oh, no! I'm afraid we don't uth the dungeonth in the Tower," said that +slender youth, while Miss Depew, entirely feminine and smiling like a +morning glory now, noted all the details of his peaked cap and the gold +stripes on his sleeve. "We put them in country houtheth and feed them +like fighting cockth, and give them flower gardenth to walk in." + +He turned to Captain Abbey joyously, and lisped over Mr. Neilsen's head: + +"That wath a corking metthage of yourth, captain. I believe we got three +of them right in the courth you would have been taking to-day. You'll +hear from the Admiralty about thith, you know. It wath magnifithent! +Good-bye!" + +He saluted smartly, and taking Mr. Neilsen tightly by the arm helped +him down to the deck of the _Ruth_. + +"Good-by and good luck!" called Captain Abbey. + +He beamed over the bulwarks of the _Hispaniola_ like a large red harvest +moon through the thin mist that began to drift between them. + +"Good-by, Mr. Neilsen!" called Mr. and Mrs. Pennyfeather, waving +frantically. + +"Good-by, Herr Krauss!" said Miss Depew; and the dainty malice in her +voice pierced Mr. Neilsen like a Röntgen ray. + +But he recovered quickly, for he was of an elastic disposition. He was +already looking forward to the home comforts which he knew would be +supplied by these idiotic British for the duration of the war. + +The young officer smiled and saluted Miss Depew again. He was a very +ladylike young man, Mr. Neilsen had thought, and an obvious example of +the degeneracy of England. But Mr. Neilsen's plump arm was still bruised +by the steely grip with which that lean young hand had helped him +aboard, so his conclusions were mixed. + +The engines of the _Ruth_ were thumping now, and the _Hispaniola_ was +melting away over the smooth gray swell. They watched her for a minute +or two, till she became spectral in the distance. Then the youthful +representative of the British Admiralty turned, like a thoughtful host, +to his prisoner. + +"Would you like thum tea?" he lisped sympathetically. "Your Uncle +Hyathinth mutht have given you an awfully anxiouth time." + +Herr Krauss grunted inarticulately. He was looking like a very happy +little Bismarck. + + + + +III + +THE CREATIVE IMPULSE + + +Undoubtedly Captain Julius Vandermeer had made a pile of money. A Dutch +sea-captain who had been the chief owner of his vessel in the first two +years of the war was a lucky dog. A couple of voyages might bring him +more than he could hope to make in half a century of peace. If he were +lucky enough to make forty or fifty successful voyages across the +Atlantic he could do exactly what Captain Vandermeer had done--retire +from the sea, invest his money, look for a handsome young wife, and +expect the remainder of his years to mellow round him like an orchard, +dropping all the most pleasant fruits of life at his feet. Best of all, +despite the gray streaks in his bushy red beard, he was only half-way +through the forties, and he knew how to enjoy himself. + +He sat on the veranda of his white bungalow under the foothills of the +Sierra Madre, puffing at his big meerschaum pipe and explaining these +things to the lady whom he had just married. + +"Long ago I settled it in my mind, Mimika," he said, "if ever I came to +be rich there should only be one country in the world for me, and that +should be Southern California. Look at it!" + +He waved the stem of his pipe at the broad slopes below. As far as the +eye could see, from the petals that dropped over the dainty little +electric car before the porch, to the distant horizon, they were one +gorgeous pattern of fruit trees in blossom. Masses of white and pink +bloom surged like foam against the veranda; and the soft wind blowing +across that odorous wilderness was like the whisper of wings at sunset +in Eden. Behind the windows of the dining room a Chinese manservant +glided to and fro like a blue shadow. + +"Man lives by contrast, Mimika," Vandermeer continued. "For a quarter of +a century salt water was all my world. Now I have chosen seas of peach +blossom; and no danger of shipwreck, heh? Ah, but it smells fine, +Mimika--fine! When I saw my fortune coming I asked a friend in New York +what was the place out of all the world where a man might live most +happily, most healthily, in the most beautiful climate, to the age of +ninety or even to the age of a hundred, enjoying himself also. 'Southern +California,' he said. At once I knew that my friend was right. I +remembered San Diego when I was a boy, and the roses tumbling at my feet +on Christmas Day. I remembered the women, Mimika; and the cantaloupe +melons, cut in halves, with the ice melting in their lovely yellow +hearts; and as soon as the money was in the bank I took the train to the +City of the Angels. Los Angeles--what a name, heh? In three weeks I had +found my ranch with its beautiful bungalow, waiting like a palace for +its queen. In six months I had found the queen, Mimika, heh?" + +Mimika rose from her rocking-chair, remarking, "Now listen, Julius!" +This did not mean that she had anything of great importance to say. But +she had a trick, which Vandermeer found fascinating, of prefacing most +of her remarks with the command to listen. "Listen, Julius! You won't +come down with me to meet Roy?" she said. + +"No, Mimika, no. The little sister will have much to tell her brother +when she sees him for the first time after--how long has he been in +Europe? Two years? And she will have to tell him all about her +honeymoon, heh?" He pinched her ear playfully as she stooped to kiss +him. + +"I guess Roy will open his eyes when he sees my electric," she said. + +She went down to the car in a skipping walk, while Captain Vandermeer +surveyed her with the eye of one who has found a prize. She was wearing +a Panama hat, a sweater of emerald green, and a very short yellow skirt +that fluttered round her yellow silk stockings like the petals of a +California poppy. This was not altogether out of keeping with the blaze +of the landscape; but her high-heeled white shoes prevented her from +walking gracefully; and this was really a pity, for she could dance like +a wave of the sea if she chose. Sadder still, her nose was as white with +powder as if she had dipped it into a bag of meal and her lips looked as +if she had been eating damson jam. This was more pathetic than comic, +because in its natural state her face was pretty as a wild flower. + +Captain Vandermeer sat blowing rings of blue smoke for a minute or two +longer. Then he entered the bungalow and went to a room at the back of +the house which he had reserved as his own den. It was a very bare room +at present, chiefly furnished by the bright new safe which he now +proceeded to unlock. + +He drew out a bundle of papers and examined them with loving care. There +were American railroad bonds to the value of fifty thousand dollars; +some Liberty Loan Bonds to the value of fifty thousand more; twenty-five +thousand dollars' worth of Anglo-French bonds; and the same amount of +the City of Paris, risky enough if the Germans were going to break +through, but he did not think they were, and they yielded more than ten +per cent. It was very wonderful, he thought, and he replaced them like a +man saying good night to his child. Then he drew out a chamois-leather +bag and poured the glittering contents into his left palm. He was a very +wise man in his generation. + +"You never know," he muttered--"you never know what will happen, in +these days, to bonds. These are perhaps the best investment of all. +These are the reserves of my little army. It was a good idea to keep +them. Besides, you can put them in your pocket and go where you wish at +a moment's notice. It is not possible always to get money at once for +bonds." + +His face glowed with satisfaction as he put the bag in the safe and +locked it. + + * * * * * + +On the way up to the ranch from the railway station Mimika had been +chattering hard to her brother; but he noticed certain changes in her +appearance with a feeling akin to remorse. He was not at all sure that +she was really happy, despite her apparent enthusiasm over what she +called the generosity of Julius. He wished that his mother had delayed +things till he had returned from Europe; and he could not help wondering +how far his failure to send home more than two-thirds of his own scanty +income as a newspaper correspondent had contributed to the haste of this +marriage. He had not been able to learn much about it. His mother was a +vague widow, who, like so many widows, regarded marriage with a kind of +ghostly detachment and a more than maidenly innocence. She was devoted +to Mimika, but quite ready, he feared, to sacrifice Mimika to himself. + +Roy himself had not had too easy a time in the last few years. He was +one of those not uncommon Americans who combine an extraordinary +knowledge of the world with the unworldliness and sometimes the +gullibility of an Eastern sage. He knew more about the cathedrals of +England than almost any Englishman; more about the châteaux of France +than most Frenchmen. He could have dictated an encyclopedia of useful +knowledge about Italy and Egypt. He had been a war correspondent in four +quarters of the globe, and he had acquired a sense of the larger +movements in politics that gave his opinions an unusual interest. He +flew over the big guns of international affairs like a man in an +air-plane; and, though his European hearers might not always like his +signals, they usually felt that he was looking beyond their horizon. But +his ambition was to do creative work, and he had not yet succeeded. He +marveled how some other men, without expending a tithe of his energy, +had produced a shelf of books while he was still taking his notes. He +never seemed to have the time for creation, and whenever he approached +any original work he gravitated toward the method of the newspaper +correspondent. He wondered sometimes whether this was due to a lack of +what he called the 'creative impulse.' One of the things to which he had +been looking forward on this visit was the opportunity that it would +give him of obtaining some first-hand material from a real live +sea-captain. Yet he was not sure whether he would ever be able to +transmute it into an original book. + +His boyish smile was in somewhat pathetic contrast with his +gold-spectacled, and curiously dreamy, yet overstrained eyes, which +sometimes gave his face in repose the expression of a youthful Buddha. +His frequent abrupt changes between a violently active life and an +almost completely sedentary one had not been good for him physically, +and he was subject to fits of depression, relieved by fits of extreme +optimism. + +If only Mimika were happy he thought he might feel very optimistic about +the material that Vandermeer could give him for the book he was +contemplating. Indeed already he could not help sharing a little in her +enthusiasm over her 'electric.' + +"And listen, Roy, we've got a marble swimming pool in the garden, all +surrounded with heliotropes," she concluded, almost breathless, as they +rolled up the long aisle of palms and pepper trees. + +"Is that so?" said Roy. "And you love him, Mimika?" + +"He's a dear," said Mimika. "And of course--" She was going to add that +Captain Vandermeer would do a great deal for Roy; but she had +misgivings, and checked herself. + +She had almost broached the subject to her lord this morning, and had +checked herself then, too, feeling instinctively that Vandermeer had +grown rich too recently for him to help any one but himself just at +present. + +The introduction of brother to husband went off very well indeed. +Vandermeer was so hearty, and held Roy's hand so affectionately, that +when they were getting ready for dinner Mimika ventured to approach the +subject again. + +"And listen, Julius, you'll be able to help Roy just a little, too, +won't you?" she said, putting her hands up to her hair before the mirror +in her bedroom. + +"What do you mean, Mimika, by help?" Vandermeer's voice rolled in a very +unsatisfactory way from the adjoining room. + +"Oh, of course there's only one kind of help Roy would accept," she +replied hastily. "He's going to write something about the sea, and he +thinks you might give him some hints." + +"Why, certainly, Mimika. They say there's a book in every man's life." +The voice was thoroughly hearty again now. "In mine I should say there +would be a hundred books. I will tell him some splendid things." + +Even more jovial was the mood of Julius Vandermeer that evening after +dinner; and he expanded his rosy views of the future to his +brother-in-law over their cigars and a steaming rum punch flavored with +lemon, which was his own invention for coping with the cold of a +California night. He called it his "smudge pot." + +"And now, Roy," he said at last, "I hope your own affairs go well. It is +a great thing, the gift of expression. I wish I had it. Ah, what books I +could write! The things I have seen, things you will never see in +print!" + +"That's precisely what I want to discuss with you, Julius. I have just +signed a contract with the Copley-Willard Publishing Company to write +them a serial dealing with the heroism of the merchant marine in +war-time. I don't mind confessing that I told them a little about +you--said you had no end of crackajack material I could use. The result +was the best contract I've yet made with any publisher; so I owe that to +you. The Star News Company was very well satisfied with my record as a +correspondent; but I bungled the contract with them. If I can put this +thing through it means that I shan't be a poor relation much longer. Now +if you can only give me a good subject and put me wise on the seamanship +and help me to get the local color, the rest will be as easy as falling +off a log. You must have had a good many experiences, for instance, with +the submarines, when you were crossing the Atlantic twice a month." + +"Experiences--why, yes, many experiences; but my good fortune +comes--well--from my good fortune. I am like the happy nation. I have +not had much history for these two years. But I have seen things--oh, +yes, I have seen things--that were like what you call clues--clues to +many strange tales." + +"That's precisely what I want--a rattling good clue!" + +"Well now, let me think. There were some interesting things about those +big merchant submarines that the Germans sent at one time across the +Atlantic." + +"Like the _Deutschland_, you mean?" + +"Yes; and there were others, never mentioned in the newspapers. One or +two of them disappeared. Perhaps the British destroyed them. Nobody +knows. But it was reported that one of them was carrying a million +dollars' worth of diamonds to the United States. Think of that, Roy! A +submarine full of diamonds! Doesn't that kindle your imagination?" + +"Gee! I should say it would!" remarked Mimika, putting down the highly +colored magazine in which she had been studying the latest New York +fashions. + +"Depends what happened to it," said Roy. + +"Come, then, I will tell you a little story," said Vandermeer; "but you +must not mention my name about this one. How did I come to know it? Ah, +perhaps by some strange accident I met the only man who could tell the +truth about it. Perhaps I was able to do him some small service. In any +case that is a different matter. This story must be your own, Roy. It +shall come from what you call your creative impulse." + +Mimika plumped down on a cushion at her lord's feet to listen. He patted +her shoulder affectionately with his big left paw, which showed up in a +somewhat startling contrast with its rough skin and long red hairs +against that smooth whiteness. With his right hand he filled himself the +third glass of rum punch that he had taken that evening. He smacked his +lips between two sips. + +"Help yourself, Roy," he said, "and take another cigar. Yes, I will tell +you. Take a sip, Mimika. That is good, heh? Now I shall need no more +sugar. + +"Well, Roy, just imagine. This big merchant submarine leaves Hamburg +loaded with diamonds! A million dollars' worth of diamonds, all going to +the United States, because it is necessary that Germany shall pay some +of her bills. There is a crew of only twenty men, because they need them +for the U-boats. All of these men are sulky, rebellious. They have been +forced to do this work against their will. They were happy on their +ships in the Kiel Canal, except that there was always the chance of +being picked for submarine duty. When they are lined up for that--ah, it +is like waiting to be named for the guillotine, in the Reign of Terror! +They have courage, but their hands shake, their lips are blue and their +hearts are sick. It is the death sentence. Either this week, or the +next, or the next they will be missing. Certainly in eight weeks their +places must be filled again. They are just fishes' food. Picture then +the choosing of these men. There is your first chapter, heh? + +"Now for the second. You must picture the captain. He is the most +rebellious of all, for his life has been spared longer than most, but +his life on the submarine is a living death. He is a good sailor, yes, +in any surface vessel; but in the first place the submarine makes him +sick at the stomach--the smells, the bad air, the joggle-joggle of the +engine, the lights turned down to save the batteries. All that depresses +him; and he has always the thought that, if one little thing goes wrong, +he will die like a man buried alive in a big steel coffin, with nineteen +others, all fighting for breath. It is a nightmare--the only nightmare +that ever frightened him." + +Captain Vandermeer certainly had a vivid imagination or else his own +creative impulse, aided by frequent draughts of rum punch, was carrying +him away; for his bulging blue eyes looked as if they would burst out of +their canary-lashed lids. + +"Moreover, this captain has been in a fighting submarine that has +shocked his nerves. He has grown used to scenes of death. He has come to +the surface and seen many scores of men and women drowning, and he has +watched them till he minds it no more than drowning flies. But twice he +has found himself entangled in a steel net, and escaped by miracle. That +is not so pleasant. When it was decided to send him to the United States +on a merchant submarine, what was his first thought? What would be +yours, Roy, in that position?" + +"A bedroom and bath at the hotel Vanderbilt," replied Roy promptly. + +"You follow the clue very well, my boy. You have a clever brother, +Mimika. The first thought of the captain is this: If I can get safely +through the ring of the enemy the rest of the voyage will not be so bad. +I shall make most of it on the surface, and I shall have a breathing +spell in a great city outside the war. That will make the second +chapter, heh? Now what is his next thought, Mimika?" + +"Why, listen! If I once got to New York I should want to stay there," +replied Mimika, helping herself to a large piece of candy. + +"Ah, what a clever sister you have, my dear Roy!" said Vandermeer, and +both his red streaked paws descended approvingly on Mimika's white +shoulders. "How beautifully we compose this tale together, heh? But he +has not yet reached America, and he has a submarine full of diamonds on +his hands; also a crew of twenty men; also his orders as an officer in +the German Navy. + +"Well, let us suppose he has come safely through the ring of the enemy, +after several nightmares. He runs on the surface almost always now, and +he is losing his bad dreams for a time. + +"One night he is on deck looking at the stars and thinking, who knows +what thoughts, when the youngest engineer, a nice little fellow, a +Bavarian, you might say, with flaxen hair and blue eyes, just as pretty +as a girl, comes up to him. His face is as white and smooth as Mimika's +shoulders--but there is no powder on it, heh? And his blue eyes are +frightened. + +"'Captain,' he says, 'I want to warn you. There is a plot among the men +to kill you.' + +"'To kill me!' the captain says. 'Why should they wish to kill me, +Otto?' + +"'They've gone crazy about the diamonds. They say they have had enough +of this life, and they will never go back to Germany. They mean to take +the diamonds and sell them a few at a time in America. Then they will +live like princes. They think I'm joining them.' + +"'Is there nobody but yourself on my side?' says the captain. + +"'Nobody now,' says Otto. + +"'Very well. Thank you, my boy. I will see that you are rewarded for +this. When are they going to do it?' + +"'When we are submerged and nearing the three-mile limit.' + +"'Thank you, Otto,' says the captain again. + +"And there's your third chapter; and your fourth, too, Roy--a dramatic +situation, heh?" + +Roy appeared to think so, and on the strength of it he filled +Vandermeer's glass again. He was anxious to help the creative impulse. + +"What follows?" continued Vandermeer. "In your tales to-day you must +have psychology. The captain is a clever man. What would you do in that +position, Roy? He cannot fight them all. I will tell you what he does. +He is a diplomatist. He shapes his policy, standing there on the deck of +the submarine all alone, under the stars. + +"The next evening he orders rum all round, just like this--good rum, +from his own little cask, which he keeps for the sake of his stomach. It +is a beautiful evening, a sea like oil, and the setting sun makes a road +of gold to the shores of America. They are approaching the happy land. +The men themselves are more cheerful, and like a good diplomatist he +seizes the cheerful moment. + +"Not only does he give them rum but he gives them cigars, also from his +private box--expensive cigars, just like these. + +"'I have a proposition to make,' he says. 'We are all sick of the war, +and I myself am more sick of it than anybody.' + +"They all stare at him, wondering what he will say next; and the little +Bavarian opens his blue eyes like a girl, and stares more than any of +them. He thinks perhaps the end of the world will come now. + +"'There is nobody here,' says the captain, 'that wishes to return. Why +should we return? There is a million dollars in diamonds aboard, enough +to make every one of us rich. We are going to the great republic. Good! +We will share equally. Every one of us shall have the same amount. I +myself, though I am your captain, will take no more than Otto. That will +be more than fifty thousand dollars for each one of us.' + +"Immediately the last of the clouds vanishes like magic from the crew. +There is nothing but smiles all round him, smiles and the smell of rum +and good cigars, just like these. They are all good comrades together, +shaking hands, except the little Bavarian. He is sitting back behind the +gyroscopic compass watching the captain, with big eyes and a solemn face +like the infant Saint John. + +"And why should they not all be satisfied--except the captain, who is +perhaps only pretending to be satisfied? They lose only a twentieth part +of their money by including him. On the other hand the captain loses a +million dollars, to which these robbers had no more right than you or +I." + +"I guess the little Bavarian was sorry he spoke," said Roy; and he +filled Vandermeer's glass again. + +"The little Bavarian was a child, an innocent. He had no will to power, +heh? He comes again to the captain late that night, on deck under the +stars. His face looks thin and miserable. 'Captain,' he says, 'did you +mean your words to those men?' + +"'What else could I say, Otto, to save the diamonds, and my life, and +perhaps yours? You do not understand diplomacy, Otto.' + +"The face of the little Bavarian grows brighter. 'Forgive me, my +captain!' he says. 'But I had begun to doubt even you, for a moment. I +was thinking of the Fatherland.' + +"Now, the captain was much obliged to Otto. His policy was complete in +his mind for fooling those robbers, and he would have been glad to save +this little Bavarian, who had warned him. But he begins to see an +obstacle. He thinks he will put this little fellow to the trial. + +"'Come now, Otto,' he says, 'it is very well to think of the Fatherland +if you and I could save it. But do you think a few hundred shining +pebbles will make any odds? These robbers shall not have them. But +supposing we share them, there is nobody in the Fatherland that would be +any poorer. They belong to the state, Otto, and if they should be shared +with every one in Germany not one man would be a pfennig the better. + +"'But see what a difference this would make to you and me! We are in a +state of necessity, Otto; and above that state there is no power, as the +Chancellor told the Reichstag. Very well, in this case I quote Louis the +Fourteenth: "_L'état, c'est moi_!" and Frederick the Great, also. Have I +the might to do it, Otto? Very well, then, according to the spokesman of +the Fatherland I have also the right.' + +"'I do not understand you, my captain,' says this little blue-eyed baby, +'but I know well that you mean to do right.' + +"'You shall have not fifty but a hundred thousand dollars' worth for +your share, Otto, because you have been faithful,' says the captain; +'but you must not think too many beautiful thoughts till we are safe on +shore. I have arranged everything in my mind. Go down and sleep.' + +"'For God's sake, captain,' cries this funny little fellow, dropping on +his knees, 'tell me what you mean to do!' And the tears begin to roll +down his face. + +"'It is not safe to trust you yet, Otto. You might talk in your sleep,' +says the captain. 'Do as I bid you. We shall see what we shall see.' + +"Very well, Roy, there is at least four chapters to be made from that, +heh? + +"We come now to the crisis. The submarine is nearing the end of her +voyage. They begin to see ships and they submerge. The captain has told +them, instead of making for New York he is heading for the coast of +Maine, where there will be better opportunities of destroying the +submarine and landing unobserved. It is about six o'clock in the +evening, when he peeks through the periscope. They are within a short +distance of the mainland, but they must lie on the bottom till midnight, +when it will be safer to go ashore. They are all very happy. Once more +he gives them rum all round, just like this, and advises them to sleep, +for they will get no sleep after midnight. + +"They sleep very soundly, all except the little Bavarian and the +captain. Why? Because the captain keeps the medicine chest as well as +the diamonds. If he had had something stronger in his medicine chest it +would have saved him much trouble and danger. + +"While they sleep the captain takes out the diamonds from the strong box +and puts them in his inside pockets. Then he examines the batteries. He +is an expert engineer. He can make the batteries work when every one +else thinks they are dead. Also he can make them die, so that even he +can never make them work again. He examines other parts of the +machinery--those which enable the submarine to rise to the surface. He +will not allow the little Bavarian to watch what he is doing. Then he +puts on his life-belt, and looks at the men snoring in their hammocks +and on the floor. Some of them are stirring in their sleep. There is no +time to lose or he may be interrupted. At last he is ready. The +submarine will never rise to the surface again, and the sea will never +betray the secret. + +"There is only one way for him to get out, and it is not a pleasant way. +But in his nightmares he has often rehearsed it, and he has always made +sure that it could be done before he went to sea. There must always be +a way out for one man at least, if not for more. '_L'état, c'est moi!_' + +"He beckons to the little Bavarian. 'I have all the diamonds in my +pocket,' he says. 'The time is come for you to help me, Otto.' + +"Now, Roy, you know what the conning tower of a submarine is like +inside? It is like a round chimney, with a lid at the top to keep out +the water when you are submerged. You can climb up into this conning +tower and steer the ship from it if you wish. There is also another lid +at the bottom of the conning tower, which you can close as well. Then if +you wish you can flood your chimney with water. + +"Now, if a submarine cannot rise to the surface, it is possible for a +man to climb into this conning tower. Another man then closes the lid +below and floods the tower very slowly. When the water reaches the head +of the man in the tower there is just enough pressure for him to push +open the lid at the top and shoot up to the surface. The lid at the top +can then be closed from the interior of the submarine. The lower lid can +be opened slowly, and the water from the tower pours out into the hull. +Then, perhaps, another man can climb up into the tower, and the process +can be repeated. There is room for only one man at a time. + +"The captain tells the little Bavarian that he is going to do this. +'But, my captain, it is very dangerous. You may be drowned. It is not +certain that you can open it. The pressure may be too great above.' + +"'It is for the Fatherland, Otto,' says the captain; and the little +Bavarian salutes, standing at attention, just like a pretty little wax +doll. + +"'When the men wake, you will be able to follow by the same road,' says +the captain, and he climbs up into the conning tower. + +"The lower lid is closed. The water begins to creep up round the +captain's knees in the darkness. He is horribly frightened. He has a +crowbar in his hand to help him to open the upper lid quickly, but he +still thinks perhaps it will not open. When the water has reached his +waist he begins to push at the upper lid, but it cannot move yet. The +weight of the whole sea above is pressing down. He knows it cannot move +but he cannot help pushing at it, till the sweat breaks out on him, +though the water is like ice. It is worse than he expected, worse than +any of his nightmares. The water reaches to his neck. He struggles with +all his strength, and still the lid will not move. A prayer comes to his +lips. The cold water creeps--creeps over his chin. There is only three +inches now between his face and the lid. He holds his head back to keep +his nostrils above the water, fighting, fighting always to open the lid. +Then the water covers his face. The conning tower is full. + +"He holds his breath, gives one last push, and feels the lid opening, +opening softly, like the big steel door of a safe in a bank. His crowbar +is wedged under the lid, between the hinges, just as he wished. In four +seconds he is shooting up, up to the surface, with his chest bursting, +like a diver that has seen a shark. + +"For a minute he floats there in the darkness, under the stars. +Then--perhaps the struggle has been greater even than he knew--he +faints. It is fortunate that his life-belt is a good one, for when he +recovers he has floated perhaps a long time. He is very cold. He takes a +drink of rum from his flask and gets his bearings. He is two miles from +the coast. Yes, but he is a clever man. There is one of those little +islands, covered with pine trees, just a hundred and fifty yards away. +There is also a wooden house on the island; and a landing stage with a +dinghy hauled up on the shore. + +"The owner of the boat is careful. He has taken his oars to bed with +him. But the captain is a clever man. It is a beautiful night. He has +plenty of time, and he can paddle with one of the loose boards in the +bottom of the dinghy." + +"But listen! What became of the little Bavarian?" said Mimika. + +"Well, I was not there to see," said Captain Vandermeer, lighting a +cigar, "but when the men woke they must all have tried to get out by the +same way." + +"And they couldn't?" asked Roy. He was watching Vandermeer with a very +curious expression--almost as if he were examining an eyewitness. + +"The captain was an expert engineer--ah, a magnificent engineer!--as I +told you, Roy, and there was a leetle crowbar wedged under what we have +been calling the lid of the conning tower." + +"Good God, what an idea! You mean they couldn't close the upper lid +again?" + +"They might think they had closed it." Vandermeer gave a deep guttural +chuckle. "Then they would open the lower lid, heh?" + +"And then?" + +"Why, then the sea would come running into the hull, and they would be +drowned." + +"Oh, but not the poor little Bavarian!" said Mimika. + +"_L'état, c'est moi_," said Vandermeer with a smile. + +Roy was looking at him still with the same pensive expression as of a +youthful Buddha. + +"I suppose he had no difficulty in getting rid of the diamonds," he +said. + +"Probably not," said Vandermeer. "Perhaps he would keep a few as a +reserve--a kind of Landsturm. But he would buy Liberty Bonds, heh?" + +"And you mean to say that a man like that is going about in the United +States now?" said Mimika. + +Vandermeer chuckled again. + +"Who knows?" he said. "Perhaps he has come to Southern California. +Perhaps he has bought a nice little ranch--a fruit ranch, just like +this, heh?--where he shall live a happy and healthy life to the age of a +hundred. And now, Mimika, it is getting time for little girls to go to +bed." + +About two o'clock in the morning Mimika was wakened by a guttural +choking cry from her husband. She was so startled that she slipped out +of bed and stood staring at him. The moon was flooding the room almost +like a searchlight, and Captain Vandermeer lay in the full stream of it. +While she watched him he rose slowly to a sitting posture, with his eyes +still shut and his hands clenched above his face. He began muttering to +himself, in a low voice at first, and then so loudly that it echoed +through the house; and the words sounded more like German than Dutch. +Then he began fighting for breath, like a man in a nightmare. He tore +his pyjama jacket open over the great red hairy chest. + +"Otto!" he shouted at the top of his voice. "Otto!" Then with a huge +sigh he sank back on the pillows, whispering "I have opened it." + +There was a tap on the door. Mimika snatched up a dressing gown, the +first garment she could lay her hands on--it happened to be +Vandermeer's--wrapped it round her, glided across the room and opened +the door. Her brother stood there, also in a dressing gown and +bare-footed. Their eyes met without a word. He took her hand, led her +outside and closed the door quietly behind them. + +"You heard him, Roy?" she whispered. + +"Come downstairs," he said. "I want to ask you some questions about +this." + +They went down to the den at the back of the house, and stood there +looking at each other's faces. + +"He told us a tale to-night," said Roy at last. + +"Yes," said Mimika faintly. + +"Do you know what he was calling out in his nightmare?" + +"It sounded like German," she said. + +"Yes, it was German; and it gave me a good deal more local color than I +expected. That was a true story all right, Mimika." + +"You mean that he--" + +"Yes." + +"Oh, but, Roy!" + +"That's his dressing gown you're wearing, isn't it?" + +"Yes, I picked it up in a hurry." + +"There's been too much hurry about everything, I'm afraid. Why the devil +did I go to Europe! Here, Mimika, take off that thing and put mine on. +I don't like to see you in it. It doesn't suit you, little sister." + +She obeyed him, with a small white frightened face; but it was not the +white of powder now. Roy thrust his hand into the pocket of Vandermeer's +dressing gown. Something jingled. He pulled out a bunch of keys. + +"Vandermeer told me I was good at following up a clue. I'm going to +follow one now, Mimika," he said. "This is the key of the safe." + +He opened the safe, looked hastily at the bundles of papers and then +pulled out the chamois leather bag. "Look here, Mimika!" he said and +poured a glittering river of diamonds, several hundred of them, on to +the table. The moonlight played over them with an uncanny brilliance. + +"That's his Landsturm," said Roy; "and that settles it." + +He took Mimika's hand, and she made no protest as he withdrew the +wedding ring from her finger and added it to the glittering heap on the +table. + +There was a heavy footstep in the room above. Vandermeer was awake and +moving about upstairs. The boards creaked over their heads, then they +heard his bedroom door open, and the heavy footsteps began to descend +the stairs. + +Mimika shrank behind her brother and both stood motionless, waiting. +They could hear the heavy breathing of Vandermeer, the breathing of a +man roused from a dyspeptic sleep. He came down with an intolerable +precision, making the twelve steps of that short descent seem almost +interminable. At every step Mimika felt the edges of her heart freezing. +At last that ugly rhythm reached the foot of the stairs; and with three +more shuffling steps, as of a gigantic ape, the hairy bulk of Vandermeer +stood in the doorway, facing them across the glittering mound of gems. +The sharp searchlight of the moon made his face corpselike, showing up +the puffy blue pouches under his eyes and picking out the coarse red +hairs of his bushy beard like strands of copper wire. His eyes +protruded, his mouth opened twice without any sound but the soft +smacking of his tongue as he tried to moisten his lips. + +"What are you doing here?" he said at last. + +"Looking at your Landsturm," said Roy with all the deadly calm of his +nation. + +Vandermeer swayed a little on his feet, like a drunken man. Then he +moved forward to the table and blinked at the diamonds and the gold ring +crowning them. + +"I don't understand," he said at last. + +"You'd better get dressed, Mimika," said Roy. "Our train goes at a +quarter after four." He led her to the door, watched her pathetic little +figure mounting the stairs and turned to Vandermeer again. + +Mimika never knew what passed between the two men. When she came out of +her room, ten minutes later, Roy was waiting, fully dressed, at the foot +of the stairs, with his suit case in his hand. She heard the heavy +breathing of Vandermeer in his den; and out of the corner of her eye as +they passed the door she saw that glowing mass on the table, as if a +fragment of the moon had been dropped there. + +They walked down the long avenue of palms in silence. In the +waiting-room at the station neither of them spoke till they heard the +long hoot of the approaching train, and the clangor of the bell on the +transcontinental locomotive. + +Six months later Mimika and her mother were sitting up for Roy, in their +fourth-floor flat near the offices of the Copley-Willard Publishing +Company, in Philadelphia. + +"I wish he didn't have to keep these late hours," said her mother. "I +thought that everything was turning out for the best when you were +married to Julius. I have never been able to understand why you got your +divorce so quickly. It was all kept so quiet, and you and Roy are so +mysterious about it. You've never even told me the real grounds, I'm +sure." + +"Yes, I did. It was desertion," said Mimika grimly. + +"Does nobody know what became of him? It seems so strange that he should +have gone away and left all the furniture in that house. He had some +lovely things too. I think you might at least have claimed the +furniture." + +"Please, mother, don't talk about that or we shall be making the same +mistake again. I expect he's shaved his beard by now." + +"Mimika, child, what do you mean? Are you crazy?" + +"I think we were both crazy, mother, a year ago." + +"Well, I thought it was all for your happiness, my pet," said her +mother, dabbing her eyes with her handkerchief. "I'm afraid it will be +a long time before you can marry this other young man, that Roy likes so +much. He isn't earning half so good a salary as Roy." + +"I don't know that I'm going to marry any one, mother. But listen! I +feel like marrying the first good American that comes to me with a piece +of the original _Mayflower_ in his buttonhole." + +And, this time, her mother almost listened. + + + + +IV + +THE MAN FROM BUFFALO + + +The patrol boats had been buffeting their way all night against wind and +weather, and before daybreak the long line had lost its order. It was +broken up now into little wandering loops and sections, busily comparing +notes by Morse flashes and wireless. Last evening the _Morning Glory_, a +converted yacht of American ownership, had been working with forty +British trawlers; and her owner, Matthew Hudson, who had obtained +permission to go out with her on this trip, had watched with admiration +the way in which they strung themselves over twenty miles of confused +sea, keeping their exact distances till nightfall. This morning, as he +lurched in gleaming oilskins up and down the monkey house--irreverent +name for his canvas-screened bridge--he could see only three of his +companions--the _Dusty Miller_, the _Christmas Day_ and the _Betsey +Barton_. + +They were all having a lively time. They swooped like herring gulls into +the broad troughs of the swell, where the black water looked like liquid +marble with white veins of foam in it. Morning-colored rainbows dripped +from their bows as they rose again through the green sunlit crests. But +the _Morning Glory_ was the brightest and the liveliest of them all. The +seas had been washing her decks all night. Little pools of color shone +in the wet, crumpled oilskins of the crew, and the tarpaulin that +covered the gun in her bow gleamed like a cloak dropped there by the +Angel of the Dawn. + + _When like the morning mist in early day + Rose from the foam the daughter of the sea----_ + +Matthew Hudson quoted to himself. He was full of poetry this morning +while he waited for his breakfast; and the radiant aspect of the weapon +in the bow reminded him of something else--if the smell of the frying +bacon would not blow his way and distract his mind--something about +"celestial armories." Was it Tennyson or Milton who had written it? +There was a passage about guns in "Paradise Lost." He must look it up. + +Like many Americans, Matthew Hudson was quicker to perceive the true +romance of the Old Country than many of its own inhabitants. He had been +particularly interested in the names of the British trawlers. "It's like +seeing Shakespeare's Sonnets or Percy's Reliques of Ancient English +Poetry going out to fight," he had written to his son, who had just left +Princeton to join the Mosquito Fleet; and the youngster had replied with +a sonnet of his own. + +Matthew Hudson had carried it about with him and read it to English +statesmen, greatly to their embarrassment--most of them looked as if +they were receiving a proposal of marriage--and he had found a huge +secret joy in their embarrassment, which, as he said, "tickled him to +death." But he murmured the verses to himself now, with paternal pride, +thinking that the boy had really gone to the heart of the matter: + + _Out of Old England's inmost heart they go, + A little fleet of ships, whose every name-- + Daffodil, Sea Lark, Rose, and Surf, and Snow-- + Burns in this blackness like an altar flame._ + + _Out of her past they sail, three thousand strong-- + The people's fleet, that never knew its worth; + And every name is a broken phrase of song + To some remembered loveliness on earth._ + + _There's Barbara Cowie, Comely Bank and May, + Christened at home, in worlds of dawn and dew. + There's Ruth, and Kindly Light, and Robin Gray, + With Mizpah. May that simple prayer come true!_ + + _Out of Old England's inmost heart they sail, + A fleet of memories that can never fail._ + +At this moment the _Morning Glory_ ran into a bank of white mist, which +left him nothing to see from the bridge. The engines were slowed down +and he decided that it was time for breakfast. + +The cabin where he breakfasted with the skipper was very little changed, +except that it seemed by contrast a little more palatial than in peace +time. There had been many changes on the exterior of the ship. Her white +and gold had been washed over with service gray, and many beautiful +fittings had been removed to make way for grimmer work. But within there +were still some corners of the yacht that shone like gems in a setting +of lead. + +The _Morning Glory_ had been a very beautiful boat. She had been built +for summer cruising among the pine-clad islands off the coast of Maine, +or to carry her master down to the palms of his own little island off +the coast of Florida, where he basked for a month or so among the +ripening oranges, the semitropical blossoms and the cardinal birds, +while Buffalo cleared the worst of the snow from her streets. For +Matthew Hudson was a man of many millions, which he had made in almost +the only country where millions can be made honestly and directly out of +its enormous natural resources. + +His own method had been a very simple one, though it required great +organizing ability and a keen eye and brain at the outset. All he had +done was to harness a river at the right place and make it drive a +light-and-power plant. But he had done it on a scale that enabled him, +from this one central station, to drive all the electric trolleys and +light all the lamps in more than a hundred cities. He could supply all +the light and all the power they wanted to cities a hundred miles away +from his plant, and he talked of sending it three hundred miles farther. + +Now that the system was established, it worked as easily as the river +flowed; and his power house was a compact little miracle of efficiency. +All that the casual visitor could see was a long, quiet room, in which +it seemed that a dozen clocks were slumbrously ticking. These were the +indicators, from the dials of which the amount of power distributed over +a district as big as England could be read by the two leisurely men on +duty. In the meantime, night and day, the river poured power of another +kind into the treasury of Matthew Hudson. + +But his life was as unlike that of the millionaires of fiction as could +be imagined. It reminded one of the room with the slumbrous clocks. + +He was, indeed, as his own men described it, preeminently the "man +behind the gun." When the _Morning Glory_ had been accepted by the naval +authorities he had obtained permission to equip her for her own work in +European waters at his own cost, and to make certain experiments in the +equipment. + +The Admiralty had not looked with favor on some of his ideas, which were +by no means suitable for general use in the patrol fleet. But Matthew +Hudson had too many weapons at work against Germany for them to deny +him a sentimental pleasure in his own yacht. He seemed to have some +particular purpose of his own in carrying out his ideas; and so it came +about that the _Morning Glory_ was regarded among her companions as a +mystery-ship. + +The two men breakfasted in silence. They were both drowsy, for there had +been a U-boat alarm during the night, which had kept them very much +awake; but Hudson was roused from his reverie over the second rasher by +a loud report, followed by a confused shouting above and the stoppage of +the engines. + +"That's not a submarine!" said the skipper. "What the devil is it?" And +the two men rushed on deck. + +The mist had lifted a little; and, looming out of it, a few hundred +yards away, there was something that looked, at first glance, like a +great gray reef. For a fraction of a moment Hudson thought they had run +into Heligoland in the mist. At the second glance he knew that the gray, +mist-wreathed monster before him was an armored ship, and the skipper +enlightened him further by saying, in a matter-of-fact voice: + +"That settles it--enemy cruiser! We're stopped, broadside on. They've +got a couple of guns trained on us and they're sending a boat. What's +the next move?" + +Matthew Hudson's face was a curious study at this moment. It suggested a +leopard endowed with a sense of humor. His mouth twitched at the corners +and his amazingly clear eyes were lit with an almost boyish jubilation. +It was a somewhat fierce jubilation; but it undoubtedly twinkled with +the humor of the New World. Then he asked the skipper a mysterious +question: + +"Is it impossible?" + +"Impossible! We're in the wrong position; and if we try to get right +they'll blow us to bits. Besides, they'll be aboard in half a minute. +We're drifting a little in the right direction; but it will be too late. +They'll search the ship." + +"How long will it take us to drift into the right position?" + +"If we go on like this, about four minutes. But it will be all over by +then." + +"Look here, Davis; I'll try and detain them on deck. You know Americans +have a reputation for oratory. You'd better go through my room. +And--look here--I'll be the skipper for the time being. I'm afraid +they'll want to take Matthew Hudson prisoner; so I'll be the kind of +American they'll recognize--Commander Jefferson B. Thrash, out of the +best British fiction. You don't happen to have a lasso in your pocket, +do you? I lent mine to ex-President Eliot of Harvard, and he hasn't +returned it. Tell the men there. That's right! I don't want to be +playing the fool in Ruhleben for the next three years." + +A few moments later, a step at a time, Davis disappeared into Hudson's +cabin, which lay in the fore part of the ship. Two other men prepared to +slip after him by lounging casually in the companionway, while the men +in front moved a little closer to screen them. + +They seized their chance as the German boat stopped, twenty yards away +from the _Morning Glory_, and the officer in command announced through a +megaphone, in very good English, that he was in a great hurry. They were +friends, he said; and there was no need for alarm, so long as the +_Morning Glory_ carried out all instructions. All they wanted was the +confidential chart of the British mine fields, which the _Morning +Glory_, of course, possessed, and all other confidential papers of a +similar kind. If the _Morning Glory_ did not carry out his instructions +in every detail the guns of the cruiser would sink her. He was now +coming aboard to secure the papers. + +"I guess that's all right, captain!" bawled Matthew Hudson in an +entirely new voice and the accent that Europe accepts as American, with +about as much reason as America would have for accepting the Lancashire, +Yorkshire and Glasgow dialects, all rolled into one, as English. + +The quiet member of the Century Club had disappeared, and the golden, +remote Wild Westerner, almost unknown in America itself, had risen. In +half a minute more the German officer and half a dozen armed sailors +were standing on the deck of the _Morning Glory_. + +"So you see England does not completely rule the waves," was the opening +remark of the officer, who had not yet received the full benefit of +Hudson's adopted accent. + +"Been finding it stormy in the canal, cap?" drawled Hudson. "Don't blame +it on me, anyway. I'm a good Amurrican--Jefferson B. Thrash, of +Buffalo." + +"Is this an American ship? I much regret to find an American ship +fighting her best friends." + +"Well, cap, I confess I haven't much use for the British, myself; not +since their press talked about my picture-postcard smile--an +ill-considered phrase, by which they unconsciously meant that, among the +effete aristocracies of Europe, they were not used to seeing good teeth. +They lack humor, sir. To regard good teeth as abnormal shows a lack of +humor on the part of the British press. + +"However, as George Bernard Shaw says, President Wilson has put it up to +the German people in this way: 'Become a republic and we'll let up on +you. Go on Kaisering and we'll smash you!'" + +"I am in a great hurry," the German officer replied. "I must ask you at +once for your confidential papers." + +"That's all right, admiral!" said Hudson. "I've sent a man down below to +get them out of my steamer trunk. They'll be here right away." + +He looked reflectively at the guns of the destroyer and added +ingratiatingly: + +"Of course I disapprove of George Bernard Shaw's vulgarizing the +language of diplomacy in that way. I would rather interpret President +Wilson's message as saying to the German people, in courteous phrase: +'Emerge from twelfth-century despotism into twentieth-century democracy. +Send the imperial liar who misrules you to join Nick Romanoff on his +ranch. Give the furniture-stealing Crown Prince a long term in any Sing +Sing you like to choose; and we will again buy dyestuffs and toys of +you, and sell you our beans and bacon.'" + +"Are you aware that you endanger your life by this language? Do you see +those guns?" + +Matthew Hudson looked at the guns and spat over the side of the ship +meditatively. Then he looked the questioner squarely in the eye. He had +taken the measure of his man and he only needed three and a half minutes +more. Any question that could be raised was clear gain; and the cruiser +would probably not use her guns while members of the German crew were +aboard the _Morning Glory_. + +"Yes," he said; "and you'd better not use your guns till you get those +confidential papers, for there's not a chance that you'll find them +without my help. They're worth having, and I've no objection to handing +them over, though I don't lay much store by your promise not to shoot +afterward. When you've got them, how am I to know that you won't shoot, +anyway, and--what's the latest language of your diplomacy?--'leave no +traces'? By cripes, there's no mushy sentiment about your officials! No, +sir! Leave no traces!--and they said it about neutrals, remember! Leave +no traces! That's virile! That's red-blooded stuff! The effete +humanitarianism of our democracy, sir, would call that murder. In +England they would call it bloody murder! I don't agree. I think that +war is war. Of course it's awkward for non-combatants--" + +"With regard to the crews, it has been announced in Germany that they +would be saved and kept prisoners in the submarines. Your man is taking +too long to find your papers. I can allow you only one minute more." + +"He'll be right back, captain, with all the confidential goods you want. +But, say, between one sailorman and another, that story about planning +to hide crews and passengers aboard the submarines must have been meant +for our Middle West. Last time I was on a submarine I had to sleep +behind the cookstove; and then the commander had to sit up all night. +It's the right stuff for the prairies, though. Ever hear of our senator, +cap, who wanted to know why the women and kids on the _Lusitania_ +weren't put into the water-tight compartments? They cussed the Cunard +Company from hell to breakfast out Kalamazoo way for that scandalous +oversight. Wonder what's keeping that son of a gun!" + +At this moment the son of a gun announced from the companionway that he +was unable to find the confidential papers. + +"I can wait no longer. The ship must be searched by my own men," said +the German peremptorily. "Are the papers in your cabin?" + +"Sure! But I can save you a lot of time, captain. I'll lead you right to +them." + +The _Morning Glory_ had drifted round till her nose was now pointing +towards that of the cruiser. In a minute or two more she would be +pointing directly amidships if the drifting continued. Matthew Hudson +took a long, affectionate look at the guns and the guns' crews that kept +watch over his behavior from the gray monster ahead; then he led the way +below to his cabin. + +The Hamburg-Amerika Line had many a less imposing room than this, the +only part of the yacht that retained all its old aspect. It ran the +whole breadth of the ship and had two portholes on each side. There was +a brass bedstead, with a telephone beside it and an electric reading +lamp. There were half a dozen other electric bulbs overhead. + +"I don't sleep very well, cap; so I decided to keep this bit of sinful +splendor for my own use. Bathroom, you see." He opened a tiny door near +the bed and showed the compact room, with its white bath-tub let into +the floor. This was too much for the German officer. + +"Where do you keep your confidential papers?" he bellowed, leveling a +revolver at the maddeningly complacent American, while three of his men +closed up behind him, ready for action. + +"Better not shoot, admiral, for you won't find them without my help; and +I'm going to hand you the goods in half a minute. I can't quite remember +where I put them. There's some confidential stuff in here, I think." + +He unlocked a drawer and pulled out a bundle of papers. A small white +object dropped from the bundle and lay on the floor between him and the +German. It was a baby's shoe. Hudson nodded at it as he looked through +the papers. + +"Got any kids, cap? That came from Queenstown. Ah, this looks like your +chart. No. Came from Queenstown, I say. It was a little girl belonging +to a friend of mine in the City of Brotherly Love. Lots of 'em on the +_Lusitania_, you know. We collect souvenirs in America, and I asked him +for this as a keepsake when I came on this gunning expedition. He kept +the other for himself. She was a pretty little thing. Only six! Used to +call me Uncle Jack." + +He stole a look through the porthole and drew another document from the +drawer. + +"Ah! Now I remember. Here's the stuff you want--some of it, anyhow. Tied +round with yaller ribbon. Take it, cap. I wish I hadn't seen that little +shoe; but you've got the drop on me this time and I suppose it's my duty +to save the lives of the men. There's a good bit of information there +about the mine fields." + +The German hurriedly examined the papers, while Hudson hummed to himself +as he stared through the porthole: + + _Around her little neck she wore a yaller ribbon; + She wore it in December and the merry month of May. + And when, oh, when they asked her why in hell she wore it, + She said she loved a sailor, a sailor, a sailor; + But he was wrecked and drownded in Mississippi Bay._ + +"This is very good," said the German, "and very useful. I think we shall +not require more of you; though it will be necessary to destroy your +ship and make you prisoners." + +"Why, certainly! I didn't suppose you could keep your contract in +war-time. You can't leave traces of a deal like this. But while you're +about it, you may as well have all the confidential stuff." + +"Good! Good!" said the German, strutting toward him. "So there's more to +come! I am glad you see the advantage in being too proud to fight, my +friend, eh?" + +Matthew Hudson's eye twinkled. His slouch began to slip away from him +like a loose coat, leaving once more the quiet upstanding member of the +Century Club. + +"Of course," he said, "you would make that mistake. The British made it. +They forgot that it was said about Mexico, at a time when you wanted us +to be kept busy down there. There are times, also, when for diplomatic +reasons it is necessary to talk." He had resumed his natural voice. +"When you are getting ready, for instance. This is where we keep the +real stuff." + +He crossed the cabin; and the German watched him closely with a puzzled +expression, covering him with his revolver. + +"No treachery!" he said. "What does this mean? You are not the man you +were pretending to be." + +Hudson laughed, and tossed him a little scrap of bunting, which he had +been holding crumpled up in his hand. + +"Ever seen that flag before?" he said. + +The German stared at it, his eyes growing round with amazement. + +"The Kaiser's flag has flown on this yacht at the Kiel Regatta many a +time," said Hudson. "His Majesty used to come and lunch with me. I don't +advise you to shoot me. He might remember some of my cigars. He gave me +that flag himself. Of course I shan't use it again--not till it's been +sprinkled with holy water. But I thought you might like a brief +exhibition of shirt-sleeve navalism, as I suppose you'd call it. + +"Most Europeans like us to live up to their ideas of us. The British do. +Ever hear of Senator Martin? Whenever he's in London and goes to see his +friends in the House of Commons, he wears a sombrero and a red cowboy +shirt. He says they expect it and like it. He wouldn't care to do it in +New York. As a fact, you know, we invented the electric telegraph and +the submarine, and a lot of little things that you fellows have been +stealing from us. Do you hear that?" + +There were two sharp clicks in the bows, followed by a faint sound like +the whirring of an electric fan under water; and Hudson pulled open the +door that led into the fore part of the ship. + +"_Gott! Gott!_" cried the German, and his men echoed it inarticulately; +for there, in the semidarkness of the bows of the _Morning Glory_, they +saw the dim shapes of seamen crouching beside two gleaming torpedo +tubes. The torpedoes had just been discharged. + +"You're too late to save your ship," said Matthew Hudson. "If you want +to save your own skins you'd better keep still and listen for a moment." + +Then came a concussion that rocked the _Morning Glory_ like a child's +cradle and sent her German visitors lurching and sprawling round the +brass bedstead. When they recovered they found a dozen revolvers +gleaming in front of their noses. + +"Before we say anything more about this," said Hudson, "let's go on deck +and look. + +"Do you mind giving me that little shoe at your feet there?" + +The officer turned a shade whiter than the shoe. + +Then, stooping, he picked it up and handed it to Hudson, who thrust it +into his breast pocket. + +"Thank you!" he said. "Now if you will all leave your guns on this bed +we'll go on deck and see the traces." + +When they reached the deck there was something that looked like an +enormous drowning cockroach trying to crawl out of the water four +hundred yards away. Round it there seemed to be a mass of drowning +flies. + +"It's not a pleasant sight, is it?" said Hudson. "But it's good to know +they were all fighting men, ready to kill or be killed. No women and +children among them! The _Lusitania_ must have looked much worse." + +"My brother is on board! Are you not trying to save them?" gasped the +officer. + +Hudson took out the little shoe again and looked at it. Then he turned +to the German boat's crew, where they huddled, sick with fear, +amidships. + +"Take your boat and pick up as many as you can," he said. + +"It is not safe--not till she sinks," a guttural voice replied. + +Almost on the word the cruiser went down with a rush. The sleek waters +and the white mists closed above her, while the _Morning Glory_ rocked +again like a child's cradle. + +"That is true," said Matthew Hudson to the shivering figure beside him. +"And we've got as many as we can handle on the ship. If we took more of +you aboard, according to the laws laid down in your text-books, you'd +cut our throats and call us idiotic Yankees for trusting you. + +"Please don't weep. We sent out a call a minute ago for the _Betsey +Barton_ and the _Dusty Miller_ and the _Christmas Day_. I'm not an +effete humanitarian myself; but the men on these trawlers aren't bad +sorts. I hope they'll pick up your brother." + + + + +V + +THE _LUSITANIA_ WAITS + + +On a stormy winter's night three skippers--averaging three score years +and five--were discussing the news, around a roaring fire, in the parlor +of the White Horse Inn. Five years ago they had retired, each on a snug +nest-egg. They were looking forward to a mellow old age in port and a +long succession of evenings at the White Horse, where they gathered to +debate the politics of their district. The war had given them new +topics; but Captain John Kendrick--who had become a parish councilor and +sometimes carried bulky blue documents in his breast-pocket, displaying +the edges with careful pride--still kept the local pot a-boiling. He was +mainly successful on Saturday nights, when the _Gazette_, their weekly +newspaper, appeared. It was edited by a Scot named Macpherson, who had +learned his job on the _Arbroath Free Press_. + +"Macpherson will never be on the council now," said Captain Kendrick. +"There's a rumor that he's a freethinker. He says that Christianity has +been proved a failure by the war." + +"Well, these chaps of ours now," said Captain Davidson, "out at sea on a +night like this, trying to kill Germans. It's necessary, I know, because +the Germans would kill our own folks if we gave 'em a chance. But don't +it prove that there's no use for Christianity? In modern civilization, I +mean." + +"Macpherson's no freethinker," said Captain Morgan, who was a friend of +the editor, and inclined on the strength of it to occupy the +intellectual chair at the White Horse. "Macpherson says we'll have to +try again after the war, or it will be blood and iron all round." + +"He's upset by the war," said Captain Davidson, "and he's taken to +writing poytry in his paper. He'd best be careful or he'll lose his +circulation." + +"Ah!" said Kendrick. "That's what 'ull finish him for the council. What +we want is practical men. Poytry would destroy any man's reputation. +There was a great deal of talk caused by his last one, about our +trawler chaps. 'Fishers of Men,' he called it; and I'm not sure that it +wouldn't be considered blasphemious by a good many." + +Captain Morgan shook his head. "Every Sunday evening," he said, "my +missus asks me to read her Macpherson's pome in the _Gazette_, and I've +come to enjoy them myself. Now, what does he say in 'Fishers of Men'?" + +"Read it," said Kendrick, picking the _Gazette_ from the litter of +newspapers on the table and handing it to Morgan. "If you know how to +read poytry, read it aloud, the way you do to your missus. I can't make +head or tail of poytry myself; but it looks blasphemious to me." + +Captain Morgan wiped his big spectacles while the other two settled +themselves to listen critically. Then he began in his best Sunday voice, +very slowly, but by no means unimpressively: + + _Long, long ago He said, + He who could wake the dead, + And walk upon the sea-- + "Come, follow Me._ + + "_Leave your brown nets and bring + Only your hearts to sing, + Only your souls to pray, + Rise, come away._ + + "_Shake out your spirit-sails, + And brave those wilder gales, + And I will make you then + Fishers of men._" + + _Was this, then, what He meant? + Was this His high intent, + After two thousand years + Of blood and tears?_ + + _God help us, if we fight + For right and not for might. + God help us if we seek + To shield the weak._ + + _Then, though His heaven be far + From this blind welter of war, + He'll bless us on the sea + From Calvary._ + +"It seems to rhyme all right," said Kendrick. "It's not so bad for +Macpherson." + +"Have you heard," said Davidson reflectively, "they're wanting more +trawler skippers down at the base?" + +"I've been fifty years, man and boy, at sea," said Captain Morgan; +"that's half a century, mind you." + +"Ah, it's hard on the women, too," said Davidson. "We're never sure what +boats have been lost till we see the women crying. I don't know how they +get the men to do it." + +Captain John Kendrick stabbed viciously with his forefinger at a picture +in an illustrated paper. + +"Here's a wicked thing now," he said. "Here's a medal they've struck in +Germany to commemorate the sinking of the _Lusitania_. Here's a +photograph of both sides of it. On one side, you see the great ship +sinking, loaded up with munitions which wasn't there; but not a sign of +the women and children that was there. On the other side you see the +passengers taking their tickets from Death in the New York booking +office. Now that's a fearful thing. I can understand 'em making a +mistake, but I can't understand 'em wanting to strike a medal for it." + +"Not much mistake about the _Lusitania_," growled Captain Davidson. + +"No, indeed. That was only my argyment," replied the councilor. "They're +a treacherous lot. It was a fearful thing to do a deed like that. My +son's in the Cunard; and, man alive, he tells me it's like sinking a +big London hotel. There was ladies in evening dress, and dancing in the +big saloons every night; and lifts to take you from one deck to another; +and shops with plate-glass windows, and smoking-rooms; and glass around +the promenade deck, so that the little children could play there in bad +weather, and the ladies lay in their deck-chairs and sun themselves like +peaches. There wasn't a soldier aboard, and some of the women was +bringing their babies to see their Canadian daddies in England for the +first time. Why, man, it was like sinking a nursing home!" + +"Do you suppose, Captain Kendrick, that they ever caught that +submarine?" asked Captain Morgan. They were old friends, but always +punctilious about their titles. + +"Ah, now I'll tell you something! Hear that?" + +The three old men listened. Through the gusts of wind that battered the +White Horse they heard the sound of heavy floundering footsteps passing +down the cobbled street, and a hoarse broken voice bellowing, with +uncanny abandonment, a fragment of a hymn: + + "_While shepherds watched their flocks by night, + All seated on the ground._" + +"That's poor old Jim Hunt," said Captain Morgan. He rose and drew the +thick red curtains from the window to peer out into the blackness. + +"Turn the lamp down," said the councilor, "or we'll be arrested under +the anti-aircraft laws." + +Davidson turned the lamp down and they all looked out of the window. +They saw the figure of a man, black against the glimmering water of the +harbor below. He walked with a curious floundering gait that might be +mistaken for the effects of drink. He waved his arms over his head like +a windmill and bellowed his hymn as he went, though the words were now +indistinguishable from the tumult of wind and sea. + +Captain Morgan drew the curtains, and the three sat down again by the +fire without turning up the lamp. The firelight played on the furrowed +and bronzed old faces and revealed them as worthy models for a +Rembrandt. + +"Poor old Jimmy Hunt!" said Captain Kendrick. "You never know how +craziness is going to take people. Jimmy was a terror for women and the +drink, till he was taken off the _Albatross_ by that German submarine. +They cracked him over the head with an iron bolt, down at the bottom of +the sea, because he wouldn't answer no questions. He hasn't touched a +drop since. All he does is to walk about in bad weather, singing hymns +against the wind. But there's more in it than that." + +Captain Kendrick lighted his pipe thoughtfully. The wind rattled the +windows. Outside, the sign-board creaked and whined as it swung. + +"A man like Jim Hunt doesn't go crazy," he continued, "through spending +a night in a 'U' boat, and then floating about for a bit. Jimmy won't +talk about it now; won't do nothing but sing that blasted hymn; but this +is what he said to me when they first brought him ashore. They said he +was raving mad, on account of his experiences. But that don't explain +what his experiences _were_. Follow me? And this is what he said. '_I +been down_,' he says, half singing like. '_I been down, down, in the +bloody submarine that sank the Lusitania. And what's more_,' he says,'_I +seen 'em!_' + +"'Seen what?' I says, humoring him like, and I gave him a cigarette. We +were sitting close together in his mother's kitchen. 'Ah!' he says, +calming down a little, and speaking right into my ear, as if it was a +secret. 'It was Christmas Eve the time they took me down. We could hear +'em singing carols on shore; and the captain didn't like it, so he blew +a whistle, and the Germans jumped to close the hatchways; and we went +down, down, down, to the bottom of the sea. + +"'I saw the whole ship,' he says; and he described it to me, so that I +knew he wasn't raving then. 'There was only just room to stand upright,' +he says, 'and overhead there was a track for the torpedo carrier. The +crew slept in hammocks and berths along the wall; but there wasn't room +for more than half to sleep at the same time. They took me through a +little foot-hole, with an air-tight door, into a cabin. + +"'The captain seemed kind of excited and showed me the medal he got for +sinking the _Lusitania_; and I asked him if the Kaiser gave it to him +for a Christmas present. That was when he and another officer seemed to +go mad; and the officer gave me a blow on the head with a piece of iron. + +"'They say I'm crazy,' he says, 'but it was the men on the "U" boat that +went crazy. I was lying where I fell, with the blood running down my +face, but I was watching them,' he says, 'and I saw them start and +listen like trapped weasels. At first I thought the trawlers had got 'em +in a net. Then I heard a funny little tapping sound all round the hull +of the submarine, like little soft hands it was, tapping, tapping, +tapping. + +"'The captain went white as a ghost, and shouted out something in +German, like as if he was calling "Who's there?" and the mate clapped +his hand over his mouth, and they both stood staring at one another. + +"'Then there was a sound like a thin little voice, outside the ship, +mark you, and sixty fathom deep, saying, "_Christmas Eve, the Waits, +sir!_" The captain tore the mate's hand away and shouted again, like he +was asking "_Who's there!_" and wild to get an answer, too. Then, very +thin and clear, the little voice came a second time, "_The Waits, sir. +The Lusitania, ladies!_" And at that the captain struck the mate in the +face with his clenched fist. He had the medal in it still between his +fingers, using it like a knuckle-duster. Then he called to the men like +a madman, all in German, but I knew he was telling 'em to rise to the +surface, by the way they were trying to obey him. + +"'The submarine never budged for all that they could do; and while they +were running up and down and squealing out to one another, there was a +kind of low sweet sound all round the hull, like a thousand voices all +singing together in the sea: + + "_Fear not, said he, for mighty dread + Had seized their troubled mind. + Glad tidings of great joy I bring + To you and all mankind._" + +"'Then the tapping began again, but it was much louder now; and it +seemed as if hundreds of drowned hands were feeling the hull and +loosening bolts and pulling at hatchways; and--all at once--a trickle of +water came splashing down into the cabin. The captain dropped his medal. +It rolled up to my hand and I saw there was blood on it. He screamed at +the men, and they pulled out their life-saving apparatus, a kind of +air-tank which they strapped on their backs, with tubes to rubber masks +for clapping over their mouths and noses. I watched 'em doing it, and +managed to do the same. They were too busy to take any notice of me. +Then they pulled a lever and tumbled out through a hole, and I followed +'em blindly. Something grabbed me when I got outside and held me for a +minute. Then I saw 'em, Captain Kendrick, I saw 'em, hundreds and +hundreds of 'em, in a shiny light, and sixty fathom down under the dark +sea--they were all waiting there, men and women and poor little babies +with hair like sunshine.... + +"'And the men were smiling at the Germans in a friendly way, and +unstrapping the air-tanks from their backs, and saying, "Won't you come +and join us? It's Christmas Eve, you know." + +"'Then whatever it was that held me let me go, and I shot up and knew +nothing till I found myself in Jack Simmonds's drifter, and they told me +I was crazy.'" + +Captain Kendrick filled his pipe. A great gust struck the old inn again +and again till all the timbers trembled. The floundering step passed +once more, and the hoarse voice bellowed away in the darkness against +the bellowing sea: + + _A Savior which is Christ the Lord, + And this shall be the sign._ + +Captain Davidson was the first to speak. + +"Poor old Jim Hunt!" he said. "There's not much Christ about any of this +war." + +"I'm not so sure of that neither," said Captain Morgan. "Macpherson said +a striking thing to me the other day. 'Seems to me,' he says, 'there's a +good many nowadays that are touching the iron nails.'" + +He rose and drew the curtains from the window again. + +"The sea's rattling hollow," he said; "there'll be rain before morning." + +"Well, I must be going," said Captain Davidson. "I want to see the naval +secretary down at the base." + +"About what?" + +"Why, I'm not too old for a trawler, am I?" + +"My missus won't like it, but I'll come with you," said Captain Morgan; +and they went through the door together, lowering their heads against +the wind. + +"Hold on! I'm coming, too," said Captain Kendrick; and he followed them, +buttoning up his coat. + + + + +VI + +THE LOG OF THE _EVENING STAR_ + + +We were sitting in the porch of a low white bungalow with masses of +purple bougainvillea embowering its eaves. A ruby-throated humming-bird, +with green wings, flickered around it. The tall palms and the sea were +whispering together. Over the water, the West was beginning to fill with +that Californian sunset which is the most mysterious in the world, for +one is conscious that it is the fringe of what Europeans call the East, +and that, looking westward across the Pacific, our faces are turned +towards the dusky myriads of Asia. All along the Californian coast there +is a tang of incense in the air, as befits that silent orchard of the +gods where dawn and sunset meet and intermingle; and, though it is +probably caused by some gardener, burning the dead leaves of the +eucalyptus trees, one might well believe that one breathed the scent of +the joss-sticks, wafted across the Pacific, from the land of paper +lanterns. + +A Japanese servant, in a white duck suit, marched like a ghostly little +soldier across the lawn. The great hills behind us quietly turned to +amethysts. The lights of Los Angeles ten miles away to the north began +to spring out like stars in that amazing air beloved of the astronomer; +and the evening star itself, over the huge slow breakers crumbling into +lilac-colored foam, looked bright enough to be a companion of the city +lights. + +"I should like to show you the log of the _Evening Star_," said my +visitor, who was none other than Moreton Fitch, president of the +insurance company of San Francisco. "I think it may interest you as +evidence that our business is not without its touches of romance. I +don't mean what you mean," he added cheerfully, as I looked up smiling. +"The _Evening Star_ was a schooner running between San Francisco and +Tahiti and various other places in the South Seas. She was insured in +our company. One April, she was reported overdue. After a search had +been made, she was posted as lost in the maritime exchanges. There was +no clue to what had happened, and we paid the insurance money, +believing that she had foundered with all hands. + +"Two months later, we got word from Tahiti that the _Evening Star_ had +been found drifting about in a dead calm, with all sails set, but not a +soul aboard. Everything was in perfect order, except that the ship's cat +was lying dead in the bows, baked to a bit of sea-weed by the sun. +Otherwise, there wasn't the slightest trace of any trouble. The tables +below were laid for a meal and there was plenty of water aboard." + +"Were any of the boats missing?" + +"No. She carried only three boats and all were there. When she was +discovered, two of the boats were on deck as usual; and the third was +towing astern. None of the men has been heard of from that day to this. +The amazing part of it was not only the absence of anything that would +account for the disappearance of the crew, but the clear evidence that +they had been intending to stay, in the fact that the tables were laid +for a meal, and then abandoned. Besides, where had they gone, and how? +There are no magic carpets, even in the South Seas. + +"The best brains of our Company puzzled over the mystery for a year and +more; but at the end of the time nothing had turned up and we had to +come out by the same door wherein we went. No theory, even, seemed to +fit the case at all; and, in most mysteries, there is room for a hundred +theories. There were twelve persons aboard, and we investigated the +history of them all. There were three American seamen, all of the +domesticated kind, with respectable old mothers in gold-rimmed +spectacles at home. There were five Kanakas of the mildest type, as easy +to handle as an infant school. There was a Japanese cook, who was +something of an artist. He used to spend his spare time in painting +things to palm off on the unsuspecting connoisseur as the work of an +obscure pupil of Hokusai, which I suppose he might have been in a way. I +am told he was scrupulously careful never to tell a direct lie about it. + +"Then there was Harper, the mate, rather an interesting young fellow, +with the wanderlust. He had been pretty well educated. I believe he had +spent a year or two at one of the Californian colleges. Altogether, +about the most harmless kind of a ship's family that you could pick up +anywhere between the Golden Gate and the Baltic. Then there was Captain +Burgess, who was the most domesticated of them all, for he had his wife +with him on this voyage. They had been married only about three months. +She was the widow of the former captain of the _Evening Star_, a fellow +named Dayrell; and she had often been on the ship before. In fact, they +were all old friends of the ship. Except one or two of the Kanakas, all +the men had sailed on the _Evening Star_ for something like two years +under Captain Dayrell. Burgess himself had been his mate. Dayrell had +been dead only about six months; and the only criticism we ever heard +against anybody aboard was made by some of Dayrell's relatives, who +thought the widow might have waited more than three months before +marrying the newly promoted Burgess. They suggested, of course, that +there must have been something between them before Dayrell was out of +the way. But I hardly believed it. In any case, it threw no light on the +mystery." + +"What sort of a man was Burgess?" + +"Big burly fellow with a fat white face and curious little eyes, like +huckleberries in a lump of dough. He was very silent and inclined to be +religious. He used to read Emerson and Carlyle, quite an unusual sort of +sea-captain. There was a _Sartor Resartus_ in the cabin with a lot of +the queerest passages marked in pencil. What can you make of it?" + +"Nothing at all, except that there was a woman aboard. What was she +like?" + +"She was one of our special Californian mixtures, touch of Italian, +touch of Irish, touch of American, but Italian predominated, I think. +She was a good deal younger than Burgess; and one of the clerks in our +office who had seen her described her as a 'peach,' which, as you know, +means a pretty woman, or if you prefer the description of her own lady +friends, 'vurry attractive.'" + +"She had the dusky Italian beauty, black hair and eyes like black +diamonds, but her face was very pale, the kind of pallor that makes you +think of magnolia blossoms at dusk. She was obviously fond of bright +colors, tawny reds and yellows, but they suited her. If I had to give +you my impression of her in a single word, I should say that she looked +like a gipsy. You know the song, 'Down the World with Marna,' don't you? +Well, I could imagine a romantic vagabond singing it about her. By the +by, she had rather a fine voice herself. Used to sing sentimental songs +to Dayrell and his friends in 'Frisco, 'Love's Old Sweet Song' and that +sort of stuff. Apparently, they took it very seriously. Several of them +told me that if she had been trained--well, you know the old +story--every prima donna would have had to retire from business. I fancy +they were all a little in love with her. The curious thing was that +after Dayrell's death she gave up her singing altogether. Now, I think I +have told you all the facts about the ship's company." + +"Didn't you say there was a log you wanted to show me?" + +"There were no ship's papers of any kind, and no log was found on the +derelict; but, a week or two ago, we had a visit from the brother of the +Japanese cook, who made us all feel like fifteen cents before the wisdom +of the East. I have to go over and see him to-morrow afternoon. He is a +fisherman, lives on the coast, not far from here. I'd like you to see +what I call the log of the _Evening Star_. I won't say any more about it +now. It isn't quite worked out yet; but it looks as if it's going to be +interesting. Will you come--to-morrow afternoon? I'll call for you at a +quarter after two. It won't take us long in the automobile. This is +where he lives, see?" + +I switched on the electric light in the porch while Fitch spread out a +road map, and pointed to our destination of the morrow. The Californian +night comes quickly, and the tree-toads that make it musical were +chirruping and purring all around us as we walked through the palms and +the red-tasseled pepper trees to his car. Somewhere among the funereal +clouds and poplarlike spires of the eucalyptus, a mocking-bird began to +whistle one of his many parts, and a delicious whiff of orange blossom +blew on the cool night wind across a ranch of a thousand acres, mostly +in fruit, but with a few trees yet in blossom, on the road to the Sunset +Inn. + +I watched his red rear lamp dwindling down that well-oiled road, and let +the _Evening Star_ go with it until the morrow, for I could make little +of his yarn, except that Fitch was not a man to get excited over +trifles. + + +II + +Promptly at the time appointed on the following afternoon, Fitch called +for me; and a minute later we were gliding through orange groves along +one of those broad smooth roads that amaze the European whose +impressions of California have been obtained from tales of the +forty-niners. The keen scent of the orange blossom yielded to a tang of +new incense, as we turned into the Sunset Boulevard and ran down the +long vista of tall eucalyptus trees that stand out so darkly and +distinctly against the lilac-colored ranges of the Sierra Madre in the +distance, and remind one of the poplar-bordered roads of France. Once we +passed a swarthy cluster of Mexicans under a wayside palm. Big +fragments, gnawed half-moons, of the blood-red black-pipped watermelon +they had been eating, gleamed on the dark oiled surface of the road, as +a splash of the sunset is reflected in a dark river. Then we ran along +the coast for a little way between the palms and the low white-pillared +houses, all crimson poinsettias and marble, that looked as if they were +meant for the gods and goddesses of Greece, but were only the homes of a +few score lotus-eating millionaires. In another minute, we had turned +off the good highway, and were running along a narrow sandy road. On one +side, rising from the road, were great desert hills, covered with +gray-green sage-brush, tinged at the tips with rusty brown; and, on the +other, there was a strip of sandy beach where the big slow breakers +crumbled, and the unmolested pelicans waddled and brooded like goblin +sentries. + +In three minutes more, we sighted a cluster of tiny wooden houses ahead +of us, and pulled up on the outskirts of a Japanese fishing village, +built along the fringe of the beach itself. It was a single miniature +street, nestling under the hill on one side of the narrow road and built +along the sand on the other. Japanese signs stood over quaint little +stores, with here and there a curious tinge of Americanism. RICE CAKES +AND CANDIES were advertised by one black-haired and boyish-looking +gentleman who sat at the door of his hut, playing with three brown +children, one of whom squinted at us gleefully with bright sloe-black +eyes. Every tiny house, even when it stood on the beach, had its own +festoon of flowers. Bare-legged, almond-eyed fishermen sat before them, +mending their nets. Wistaria drooped from the jutting eaves; +and--perhaps only the Japanese could explain the miracle--tall and +well-nourished red geraniums rose, out of the salt sea-sand apparently, +around their doors. A few had foregone their miracles and were content +with window boxes, but all were in blossom. In the center of the +village, on the seaward side, there was a miniature mission house. A +beautifully shaped bell swung over the roof; and there was a miniature +notice-board at the door. The announcements upon it were in Japanese, +but it looked as if East and West had certainly met, and kissed each +other there. Some of the huts had oblong letter boxes of gray tin, +perched on stumps of bamboo fishing poles, in front of their doors. It +is a common device to help the postman in country places where you +sometimes see a letter-box on a broomstick standing half a mile from the +owner's house. But here, they looked curiously Japanese, perhaps because +of the names inscribed upon them, or through some trick of arrangement, +for a Japanese hand no sooner touches a dead staff than it breaks into +cherry blossom. We stopped before one that bore the name of Y. Kato. His +unpainted wooden shack was the most Japanese of all in appearance; for +the yellow placard underneath the window advertising SWEET CAPORAL was +balanced by a single tall pole, planted in the sand a few feet to the +right, and lifting a beautiful little birdhouse high above the roof. + +Moreton Fitch knocked at the door, which was opened at once by a dainty +creature, a piece of animated porcelain four feet high, with a +black-eyed baby on her back; and we were ushered with smiles into a very +bare living-room to be greeted by the polished mahogany countenance of +Kato himself and the shell-spectacled intellectual pallor of Howard +Knight, professor in the University of California. + +"Amazing, amazing, perfectly amazing," said Knight, who was wearing two +elderly tea-roses in his cheeks now from excitement. "I have just +finished it. Sit down and listen." + +"Wait a moment," said Fitch. "I want our friend here to see the original +log of the _Evening Star_." + +"Of course," said Knight, "a human document of the utmost value." Then, +to my surprise, he took me by the arm and led me in front of a kakemono, +which was the only decoration on the walls of the room. + +"This is what Mr. Fitch calls the log of the _Evening Star_," he said. +"It was found among the effects of Mr. Kato's brother on the schooner; +and, fortunately, it was claimed by Mr. Kato himself. Take it to the +light and examine it." + +I took it to the window and looked at it with curiosity, though I did +not quite see its bearing on the mystery of the _Evening Star_. It was a +fine piece of work, one of those weird night-pictures in which the +Japanese are masters, for they know how to give you the single point of +light that tells you of the unseen life around the lamp of the household +or the temple. This was a picture of a little dark house, with jutting +eaves, and a tiny rose light in one window, overlooking the sea. At the +brink of the sea rose a ghostly figure that might only be a drift of +mist, for the curve of the vague body suggested that the off-shore wind +was blowing it out to sea, while the great gleaming eyes were fixed on +the lamp, and the shadowy arms outstretched towards it in hopeless +longing. Sea and ghost and house were suggested in a very few strokes of +the brush. All the rest, the peace and the tragic desire and a thousand +other suggestions, according to the mood of the beholder, were +concentrated into that single pinpoint of warm light in the window. + +"Turn it over," said Fitch. + +I obeyed him, and saw that the whole back of the kakemono, which +measured about four feet by two, was covered with a fine scrawl of +Japanese characters in purple copying-pencil. I had overlooked it at +first, or accepted it, with the eye of ignorance, as a mere piece of +Oriental decoration. + +"That is what we all did," said Fitch. "We all overlooked the simple +fact that Japanese words have a meaning. We didn't trouble about it--you +know how vaguely one's eye travels over a three-foot sign on a Japanese +tea-house--we didn't even think about it till Mr. Kato turned up in our +office a week or two ago. You can't read it. Nor can I. But we got Mr. +Knight here to handle it for us." + +"It turns out to be a message from Harper," said Knight. "Apparently, he +was lying helpless in his berth, and told the Japanese to write it down. +A few sentences here and there are unintelligible, owing to the +refraction of the Oriental mind. Fortunately, it is Harper's own +message. I have made two versions, one a perfectly literal one which +requires a certain amount of re-translation. The other is an attempt to +give as nearly as possible what Harper himself dictated. This is the +version which I had better read to you now. The original has various +repetitions, and shows that Harper's mind occasionally wandered, for he +goes into trivial detail sometimes. He seems to have been possessed, +however, with the idea of getting his account through to the owners; +and, whenever he got an opportunity, he made the Japanese take up his +pencil and write, so that we have a very full account." + +Knight took out a note-book, adjusted his glasses, and began to read, +while the ghostly original fluttered in my hand, as the night-wind blew +from the sea. + +"A terrible thing has happened, and I think it my duty to write this, in +the hope that it may fall into the hands of friends at home. I am not +likely to live another twenty-four hours. The first hint that I had of +anything wrong was on the night of March the fifteenth, when Mrs. +Burgess came up to me on deck, looking very worried, and said, 'Mr. +Harper, I am in great trouble. I want to ask you a question, and I want +you to give me an honest answer.' She looked round nervously, and her +hands were fidgeting with her handkerchief, as if she were frightened to +death. 'Whatever your answer may be,' she said, 'you'll not mention what +I've said to you.' I promised her. She laid her hand on my arm and said +with the most piteous look in her face I have ever seen, 'I have no +other friends to go to, and I want you to tell me. Mr. Harper, is my +husband sane?' + +"I had never doubted the sanity of Burgess till that moment. But there +was something in the dreadfulness of that question, from a woman who had +only been married a few months, that seemed like a door opening into the +bottomless pit. + +"It seemed to explain many things that hadn't occurred to me before. I +asked her what she meant and she told me that last night Burgess had +come into the cabin and waked her up. His eyes were starting out of his +head, and he told her that he had seen Captain Dayrell walking on deck. +She told him it was nothing but imagination; and he laid his head on his +arms and sobbed like a child. He said he thought it was one of the +deckhands that had just come out of the foc'sle, but all the men were +short and smallish, and this was a big burly figure. It went ahead of +him like his own shadow, and disappeared in the bows. But he knew it was +Dayrell, and there was a curse on him. To-night, she said, half an hour +ago, Burgess had come down to her, taken her by the throat, and sworn he +would kill her if she didn't confess that Dayrell was still alive. She +told him he must be crazy. 'My mind may be going,' he said, 'but you +sha'n't kill my soul.' And he called her a name which she didn't repeat, +but began to cry when she remembered it. He said he had seen Dayrell +standing in the bows with the light of the moon full on his face, and he +looked so brave and upright that he knew he must have been bitterly +wronged. He looked like a soldier facing the enemy, he said. + +"While she was telling me this, she was looking around her in a very +nervous kind of way, and we both heard some one coming up behind us very +quietly. We turned round, and there--as God lives--stood the living +image of Captain Dayrell looking at us, in the shadow of the mast. Mrs. +Burgess gave a shriek that paralyzed me for the moment, then she ran +like a wild thing into the bows, and before any one could stop her, she +climbed up and threw herself overboard. Evans and Barron were only a few +yards away from her when she did it, and they both went overboard after +her immediately, one of them throwing a life-belt over ahead of him as +he went. They were both good swimmers, and as the moon was bright, I +thought we had only to launch a boat to pick them all up. I shouted to +the Kanakas, and they all came up running. Two of the men and myself got +into one of the starboard boats, and we were within three feet of the +water when I heard the crack of a revolver from somewhere in the bows of +the _Evening Star_. The men who were lowering away let us down with a +rush that nearly capsized us. There were four more shots while we were +getting our oars out. I called to the men on deck, asking them who was +shooting, but got no reply. I believe they were panic-stricken and had +bolted into cover. We pulled round the bows, and could see nothing. +There was not a sign of the woman or the two men in the water. + +"We could make nobody hear us on the ship, and all this while we had +seen nothing of Captain Burgess. It must have been nearly an hour +before we gave up our search, and tried to get aboard again. We were +still unable to get any reply from the ship, and we were about to try to +climb on board by the boat's falls. The men were backing her in, stern +first, and we were about ten yards away from the ship when the figure of +Captain Dayrell appeared leaning over the side of the _Evening Star_. He +stood there against the moonlight, with his face in shadow; but we all +of us recognized him, and I heard the teeth of the Kanakas chattering. +They had stopped backing, and we all stared at one another. Then, as +casually as if it were a joke, Dayrell stretched out his arm, and I saw +the moonlight glint on his revolver. He fired at us, deliberately, as if +he were shooting at clay pigeons. I felt the wind of the first shot +going past my head, and the two men at once began to pull hard to get +out of range. The second shot missed also. At the third shot, he got the +man in the bows full in the face. He fell over backwards, and lay there +in the bottom of the boat. He must have been killed instantaneously. At +the fourth shot, I felt a stinging pain on the left side of my body, +but hardly realized I had been wounded at the moment. A cloud passed +over the moon just then, and the way we had got on the boat had carried +us too far for Dayrell to aim very accurately, so that I was able to get +to the oars and pull out of range. The other man must have been wounded +also, for he was lying in the bottom of the boat groaning, but I do not +remember seeing him hit. I managed to pull fifty yards or so, and then +fainted, for I was bleeding very badly. + +"When I recovered consciousness I found that the bleeding had stopped, +and I was able to look at the two men. Both of them were dead and quite +cold, so that I must have been unconscious for some time. + +"The _Evening Star_ was about a hundred yards away, in the full light of +the moon, but I could see nobody on deck. I sat watching her till +daybreak, wondering what I should do, for there was no water or food in +the boat, and I was unarmed. Unless Captain Burgess and the other men +aboard could disarm Dayrell, I was quite helpless. Perhaps my wound had +dulled my wits; for I was unable to think out any plan, and I sat there +aimlessly for more than an hour. + +"It was broad daylight, and I had drifted within fifty yards of the +ship, when, to my surprise, Captain Burgess appeared on deck and hailed +me. 'All right, Harper,' he said, 'come aboard.' + +"I was able to scull the boat alongside, and Captain Burgess got down +into her without a word and helped me aboard. He took me down to my +berth, with his arm around me, for I almost collapsed again with the +effort, and he brought me some brandy. As soon as I could speak, I asked +him what it all meant, and he said, 'The ship is his, Harper; we've got +to give it up to him. That's what it means. I am not afraid of him by +daylight, but what we shall do to-night, God only knows.' Then, just as +Mrs. Burgess had told me, he put his head down on his arms, and began to +sob like a child. + +"'Where are the other men?' I asked him. + +"'There's only you and I and Kato,' he said, 'to face it out aboard this +ship.' + +"With that, he got up and left me, saying that he would send Kato to me +with some food, if I thought I could eat. But I knew by this time that I +was a dying man. + +"There was only one thing I had to do, and that was to try to get this +account written, and hide it somehow in the hope of some one finding it +later, for I felt sure that neither Burgess nor myself would live to +tell it. There was no paper in my berth, and it was Kato that thought of +writing it down in this way. + +"_About an hour later._ Burgess has just been down to see me. He said +that he had buried the two men who were shot in the boat. I wanted to +ask him some questions, but he became so excited, it seemed useless. +Neither he nor Kato seemed to have any idea where Dayrell was hiding. +Kato believes, in fact, in ghosts, so that it is no use questioning him. + +"I must have lost consciousness or slept very heavily since the above +was written, for I remembered nothing more till nightfall, when I woke +up in the pitch darkness. Kato was sitting by me. He lit the lamp, and +gave me another drink of brandy. The ship was dead still, but I felt +that something had gone wrong again. + +"I do not know whether my own mind is going, but we have just heard the +voice of Mrs. Burgess singing one of those sentimental songs that +Captain Dayrell used to be so fond of. It seemed to be down in the +cabin, and when she came to the end of it, I heard Captain Dayrell's +voice calling out, '_Encore! Encore!_' just as he used to do. Then I +heard some one running down the deck like mad, and Captain Burgess came +tumbling down to us with the whites of his eyes showing. 'Did you hear +it?' he said. 'Harper, you'll admit you heard it. Don't tell me I'm mad. +They're in the cabin together now. Come and look at them.' Then he +looked at me with a curious, cunning look, and said, 'No, you'd better +stay where you are, Harper. You're not strong enough.' And he crept on +the deck like a cat. + +"Something urged me to follow him, even if it took the last drop of my +strength. Kato tried to dissuade me, but I drained the brandy flask, and +managed to get out of my berth on to the deck by going very slowly, +though the sweat broke out on me with every step. Burgess had +disappeared, and there was nobody on deck. It was not so difficult to +get to the sky-light of the cabin. I don't know what I had expected to +see, but there I did see the figure of Captain Dayrell, dressed as I had +seen him in life, with a big scarf round his throat, and the big peaked +cap. There was an open chest in the corner, with a good many clothes +scattered about, as if by some one who had been dressing in a hurry. It +was an old chest belonging to Captain Dayrell in the old days, and I +often wondered why Burgess had left it lying there. The revolver lay on +the table, and as Dayrell picked it up to load it, the scarf unwound +itself a little around his throat and the lower part of his face. Then, +to my amazement, I recognized him." + +"There," said Knight, "the log of the _Evening Star_ ends except for a +brief sentence by Kato himself, which I will not read to you now." + +"I wonder if the poor devil did really see," said Moreton Fitch. "And +what do you suppose he did when he saw who it was?" + +"Crept back to his own berth, barricaded himself in with Kato's help, +finished his account, died in the night, with Dayrell tapping on the +door, and was neatly buried by Burgess in the morning, I suppose." + +"And, Burgess?" + +"Tidied everything up, and then jumped overboard." + +"Probably,--in his own clothes; for it's quite true that we did find a +lot of Dayrell's old clothes in a sea-chest in the cabin. Funny idea, +isn't it, a man ghosting himself like that?" + +"Yes, but what did Harper mean by saying he heard Mrs. Burgess singing +in the cabin that night?" + +"Ah, that's another section of the log recorded in a different way." + +Moreton Fitch made a sign to the little Japanese, and told him to get a +package out of his car. He returned in a moment, and laid it at our feet +on the floor. + +"Dayrell was very proud of his wife's voice," said Fitch as he took the +covers off the package. "Just before he was taken ill he conceived the +idea of getting some records made of her songs to take with him on board +ship. The gramophone was found amongst the old clothes. The usual +sentimental stuff, you know. Like to hear it? She had rather a fine +voice." + +He turned a handle, and, floating out into the stillness of the +California night, we heard the full rich voice of a dead woman: + + "_Just a song at twilight, when the lights are low, + And the flickering shadows softly come and go._" + +At the end of the stanza, a deep bass voice broke in with, "_Encore! +Encore!_" + +Then Fitch stopped it. + +When we were in the car on our way home, I asked if there were any clue +to the fate of the Japanese cook, in the last sentence of the log of the +_Evening Star_. + +"I didn't want to bring it up before his brother," said Knight, "they +are a sensitive folk; but the last sentence was to the effect that the +_Evening Star_ had now been claimed by the spirit of Captain Dayrell, +and that the writer respectfully begged to commit _hari kari_." + +Our road turned inland here, and I looked back toward the fishing +village. The night was falling, but the sea was lilac-colored with the +afterglow. I could see the hut and the little birdhouse black against +the water. On a sand dune just beyond them, the figures of the fisherman +Kato and his wife were sitting on their heels, and still watching us. +They must have been nearly a mile away by this time; but in that clear +air they were carved out sharp and black as tiny ebony images against +the fading light of the Pacific. + + + + +VII + +GOBLIN PEACHES + + +The big liner was running like a ghost, with all lights out on deck and +every porthole shrouded. This might seem to the layman almost humorously +inconsistent; for, every minute or two the blast of her foghorn went +bellowing away into the night, loudly enough to disturb the slumbers of +any U-boat lying "doggo" within five miles. + +Duncan Drew and I were alone in the smoking-room when the steward +brought us our coffee. There were very few passengers; and the first +cabin-folk were curiously different from those of peace-time. Most of +them, I fancied, were crossing the Atlantic on some business directly +connected with the war. There was a Belgian professor from Louvain, for +instance, who was taking his family over to the new post that had been +found for him at an American University; and there was the wife of an +Italian statesman, an American woman, who was returning home to raise +funds for the Red Cross of her adopted country. There were others whom +it was not so easy to place; and Duncan Drew would have been among them, +I think, if I had not known him. Nobody could have looked more like a +civilian and less like an officer of the British Navy than Duncan did at +this moment. But I knew the job on which he was engaged. When he found +that I knew the Maine coast, he asked me to help him in a certain +matter. + +It was in the days before America entered the war; and his mission was +to present certain evidence of a widespread German conspiracy to the +United States Government. If they approved, he was to cooperate in +unearthing the ring-leaders. The conspiracy was a very simple one. It +seemed likely, at the time, that the U-boats would soon be unable to +operate from European bases; and the German admiralty, always looking a +few months ahead, though perhaps ignoring remoter possibilities, was +calmly planning, with the help of its agents in America, to work from +the other side of the water. The thousand-mile coast line of the United +States had many advantages from the German point of view, especially in +its lonelier regions, where there are hundreds of small islands, either +uninhabited or privately owned, and not necessarily owned by American +citizens. The U-boats, it is true, would have to travel further if they +were to work in European waters. But already they had been forced by the +British patrols to travel more than fifteen hundred miles from their +European bases, far to the north of Scotland and west of Ireland, before +they could operate against the Atlantic shipping. The slight increase in +the distance would be more than repaid by the comparative safety of the +submarines. They planned, in short, to work from American bases, while a +dull-witted British Navy should be vainly endeavoring to close European +doors, which the enemy was no longer using. + +We didn't talk "shop" in the smoking-room, even when we were alone, for +the ground had been covered so often. On this particular evening, I +remember, we talked chiefly about food. The dinner had been excellent; +and it had been a curious sensation to pass from the slight but obvious +restrictions of London, to a ship which seemed to possess all the +resources of the United States. + +"I've only been in Berlin once," said Duncan, "but I was there long +enough to know that they will feel the pinch first, and feel it worst. +They are rum beggars, the Boches. Think of the higher command marking +out the early stages of the war by the dinners it was going to +have,--every menu carefully planned, one for Brussels, one for Paris, +and probably one for London! I remember lunching at a hotel when I was +in Berlin, and seeing rather a curious thing. There was a table in the +center of the room, laid for what was evidently going to be a very grand +affair. It was laid for about twenty people, and I saw a thing I had +never seen before. Every champagne glass contained a peach. I asked my +waiter what it meant, and he said that von Schramm, the fellow who is +one of the moving spirits behind this new submarine campaign, was +entertaining some of his pals that day; and this was one of his pretty +little fads. He thought it improved the wine, and also that it prevented +gout, or some rot of that sort." + +"How very German! My chief objection would be that there wouldn't be +much room left for the champagne." + +"Trust the German for that, my lad. The glasses were extra large, and +of a somewhat unusual pattern. As a matter of fact, the decorative +effect was rather pretty. It's queer--the way some things stick in your +memory and others vanish. I believe that my most vivid impression of the +few months I passed in Germany is that blessed table, waiting for its +guests, with the peaches in the champagne glasses. I didn't see the +guests arrive. Wish I had now. There's always something a little stagey, +don't you think, about a table waiting for its guests; but this was more +so. It affected me like the throne of melodrama waiting for its emperor. +Funny that it should have made such an impression, isn't it?" + +I thought not; for it was part of Duncan's business to be impressed by +unusual things--more especially when they were symptomatic of something +else. It was this that made him so useful, for instance, in that +exciting little episode of the cargo of onions which was +intercepted--owing to one of his impressions--in a Scandinavian ship. +They were perfectly good onions, the first few layers of them; and they +looked like perfectly good onions when you burrowed into the lower +layers. But Duncan had been seized by an absurd desire to see whether +they would bounce or not; and when he experimented on the deck, they did +bounce, bounce like cricket balls, as high as the ship's funnels. + +This capture of one of the largest cargoes of contraband rubber was due +to an impression he got from two innocent cablegrams which had been +intercepted and brought to him at the Admiralty,--one of them apparently +concerning an operation for appendicitis, and the other announcing the +death of the patient. His intuitions, indeed, resembled those of the +artist; and, though he was one of the smartest sailors in the Navy, he +looked more like a pre-Raphaelite painter's conception of Galahad than +any one I had ever seen in the flesh. He looked exceedingly youthful, +and the dead whiteness of his face, which his Philistine brethren +described as lantern-jawed, was lighted by the alert eyes of the new +age. They had that peculiar glitter which one sees in the eyes of +aviators, and sometimes in those of the business men accustomed to the +electric cities of the new world. His hands were like those of a +musician, long and quick and nervous. But I could easily imagine them +throttling an enemy. + +We turned in early that night, and I dozed fitfully, revolving fragments +of our somewhat disconnected conversation. The beautiful sea-cry "All's +well" came to me from the watch in the bow, as the bell tolled the +passage of the hours; and it was not till daybreak that I slept, only to +dream of that table in Berlin, waiting for its guests, with a peach in +every champagne glass. + + +II + +As we waited in the cold brilliance of New York harbor, a few mornings +later, and looked with considerable satisfaction at the German steamers +that were huddled like gigantic red and black cattle in the docks of the +Hamburg-Amerika and North German-Lloyd, a telegram was brought aboard +which settled our plans. + +Duncan was to go down to Washington that night, while I was to go up to +Rockport, a little fishing village on the coast of Maine. At this place +I was to take a motor-car and drive some fifteen miles to a certain +lonely strip of pine-clad coast. There we were to camp out in a tiny +cottage, which we could rent from an old sea-captain whom I knew before +the war. Two artists, in quest of a quiet place for work, could hardly +find a happier hunting-ground. I was particularly glad to find that we +could hire a trim little motor-launch, in which we could go exploring +among the islands that dotted the blue sea for scores of miles. It was a +beautiful coast, and their dark peaks of pine were printed like tiny +black feathers against a sky of unimaginable sapphire. Nothing could +seem more remote from the devilries of modern war. + +Duncan joined me, a week later, in Captain Humphrey's cottage--it was a +small white-painted wooden house among the pine trees on the main land, +built on the rocks which overhung a deep blue inlet of the Atlantic. We +discussed our plans on the little veranda, from which we could see half +a dozen of those pine-crowned islands, which were the objects of +suspicion. There were scores of others we could not see, to north and +south of us, and we checked them off on the map as we sat there under +the dried sunfish and the other queer marine trophies, which the old +skipper had brought back with him from the South Seas. + +The nights were quite cold enough for a fire, though it was only +mid-July; and we finished all our plans that evening round the big +stove, the kind of thing you see in the foc'sle of a steam trawler, +which stood in the center of Captain Humphrey's parlor. We were more +than a little glad indeed to let our pipes and the good-smelling pine +logs waft their incense abroad; for--like all the dwellers in those +parts--the old skipper subsisted through the winter on the codfish which +he had salted and stored during the summer in his attic; and though his +abode was clean and neat as himself, it had the healthy reek of a +trawler, as well as its heating apparatus. A large oil lamp, which hung +from the ceiling, was none the worse, moreover, for the moderating +influence of a little wood-smoke. + +"To-morrow, then," said Duncan, "we take the motor-launch and have a +look at all the islands between this place and Rockport. They've been +awfully decent down in Washington about it. The only trouble is that +they don't and can't believe it. Exactly the state of mind we were in, +before the war. Everybody laughing at exactly the same things, from +spy-stories to signals on the coast. I met a man in the Government who +had been taken to a window at midnight to see a light doing the Morse +code, off this very coast, and he laughed at it. Didn't believe it. +Thought it was the evening-star. We were like that ourselves. No decent +man can believe certain things, till they are beyond question. + +"It's our own fault. We told them all was well before the war; and I +don't see how we can blame them for thinking their own intervention +unnecessary now. We keep on telling America that it's all over except +the shouting. We paint the rosiest kind of picture to-day about the +prospects of the allies; and then we grumble amongst ourselves because +Americans don't turn the whole of their continent upside down to come +and help us. We deliberately lulled America to sleep, and then we kicked +because we heard that she had only one eye open. + +"Well,--they've given us a blessing on our wild-goose chase. We may do +all the investigating we like, as I understand the position, so long as +we leave any resultant action to the United States. This means, I +suppose,--in old Captain Humphrey's language--that we may be +'rubber-necks,' but we mustn't shoot. All the same, I brought the guns +with me." He laid two automatic pistols on the table. "It's more than +likely, from what I've been able to gather, that we may have to defend +our own skins; and I suppose that's permissible. Oh, damn that +mosquito!" He slapped his ankle, and complained bitterly that the old +sea-captain's faith in his own tough exterior had prevented him from +providing his doors and windows with mosquito netting. + + * * * * * + +It was on the fourth morning of our search that things began to happen. +For my own part, I had already begun to be so absorbed in the peace of +the world about us, that the whole business of the war seemed unreal and +our own quest futile. I could no longer wonder at those inhabitants of +the new world who were said to look upon our European Armageddon as a +bad dream, or a morbid tale in a book, which it was better not to open. +As we chug-chugged along the coast, close under the thick pine woods, +which grew almost to the edge of the foam, I thought I had never +breathed an air so fragrant, or seen color so brilliant in earth and sky +and sea. Once or twice, as we shut off the motor and lay idle, we heard +a hermit-thrush in the woods, breaking the silence with a peculiarly +plaintive liquid call, quite unlike the song of our thrushes at home, +but very beautiful. Here and there we passed the little red, blue and +green buoys of lobster-pots, shining like jewels as the clear water +lapped about them in that amazing sunlight. + +We were making for a certain island about which we had obtained some +interesting details from Captain Humphrey himself. He told us that it +had been purchased two or three years ago by a New Yorker who was +building himself quite a fine place on it. He seemed to be a somewhat +mysterious character, for he was never seen on the mainland, and all his +supplies were brought up to him on his own large private yacht. + +"There's a wharf on the island," said Captain Humphrey, "with deep water +running up to it, so that a yacht can sail right up to his porch, as you +might say, and you wouldn't know it was there. The cove runs in on the +slant, and the pines grow between it and the sea. You wouldn't notice +it, unless you ran right in at the mouth. It makes a fine private harbor +for a yacht, and I believe it has held two at a time. There's a good +beach for clams on the west shore, but of course, it's private." + +We certainly saw no sign of yacht or harbor as we approached the island +from the landward side; but we made no departure from our course to look +for either. We were bound for clam-beach, where we intended to do a +little clam-poaching. + +"It doesn't look promising," said Duncan, as we approached the shore. +"There doesn't seem to be anybody to warn trespassers off. But perhaps +clam-beach is not regarded as dangerous, and the trespassing begins +further on." + +In a few moments we had moored the launch in four feet of water, and +were ashore with a couple of clam-rakes. We had dug a hundred, as we +walked towards the pine-wood, when Duncan straightened up and said: + +"This makes my back ache, and it's blazing hot. I'm going to have a pipe +in the shade, up there." + +I shouldered my rake, and followed him into the wood. As soon as we were +well among the trees, we began to walk quickly up the thin winding path, +which we supposed would lead us to the neighborhood of the house. + +"Not at all promising," said Duncan. "They would never let us ramble +about like this if they had anything to conceal. Just for the fun of it, +we'll go up to the house, and ask if Mr. Chutney Bilge, the novelist, +doesn't live there. You want his autograph, don't you?" + +In five minutes, we had emerged from the pines, and saw before us a very +pleasant looking wooden house with a wide veranda, screened all round +with mosquito-netting, and backed by glimpses of blue sea between dark +pine-trunks. There was not a soul to be seen, and no sign of its +occupants anywhere. We walked up to the porch, pulled open the netted +door in the outer screen, and knocked on the door of the house, which +stood wide open. We waited and listened; but there was no sound except +the ticking of a clock. There was another open door on the right side of +the hall. Duncan felt a sudden impulse to look through it, and tip-toed +quietly forward. He had no sooner looked than he stood as if turned to +stone, with so queer an expression on his face that I instantly came to +his side to see what Medusa had caused it. It seemed a very harmless +Medusa; but I doubt if anything could have startled me more at the +moment. We stood there, staring at a table, laid for lunch. There were +twelve champagne glasses, of a somewhat unusual pattern; and each of +these glasses contained a peach. + + +III + +Before I could be quite sure whether I was dreaming or waking, Duncan +had dashed into the room on the other side of the hall, and grabbed up a +bundle of papers that had been dropped as if by some one in a great +hurry, all over the table. He glanced at one or two. + +"But this,--this--settles it," he cried. "Come out of it quickly." And, +in a few seconds, we were in the cover of the woods again. + +"Schramm himself is over here, apparently. He must have come by U-boat," +Duncan muttered, as we hurried down the path towards our launch. "If +they catch us, we're simply dead and buried, and past praying for." + +"But what does it mean? Where are they? Why the devil have they left +everything open to the first-comer?" + +"Beats me completely. But we'd better not wait to inquire. The next move +is up to Washington." + +"Look here, Duncan, we'd better be careful about our exit from the +woods. If any one happens to have spotted the launch, we may run our +heads into a trap." + +I had an uneasy feeling that we were being watched, and that every +movement we made was plainly seen by a gigantic but invisible spectator, +very much the kind of feeling, I suppose, that insects must have under +the microscope. I felt sure that we were not going to have it all our +own way with this quiet island. Duncan hesitated for a moment, but I was +insistent that we should take a look at our landing place before we left +our cover. It was a characteristic of Duncan that as soon as he had +discovered what he wanted, he became as forthright a sailor as you could +wish to find; and I knew that if we were to escape with whole skins, or +even to make use of our discovery, I should have to exercise my own +wits. Fortunately, my own "impressions" began when his finished; for, +after he had yielded to my persuasion, we made a slight circuit through +the woods, and crept out through the long grass on the top of the +little cliff, overlooking the beach where we had landed. Our clams were +still there, in two neat little dumps. So was the launch, but in the +stern of it there sat a tall red-bearded man, who looked like a +professor, and a couple of sailors. They were all three talking German +in low, excited tones, and they were all three armed with rifles. + +The launch lay almost directly below us, and we could hear some of their +conversation. I gathered that the luncheon party had gone on board a +U-boat which had just arrived, to inspect the latest improvements. +Something had gone wrong. They had submerged; and it seemed to be +doubtful whether they could get her up again. That, of course, was why +the house was deserted and our trespassing unforbidden. It was probably +also the reason why the sentries had been absent, and had only just +discovered our launch on their rounds. One of the sailors was aggrieved, +it seemed to me, that no effort was being made to obtain other help for +the submerged men than the island itself could lend. His best friend was +aboard; and he thought it wicked not to give them a chance, even if it +meant their internment. The red-bearded professor was explaining to +him, however, in the most highly approved style of modern Germany, that +his feelings were by no means logical; and that it was far nobler to +sacrifice one's friends than to endanger the State. + +"But, if the State is a kind of devil," said the sailor, who was a bit +of a logician himself, "I prefer my friends, who in the meantime are +being suffocated." + +"That is a fallacy," the professor was answering. Then, from the +direction of the house, there came a confused sound of shouting. + +A fourth sailor came tearing down the beach like a maniac. + +"Where are the clam-fishers?" he called to the three philosophers. "They +are to be taken, dead or alive." + +At the same moment, I saw the glint of the sun on the revolvers of +several other men, who were advancing through the woods towards the +beach, peering to right and left of them. Without a whisper between us, +Duncan and I crawled off along the cliff, through the thick undergrowth. + +Obviously, the submarine had come to the surface again, and the whole +merry crowd was on our track. The island was not more than a quarter of +a mile in diameter; and I saw no hope of evading our pursuers, of whom +there must be at least twenty, judging from the cries that reached us. +There was nothing for it, but to choose the best place for putting up a +fight; and, as luck would have it, we were already on the best line of +defense. The undergrowth between the cliff's edge and the woods was so +thick that nobody could discover us, except by crawling up the trail by +which we had ourselves entered. It proved to be the only way by which +the cliff's edge could be explored, and we had a full half-mile of the +island's circumference, a long ledge, only a few feet wide, on which we +could crawl in security for the time being, till the hunt came up behind +us. I remember noticing--even in those moments of peril--that the ground +and the bushes were littered with big crab claws and clam shells that +had been dropped and picked there by the sea gulls and crows; and I was +thinking--in some queer way--of the easy life that these birds lead, +when I almost put my hand on a human skull, protruding from a litter of +loose earth, white flakes of shell and crabs' backs. Duncan pulled a +heap of the evil-smelling stuff away with his clam-rake, and bared the +right side of the skeleton. There was a half-rotten clam-rake in the +bony clutch of the dead man. Evidently, somebody else had paid the +penalty before us. The body had been buried, and rain, snow, or the +insatiable sea-gulls had uncovered the yellow-toothed head. + +A few yards further on, the cliff projected so far out that even when +one hung right over the edge, it was only just possible to see where it +met the swirling water, which seemed very deep here. About fifteen yards +out, there was a big boulder of rock, covered with brown sea-weed. + +"Look here, Duncan," I said, "there's only one real chance for us. We've +got to swim to the mainland, but we can't do it by daylight. We've got +to pass six hours till it's dark enough, and there's only one way to do +it. How far can you swim under water?" + +"About fifty feet," he said. "You're going crazy, old man, it's a mile +and a half to the mainland." + +"Duncan, you're a devil of a man for getting into a scrape. But when it +comes to getting out of one, I feel a little safer in my own hands. Can +you get as far as that rock under water?" + +"I think so," he said, and caught on to the suggestion at once. + +The cries were coming along the cliff's edge now, and it was a question +of only half a minute before some of our pursuers would be on the top of +us. + +"Hurry, then. Swim to the north of the rock, and don't come up till +you're on the other side. If you feel yourself rising, grab hold of the +sea-weed, and keep yourself down till you've hauled round the rock. +Quick!" + +There was a crashing in the bushes, not fifty yards away, along the +cliff, as we dived into the clear green water. The plunge carried one +further than I expected, and four or five strokes along the bottom of +the sea brought me to the base of the rock. It was quite easy to turn +it, and I was relieved to find that there was a good ledge for landing +on the further side, only an inch or two above the level of the water, +and quite screened from the island by the rock itself, which was about +ten feet in length, and curved in a half-moon shape, with the horns +pointing towards the mainland. In fact, it was like a large +Chesterfield couch of stone, covered with brown sea-weed, and resolutely +turning its back on the island. We were luckier than I had dared to +hope; and when, in a few seconds, Duncan had coiled himself on the ledge +beside me, I saw by his grin that he thought we had solved the problem +of escape. For five minutes we lay dead still, listening to the clamor +along the cliff from which we had just dived. + +"Thank the Lord, we get the sun here," said Duncan at last, as the +sounds died away. "There's only one thing that worries me now. What are +we to do when they come round in a boat?" + +"They won't think of that for some time," I said, "but when they do, we +must take to the water again, and work round behind the rock. We ought +to be able to keep it between us and the blighters, with any luck. We've +only got to keep enough above water to breathe with; and I've seen some +fine camouflage done with a little sea-weed before now." + +We looked at the yard-long fringes of brown sea-weed, and decided that +it would be possible to defy anything but the closest inspection of our +rock by the simple process of sliding down into the water and pulling +the sea-weed over our heads, on the side next to the island. There was a +reef which would prevent a boat passing on that side. + +Our clothes were almost dried by the blazing sun before we were +disturbed again. Duncan was ruefully contemplating a corn-cob pipe, +which he affirmed had been ruined by the salt water. He poked the stem +at a huge sea-anemone, which immediately sucked it in, and held it as +firmly as a smoker's mouth, with so ludicrous an effect that Duncan's +risible faculties were dangerously moved. I was half afraid of one of +his volcanic guffaws, when we both heard a sound that struck us +dumb,--the sound of oars coming steadily in our direction. We slipped +into the water, according to plan, hauled ourselves round behind the +rock, and drew the long thick fringes of sea-weed over our heads. We +held ourselves anchored there by the brown stems, and kept little more +than our noses above the water. No concealment could have been more +complete. The boat passed on; and in five minutes we were back again on +our ledge, and drying in the sun. + +"Good Lord," said Duncan, suddenly, "that was a near shave. I'd +forgotten that beastly thing." + +He pointed to the sea-anemone, which was still sucking at the yellow +corn-cob pipe. It looked like the bristling red mouth of some drunken +and half-submerged sea-god, and could hardly have been missed by the +boat's crew, if they had been looking for anything like it. + +"Lord, what a shave!" he said again. "What would Schramm have said if he +had seen it!" + +Then, as we stared at the absurd marine creature, we rocked in silent +spasms of mirth--human beings are made of a very queer clay--picturing +the bewildered faces of the Boches at a sight which would have meant our +death. + +The sense of humor was benumbed in both of us before long. The sun was +dropping low, and we did not dry as quickly as before. There was a +stillness on the island, which boded no good, I thought, though our +pursuers evidently believed that we had escaped them. + +"They probably think we swam ashore earlier in the game," said Duncan. +"They must be sick at not having spotted us." + +"I wonder what they are up to now?" + +"Probably destroying evidence, and getting ready to clear out, if they +really have a notion that their big men over here may be involved. +Unfortunately, these papers don't give anything away, so far as I can +see except that they're addressed to Schramm; but it's quite obvious +what they were doing." + +We lay still and waited, listening to the strangely peaceful lapping of +the water round our rock, and watching the big sea-perch and rock-cod +that moved like shadows below. + +"I wonder if that fellow suspects mischief," said Duncan, pointing over +the cliff. "By Jove! isn't he splendid?" + +Over the highest point of the island a white-headed eagle was mounting, +in great, slow, sweeping circles, without one beat of the long, dark +wings that must have measured seven feet from tip to tip. + +"It's too splendid to be the German eagle. Praise the Lord, it's the +native species; and he's taking his time because he has to take wide +views. He has to soar high enough to get his bearings." + +Up and up, the glorious creature circled, till he dwindled in the +dazzling blue to the size of a sea-gull; and still he wheeled and +mounted, till he became a black dot no bigger than an English sky-lark. +Then he moved, like a bullet, due east. + +"I almost believe in omens," said Duncan. "Ah, look out! There they +come!" + +The masts of a large yacht, which must have emerged from the private +harbor of which Captain Humphrey spoke, came slowly round the island. We +had only just time to slip into the water, behind our rock, before she +came into full view. She passed so near to us that the low sun cast the +traveling shadows of her railing almost within reach of my hand; and the +shadows of her two boats on the port side came along the clear green +water between us and the island, like the gray ghosts of some old +pirate's dinghies. + +She must have been still in sight, and we were still in our +hiding-place, when it seemed as if the island tried to leap towards the +sky, and we were deafened by a terrific concussion. Fragments of wood, +and great pieces of stone, dropped all round us in the poppling water, +and more than one deadly missile struck the rock itself. + +"They've blown up the whole show!" cried Duncan. "There can't be +anybody left alive on the island!" + +We waited--ten minutes or more--to see if other explosions were to +follow. Then we swam for clam-beach to investigate. It was littered with +fragments of the buildings that had been destroyed. The tarred roof of a +shed had been dropped there almost intact, as if from the claws of some +gigantic eagle. The pine-wood looked as if it had been subjected to a +barrage fire; and, in many places, the undergrowth was burning +furiously. + +We dashed up the path, with the smoke stinging our eyes, towards the +dull red glow, which was already beginning to rival the deepening +crimson of the Maine sunset. The central portion of the house was still +standing, though much of it had been blown bodily away, and the fire was +laying fierce hands upon it from all sides. We turned to the north, +where we supposed the wharf had been. The remains of half a dozen sheds +were burning on one side of the cove, and it looked as if half the cliff +had been tumbled into it on the other. + +The heat of the fire along the wharf was so fierce that we turned back +to the house again. + +"Well," said Duncan, "there's evidence enough to give a few good +headlines to the neutral press,--'_Gasoline Explosion on Maine Coast! +Wealthy New Yorker Escapes Death in Fiery Furnace!_' Fortunately, +there's also enough for Washington to lay up in its memory." + +Another section of the house fell as we looked at it; and we saw the +interior of the dining-room, with the flames licking up the three +remaining walls. By one of those curious freaks of high-explosive, the +table was hardly disarranged; and our last glimpse of it, through a +fringe of fire, showed us those twelve queer champagne glasses. They +stood there, flickering like evil goblins, a peach in every glass.... + +We watched them for five minutes. Then the whole scintillating fabric +collapsed; and we sat down to wait for the frantic motor-boat, which was +already thumping towards us, with the reporter of the _Rockport +Sentinel_ furiously writing in her bows. + + + + +VIII + +MAY MARGARET + + + "_Clerk Sanders and May Margaret + Walked ower yon garden green, + And sad and heavy was the love + That fell thae twa between._" + +May Margaret was an American girl, married to a lieutenant in the +British Army named Brian Davidson. When the regretful telegram from the +War Office, announcing his death in action, was delivered to her in her +London apartment, she read it without a quiver, crumpled it up, threw it +into the fire, and leaned her head against her arm, under his photograph +on the mantel-piece. When her heart began to beat again, she went to her +bedroom and locked the door. This was not the Anglo-American love-affair +of fiction. Both of them were poverty-stricken in the estimation of +their friends; and it was only by having her black evening dress "done +over," and practising other strict economies for a whole year, that May +Margaret had been able to sail from New York to work in an European +hospital. The marriage had taken place a little more than three months +ago, while Davidson was home on a few days' leave. + +After the announcement of his death, she did not emerge from her room +until the usual letter arrived from the front, explaining with the usual +helplessness of the brother officer, that Davidson was really "one of +the best," that "everybody liked him," and that "he was the life and +soul of his company." But the letter contained one thing that she was +not expecting, an official photograph of the grave, a quarter-plate +picture of an oblong of loose earth, marked with a little cross made, +apparently, of two sticks of kindling wood. And it was this that had +brought her back to life again. It was so strangely matter-of-fact, so +small, so complete, that it brought her out of the great dark spaces of +her grief. It reminded her of something that Davidson had once written +in a letter from the trenches. "Things out here are not nearly so bad as +people at home imagine. At home, one pictures the war as a great blaze +of horror. Out here, things become more sharply defined, as the lights +of a city open up when you approach them, or as the Milky Way splits +itself up into points of light under the telescope. I have never seen a +dead body yet that looked more imposing than a suit of old clothes. The +real man was somewhere else." + +She examined the photograph with a kind of curiosity. In this new sense +of the reality of death, the rattle of the traffic outside had grown +strange and dreamlike, and the rattle of the tea-things and the smell of +the buttered toast which an assiduous, but discreet landlady placed at +her side, seemed as fantastic and remote as any fairy-tale. All the +trivial details of the life around her had assumed a new and mysterious +quality. She seemed to be moving in a phantasmagorical world. The round +red face of the landlady came and went like the goblin things you may +see over your shoulder in a looking-glass at twilight. And the center of +all this insubstantial dream-stuff was that one vivid oblong of loose +earth, marked with two sticks of kindling wood, in the neat and sharply +defined official photograph. + +There was something that looked like a black thread entwining the arms +of the tiny cross; and she puzzled over it stupidly, wondering what it +could be. "I suppose I could write and ask," she said to herself. Then +an over-mastering desire seized her. She must go and see it. She must go +and see the one fragment of the earth that remained to her, if only for +the reason that there, perhaps, she might find the relief of tears. But +she had another reason also, a reason that she would never formulate, +even to herself, an over-mastering impulse from the depths of her being. + +May Margaret had no intimate friends in London. She had established +herself in these London lodgings with the cosmopolitan independence of +the American girl, whose own country contains distances as great as that +from London to Petrograd. The world shrinks a little when your own +country is a continent; and it was with no sense of remoteness that she +now went to the telephone and rang up the London office of the _Chicago +Bulletin_. + +"I want to speak to Mr. Harvey," she said. "Is this Mr. Harvey? This is +Mrs. Davidson,--Margaret Grant--you remember, don't you? I want to see +you about something very important. You are sending people out to the +front all the time, aren't you, in connection with your newspapers? +Well, I want to know if you can arrange for me to go.... Yes, as a woman +correspondent.... Oh, they don't allow it? Not at the British front?... +Well, I've got to arrange it somehow.... Won't you come and see me and +talk it over?... All right, at six-thirty. Good-by." + +The official photograph was still in her hand when Mr. William K. +Harvey, of the _Chicago Bulletin_, was announced. He was a very young +man to be managing the London office of a great newspaper, but this was +not a disadvantage for May Margaret's purpose. + +"So you want to go to the front," he said, settling down into the +arm-chair on the other side of the fire. "It would certainly make a +great story. We ought to be able to syndicate it all through the Middle +West; but you'll have to give up the idea of the British front. We might +manage the French front, I think." + +"But I want particularly to go to Arras. Surely, you can manage it, Mr. +Harvey. You must know all sorts of influential people here." Her voice, +with its husky contralto notes, rather like those of a boy whose voice +has lately broken, had always an appeal for Mr. Harvey, and it was +particularly pleasing just then. He beamed through his glasses and ran +his hand through his curly hair. + +"I was talking to Sir William Robertson about a very similar proposition +only yesterday, and Sir William told me that he'd do anything on earth +for the _Chicago Bulletin_, but the War Office, which is in heaven, had +decided finally to allow no women correspondents at the British front." + +May Margaret rose and went to the window. For a moment she pressed her +brow against the cool glass and, as she stared hopelessly at the busses +rumbling by, an idea came to her. She wondered that she had not thought +of it before. + +"Come here, Mr. Harvey," she said. "I want to show you something." + +He joined her at the window. A bus had halted by the opposite pavement. +The conductor was swinging lightly down by the hand-rail, a very +youthful looking conductor, in breeches and leggings. + +"Is that a man or a woman?" said May Margaret. + +"A woman, isn't it?" + +"And that?" She pointed to another figure striding by in blue overalls +and a slouch hat. + +"I don't know. There are so many of them about now, that on general +principles, I guess it's a woman. Besides, it looks as if it would be in +the army if it were not a woman." + +"Yes, but I am an American correspondent," said May Margaret. + +"Gee!" said Mr. Harvey, surveying her from head to foot. His face looked +as if all the printing presses of the _Chicago Bulletin_ were silently +at work behind it. She was tall and lean--a college friend had described +her exactly as "half goddess and half gawk." Her face was of the +open-air type. Her hair would have to be cropped, of course. "Gee!" he +said again. "It would be the biggest scoop of the war." + +A fortnight later, a slender youth in khaki-colored clothes, with +leggings, arrived at the Foreign Office, presented a paper to a sad-eyed +messenger in the great hall, and was led to the disreputable old lift +which, as usual, bore a notice to the effect that it was not working +to-day. The sad-eyed messenger heaved the usual sigh, and led the way up +three flights of broad stone stairs to a very dark waiting-room. There +were three other young men in the room, but it was almost impossible to +see their faces. + +"Mr. Grant, of the _Tribune_, wasn't it, sir?" said the messenger. + +"Mr. Martin Grant, of the _Chicago Bulletin_," said May Margaret, and +the messenger shuffled into the distance along a gloomy corridor which +seemed to be older than any tomb of the Pharaohs, and destined to last +as long again. + +In a few minutes, a young Englishman, who looked like an army officer in +mufti, but was really a clerk in the Foreign Office, named Julian +Sinclair, was making himself very charming to the four correspondents. +To one of them he talked very fluently in Spanish: to another he spoke +excellent Swedish, bridging several moments of misunderstanding with +smiles and gestures that would have done credit to a Macchiavelli; to +the third, because he was a Greek, he spoke French; and to Martin Grant, +because he was an American, he spoke the language of George Washington, +and behaved as if he were a fellow-countryman of slightly different, +possibly more broad-minded, but certainly erroneous politics. + +Then he gave them all a few simple directions. He was going to have the +pleasure of escorting them to the front. It was necessary that they +should be accompanied by some one from the Foreign Office, he explained, +in order to save them trouble; and they had been asked to meet him there +to-day for purposes of identification and to get their passports. These +would have to be stamped by both the British and French military +authorities at an address which he gave them, and they would please meet +him at Charing Cross Station at twelve o'clock to-morrow morning. It was +all very simple, and Mr. Martin Grant felt greatly relieved. + +There was a drizzle of rain the next morning, for which May Margaret was +grateful. It was a good excuse for appearing at the station in the +Burberry raincoat, which gave her not only a respite from +self-consciousness, but an almost military air. Her cloth cap, too, the +peak of which filled her strong young face with masculine shadows, +approximated to the military shape. It was a wise choice; for the soft +slouch hat, which she had tried at first, had persistently assumed a +feminine aspect, an almost absurdly picturesque effect, no matter how +she twisted it or pulled it down on her close-cropped head. + +She was the first of the party to arrive, and when Julian Sinclair +hurried along the platform with the three foreign correspondents, there +was no time left for conversation before they were locked in their +compartment of the military train. They were the only civilians aboard. + +She dropped into a corner seat with her newspaper. But her eyes and +brain were busy with the scene outside. The train was crammed with +troops, just as it had been on that other day when she stood outside on +the platform, like those other women there, and said good-by to Brian. +She was living it all over again, as she watched those farewells; but +she felt nearer to him now, as if she were seeing things from his own +side, almost as if she had broken through the barriers and taken some +dream-train to the next world, in order to follow him. + +There was a very young soldier leaning from the window of the next +compartment. He was talking to a girl with a baby in her arms. Her wide +eyes were fixed on his face with the same solemn expression as those of +the child, dark innocent eyes with the haunted beauty of a Madonna. They +were trying to say something to each other, but the moment had made them +strangers, and they could not find the words. + +"You'll write," she said faintly. + +He nodded and smiled airily. A whistle blew. There was a banging of +doors, and a roar of cheering. The little mother moved impulsively +forward, climbed on to the footboard, threw her right arm around the +neck of her soldier, and drew his face down to her own. + +"Stand back there," bellowed the porters. But the girl's arm was locked +round the lad's neck as if she were drowning, and they took no notice. +The train began to move. A crippled soldier, in blue hospital uniform +and red tie, hobbled forward on his crutch, and took hold of the girl. + +"Break away," he said gruffly. "Break away, lass." + +He pulled her back to the platform. Then he hobbled forward with the +moving train and spoke to the young soldier. + +"If you meet the blighter wot gave me this," he said, pointing to his +amputated thigh, "you give 'im 'ell for _me_!" + +It was a primitive appeal, but the boy pulled himself together +immediately, as the veteran face, so deeply plowed with suffering, +savagely confronted his own. And, as the train moved on, and the wounded +man stood there, upright on his crutch, May Margaret saw that there were +tears in those fierce eyes--eyes so much older than their years--and a +tenderness in the coarse face that brought her heart into her throat. + +The journey to Folkestone was all a dream, a dream that she was glad to +be dreaming, because she was now on the other side of the barrier that +separated people at home from those at the front. The queerest thoughts +passed through her mind. She understood for a moment the poor groping +endeavors of the war-bereft to break through those darker barriers of +the material world, and get into touch, no matter how vaguely, with the +world beyond. She felt that in some strange way she was succeeding. + +They had lunch on the train. She forced herself to drink some black +coffee, and nibble at some tepid mutton. She was vaguely conscious that +the correspondents were enjoying themselves enormously at the expense of +the State, and she shuddered at the grotesque sense of humor which she +discovered amongst her thoughts at this moment. + +The Channel-crossing on the troop-ship brought her nearer yet. There was +hardly standing-room on any of the decks, and the spectacle was a very +strange one, for all the crowded ranks in khaki, officers and men, had +been ordered to wear life-belts. A hospital ship which had just arrived +was delivering its loads of wounded men to the docks, and these also +were wearing life-belts. + +The sunset-light was fading as the troop-ship moved out, and the seas +had that peculiar iridescent smoothness, as of a delicately tinted skin +of very faintly burning oils, which they so often wear when the wind +falls at evening. On one side of the ship a destroyer was plowing +through white mounds of foam; and overhead there was one of the new +silver-skinned scouting air-ships. + +Away to the east, a great line of transports was returning home with the +wounded, and the horizon was one long stream of black smoke. It was all +so peaceful that the life-belts seemed an anomaly, and it was difficult +to realize the full meaning of this traffic. The white cliffs of England +wore a spiritual aspect that only the hour and its grave significance +could lend them; and May Margaret thought that England had never looked +so beautiful. There were other troop-ships all crowded, about to follow, +and their cheers came faintly across the water. The throb of the engines +carried May Margaret's ship away rhythmically, and somewhere on the +lower deck a mouth organ began playing, almost inaudibly, "It's a Long, +Long Way to Tipperary." The troops were humming the tune, too softly for +it to be called singing, and it all blended with the swish of the water +and the hum of the engine-room, like a memory of other voices, lost in +France and Flanders. May Margaret looked down at the faces. They, too, +were grave and beautiful with evening light; and the brave unquestioning +simplicity of it all seemed to her an inexpressibly noble thing. She +thought for a moment that no pipes among the mists of glen or mountain, +no instrument on earth, ever had the beauty of that faint music. It was +one of those unheard melodies that are better than any heard. The sea +bore the burden. The winds breathed it in undertone; and its message was +one of a peace that she could not understand. Perhaps, under and above +all the tragedies of the hour, the kingdom of heaven was there. + +The cliffs became ghostly in the distance, and suddenly on the dusky +waters astern there shone a great misty star. It was the first flash of +the shore searchlights, and May Margaret watched it flashing long after +the English coast had disappeared. Then she lost the searchlight also; +and the transport was left, with the dark destroyer, to find its way, +through whatever perils there might be, to the French coast. Millions of +men--she had read it--had been transported, despite mines and +submarines, without the loss of a single life. She had often wondered +how it was possible. Now she saw the answer. + +A little black ship loomed up ahead of them and flashed a signal to +their escort. Far through the dusk she saw them, little black trawlers +and drifters, _Lizzie_ and _Maggie_ and _Betsy Jane_, signaling all that +human courage could discover, of friend or foe, on the face of the +waters or under them. + +In a very short time they caught the first glimpse of the searchlights +on the French coast; and, soon afterwards, they drew into a dark harbor, +amid vague cheerings and occasional bursts of the "Marseillaise" from +wharves thronged with soldiers of a dozen nationalities. A British +officer edged his way through the crowd below them on the quay, and +waved his hand to Julian Sinclair. + +"Ah, there's our military guide, Captain Crump. Now, if you'll follow me +and keep together, we'll get our passports examined quickly, and join +him," said the latter, obviously relieved at the prospect of sharing his +neutrals with a fellow-countryman. + +There followed a brief, but very exact, scrutiny and stamping of papers +by an aquiline gentleman whose gold-rimmed spectacles suggested a +microscopical carefulness; a series of abrupt introductions to Captain +Crump on the gloomy wharf; a hasty bite and sup in a station restaurant, +where blue uniforms mingled with khaki, and some red-tabbed British +staff-officers, at the next table, were drinking wine with some turbaned +Indian Princes. It was a strange glimpse of color and light rifting the +darkness for a moment. Then they followed Captain Crump again, through +great tarpaulined munition-dumps and loaded motor-lorries, to the two +motor-cars behind the station. In these they were whirled, at forty +miles an hour, along one of the poplar-bordered roads of France that +seemed to-night as ghostly as those titanic alleys of Ulalume, in the +song of May Margaret's national poet. Once or twice, as they passed +through a cluster of cottages, the night-wind brought a whiff of +iodoform, and reminded her that flesh and blood were fighting with pain +and death somewhere in that darkness. + +Every few minutes they passed troops of dark marching men. Several times +it seemed to her that she recognized the face for which she was looking, +in some momentary glimmer of starlight. + +At last they reached the village where the guests of G. H. Q. were to be +quartered. The foreigners were assigned to the château which was used as +a guest-house; but there had been one or two unexpected arrivals, and +Captain Crump asked the American correspondent if he would mind +occupying a room in the house of the curé, a hundred yards away up the +village street. The American correspondent was exceedingly glad to do +so, and was soon engaged in attempts at conversation with the friendly +old man in the black cassock who did his best to make her welcome. There +were no more difficulties for her that night, except that the curé had +very limited notions as to the amount of water she required for washing. + +They set out early the next morning on their way to that part of the +front which she had particularly asked to see. The long straight +poplar-bordered road, bright with friendly sunshine now, absorbed her. +She heard the chatter of the correspondents at her side as in a dream. + +"Have you read Anatole France?" said the Spaniard. (He was anxious for +improving conversation, and wore a velvet coat totally unsuited to the +expedition.) But May Margaret's every thought was plodding along with +the plodding streams of dusty, footsore men, in steel hats, and she did +not answer. She pointed vaguely to the women working in the fields to +save the harvest, and the anti-aircraft guns that watched the sky from +behind the sheaves. At every turn she saw something that reminded her of +things she had seen before, in some previous existence, when she had +lived in the life of her lover and traveled through it all with his own +eyes. She was passing through his existence again. He was part of all +this: these camps by the roadside, where soldiers, brown as gipsies, +rambled about with buckets; these endless processions of motor-lorries, +with men and munitions and guns all streaming to the north on every +road, as if whole nations were setting out on a pilgrimage and taking +their possessions with them; these endless processions of closed +ambulances returning, marked with the Red Cross. + +Once, over a bare brown stretch of open country, a magnificent body of +Indian cavalry swept towards them, every man sitting his horse like a +prince; and the British officers, with their sun-burned faces and dusky +turbans, hardly distinguishable from their native troops. + +"Glorious, aren't they?" said Sinclair, leaning back from his place +beside the chauffeur. "But they haven't had a chance yet. If only we +could get the Boches out of their burrows and loose our cavalry at +them!" + +She nodded her head; but her thoughts were elsewhere. This picturesque +display seemed to belong to a bygone age; it was quite unrelated to +this war of chemists and spectacled old men who disbelieved in chivalry, +laughed at right and wrong, and had killed the happiness of the entire +world. + +She noticed, whenever they passed a village or a farm-house, or even a +cattle-shed now, that the smell of iodoform brooded over everything. All +these wounded acres of France were breathing it out like the scent of +some strange new summer blossoms. A hundred yards away from the ruined +outhouses of every village she began to breathe it. Her senses were +unusually keen, but it dominated the summer air so poignantly that she +could not understand why these meticulously vivid men--the foreign +correspondents--were unaware of it. It turned the whole countryside into +a series of hospital wards; and the Greek was now disputing with the +Spaniard about home-rule for Ireland. + +At last, in the distance, they heard a new sound that enlarged the +horizon as when one approaches the sea. It was the mutter of the guns, a +deep many-toned thunder, rolling up and dying away, but without a single +break, incessant as the sound of the Atlantic in storm. + +The cars halted in what had once been a village, and was now a rubbish +heap of splinters and scarred walls and crumbling mortar. + +The correspondents alighted and followed Captain Crump across a broad +open plain, pitted with shell-holes. The incessant thunder of the guns +deepened as they went. + +"Don't touch anything without consulting me," snapped Crump at the +Spaniard, who was nosing round an unexploded shell and thinking of +souvenirs. "The Boches have a charming trick of leaving things about +that may go off in your hands. A chap picked up a spiked helmet here the +other day. They buried him in the graveyard that Mr. Grant wants to see. +It's a very small grave. There wasn't much left of him." + +The burial-ground lay close under a ridge of hills, and they approached +it through a maze of recently captured German trenches. It was a strange +piece of sad ordered gardening in a devastated world. Every minute or +two the flash and shock of a concealed howitzer close at hand shook the +loose earth on the graves, but only seemed to emphasize the still sleep +of this acre. It held a great regiment of graves, mounds of fresh-turned +earth in soldierly ranks, most of them marked with tiny wooden crosses, +rough bits of kindling wood. Some of the crosses bore names, written in +pencil. There was one that bore the names of six men, and the grave was +hardly large enough for a child. They had been blown to pieces by a +single shell. + +They passed through the French section first. Here there was an austere +poetry, a simplicity that approached the sublime in the terrible +regularity of the innumerably repeated inscription, "_Mort pour la +France_." In the British section there was a striking contrast. There +was not a word of patriotism; but, though the graves were equally +regular, an individuality of inscription that interested the Spanish +correspondent greatly. + +"It is here we pass from Racine to Shakespeare," he said, pointing to a +wooden cross that bore the words: + + "_In loving memory of Jim, + From his old pal, + The artful dodger, + 'Gone but not forgotten.'_" + +"No, no, no," cried the Greek correspondent, greatly excited by the +literary suggestion. "From Flaubert to Dickens! Is it not so, Captain +Crump?" + +Captain Crump grunted vaguely and moved on towards the soldier in +charge. May Margaret followed him, the photograph in her hand. + +"We want to find number forty-eight," said Captain Crump. + +The soldier saluted and led the way to the other end of the ground. Many +of the graves here had not been named. There had evidently been some +disaster which made it difficult. Some of them carried the +identification disc. + +"This is number forty-eight, sir," said the soldier, pausing before a +mound that May Margaret knew already by heart. "May I look at the +photograph, sir? Yes. You see, that's the rosary--that black +thing--round the cross." + +"The rosary! I don't understand." May Margaret looked at the string of +beads on the cross that bore the name of Brian Davidson. + +"I suppose he was a Roman Catholic, sir. They must have taken it from +the body." + +"No, he was not a Catholic," whispered May Margaret. She felt as if she +must drop on her knees and call on the mute earth to speak, to explain, +to tell her who lay beneath. + +"There must be a mistake," she said at last, and her own voice rang in +her ears like the voice of a stranger. "I must find out. How can I find +out?" + +Her face was bloodless as she confronted Captain Crump. + +"There's some terrible mistake," she said again. "I can't face his +people at home till I find out. He may be--" But that awful word of hope +died on her lips. + +"I'll do my best," said Captain Crump. "It's very odd, certainly; but I +shouldn't--er--hope for too much. You see, if he were living, they +wouldn't have been likely to overlook it. It's possible that he may be +there, or there." He pointed to two graves without a name. "Or again, he +may be missing, of course, or a prisoner. His lot are down at Arras now. +We'll get into touch with them to-morrow and I'll make inquiries. You +want to pass a night in the trenches, don't you? I think it can be +arranged for you to go to that section to-morrow night. Then we can kill +two birds with one stone." + +May Margaret thanked him. Behind them, she heard, with that strange +sense of double meanings which the most commonplace accidents of life +can awake at certain moments--the voice of one of the correspondents, +still arguing with the others. "Here, if you like, is Shakespeare," he +said: + + "_How should I your true love know + From another one._" + +The quotation, lilted inanely as a nursery rime, pierced her heart like +a flight of silver arrows. + +"You have not a very pleasant business," the correspondent continued, +addressing a soldier at work in an open grave. + +"I've 'ad two years in the trenches, sir, and I'm glad to get it," he +replied. + +"Little Christian crosses, planted against the heathen, creeping nearer +and nearer to the Rhine," murmured Julian Sinclair, on the other side of +May Margaret. + +The multiplicity of the ways in which it seemed possible for both +soldiers and civilians to regard the war was beginning to rob her of the +power to think. + +On their way back, through the dusk, they passed a body of men marching +to the trenches, with a song that she had heard Brian humming: + + "_Fat Fritz went out, all camouflaged, like a beautiful bumble-bee, + With daffodil stripes and 'airy legs to see what he could see, + By the light of the moon, in No Man's Land, he climbed an apple tree + And he put on his big round spectacles, to look for gay Paree._ + + _But I don't suppose he'll do it again + For months, and months, and months; + But I don't suppose he'll do it again + For months, and month, and months; + For Archie is only a third class shot, + But he brought him down at once,_ + + _AND_ + + _I don't suppose he'll do it again + For months, and months, and months._" + +Soon afterwards, with all these themes interchanging in her bewildered +mind, May Margaret heard Julian Sinclair calling through the dark from +the car ahead: "Take a good look at the next village; it's called +Crécy." The stars that watched the ancient bowmen had nothing new to +tell her; but a few minutes later, as another body of troops came +tramping through the dark to another stanza of their song, there seemed +to be an ancient and unconquerable mass of marching harmonies within the +lilt of the Cockney ballad; like the mass of the sea behind the breaking +wave: + + "_'E called 'em the Old Contemptibles, + But 'e only did it once, + And I don't suppose 'e'll do it again, + For months, and months, and months._" + +They dined at the château, and she slipped away early to the house of +the curé. Before she slept, she took out Brian's last letter and read +it. She sat on the narrow bed, under the little black crucifix with the +ivory Christ looking down at her from the bare wall. She was glad that +it was there; for it embodied the master-thought of that day's +pilgrimage. Never before had she realized how that symbol was dominating +this war; how it was repeated and repeated over thousands of acres of +young men's graves; and with what a new significance the wayside crosses +of France were now stretching out their arms in the night of disaster. + +In Brian's letter there was very little about himself. He had always +been somewhat impatient of the "lyrical people," as he called them, who +were "so eloquently introspective" about the war, and he had carried his +prejudice even into his correspondence. She was reading his letter again +to-night because she remembered that it expressed something of her own +bewilderment at the multiplicity of ways in which people were talking +and thinking of the international tragedy. "I have heard," he wrote, +"every possible kind of opinion out here, with the exception of one. I +have never heard any one suggest any possible end for this war but the +defeat of the Hun. But I _have_ heard, over and over again, ridicule of +the idea that this war is going to end war, or even make the world +better. + +"Along with that, I've often heard praise of the very militaristic +system that we are trying so hard to abolish altogether. Of course, this +is only among certain sets of men. But this war has become a war of +ideas; and ideas are not always contained or divided by the lines of +trenches. We are fighting things out amongst ourselves, in all the +belligerent countries, and the most crying need of the Allies to-day is +a leader who can crystallize their own truest thoughts and ideals for +them. + +"You know what my dream was, always, in the days when I was trying my +prentice hand in literature. I wanted to help in the greatest work of +modern times--the task of bringing your country and mine together. Our +common language (and that implies so much more than people realize) is +the greatest political factor in the modern world; and, thank God, it's +beyond the reach of the politicians. In England, we exaggerate the +importance of the mere politician. We do not realize the supreme glory +of our own inheritance; or even the practical aspects of it; the +practical value of the fact that every city and town and village over +the whole of your continent paid homage to Shakespeare during the +tercentenary. Carlyle was right when he compared that part of our +inheritance with the Indian Empire. It is in our literature that we can +meet and read each other's hearts and minds, and that has been our +greatest asset during the war. Think what it will mean when two hundred +million people, thirty years hence, in North America, are reading that +literature and sharing it. Shelley understood it. You remember what he +says in the 'Revolt of Islam.' The Germans understand, that's why +they're so anxious to introduce compulsory German into your schools and +colleges. But our own reactionaries are afraid to understand it. + +"After all, this war is only a continuation of the Revolutionary war, +when the Englishmen who signed the Declaration of Independence fought an +army of hired Germans, directed by Germans. Even their military maps +were drawn up in German. It's the same war, and the same cause, and I +believe that the New World eventually will come into it. Then we shall +have a real leadership. The scheming reactionaries in Europe will fail +to keep us apart. We shall yet see our flags united. And then despite +all the sneers of the little folk, on both sides of the Atlantic, we +shall be able to suppress barbarism in Europe and say (as you and I have +said): _Those whom God hath joined let no man put asunder._ + +"There seems to be an epidemic of verse among the armies. I haven't +caught it very badly yet; but these were some of my symptoms in a spare +moment last week: + + "_How few are they that voyage through the night, + On that eternal quest, + For that strange light beyond our light, + That rest beyond our rest._ + + _And they who, seeking beauty, once descry + Her face, to most unknown; + Thenceforth like changelings from the sky + Must walk their road alone._ + + _So once I dreamed. So idle was my mood; + But now, before these eyes, + From those foul trenches, black with blood, + What radiant legions rise._ + + _And loveliness over the wounded earth awakes + Like wild-flowers in the Spring. + Out of the mortal chrysalis breaks + Immortal wing on wing._ + + _They rise like flowers, they wander on wings of light, + Through realms beyond our ken. + The loneliest soul is companied to-night + By hosts of unknown men._" + + +II + +At ten o'clock the next morning, the two cars were moving at sixty miles +an hour along a road that ran parallel with the German trenches. There +was a slight screen of canvas to hide the traffic, for the road by +Dead-Man's-Corner was not the safest way into Arras at that time. But +they reached the city without misadventure, and May Margaret felt nearer +now than ever to the secret of the quest. + +No dream was ever so strange as this great echoing shell of the deserted +city where he, too, had walked so recently. He, too, had passed along +these cracked pavements, keeping close to the wall, in order to escape +observation from the enemy, whose lines ran through one end of the city +at this moment. He had seen these pitiful interiors of shattered houses, +where sometimes the whole front had been blown away, leaving the +furniture still intact on two floors, and even pictures, a little askew, +on the walls. He had seen that little black crucifix over that bed; +crossed this grass-grown square; and gone into the shattered +railway-station, where the many-colored tickets were strewn like autumn +leaves over the glass-littered floor. The Spaniard filled his pockets +with them. + +They went down a narrow street to the ruins of the cathedral. On one of +the deserted houses there was a small placard advertising the Paris +edition of a London paper, the only sign of the outside world in all +that echoing solitude. The neutrals rejoiced greatly before a deserted +insurance office, which still displayed an advertisement of its +exceedingly reasonable rates for the lives of peaceful citizens. Their +merriment was stopped abruptly by a hollow boom that shook the whole +city and rumbled echoing along the deserted streets from end to end. + +"That's a Boche shell," said Crump. "It sounds as if they've got the +cathedral again." + +At noon they lunched under the lee of a hill just outside Arras, that +had been drenched with blood a few weeks earlier. The great seas of +thunder ebbed and flowed incessantly from sky to sky, as if the hill +were the one firm island in the universe and all the rest were breaking +up and washing around them. The amazing incongruity of things bewildered +May Margaret again. It was more fantastic than any dream. They sat there +at ease, eating chicken, munching sandwiches, filling their cups with +red wine and white, and ending with black coffee, piping hot from the +thermos bottle. Great puffs of brown smoke rose in the distance where +our shells were dropping along the German line. It looked as if the +trees were walking out from a certain distant wood. Little blue rings of +smoke rose from the peaceful cigarettes around her. Bees and butterflies +came and went through the sunshine; and, in the stainless blue sky +overhead there was a rush and rumor as of invisible trains passing to +and fro. The neutrals amused themselves by trying to distinguish between +our own and the enemy shells. + +At two o'clock Crump rose. "I'll take you along now, Grant, if you are +ready," he said. "The rest of you wait here. I shall be back in about +ten minutes." + +May Margaret stumbled after him down the hill. At the foot, a soldier +was waiting; and, hardly conscious of the fact that she had exchanged +one guide for another, she found herself plodding silently beside him on +her unchanging quest, toward the communication trenches. + +"What do they think about things in England, sir?" said her new +companion at last, with a curiously suppressed eagerness. + +"They are very hopeful," said May Margaret. + +"When do they think it will be over?" + +"Some of them say in six months." + +"Ah, yes. I've been here three years now, and they always say that. At +the end of the six months they'll say it again." + +It was the first open note of depression that May Margaret had heard. +"Do most of the men feel like that?" she said. + +"They don't say so, sir, but they all want it to be over." Then he +added, with the doggedness of his kind, "Not till we get what we're +fighting for, of course. You're a correspondent, sir, aren't you? Well, +I never seen the real fax put in the papers yet. There was one of these +soldier writers the other day. I saw his book in the Y. M. C. A. hut. He +said that the only time he nearly broke his heart was when there was a +rumor that Germany was asking for peace before he was able to get into +it hisself. That's what I call bloody selfish, sir. All this poytry! (he +spat into a shell-hole) making pictures out of it and talking about +their own souls. Mind you I'm all for finishing it properly; but it +ain't right, the way they look at it. It's like saying they're glad the +Belgians had their throats cut because it's taught their own bloody +selves the beauty of sacrifice. If what they say is true, why in the +hell do they want the war ever to stop at all? P'raps if it went on for +ever, we should all of us learn the bloody beauty of it, and keep on +learning it till there wasn't any one left. There was a member of +Parliament out here the other day. He saw three poor chaps trying to +wash in a mine-crater full of muddy water. Covered with lice they was. +The paper described it afterwards. The right honorable gentleman laughed +'artily, it said, same as they say about royalty. Always laughing +'artily. P'raps he didn't laugh. I dunno about that. But if he did, I'd +like him to 'ave a taste of the fun hisself." + +They were entering the long tunnel of the communication-trench now. The +soldier went ahead, and May Margaret followed, through smells of earth, +and the reek of stale uniforms, for a mile or more, till they came to +the alert eyes along the fire-step of the front-line trench. + +"Here's Major Hilton, sir." A lean young man with a thin aquiline nose +and a face of Indian red approached them, stepping like a cat along the +trench. + +"Mr. Grant," he said. + +May Margaret nodded, and they were about to shake hands, when one side +of the trench seemed to rise up and smash against their faces, with a +roar that stunned them. May Margaret picked herself up at once, wiping +the bits of grit out of her eyes. The bombardment appeared to be growing +in intensity. + +"That was pretty near," said Major Hilton. "You'd better come into my +dugout till this blows over." + +He led the way into his gloomy little cavern. It was not much of a +shelter from a direct hit; but it would protect them from flying +splinters at least. + +"Mr. Davidson was my friend," said May Margaret at once. "I know his +people. I think there must be some mistake about ... about the grave." + +"You're not a relative of his, are you?" said Major Hilton. "Had you +known him for long?" + +"No. Less than a year." + +"Well, I don't mind telling _you_ that there _was_ a mistake. We +discovered it a few hours after it was made; but we thought it better +not to upset his people by giving them further details." + +"He was killed, then," May Margaret whispered; and, if the darkness of +the dugout had not veiled her face, Major Hilton would not have +continued. + +"Yes. It was a trench raid. The Boches took a section of our trenches. +When we recovered it, we found him. You'd better not tell his people, +but I don't mind telling _you_. It was a pretty bad case." + +"What do you mean?" + +"One of those filthy Boche tricks. They'd nailed him up against the +lining of the trench with bayonets. He was still alive when we found +him. But they'll get it all back. We're going to give 'em hell +to-night." + +May Margaret was silent for so long that Major Hilton peered at her more +closely. Her white face looked like a bruised thing in the darkness. + +"I'm sorry," he said. "Perhaps I shouldn't have told you. They have done +so much of that kind of thing, I suppose we've got used to it. Well, +you've been tramping about all day, and if I were you, as you're going +to spend the night here, I should settle down for a bit in the dugout. +The bombardment seems to be easing off a little, and you'll want to be +awake all night. There'll be some sights coming on of the picturesque +kind--fireworks and things, which is what you want, I suppose, for the +blessed old public." + +Far away, in another section of the trenches, there was a burst of +cheering. Major Hilton pricked up his ears to listen; but it was drowned +immediately in another blast outside that sealed the mouth of the dugout +like a blow from a gigantic hammer and plunged them into complete +darkness thick with dust and sand. + +"Are you all right?" said Hilton, in a moment or two. "They've blown the +parapet over us. Our chaps will soon get us out." + +They sat down and waited. The sound of their rescuers' shovels was +followed almost immediately by the pulling away of a sandbag, and the +dusty daylight filtered in again, bringing with it another roar of +cheering, nearer now, and rolling along the trenches like an Atlantic +breaker. + +"What the hell are they shouting about?" Hilton grunted, as he scrambled +through the opening. May Margaret was about to follow him, when the +abrupt answer struck her motionless. + +"America has declared war, sir." + +"Are you sure?" + +"Yes, sir. They are passing the President's message along the line. It +looks as if they mean business." + +May Margaret had moved further back into the darkness of the dugout. She +was breathing quickly, panting like a thirsty dog. She dropped on her +knees by an old packing-case in the corner. + +"Thank God. Thank God," she repeated, with her eyes shut. Then the tears +came, and her whole body shook. + +A hand touched her shoulder. She rose to her feet and saw the bewildered +face of Major Hilton, peering again at her own. + +"I'm sorry," she said. "It's the first time I've done it since I was a +kid; but I've been hoping for this ever since the beginning. It's my +country, you see." + +"I've just been looking at the President's message," said Hilton. "I'm +an Englishman, but--if a democracy can discipline itself--I'm not sure +that yours won't be the greatest country in the world. I suppose it must +be, or the Lord wouldn't have entrusted so much to you. He gave you the +best that we ever had to give, and that was our Englishman, George +Washington; and the best thing that George Washington ever did, was to +fight the German King and his twenty thousand Hessians. Eh, what?" + +It was a little after dusk when the unexpected happened. There had been +a lull in the bombardment; and, on Major Hilton's advice, May Margaret +was resting in the dugout in readiness for the long wakeful night of the +trenches. + +She lay there, dazed as from shell-shock by the account of Brian's +death; and the declaration of war from her own country had burst upon +her with an equal violence, leaving her stunned in a kind of "No Man's +Land," a desolate hell, somewhere between despair and triumph. Her world +had broken up. Her mind was no longer her own. Her thoughts were +helpless things between enormous conflicting forces; and, as if to +escape from their rending clutches, as if to cling to the present +reality, she whispered to herself the words of the wounded soldier at +Charing Cross station: "If you meet him, give him hell for _me_! Give +him hell for _me_." It seemed as if it were Brian himself speaking. +Once, with a swift sense of horror, catching herself upon the verge of +insanity, she found that her imagination was furtively beginning to +picture his last agony, and she stopped it, screwing her face up, like a +child pulling faces at a nightmare, and making inarticulate sounds to +drive it away. + +Of one thing she was quite certain now. She did not wish to live any +longer in a world where these things were done. She meant, by hook or by +crook, to get to the dangerous bit of the trench, where our men were +only separated by six yards from the enemy, and to stay there until she +was killed. Even if she couldn't throw bombs herself, she supposed that +she could hand them up to others. And any thought that conflicted with +this idea she suppressed, automatically, with her monotonous echo of the +wounded soldier, "Give them hell for _me_." + +But she was spared any further trouble about the execution of her plans; +and she knew, at once, that she had come to the end of her quest, when +she heard the quick sharp cries of warning outside. + +It was a trench-raid, brief, and unimportant from a military point of +view. The newspapers told London, on the next day, that nothing of +importance had happened. Half a dozen revolvers cracked. There were +curses and groans, a sound of soft thudding blows and grunting, gasping +men, followed by a loud pig-like squeal. Then May Margaret saw three +faces peering cautiously into the dugout, faces of that strange +brutality, heavy-boned, pig-eyed, evil-skulled, which has impressed +itself upon the whole world as a distinct reversion from all civilized +types of humanity. She knew them, as one recognizes the smell of +carrion; and her whole soul exulted as she seized her supreme chance of +striking at the evil thing. She had picked up a revolver almost +unconsciously, and without pausing to think she fired three times with a +steady hand. Two of them she knew that she had killed. The third had +been too quick for her, and in another second she was down on her back, +with a blood-greased boot on her throat, and a throng of evil-smelling +cattle around her. Unhappily, they did not kill her at once; and so the +discovery was made, amidst a storm of guttural exclamations. + +When the trench was retaken, half an hour later, a further discovery was +made by Major Hilton. A locket containing a photograph of Brian Davidson +was buried in what remained of her left breast, as if it had been trying +to hide in her heart. It was almost the only thing about her that was +unhurt. + +Major Hilton made no explanations; but when the body was removed, he +gave strict orders for it to be buried by the side of Lieutenant +Davidson. + + * * * * * + +A week later, Mr. Harvey, of the _Chicago Bulletin_, was informed that +his correspondent, Mr. Martin Grant, had died of pneumonia. The +authorities left the responsibility of informing others, who might be +interested, to his capable hands. + +He went to see Julian Sinclair about it; but he could not discover +whether that sincerely regretful young diplomat with the dazzling smile +and the delightful manners knew anything more. It may have been a +coincidence that, shortly afterwards, Mr. Harvey was recalled to the +shores of Lake Michigan, and replaced by another manager. + + + + +IX + +MAROONED + + +I + +Rachel Hepburn believed that her first lover had been drawn to her--when +she was twenty-two years old--by the way in which she played the violin. +She played it remarkably well; and she was also exceedingly pretty, in a +frank open-air fashion. Until she was seventeen, she had lived on the +mountainous coast of Cumberland, where she rode astride, and swam half a +mile every morning before breakfast. Her family nicknamed her "the +Shetland Pony"; and that was her picture to the life, as she used to +come in from her swim, with her face glowing and her dark eyes like +mountain pools, and the thick mane of hair blowing about her broad +forehead. Her sturdy build helped the picture at the time; but she had +shot up in height since then, and the phrase was no longer applicable. +At twenty-four, she became beautiful, and her music began to show +traces of genius. Unfortunately, she had the additional attraction of +ten thousand pounds a year in her own right; and, when the marriage +settlement was discussed, she proposed to share the money with her three +younger sisters. + +The young man behaved very badly. She told him--very quietly--that this +was the result of her own folly; for, in her family, hitherto, marriages +had always been "arranged." He replied--for he was an intellectual young +man, who understood women, and read the most advanced novelists--that +she was one of those who were ruining England with their feudal ideas. +Then they parted, the young man cursing under his breath, and Rachel +lilting the ballad to which she had hitherto attributed her good +fortune. + + "_Maxwelton's braes are bonnie, where early fa's the dew, + And it's there that Annie Laurie gi'ed me her promise true, + Gi'ed me her promise true, which ne'er forgot shall be, + And for bonnie Annie Laurie, I'd lay me doon and dee._" + +He had quoted it so often in his letters that she was justified, +perhaps, in thinking that it had influenced her fate. "You know, +darling, that those words were supposed to tell the love of a soldier, +who died in Flanders, fighting for England, more than a hundred years +ago, and when you sing them, I feel that I, too ..." So it was the +obvious thing to toss at him as she went through the door, holding her +head up almost as gallantly as a soldier. But he didn't seem to mind, +and the parting was final. + +Rachel, apparently, minded very much indeed; but she kept it to herself +and her violin, till on a certain day, she decided that she must escape +from all her old surroundings and forget. + +Her guardian was the only person she consulted, and he made no criticism +of her scheme of travel so far as she divulged it. She had been brought +up to complete freedom, while her parents were alive, and in the six +years since their death, she had proved that she was capable of taking +care of herself. He was wise or unwise enough not to let her know that +he understood her trouble. But he tried to express a certain sympathy in +his gruff parting words, "London is a grimy cavern." + +"Yes, and the people are grimy, too," she replied, waving her hand to +him, as she went out into the fog. She looked brighter than she had +looked for months past. His last impression of her was that she looked +as roses would look if they could wear furs and carry stars in their +eyes. + +She had been studying the sailings of the ocean-steamers for some time, +but it was not her intention to follow the traveled routes more than was +necessary. Her brain was busy with a new music, the music of the names +in a hundred tales that she had read. The Golden Gate and Rio Grande +called to her like chords in a Beethoven symphony. Yokohama and +Singapore stirred her like Rossini. But it was the folk-song of travel +that she wanted, something wilder and sweeter even than Tahiti, some +fortunate Eden island in the South Seas. + +Egypt and Ceylon were only incidents on her way. They only set the fever +burning a little more restlessly in her veins; and her first moment of +content was when the yacht of thirty tons, which she chartered in San +Diego, carried her out to the long heave of the Pacific, and turned +southward on the endless trail to the Happy Islands. + +This was a part of her scheme about which she had not consulted any one +at home, or she might have received some good advice about the choice of +her ship. It was a sturdy little craft, with small but excellent cabins +for herself and her maid. The captain and his wife were apparently +created for her special benefit, being very capable people, with the +quality of effacing themselves. The crew, of half a dozen Kanakas in +white shirts and red pareos, was picturesque and remote enough from all +the associations of cities to satisfy her desire for isolation. + +The maid was the only mistake, she thought, and she did not discover +this until they had been a fortnight at sea. Her own maid had fallen ill +at an early stage of her travels, and had been sent home from Cairo. +Rachel had engaged this new one in San Diego, chiefly because she +thought it necessary to take somebody with her. When Marie Mendoza had +come to do Rachel's hair at San Diego, she had a somewhat pathetic story +to tell about a husband who had deserted her and forced her to work for +her living. Rachel thought there might be two sides to the story when +she discovered that the captain was playing the part of Samson to this +Delilah. It was a vivid moonlight picture that she saw in the bows one +night, when she had come up on deck unexpectedly for a breath of air. +Captain Ryan was an ardent wooer, and he did not see her. Marie Mendoza +looked rather like a rainbow in the arms of a black-bearded gorilla, and +Rachel retired discreetly, hoping that it was merely a temporary +aberration. + +She would have been more disturbed, probably, if she had heard a little +of the conversation of this precious pair. + +"I tell you, it's a cinch, Mickey. I never seen pearls like 'em. They're +worth fifty thousand dollars in Tiffany's, if they're worth a cent. She +keeps 'em locked up in her steamer-trunk, but I seen her take 'em out +several times." + +"Well, I've been hunting pearls up and down the South Seas for twenty +years, and never had a chance of making good like this." + +But Rachel did not hear the conversation, or she might have been able to +change the course of events considerably. She might even have taken an +opportunity of explaining to Marie that the real pearls were in the bank +at home, and that the necklace in her trunk was a clever imitation, +useful when she wished to adorn herself without too much +responsibility, and worth about thirty-five pounds in London, or perhaps +a little more than one hundred and fifty dollars in New York. + +But Rachel knew nothing of all this; and so, on a certain morning, when +the _Seamew_ dropped anchor off the coral island of her dreams, she went +ashore without any misgivings. It was an island paradise, not recognized +by any map that she had seen, though Captain Ryan seemed to know all +about it. Rachel had particularly wanted to hear the real music of the +islanders, and Captain Ryan had assured her that she would find it at +its best among the inhabitants of this island, who had been unspoiled by +travelers, and yet were among the most gentle of the natives of the +South Seas. Marie Mendoza pleaded a headache, and remained on board; but +the Captain and his wife accompanied Rachel up the white beach, leaving +the boat in charge of the Kanakas. A throng of brown-skinned, +flower-wreathed islanders watched them timidly from under the first +fringe of palm trees; but the Captain knew how to ingratiate himself; +and, after certain gifts had been proffered to the bolder natives, the +rest came forward with their own gifts of flowers and long stems of +yellow fruit. Two young goddesses seized Rachel by the hands, and +examined her clothes, while the rest danced round her like the figures +from the Hymn to Pan in "Endymion." + +Before the morning was over, Rachel had made firm friends of these two +maidens, who rejoiced in the names of Tinovao and Amaru; and, when she +signified to them that she wanted to swim in the lagoon, they danced off +with her in an ecstasy of mirth at the European bathing dress which she +carried over her arm, to their own favorite bathing beach, which was +hidden from the landing-place by a palm-tufted promontory. + +It was more than an hour later when she returned, radiant, with her +radiant companions. She was a superb swimmer, and she had lost all her +troubles for the time in that rainbow-colored revel. She thought of +telling the Captain that they would stay here for some days. She wanted +to drink in the beauty of the island, and make it her own; to swim in +the lagoon, and bask in the healing sun; to walk through the palms at +dusk, and listen to the songs of the islanders. But where was the +Captain? Surely, this was the landing-place. There were the foot-prints +and the mark of the boat on the beach. Then she saw--with a quick +contraction of the heart--not only that the boat was missing, but that +there was no sign of the yacht. She stared at the vacant circle of the +sea, and could find no trace of it. There was no speck on that blazing +sapphire. + + +II + +Her last doubt as to whether she had been deliberately marooned was +removed by Tinovao, who pointed to a heap of her belongings that had +been dumped on the beach, all in accordance with the best +sea-traditions, though it was due in this case to a sentimental spasm on +the part of Marie Mendoza, who remembered the kindness of Rachel at San +Diego. + +The heap was a small one. But Rachel was glad to see that it included +her violin-case. + +She knew that her stay was like to be a long one. They had been looking +for islands out of the way of ships; and she knew that it might even be +some years before another sail appeared on that stainless horizon. The +thieves would disappear, and they were not likely to talk. Her own +movements had been so erratic that she doubted whether her friends could +trace her. But she took it all very pluckily; so that the round-eyed +Amaru and Tinovao were unable to guess the full meaning of her plight. +They came to the conclusion, and Rachel thought it best to encourage +them in it, that she was voluntarily planning to live amongst them for a +little while, and that the yacht would of course return for her. They +had heard of white people doing these strange things, and they were +delighted at the prospect. + +In a very short time, they had lodged Rachel in a hut of palm leaves, +with all the fruits of the island at her door. They carried up the small +heap of her possessions, and she gave them each a little mirror from her +dressing bag, which lifted them into the seventh heaven. Thenceforward, +they were her devoted slaves. Rachel discovered, moreover, while they +were turning over her possessions and examining her clothes, that her +ignorance of their language was but a slight barrier to understanding. +They communicated, it seemed, by a kind of wireless telegraphy, through +that universal atmosphere of their sex. They helped her to do her hair; +and, as it fell over her shoulders, they held it up to one another, +admiring its weight and beauty. When it was dark, there came a sound of +singing from the beach; and they crowned her with fresh frangipanni +blossoms, and led her out like a bride, to hear the songs of the +islanders. + +It was a night of music. In the moonlight, on the moon-white sands, a +few of the younger islanders, garlanded like the sunburnt lovers of +Theocritus, danced from time to time; but, for the most part, they were +in a restful mood, attuned to the calm breathing of the sea. Their +plaintive songs and choruses rose and fell as quietly as the night-wind +among the palms; and Rachel thought she had never heard or seen anything +more exquisite. The beauty of the night was deepened a thousand-fold by +her new loneliness. The music plucked at her heart-strings. Beautiful +shapes passed her, that made her think of Keats: + + "_Now more than ever seems it rich to die, + To cease upon the midnight with no pain._" + +She murmured the lines to herself; and while her lips yet moved, a +young islander stood before her who might have posed as the model for +Endymion. He was hardly darker than herself, and, to her surprise, he +spoke to her in quaint broken English. + +"Make us the music of your own country," was what she understood him to +say, and Tinovao confirmed it by darting off to the hut and returning +with the violin. Rachel took it, and without any conscious choice of a +melody, began to play and sing the air which had been pulsing just below +the level of her consciousness ever since she had left England: + + "_Like dew on the gowan lying is the fa' of her fairy feet, + And like winds in simmer sighing, her voice is low and sweet, + Her voice is low and sweet, and she's a' the world to me, + And for bonnie Annie Laurie, I'd lay me doon and dee._" + +The islanders listened, as if spellbound; but she could not tell whether +the music went home to any of them, except the boy who lay at her feet +with his eyes fixed on her face. When the last notes died away, the +crowd broke into applause, with cries of "Malo! Malo!" But the boy lay +still, looking at her, as a dog looks at his mistress. Then the +moonlight glistened in his eyes, and she thought that she saw tears. +She bent forward a little to make sure. He rose with a smile, and lifted +her hand to his face, so that she might feel that his eyes were wet. + +"Tears," he said, "and I only listen. But you--you make the music, and +no tears are in your eyes." He looked into her face. + +"No," she said, "there are no tears in my eyes." Then she continued +hurriedly, as if speaking to herself (and perhaps only a musician would +have felt that the catch in her voice went a little deeper than tears): +"That's one of the things you lose when you go in for music. It used to +be so with me, too." + +"I like your music," the boy went on. "My father--English sailor. My +mother--learn speak English--from him. She teach me. My father only stay +here little time. I never see English people before this." + +Rachel looked at him with a quick realization of what his words meant. +The boy was at least eighteen years old. + +"You remember no ship coming to this island?" she said. + +"No. I never see my father. He only stay here little time. My mother +think for long time he will come again. That is how she die, only a +little time ago. Too much waiting. Make some more music. You have made +my ears hungry." + +But Rachel was facing the truth now, and she played and sang no more +that night. + + +III + +For a week or two, Rachel spent much time alone, thinking hard, thinking +things out as she had never done before. She did not quite understand +her isolation till the first shock of the full discovery had passed. +Then, one morning, sitting alone, and gazing out over the spotless blue, +she found herself accepting the plain fact, that this might indeed be +for ever. She found herself weighing all the chances, all that she had +lost, and all that yet remained to her. It dawned upon her, for the +first time, that youth does not lightly surrender the fulness of its +life, at the first disillusionment. She knew now that she would have +recovered from that first disastrous love-affair. She knew now that she +had always known it, and that her search had been only for some healing +dittany, some herb of grace that would heal her wound more quickly. She +faced it all--the loss of her birthright as a woman, the loss of the +unknown lover. She saw herself growing old in this loneliness. + +She weighed everything that was left to her, the freedom from all the +complications of life, the beauty of her prison, the years of youth and +strength that might yet rejoice in the sun and the sea, and even find +some companionship among these children of nature that rejoiced in them +also. She compared them with the diseased monstrosities, the hideous +bodies and brutal faces that swarmed in the gray cities of Europe. She +saw nothing to alter her former opinion here. She was condemned at any +rate to live among a folk that had walked out of an ode by Keats. But +always, at the end, she pictured herself growing old, with her own life +unfulfilled. + +Then, one day, a change came over her. She had lost all count of time in +that island of lasting summer; but she must have been marooned for many +months when it happened. + +One afternoon, when she had been swimming with Tinovao and Amaru, the +two girls had run up into the woods to get some fruit, leaving Rachel to +bask on the beach alone. The sunlight of the last few months had tinted +her skin with a smooth rosy brown that would have made it difficult to +distinguish her from a native, except for the contours of her face and +the deep violet of her eyes, as she lay on that milk-white sand. Before +she followed her friends, she thought she would take one more ride +through the surf. She made her way out, through the gap in the reef, +till she had reached the right distance. Then she rested, treading +water, while she waited for the big comber that was to carry her back +again. + +It was her civilized intelligence, perhaps, that betrayed her now, for +she turned her back to the sea for a moment, while she drank in the +beauty of the feathery green palms and delicate tresses of the ironwood +that waved along the shore. She was roused from her dreams by the +familiar muffled roar of the approaching breaker, and she turned her +head a few seconds too late to take the rush of it as it ought to have +been taken. It was a giant and, for almost the first time in her life, +she knew the sensation of fear in the sea, as the green crest crumbled +into white high over her. In that instant, too, she caught a glimpse of +a figure on the reef watching her. It was the figure of Rua, the boy +who spoke English; and, as the breaker crashed down with all its tons of +water over her head, she carried with her the impression that he was +about to dive to her rescue. She was whirled helplessly, heels over +head, downward and downward, then swept forward with the rushing +whirlpools in the blackness below, like a reed in a subterranean river. +She knew that if she could hold her breath long enough, she would rise +to the surface; but she had reckoned without the perils of the gap in +the reef. Twice she was whirled and caught against a jagged piece of +coral, which would probably have killed her if it had struck her head. +She took the warning, and held her arms in the best way she could to +ward off any head-blow. A lacerated body would not matter so much as the +momentary stunning that might prevent her from keeping afloat when she +rose. At last, when it seemed that she could hold her breath no longer, +she shot with a wild gasp to the surface again. + +She found that she was only half-way through the gap, not in mid-stream +where she would have been comparatively safe, but in an eddy of boiling +water, close to the reef and among sharp fangs of coral that made it +impossible to swim. All that she could do, at the moment, was to hold on +to the coral and prevent herself from being lacerated against it. The +sharp edges of the little shells, with which it was covered here, cut +her hands, as the water swirled her to and fro; but she held on, and +looked round for help. + +Then she saw that she was not fated to receive help, but to give it; +and, like lightning in a tropic night, the moment changed her world. She +had no time to think it out now; for she saw the face of Rua, swirling +up towards her through the green water, and it looked like the face of a +drowned man. His head and arms emerged, and sank again, twice, before +she caught him by the hand and drew him, with the strength of a woman +fighting for life, to her side. + +She was not sure whether he was alive or dead; but she saw that, in his +hasty plunge to help her, a dive that no native would have taken at that +place in ordinary circumstances, he had struck one of the coral jags. +Blood was flowing from his head and, as she held him floating there +helplessly for a minute, the clear water went away over the white coral +tinted with little clouds of crimson. She waited for the next big wave, +thinking that it would save or destroy them both. Happily, it had not +broken when it reached them; and, as they rose on the smooth back of it, +she held her companion by the hand, and struck out fiercely for a higher +shelf of the reef. It had been out of her reach before; but the wave +carried them both up to its level, and left them stranded there. + +From this point, the reef rose by easy stages; and, with the aid of two +more waves, she was able to lug Rua to a point where there was no risk +of their being washed away, though the clear water still swirled up +about them, and went away clouded with red. She lay there for a moment +exhausted; but, as her strength came back to her, the strange sensation +that flashed through her when she had first come to the surface returned +with greater force. Much has been said and sung about the dawn of wonder +on the primitive mind. This was an even stranger dawn, the dawn of +wonder on a daughter of the twentieth century. It seemed to her that she +was looking at the world for the first time, while she lay there panting +and gazing out to sea, with those red stains on the white coral, and +her hands gripping the slender brown hands of the half-drowned islander. +It seemed that she had returned to her childhood, and that she was +looking at a primal world that she had forgotten. She saw now that Rua +was breathing, and she knew instinctively that he would recover. The +wave of joy that went through her had something primitive and fierce in +it, like the joy of the wild creatures. She felt like an islander +herself, and when the sea-birds hovered overhead, she called to them, in +the island tongue, and felt as if she had somehow drawn nearer to them. +She looked at the sea with new eyes, as if it were a fierce old +play-mate of her own, an old tiger that had forgotten to sheath its +claws when it buffeted its cubs. There was a glory in the savor of life, +like the taste of freedom to a caged bird. Only it was Europe now, and +the world of houses, that seemed the cage. The sea had never been so +blue. The brine on her lips was like the sacramental wine of her new +kinship with the world.... + +Then, looking at Rua's face, as the life came back to it, a wave of +compassion went through her. Every contour of that face told her that +this boy also was a victim of her own kindred. He, too, was marooned, +and more hopelessly than herself, for there must be a soul within him +that could never even know what it had lost or what it hungered for, +unless, ... unless, perhaps, she could help him out of the treasures of +her own memory, and give him glimpses of that imperial palace whence he +came. + +It was growing dark when they slipped into the water of the lagoon and +swam slowly towards the beach. There, she helped him to limp as far as +his hut, neither of them speaking. He dropped on his knees, as she +turned to go, and laid his face at her feet. She stayed for a moment, +looking at him, and half stooped to raise him; but she checked the +impulse, and left him abruptly. + +At the edge of the wood, she turned to look again, and he was there +still, in the same attitude. There was a dumb pathos in it that reminded +her curiously of certain pictures of her lost world, the peasants in the +Angelus of Millet, though this was a picture unmarred by the curse of +Adam, the picture of a dumb brown youthful god, perfect in physical +beauty, praying in Paradise garden to the star that trembled above the +palms. + +Many women (and most men) in their unguarded moments, impute their own +good and evil to others; read their own thoughts in the eyes around +them; pity their own tears, or the tears of Vergil, in the eyes of +"Geist." But Rua was praying to the best he knew. + + +IV + +The prayer was a long one. It lasted, in various forms, for more than a +year. At dawn, she would wake, and find offerings of fruit and flowers +left at her door by her faithful worshiper; and often she would talk +with him on the beach, telling him of her own country, about which he +daily thirsted to hear more; for the more he learned, the more he seemed +to share her own exile. Music, too, they shared, that universal language +whose very spirituality is its chief peril; for it is emotion unattached +to facts, and it may mean different things to different people; so that +you may accompany the sacking of cities by the thunders of Wagner, or +dream that you see angels in an empty shrine. Sometimes, in the evening, +Rua would steal like a shadow from the shadows around her hut, where he +had been waiting to see her pass, and would beg her to play the music +of her own country. Then she would sing, and he would stand in the +doorway listening, with every pulse of his body beating time, and one +brown foot tapping in the dust. + +One night, she had been wandering with Tinovao and Amaru by the lagoon, +in which the reflected stars burned so brightly that one might easily +believe the island hung in mid-heaven. She looked at them for a long +time; then, with her arms round the two girls, who understood her words +only vaguely, she murmured to herself: "What does it matter? What does +anything matter when one looks up there? And life is going ... life and +youth." + +She said good-night to her friends, and laughingly plucked the red +hibiscus flower from behind the shell-like ear of Tinovao as they +parted. When she neared her door, a shadow stole out of the woods, and +stood before her on the threshold. His eyes were shining like dark +stars, the eyes of a fawn. "Music," he pleaded, "the music of your +country." + +Then he saw the red flower that she wore behind her ear, exactly as +Tinovao had worn it. He stared at her, as Endymion must have stared at +Diana among the poppies of Latmos, half frightened, half amazed. He +dropped to his knees, as on that night when she had saved him. He +pressed his face against her bare feet. They were cold and salt from the +sea. But she stooped now, and raised him. + +"In my country, in our country," she said, "love crowns a man. Happy is +the love that does not bring the woman to the dust." + + * * * * * + +There followed a time when she was happy, or thought herself happy. It +must have lasted for nearly seven years, the lifetime of that dancing +ray of sunlight, the small son, whom she buried with her own hands under +a palm-tree. Then Rua deserted her, almost as a child forsakes its +mother. He was so much younger than herself, and he took a younger wife +from among the islanders. When she first discovered his intention, +Rachel laughed mockingly at herself, and said--also to herself, for she +knew that she had somehow lost the power to make Rua understand +her,--"Have you, too, become an advanced thinker, Rua?" + +But Rua understood that it was some kind of mockery; and, as her mockery +was keeping him away from his new fancy, and he was an undisciplined +child, he leapt at her in fury, seized her by the throat, and beat her +face against the ground. When she rose to her feet, with the blood +running from her mouth, he saw that he had broken out two of her teeth. +This effectively wrecked her beauty, and convinced him, as clearly as if +he had indeed been an advanced thinker, that love must be free to +develop its own life, and that, in the interests of his own soul, he +must get away as quickly as possible. Thereafter, he avoided her +carefully, and she led a life of complete solitude, spending all her +days by the little grave under the palm-tree. + +She lost all count of time. She only knew that the colors were fading +from things, and that while she used to be able to watch the waves +breaking into distinct spray on the reef, she could only see now a blur +of white, from her place by the grave. She was growing old, she +supposed, and it was very much like going to sleep, after all. The slow +pulse of the sea, the voice of the eternal, was lulling her to rest. + + * * * * * + +When the schooner _Pearl_, with its party of irresponsible European +globe-trotters, dropped anchor off the island, it was the first ship +that had been seen there since the arrival of the _Seamew_, the first +that had ever been seen there by many of the young islanders. + +The visitors came ashore, shouting and singing, the men in white duck +suits, with red and blue pareos fastened round their waists; the women +in long flowing lava-lavas of yellow and rose and green, which they had +bought in Tahiti, for they were going to do the thing properly. The lady +in yellow had already loosened her hair and crowned herself with +frangipanni blossoms. The islanders flocked around them, examining +everything they wore, and decorating them with garlands of flowers, just +as they had done with Rachel's party. The new arrivals feasted on the +white beach of the lagoon, in what they believed to be island fashion; +and when the stars came out, and the banjos were tired, they called on +the islanders for the songs and dances of the South Seas. The lady in +yellow tittered apprehensively, and remarked to her neighbor in green, +that she had heard dreadful things about some of those dances. But she +was disappointed on this occasion. The plaintive airs rose and fell +around them, like the very voice of the wind in the palm trees; and the +dancers moved as gracefully as the waves broke on the shore. + +When the islanders had ended their entertainment, amidst resounding +applause, one of the young native women called out a name that seemed to +amuse her companions. They instantly echoed it, and one of them snatched +a banjo from the hands of a white man. Then they all flew, like +chattering birds, towards a hut, which had kept its door closed +throughout the day. + +They clamored round it, gleefully nudging each other, as if in +expectation of a huge joke. At last, the door opened, and a gray, bent +old woman appeared. She was of larger build than most of the islanders, +and there was something in her aspect that silenced the chatterers, even +though they still nudged each other slyly. The native with the banjo +offered it to her almost timidly, and said something, to which the old +woman shook her head. + +"They say she is a witch," said the Captain of the _Pearl_, who had been +listening to the conversation of the group nearest to him. "They want +her to give us some of her music. She used to sing songs, apparently, +before her man drove her out of his house, in the old days, but she has +not sung them since. They think she might oblige our party, for some +strange reason. Evidently, they've got some little joke they want to +play on us. You know these Kanakas have a pretty keen sense of humor." + +The visitors gathered round curiously. An island witch was certainly +something to record in their diaries. The old woman looked at them for a +moment, with eyes like burning coals through her shaggy elf-locks. They +seemed to remind her of something unpleasant. A savage sneer bared her +broken teeth. Then she took the banjo in her shaking hands. They were +queerly distorted by age or some disease and they looked like the claws +of a land-crab. She sat down on her own threshold, and touched the +strings absently with her misshapen fingers. The faint sound of it +seemed to rouse her, seemed to kindle some sleeping fire within her, and +she struck it twice, vigorously. + +The banjo is not a subtle instrument, but the sound of those two chords +drew the crowd to attention, as a master holds his audience breathless +when he tests his violin before playing. + +"Holy smoke!" muttered the owner of the banjo, "where did the old witch +learn to do that?" + +Then the miracle began. The decrepit fingers drew half a dozen chords +that went like fire through the unexpectant veins of the Europeans, went +through them as a national march shivers through the soul of a people +when its armies return from war. The haggard burning eyes, between the +tattered elf-locks, moistened and softened like the eyes of a Madonna, +and the withered mouth, with its broken teeth, began to sing, very +softly and quaveringly, at first, but, gathering strength, note by note, +the words that told of the love of a soldier who fought in Flanders more +than a hundred years ago: + + "_Maxwelton's braes are bonnie, where early fa's the dew, + And it's there that Annie Laurie gi'ed me her promise true._" + +"But it's a white woman," said the lady in the yellow lava-lava, who had +expected only the islanders to shock her, "a white woman gone native! +How disgustin'!" + +"Ssh!" said somebody else, "she's going to give us more." + +The old witch hardly seemed conscious of their presence now. The +slumbering sea of music within her was breaking up the ice which had +sealed and silenced it for so long. She nodded at them, with shining +eyes, and muttered thickly, an almost childlike boast: + +"Oh, but I could do better than that once. My fingers are stiff. Wait!" + +She went into her hut, and returned with the violin. Tremblingly, she +opened a little packet of violin strings. + +"It's my last," she said. "I've kept it very carefully; but it won't be +as good as it used to be." + +The throng watched her breathlessly, as she made ready, and the +trade-wind hushed itself to sleep among the palms. + +"When I was in Europe last," she said, "it seemed to me there was +darkness coming. People had forgotten the meaning of music like this. +They wanted discord and blood and wickedness. I didn't understand it. +But you could see it coming everywhere. Horrible pictures. Women like +snakes. Books like lumps of poison. Hatred everywhere. Even the +musicians hated each other; and if they thought any one had genius, O +ever so little of that--do you know--I think they wanted to kill. Of +course, I chose wrong. I ought to have stayed and fought them. It's too +late now. But you know the meaning of this? It's the cry over the lost +city, before the windows were darkened and the daughters of music +brought low." + +"Crazy as a loon!" whispered the lady in the yellow lava-lava. + +The old woman stood upright in the shadow of a tall palm-tree, a shadow +that spread round her on the milk-white beach like a purple star. Then +her violin began to speak, began to cry, through the great simple melody +of the _Largo_ of Handel, like the soul of an outcast angel. + +At the climax of its infinite compassion, two strings snapped in quick +succession, and she sank to the ground with a sob, hugging the violin to +her breast, as if it were a child. + +"That was the last," she said. + +They saw her head fall over on her shoulder, as she lay back against the +stem of the palm, an old, old woman asleep in the deep heart of its +purple star of shadow; and they knew, instinctively, even before the +Captain of the _Pearl_ advanced to make quite sure, that it was indeed +the last. + + + + +X + +THE GARDEN ON THE CLIFF + + +"I don't know about three acres and a cow, but every man ought to have +his garden. That's the way I look at it," said the old fisherman, +picking up another yard of the brown net that lay across his knees. +"There's gardens that you see, and gardens that you don't see. There's +gardens all shut in with hedges, prickly hedges that 'ull tear your hand +if you try to make a spy-hole in them; and some that you wouldn't know +was there at all--invisible gardens, like the ones that Cap'n Ellis used +to talk about. + +"I never followed him rightly; for I supposed he meant the garden of the +heart, the same as the sentimental song; but he hadn't any use for that +song, so he told me. My wife sent it to him for a Christmas present, +thinking it would please him; and he used it for pipe-lights. The words +was very pretty, I thought, and very appropriate to his feelings: + + _'Ef I should plant a little seed of love, + In the garden of your heart._ + +That's how it went. But he didn't like it. + +"Then there's other gardens that every one can see, both market-gardens +and flower-gardens. Cap'n Ellis told me he knew a man once that wore a +cauliflower in his buttonhole, whenever he went to chapel, and thought +it was a rose. Leastways, he thought that every one else thought it was +a rose. Kind of an orstrich he must have been. But that wasn't the way +with Cap'n Ellis. Every one could see _his_ garden, though he had a nice +big hedge round three sides of it, and it wasn't more than +three-quarters of an acre. Right on the edge of the white chalk coast it +was; and his little six-room cottage looked like a piece of the white +chalk itself. + +"But he was a queer old chap, and he always would have it that nobody +could really see his garden. I used to take him a few mackerel +occasionally--he liked 'em for his supper--and he'd walk in his garden +with me for half an hour at a time. Then, just as I'd be going he'd give +a little smile and say, 'Well, you haven't seen my garden yet! You must +come again.' + +"'Haven't seen your garden,' I'd say. 'I've been looking at it this half +hour an' more!' + +"'Once upon a time, there was a man that couldn't see a joke,' he'd say. +Then he'd go off chuckling, and swinging his mackerel against the +hollyhocks. + +"Funny little old chap he was, with a pinched white face, and a long +nose, and big gray eyes, and fluffy white hair for all the world like +swans' down. But he'd been a good seaman in his day. + +"He'd sit there, in his porch, with his spyglass to his eye, looking out +over his garden at the ships as they went up and down the Channel. Then +he'd lower his glass a little to look at the butterflies, fluttering +like little white sails over the clumps of thrift at the edge of the +cliff, and settling on the little pink flowers. Very pretty they was +too. He planted them there at the end of his garden, which ran straight +down from his cottage to the edge of the cliff. He said his wife liked +to see them nodding their pink heads against the blue sea, in the old +days, when she was waiting for him to come home from one of his voyages. +'Pink and blue,' he says, 'is a very pretty combination.' They matched +her eyes and cheeks, too, as I've been told. But she's been dead now +for twenty-five years or more. + +"He had just one little winding path through the garden to the edge of +the cliff; an' all the rest, at the right time of the year, was flowers. +He'd planted a little copse of fir trees to the west of it, so as to +shelter the flowers; and every one laughed at him for doing it. The sea +encroaches a good many yards along this coast every year, and the cliffs +were crumbling away with every tide. The neighbors told him that, if he +wanted a flower-garden, he'd better move inland. + +"'It was a quarter of a mile inland,' he says, 'when Polly and me first +came to live here; and it hasn't touched my garden yet. It never will +touch it,' he says, 'not while I'm alive. There are good break-waters +down below, and it will last me my time. Perhaps the trees won't grow to +their full height, but I shan't be here to see,' he says, 'and it's not +the trees I'm thinking about. It's the garden. They don't have to be +very tall to shelter my garden. As for the sea,' he says, 'it's my +window, my _bay_-window, and I hope you see the joke. If I was inland, +with four hedges around my garden, instead of three,' he says, 'it would +be like living in a house without a window. Three hedges and a big blue +bay-window, that's the garden for me,' he says. + +"And so he planted it full of every kind of flowers that he could grow. +He had sweet Williams, and larkspurs, and old man's beard, and lavender, +and gilly-flowers, and a lot of them old-fashioned sweet-smelling +flowers, with names that he used to say were like church-bells at +evening, in the old villages, out of reach of the railway-lines. + +"And they all had a meaning to him which others didn't know. You might +walk with him for a whole summer's afternoon in his garden, but it +seemed as if his flowers kept the sweetest part of their scents for old +Cap'n Ellis. He'd pick one of them aromatic leaves, and roll it in his +fingers, and put it to his nose and say 'Ah,' like as if he was talking +to his dead sweetheart. + +"'It's a strange thing,' he'd say, 'but when she was alive, I was away +at sea for fully three parts of the year. We always talked of the time +when I'd retire from the sea. We thought we'd settle down together in +our garden and watch the ships. But, when that time came, it was her +turn to go away, and it's my turn to wait. But there's a garden where +we meet,' he'd say, 'and that's the garden you've never seen.' + +"There was one little patch, on the warmest and most sheltered side that +he called his wife's garden; and it was this that I thought he meant. It +was just about as big as her grave, and he had little clusters of her +favorite flowers there--rosemary, and pansies and Canterbury bells, and +her name _Ruth_, done very neat and pretty in Sussex violets. It came up +every year in April, like as if the garden was remembering. + +"Parson considered that Cap'n Ellis was a very interesting man. + +"'He's quite a philosopher,' he said to me one day; and I suppose that +was why the old chap talked so queer at times. + +"One morning, after the war broke out, I'd taken some mackerel up to +Cap'n Ellis. + +"'Are you quite sure they're fresh,' he said, the same as he always did, +though they were always a free gift to him. But he meant no offense. + +"'Fresh as your own lavender,' I says, and then we laughs as usual, and +sat down to look at the ships, wondering whether they were transports, +or Red Cross, or men-of-war, as they lay along the horizon. Sometimes +we'd see an air-plane. They used to buzz up and down that coast all day; +and Cap'n Ellis would begin comparing it through his glass with the +dragon flies that flickered over his gilly-flowers. There was a +southwest wind blowing in from the sea over his garden, and it brought +us big puffs of scent from the flowers. + +"'Hour after hour,' he says, 'day after day, sometimes for weeks I've +known the southwest wind to blow like that. It's the wind that wrecked +the Armada,' he says, 'and, though it comes gently to my garden, you'd +think it would blow all the scents out of the flowers in a few minutes. +But it don't,' he says. 'The more the wind blows, the more sweetness +they give out,' he says. 'Have you ever considered,' he says, 'how one +little clump of wild thyme will go on pouring its heart out on the wind? +Where does it all come from?' + +"I was always a bit awkward when questions like that were put to me; +so--just to turn him off like--I says 'Consider the lilies of the +field.' + +"'Ah,' he says, turning to me with his eyes shining. 'That's the way to +look at it.' I heard him murmuring another text under his breath, 'Come, +thou south, and blow upon my garden.' And he shook hands with me when I +said good-bye, as if I'd shown him my feelings, which made me feel I +wasn't treating him right, for I'd only said the first thing that came +into my mind, owing to my awkwardness at such times. + +"Well, it was always disturbing me to think what might happen to Cap'n +Ellis, if one day he should find his garden slipping away to the beach. +It overhung quite a little already; and there had been one or two big +falls of chalk a few hundred yards away. Some said that the guns at sea +were shaking down the loose boulders. + +"Of course, he was an old man now, three score years and ten, at least; +and my own belief was that if his garden went, he would go with it. The +parish council was very anxious to save a long strip of the cliff +adjoining his garden, because it was their property; and they'd been +building a stone wall along the beach below to protect it from the high +tide. But they were going to stop short of Cap'n Ellis's property, +because of the expense, and he couldn't afford to do it himself. A few +of us got together in the _Plough_ and tried to work out a plan of +carrying on the wall, by mistake, about fifteen feet further, which was +all it needed. We'd got the foreman on our side, and it looked as if we +should get it done at the council's expense after all, which was hardly +honest, no doubt, in a manner of speaking, though Cap'n Ellis knew +nothing about it. + +"But the end came in a way that no wall could have prevented, though it +proved we were right about the old man having set his heart in that +garden. David Copper, the shepherd, saw the whole thing. It happened +about seven o'clock of a fine summer morning, when the downs were all +laid out in little square patches, here a patch of red clover, and there +a patch of yellow mustard, for all the world like a crazy quilt, only +made of flowers, and smelling like Eden garden itself for the dew upon +them. + +"It was all still and blue in the sky, and the larks going up around the +dew-ponds and bursting their pretty little hearts for joy that they was +alive, when, just as if the shadow of a hawk had touched them, they all +wheeled off and dropped silent. + +"Pretty soon, there was a whirring along the coast, and one of them +air-planes came up, shining like silver in the morning sun. Copper +didn't pay much attention to it at first, for it looked just as +peaceable as any of our own, which he thought it was. Then he sees a +flash, in the middle of Cap'n Ellis's garden, and the overhung piece, +where the little clumps of thrift were, goes rumbling down to the beach, +like as if a big bag of flour had been emptied over the side. The +air-plane circled overhead, and Copper thinks it was trying to hit the +coast-guard station, which was only a few score yards away, though +nobody was there that morning but the coast-guard's wife, and the old +black figurehead in front of it, and there never was any guns there at +any time. + +"The next thing Copper saw was Cap'n Ellis running out into what was +left of his garden, with his night-shirt flapping around him, for all +the world like a little white sea-swallow. He runs down with his arms +out, as if he was trying to catch hold of his garden an' save it. Copper +says he never knew whether the old man would have gone over the edge of +the cliff or not. He thinks he would, for he was running wildly. But +before he reached the edge there was another flash and, when the smoke +had cleared, there was no garden or cottage or Cap'n Ellis at all, but +just another big bite taken out of the white chalk coast. + +"We found him under about fifteen ton of it down on the beach. The +curious thing was that he was all swathed and shrouded from head to foot +in the flowers of his garden. They'd been twisted all around him, +lavender, and gilly-flowers, and hollyhocks, so that you'd think they +were trying to shield him from harm. P'raps they've all gone with him to +one of them invisible gardens he used to talk about, where he was going +to meet his dead sweetheart. + +"They buried him on the sunny side of the churchyard. You can see a bit +of blue sea between the yew trees from where he lies, so he's got his +window still; and there's a very appropriate inscription on his +tombstone: + +"_Awake, O north wind, and come, thou south: Blow upon my garden, that +the spices thereof may flow forth._" + + + + +XI + +THE HAND OF THE MASTER + + +It was on Christmas Day, 1914, that I received one of the strangest +documents I had ever read. It was in the form of a letter from Jonathan +Martin, who had made himself a torch of ambition and fear to many moths +in London by painting portraits that were certain to be the pictures of +the year, but also certain to reveal all the idiosyncrasies, good and +bad, of their subjects. It was the fashion to call him cynical. In fact, +he was an artist, and a great one. + +His unusual power of eliciting unexpected meanings from apparently +meaningless incidents and objects was not confined to his art. In +private conversation, he would often startle you with a sentence that +was like the striking of a match in a dark room. You didn't know that +the room was dark until he spoke; and then, in a flash, mysterious +relationships at which you had never guessed, were established. You +caught a glimpse of an order and a meaning that you had not discerned +before. The aimless thing over which you had barked your shin became a +coal scuttle; the serried row of dark objects that irritated your left +elbow became the works of Shakespeare; and, if you were lucky, you +perhaps discovered the button by which you could switch on the electric +light, and then sit down by the hearth and read of "beauty, making +beautiful old rhyme." + +But this is a very faint hint of the kind of illumination with which he +would surprise you on all kinds of occasions. I shall never forget the +way in which he brought into a queer juxtaposition "the Day" that +Germany had been toasting for forty years and the final request for an +answer before midnight, which was embodied in the British ultimatum. He +would give you a patch of unexpected order in the chaos of politics, and +another in the chaos of the creeds--patches that made you feel a +maddening desire to widen them until they embraced the whole world. You +felt sure that he himself had done this, that he lived in a +re-integrated universe, and that--if only there were time enough--he +could give you the whole scheme. In short, he saw the whole universe as +a work of art; and he conceived it to be his business, in his own art, +to take this or that apparently isolated subject and show you just the +note it was meant to strike in the harmony of the whole. He was very +fond of quoting the great lines of Dante, where he describes the +function of the poet as that of one who goes through the world and where +he sees the work of Love, records it. But, please to remember, this did +not imply that the subject was necessarily a pleasant one. Beauty was +always there, but the beauty was one of relationships, not of the thing +itself. As he once said, "an old boot in the gutter will serve as a +subject if you can make it significant, if you can set it in relation to +the enduring things." It is necessary to make this tedious preface to +his odd letter, or the point of it may be lost. + +"I want to tell you about the most haunting and dramatic episode I have +encountered during these years of war," he wrote. "It was a thing so +slight that I hardly know how to put it into words. It couldn't be +painted, because it includes two separate scenes, and also--in +paint--it would be impossible to avoid the merely sentimental effect. + +"It happened in London, during the very early days of the struggle. One +afternoon, I was riding down Regent Street on the top of a bus. The +pavements were crowded with the usual throng. Women in furs were peering +into the windows of the shops. Newspaper boys were bawling the latest +lies. Once, I thought I saw a great scribble of the Hand that writes +history, where a theater poster, displaying a serpentine woman, a kind +of Aubrey-Beardsley vampire, was half obliterated by a strong diagonal +bar of red, bearing the words, '_Kitchener wants a hundred thousand +men_.' My mind was running on symbols that afternoon, and I wondered if +it did perhaps mean the regeneration of art and life in England at last. + +"Then we overtook a strange figure, a blind man, tapping the edge of the +pavement with a rough stick, cut out of some country hedgerow. He was +carrying, in his left hand, a four-foot pole, at the top of which there +was nailed a board, banner-wise, about three feet long and two feet +wide. On the back of the board, as we overtook him, I read the French +text in big red letters: 'VENEZ A MOI, VOUS TOUS QUI ETES TRAVAILLÉS ET +CHARGÉS, ET JE VOUS SOULAGERAI.' + +"On the other side of the board, as we halted by the curb a little in +front of him, there was the English version of the same text, in big +black letters: 'COME UNTO ME, ALL YE THAT LABOR AND ARE HEAVY-LADEN, AND +I WILL GIVE YOU REST.' + +"The blind man was tall and lean-faced, and held himself very upright. +He was poorly dressed, but very clean and neat. The tap of his stick was +like the smart tap of a drum, and he marched more rapidly than any of +those who were going in the same direction. + +"There were several things about him that puzzled me. There was no +advertisement of any sect, or any religious meeting, nothing but the two +texts on his placard. He went past us like a soldier, and he carried it +like the flag of his regiment. He did not look as if he were asking for +alms. The pride on his face forbade the suggestion; and he never +slackened his quick pace for a moment. He seemed entirely unrelated to +the world around him. + +"Possibly, I thought, he was one of those pathetic beings whose emotions +had been so stirred by the international tragedy that, despite their +physical helplessness, they were forced to find some outlet. Perhaps he +was an old soldier, blinded in some earlier war. Perhaps he was merely a +religious fanatic. In any case, in the great web of the world's events, +he seemed to be a loose fantastic thread; and although he was carrying a +more important message than any one else, nobody paid any attention to +him. + +"In a few moments, the bus had carried my thoughts and myself into other +regions, and, for the time, I forgot him. I occupied myself, as I often +do, in composing a bit of doggerel to the rhythm of the wheels. Here it +is. It is pretty bad, but the occasion may make it interesting: + + _Once, as in London busses, + At dusk I used to ride, + The faces Hogarth painted + Would rock from side to side, + All gross and sallow and greasy, + And dull and leaden-eyed._ + + _They nodded there before me + In such fantastic shape, + The donkey and the gosling, + The sheep, the whiskered ape, + With so much empty chatter, + So many and foolish lies, + I lost the stars of heaven + Through looking in their eyes._ + +"Late in the afternoon, I was returning westward, along the Strand. I +remember walking slowly to look at the beauty of the sunset sky, against +which the Nelson column, in those first days of the fight, rose with a +more spiritual significance than ever before. The little Admiral stood +like a watchman, looking out to sea, from the main mast of our Ship of +State, against that dying glory. It was the symbol of the national soul, +high and steadfast over the great dark lions, round which so many +quarreling voices had risen, so many quarreling faces had surged and +drifted away like foam in the past. This was the monument of the +enduring spirit, a thing to still the heart and fill the eyes of all who +speak our tongue to-day. + +"I was so absorbed in it that I did not notice the thick crowd, choking +the entrances to Charing Cross Station, until I was halted by it. But +this was a very different crowd from those of peace-time. They were all +very silent, and I did not understand what swarming instinct had drawn +them together. Nor did they understand it themselves--yet. 'I think they +are expecting something,' was the only reply I got to my inquiry. + +"I made my way round to the front of the station, but the big iron gates +were closed and guarded by police. Nobody was allowed to enter the +station. Little groups of railway porters were clustered here and there, +talking in low voices. I asked one of these men what was happening. + +"'They're expecting something, some train. But we don't know what it is +bringing.' + +"As he spoke, there was a movement in the crowd. A compact body of about +forty ambulance men marched through, into the open space before the +station. Some of them were carrying stretchers. They looked grave and +anxious. Some of their faces were tense and white, as if they too were +expecting something, something they almost dreaded to see. This was very +early in the war, remember, before we knew what to expect from these +trains. + +"The gates of the station swung open. The ambulance men marched in. A +stream of motor ambulances followed. Then the gates were closed again. + +"I waited, with the waiting crowd, for half an hour. It was impossible +now to make one's way through the dense crush. From where I stood, +jammed back against the iron railings, in front of the station, I could +see that all the traffic in the Strand was blocked. The busses were +halted, and the passengers were standing up on the top, like spectators +in some enormous crowded theater. The police had more and more +difficulty in keeping the open space before the station. At last, the +gates were swung apart again, and the strangest procession that London +had ever seen began to come out. + +"First, there were the sitting-up cases--four soldiers to a taxicab, +many of them still bandaged about the brows with the first blood-stained +field dressings. Most of them sat like princes, and many of them were +smiling; but all had a new look in their faces. Officers went by, +gray-faced; and the measure of their seriousness seemed to be the +measure of their intelligence, rather than that of their wounds. Without +the utterance of a word, the London crowd began to feel that here was a +new thing. The army of Britain was making its great fighting retreat, +before some gigantic force that had brought this new look into the faces +of the soldiers. It was our first real news from the front. From the +silent faces of these men who had met the first onset with their bodies, +we got our first authentic account of the new guns and the new shells, +and the new hell that had been loosed over Europe. + +"But the crowd had not yet fully realized it. A lad in khaki came +capering out of the station, waving his hands to the throng and shouting +something that sounded like a music-hall jest. The crowd rose to what it +thought was the old familiar occasion. + +"'Hello, Tommy! Good boy, Tommy! Shake hands, Tommy! Are we downhearted, +Tommy?' The old vacuous roar began and, though all the faces near me +seemed to have two eyes in them, every one began to look cheerful again. + +"The capering soldier stopped and looked at them. Then he made a +grotesque face, and thrust his tongue out. He looked more like a +gargoyle than a man. + +"The shouts of 'Tommy, Tommy,' still continued, though a few of the +shouters were evidently puzzled. Then a brother soldier, with his left +arm in the sling, took the arm of the comedian, and looked a little +contemptuously at the crowd. + +"'Shell-shock,' he said quietly. And the crowd shouted no more that day. +It was not a pleasant mistake; and it was followed by a procession of +closed ambulances, containing the worst cases. + +"Then came something newer even than wounded men, a motley stream of +civilians, the Belgian refugees. They came out of the station like a +flock of sheep, and the fear of the wolf was still in their eyes. The +London crowd was confronted by this other crowd, so like itself, a crowd +of men in bowler hats and black coats, of women with children clinging +to their skirts; and it was one of the most dramatic meetings in +history. The refugees were carrying their household goods with them, as +much as could be tied in a bundle or shut in a hand-bag. Some of the +women were weeping. One of them--I heard afterwards--had started with +four children but had been separated from the eldest in the confusion of +their flight. It was doubtful whether they would ever be re-united. + +"Now, as this new crowd streamed out of the gates of the station towards +the vehicles that had been prepared for them, some of their faces lifted +a little, and a light came into them that was more than the last +radiance of the sunset. They looked as if they had seen a friend. It was +a look of recognition; and though it was only a momentary gleam, it had +a beauty so real and vivid that I turned my head to see what had caused +it. + +"And there, over the sea of faces that reached now to the foot of the +Nelson column, I saw something that went through me like great music. +Facing the gates of the station, and lifting out of the midst of the +crowd like the banner of a mighty host, nay, like the banner of all +humanity, there was a placard on a pole. The sunset-light caught it and +made it blaze like a star. It bore, in blood-red letters, the solemn +inscription that I had seen in the earlier part of the day: 'VENEZ A +MOI, VOUS TOUS QUI ETES TRAVAILLÉS ET CHARGÉS, ET JE VOUS SOULAGERAI.' + +"My blind man had found his niche in the universe. It was hardly +possible that he was even conscious of what he was doing; hardly +possible that he knew which side of his banner was turned towards the +refugees, whether it was the English, that would mean nothing to them, +or the French that would speak to them like a benediction. He had been +swung to his place and held in it by external forces, held there, as I +myself was jammed against the iron railings. But he had become, in one +moment, the spokesman of mankind; and if he had done nothing else in all +his life, it had been worth living for that one unconscious moment. + +"You may be interested to hear the conclusion of the doggerel which came +into my head as I went home: + + _Now, as I ride through London, + The long wet vistas shine, + Beneath the wheeling searchlights, + As they were washed with wine, + And every darkened window + Is holy as a shrine._ + + _The deep-eyed men and women + Are fair beyond belief, + Ennobled by compassion, + And exquisite with grief. + Along the streets of sorrow + A river of beauty rolls. + The faces in the darkness + Are like immortal souls._" + + * * * * * + + _WORKS BY ALFRED NOYES_ + + Collected Poems--_2 Vols._ + The Lord of Misrule + A Belgian Christmas Eve (Rada) + The Wine-Press + Walking Shadows--_Prose_ + Open Boats + Tales of the Mermaid Tavern + Sherwood + The Enchanted Island and Other Poems + Drake: An English Epic + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Walking Shadows, by Alfred Noyes + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 43186 *** |