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diff --git a/58817-0.txt b/58817-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..bb71746 --- /dev/null +++ b/58817-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5703 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 58817 *** + + + + + + + + + + + + + Transcriber's Notes: + + Italic text is denoted by _underscores_ and bold text by + =equal signs=. + + Small uppercase have been replaced with regular uppercase. + + Blank pages have been eliminated. + + Variations in spelling and hyphenation have been left as in the + original. + + + + +[Illustration: "'_Cast me not off in the time of old age, forsake me +not when my strength faileth._'"] + + + + + THE PRAYING + SKIPPER + + AND OTHER STORIES + + BY + RALPH D. PAINE + + + _ILLUSTRATED_ + + + [Illustration] + + + NEW YORK + THE OUTING PUBLISHING COMPANY + 1906 + + + + + Copyright, 1903, 1905, by CHAS. SCRIBNER'S SONS + Copyright, 1904, by THE CENTURY CO. + Copyright, 1905, by THE OUTING PUBLISHING CO. + Copyright, 1906, by MCCLURE, PHILLIPS & CO. + + Copyright, 1906, by THE OUTING PUBLISHING CO. + + Entered at Stationers' Hall, London, England + + _All rights reserved_ + + + THE OUTING PRESS + DEPOSIT, N. Y. + + + + +CONTENTS + + + CHAPTER PAGE + + I. THE PRAYING SKIPPER 1 + + II. A VICTORY UNFORESEEN 45 + + III. CORPORAL SWEENEY, DESERTER 116 + + IV. THE LAST PILOT SCHOONER 155 + + V. THE JADE TEAPOT 196 + + VI. CAPTAIN ARENDT'S CHOICE 225 + + VII. SURFMAN BRAINARD'S "DAY OFF" 259 + + + + +ILLUSTRATIONS + + + "Cast me not off in the time of old age, forsake + me not when my strength faileth." _Frontispiece_ + + FACING PAGE + + "You are a disgrace to Yale, all of you." 45 + + Jack Hasting's mother cannot find her boy in the + crew 74 + + The flight of Corporal Sweeney 118 + + The last of the _Albatross_ 182 + + As he rose the jagged timber was hurled straight + at him 286 + + + + +THE PRAYING SKIPPER + + +"But I'm not going to stand for this sort of thing," angrily protested +young Valentine as he shoved the letter at Port Captain Graham of the +Palmetto Line. "The old man may be as good a sailor as you say he is, +but it's high time we set him ashore on a half-pay pension. Why, he's +making our service ridiculous. Read it out to Mr. Holmes." + +The Port Captain fidgeted and awkwardly wiped his glasses, for the task +was unwelcome: + + + DEAR VALENTINE: Congratulations on your decision to mix up in the + business of the old company. It seems a hefty responsibility for + so young a man, but blood will tell. By the way, here is something + for you to investigate while the new broom is sweeping the cobwebs + away. I went South on your _Suwannee_ a month ago, and have the + honor to inform you that her captain is a venerable nuisance, and + loose in his top story. He is a religious crank, clean dippy on + it, held prayer-meetings until half the passengers were driven on + deck, and had a lot of hysterical women flocking around him for + two different services on Sunday. The _Suwannee_ is a gospel ark + in command of a praying skipper, and if only the sanctified are + going to enjoy traveling in her, you will lose a lot of business. I + reckon it's time the line had an overhauling, so good luck to you. + + Yours as ever, + + JIM. + + +Young Mr. Valentine explained to the surprised officials: + + + "The signer is an old college friend of mine, man of a great deal + of influence here in New York, and he gives the line and its + biggest, newest ship this kind of a black eye. And I have heard + other rumors to the same effect. Now I want an explanation from + both you gentlemen. You know all about Captain Jesse Kendrick of + the _Suwannee_, and it's your business to report such idiotic + performances. If you have been shielding a dottering old ass, who + is unfit to go to sea any longer, the sooner the thing is sifted + to the bottom the better." + +Port Captain Graham flushed and twisted his white mustache with a fist +like an oaken billet. He swallowed hard as if trying to keep his rising +steam under control, and replied with a catch in his deep voice: + +"Mr. Valentine, I've been with the Palmetto Line going on thirty years, +from the time when your father bought the first old side-wheeler that +flew the house flag. Jesse Kendrick was third under me in my first +command and I know him inside out. A finer sailor and a better man +never rounded Hatteras. Are you going to blackguard the ranking skipper +afloat in your service because of a flimsy complaint like that, without +calling the old man up to the office? Doesn't he get a hearing? Why, +you've just now waltzed into this company like a boy with a lot of toy +steamboats to play with, after loafing abroad in a muck of luxury ever +since you left your college. You've never even clapped eyes on Captain +Kendrick." + +Mr. Holmes, the General Manager, was speaking before Mr. Valentine +could make heated reply. He was largely office bred, and less outspoken +than the rugged Port Captain: + +"As far as his religion goes, we know that Captain Kendrick doesn't +drink a drop, and that he won't ship anything but sober men. And +your father had reason to send the old man a good many letters of +commendation in his time. Shall I 'phone to the dock for Captain +Kendrick? He sails this afternoon." + +"You'll do nothing of the kind," snarled Valentine. "I'll do my own +investigating this time, because you are a bunch of three old pals, do +you see?" + +"But you're not going to censure him right off the reel? Good God! it +would break the old man's heart," exclaimed the Port Captain, leaning +forward in a bluster of indignation. "I'll bet the morals of your +friend, Jim What's-his-name, need investigatin' a damn sight more than +the righteousness of Jesse Kendrick." + +Mr. Valentine snapped back, but with weakening assurance: + +"If you can't be civil, Captain Graham, there will be more than one +reprimand in this day's work. I am the owner ashore, and I propose to +be the boss at sea. I'll think it over, and if I want any more of your +advice, I'll send for you. Good-morning." + +He went into an inner office and closed the door. The Port Captain +glared at the barrier, and growled as he trudged reluctantly into the +outer hall, arm in arm with the General Manager. + +"_That_ spindle-shouldered, under-engined young cub as the make-believe +boss of the Palmetto Line! What do you think of it, Holmes? Dyin' must +have come hard to his dad when he took a last squint at the heir to the +business. This one surely needs some of Jesse Kendrick's spare prayers." + +"The young Valentine is cock of the walk," said the General Manager +slowly. "But the bantam was crowing to show his authority this time. +Anyhow, he said he would think it over, and that means he'll cool off. +Don't say anything to Kendrick about it. No use of discounting trouble +that may never come." + +But the two men had small acquaintance with the methods of young Mr. +Valentine. Without letting go his purpose, he had appeared to give +way, because he shrunk from pitting his will against this masterful +Port Captain, who made him feel like a house of cards in a big wind. +It was not inconceivable that this over-bearing old monster might lay +him across his knee and spank him in the white heat of a dispute. When +he heard the two veterans depart, the new-fledged owner turned to his +stenographer: + +"Please take a letter to Captain Kendrick and mail it to catch him at +New Orleans. I don't want him storming in here to-day." + +The gray hair of the stenographer had been a bonny brown when she +entered the employ of the Palmetto Line. As her pencil chased his +words down the pages of her notebook, she glanced up with undisguised +amazement, and dared to comment when her task was done: + +"Please pardon me, but are you sure you mean Captain Kendrick of the +_Suwannee_? You see, I have sailed with him on several vacation +trips. When he leads the services on board, I think it is because +the passengers like to hear him talk; such manly, honest talk about +the faith he lives day by day. He reminds you of some Old Testament +patriarch." + +"Old Testament patriarchs are out of date," said Mr. Valentine with +evident irritation. "Is there a conspiracy to boom the stock of this +senile old geezer? Religion is all right for you women. I am going +South in my private car next week, and by Jove, I will just come home +on the _Suwannee_ and look the situation over for myself. Mum's the +word. And I don't want any more of my friends to be guying me about +running a marine Sunday-school with a sea-parson in charge. That letter +ought to choke him off coming back." + + +II + +A fortnight later the _Suwannee_ was steaming across the sapphire +Gulf. Before her bow flying-fish skittered and splashed like flights +of shrapnel bullets, on deck sailors were stretching awnings fore and +aft, and wind-sails bellied in the open hatches. Men in flannels and +women in trim, white freshness leaned along the rail and watched the +sparkling play of color overside. There was the air of a yachting +cruise in these pleasant aspects of the day's routine, yet the season +was the dead of winter, and the _Suwannee_ was hurrying as fast as twin +screws could drive her toward bitter latitudes. + +On the bridge walked to and fro, with a slightly limping gait, a man +of an unusual presence. Those who looked up at him from the deck noted +his uncommon height and breadth, and the white beard that swept almost +to his waist. Nearer vision was needed to know the seamed yet mobile +face, and the gray eye that held an eager light as of strong emotions +continually burning. When he halted to speak to his first officer, his +voice was sweet and vibrant: + +"I am going below for a little while, Mr. Parlin. Call me when you've +run down your course." + +Captain Kendrick went into his room just abaft the wheelhouse, and +picked up from his desk a typewritten letter that showed marks of much +handling. He read it slowly, and his lip quivered as it had done with +each of many previous readings. Seating himself upon the edge of the +couch, he said aloud little fragments of the letter, taken here and +there without sequence: + +"Astonishing behavior ... guilty of annoyance ... serious complaints +... ridiculous religious display ... prime of usefulness past ... +evidently ripe for retirement...." + +The letter fell to the floor unheeded, as there came into his eyes a +look of impassioned intensity that was focused ever so far beyond the +walls of this little sea-cabin. He was on his knees and his head was in +his hands as he murmured: + +"Cast me not off in the time of old age, forsake me not when my +strength faileth.... Thy way is in the sea, and Thy path in the great +waters.... I said I will keep my mouth with a bridle while the wicked +are before me. But it is also written that evening and morning and at +noon will I pray and cry aloud and He shall hear my voice.... They have +prepared a net for my steps, my heart is bowed down.... But Thou hast a +mighty arm, strong is Thy hand and high is Thy right hand...." + +While Captain Kendrick was voicing his troubles and his consolations +in words wondrously framed by another strong man long ago, the purser +of the _Suwannee_ was sought out by Arthur Valentine, whose manner +held a trace of uneasiness. He would not have confessed it, but far +back in the young ship-owner's head was the glimmering notion that a +terrier might be snapping at a mastiff. Was this imposing figure on the +bridge the "dottering ass" to whom he had smartly dashed off his first +official reprimand, gloating in the chance to test the sweep of his new +authority? But this suspicion now shaped itself only in a growing fear +lest he be discovered in such uncomfortably close quarters with Captain +Jesse Kendrick. Mr. Valentine closed the door of the purser's room and +set that worthy officer's teeth on edge by remarking: + +"Fine morning. I say, you needn't bother to make any special point of +seating me at the captain's table. Fact is, I don't want to be bored. +Just put me over at your table, will you? And please tell nobody who +I am. I want to look around a bit. The captain doesn't know that I'm +on board, I take it, or he would have been showing me some troublesome +attentions. So you need say nothing to him about it. Just see that my +name is rubbed off his copy of the passenger list." + +The purser disentangled himself from a staggering heap of cargo +manifests, and emphasized his reply with a wave of an inky finger: + +"All right, Mr. Valentine, if those are your orders, but you miss your +guess if you think our skipper is going to run after you or any other +passenger. He ain't that kind. But sub rosy you go and as far as you +like, till further notice." + +Slightly ruffled, Mr. Valentine sauntered on deck, where he fell in +with Second-Officer Peter Carr, who proved to be contrastingly voluble +and cheerful. Before the passenger could ask certain questions that +were in his mind, Mr. Carr flourished an arm seaward, and began: + +"Passin' that bark yonder reminds me of a voyage I sailed as bos'n in +the old packet _Guiding Star_, out o' Liverpool for Sydney. We was +carryin' two hundred Irish girls as immygrants, an' soon after we +crossed the Line they mutinied 'cause we refused to give 'em curlin' +irons, an' let 'em waltz with the sailors every night an' twice on +Sunday. 'Bout four bells of the middle watch pourin' out o' the hatches +they come like a consolidated female explosion. I was in th' waist, an' +fust I knowed them millions of infuriated young angels surged straight +at poor Peter Carr. Sez I to myself, here's too much of a good thing +for once, an' with that I makes a flyin' scoot an' scrambles aloft +like a cat with a bunch o' firecrackers belayed to its spanker boom. +Sw-o-o-o-s-h, the rustle of them billion o' skirts is like the sound of +a nor'easter. Wh-e-e-e-e, them shrieks of disapp'inted rage is still +ringin' in my ears. I seen the poor old skipper poke his head out o' +the companionway, an' so help me, before he had time to say----" + +Mr. Carr stopped abruptly and his animated countenance froze in horror +as he saw Captain Kendrick wave a beckoning hand from far forward. + +"He's got me again," muttered the mate, as he obeyed the summons and +was seen to follow the cause of his panic into the captain's room. + +"Sit down, Mr. Carr," said Captain Kendrick, with a menacing note +in his voice. "You have broken your solemn promise made to me last +voyage. Those same old gestures told me you were climbing the shrouds +of the _Guiding Star_ again. How often have I got to tell you that the +_Guiding Star_ packet foundered a dozen years before you went to sea? +You soft-shelled coaster, you wouldn't know the equator if it flew up +and hit you in the nose. 'When you were crossing the Line'--lies, all +lies!" + +Peter Carr rubbed his red head and looked sheepish. "Right you are, +sir. I forgot, sir," he stammered. "But I'm improvin'. I can feel it +workin'." + +"It isn't only your speech and conduct that need overhauling," +commented Captain Kendrick severely, as he dug his two fists into his +beard and towered over the contrite mate. "These things are signs of +an inward state of spiritual rottenness, and I intend to hammer the +blessed truth into you as long as we are shipmates. Look at me. Am I a +worse sailor for trying to be what your mother on Cape Cod prayed you +might grow into, when she used to tuck you up in bed?" + +Mr. Carr was as earnest as ever in his turbulent career as he responded: + +"I'll keep in mind what you say, sir. If all the people that flies +church colors was like you, a ---- ---- sight more of 'em 'ud practice +what they preach. Whoa, Bill, I didn't mean to rip out them naughty +words. I swear I didn't, sir." + +The old man sighed: + +"You're still in the mire. But I'm not done with you. I'll have you on +your knees yet, Peter Carr." + +As the mate rolled forward he muttered: + +"He's sometimes kind of wearin', but he means well. An' he's gettin' me +so tame I'll be eatin' out of his hand before long." + +Arthur Valentine was hovering within ear-shot, and he halted the +solemn-faced officer with: + +"Sorry you couldn't finish that bully yarn of the _Guiding Star_. +Anything the matter? How did you escape from the two hundred angry +ladies?" + +Mr. Carr beamed with animation as he hastened to reply: "Well, as I was +sayin', the poor old skipper of her stuck his head on deck, an' before +he could-- Oh, d-- Ouch, excuse me. I bit my tongue. I mean, well, I +never did get down out of that riggin', and that's the end of the yarn. +Can't explain. No time to talk now." + +Valentine was puzzled, and laid a hand on the sleeve of the fleeing +mate: + +"What the dickens ails you? Why can't you finish that yarn?" + +Mr. Carr whipped round and shouted with a noble impulse: + +"I ain't goin' to lie again, so help me. The captain's been laborin' +with my poor sin-streaked soul, and I passed the word to steer by his +sailin' chart. I've suffered enough without bein' keel-hauled any more +about it." + +"Beg pardon," smiled Valentine. "Now I see the joke. The good old man +and the wandering boy. How nice of him. Perhaps he will pray for me if +I send up a card. Is he often taken that way?" + +"Pretty regular," grinned the mate as he made good his retreat. + +"Was I right? Well, rather," thought Valentine. "It's time I took hold +of things. If we should run into a storm, the old duffer would be on +his knees praying for good weather and let the ship go to pot." + +Later in the day a notice posted in the "social hall" caught his roving +eye: + +"To-morrow (Sunday) divine service will be held in the main saloon at +ten o'clock. As is customary in steamers of this line when there is no +clergyman among the passengers, the captain will be in charge of this +service." + + +III + +Four bells on Sunday morning found the saloon half filled with +voyagers, most of whom looked as if church-going was their custom. +Sunlight flooded through the open ports and fretted the floor with +dancing patterns as the steamer rolled lazily with the weight of the +breathing sea. A warm wind gushed under the skylights and brought +with it the thankful twitter of a little brown land-bird blown into +the rigging over night. If ever worship were meet at sea, a singular +aptness was in the peace and brightness of this place. + +A hymn was sung and the captain read the morning service from the +prayer-book. Then he threw back his shoulders without knowing that he +did so, until the blue uniform coat stretched very taut across his +bulky chest, and his corded hand gripped a small Bible that lay before +him. Something in his pose told those of quick intuition that big +emotions were hard held. They knew not why, but this hoary pillar of a +man was tugging at their sympathies even before he began to speak, at +first frowningly, then with a gathering light in his rugged face: + +"From time to time I have tried to make these shipboard services a +little more than the routine calls for. It was my way of thinking that +when the Lord has led a man up out of the pit, and planted his feet on +the Rock, he ought not to be ashamed of it. Perhaps I have had pride +in my redemption. But it seemed to me a wonderful thing that a wicked, +drunken young sailor, with no mother and no home, should be brought up +with a round turn, as by a miracle of grace; that like a great light +shining on the deep waters, the new hope of a better, manlier life came +to him; and that he found the peace that passeth all understanding. +Since then, some men and women have told me that they remembered +sailing with me long after the voyage was done. + +"Now I can speak no more of these things. This may be my last voyage, +and if I were to talk to you out of the fullness of my heart it would +be wrong. For the Book says, 'servants obey your masters,' and I am +still a servant, wearing a servant's livery, and I have been proud to +wear it for a good many years. I can't say any more. Several passengers +asked me to give a talk in connection with the morning's service, and +I want them to know that in disappointing them, my wishes have been +overruled. Let us all thank God for fair weather in a closing hymn." + +Arthur Valentine left the saloon fairly well pleased with himself, but +inwardly recording one objection: + +"He's pretty well muzzled, but I wrote him to cut out all his religious +palaver in public, and I won't stand for any more of this nonsense of +playing the martyr. That goes." + +While idling forward after lunch, he met the first-officer coming off +watch. Mischievous fortune thus brought together a young man with an +axe to grind and a soured elder with a grievance. + +"So the captain is ready to stay ashore," observed Valentine after a +few greeting commonplaces. "Did you hear his queer speech this morning? +I wonder what he was driving at? A passenger can't help being curious +to know." + +Mr. Parlin was a ripe and ruddy picture of a mariner, passing as +heartily frank of speech except among those who knew him well. A +lurking notion that he had seen this young man in New York was somehow +coupled in his mind with the company's head offices, where an errand +had called him before leaving that port. As he studied the passenger +before replying, his glance was drawn to the gun-metal cigarette case, +casually produced, whose face bore in gold outline the initials "A. H. +V." Mr. Parlin was not dull witted. These letters stood for the name of +the "old man's son." + +The first-officer became inwardly alert as he said: "Well, Captain +Kendrick is getting old, and he hasn't been right since he was smashed +up so bad three years ago." + +"How smashed?" asked Valentine eagerly. + +"Got washed into the scuppers of the _Juanita_. They found him jammed +under a boat with his timbers busted to smithereens. You may have +noticed that he walks with a list to port." + +"He didn't break his head, did he?" and Valentine tapped his forehead +with a significant finger. + +"Well, that's not for me to say," and Mr. Parlin hesitated, with a +flutter of an eyelid; "but he has his hobby, and he sets all the sail +it'll carry. You may have noticed it this morning. But he was going it +very easy then." + +"I'd have had my ship long before this," continued Mr. Parlin, "if the +old man hadn't put a black mark on my record in the main office. Now +that he talks of going out of the line, there's no harm in my sayin' +that if I'd flopped on my knees and spouted psalms instead of sticking +to my duties, it would be Captain Parlin by now. Excuse me. I have +some work on." + +Valentine said to himself as he watched the burly, bow-legged figure +lumber toward a main-deck ladder: + +"Now, _there's_ a proper sailor for you! And this captain--pshaw, he +makes me sick." + +At the same time Mr. Parlin was thinking: + +"Neatly done. I put a nail in the old cuss's coffin." + +Three days passed before Captain Kendrick made a social appearance +on the after deck. His old friends among the passengers welcomed his +lavish fund of stories, some of them a trifle heavy, but all delivered +with beaming good nature, and such thunderous sallies of laughter +as wagged the white beard until his audience joined in from sheer +sympathy. Valentine hung on the outskirts for a little while and then +preferred to walk the deck. He felt irritation and disgust, partly +because he thought he ought to be holding the center of the stage, +and regretting that expediency should force him to travel incognito. +Wouldn't these silly folk open their eyes if they knew how easily he, +the owner, could lay this childish old nuisance of a skipper on the +shelf? And he chafed the more because the poison so deftly administered +by the first mate was working to confirm all his headlong suspicions. + +Scowling at the jolly company as he passed them, Valentine caught a new +note of earnestness in the captain's voice and stopped to listen: + +"It may not be wrong after all, now that you are all urging me, and I +will cut it short. God has been very good to me, and in my poor way +I try to bear witness. And you may understand when I tell you what +happened in '67 when I was battering around the fo'ksle of a deep-water +ship out of Baltimore. Never will I forget the night when----" + +The words produced an extraordinary effect upon Valentine. Blind anger +seized him. He could see nothing else than that the captain was defying +his written order, the passengers abetting him, and the whole group +making a mockery of his authoritative judgment. He brushed in among +the listeners, and shouted in a gusty treble: + +"This has got to stop, I tell you. What did I write you, Captain +Kendrick, about all this religious tommy-rot? I'll show you whose +orders go on this ship." + +The company scattered as if a bomb had lit in the midst of it as +Captain Kendrick took two strides, whipped out a long arm and grasped +Valentine by the shoulder: + +"No man gives me orders on the deck of my ship at sea. Do you want to +go below in irons? Who are----" + +"My name is A. H. Valentine, and I threatened to kick you out of your +berth two weeks ago, and you know it," screamed the struggling young +man. "Turn me loose, I tell you. Pension be hanged. Now you can go +ashore and rot. I own this ship and a dozen like her. I'll put the +first officer in command to-day, and it's high time, too. He deserves +it, and I know why he lost his promotion." + +"I don't care if you're the Emperor of Chiny. Put a stopper on that +tongue of yours, or--" Captain Kendrick checked his hot words and +looked at the agitated young man like a pitying father. "You don't know +any better, do you? We'll talk it all over ashore. But not at sea, +understand--not at sea." + +Captain Kendrick walked slowly toward his room without looking back, +and sent word for Mr. Parlin to come to him at once. The mate breezed +in with hearty salutation, but his high color paled a little when he +looked squarely at the captain's flinty face. + +"Stand on your two feet like a man, Mr. Parlin, for you're before your +commander. Have you been telling lies to a passenger named Valentine?" + +"Didn't know Mr. Valentine was aboard, sir. Wouldn't know him if he was +sitting there in your chair. Are you trying to insult me?" + +"Could I insult a slush-bucket?" thundered the captain. "You have been +talking to Mr. Valentine. Don't spit out the lie that's on the tip of +your tongue. Two years ago, I found you asleep on watch. At other times +you have been slack and inefficient. I reported you every time. That's +why you've seen three mates go over your head and get their ships. If +I'd had my way you'd have been disrated or thrown on the beach. But you +worked wires ashore, you harpooned me in the back, and you held your +berth instead of being kicked out for a better man." + +The mate's face was purple as he stammered: + +"I haven't said anything against you, sir." + +"If you're trying to work up into the wind with Mr. Valentine, you wait +until you get ashore," growled the captain. "This is my ship until she +docks. You can't say I ever tried to convert you to God. He doesn't +want jelly-fish. He wants men." + +Driven into a corner, the mate tried to take the aggressive in a burst +of defiance: + +"I guess that what Mr. Valentine says goes. I'll see that he hears my +side of the case before sundown." + +Mr. Parlin had gone too far, and he knew it before he had bitten off +his empty words. Captain Kendrick jumped to his feet, and his beard +was pushed within an inch of Mr. Parlin's bulbous nose: + +"You're disrated now. Mr. Carr takes your berth until we make port. Get +for'ard, you mutinous loafer." + +"Get nothin'!" yelled Mr. Parlin. "I'm going aft to see the real boss." + +Two hairy hands clamped down on his shoulders, and he was swung clear +of the deck. Then his heavily shod toes beat an intermittent tattoo +over the sill and along the planks, as he was hauled and shoved toward +his own room. The captain shifted his burden until the mate was tucked +under one arm, breathless, impotent, trickling juicy curses. He was +dumped inside and heard the heavy storm-door slam and the click of a +turning key before he could heave himself to his feet and hammer the +barricade in useless rage until his fists bled. + + +IV + +Captain Kendrick had no more time to bother with such trifles as the +outbreak of Valentine. Before this day had darkened the sky turned a +dirty yellow, and the weight of the wind was not enough to account +for the greasy, sluggish roll of the sea. The barometer needle slid +unwaveringly toward the danger point, and after some uncertain +shifting, the wind hauled to the northeast and grew steadily colder. +Stripped of all superfluous gear on deck, the _Suwannee_ was licked +into fighting trim, gaunt, streaming and naked. The weeping drizzle +that fogged the sky line changed to sleet, and soon after dusk came +blinding snow with a great fury of wind. + +When the captain faced the storm on his quivering bridge, he felt +as if all breath and warmth were instantly blown out of him. No +fleecy snowflakes these, but hooting volleys of icy shot, incessantly +delivered. He groped along the canvased rail in a choking fight for +breath until he found Mr. Carr. They gasped and flinched as they vainly +tried to peer into the whirling smother. + +The sea rose with incredible swiftness. Within the hour, the _Suwannee_ +could no longer be held on her course. Yawing wildly whenever a vicious +onset of the sea smashed against her quarter and toppled on deck, the +ship was brought round and hove to, dead into it. Then the racing of +her screws shook her until it seemed as if the engines would tear her +hull apart, and speed was slowed as much as the captain dared. + +Mr. Parlin was still locked in his stateroom, and as the deep-laden +_Suwannee_ wrestled with the blizzard, Captain Kendrick argued in his +mind whether the mutinous officer should be released at a time when all +hands were sorely needed. The third officer had not been long enough +promoted to shoulder any grave responsibility. In such a night as this, +whose menace was hourly increasing, the vital issue was to safeguard +the ship. But the captain's manhood rebelled against a compromise +with his deed of clean-cut justice. And rankling in his heart was a +damnable phrase, "prime of usefulness is past." It helped to give him +the strength of two, now that the test had come, and he decided to +fight it through with Peter Carr. + +Before midnight the cold was so benumbing and deadly, without chance +of respite, that freezing fast to the rail to which they clung was +a fate that threatened master and mate. Each begged the other to +seek a little warmth and shelter, and their indomitable wills were +dead-locked time and again. At length the captain put it as a most +emphatic command, and fairly hustled Peter Carr down the steps to the +steam-heated wheelhouse. When the mate returned, hot with coffee and +protestations that the captain take a turn below, the old man refused +with a passionate gesture of finality. + +Although he had striven to bank the fires of resentment, his thoughts +burned like coals that callow youth, sitting in judgment, should have +flung aside his faith and works together like so much trash. But never +for a moment did such introspections relax his alert understanding +of every symptom of the laboring tussle between ship and sea. So far +she had come unhurt. Now, once, as she climbed wearily and hung for an +instant like a giant see-saw, Captain Kendrick became tensely expectant +as he felt through the planking a strange jarring break, somewhere down +in her vitals. + +Then, instead of splendidly crashing down the long slope into the +hidden wrath of water, the _Suwannee_ began to swing broadside as if on +a pivot. The wild impulse was unchecked, even as her bow slanted into +the tumbling barrier, and heaving far down to port, she rolled helpless +and exposed, as a bewildered boxer drops the guard that shields his jaw +from the knock-out blow. + +"_Hard over, hard over_," yelled the captain down the tube to an +empty wheelhouse, for a pallid quartermaster darted from within, and +scrambled to the bridge, shouting: + +"She won't steer, ---- ---- her, she won't steer. The gear has carried +away below." + +With one look to windward, the captain crawled to the engine-room +indicator and sent clamoring signals to reverse the port and jam full +speed ahead with the starboard screw. But before the _Suwannee_ could +feel the altered drive of her engines, so huge a sea raced over her +lurching bow that the port side of the bridge crumpled under the attack +like a wire bird-cage smashed with a club. Roaring aft, the gray flood +ripped a string of boats from their lashings. It left their fragments +absurdly dangling from the twisted davits, and poured through the cabin +skylights, whose strength collapsed like pasteboard. + +Peter Carr had seen the danger in time to shout a warning as he fled to +the starboard end of the bridge. On top of him came the captain, washed +along in a tangle of splintered oak and canvas. The mate crawled from +beneath and looked for the quartermaster. A sodden bundle of oil-skins +was doubled around a stanchion almost at his feet, and life was gone +from the battered features. Instinctively glancing seaward, the mate +noted that the _Suwannee_ had responded to the send of her screws, and +was veering now to port. He signaled to ease her, and as she headed +into it again, he made a rush and dragged the skipper clear. The +sleeted beard was matted with blood, but the old man stirred and opened +his eyes. + +"We've got to nurse her along with the engines," he muttered brokenly. +"Thank God for twin screws. Stand by the indicator. Sing down for hands +to clear the wreckage, and overhaul the steering-gear. It felt to me +like the rudder went at the pintles. But have 'em man the hand-wheel +aft." + +He wiped the blood from his eyes, and strove to get on his feet. One +leg gave way, and he hauled himself up by gripping what was left of the +rail. + +"It's gone back on me again," he groaned, "but it wasn't much of a leg +at best. Lend a hand, and do as I tell ye." + +Peter Carr passed a lashing around the skipper's waist, and so made +him fast to the steel pillar of the engine-room indicator. Now began +the infinitely wary coaxing of the ship to face the storm, now with +a thrust of her port screw, again with a kick of her starboard screw. +It was thus she must be steered, for word came up that there was no +mending the damage this side of port. The mate was afraid to take over +the task of keeping the ship headed into the storm, for this was his +first experience in a twin-screw steamer, yet he was as much afraid +that the skipper might die if he left him where he was. + +The ship fought to wrest herself free from this shifting grip, she +seemed eager to slay herself by swinging to take the seas abeam, but +the man whose face and beard were dappled with blotches of crimson +held her hove to, as if his soul had pervaded her clanking depths. +When Peter Carr implored him to have his hurts cared for, the captain +answered with such shattered murmurings as these, for the cold and the +pain were biting into his brain: + +"But ye shall die like men, and fall like one of the princes.... Let +not the water-flood overflow me, neither let the deep swallow me up.... +Oh, spare me that I may recover strength before I go hence and be no +more.... Then they cried unto the Lord in their trouble, and He saved +them out of their distress...." + +Peter Carr was a much younger man, and the violence of his exertions +had so warmed his blood that he had much strength left in him. Now +and then he tugged at the captain's arm, shouted in his ear, tried to +lift him, and the third officer, who had come from the task of mending +matters on deck, joined the heroic struggle. The captain awoke to chide +them as if they were impatient boys, but his eyes saw only the swirling +curtain of snow ahead and the great seas he must meet in their teeth. +Suddenly he tried to stand erect, and shouted as he swayed: + +"Vessel dead ahead." + +With the words, he sent a signal to his engine-room, and the _Suwannee_ +shouldered the merest trifle off to port just as a great gray mass +slid past, so close that the watchers smelled a whiff of steam. The +blackness was beginning to fade out of the storm, day was breaking, and +they glimpsed alongside a cluster of jackies toiling in flooding seas +at hawsers lashed round two great turret guns. More than ever convinced +by this escape that his eyes were needed on the bridge, Captain +Kendrick stayed steadfast in his purpose. The two officers felt awe as +they looked at him, that he should have sensed, where their eyes could +not see, the danger they had shaved by a hair's breadth. Sometimes +now his head fell forward, but the hand on the indicator lever was +ever nervously alive to feel the ship and the raving seas, and he was +snatching her from death, inch by inch and hour by hour. + + +V + +In the early hours of the storm, Arthur Valentine was battering like +a shuttle-cock between the sides of his berth, sicker in mind than +in body, for manifold terrors had come to prey upon him. Without +confidence in the captain of the ship, he felt that his own cowardice +was responsible for failure to act when the issue had been almost +within his grasp. Through the dragging hours, as the ship cried aloud +in every racking beam and rivet, or quaked as if her rearing bows had +rammed a rock, Valentine convinced himself that the captain would not +have dared refuse him if he had faced it out and insisted that the +first officer take command. + +"Don't I own the steamer?" he groaned. "Can't a man do what he pleases +with his own property? And I let myself be bluffed out like a whipped +pup. Only a lunatic would have defied me. Of course he's tucked away in +a corner trying to pray down a storm like this. What did Carr tell me? +What did Parlin say?" + +On the heels of these emotions came the dreadful instant when the +_Suwannee_ took aboard the sea that swept her bridge. Valentine was +flung out of his berth to the floor in a bruised heap, and heard the +crash of glass and the riot of water which tumbled solid into the +saloon outside his room. Before he could get footing his room was +awash, and floating luggage knocked him this way and that. He crawled +outside and collided with a half-clad man who was wringing his hands +as he wailed: + +"Save yourself. We're sinking. Look at the whole Atlantic Ocean in +here." + +"What's the matter? What's happened?" gasped Valentine. + +"What's happened? I heard the captain had killed the first officer, or +strung him up, or something awful. And now there surely is hell to pay. +Why don't somebody come to our rescue?" + +What passed with him for duty, even the high tide of heroic impulse +in his whole life, impelled Valentine to struggle up the stairway to +the "social hall" on the deck above. He believed that the risk of +being washed overboard was very great, he was almost certain the crazy +captain would knock him down or shoot him, but he was braced ready to +meet these things. It was a desperate situation demanding a desperate +remedy. He felt vague admiration and pity for himself, as he made ready +for the plunge on deck. But a dripping sailor barred the way. + +"I'm willing to run the risk," protested the hero. "It's my duty to +save the ship. She belongs to me." + +"So does Cape Horn an' the Statue of Liberty," returned the seaman +soothingly. "But you don't want to play with 'em now. They'll keep +all right. Nobody goes on deck. Them's orders. Just sit down an' play +you're a train of cars. It's lots of fun, an' it's safe an' dry." + +Valentine tried to pass him and was thrust back so violently that he +fell upon a comatose passenger stretched on a set-tee. This victim +sputtered feeble protest and other voices were raised. Valentine +noticed now that several men and women were huddled in this corner of +the deck-house, fled from the desolation below stairs. One of them +screamed above the clamor of the wind: + +"The ship is all smashed to pieces and nobody knows what to do next." + +"I am going to get forward somehow, and put the first officer in +command, if he's alive," cried Valentine. "It's life or death for all +of us, and my word must go. Doesn't this fool sailor know who I am?" + +Alas, these shivering refugees scented a new alarm. The poor young man +had gone mad with fright, and they, too, tried to soothe him, while a +woman of them sobbingly implored the sailor to take him away before he +became violent. Valentine cursed them all, and clawed his way down the +hand-rail to the saloon to seek some other exit. The way forward was +blocked by savage men dragging tarpaulins, and they kicked him out of +their path when he would argue with them. He splashed back and forth, +like a rat in a trap, falling against bulk-heads and furniture, or +pitched clear off his feet, until, worn out, he slunk back in sullen +silence up among the little company in the deck-house who waited for +they knew not what. + +So much of Valentine's purpose had been hammered out of him that +nausea resumed its sway, and he clung to a cushion, helpless through +interminable hours. When he was able to pull himself together and +make feeble effort, it seemed as if the pitching of the steamer were +less terrifying, and through an after-port the daylight gleamed. He +dragged himself to it, and caught a glimpse of somber sea and sky. The +blizzard had passed. + +Then strong hands were thumping on the outer door, and a steward tugged +at the inside fastenings. In a flurry of spray three burden-bearers +staggered into the room, between them a great limp bulk in oil-skins, +whose face was hidden by a sou'wester. As the seamen paused to veer +ever so gently around the corner of the hallway, Valentine went close +to the third officer who led the way, and said with a novel timidity in +his voice: + +"I am Mr. Valentine, owner of the line. Can you tell me what has +happened, please?" + +"It's the skipper--frozen up, busted up, dyin' it looks to me, sir," +was the husky response. "He's brought her through the blow lone-handed. +I never seen another man afloat as could ha' done the trick he did." + +The young man trailed after the stumbling procession which turned into +a large stateroom aft. Before swift hands had removed the boots and +outer garments, a physician from among the passengers was busy with +hot water and bandages. The Irish stewardess was weeping as she tried +to help. They paid no heed to Valentine, who returned to the doorway as +often as he was jostled to one side. + +The three seamen huddled in the passage talked softly among themselves, +and Valentine heard: + +"I tink he give der first mate vat vas comin' to him, eh? Und if der +skipper's room vas flooded out, den Mister Parlin must been sloshin' +round mit der door gelocked, most drownded. Goot enough." + +"It's sure all right if the old man done it. An' him with two bum legs +to start with, buckin' her through last night. Him gettin' smashed +galley-west, rudder busted--Hell's Delight! what a mess! He looked as +if he was all in when we pried him loose from them slings that was +holdin' him up." + +"Ask the doc if he can pull him through, will you?" + +Valentine tiptoed in, as the doctor whispered with a warning gesture: + +"I think so. His head needs a good many stitches, and there is an +ankle to set and some ribs to mend. But he will take a lot of killing +yet. Come, men, you must clear out of the hall. He will be coming to +presently." + +What Valentine heard was mightily reinforced by that which he saw with +eyes that were misty and troubled. Before him lay such grim reality of +duty done as the shallows of his life had never touched. Groping in a +welter of new thoughts, he made his way to the deck and went forward +as far as he dared, amazed at sight of the havoc wrought overnight. +Perched on his wrecked bridge the figure of Peter Carr swung against +the brightening sky. He had learned who Valentine was, and called down: + +"We'll work her up to Sandy Hook without any blisterin' salvage bills, +sir. There's a few of us left." + +"And these are the kind of men I was going to stand on their heads," +said Valentine to himself, as he clambered up and asked many eager +questions. Nor was Peter Carr at all backward in painting with vivid +word and gesture the story of the night, down to a parting shaft of +crafty comment: + +"And there's them that thinks the old man is a softy an' ought to be +knittin' tidies in a home for derelict seafarin' men." + +Restlessly seeking the captain's stateroom again and again, Valentine +was denied admittance until late in the afternoon. When the doctor +let him in, the old man opened his eyes and his weather-scarred face +lightened with a kindly gleam of recognition. Valentine flushed and +began hurried speech: + +"I hope you'll forget that letter.... Is there anything I can do?... If +you want to go to sea again, or if you don't, or whatever else----" + +The doctor raised a silencing finger. Valentine bent over to stroke a +bandaged hand which moved on the blanket just enough to pat his with a +little parental caress. The doctor nudged Valentine to withdraw, as the +captain whispered drowsily: + +"All-l's well.... You didn't know any better, did you?... So He +bringeth them into their desired haven." + +[Illustration: "_You are a disgrace to Yale, all of you._"] + + + + +A VICTORY UNFORESEEN + + +"That's enough for to-night. Turn around and go home. You are a +disgrace to Yale, all of you, and you're the worst of a bad lot, Number +Five." + +The Head Coach roared his convictions through a megaphone from the bow +of the panting launch, and the coxswain caught up the words and flung +them in piping echoes at the heads of the eight sullen oarsmen facing +him. The grind of the slides and the tearing swash of blades abruptly +ceased as the slim shell trailed with dying headway to the skitter of +the resting oars. Backs burned dull red by the sun of long June days +drooped in relaxation that was not all weariness. John Hastings, at +Number Five, remembered when to slip along the shore; heading homeward +in the twilight after pulling four miles over the New London course, +was the keenest joy he had ever known. Now, with the Harvard race +less than a week away, the daily toil was a nightmare of ineffective +striving. The pulsating shell hesitated between strokes, it rolled +without visible cause, and seemed sentiently to realize that the crew +was rowing as eight men, not as one. + +The boat circled wide and the men swept it listlessly toward the lights +of the Quarters at Gales Ferry. They had just undergone the severest +ordeal in all athletic training in their race against the stop watch, +yet if the work had been good they would have finished vibrant as steel +springs, spurting in this welcome home stretch like the sweep of a +hawk. Squatted on the boathouse float a little later, dousing pails of +water over his sweating shoulders, Hastings heard the Stroke growl to +Number Seven: + +"What's the matter with you loafers back there?" + +"I'm not behind," retorted Seven, with hair-trigger irritability. "The +trouble is in the middle of the boat. Hastings is too heavy to row in +form this year, and he seems to have gone to pieces in the last month. +That's where the worst break in the swing comes. Did you hear the Old +Man threaten to take him out of the boat and get him a job as a farm +hand?" + +The Culprit wearily picked himself up and dressed in a dark corner of +the boathouse, shunning conversation. After the training-table supper, +the Head Coach and his younger staff of graduate experts, who had +flocked back to help stem the adverse tide, summoned the crew into the +parlor of the lonely old farmhouse. The Nestor of Yale rowing, who +for twenty years had taught Yale crews how to win, leaned against the +battered piano and looked at the ruddy and wholesome young faces around +him. It might have been a council about to weigh matters of life and +death, so grave was the troubled aspect of the waiting group, so stern +the set of their leader's bulldog jaw. + +To-night he had something of their nervous uncertainty, and it showed +in the way his strong fingers played with the fringe of the faded piano +cover. Picking up the well-worn log-book in which was recorded year by +year the daily work of Yale crews from January to July, he turned the +leaves until a text was found. Then, slamming the book on the piano +with a vigor that made the aged wires complain, he said: + +"The work has been discouraging ever since you came to New London, +but to-day it was so bad that it made me sick. I never saw faster +conditions on this course, and yet you clawed your way up river in +twenty-two minutes and ten seconds. That is nearly a quarter of a mile +slower than last year's crew. Do you know what this means? You are +strong enough; you have had plenty of coaching, and I intend to work +the very souls out of you to-morrow. If there is no improvement--well, +you had better jump overboard and drown yourself after the race than to +go back to New Haven. No man's place is safe in this crew, even if the +race is only four days off. This means you, Number Five." + +There were no songs around the piano, as was the custom in happier +evenings, nor did the Head Coach pound the tinkling yellow keys and +lead the chorus of "Jolly Boating Weather," as he had done so many +nights of so many years when the work had been satisfactory. At nine +o'clock the Captain called out gruffly: + +"All out for the walk, fellows." + +The squad filed through the gate into the darkness of the country lane +for the end of the day's routine, with John Hastings trailing in rear +of the procession. He had become fond of this nightly ramble, feeling +on terms of intimacy with every stone wall, low-roofed farmhouse and +fragrant orchard, and courting the smell of the lush June country side +as the rarest of sleeping potions. But to-night he strode with head +down, turning over and over in his mind the haunting list of his sins +as an oarsman. Always with him of late, they had been driven home anew +by the events of recent hours. He looked up at the quiet sea of little +stars, and his self-reproach unconsciously changed to the form of a +prayer: + +"O Lord, help me to get my power on, and to keep my slide under me. I +never worked half so hard, but I know I am heavier and slower than I +used to be. Help me to stay on the crew. I don't ask it for my sake, +but--but Mother's coming to the race, and this is my third year on the +crew, and she never saw a race, and if I'm kicked off now it will break +her heart. It means so much to her, and I am all she has. And--and +there's Cynthia Wells--she's coming, too. Oh, it means everything to +me, everything." + +Such a man was he in the glory of his superbly conditioned strength, +such a boy in the narrow limits of his life's horizon, bounded in +this crisis by the Quarters, the boathouse, the crew, and the shining +stretch of river! + +The next morning sparkled with a cool breeze from the Sound, and its +salty tang was a tonic after the sultry days that had tugged at the +weights of all the men, except Hastings, until they were almost gaunt. +When the crew was boated for the forenoon practice, the exhortations +of the Head Coach were even hopeful. But after he had sent them on +the first stretch at full speed, even the _blasé_ old engineer of +the launch could see that things were going wrong in the same old +way. The emotions of the Head Coach were too large for words and with +sinister patience he made them row another spurt. Before he could begin +to speak, Hastings knew that there was still a break in the swing at +Number Five, and the confirmation came in almost a tone of entreaty +from the launch: + +"You are still behind, Number Five, while the rest of the crew is +swinging better. Try, for Heaven's sake, to get your shoulders on it, +and swing them up to the perpendicular as if the devil were after you. +Do you want seven other men to pull your hundred and ninety pounds of +beef and muscle like so much freight in the boat? I have told you these +things a thousand times, and you must hang on to them this time, or I +can't risk bothering with you any more. All ready, coxswain, steer for +that red barn across the river." + +"Forward all. G-e-t ready. R-o-w-w!" shrieked the coxswain. + +Within the first thirty strokes Hastings felt that he was rowing in +no better form than before, although never had he been so grimly +determined to row better. Stung to the soul by the taunt of the coach, +he threw his splendid shoulders against the twelve-foot sweep, striving +always to be a little ahead of Number Six, whose instant of catch was +signaled by the tell-tale tightening of the crease in the back of his +neck. The Captain called: + +"Give her ten good ones, and look out for the stroke. It's going up." + +"O-n-e, T-w-o, Thr-e-e, F-o-u-r, F-i-v-e," gasped the eight, in husky +chorus to the cadence of the catch. + +"Slo-w down on your y-o-u-r slides," yelled the bobbing coxswain. +"You're be-h-i-n-d, Number Five." + +Hastings could have throttled the coxswain for this. He had heard it so +often that it cut him on the raw. The Head Coach picked up the damnable +refrain: + +"You are behind, Number Five." + +Recalling how once, to fill an idle half hour, he had enumerated +sixty-four faults possible in rowing a single stroke, Hastings was +sure that in this spurt he was committing all these and several as yet +unrecorded. The futility of his flurried effort became maddening. +Where was his strength going? + +The verdict befell as the launch steamed alongside, and a substitute +perched on the cabin roof jumped to the deck at the beckoning of the +Head Coach, who said, with a ring of sincere regret: + +"I am afraid I'll have to try a change at Number Five, to see whether +we can patch up that break. Get in there, Matthews. Better get out and +take a rest, Hastings." + +The cast-off crawled aboard the launch and went aft to the cock-pit +under the awnings, where he could be alone. Holding himself bravely +under the sympathetic eyes of his comrades, he watched the substitute +grip the oar, still warm from his own calloused hands. Nor did he yet +realize what had befallen him, and felt vague relief that the struggle +was done. At dinner he was cheerful and flippant and the other oarsmen +admired his "sand." + +The reality began to overtake him when he went to his room under the +eaves, and anxiously asked the Stroke: + +"Well, how did you go it with a new Number Five?" + +"A little better," replied his room-mate, with evident reluctance. "The +Old Man says he is going to keep Matthews in your seat for the race. +It's a hard thing to talk about, Jack. You know how broken up we all +feel about it, don't you? We know you tried your level best, and your +extra weight this year made you slow, and you couldn't help that. Heard +from your folks lately?" + +Hastings was reminded of things he had feared to let rush into the +foreground. He had been too preoccupied to think of looking for mail +downstairs, and was starting for the door, when the Stroke halted him +with: + +"Oh, I forgot to tell you I brought up a couple of letters for you. +There they are, on the bureau." + +Hastings recognized his mother's handwriting on one envelope, that of +Cynthia Wells on the other. He appeared to hesitate which of them to +open first, and in this hour of trial, his choice was swayed by an +impulse as old as the world: + +The letter which he preferred was dated on board the yacht _Diana_, off +New Haven, and he read slowly to himself: + + + DEAR OLD JACK: + + I am so happy to be almost at the scene of your victories, past + and to come. And to think I have never seen you row! How foolish + and inconsiderate of Father to drag me abroad so early two seasons + on end. But I am bringing all the heaped-up enthusiasm of three + years--think of that! I suppose you are as calm as _blanc mange_, + while I am jabbering rowing at everybody in sight, and am getting + really awfully clever about strokes and catches (are they so very + catching?). Your classmate, Dickie Munson, is on board, and has + been coaching me up on the technical mysteries, and spinning many + jolly yarns about you. I hear you are to be elected captain of + next year's crew, the very grandest honor at Yale. May I offer + congratulations in advance? I do so want to see you, and will be + one of the worshipping admirers of your prowess! Of course you will + be busy until after the race, and then you are to come down to the + _Diana_ as soon as ever you can. Don't forget that I will have an + eye on you all the way down the course. + + Yours as ever, + CYNTHIA. + + +Hastings tucked this letter in an inside pocket with reverent care, and +without speaking, sought next what his mother would say: + + + MY DEAREST BOY: + + I have decided to come North by sea, and will sail on the _Mohican_ + to-morrow. The fare is considerably less than by rail, and as you + have insisted upon paying the expenses of my wonderful trip, I want + to save you all I can. The ship is due at New York late in the + afternoon of the twenty-seventh, the day before the race, and I + plan to take the earliest train to New London, to reach there that + night, if possible. I have the address of the boarding house in + which you have reserved the nice room for me, and you will not have + to worry at all about having me met, as, of course, you will not be + able to come down from the Quarters. It will be hard to bear, this + being so near you on that last night, unable even to kiss you good + night and God bless you. After the race you can come to my room, + and we will go to New Haven on the special train with the crew. + Of course you are going to win again, when your mother is coming + all the way from the South to see her boy fight for old Yale. Oh, + I want so much to see my big, handsome boy, and it will be music + for me to hear the thousands cheering him. I received the ticket + for the observation train in Car Fifteen, and I can find it at the + station, as you directed me, so don't have me on your mind for a + moment. I pray for you each night, and may God bring me safe to you. + + Your loving and adoring + LITTLE MOTHER. + + +"I don't see how I can let her know," observed Hastings with a long +sigh. + +"Which?" asked the Stroke, as he searched his comrade's face with +shrewd kindliness. + +"I mean Mother, of course," was the reply, followed by a sharp prick of +conscience. "She is coming up by sea, she is on the way now. The other +letter was from a--from a friend. She is to be here, too." + +"You ought to meet her in New York--your mother, of course. She +is first in your thoughts, I am sure," advised the Stroke, with a +perceptible shade of disbelief. "Just let her see that you are sound +and lusty, that's what she will care most about. She will be sorry for +your sake, not for her own." + +Throwing himself across his cot, Hastings looked out of the nearest +window, down the river to where the flag above the Harvard Quarters +slashed the sky like a ribbon of flame. There were the enemy whom he +had helped to defeat, and now it seemed an honorable thing, greatly to +be desired, even to row on a beaten crew. The tousled head went to the +pillow, and he could no longer help pouring out his heart to his friend: + +"Nothing can make it any worse than it is. I have worked every summer +so far, and I was going to have a real vacation this year, the first +since I have been in college. Now I can't bear to think of any good +times, with disgrace hanging over me. I am going to apply for my summer +job again, but I've been working in the office of a Yale man, and I +am afraid he won't want to have a slob around him who was kicked off +the crew four days before the race, will he? Of course he won't. The +last month has been simply hell. Mother has been living in the thought +of this trip just to see me row against Harvard, and--and there is a +girl--well, I am a big, whining, useless baby, that's all." + +The Stroke was an older man by five years, who had known a man's stress +and sorrows before his college days began. Had he been a man of readier +speech, he would have tried somehow to make the sorrowing boy realize +that there were other worlds to conquer, wider and more inspiring +fields in the years beyond. Yet there was something quite fine in this +absorption in the crew; it was what one ought to feel at twenty-one, +and it might be better for him to fight it out alone. The Stroke was +glad when the youngster marched out of the room without more words. "I +hope he stands the gaff," thought the elder man. + +Hastings' first impulse had been to flee the place, and he was still +busy with the longing to be anywhere away from the sights and sounds +that racked him because they were so infinitely much to him. While he +struggled with the decision, the eight began to make ready for the long +afternoon practice. As the shell swung out of sight around the curve +of the shore, Hastings had not believed it possible that any one could +feel as lonely and neglected as he at that moment. Just then he saw +a University substitute standing idly in the boathouse door, and he +remembered that with one transferred to the eight, and another laid off +with a cold, this youngster, Bates, was the sole survivor of the trio +which had its own thankless duties and burdens. The intending fugitive +made a choice then and there, as he slid down the bank, shouting: + +"Aren't you going out to-day to keep tabs on the Red-Heads?" + +The solitary substitute ruefully shook his head: + +"No, I haven't any one to man the pair-oar with me, and I'm no good in +a single shell. And I ought to be over at the start right now, for the +tip is out that Harvard is going to try the four miles on time, their +last attempt. How am I going to catch their time, I want to know, with +nobody to help me?" + +Hastings laid hold of the bow of the pair-oared boat as he said: + +"Get hold of the other end of the tub, and we'll put her in the water. +I might as well be a substitute, too, if there is work for me to do. +We'll hold the watch on the Johnny Harvards in great shape." + +The substitute glimpsed something of the sacrifice and struggle in +Hastings' offer to help him, but he could not know it all, because he +was only a "sub." The two were bending over their stretchers lacing +the shoes, when the launch slipped past the float so quietly that the +substitutes did not hear it. The Head Coach, however, standing on the +forward deck, heard Hastings say to his mate with an evident effort: + +"I came pretty near playing the baby act and running away, but if I can +help the Yale shell to go faster by being out of it, I am glad of it. +That's what I am rowing for, anyhow. And if I can be of any use as a +substitute, why, that's what I am here for, too. It is all for Yale, +isn't it?" + +The two in the pair-oar rowed across the river, landed a half mile +above the start of the four-mile course, and walked down the railroad +track. + +"We can't do anything more than catch their time over the first mile," +observed the experienced Bates; "but that will give us a good line on +the gait they are going." Hastings meekly followed instructions to +hurry to the hill opposite the first-mile flag, and be ready to wave +his handkerchief when the Harvard crew should pass him. Bates, at the +start with a stop watch, would snap the time at this signal. In dust +and quivering heat, Hastings trudged along the ties, crept up the +hill and lay on his stomach under a tree, waiting the appearance of +the Harvard crew. The tears could not be held back at thought of this +humiliation, of the abysmal gap between this petty spying in ambush, +and all the days in which he had swung by this first-mile flag in the +University eight. + +There was much time for meditation, and while the first shock had +wrecked his every hope, he began to patch the fabric of his dearest +dream, until he was ready to believe that, even more clearly than his +mother, Cynthia Wells would understand. She would see that he had +tried to do his best, that the failure was blackened by nothing left +undone, and that his great disappointment was of a piece with those +troubles which knit closer the bonds of friendship. She would know +that it was "all for Yale," that winning the race was more important +than anything else in the world, and he ached for the words of comfort +and inspiration she would be so eager to offer. If friendship meant +anything it meant help in such times as this. + + +II + +On the day before the race Hastings' occupation as a substitute was +gone. The shadow of the morrow was over the Quarters, the atmosphere +was funereal, and the strapping oarsmen were coddled like infants. He +had no part in the excitement, and was free to meet his mother in New +York that afternoon. The news he must bear her made him as nervous +as if he were facing the tussle of the eights. After farewells with +his other comrades he sought the Stroke, who grasped the hand of the +sorrowful exile in a crushing grip. + +"Keep your nerve, Jack," said he; "it will all come out in the wash. +I know there's a girl in it, and if she is the right sort, she will +understand." + +Hastings flushed at mention of the feminine factor, as he stammered: + +"Of course she will understand. She is that kind, all right. But I hope +to Heaven I'll never clap eyes on Gales Ferry again. Damn the place! +Good-bye. You've been a brick to me, and lots of comfort." + +After he had gone, the Stroke looked up from his book for some time, +while a tender smile softened his strong mouth. He had found a girl who +could understand, and he hoped the same good fortune for his friend. + +When the train passed through New Haven, Hastings wore a hang-dog air, +fearing recognition. A runaway from New London the day before the race, +his college town was the last place on earth in which he wished to be +seen. As he neared New York he braced himself for the meeting with his +mother, blindly fearing that she would be sorely disappointed in him. +But the _Mohican_ had been delayed by heavy weather along the coast and +a smothering fog off Sandy Hook, and could not be expected to reach her +dock before seven o'clock of the following morning. + +Hastings felt as if he were cast away on a desert island. He yearned +for his mother now, but she was somewhere out in the fog, and he was +alone in New York, alone through the long night before the race, with +all its smarting, thrilling memories. Long after midnight, unable to +coax drowsiness, his thoughts went homing back to the Quarters as he +knew the place in these last hours. + +He could hear the call of the robin at daybreak in the tree by his +window, the call that had aroused him to face the issues of two races +when he was Number Five. He could picture the morning scenes, the hush +of lawn and house, the enforced lounging on bed and sofa until the +summons to be ready and dressed at the boathouse. + +Then he recalled the tense waiting on the float for the call of +the whistle of the referee's yacht, how the year before they had +sat together in the sunshine and sung the chorus of "Jolly Boating +Weather." Since then it had become to him a battle song, a chant +profoundly burdened with sentiment and solemnity. He could not hear it +without feeling a lump in his breast. Now the shell would be launched, +the men seating themselves with unusual care, and the coaches would +shake hands from stroke to bow as the eight shoved off to row over +to the start.... He wiped the sweat from his face and came back to +the stifling room of the hotel in New York, and the sense of cruel +isolation. + +It was almost daylight when Hastings fell asleep, more tired than he +knew, and when he awoke, a glance at his watch told him that he had +overslept, and that it was nearly ten o'clock. The reply to a frantic +telephone message was that all the passengers of the _Mohican_ had gone +ashore shortly after eight o'clock. His mother had gone to New London +without him, and the express train into which he dove was due to arrive +at the scene of conflict barely in time to connect with the observation +train, if all conditions favored. Ten minutes behind time, he was +running through the New London station, as the tail of the rearward +observation cars was vanishing around a curve of the track yard, with +cheering in its wake. + +Vainly pursuing on foot, Hastings came to a standstill, stranded and +alone, unable even to see the race, about to start five miles up the +river. Walking down to the nearest wharf, he could see through the +arches of the great railroad bridge the festooned yachts stretching in +squadrons beyond, and between them only a little patch of silver lane +where the crews would finish. + + +III + +Shortly after noon, there stepped from the first "special" into +New London a fragile yet sprightly little woman in rustling black, +alone, but confident and unafraid. Her sweet face was made beautiful, +even youthful, by the flush of excitement that tinted her cheek so +delicately beneath her silvered hair. Violets were pinned at her +waist; in one hand she carried a flag of Yale blue, and in the other +a decorative souvenir programme "containing the pictures of all the +crews." Those near her in the car had watched with pleasure her +vivacious interest in this booklet, but only the gentleman sitting next +her had been taken into her confidence. Thirty years out of college, +he was come from the far West to his class reunion, and he, too, had a +boy in Yale. Fortunately or otherwise, he had not kept in touch with +the most recent news of the heroic figures of aquatics, and he knew +not even the names of the crew of the year at Yale, so that she could +enlighten his lamentable ignorance and right willingly. The "souvenir" +booklet had been printed a week before the race, too soon to record the +change in the _personnel_ of the Yale eight, and there was her boy's +picture filling a page, a massive young giant, most scantily clothed. +The man from the West saw in the picture the mother's brown eyes, and +his heart was stirred, for he knew what it was to have an only son with +his mother's eyes. + +"Yes, John has been on the crew three years," she confided, "and he +will be the captain next year. I fairly live with him in spirit through +the whole six months of the training season. He has had a very hard +time this season, and lately his letters have been a little despondent. +But I was never so delighted as when I learned from the head-lines of +this morning's newspapers that there has been a wonderful improvement +in the last week. Oh, I am excited, there is no use trying to deny it. +It is almost too big an event for an old woman to survive." + +The gray-haired stranger was comforting, and in the recesses of his +memory found certain eulogies pronounced by his son regarding "Jack +Hastings, the biggest man in his class, by Jove!" He insisted upon +presenting two of his own classmates, and they bowed low in formal +tribute to the "mother of the next captain of the crew." + +The porter must leave her bag in the station, for she could not wait +to go to the boarding house when the air was full of tingling sights +and sounds, all the excitement and flaunting color paying homage to the +prowess of John Hastings. She found Car Fifteen, and sat in a beautiful +dream, watching the holiday crowds fill the canopied lengths of open +train. What a tale to tell when she should come again to the little +colorless village in the South! It seemed impossible to drink it all in +when the train began to move and in a few moments the amazing panorama +of the Thames flashed into view. The eager eyes of the oarsman's mother +passed quickly over the gorgeous marine pictures, by the twisting +length of the riotous train, up, up the river toward the quiet reaches, +hoping to discern the white house on the high bank and the big blue +flag floating above the Quarters at Gales Ferry, a scene she knew from +many descriptions. + +Soon the train had passed the yachts and the crowds massed on shore, +and was opposite the red-roofed home of the Harvard crew, whose crimson +flag seemed to her to flaunt an insolent defiance. In near-by cars +fluttered many Harvard flags, as the partisans from Cambridge chanted +their slogan, inspired by the sight of their rowing camp across the +river. She turned to look at the offenders with reproof in her manner. +How could they be so misguided as to cheer for Harvard? How dreadful +it was to think that if John should be beaten, every one of them +would be shouting even louder for joy. So she turned to gaze at the +Yale Quarters, which she could see quite plainly, and the ugly brown +boathouse squatted at the water's edge. + +Her color came and went, and stayed in a brilliant patch when she saw, +with a quick intake of breath, a yellow streak appear in front of +the boathouse and a number of Lilliputians walking beside it. There +seemed an eternity of delay before the wisp of a shell settled on the +water, and nine figures climbed into it, while her heart was tripping +furiously. + +The thing became in motion, it was crawling across the river like a +mechanical toy, with frequent pauses. Could this be the Crew, this +fragile thing that moved over the water so slowly? A roar from the +Harvard cars, and Mrs. Hastings turned to see a similar set of manikins +swaying in as absurd a boat, heading out from "Red Top." The mother +looked at them only for an instant, because the Yale crew was crossing +the river faster than she could realize, and soon it was half a mile +above the start, paddling and drifting down with the tide to get into +position at its stake-boat. She wanted to call imploringly to the +referee to bring the crew nearer, nearer, so that she might see the +men, and count from the bow, to two, three, four, _five_. Presently +the shell swung round, parallel with the shore, and maneuvered into +position scarcely twenty yards from the observation train hanging on +the edge of the bank. + +At last the mother could look for Number Five. She counted with an +eager and quivering finger. No, she must have made a mistake--that was +not John at Number Five. They must have shifted him to another seat at +the last moment. + +She flung away all method and searched the stern young faces from +stroke to bow, from bow to stroke and back again, with yearning agony +of intensity. She made bold to ask that the gentleman next her lend +her his field-glasses for a moment, and focused them on the shell, +seeking in vain. The color had fled from her cheeks, and she sat +back, white and silent, beyond speech. Around her raved the cheers of +thousands, but the rocketing "rahs" for Yale sounded in her ears like +some barbaric funeral chant. She had become old and weak far beyond her +years. + +Her distress was unnoticed, and through a haze she saw the long +shells leap from their leashes with incredible suddenness in tearing +cascades of foam. To the mourning mother the race was no more than an +exhibition of automatons, as Harvard took the lead, and then the long +Yale swing cut it down remorselessly, foot by foot, until the gap was +closed. She closed her eyes with a weary sigh, but rallied in a little +while to try to make herself heard above the din. Yale was spurting +gallantly, and those around her were oblivious to the quavering voice +and its vital questions: + +"Where is John Hastings? Number Five in the Yale Crew? Where has he +gone? What have they done with him? Oh, tell me, tell me, tell me, +please. I am his mother." + +Yale hopes drooped as Harvard met the spurt, and in the lull a young +man of a kindly face saw that she was ill, and leaned toward her to ask +whether he could help. She was able to make him understand, and there +was a huskiness in his voice that came not all from cheering, as he +said: + +"Why, he's all right, safe and sound as a dollar. He was taken out of +the boat four or five days ago, and Matthews put in his place. No, I +don't know what the matter was. Too heavy, I fancy. I'm awfully +sorry for you." + +[Illustration: _Jack Hasting's mother cannot find her boy in the crew._] + +Where else should a boy flee in time of trouble than straight to +his mother's arms? Therefore the reason for his disappearance must +be an alarming one. Then she felt a blaze of swift anger. It was an +outrageous act of injustice, this deed of the Yale coaches. They were +no better than conspirators thus to treat the best oarsman they had. It +was not in a mother's philosophy to grasp the view-point that what was +best for Yale was best for all who fought for its glory. She vowed that +a reckoning was due, and that her duty was to see these coaches, and +tell them the truth before she left the scene. And so, between wrath +and tears, she saw the race end, saw the Yale crew sweep across the +finish line, victors over Harvard by four lengths. This was what she +had come to see, what she had lived in the hope of seeing through three +long years, and now all had turned to ashes. + +Wearily she threaded a way through the thronging railroad station, +found a cab and gave the driver directions for reaching the boarding +house where a room awaited her. Her steps faltered as she toiled up +the stairs, and all that gave her strength for the ascent was the +flicker of hope that John might be there, or that some message had come +from him. The room was empty, the table bare of letter or telegram. +Carefully laying her bonnet and jacket on a chair, she looked at her +face in a mirror, and it frightened her. Although she was eager to be +out again in search of the way to Gales Ferry, rest was imperative, and +she crossed over to the bed and lay down for a few moments until the +dizzy faintness should pass. + + +IV + +When John Hastings drifted down to the wharf nearest the railroad +station, he laid an almost aimless course. While he could not see the +race, he was drawn to the harbor into which flowed the river, the river +by whose bank, five miles away, his comrades were waiting for the +summons, and perhaps even then singing "Jolly Boating Weather," as it +was never sung at any other time. + +Through the maze of fragile shipping flying the flags of a dozen +yacht clubs threaded a naphtha launch hurrying toward the bridge, +the cock-pit gay with white gowns and blue uniforms, and Yale colors +fluttering at bow and stern. The outcast bestowed no more than a +scowling glance on the glittering, humming pleasure craft, and was +about to saunter shoreward with a vague intent of hovering near the +telegraph office until the result of the race should be known, when the +beckoning flurry of several handkerchiefs delayed his retreat. + +He walked to the end of the wharf in idlest curiosity, and the +possibility staggered him only an instant before he knew the fact. +There was no mistaking the trim and jaunty figure in the bow for any +one else than Cynthia Wells herself, as she flicked the steering wheel +over and ran the craft close to the stringpiece, while the sailor +in the stern held fast with a boat hook. Her voice was lifted in +peremptory command: + +"Scramble right down here this minute, and tumble aboard, Jack. We are +awfully late already. Broke down on the way from the _Diana_. I don't +know what in the world you are doing here, but we can't pass such an +image of desolation. Hurry, please. I am the skipper to-day." + +Jack would have vastly preferred to run away. This meeting was not at +all what he had planned. His misery loved company limited to one, and +that one was hedged about by half a dozen laughing men and girls out +for a holiday lark. He realized how sorry a figure of a man he was in +this scene, but retreat meant cowardly flight, and there was the shadow +of consolation in being near her. The grip of "Dickie" Munson's hand +spelled understanding of the situation as the classmate said: + +"We're tickled to death to kidnap you this way, Jack. It's a tough day +for you, I know, but you must not miss the race. Get forward. There's +room by Miss Wells, and, of course, she is dying to see you." + +When he found himself standing by the side of Cynthia, she was alert +and absorbed in steering the launch with confident ease toward the +swirling channel between the arches of the bridge, where small craft +darted and drifted in common eagerness to find positions along the last +mile of the swarming course. + +The jolly wind whipped a straying lock of gold-shot hair across her +eyes, and she brushed it aside with an impatient gesture. Her adorable +face, warm with the glow of many summer days of sun and breeze, was +set in serious alertness. Standing straight and tall, head thrown back +and shoulders squared, the poise and look of her were as athletic as +the bearing of the man at her side. With her mind wholly intent on the +business in hand, she said crisply: + +"I have the right of way over that tub to port. Why doesn't he head +inshore? How is the tide through that middle arch, Jack? You ought to +know." + +He made brief reply. Unreasonably sensitive, he did not realize that +her preoccupation was essential. At the least, he had expected she +would speak some ready word of the sympathy he craved, because he stood +for a tragedy in which she ought to show concern. Did she not know, +could she not feel what this flight up the course meant to him, "Jack +Hastings, Number Five"? But the girl at the wheel was too busy even to +note the gloom in his face, as she shot the launch into a roomy berth +near the three and a half mile flag, at the edge of the streak of open +water. Then Cynthia turned to Hastings, held out a firm brown hand, and +said with a happy smile: + +"There, congratulate me. Could your coxswain, with his absurd little +megaphone and all his importance, do a neater trick of steering than +that? Now, you poor unfortunate boy, I am ready to hear all about your +troubles. We heard yesterday, when we came ashore at New London, that +you had been evicted, or had gone on strike, or something of the sort. +Are you all broken up over it, and how did it happen? I am terribly +disappointed, too. I came on to see you win a race. I don't care a rap +for the other heroes. Poor old Jack! He looks as if he were chief +mourner." + +She patted his hand with a motherly air, and the mourner sighed +heavily. Evidently she was making a gallant effort to hide her genuine +emotion from the alien company. He tried to imitate her lightness of +manner as he replied, with a laugh that was a trifle shaky: + +"Yes, I have been out of the crew four days, Cynthia, and it seems +four years. It was awfully good of you to pick me up, but I don't know +whether I am glad or not. Perhaps you ought to have left me alone." + +"And why, Mister Knight of the Sorrowful Countenance? Didn't you want +to see me?" + +There was archness in the query, even a trace of pretty coquetry in +her air. Where was the kinship of souls, that wonderful symphony of +understanding he had dreamed of as come true? With a fierce onset of +earnestness, he confided: + +"I wanted to see you more than any one else in the world. I wanted to +see you more than I wanted to see my mother. She is looking for me +now. She is on that train up yonder. It has been a pretty hard day for +me, and I thought it would be for you." + +She tried to make amends: + +"Why, of course, it is a dreadful disappointment for you, and for me, +and for all your friends, Jack. But aren't you glad it gave you the +chance to be here? I certainly am. And I'm trying to make the best of +it, and so must you. You are the same old Jack, you know, in the crew +or out." + +The first smile in days broke over his face. If he was the same old +Jack to her, the rest of the world could go hang. He was about to tell +her what he ached to reveal in a rush of pent-up desire, what the Crew +stood for, and how much of his life was bound up in it. She caught the +kindling light in his face, and before he spoke, she thought this light +was all for her. That his interest should be absorbed in the crew, +rather than in Miss Cynthia Wells, piqued her, even now, as he began: + +"I was afraid the crash was coming for some time. Nobody can know +how I hoped and worried through those weeks, when I felt that I was +slipping back. I did not write you about it, because I could not +believe there was any serious danger of my being thrown out at the last +moment, and I knew it would harrow you to share this worry with me. +I--I--wanted your----" + +The classmate behind him jumped to his feet and shouted: + +"There they come! Yale! Yale! Yale!" + +Hastings glanced along the water level up-river. Two black dots were +visible, each fluttering thread-like tentacles. Abreast of them trailed +the observation train, like a huge serpent of gaudy hues. He bit his +lip and trembled with sudden excitement, while Cynthia Wells stood, one +hand shading her eyes, so eagerly intent that it was plain that she had +forgotten the oarsman out of the shell. The sea of blue, rippling along +the train, told him that Yale was leading. He shut his eyes, fearing, +until it sickened him, that some accident might happen to Yale, even +with what seemed to be a safe lead. + + +V + +To those who did not know, the winners seemed to be playing with +rowing as they swept toward the finish. With no apparent effort the +blue-tipped blades flashed in and out, without even a feather of +spray. Forward and back again rocked eight bare backs, working as if +coupled on the same connecting rod. Hands slipped easily into arched +and heaving chests, and shot out with lightning speed; slow, slower, +swooped the shoulders squared beneath necks like fluted columns and +heads poised with airy grace. As Hastings leaned far out on the bow +of the launch, waving his hat in a fury of approval, the shell rushed +by him not twenty feet away, and the complaining roar of the slides +was music in his ears. He could feel with that agony of effort to keep +in form when every muscle cried out in rebellion, and the choking +fight for breath, and yet, with it all, the glory of making the swing +and catch fairly lift the quivering shell. And he knew, also, the +intoxication of the sight of the Harvard crew laboring astern, as seen +through eyes half blinded with sweat. + +Hastings was lifted out of himself until he saw his crew cease rowing +and the oars trail like the wings of a tired bird. Then the defeated +crew went past him. There were breaks in the swing, heads nodded on +the catch, backs were bending, and bodies swaying athwartships. It was +anything now to cross the line and rest. + +Hastings had a new realization of what these whipped oarsmen felt, they +whose high hopes were wrecked, whose labor, as long and as faithful as +that of the winners, had gone for nought. After all, he did not belong +with the winners, he was one of the losers, and he wished he might +shake their hands. He cheered with all his voice, and Number Five of +Harvard turned a drawn face to this salutation so close at hand, and +in a quick glance recognized his dethroned rival, whom he had once +met on the lawn at Gales Ferry. The man in the boat flashed a smile +of comradeship to the man in the launch, and both felt better for the +incident. + +Cynthia was clapping her hands, then she tore the violets from her gown +and flung them as far as she could toward the distant crew. + +"Yale! Yale!" she cried. "Cast off. I want to work the launch down that +way to see them. Wasn't it glorious? Oh, I never saw anything half so +fine. I want to shake their hands, every one of that beautiful, blessed +crew. I'd give ten years of my life to be one of those men at this +moment." + +She had not looked at Jack, but he was determined to obtrude himself +somehow. + +"How about the man who worked just as hard, and gets none of this hero +worship? Doesn't he deserve anything from you?" + +"Poor old Jack!" she said tenderly. "Why, I forgot all about you for a +little while. It is a shame you are not there. You ought to have tried +just a little bit harder, hadn't you? Now you can't be a hero, but +don't you care. We are all sorry as sorry as can be." + +The launch had daringly poked a passage close to the float on to which +the crew was now clambering from the shell. Big brown, half-naked +men were hugging each other, and clumsily dancing in stockinged feet. +Eagerly Cynthia asked her companion: + +"Do tell me which is which, Jack. I want to be able to know them all by +name. Which is the Stroke, and which is the man at Number Five? I want +to see if he looks like you." + +Hastings gave the information very soberly. The Stroke caught sight of +his clouded face, and yelled to his fellows: + +"Hey, here's Jack Hastings! Three long cheers for him. Are you ready?" + +The cheer given by men still struggling to regain their normal +breathing came so gratefully to John Hastings that he felt like +whimpering, because _they_ understood. The launch was deftly steered +alongside the float, and grabbing the outstretched hand of Hastings, +the Stroke nearly pulled him overboard, as he whispered: + +"Jack, I am glad you could see the race with the Only One. It must have +helped you over the rough places. There is nothing like it when things +look blue. God bless you both. Where is your mother? Be sure to come +down to New Haven to-night, won't you?" + +The Stroke jumped to help load the oars on the coaching launch just as +Cynthia said to Hastings: + +"Why didn't you present me? I think you are a stupid old Jack." + +Where was his mother? Guilty and ashamed, he stammered: + +"Please set me ashore anywhere as soon as you can, and I shall be +eternally grateful." + +She pouted. + +"Do you want to leave me so soon? Certainly, I will put you ashore if +you wish. You have been as cross as a bear. You must do penance by +coming off to dinner to-night." + +"Thanks, I have another engagement," said he shortly. + +The observation train had gone to the station, and it must be emptied +of its freight by this time. There was no more time for talk with +Cynthia, and he did not know what else to say to her to whom the day +was an outing, vastly exciting and enjoyable. Still, he sought one last +word of sincere realization of his ill fortune, and found no response +to his own heart hunger. He said "Good-bye," as he stepped ashore, and +holding her hand for a moment: + +"I am glad that you have had such a pleasant afternoon, Cynthia. A +friend in need is a friend indeed." + +The tribute touched and pleased her, and the irony of it wholly escaped +her, as she gayly called after him: + +"Be sure you don't forget to look us up to-night." + + +VI + +Hastings did not look behind him, as with lowered head he ran along the +railroad track to the station, jumped into a cab and urged the driver +to speed to the house where his mother must be waiting. + +Some one within heard his footstep, knew it for what she craved most to +hear, and was in the doorway of her room, when he saw her. Picking her +up like a child, he covered her white hair, her tired face, her hands +with kisses, and as she clung weeping on his breast, he carried her to +a big armchair in the bay window. He was on his knees with his rumpled +head in her lap when she found broken voice to say: + +"Oh, Jack, are you well? Are you all right? My own precious boy! I +have come to comfort and love you. Nothing else matters. Nothing else +matters to me, now that I have found you safe and sound." + +She twisted her slim fingers in his thick brown hair, and as she felt +the warm pressure of his head in her lap, the years had stepped aside, +and he was the little boy who used to flee to that dear sanctuary in +every time of trial. And to her this was only another trouble, which +only Mother could understand and clear from his path. When at length +he looked up, she was shocked to see the shadow circles under his +eyes, and the nervous twitching of the mouth that was so very like his +mother's. He was sobbing, and not ashamed of it, as he murmured: + +"I have been disgraced and disappointed, but I don't care any more now +that I have found you. Are you all right, Little Mother? Did you think +I had deserted you?" + +She told him of the race as she had seen it, and was with difficulty +dissuaded from planning to search out the Head Coach, crying with the +angry sparkle he loved of old: + +"It is not ladylike, Jack, but I would like to scratch his horrid eyes +out. Of course, he should have kept you on the crew, but we are not +going to cry over spilt milk, are we? I want you to tell me all about +it--everything--so that we can look and find some consolation. Every +cloud has a silver lining." + +While he carried the tale down to the parting with Cynthia she smiled +and frowned in turn, and wiped her eyes before he had finished. +A mother's intuition read between the lines and when the rueful +confession halted, her arm stole around his neck, and she kissed him +again. + +"It is a sad story," she said; "but never let me hear that word +disgrace as long as you live. Of course, I was nearly killed about +it to-day, and I should have been crying for four nights at sea if I +could have heard the news before I started. But it would have been +only because you were unhappy and disappointed. What else are mothers +for than to understand when the world seems upside down? When you were +seven years old, you were kept home from a Sunday-school picnic by +the chicken-pox, and you told me in floods of tears that you didn't +'b'lieve you could never, never be happy again.' I knew how small +your world was, and that the chicken-pox was big enough to fill it to +overflowing. + +"Now you have tried your best, you rowed as well as you knew how, and +the crew was everything to you, just as it ought to be. But some day +you may have larger troubles, and they, too, shall pass away, and more +and more you will come back to the simple gospel of living I have tried +to teach you, that there is only one standard by which to judge success +or failure. Is the thing worth while, and have you done your best in +the best way to gain it? I don't mean to preach, my boy mine. You +don't want that. You want your mother. I know, I know." + +She stroked his cheek as he went deep into his heart, and brought up +more than he had ever told her before of his dreams of love, first +love, and of what he had been building. His mother knew that she must +be careful, and she hesitated, as if pondering how best to speak her +view-point. + +"She did not understand, poor girl. It is not all her fault, and it is +not yours, laddie boy. When the race began and I saw that you were not +in the crew, it seemed as if I were in the depths of a bad dream. I was +with you all the way, and I thought of nothing else. And I know that +while you would have been with me if you could, yet if the girl were +here you would wish in your heart to find her first. No, don't try to +deny it. But she did not know at all what it meant to you, she could +not know. But if she had loved you, she would have understood as I did. +We will talk about her all night if it will make your heartache any +better. What are we going to do now?" + +The boy straightened himself and threw back his wide shoulders, because +his mother saw no cause for reproach in his downfall. But he did +not want to see the crew again, and he wished to avoid the riotous +celebration soon to burst. Obviously the best plan was to go to New +Haven at once, where they could find refuge in his rooms, and pack his +trunk for the vacation departure. + +To him this little journey from New London was a panic flight, to her +it was made radiant by the one fact that her boy had come back to her. +After dinner, in a quiet corner of the college town, they went to his +rooms on the campus. The sight of the two twelve-foot oars on the +walls, his own trophies of two victories, their handles stained dark +with the sweat of his hands, made her turn to him as they entered: + +"Nothing can ever take those away from you, with all their splendid +story of success." + +The boy looked at them for an instant, then brushed a hand across his +tired young eyes. + +"Better make kindling of them," he said. "Look at that one over there. +I won it as a raw, overgrown Freshman, and three years later I can't do +as well as I did then. Matthews, 'the sub,' will hang my third oar on +his wall next year. I am going to curl up on the window-seat and rest a +while, Mother. I feel all played out." + +She, too, was very tired, but felt that her son had need of her, and +she tried to soothe him to sleep, and smiled as she found herself half +unconsciously humming a slumber-song she had crooned to him twenty +years before. Her photograph was on his desk, and framed near it the +winsome face of Cynthia Wells, and she crossed the room to look closely +and comprehendingly at the girl who had acted in her own world as +naturally as had the youth in his. When she returned to the window, her +son was asleep, and she softly kissed him. + +Looking across the green, she saw a blaze of red fire that colored +the evening sky. Rockets and Roman candles began to spangle the +illumination, and presently the far-away blare of a brass band crept +nearer. She knew that these were signs of the home-coming of the crew, +of the celebration whose glories Jack had eloquently portrayed. It was +not disloyalty to him that she should want to see what it was like, +although she knew he would not want to be there. Yet feeling traitorish +qualms, she scribbled a little note, saying she had gone out for a +"breath of fresh air," and stole down the staircase. + +When she came to the corner the procession was rioting up Chapel Street +toward the campus. The band preceded a tally-ho, on top of which +were the heroes in their white boating uniforms, nervously dodging +innumerable fiery darts aimed straight at them by wild-eyed admirers on +the pavement. Behind, surging from curb to curb, skipped thousands of +students and townspeople, arm in arm, in common rapture. The wavering +line of fireworks told that the tail of the parade was blocks and +blocks away. + +The coach was stopped at the corner of the campus, as a hundred agile +figures swarmed up the wheels, and dragged the crew to earth, from +which they were instantly caught up, and borne on tossing shoulders to +the stone steps of the nearest recitation hall. There they were held +aloft, still struggling, while cheers greeted each by name. + + +VII + +Now the celebration programme would have been halting and inadequate +if the Assistant Manager of the Yale Navy had not hurried to New Haven +on an earlier train. He had been in the car with John Hastings, and +took it for granted that the sweet-faced woman of the silvery hair must +be his mother. He was plunging through the crowd on the stone steps, +trying to rescue the oarsmen in order to head them toward the banquet +hall, when beneath the are light on the corner, a little way out of +the tumult, he saw the timid lady for whom he had felt much sympathy. +The Assistant Manager was ably fitted for his official task of looking +after details, because he fairly boiled over with initiative, and with +him to think was to act, as the powder speeds the bullet. He dashed +across to Mrs. Hastings, and said, with a hurried and apologetic bow: + +"Beg pardon, but this is Jack Hastings' mother, are you not? Yes, thank +you, I was sure of it. It may seem presumptuous, but I have heard lots +about you, and Jack has convinced me that you are the finest mother in +the world, bar one. I have been so infern--so very busy since I got in +town from New London, that I have had no time to look up Jack. We want +him at the dinner, everybody does, and we want you just as much. In +fact, you must be my special guest, and hear the speeches, anyhow, if +you won't stay any longer. Jack's asleep, is he? Well, we'll wake him +up, all right." + +The alarmed little mother tried to protest several things at once. Jack +had sworn he would not go to the dinner, and that he would break the +neck of the man who should try to rout him out. Of course, Jack would +not do that really, but he was all worn out and needed the rest. Please +not to disturb him, and she would not dream of going without him, and +she did not want to go at all. Her earnestness was almost tearful, +but the Assistant Manager, who had heard perhaps the first ten words, +darted off and was back with two young men whose fists were full of +cannon crackers. He had each fast by the coat-collar, and shoving them +into the foreground like a pair of marionettes, he breathlessly blurted: + +"Mrs. Hastings, may I present Mr. Stower and Mr. 'Stuffy' Barlow, both +Seniors, highly dignified and proper persons? This is Jack Hastings' +mother. You are to escort Mrs. Hastings down to Harmonium Hall, and see +that she has a nice seat in the gallery or near the door. No trouble at +all, Mrs. Hastings, I assure you. Awfully glad to have had the honor of +meeting you. Good-bye. I'll run over to Jack's room and drag him down +there in five minutes." + +Mrs. Hastings had all the sensations of being kidnapped. She tried to +protest, even to resist, but was like a leaf caught up in a torrent, as +Messrs. Barlow and Stower, both talking at once, handed her politely +but firmly into the depths of a hack, climbed in after her and slammed +the door. + +Almost in a twinkling, as it seemed to the agitated mother, she was +being ushered carefully into a small music gallery overlooking the +banquet floor, where from a shadowy corner she could overlook the +festivities in semi-seclusion. She waited only until her genial +abductors were out of sight, and then slipped furtively toward the +stairs, intending, of course, to return to her boy if he did not appear +forthwith. Uneasy and fluttering, she was also keenly interested, for +had not John placed this picture before her, and what it had meant to +him in other years? He met her at the top of the stairway, looking +sheepish and alarmed. She tried to explain, but he cut her short with a +laugh: + +"I know all about it, Little Mother. You fell a victim to the wiles of +a terrible set of villains. You couldn't help yourself. Neither could +I, when I heard how you had been spirited away. Now you are going to +stay and see the fun, aren't you?" + +She tried to persuade him to leave her and take his seat with the +celebrants. + +"No, I have lost my seat," said he, with the old shadow on his face. +"I don't belong there any more.... I don't want to be seen. But the +fellows promised not to give me away. It is pretty nervy for me to come +at all. But I am here only to escort you." + +She took his hand and held it while they sat well back in a corner of +the gallery and watched the company trooping in. To the young oarsmen, +so clean-cut and strong, tired but happy, all their woes and fears +forgotten, this was their day of days. In a long row were seated the +University eight, the substitutes, and the Freshman crew, which had +also won its race. At the head of the table was "Big Bill" Hall, stout +oarsman of thirty years ago, now a much stouter citizen. The captain +of the crew was at his right, and at his left hand the beaming Head +Coach, burned as black as any Indian. In another group were the younger +coaches, most of them old strokes and captains, and mighty men at Yale +in their time. Other oarsmen of other days were welcomed, regardless of +the formality of invitation. Perhaps forty men around the board had +known the test of the four-mile course, brothers of the oar through +nearly two generations of rowing history. + +The outcast was able to keep his poise until the Glee Club quartette +rose to sing, by special request of the Head Coach, "Jolly Boating +Weather." The first tenor had a sweet and sympathetic voice, and he had +heard the story of the singing of this song on the float just before +the race, wherefore he did the verses uncommonly well. + +Then the old fellows, some with grizzled thatches, and some with +thatches scant and thin, had their innings and pounded the table to +emphasize their harmonious declaration that + + "Twenty years hence such weather + Will tempt us from office stools. + We may be slow on the feather, + And seem to the boys old fools, + But we'll still swing together----" + +The song carried to Hastings was the last straw to break the endurance +which had pulled him through the long, long day. He did not want his +mother to see his quivering lip, and he thought she would not perceive +that he was near to breaking down. Did she know? Why, she felt his +emotion in the hand she clasped tighter than before, she read his +thoughts in the very beat of his pulse, and when he whispered that he +must have caught a cold in the head because he was getting an attack of +sniffles, she needed no words to enlighten her understanding. If his +tears were those of a boy, then she thanked God she was childish enough +to feel with him at every step and turn of the way that was blocked by +the biggest sorrow of his life. She asked him whether he would like to +go home. He shook his head and said that he would stick it through to +the end. + + +VIII + +Speeches were in order, and the presiding alumnus hove himself out +of his chair, and hammered the table with the rudder of the winning +shell, thoughtfully lifted and provided by the able Assistant Manager. +There were cheers for "Big Bill" Hall, of the '73 crew, more cheers +for Yale, and before the uproar was quiet his great voice rose above +it as he began to speak. Presiding Judge of the Supreme Court of a New +England State when at home, he was all a Yale man come back to his own +upon such occasions as this, and because Yale men loved him they called +him "Big Bill." + +"When we get into the big world beyond the campus," he began, "it may +seem to some that this intensity of purpose, this absorption in a +sport, were childish, yet we do not regret those convictions, we are +proud of them, for these same qualities make for manhood in the larger +duties of a wider horizon. And, after all, are the things for which +we are striving in after years any more worth while? Are they always +sweetened and uplifted by so much devotion, unselfishness, loyalty, +and singleness of purpose? Are they thrilled by as fine a spirit of +manliness? We hear it said that the old Yale spirit is losing its +savor, that men are working for themselves rather than for the college, +that they hold in light esteem things that were sacred and vital to +us. I do not believe these criticisms are true. + +"The young man I wished most to see is not here to-night. He would +not come to help us celebrate a victory over an ancient and honorable +foe. He believes that he has lost the respect of his comrades and +that he has been proven a failure. For three years he has been a +University oar. This season he could not keep his weight down to the +limit of former years, he found that he could not keep up with the +eight--although he tried as never before--and he was not helping the +crew. The day came when he had to be removed, and he experienced as +bitter disappointment as could befall a young man of spirit and pluck. +The coaches and captain expected that he would throw up training, leave +the Quarters and go home. It was the natural thing to do, because he +was cut to the soul, and it was like attending his own funeral services +to hang around the place. + +"Without a word he slipped into the place of a substitute, and did a +substitute's work as long as there was need of it. I venture to say +that he would have scrubbed out the boathouse if it would have been of +service to the crew. Do you know why he took this stand? Not because he +did not care, but because he cared so much. When he offered to help as +a substitute he said: + +"'If I can help the Yale shell to go faster by being out of it, I am +glad of it. That is what I am rowing for. And if I can be of any use as +a substitute, why, that is what I am here for, too. It is all for Yale, +isn't it?' + +"He did not know that he was overheard. It was not meant to be +overheard. But it expressed his whole attitude, and he stood by it +to the end. You youngsters who licked Harvard to-day deserve all the +praise and rejoicing that comes to you. We are all proud of you, and we +know how hard and well you have worked. But while you are the heroes of +this celebration, _the_ hero did not row with you. His name is 'Jack' +Hastings, the man who was glad to help a Yale crew go faster by getting +out of it. + +"And when you hear it said that the Yale spirit is dying out, I want +you to think of that remark. That man absorbed the spirit right here +that made him take that view as a matter of course. It was because he +did not think of anything else to be done under the circumstances that +he epitomized the spirit that will make this old place great as long +as it stands. Endowments and imposing buildings can never breed that +spirit. It grows and blossoms as the fruitage of many generations of +tradition, and when Yale loses it, she is become an empty shell, a +diploma factory, and no longer a nursery of the right kind of manhood +needed in this country. + +"Three long cheers for 'Jack' Hastings, who, if he did not help to win +this race, will help to win races long after he is gone from the campus +world; and so long as his words are remembered Yale men on football +field, on track and diamond, and on the dear old Thames will feel their +inspiration. Are you ready?" + +The men rose the length of the table and shouted, with napkins waved on +high. Before the last "rah, rah, rah, Hastings, Hastings, Hastings," +subsided, the Assistant Manager had become red in the face and +exceedingly uneasy. He wrestled with a weighty ethical problem, because +while he had pledged his word not to reveal the secret of Hastings' +presence within sight and sound of this ovation, he realized that to +lead him in would be a crowning and dramatic episode. A compromise was +possible, however, and he slipped around the table and whispered in the +ear of "Big Bill" Hall. + +In the gallery the little mother had shrunk farther back into the +shadows, half afraid of this uproar, yet happier than ever before in +her life. She looked at her boy, sitting close beside her, his face +hidden so that she could not see the illuminating joy in it, the dazed +look of unreality, as if he were coming through dreamland. There was +no surprise in her mind. Of course, this triumph was no more than what +was due, and she could have hugged the massive chairman as a person of +excellent discernment. The boy whispered: + +"He does not really mean it, Mother. There is some mistake. He has been +out of college so long that he does not know what things mean." + +She patted his burning cheek and whispered: + +"Why, I knew it all the time. But you would not believe it if your +mother said you were a hero. I wonder how the Head Coach feels now? I +wish I----" + +With a quick leap Jack had wrenched himself away and was clattering +down the stairs. He had seen the whispered conference and "Big Bill" +Hall staring up at the gallery, and fearing that he was trapped and +betrayed, he fled into the street and was running for the nearest +corner before the Assistant Manager could pass through the hall to the +foot of the stairs. The conspirator had not promised silence regarding +Hastings' mother, and before she knew what was happening he was by her +side, so quickly that she thought it was Jack returned to her. As she +looked up in alarm, the Assistant Manager had her reluctant hand, and +was insisting upon leading her to the railing of the little gallery. +She gazed at the upturned faces, and there was a moment of expectant +silence. Then Judge Hall shouted the command: "Three long cheers for +Jack Hastings' mother." + +She was trembling now, and the lights and faces below swam in a mist +of tears, as she timidly bowed. Then, as the full realization of the +tribute swept over her like an engulfing wave, she became youthfully +erect, she smiled, and blew kisses with both her slender hands toward +the long table. She was thanking them in behalf of her boy, that was +all, because they too understood. Certain that he must be waiting not +far away, she bowed again, and hurried down the stairs, meeting the +Head Coach in the hall. His face was serious, his manner abashed, as he +said: + +"I want to ask whether you will shake hands with me, Mrs. Hastings. I +am proud that you do me the honor. I wish to tell you something more +than you have heard to-night, and I am going to tell it to all the men, +when I return to the room. Your son was too heavy to handle himself as +well as he did last year and the year before. But I believe he would +have rowed in the race if a mistake had not been made. I found out when +it was too late that his rigging, or measurements, in the shell was +not right for him, and it would have made considerable difference if +he could have been shifted in time. It was wholly my fault, and nobody +else was to blame in any way. I can never make it up to him, and my +only consolation is that you have found what I have learned, that he is +a good deal finer man than we thought him, and an honor to Yale beyond +all the rest of us. You must hate me, more than any one else in the +world. I remember how my mother shared my joys and sorrows in the crew." + +The mother put out her hand again, and clasped that of the Coach, as +she said simply, but with a catch of emotion in her voice: + +"I did hate you to-day. I thought you had broken my boy's heart. Now +I have to thank you. God's ways are not our ways, and I rejoice that +while I have lost a captain of the crew, I have gained a man, every +inch of him, tried in the fire and proven. This is the happiest night +of my life. I would rather have heard the speech of Judge Hall, and the +cheers that followed it, than to have my son in four winning crews and +captain of every one of them. Of course he is a hero. Didn't you know +that?" + +The Head Coach started to speak, when the elbow of "Big Bill" Hall +nudged him. The bulk of him filled the passage-way, and his voice +boomed out into the night: + +"If you don't bring that boy around to the hotel to see me in the +morning, I will take back all I have said about him, Mrs. Hastings. Now +I know where he gets all his fine qualities." + +She blushed and courtesied, and the two men escorted her to the +pavement, as John Hastings slipped from a doorway across the street +and came over to them. His mother's escort, believing that he had been +no nearer the banquet than this, made a rush for him, which he nimbly +dodged, and slipped his mother's arm in his. + +"He is mine now," said she. "He has a previous engagement, and, +besides, I don't want him spoiled. Good-night to you. Come along, +Jack, you are not too big to mind your mother, are you?" + +The two walked slowly across the Green toward the campus. The communion +of their uplifted souls was perfect, their happiness almost beyond +words. She was first to break this rare, sweet silence, and strangely +enough, she said nothing about the vindication and the triumph. Looking +up into his face she almost whispered: + +"Are you caring so much that Cynthia disappointed you to-day, dear boy +of mine? Does it hurt and rankle? I could see it in your eyes to-night. +Do you want to marry her very much? Are you sure of your heart?" + +He winced a little and held her arm tighter than before, as he replied: + +"Little Mother, it has been my first real love story, as you know. +The thought of her has helped me over many a rough place. Before +to-day she was always so quick to understand. And--and she seemed to +like me better than any other fellow she knew. I was fairly aching +to be worthy of her, to make my place in the world for her. I wasn't +conceited enough to think she loved me. I was only hoping that some +day--Any man has a right to do that, has he not?" + +It was not easy for the mother to say what she wished to tell him, but +at length her response was: + +"I don't want you to think I am criticising her, or sitting in +judgment, but you must not let her mar your faith and hope and +happiness. I want to help you to guard those precious gifts. You must +not blame her too much. You have been believing that she understood +you, because you would have it that way. She is no older than you, +a girl of twenty, accustomed to a wholly different life from yours. +She was flattered by your attention, for you were a great man in her +eyes. She liked you because no one can help liking you. But it made a +difference when you were a hero knocked off his pedestal. And yet you +expected to find in her sympathy a balm that even your mother could not +give. Poor lad, mothers are handy sometimes, but most boys do not find +it out until their mothers are gone from them." + +"I thought I knew her so well," said he, after another silence. "It +looks as if I had amused her and nothing more. But I have found you, +and I have fallen head over heels in love with you, Little Mother, all +over again, and I am going to kiss you right under this electric light." + +Even yet she was not sure that she had sounded the depths of the ache +in his heart, but as she looked up at the light in his campus rooms she +said softly: + +"Some day you will understand, and will thank God your mother +understood. He giveth you the victory unforeseen." + + + + +CORPORAL SWEENEY, DESERTER + + +"I'll be gettin' five years--five years at least." + +The surging fear became fixed in these words, and they, in turn, swung +in with the cadenced tramp of Corporal Sweeney, the other prisoner, the +sentry, and the young lieutenant along the Chien-men Road toward the +American camp and the guard-house. As the refrain rolled itself over in +the brain of the corporal, he discovered that he was muttering it aloud +when the other prisoner said explosively: + +"I know you will, and so will I; but, by ----, I'm going to make a run +for it!" + +"You're the silliest fool in Peking if you do," replied the corporal. +"An' where would you be after runnin' to? No place to----" + +He checked himself and turned his head. The sentry and the lieutenant +were at their heels, but in the clamor of the crowded thoroughfare +the talk had been unheard. A swirl of Chinese street merchants was +scattering from in front of a German wagon-train, a troop of Bengal +Lancers clattered recklessly into the ruck, and the road flung the +tangled traffic to and fro between its walls, like a tide in a +mill-race. The corporal muttered again to the scowling man beside him: + +"Nothin' doin'. Sure to be captured this side Tientsin. Forget it. +You're crazier than thim----" + +A shout in his ear made him jump aside, and he saw the sentry lurch +against the flank of a transport camel and lose his footing as a +cart-wheel struck him from behind. The loaded rifle fell on the chaotic +stone flagging. The other prisoner heard the crash and knew what it +meant. Here seemed the chance he sought, but instead of doubling into +one of the crooked side streets, he broke away down the middle of +the Chien-men Road, and the traffic opened up for him, as the crowd, +grasping as by instinct what was happening, scattered in panic. + +The young lieutenant whipped his revolver from its holster and took +a snap-shot at thirty yards, not caring overmuch if a Chinese got in +range of the heavy bullet. As he fired, the fugitive seemed to trip +and catch himself, then ran a few steps farther, falling all the time, +until he crumpled up in the filthy mud of the pavement. The lieutenant +stood looking at his quarry, his eye still ranging along the barrel +of the revolver, while the sentry had picked up his muddy rifle, and, +feeling faint and shaky, watched a private of his own regiment become, +in an instant, something that looked like a roll of blankets doubled +under the feet of the Chinese street mob. + +The two had forgotten the corporal, who stood beside them as intent as +they upon the pitiable tragedy; and the three appeared to be posing +for a military tableau. But almost as swiftly as death had come to the +escaping prisoner, there swept over the one that remained a frenzy of +desire to run. He knew how remote was the possibility of freedom, how +desperately small the chance against recapture, dead or alive. But +hammers were beating in his head the cadence of "I'll be gettin' five +years--five years at least." And the opportunity was made by another's +unwilling sacrifice. + +[Illustration: _The flight of Corporal Sweeney._] + +The corporal was unconscious of a voluntary act, and something seemed +swiftly to drag him, as he wheeled and dashed for the entrance of an +alley not more than ten yards away. A peddler's shoulder-yoke was +splintered against his shoulder, and he thought that the bruising +impact was the shock of the expected bullet; the yells of the +sweetmeat-sellers at the alley's mouth sounded like the outcry he +dreaded to hear; but the lieutenant and the sentry turned in time +to see only the trail of sprawling Chinese left in the wake of the +escaping prisoner. The sentry jumped in pursuit, stumbled into the +tortuous alley, and saw a blank wall ahead. Between that and the +Chien-men Road three lanes twisted off to left and right, and he ran up +the nearest one at random. + +Somewhere beyond the huddled houses, he could hear the thud of +leather-shod feet, the staccato flight of which marked the trail of +the deserter; but the pursuer could find no way through or around. +When he entered the street beyond, there was no blue overcoat in the +crowded field of vision, and the shuffling sound of felt-soled native +shoes gave no clew. He returned to the lieutenant, genuinely weary and +speciously disappointed. The officer was leaning over the body of the +other prisoner, and there was keen unhappiness in his flushed young +face. + +"I've found an empty cart," he said to the sentry. "Help me carry this +poor fellow to camp. He has no use for a doctor. As for Sweeney, he +can't get away. He's hiding in the American section, and I will get +the provost-marshal over the field 'phone from headquarters, and have +the guard sweep the district from end to end. The man will be captured +before morning." + +This occurred to the fugitive, also, as certain to happen, when he +staggered through a little courtyard, far in the heart of the "Chinese +City," and fell into a corner of a smoke-fogged room. It was so nearly +nightfall that the one occupant, failing to recognize the headlong +visitor, yelled and scuttled away from the brazier which he was trying +to coax into warmth against the winter night. + +"It's me--all same me--come back. You no sabee this American soldier if +men come to look see me," gasped the corporal. + +The Chinaman nodded without speaking and slipped out. Sweeney was +fighting for breath, and the fumes of coal-gas in the fetid room were +suffocating him. He tore a hole in the side wall of oiled paper, and +gulped his lungs full of the frosty night air. It was the room from +which he had gone the day before, when, after drinking much Japanese +beer, he had bought a quart of _samshu_ to carry away with him. + +It was the deadly, maddening samshu that had caused the downfall of +Corporal Sweeney, and now he was trying to remember what had happened +in the twenty-four hours before he had been marched down the Chien-men +Road with the other prisoner. He knew that he had overstayed his leave, +but that was a minor matter compared with the row in the canteen on +Legation Street. He recalled that an American officer had entered the +place to investigate the uproar, and the corporal's mind held a blurred +picture of himself conspicuously cursing his superior officer with +black oaths, and struggling to "knock the face off him." Then he had +fled, to be picked up later by the lieutenant who had shot and killed +Private Smathers on the way to camp. + +The corporal drew back from the hole in the paper wall, and slumped +down on the floor, a Chinese blue blouse tucked under his aching head. + +"An' five years more, for attempted escape," he groaned, "an' two clane +enlistments behind me, an' promotion a cinch in the next six months. +Never a coort martial ag'in' me. It was all the ---- samshu. Serves a +white man right for foolin' with haythen liquor. An' they'll be pullin' +me out of here in no time at all. Holy Mother! where kin I go?" + +The disgraced soldier turned as a new dread smote him. + +"An' the Boxer swine that kapes this poison-shop will be handin' me +over as soon as he hears the news of the shindy down the Chien-men +Road." + +Panic fear caught hold of the corporal, body and soul, and he wrestled +with it in the darkness. He knew not whither to turn. Hiding among the +Chinese in the city was impossible, and to take to the open road meant +capture at Tientsin or Taku if he made his way that far in a flight +toward the seacoast. To go blindly into the country about Peking, +unarmed and penniless as he was, knowing perhaps five words of Chinese, +was to drag out the finish in slow starvation, or to be picked up by a +foreign outpost, or to fall among hostile natives. He was as helpless +as a castaway adrift on a raft in mid-ocean. The penalties of capture +or surrender seemed worse than any sort of death, for Corporal Sweeney +had been a good soldier, bred to a hardy outdoor life. + +The disgrace tortured him, and either alternative of his situation was +unthinkable. Yet after three hours of trembling in his trap, he would +have welcomed the chance of flight into the open, beyond the walls +of the nightmare city. The Chinese landlord had not returned, and it +seemed likely that intruders had been warned away from the smoky room +with the hole in the oiled paper of the side wall. The deserter had +found a bottle of samshu, and tried to brace his nerves with a swallow +of it, but the smell sickened him, and he flung it against the brick +partition, in a passion of rage at the source of his cyclonic ruin. +The heavy, yellow liquid guttered across the floor, and the stench of +it drove the soldier into the courtyard, where the chatter of Chinese +voices sent him quaking back into his little inferno. + +He was not a coward, but he was alone in the darkness with such +fears as wrested from him all weapons. Somewhere outside, a Chinese +watchman, drifting along on his rounds, was beating a gong to frighten +away evil-doers. The measured _bong, bong, bong_ caused the fugitive +to wish that sudden death might overtake the harmless old gentleman, +for at each stroke it seemed as if tacks were being driven into his +skull. Toward midnight Corporal Sweeney fell into a stupor of complete +exhaustion that was no more than a caricature of sleep. A scratching on +the paper door and a falsetto whisper awoke him, and he sprang to his +feet, striking out in the gloom, to ram his fist through the fragile +panel into something yielding which cried: + +"O-w-w--a-i-i! Me, master; You Han. Somet'ing do-ing, all l-l-ight?" + +The deserter extended a muscular arm, grasped a handful of wadded coat, +and dragged the visitor in with one lightning sweep. Then, trying to +choke his amazed voice into a whisper, he croaked: + +"Oh, me cock-eyed darlin' lad! An' how did you dig me out? I niver felt +like kissin' a Chink before. Now get me out o' this, or I'll break your +back over me two knees. I'm down an' out this time. Are you goin' to +give me up for the sake o' the rewarrd?" + +The boy, whom the corporal had picked up, a starving outcast from a +plundered village, on the march to Peking, tried to tell what he knew +in painfully Pidgin English, shattered by his master's interruptions. +He had learned that the corporal was a day overdue in camp, and had +started out to find him early that morning. Then came the tragedy and +the escape, the tidings of which were brought to the camp with the body +of Private Smathers. You Han had heard the name "Sweeney" scattered +through the excited talk of the company, until he pieced together a +working impression of what had happened. He had ransacked canteens, +tea-houses and gambling-dens from the camp to the Tatar city wall until +he began to pick up the trail from groups at the street corners who had +seen the "madman runaway soldier." + +The corporal chopped the narrative short, because he was not interested +in the way of his fall into the bottomless pit, but in an agony of +speculation regarding the new possibility of a way out. The coming +of You Han made him clutch the hope of the open country, anywhere, +anyhow, no matter what lay beyond. The thought of flight alone among +the millions of mysterious aliens had oppressed him horribly. You +Han had the fidelity of a dog for the domineering American soldier, +whose ways he did not understand, but, because they were his ways, +they were believed to be impeccable. Now his lord had done something +more extraordinary than usual, for which, it appeared, decapitation +threatened. In addition to blind obedience, You Han knew what samshu +was, and was ready to make large allowances. It was only this new tone +of entreaty, almost of supplication, that alarmed the servant. Corporal +Sweeney shook off the paralyzing grip of his fears long enough to give +You Han orders in a voice that still quavered in little broken gasps: + +"You get Peking cart, quick? Qui-qui--chop-chop--chase yourself--sabee? +Have you got any money in thim flowin' robes?" + +You Han flashed a bisecting grin that was like splitting a sheet of +parchment, and dove into a knotted sash, where the clink of silver made +reply. Then he was gone, and the deserter became instantly submerged in +the returning rush of his manifold terrors. It seemed years before he +heard the protesting shrieks of a cart axle and the rattle of harness +in the compound. You Han stole in, and half dragging the corporal to +the cart, helped him to crawl under the curtained hood, whispering: + +"One piecee cart belong my cousin. No pay him. You stay bottom side. We +go countlee." + +As the cart jolted into the alley, the man beneath the cover heard, +faint and far, the beat of cavalry hoofs on the frozen earth. They +were coming nearer, and the fugitive flattened himself under a pile of +quilts, while the sweat beaded on his face. In a few moments the clink +of sabers and the creaking of saddle-leathers were audible, and the +patrol wheeled into a side street so close to the jogging cart that the +deserter caught the voice of a Sixth Cavalry trooper objecting: + +"It's a blazin' cold night to be pokin' in all the rat-holes of Peking +for as good a blank-blanked son of a gun as Jack Sweeney. Wonder how he +got up against it so hard." + +The reply was lost, for the deserter's heart was whanging against his +ribs and sounding louder to him than the clatter of cavalry. You Han +drove the mule at a gallop and said no word except once, when he turned +and remarked: + +"Samshu no good, master. Floget it. Dlink water, all l-l-ight." + +At daylight the cart was beyond the outer wall of Peking, heading west, +as aimless a derelict as ever tossed in uncharted seas. You Han did +not veer toward his own home on the Pei-ho, for he knew that it lay in +the track of the traffic to Tientsin, and that over the ruins of his +village floated the flag of an American infantry outpost. The dawn came +clear and cold, but sad in the gray aspect of tenantless villages, and +the litter of ungarnered millet-fields stretching over the flat lands +to the horizon. The driver told the deserter that the last foreign +outpost had been passed, and that he might get out and walk with +safety. Half frozen, bitterly bruised from tossing between floor and +roof of the springless cart, hungry and weak, the deserter climbed from +his ignominious hiding-place and trudged in silence along the rutted +highway. Presently You Han turned off the road, threaded a course +through the yards of a shattered temple, and drew up by a marble altar. + +"Have chow now," said he, and the summons to breakfast aroused a shadow +of animation in the deserter. He knew not where the meal was coming +from, but he was past wondering, and the Chinese youth was in full +command of the sorry expedition. You Han crawled into the cart and +produced a charcoal stove, dried fish, potatoes, and a teapot. + +"All belong my cousin. He keep store; pay bimeby," said the boy, with +what might have passed for a wink. + +The companions ate in silence. Shame had begun to march in the +foreground of the deserter's thoughts, crowding fear a little to the +rear. The soldier of a conquering race was as helpless as a child in +the hands of one of the conquered whom he had not considered wholly +human, whose swarms had fled like rats before the path of the columns +in khaki. The fugitive cursed and hated himself, possessed by an +unmanly humiliation impossible to imagine a few hours before. The +little dun mule munched dry millet-stalks, and squealed when You Han +fetched him water from the temple well. + +"I ain't got as much sand left in me as that sawed-off apology fer a +mule," groaned the corporal; "an' he's a good deal more of a man than +meself." + +You Han resumed the march without consulting his lord, which made the +deserter writhe anew, but he could say nothing. The cart trailed along +the foot of an ancient military wall for several miles, while the +man sullenly chewed the cud of bitterness and the boy revolved great +things in his unruffled mind. You Han was about to venture on some +fragmentary consolation, when the deserter, who was walking a little in +advance, balked in his tracks and stood crouched as if he had seen a +rattlesnake. The dun mule snorted and fanned his ears like an agitated +jack-rabbit. A furlong beyond, the steel ribbons of a railway track cut +across the road and vanished in sandy cuttings. Corporal Sweeney looked +instinctively for a telegraph line and saw one wire threading the +skyline in a humming loop. The sight hurled him back to the Chien-men +Road and the lieutenant alertly picking off Private Smathers with a +long snap-shot. + +"What's this fool railroad doin' here? I wonder are they consthructin' +it to ketch up with me? Come a-runnin' there _pronto_,[A] chop-chop. +Ain't there no gettin' away from annywhere?" + + [A] Soldiers who have campaigned in the Philippines use the + word _pronto_ for "hurry up" or "hustle." + +He volleyed the questions at You Han as if they had been jerked out of +him. The boy looked puzzled as he replied: + +"Devil cart go Pao-ting-fu, then go Peking. No belong to Amelican +soldier. English have got." + +They crossed the rails on the run, as if the metals burned their +feet, and the deserter flogged the mule into a gallop, until their +road twisted beyond sight of the track and its unexpected autograph +of a civilization they were fleeing headlong. He would not have dared +predict it, but in the afternoon Corporal Sweeney began to be a man +again. They had passed beyond the area laid waste by the Christian +allies, and the villages were populous and busy. You Han had glimpsed a +shadow of the shame that smoldered in his master's mind, and he was for +making little overtures, simple yet crafty, to win him back to himself. +As the first step in reconstruction, he called "Look-see, master!" and +pulled from beneath the body of the cart a "Krag" rifle, bayonet, and +cartridge-belt. The deserter threw back his shoulders at sight of them, +and in an outburst of gratitude smote his benefactor so that his head +ached for several hours. + +"Last night, when get cart, go back camp," twittered You Han; "find one +piecee master's gun in tent. Plenty dark. Sently shoot, no can hit. +Good, by golly!" + +"Good! you twenty-four carat jewel of Asia! You're the goodest +imitation of a white man that was ever bound in yeller leather by +mistake. Now I feel as if I wanst looked like a man meself. Give me a +rag an' a bit o' that stinkin' cookin'-grease, an' make room on the +carrt till I do up me house-cleanin'." + +You Han grinned and began to wail an interminable song about a girl +called "Little Fat Spring Fragrance," who lived in the "Village of +the Wise and Benevolent Magistrate." The ballad rose shriller as the +singer saw the corporal swinging along ahead, his rifle nestling on his +squared shoulder as if it had come home to its own, his back as flat +as a board. You Han was even more jubilant when his master spun on his +heel, and shouted with the rasp of the drill-ground in his voice: + +"Shut up that racket! It's worse 'n the carrt axle." + +The bracing wind swept keen out of the Siberian north, and sunshine +flooded from a cloudless sky. The deserter forgot much of his +weariness, and caught himself whistling "assembly," but broke off with +a groan. + +Toward sunset the surrounding wall of a village was outlined like a +rocky island in the level plain. You Han halted a ragged wayfarer, and +coaxingly addressing him as "great elder brother," dragged forth the +information that the town was of considerable size, and that in it was +the residence of the ruler of the district. The song of the "Village +of the Wise and Benevolent Magistrate" had suggested an inspiration +whose magnitude made You Han gasp. But he took possession of it without +flinching, and when they were within a mile of the gateway in the wall +he said to the deserter: + +"You wait. I go look-see." + +The mule browsed by the roadside, the corporal sprawled near by, and +the brave figure in blue cotton trudged on alone to the town, the +strangeness of which made his heart flutter. He swaggered in past the +outer wall, searched out the _yamen_ of the district magistrate, and +that dignitary graciously consented to see the importunate pilgrim. +You Han kotowed before the heart-quaking presence in the gilded +audience-room, and with wailing stammer delivered the oration composed +on the cart: + +"An illustrious and most honorable general of the foreign soldiers +comes to visit your beautiful city. I am his insignificant and +thrice-despised servant. This valiant and inexpressibly distinguished +hero is of the Americans, who protect and do not plunder and destroy. +He comes to extend peace and protecting power to your Heavenly +Presence, and to learn whether you have been molested by other +foreign-devil armies, whom he will swiftly punish if it be your august +pleasure to ask it. My insufferably benevolent master leaves soldiers, +cannon, horses behind him, lest he terrify the country round about, +already in fear of the devastating foreign fighting-men. He sends the +greetings of one ruler to another, and also his card." + +You Han bobbed his head to the floor by way of incessant punctuation, +and watching eagerly from the tail of his eye for results hopeful or +otherwise, laid before the magistrate the vivid label of a tin of +"Army Cut Plug," on which heroes in blue and khaki posed nonchalantly +in a "baptism of fire." A group of official servants, crowding +within ear-shot, saw a gleam of surprised pleasure twinkle through +the huge spectacles of their ruler. They took their cue, and helping +the trembling You Han to his feet, were soon bustling through the +courtyard, propelled by vehement commands to make haste. + +Half an hour later, the deserter saw approaching a procession led by +You Han and a squad of yamen runners, whom he knew by the red tassels +on their flat hats. These rode shaggy rats of ponies, and behind +them tailed off scores of villagers on foot and convoys of squealing +children. The American grabbed his rifle and dodged behind the cart, +ready to run or open fire, until he heard You Han's shrill shouts of +reassurance. Then he was swept up in an admiring throng, whose bodies +doubled in homage, down to the wee tots who fell on their flat noses +when they tried to kotow. + +You Han had no time for explanations. He was expanding in the reflected +glory of his own devising, and busy chasing children from under the +agile hoofs of the ponies. In their layers of wadded coats, like so +many puff balls, the jolly youngsters rolled to the roadside, and the +deserter felt a stir of emotion which he could not have defined. Yes, +there were homes and firesides and mothers and play and work and +love in this land of desolation, and the smoke of the village hearths +beckoned with vague homeliness. + +The shopkeepers left their wares and the old men in the doorways tucked +away their pipes when the procession filled the little streets, and the +deserter rode to the yamen like a conquering hero. In the courtyard of +the compound other servants waited to escort the "benevolent foreign +general" to rooms made ready for him. There was fire in the brick +_kang_, or sleeping-platform, and chickens, eggs, fruit and potatoes, +and a fur-lined robe were heaped on a table. You Han vanished, and +the outlaw sat himself down in speechless wonderment. Presently You +Han returned and announced that the magistrate would be inexpressibly +honored to receive the Personage in the evening, and the reason for +not inviting him to dine was that he knew the guest would prefer his +food prepared after his own strange fashion by his own servant. As in +a gorgeous dream the deserter dined, with three attendants squabbling +with You Han for the honor of passing each dish. Then he brushed his +dusty leggings and blue clothes and summoned a barber. + +A little later the guest was greeted as a person of rare distinction +by the dignified elderly gentleman in red-silk robes who ruled and +"squeezed" the district. The corporal rose grandly to the occasion. The +two mingled to a nicety their mutual attitudes of respect, cordiality, +protection. They talked laboriously through the doubtful medium of +the overpowered You Han, whom the intricacies of the mandarin dialect +bowled over from the one side, and on the other such instructions as +these from the corporal: + +"Tell old Four-Eyes that I'm the personal ripresintative of George +Washington and Gineral Grant, an' that when I stamp me fut a million +brave soldiers trimble violently; but that because I know a great +intelleck when I see one, me heart is swelled with pride to sit down +and talk it over as man to man. Poke that into him good and har-r-d." + +The official volleyed many questions, and the deserter parried what +fragments of them You Han was able to pass along. A military escort +to the next village was offered, but the guest declined with polite +emphasis. He was not seeking ostentation in public. When he went to his +apartments after a surfeit of cakes, wine, and tobacco, Corporal John +Sweeney rubbed his close-cropped head and puzzled over his identity. As +he curled up on the warm brick kang, he was a deserter fast becoming +reconciled to his fate. + +"It strains the rivets of me imagination to believe it's rale. I +hope there's more miracles in stock where this one was projuced," he +murmured sleepily. + +Just at dawn he awoke. There was a clatter of voices in the courtyard, +and the sound of horses moving hurriedly. Presently the paper of the +latticed wall was ripped, and a brown finger popped through. All the +fears of the refugee came trooping back with squadrons reinforced. +He ripped the door open, rifle in hand. A string of traders' ponies +was filing out for an early start toward Peking, and a hostler stood +with his face pressed against the hole in the wall, trying to catch a +glimpse of the lordly foreigner. That was all. But the deserter saw +again the smoky room in the "Chinese City," and heard the Sixth Cavalry +squad wheel just in rear of his frantic flight. The "illustrious guest" +was again the fugitive, escaping, he knew not whither, from "five +years--five years at least." + +He kicked the sleeping You Han into action, and the cart was under way +as soon as the mule had fed. + +"Only thirty miles from Peking," growled the corporal; "not half far +enough. An' cavalry is prancin' out to loot, pacify, an' scatter +Christian blessings with th' mailed fisht where they have no business +to be thinkin' of. I hike till I drop, an' that's me ultimatum." + +They pressed on all day until the dun mule swayed in the shafts and the +pilgrims were ready to drop by the roadside. The night was passed in +a village tavern, for You Han was too weary to organize a reception. +The deserter slept fitfully, and awoke often talking to himself. +Nervous and foot-sore, he took the trail at dawn of the third day, You +Han watchful and worried. As the deserter turned frequently to look +behind him, the aspect of the future crushed him, while the imminent +past lashed him to persistent flight. Camp, and the close comradeship +of men in blue and khaki; the routine round of his army years; the +Chicago streets that had known his boyhood; the father and mother who +were proud of his record--these and all other links in the chain of his +thirty years were as if they had never been forged. Names, faces and +scenes of which he had been an intimate part were in an obliterating +distance, and nothing that had gone before was given strength to follow +him, except the incidents of his escape, and these filled all the +landscape with portents. + +Soon they came to a schoolhouse in the middle of a tiny hamlet. You +Han knew it for such when the refugees were rods away, since from the +squat building came an incessant sound like the hum of a gigantic top. +The children were reciting their daily task from the Confucian Analects +at the limit of their lung power, when the foreigner was spied by a +truant outpost, and the teacher could not hold the clamorous flock +in leash. By scores they tumbled out to scamper off in terror until +You Han shouted his message of good will and the corporal laughed, +threw down his rifle, and became one of them. It was not long before +uproarious applause greeted his attempts to play jackstones and strike +the sharpened stick to make it fly into the miniature mud-pie "city." + +Again the feeling of homeliness tugged at his heart, and he lingered +among the children until the teacher gathered them in, with labor like +that of collecting spilled quicksilver. + +You Han swaggered into the next village beyond, with a port inspired +by remembrance of the magistrate's yamen, but he came to grief at the +hands of the village bully. There was no mistaking the character of +this truculent ruffian. His garments were studiously awry, and his +queue was loosely braided and coiled around his neck to show that he +thirsted for combat. He resented the lofty bearing of the stranger, +and the two clashed with disaster to the features of You Han, who was +plucky but overmatched. He was rescued by the corporal, who gave the +bully the worst beating of his career. The feat was applauded by a +throng of villagers whose peace had been much disturbed by this chronic +nuisance, and they feasted the hero at the house of the head man with +complex and effusive hospitality. The wayfarers were pressed to stay +and make the town their home for life. + +This incident, coming in a sequence of revelations of the life of this +hitherto despised people, set the thoughts of the deserter definitely +into a new and hopeful channel. + +"I begin to think," he said to You Han, "that I could stick it out in +one of these back counties, at worst until the troops are l'avin' China +in the spring. An' I could come pretty near to runnin' a town or two +meself. One more day's march an' I'll risk stakin' out a claim for a +while. An' I'll be a leadin' an' dignified citizen, an' grandfather by +brevet to all the kids in the camp." + +The advance was checked by the discovery that the cart axle had split +and must be repaired to prevent a breakdown over the next bit of rough +going. The corporal was in a bluster of impatience to press forward. +Delay had not lost its power to frighten him. The next village lay ten +miles beyond, but between was a desolate stretch of waste land in which +no one lived, in which nothing grew. From the tiled roof of the tavern +the corporal could see this little desert rolling like a lake almost +from the village walls to the sky line. It caught his fancy with a huge +onset of relief. Once beyond this barrier, he would feel secure against +discovery, and he magnified it as the borderland of safety. You Han was +surrounded by a group of voluble citizens who urged waiting two days +until a new axle could be hewn from the solid tree; but the deserter +exploded the conference by shouting: + +"Dump the carrt here. Pack the mule, an' we'll send back for the Noah's +ark when we get settled over beyant. Make haste an' upholster the mule +with the baggage of light marchin' order." + +When the dun mule, in tow of the boy, limped out of the gateway across +the crumbling moat, its small hoofs sank to the fetlock in white +sand, and the trail of cart-wheels winding across the plain shimmered +in an aching dazzle of sunlight. At the end of an hour the village +behind them was a brown smudge not more than two miles distant. The +deserter made peevish comments, but there was cheerfulness in the crack +of his profanity, as he plodded painfully ahead of the boy and the +mule. Whenever they paused to rest he talked to You Han, not caring +whether the boy understood one word in five. The two seemed alone in +all the world; their calamitous fortunes were more closely knit than at +any time in the flight; and hope lay somewhere beyond this barricade +provided by a fate grown strangely kind. + +"You'll have the next week to get the sand out o' thim foolish shoes o' +yourn," observed the corporal. "An' me blisters will be attinded to by +the chief surgeon of the county. Like chickens an' silk over-coats, my +son? We're goin' hell-bent for the comforts of life by the carrt-load." + +You Han talked to the mule in encouraging whistles and replied, "Can +do," to the monologue of the corporal, who rambled on: + +"Say, thim kids did me more good than a barrel o' monkeys. Weren't +they corkers? By the holy poker! I'm goin' to marry you off to a +little squeeze-toed fairy in the big town over the way, an' you'll +live without worrkin' forevermore. Maybe the old man will follow suit. +It's me life ambition to be idle an' palatial. An' You Han will be the +hottest sport in fifty li. Dinghowdy? All right?" + +In the third hour they were not more than halfway across, and the +short winter afternoon was reddening. The level desolation had begun +to tumble up into crowding little hills and sand barriers among which +the trail now and then entangled itself. But the air was crystal and +windless, and scrambling to the top of one of the white hills, the +corporal could see the faintest tracery of a towered temple on the +farther side of the desert as a guiding landmark. It was a forced +march, and a halt was made only for a fragment of supper and a swig for +man and mule from the water-bottle on the pack. The moon rose in the +sleeping dusk, but before it was clear of the scalloping ridges of sand +the sky became spattered with rags of flying cloud. Presently the wind +behind the angry scud began to pick up gusts of sand and flirt them +from one crest to another. The travelers rubbed their eyes and coughed +as they plowed steadily westward, steering a course by the cart-trail, +still discernible, and by the moon behind them. "We're more 'n halfway +over," shouted the corporal, "an' it's silly to be dr'amin' of losin' +ourselves in this two-by-four desert." + +Then the gray sky closed down in blackness everywhere, and leaping +billows of sand seemed to meet it. The rush of the terrific wind +wiped out the trail as if it had been no more than a finger-mark. +There were no more hills nor winding passages among them, only a fog +of whirling sand. The wind had an icy edge as it brought the killing +cold of Mongolian steppes a thousand miles away. The deserter and the +boy covered their faces with their hands, their garments; and almost +instantly they were adrift, cowering, lost, helpless. So dense was the +driving smother of sand that they could scarcely see the mule straining +at the end of its halter-rope. The hillocks were shifting with a +complaining roar, and the shriek of the wind in mid-air was pierced +with a shrill rasp like the commotion of innumerable iron filings. + +The corporal and You Han groped toward the side of a hillock, seeking +a lee; but the flooding sand tumbled down its side knee-deep, and the +wind sucked round and searched them out, as if in chase. The flinty +particles pelted in sheets, and bit their faces like incessant volleys +of fine shot. There was no more time to think of what should be done +than when a swimmer is plunged over a dam. + +It did not seem possible that the danger of death was menacing in this +absurdly small theater of action, yet it could not have been many +moments before the deserter began to realize where lay the odds in +another hour's exposure to such a storm. All sense of direction had +been snatched from him, and he fought only for breath. You Han had no +knowledge of desert storms in his home on the bank of the Pei-ho. He +gasped whatever prayers came to him, but placed his active faith, still +unshaken, in the ability of his master to save him from the choking, +freezing terror. The man and the boy were not only stifled, but soon +benumbed, for neither had ever felt anything to compare with the +searching cold of this blast. They stumbled from one hill to another, +sometimes keeping their feet, falling oftener, rising more slowly, the +little mule trying in vain to turn tail to the storm. + +There could be no conversation. At length the deserter muttered +drowsily to the storm such fragments as these: + +"No place like home. It's the finish that's comin' to me. Cudn't take +me medicine like a man. P'rhaps this'll blow over soon. I'm blinded +entirely. Good God! forgive me poor cowardly sowl! I niver meant to go +wrong. Had to bring that poor fool You Han into this mess." + +The deserter pitched forward on hands and knees, his rifle buried +somewhere in his circling wake. He caught hold of You Han's queue lest +they lose each other, and then the mule pushed impetuously between +them, ears forward, muzzle outstretched, trumpeting joyfully. + +"He b'lieve can find. He sabee plenty," feebly sputtered You Han. + +The frantic mule dragged the boy by the lead-rope a few paces, +the corporal falling, sliding after, and then stopped. The linked +procession could go no farther. You Han collapsed in a little heap, +and the corporal toppled face down. The boy had tied the lead-rope +around his own wrist, and the impatient mule was jerking it so that +the forlorn figure in the sand seemed to make appealing gestures. The +corporal was without motion, and with a mighty effort You Han pulled +himself a little nearer, and the mule followed protestingly. The +swaying curtain of sand closed in around the three figures. + +You Han struggled to his knees and with his teeth loosed the knotted +cinch, and the pack fell from the mule. The boy writhed over on the +corporal and tried to raise the dead weight, tried to talk to him in +a wordless and appealing whimper. The deserter strove to rise, and +failed until he dully comprehended that the boy sought to make him +mount the mule, or at least to hitch him in tow with the lead-rope. +Then the soldier awoke, and fighting off the death that had almost +mastered him, lurched to one knee and pushed You Han toward the mule +that was standing over them. His voice thick and rasping as if his +tongue were of sandpaper, the deserter succeeded in saying: + +"Get aboard that mule. No Chinese village in mine. Better man than +me--you an' mule both better men. You won't? ---- ---- you, take that!" + +The deserter swung his fist against the jaw of the struggling boy, +and the blow went home with the last flicker of the old-time fighting +strength of Corporal Sweeney. You Han dropped limp, as if shot. Then +the fugitive from army justice braced himself, tried, and failed to +lift the light body in his arms. Three times he tried and failed, and +then, as the mule swerved, he fell against it and dropped the lad +across its back, like a bundle of quilts. The cinch, trailing in the +sand, tripped the man, and he slipped it over You Han and pulled it +tight before he fell back in the tossing sand. The mule stumbled a step +or two with its burden, found that it was free and in a moment tottered +beyond the vision of the deserter. + +Not more than a hundred yards away a camel-trail lay encamped against +the storm, and to the Mongolian drivers, huddled in furs close to their +beasts, came a little dun mule half dragging an unconscious Chinese +youth, whom they took for dead as they wonderingly cut him loose from +his lashing. + +Daylight and the tail of the sand-storm had come before he was able to +speak, and the camels were jostling into the line of march. The swarthy +drivers scoffed at the story told by the raving stranger, until the +bell-camel shied at something nearly buried in the sand. You Han fought +the greedy northerners off until he had disclosed a figure in army blue +and a clean-cut Irish face whose expression was vastly peaceful. + +The last silver coin was gone from the knotted sash of You Han after +he had persuaded the camel-men to carry the body to the village where +Corporal Sweeney had expected to find a refuge from fear. + + + + +THE LAST PILOT SCHOONER + + +Young James Arbuthnot Wilson slipped into the _Standard_ building with +an uneasy air as if he were vaguely on the defensive. Six months of +work in the "City Department" had not rid him of the feeling of a cat +in a strange garret. The veterans of the staff were rather pleased that +this should be the attitude common among young reporters. It showed +that the office machine was geared to high tension when every man, +short of five years' service, was thankful to find his "job" had not +slid from under him between two days. + +Wilson could recall no specific warnings that his head was in peril. +His activities had been too inconspicuous to merit the dignity of +official notice of any kind. He had faithfully followed his foot-sore +round of minor police courts, hospitals, one-alarm fires, and dreary +public meetings, to have his copy jammed as scanty paragraphs under +the head of "City Jottings." A "story" filling a third of a column had +marked his one red-letter day on the _Standard_. + +Each afternoon, at one o'clock, he hurried to his pigeon-hole in the +row of letter-boxes by the city editor's door, his heart thumping to +this sense of intangible fear, and with it pulsing the foolish hope of +a "big assignment." Some day they must give him a chance, and he would +show them whether or not he could handle something worth while. But the +flame of hope was low on this dull day of June as Wilson unlocked his +box and tore open the yellow envelope on which his name was scrawled. + +He whistled in blank amazement as he followed an unfamiliar hand down +to the managing editor's signature. The youngster's face flushed and +his fingers twittered as he turned sharply to see if the loungers at +their desks had noted his agitation. Then he stole into the hall and +re-read, with his lips moving as if he were spelling out the words: + + + DEAR MR. WILSON: You have been pegging away without any let-up + for three months and your work has been excellent. Here is an + easy assignment as a reward of merit. It will give you a pleasant + outing, and us a good page story for the Sunday sheet. The + enclosed clipping from to-day's paper will give you the idea. The + art department will have a snap-shot camera waiting for you. Our + Ship-News man made arrangements this morning for you to be met + and taken aboard. The one-forty train from Broad Street Station + will take you through to Lewes and the Breakwater. To save time I + enclose some expense money. Try to be back on Thursday. This will + give you three days at sea. We want plenty of rattling description + and human interest, with local color _ad lib._ Good luck. + + +"Oh, there must be some mistake," gasped young Wilson. "A page Sunday +story? A whole page? My work has been excellent? The managing editor +has been following it? Why, I didn't suppose he knew me by sight. I +can't believe it." + +Befogged with hopes and fears, he turned back to the door of the city +editor's room. + +"He's just gone out to lunch with the managing editor," volunteered the +day assistant. "No, I don't know where they went. Said they'd be back +about two-thirty." + +Wilson looked at the office clock. If he would catch the one-forty +train for Lewes there was no leeway for hesitation. He started toward +the elevator, then halted to read the clipping, which might throw some +light upon this staggering manifesto: + + + THE LAST PILOT SCHOONER + + The new steam pilot-boat will go into commission off the Delaware + Capes early next week. This change from sail to steam is another + blow at the romance of blue water. Six of the eight trim schooners + of the Delaware fleet have already been dismantled, not only the + _Albatross, Number One_ is cruising on the station. She will be + laid up as soon as the steamer is ready to put the pilots aboard + incoming vessels. Every ocean voyager will regret the passing of + the pilot schooner. These stormy petrels among sailing craft have + been the first messengers from the looked-for land, as specks in + the tumbling waste of sea, or lying hove to in all weathers.... + + +Wilson threw his doubts overboard. All he had ever read of bellying +canvas, whipping spars, and lee rails awash leaped into the foreground +of his boyish imagination. Here was his chance for such a "descriptive +story" as he had dreamed of through weeks and months, this last cruise +of the last pilot schooner. He dashed into the art room, snatched +up the waiting camera, and bolted for the station. After he dropped +panting into a seat of the accommodation train for Lewes, he found +himself already overhauling his stock of sea-lore and sailor adjectives. + +There was time for reflection in this four-hour journey to the sea, +and ere long, sober second thought began to overtake his first wild +elation. The young reporter's doubts came trooping back. He remembered +now that he had never written a line of "ship-news" for the _Standard_. +He blushed to confess to himself that his life on salt water had been +bounded by the decks of river excursion steamers. And what had he ever +done worth the notice of the managing editor? Of course, he had worked +hard, and the world, at least in fiction, occasionally rewarded honest +merit in lowly places with unexpected largess. But any "star man" of +the staff would have given a week's salary for such a note as this +from the chief executive of the _Standard_. And he, James Arbuthnot +Wilson, was indubitably the rawest and humblest recruit of that keen +and rough-riding squadron of talent. + +An inevitable reaction swung his mood into the forebodings. The train +was loafing along the upper reaches of Delaware Bay when he re-read +the intoxicating note, and caught himself repeating "Dear Mr. Wilson," +with a sudden glimmer of association. In another miserable moment the +youth's beautiful dream was wrenched from him. What a fool he had +been! "Wilson," "Wilson," he muttered and burst out: + +"Of course, there is another Wilson, the tip-top man of the staff. It's +the Wilson who's been filling in as chief of the Washington Bureau for +six months. I heard somebody say the other night that 'Doc' Wilson was +coming back, and was to go on general work again. He must have turned +up over Sunday. And that new boy put his note in my box. Well, I am IT." + +Young James Arbuthnot Wilson squeezed back a smarting tear. He did not +try to fence with this surmise. There was no room for doubt that the +kind words and the pleasant outing had been aimed at his high-salaried +elder. James Arbuthnot had never clapped eyes on the gifted "Doc" +Wilson, whose Washington dispatches had carried no signature and +whose distant personality had made no impression upon this wretched +understudy of his. + +How could the pilgrim muster courage to go back and face the issue? He +would be the office butt--Well, he could resign, but most likely, he +reflected, dismissal would be the instant penalty of this incredibly +presumptuous blunder. The only thing to be done was to drop off at the +next way station and return to the scene of his downfall. But to his +stammering plea the brakeman returned: + +"Next train up won't get along here till late to-night. You better +go through to Lewes instead of waiting seven hours at one of these +next-to-nothing flag stations." + +The reporter slumped into his seat and looked through the open window. +The tang of brine was in the breeze that gushed up the bay with the +rising tide. Across the green fields he began to glimpse flashing blue +water and bits of the traffic of far-off seas. A deep-laden tramp +freighter was creeping toward her port, a battered bark surged solemnly +in tow of an ocean-going tug, and a four-masted schooner was reaching +up the bay with every sail pulling. Across the aisle of the car +Wilson noticed, with a melancholy pleasure, four deep-tanned men of +rugged aspect, who played cards with much talk of ships and tides and +skippers. They belonged in this picture. + +Wilson thought of the stewing city far behind him, and the spirit of +some sea-faring ancestor was whispering in his ear. Yes, by Jove! he +would see the tragic venture through after all. It were better to +return with a "story," and fall with colors flying than to slink back +to empty ridicule. Let them try to overtake him if they dared. This was +"Mr. Wilson's" mission, and no one could snatch it from him. + +When the train labored into Lewes, the fugitive looked across the flats +to the cuddling arm of the Breakwater and the shining sea beyond. With +the instinct of the hunted, he made ready to flee in this direction, +away from the station and the town. As he dropped from the car, a man +in the uniform of a station agent climbed aboard and shouted: + +"Telegram for Mr. Wilson. Is Mr. Wilson aboard? Urgent telegram for Mr. +J. A. Wilson." + +Mr. Wilson's pulse fluttered as he dove behind the warehouse across +the tracks, while the hoarse cry of the station agent rang horribly +in his ears. The long arm of the _Standard_ had almost clutched him +by the collar. As he hurried down the nearest street to the water, he +saw heading toward him a lusty youth of a sailorish cut, who eyed the +camera case as if hasty suspicions were confirmed. + +"Is your name Wilson?" demanded the stranger. "If it be, come along +with me. I'm from the _Albatross'_ boat-crew." + +Wondering how much guilt was written in his face, Wilson fervently +shook the hand of the briny youth. They fared toward the pier, while +the convoy explained: + +"You're in luck. We're ready to go to sea as soon as you get aboard. +Hit it just right, didn't you? The pilots'll be glad to see you +again. They was tickled to death over the piece you wrote for the +paper when the _Eben Tunnell, Number Three_, come in after fightin' +through the '88 blizzard, and specially what you wrote about ol' 'Pop' +Markle stickin' by the _Morgan Castle_ when she ketched fire off the +Capes two year ago. And, say, they still talk about that jack-pot +you sky-hooted clean through the cabin skylight, and how th' Pilots' +Association went in mournin' for thirty days after that poker game. +Two o' them boys is aboard this cruise, with the chips all stacked an' +waitin', and their knives whetted. I'm sorry I missed the fun before." + +James Arbuthnot Wilson gulped hard at these lamentable tidings. He was +vaulting from the frying-pan into the fire. These rude and reckless men +would probably heave him overboard. And, alas, the penny-ante of his +mild college dissipations had left him as deficient in poker prowess +as in sea-lore. The foremast hand from the _Albatross_ was somewhat +crestfallen over his capture. If this slip of a boy was the seasoned +and capable "Doc" Wilson, able to hold his own in all weather and any +company, then appearances were basely deceiving, and the escort felt a +sense of personal grievance. + +The boat was waiting at the pier and the four slouching seamen rowed +out to the black schooner, which lazily rolled her gleaming sides off +the end of the Breakwater. Wilson climbed awkwardly aboard and was +saved from sprawling his length on deck by a strong hand, which yanked +him in a welcoming grip. Then a stocky man with a grizzled mustache +stepped back and fairly shouted: + +"Why, hell! You ain't 'Doc' Wilson. What kind of a game is this? I +popped up from below in time to see your hat coming over the side. Kick +me, please. I'm dreamin', as sure as my name's McCall." + +He fished a rumpled telegram from his blue clothes, and flourished it +before the nose of his guest, as he cried formidably: + +"Read that!" + + + "'Doc' Wilson, of the _Standard_, will be down on afternoon train. + Take him aboard and treat him right." + + +Young Wilson looked at the half mile of water between the schooner and +the beach, and thought of trying to swim for it. But the bully-ragging +tone of the pilot struck a spark of his latent pluck and he answered +with some spirit: + +"I'm mighty sorry you're so disappointed. My name is Wilson, James +Arbuthnot Wilson, of the _Standard_. The order to join your boat was +delivered to me. If there's been a mistake, and I'm so unwelcome, I'll +have to put you to the trouble of setting me ashore again." + +The innate hospitality of his kind smothered the pilot's first +emotions, and he regretted his rudeness as he smote the lad on the back +and shouted: + +"All right, Jimmy Arbutus. I guess there's no great damage done. It's +now or never for your newspaper, and if we can't carry the skipper, +we'll get along with the mate of your outfit. And we'll give you a +cruise to make your lead-pencil smoke. Tumble below and shake them +natty clothes. The boat-keeper will fit you out with a pair of boots +and a jumper." + +Sore and abashed, with the hateful emotions of an intruder, Wilson +crept below and faced another ordeal. In the pilots' roomy cabin, +which ran half the length of the schooner, four men were changing +their clothes and tidying up their bunks. One of them emerged from the +confusion to yell at the invader's patent leather ties: + +"Hello, Doc, you old pirate. Is that you? Glad to see you aboard. Well, +I will be damned!" + +His jaw dropped and he looked sheepish as a hurricane voice came +through the open skylight: + +"Don't hurt the kid's feelin's. I've done plenty of that. This is Jimmy +Arbutus Wilson, apprentice to 'Doc,' and he's doin' the best he can. +'Doc' got stranded somewheres, and the lad is takin' his run. I don't +fathom it a little bit, but what's the odds?" + +The passenger was introduced to all hands, who showed a depressing lack +of enthusiasm, and the pilots returned to their tasks. Wilson retired, +blushing and confused, to the edge of his bunk. Presently the oldest +man of the party sat down beside the intruder, and shook his hand for +the second time. Wilson raised his downcast face to the white-haired +veteran, who said softly: + +"Now, sonny, don't let the boys rile you none. They're kinder sore on +some of the greenhorns that writes pieces all wrong for the Philadelphy +papers, and this 'Doc' Wilson knows sailor ways and sailor lingo, and +they sorter took a shine to him and his style. But fur's I know, you +can write rings around him. And Old Pop Markle, as they calls me, will +see you through, blow high, blow low. It's my last cruise, this is. I'm +past seventy year, sonny, and my oldest boy is a pilot; he brought a +tanker in yestiddy, and my grandson is servin' his apprentice years, +and he'll be gettin' his papers pretty soon. It's time for me to quit. +I was goin' to lay up ashore in the spring, but I kinder wanted to +wind up with the old _Albatross_. Better come on deck, sonny; we're +shortenin' cable." + +Wilson smiled his gratitude at the gentle and garrulous old pilot, +whose smooth-shaven face was webbed with fine-drawn wrinkles, as if +each salty cruise had left its own recording line. The blue eyes were +faded from staring into fifty years of sun and wind, but they held a +beaming interest in the welfare of this tyro struggling in the meshes +of hostile circumstance. + +The reporter followed his guardian on deck, and his spirits swiftly +rose. The _Albatross_ was paying off under a flattened forestaysail, +while her crew tailed onto the main-sheet with a roaring chorus, +for they, too, felt a thrill of sentiment in this last cruise. The +wind held fresh from the south'ard, and under the smooth lee of Cape +Henlopen the _Albatross_ shot seaward, as if they were skating over a +polished floor. Now the pilots came tumbling up, and shouted as they +turned to and helped set the maintopsail and staysail. The schooner +staggered down to it, until the white water hissed over her low +bulwark, and sobbed through the scuppers. "Old Pop" Markle slapped his +knee and cried huskily: + +"Give her all she'll stand, boys. It's like old times when we raced +that dodgasted _Number Four_ and hung to the weather riggin' by our +teeth, and bent a new suit of sails every other cruise." + +Holding the wind abeam, the _Albatross_ drove straight out to sea, +and then, once clear of Cape May, slid off to the north'ard. Now, the +quartering sea picked her up and she swooped down the slopes and tried +nimbly to climb the frothing hills, as the jolly wind smote her press +of canvas and jammed her smoking through them. A new exhilaration +surged in young Wilson's veins. He was drinking it all in, the buoyant +flight of the low, slim schooner, the intimate nearness of the sea, +the sweetness of the wind, and the solemnity of the marching twilight. +He would not have been elsewhere for worlds. Then the fat and sweating +face of the cook appeared from below, and bellowed an inarticulate +summons. + +The pilots obeyed with ardor, and Wilson followed timidly in their +wake. Supper smoked on the cabin table, and the guest was glad to +survey the stout fare of hash, cold meat, potatoes, green peas, +flaky hot biscuits, and a mammoth pudding. "Old Pop" Markle took the +youngster under his protecting wing, and found a seat on the locker +beside his own. The reporter fell to, while the pilots chatted with +bursts of gusty laughter. He made one desperate rally to join the talk, +and in a quiet moment asked a neighbor: + +"How do you know when a ship wants a pilot?" + +"We generally have a trained green parrot that flies over and asks +'em," was the cruel response. "But we ran short of stores last cruise, +and had to eat him. This voyage we intend to mail 'em postal cards." + +There was an appreciative roar, and Wilson winced as "Old Pop" Markle +whispered: + +"Don't mind that Peter Haines. He's got a heart as soft as mush. It's +only their skylarkin', sonny. Hit 'em back. That's what they like." + +But the victim had lost all self-confidence, and now he was beginning +to feel dizzy and forlorn. The smell of food, the heat, and the jerky +plunging of the cabin were overwhelming. He staggered to his bunk and +crept in. This was the last blow, that on top of his false pretences he +should be laid low before the eyes of this hostile crowd. He knew not +what happened, until hours after he awoke from a semi-stupor to find +"Old Pop" Markle sponging his face with cold water and calling in his +ear: + +"There's a steamer coming up from the east'ard. Brace up and get on +deck. It's a pretty sight." + +The boy clambered through the companionway as the boat-keeper touched a +match to an oil-soaked bunch of waste in a wire cage at the end of his +torch. The schooner and the near-by sea were bathed in a yellow glare. +Out in the darkness a blue Coston light glowed a response. Some one +shouted: "On deck for the skiff," and five minutes later the boat-crew +was pulling off in the night to the waiting steamer, with a pilot in +the stern-sheets. + +"There goes your friend, Peter Haines," chuckled "Pop" Markle. "I +knowed you'd take it hard if I didn't give you a chance to say good-bye +to him. He won't pester you no more this cruise." + +The wind blew some of the cobwebs from poor Wilson's muddled head, and +he felt refreshed. Soon the pelting spray drove him below deck and he +curled up on a locker, watching the poker game from which youth and +inexperience barred him. And what was more cutting, he was not even +asked to play. + +"It would be like taking pennies from a blind child," callously +commented the strapping McCall who had welcomed him aboard. But the +white-haired patriarch of them all did not join the game, and he said +cheerily to Wilson: + +"You're too young and I'm too old to be wastin' our wages in them +pursuits, ain't we, sonny? There's an old lady and a cottage at Lewes +that takes care of my rake-off. And instid of raisin' the limit, I +raise vegetubbles for my fun." + +Wilson opened his bruised heart and told the old pilot the story of his +venture, and felt relieved that his masquerade had been thrown away. +"Pop" Markle's blue eyes twinkled: + +"See here, Jimmy Arbutus, I'll see that you write a fust-rate piece for +your paper. Ask me anything your amazin' ignorance tells you to. The +boys wanted me to take in the fust vessel we met, and was willin' to +shove their turns aside, but I told 'em it was my last cruise, and I +was goin' to see her through to the finish. So we've lots of time to +talk pilotin' together. What was the most remarkable experience ever I +had? Pshaw, that sounds like a full-rigged reporter, sonny, really it +does. + +"Well, I never got drownded boardin' a vessel, but I once fell afoul +of a skipper that was a worse blunderin' idjit than you've been. +It may sound kinder comfortin' to you. About fifty miles off the +Capes, I clumb aboard an Italian bark. Her captain said he was bound +for Wilmington, and would I take him in? He got a tow-boat at the +Breakwater, and we were goin' up the river all right, when plumb by +accident this benighted Dago imparted to me that he was bound for +Wilmington, North Caroliny. 'Great Scott! You dodgasted lunatic,' says +I, 'you're pretty nigh up to Wilmington, Delaware.' He went crazier +than ever, and put about for sea after I showed him on the chart where +he was at. He had been runnin' by dead-reckonin', and didn't know +where he was. So, when he picked up a pilot and found he was headed all +right for Wilmington, he figured his troubles were over. So there's +worse than you afloat, Jimmy Arbutus." + +At his suggestion, Wilson dug up his notebook and scribbled therein +many other yarns, for the old pilot warmed to his task, and insisted +that each of the poker players should contribute a story to the fund. +When he was routed out for breakfast, the party had lost another +pilot who had found his ship at daybreak. The wind had drawn into the +northeast, and the _Albatross_ was snuggled down under double reefs. +The barometer was falling, and the boat-keeper shook his head when the +pilots insisted upon edging further off shore. + +"Drive her till she cracks," shouted McCall. "This is the trip when we +keep going till we get our ships. The _Albatross_ goes home empty, you +bet your boots." + +With much daring and difficulty one man was put aboard a liner late +in the afternoon. Three pilots were left, and they swept Wilson into +their genial comradeship, as the little party clawed its way to supper, +and hung onto the table by its eyelids. In his mind, Wilson began to +see the page story, "full of human interest and color." To-morrow he +would work at his "introduction," and the thought of really making +a start at filling those stately columns was perturbing. He felt +something like stage-fright at the notion of it. + +Before midnight, James Arbuthnot Wilson had forgotten his "story," and +was thinking only of the awful turmoil above him. The wind had leaped +to the might of a sudden summer gale. The schooner was hove to and +battened tight, and like a tightly corked bottle she danced over the +shouting seas. Made sick and giddy, Wilson sought "Old Pop" Markle, who +was peacefully snoring in the next bunk, and shook him awake. + +"Pshaw, sonny," the old man muttered, "she's safer than a big ship. +She'll rare and tear and sputter till it blows over. If it'll ease your +mind any, I'll take a peek on deck." + +The pilot slipped into his oil-skins and vanished. + +"It's pretty thick," he said when he came below, "but there ain't no +great sea on, not for us. Rainin' hard and blowin' some. McCall is +standin' watch with the boat-keeper. You're safer than if you was in +the _Standard_ office. You can't lose your job out here, Jimmy." + +Somewhat comforted, Wilson tried to sleep. It was a terrifying +experience for the greenhorn, with more "local color" than he had +bargained for. Some time later in the night he was half dreaming that +"Doc" Wilson was holding his head under water and drowning him with the +most enjoyable deliberation. + +With a crashing sound like the explosion of a great gun in his ears, he +was flung headlong clear across the cabin, and on top of him came "Old +Pop" Markle, sputtering harmless curses. The cabin floor sloped like +the side of a house and stayed there as Wilson scrambled to his hands +and knees. Then came a more sickening lurch, and before the hanging +cabin lamp was smashed against the deck-beams, the lad saw that the +old man was dazed. He gave him a hand, and together they climbed the +slope, and grasped the legs of the stationary table. They heard the +other pilots stumble up the companion ladder, and hammer back the +hatch, with yells of terror lest they be trapped. + +Forward of the cabin bulkhead, they heard the roar of inrushing water, +and smothered outcries among the watch below. While the old man and +the boy tried to grope their way aft to the ladder, the sea crashed +through the bulkhead door from the galley beyond, and instantly they +were picked up and hurled aft, choking and fighting for life. Wilson +chanced to grasp a step of the ladder, and with his free arm pulled +"Old Pop" Markle to this refuge. The reporter did not want to die, and +he knew that death dragged him by the heels. And it was with no heroic +prompting that he pushed the old man up ahead of him. It was done on +the instant, as one friend would help another in a pinch, without +wrought-out purpose. + +The water was sucking at his waist as he fought his way up, and partly +out, and managed to double himself over the hatch coaming, with the +old man's legs across his shoulders. Thus they were half jammed in the +cramped exit. Just then the flare torch was lighted by a seaman. In the +yellow glare "Old Pop" Markle saw the two pilots and two, only two, of +the crew wrestling with the one skiff left at the davits. One of them +stopped to beckon wildly to the old man and started to go to his aid. + +In this moment the schooner lurched under with a weary, lifeless roll, +and a black sea stamped across her sodden hull. It licked up the boat +and the handful of toiling men, it leaped forward and pulled down the +black figure with the torch. The two men still jammed in the hatchway +were cruelly battered, but they could not be wrenched away. And when +the towering comber had passed, there was darkness and silence, and no +more shouting voices on the schooner's deck. + +The old pilot wriggled free and got his hands on a life-buoy that +hung within his reach at the after end of the cabin hatch. Wilson +dragged himself after him, and pitched against a splintered mass of +planking upended against the wheel. They listened and heard a steamer's +imploring whistle, and one faint cry off to leeward. "Pop" Markle +groaned as he fumbled in the darkness and laboriously passed a tangle +of line around the wreck of the skylight cover to which Wilson was +clinging. + +"Hang on, sonny," he gasped. "I've made the buoy fast to the loose +timber. We'll go off together with the next sea, sure. My God! here it +comes." + +The dying schooner seemed to sink from beneath them, and clinging to +their frail bit of a raft, they were spun off to leeward in the arms of +the sea that swamped the rock-ballasted _Albatross_. Turned over and +over, the two men fought for breath until the skylight cover righted, +and they came to the surface. They slid swiftly into a murky hollow, +and were borne to the tattered crest whose froth was strangling. + +But the wind was falling fast. Such seas as those which had broken +over the helpless _Albatross_ were running in swollen billows when +they met no barrier to check them. Therefore the castaways could +cling and breathe, and even made shift to pass the loose ends of the +line around their waists while they waited for the end. Now their +spray-blinded eyes dimly saw the lights of the steamer that had bitten +halfway through the pilot-schooner. She was blundering far to windward, +and her signal rockets cut red gashes in the night. They could watch +her swing in a useless circle as she sought to find the craft she +had struck. Drifting away to leeward, the old pilot and the young +reporter tried to shout, but their little rasping cries were pitifully +futile. They coughed the racking brine from their throats, and saw the +last rocket soar, saw the steamer's lights fade in the rain, become +twinkling points and vanish. + +[Illustration: _The last of the "Albatross."_] + +There were no words between them until the day began to break. Now and +then one sought the other's hand and found a feebly responsive grip. +Thus they knew that death had not come to the little raft. With the +gray light, the wind veered round to the south'ard, and except for +the swinging swell, the sea was smoothed to summer gentleness. The +eternal miracle of dawn had never come to more grateful hearts than +these two. Youth had survived the battering ordeal with mind still +alert, but old age was near passing with hurts and exhaustion. Now +that he could see no help, the boy so managed it that the pilot could +lie half across the life-buoy, which floated high with the supporting +planking beneath it. + +"Them as wasn't drownded and smashed in their bunks, couldn't swim, +or none to speak of," sighed the old man. "I knew 'em all from boys. +Two left.... And we're the most wuthless of the lot, sonny. But you +may learn how to make an honest livin' some day.... Don't bother with +me.... I'm due to go.... The old lady has the cottage, and there's the +pension from the Pilot's Fund.... And two more pilots in the family.... +Ain't you sorry you didn't let 'Doc' Wilson come?" + +The boy sputtered: + +"No, we aren't dead yet, and if we're picked up it's the story of a +lifetime. I don't believe the Lord saved us from the wreck to die on a +summer morning like this. And, my, but you were good to me, Mr. Markle." + +They floated in silence while the June sun rose higher, and heat and +thirst piled up their wretchedness. The seasoned fiber of the old man +had been toughened for such a stress as this. He hung on grimly because +he had always hung on grimly to whatever life set him to endure. +Although they were out on the edge of traffic bound in and out of the +Delaware Capes, he still hoped, but mostly for the boy. + +Six hours after the _Albatross_ had gone to the bottom, a boat from a +crippled brig, laden with salt from Turk's Island, picked up a bit of +wreckage to which were lashed a white-haired man and a beardless lad. +Both were too weak to talk, and the British skipper had them put into +bunks, and poured raw Jamaica rum down their throats. Wilson was the +first to revive, but he could not rise, and had to content himself +with tidings that the pilot was alive and conscious. Night had come +before the reporter could totter as far as the mate's cabin and see +his comrade. + +The pilot's leathery face was strangely bleached, and he could no more +than whisper with a faltering huskiness: + +"God bless their poor souls. They was all neighbors of mine. Hello, +Jimmy Arbutus, have you begun to write that piece for the paper? +There's something wrong with my insides. I think I busted some of 'em +when we was jammed in that hatch. Well, we're going home, my son. Are +you all taut again?" + +Wilson tried to hide his anxiety and set himself to nursing the old +man as best he could. His clumsy attentions were received with a sweet +resignation, but the old man showed signs of impatience. At length, +unable to restrain his desire, he asked: + +"Why don't you begin to write your piece instead of wastin' time on my +old hulk? I want to see it's done all ship-shape. We ain't goin' to +have no 'Doc' Wilson nor a lot of fresh young pilots laughin' at our +blunders. I'll overhaul the writin' for you." + +Wilson was eager to begin. The skipper found a half-filled log-book, +and the butt of a pencil, and the reporter sat by the pilot's bunk, and +wrote with frowning effort. His labor was so evident that at length the +interested pilot asked: + +"You seem to be making heavy weather of it, Jimmy. Mind my lookin' over +the nigh end of it?" + +Wilson passed the log-book over with a flutter of expectancy. He was +proud of his opening paragraphs. He flattered himself that he had +caught the spirit of the tragedy of the last and lost pilot-schooner. +The old man read them with puckered brow, and laid the book down +without comment. Wilson waited and had to break the awkward silence: + +"Anything the matter with that?" + +"Well, I had only a common school education, and I've been at sea fifty +years. I'm no judge, I guess. It's too high-falutin' for me. Those +dictionary words are mighty imposin', and the opening verse of poetry +looks gilt-edged. But, well, every man to his trade." + +The very young reporter looked hurt, and the pilot tried to soothe him +by flatly denying the truth of everything he had said. Wilson put the +book away and went on deck. In his mind there was a glimmering notion +that his literary method might be open to criticism. The old fear and +lack of self-confidence came back. He would rest another day and try +again. + +Next morning the brig was beating against a baffling wind, and the +Delaware Capes were two hundred and fifty miles away. A mattress was +brought on deck, and the old man was laid on it beneath an awning. He +was growing weaker, and began to fret when he found the brig was making +so little headway toward her port and his home. Wilson was moody and +worried about his comrade. He had no heart for his "story." + +After a while the British skipper sat down beside the old man, and +began to ask him about the loss of the _Albatross_. The pilot began +with the start of the last cruise, and with crisp and homely detail, +and with many breaks in his voice, he carried the tale down to the loss +of the vessel, the loss of his comrades, and the escape of the oldest +and youngest of those that had sailed in her. And because he felt it +all so deeply, the story did not once wander from its chartered course. + +Wilson pulled himself together and picked up his log-book. He felt +that it was his duty to write what he heard. When he had finished, the +scales fell from his eyes, for at a great price he had been taught to +discern that virtue of simplicity which most of his craft must spend +years to learn. When the pilot fell into a doze, he stole below and +began to write his "story." It was not all as the pilot had told it, +but its backbone and its vitals belonged to the simple and untutored +old man. Next day when he read it to "Pop" Markle the pilot brightened +and observed: + +"Any sailor could understand that, my lad. It sounds as dodgasted +ordinary as if I had wrote it myself. The pilots will think a heap of +that piece. I want you to hold your job, sonny." + +The third day passed, and then the fourth, and the booming head wind +was holding the lubberly brig out of sight of the Delaware Capes. The +pilot insisted that he be carried on deck whenever the sun shone. He +was looking for the Henlopen light. When he was not drowsy, he would +talk of home to his young comrade, for all his thoughts were flocking +thither. + +"I don't think I'm going to fetch it, sonny," he murmured when the +fifth day broke with no land in sight. "It looks like you're going to +be the sole survivor of the _Albatross_. That will make your piece a +heap stronger, won't it? My own boy couldn't have done more for me than +you have. If we don't pick up the Capes by noon, I want you to write a +letter for me to Mary, that's my wife. You can take it ashore at Lewes. +You'll find the cottage easy enough. And you must go around and look at +my vegetubbles. One of my boys will be home, and he'll see that they +get my hulk to the buryin' ground. The skipper here has promised to +anchor long enough to send me ashore." + +Wilson choked, and tried to cheer the old man. But the faded blue eyes +were serene with the foreknowledge of his end. The letter was written +at his dictation, and Wilson sobbed while he went below to find an +envelope in the skipper's desk. Then the pilot tried to sign it, and +his knotted brown fingers held the pencil while Wilson helped him trace +the wavering: + +"Your loving Seth." + +Late in the afternoon of this, the fifth day, a tiny shaft, like a +beckoning finger, cut the cloudless western skyline. Seth Markle heard +the shouts of the men clustered forward who were eager to bring him the +longed-for news. Wilson and the skipper came to him, and propped him up +in his pillows on the poop-deck. + +"Henlopen light," he whispered. "Henlopen light, and Lewes just around +the Point." + +The dim light of life burned brighter in this draught of hope, but soon +waned lower than before. After a long silence, the old man tried to +speak. Wilson put his ear close to the resolute mouth, and could barely +hear: + +"Tell her how good you've been to me. I--I hope the piece is all right. +The last cruise.... Oh, Mary, you're waiting around the Point of the +Cape." + +He was alive until sunset, but he did not speak, except once when +Wilson thought he heard a fluttering whisper of "Mary," and after that +the rough-hewn face became very peaceful. + +The brig crept into the lee of the Breakwater soon after daylight next +morning. Wilson went ashore and found the cottage with the marvelous +vegetable garden, and a sweet-faced woman who read her letter while the +bearer walked softly among the cabbage rows, and noted, with a quick +pang, how lovingly they had been tended. Presently Mary Markle came to +him, and put her motherly arms around his neck and kissed him through +her tears. They went to a near-by cottage where dwelt the eldest son. +There Wilson left them. Before he went away he said: + +"He was the best friend I ever had. I'm coming down day after +to-morrow. May I go to the church with you?" + +He had to tarry in the streets, for the news had spread, and other +weeping wives of pilots and seamen pressed around him. When, as +tenderly as possible, he was able to leave them, he went to the +telegraph office and sent this message to the managing editor of the +_Standard_: + +"Just landed. Am sole survivor of pilot schooner _Albatross_ run down +and foundered a week ago. Will report with my story at noon." + +On the train Wilson added to his "story" in the old log-book the facts +of the last days of Pilot Seth Markle. His pencil quivered and balked +when he recalled the words and face of his gentle old critic, and +somehow, through his tears, he brought the narrative of the last cruise +to its unadorned conclusion. Then he closed the book and leaned back +with a great weariness. Now he was passing that bright vista of shore +through which he had first seen the Bay, where he had chosen to advance +rather than to retreat. Those intervening days seemed like years of +life. He had gone away a boy, he was coming back a man. + +When the young reporter walked into the _Standard_ office, the first +man to greet him was a bald and bulky stranger with an impressive +manner, who said: + +"Ah, the young hero, I presume. You had a great streak of luck, didn't +you? Glad to see you pulled through. My name is Wilson. I'm to take +your notes at once and work up the story from them. We're going to play +as the leading feature in to-morrow's paper, and follow up with a page +for Sunday." + +Young Wilson looked at "Doc" Wilson with a new assertiveness and threw +back his slight shoulders as he replied: + +"No, thank you. Nothing doing. My story is written, and it's going to +be turned in to the boss as it stands. I'm going in to see him now." + +"Oh, nonsense," snapped "Doc" Wilson. "I can understand your wanting +to do the story, and your head being swelled a bit and all that. But +if you want to hold your job you'd better fork over your notes without +any more fuss about it. The old man passed it out that he was going to +fire you, anyhow. I'll say a good word for you if you can produce the +goods." + +Young Wilson brushed past his elder, who stood dumbfounded at the +insolence of the "pup." Then the managing editor was confronted by an +unabashed intruder, who announced: + +"Here's my story, sir. There's about six columns of it. And it's all +ready to be edited. And no 'Doc' Wilson nor anybody else is going to +rewrite it until you've passed on it." + +The managing editor saw a bedraggled figure with a firm-set jaw and +a level glance which looked him squarely in the eyes. He took in the +sea-stained clothes, and the burned and grimy face, and smiled as he +said: + +"I'll read it, Mr. Wilson. Go home and come back at six o'clock. Then +we'll talk it over. You've been through a tremendous experience, +haven't you? It's your story. Don't fret about that." + +When James Arbuthnot Wilson next entered the managing editor's office, +that dignified personage grasped his hand and exclaimed: + +"My son, why haven't I known you could write a story like this? It's +the real thing. It's a masterpiece. Where did you learn how?" + +The boy's face twitched as he said very slowly: + +"The man who taught me how died in sight of home. It's his story. It +isn't mine at all. I want a day off, if you please, to go down to Lewes +again. I'm--I'm the last of the _Albatross_." + + + + +THE JADE TEAPOT + + +Private Saunders, of the Ninth Infantry, was flushed and dazed with +fever, but able to walk from the ambulance up a stone stairway into +what looked to him like a huge and gilded warehouse. At first glance, +he did not see the long rows of cots whose gray blankets blended with +the carpet of dusk and shadow in the late winter afternoon. Monstrous +golden dragons seemed to writhe and flicker against the roof beams +far above him, or twist in play on lines of massive columns. Saunders +dropped his kit and leaned on his rifle while he rubbed his eyes with +a trembling hand. If this was the hospital of the American army in +Peking, he wished that some one would turn out the guard and capture +the menagerie that had taken possession. Sliding uncertain feet across +the flagged floor, he fell over a cot and gripped a protesting leg, +whose owner sputtered: + +"Get off o' me, you left-footed lobster. Ain't there no chance for a +man to be sick without the roof fallin' on him? Why, hello, Jim, what +in blazes is the matter with you? Brace up and holler for the orderly. +He's somewhere down at the end of the line, packin' up what's left of +Chase of P Company, who just passed in his checks." + +Saunders sat on the edge of the cot and wept with the whimper of a +tired child: + +"Is it the hospital sure enough, Shorty? All them ten-foot dragons +makin' faces at me in the dark ain't comfortin' to a man with wheels in +his head. Guess this must be the Emp'ror's private temple. Why, here's +a dozen o' my pals spraddled around over the floor. I've hit the right +place, all right. Lead me to my bunk, an' get me bedded down." + +The overworked hospital corps private, who was nurse and orderly for +the ward, picked up the accouterments of Saunders, and helped him +crawl under the blankets of the cot alongside "Shorty" Blake. The +contract surgeon, delaying to question a group of convalescents in the +courtyard, came in to examine the new patient, and said "pneumonia" +to the nurse. Saunders heard nothing of the consultation, for he was +looking up into the gloom of the distant rafters, and trying to count +the racing gilded dragons that would not be still and made his head +ache intolerably. When lanterns were lighted at the ends of each aisle, +the shadows danced worse than before, and to his fevered eyes the great +temple was populous with glittering shapes in terrifying agitation. + +This, the largest of the clustered buildings in the park of the Temple +of Earth, was an extraordinary hospital, even in daylight. Sacred to +the annual pilgrimage of the Emperor in his worship of the Supreme +Deity, these temples had been inviolate for many centuries until +profaned by the conquering foreign allies. The walled park became the +camp of the American forces, and one of the most sacred shrines of the +land was used as a field hospital. A regiment could have been drilled +on the marble pavement without crowding, and the two hundred sick +soldiers scattered in the vastness of it were bitten with a sense of +chilling desolation. + +Between flights of delirium, through his first night in hospital, +Saunders heard the groans and restless muttering of many men, and his +fancies magnified them into an army. There were neither screens nor +walls to divide the wards, only the rows of cots between the carved +pillars that marched across the temple floor, so that all individual +suffering and the tenacious struggle of dying became common property. +The soldiers who passed away in the night time did not trouble their +comrades so much as when death came in daylight, and the end was a +spectacle thrust upon those in surrounding cots. + +A little after midnight the tramp of stretcher bearers punctuated a +thin and wailing outcry, coming from that which they bore, and the +temple floor awoke with weary curses. Those near the doorway learned +that a Chinese coolie, caught in the act of stealing coal from the +quartermaster's corral, had been tumbled off a wall by a sentry's +shot. The lamentations of the victim rasped sick nerves beyond +endurance, and the hospital held no sympathy in its smallest crevice. +The coolie was an old man and badly hurt. Opium had made him impervious +to customary doses of morphine, and after he had been drugged in +quantities to kill four men, he was no nearer rest. From a far corner +of the temple the wounded coolie wailed an unending + +"Ay oh"--"Ay oh"--"Ay oh!" + +Soldiers rose in their blankets and made uproar with cries of-- + +"Kill him!" + +"Smother the brute!" + +"Give him an overdose!" + +"Now, ain't this an outrage!" + +"Hi, there, One Lung, give us a rest, for God's sake!" + +"Throw him out in the yard." + +Daylight brought to Saunders infinitely grateful respite from a world +through which he had fled from flaming dragons that shrieked, as if in +torture: + +"Ay oh"--"Ay oh"--"Ay oh!" + +The grip of his delirium weakened in a few days, and the surgeon called +him a "mild case." At the end of a week, Saunders was able to sit up +a little and talk with the men around him. But the violence of these +early impressions in hospital had unstrung a system drained by long +service in the Philippines, and by the contrasting hardships of the +cold winter in North China. The gloomy temple frightened the soldier, +for sometimes the private has nerves, but he kept his fears to himself, +thinking them womanish. He fell to brooding too much of home, and the +more he dwelt upon the distance between Peking and those who loved him +the more insistent became his morbid fear that he would not go back +with his company. + +It happened almost daily that the Ninth Regiment band trailed through +the hospital compound, playing a dead march. There was always a halt in +front of the stone stairway, and after a few moments the dragging music +sounded fainter and farther away. A little later those in the temple +could barely hear the silvery wail of "taps" floating from a corner of +the outer wall, where a line of mounds was growing longer week by week. +Then the band returned, playing a Sousa march or a "rag-time" medley. +The listeners in hospital filled in the gaps between the music, and the +mind of Saunders was busiest of them all in picturing the routine of a +soldier's funeral in Peking. + +The surgeons looked him over in morning inspection rounds, and said +there was nothing the matter to prevent his recovery. "Shorty" Blake +and "Bat" Jenkins of P Company strove to make Saunders take some +interest in life, and would have been cheered if he had even sworn at +the rations and the lack of hospital comforts. They brought him jam +and condensed milk from the commissary-sergeant, which he refused to +eat; they assembled around his cot the most vivacious convalescents, +selecting as entertainers those valiant in poker and campaign stories. +Finally Saunders was persuaded to overhaul his haversack and show +his slender store of souvenirs gathered in Peking. Blake and Jenkins +moved over to pass opinion on the riches, and Saunders welcomed them +tremulously: + +"I was plannin' to take some things home to mother and sister," he +began, "but I didn't have a chance to get much while the lootin' was +busy. Wouldn't have done me any good if I had, when the captain had the +tents searched and collared most of the company stuff. I ain't sorry I +missed it on the loot, for the old lady 'ud throw out o' the window all +the stuff I sent her, if she thought it wasn't paid for. She's fierce +in backin' foreign missions, an' the Chinamen is her purticuler pets." + +Shorty broke in with an oath: "Yes, I know all about P Company's +captain and his hair-trigger conscience. He swiped all our loot, but +he sent home forty-seven mail packages, duty free. I got that from the +postal clerk. What you got left, Saunders?" + +The invalid spread an embroidered panel of crimson satin and a roll +of blue silk on the edge of his cot, and threw a handful of silver +ornaments and a cloisonné snuff-box on the blankets. + +"I didn't loot even this stuff," he said, with an apologetic air, "but +bought it along the Chien-men Road, so it could go to the home folks +with a clean bill of ladin'." + +The spectators sniffed incredulously, but with unexpected tact hid any +livelier display of doubt. + +"Why don't you mail the goods home with a letter, and send a good +jolly?" said Jenkins. "We'll get 'em off for you. There's a mail wagon +goin' to Tientsin early to-morrow mornin'. Tell the old lady you're fat +an' sassy. She'll call in the whole village to show 'em the presents +from her brave soldier boy out among them poor, benighted, gentle, +murderous Chinese heathen." + +Saunders rallied for the afternoon, scrawled a letter, and sent his +gifts. Then he buried his head in the blankets and wept, the effort +having stirred new depths of hopeless homesickness. Through the +following week he failed to gain in strength and spirits, and the +surgeon mentioned "nostalgia" once or twice in chatting with the nurse. + +"He may lie there and flutter out, with no disease worth a diagnosis," +said the "medico." "The poor idiot thinks he would die on the way if +he was shipped across country to Taku, to connect with a transport; +and he's sure he'll be buried if he stays here. If we can get a little +strength in him, I'll see what I can do to get him started home." + +Saunders was not yet a dying man, but the natural process of recovery +seemed at a standstill. There came a sharp turn for the worse after +"Shorty" Blake limped in with a letter, which he tossed to the languid +private with a cheery shout of-- + +"Wake up, Jim; here's the latest news from home. Hurry and tell us the +price of butter an' eggs at the corner store." + +But Saunders read the letter in silence, and while he read, his thin +young face twitched, tears came, and the helpless length of him moved +in little jerks that rippled the blankets. + +The chaffing queries of his comrades were unanswered, and the patient +seemed to be asleep through the afternoon and evening. When the light +of the next morning filtered through the latticed windows of oiled +paper, "Shorty" Blake saw Saunders grope for the letter under the +blanket roll that served him for a pillow, and read it again. His voice +was weaker than before, as he beckoned Blake and Jenkins to the cot, +and said: + +"Here's what comes of my leavin' home to be buried in this muck-heap of +a town--an' my folks turned out to starve. You might as well read it, +though you can't do any good." + +Shorty saw a woman's handwriting, and he took the closely written +sheets with singular gentleness. The spelling was imperfect in spots, +and there were many erasures, but he stumbled through the uncertain +lines, which said: + + + "MY DEAREST SON-- + + "No letter has come from you since you left the Philippines, but + I'm sure you are all right, because no notice has come to me from + the War Department as your next of kin. All I know is that your + regiment is in Peking, and I hope and pray you are with it, all + safe and sound. Sister Mary and me are pretty busy, as there has + been no one to help us with the place since your brother died last + spring. I know your enlistment ain't up for another year, and + it's wicked to desert, and they would shoot you for it anyhow, and + whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth; but it does seem kind of hard + when we want you so much at home that you have to be fighting them + poor Chinamen when I've been sending money for their souls these + thirty-seven years. But as long as we all have our health there + ain't any real troubles I suppose. + + "I don't mean to find fault and you mustn't worry about us. I'm as + active as a cricket and Mary hasn't been ailin' any to speak of. + It's been a good long spell of dry weather, and that's good for + my rheumatism, but it wasn't very encouraging for the crops. The + mortgage on the house and farm is due in six weeks, and I can't get + a renewal, though it's only six hundred dollars, as you know. The + bank people is that haughty about the thing that I don't exactly + see how we can get around them. + + "But where there's a will there's a way, and the Lord tempers the + wind to the shorn lamb, and if we ain't got any cash, there's + others worse off. Your uncle Joseph is breakin' up fast, and he's + ten years younger than me. He's the last of the tribe that's left + on either side, and his family won't have anything to spare when + he's gone. Of course it's hard to think of losing our old place, + but I'm still pretty spry, and my black silk is good as new. I + can't just quite tell where Mary and me will be if we leave home so + soon, but you write just the same and the postmaster will know. You + remember him, that stumpy, light-haired Jameson that married one of + the Martins. + + "God bless you, my poor wandering boy. + + Your loving + "MOTHER." + + +Jenkins was reading over "Shorty's" shoulder, and several hairy faces +framed in gray blankets had edged silently nearer. + +"Well, what do you think of that?" said a Sixth Cavalry corporal. +"And here's Saunders been givin' up the ghost without havin' any real +troubles. Now it's time for you to brace up, and beg, borrow, or steal +the dough and shoot it along to the old homestead. That letter was +written more'n a month ago." + +But Saunders had turned his face away and was a useless member of +the ways and means committee, which convened with "Shorty" Blake as +chairman. A praise-worthy burst of philanthropic ardor subsided when +it met the cold fact that the paymaster had not visited camp in two +months, and was not expected in Peking before three weeks later. +Investigation revealed also that nearly all the available cash in P +Company had passed into the hands of three expert poker players, who +were reported as being "hard as nails, and wouldn't give a dollar to +save their own mothers from the poorhouse." + +Saunders showed no symptoms of interest in these endeavors, largely +because he foresaw their magnificent futility. He was in a condition +of hopeless apathy, and beyond rereading the letter from home now and +then, made no effort to rally. He kept a tally of the days remaining +before the foreclosure of the mortgage, with a series of thumb-nail +scratches on the frame of his cot. + +There were twelve days to be marked off when "Shorty" Blake, who had +been discharged as cured, clattered into the ward, and yelled as he +leaned over Saunders: + +"I lost track of my dates while I was in this gold-plated asylum, and +my discharge is due to-day, and I was figurin' my enlistment wasn't +up for another week. There's a squad of discharged men goin' down to +Tientsin in a wagon-train to-morrow, and I've drawn my travel pay, got +my papers, and I'm off for little old New York. Here's where I drop off +on the way an' do what I can for your old folks in Kansas. Got anything +you want to send them?" + +Saunders became almost animated as he rolled over and tried to speak in +a fluttering whisper: + +"I ain't got any money for 'em; but tell 'em I was doin' well when you +left me, and to keep their nerve, an' I'll get back as fast as I can. +But speakin' between us, Shorty, there's nothin' doin' for me, and I'll +be planted before you get to 'Frisco. Maybe I've got some little trick +to send along. Wait a minute. Fish around under the cot and find me a +roll of rubber blankets." + +The uproarious "Shorty" opened the bundle and disclosed a jade teapot, +in a wrapping of wadded silk. It was a flawless bit of carving, +fashioned from a solid block of imperial green jade, no more than a +pretty toy to the soldiers, who examined it indifferently and wondered +why Saunders wished to send it to his mother. + +"It's the last thing I've got," he explained, "and the last present +they'll ever get from me. I think they'd like to know I wasn't so +blamed forgetful at the finish. Just lug it along, Shorty, an' if it +don't get broke on the way, you can mail it when you cross the country." + +The wish and the token were a sick man's whim to Blake, but he wrapped +the jade teapot and tucked it in a soft corner of his haversack when he +packed his kit late that night. He was vaguely aware that his purpose +of finding the distressed family of Saunders would not survive the +journey home, yet he had meant it when he made the promise. He believed +Saunders as good as dead, because he had seen men die of homesickness +in the field hospitals of the Philippines. + +"I'll send his silly teapot to his folks," he told another discharged +private of P Company, as they climbed into a four-mule wagon next +morning; "and I'm sorry I can't help him out, same as you are. If the +doctor would pack the poor fool in a wagon and ship him to the sea, +he couldn't any more than die on the way, and there 'd be a fightin' +chance he'd brace up." + +With this farewell tribute of sympathy, the fortunes of Private +Saunders slipped into the background among the varied interests which +occupied the attention of the late Private Blake along his route to +Taku Bar. + +In the hospital, Saunders continued to let go his grip on life as +gently as possible. Tangible woe and regret had become active agents in +assisting the passive manner of his fading away. A new major-surgeon +came up from Tientsin to assume charge of the hospital, and he was +angry when he examined Saunders and heard the history of the case. +"That man is dying of homesickness and worry," he growled to the +hospital corps private in the ward; "and now he hasn't enough vitality +left in him to risk moving in an ambulance. He'd snuff out like a +candle on the way to Tientsin, and you can't keep him alive more than +two weeks longer. He may as well die in some comfort as be jolted to +death." + +Much of the time in the following week Saunders hovered along the +borderland of dreams which were not wholly disquieting, for he had +become on friendly terms with the gilded dragons on the shadowy +rafters, and now and then they talked to him. The sick men of P Company +had been sent back to duty, and Saunders did not know those who had +taken their places along his aisle of the columned temple. When he +noticed them, it was to whisper little inconsequential memories of +home, and to tell passers-by of some new discovery gleaned from an +intimate familiarity with numberless gilded dragons that never slept. +He still noted the tally marks on the frame of his cot, and when he was +too weak to reach them, the man in the nearest cot scratched a cross +for him until only seven marks remained. The letter was no longer +read, but the tragedy it told was woven through much of the delirious +talk of the patient. + +Meantime "Shorty" Blake had been routed with heavy loss among the +canteens and other diversions of Tientsin, and, greatly the worse for +wear, made his way to Taku and boarded a Japanese transport bound for +Nagasaki. He went ashore in that entertaining port with three Mexican +dollars as the melancholy remnant of his pay and travel allowance "to +the place of enlistment," and presented his papers to the American +quartermaster stationed in Nagasaki, who gave him an order for +transportation on the next United States transport sailing for San +Francisco. + +Discharged Private Blake was much disconcerted when he was informed +that no Government vessel was to stop en route from Manila in less than +two weeks, and that he was stranded "on the beach," with several other +recent losses to the fighting strength of the army in the Orient. A +bundle of looted silk had been exchanged in Tientsin for bottles of +astonishing Scotch whiskey made in Shanghai, and there was nothing +else of cash value in the light marching order of ex-private Blake. He +hired a room in a toy-like Japanese hotel, and late that night returned +without his three Mexican dollars, but with the perverted energy of a +runaway automobile. Charging headlong through the dainty paper walls of +the hotel rather than be annoyed by trying to find the door mobilized +a small army of Japanese policemen, and memory came back to Blake when +he was dragged into the street, his haversack hurled at his head by the +agitated landlord. + +Daylight found him very thirsty and nervous, wandering along the +edge of the bay, waiting for a glimpse of a blue army blouse and the +tenuous hope of a small loan. He leaned against the stone wall of the +Hatoba, with his haversack under his tortured head, and twisted as his +cheek rubbed a hard lump beneath the canvas. Ramming his hand into the +haversack with a peevish curse, "Shorty" pulled out a package wrapped +in wadded silk, and unrolled a teapot of green imperial jade. A stocky +manikin of the Nagasaki police was standing near, and the soldier +addressed him and the sleeping harbor without partiality: + +"If I didn't forget all about Jim Saunders and his teapot, I'm a liar. +An' he must be dead an' planted by this time, an' the old homestead +gone to hell, an' nothin' left but this looney little teapot as his +last will an' testament. I'll surely send it to Kansas all right, tho' +it ain't goin' to cheer the old lady very much. The teapot must be +worth as much as a dollar and a half." + +Then the demon of thirst gripped Blake by the throat, and the effort of +swallowing fairly shook him. He slipped the teapot into his haversack, +and to his credit it must be told that he struggled with temptation +for several minutes. Then he muttered weakly: "I ain't goin' to sell +it. The teapot will be all safe in hock till I can send for it or make +a strike. Who's goin' to know the difference, anyway? Saunders had no +business to pass away like a sick chicken, an' load me up with this +billy-be-damned piece of bric-a-brac." + +But shops and saloons were not yet opened, and "Shorty" Blake walked +heavily along many blocks of silent streets, his thirst more raging and +insistent as he found himself thwarted. Every scruple vanished and he +was ready to sell the teapot for the price of a pint flask of anything +searching and fiery. + +The rattle of rickshaw wheels made him suddenly alert, and he stumbled +toward the sound. As he turned a corner there was a collision, and +the racing coolie in the shafts slid on his head, while the passenger +barely saved himself from an ugly backward fall. The Japanese officer +so nearly upset accepted the awkward apologies of the soldier derelict +and politely asked whether he had been hurt. "Shorty" pulled himself +together and, saluting instinctively, he spoke with breathless haste: + +"No, sir, no damage done, and I hope you wer'n't shook up; but don't +you want to buy a prime jade teapot, and help out an American soldier +who's broke, an' ain't got no other means of support? I know it ain't +worth much, bein' nothin' but a toy, but I need the price, whatever it +is." + +The officer bowed as if honored by the confidence, and replied: "It +is not customary to sell jade teapots in the streets so early in the +morning, and I am in the hurry to arrive with my duty. But Japan and +America are so great friends since Peking, eh? Is it not? A-h, is +th-a-a-t the jade, and from Peking, eh? I do not know everything about +jade, but there are many good times for you in that teapot; ha, ha! I +think so. I am not so mean to rob the honorable soldier. You will make +a borrow of this two yen--two dollars--all right, eh? And you will take +my card and the teapot will come with you at my house at noon hour, eh?" + +Before the beclogged brain of "Shorty" Blake had caught up with these +directions, the rickshaw was whisking around a curve of the hillside, +and the derelict was left staring after, the jade teapot in one hand, +and two one-yen notes in the other. Visions of wealth made him tingle, +and he rewrapped the treasure with reverent deliberation. Then began +another battle with a battered fragment of a conscience, and the voice +of Saunders was so distinct in his ear that he turned suddenly more +than once to mutter to the empty street: + +"I'm on the edge of the shivers. It's a bad sign when you hear voices +as plain as that. It's that baby whine of his, always cryin', 'Ten +days more an' the folks will be homeless and starvin', an' I can't do +nothin'.' + +"Holy smoke! I've heard that string of dates often enough to keep track +of 'em. An' there's three more days leeway or I've missed my count. +An' me with a fortune in this little monkey-doodle teapot, if that Jap +wasn't stringin' me." + +From stories told later to his "bunkie" on the transport, it is +probable that "Shorty" Blake passed through great mental stress during +the forenoon of his second day in Nagasaki, but that this ordeal was +nothing compared with his torments after an interview with a wealthy +dealer in curios at the home of a major of Japanese infantry on the +hill. There is reason to believe that the discharged private of the +China Relief Expedition kept his appointment in a fairly sober +condition, although much shaken and easily startled. An hour later, the +Japanese officer accompanied "Shorty" Blake to the telegraph office and +the branch of the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank, with an air of anxious +guardianship, as if determined to see a wavering project through to +the finish. Shorty skipped references to his escort in subsequent +narratives, as if the topic were painful, dismissing his interview with +the sweeping summary: + +"I had to go an' put that little Jap wise to the whole hard-luck story +of Jim Saunders. Then he talked to me like a Dutch uncle, and had me on +the mourners' bench in no time. Them Japs is strong on filial duty, and +he never let up on me till the job was done." + +Twenty-four hours later, the Signal Corps operator at the American +army station in Peking copied a message addressed to "J. Saunders, P +Company, Ninth Infantry, Field Hospital No. 1." + + + "Sold teapot for eight hundred dollars gold. Have cabled six + hundred to old lady to bust mortgage. Will bust Nagasaki wide open + with balance. If not dead, brace up. + + (Signed) + "SHORTY." + + +It seemed indecent to carry this telegram to the bedside of Private +Saunders. He had lost all interest in the world of men and things, yet +was inexplicably lingering, as if caught in an eddy as he drifted out. +Fantasies had fled, and his mind was clearing, as if to pay some heed +to the important business of ceasing to be. The message was first read +by the major-surgeon, and there was more than professional interest in +his tone, as he said to the nurse of the ward: + +"Give that man ten drops of digitalis and a dose of brandy, and try to +wake him up enough to understand this telegram. It's the only thing +on earth that may pull him through. He told me his troubles, and this +ought to be his salvation." + +The powerful stimulants stirred a current of life in Saunders, and he +heard and comprehended the tidings from "Shorty" Blake, and the heroic +compromise of that distressed soul who had saved the home of his +"pal," but could not let go his grip on the remainder of the windfall. +The invalid gulped and there was almost the shadow of a grin in his +stammering whisper: + +"That b-b-blamed fool Shorty is a ---- angel, ain't he? I-I don't +b-believe I'm d-dead yet. Say, can I go home if I'll get strong enough +to stand the hike?" + +This effort exhausted Saunders and he slept awhile. The surgeon was +taking his pulse when he awoke, and the friendly nurse holding a cup of +beef tea to his lips. + +"You seem to have quit making an ass of yourself," said the surgeon; +"and I've seen your company commander this afternoon. If you can work +up enough strength to stand the trip to the coast, I'll see that your +discharge papers are made out. You'll be no more good to the army." + +The same inducement had previously failed to interest Saunders, but now +he had determined to live, in the mighty inspiration of joy and hope +renewed. He drank beef tea and begged for more, and when he flashed +a feeble sputter of profanity because he was not allowed a bit of +bacon, the ward became noisily cheerful. The captain of P Company was +not a hard man, but he had suspected Saunders of malingering until the +major-surgeon told him the private's hospital history, and how he had +been saved from death by the miraculous intervention of the departed +and flagrantly notorious "Shorty" Blake. + +"Saunders isn't a bad soldier," said the captain, "but he's always been +a bit too sentimental and broody. And if he's decided to save another +funeral in the company, you'd better ship him home before he changes +his mind. We can't feed him on another batch of such stimulating news +if he slumps again. I'll look after his discharge papers, if you will +certify him for disability." + +It was three weeks later when Saunders, very thin and somewhat wobbly, +waited in Nagasaki for the next transport homeward bound from Manila. +He met a discharged corporal of Riley's Battery whom he had seen in +hospital, and the gunner was eager to tell a highly colored tale whose +peroration ran: + +"And I was just in time to see the finish of 'Shorty' Blake's +bombardment of Nagasaki, and it must have been a wonder all the way. +They took him off to the transport in a sampan, with four little Jap +policemen sittin' on his head and chest, and him kickin' holes in the +cabin roof. The only night I was out with him he was playin' a game +of turnin' rickshaws upside down, and sittin' on the axle, with the +passenger yellin' murder underneath until Shorty got ready to move on. +I asked him where he got all his money for rum and police court fines, +and he was that twistified with booze, he says: + +"'I ripped the mortgage off the old homestead like the hero in a play, +and took my commissions like J. P. Morgan reorganizin' a railroad. +If you don't believe it, ask the Jap whose name begins with a jade +teapot.'" + + + + +CAPTAIN ARENDT'S CHOICE + + +His wife half raised herself from the couch which had been her abiding +place for more than twenty years. "My broken flower," the captain named +her in his prayers at sea. The One to whom these petitions arose each +night his liner throbbed along the Western Ocean track had granted that +the heart and soul of the wife should wax in strength and sweetness +while her body lay bound in chains of suffering. Because to-night there +was worry in the tired, brave eyes which strove so well to mirror only +gladness when the captain was at home, he was much disturbed, the more +because he had made the cloud to come. + +She looked, indeed, like a "broken flower" beside the towering strength +of the captain, who growled through his flaming beard when he would +speak most softly, who moved in a series of small earthquakes as +he tried to pace with gentlest tread, while they thrashed out the +momentous problem. + +"To think of the new home is wonderful," she said in German, for this +they talked when together. "Do the doctors truly believe I shall be +stronger if we live at New York? Is there, indeed, hope of health +again? Ah, but it is risking all we have saved in these twenty-five +years, and----" + +The captain no longer withheld his voice and it boomed through the +little house with a hurricane note, though he meant it to be only +reassuring: + +"But the gain is wonderful. Such a home as I have found last voyage--in +the country, in the hills, near New York. There is life in the air, +and it will make you well every day. And better than that, what is +everything to you and me, I shall be with you almost a whole week every +voyage--almost a week in a month. Now, when I must sail from Liverpool, +I am home here in Antwerp with you perhaps two days a month, perhaps +not at all when storm and fog delay my ship, or when the passage is +bad for the North Sea packet in winter. + +"The doctors say you cannot live in wet, gloomy England, and here it +is not much better. You will get well where we are going. We can be +together as much as when I was chief officer in the old _Deepdale_, +running out of Antwerp. The deeds of the home are ready to sign. I pay +the ten thousand dollars when I come to New York this voyage. Then +you come out the voyage after with me, for the company makes for us +exception to the rule that a wife cannot sail on her husband's vessel." + +She wistfully smiled as if led by a beautiful dream, thinking in her +heart that to be sure of seeing her husband so often would be more than +ever she dare hope for. Even beckoning health must yield first place +to such a gift as this, but not yet satisfied she asked with tremulous +insistence: + +"But the bank will send the money over without risk, and it is all we +have in the world, dear Max. Do you remember how the nest-egg was put +away so long ago, when we hoped for children, and this was to be the +beginning of their fortune? Why carry the money on your ship? Why take +it with you?" + +"_Mein Gott_, sweetheart mine, is not the old _Wasdale_ safe as the dry +land? Is not the old vessel safer than the banks, which, as they say in +New York, bust higher as a kite every little while? Perhaps they give +me a piece of paper worth ten thousand dollars in Antwerp. When I dock +in New York, perhaps the bank has gebust while I am in mid-ocean, then +my paper is worth nothing; the money is a total loss. In the _Wasdale_, +in my room, in my safe, it is mine, and I have never lost a life, much +less ten thousand good dollars. You do not worry when I go to sea. Am +I not worth as much as our stocking full of gold? Answer me that, my +Flora." + +He did not know through how many nights, when she heard the winter +gales from the North Sea cry over the roof, a quivering agony of fear +had gripped her wide-eyed lest the _Wasdale_ might have met disaster. +But experience had taught the wife that no argument could prevail in +which the safety and strength of the ship were questioned. Helpless to +make reply, she accepted defeat, for the parting hour was far gone and +the separation always taxed her fitful energy near to breaking. + +Always as he raised her for the last kiss, and then halted reluctant +in the doorway, he was to her as her bright youth had first seen him, +a red viking, born to master steel and steam instead of the galleys of +his forebears. This night he smote his chest resoundingly before he +vanished into the hallway, and said in comforting farewell: + +"It is here, in the old brown wallet, next my heart, where thou +dwellest, my Flora. Our money is soon on the old _Wasdale_. God keep +you!" + + * * * * * + +The biting wind of early March fairly whipped the captain up the side +of the liner lying, with shortened cable, mid-stream in the Mersey. +Clutching a stiff hat with one hand, baggy trousers fluttering, +the tails of his frieze ulster tripping him, it was an odd and +ungainly figure of a man that gained the deck and lumbered forward. A +quartermaster near the gangway grinned when the pot-hat bounced from +the bristling red head and carromed merrily off the deck-house, but +a glance from the tail of Captain Arendt's eye froze the mahogany +countenance of the offender into instant solemnity. It was a hint that +the master of the ship was coming into his own. A few moments later +he emerged from his quarters transformed. The smartly setting uniform +of blue and the flat cap jammed down hard were so evidently what he +belonged in, that the shore-going clothes had been like a clumsy +disguise. A small boy flattened himself against the rail and saluted +with immense dignity. The captain pinched him with a hairy paw and +chuckled: + +"Hello, Moses, or vas it Josephs I calls you last woyage? Holy +Schmokes! If you keep my room no better dis woyage, I bites your head +off close to your neck. You hear? Scoo-o-t." + +"Moses-Josephs" fled, and Captain Arendt turned on his heel to go back +to his room, remembering with a start that he had not placed the +precious wallet in his safe, but had transferred it to his blouse. He +clapped his hand to the breast pocket, hove an explosive sigh of relief +when he found it there, and was instantly bent on banishing all chance +of loss, when the chief engineer popped up from below and sought him +out in breathless haste with these tidings: + +"Sorry to trouble you, sir, but a drunken dock-rat of a Liverpool +fireman refuses to go on watch, and he's reinforced the argument with a +slice-bar, and laid out two of my oilers and a stoker, and I need more +help to get him in irons. He's raising hell, and no mistake, sir." + +The captain was halfway down the ladder before the chief had done +speaking, and despite the bigness of him, made his way to the fire-room +like a squirrel. The pallid, sodden mutineer, backed into a corner, was +swinging the iron bar in empty circles, fighting the dancing shadows +from an open furnace door, cursing and muttering. His bleary vision +had no time to focus on the big man with the red face and snapping +blue eye, who ducked under the weapon, smashed him in the face with one +hand, squeezed his neck in the other, and flung him against a bunker +door with such force that he lay as he fell, a dirty, huddled heap. + +"Vash him off on deck, and put him in the hospital," said the captain. +"He's a goot man ven sober. He vas vit me in anudder ship once. I knows +him. Only his ribs is cracked, I t'ink." + +When the five thousand ton _Wasdale_ began to crawl down the Mersey, a +hundred emigrants clustered along the after-rail, and shivered as they +chattered. Two score cabin passengers walked the saloon deck amidships, +and watched the great gray docks slip past. Twilight brooded over the +Irish Sea and the filmy Welsh coast when dinner called them to make +swift acquaintance, from which the ponderous good humor of the captain +was missing. He dined alone in his room, and hastily, because he +preferred to keep close to the bridge in these jostling waters. Yet the +night had become almost windless, and so clear that the twin lanterns +of the light-ship off Carnarvon Bay gleamed like jewels on a canopy +of black velvet. Captain Arendt leaned on the rail at the end of the +bridge, and sniffed the sparkling air as the evening wore late. + +"It looks goot," he muttered; "but I schmell fog. Yes, I schmell fog, +and the rail is schticky, and the paint is schticky, and dere will be +fog before morning." + +He rubbed a massive shoulder and turned to the chief officer: + +"And my rheumatism tells me dere vill be wet fog. I am coldt, and vill +change my coat. I am also an old fool; but tell the engine-room to +stand by for fog, not before morning, but before midnight, by Chiminy! +I schmelled it strong dot time, and I never schmelled him wrong." + +"Moses-Josephs" was caught in the act of brushing and laying away the +captain's shore togs with absorbed attention to detail. + +"Choke dot vistlin' noise off, and run avay," was the order that sent +the boy scurrying toward the door. "Vait, I tells you," halted him as +if he had fetched up against a wall. "How is your mudder, boy? She +was pretty sick last voyage, you tells me. Better? Dot is fine. When +we come again to Liverpool, if you are a goot boy, you can lay off one +trip mit wages, and help her get well. Now scoo-o-t. I don't want you +around. You is a tamned nuisance." + +"Moses-Josephs" ducked in thanks, and the captain locked the door +behind him, and sat at his desk with the "old brown wallet" before him. +"I vill count him once," he confided to the barometer, "for fear he may +have ewaporated while I forgot him." + +His glance fell next on the picture of his wife, framed in silver +against the wall. As he slowly counted the rustling notes, he talked +aloud to her in German, as he had done many times in sheer loneliness +and longing: + +"Four hundred pounds--the first four hundred pounds came hard, my +Flora, didn't it? Ten years we saved it while I was fourth and third +officer in the company. One thousand pounds--we had a grand celebration +when that was landed high and dry, eh? Fifteen hundred--it is a grand +investment this. Two thousand pounds--it is a fine fortune, but we +would be rich with nothing." + +The square-hewn face softened and the flinty blue eye was misty as +the captain bundled the notes into the wallet and stooped to open the +little safe beneath the desk. The combination, always puzzling for him, +was unusually tricky, and as he wrestled with it the speaking tube +whistled near his ear. + +"There's thick fog ahead, sir. We'll be into it before long," rumbled +the voice of the chief officer from the bridge. + +The captain hastily thrust the wallet into the top drawer of his desk, +wriggled into a heavy reefer, and went on the bridge. A dense belt of +darkness hung low ahead on the water and curtained the stars. Presently +this barrier strangely streaking the clear sky was changed to dirty, +gray clouds, then into blinking mist. Thus the fog shut down like wool. + +The lamenting whistle of the _Wasdale_ at once began to protest against +this game of hide-and-seek. The bridge indicator signaled "half speed," +and the vessel stole ahead as if in nervous dread, like a blind horse +in a crowded thoroughfare. + +Before long she began to feel her way with frequent pauses, while +those on watch, from bridge to crow's nest, listened, listened. Their +eyes were useless; their ears dreaded lest they hear too loud reply +to the siren that shouted over and over again to this world of gray +nothingness that the _Wasdale_ was abroad. The ship crept ahead, slowed +to listen, crept ahead again, but the responses to her outcries so soon +became softened or silent that they held no menace. + +The hour was near midnight. In their staterooms, the cabin passengers +awoke to cast sleepy abuse at the fog-horn, and turn over again to +slumber, warm and dry, believing themselves as secure as in their own +homes. On the bridge an uncouth, dripping specter in oil-skins suddenly +threw back his head and spun round to face the starboard quarter as if +he had felt the sting of a bullet. + +A moment's waiting, the fog-horn of the _Wasdale_ moaned again, and +from out in the baffling pallor came the ghost of a reply, nearer than +when last heard, louder than when its previous warning had startled the +captain. + +The other steamer, groping to nose a clear path through the hazards of +these waters, steadily became more clamorous. + +The _Wasdale_ called with loud, imploring blasts as if asking the +stranger to speak more distinctly. The chief officer said as he glanced +at the helm indicator: + +"She's barely got steerage way now, sir." + +"Let her go as she is for a liddle bit," replied the captain. "Dot +feller is going up channel, I t'ink. But vat he do heading our way in +such a devil of a hurry?" For a deadened hoot told that the unknown +was drawing close aboard. The straining eyes on the _Wasdale's_ bridge +could see not more than two ship-lengths into the midnight fog. + +"It is like dot game they play in the steerage," was the captain's +whispered comment. "Two fellers is blindfold, and the udder sundowners +make 'em chase one anudder round the deck." + +The warnings from beyond had assumed definite direction, as if the +stranger were guided by a fell instinct beyond the ken of her own +officers. The _Wasdale's_ siren ripped the night with quavering +exhortation to hold hard and beware. + +Suddenly the captain gripped the bridge rail and lifted himself on his +toes with a smothered "Gott!" that was wrenched from the depths of +his broad chest. Two lights blinked, red and green, almost abeam, and +between them a towering mass dead black against the shrouding night, +while amazed voices were heard screaming a flurry of orders from the +fog, even before the roar of both whistles sounded a belated duet. + +Captain Arendt was at his indicator with a leap and was like to pull +the handle from its sockets as he signaled to reverse his engines, +while his chief officer was shouting down the tube the same momentous +summons. The third officer was softly treading a little jig-step, in +a frenzy of impatience to have the thing done without more suspense. +The _Wasdale_ groaned and trembled to the furious reaction of her +screw, lost headway, hung helpless, and showed a fair broadside to the +assault of the other ship, which, wholly at fault, had begun to swing +in fatal blundering, as if trying to pass under the _Wasdale's_ stern. + +The blow came, therefore, a little abaft the bridge. Succeeding a +prodigious crash and rending of plates came a moment of impressive +stillness, as the _Wasdale_ tried to right herself from the shock, and +then a foolish clatter of falling china and glass. + +"He's waltzed clean through our pantry," said the third officer to +himself. + +Captain Arendt had only to rise from the planks where he had been +flung, to command a bird's-eye view of the disaster. He looked down on +the crumpled bows of the other ship, driven twenty feet into his own +saloon-deck, and making a trumpet of his hands, shouted across to the +other bridge, on which he could see figures moving like agitated black +smudges: + +"You is cut us half in two. Keep going ahead. Don't back out, vatever +you do. Keep the hole plugged until I gets my peoples off." + +The other ship seemed to hang as if wedged in the gap she had made, +but before the officers of the _Wasdale_ could reach the saloon deck +the hideous, rending noise was renewed. The black bows of the stranger +wrenched themselves loose, slid clear, and with a sobbing roar the +sea rushed in as water falls over a dam. The withdrawn mass ground +alongside, tearing woodwork into kindling, and then began to melt +softly into the fog. Captain Arendt clambered back to his bridge, +shouting as he ran: + +"Ship ahoy, you! You have sunk us. Stand by to safe life. Get out mit +your boats. Blow your vistle. You pig swine of a ----!" + +Without reply the slayer faded like a phantom and was gone. From far +down in the _Wasdale's_ hold came a sound which made her captain thrill +to feel that discipline had stood its first grim test. Collision doors +in bulk-heads were grinding shut with the mutter of far-off thunder. + +The electric lights on deck and in the saloons had been snuffed out. +The ship was in darkness almost everywhere. From staterooms came +screams of women and the wails of little children. The few stewards +on watch were first to join the seamen on deck and those who had been +flung from their bunks forward by the shock of collision. Into the ruck +began to pour firemen and coal-passers from below, already flooded out +of their compartments. It was perhaps three minutes before a welter of +men began to flow in eddies toward the boats. + +Meantime a wonderful thing was being done. The compelling personality +of one man rose dominant as if he had been given the strength of ten. +Panic was on tiptoe, ready to make an inferno of these decks, when it +was routed because a hundred and forty men in the _Wasdale_ had learned +by the hard drill of experience that what this man said must be done +on the instant. Captain Arendt called for light, and four sailors +came running with the globe lamps snatched from the steerage and the +wheelhouse. He swung one of these over the hole in the ship's side, and +there was no need to wait for the reports of those sent below to make +examination. Her bulk-heads could not save her, and she was settling +fast. + +"The old _Wasdale_ vas not builded for this," he said to the chief +officer. "She will sink in one half hour--no longer. We must safe life. +Get the men to their stations at the boats, joost like boat-drill we +have every woyage. If they don't go, shoot 'em. But they vill go. +I knows. Send an officer in charge of some goot men to handle the +steerage." + +The captain passed his own cabin door three times in the next handful +of seconds. It was only a step, only an instant snatched from this +priceless flight of time, to save the wallet in the top drawer of the +desk. Each time he passed the door the desire to enter pulled him as if +strong hands clutched his shoulders, but he went on. + +Once he hesitated, and just then a grimy figure rushed past him +headlong, and flung itself at the falls of the nearest boat, tearing +at the canvas cover with teeth and nails, moaning as if hurt. At his +heels came three others from below decks, knocking down all who blocked +their escape. The captain tore their leader from the boat, and, like a +red bear, seized him around the waist and tossed him overboard like a +bundle of rags. Those near heard the choking yell of a drowning man. + +The captain turned, and for the only time shouted at the top of his +great voice: + +"Men, the ship is in a sinking condition. The only coward on board vas +gone. To your stations. We must all safe life." + +A group of stokers huddled near the rail dropped the bundles of +clothing they had brought on deck, and one of them, whose head was +bound in rags, cried back: + +"We're wid ye. You near kilt me to-day, you big Dutch ---- ----, but by +---- ----, you're a man. All right, sorr; we'll go after thim dummies +in th' steerage." + +It is consistent with few narratives of disaster at sea, but there was +no more shouting among the crew of the _Wasdale_. They bent fiercely +to their business, with whispers and muttered directions. It was not +the nearness of death that stifled their outcries so much as the +imminent neighborhood of a man with a stout heart and a cool head, who +had hammered iron-fisted obedience into his crews through a stormy +lifetime at sea. + +The _Wasdale_ had cleared with three hundred men, women, and children +on board. There were boats to hold twice that number. It was only a +question of time in which to stow these precious cargoes, a race with +the sea which each moment sucked the _Wasdale_ lower, as her decks +sloped with a sickening list to starboard. A minute bungled meant many +lives lost. + +The captain seemed rather to drift than rush from one part of the decks +to another. Going down the saloon stairway, he found a line of stewards +passing passengers up as if they were so much baggage. The water was in +the staterooms and washing along the alleys. Weeping women, clad only +in their night-clothes, were shoved into cork jackets, bundled above, +handed to the waiting seamen, and laid shivering in the boats without +touching foot to deck. After ransacking the rooms to search out all the +cabin people, the captain returned on deck to find confusion and some +outcry where he had left an orderly flight to the boats. A white-faced +passenger was on his knees, arms raised on high, his mouth contorted in +trembling and husky appeal: + +"We are doomed, and prayer alone can save. The ship is going down, the +ship is going down, and we must be lost forever unless we gather in +prayer. Come round me, and let us pray together. Oh, make a last appeal +to your Maker to forgive us, before we go to meet Him with sin-stained +souls. Man can do nothing, God can do all. Oh, save us, save our lives, +we beseech Thee!" + +A dozen half-naked passengers wavered, broke away from control, and +fell around him, sobbing or trying to join in broken prayer. The voice +of the suppliant rose to a shriek, and some of the crew balked, as if +panic were stealing among them. Captain Arendt crashed through the +pitiful circle and thundered: + +"Choke dot idiot performance. Let the vimmen do the prayin'. Tumble +into dot boat, you. You vill make the devil to pay here, I tells you. +Be still!" + +Fear had made the wretch deaf to reason. He subsided only to stagger +to another corner of the deck, where his prayers again drew after him +many who were convinced that death was inevitable. + +"Jam him into the boat, and set on him," was the captain's order. +"Break him in two pieces mit an oar if he makes one more yell." + +Twenty minutes after the collision, the saloon deck of the _Wasdale_ +was only a few feet from the sea. The cheering creak of the falls as +they ripped through the sheaves was sounding from one end of the deck +to the other, as the boats descended while the captain counted them +and held his breath, lest some unlooked-for lurch of the helpless ship +should crush them against her sides like so many egg-shells. Were all +hands out? He did not know, but it was time to leave. Some one jogged +his elbow, and he turned to see little "Moses-Josephs," who said with +trembling lip: + +"I'm all ready to go when you are, sir. Anything more I can do? I took +care of the stewardess and her cat, sir." + +"Joost run to my room quick, and get the pocket-book in the top-- No, +stay here mit me. Yump into Number T'ree boat this minute, you liddle +nuisance." + +"I cannot let him go," groaned the captain, "and risk the child be +drownded. Vat his sick mudder say to me if he don't come back?" + +Surely there was time for the captain to rush up to his room, only +half the length of the deck, and rescue the savings of his long life +at sea. The wistful, troubled face of the wife as he had last seen +her, the hope of home and health, fairly drove him to run forward with +head down. He looked overside as he ran, and the gray sea was lipping +so close that he could have touched it from the deck below. The planks +under his feet rolled once with a weary, sluggish heave. He had once +been in a sailing vessel which foundered in such a smooth sea as this, +and he recalled that just before she plunged under there had been a +series of these long labored rolls as if the ship were gasping for +breath before the sea should wholly smother her. + +He had almost gained the ladder to the bridge when he saw a moving +blotch of white almost hidden behind the bow of a disabled boat. +Swerving, he found a woman, a little girl, and a man, plainly their +husband and father. The man was leaning over the rail, trying to call +to the nearest boat, which was warily pushing away from the sinking +ship. Spasms of fear so clutched his throat that his cries were only +whispers, as one shrieks without voice amid nightmare perils. The woman +clung to his coat, the little girl to her mother's garment. Evidently +they had been overlooked because of the hiding place to which the man +had blindly led them. As the captain reached the rail, the man tore +himself loose from his wife and child with a great cry, and plunged +headlong overside, not into the sea, but into the boat, which, at great +risk, had been pulled close to save the group. With a crash, he smote +the metal gunwale and fell inboard. + +"Did you caught that dirty loafer?" shouted the captain. + +The voice of the fourth officer in charge of the boat bellowed: + +"Yes, sir; but I think he's dead as a mackerel. He landed square on his +head; and one of the men who's picking him up says his neck is broken. +Shall we stand by?" + +"Holy Schmokes, yes. Sving that lantern so you can see to caught the +voman first." + +It was not an easy task. Another uneasy roll of the deck told him that +the _Wasdale_ was in the death throes. The water lapped through the +scuppers as she lurched back and down to port. There were only a few +steps to the bridge, the room, and the old brown wallet. He worked with +furious haste. The mother had sunk to the deck, fainting and inert. She +had seen her husband desert her on a sinking ship; she had heard of his +death below. Her arms had locked around the waist of the child, hardly +more than a baby, whose wisp of a night-dress was tattered about its +neck. The captain tugged at the mother's hands to free the child, for +he dare not toss them over thus embraced. + +Each second imperiled the lives of the three, and also the fate of the +ten thousand dollars that "was safer in the old _Wasdale_ than in the +bank ashore." At length the captain wrapped the child in his reefer, +and tossed her into the waiting boat with a warning shout. The mother +was a wrenching weight to swing clear, but when she had followed, a +cheer from the boat told him that she had been safely caught. + +He wiped the sweat and mist from his purpling face, and muttered: + +"I must safe life; I must safe life, my Flora, as long as she floats." + +The _Wasdale_ still floated, as if the old ship were prolonging the +struggle in order that the master who loved her might yet save the +fortune that meant so much to him. He picked up a life-preserver thrown +aside on deck, slipped into it, and looked around him, now desperately +bent on reaching the bridge, even though the ship should sink beneath +him. Surely none else than he was left on board. + +A blob of light flickered far aft on deck--a globe lamp such as the +sailors had been working with. He saw it, and caught hold of an +awning stanchion to steady himself. It must be only a sailor dutifully +standing by, before getting away in the last boat. Surely he could +take care of himself. Was it not enough that he, the captain, should +have done all that could be expected of mortal man, more than almost +any other commander had ever done, to save his passengers and crew, +hundreds of them, from a ship run down and sunk in half an hour? Was he +not justified, in sight of God and man, in saving his fortune, not for +himself, but for the helpless wife at home? It was all they had, on it +was builded all they hoped for. He swayed in his tracks, as the warring +motives pulled him this way and that. + +"Oh, my wife," he gasped. "I must be the last man to leave the ship, or +I must go down mit her. I cannot, no, by Gott, I cannot go to my room." + +He fled aft as if the devil had tried to snare his soul. The sea caught +at his heels as he ran, even on deck. Aft of the steerage deck-house, +the lamp he had glimpsed was dancing in crazy circles, where two +firemen were struggling with a heap of Hungarian emigrants, who +violently refused to help themselves. One of the would-be rescuers, +whose head was bound in rags, spoke as the captain drew near: + +"Don't hit me agin, sorr. Me ribs is stove in, an' I can't be handlin' +these loony Dagoes in proper style. We had 'em all in the boat, sorr, +but they swar-r-med back unbeknownst after their filthy bundles of +duffle." + +The emigrants were, indeed, difficult to pry loose from their huge +packages of clothing, and as the disabled fireman was of little use in +the pitched battle raging, his comrade was unable to wrest himself free +of the frenzied men whom he was trying to save. The great strength and +weight of the captain piled into the tangled mass like a battering ram, +and one by one the reinforced firemen pitched the foreigners overboard +to be fished out by the boat that lingered perilously under the counter. + +"Yump yourselves!" yelled the captain; and as they dove, the stern of +the _Wasdale_ reared and seemed to be climbing skyward. Her commander +cast one hungry glance toward the bridge, and saw her bows vanish in a +smother of foam. As he jumped, he felt a shudder, as if every plate was +drawing from its rivets. When his head rose on the crest of a roller, a +boat-hook was twisted into his shirt, and he was yanked inboard by half +a dozen hands, while the seamen bent to the sweeps for life or death as +they strove to pull beyond reach of the coming suction. + +The boat was not more than a hundred yards astern when the _Wasdale_ +pitched again, rolled once, and vanished with a thunderous farewell as +her decks blew up in clouds of hissing steam. + +As if the killing fog had waited for this sacrifice, it began to lift +until the scattered lights in the eight boats began to flock together +and the flotilla lay waiting for daybreak. The captain knew not whether +any souls had been left on board, and miserably impatient he longed for +light to count them. + +"It is a bad night's vork," he said to the bos'n at the tiller. "I haf +lost my ship, and I may never get anudder. I haf lost all my money, +and I vill not get him again, for I am too old. But I hope I haf safed +all my peoples, and if dot is so, I tank Gott." + +Before day came their rockets were answered, and a big steamer loafed +sluggishly toward the clustered life-boats. When she hove to, it was +apparent that she had been in collision. Her bows were jumbled back +to her fore bulkhead, and it seemed a miracle that she had been kept +afloat. + +"It is the svine vat runned into us," said the captain, "and den runned +avay. I vish a few vords mit her skipper." + +When the crew of the _Wasdale_, scrambling up the Jacob's ladders, +had hoisted the bruised and benumbed passengers aboard, the crippled +vessel limped on her course toward Liverpool. She was an Italian tramp, +inbound from South American ports, and her captain had a taste of +regions even more torrid when interviewed on his bridge by the late +commander of the _Wasdale_, who returned aft to find his people vainly +trying to find shelter from the cold. + +"Why aren't dose poor miserable vimmen in the cabins?" he asked. + +"The cabins are all locked, sir," replied one of the men, "and the Dago +cook won't let us in the galley to get something to eat." + +"Break open the cabin doors, and pitch the Eyetalian swab out on his +dirty head, and cook whatefer you find in this schow," was the order, +and these things were done on the instant. Coffee and hash were made by +the _Wasdale's_ cooks, and passed by the _Wasdale's_ stewards, and the +invaded cabins ransacked for whatever blankets and clothing might serve +to warm the pitiable castaways. + +A little later the crew of the _Wasdale_ was mustered for roll call. +Each department rallied to its chief. As down the lines of shivering +men the "Here, sir," ran without a gap, the captain found himself +choking back the tears, for at the same time the purser made tally of +the cabin and steerage passengers, and found all present, even to the +silent figure under a tarpaulin of the man who had slain himself. + +The crew cheered, and the chief engineer stepped forward and began: + +"Beg pardon, captain, but when we remember the _Elbe_ and the +_Bourgogne_, we have a right to think----" + +The captain silenced him with a gesture and left them. Now, first he +could think of his own crushing disaster, which, in his thoughts, +eclipsed the great deliverance he had wrought by grace of his own +courage and loyalty. He did not see that he had done anything to merit +praise, rather was his plight almost worse than if he had gone down +with the _Wasdale_. Brooding and unnerved, he did not rouse himself +until the battered tramp was in the Mersey, and then he sent a tug +ashore with tidings for his company, bidding them meet and succor his +helpless people. + +The melancholy procession had filed ashore before he gripped his +resolution, and, coatless and ragged, sought his superintendent to make +report of what had happened. This interview was brief, for the formal +investigation must wait the captain's written word. The superintendent +was also a man among men, and he was silent for a little time, looking +at the bowed figure of the captain, who sat with his tousled red head +in his hands, thinking now of the telegram he must send to Antwerp. A +few broken words had told the superintendent of the wife and the old +brown wallet. + +Finally the captain wrote this message: + + + _I have lost my ship and all our money, but saved every soul on + board._ + + +He handed this to the superintendent, whispered, "Please send it to +her," and started to go out of the office, he scarcely knew whither. +The superintendent halted him, grasping the bruised right hand that +hung all nerveless. + +"You have much to live for, Captain Arendt, and more to be proud of. +Don't think for one moment that the company will forget a man who can +do such a night's work as you have put to your credit. You take my +unofficial word for it, this is a cloud with a silver lining." + +Shortly before Captain Arendt was ready to take train that night for +the Harwich boat to Antwerp, a telegram was handed him. He read it +with a smile such as made his haggard face seem beautiful: + + + _What care I, if thou hast saved thine honor and thyself? Come to + me._ + + _Flora._ + + + + +SURFMAN BRAINARD'S "DAY OFF" + + +Ashley Brainard left the life-saving station and lounged across the +wide beach on which the cadenced breakers tumbled green and white. +Beyond the gentle surf the Gulf Stream dyed the sleeping sea deep +turquoise. The curving coast line wavered in the glare of sunlight +fierce as midsummer, and the little landward breeze was warm and +fragrant. Barefooted, clad in a sleeveless jersey and a frayed pair of +white ducks, Brainard dug his toes in the wet sand and stood scowling +at an automobile that moved swiftly up the beach. He seemed to resent +its jarring intrusion upon the brooding peace of the tropical landscape +as if a personal grudge were involved. In truth he was angry with +himself that he could not smother the sudden discontent born of the +sight of this drumming, flamboyant chariot which had swooped down +from the big hotel five miles to the northward. When the car became a +swerving speck and then vanished beyond a feathery clump of cabbage +palms, the youth turned back to the station muttering: + +"Now that Tarpon Inlet has closed up, I suppose we'll be pestered to +death with these silly tourists. But, whew! it was like getting letters +from home to see my kind of people again. I'd forgotten what they +looked like." + +The lusty surfman rubbed his tousled head as was his habit when +restless or perplexed, and focused his irritation on the red-roofed +cottage in which hitherto he had found contentment. + +"This life-saving business in Florida is all tommy-rot. Here it is the +middle of winter, no ice and sleet, no storms, nothing you ever read +about to fit in with this game. I'm due to take a day off and get away +from it." + +He flung himself into the house, past the surf-boat that filled the +lower floor, and climbed to the airy living-room above. Jim Conklin, +mending a cast-net on the piazza, called cheerfully: + +"You don't look happy, Boy. I thought you'd be glad to see some of your +gilt-edged pals again. Did they try to borrow money from you, or did +they make fun of your clothes?" + +Brainard growled with an air of petulance absurdly boyish for the +fine-conditioned bigness of him: + +"I'm tired of shooting life-lines across a pole stuck in the sand and +pulling my back-rivets loose in the boat after imaginary wrecks. It's +mostly dress rehearsal in this shack. And we sit around and tell each +other the same old hard-luck stories until I'm going daffy." + +Conklin's weather-beaten face twitched and a little protesting gesture +showed that he was hurt. Commander of a big passenger steamer at forty, +he had piled her ashore in a fog three years before, and the iron law +of his calling had thrown him "on the beach" without another chance. +Offered a berth as watchman on the company's dock, he could not bring +himself to this degradation even for bread and butter, and he had come +to the surface again as one of the Tarpon Inlet crew. + +Brainard saw his thoughtless blunder and quickly added: + +"I didn't mean that, old man. You know how much I wish I could help +you get on your feet again. Forgive me, won't you? I haven't any real +troubles. Only a frost-bitten pineapple patch that was going to make my +fortune. But it will be bearing again in two years, and then I'll be +on velvet. Those gay visitors made me a bit restless, that's all, just +as you walk the beach for hours after a Morgan liner passes close in +shore." + +Bearded Fritz Wagenhals, the station-keeper, broke in with a sardonic +chuckle: + +"It is the same way when we haf canned sausage for dinner. I think +myself back in Heidelberg already, where I haf taken my university +degree twenty years ago. What is the matter mit you, Boy? Was it the +homesickness?" + +"No-o, not exactly," confessed Brainard with a slightly embarrassed +smile, "but I seem to be the only one of the three of us who can lift +the curtain and get a peep at what he used to be. It's my day off, and +with your permission, Skipper Wagenhals, I'm going to break my vows +and trail up to the gorgeous Coquina Beach Hotel for dinner. It sounds +rash, doesn't it? No sign of bad weather, is there?" + +The Keeper replied with a shade of doubt: + +"The barometer is not so conservative as I would like to see him, and +we are very due to catch a norther already. But I don't think the +weather will break before next day or to-morrow. You haf been a good +boy, and you will haf your fling." + +Brainard hauled a steamer-trunk from beneath his cot and began to toss +out apparel which had been hidden therein for two long years. He held +up a dinner coat and caressed it, rubbed a pair of patent-leather +ties with a bunch of cotton waste, and made obeisance to a crackling +shirt-bosom. Memories crowded back, and the smash of his high hopes +of fortune was forgotten. Ashley Brainard was among his own again, a +famous stroke of the 'varsity eight, counting a host of young men and +maidens among his friends and admirers. + +His mad impulse sent a flutter of excitement through the station. The +surfmen crowded around and were eager to help their butterfly emerge +from his cocoon. Fritz Wagenhals said, as he picked up the shirt with +reverent care: + +"It is a privilege if you allow me the buttons to put in. I once wore +him every night. My Gott, that was so long ago! Also it is good manners +here to eat mit your knife, but not so at the Coquina Beach Hotel." + +The bustle aroused lanky Bill Stebbins, who was sleeping outside in the +sand. He hurried in to offer aid and counsel: + +"Dad burn it, I was onst sheriff o' Dade County, Brainard, an' I +reckon I got a right smart pull yit. If you git pinched foh diso'derly +conduct, raise a yell, an' I'll come a-runnin'." + +When Brainard announced that he had no intention of dressing in the +station the disappointment was so evident that he yielded to the +clamor, and consented to array himself for what Fritz Wagenhals called +"a little drill, to see if you are all-ship-shape-put together, mit +your standin' riggin' taut." + +These embarrassments delayed the departure until late in the afternoon. + +In his one decent suit of blue serge, which had been lovingly pressed +by the station cook, Brainard swung his luggage as if it were as light +as his heart. He turned once to look at the red-roofed station nestling +close to the sand-dunes, and for a moment felt as if he were playing +the traitor to those loyal big-hearted comrades of his. Every one of +them had fought with adverse fortune, and, beaten back, met the odds +with smiling faces. He was the youngest of the crew and the pineapple +plantation would yet release him from his chosen bondage. On this "day +off" he ought to be back in the clearing by the lagoon, "bossing" his +one laborer, but he looked ahead, and his young blood thrilled at the +thought of glimpsing his own world again. + +Northward from the station the coast swept seaward in a bold curve +which ended in a low point over which the breakers played in +spring-tides. Just beyond the Point, Brainard came to the Inlet and +crossed, dry-shod, the passage between ocean and lagoon which had +carried a ten-foot channel three months before. Now he could see, three +miles to the northward, the long pier and the clustered roofs of the +great hotel buildings. He had often come thus far on patrol, but had +always gazed at the glittering resort as forbidden ground until he +should regain his rightful place among these pleasure-seekers. + +Soon he passed through a noble avenue arched with palms, and came to +lawns that almost lipped the sea. After the smarting dazzle of sand +and ocean, this lush, green vista was like cold water to a thirsty +man. Parties of golfers were drifting across the background; white and +fluffy gowns gleamed in the shrubbery. But when the wayfarer advanced +to the long hotel piazza the smartly voluble groups of men and women +made him unexpectedly timorous. Obtaining a room, he slipped through +the crowded and colorful corridor to the nearest elevator, oblivious +that more than one woman turned to look after the stalwart youth whose +handsome face was so darkly burned and whose wholesome vigor was no +veneer laid on after a wearing season in club-land. + +Brainard felt more like himself when he was dressed and had tenderly +absorbed the cocktail whose perfections had haunted his long walk. +He swung into the dining-room as if he owned it, and chose a table +facing the doors where he could view the grand entrance of the actors +in this extravaganza. Three young women near him were chattering of +spring flittings to Lenox and Westchester, and of summer pilgrimages +to Newport and abroad. He heard familiar names of people he had once +known. Soon a hand fell upon his shoulder and he looked up to see the +chubby face of his classmate "Toodles" Brown, who fairly roared: + +"By all the gods! It _is_ Ashley Brainard. You dear old fool! Have you +been dead or in jail or did you just float in with the tide? Of course +I'll sit down. I haven't seen you since we sailed my schooner for the +Atlantic Cup three summers ago. Explain yourself." + +Brainard held the hand that had gripped his and gazed with speechless +joy into the beaming features of "Toodles" Brown. Then the surfman +grinned as he said: + +"Good old Toodles! Why, I have a cottage just down the beach beyond +the Point. I'm too darned exclusive to mix up with this herd of +get-rich-quick millionaires and gilded loafers like your fat self." + +"Living down the beach in a cottage," gasped Mr. Brown. "I've been here +two seasons and I swear I know every cottager on the island. I think +you're a blessed old liar. Tell me all about yourself, Ashley. You've +given us all the cold shake, you know." + +Brainard explained with a boyish laugh: + +"Well, you know I was down here shooting through Christmas vacation +of Senior year, and I got the pineapple bee in my bonnet. There were +millions in it, on paper. But Dad wanted me to cuddle down at a desk +in town. I stood it for a year and you remember how I cussed. Then I +said, 'The glad free life under the palms for mine,'--bucked clean over +the traces, and bolted. I was beginning to dream of counting my coin, +when one night in January the thermometer slid three degrees too low, +and, bang, what a difference in the morning! It was a case of pineapple +frappé. I was almost broke, but I couldn't throw up the sponge, and +last fall there was an opening at Uncle Sam's life-saving station for a +strong lad used to fussing around the water. And there I am drawing my +little old forty a month and proud of it, until my new crop comes in. +But, oh, Toodles, I _am_ glad to see you, and for Heaven's sake, tell +me all the news about everybody! I never could write letters. And I'm a +God-forsaken exile." + +Chubby Mr. Brown was too agitated to think of gossip as he blurted: + +"You're clean crazy, plumb dippy. Let me stake you till your ship comes +in loaded with pineapples. Ash, come back with me. I'm planning a six +months' cruise to the Mediterranean, and I've simply got to have you. +It's sandy of you and all that, but it's silly pride to think you must +bury yourself down here until you win out. Let the cunning little +pineapple plants work for you while you come back where you belong. You +a life-saver! It's absurd!" + +"They are all better men than I in our crew," said Brainard slowly, +"and it's a clean, simple, husky life, and I never was so fit. +But--well, I wish I hadn't taken this day off. It hurts a little to mix +up with this sort of thing. No, I can't borrow money, even from you. +To-night I go back to my cot and corn-beef hash. But let's go it while +the evening's young." + +This suggestion made Mr. Brown brighten and take heart. After dinner +they strolled on the quarter mile of piazza facing the moonlit sea, and +the scent of tropical flowers hung heavy around them. "Toodles" Brown +was anxious to have Brainard meet what he called "the youth and beauty +of our set," but his chum asked him to walk first as far as the beach. + +The pier was almost deserted, for the wind was rising and a fine +spray filled the air with chilling dampness. Brainard looked at the +sky with a surfman's interested scrutiny. The moon was dodging among +fast-driving clouds and the surf was beginning to boom on the beach +with a heavy, sullen note. He recalled the station-keeper's warning of +a "norther," but dismissed it because the lonely red-roofed cottage +seemed half a world away. Silent for a little while, when he spoke it +was with odd and painful effort: + +"Have you--have you heard anything of Marion Shaw? I--I m-mean Mrs. +Westervelt? Is she well and--and happy?" + +Brown chewed his cigar for a moment before he responded: + +"That is just what I hoped you might want to talk about when we came +out here by ourselves, Ashley. I didn't want to open the subject, you +know. Yes, I saw her just before she sailed for Italy two months ago. +She went alone, old man. Westervelt's a beast. I don't know what she +went through with him, but they've made a clean break of it for good. +She didn't confide in me to any extent. But we talked old times, and +after a while, well, she asked me about you, and I had nothing to tell +her. I didn't even know where you were. And--hem--she wasn't looking +at me at all, and she wasn't even talking to me when she said as if she +were thinking out loud: + +"'I'm so lonely. Oh, if I could see him just once!'" + +Brainard leaned over the railing and stared into the troubled sea as he +almost whispered: + +"Is she going to get a--get a----" + +"Yes, after waiting two years. Then she'll be free to----" + +"And you're going to the Mediterranean in the spring?" muttered +Brainard. "God, if I could only see her! Two years, you say? If I could +only see her!" + +Brown laid an arm across his chum's big shoulder and said coaxingly: + +"You don't want to meet any of these girls to-night, do you? We'll +have a good old talk in my rooms later, and I'll have you booked for +my cruise before we part company. There's a gilded temple of chance +back here on the lagoon where the little ball rolls round and round, +and I have a strong hunch that the luck is running to the black, and +also dallying with my pet numbers, fourteen-seventeen-twenty down the +middle row. Let's amble over and see what's doing in the roulette mart." + +Brainard welcomed the diversion, for his thoughts were all upheaved. +When they entered the "Casino," the busy green tables, the rattle of +ivory chips, and the tingling excitement pervading the eager throng of +men and women awoke in the exile a gambling passion that had long lain +dormant. Without conscious act he found himself fingering his little +roll of bills while he watched "Toodles" Brown buy a staggering pile +of five-dollar chips. Fighting with his desire, Brainard idly chose +numbers here and there, and trembled when he saw his empty choices +winning time after time. + +The whirr of the ball as it sped round the edge of its gleaming disk, +lost headway, hesitated for a heart-breaking instant and fell into +its destined compartment, was fascinating beyond words. Presently a +florid dowager withdrew with a gesture of peevish disappointment, +leaving vacant a seat near the middle of her table. "Toodles" Brown +was profoundly absorbed in his own gloomy run of luck, and paid no heed +to Brainard's modest investment of twenty-five counters worth a dollar +each. + +The life-saver had little expectation of winning. This was a +distraction, an excitement, a part of his rare "day off," and he hung +breathless on the surging uncertainty of every play. He noticed that +"Toodles" Brown had forsaken his "pet numbers down the middle row," and +with a reckless impulse he placed five dollars on each of the trio. The +croupier gathered in the stake as callously as if a large part of a +surfman's monthly wage had not been lost in this heady plunge. + +"I think a zero is about due, and it stands for my prospects all +right," thought Brainard as he slid five chips into the space around +the "single 0." + +The purring ball was uncommonly coy, and Brainard felt his heart +thumping while it wavered undecided. When it nestled into its chosen +nook, the croupier sung out: + +"The single 0 has it." + +He pushed a hundred and eighty dollars in chips toward Brainard. The +young man flushed through his tan. A wild hope had flared in his heart. +He resumed his play with tautened nerves and a softened light in his +frank eyes. Belated luck must fall along the "middle row" he thought, +and he covered Brown's "pet numbers" with chips, in the squares, on the +dividing lines and in the corners. "Seventeen" won, and he gathered in +his spoils without trying to count them. Then he threw his chips at +random, on numbers and on colors, and the blind goddess was strangely +kind almost with every turn of the wheel. + +"Toodles" Brown ceased playing and looked at his chum wide-eyed. +Brainard was exchanging some stacks of chips for bills, and others for +chips of higher values, until he was staking the limit allowed on a +number. + +"For Heaven's sake call it off!" whispered Brown. "It can't last any +longer. Pull out while you're ahead, and let me count it for you. +You've nearly two thousand here." + +Brainard brushed him aside and feverishly sputtered: + +"Don't bother me. I'm playing for the biggest stake in the world. This +is my day." + +He snatched a fat roll of yellow-backed bills from Brown, and tossed it +across the table to the splotch of red. Presently the croupier droned: + +"Twenty-four wins, and the red." + +The cashier counted Brainard's stake, piled up bills of equal value +and shoved the bundle across the table. With tears in his voice Brown +begged him to quit as Brainard made one more winning plunge and turned +to his friend with a hoarse cry: + +"I'm through. Damn it, come on! Let's count the plunder. I've won my +freedom." + +A few moments later Brainard divided somewhat more than five thousand +dollars into two rolls and stuffed them into his trousers pockets. +As the two young men passed out of doors, they were startled by the +uproar of the wind. The palm crests were whipping to tatters with +sibilant lament, and the air was filled with their flying fragments. +From the beach came the great call of a raging surf and the sting of +spray driven inland. Once, during his cyclonic hours in the "Casino," +Brainard had heard the rising storm cry over the roof, but its summons +had been unheeded. It had vaguely reminded him of duty, but even now he +thought only of his lawless wealth as he strode toward the beach while +"Toodles" Brown galloped clumsily in his wake. + +When they passed beyond the sheltering lee of the last hotel building, +the might of the "norther" buffeted them breathless. Brainard staggered +out to the pier and clutched the nearest railing lest he be blown +overboard. The rain of spray was drenching his evening clothes as Brown +tugged at his coat and strove to pull him toward the hotel. + +"Let me cool off," shouted Brainard above the tumult. "I'm going home +with you, I tell you, Toodles. I'm going to the Mediterranean with you. +I'm going to Italy with you, God bless her! I'm going back where I +belong, and the pineapples can go to hell. There's five thousand in my +clothes." + +Brown thumped him on the back and roared: + +"Of course you are, and you deserve your luck. But if you love me, come +out of this. I'm a wet rag and you're worse." + +For reply Brainard fought his way out along the railing of the pier, +and gloried in the night. It matched his own mood. Like the sea, he +had broken the bonds that for so long had held him tamed and stagnant. +He was drunk with the wine of life, and the storm could not drag his +whirling thoughts back to the red-roofed station beyond the Point. + +Then the helpless Brown yelled in his ear: + +"Turn around, Ash. Over here to the north'ard. Great Scott, what can we +do?" + +Brainard jumped to the note of alarm in the appeal. The moonlight still +spattered across the white-fanged water. Driving along southward, +close in shore, they saw a schooner, now a somber blotch, now outlined +against the smother that flung itself at her. She seemed to be coming +head on for the pier. The picture seared itself into Brainard's very +soul. It hurled him back from his glad world regained to the station +where he ought to be. But he waited to see if she could clear the pier. +In an agony of impatience he crawled out where the sea was breaking +clean over the structure, far beyond where Brown dared to follow. + +He watched the doomed vessel wallow as she fled before the "norther," +watched her lunge past the end of the pier, hardly more than a hundred +yards away. By the rifting moonlight he could see that her decks were +a tangle of wreckage, her headsails gone or flying in ribbons. She was +pelting straight down the coast, helpless to claw off shore, helpless +to heave to. + +This was what Brainard realized as he groaned: + +"She's heading straight for the Point, and she can't be handled to +clear it. Or they may be hoping to fetch the Inlet and get inside, and +they don't know it's choked up." + +As he ran toward the beach, Brainard wondered how he could have +forgotten. Why had not the first note of the storm called him home? + +He waved a wild gesture of farewell to his friend, and tore down the +boardwalk promenade, past the great hotel whose hundreds of windows +were ablaze with light. Inside he glimpsed many dancers, and an eddying +gust picked up the strains of the orchestra and brought faintly to him +the taunting sweetness of a waltz song, "Love Comes Like a Summer Sigh." + +It was Surfman Brainard of the Tarpon Inlet Station that plunged off +the end of the walk into clogging sand, for the tide had covered all +the beach, and he must toil up as far even as the gullied dunes. He +kicked off his hampering patent-leather ties, threw his coat after +them, and limped over driftwood and gnarled palmetto roots, falling, +scrambling, swearing in a frenzy of eagerness to join his comrades. The +sand whirled in blinding drifts, and he rubbed his eyes to look for +the laboring schooner which vanished in a little while as if she were +blotted out. + +He remembered that somewhere a road led back into the tangled live-oak +and palmetto hammock beyond the sand-hills. With a shout of joy he dove +through a gash in the tufted hillocks, and his bare feet found a wagon +track in firmer ground. Now the storm wailed overhead, but in darkness +that was almost rayless it twisted limbs from the tortured trees and +tossed them in Brainard's path; it flung the meshed creepers across his +way to trip him headlong. + +"She's bound to fetch up a long way this side the station," he grunted, +"and the patrol may be at the other end of his beat. And those poor +devils can't live long in the sea that's smashing over the Point." + +Then he thanked God for the fitness of wind and limb which had come of +long months of hardy drill and plain living, for the Inlet was just +ahead as he came out on the roaring beach. He looked seaward for a +rocket, and shoreward for a signal from the patrol. No light showed +anywhere in the gray night. + +He splashed across the tide-swept bar, and when the bones of an +ancient wreck loomed close by, he knew he was within a mile of home. A +dark smudge moved against the white sand-hills, and he fell into the +arms of Jim Conklin on patrol. + +"Schooner's coming ashore," gasped Brainard. "She passed the head pier, +heading straight down and helpless. She was in distress for fair. If +she hasn't come this far, she's piled up on the Point. I'll go to the +station while you find her and signal us." + +Conklin said not a word, but made a bull-like lunge against the storm. +When Brainard had roused out the crew, Fritz Wagenhals shouted: + +"Our boat is no good for us on the Point. Get out mit the gun." + +Six men and the cook stormed up the beach with the life-gun and tackle, +and as they toiled through the heavy sand in the teeth of the wind, +Brainard was near collapse. But he rallied when they crept out toward +the Point, and a red Coston light sputtered and flared ahead. Then Jim +Conklin ran back to them waving his torch and crying: + +"She's in the breakers on the weather side of the Point. The Boy +guessed right. Breaking up fast, she is. Hustle up the gun." + +When they sighted the stranded schooner even Brainard, who had foreseen +her plight, was amazed at the quick fury of her destruction. The black +lump of her hulk lay in a surf which broke sheer over it, and the stump +of her mainmast rolled in appealing gestures to the sky. The first shot +was fired dead against the wind, and the line fell short. A second and +a third failed, and they did not even know whether life was aboard the +wreck. At last a quartering shot sent the line across the schooner, and +there came feeble twitches, electric pulsations that sent their message +to the men ashore as if hands had been clasped across the boiling +inferno of white water. + +The wreck was breaking up fast. Her timbers strewed the beach, and +drifted menacingly in the surf. But with slow, halting effort, the +whip-line followed the slender cord of the projectile, and after that +the heavy hawser trailed out into the night until the jerky signal +came ashore that all was made fast. The surfmen tailed on and the +breeches-buoy was dragged shoreward. At length a sodden shape, coughing +and groaning, was pulled up on the sand by the men who rushed among the +combers. Four more trips the breeches-buoy made, and three more sailors +were fetched ashore alive. The last of these was asked how many were +left aboard and he gasped: + +"Nobody but the skipper, an' he's hangin' on by his toenails." + +On shore they waited in vain for a signal, and none came. It was more +ominous when the hawser slackened. It was read as a death-warrant when +the hawser yielded to the tautening heave of the surfmen, yielded with +sickening ease and came washing and writhing in to them, hand over +hand, broken adrift from the wreck. The little group on the thundering +beach stared across the ghastly water at the dissolving lump of the +schooner, knowing by instinct that it would be foolishly futile to +shoot another line seaward. They waited, and it was all that they could +do. + +To young Brainard this suspense was more killing than all the stress +through which he had furiously toiled. No light, no sign of life, +nothing to tell whether or not death had won in the home stretch! + +A rescued seaman, battered and spent, cried out from where he lay on +the sand: + +"Matt Martin his name is. The _Lucy B._ was the vessel's. Coal to +Havana. Mate washed overboard last night. He's a good skipper, is +Martin; looks like that youngster in the white shirt there." + +"We'll find him at high-water mark in a day or so," bellowed Fritz +Wagenhals. "My Gott, I wish--no, the boat is no good here." + +The young man shot his fist seaward. + +"I'll try to swim out with a line if you'll let me." + +"No, you don't, you tamn fool Boy!" the keeper shouted back. + +Brainard doubled along the edge of the beach like a hound baffled by +a lost trail. He was almost beside himself with bitter anger at the +storm that it should have wrought this cruel climax. It had come as +a tremendous revelation to him that he could help to win this great +fight against wind and sea. His splendid strength had some place in the +world of deeds after all. Fierce joy and thanksgiving had thrilled his +every fiber that in this hour he was permitted to be one of the Tarpon +Inlet crew. Now to be robbed of the life of the captain of the vessel, +to stand like wooden men and let him die who had stayed by his ship for +duty's sake--this was more than profoundly sad, it was maddening. + +Blindly scouting a little way up the beach, Brainard glimpsed a bit of +wreckage rearing shoreward, carried beyond the other watchers by some +freak of the undertow. It looked like all the other sorry fragments of +the schooner, but a second glance showed him a white patch gleaming +against the black timber. It might be the tattered foam, but a wild +hope halted him in his tracks, and he stood staring at the tumbling +mass. The white patch did not vanish, it seemed to move as if writhing +against its background, and now he was sure he saw it move. To wait +an instant longer was to see the bit of wreckage pounded in the surf +as by Titan sledge-hammers. He tore into the first line of foam, +head down, arms extended. A few tripping strides, and a wall of water +crashed down upon him, solid and resistless. Stunned as he was he +dove by instinct, and caught breath beyond the breaker. The fragment +of wreckage to which something was clinging rode a few yards beyond +him. Again he was flung down and tossed shoreward, and again he dove +with fast weakening effort, nor could he see that behind him the other +surfmen were struggling to reach him in a hard-gripped human chain. + +[Illustration: _As he rose the jagged timber was hurled straight at +him._] + +As he rose, the jagged timber was hurled straight at him like a +projectile. He tried to dodge it, flinging out an arm to clutch at +something white half wrapped round it. A broken nail or bolt caught +his clothing, and dragged him headlong. While he threw his arms about +the timber he felt the rags of his trousers tear loose, and he shook +himself free of the deadly hold. He was no more than conscious that +something stirred as if alive beneath his shifting grip. Presently the +surfmen cheered as they hauled ashore the broken beam from which they +had to pry loose two half-naked, water-logged, but living men. + +Day was breaking when the crew of the schooner, a full muster roll, +were helped into the station. The weary surfmen gave their bunks to the +rescued, and the black cook made strong coffee and corned-beef hash +with incredible speed. Brainard fell on the floor like a dead man. But +he could not sleep, for the night had been too crowded with racking +events. His hurts and exhaustion were forgotten as the evening at the +Coquina Beach Hotel came back to him, dimly at first, then focusing +more sharply, as if he were recalling things far distant in time and +place. + +Amid this welter of impressions loomed the fact that magically the +means had been provided for him to go back to his own, and more than +this, to see her whose message had come as from the dead awakened. As +if in a dream, he fumbled for his trousers pockets. Then it came to +him that he had been forced to put on Jim Conklin's oilskin breeches +while that comrade was half dragging him home from the wreck. He dully +wondered why, until beneath the oil-skins he found a waistband and a +few sodden rags, all that was left of his evening clothes. Pockets were +gone, and with them---- + +"Five thousand dollars," he muttered in dazed, stupid fashion. + +Just then a babbling chatter broke from the nearest cot. Brainard +raised his head and saw a young man, no older than himself, sitting up +and feebly swaying, his wits awry for the moment because of what he had +suffered. The captain of the lost schooner wrung his hands and cried, +while the tears were on his bruised face: + +"No, no, I tell you, the _Lucy B._ was not insured.... I named her +after you and she was a lucky vessel.... Cut away the rags o' that +forestays'l, and we'll bend on somethin' that 'll hold.... We've got to +heave her to, I tell you.... Five thousand dollars clean gone, all I've +got and.... If we can fetch Tarpon Inlet before we founder, we can get +inside.... The _Lucy B._ gone to pieces.... You're a liar.... Why, I +just bought out old man Holter's share last voyage.... Five thousand +dollars, all in the _Lucy B._... All I've got and----" + +Brainard was moved to pity, then amazement, that in this fashion he +should be brought face to face with a tragedy so very like his own. +But he glimpsed the fact, and was ashamed of it, that he would be +stirred to deeper sympathy for the young skipper if there were no +womanish wailing over his loss. And then, guilty and remorseful, +Brainard realized that his own heart was full of sullen repining, +bitter discontent with the fate that had robbed him of his treasure +and his hopes, futile outcry against his forced return to the life of +the station. He, then, was wholly lacking in that very fortitude which +he wished to see displayed by this broken, fevered sailor in the cot, +whose misfortune was, by far, the more crushing. + +Brainard crawled stiffly outside to be alone. For some time he +painfully overhauled his surging thoughts, and slowly there faded from +his tired young face the clouding trouble that he had seen mirrored +in the face of the boyish captain. Then he said aloud as if it were a +verdict: + +"A man who can't take his medicine is a pretty tough spectacle, isn't +he? And it was all a dream, yes, all a dream--of money I didn't earn, +and--and of a girl I can't marry." + +He looked through the doorway, saw Jim Conklin slip over to the +captain's cot and stroke the hot forehead, and heard him say: + +"I know what it is, old man. I've been there myself." + +The touch of Conklin's hand seemed to bring the skipper to himself. His +slackened mouth closed with the snap of a steel trap, and into his face +came the alert and aggressive look of an unbeaten man. He smiled up at +Conklin and said weakly: + +"I must have been a little upset in my top story. Was I talkin' +foolishness? Thank God, we're still alive an' kickin' strong. I'm +all right. How are my men? No use crying over spilt milk, is there, +shipmate? How's the kid that yanked me ashore?" + +Brainard went to his side, repeating as if he were thinking aloud: + +"There's no use crying over spilt milk. I dreamed I lost five thousand +dollars last night." + +"Well, I'll be jiggered, so did I," cheerfully responded the skipper. +"But it wasn't no dream for me. It won't make a bit of difference a +hundred years from now, will it? Vessel a total loss, but I'm no total +loss, not for a minute. You fished me out, and thanks for a neat job, +for I'm pretty fond of just livin'." + +Brainard gripped the outstretched hand, and the two young men smiled +into each other's eyes. Ashley Brainard was glad that he had found a +man, but gladder was he that he had found himself. For in that moment +the life-saver routed all his regrets, as he turned to Jim Conklin, +with vibrant earnestness and shining face: + +"I'm mighty glad of the chance to stay here for a while among you men. +For I'm pretty fond of just living, Jim, even if my dreams can't all +come true." + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Praying Skipper, and Other Stories, by +Ralph Delahaye Paine + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 58817 *** |