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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..20fe427 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #60124 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/60124) diff --git a/old/60124-0.txt b/old/60124-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 1c71e0c..0000000 --- a/old/60124-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,7716 +0,0 @@ -Project Gutenberg's The Girl of the Golden Gate, by William Brown Meloney - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of -the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - -Title: The Girl of the Golden Gate - -Author: William Brown Meloney - -Release Date: August 18, 2019 [EBook #60124] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GIRL OF THE GOLDEN GATE *** - - - - -Produced by David T. Jones, Mary Meehan, Al Haines & the -online Distributed Proofreaders Canada team at -http://www.pgdpcanada.net - - - - - - - - - - - - THE GIRL OF THE GOLDEN GATE - - BY WILLIAM BROWN MELONEY - - - NEW YORK - GROSSET & DUNLAP - PUBLISHERS - - COPYRIGHT, 1913, BY - WILLIAM BROWN MELONEY - - COPYRIGHT, 1913, BY - EDWARD J. CLODE - - - - -[Illustration] - - - - -THE GIRL OF THE GOLDEN GATE - - - - -CHAPTER I - - -The general steamship agency on The Bund was a hive of bustling -travelers, their faces alight with the eagerness with which they desired -to be gone their many ways up and down the world. A stranger might have -imagined that most of Yokohama's European or "white" population had been -possessed of a sudden desire to flee beyond the seas. - -It was a scene common enough, however, for that season in the gateways -of the Far East. Spring, with its heart call to distant homelands, had -come again to break the spell of the Orient for many and to stir an -unutterable longing in the breasts of others--the men and women who -dream always of the day they will "go back," but who never do. - -The crowd was a conglomerate, as crowds go, and not lacking in -picturesque touches--here where a Chinese of mandarin rank went with a -silky retinue; there where a pair of turbaned Sikhs stood near two -begoggled Korean priests, muttering in gutturals over their tickets for -the South. The placidity and impenetrable calm of these few Oriental -faces served but to accentuate the mobile expressiveness of the dominant -Caucasian countenance. - -Still there was one white man whose features betrayed no expression of -interest in the scene. He stood head and shoulders over those around him -in a line of applicants at a booking desk toward the rear. There was an -air of detachment about him. Apparently he was untouched of the spirit -of mystic restlessness and excitement which pervaded the place--that -resistless, undeniable spirit which takes hold of even the most -unimaginative and lackadaisical in railway depots or wherever else men -in numbers set out upon journeys. There was no gleam of the -homeward-bounder in his eye--that gleam which is more like the light of -love than anything else; there was no expectancy; no sign of eagerness. - -At a first glance this man's face seemed no more than a mask. At a -second one realized that the features were those of one who must have -won unto the priceless possession of self-control. The nose was large -and yet as sensitively formed as the freshly shaven lips and chin. The -ears were perfectly lobed--the ears of a thoroughbred. The jaw was that -of the natural fighter, not heavy and jowly, but cut in a sharp, -straight line from the hinge to the point. Tiny wrinkles in the outer -corners of the eyelids, which come from facing long distances on sea or -land, kept forming and reforming as his gray eyes wandered idly over the -heads of the crowd. It is thus that the tribes of the earth's big spaces -are marked. - -Several times he pushed his small gray felt hat back from his brow and -then as absently pulled it down again. When he did this one saw the seam -of a jagged scar, still pink from recent healing, which traversed the -left temple and disappeared in the dark-brown hair over the ear. -Although the forelock and the temples were quite gray, he was not more -than thirty-five years old. - -His blue serge suit fitted well and the trimness of his setting-up--his -whole hearing, in fact--spoke of one of military training. Perhaps it -was this suggestion of the soldier that made the Sikhs turn and look -back at him as they passed out on The Bund. Yet it was not as a soldier -that the port of Yokohama knew him, but by the name of Whitridge and as -the captain of the sorriest-looking piece of sea grist that had ever -made Tokyo Bay. A brute of a Chinese tramp she was, and men who knew -deep waters were still marveling how he had brought her through the -vitals of a typhoon--the worst in their memory--which had swept the -coast in a fury of destruction. - -Chinese tramps and those who go in them are of little moment, but on the -morning two months before that the port had awakened to find in its -fairway a salt-crusted thing called the _Kau Lung_, minus funnels and -masts and suggesting only vaguely a steamship, it knew that it looked on -one of the deep's wonders. The sea must have swallowed her and spat her -up again, and those who said this had in mind that tramps which fly the -dragon cloth are the unsweetest things upon big waters. - -Yet not only through stress of storm had he weathered her, but through a -mutiny whose blood rusted her decks. Without mates and alone save for a -big Cantonese serang he had done this thing and then come silently -ashore to nurse his wounds. - -Presently Whitridge stood at the head of the line. A man who looked ill -and who told the booking clerk with a nervous laugh that he hadn't seen -"the home country" in twenty years gave way to him. - -"Now, sir, your pleasure," said the clerk. - -"Oh," answered Whitridge as if bringing his thoughts from a great -distance. "I wish to--to book on the _Cambodia_, please." - -"She's pretty full, sir," said the clerk, with a doubtful shake of the -head and turning away to get a stateroom diagram. - -A momentary hush fell on the crowd. - -"Gad!" exclaimed a young Englishman standing beside Whitridge. - -Turning, Whitridge followed the man's glance toward the agency entrance. - -A woman with hair of the color of gold that has been washed in sea water -was coming in out of the sunshine of the radiant March morning. A -picture hat of rough bronze straw accentuated the wealth and beauty of -her wonderful crown. A long, loose tan coat with full sleeves, made her -appear a shade taller than she really was, but her erect, healthy -carriage threw the garment about her in clinging folds which softened -its fashionable modernness. - -She paused for a second, a tilt of inquiry to her vivid head. Then she -moved swiftly to the desk where Whitridge was standing. - -"I have a letter--I wish to see the director--the manager, please," she -said to the clerk in a low, well-bred voice. - -Looking up, the clerk gave a start of surprise, recovered himself -quickly, and indicated a door to the left. She opened it and passed -inside followed by a woman in black, evidently a maid. The clerk's eyes -trailed after her with something of awe in them. There was hardly a -glance in the room which was not turned in the same direction. - -"Out East here we--we see nothing but little, dark women," the clerk -began apologetically, facing Whitridge again. - -"Ever see Burne-Jones' 'Springtime'?" interrupted the Englishman -eagerly. Whitridge nodded. "Gad! Isn't she like it?" Another nod -answered him. - -"Now, sir," interrupted the clerk, spreading out a diagram. "The -_Cambodia_ calls at Honolulu, you----" - -"I wish to book through to San Francisco--an outside room, if possible." - -"Luck's with you, sir. The last one," and he indicated with a pencil -point a small space aft on the port side. Whitridge nodded his -acceptance and at that moment the office door at the left opened -quickly. - -A middle-aged man, evidently the agency manager, emerged, preceding the -"Springtime" woman. - -"Burr! Reserve an outside room on the _Cambodia_ at once," he called to -the clerk booking Whitridge. - -"Too late, sir. I've just sold the last one to this gentleman." - -Whitridge turned. A shadow of keen disappointment passed over the face -of the golden-haired woman. - -"Oh, is there nothing you can do?" she asked, looking at the manager -appealingly. He glanced at Whitridge. "You don't know the terror I -feel--the horror I have of being put inside," she went on. There was a -note of genuine distress in her voice. - -"There is another ship in eight days," answered the manager. - -"But it is imperative that I sail on this one." - -"If you will permit me," interrupted Whitridge, baring his head, "I will -resign my room to you." - -"Oh, but that would not be fair. You are very kind, but I--I must pay -for my lateness." She met his gaze with an honest, uncompromising -directness in her blue eyes. "You----" - -"Really it doesn't much matter where I am put," and a note of sadness in -his voice brought an expression of interest into her brow. For a part of -a second their glances held and then Whitridge turned to the clerk: -"This lady will take my room." - -He spoke with a finality which evidently was strange to her. She frowned -slightly and started as if to protest again. - -"You should accept, Miss Granville," said the manager anxiously and in a -way that indicated his desire to please a person of some importance. She -paused uncertainly as her lips framed a "No," but meeting Whitridge's -gaze again she gave a nod of decision. - -"I will accept. You are rendering me a service greater than you know," -she said gratefully and there was a brilliance as of tears in her eyes. -"I thank you--very much." - -The manager, beaming with delight, thanked Whitridge and led her back to -his private office. At the threshold she paused and turned to surprise -Whitridge's gaze fixed hungrily upon her. A smile with which she -intended to thank him died on her lips. A startled look came into her -eyes. She did not move until he turned toward the clerk, who was asking -him for a record for the customs' clearance. - -"Paul Whitridge, thirty-four, master mariner--British subject," he said, -and the clerk recalled afterward the strange hesitancy with which he -gave his name and nationality. - -The manager reappeared at this moment and began reading a memorandum to -the clerk: "Miss Emily Granville, twenty-four--American." Whitridge gave -a barely perceptible start of surprise as the name fell from the -manager's lips. He compressed his eyes as if to shut out some unpleasant -thought or memory. The manager threw the slip of paper on the desk. "You -can make it out, Burr. It's all there. Book her and the maid that way," -he said. Then, turning to Whitridge, he went on: "I'm mightily obliged -to you, sir. I'll send a note to the ship asking to have special care -taken of you. She is one of the big stockholders in the Western Line. -Cables came last night for her--she's just down from Tokyo. Some -business trouble at home--trustee of her estate dead. Something like -that. Must get home immediately. Can't bear to travel in inside rooms. -She--her----" - -"It's all right," Whitridge said, cutting him off. "I'm glad to have -been able to do it." - -He spoke with an indication of impatience in tone and manner. Without -another word he gathered up his tickets and went out of the agency. The -manager and clerk wished him a pleasant voyage, but if he heard them he -made no sign. - -"Devilish strange sort," said the manager in surprise. - -"I should say so. I think he's the captain that brought that wreck of a -Chink tramp in here a couple of months ago," answered the clerk. - -"Indeed!" With this exclamation of surprise the manager hurried back to -his office where Emily Granville was waiting and thinking of the -inexpressible sadness she had seen in the face of the stranger who had -resigned his stateroom to her. It troubled her. In the instant that she -had turned to find his gaze fixed on her she saw a pain in his eyes so -poignant that it hurt her. A soul sounding the deeps of anguish seemed -to have been crying out just behind them. - -Whitridge, going swiftly along The Bund, was torn by the thoughts which -the name of Granville had started. It had been these thoughts which had -driven him out of the agency so strangely. He argued and argued with -himself that he must be wrong; that there were undoubtedly others of -that name in San Francisco. He tried hard to think of other things, but -ever the vision of this woman with the golden hair remained dominant. It -excluded even the thought of his mother whose message to come home to -her before it was too late had decided him in an hour to cross the -ocean. His remembrance of the woman was so vivid that she might have -waited at his side. The fragrance of her remained in his nostrils. The -atmosphere of her girlish freshness clung to him. There was an -indefiniteness about her like the mystery of the Spring. The Englishman -had been right in thinking she suggested Burne-Jones' "Springtime." She -was a veritable gold woman. - -As he came to the little hotel hidden away in the fringe of The Bluff's -European respectability a Chinaman, waiting as a dog waits, greeted him. -It was the Cantonese serang called Chang, who had come out of the maw of -death with him in the _Kau Lung_. Yokohama knew him as Whitridge's -shadow. - -"Tlunk all pack, master. Him gone ship. What time you sail?" the -Chinaman asked in a breath. - -"Two o'clock," he answered and looked at his watch. It was past noon. He -told Chang to call Suki, the flat-faced woman who ran the hotel servants -and who had been so good to him in his first few weeks ashore when the -doctors were shrugging their shoulders doubtfully; and her daughter, -Oki, and the boy he had nicknamed "Sweeney." He had a little present -and a gold piece for each of them--two for Suki. - -There were big tears in "Sweeney's" black eyes when "the honorable -captain gentleman" said good-by to him. He would never forget him. - -"Yes; you will forget, 'Sweeney,'" Whitridge said in Japanese, with a -little laugh. - -"Oh, yes," agreed Suki, "he will forget. Men forget, but women always -remember." - -"You know a lot about life, Suki," he answered and turned and went into -the hotel office. - -At Whitridge's appearance the boyish-looking clerk behind the desk -flushed guiltily and hid something under a book. Whitridge handed him an -odd silver cigarette case which the young fellow had often admired. - -"Just a token for your kindness, my boy," he said. - -"Gee, I--I'm sorry you're going away, Captain--Whitr--Whitridge," -stammered the clerk and faltering peculiarly at the name. "I'll always -keep this. What you've said has braced me up and--as soon as I get a -little more money together I'm going home. Good-by and--and the best of -luck to you." - -"Good-by and good luck to you," said the departing guest, shaking the -young fellow's hand heartily. "You'll come through all right." - -The clerk's gaze followed Whitridge and Chang through the door and until -they were clear of the grounds. Then he pulled out an old newspaper. It -was what he had hidden at Whitridge's unexpected appearance. Chang had -dropped it in packing Whitridge's things. For several minutes he studied -the face which looked up at him from a mass of black headlines. It was a -portrait of Whitridge beyond a doubt. - -"He's Lavelle all right--but nobody'll ever get it out of me. He's -square," he muttered to himself, and as he did so he tore the paper into -small bits. - - - - -CHAPTER II - - -"You marther get him better you kom-men back?" asked Chang, breaking a -long silence as Whitridge and he came to the _Cambodia's_ gangway. - -Just then Miss Granville and her maid went by, but Whitridge did not -catch her glance of recognition. - -"You not--_you_ never kom-men back," said the Chinaman, shaking his head -disconsolately and bringing Whitridge's gaze away from the splendid -figure of womanhood moving up the gangway. The devotion that shone in -the yellow giant's eyes pierced his heart. - -"Maybe, Chang--maybe. I don't know," answered Whitridge. "Good-by, old -man--good-by." He caught Chang's yellow hand and wrung it and coolies -idling round wondered at the sight. "You're white all----" He wanted to -tell him that he was white all through, but something closed his throat -and he dared not trust himself further. He fled up the gangway. - -When he reached the deck he looked back, intending to give Chang a -farewell hand wave, but the Chinaman had disappeared. He searched the -pier from end to end, but there was a dimness in his eyes and they made -no discovery. He turned to go forward and collided with two men, one in -the uniform of a United States naval lieutenant and the other in -civilian garb. - -"I beg your pardon," he said quickly and then his gaze met the -officer's. - -A challenging tenseness straightened Whitridge. The man in uniform -started back a step as if he had been struck. Then, his good-looking, -but weak face went pale, his lips parted loosely, and his features -became as expressionless as so much putty, under the glance which -Whitridge shot at him. It was a glance of but a second. It began in -hostility and ended with a lash of contempt as he swung on forward. - -The naval officer watched Whitridge until he disappeared through the -saloon gangway. - -"You look as you might--if you had seen a ghost, Campbell," said the -civilian. - -"I--I thought I did, Evans," stammered the officer and making an effort -to recover control of himself. "I believed--I thought--that man was -dead." His voice went to a whisper. "That--that's Lavelle of the -_Yakutat_." - -"No! Impossible!" - -"It's he. I couldn't be mistaken. He was in the class at Annapolis with -me." - -"He's a rotter, if there ever was one," interrupted Evans bitterly. The -other nodded dumbly. "Good thing he didn't land in the navy." - -"Until he was shown up I was blamed for--for his being 'bilged,' you -know. But really I wasn't to blame. Some of the fellows planted some -beer and booze in our room; he stood mute, but I had to testify. They -expelled him." - -The officer spoke as if conscience-smitten, but his companion did not -seem to be listening to him. He interrupted him. - -"It's a mighty unpleasant thing to think of being in the same ship with -a man like that," he said very solemnly. As he spoke a shudder passed -over him. - -The banging of a gong and a cry of "All ashore, who're going ashore!" -cut short the conversation and hurried the officer over the side. - - - - -CHAPTER III - - -It was with his soul swept by the pain of all the bitterness of his life -that Whitridge had turned away from the two men on deck. His memory of -bitterness began with Porter Campbell. He had feared from the day, a -week before, when the American cruiser squadron had put in to Yokohama -that somebody would recognize him. Now at the last moment his -apprehension had been fulfilled. He knew the nature of Campbell too well -to dare to hope that he would conceal his identity from the civilian to -whom he had been speaking. - -Then, in a flash, he identified Campbell's companion. It was Evans, of -the consulate at Hong Kong. He had read in a paper that morning that -Evans was en route home by the _Cambodia_. - -Just as he reached the window of the purser's office Whitridge -recognized Emily Granville's maid standing there. The thought seized him -that when this ship's company came to put him on the wheel of scorn that -she, too, must be there to aid in the torture. He turned quickly as if -to retreat. It was not too late; he could escape the agony and the -humiliation that he was certain was in store for him. - -Even as he turned he paused with a new sadness. The call in his mother's -letter which yesterday's mail had brought to him, came to his mind. The -words were burned in his brain: - -"Just to hold you in these withered old arms again and press you to my -breast as I used to do when you were a bonny baby boy--that is all I -ask. I would go through The Gate happy--and with a smile." - -He turned back toward the window and as he did so he felt the throb of -the engines starting the _Cambodia_ down to the sea. - -A slight woman in black, dark of skin and with her raven hair groomed -slickly after the fashion of Oriental women, looked up at him with a -surprised but happy gleam of recognition. Whitridge did not see her, -although he appeared to be looking straight at her. She paused, where -she followed a Chinese steward aft, and looked over her shoulder at him -as he went forward. - -"Who is that, Moore--the one in black?" asked Evans stepping up to the -window. "Something familiar about her." - -"Elsie of Shanghai," said the purser in an undertone. "Sold out and -going home." - -"Ah," murmured Evans with a lifting of his brows. "Knew her from her -pictures. They're in every conceivable place." - -"She has played 'the game' for all there was in it," answered the -purser. - -"Say, Moore," and Evans' voice was serious, "we've picked up a rotter -here all right." The purser glanced up inquisitively. "Lavelle of the -_Yakutat's_ aboard." - -"Wrong, sir. Can't be. Why--that fellow's dead, Mr. Evans. Died out East -here somewhere. Saw it in the home papers only a little while ago." - -"He's not dead by a long shot. He's aboard here." - -"There's no Lavelle on the passenger list." - -"That means nothing," and Evans described Whitridge. - -"Why, that man's name's Whitridge--an Englishman." - -"Well, he's Lavelle." - -"He was here----" - -The purser stopped suddenly, a startled look came into his eyes; his -face flushed. - -Evans, following his gaze in wonderment, turned and stepped quickly -aside. Emily Granville was standing there, her maid beside her carrying -a jewel case. - -"I wish to deposit this with you, purser," she said. - -There was a tremor in her voice. Every bit of color was gone from her -face. It might have been a piece of Wedgwood. She paused only long -enough to indicate that the maid would take the purser's receipt. - -"Lord, but that woman's a dream," whispered Evans after the maid had -passed out of hearing. The purser looked up at him strangely. "But say, -old man, what's the matter with you?" - -"I wonder if she heard you say that--that Lavelle is aboard here?" - -"Why? What if she did?" - -"That's Emily Granville, of San Francisco--old John Granville's -daughter. Granville and his wife were lost with the _Yakutat_, you know. -Lavelle beat them away from the side of his boat with an oar--drowned -them." - -"My God!" exclaimed Evans, and he looked at the purser blankly. - - - - -CHAPTER IV - - -Emily Granville could not have helped hearing what was said at the -purser's window. The shock of the revelation stunned her. It seemed -impossible that fate could have placed her in the same ship with the man -whose fiendishness had gloomed her whole life. - -With her nerves overwrought and her senses reeling, she sought her -berth. There she argued with herself that the man who had spoken to the -purser must be mistaken. It was not true, she persisted in thinking. The -man whom the steamship agency manager had told her was Captain -Whitridge--the man who had given up his room to her--could not be -Lavelle. His was not a face that could mask such a fiend. It was too -fine and yet the sadness of it--the pain she had seen in his -eyes--returned to startle her. - -"I can't! I won't believe it!" she said to herself over and over again, -fighting the sense of foreboding that grew in her heart. - -But dinner time brought a brutal confirmation. A passenger at the -captain's table where Emily Granville sat blurted out, before the -skipper could stop him, how the _Cambodia's_ first officer had seen the -man called Whitridge come aboard and had recognized him as Lavelle. He -pointed him out, sitting with bent head, at a table across the saloon. - -With white face and scared, staring eyes Emily Granville left her place. -Somehow she got to her room. A little while later her maid found her -senseless in her berth and revived her only to hear her cry and moan -that furies--black furies--were tearing at her pillow. And she breathed -heavily as one spent from swimming. - -Before the _Cambodia_ had dropped Mera Head behind the horizon the loss -of the Alaskan liner _Yakutat_ had been dragged out of its ten-year past -and gossiped from one end of the ship to the other. What details proved -elusive were blithely manufactured into the fabric of a sea disaster -which had shocked the world and made a nation ashamed. Men shook their -heads ominously and women shuddered as the fact passed from mouth to -mouth that Lavelle, the _Yakutat's_ second officer, who had beaten -drowning passengers with an oar, was among them. When it became known -that Emily Granville, whose parents had been driven away from Lavelle's -boat, was also in the _Cambodia_ and lying ill in her room from the -shock of knowing that Lavelle was a fellow-passenger, a tenseness came -upon things that made the nerves of the liner's officers raw. - -Paul Lavelle did not enter the dining saloon after that first night. It -became known that he took his meals in his room and left it only after -darkness fell. Watch officers saw him from the bridge now and then--a -shadow in the night. - -"Wandering around like a pariah dog," one of them told a passenger. -Often they saw "The Shadow" as late as dawn. - -But this night--it was the fifth out of Yokohama--the deck saw "The -Shadow" earlier than it was his wont to appear. The saloon was bright -and gay with an entertainment and Lavelle was taking advantage of this. -He met only one or two straying couples in the darkness and they soon -went inside. It was not a night that invited one with moon or star. He -could remember few nights like it. It was a dead black--shocking in its -intensity. The _Cambodia_ might have been a ship without funnels or -masts. Everything was cut off sheer by the blackness. There was a light -breeze which seemed to dart out from every point of the compass at once. -It whimpered as it went by his ears. - -After a long, steady, hard walk "The Shadow" sought out his favorite -vigil post against the pipe rail under the weather wing of the bridge. -It was to port to-night, although it was hard to tell the weather side -from the lee. He gleaned some comfort from the thought that the liner -was rapidly slipping down to "the corner"--the intersection of the 180th -meridian and the 30th parallel--through which ships great circle between -Yokohama and the Hawaiian Islands. She was due to turn it the following -afternoon and that meant half his passage in her done. He had determined -to quit the ship at Honolulu. - -Just after the lights went out in the saloon at one bell--a half-hour -after midnight--and the silence of the dark hours had settled upon the -ship, he sensed somebody stealing along the side of the deck house. He -fixed a shape finally, but no sooner had he done so than it disappeared. -He could not tell whether it was the form of a man or woman. Then, he -heard a heavy breath at his feet and jumped back defensively. A hand -touched him and he grabbed it. - -"Master!" whispered a voice in Chinese. Chang rose beside him. - -"Chang," was all he could say. He was overwhelmed by the loyalty of -this yellow heart which could give and give and ask no return. - -"I stow way. Make him work--shubbel coal like hell. No can kom-men here -bee-fore. I go 'Flisco." Lavelle heard the sound of a heavy footfall -approaching. Chang's ears caught it, too. "Good-by. To-mollah night I -kom-men gain." - -A lantern light cut the darkness and the ship's night watchman dashed -round from the lee side of the deck house, with a club raised to strike. -He lowered his arm as he discovered Lavelle. - -"Seen anything of a big coolie stoker round here, sir?" - -"No," answered Lavelle. - -"Been tryin' to get aroun' up here the past three nights," and the -watchman muttered off into the blackness. - -"The Shadow" pondered a long time as to what he could do for Chang, but -he could come to no decision. The thought that he was in the ship -cheered him though as he went to his room. That hand in the darkness and -the hand-clasp of a frail woman in black--one with her cage in the zoo -of life like himself--were the only friendly touches which had come to -him. Elsie of Shanghai was grateful, and had sought him out the night -of sailing to tell him so, because he had kept her alive. She would -never forget that he had sheltered her from death in the Shanghai riots. -Chang would lay down his life to pay the debt he considered he owed him -for saving his yellow carcass from the knives of a drunken mob of -sailors. Everybody wanted to cling to life and he smiled grimly to -himself in the darkness at the thought. He had removed his overcoat and -coat and as he put out his hand to grope for the electric flash he -muttered, "What a comedy! What a comedy!" - -The next instant he was pitched headlong against the side of the vessel -by a shock which rattled her like an empty basket. A sea slapped through -the open port of the room and choked him with its brine. - - - - -CHAPTER V - - -Lavelle dragged himself to his feet with his breath gone from him. For a -moment he thought he was paralyzed--limbs, heart, nor brain seemed to -respond. The night was filled with a multisonous orgy of sound. - -Then, his strength returned to him as quickly as it had gone. He leaped -to the door and plunged into the alleyway outside. He knew full well -what had happened as he ran aft and up through the gangway which led -from the main to the promenade deck. Another vessel had piled into the -_Cambodia_. There was no land--there were no rocks in the liner's track; -nothing but two, three, and four mile deeps on every hand. Lights sprang -up in the staterooms as he passed. Somebody flashed them on in the -reception hall as he went through there. Thence he took the social hall -gangway and came to the boat deck in a bound. - -A quartermaster--barely more than a boy--catapulted into his arms. Fear -was driving him. - -"Let me go!" he cried like a thing in a trap. - -"Let me go!" and he cursed. Lavelle held him firmly. - -"Stand fast, son! You're all right!" - -Lavelle spoke in almost a normal tone. Whether it was what he said or -what he saw in Lavelle's face that stilled the panic in the youngster's -heart no one will ever know. But when Lavelle let him go and beckoned to -him to follow him the quartermaster went at his side. - -"Everything's gone for'ard!" he yelled at Lavelle above the noise. -"Windjammer--big lumberman--no lights--piled into us! Foremast came -over--by the board! Bridge--Old Man--chart house--everybody--everything -gone!" - -Lavelle snatched these things visually out of the blackness even as the -boy shouted. - -The _Cambodia_ rolled back slowly to starboard, but one who knew what -Lavelle knew could feel the life going out of her. Her engines had -stopped. - -The shape of a sailing vessel--a bark--drew away over on the starboard -side and the grinding of metal against metal ceased only to have its -place taken by the thunder of the _Cambodia_ beginning to exhaust. -Lavelle could hear and feel the stranger ripping at the steamer as she -went by. The _Cambodia_ gave a lurch like a drunken man getting out of a -gutter. - -"She's going!" he shouted in the boy's ear, snatching his head to his -lips. "Engineers--all officers report here! Me! Find out what water's in -her! Find out how long lights'll last! Tell 'em give us plenty of light. -Be a man!" - -The boy fled and Lavelle ran up to starboard and bawled against the -night: - -"Stand by if you're able! Stand by!" There was an answering cry, but all -he caught was--"Hell!" - -Groping he found an electric cluster on each side of the social hall -house and flashed it on. He ran aft and flashed on similar clusters on -the sides of the smoke-room house. These lights embraced the eight small -boats davited along the _Cambodia's_ sides. - -From below men began to come by twos and threes, some supporting women -on their arms, some carrying them, some carrying children, some alone -with fear tangling their feet and some half curiously. One came lighting -a cigarette--a fair-faced young chap--and Lavelle grabbed him in the -social hall gangway and told him to let only women and children pass. - -"Right O!" was his answer and he took off his coat and threw it away, -accepting his task. - -The glow of a man who would be obeyed was on Lavelle's brow. Men knew he -spoke with the voice of authority and heeded it. They saw the purser -refuse to hold the gangway in the social hall beside the fair-faced man -and they saw Lavelle smash him to the deck with a blow of his fist. - -Looking up from the deck below Emily Granville saw this, too, and, -terrified, fled from succoring hands. She saw only a fiend at work. - -"Twenty minutes! No longer! Lights--ten minutes!" shouted the -quartermaster struggling to his side. - -"What about the steerage?" - -"Gone like rats! Whole bow's gone!" - -He pantomimed him to take charge of a boat forward on the starboard -side. A grimy engineer came through the crowd and reported. Others came -and accepted his mastership--men who needed but to be told what to do to -find their bearings and run in them. - -Like a flame he moved upon that deck. Who he might be few knew, but -wheresoever he went disorder became order and the spirits of brave men -grew stronger and smiled at death as upon a friend. Like another -self--the shadow of the flame--there moved Chang whither he went, -striking as he struck and lifting up as he lifted up. - -Of a sudden Lavelle saw Emily Granville standing in the port gangway of -the smoke-room house, alone, hesitant, terror-stricken. She saw him and -as he ran to her with open arms she drew back and then, remembering that -he had but turned away from a boat in which she had seen him put a -little girl, who cried that God must be upon the sea, she paused in her -flight. - -In that instant the guards whom Lavelle had stationed there were swept -away by a yellow horde from below. It burst out of the gangway and -engulfed him in its tide. - -There was an explosion as of a cannon fired in the distance where -another bulkhead gave way. The ship lurched with a downward twisting -motion. The lights flickered and went out and the pregnant darkness -burst in disorder and panic. - - - - -CHAPTER VI - - -Dawn suddenly broke upon a sea snarling under the lash of a heavy -northeasterly. Emily Granville, her eyes pressed against the blackness, -saw it as from a mountain peak. The next instant she was hurtling, -twisting downward through space, sightless; her breath stopped. - -The sensation of falling ceased. There was a hardly perceptible pause -amid a stinging smother of spray and then came the sensation of being -lifted--of rising swiftly. She caught a breath and opened her eyes; and -again from a seeming great height she beheld in awe the youth of the day -striding across an angry waste of waters. - -The terrific buffeting of the boat, under the gunwale of which she -crouched, had been going on for hours. Until this moment she had been -only dimly conscious of it because the darkness gives one no background; -no line of contrast by which the mind may measure its impressions. One -thought only had lived persistently: that her reason might leave her. It -still endured. But the human mind installed in a normal, healthy body -like hers does not break so easily. No one becomes insane quickly any -more than one becomes a thief quickly. A long process of decay must -precede. - -As Emily's body readjusted itself to the cockleshell's wild movements -her senses began to recover their power of apprehension. She realized -that she was clutching a hand--a hand she remembered snatching out of -the night as the vortex of the sinking _Cambodia_ seemed about to suck -the boat down to the deeps. Through the eternity of blackness which had -passed its touch had been her link to sentient life. She held it up now -and saw that it was the hand of a strong man, with a strange ring of -green jade upon it. The hand closed upon hers gently and trustfully. - -Then, she became aware that a weight was upon her limbs and she looked -down. A man's head lay in her lap just free of the foaming wash in the -boat's bottom. It was the hand of this man that she clasped and that was -clasping hers tightly. She bent closer, with a new fear starting in her -heart for the face was very white. A stronger volume of light shot into -the heavens. It was the man Whitridge--Lavelle! - -The boat plunged from the crest of a gray-backed comber and ended its -descent with a racking jerk. Emily Granville was thrown across Lavelle, -her face pressed against his spray-wet lips. She struggled to draw away, -but the sea, as if in mockery, held her close to this man and weltered -them in its spume. - -When the boat rose again she straightened with a shudder. A wave of -horror mixed with hateful revulsion swept over her. She tried to pull -herself away from him, but the weight of his head and shoulders and a -woman cowering at her side pinned her down. She freed one of her hands, -but Lavelle's held the other in a grip which her strength could not -break. - -Then, gradually, her natural spirit of justice and humanity assumed -rule, overcoming even what had been almost an obsession since -childhood--her repugnance of physical contact. The water in the boat was -so deep that she realized that if she put this man's head away from her -lap it must sink. Perhaps he was dying--perhaps death had already -claimed him and as this thought came to her she saw the open wound in -his brow just back of another jagged scar. - -The humility of shame bowed her head and her eyes filled with tears. -This man had suffered this wound for her sake; he had come to her in the -night when all hope had gone; he had snatched her from the clutches of -wild beasts, who had shot him down even as he laid her in this boat. It -was because of him that she lived. - -She felt a tremor pass from Lavelle's body into hers. His lips parted -with a sigh and he murmured something wearily. Then, his eyes opened for -a second. He looked up into her face with the glance of a tired child, -yet without recognition, and her heart gave a sudden fearful throb. She -thought it was pity and knew it not for the stirring of the eternal -motherhood that is in all women. - -A gust of wind swept Emily's thick plaits of golden hair across his face -and his eyes closed again, the while a faint smile flickered across his -lips like one returning to a pleasant dream. He snuggled his head closer -against the thigh which was numb from pillowing it and the woman did not -move. - -Chang, looking down from where he stood over them in the stern, like a -giant in bronze, nursing the boat up to a sea anchor, alone had glimpsed -what had happened. He shouted something which Emily could not -understand. Stooping quickly he slipped a hand through Lavelle's -tattered shirt. - -"More better," he said. "Him heart move. Him live--you live. Sab-bee?" - -The Chinaman's glance and the forceful nod of his head conveyed a -meaning greater than his words. They implied a task for her -performance--the doing of what was in her power to do for this man. - -A horrifying cry from forward straightened the giant in a flash. One -glance ahead and he gave the big steering oar a mighty sweep. He seemed -to lift the boat bodily out of the water. A stream of orders poured from -his lips and electrified every bit of life in the cockleshell, save that -in Lavelle. - -It took but a glimpse overside to transport these sea waifs from their -horror of the night into a terror of the day. Elsie of Shanghai started -from Emily's side into a sitting posture only to hide her head again. A -man with a pointed black beard rose to his knees between the second and -third thwarts and gazed round him in terror. Two of the three Chinese in -the bows seized oars and stood like warders at a gate. - -The boat was riding in a mass of planks and railroad ties--the deckload -of the stranger which had sent the _Cambodia_ to the bottom. Every sea -was armed and eager with death. Some carried their bludgeons and clubs -openly; others hid them under their white-crested capes, flashing them -out treacherously and suddenly as the boat rode wildly to the assault. -The sides and bottom of the boat would have been no more than paper -under the slightest blow from a piece of this wreckage: a touch and -every life in it would have been flotsam. Hunger, thirst, and the -terrors of the night were forgotten in the menace of the battle which -the yellow giant at the steering oar captained with a master hand. - -The white man, kneeling between the thwarts, began shouting orders and -warnings. Chang, his thick cue streaming in the wind, his jaw set, his -face as expressionless as a piece of parchment, seemed oblivious of what -this white man did until he saw him start to heave his big form to a -standing position. Then he hurled a curse at him that was like a blow--a -curse learned of the sea and white men's lips. - -But to the women the giant kept calling, "Bimeby him all go way!" and -there was faith in his voice and it passed into their hearts. As often -as the boat shuddered from an assault cheated of its death strength he -abjured them to be unafraid. No white man could have been more gentle or -thoughtful. - -Through it all Emily Granville clung to Lavelle's hand as she had in the -night. What the Chinaman had said kept forcing itself uppermost in her -mind--if the man who lay across her lived, all would live. - -Even as Chang had promised the boat passed out of the wreckage. The wind -dropped suddenly and peace began its entrance into the sea's worried -blue bosom. The sun, leaping to its day's work overhead, touched the -boat with its warmth. Emily, following Chang's glance round the horizon, -saw a speck away to leeward. It might be another boat he told her. - -"Hi!" cried one of the coolies forward, pointing up to windward where -the broken half of a boat went by. - -"No good look him that way!" shouted Chang, but too late. Emily and -Shanghai Elsie saw the grim sea grist and the body of a little boy in -pajamas tangled in it. Their eyes met--the Magdalen's and hers of the -sheltered life--and they wept together, cheek against cheek, in an -understanding of woman's heritage of potential motherhood. - -In the midst of Chang's tongue-lashing of the coolie who had discovered -the wrecked boat, Lavelle stirred into consciousness. Elsie was the -first to see his eyes open and stare upward blankly. - -"Thank God he is living," she murmured. "Thank God!" and as she spoke -he sat up with a start, tearing his hand from Emily's. He gazed round -him wildly for a moment, his eyes finally settling on Emily with a gleam -of recognition. - -"You," he murmured in a tone of awe. Chang's chattering went unheeded. -He passed a hand across his brow and at the touch the bullet wound over -his temple began to bleed afresh. His head rocked with pain and he -pressed it in both hands until it seemed that he must crush the skull. - -"Don't, don't," Emily protested, but he did not hear her. "You would -better----You are ill. Lie down again, please." - -"Somebody struck me----Oh, yes--they shot me. I don't know--I don't know -why," and a low moan escaped from him. - -The Shanghai woman begged him to lie down again, but he shook his head. -He looked at his hands. They were wet with blood. Then he began to -examine his shirt for something with which to bind his brow. It was -sleeveless; the arms had been ripped out of the pits; the body of it was -in ribbands. - -"If I had something--to tie----" Lavelle began, and then called Chang. - -"I have nothing" said Elsie, conscious for the first time that she had -escaped from the _Cambodia_ in only a black satin kimono and the flimsy -silken nightdress which it covered. Even as she spoke Emily struggled up -from the bottom of the boat to the fore-and-aft seat against which her -head had been resting. With a splendid unconsciousness of self she -opened the long tan coat--the one in which Lavelle had first beheld -her--raised an outer black skirt and with a swift movement ripped off -the deep hem of the night robe which it hid. - -Lavelle was facing away from her, but he opened his eyes at that moment -to see the strange man seated in front of him start up, with a smile of -strange curiousness in his dark face. Emily saw this smile, too, with -disgust, and hesitated in her purpose. Then she leaned toward Lavelle -and said quickly: - -"If you will bend back your head--a little." - -He leaned toward her obediently and she bandaged the wound with an -efficiency that brought nods of approval from Elsie and Chang, both -ignorant of this woman's latent powers of hardy usefulness and physical -capacity--the heritage of a pioneer stock that had torn a world out of a -wilderness. - -"I thank you," said Lavelle simply and he faced her. "Just as soon as I -get this blood pressure out of my head I will--things will be all -right." She saw his jaw muscles flex with the pain which tore at him, -and his thoughts were of the kindness and the bigness of heart that -would let this woman touch him. She felt his eyes sweep over her from -her slippered bare feet to the crown of her head, but there was -something impersonal in his glance which cooled the resentment which -flushed to her cheeks. It was not like the glance of the bearded man -down between the thwarts. - -It was this man speaking loudly and in a strange foreign accent, which -she had unmarked before, that turned Lavelle away from her. - -"We cannot be lying here idly like this," he was saying to Lavelle. He -stood up as he spoke and threw a leg over the after thwart. - -"Who are you?" asked Lavelle quietly. - -"If you had been about the ship you would know, Mr. Lavelle," he -sneered. "For your information I am Orloff Rowgowskii. I am a seaman--an -officer--and I will take charge here. These ladies are intrusted in my -charge." - -Not a muscle of Lavelle's face moved. He spoke over his shoulder to -Chang. He asked Chang something in Chinese only to have the giant blaze -over his head angrily at the man who called himself Rowgowskii: - -"Whachamalla you? What for! You clay-zee?" - -The coolie drew the steering oar inboard, for it was now nearly a dead -calm. A shake of Lavelle's head silenced his angry chatter instantly. - -"My serang--Chang there tells me this is his boat; that he has been in -command since we abandoned the ship." - -"Yes," interrupted Elsie, pausing in wringing the water from her -streaming black hair. "We wouldn't have been here now if it hadn't been -for that Canton coolie." She broke off quickly in Chinese and spoke to -Chang. - -"He is a very good sailor--a very good sailor," said Rowgowskii. "He -will be of use--and I will use you, too, Lavelle--properly, if you -behave. If not----" He shrugged his shoulders. "I have the means to -enforce obedience." He glanced from Lavelle toward Emily and Elsie. "We -shall have order here, ladies, and----You may trust me." From them he -turned to Chang. "Tell those men to get that sea anchor aboard and set -that sail." - -"My flen, you more better sit down. Huh! You may get kill," said Chang. - -"Mutiny already!" exclaimed Rowgowskii, straightening and with his hand -going toward his hip. - -"My God! aren't we miserable enough!" shrieked the Shanghai woman. - -Terror locked Emily's lips. - -"Don't," said Lavelle quietly, but in a tone fraught with menace. - -"Get up out of that and go to your work!" snarled Rowgowskii, and he -whipped out a revolver. - -In that instant Lavelle rose like a rattler from a coil. There was a -crunching of bone against bone as his fist landed full in Rowgowskii's -face and sent him spinning overboard. The weapon spun in the air and -fell at Emily's feet. - -Lavelle staggered from the force of his blow. His eyes closed and he put -his hands to his brow. He would have fallen if it had not been for -Chang, who caught him and stretched him along the seat opposite Emily. -There he swooned. - -Emily shrank forward and away from him in terror. This was the Lavelle -of the _Yakutat_ who filled her dreams; this the brute who had shadowed -her childhood and filled her nights with fearful shapes. - -"What a fiend, what a fiend," she whispered to the Shanghai woman. - -"He's a white man--you don't know--you don't understand," Elsie answered -and raised a barrier between them with the words. - -Both women, looking over the side, saw Rowgowskii swimming desperately -toward the sea anchor. His cries for aid went unheeded by either Chang -or the three coolies who were cowering in the bows. Chang picked up the -revolver from the bottom of the boat. The act was portentous. - -"For God's love!" cried Elsie, beginning an appeal which trailed off -into an outburst in the Chinese tongue. - -Chang shook his head obdurately. He nodded toward Lavelle. - -"They're going to let him drown," she told Emily hysterically. "Weren't -enough drowned last night? This Chinaman will not do anything unless -Captain Whitridge tells him." - -"Him bad man. More better die," said Chang to Emily. - -Again there was a cry from Rowgowskii and the boat moved with a quick -jerk as he caught hold of the anchor drogue. - -These cries brought to Emily Granville a memory so poignant and vivid -that action was born of the shock. She moved swiftly from the Shanghai -woman's side and shook Lavelle by the shoulder. - -"Tell these Chinamen--tell them not to let this man drown!" she cried at -him. - -Lavelle sat up with a moan. His head dropped forward. - -"Don't you hear? Haven't you murdered enough already? Are you altogether -a fiend? Hear him crying now!" - -Lavelle straightened. She shrank from the glance he leveled upon her. It -was defiant, fearless, burning with challenge. - -"I never----" His lips, forming in a tense straight line, cut the speech -off sharply at the breath of another word. The old look of pain came -into his eyes--the pain she had seen there when he stood at the desk in -the steamship agency--and he turned away. - -Rowgowskii had crawled along the drogue and was hanging now to the bow. -Lavelle hurled an angry order in Chinese at the coolies forward and they -sprang to their feet. They dragged Rowgowskii aboard and dropped him in -an exhausted, shivering heap. - -Chang moved aft to where Lavelle sank wearily on the seat built against -the air-tank casing and handed him the revolver. He began an apology. - -"More better him dead," he said, and Lavelle silenced him with one word -that made the giant cower beside him like a dog under a lash. - -Emily, seeing this, wondered, for she recalled, with a shudder, the -fierceness of this big yellow man in the night. - - - - -CHAPTER VII - - -As the dawn had come quickly, so order sprang out of chaos under -Lavelle's quiet voice of command. There was no shouting; no bluster--a -certain proof always that it has been given to a man to speak with -authority. A word--more often it was but a nod or a wave of the -hand--and as if by magic these yellow men translated it into some needed -action. - -One of the first things Lavelle caused to be done was the moving of the -boat's two water breakers aft. He gave each one a drink, apportioning to -the coolies what he gave to the others and even rousing the Russian for -his share. When it came to his turn to drink he paused and, with one -scarred arm resting across his knee, looked out across the sea -mystically. He turned quickly toward the women, after several minutes. - -"I wish to say a word to you, Miss Granville," he said in the quiet low -tone which seemed to be invariably his manner of speaking. His glance -rested on her but for a moment, and then passed to Elsie. "And to you, -too, Mrs. Moore: I want you both to know that I am very sorry that this -terrible thing has happened to you. Yet women can be brave. I have met -brave men, but never any braver than you two women at this moment. -Because you are brave I have chosen to speak to you as I am doing. I -want you to feel--to know that I appreciate your trying position. I will -endeavor to make things as easy as I can for you--so you may not be -ashamed--as I should wish my mother and my sister to go unashamed. We -may be together only a short time--maybe a very long while. Long or -short, every one of us is going to be called upon to show the utmost -patience and forbearance--fortitude. God willing, we will pull through -and I will give my life willingly to that end at any moment. If I should -be taken from you----" A sob from the Shanghai woman interrupted him. -"No; one never knows what may happen. There is Chang, and you may trust -him as I expect you to trust me--implicitly. A moment ago you saw -something----" His glance went to the Russian, and Emily understood. -"That was necessary, but I don't wish you to understand this to be an -apology--or an explanation. I think I did wrong in not letting that man -drown--in not killing him." Emily turned her face away with a shudder. -"You may think of me as you please. It is immaterial, but obedience I -will have and must have from every soul here." A harshness as of a steel -blade meeting a steel blade displaced the gentleness in his voice. "The -sea is very treacherous--very treacherous. One must be in order to fight -it. That is all." - -Glancing up, Emily saw Lavelle gazing out over the water again, -seemingly oblivious of the boat. The bearded man forward groaned. He sat -up and the sight of his bruised and broken nose--his face swollen beyond -resemblance to what it had been only a little while before--renewed in -all its strength her feeling of revulsion against Lavelle. She grew sick -at the thought of the brutish force of him who could maul a man like -that with one blow. - - - - -CHAPTER VIII - - -That night at midnight, when Lavelle relieved Chang at the steering oar, -the Chinaman told him that it was hopeless to go as they were going. - -"This boat no can do. Go loo'ard all time. All same like crab--go -sideways." - -Lavelle had observed this early in the afternoon when the wind had -sprung up from the northeast and he had laid a course to the eastward. -Such boats as this, lapstreaked and air-tanked, practically keelless and -without centerboard or leeboard, were never built for sailing and least -of all on the wind. - -"See," said Chang, flashing an electric pocket torch which had been -found among the boat's outfit. "Look him now, master." The light was on -the boat compass. "Make him now eas' by sou'. One time turn all loun'. -'Nother time eas'sou'eas'--sou'eas' by eas'--fi' slix ploint off wind. -No good! All same dam sklare lig ship." - -Lavelle ordered Chang to turn in and the serang handed him the Shanghai -woman's tiny emerald-studded watch--the one thing of value that -remained of all her years of trafficking. She had turned it over to -Lavelle to keep the boat's time. The Chinaman curled up obediently under -the lee gunwale, pausing as he sank into the darkness to inquire if the -"caplun's topside" still hurt. Lavelle told him that the pain had gone -out of his head completely and Chang grunted in satisfaction. - -In the first fifteen minutes of his watch Lavelle realized the truth of -all that Chang had told him. It was impossible to keep the boat on an -easterly course. The leeway she made in only the light breeze that was -blowing was appalling. She was not making more than three knots an hour. -The breeze which had persisted out of the north since the afternoon he -knew for the first breath of the trades--although it was a degree or two -above their northern limit. With provisions for twenty days and only a -week's supply of water he had to admit to himself that he was courting -destruction to try to make the chain of islands--Midway, Oceana, -Gardner, and Laysan--stretching away to the northwest of the Hawaiian -group. - -Of a sudden something which he had struggled all day to visualize came -to his mind's eye. He saw a pilot chart of the region as vividly as if -it were spread before him on a lighted table. It was here that an -offshoot of the Japan Current set to the westward at from twelve to -thirty knots a day! - -The thought straightened him with a start. To the westward lay two -thousand miles of empty, unfrequented sea until one nearly fetched the -coast. To the northwest twelve hundred miles at the least, lay the lanes -of the liners--a bare chance there of salvation, if a ship sighted one. -But with the trades and current against such a helpless craft, there was -but one thing to do: take no chances. To the southwest, twelve or -thirteen hundred miles away, lay the Ratack Chain of the Marshall group, -with the Marianas impinging on its western axis. Under the drive of the -trades, sailing before the wind, the boat, with driving, should make -between one hundred and one hundred and twenty miles a day; and twelve -days of such sailing meant land underfoot and--life! His heart throbbed -at the thought. It meant life for her--his gold woman--and suddenly he -realized that all his thoughts were of Emily Granville. - -With a skillful sweep of the oar he brought the boat round and put her -before the wind. By the flash of the electric torch he laid the course -southwest. The craft instantly did better and surprised him into -speaking aloud, as boats do surprise men: - -"This is your best sailing point, old girl." - -In the silence that followed he became conscious of somebody moving in -the boat. There was a low murmur of voices. It made him uneasy until he -located it finally in the space between the second and third thwarts -which he had assigned to the women. He had partitioned it off with a -steamer rug which Chang had taken away from Rowgowskii. A hand pushed -back a flap of the rug and Emily Granville crawled out and stood up -timidly. - -Lavelle flashed the torch in the bottom of the boat and she came toward -him uncertainly. He became conscious for the first time of the poverty -of her dress as he saw her ankles gleaming in the light. She was not -wearing the long tan coat now. A golfing jacket and a short black skirt, -which it had covered during the day, composed her attire as she revealed -herself in the torch's gleam. - -"Do you mind if--if I come out here with you?" she whispered timidly. - -"Certainly not," he whispered back, moving further aft to make room for -her and sure that she must be able to hear the pounding throb of his -pulse. - -"I have been awake for hours." - -"You should make an effort--try to get all the sleep possible. It brings -strength and--forgetfulness, too." - -"Not always, but--I came--I thought you should know that Mrs. Moore -seems very ill." - -"There is something I can do for her?" - -"I think--think not." There was a note of hesitancy in her voice and -Lavelle caught it. - -"Is there nothing you can do, Miss Granville?" - -"She is burning with a terrible fever." - -"Water? Is that it?" he whispered very low. - -"Yes, but she told me I was not to ask. She is very--plucky." - -"And you were afraid to come to me? Afraid I would refuse?" - -"Yes," she answered slowly. "But I am here and--and I did not ask. I -don't know why I came." - -Without another word Lavelle flashed the torch on a breaker at his feet. -At a nod of his head she slipped down from the seat to the bottom of the -boat. He handed her a tin cup from the air-tank locker. Somebody stirred -forward and he snapped out the light until they were still. The spirit -of conspiracy made her crouch lower. She hardly breathed until he -turned on the light again. - -The torch made her glorious head glow vividly. It transformed the thick -braids falling over her shoulders and across her bosom into bands of -filagreed gold. A mist of pity swept his vision. - -"You take a drink; you are thirsty, too," he said, bending so low that -his lips nearly touched her head. She turned her face up to him quickly -and shook her head. - -"It wouldn't--be fair." - -"I will make it fair," he answered. - -Impulsively, with a thirst which burned her throat--a thirst such as she -never dreamed she would know--she drank. It was only a sup that she -took, but in the instant she wet her lips she was ashamed of what this -man might think of her. She started up quickly, taking the hand he held -out to her. - -"You have not done wrong," he whispered. She shuddered that he had -sensed her thought. "I will straighten this out. Say to Mrs. Moore that -I sent the water." - -Turning to go forward, Emily paused with a start. - -"See!" she exclaimed. "What is that?" - -She pointed to where a light moved low along the dip of the southern -horizon. Lavelle recognized a steamer's masthead light at a glance. In -that instant it passed out of sight. - -"Only a shooting star," he answered, for he would not add to her misery, -and she left him alone in the night, undreaming of the bitter thought -that was smiting him. - -If he had put the boat on her present course an hour sooner he -undoubtedly would have crossed that vessel's track. - - - - -CHAPTER IX - - -It was not to sleep that Emily returned when she carried the water to -Elsie of Shanghai and, crouching in the cramped space, took the woman's -scorching head in her lap. Elsie was murmuring in a semi-coma, sometimes -in English, but more often in Chinese. Occidental though she was, this -woman's long, hard years in the gateways of the Far East had breathed in -her the Orient's spirit of fatalism. The stoicism of the children of the -sunset lands was hers; the immobility of feature which marks them was -sealed in her striking, irregular features. Her manner of speech and -expression were theirs. - -"I wonder if they will burn me in hell this way," she gasped as Emily -put the cup to her avid lips. - -"No, no, you mustn't have such thoughts," Emily whispered. - -Elsie was in pain. The difficulty with which she breathed told that. Yet -only now and then did a hardly audible moan escape her lips. - -"He said I must be brave--that I was brave--that I must be patient," and -Emily Granville knew that this strange woman was thinking of what -Lavelle had said to them in the morning. "Did you ask him--the -captain--for this water?" she asked after a seemingly very long time. - -"No," Emily told her with a feeling of guilt. "He made me bring it to -you. He said it would be all right." - -"God, what a white man--what a white man! Oh, I know men, my dear -child," and Emily imagined that a sneer was upon her lips. "I know them -as the Canton money lenders know their gold." She spoke with a fierce -tenseness. "I've trafficked in them--traded in them--as they trade in -guns--and opium at Macao." Her breath stopped in a quick gasp. Emily -pressed another sup of water between her lips. - -"Are you afraid of death, my dear?" Elsie whispered. - -"I--I don't know----But you mustn't think these terrible thoughts," and -yet as she spoke Emily Granville wondered at the calmness which -possessed her. A different person than the Emily Granville she had known -for twenty-four years seemed to be speaking and thinking in these wild -and strange surroundings. - -"I will not get better--I know," said the Shanghai woman presently. "It -is pneumonia again--the women of the lighted houses cannot stand the -open." She sat up quickly, clutching at her breasts. "I am like -fire--and lead--in here. Oh, God, it is so hard to breathe!" - -"Can't I think of something to do for you?" - -"Only hold me--just this way," and she sank in Emily's lap again. "I saw -the way you held him. You are--very kind. You were made for--for the -mother of men--strong men--like my--my captain out there. No; do not -draw away from me. You would trust him if you could have seen him--him -and that Chang--that night in Shanghai. There was a place for -everybody--everybody--but the women--the toys from behind the green -jalousies. Ask Chang--he--he will tell you. They picked us out--of the -dark river. It's very dark now, isn't it? Very dark----" Her whisper -trailed away in a low moan. Emily tried to make her take a drink of -water, but she refused it. "Will you say, 'Our--Our Father'"--and Emily -repeated the Lord's Prayer very slowly and sensed that the other woman's -lips were following the words dumbly. "Ask him--my captain--please if -he--will not speak to me," Elsie murmured after a long silence. - -Emily heard a movement aft and, pushing back the flap of the rug, saw -Chang relieving Lavelle at the helm. The dawn was just pinking the -eastern sky. - -Lavelle saw Emily's hand beckoning and he crept forward. Elsie held out -a hand to him and he took it. Her pulse flashed to him a history of what -she was suffering. A glance at her face revealed to him the touch of -death upon it. - -"I'm going away--going home," Elsie whispered. "Will you hold----The -dawn!" - -Lavelle understood her glance upward and pushed away the rug. He got -behind her and lifted her into a sitting posture. She still clung to his -hand. - -"Isn't it wonderful?" she asked, looking toward Emily and then up into -Lavelle's face. He nodded. "I am not afraid, captain. I've learned--last -night I learned--from you--to die unafraid." - -A marvelous smile lighted her face. The marks of her hard years sped -from it forever in the glow of the new day which suffused the sea and -the sky with a spirit of the infinite mystery this waif of life was on -the threshold of solving. - -"Our Father, who----" she whispered. Then, starting suddenly from -Lavelle's clasp she put out her hands to the dawn. "Mother--mother o' -mine," she called ecstatically. "Moth----" - -Elsie of Shanghai fell back into Lavelle's arms, with a sigh of peace -parting her lips in a smile. - -Emily looked up at Lavelle and, as he turned away quickly, the pent-up -misery and loneliness in her gave vent in a flood of tears. The sobs -which she could not choke back aroused the sleepers forward. Death had -come and a soul had sped so quietly that it had not disturbed their -slumbers. - -Starting to his knees, Rowgowskii beheld Lavelle just laying the burden -out of his arms along the fore-and-aft seat near Chang. The helmsman -might have been an image. The Chinese sailors arising from the bottom of -the boat were seized immediately by the awe of the mystery that had so -swiftly come among them. They huddled together on their haunches, -muttering over some talisman held in common. - -Emily followed Lavelle and sat at the feet of the shell of clay, -smoothing down the bedraggled dress over the delicate ankles and feet. - -"I--you understand--sometimes we can't find words----" he said to her -gently, and she nodded in understanding. Nothing he could have said -would have conveyed more to her. The gentleness, the kindness, the -comprehension of this man were battering a breach in the barriers of her -terror and hatred of him. Falling on her knees beside Elsie's body she -prayed for strength and fortitude and forbearance. - -Emily started up amid a silence broken only by the breeze and the boat -snoring away before it. Lavelle was sitting opposite, his gaze upon her. -She sensed in the faces of Chang and the others a new mystery of -expectancy. Lavelle stood up and handed her into his seat. - -One of the Chinamen crawled aft and passed Lavelle a piece of rope and -an iron block which had been left in the bow of the boat when Chang cut -the fall away. Lavelle turned so that what he did with these things was -hidden from Emily's sight, but she understood. As he faced her again she -saw that the block was fastened to Shanghai Elsie's ankles, although he -had endeavored to hide it beneath the silken gown. - -"Do you know--would you wish to say a prayer, Miss Granville?" he asked. - -Emily stood up and met his gaze. He was asking her to do something; he -expected something of her and she was helpless. - -"I know only the simple prayers of the sea," Lavelle added. With that -Emily found her voice. - -"She--she would want you to say those--and so would I--if----" Her eyes -closed, and as from a great distance she heard him intoning the Lord's -prayer. She realized that never before had she known its full meaning. -There came a pause and she looked up. The boat was fluttering into the -wind. The Chinamen, save Chang, who had to stand to the helm, and -Rowgowskii, were on their knees. - -Lavelle stood with Elsie in his outstretched arms, facing an arc in the -sky where a blush of the dawn still lingered. The breeze seemed to -pause. As Chang checked the boat's way Lavelle bent over and laid the -burden in his arms upon the sea. So might a mother have put down a child -to rest. - -"'We therefore commit her body to the deep,'" he said very distinctly, -"'to be turned into corruption, looking for the resurrection of this -body, when the sea shall give up her dead.'" - -His gaze lingered overside for a moment and then he added: - -"It's a clean grave, little woman." - -Turning quickly away from the sea he seemed another man. - -"Sail on!" he snapped at the helmsman. - - - - -CHAPTER X - - -Emily would not eat until at noon that day Lavelle commanded her to do -so. Watching him, she saw that he ate hardly as much as the little that -passed her lips. She did not see him drink at all. Neither had he drunk -at the morning meal. As she recalled this his words as he had given her -the water in the night came back: "I will straighten it out." This was -the way he was "straightening it out." The thought brought tears to her -eyes and made her ashamed. - -The sense of loneliness that was borne of Elsie's passing had grown upon -her with the hours. She was yearning for sympathy and she would have -turned to Lavelle, but she sensed that somehow a new barrier had arisen -between them--a wall not of her building, but of his. When he spoke to -her his voice was very gentle, but neither his manner nor his speech -invited her to say anything. - -As Lavelle lay down at Chang's feet, shortly after luncheon, to take the -sleep which he must have to meet the night, Emily remarked in a tone of -anxiety that he had removed the bandage from his head. - -"Yes," he answered simply. "It is all right. The clean salt air is a -good physician. The sea hurts, but it also heals--if one will only let -it." - -His face might have been a mask. The gray eyes closed wearily as he -spoke and he buried his face in his arm and away from the sun's glare. - -The years had taught Paul Lavelle how to suffer alone. He was suffering -now. When he looked up from Elsie's dead face that morning into the gold -woman's he thought he saw something in her eyes to make him pause. He -had surprised the glance again, he imagined, as he turned round from the -burial. He knew life too well not to understand whither a woman's -sympathy might carry her. - -Emily, looking down at the long, lithe body stretched in the bottom of -the boat, kept repeating to herself: "The sea hurts, but it also heals." -She sought a meaning in the words which she felt she had missed. - -Rowgowskii, drawing near, interrupted her thoughts with a pleasant -salutation in French. This big dark man had a finish and poise familiar -to her world and he could talk with a brilliance which made it possible -for her to forget momentarily the unpleasant familiarity of his black -eyes, and the pendulous underlip which signaled the sensuous animal in -him. During the morning he had made an effort to be sincerely comforting -and reassuring and she was thankful to him. After a few idle words -Rowgowskii's gaze wandered down to Lavelle. - -"He feels badly over the death of that woman?" he asked, looking up at -her with a strange directness. Emily answered with a nod of -acquiescence. A smile passed over his face. With a significant shrug, he -added: "I understood aboard the ship--the _Cambodia_--that they -were--_très intimes_." He searched the face of the golden-haired woman -to see if his dart had found a mark. But he mistook Emily Granville. She -was not one who could be read as one ran. She was silent. - -"Men of his kind--well, they are a strange, strange lot," he went on. - -"I have no desire to discuss Mr. Lavelle," said Emily. - -"Of course not. Pardon me, Miss Granville. I was told the painful story -aboard the ship. I understand your feelings. You will pardon me, I hope. -It is because of what this man is that I fear for you. These Chinamen -would do murder at his word. He is armed; I am helpless, but I will find -a way." - -Rowgowskii leaned nearer and whispered: - -"We should be sailing in the opposite direction. Did you know that, Miss -Granville? Over to the east we should be going." - -Emily met his gaze now, with a pallor beginning to overspread her face. - -"But do you think he does not know?" she asked, and her voice trembled. - -"If you will remember it was he--this man--who changed the course of the -_Yakutat_," answered Rowgowskii. "I have been thinking that you might -induce him to change--to do right." - -Consternation seized her at the mention of the _Yakutat_. It bore quick -doubt in her heart; then fear. Her new faith was torn from its moorings. -Her mind lost all sense of its bearings. - -"Why have you not spoken to him?" she asked. - -"I mentioned it this morning. He ignored me. That Chinaman there"--he -indicated Chang with a glance--"that beast there--told me that I could -walk ashore if I did not like the way things were done here." - -Neither had observed Chang for some time, but now Emily looked up at him -and was startled by the steadiness with which his gaze was fixed dead -ahead. He stood tense like a hunting dog at a point, his nostrils -twitching nervously. Rowgowskii followed the direction of the giant's -gaze, but could see nothing. Emily started to speak to Chang, but her -lips opened only to gasp. - -"Land ho!" cried Chang. - -"Where away?" answered Lavelle, leaping to his feet. - -"Two points--starboard bow, master," and Chang pointed one of his -powerful and sinewy arms straight ahead. - -Emily, Rowgowskii, and the coolie sailors looked eagerly in the -direction in which he pointed, but could see nothing. They turned toward -Lavelle, who, with his hands shading his eyes, was driving his gaze -toward the southwest. The tensity of the moment was terrific. It -impinged upon him in every glance. He was the commander; his was the -task to bring this boat to land; his was the responsibility. They saw -his lips move as if he counted something. As he finished he dropped his -hands. - -"It is land," he said, speaking directly to Emily, and his voice -trembled. "We should be up with it before sunset, Miss Granville. God -grant it means your succor--your deliverance." - -"What land is it?" she asked eagerly. - -"I don't know. It puzzles me." - -"I saw you counting--what was that?" - -"Trees--I was able to make out three." Turning to Chang he said: "Haul -her up until you bring the land two points off the lee bow and then let -her go." - -Emily noted that Lavelle's voice rang with genuine happiness. - -With the enthusiasm of a boy Lavelle next ordered a drink of water for -all hands in celebration of Chang's discovery. Never was a health in -rare wine drunk with finer appreciation than the simple tepid draught -which these waifs quaffed from a tin cup. - -Lavelle took the helm himself and a half-hour before sundown fetched a -low-lying island which appeared to be between three-quarters of a mile -and a mile long from north to south and about half a mile broad. It had -a rise in its center like a camel's hump. The northern side of this and -the lower land abutting upon it were sprinkled sparsely with cocoanut -palms. There was not a visible sign of life. - -Emily, standing alongside of Lavelle as they came within sound of the -sea breaking against the island's weather shore, saw the happiness which -had come into the commander's eyes suddenly depart. It was replaced by -an intense seriousness. She could not help asking what was the matter. - -"Nothing," said he simply, but the felt that he was withholding -something from her. - -Lavelle was reading signs which made him pause. First he had noticed the -absence of any reefs--an invariable and natural formation of islands in -that region of the world. The shore rose abruptly and sheer from the -sea. The land was brown and raw-looking. - -The wind was heightening, and this fact, in combination with the swift -approach of darkness and the unweatherly qualities of the boat, -determined him to abandon a momentary impulse to seek the lee side of -the island. - -Just to the southward of the hump or camel's back Chang sighted what -seemed to be a beach. With the coolies and Rowgowskii at the oars -Lavelle laid the boat toward this point, bow on, taking the precaution -to drag the sea anchor astern so as to prevent her from broaching to in -the heavy sea that was making. - -Chang, with the painter in his hand, leaped ashore as the boat grounded. -One of the coolies followed him. He heaved on the painter with Chang and -then ran hack toward the boat to keep her from slewing round. Lavelle -saw him reach the side of the boat. The next instant he had -disappeared--straight down in the twinkling of an eye. - -Everybody in the boat, looked on with dumbness. Not even Emily cried -out. They sat in their places appalled. - -Lavelle took a running leap from the bow of the boat and landed beside -the laboring Chang. With their combined strength they pulled the craft -safely clear of the water. Then, he ran back and, before he would permit -the others to leave the boat, handed Emily ashore. - -As Lavelle released the precious weight he felt the ground under him -wobble. Emily staggered where she stood and reeled against him. - -"I have forgotten how to walk on land," she said in innocent -embarrassment and with an attempt at a smile. - -Lavelle made no answer. His worst fears were true. They had landed on a -floating island. Any moment might see it engulfed. - - - - -CHAPTER XI - - -Lavelle caught Emily by the arm as the island's heaving reeled her -against him and held her. The tense, startled expression which she saw -in his face drove the faint smile of embarrassment from hers. It -frightened her. - -She followed his glance, which was sweeping their surroundings. They -were standing in what had evidently been the bed or course of a creek or -large brook. It gullied its way clear across the island from east to -west, following the base line of the hill. - -"What is it?" Emily asked in dismay. "Something is wrong, captain." - -Before Lavelle could form an answer the island gave another heave. The -shell of earth rippled as if it had been so much water. - -With a cry of terror and warning Rowgowskii sprang away from the boat's -side and went scrambling up the hill. The two coolies, still a-tremble -with the fear which the sudden and mysterious death of their mate a -moment before had put in them, followed him shrieking. - -Chang leaped to Lavelle's side, the spot where he had been standing -filling with water as his feet left it. - -"Lun, master! Lun, lady!" shouted the giant. - -"Come!" said Emily to Lavelle, starting toward the hill. She took but a -step. A sharp cry of anguish, which she tried hard to suppress, escaped -from her. Her limbs refused to carry her. They seemed to be breaking -with the pain born of the cramped life in the boat. - -With a murmured word of understanding Lavelle snatched her into his arms -and carried her halfway up the hillside. Chang pushed him as he went. -When he put her down in a mat of grass and taro plant tops she still -clung to his hand as a child might have done. - -On this higher ground the movement of the island was not less -terrifying. - -"Was--is it an earthquake?" Emily whispered in awe. - -Lavelle shook his head. His gaze went searching up to windward and then -darted across the island to leeward where the sun was tobogganing down a -bright yellow sky--such a sky as invariably presages wind. He turned to -windward again. - -For an instant despair overwhelmed him. This islet was but a bit of waif -land--the bait of a cruel trap which the sea had set for him. Even as -he watched it the surf piled higher and higher against the sheer weather -shore. This was the fanged jaw of the trap; and it was closing. The -swiftly rising wind which whipped his face seemed to chuckle in glee. - -To drive the heavy boat through that surf and back to sea was a task -which seemed to him to be beyond the force at his command. Nor could -that crew get it across the island to make a launching from the lee -side. - -Despair enters the breasts of strong men only to refuel their fires of -determination. So it was with Paul Lavelle. Emily saw the gloom pass -from his face. A conquering light of resolution succeeded it. His jaw -set again in its familiar line of purpose. Thus she had beheld him on -the deck of the doomed _Cambodia_. Thus he had looked as he had come to -her that night. - -"We must put to sea again," said he, facing her quickly and in his -tenseness pressing the hand with which she was clinging to him. He read -her apprehension. "Morning may see this bit of earth mixed with the -ocean. It is but a piece of waif land--a thing without an -anchorage--something torn from its mother mass by the ocean in anger. -For us it is a trap--one of the sea's countless treacheries." He -glanced over his shoulder at the surf. "There is no time to lose," he -added. - -Emily met this revelation of new peril so calmly that Lavelle paused in -wonderment as he swung away from her. - -"Can't I--do something to--help you?" she asked. She might have been -craving a boon. - -"Just hold to your faith. We'll win through if you keep that, won----" - -The wind snapped his words off there. She did not know that he had -hailed her as "wonder woman." Yet she glowed at the glance of frank -admiration which had accompanied his words. - -Lavelle called Chang. The giant started up from his haunches a few feet -away, where he had been crouching and listening with eager ear to every -word which had fallen from his master's lips. - -"Him clay-zee islan', master! No good!" avowed Chang. - -"To sea!" was Lavelle's answer. He drove his purpose into the serang -with those two words and a gesture. The giant hesitated so long as it -took to look from Lavelle to the surf and back again. There was doubt in -his eyes. - -"Jump! Night soon!" cried Lavelle. The command electrified the serang. - -Chang faced up the hill, beckoning and calling Rowgowskii and the -coolies to descend. They were perched on its crest like banderlog -hypnotized by fear. They did not move. - -"Come down out of that!" yelled Lavelle in anger at the white man and -instantly repeating the command to the coolies in their own tongue. - -"It is unsafe! I will stay here!" Rowgowskii cried back. - -The coolies, chattering to each other, settled again on their haunches -from which they had half started. They were taking their cue from the -black-bearded white man beside them. They would not trust themselves to -the earth below which trembled and swallowed things like the sea. - -"Bring 'em down, Chang!" snapped Lavelle. - -The giant sprang up the hill at the order, hurling at the coolies a -curse which consigned forty generations of their ancestors to an -additional century of grilling in the fires of eternity. It started -them, but Rowgowskii did not move. Then, out of Chang's belt flashed a -long knife. He raised it to hurl at the white man. - -With uplifted hands and crying that he would obey, Rowgowskii stood up. -Chang lowered the knife and paused in his ascent. The leader of the -mutineers motioned to the coolies to precede him. They clambered along -the rocks, darting glances over their shoulders as if measuring to -descend as far from the reach of Chang as possible. - -Whether it was Rowgowskii or one of the coolies who did it neither -Emily, Chang, nor Lavelle, watching from below, could tell, but a large -round boulder was dislodged by the feet of one of the three. It crashed -down the hillside with the ricochet of a spending shell, missed Emily by -a hair's-breadth, and plunged through the side of the boat. - - - - -CHAPTER XII - - -A moment of awful silence followed the destructive work of the boulder. -Even the wind seemed to pause in its flight and the sea in its surging -to behold what man would do in the face of this disaster. - -Rowgowskii and the two coolies lay in a heap on a mass of loosened earth -on which they had been swept down the hill in the wake of the rock. -Emily had risen to her feet where Lavelle had left her seated. Her gaze -was fixed on him. He stood with his back to her and facing the boat. -Chang stood to the eastward of her, motionless. His gaze, too, was fixed -on the master. - -Lavelle was the first to move. A stride carried him to the boat. A -glance revealed to him a hole in the starboard bilge through which he -might have crawled without difficulty, big man though he was. Four of -the ribs were smashed. The keel was shattered for half its length. Any -but the stoutest heart must have admitted the craft to be an -irreparable, hopeless wreck. - -With a weird cry of insensate rage Chang, who had run to Lavelle's side, -turned away toward Rowgowskii and the coolies. No one who saw him and -the manner in which he carried his long knife could have doubted but -that the serang meant to visit instant death upon the mutineers. His -gigantic form trembled with the passionate intention of the slayer. -Rowgowskii and the coolies stood in a paralysis of fear. - -A word from Lavelle stopped the serang. - -"More better kill! Now!" cried the giant to his master and with a -characterization of the mutineers that was blood-chilling in its -anathema. - -"Give me that knife," ordered Lavelle quietly. Meeting his gaze and -holding it for a moment Chang thrust the blade into Lavelle's hand. He -was conquered, but the glow of an heroic splendor was upon him. - -"Kill me--kill Chang, your servant, master." - -There was a bare note of defiance in the Chinaman's voice. He dropped -his hands at his sides in token of submission and bent his head for the -blow he invited. - -"I will kill when I choose to kill. Go. Clear out this boat," said -Lavelle. - -"You are master," answered the serang, and he turned to summon the -mutineers. - -Rowgowskii and the coolies under Chang's driving began a rapid -transportation of all of the boat's provisions and equipment to a point -halfway up the hillside indicated by Lavelle. The master knew that this -was no time for punishment. He must have every ounce of strength he -could command. - -Straightening up from a contemplation of the hole in the boat, his brain -busy with plans of repair, he looked toward the sea. - -"I'm not beaten unless you drown me in the next three hours," he flung -in a mutter at the growling deep. - -Turning away, he found Emily Granville beside him. She was looking up at -him through a mist of tears. Her own misery of body and soul had been -swept away in the instant she had heard the boulder go crunching through -the boat's thin skin. She could think only of what this cruel stab of -fate must mean to the man captaining the handful of life which he had -been chosen to save. Her capacity to think of another and not of herself -in this common crisis was a sign of growth which would have pleased her -if it had been possible to pause in self-analysis. - -And this man, meeting her pitying eyes, smiled at her quizzically! If he -had confronted her with a hopeless curse she would not have been -surprised. Now she could but gasp in amazement. The comforting words -which she had planned to speak would not lend themselves to utterance. -In this second she realized that thus would he meet death--undaunted; -smiling. - -"Fate is treating you--very unkindly, Miss Granville," said he. He spoke -in his usual low tone. - -"Us," she corrected him, resenting, as she had come to do all that day, -his insistence upon classifying her apart. - -"Us, then," he answered with a nod. - -"Does this mean----Is this the end?" she asked calmly, and she drew his -eyes to the hole in the boat. His answer was a question. - -"Do you feel that it is the end?" - -"No," the woman answered, searching his face and reading there a message -of infinite faith. - -Yet even as she spoke the island was a-quiver under the increasing force -of the sea's assaults. Nor had it been still at any time since they had -put foot on it. - -"No man may tell the life of a floating island," Lavelle explained. "In -weather like this it is very--very short----" - -"Can you repair this boat? Do you intend to mend this hole?" - -Her eyes opened in wonderment, for he nodded affirmatively. - -"Remember what Browning said: 'To dry one's eyes and laugh at a fall. -And, baffled, get up and begin again----'" - -"All clear, master!" called Chang, interrupting Lavelle and leaping out -of the boat with the mast and oars in his arms. - -Lavelle summoned all hands. They heaved the boat over on its undamaged -side. With a strength which peril had trebled, they dragged it out of -the miry, jelly-like ground on which it lay and brought it to a ledge on -the hill. Man's work though it was, Emily Granville gave her hands to -it, with a strange new will, heaving and pulling beside Lavelle until he -called that the task was done. And the while she kept repeating to -herself, "'To dry one's eyes and laugh at a fall. And, baffled, get up -and begin again.'" - -Just as the boat was laid on the ledge the sun dropped behind the -horizon. - -Rowgowskii had seen some wood while he and the coolies had been on the -hilltop. Of his own volition he climbed after it and brought down -sufficient to make a fire. There was driftwood also in the bed of the -creek or gully and Chang sent the coolies to gather it. - -As the fire sprang up Lavelle worked the faster where he ripped out the -boat's after air tank. With its metal he planned to cover the hole. - -No thought of food nor drink had he, though he ordered Chang to serve -rations to the rest. Emily carried a cracker and a cup of water to him, -but he would not pause. - -"Give me plenty of light; that's all," he answered her urging. "Light to -work by----" - -A racking shudder passed through the island. It flung Emily headlong. -The earth on which Lavelle knelt slid from under him. The island's -middle, following the base line of the hill, rose like a monster cat -arching its spine and hurled him backward, stunned, breathless, -helpless. - -There was a breath-long silence. It ended with a chorus of wild cries. -Then, the great earth mass fell with a thunderous crash, rending the -island in twain. The triumphant sea leaped out of the breach it had made -and swept the crumbling shore with a mighty wave. - - - - -CHAPTER XIII - - -Awakening to a bewildered consciousness Emily Granville opened her eyes -in a glare of light which stung her vision so sharply that the lids shut -instantly in intuitive defense. She could feel the soothing warmth of a -fire near by. She was prone on her back. An attempt to move her limbs -produced a sensation of being bound. Turning her head slightly from the -direction of the fire she opened her eyes again timorously upon a sky -burgeoning in a new crescent moon and a myriad of stars. The moon and -stars seemed so close that she fancied that all she had to do was lift a -hand to touch them. Lowering her gaze she saw the sea and heard its wild -white horses neighing. - -With a cry of fright the castaway started into full consciousness, every -part of her racked and a-throb with pain. By a great effort of will she -struggled into a sitting posture and then to her knees. The firelight -blinded her. All was still within its radius. An apprehension that she -alone had survived the riving of the island overwhelmed her. - -She remembered the cataclysmic upheaval which had flung her headlong as -she stood beside Lavelle where he worked at the boat. She had gone to -him to ask him to pause but a minute to take a little food and drink. He -had answered her harshly, she had been thinking; and then a mountainous -wave had hurled him against her; into her arms, in fact. She had held -him with all her strength, but the sea must have been stronger. It must -have taken him. Her memory stopped there. - -"Captain! My friend!" she called in anguish to the night. It returned no -answer. The wind lashed her face and throat as if determined she should -be still. She breasted it with the fierceness of abandonment, lifting -her aching arms and sobbing to the heavens: - -"My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Why did you take him and -leave me?" - -Even, as this supplication burst from her Chang entered the circle of -light, carrying an armful of wood. Rowgowskii followed at his heels, -similarly burdened. - -"All lite, lady! No be flaid!" called the Chinaman. He dropped the wood -as he spoke and ran to her side. Her gaze went expectantly beyond him -into the darkness. But the one for whom she looked did not appear. - -"The captain--where----" - -Emily could not utter another word. She sank back, supporting herself by -one arm. She was afraid to listen to the giant's answer. - -"Him all lite--bimeby, lady," said Chang. - -Her heart surged in joy. - -"He is alive?" she gasped. "Where is he?" - -She straightened again on her knees. - -Chang drew back the edge of the boat sail, a part of which had also -covered her. There lay "The Shadow" of the lost _Cambodia_ with the -bullet wound in his brow reopened where the sea had mauled him. - -"Thank God," Emily murmured, seeing Lavelle stir. - -She crawled on her knees to his side and felt the pulse of the hand -which Chang drew out of the canvas. Its faintness killed the gladness -which had come so swiftly into her heart. - -"He--he--is dying, Chang!" she cried. - -"No can be; no can be," answered the Chinaman with fiery emphasis. "Him -more stlong. Go-an get better more klick. No can kill master so leasy." - -"How long has he been this way, Chang?" - -"Not more one hour. How you feet, lady?" - -For the first time Emily was conscious of a tearing pain in her ankles -and insteps. It was more intense than the stab-like thrusts which were -piercing the rest of her body. Wondering what could have happened to her -she turned so that she could see her feet. The trim, delicate ankles -were swollen and the insteps were bruised and bleeding. - -"Velly solly, lady," said Chang soothingly and in the manner of a father -comforting a little child. "You velly blave. You velly stlong." - -As he spoke the Chinaman gently lifted one injured foot. She shrank from -his touch and put out a hand to thrust him away. - -"You be 'flaid flor Chang?" asked the giant wistfully. The glance with -which he looked up at her made the woman ashamed that she had obeyed the -impulse of littleness. She caught Rowgowskii staring at her from across -the fire. His glance was a challenge to all the fineness of her being. - -"I beg your pardon, Chang. I am not afraid of you," she said. She -withdrew her protesting hand. - -"You my master flen. He say by me when I tell him you hol' him han' in -boat: 'Chang, maybe I go-an die. All hell kom-men you go-an save she.' -Bimeby to-night when big sea kom-men you save my master. You save -Chang. You like me die--I go-an die flor you. You must no be flaid." - -The while Chang talked his long yellow fingers were going swiftly over -Emily's feet. A surgeon's skill was in their touch. His head was bent, -hearkening, where he manipulated the ankle and toe joints, for a sound -which would betoken a fracture. - -"No bone bloke," he announced with finality. - -"Thank you, Chang," Emily said gratefully, and presently she drew from -him an account of what had happened following the upheaval. - -Chang had been standing near the fire on the hillside. He had been -thrown down even as she and Lavelle were. The island had broken apart -and a great sea had come and gone quickly. The earth went out from under -him. It flaked away, carrying him down to the sea with it. He could not -stop himself. Just as he was rolling over the edge of the cliff he felt -an arm and caught hold of it. It checked his descent. It was Lavelle's -arm that he caught and, drawing himself up, he found her clutching -Lavelle with both hands around his other wrist. Her feet were twisted in -the root of a tree which the sea had washed out of the earth. It was -this root which had saved all of them. - -Emily could understand now how she came to feel like one who had been -broken on a wheel. She could not imagine where she had found the -strength to withstand the terrific forces which, according to the -giant's description, had beset her. She believed she had acted -unconsciously, but at least, she thought, she had proved herself not -useless. She found comfort in this momentary reflection, nor did she -suspect that a great, new power--a power like unto which there is no -other--had dawned in her life. - -"I catch him master," added Chang, "but you hol' flor him like a marther -hol' him litty bit chile when him big bear kom-men in winter. Chang -bring you here flor topside. You eye close. Him master eye close. Him -head must flor stlike 'gainst boat: maybe lock hit him. Him boat all go -way." - -A weary faintness made Emily's eyelids droop for a second. Chang leaped -to his feet and crossed to the other side of the fire. She watched him -where he lifted one of the boat's breakers and poured a cup full of -water. He was back in a moment offering it to her. She drank sparingly. -She refused to eat anything. She asked how long it had been since the -sundering of the island and when Chang told her that not more than an -hour had passed she found it hard to believe him. It seemed to Emily -that it must have happened many nights before. - -The giant's answer was hardly away from his lips when a shudder went -through the hill on the crest of which he, driving Rowgowskii to help -him, had fixed the encampment and rebuilt the fire. - -"What flor? Whachamalla you?" snarled Chang at the menacing earth. The -next breath brought a scolding tone into his quaint voice. "Him go-an be -night velly long time, Mr. Islan'. More better you go-an sleep, eh?" - -The whimsicality of this speech and the half-quizzical expression in -Chang's face brought a faint smile to the lips of the white woman. - -"You're a rare soul, Chang," she whispered. - -"Him all same clay-zee, dlunken sailor man, this Mr. Islan'," the giant -chattered on. He saw that he amused Emily. And always he spoke of the -future certainly. So far as his speech and manner were concerned he -might have been safe in port with a pleasant city in view instead of on -the border line of the world beyond. Like Lavelle, he possessed the -marvelous power of renewing one's faith. - -Of his master the Chinaman spoke as the children of the Orient speak -only of their strange good gods. He told how Lavelle nine years before -in Rangoon had saved his life from the murderous hands of a drunken, -mutinous crew and how his way thereafter had been the captain's way and -would be to the end. He recalled, too, the night in Shanghai of which -Elsie had told her. He wrung tears from her in recounting the fearful -winning of the _Kau Lung_ to Yokohama. She saw the knife scars on the -arm lying outside the sail and the scars on Chang's. The wounds of these -men assumed a sacredness in her eyes. - -"My master all same Chang joss," was the way the giant summed up his -hero. "No 'flaid flor enny-sling! Nobody! Him say, 'Chang, die.' Must -flor me die." - -Emily recalled the strange scene between them at the boat and she -understood the truth of this. - -Lavelle, stirring with a moan, interrupted the serang, who bent his head -and listened, ear close to the unconscious man's lips. - -"Him sleep now--more better. No sleep las' night. No sleep to-day. Him -velly tli-ed." - -Emily leaned over at the giant's whisper and caught the measured, easy -breathing of a tired sleeper. Yet she heard something else also. - -"--home soon--dearheart. Gold girl--wonder----" he murmured, and Emily -wondered what manner of woman it was who was waiting across seas for -this man's home-coming. It was not thus he would speak of the mother to -whom he had set out to return. It could not be such a woman as Shanghai -Elsie. The remembrance of what Rowgowskii had said to her in the boat -flashed into her mind. She put it away instantly. She resented it. She -knew, as only it is given to a woman to know, that it was not to a mate -like Elsie that this man would go. - -"God bring him safely to her," she prayed in her pity for the woman of -whom "The Shadow" dreamed, and she knew not that she prayed for -herself. - - - - -CHAPTER XIV - - -Day was breaking as Lavelle awoke to a realization that he still lived. -He found himself in a silence so awful in its intensity and mystery that -it made him catch his breath sharply like one does at a sudden immersion -in cold water. The peace of eternity seemed to have breathed a spell -upon the pitiless deep. It slept. - -His long sleep had refreshed him and his mind instantly leaped back to -the events of the night before. A glance round him discovered Chang, a -hundred feet away, searching the horizon. Rowgowskii lay stretched on -the opposite side of the fire. - -Just as Emily had imagined him lost so Lavelle for a moment believed her -gone. His senses went crashing, but they reordered themselves instantly -at the touch of a warm body at his side. - -Putting his left hand out to raise himself it fell on Emily not half an -arm's length away. There exhausted nature had bent her head in slumber -at midnight when the wind hushed. There Chang had covered her again with -the boat sail. She lay with her right arm under her vivid head and her -face toward the new day. One long golden braid curled across the -hilltop's wet grass where it had been flung unconsciously in her sleep. -The other hung across her exquisite bosom, rising and falling gently -with her breathing, and its end trailing the ground. Such an expression -as Lavelle had so often seen in the faces of play-weary children was in -hers. - -"Wonder woman," he murmured. "Wonder woman." - -Slipping out from under the sail, not daring to breathe, Lavelle gently -drew the canvas back over the sleeper's shoulders and stole toward the -Chinaman. A slight giddiness assailed him for a moment and with it there -came a reminder of the old pain which he had felt upon awakening first -in the boat. - -"Master, master," called the giant worshipfully, springing toward him. - -Chang's first glance was directed at Lavelle's forehead and what he saw -there pleased him. - -"Him all lite, master; all lite," he said. "Him stop bleed." - -But it was of the night that Lavelle would hear, and the Chinaman -rapidly unfolded the wondrous tale of how their lives had been saved by -Emily. The wrecked boat was gone. Emily, Lavelle, Rowgowskii, and Chang -alone remained of those who had escaped in their party from the -_Cambodia_. The two coolie sailors had been gathering wood at the foot -of the hill when the upheaval came. They were gone. At the end he -whispered: "You lose him plistol out you plocket. Nobody know--only -Chang, master." - -The ocean bore no trace of the half of the island which had been torn -away. In the heavy wind and sea which Chang reported of the first part -of the night it was Lavelle's opinion that the derelict mass, bound -together only by a mattress of interlaced roots and vegetation, must -have resolved its parts with the waters. - -Owing to Chang's having placed the water, provisions, and the boat's -equipment high on the hill when the craft had been emptied in the -evening, the sea had been able to steal but little. The treacherous bit -of earth which remained offered, too, an important contribution to the -food supply in a wealth of taro plants, the tuberous substitute of the -potato in the islands of the Pacific. It is of this that the Hawaiians -make their poi. - -By the bearing of the rising sun Lavelle noted that the island had swung -round completely during the night. The side of the camel's back-like -hill, which had been toward the south the preceding evening, was turned -to the northward. The crest of this hill was at least two hundred feet -above sea level. As the island lay now its northern side sloped easily -for perhaps fifty yards and then broke off abruptly in a sharp cleavage -fifty feet sheer to the sea. - -The hill's base was slightly less than the island's half-mile width. A -gentle slope marked what had become the eastern shore; a straight -palisade rise of two hundred feet, the western side. A gradual slope on -the hill's southern side blended at the foot with an undulating meadow, -green with grass and taro, and about three-quarters of a mile in length. -A lone palm tree rose in the center of this patch. - -The top of the hill presented a flat surface of a city half-block -square. At no distant time a thatched hut had stood there. It was of the -remains of this that Chang and Rowgowskii had built the fire. - -While he sipped a cup of water which Chang brought to him, Lavelle took -stock of all these things. Not one thought of solace could he draw from -the bitter, hopeless scheme which unfolded itself to his gaze. By the -time the non-arrival of the _Cambodia_ was read into disaster and a -searching ship sent into these seas the end would have long since come -to this island. Well he realized the emptiness of this stretch of ocean -and the one chance in ten thousand which might bring a stray merchantman -or trader stumbling upon them. Well he realized the slight tenure of the -crust of earth which held him. Judging from its assumed position it had -drifted a phenomenal distance for that latitude. He believed it must -have been ripped away from one of the islands of the Hawaiian group. -That it had survived so long seemed to him miraculous and but emphasized -the imminence of its early dissolution. What had already happened since -the landing confirmed in his mind that the next storm would be the -mother of the island's oblivion and all it held. - -Floating islands are uncommon in any but the most placid waters. Yet in -the phenomena of the sea's scheme of things they are common occurrences. -The charts of all big waters are dotted with their records. Shipmasters -come to port reporting an island where one was never before and where it -would seem against all reason that one should be. Still man imbued with -the unconquerable mystery of the sea writes this report on his charts -for all times. First he writes it as a fact, justifying its assumption -as such. According to its reported size, ships go searching for -it--men-o'-war, leisurely merchantmen, vagrant traders. No island is -found. Only sea is there. But man does not trust the deep; he never -will. He does not erase his record. He marks it "P.D."--position -doubtful. Years pass without further report of an island in this -locality. Then he goes as far as he dares. He writes on his charts -"E.D."--meaning "Existence doubtful." - -How many a well-found ship, sailing in a sea charted clear and deep, has -blundered into islands like the one which held the _Cambodia_ castaways -and suddenly come unto her last port? No man may tell. Seldom, however, -do ocean traffickers meet with these waif lands north or south of the -twentieth parallels. - -With never a dream that this could be one--here in the thirties--though -the absence of reefs and the raw and broken aspect of the island shore -had given him pause, Lavelle had trapped himself. He had captained her, -for whose salvation he would gladly lay down his life, into a prison to -which death held the key. - -It was with this bitter, self-blaming thought, and tortured by it, that -he turned away from the sea to behold the gold woman coming toward him -with a wistful smile. He ran to meet her and his soul cried out at the -denial of its impulse to fold her to his heart and soothe her hurts. - - - - -CHAPTER XV - - -Three days of life-renewing, hope-burgeoning weather had followed that -silent dawn--days of placid seas and gentle breezes; and nights alight -with stars and a growing moon. The island had been motionless. It might -have been one of the Blessed Isles in a world where life was -everlasting. - -Isle of Hope Emily had christened the bit of floating earth, nor could -she have told why optimism reigned in her heart and soul. She was -unaware that she was reflecting only what the manner of Paul Lavelle -gave forth. His every act and word was a reassurance of faith and the -_motif_ of her ever-increasing wonder of him. - -Yet it was but a mask of service which Lavelle had determined to wear -for this woman's sake. He had put it on in that daybreak when he had met -her coming toward him and heard her calling: - -"We still live, captain." - -There had welled in his heart at that moment the gentle Stevenson's -prayer for grace--a prayer which had sustained Lavelle often in peril -and sorrow--and it poured from his lips to find an echo in the woman's, -for she, too, knew it: - -"'Grant that we here before Thee may be set free from the fear of -vicissitude and the fear of death, may finish what remains before us of -our course without dishonor to ourselves or hurt to others, and, when -the day comes, may die in peace. Deliver us from fear and favor; from -mean hopes and cheap pleasures. Have mercy on each in his deficiency: -let him not be cast down; support the stumbling on the way, and give at -last rest to the weary.'" - -To help this woman's spirit to be unafraid was all that was left for him -to do for her. It was the most he would ever be able to do for her. Of -this Lavelle felt certain. He knew the sea too well to deceive himself -with a false hope that its kind mood would continue long. But while life -lasted it was his purpose to live it fearlessly and as if years still -measured the span and not swift minutes. - -Under his hand the discipline of shipboard prevailed. There was not a -moment, by day or night, when a lookout for sign of succoring sail or -light went unkept. With Chang, his right hand, Lavelle divided the night -watches, not trusting Rowgowskii. Even Emily, according to her wish, -helped in the tasks of preparing the food and tending the fire by day. -An out-of-doors woman by tradition and inclination, a powerful rider and -swimmer, the pride which she had always taken in her physical well-being -was standing her in good stead now. - -Rowgowskii, in the first realization of the extremity which had come to -pass, had abandoned himself to despair. It was incredible that he had -ever been, as he claimed, an officer in the Russian navy, or otherwise a -commander of men. He was absolutely spiritless; an exemplification of -the truth that cowards die many times before their deaths. - -But with the coming of the second day of fair weather his funk lifted -and he went to his appointed tasks with a willingness which was -emphasized by his previous sullenness. - -Having observed at the outset that the island's wood supply was limited, -Lavelle had been husbanding it by burning sod. He used the wood solely -for the signal fires of the night. - -Now on this morning of the fourth day he again put the Russian to -cutting turf from the hillside, the while he and Chang, armed with the -boat axe, set forth to cut down the palm tree in the meadow. Rowgowskii, -the preceding evening, had suggested its addition to the signal fuel. - -"You will not be long, captain?" asked Emily as Lavelle paused to look -back at her in leaving the crest of the hill. - -"No longer than is absolutely necessary." - -"And you--you will be careful," she warned, and unashamed of the -tremulous note of anxiety which crept into her voice. He nodded. This -man's presence had become very necessary--very precious to her. - -"It's your watch on deck, you know," Lavelle called cheerfully. Then, -with a quizzical lowering of his brows and in a tone of pretended -sternness, he added: "Hold your course. Steady as you go--and keep a -sharp lookout." - -"Aye, aye, sir," she answered, simulating the speech and manner of a -sailor to an officer. - -"You make him velly good sailor man," Chang chuckled in delight. - -"We'll be back in a jiffy," said Lavelle. With that he and Chang swung -away down the hill. - -Emily went to the edge of the slope and watched them descend, the yellow -man always leaping ahead to test and examine the ground. At the foot -Lavelle looked back. He paused upon discovering the watcher and waved to -her. An impulse to follow him seized her, but remembering that he had -intrusted her with the lookout she overcame it. With a wave of the hand -she answered his signal of cheer, and as through a mist saw him go away -from her across the meadow toward the lone tree. - - - - -CHAPTER XVI - - -Just as Lavelle paused at the foot of the hill and waved his hand, -Rowgowskii looked up from where he was cutting turf on the eastern -slope. Unconsciously his hand went to his flattened nose. It was an -action which invariably had come to accompany any glance which had -Lavelle for its objective. - -Emily was hidden from his view, but the Russian could imagine her -standing up there on the crest answering Lavelle's signal. He knew well, -too, the light there must be in her eyes. He had surprised it there many -times in the preceding three or four days, even as she had startled the -animal lust in his. - -Rowgowskii dropped the piece of metal which he was using for a cutting -tool. It was part of the boat's air tank with which Lavelle had planned -to repair the damage done by the boulder. His gaze followed the two men -crossing the meadow until he saw Chang stop suddenly and look back. He -started as if the Chinaman had the power of reading his thoughts. A -guilty conscience is ever the quick prey of an honest eye. With much -show of industry he picked up his cutter and resumed the stripping of -turf. This activity lasted but a minute. Then, his gaze wandered around -the empty sea, only to return to the two men below. - -In the second that the Russian's eyes picked them up again a menacing -oscillation passed through the earth and brought him in terror off his -knees. He saw the Chinaman pitch headlong out of sight. The next second -whipped Lavelle from his view. The palm tree remained the single object -in the meadow. - -Rowgowskii hesitated a moment, hearkening for a sound from above him or -from the meadow. The silence was unbroken save by the purr of the -morning breeze. - -With the sneak of a stalking panther in his tread he darted around to -the southern slope. A second's pause, a flashing glance behind to -reassure himself that "The Shadow" and the yellow man were, indeed, -gone, and he sprang up the hill. - - - - -CHAPTER XVII - - -Emily held Lavelle and Chang in view until they were halfway to the tree -and the Chinaman halted and looked back. It was as if the giant had -flashed a message to her. Her heart gave a throb of apprehension. Her -breath caught in her throat. Her limbs trembled. She realized that she -was alone on the hill with Rowgowskii. Only her own soul knew her -repugnance of this man which had grown with the hours since they had -come to the island. - -Even as her mind bore the thought Emily became ashamed of her -trepidation and self-consciousness. It was unworthy of the kind of woman -that Lavelle's fearlessness of soul and fortitude made her desire to be. - -Mortified, and with a flush mounting her cheeks at what she considered -her mean selfishness, she turned from the meadow and the stretch of -ocean southward. She walked across the hilltop. North, east, and west -her gaze met an empty blue expanse of water. The hill oscillated and she -swayed with it unconscious of the motion. Her attention was held by the -glint of a white wing high against the cloudless azure sky to the -northward where a frigate bird went seeking a mate. - -"Oh, if we but had your wings!" she exclaimed. - -"But we haven't," whispered a voice close to her ear. With the words an -evil, burning breath struck her cheek and Rowgowskii's two powerful arms -encircled her. - -At the touch there leaped to life in Emily that furious strength which -has been given to women to defend themselves or their offspring from -besoiling or destroying hands. - -With a shriek she twisted herself in the brute's clasp and hurled him -from her, but not before he had succeeded in crushing his hot, sensuous -lips against her throat. She struck him in the face with both hands -clenched. Landing where Lavelle had smashed him in the boat the morning -after the wreck of the _Cambodia_, the blows drew blood and swept him -from his feet. He went over backward and, falling, carried with him the -boat mast which was stepped in the center of the hilltop for a signal -staff. - -Sending a piercing shriek toward the meadow, Emily ran toward the -southern slope. Rowgowskii staggered up in her path with outstretched -arms as if to stop her. He hesitated and stepped aside. The -unaccountable action arrested Emily. - -"Go on yelling!" he said wrathfully. "There is nobody to hear. We are -alone--you and I." - -A sight of the meadow confirmed his words. Lavelle and Chang were not -there. - -The Russian laughed as she faced him helplessly and incredulously, her -strength, for the moment, gone from her. She had no distinct thought. -The capacity of thinking and feeling seemed to have never been. - -"They went like that," the brute went on with a snap of his fingers. -"Just as we are going to go--in a--in a very little while." A lingering -quaver went through the hill. He started cravenly. "Feel that, eh? The -end is very near." - -Emily was silent. Her gaze darted away from her torturer and around the -sea. It came to rest for the smallest part of a second on the western -edge of the hill. Determination was born of the thought which the glance -suggested. Here was a means of escape. - -The cliff was perhaps an hundred feet from where she stood. If she could -only get over there a step would carry her into the presence of her God -unashamed. Her purpose was formed. There was nothing left for which she -cared to live. The camp fire was between her and her goal, but she -heeded it not. - -Rowgowskii's gaze, following every movement of the glorious figure of -womanhood before him, set the fires of his fiendishness flaming in new -desire. He advanced a step in front of her. She retreated a step. - -"I wonder if you would have treated Lavelle this way if he had come to -love you? Eh?" - -There was no answer for him, but Emily's lips moved in murmuring what -her numbed senses could recall of Lavelle's prayer for grace. - -"Would you have treated him this way? Tell me, _ma beauté_," he leered. -He took another step toward her. Again she retreated. Still advancing, -the passion of the brute in his eyes scorching her, he said: - -"Death will not be so unpleasant. You are very beautiful. You----" - -His voice broke in a stammer. A piece of burning sod rolled out of the -fire behind his prey. - -"Look out!" he cried. - -Emily gave no heed. She put one foot on the sod and smoke curled up -where it burned through the sole of the canvas sandal which Chang had -made for her. Then she lifted the other foot beside it. - -Nor did this woman cry out in pain nor a feature so much as wince. An -immortal glory was in her countenance. The look she bent on the man -before her sent him back, cowering in fear and awe. - - - - -CHAPTER XVIII - - -In the instant that the sublime spirit of the gold woman conquered the -beast who baited her Lavelle burst over the crest of the hill from the -southern slope. - -Like the captain of an avenging host marching with banners of flame he -came into Emily Granville's vision. A pallor as of death was in his -face; a fire of irrevocable decision in the glance with which he swept -the scene before him into his comprehension. - -As that glance touched Emily she started toward her deliverer only to -stop. - -Lavelle's hand fell on Rowgowskii's shoulder and hurled him round before -him. The craven crumpled to his knees. The beginning of a cry of terror -died in his throat in a mute gasp. To him this man who stood over him -was come back from the dead. - -"Pray--if you can," said Lavelle in a grim voice of fate. He stepped -back a pace as he spoke. - -It was a pronouncement of doom that he had uttered. Rowgowskii's gaze -went from Lavelle to Emily. His hands went out to her in supplication. -His lips moved but made no sound. - -"Captain," she called pityingly. - -She took a step toward him. Without turning "The Shadow" raised a -staying hand. - -Rowgowskii turned from Emily at her call to meet again the merciless -gaze of Lavelle. - -"Pray," said Lavelle, moving toward him. - -The light of all reason went out of the doomed man's face. A maniacal -cry burst from him. He leaped to his feet. Lavelle sprang at him. With a -speed of a hawk's swoop the Russian turned and fled to the cliff. A -second he hesitated on the brink and then plunged over it headlong. - -A moment of silence, then a splash and a lingering cry echoed up the -face of the cliff. The gold woman's tortured nerves relaxed. Senseless -she dropped where she stood. - - - - -CHAPTER XIX - - -With the Russian's wild death cry still echoing in her senses Emily -awoke a half-hour later to a vivid consciousness. She found herself -lying in the protecting shade of the boat sail tent which Lavelle had -erected for her habitation near the eastern side of the hill on the day -after the landing. The scene upon which her eyes had closed flashed -again across her vision and she sat up with a shudder. - -The movement brought to her senses for the first time a realization of -physical pain. Remembering the strength of spirit which had been given -to her to stand upon fire she throttled the cry which sprang to her -lips. Her suffering became precious to her even as the agony of travail -is dear to a woman. Her eyes welled with hot tears. - -Putting out a hand blindly she found the little canvas sandals. She -picked them up and pressed them to her bosom. The charred heels and -soles crumbled away at her touch. She kissed them with the impulse which -would carry a warrior's lips to his colors. To her these pieces of -canvas were the symbols of a faith which had sustained her in a trial -which passed her understanding. - -Looking downward at her feet, she found both of them bandaged. She had -been dimly conscious of Lavelle doing this service for her. She -recognized the bindings as pieces of the hem of her night robe with -which she had bound his brow in the boat. A mysterious thrill went -through her; her eyes overflowed. - -The breeze lifted the edge of the tent and disclosed Lavelle to her -view. She caught the canvas and held it back. He was just finishing the -restepping of the signal mast. His back was toward her. - -Straightening from his task to his full height and with one of his -strong bare arms extended to the mast and the other hanging loosely at -his side, he looked out over the sea to the southward. His tattered -shirt and trousers still wet with sea water clung tightly to his lithe, -powerful form. There was a challenge in the set of his head and in the -grim line of his jaw. His attitude breathed of a man indomitable--one -who, indeed, was master of his fate; the intrepid captain of his soul. -His destiny would find him thus. - -The woman in the tent watched this man in wondrous awe, nor could she -know that his thoughts were alone of her at that moment--of a woman -sanctified in his sight not alone by living fire, but also by the -passion of a love unutterable. She saw the breeze toss the forelock of -his dark brown hair. He started. She dropped the edge of the tent, -realizing, without any amazement, that they two were alone in an empty, -far-flung waste of the world. She laid her head down on her long coat -which he had rolled into a pillow. She dared not speak. - -During what seemed an interminable time, the woman in the tent heard -Lavelle moving about outside, and, of a sudden, the singleness of his -footfall brought Chang surging into her thoughts. A moment later Lavelle -stood in the tent entrance, carrying food and drink. She sat up to -behold in his face an expression which stabbed her with its pain. - -"You are suffering, little woman," he said tenderly. - -All she could do was shake her head that she was not. Discovering what -it was she was holding tightly to her bosom he turned away. He -understood. - -Presently he pressed her to eat the meal he had prepared. Although it -nearly choked her to swallow she ate and drank because he wished her to -do so. - -"What of Chang? Has he gone--gone away?" she dared to ask finally. - -The man sitting in the tent entrance had his gaze fixed far away upon -the relentless ocean's breast. He nodded his head sadly. - -"God's benison be with him--the truest, the best friend it has ever been -given to any man to know," Lavelle said, facing Emily. After a second's -pause he went on in a tense voice: - -"This treacherous earth--treacherous with the sea's treachery--opened at -our feet down there like the snapping jaws of a monster. Chang went -first. I put out a hand to save him. The jaws got me. - -"It seemed very hard that the end should come like that--without even a -moment to say good-by." Lavelle paused again. "You can have no idea," he -resumed, "what a torment of waters is down there--waters filled with -reeds and roots which catch at one's limbs and cling to them--like -serpents. - -"As we came up to--to snatch at the crust of shore--it crumbled at our -touch. I could see the hill. You--you had just turned away. As I looked -your head passed out of my sight. Then, we saw that--that fiend climb up -here. We saw him stop and--and look back. I shouted--that is, I tried to -shout, but I had no breath. I never was so weak in all--all my days. -But whether he heard me or didn't he must have seen what had happened to -us. He would never have dared come near you--if he hadn't. - -"The earth broke under our hands again and again. The sea tore at us. -There is a tremendous current under this island. I heard you cry -for--for us to come to you. Chang heard you. But we were -caught--struggling like two foolish animals in a trap. When the signal -staff went down----Why, I think--I could not think. We saw you come to -the edge of the hill there--heard you cry again, but the sea----" - -Lavelle became silent. His eyes sought the great blue deeps below. Emily -could not speak. Her soul was crying to comfort this man. The yearning -of an unknown motherhood was in her heart. - -"Like most sailor men--deep-water men----" he went on, "Chang could not -swim. I imagine he must have found a foothold in one of the roots in the -water. He caught me--suddenly--lifted me bodily, it seemed, up out of -the sea--on to the shore. He was very powerful. I turned to help him. -All was quiet up here. He shook his head and--and let go. - -"'Go, master. Quick--go! Good-by, flen'. Good-by flor you!' - -"A second only he floated. Then the sea sucked him--down. He went with a -smile--unafraid. And I came to--to you--on the hill. You don't----" - -His voice broke. He leaped to his feet and walked away. It is not a good -thing that a man's tears shall be seen by a strange woman. - - - - -CHAPTER XX - - -With the going down of that day's sun a long, heavy swell, accompanied -by the lightest of breezes, set in from the southwest. It was an ominous -sign to Lavelle, nor could he conceal this thought when he carried -Emily's evening meal to her. She asked him to bring his food and eat it -in the tent entrance. - -The castaways ate their pitiable rations in silence, but before this -short time passed the island was moving in concert with the heave of the -sea. - -A shocking, sense-stunning crash where a part of the western cliff -slithered down into the deep sounded the end of the meal. While the roar -was dying away the eyes of the man and woman met and held in a glance of -understanding. - -"This is--is the end?" Emily asked in a low voice. - -"I think--it is not very far off, little woman," he answered. He told -her this truth because he knew hers was a spirit unafraid. By it she -knew that he knew and understood many things which words might not -encompass. - -"I thank you--so much," was her answer. She spoke with a frank gladness. -But the slightest quaver was in her voice. - -Lavelle left her to build up the signal fire. He felt certain that it -was for the last time. It was to him the funeral pyre of a hope which -died by the minute, and he laid on the fuel with unsparing hand. Some -night-borne craft might by miracle see its gleam, yet the light of a -moon in all the splendor of fullness lessened this remotest of -possibilities to the barest minimum. - -Although Lavelle was gone from the tent but a little while, it seemed an -eternal time to the woman, who waited for his return. And when he came -her eyes were dry; and she held out a hand for him to help her to her -feet. - -"I have no pain," she said, answering his protest. "I speak the truth. I -wish to be out in the night--with you." - -After the first step or two Emily walked freely and, indeed, the pain of -her burns had passed away. The while Lavelle knelt to make a seat for -her she stood sweeping the heavens with her luminous eyes. Across the -northern sky a large star, falling, burst upon her vision. - -"See!" she exclaimed, and then, turning toward him, she repeated -Calpurnia's words to Cæsar: - - "'When beggars die there are no comets seen; - The heavens themselves blaze forth the death of princes!'" - -It was a night made for life and love and the joys of living--not death; -a night to set the soul singing in gladness of being. It seemed to have -garnered the uttermost spaces of their brightest jewels to bedeck its -violet cope and make it the harder for this man and woman to say -farewell to mortality. - -Save in the intervals when Paul went to replenish the fire he sat at -Emily's side, and together they watched and listened to the majestic -travailing of the weariless, pitiless deep. - -It was not far from midnight when the sea tore away half of the meadow -and the palm tree. This bit of earth floated in their sight for but a -breath. It was; then it was not. Where it had been was a patch of -leaping, roiling waters, white-fanged like wolves at a kill. - -Emily put out a hand and took one of Paul's. - -"The end--it will come--like that--quickly," she whispered. "I -will--will not be afraid--I am sure--if you will let me hold your hand." - -Paul Lavelle could make no answer save pressing the gentle hand in both -of his. It was sufficient to comfort her. After a long silence she -asked: - -"Why are you not afraid?" - -"I don't know," he answered simply, "unless it is because I can't -believe--that a marvelous creation like mankind stops--with what we call -death. I can't believe that wondrous beings--like you--and Chang, -capable of the sublimest thoughts and impulses--come and go and are no -more. Rather I think that what we are facing is 'Yet a little sleep, a -little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep.'" - -Nor was Emily conscious of her hand clasping Paul Lavelle's with love's -tightness in its pressure. - -"My father believed as you," she began, only to stop short as she felt -him start. She had ever been on her guard against speaking of her people -to this man, for she knew his sensitiveness as to the past. But once had -she made reference to the tragedy which embraced her life and his. That -was in the boat when she had assailed him to save Rowgowskii from -drowning. Now she knew not what else to say. - -"Miss Granville," he said presently. - -"No, no, please don't!" she protested. "Not that tone; not that -distance. Call me friend, comrade--just as you have been doing these -past few days. Call me Emily. It would please me; it would sound--like -home to--to hear somebody call me by the old name once more." - -"Emily," Lavelle went on, "I should like you to know what happened that -night on the _Yakutat_--the truth. If you----" - -"No," she interrupted him. "If I say to you that--that I do not wish you -to tell me, you will not misunderstand?" - -"As you wish," he answered, but there was a chill in his voice. - -"No, no!" she cried. "You do not have to tell me what happened. Don't -you understand? I know. I know you to be brave--and true and upstanding. -I know you acted as only one unafraid--fearless as you are, could have -acted. And I thank God that he has given it to me to know you and--to -understand!" - -Her voice broke. Her eyes, swimming with tears, saw him turn toward the -fire. A weight seemed lifted from him. She sensed the coming of a great -peace to his soul. - - - - -CHAPTER XXI - - -A high dawn--one presaging storm--found the castaways standing beside -the signal fire which swiftly smoldered into the ashes of hopelessness. -The swell had increased during the morning hours. The hill now afforded -a footing unsteadier than a laboring ship's deck. The breeze of the -night continued light and steady. - -With the first glimmer of day Lavelle went searching the sea. His gaze -swung the horizon again and again, following the withdrawing mantle of -night only to confront the old bitter emptiness of all the days that had -gone before. - -Lavelle's eyes kept seeking the distance, but Emily's, untrained, sought -the sea at hand. So it was that her sight was the first to discover a -sail barely two miles away to the south and west. - -At the discovery her throat closed. She could not speak. She stood -breathless, half in trance. Lavelle, turned to the eastward, felt her -clutch his arm. He sent a glance whither she dumbly pointed. - -"A sail!" he cried. "Saved! This means life, you brave, brave soul!" - -He seized her by the arms and shook her as a boy meeting a boy playmate -might have done. Her whole being thrilled at his touch. A glorious light -of love came into her countenance, but he saw it not. - -As he spoke to her he dropped her arms and his glance sprang away to -find the sail again. Fixing it, Lavelle could not control his amazement. -Emily saw a great seriousness succeed the expression of delight in his -face and manner. A chill touched her new-born hope. - -"What do you see, captain? What is it?" - -"I don't know what to tell you. I am not sure yet. Still there is -something strange----" - -"Why, that ship----It is moving sideways!" she cried. "It is not -sailing!" - -Lavelle, indeed, was puzzled. The strange sail was an iron or steel bark -of perhaps twelve hundred tons, hove to on the port tack. Her forecourse -and foretopsails were set. The foretopgallantsail hung in its clewlines -and buntlines. The maintopgallantsail and topsails were set and laid -full aback against the mast. The main course was clewed up. The peak of -the spanker had been let go and the gaff was flailing from side to side. -She carried two skysails. These and the royals were furled. All of the -headsails, with the exception of the foretopmast-staysail, were down -and trailing away from the bowsprit and jibboom. None of the other -staysails was set. She was laden and laboring hard. It seemed that the -swell must roll the sticks out of her. - -From the height at which they stood Lavelle and Emily could see her lie -down with every heave of the sea and put her lee rail under. - -Now, for a second, rolling deeper than she had before, Lavelle, from a -new angle, confirmed what he had suspected from the beginning. Her wheel -was deserted! Her decks were lifeless! She was in charge of herself! - -The bark was rapidly drifting closer. Another fifteen minutes, Lavelle -figured, would carry her by the island half a mile to the southward. It -was a moment for quick decision. Emily read his purpose to swim to the -bark. - -"God alone knows, Emily, what mystery confronts us. But our only chance -of life lies out there. It may be another trap, comrade, but we must -hope. I feel that, for your sake, I must----" - -"For our sakes," she interrupted him, but he did not seem to hear her. -He was bending over, removing his shoes. - -"I'll win back to you--I'll come for you if it be in----" - -"It will not be in death, but in life." - -Startled, eagerly he beheld the love-light in her eyes, only to turn -quickly away. His heart throbbed as if it must burst. His tortured soul -moaned in its yearning and passion to crush her to his breast. In the -face of death he would have claimed her at this sign; gone out with his -lips pressed to hers. In the face of life--the promise of living which -the bark held forth--he, the pariah, said no to his desire. - -His face was masked and cold as he turned toward her again, and the gold -woman bent her head for shame. He broke out the boat mast and, carrying -it over his shoulder, he held out his hand and led her swiftly down the -hill. His hand was very cold. He set her a lookout point at the foot of -the hill. - -"Wait here," he said in a voice which sounded unlike him. "At no second -lose sight of the bark. Be on your guard. If anything should happen to -the island cling to this mast. It will keep you up. I'll come for -you--I'll pick you up." - -His gray eyes were glistening with suppressed emotion. - -"And if--if," she said, "this should be good-by--and we should not meet -again----" - -She drew his head down and kissed him full upon the lips. - -Without a word he ran across the meadow to the sea. - -Emily watched him as he dropped off the swaying land and struck out -powerfully toward the bark now head on to the southern shore. For a -moment her heart grew still with misgiving. Then, it thrilled with a -joyous impulse. She hurried across the meadow. As she went she removed -her long cloak and the golfing jacket. At the shore she stopped and tore -the bandages from her feet. Looking seaward she saw where Lavelle swam. -Dropping her skirt quickly she stood for a second in the long white -night robe in which she had escaped the _Cambodia_. Inhaling a long, -deep breath she plunged overboard fearlessly. - -Lavelle, looking backward, missed Emily. His spirit slumped. He paused -his stroke, fearful for her safety. - -The sun at that moment burnished the crest of a wave behind him. A white -arm clove its mane of foam and his heart leaped to behold the gold woman -following in his wake. - - - - -CHAPTER XXII - - -The sight of this woman following after him held Paul Lavelle bound for -the moment in the inertia of awe. All sense of their common and great -peril left him. Wonder robbed him of the power of thinking just as it -had on the island when she had drawn his head to her and pressed her -lips upon his. He comprehended the thing by instinct alone. - -With the powerful, sweeping overhead stroke of a practiced swimmer Emily -overtook him on the crest of a foaming surge. The plaits of her hair had -been washed by the sea into a free golden mane. The grace of a Nereid, -of the ocean itself, was in her. She might have been borne of the deep. -The myth of Thetis must have had such a conception. - -As she swung up to him, shoulder to shoulder, Lavelle turned on his -side. With a toss of her head she brought it clear of the water. The -light of her countenance said to him as plainly as words could have -done: "I am here! I am thine!" He caught her and drew her face to his. -His lips went to hers and clung in a wild, fleeting second of union. -Then, side by side, they struck out to meet their destiny. - -Taking the weather berth, Paul set the pace toward the strange vessel. -It was already to leeward of the island's median line. The send of the -swell, however, more than balanced the craft's swift drift in the -swimmers' favor. Yet the half-mile of their turbulent course was a test -for the strongest and bravest. The willful, tenacious power of love -sustained Emily until they came within hail of their goal. Here flesh -and blood struck. Her spirit remained undaunted, but the body refused -the spirit's demands upon it. - -Sensing that Emily was failing, Lavelle put out a hand and turned her on -her back. In that moment he realized, too, that he was near exhaustion. -The ridge of a gigantic surge lifted them higher than the rail of the -bark. Paul could distinguish every fixture of her deserted decks. The -sea dropped away with them. The next instant the vessel's leaden-colored -side and half of her copper-painted bottom were reeling over them. They -might have been looking up at her from the bottom of the ocean. Her -masts appeared to pierce the blue, sun-shot sky. - -Although convinced there was no ear aboard the vessel to hear Paul drew -on his rapidly waning strength to send a yell down to her. The sails -flung back a faint, mocking echo. All the while his eyes were searching -for some means of boarding. Being an iron vessel the bark's sides -presented no chain plates or channels for a hand hold. Deeply laden -though she was the bights in which her braces trailed were far beyond -his reach even when she rolled. - -The belief that he might be able to climb aboard with the aid of a lee -brace had been with him when he took to the water. From the island it -had seemed that this gear swept the sea with every surge. Not so much as -an eyebolt offered a ray of hope. The boomkins were as possible of -touching as the tops. He turned toward the bows. There might be a chance -forward, but he felt certain that Emily's strength would never withstand -the mauling of the sea that must follow catching hold of the bobstay. - -Lost for a moment in the eagerness of his search, the bark had drifted -down upon them until a stroke would have brought them together. The -sensation of being drawn down made him aware of it. It shocked him into -action. Dragging Emily with him, Paul plunged away just in time to -escape a terrific suction produced by the vessel's laboring. - -Hardly were they clear of this new peril, which he instantly realized -must be taken into account, when something wound itself around Paul's -legs with a jerk. It clung like the tentacle of a monster. It snatched -him toward the vessel. The bark was lifting at the moment. He and Emily -were falling away in a valley of beryl. Instinctively he threw himself -on his back, kicking as best he could to free his prisoned limbs. A -glance, as his feet came clear of the water, transported him from the -depths of fear and hopelessness to the heights of hope. He was entangled -in a rope's end which was attached to the bark. He caught it just as it -was slipping away from him. Overhauling it with one hand he found it to -be a gauntline which trailed away from a block at the end of the lee -main yardarm. To his sailor mind it told how the vessel's small boats -had been hoisted out of her. - -It was with misgiving that he drew the line toward him. It came so -freely that he was certain that it was but another mockery. At each pull -he expected to see its length come darting through the block. Presently -it held; it sustained his weight. It was fast aboard the vessel. His -heart bounded at the discovery. He passed a bight round Emily's waist -and darted from her side forward. Hurling himself into the smothering -suction under the bows, he clutched the bobstay as it buried itself. -Down he went with it, dragged further and further until it seemed that -he must let the sea have him. A monster with an hundred beaks tore at -his lungs. Another clawed at his eyes. Still another gnashed at his -heart. A bare glimmer of consciousness marked the end of the downward -pitch. As the bark rose he continued to climb. At the end of the rise he -was clear of the sea and halfway to the cap of the bowsprit. The fangs -which reached for him did not get him again. - -Half an hour afterward Paul Lavelle found himself lying on a deck with -water hissing over him and round him. It gurgled in his ears and foamed -across his throat. It was being spat at him out of three or four -scuppers and a bulwark port on his right. He was in the waist of a -vessel. This was a hatch coaming against which his left side was -pressed--the coaming of the vessel's main hatch. He sat up and saw Emily -lying across the hatch unconscious. The bight of the gauntline was still -around her. As he struggled to arise, only to fall back again, his cheek -swept one of her feet which dangled over the edge of the coaming. Yes, -he had torn that woman out of the sea's arms. There she was in evidence -of that, but where he had found the strength, how he had done it or when -he had done it, he had no idea. - -The names Emily and Daphne were mixed in his thoughts. It took a severe -mental struggle to identify his own name. He repeated it two or three -times before he recognized it. Emily was the name of the woman on the -hatch. But Daphne? This name puzzled him until his wandering gaze found -a row of deck buckets in a rack on the edge of the forward house. -_Daphne_ was painted on each bucket. Then slowly it came to him that he -had seen it on the bows of a vessel aboard which he had climbed a long -time before. - -His senses were bogged in the reaction of the despair of -exhaustion--that hopeless dejection which follows a supreme mental or -physical exertion and whose poignancy is the greater according to the -successful degree of the effort. He slipped back to his full length in -the water and lay staring up at the sky. - -"Paul! Paul!" - -His name called in a plaintive tone over his head was what finally -aroused him to a realization of his situation. The voice touched a chord -in his being that impelled him to action. It sent a wave of emotion -through him. He rose to a sitting posture. Again his cheek brushed the -gold woman's feet, and at the touch he bent his head quickly and kissed -them. It was not the first time he had done this, but it startled him -now, for he sensed that she was conscious of what he did. Yet thus on -the island he had kissed her reverently and sacredly when he had bound -her burns. - -As he struggled to his feet Emily sat up. Her hair fell across her -shoulders and bosom and across her limbs in a golden shower. - -"Oh, woman of all the world," he murmured, "we still live!" - -This woman was his. She had challenged him against the sea--matched him -against all its brute force--and he had won her. - -For a second only Emily met and held Paul's glance. Then, lowering her -head and throwing herself in abandon across the hatch, she burst into -tears. So did the reaction of all she had passed through come upon her. - -Paul turned away, chastened by those tears. He realized that no word he -might utter then would assuage one drop of them. Action called to him, -but he seemed to be unable to put a hand on the situation. A long -weather roll caught him unawares. It flung him across the deck and he -brought up against the fife rail around the mainmast. His limbs -quivered under him; his knees knocked together in weakness. Every muscle -of him throbbed and twitched from the effects of the battle he had waged -with the sea. A momentary dread that he would never recover his strength -seized him. - -It was in that instant that his gaze snapped a glimpse of the island far -up to windward. It appeared very small. He marveled that the bark could -have drifted so far. A lee roll cut the bit of land from his view. He -started to call Emily, but forbore at the sound of her sobbing. As if -fascinated he waited until the bark lifted on the shoulder of the next -swell. Like sugar melting in a teacup the island dissolved in his sight. -It stirred him mightily. It aroused in him the spirit of combativeness. -It made him realize that the sea would stand not on his dalliance. It -ordered him to action and to confront the mystery of the ocean's traffic -with the abandoned _Daphne_. - -It required but a glance for him to confirm his estimate of the vessel's -size which he had formed in his first view of her from the island and -while he swam beside her. She was not less than 1,200 tons burden--about -200 feet long and less than forty feet beam--and heavily sparred. Her -lower masts and topmasts were of iron or steel. They were pole masts; -that is to say, in one continuous piece. The lower and double -topsail-yards also were built of iron or steel. Everything bespoke the -fact that she had been built for driving. - -Calling to Emily that he would be gone but a minute, Paul drew an iron -belaying pin from the fife rail and started aft. He armed himself -against surprise, although he felt instinctively that he and Emily were -alone. Still, all to be seen about decks indicated that the bark had not -been long abandoned. - -A teakwood door was open and hooked back against the cabin's forward -bulkhead. A similar door on the starboard side was shut. Through the -open door he entered the after-living quarters. A slamming of doors and -the familiar sound of the hard woods in the cabin's trim, working in -their joinings, answered the invader's hail flung from the threshold. -Once inside, he found himself in a white-painted alleyway at the end of -which a banging door gave him a glimpse of the forward cabin or saloon. -His nostrils first caught a stench of lamps which had flickered out in -oil dregs. - -All ships are so ordered in their appointments that a seaman is never at -a loss to find his way in any. Lavelle could have gone about the -_Daphne_ blindfolded. He did not have to look at the brass plate over -the first door off the alleyway on his right to tell it was the room of -the chief mate. The door was open, but something behind it kept it from -swinging more than a couple of inches as the vessel labored. He gave it -a quick shove and stepped inside the room, only to pause with a gasp of -horror. - -At the invader's feet, bathed in the morning sunlight which poured -through two ports, lay the stark body of a young, lithe-limbed son of -the sea. Barely more than a boy he had been. There was a gaping bullet -wound between his eyes. It was a wound of exit--where the lead which had -killed him had sped away from its work. It cried out a story of -assassination to Lavelle; it shrieked to him that the young fellow had -been shot from behind, possibly as he slept in his berth with his back -toward the door. The rolling of the ship had brought the body to the -deck where it lay. - -The lockers of the room were wrenched open. Everywhere were signs of -disorder; the marks of hurrying, marauding hands. Yet the room had been -the castle of a man of order and cleanliness. Lavelle looked -particularly for the bark's log book which ordinarily should have been -on the small desk at the foot of the berth. It was missing. - -With a thought of how sweet life must have been to this young fellow and -with his wrath hot against his slayers, Lavelle stepped across the -alleyway to the second and third mates' room. Its door opened at a -touch. Here, strangely, the sour, unmistakable odor of the forecastle -met him. Instantly the searcher visualized the coarse type of men who -had occupied these quarters--the rule-of-thumb sort, who may spend a -lifetime at sea without ever winning to a rank above second mate. Here -disorder was not apparent because disorder was a natural thing. - -There was a stateroom abaft the mate's. It was empty. A door immediately -opposite had been forced. It was another stateroom filled with stores. -It was plain that a quick draft had been made upon these supplies. - -Darting into the forward cabin, only the echo of his own hail answered -him. A red tablecloth lay on the deck where it had been swept by some -person hurrying by or else in a struggle. A white metal castor rolled -under the dining table and made a tinkling noise among its broken -cruets. The pantry and three more staterooms opened upon this cabin. The -staterooms reported only emptiness. They had not been recently -occupied. The pantry's cleanliness and order might have been produced by -a careful housewife's hands. - -The doors leading into the after cabin were open and hooked back. Like -the forward compartment, it was done in Indian teak, bird's-eye maple, -and mahogany. It was furnished with two comfortable easy chairs, a small -center table, and a divan built into the bulkhead against the starboard -side. A tiny piano stood between the forward entrances. Through the -after end a companionway led up on to the poop. - -There were two more staterooms here. They were empty and gave no signs -of recent occupancy. They were on the port side. To starboard was the -chart room. A litter of books, charts, and chart pipes covered its -floor. The chronometer case stood open. A glance told Paul that it had -been wound within forty-eight hours. He bent his head and quickly caught -a tick of even, smooth escapement. - -Hurrying aft from the chart room, the castaway came to what he knew to -be the skipper's room. The door to it was shut. Its middle panel was -splintered. Something made him turn the knob with gentleness. - -Just inside the door to the left a man in pajamas sat at a small -writing desk, his head cast upon his arms as if sleep had suddenly -overtaken him. His head swayed as Paul looked down at him. It was -lending itself to the swing of the vessel, but the motion was so natural -that, for the moment, Lavelle was deceived. A strange hope sprang into -his heart. - -"Wake up, old man! Wake up!" he called. He even shook him by the -shoulder, but the man at the desk was sleeping a sleep that knows no -mortal awakening. - -Under the stiff arms Paul spied the log book which he had missed from -the mate's room. He pulled it out and the dead man's head rolled back -and compelled his disturber to meet the gaze of his wide-open, staring -blue eyes. A pen rolled out from under his right hand and dropped from -the desk. - -This undoubtedly was the _Daphne's_ skipper. He had been a man of -powerful build, standing in life as tall as Lavelle himself. Even in the -laxness of death his jaw bespoke indomitable determination. The nose was -of a splendid aggressive type. Death had taken him in the beginning of -his best years. He could not have been more than forty years of age. - -A crimson splotch just below the chest line told where the man's life -blood had gone out. Measuring its location by sight with the height of -the door's splintered panel, Lavelle ventured a deduction of how the -_Daphne's_ master and mate had been assassinated. The master had been -asleep or, at any rate, he had retired. His apparel, his disturbed berth -told that. He had heard the shot which did for the mate, or, perhaps, he -might have gone to the door unsuspectingly to answer a knock or summons. -His hand turning the knob had been the signal to the assassin on the -other side of the door to send a bullet crashing through it into his -midriff. - -But how the skipper had come to have the log book in his room it was not -possible to surmise unless, after being shot, he had had the strength to -make his way to the mate's room and back again. Again he might have -taken the keeping of the log into his own charge. Could he and the mate -have quarreled? Asking himself this question, the searcher's eyes ran -down the pages at which the book had lain open and stopped with a shock -at three words: - -"The second mate----" - -That was the final entry. - -It was written in a hand which had begun the formation of the letters in -a tight style and ended in the scrawling of a schoolboy, a blot and a -splattered dash. Where this dash finished there had death touched the -fingers which held the writer's pen. - -Whatever had happened aboard the _Daphne_ it was the second mate who was -responsible for it. Paul was convinced there was no escape from the -indictment in those three words. - -It was a P.M. entry under date of March 29. According to Paul Lavelle's -account of time it was now March 31. Some time during the night of two -days before--on the 29th--mutiny had lifted its red hands on the -_Daphne_. - -The log was written up to eight o'clock on the evening of the 29th. It -must have been the last thing the fair-haired boy now lying cold forward -had done before turning his lamp down for his eternal "watch below." - -But as startling as was the tragedy which loomed so boldly out of the -three simple words which have been quoted was the _Daphne's_ position -given as of noon of that day: "Latitude 32:30 north; Longitude 176:28 -east." - -This instantly destroyed Paul's idea of the island's position. The bark -had drifted up on the island out of the southwest. Then, according to -the most reasonable assumption, she had been to the southward of it when -she was abandoned. That put the island between three and four hundred -miles to the northward of where the castaways had believed it to be all -the time. Its drift must have been to the north and east instead of the -southwest. This explained the absence of the trades; the variable -quality of the winds which had prevailed. The island had drifted across -the spot, or within a short distance thereto, of where the _Cambodia_ -had found her grave. - -Paul decided to let the observation which he planned to make at noon -settle the puzzle of position. The moment demanded that he should give -his thoughts to it and the living, and not to the past and its dead. -Still as he laid the log down on the desk again he turned to the page -which began it and read, in the style of the ancient sea formula: - -"Log of the bark _Daphne_, 1,252 tons burthen, of Liverpool, England, -John McGavock, master, on her voyage from Sydney, N. S. W., toward San -Francisco, U. S. A." - -And with something of boyish pride the keeper of the log--it was not in -the skipper's writing--had posted his name with boldness at the head of -the list of the ship's company: "William Elston, chief officer." It was -the imagination of youth gilding the rank. It seemed to speak that the -_Daphne_ had given the boy his first berth as mate. - -"And they murdered you, William Elston, and you, too, John McGavock," -said Paul with a sad bitterness, turning away from the desk. - -A frightened cry from Emily, a smothered sob and the patter of her bare -feet carried Paul through the open door, but not quickly enough to cut -off her view of the still occupant of the skipper's room. She shrank -into his arms shuddering, and as he pressed her to him she tried to -crush her sobs against his breast. - -"Don't be frightened--don't be frightened, dearheart," he crooned to -her. His lips found her brow, her eyes, her mouth. - -"I--I----Oh, Paul, I thought you had gone--away," she sobbed. "You -were--were so long." - -Paul had not been away from the deck more than five minutes, but the -time had seemed to her thrice and thrice again as long. - -Brokenly she told him how, as she had entered the door through which she -had seen him disappear, her eyes had found the figure of the mate -stretched in his room. - -"Then--there is another--one--in there!" she went on. "Oh, Paul, never -leave me again! Will you, dear! Will you? Not until death comes to take -us both?" - -Her teeth were chattering from cold and nervous exhaustion. - -"No, dear; not until death," he answered her pleading, but the kiss -which he pressed on her mouth spoke in greater reassurance to her heart -than his words. "Much has happened here--much that I don't understand; -much that we may never understand. But just now we must think of -ourselves. We must think of living; of fighting on. You're going to -fight on with me, aren't you? You're going to be brave and never lose -hope? You don't know how brave you've been. You have been the -inspiration of the battle all along. Look up at me." - -His powerful arms held her away as he spoke and she glanced up at him -timidly. - -"It is not hard to be brave with you," she said, and he drew her to him -so fiercely that she could not help crying out. - -He released her in alarm. His arms dropped to his sides. - -"I'm a brute; I've hurt you, dear." - -"No, no," she protested with a smile of love, but her eyes sought a red -mark on her round, gleaming shoulder, and for the first time each of -them became conscious of the meagerness of her attire. - -"Did I bruise you that way?" - -"No, no, Paul. It happened when you were dragging me over the side. The -rope did it." - -As she spoke she drew the yoke of her long white gown higher on her -shoulders. Her cheeks mantled red with shame and he turned away from -her. Yet in the next instant her cheeks crimsoned a deeper hue in shame -of that shame, for it came to her as a truth that in the sight of this -man there could be no abasement. - -Paul reëntered the skipper's room, remembering that he had seen an -ulster and a mackintosh hanging in a corner to the right of the desk. He -swept them on to his arm in his bewilderment. It was one thing to outfit -a man; another to garb a woman. His eye caught a pair of socks hanging -over the edge of a half-open drawer under McGavock's berth. He snatched -these. He added a pair of straw sandals, whose toes protruded from under -the settee across the rear bulkhead, to his collection and also a -blanket--a fine white California blanket which lay in a roll at the foot -of the berth. It was the best he could think of doing at the moment. - -Emily was shivering on the divan when he returned to her. - -"Lie down there, dear," he said, "and I'll tuck you in and bring you -some coffee--something warm, anyway--and some food." - -"No, no, no," she said, starting up. "Don't leave me here--alone. Not -now. I know the dead can't hurt one, but--I must go with you. When all's -said and done, Paul--I'm only--only a woman----" - -She took the ulster from him and slipped it on. It was large enough to -have wrapped her round twice. She plunged her feet into the warm woollen -socks and gave a little sigh of pleasure. - -"I--I feel better already." - -"Now put these on." - -Paul handed her the sandals, and as she took them she studied them for a -second, only to glance up at him with a startled expression. - -"These are a woman's, Paul," she whispered. "And that----" - -She indicated the mackintosh, and he held it out before him. - -"This is a woman's, too," he said in the same breath with her. - -"A woman? A woman?" he repeated, and he wondered if here was the key of -the mystery of the _Daphne_. - - - - -CHAPTER XXIII - - -Together the castaways went forward to the galley, passing out of the -cabin through the starboard alleyway so that Emily might not see again -what was in the mate's room. As Paul stepped out on deck he mentally -marked the time by the sun's ascension. It was not later than 8:30 -o'clock. - -Signs of hurried departure met the eye on every hand in the galley. -Chief among them was a batch of bread which had been put to rising -beside the range. But Paul did not pause to make any examination until -he had rattled up a fire. He had picked up a box of matches in -McGavock's room. There was a bin of kindling and plenty of coal in the -scuttles, and it took only a few minutes to get a meal together. It was -the warmest and best breakfast they had enjoyed since they had been cast -away, albeit the mainstay was a porridge of canned corn which Paul had -hit upon as the most promising thing in a quick search of the stores -aft. For the rest there was hard tack and marmalade and coffee. This -coffee, a strong brew, was really the crown of the breakfast. Its very -odor was life-giving; strength-restoring. - -Over the breakfast Paul related with all the gentleness at his command -the facts which had been revealed by his search through the cabins. -There was little to add to what Emily had seen herself. - -"We are alone, Emily," he said, "except for those who will never wake -again." - -Fearful that similar heart-harrowing sights might be held by the forward -part of the vessel as those which the sore-beset girl had discovered aft -he induced her to remain in the warmth of the galley while he pressed -his search in the forecastle. - -"Don't--please don't stay long," she pleaded. "I feel--that--that I will -never be able to bear it--to have you go out of my sight again." A -shudder shook her. "When I saw you--a little while ago----Oh, the ship -fell on you! The bows came down and--buried you in the water----" - -"There, there, dear. Let us never think of it again. I have only a -glimmer of an idea--of what happened. I don't know what happened; in -fact, I don't want to know. All I do know and all I care about is--that -somehow I had the sand--the brute strength to save you. Just you of all -the world!" - -He seized her passionately as he spoke and kissed her. The pressure of -her firm, lithe body against his sent his blood clamoring. The natural -perfume of her hair made his brain hammer drunkenly. Still above the -tumult which beset his senses rang a mocking laugh--a devil's laugh. As -he caught it a chill went over him. He put Emily away from him as -fiercely as he had taken her and, crying, without a word, she sank on -the bench in front of the fire and hid her face in her hands. As he -turned away his brow was clouded with anger; his eyes filled with -bitterness. - -A second Lavelle stood motionless, his trembling breath an unuttered -curse of himself. Then he turned to the door at his side and banged it -open. It was the entrance to the cook's cubby-hole of a room. A piece of -matting and a wooden pillow in the bunk told that its late occupant had -been either a Chinese or Japanese. There was an odor, too, that bespoke -the recent presence of an opium smoker. He had departed in a hurry. - -There was another door leading aft from the galley. This was the -entrance to the carpenter shop and donkey engine room. A cubby-hole with -a bunk in it to port had been the carpenter's abode. Lavelle noted with -satisfaction the equipment of glistening, well-kept tools on the engine -room bulkheads. - -Hurrying forward, Paul entered the forecastle. It was an exceptionally -large one for a vessel of the _Daphne's_ size. Echo answered his hail. -Mattresses--the straw pallets which sailors call "donkeys' -breakfasts"--clothes' bags, ditty bags, oilskins, sea boots, -sou'westers, an assortment of greasy pots, pannikins, and spoons, and -two filthy kids littered the black deck. Half a dozen chests gaped open, -their contents falling over their sides. The hands that had gone through -them had sought only the bottoms where money, trinkets, and supposed -valuables had been hidden by their owners. So had he found the chests in -the rooms of the second and third mates, the carpenter, and the cook. In -their extremity they had all acted alike--thought only of useless -baubles and left useful, necessary things behind. - -A sailor before the mast, used and inured to hardship, living by the -hour hand in hand with death, trained in the expectancy of sudden -danger, ever aware of the constant attendance of peril, might be -expected to act with more intelligence in an emergency which may cost -him his life than the humdrum-going citizen ashore. Left to himself, he -will go out of a ship in mid-ocean with a few shillings he has stored -in the bottom of his bag or chest, a model upon which he has been -spending most of his watches below, a derby hat or flash necktie for -which he paid four times too much at his last port. Rarely has he a -thought of necessary things--the countless useful articles of clothing -such as Paul Lavelle saw on every hand--overcoats, jackets, -underclothing--which a day or an hour in an open boat can make worth a -king's ransom. - -The forecastle had been emptied in a hurry, but it told no other tale -than that. There is no lair of mankind, no habitation of man's -devisement more cheerless than a ship's forecastle. There is no sight -more depressing, more dismal than one deserted. - -Paul, with a shudder, crossed from the starboard side, through which he -had entered, to port. The breath of fresh air which he caught as he -threw back the door and stepped out on deck was like a draught of wine. -His spirits lifted as it dissipated the sea-sour stench which his -nostrils were carrying. He turned forward immediately to at last come -upon an explanation of the exodus from the _Daphne_. - -The fore hatch was open. The covers were strewn about the deck. Up out -of the glistening cargo of coals came an odor of fire. There was no -smoke, but fire had been or was down there. - -He recognized the dangerous quality of the coals at once. It was fear of -it that had emptied the crew overside in panic. His mind, in the stress -which had been upon it while he was aft, had not grasped the probable -character of the cargo when he read in the log book with what the -_Daphne_ was laden. - -Dropping down through the hatchway his bare feet felt no heat. None of -the signs of "trouble" which he knew so well was present. He had fought -cargoes like this one. - -All was cool below; not the faintest indication of gas. But still there -was an odor of fire. He crawled out into the wings, and as he did so his -eyes became accustomed to the semi-darkness. Thus by sight he located -the source of the baffling fire smell. It was under the deck just -forward of the hatch--a heap of ashes burned from all sorts of old junk. -Mattresses had made part of the fire. - -Not two feet away from where the fire had burned most briskly lay a -five-gallon tin of kerosene on its side. The arsonist who had carried it -there either had lost his nerve at the end and been afraid to open its -cock, or else he had depended upon it to explode. - -Still this fire which had been set with the intention of destroying the -_Daphne_ had made much smoke and burned out impotently. The deck above -it was only slightly charred. - -Paul raked through the ashes feverishly. The coal underneath was as cool -to the touch as it was elsewhere. Not more than a handful of it was -blistered. - -When he drew himself up on deck again he hauled a couple of buckets of -water from over the side and threw it on the spot where the fire had -burned as a matter of extraordinary precaution. Nor did he forget to -bring the kerosene out of the hold. - -Emily met him with a smile of gladness, which immediately turned into a -laugh of humor as Paul stepped into the galley again. - -"Where have you been--what have you been doing?" she asked. - -"Why--what is the matter?" - -"You should see yourself in a glass. You're as black as a moor." - -He paused a second to survey himself. He indeed was a sorry sight. The -thin tattered shirt and the trousers which he had slashed off at the -knees when he struck out from the island still clung to him damply. His -limbs were black with coal dust. - -"I can imagine the color of my face," said he, and he rubbed the stubble -of beard on his cheeks. "But never mind my appearance--only pour me a -cup of that strong coffee." - -While he drank the black brew he summed up for Emily their exact -situation: - -"We're all alone, partner--just us. A fire panic emptied the vessel--a -fire which the murderers of the skipper and chief mate believed would -destroy the ship and the evidence of their crimes. The ship's laden with -Australian coals--a treacherous cargo. Knowing its dangerous character, -it is easy for me to understand what the first flash of smoke meant to -the minds of the sort of gang for'ard. They believed the cargo was -afire. With those in authority plying them with fear and not a voice to -steady them, they must have gone over the side like rats. The more haste -that marked their going the better were the plans of the ringleaders -suited. I cannot help believing that what happened aft was known to only -a few--the second mate and perhaps the third. Yet how was it explained -to those outside of the secret of the assassinations--the absence of the -skipper and chief mate? The ringleaders could have reported them as dead -without explaining what had killed them. They could have reported them -to have killed each other. They could have reported them as having -fallen overboard. They could have told the others even that the men had -been murdered, without giving any proof against themselves. But I must -have done with this conjecturing. It is idle." - -Paul put down his empty cup with impatience. - -"But where could they have gone?" Emily asked. - -"_Chi risponde presto, sa poco._ That is as the Italians have it: Who -answers suddenly knows little. The fact that they took provisions and -the three boats which the empty chocks show to have been in the bark -seems convincing that they did not flee to another ship. Perhaps they -believed they were near some land." - -"Maybe another island--a trap like ours? I looked for our island--out -there----It is gone." - -Paul nodded. - -"But these things--these sandals. There was a woman----" - -"I am thinking of a woman's presence in the mystery. The French say -there is always a woman." - -He spoke with an attempt at lightness which he was far from feeling. A -wince of unpleasantness indicated his true thoughts. - -"Do you agree with the French adage?" Emily asked. An enigmatical smile -played across her face as she put the question. - -"There is always one woman--one woman out of all the world," he -answered. His tone thrilled her. He studied her for a second -mysteriously. "You are very wonderful to me," he added, but his voice -was so low that it seemed that the thought back of it forced itself to -unconscious utterance. She met his gaze frankly; the unconcealed light -of love was in her eyes. - -Paul turned away from her abruptly and a chill came into her heart. She -saw the old expression of pain in his face--the expression she had -beheld there the day she had seen him first in the steamship agency in -Yokohama. It always came so unexpectedly. - -Looking out of the galley door to windward, Paul saw a clear sky. The -breeze from the southwest held steady at about six or seven knots. All -overhead signs promised fine weather, but the swell was ominous. Still -all the indications were that it was the aftermath of a storm which had -passed far to the westward. - -"You're the chief mate of the _Daphne_ now," he said, facing her again, -"and it's your watch below. You slept but little last night, you know." - -"Last night," she said, repeating the words with a shiver. "Nor did you -sleep." - -"I will sleep when you have had yours." - -"But I want to be with you--to help--all I can." - -She felt that even sleep must not be permitted to take him from her -sight. - -"You will help best by obeying orders, little woman. The first rule of -the sea is obedience. Come." - -Paul started aft and Emily followed him in silence. She who had never -known mastership in her life went whither this man led and with no -thought of doing otherwise. He handed her up on the poop over the -weather gangway. - -It was an exceptionally long quarter deck for a vessel of the _Daphne's_ -size. Abaft the mizzenmast and the saloon skylights stood a small -teakwood deck house comfortably furnished as a sort of lounge. It was -lighted by four large ports. Through the center of this house the after -companionway led below. On each fore and aft side was a leather -cushioned bench or divan, both long and wide enough to afford good -berths on which to steal a sleep and at the same time remain within -quick access of the deck. Against the forward bulkhead was a collapsible -chart table. The deck entrance opened on the steering compass and the -wheel. Running forward on each side of the vessel from the break of the -poop to the forward house were two pipe-railed bridges. Similar bridges -connected the forward house with the forecastle head. One might cover -the length of the ship from the mizzenmast to the eyes of her without -putting a foot on the main deck. Halfway between the mizzen and -mainmasts the bridges were connected by a platform on which stood the -standard compass. - -It was in the companionway deck house or lounge, as the castaways came -to call it, that Paul spread a berth for Emily with some blankets which -he took from one of the staterooms. Although she protested that she -would find it easy to remain awake if she could drink as much coffee as -he had--that she really wasn't sleepy--her head had hardly touched its -clean white pillow when her eyelids closed fast in a deep slumber. Sheer -will power had been keeping her up. - -There was grim work ahead of Paul Lavelle and he hurried to do it. It -must be finished when Emily awoke. Before entering the cabin, however, -he went forward and put a fire under the donkey boiler. Here was an -auxiliary crew--this engine--a good thirty horsepower at least. Hope -mounted in his breast as he examined it and found it in first-class -condition. For that matter, everything about the _Daphne_ was strong and -good. She had been "kept up" is the way Lavelle would have described her -to another seaman. - -A plan of action which he had been formulating he now confirmed. He -would let the _Daphne_ lie along hove to as she was until he could fix -her position and then, from that point attempt to work her, with Emily's -aid and the engine's, into a frequented track of vessels. Having made -such a track, he would hold on there the while he did his best to make -the nearest land. If what the bark's log said were true it would not be -long, the gods of the winds being kind, before they were in the track in -which the _Cambodia_ had been lost. - -Thoroughly this man realized the seriousness of the situation which -confronted him. Before him was a task to give any man pause--a -twelve-hundred-ton bark at the mercy of the sea to be handled by -himself, a woman, and a donkey engine. There was no alternative to the -plan his mind had outlined. While he tested it from every angle, -instinct led him to many necessary small tasks. He sounded the ship's -well. There was no telling how much water might have entered her -through the open fore hatch. The rod came back as dry as a bleached -bone. It had not even rained since she had been abandoned. This -suggested examining her fresh-water supply. He sounded these tanks. They -held a supply for fifty days even if the bark had been manned by her -full complement. Besides, the donkey engine had a condenser attachment -for its own purposes and also for ship use in the event of a shortage. - -Paul Lavelle had never been aboard a handier vessel than the _Daphne_. -John McGavock and her young chief mate must have been very proud of her. -She was molded on clipper lines. In her heyday undoubtedly, judging from -the size of her mizzenmast, she had been rigged as a ship. That day had -been when the taunt, white-winged tea clippers were the mail carriers -and passenger greyhounds of the seas; and the men who mastered them -veritable nabobs of the deep. The lounge on the _Daphne's_ poop, the -rich India teak and mahogany and bird's-eye maple of her commodious -saloons, the many staterooms, the appointments of her large galley -bespoke her as having been not among the least of these fliers. -Certainly she must have been a flash packet in the days of her youth -when she could have mustered twenty-five men in a watch to fist a -topsail. Paul knew that vessels like this had carried tremendous -crews--sometimes fifty, sixty, and seventy-five, idlers and all--in the -days of their pride when an hour cut from a passage meant gold for -owners and masters. His mother's father had been master and afterward -owner of such ships as the _Daphne_. But he had sailed them under a -different flag than hers--a flag which had driven him, the grandson, -away from it and to be a marked wanderer. - -This unpleasant personal thought turned Lavelle aft. He entered the -cabin through the door on the starboard side. Here he found three more -staterooms, which opened off an alleyway similar to the one on the -opposite side. These rooms had been long given up to storage purposes. -One was filled with barrels of flour and biscuits; the others held -cordage and bolts of untouched canvas. He carried away a bolt of the -newest, whitest duck and a coil of marlin. - -No tenderer hands could have given the _Daphne's_ master and mate to the -sea; no voice could have bespoken their souls a kinder journey than the -stranger who shrouded and weighted them. He sent them away with a prayer -and a heartfelt farewell that a friend who had known them and loved them -a lifetime might have breathed. - -Paul was near breaking down when it came to the parting with William -Elston. Among the papers scattered around the lad he found the first -page of a letter which the boy had started to his mother on the day -after the _Daphne_ had put out from Sydney. That was the day after -Christmas. - -"I'll be home in England--merry England--with you next Christmas, mother -mine----" - -That was as much as he could read. He put the crumpled sheet in the dead -boy's hands where he had already folded a photograph which had hung over -the berth. It was a picture of a simple vine-covered cottage such as are -to be met in the byways of villages and towns throughout England. -Clusters of roses peeped and seemed to nod over a hawthorn hedge in the -foreground. A collie stood at the gate, head lifted, ears cocked, and -muzzle searching the distance as at a master's coming. On the back of -the photograph was written in the hand which had kept the log: "My -Sussex Home. - - "'In a fair ground--in a fair ground-- - Yea, Sussex by the sea!'" - -While the mystery which Paul met at every turn beckoned him on in -pursuit of it, he was careful to guard against giving any time except to -necessary things. He was compelled to give his attention to the donkey -boiler and galley fires forward as well as keep an eye on the sun's -ascension toward noon. The _Daphne's_ position was the most important -thing to be ascertained. To this end he searched high and low for a -sextant. The mate's was missing; the skipper's, too. He found McGavock's -empty case in a corner of the chart room, where it had been thrown and -smashed. A mercurial barometer lay crushed beside it. Nor could he -discover the sailing chart of the bark's present voyage nor any other -chart of the Pacific. - -Abaft the companionway staircase he came upon a room which had escaped -his attention before. It opened upon a short alleyway into the -lazarette. Here were stowed the ship's slop stores. A door on the left -hand, as one went aft, led into the skipper's room. He had noticed it -when he had returned to get the ulster for Emily. Immediately opposite -was the entrance to a snug bathroom. - -Paul took advantage immediately of his discovery of the slop stores to -levy upon them for an outfit of clothing and shoes. When he had found -how plentiful was the vessel's supply of water he had vanquished the -dust and grime of his venture into the fore hold. The touch of the fresh -clothing, rough though it was, was pleasant. It was a link with the -world again. - -The while he dressed in the bathroom he observed many things which told -of a woman's presence--articles of the toilet too fine and dainty for a -man's use. A leather traveling dressing case lay on a small stand. It -contained a silver-mounted assortment of brushes and screw-top bottles. -He paused to examine them for a marking. There was none but the English -Sterling impression. Another thing which indicated to him that this room -had known a woman's presence was a tiny fern basket which swung over the -bath. Similar baskets hung in the skylight of each saloon and from the -ceiling in the skipper's room. These meant a woman's watchfulness and -tender care. Men who live and die by the sea know no green-growing -things; no flowers. The sea gives no flowers to its children; no sweet -odors for memory. It has gardens, but they are scentless and one may -enter them only when life is done. So perhaps it is just as well that -its flora is without fragrance. - -At one moment Paul was convinced that a woman had been in the _Daphne_ -but recently: the next he doubted it. He did not wish to think that she -had been carried off in those small boats. The thought sickened him. - -He crossed from the bath into the skipper's room again, hoping that he -might have overlooked there some place where a sextant or quadrant might -be stored. Alongside the desk he spied a silver frame. It contained the -photograph of a laughing, blonde-headed girl of not more than two and -twenty--an wholesome English type of face; just such a woman as he -imagined a man like McGavock would go a-wooing and take to wife. He -regretted that he had not found it sooner. John McGavock might have -wished to take it with him. Paul set it on top of the desk again, from -which it had evidently been knocked, and turned away cudgeling his brain -to suggest where he might carry his search. His glance picked up a -knobless door in the bulkhead to the right of the desk. He dimly -remembered noticing it when he had taken the mackintosh and of fixing it -in his mind at the time as the vessel's medicine chest. It was fastened -with a spring lock. He stepped back from it, hesitated a second, and -with a heave of his shoulder burst it in. - -An odorous wave of English lavender rolled out upon him. The man closed -his eyes and inhaled the sweet freshness with a lingering breath. It -conjured memories of mother, sister, home, boyhood--all the tender -recollections of the days which had known no clouds; no bitternesses. - -The room which the door revealed was half filled with a woman's skirts -and gowns and coats hanging in order from the beams overhead. Along a -shelf against the forward side stood a neat row of six or seven pairs of -shoes and slippers. The drooping tops of some of them suggested little -soldiers grown tired of marching. The invader felt as if he had broken -into a holy place. A cedar-wood chest stood open on his left. On top of -a filmy heap of woman's things lay a Leghorn straw, trimmed with a -wreath of faded red silk roses. Across the hat was a baby's dainty -underslip. - -Turning away from the chest with a pang in his heart and a tightening at -the throat latch his eyes found the object of his search. A sextant lay -on top of the medicine chest which was built into the vessel's side. As -he picked it up eagerly and examined it, he discovered two new chart -pipes standing in the corner. In one of these was a new Admiralty chart -of the North and South Pacific Oceans. - -Carrying the pipes and the sextant, Paul Lavelle backed out of the -little room, and as he went he could not help feeling that he had -violated a shrine. - - - - -CHAPTER XXIV - - -Warned of a sudden that the sun was near the zenith, Paul hastened from -the engine room aft. Although he tried to go softly when he reached the -poop for fear of waking Emily he could not control the heels nor the -squeaking of his new slop chest shoes. He heard her calling him before -he was halfway to the wheel. - -As he appeared in the lounge door she sat up in dumb fear. For the -moment she did not recognize him in the rough blue shirt and corduroys -and strange cap into which he had changed. - -"It's I," he said, removing his cap with a smile. - -"Oh, Paul--Paul," she sobbed hysterically and covering her face as if to -shut something unpleasant away from her. "I--I have had such--such a -horrible dream. I----" - -"There, there," he said comfortingly and going in to her. She caught -hold of his hand. "Everything's going to come out all right. You know -you've been through an awful drive. If----I'm sorry I woke you. Try to -go back to sleep for another hour." - -"I couldn't--I couldn't. I was dreaming that--that you were out there -in the sea and that the ship was falling on you--pressing you down, -down, down! It isn't true! It isn't true!" - -Her voice rose nearly to a shriek in her effort to reassure herself. He -had won to his old control of himself. - -"No, no, it isn't true. Now listen: We're playing a big, big game here. -You're my partner. The only one I can depend on----" - -"Forgive me--I don't mean to be selfish or thoughtless or whimpery--or -the clinging-vine sort." - -"It's all right. All right, partner. It's a wonder you've a nerve left. -There are mighty few men who could have come through what you have and -not be folded up now. But I want you to think of this game. It's so big, -so big, that it's worth winning!" His tone, his expression, brought a -smile of interest into her face. "If you think you can't sleep I want -you to go down below and get into a heavy shirt like mine--the -strongest, heaviest clothes you can find. I've pulled a lot out of the -slop chest--socks and things. Then, there's a little room--you'll find -it in a corner of the skipper's. It's filled with a lot of woman's -things. There's a cedar-wood chest----You will know what to take." - -"A woman's things? There was a----" - -"All I can say is that the _Daphne_ has known a woman's presence. When -she was here--what has become of her--God knows." - -"Before I slept I said a prayer for her. And every time I lie down to -rest I will pray for her safety." - -Emily stood up, but she hesitated as she started to descend the -companionway. - -"It's all right. There is nobody down there now. We're absolutely -alone," Paul said, noting her trepidation. "'Home is the sailor, home -from the sea, And the hunter home from the hill.'" - -Peace came to her spirit at the gentleness of his words and she went -below unafraid. - -By the noon sights which the _Daphne's_ new master got he fixed her -position as Latitude 33:18 north; Longitude, 177:20 east. It astounded -him. He worked his calculations over and over again according to a -half-dozen different formulæ. The result was the same, except for an -unappreciable difference in longitude. So he made it 12 o'clock, setting -the local time by an old-fashioned silver watch which he had discovered -under the pillow in Elston's berth. - -Assuming the correctness of his reckoning, the _Daphne_ was -approximately two hundred miles north and west of where the _Cambodia_ -had gone down. In the light of this he had to accept it as a fact that -the island had drifted across the steamship lane. On the 29th the -_Daphne_ had been in Latitude 32:30 and Longitude 176:28. He visualized -that day on the island. There had been a light breeze from sunrise to -sunset out of the northeast. With the going down of the sun it had begun -to veer through the north until it brought out of the southwest. Hove to -on the port tack, the bark most have followed the hauling breeze until -she had circled the island and then drifted up on it with the swell. It -was the only satisfactory solution of which Paul could think. - -There came to him now, with redoubled force, a thought which had formed -in the instant he had read in the log the port of the vessel's departure -and her destination: "What can have caused a ship bound from Sydney, New -South Wales, toward San Francisco, to be steered so far to the -westward?" - -He was compelled to turn from the puzzle and admit that he was baffled. - -During the half-hour preceding noon the swell had gone down -considerably. The breeze still continued steady from the southwest. An -aneroid barometer which he had discovered in the lounge, when he had -spread Emily's berth there, stood at an ordinary normal height. So he -decided to hold on as the bark lay until after luncheon, then get under -way, run before the wind for two hours, and take another altitude. - -As Paul turned away from the barometer hanging over the chart table, -Emily came up through the companionway. She wore a heavy blue flannel -shirt such as he had told her to put on and a blue walking skirt which -came to the tops of a pair of tan tennis shoes. She had plaited her hair -again and wound it round her head like a crown. The shirt was unbuttoned -at the throat, the cuffs rolled back. She presented a figure of -beautiful, efficient womanhood where she paused at the head of the -companionway, her arms half raised as if seeking Paul's approbation. -Never since the first day he had seen her had she seemed so strongly -feminine. - -"You are the----" There he broke an exclamation. He halted in the step -which he had taken toward her. Emily waited, her eyes half lowered. When -his voice broke she looked up in surprise. She was pale, despite the -soft tan with which exposure had dusted her face and throat. With an -embarrassed laugh Paul went on: "You would make gunny cloth seem like -the finest silk. Never ship sailed the seas with such a chief mate." - -It was a disingenuous, awkward speech. Ill at ease he hurried on to tell -her of the _Daphne's_ position by the observations he had just made; of -the plans he had formed. All the while he talked, a thought, which had -been with him ever since the moment of madness in the galley and which -had lashed him all through the morning, sprinkled salt on the wounds in -his conscience. - -"I felt as if I were committing a sacrilege when I went into the little -room where the cedar chest is," Emily told him as they went forward to -prepare luncheon. "The chest is filled with a girl's wedding things. The -hat--the baby slip--I laid them away carefully and shut the lid on -them." - -She looked at the sea with a shudder. Paul noticed this and realized -that he must fight, too, to keep his companion's mind on pleasant -things. He quickly directed her thoughts to the future, explaining the -division of labor that must be theirs and the vigilance they must keep -to win a triumph of the sea. Her interest was enlisted more easily than -he imagined it would be, for her thoughts were busy with a future which -was calling her in all the beauty of life. - -Emily insisted upon preparing the luncheon, permitting Paul only to -shake up the fire. She did it well and, the while she was about it, he -took the opportunity to reëxamine the _Daphne's_ log. He hoped to glean -from it some things which might aid him in the navigation of the bark. -It served, however, only to deepen the mystery. - -It was a clean record of routine for two weeks after the departure from -Sydney. The crew had been received aboard on Christmas night. It was not -hard to visualize the condition of the lot on such a day--the sorriest -day in the year for an outward-bound. The following morning she had -sailed--three months and eight days gone, or, as Elston had written at -noon of the 29th: "Our 96th day at sea from Sydney." This was the 98th -day. - -The first thing to seize Paul's professional eye importantly was the -absence of any designation of second or third mate. If the _Daphne_ had -sailed without these officers then they must have been recruited -afterward from the forecastle gang. There was no telling from the names -of the sixteen members of the crew who these might have been. The list -comprehended every nationality under the sun. - -At the end of the first two weeks three pages had been torn from the -book. A week later another page was missing. There was not a week of the -entire ninety-six days up to the hour of abandonment which was complete. -Of course, it was plain to Lavelle that the man or men who had defaced -the book had done so to destroy something that had been written against -him or them. - -"But why not have hove the book overboard and been done with it?" Paul -asked himself. He could not answer the question. - -The _Daphne_ had spoken no other vessels; sighted no sail so far as the -log disclosed. Fair weather had attended her to the equator, which she -had crossed on the fiftieth day out with a proper casting--Longitude 119 -west. This was in the track made by sailing vessels bound from Australia -to the west coast of the United States. Then had followed calms until -she had fallen in with the northeast trades in Latitude 8 north, but -there was no word to explain why she thereafterward had been steered -into this western sea more than two thousand miles off the course she -should have held! - -Emily's summons to luncheon made Paul lay aside the log. It was a -surprisingly good and substantial meal that she had whipped together. -While they ate Paul undertook the gold woman's drilling in the details -of working a ship. On the island he and Chang had filled in many a -dreary minute with talk of ships. Chang had taught her how to box the -compass, and she was proud now, indeed, to exhibit this knowledge--eager -to put it to use. Her experience in the boat had taught her much, too. -She surprised Paul and made him proud of the intelligence with which she -was able to comprehend his explanations. - -"You're bully!" he exclaimed finally in admiration. "You're a woman with -an efficient brain." - -This little speech made Emily glow with happiness. She had had many a -pretty compliment addressed to her by artists at that game, but never -one which gave her this pleasure. Somehow she felt that thus he would -have spoken to another man whose work he wished to praise. She -understood that Paul Lavelle held order and efficiency above everything -else. She was efficient in his sight. She fairly ran when he gave her -the word to go aft and stand by the wheel. - -The donkey boiler had made a full head of steam half an hour before. Now -Paul started the engine which was connected with two hoisting drums -protruding from each side of the forward house. He hoisted and hauled -with these drums--set an additional headsail, and hauled his main yards -round. Within ten minutes he had the _Daphne_ bearing away to the -northward with the wind over her port quarter. He ran aft and by hand -swayed up the peak of the spanker as best he could. Next he set the -patent log which was trailing over the stern. - -Pausing to note the effect of the spanker he there and then stored in -his memory the fact that with the peak down and a slight lee helm the -_Daphne_, with the canvas she was now carrying, would practically take -care of herself hove to in a light breeze. - -When he looked over Emily's shoulder at the compass he could hear her -heart beating wildly. - -"How are you heading?" he asked with a slight brusqueness. - -"Northeast by north, half north," she answered accurately and with a -sharp intake of the breath. - -"Keep her so." - -All the gold woman could do was nod that she heard. The power of speech -seemed to have gone from her. Awe of the big fabric of iron and canvas -and web upon web of ropes and gear obeying the impulse of her small -hands was upon her. It was a big game. It was a terrific, intoxicating, -joyous sensation. She had but one distinct thought: That was to go -sailing on in the _Daphne_--just she and this man alone--forever and -ever. All the years of her past faded away--the moment obliterated their -insignificance. Her eyes, alight with love, went seeking the man's face -and found him turned away from her, entering the lounge. - -"Rouse me at the slightest weather change--in two hours anyway," he -called from within. - -"I will," she managed to answer in a voice that seemed to belong to -somebody else. She was trembling from head to foot with wonder--wonder -of new strange forces clamoring through her being. The one thought which -her comprehension dragged out of the riot and held was that this man -through whom and by whom she lived trusted her so that he was lying down -to sleep in her keeping; that he was depending upon her. Her woman's -soul cried out in the pride of possession. - - - - -CHAPTER XXV - - -A violent ringing of the ship's bell and Emily calling him in a voice -fraught with excitement aroused Paul. For a second he imagined he was -still dreaming. - -"Paul! Paul! Quick!" - -He sprang out on deck. - -"Oh!" Emily gasped in relief. "I thought you would never wake. But -look!" She pointed forward. "A boat's there! Right ahead! A -man----There!" - -Rubbing his sleep-bewildered eyelids, Paul made out a small white boat a -point off the _Daphne's_ weather bow and not more than five ship's -lengths away. Yes, a man was standing up in it. He was beckoning wildly -to the bark and to the sky in turn. - -The boat was too far off to make out if the man were alone in it. Paul -had to depend on his sight. The bark had been robbed of her glasses. - -The _Daphne_ was making about three knots an hour. While he had slept -the breeze had lessened. The swell was practically gone. - -"Haul her up three points," said Paul, facing the wheel. "Keep an eye -on me. Every time I raise my right hand let her go off half a point. -When I hold up my left: Haul up half a point--luff!" - -With this instruction snapped at Emily, Paul ran forward, leaving her -alone, bewildered, fearful of making a mistake. But he was satisfied she -would understand. He held responsibility to be as much the mother of -capacity as necessity is of invention. - -By instinct alone Emily interpreted Paul's orders. She brought the -_Daphne_ to windward and until she could see the boat and its -passenger's head just over the lee bow. She saw Paul spring into the -fore shrouds with a coil of rope. As he did so he raised his left hand. -The boat disappeared. She was sure the _Daphne_ would run it down. Paul -raised his right hand. The helmswoman let the bark go off half a point. - -Paul, leaning over the rail at his last signal, tried to read a name on -the stern of the little boat which came bobbing toward him. He failed. - -An old man was standing up between the cockleshell's alter and second -thwarts. He was babbling in delirium. His swollen tongue was protruding -from his lips. He was bareheaded and his hairless crown seemed ready to -burst open in fire. Now the boat was close enough to see that the -derelict was alone. His clothing consisted of a shirt and -trousers--dungarees. He answered Paul's hails with a leer of idiocy. - -Emily steered so finely that the _Daphne_ brought the boat alongside -just abreast of the fore-rigging. As their sides touched, Paul dropped a -running bowline over the old man's head and shoulders and a minute later -hauled him over the side. The boat overturned as its occupant was jerked -out of it and Paul regretfully saw it drift away. - -The derelict crumpled in a heap at his rescuer's feet as he touched the -deck. His face and neck and arms and feet were horribly sunburned. He -was literally parboiled. It would have taken the woman who mothered him -to recognize his pitiably swollen countenance. He was short and -thick-set and between fifty-five and sixty years old. His horny nails -and blunt work-worn fingers bespoke him a sailor. - -Paul carried him up on the poop as the best place to work over him and -laid him down in the lee of the lounge house. - -"Oh, you poor, poor man!" Emily cried in sympathy at sight of him. - -"This is terrible, little woman. I'm afraid we can do little for him." - -Paul looked away from the stranger with a shudder. While he had been -forward at the rescue and carrying the stranger aft the breeze had died -away. All aloft was now idle. - -"Can't I leave here and help you?" asked Emily. "We must try to save his -life." - -"It's a mighty unpleasant task for you." - -"Don't think of me as being helpless, Paul. Please. I know I can do so -many things. I'm not the same woman you met back there." - -She looked away to the westward as she spoke. - -"Come, then." He put the wheel in beckets. "Forward----Get some water -out of the galley." - -Emily ran to do as she was bidden and Paul went below to the medicine -chest. The medical supplies provided some strychnine tablets and, -tincturing a glass of water with this heart stimulant, the castaways -took turn about forcing drops of the fluid between the cracked lips. -Emily discovered a jar of beef extract among the stores and made up a -little of this for the sufferer. - -After two hours of careful and unceasing attention the derelict opened -his rheumy eyes and stared at the sky for a second. - -"Hello, stranger," said Paul. "Feeling better?" - -The eyes closed again and the cracked lips muttered an inaudible blur of -words. It was plainly an unconscious answer. - -A little while later, as Paul was taking another observation of the sun, -Emily thought she saw a gleam of consciousness in the faded gaze which -found her face and held it. - -"Are you from the bark _Daphne_--the _Daphne_?" she asked. - -Both she and Paul had discussed the possibility of this being so. - -"He--walked--'tween--gyves----" - -This was the strange whispered utterance that came from the cracked -lips. - -"Paul, he is speaking." - -Lavelle laid down his sextant and knelt beside the stranger. - -"I asked him," the gold woman explained, "if he belonged to the -_Daphne_. He----Listen----" - -The cracked lips were speaking again. - -"He--walked--'tween--'tween with--with gyves----" - -The stranger was repeating what he had said to Emily. - -Paul ran the words over under his breath. They sounded familiar. They -had a rhythm that touched some cell of memory. Suddenly his mind groped -upon discovery. Emily uttered an exclamation in the same instant. Both -of them knew what the stranger was attempting to say. - -"Don't you remember Hood's 'The Dream of Eugene Aram,' Paul?" - -"Yes," he said with a nod. "'And Eugene Aram walked between, with gyves -upon his wrists.'" - -The line, as he repeated it, had a startling weirdness. - -"What can the poor brain be thinking? What is hidden back of this -strange thought?" Emily asked in a whisper. - -"It may be as we have thought--that he belongs to the _Daphne's_ crew. -Perhaps in its disorder his brain is reflecting the crime committed -aboard here in the words of Hood's poem. Yet one would imagine that if -there is anything in the theory of crime suggesting crime that it would -be something of the sea of which he would be thinking. Eugene Aram was a -schoolmaster and he killed in the woods. This man is a sailor. There is -no doubt about that." - -"Could he have been the one----" - -Emily shrank from the stranger at the thought which leaped into her -mind. - -"Don't think that, Emily. If he had a hand in what happened here----But -let as not think of what's past." - -Paul carried the derelict below and put him in the room next to the -mate's. He swathed his burns in carron oil and tied him in the bunk so -that the rolling of the vessel would not turn him out. The man had -become unconscious again immediately after mumbling the bit of "Eugene -Aram" which Emily had called Paul to hear. Lavelle left the derelict -sleeping in apparent peace, but with a heart action that was extremely -weak. - -"If he lives he will be a Godsend toward helping us work ship," Paul -told Emily as they went aft together to the lounge. - -"May be that is why it was given to us to pick him up." - -Paul smiled doubtfully. - -"What time is it, Emily?" he asked. - -"Only quarter past three," she said, looking at the silver watch which -he had given her to carry when he put her at the wheel. - -"Didn't have much of a sleep, did I?" - -"No, you didn't. Please lie down again." - -"Will in a little while. Got to. But first I must work out this -observation--see where in this world or Kingdom Come we are." - -He sat down at the chart table and in a few minutes, weary though he -was, finished his calculations. The result checked and confirmed his -noon reckoning. - -Emily stood beside him holding down the edges of the chart while he -pricked off the _Daphne's_ position and ran a line to the southeastward. -It ended at Ocean Island. He ran a second to Midway; a third to -Honolulu. The woman watched his long fine fingers--wondrously fine for -the rough, hard things of which she knew them to be capable--handling -pencil and ruler and dividers with a fascinating deftness and certainty. -He seemed oblivious of everything else. An eager stimulation seemed to -be driving him. The mystery of the student was about him. A feeling of -woful incompetence possessed her. She realized how narrow and little her -life had always been until now; how little she actually knew of all the -things there were to be known. Her heart stirred of a sudden with a -marvelous thrill at the thought of what a woman's triumph must be to -suffer the giving of such a man as this to the world. Her breath paused -tremulously. What Shanghai Elsie had said to her in the boat flashed -into her mind: "You were made for the mother of men--strong men--like -him." - -The navigator, glancing up from his work, beheld an expression in her -beautiful face which was beyond his understanding. Her glance dropped as -it met his and a glow suffused her cheeks and thin, delicate ears that -the dawn might have envied. A second later her eyes lifted to his again -and in their expression and her smile he read elation. In his blindness -he believed that she had been able to follow his work and that it was -the prospect of an early deliverance which enlightened her countenance. - -"There you are!" he exclaimed in a note of lively and natural pleasure. -"Look! Only five hundred miles to the southeast----See that speck? -That's Ocean Island. If we can't fetch that we'll try for Midway. A -cable station's there. If we can't make any of these islands we'll keep -right on to Honolulu. All the while we'll be lying along in the -steamship track. Isn't it wonderful, eh?" - -"Too wonderful to be true, Paul." - -The answer came in a whisper. Tears glinted in her eyes. She was glad -for his sake; glad that the stress which was upon him was so near an -end. His escape, of course, meant hers and----Intuitively she sensed -that he was very far away from her; that he was slipping further and -further away and she started to put out a hand to touch him; to hold -him. Her arm dropped as she raised it. This was not the man who had held -her in his arms that morning. She heard his words dimly. - -"If we can work to the south'ard and the eastward, by to-morrow noon we -may begin to keep our eyes open for ships. With any kind of fair weather -and a breeze from the westward land should be rising over the bows in -three or four days. Think of it! Another twelve hours and you may be -going over the _Daphne's_ side into a homeward bounder!" - -Emily's eyes overflowed. He winced at the tears. - -"Why----You mustn't be crying now. You must laugh! Sing! The chief mate -of the bark _Daphne_ would better be thinking of her shore-going togs! -This is what we'll be singing in a very short time: - - "I _thought_ I heard the captain say, - _Leave her, Johnny, leave her;_ - You may go ashore and touch your pay, - _It's time for us to leave her._ - - "We'll sing. Oh, may we never be, - _Leave her, Johnny, leave her;_ - On a hungry ship the like of she, - _It's time for us to leave her._" - -With a laugh and those snatches of the old chanty of "Leave Her, Johnny" -ringing from his lips in a clear, deep voice Paul led the way out on -deck. - -"Great old song that. Ought to hear a gang of bullies at it." - -"It must be fine," she managed to say with a pretense of enjoyment. - -He turned from her and went forward to the standard compass. Going and -returning, he looked aloft and around at the silent plain of brine. The -sails still drooped in idleness. There was the barest heave in the -ocean. The bark was without steerage way. - -"Better lie down and take a nap," Paul said as he came back and stood at -the wheel for a second. "Can't tell how long this calm will last. I'm -going to try to steal a little sleep." - -"Please do. I will lie down presently." - -He did not meet her gaze, and she turned toward the sea as if she hoped -its purple heart would give her throbbing one an answer. She heard Paul -leave the poop and then a clang from the engine room told her he was -there. It sounded like a door closing between them--a door that would -never open again--and she went into the lounge to weep bitter tears -which would not be stayed. - -If she could have seen Paul Lavelle's face when he turned away from her -and at the moment when she was giving way to her loneliness she would -have understood that he was suffering, too. - -After overhauling the fires under the donkey boiler, Paul threw himself -at full length across the main hatch. He was mind weary; body weary; at -war with himself. Staring up at the sky he brought his whole life in -contemplation. Another day, as he had told the gold woman, might see -them delivered from their peril in the _Daphne_. Anyway he felt that the -world--the world in which she belonged and must have her being--was not -very far off. And she would be going out of his life forever. She must. -A pariah like him could not say to her, "Stay." The man who stood marked -as he was could say to no woman, "Stay." All day the past had lashed -him. All day the fineness of him had arraigned the weakness which had -permitted him to forget that he could never claim her love. All day the -memory of his madness in daring to kiss her as he had had tortured him. -He groaned in his agony of spirit. - -"God," he prayed aloud with lips strange to prayer, "grant that I may -finish 'what remains before us of the course without dishonor to -ourselves or hurt to others.' For my soul's sake I ask this." - -With this thought his mother's dear face smiled into his vision. - -"Mother mine, mother mine," he murmured, and his eyes closed in -exhaustion. - -It was dusk when Emily awoke in the lounge. By the silver watch she saw -that it was a quarter past six o'clock. All was quiet as when she lay -down. The bark was in the same dead calm. The creaking of the gear -overhead and the slatting of the idle sails were the only sounds in the -stillness. She stole below, and on her way forward paused at the door of -the derelict's room. He still slept. She tiptoed inside and wet his lips -with a sip of water. He murmured in unconscious thankfulness. She -hurried on then toward the engine room. Paul must be there or in the -galley. She came upon him lying across the main hatch. He was asleep, -his head pillowed on his right arm. The light of a love that would never -die came into her eyes as she stood for a second listening to his deep -breathing of honest weariness. - -The chill of the coming night was in the air. Emily stole aft again on -tiptoe and returned with a blanket. She spread it over the sleeper with -a mother's gentleness. He did not move. Sighing, she turned away and -with the silence of a thief went to the galley to prepare the evening -meal. - - - - -CHAPTER XXVI - - -Coming down from aloft, where he had gone immediately after dinner to -reef and furl the topgallant sails as best he could, Emily met Paul with -the news that the derelict seemed to be recovering a glimmer of -consciousness. - -"When I carried a cup of beef extract to him just now he was awake," she -told Paul. "He seemed not at all surprised to find a woman attending -him. He thinks he is in a hospital somewhere--that I am a nurse. When I -asked him his name he answered: 'Number 19--cot 19, nurse.'" - -"Did you ask him anything about the _Daphne_?" - -"Yes; but neither the vessel's name nor Captain McGavock's nor any of -those you told me were in the log book meant anything to him. His only -answer to all my questions was, 'Nurse, if the captain comes in before -"lights out" tell him I'd like to see him.' He's an Irishman, I should -say--a kind sort of an old soul, with a rare, musical brogue." - -"A very broth of a bhoy, eh?" laughed Paul. - -"If he is one of the _Daphne's_ crew, I am sure--I am certain that he -had nothing to do with the mutiny." - -"And that is the woman of it. Come. I'll go in to see him. Let me get a -lantern out of the engine room." - -"There is a lamp in his room. I filled it the way I saw you filling the -sidelights." - -"You'd make a great pioneer, Emily. Come." - -Thus praise always came from him quickly for the doing of a helpful -thing. She could imagine men working their fingers to the bone under his -mastership. - -Together they went aft, Emily preceding Paul through the alleyway to the -derelict's door. The light in the lamp, which hung in gimbals against -the forward bulkhead of the room, was low. Emily went in and turned it -up. - -"Are you feeling better?" she asked cheerily. - -"Yes, nurse, easier--much easier," came his answer rather thickly. His -face was toward the inside of the berth. He turned over painfully, his -eyelids fluttering. "Has the cap--the Ould Man----" - -His lips froze as he discovered Paul Lavelle in the doorway. He started -up on his right elbow. His eyes bulged wildly. His jaw went loose. He -made a vain effort to lift his left hand to his brow in a salute. He -tried to speak, but his tongue clicked in his throat like a twig -crackling. With a weird, eery cry he fell back in the berth senseless. - -The time of a breath embraced the strange scene. - -"Oh, Paul, Paul, he knows you!" exclaimed Emily in a tense whisper. - -"I never saw him to my knowledge until we pulled him aboard this -afternoon," said Paul, recovering from his surprise. "He has mistaken me -for somebody else. Poor devil is out of his head." - -"Are you sure you have never seen him?" - -"I'm quite sure. But it's uncanny. Please bring the lamp over here so -that I can take a good look at him." - -Emily carried the light to the side of the berth and Paul bent over the -stranger. He searched every feature of the weather-beaten face and his -own memory at the same time. He was positive he had never seen the -derelict before. - -"Just out of his head, little woman--that's all. I never saw him--I -don't know him, although his own mother wouldn't recognize him now." - -As he spoke Paul timed the unconscious man's pulse and laid an ear to -his breast. Emily caught an uncertain shake in Paul's head as he -straightened. - -"Is--is he going to get better?" she whispered. - -Paul answered her with a shrug of doubt. - -"We can't do any more for him than we are doing now." - -He added this as he saw her wince and the glint of pitying tears come -into her eyes. - -"His heart is very weak," he went on, after a slight pause. "He seems to -be in a bad mooring ground. He's burnt up as if he had been through a -fiery furnace. It may sound strange to hear one speak of the sea as a -fiery furnace, but it is. It can burn a man's soul out of him just as it -can freeze it out. And--mock him with bitter waters he cannot drink." - -There was a world of bitterness in his tone as he finished speaking and -left the room to go aft to the medicine chest. He returned with some -spirits of nitre to find Emily placing a wet pack across the derelict's -forehead. He mixed a dose of the tincture in a tumbler of water and -dropped some of the fluid between the cracked lips. - -"This will help to pull the fever down," he explained. "It's all I -could find back there--this nitre. He will need watching and attention -to-night. If this calm holds I will slip in here now and again." - -A low moan escaped from the stranger. - -"Come, little woman. Let us leave him now." - -Paul put up a hand to turn down the light. - -"No, I am going to stay and do what I can for him, Paul." - -"But, Emily, this--this is no work for you. You----" - -"Paul Lavelle, it is my work," the gold woman said firmly. "I've been a -loafer--an idling nothing--a leaner all my life. I've never helped until -now. You've taught me how. You can't unteach me. If my hands can aid -this poor old man to keep a hold upon life they are going to do it. If -they can make his going out any easier they are going to do it. My God, -the thought--that it might be you--and a woman would turn away -from--from you----" - -Her voice broke. Tears choked her. She put an arm against the bulkhead -and buried her face in it, away from Paul's sight. Her nobility of soul -chastened his spirit. It exalted him. In silence he went out into the -night. Strangely there lingered in his brain as he went about the ship -two sentences Emily had uttered with unwonted fire: "You've taught me -how. You can't unteach me." - -There was much for the _Daphne's_ new skipper to do. While the calm gave -no sign of breaking and the lounge barometer held steady for fair -weather, still the longer he contemplated the task of handling the -_Daphne_ the bigger it grew in his sight. He could not afford to let any -precaution which suggested itself pass unembraced. So he turned to work -on the theory that it is easier to let out a reef in a breeze than it is -to furl a sail in a gale. He cut his coat according to the cloth he had. -He double-reefed the foresail and the topsails and, with the donkey -engine's aid, found it not such a hard task as he had imagined it might -be. Steam hauled the blocks of the reef tackles closer together than -sailor hands could ever have brought them. The best he could do with the -mainsail was stopper it with gaskets. It would have been vain and futile -to have tried to roll the heavy canvas up on its yard. He knew if it -should come on to blow that the wind would take care of it as he left -it, but he could not help it. - -The last thing he did forward was to put the hatch covers on and bar -them down. The tarpaulin had been burned or thrown overboard by the -mutineers, but Paul felt certain that little water could enter the -_Daphne_ there. - -As he went aft he was surprised to see a light in Elston's room. Peering -through the port under the gangway ladder leading to the poop he saw -Emily writing at the dead boy's desk. She stirred slightly as his eyes -rested on her and as if conscious of another presence. A sense of guilt -startled Paul and he hastened aft to reef down the spanker. - -With the finishing of that task the skipper leaned wearily against the -wheel and surveyed the things he had done alow and aloft. The moon, -which, twenty-four hours gone, he had never expected to see rise again, -presently caught him in its spell. It was now nearly two hours high over -the bark's starboard quarter. In its beams the _Daphne_ seemed but the -delicate tracery of a ship o' dreams. It powdered the vessel with a -silvery dust; enveloped her in a mystic, spiritual splendor. The gilded -trucks gleamed like true gold. Masts and spars, shrouds and stays and -running gear were invested with a fairy grace. The coarse, heavy sails -had become gossamer in their fineness--butterfly wings at rest. The -night, as if for the very beauty of the scene, wept upon the fabric in -dewy tears of pearl and opal and sparkling diamond. - -Emerging from the lounge Emily was caught in the moonlight's -enhancement. For a second it swept from her mind what had brought her -seeking Lavelle. Paul, staring aloft, did not see her nor did he hear -her footfall. A hiss of steam from the donkey boiler's safety escape, -which had been set at a very low pressure, broke the spell. - -"It seems helpless--weak to say that words fail one in expressing a -thought--an impression," said the gold woman. "But all I can say--I must -say the trite thing: How wondrously beautiful!" - -Her words but expressed the thought that had leaped into Paul's mind at -discovering her and which he had bravely denied utterance. - -"The sea has no fairer sight to give men than this--unless it is a -square-rigged vessel like the _Daphne_, 'a towering cloud of canvas,' -driving along over the deep in such a light. But how is the stranger?" - -The question brought a serious eagerness into Emily's face. - -"Are you positive, Paul, that you have never seen this man before?" - -"I have searched my memory to place him. He is not in it. Why?" - -"He was quiet for perhaps an half-hour after you left. I went into the -room next door--the mate's--to--to write something. Suddenly I heard him -call your name, 'Lavelle.'" - -"Impossible!" - -"No; I heard the name, 'Lavelle'; just as distinctly as that. I was -shocked. I stole in very softly and stood beside him. His eyes were -closed, but he kept mumbling, 'That night at Apia----'" - -"Apia? Apia?" Paul repeated with interest. "Yes, go on. What else did he -say?" - -"That was as far as he seemed able to get. I thought he was trying to go -over some oft-told story. At last he sank back in exhaustion. I did not -dare to speak to him. He has slept ever since and his fever is down. -What is Apia? Where is it? What do you think he meant?" - -"Apia--in the Samoan Islands. My father was lost there twenty-five years -ago in a hurricane which trapped three naval squadrons. He was about my -age at the time. Only a little while ago mother wrote me that a -photograph I sent her might have been father's. This old fellow must -have served under him. He mistook me for him when he saw me so -unexpectedly in the doorway. This explains it. The way he attempted to -salute when he saw me made me think he was a man-o'-war's man." - -A strange, unreasonable hope which had sprung into Emily's heart died. - -"The sea plays strange pranks, doesn't it, my friend?" Paul asked after -a pause. The question drew Emily's gaze back from the satiny blue deep. -His manner of address chilled her. "'My friend! My friend'?" her brain -echoed. He averted his gaze sadly. - -"Yes," she assented. "It does play strange pranks." - -In the words a meaning was veiled that did not reach him. She was -thinking of the barrier that had been building itself between them all -day. No sooner did one wall go down than another rose in its place. -Strangely, as she watched him staring over the deep to the southward, a -feeling of contrition filled her. With the truest sympathy she said: - -"I am sorry. Perhaps I shouldn't have told you what this man said. It -has stirred unpleasant memories--sad ones." - -"No. The finest memory I have is my father--the finest memory any son -ever had." - -As he spoke he seemed to go still further away from her. In silence she -watched him enter the lounge and return to the deck with his sextant. He -took an observation of Polaris and then went in to the chart table to -work it out. With a feeling akin to shame Emily sensed that he did not -wish her near him and she started below. - -"We should try to get as much sleep as possible while this calm lasts." - -He said this coldly and without looking up from the book from which he -was taking a set of logarithms. - -"I know--I understand," she answered, fighting for control of herself. - -"A breeze may come at any time and we'll need every bit of strength we -can muster to work the ship." - -The gold woman could stand the uncertainty no longer. - -"Paul, tell me frankly--have I done or said anything to hurt you? What -is it? What I said down there in the stranger's room--is it that?" - -The words were no sooner away from her lips than anger at herself swept -her. Where was her pride? - -"No, no. Of course you have not said anything. Of course not. All's -well, little woman." His answer came quickly, but not without an -embarrassment that she failed to understand. He bent his head over his -work again. "Don't forget you are to call me at the first sign of a -breeze; anyway not later than 11:30." - -They had planned at dinner that she was to keep the watch for the first -part of the night. - -"No; I shan't forget," she answered bravely and groped down the -companionway from his sight. Nor could she dream what pain it cost the -lonely man at the chart table to let her go from him. - - - - -CHAPTER XXVII - - -"Up with ye, yez foretop bullies! Up an' give her a cheer! -Hip!----Hear her! A bloody Englishman playin' av 'Th' Star Spangled -Banner!' That's for us, ye bullies! Hip, hip!----Damn ye, cheer! Now! -Hip!--Again!--She's struck! No! She's by the reef!--By God she's clear! -She's in the open sea! Clear! Hip!" - -This monologue, shouted as if through the teeth of a gale, suddenly -broke upon the gold woman's troubled consciousness where she stood -writing at William Elston's desk. It was the derelict raving. The -dramatic spirit of his speech thrilled her. It conveyed to her mind a -picture of a ship fighting to sea against all odds and she could see the -stranger in the next room somewhere in the foreground of a ragged shore -urging others--men under him--to cheer her on. - -A silence followed the outburst and Emily tiptoed into the alleyway. She -listened for Paul, but no sound came from him aft. She had been below -about an half-hour. He must be asleep. - -The gold woman entered the derelict's door softly and discovered him -sitting upright in his berth, peering from under his two hands as if at -something a long distance away. There was an heroic suggestion in the -posture of him and in the set of his scraggly white-bearded jaw. - -"She's clear--clear," came from him in a tired whisper as Emily crossed -the threshold. He dropped his hands. "Hello, nurse," he said, -discovering the girl. She turned up the light. - -"You're feeling much better, aren't you?" she asked very tenderly. - -She held a glass of water to his lips and he drained it. - -"Thankee, nurse, thankee. Another long drink, please. That's--Ah! That's -good. My coppers is hot. Thankee. I'll be comin' out o' drydock soon. -All I needs is t' get my head gear overhauled an' these ribs spliced. -Nurse, sailormen orter have good hackmatack knees for ribs." A faint -smile of humor rippled across his face. "It's a mighty long way from a -fore-uppertawps'l yard t' th' foc'sle head--a mighty long way." - -The listener gathered that the old man believed he was suffering from -the effects of a fall. He lay back obediently at her suggestion. His -eyes appeared quite rational. Although his hands were still scorching -to the touch there had been an abatement of the fever. Yet his pulse was -extremely weak. When Emily felt it she was surprised at the strength of -his voice. - -"Nurse," he said, after a short pause, "when that 'ere sky pilot comes -roun' in th' mornin' I wants you t' stand by." A twinkle danced in his -sea-bleached blue eyes. "He says th' sea gives up its dead. I'll be -after askin' th' gentleman how he knows. Ye'll hear him shputter at -that. It'll be a fair joke. A fair----" - -He stopped seriously. His gaze sought the doorway. In a whisper fraught -with a note of bitter fatalism he said: - -"Th' sea gives nothin' back, nurse. When it takes annythin' it kapes it. -Th' sky pilots are but pretindin'." - -Emily sensed that the sailor's mind was groping around the appearance of -Paul earlier in the evening. She feared that it would do him harm to let -his mind rest on this and that it would be better if she could induce -him to sleep. - -"Don't you think if I turned down the light you might be able to sleep -again?" - -The suggestion startled him. - -"No, no, nurse. Plaze lave th' light. I'll be afther stayin' awake for -th' Ould Man--that's me own skipper." - -"But he has been here. He----" - -"Mother av God!" he cried. He seized her hand and held it in great -stress. "Thin yez saw him, too! Yez saw Lavelle." His eyes, filled with -awe, leaped from Emily's face to the open doorway and back again. "'Tis -me warnin', colleen, t' be snuggin down--t' make everythin' tight!" - -The thing she had wished not to do she had done unwittingly. She had -turned his poor brain back to its memory of Paul's father. - -"Did yez hear him shpake t' me? Did he shpake t' annybody else?" - -"It was not the Captain Lavelle you think. It was his son." - -"His son? Not 'Prince' Lavelle?" - -The derelict shook his head in doubt, and as he did so he looked round -the stateroom. His eyes picked up each article in it in a bewildered, -half-familiar way. - -"Yes, his son. You must have no fears. Can't you think where you are? Do -try. You're aboard the bark _Daphne_--the _Daphne_." - -"_Daphne?_ _Daphne?_" he repeated. "No, th' _Daphne_ wasn't there. There -was th' _Trenton_, th' _Nipsic_, th' _Vandalia_, a Dutchmin called th' -_Sadler_, th' _Cally-ope_--not _Daphne_." It was plain that the past was -ruling his memory. "'Twas only yestiddy th' home mails come in an' -brought th' 'Prince' a loikeness av his littul bhoy--littul Paul. Says -th' 'Prince' t' me, 'Dan, an' 'tis home with th' littul feller I'd loike -t' be.' He says that t' me, an' him th' 'first luff' an' me a common -sailorman an' capt'n av th' foretop be grace av three enlistments an' -sthayin' sthraight three months on ind. Now he's lyin' out there in thim -God-forsaken wathers an' all because av a bloody lot av Dutchmin an' -naygurs."--"Come along t' th' mass with me an' pray for God's kindness -t' th' 'Prince's' sowl. Yez'll niver sail agin, my bullies, under an -officher man loike 'The Prince.'" - -The last was not spoken to Emily, but to men who were not in the room. - -The sweet tender praise of the father of the man she loved with all the -soul of her wrung tears from the listener. She could see "The Prince" -showing this sailor the picture of Paul. She could hear him speaking. - -"And he called you Dan--'The Prince'?" Emily managed to say and with the -hope that possibly it might suggest the derelict's identity. - -"Dan? T' be sure he called me Dan. 'Rid-headed bunch av sin' he called -me whin I wint on th' bind. I had a thatch in thim days as rid as th' -British merchant flag." A gnarled hand wandered to his bald crown and as -it touched it the sailor started up. Reason seemed to have made a breach -in his poor brain. He looked round the room quickly. A light of -recognition dawned in his gaze. "Dan--Dan," he kept repeating. -"Daniel--Daniel Mc--Mc--Mc--Daniel McGovern!" - -Emily hearkened in breathlessness. She felt herself in the presence of a -mystery. Paul had read her the names of the _Daphne's_ crew from the -log. "Daniel McGovern" was not one of them. - -Tears coursed down the old man's cheeks. His hands trembled. His voice -quavered in a childish treble. He kept on repeating the name over and -over again as if he had found it after many years and was making sure -that it would not escape him again. - -Suddenly he caught Emily's hand and became still. He was listening. - -"Mother av God where am I?" he asked in a few seconds. In the next -breath he exclaimed: "'Tis a ship I'm on! I c'n fale th' sea!" - -"You're in the bark _Daphne_--the _Daphne_. Don't you understand? Can't -you remember anything?" - -It was evident that a great struggle was going on within him. - -"That's her door; that's her door," he whispered. He pointed at the -stateroom door. "Takewood an' mahogany an' maple. So were th' cabins -thrimmed." - -Emily's heart leapt at this. He was from the _Daphne_. She gave him a -drink of water. She started to call Paul. But when she thought of what -had happened before she drew back. - -"Yez are not a spirut--th' spirut av McGavock's woife, eh?" the derelict -asked doubtfully. - -"No, no; but what has happened here? What became of McGavock's wife?" - -"Murder an' hell. That's what happened here. Where's Morgan--an' th' -Jap? Th' sicond mote an' th' cook?" - -"Only you and Captain Lavelle and----" - -A cunning expression came into the derelict's face at Paul's name. His -mind was breaking again. - -"What d'yez know of Lavelle?" Without pausing for an answer, he went on: -"'The Prince' is drown-ded these twinty odd year. An' his poor -bhoy--he's gone this past twilve-month. A man--a prince av min loike -his father, he was. I was along av th' bhoy in th' _Yakutat_." - -Emily's senses went reeling. - -"The _Yakutat_?" she gasped. - -"Aye, th' _Yakutat_--th' big Alaskan brute. She did for th' bhoy, but -'Th' Prince' would have loiked t' have been with us that night." A -boastfulness of pride came into his voice. His eyes closed for a second -as if he saw a vision. "'Twas loike mush whin she piled up. Misther -Lavelle kept a-tellin' Graham he was sthandin' in too close, but 'twas -no use. I heard him meself toll him twict. I was at th' wheel th' lasht -toime. I can see th' two av thim just outside th' wheel-house now. -'You're wrong,' says 'Th' Prince's' son. 'I'm masther here,' says -Graham. Dhrunk he was wid th' lust av pride an' power loike whin fools -command. An' maybe he was dhrunk, too, wid somethin' else. 'Take yure -orders or go t' yure room.' An' 'Th' Prince's' son says he: 'I'll take -me orders.' I was at th' wheel agin in th' mid-watch. God help me 'twas -meself that stheered her up on th' rocks, obeying orders. She climbed -thim loike a woild horse. Th' scut av a third officher had th' bridge. -'Full spade asthern' he give her as' I knew thin she was broke in two. -'Full spade ahead,' an' she'd a-hung on th' rocks till mornin' whin th' -shore folk could have saw us." - -The old man paused. - -"Yes, yes, go on," whispered Emily. - -"A sup av water. That's it. Thankee, nurse. Where was I? Oh----Misther -Lavelle comes a-tumblin' up an' Graham an' th' foorth officher. 'All -hands t' th' boats,' says Graham. A mad, crazy coward he was. Says I t' -meself, 'I want none av ye,' an' I followed 'The Prince's' son. 'T' th' -boats.' Huh! An' not enough boats for th' half av thim aboord. I lep' -from th' wheel an' shtuck t' Misther Lavelle. We had a din av woild -animals t' foight. But we got our boat away--th' childer an' th' women -an' th' ould folk. Lavelle he was for goin' back aboord. 'Twas suicide. -I shoved off. We cleared th' side an' just thin a big naygur I had -lopped av' th' ear an' overboord from th' deck reaches up an' catches -our gunnle. 'Th' Prince's' son cracks at him with an oar. A fule shtood -up i' th' boat, sayin', 'Take him aboord.' An' we full thin as a tick. -Th' next minynte an' over we wint. - -"Loike an hour ago I see it. Says a littul lady forninst me--we'd taken -her husband aboord 'cause we'd seen him sick about th' deck--says she, -'If we must die, we'll die thegither, Jawn.' An' all round was Bedlam." - -With a shudder he lay back. Emily Granville knew that it was of her -mother and father that the derelict had just spoken. But even in the -stress of feeling which possessed her there formed in her mind an high, -practical purpose. She knew that if this man could but reach the ears of -the world with this tale it meant the vindication of Paul Lavelle. It -meant all that was dear to him--his good name, his honor restored. The -sailor must not die. He must live. She would fight death for him and in -justice she must conquer. If she could do this thing for her love she -would have nothing else to ask of life. - -But of a sudden dread seized her. Perhaps it was only the tale of a -disordered brain that she had heard. Why had not this man come forward -at the inquiry which had sent Paul forth branded a coward? Why had he -not told this story then? If he had been on the _Yakutat_ that night, -how was it that Paul did not remember him? Could it be that this man's -weakened mind had found suggestion for the tale from the force of her -own mental desire? - -"But what became of you after that night--after the _Yakutat_ was lost?" -she asked. - -"I don't know, nurse. I don't know. It was just a year ago that I woke -up." - -The last anchorage of her hope went with that. It was but a maundering -tale, after all. Or else her senses were tricking her and she had -imagined that he had said these things about Paul and her mother and -father and the _Yakutat_! - -"It all came back to me," the derelict went on wearily--"twelve years of -my loife. I was in th' seamen's Bethel in Hong Kong--just a year gone. -An' out av a 'Frisco paper I spelled that th' Lavelle av th' -_Yakutat_--'Th' Prince's' bhoy--was gone--lost in a tramp off Rangoon. -Like th' loightnin' sthrikes th' twilve lost year come back. Says I, -'I'm Daniel McGovern.' Whin I was afther tellin' th' sky pilot he wint -an' tol' th' docthors all about it. Th' newspapers printed it. Whin th' -_Yakutat's_ boat wint over somethin' struck me head. A whale ship picked -me up. 'Th' Prince's' boy niver knew I'd served with his father. All th' -thrubble in me head shtarted before I j'ined th' _Yakutat_. I was afther -fallin' from th' tawps'l yard av some ship. Her name--I can't raymimber -where 'twas or what ship 'twas. I tould Elston about it--fine lad he -was--an he laughed at me till I give him th' piece out av th' Hong Kong -newspaper. He laughed----I'll be afther shlapin', shlapin', nurse. I'll -be----" - -Daniel McGovern's eyes closed. He seemed very weak. For a second Emily -feared that he was dying. Then, her abiding faith in the justice of -things renewed her. - -"He mustn't die, God--not yet, not yet," she pleaded in a whisper. - -She ran from the derelict's room into the mate's. Earlier in the evening -she had found on Elston's desk a book--a half-filled diary--from which -she had torn a page upon which to write. She carried this book and pen -and inkwell back to McGovern's room. She would reduce McGovern's story -to writing and make him swear to it. As she spread the book open upon a -chair and knelt beside it to write a newspaper clipping fluttered out -from its pages. A glance confirmed the truth of all the derelict had -said about his strange lapse of memory: - - LOST HIS IDENTITY FOR THIRTEEN YEARS. - - _Word in a Newspaper Restores the Memory of a Man Who Had Forgotten - Who He Was._ - -Thus ran the headlines. To Emily Granville they were written in fire. - -The cabin clock struck seven bells--11:30--but she did not hear it. -Oblivious to all else save her task and the flickering life in the berth -at her side she began to write a statement of all McGovern had said. She -felt that it was in her to stay death until the derelict had signed it. - - - - -CHAPTER XXVIII - - -A crash which shook him bodily brought Paul Lavelle upstanding from the -berth in the lounge. The daze of a heavy sleep clung to him. For an -instant he could not imagine where he was. He was in utter darkness. - -There was another crash where the spanker boom slammed back from -starboard to port again. Then, the _Daphne_ lay over under the impact of -a vicious gust of wind. - -It was the boom which had awakened the sleeper. He leaped out on deck to -find himself in a shapeless blackness. There was barely a breeze, but -the air was filled with eery noises. Overhead, overside, wherever he -turned, he heard them--snarls, whines, whimperings, and the creaking as -of huge pinions wheeling. A wolf pack might have been disputing a kill -with a horde of vultures. - -The contrast of this with the exquisite moonlight night upon which -Lavelle had closed his eyes was appalling. He groped his way to the -wheel, which was in beckets to keep it from rolling, and peered into the -compass. An unconscious sigh of thankfulness for the forethought which -had made him light the binnacle lamp escaped from him. The _Daphne_ was -heading north by east. The gust of wind which had slammed the spanker -boom must have come out of the southeast. He faced that point. Another -gust confirmed the assumption. He ran into the lounge and struck a -match. The silver watch lay on the chart table. It said 1 o'clock. He -had not returned for this, but to see the barometer. It stood at 30:00; -just where it had hung all day. - -But what he had not discovered by daylight he now saw in the flickering -match light. The barometer hand and the indicator were caught together. -His heart went cold, he lit another match and struck the bulkhead with -his clenched fist. The blow jarred the hand and indicator apart. The -delicate wisp of blue steel quivered at 30:00 for a breath. Then, it -began to fall. It reached 29:10 and clung. Even as the match went out it -recorded 29:00 and was still falling. - -He had seen a mercurial barometer go from 29:30 to 26:03 in the _Kau -Lung_. That was a world's record! - -Despair seized him. What could he and a lone woman do in a brute of a -vessel like this--undermanned even with twenty men before the mast? - -"God Almighty, what have I done?" he cried aloud in agony of spirit. - -A smash of wind from the south'ard was the answer he got. - -He gritted his teeth and flung a curse at the sea: - -"I'll beat you--you and all your foulness! You sneak!" he yelled at the -blackness. - -He dropped down through the companionway, calling "Emily! Emily!" - -There was no answer. She was asleep, poor girl, he thought. That was why -she had let him oversleep; why she had not called him when it turned -black. - -"Emily! Emily! Where are you?" - -Echoes answered him. Running forward, he saw the light beaming from the -derelict's room. As he reached the doorway he beheld the girl standing -beside the old man's berth, a book in her left hand and her right -uplifted. - -"So help me God," the derelict was solemnly repeating after her. - -As the last word came from his lips he discovered Lavelle. - -"'Th' Prince'!" he cried and fell back, a hand at his brow in salute. - -The book dropped from Emily's hand. She swayed where she stood. She had -fought and won a battle as brave as any field of war ever knew. Yet an -angry glance, which struck her and cut like a whiplash, was her reward. - -"Why didn't you answer me when I called?" Lavelle demanded, but paused -not on an answer. "Get aft to that wheel! Go! Run! Keep her nor'east -until I can get back to you!" - -With that he was gone from her. Like a soldier, without questioning, -without a word, she went aft to do what this man had bidden. - -The fire under the donkey was dead when Lavelle got to the engine room. -It would take an hour to make steam. The barometer and his sea wisdom -told him that he had only minutes to prepare. - -Whatever the battle was to be it was with his own hands that Paul -Lavelle must fight it. With this realization a terrific rage filled him. -It was fed with each breath that he snatched out of the blackness. The -sea was a personal enemy. Thus men who deal with it in long intimacy -come to visualize it. The sea was a sneak--a coward; always striking -below the belt. - -Lavelle had squared the yards before he had gone aft in the evening, -leaving the braces slack so as to cast the _Daphne_ on the most -advantageous tack at the first coming of a breeze. He had expected a -wind from the north and west. Here it was out of the southeast. The -gusts which had roused him had struck the bark on the starboard quarter. -It had brought her to on that side. She was now forging ahead on the -starboard tack. As she rode she was under a double-reefed foresail, -reefed upper and lower fore and main topsails, foretopmast-staysail, and -inner or boom jib. The growing breeze lifted the slack out of the -starboard or weather braces. The lone worker in the darkness led the -falls of the lee braces to the main deck capstan and hove them in. And -wherever he went he belayed rope and line with a double hitch. There was -a finality about everything he did. - -He set the maintopmast-staysail, hoisting it with the capstan. He would -ride her with that if it should be possible to heave her to after he had -located the bearing of the storm's center. - -He ran aft only to stop at the entrance to the alleyway. He remembered -the boom jib. - -"Too much headsail with a reefed spanker," he muttered. - -He sped forward again, found the jib halyards, and let them go. As a -last touch of precaution he bent the jib downhaul to the -foretopmast-staysail clew as a preventer sheet. - -Aft he sped again and through the cabin. A faint murmur came to him as -he ran by the derelict's room. - -Out of the pile of slop-chest staff in the after cabin he snatched an -oilskin coat and sou'wester. He struggled into them as he climbed -through the companion way into this lounge. - -A flash of a match brought the barometer's dial out of the blackness. -28:03! - -An impulse to smash it for its trickery seized him. He forbore and -plunged outside. He thrust Emily away from the wheel. As he bent to peer -into the binnacle she shuddered at the rage which distorted his face. -Thus men, she thought, must look in battle with the blood lust upon -them. There was something primordial, relentless, about him. He was the -elemental man, sensate that a kill was at hand. - -The _Daphne_ was heeling over, further and further, under the onslaught -of the rising wind. - -The roughness with which Lavelle had pushed Emily away from the wheel -started a demon of resentment to life in her. Her arms were aching. It -had seemed that the wheel must draw them from their sockets while she -was alone. Steering the _Daphne_ while Lavelle had been forward had not -been the tame task of the afternoon. - -She stood trembling where this man had shoved her. She could have struck -him. - -"Get below! Close every port--every door! Jump! Then, come back and -light that lamp in the lounge!" - -Anger swept her at his brutal tone. Tears blinded her. They were the -tears of a rage of which she had never believed herself capable, oho -could not move. - -"Go--on!" he yelled. - -A furious squall twisted the two words into a shriek. - -A sea slopped over the weather quarter and ran hissing across the deck -to leeward. It sucked hungrily at the gold woman's feet and ankles. At -its touch her rage grew, but passed from the man at the wheel to the -sea. It was the sea that he hated, not her. It was the sea that she -hated. It was the sea that had spoken through him. The sea was his -enemy. It became in that moment personal to her--her enemy. - -Thus the spirit of Lavelle reacted upon Emily Granville's. Could she -have seen her face at that instant she would have discovered in it the -same elemental, the same primitive passion, which had shocked her in -his. - -The girl ran from the deck and below. - -Lavelle saw her when she returned and lit the lamp in the lounge. She -wore a long oilskin. A sou'wester covered her head. Out of the tail of -his eye he caught her staring at the barometer. He noted it with a -thought that she had "some sense." - -She came out to him and had to press her lips against his ear to make -him hear her message. - -"Everything--closed--be--low! Barom--28:00!" - -That was a fall of three-hundredths of an inch in less than ten minutes! - -The _Daphne_ was in a trap. Somewhere near her--somewhere in the -southern quadrants of the compass between the east and the west--the -center of a storm was bearing down upon her. Whether the barometer was -lying or telling the truth was of little moment now. Lavelle knew he -could not be mistaken in the signs of a revolving storm. He knew the -meaning of the wolf-like noises and the wing creakings in the air; the -oily, sooty, sight-killing blackness. But one sign was absent and, even -as he noted this, it appeared--a sickening, brick-red coloring which -cuts the eyes acridly like hay smoke. It diffused itself through the -blackness without lessening the night's impenetrability. With its -coming the wind veered quickly from the S.S.E. into the south. By the -law of storms this change told the lone man arrayed against the sea that -the center was bearing upon the _Daphne_ eight points to the right, or -out of the S.S.W. The bark was trapped in the storm's advancing or -dangerous semicircle. He could not heave her to now. There was but one -thing to do: Run. Let the storm overtake the bark and catch her in its -vortex and--the sea must win. It depended alone on the _Daphne's_ -worthiness and the hands and brain of the man at her helm to beat it. - -With a full-manned ship the thing to do now was heave to. The enraged -man laughed to himself at the thought of his trying to do this alone. - -By half-past two the wind had veered into the S.S.W. and was blowing a -whole gale. Taking it broad over the starboard quarter the _Daphne_ was -fleeing northeast. At times her helmsman was sure she was lifting free -of the mauling waters and hurtling through space. Again he felt that she -was bound headlong toward the quiet ooze; that no vessel could withstand -the onslaughts of wind and brine which were being rained upon her. But -never his rage at the sea grew less. It burned in him like a living -fire; it robbed him of all sense of fatigue. - -Emily, sitting in the lounge and watching the barometer for any change, -saw the silver watch mark the hour when the day should have been -breaking. But no light rifted the blackness outside. The barometer hand -clung quivering at 28:00! The _Daphne's_ master--yes, her master, -too--had told her she must rest as much as she could. Not for her own -sake, but the battle's; that was his reason. "Because I may want to use -you!" was what he had yelled when she had put her ear up to his lips. - -When the watch said six o'clock and there came no day, Emily suddenly -realized what a time had passed since Paul had taken the wheel from her -hands--four hours and a half. Not a bite had crossed lips in eleven -hours. It was impossible to get forward to the galley. As she admitted -this she remembered the canned provisions in the alleyway stateroom -opposite the derelict's. She recalled also the flour and biscuit barrels -in the starboard alleyway stateroom. - -The gold woman went caroming down the companionway and through the -reeling saloons. The din of an hundred forges filled them. The -derelict's light was giving a last flicker. Daniel McGovern slept. As -the lamp went out Emily discovered her book on the floor and picked it -up. She put it on a shelf in the storeroom and fled with three cans -which she felt out of the darkness. She carried these up into the -lounge. One of the cans held corn--the others tomatoes. She dropped -below again and groped to the pantry. She was seeking water. There -wasn't a drop in the tank. The discovery staggered her. The man at the -wheel must drink. An idea of a substitute flashed into her mind. The -tomatoes would serve for food and drink. She located a hook under the -china racks and found a can opener she remembered having seen there. - -As a glimmer of day asserted itself in the blackness, it found Emily -standing at the wheel beside Paul, holding a can of tomatoes up to his -lips so that he could drink when he dared. He managed to snatch two -mouthfuls. Then, the can was blasted out of the girl's hands. It -flattened itself against the mizzonmast. The tin cylinder might have -been a bit of cardboard. It held where it struck for a second, as if the -gale had imbedded it in the steel mast. - -With this sudden growth in the fury of the gale came the slightest -increase of daylight. This light seemed to spring from the sea; not -from overhead. It was sufficient to trace what lay forward of the break -of the poop. Two tall, reeling masts with whalebone tips, the edges of -the rails, an outline of the top of the forward house, and the -forecastle head rising out of a roil of waters composed the suggestion -to Emily's mind that that part of the _Daphne_ was still there. And all -round were ragged peaks of water like the ice-crusted crests of mighty -mountains. They were Alps gone drunk. The _Daphne_ was hurtling from one -peak to another--smashing through them. - -The light restored Lavelle's vision to enable him to read in one glance -the tally of the battle. But a ribband remained of the big mainsail -which he had been unable to furl. The fore-upper topsail had left only -its leech ropes behind. There was not a head sail left except the -foretopmast-staysail. This, the maintopmast-staysail, the reefed -foresail, the fore lower topsail, and the upper and lower main topsails -and the spanker still held. The fore and aft bridges were gone. A -twisted stanchion told where the standard compass had stood. The donkey -funnel, the galley stovepipe, and the empty boat-chocks were -missing--the top of the forward house was swept clean. - -Scarcely had Lavelle's eyes made this assessment when the main upper -topsail went. It split with a shot-like crackling. A second later only a -wisp of canvas was left to tell that a sail had ever been bent to the -yard. - -Anger burned in Emily at the sight. It was personal--the ravaging of -that sail. The gale flung a cry of protest back in her throat. The slope -of Paul's sou'wester hid his face from her. The point of a grim jaw was -all that she could see. Only his arms moved with the wheel in steadying -the bark's drive. Otherwise he might have been a fixture of the ship. It -was not enough to be near him. A yearning to hear his voice came upon -her; to look in his eyes; to read his thoughts. She caught him, jerking -his head to bring her nearer. She struggled up in the lee of him and -pressed her ear to his lips. - -"--piece--bacco!" - -That was all she heard. She did not understand for the moment what he -meant. Then, it dawned upon her wondering consciousness that he wanted a -piece of tobacco. A piece of tobacco! Her brain pounded on this as if it -would never let the thought go. She fought her way into the lounge, and -as she went she remembered a box of oaky, black slabs which she had seen -in the slop-chest litter. She had reached the bottom of the companion -way when the _Daphne_ gave a shuddering leap. It hurled the girl across -the saloon to leeward. She caught the knob of a stateroom door and -dragged herself from her knees to her feet. Looking forward, through the -port alleyway, she saw a flood of water pouring in through the door -opening out on the main deck. - -Instinct carried Emily to this breach in the wall of the bark's defense. -She got her back to the door, like a woman of the Zuyder Zee warding a -broken dyke gate, and she closed it. The strength of the primitive -fighting man's woman was hers in the struggle which accomplished this. -She cried in anger as she bolted the teakwood slab against the ravaging -waters. Yet with this thing done, her first thought was that she must -get back to the wheel with a piece of tobacco. Going aft, she did not -notice that the derelict's berth was empty, but the man at the wheel -knew that the stranger was not there. - -Hardly had Emily left the deck when the fore lower topsail went -tattering out of its bolt ropes. The _Daphne_ shook herself as if freed -from a leash. The man who watched nodded in approval. Had it been -possible for him to have cut this sail away when the main upper topsail -had gone he would have done it. In the moment that he nodded he saw the -flash of a man's face going over the rail in the welter to leeward. The -face was calm. Death seemed already to have masked it. It was the -derelict going away. - -"Why, that--that's Driscoll--the quartermaster who was with me--stood by -me--the night the _Yakutat_ was lost!" - -It was thus in the instant that the sea gulped Daniel McGovern that -recognition flashed into Paul Lavelle's mind. But as the thought formed -he put it away from him. His eyes were tricking him. A man can't stand -for six, seven, or eight hours--he had lost count of time--staring at a -compass card which whirls and dips like a crazy roulette wheel at Macao -and trust his sight. After Chang had spent a twelve-hour trick at the -_Kau Lung's_ wheel he had imagined many strange things. The -quartermaster, Driscoll, had been lost these ten years past--ten years -this very month of March. And the sea was trying to make him believe -that the derelict was he: endeavoring to trick his brain because it -couldn't beat him any other way. This thought refueled his rage. - -The belly of the spanker split from head to foot with the sharp -staccato-rattling of a Gatling. The helmsman's senses apprehended it as -it happened. Before the _Daphne's_ head had fallen off half a point at -this sudden release of pressure on her after part Lavelle had met it. - -Emily, struggling to force the lounge door open against the gale, saw -and heard the spanker go. It dazed her to note that Lavelle did not -glance up. She had to throw herself flat on the deck to get to the -wheel. Crawling up under Paul's lee she held the tobacco up in front of -him, keenly wondering what he meant to do with it. She had been able to -imagine only that he intended to use it in some mysterious way in -connection with the compass; perhaps to keep the card from rolling and -whirling. Paul settled the mystery quickly by wolfing a corner of the -black plug. He nodded with satisfaction as his jaws closed on it. It -seemed fantastic to the girl. She could have screamed in delight--she -who had loathed tobacco chewers as long as she could remember. The -incident was fraught with a message of hope that words could not have -conveyed. - -By signs Paul made Emily understand that she was to fill and trim the -binnacle lamp. This task took her below to levy on the oil in the -derelict's lamp and the lamp in the medicine chest. Then it was she -discovered that Daniel McGovern had left the _Daphne_. She realized how -the alleyway door had come to be open, but at the time her senses were -beyond apprehending that a stranger had come out of the sea and gone -back to it. She levied upon the storerooms again and crawled up into the -lounge. The silver watch said noon. The barometer stood at 28:01! When -she tried to open the door and get back to Paul with food and this news, -she could not budge it more than an inch. The gale held it. She looked -out of the after weather port. Through the flying spume she saw Paul -glance up. His eyes rested on her for a second. He shook his head for -her to stay where she was. - -There came a lull at three o'clock. Emily's recruited strength enabled -her to fight her way to the wheel with another can of tomatoes and some -crackers. She replaced the lighted binnacle lamp. It went out. Four -times she had to return to the lounge and relight it before she -succeeded in spiting the gale. As she straightened up finally in -success, she saw Paul's gaze shoot up to windward. - -Not three hundred yards away and abreast of the _Daphne_ drove a big -four-masted, painted-port bark--a bulk of twenty-five hundred -tons--under a reefed foresail and a reefed main lower topsail. For a -breath her midship section hung poised on a peak of water, the rest of -her red underbody, fore and aft, clear of the welter. Her poles pierced -the lowering sky. The peak dropped from under her like the jet of a -fountain ceasing. She fell away into a cañon, wave-walled higher than -her tops. The wind went out of her foresail. The topsail drooped. She -paused in her flight like a wounded bird, reeled helplessly; and then -the wall of water over her stem fell, pooping her. A huddle of men -started from around the foot of her jiggermast. One of them in bright -yellow oilskins reached the doomed thing's port rail and waved to the -_Daphne_ high over him as if cheering her on. Another wall of water and -still a third crashed upon her. Her bows rose. Stern first she went down -to the port of missing ships, a hurricane shrieking her requiem. - -In the twinkling of an eye, even as a trout snatches a fly, this proud -venture of man was; and then it was no more. - -Brain-stunned, incapable of comprehension, Emily crawled round the -binnacle and got behind the lee side of the wheel. In a lull she heard -Paul yelling. - -"--be--low! Eat--rest! Need--help--by and----" - -She obeyed as one in a trance. As the lounge door banged behind her the -comparative quiet within, though it was a veritable orgy of sound, -enveloped her senses like a drug. - -It was seven o'clock when she awoke. Through the weather port she saw -the yellow-colored head at the wheel touched by a gleam of the binnacle -light. Seventeen hours now he had been standing there like that. She -lighted the lounge lamp. The barometer stood at 28:00. - -When she fought her way out to him with this word and shrieked it at him -he simply nodded that he heard. - -"When--are--you--going to--let--me--help?" - -She succeeded in crying this question into his ear in segments. - -"Damn it! Shut--up!" - -He cried this at her savagely. - -In that instant the _Daphne_, paused slightly. A shiver went through -her. There was a crash which sounded even above the roar of the storm. -It was as if a masked battery had ambushed the bark from overhead. The -foretop-gallant mast and all its hamper and everything above the -crosstrees on the main were going by the board. A streak of lightning -illuminated the gale's work. - -Emily found the end of the gasket with which Paul was lashed to the -wheel shaft. She tied it around her waist and took hold of the lee -wheel. It was her answer to his savagery. He saw what she did and he did -not send her away. - -Thus, with never a word, they stood together for two hours during the -height of the storm, hurtling along the coast of eternity. - -Of a sudden there came a rift in the clouds overhead. A shaft of -moonlight shot through the blackness and Paul's hand covered the gold -woman's in a gentle pressure where it clutched a spoke. - -"--think--beaten--it!" he shouted at her presently, "--thirsty!" - -Emily unlashed herself and brought him another can of tomatoes. She took -her post beside him again without a word. By midnight the gale's back -was broken. The sea kept dropping with the lessening of the wind. It was -long after dawn, however, when Paul unlashed himself from the wheel and -put Emily in his place. - -"You take her now for a few minutes," he said in a broken husky voice. -"Going heave her to." - -He started forward. His legs went out from under him. He struggled to -his feet only to drop again. He got up moaning and with a curse on his -lips. Clutching the rail he reeled down to the main deck. - -Emily heard the palls of the capstan and then Paul's voice came to her -in a pathetic wail. - -"Hard down! Hard down!" he cried, but it was a sweep of his arm which -carried his meaning to her. In obeyance she rolled the wheel over. The -_Daphne_ came round on her heel, until the maintopsail, flying aback, -hove her to. - -Paul staggered aft again, balanced the wheel and put it in beckets. - -"I'm pretty tired--tired," he said in a whisper. He crumpled in -exhaustion where he had fought for thirty hours. Blood oozed from the -ends of his swollen fingers. His eyes lay far back in his head. His -breath came in moans and sobs. - - - - -CHAPTER XXIX - - -Pain which stabbed with daggers of fire and ground and twisted like the -working of cogs stirred Paul about noon into consciousness. He lay -across the wheel grating where he had dropped, nor had the gold woman's -strength been equal to moving him inside. A pillow was under his head; a -blanket covered him. At his feet wrapped likewise in a blanket and her -head on one of the lounge cushions slept his "partner." As the hard deck -was his pallet, so she had chosen to make it hers. He realized the -wonderful meaning of this with a thrill which lifted the daze from his -aching brain and eyes. - -With the instinct which has been given to women alone to serve and watch -by sense Emily awoke in the instant that Paul moved to a sitting -posture. Their glances met in a smile of trustful, mutual understanding. - -"Well, partner," Paul said drily and looking round the _Daphne_, "we are -a bit battered, but I think we may say--we are still in the ring." - -The humanness of the little speech lifted the cloud of the night from -her spirit. She laughed. This man could fight as she had never dreamed -it possible that human brain and flesh could, and when it was all over -he could smile. She brushed away a mist which gathered on her lashes and -struggled to her feet. - -"And it is worth everything to be--be here in the ring--all the -battering--all the strife--with you--a partner like you." - -"Thank you. That pays for everything." - -As Paul spoke he struggled halfway to his feet only to sink back again -with his breath catching in pain. His left hand, with which he had tried -to pull himself up, fell from the wheel. He compared it with his right. -Both were swollen and purple. The cuffs of the oilskin coat dropped back -and showed his shirt wristbands choking the flesh. But it was not his -hands that hurt so much as it was his feet. They seemed ready to burst -the shoes. - -A sob broke from Emily at his helplessness. She dropped on her knees at -his side and picked up his right hand. All the tenderness of her woman -nature was alive in the instant. - -"What is it, Paul? Your feet--your hands!" - -Tears choked further utterance. Alarm for his safety seized her. A -terrible apprehension touched her heart. - -"There never was a battle fought without somebody getting hurt." He -tried to smile despite his pain. "Remember I was at the wheel a pretty -long time." - -"More than thirty hours." - -"That long?" He nodded. "Please get me a knife--there ought to be one in -the pantry." - -"A knife?" she repeated with misgiving. He nodded. - -Emily hastened below and returned with a small sharp carver. Paul held -out both hands to her. - -"Cut----" - -She shrank from him with a cry. His smile at the thought which he read -in her eyes made her study him with a strange, frightened glance. - -"Not my hands--the wristbands, partner." - -She severed the wristbands and the tears which fell on the bruised hands -seemed for the moment to salve their hurt. He offered to take the knife -then, but she knelt quickly at his feet and slashed the wet, binding -leather from them. The while she did it he kept abjuring her to be -careful not to cut off a foot by mistake. He would have been silent -could he have known how sacred to this woman was the doing of this -personal service for him. But it was just as well that he was not -silent, for as she saw what the sea had done to him it took the last -element of her will to keep from breaking down. - -"Now you must go and lie down," she urged when she had helped him to get -up to a standing position. - -"No, I must keep going. I----" - -He swayed and sank to his knees. His will nor her strength could keep -him up. He gritted his teeth in rebellion. - -"I must get up! I will--and go on!" - -This came from him in a savage cry. He tried to rise again. He got one -foot under him and then fell inertly with his back against the side of -the lounge house. Abused Nature would have her due. - -The sight of this strong man down, helpless, tore the heart of the gold -woman from its moorings. She knelt beside him, agony blinding her with -tears. - -"Paul, you must listen to me," she pleaded passionately. "You must let -me help you inside--where you can rest--where I can do something for -you--something to bring back your strength--bathe your hands and feet." - -"No, no; not that," he protested faintly. - -A gentle relaxation of mind and body was stealing over him under the -pressure of the arm with which she supported his head. - -"But you must," Emily went on. "It is my part--my duty, my privilege! I -will do it! You must do as I say until you are well and strong. It will -not be long." - -The rebellion of his spirit grew quiet under the influence of her -surpassing tenderness. He thought it pleasant to have somebody say must -to him. - -"Look, Paul, the ocean grows calmer with the minutes. The skies are -clearing. There is nothing we could do----" - -"But there's so much to do----" His senses began slipping away. He was -able to murmur only, "Water," before a long blank came. - -The gold woman looked round for the water canister which she had filled -and brought aft when Paul had collapsed and fallen asleep. It lay -overturned down to leeward. Laying his head on a pillow she ran forward -and refilled the canister. At the first sup which she was able to force -into his month he opened his eyes. - -"More, more," he pleaded when she would have taken the canister from his -lips, thinking he could drink no more. "Oh, that is so good," he sighed, -finishing the draught. "I feel much better already." - -Although Paul smiled bravely, his eyes betrayed him. Emily saw that he -was fighting to conceal a great pain. - -"Come, Paul." She lifted his head again. "You must try to get inside. -You must do this for me." - -He looked up into her face, and there was that in it which filled him -with meekness. - -"I'll do what you say," he answered in a whisper, and he summoned his -last reserve of strength. - -On hands and knees he crawled into the lounge, Emily taking as much -weight from his swollen wrists as she could. She cut the oilskin coat -from his shoulders so that he should not suffer the pain of having the -sleeves drawn over his hands. She spread a berth deftly, hurried below, -and returned with dry comfortable clothing which she found in the -lockers under the skipper's bed. The slop-chest supplies were soaking in -the water which had come in before she had succeeded in shutting the -alleyway door. She went below again and brought lint and bandages from -the medicine chest. All of these things she did without suggestion. It -was part of the new efficiency unto which she had won. Had she been -trained to do what she did she could not have done it more thoroughly. -This man whom she served might have been her own child. - -Watching her quick movements from where he sat on the floor of the -lounge, Paul wondered whence she was drawing the strength that was -denied him. Nor was it given to either of them to understand this -strength which love can bring to its service. It is something not to be -understood. - -"Why are you able to do this and why am I----" - -"Because you have rendered your service," she interrupted. "You made me -rest. You stood alone through all the fight. At times I rebelled at it, -but now I am glad. I slept this morning and----" She paused with a -shudder. "I know I must have slept--or gone out of my senses--during the -storm. There are blanks--so many----We are all alone again, you know. -The derelict----" - -"I know. Please don't think of it now. Please----" - -"No--we will not think of it," she said with an effort. "Come." - -She bent over him to help him to the waiting berth. A plait of her hair -swept his lips. He kissed it as she drew it back and tossed it over her -shoulder. Her bosom touched his head. She did not know that she was but -adding torture to his pain. - -"No, partner," he protested quickly. "I have let you do too much -already. Let me try alone." - -By elbow and knee he crawled up on the berth and sat down. - -"There," he said with a small note of triumph, and he was fearful of -meeting her gaze, for he sensed that she stood waiting. "I -think--if----See how she's heading, please." - -He looked out through the door at the wheel jerking in its beckets like -a horse champing a bit. - -Emily went swiftly to the binnacle. - -"West nor'west," she called. - -"Then this breeze ought to be about nor'nor'west." He paused, and then -added quickly as he saw her, in all her innocence, coming back: - -"If I could get something warm to drink--some coffee--or tea. Do you -think----" - -"But you----" - -"I'm sure I can do a lot for myself now. See." - -He lifted his arms over his head. By a levy on all his will he concealed -the pain which tore him at the effort. It satisfied her. - -"You shall have something warm to drink as soon as these hands can make -it," she said, and as he heard her going forward he threw himself on the -berth and buried his face in the pillow to smother the cry of anguish -which his lips refused to stay. - -Swiftly as Emily moved to her task, it took her longer than she had -imagined it would to prepare something. The galley was in a litter of -wreckage and the range was water-soaked where the sea had poured through -the unprotected vent left by the swept-away stovepipe. When she returned -aft again it was to awaken Paul from a doze. In the meantime he had -succeeded in changing into the dry clothing she had laid out for him. He -had also bandaged his ankles and wrists. - -The gold woman brought tea and hardtack biscuits and a jar of marmalade. - -"It was the best I could do quickly," she explained, raising the chart -table and placing the things on it. The table had fallen some time -during the night and the silver watch lay dashed in pieces on the door, -its parts mingling with the internals of the barometer which had been -torn from its fastenings. The sextant, undamaged, lay where it had been -hurled on the starboard bench or berth opposite Paul. - -"It's all right, partner," Paul said as Emily discovered the broken -things. "Don't worry." - -When it came to drinking his tea his hands could not hold the mug in -which she was compelled to serve it. She gave it to him mouthful by -mouthful. The hot drink was stimulating. There was satisfaction of -hunger, too, in the biscuits and marmalade. She stopped feeding him and -drank and ate something only when he closed his lips firmly and turned -his face from her. - -And all the while there was raging within him a battle against the -impulse of his consuming love to take this wonderful innocent woman to -his breast. Had he not won the right to tell her that he loved her? a -voice within kept repeating, and always the specter of the past, armed -with the resolution of silence he had formed two days before, cried: -"No; unless you are a coward." - -"I think I will sleep," Paul said presently, when Emily offered to rub -and rebandage his ankles. - -"Is it because you do not wish me to do it?" - -"Why, no. Of course not." - -"You thought nothing of doing it for me. You have done everything for me -and with a tenderness that I can remember only as part of my mother. -You are so tender and again you are so harsh--as hard and cold as -steel." - -"The sea makes one harsh----" He could not control his voice and he -stopped short in fear of whither he might be led. He noticed then for -the first time that Emily's skirt was clinging to her damply. "Do please -go below and get into some fresh, dry clothing. The thought that you are -looking out for yourself will help me to sleep. Do try to lie down, -too." - -"If there is nothing more I can do here I will go," she said obediently. -"But it is a strange thing: With all the wetting I have undergone I have -not the sign of a cold." - -"Salt water ought to have at least one virtue," he answered. As he spoke -he nodded for her to go below. - -Paul Lavelle slept only for a few minutes at a time, if he really slept -at all during the next couple of hours. He heard the gold woman descend -the companionway and he followed her footsteps through the cabin. Even -when all was quiet below and he knew that Emily must be lying down -wakefulness rode his brain. He could see the future stretching away in -loneliness without this woman in his life, and for the first time in all -the suffering he had known he thought of a way out. In his blackest -hours of the past ten years this had never occurred to him. To fight on -to the end without cease, with never a let-up in the drive, had been the -ruling impulse of his spirit. To fight on now in silence and give life -to this precious woman; to stand up manfully no matter what the odds, -with his whole soul in the battle, until he should bring her to -safety--this was the one course. After that there would be a way if it -were denied him that he should not suffer death in the giving of life to -her. A gnawing pain in his left hand finally drew his attention to it. -He saw that the green jade ring which he had worn constantly since -leaving Yokohama was choking the finger which it encircled. He sat up to -take it off, and as he did so he was startled to hear a strange heavy -footfall in the cabin. He was on the point of trying to rise when Emily -came up through the companionway. It was her footfall that had alarmed -him. As her head and shoulders rose above the teakwood rail around the -staircase, the sun, now far down in the west, shot a golden beam through -the port over Paul's berth. It touched her head with the fire of a -divine beauty. - -"Oh, I woke you," she whispered tremulously, and at the same time she -sensed his depression of spirit. - -"No, I was awake," was all he could say for the moment. It came from his -lips in a barely audible voice. - -To be loved by and by love to possess a woman like this--the world, aye -a thousand worlds--were well lost! That was the thought which excluded -everything else from his mind. - -The glow of a sleep which had refreshed and restored lingered in the -cheeks of the gold woman and in the tips of her shelly ears. Her mouth -was retouched with its natural delicate scarlet. Her sensitive nostrils -quivered at the sunlight's touch. Her blue-shirted bosom, heaving ever -so slightly from the exertion of climbing the companionway, moved the -loose plaits of her hair hanging over her shoulders like ropes of molten -gold. Hardship had drawn her features only slightly. Youth's capacity of -quick recovery was hers. Physically she was little changed, but there -was a subtle difference in her. Her whole being now seemed to breathe: -"I have no doubt of life." - -"I've changed and slept," she said as Paul's glance swept her. "I feel -as if there had never been a storm." - -She stepped backward with a smile. - -"Are you laughing at them?" she asked. She drew back her skirt slightly -and exhibited a pair of rubber sea boots which were inches too large -for her. There was something boyish in the action that did draw a smile -from Lavelle. "You are laughing," she went on, and pouted prettily. "But -do so as much as you wish. They're sensible." - -"Right you are. They're the very thing for decks like this. We should -have thought of them before." - -"They're much too large, but I've put on socks and socks and stuffed the -toes with things." - -This statement of a most obvious fact brought a genuine laugh from Paul. -It passed quickly as the pain caused by the ring reasserted itself. - -"Oh, let me do that for you," Emily said, crossing to his side. Before -he could object she had knelt by him and taken his hand. "Why did I not -think of this hours ago? Poor, poor fingers. Am I hurting you? There?" - -The perfume of her hair, of her breath, of her whole being was about -him. As the ring came off his hand closed on hers and he slipped the -jade, with its strange seal in Chinese hieroglyphics, over her third -finger. It was her left hand that he had chosen. - -"I want you to take this, Emily--to wear it." He was fighting hard to -control his voice. "Chang gave it to me the day I left Yokohama--when -the old chap thought he would never see me again: the day you and I -met." - -"But, Paul, I----Poor old Chang would----" - -"You must keep it. Have I never told you what it says--that seal?" She -shook her head. "In Canton there is a very old temple. It is doubtful -who built it. It stands near--not far from the Hall of the Five Hundred -Wise Men. This seal is copied from its altars: 'Man has many reckonings -with man, but only one with God.'" - -The gold woman looked up, starting to repeat the line as Paul finished -it. What was on her lips died there, unutterable in the light of his -gaze, and what it awakened in her. Her eyes flashed back to his an -answer of fire. The barriers of his determination crashed. - -"Oh, my darling!" he cried in anguish, and he drew her head to his -breast. - -The gold woman's mouth met his and clung, rendering with flame its first -kiss of love. - -"Oh, I love you, woman of all the world, love you, love you! I am living -alone by the power of this love. It has been mine for ages. It has -been--it is my strength! It is my soul! It is the breath of my soul! -Its single impulse, its desire, its law, its life!" - -He held her from him and searched her face. - -"And I love you. I have always loved you, my----" - -A burning kiss blurred the words on her lips. - -In silence they held each other's gaze in adoration until suddenly a -shadow of dread darkened the man's face. - -"Another storm such as we have just passed through----We could not live -through it, darling. There was hardly a minute of last night or the day -before which did not come armed with a summons to judgment. And, oh, the -bitterness that was mine when I thought that you could not know; that I -could not tell you what was in the soul of me!" - -"But, Paul, even had death come to us then, I should have known -it--afterward. I should have known it and you would have known that I -loved you." - -The firm conviction of this speech filled Paul with a new kind of awe of -her. - -"Darling," he murmured, and yet, as he kissed her eyes, the specter of -the past laid its cold finger upon his lips. He drew back. "Some day you -may hate me." - -"Paul, Paul! Stop!" - -Her voice was fraught with fear. - -"If we live the days will come when--I come to you a broken, spurned -thing. I have no place among the men of my people. I am wild! Crazy! My -tongue should be torn from me for telling you what I have. I have no -right to tell--I have no right to love! And you of all women----Emily, -there is something--that night on the _Yakutat_, I must tell you--we -cannot----" - -Her hand closed his lips. - -"No, no, no, Paul. You mustn't. I know. There is nothing to tell me. -There is no past to come between us. From the moment that I knew on the -_Cambodia_ that you were Paul Lavelle I knew the truth. There is no -past. But there is a future, my darling--our future." She drew his head -to her and kissed his eyes. "My fearless stars. For my faith's reward I -ask only this: Your silence until I say you may speak. Promise." - -"I promise," he answered, with a strange, indefinable hope burgeoning in -his heart. - -As he spoke the sun passed from the ports of the lounge and brought Paul -Lavelle from his dreaming to the reality of a peril which he had too -long forgotten. Emily read his thought. - -"I will go forward and prepare our evening meal," she said. She kissed -him and went out of the lounge, and at her going torment ruled his -heart. - -"My God, what have I been doing! What have I been thinking? Where is my -manhood that I should be lying here sacrificing her? What a weak, -shameless love mine must be!" - -A feeling of abasement scourged him as each thought clamored for an -answer. Although his body rebelled, he arose and kept his feet. Groping -below, he found a pair of boots which would admit his ankles and went -forward. - -Emily, with a cry of amazement, discovered him suddenly, standing in the -engine room door. - -"Paul, you must go back. You must rest," she commanded. "It's clear. Go -back. How can you stand?" - -"There's too much Irish in me, dear," he answered, forcing a smile. "You -must never let an Irishman stop to nurse his hurts. He can't keep his -mind on pain and the fight at the same time." - -"But the fight is over." - -"It's never over--when the sea's on the other side." - -He was determined and she wisely forbore to say anything else about his -physical condition. The meal that she prepared--the hot coffee, the -warmth of the galley fire--brought life in them to a glow. Tomatoes -formed one of the dishes she cooked. Paul shuddered at the sight of it. - -"Not unless I am starving," he said solemnly. - -As they rose from the meal Emily sensed that something was lacking. - -"Isn't there something else, dearheart? What is it you wish you had?" - -"A good cigar--a big, fat, black fellow!" he laughed. "Then, the world -would be complete." His glance interpreted his meaning. - -"But there is tobacco aboard to chew," she suggested with a smile. - -"I never attempted to chew tobacco but once in my life. I was only a -little fellow visiting my grandmother's. The gardener provided it, or -rather I took it from his workbench. Just as I settled down to prove to -myself that I was a man grandmother called me into the house. I was -caught. In my fear I swallowed the cud." He made a wry face and then -went on in a dreamy way: "During the storm--whether it was last night or -the night before, I can't remember--I thought if I could only get a -piece of tobacco to chew there was no storm that blew that could put me -down. Funny, wasn't it?" - -Emily was silent, nor did Paul seem to notice it. She could think only -of what his stress of mind must have been during those long black hours. - -It was his last personal reference that evening to what had happened -during the two nights and a day of the _Daphne's_ war with the sea. She -felt that he did not wish to speak of it. Nor did she. - -"As soon as the stars come out I am going to find out where we are----" -Emily interrupted him with a laugh. "Where the _Daphne_ is," he added, -catching her thought, and joining her laugh. - -"I am with the stars, Paul. I feel as if we were alone in space -together." - -She was standing beside him, looking out through the galley door at the -setting sun. He stooped and kissed the crown of her head reverently. - -He told her presently that it was more important to put the bark in a -condition to get away from where she was than to find out where she was. -One thing was certain: the _Daphne_ had plenty of sea room. The weather -promised fair and therewith he summoned all his strength to take -advantage of it. - -While Emily busied herself about the galley, Paul renewed the fire under -the donkey boiler. - -"Bully old crew," he said to the engine and patting its piston in the -familiar way men come to treat inanimate things which serve them. "Only -you can't go aloft. You can set sail, but you can't furl it. But you're -not going to fail us. You won't, will you?" - -He was starting aft to fill the lamps there when Emily came to the -engine room door. The impulse of action that was driving him was in her, -too. - -"Only give me something to do, Paul, and I'll do it just like a real -sailorman." - -"Keep your eye on this steam gauge. When it goes to sixty, open the fire -door. It mightn't be a bad idea if you learned to sound the ship. -There's the sounding rod on that hook. You will find the well between -the pumps. Come. I'll show you." - -"I know where it is," she said eagerly. - -A half-foot of water was sloshing in the port alleyway and in and out of -the rooms opening upon it as Paul entered the cabin. He found the plug -of a scupper just inside the door and pulled it out. Glancing out on -deck, he saw the vent of another scupper. He located this in the mate's -room. As he pulled the plug free and withdrew his hand a sheet of paper -stuck to it. Half curiously he carried it into the after saloon where he -filled the lamps which would be most useful. It was some writing of the -poor Sussex lad's, was his thought. As he lighted the first lamp the -paper caught his eye again. He picked it up. The first line startled him -and led his eyes leaping through the rest of the water-blurred text in a -breathless comprehension. - - "In the name of God, Amen: Being of sound and disposing mind, I, - Emily Granville, spinster, of San Francisco, California, do declare - this my last will and testament: After the payment of all just - debts the rest, residue and remainder of my estate, real and - personal, wherever it may be, of which I die possessed, is - bequeathed to Paul Lavelle, sometimes called Whitridge. I hereby - revoke all wills heretofore made by me. In the event of the said - Paul Lavelle, sometimes called Whitridge, not surviving, I direct - that one-fourth of my entire estate be divided, share and share - alike, among those named in said former wills and that the - three-fourths remainder be converted by the State into a fund to be - used and administered by the State for the succor and assistance of - all persons, regardless of race or creed, who may suffer by - disaster upon any of the seas. I further direct that this fund - shall be known as the Lavelle-Granville fund. If any heir under the - said former wills shall contest this will, Paul Lavelle surviving - or not surviving, they shall forfeit to him or the said fund any - interest they may have had or may claim in the said estate and - receive $1. I do this in the realization of the imminent peril of - death and as a testimony to the genuine manhood of Paul Lavelle; - and also in memory of my father. My faith is that Paul Lavelle in - justice must survive and that this will shall come to the eyes of - men properly and without suspicion. The language I have used is - remembered from my father's will with the hope that it will be - binding legally. - - "Aboard the bark _Daphne_ at sea, March 31, 191-. - - "EMILY GRANVILLE." - -Paul Lavelle read this wonderful document a second and even a third -time. It was epic in his sight. He really had no distinct thought. His -mind was whelmed by awe of the character of the gold woman which the wet -sheet of paper revealed. There came to him a picture of her writing at -the desk in Elston's room on the evening of the day they had come aboard -the _Daphne_. It was then that she had written this will. He kissed the -paper because it seemed part of her and then tore it into little bits. - -Emily was withdrawing the sounding rod from the well when Paul returned -to the deck. Plainly she was in distress. - -"I'm afraid, Paul, I'm a poor sailor," she said as he came to her side. -"I can't tell anything from this." - -Paul took the rod from her and dried it. - -"You sounded as the ship rolled. The way to do is to wait until she -comes on an even keel. Like this. Now." - -"That is just the way I did." - -A moment later he hauled the rod out and gasped in dread. It showed four -and one-half feet of water in the _Daphne's_ hold! - -There surged through him a second later the rage with which he had met -and fought the storm. Here was a new and unexpected gage of battle. It -swept from him the last vestige of pain and fatigue. Instantly the -suggestion of flame, characteristic of the man in action, marked his -every movement. - -"She's an iron vessel with a coal cargo," he hurriedly told Emily. "If -the storm has strained her----" A mist came into his eyes and he glanced -overside. "That cursed sea isn't going to get you! It isn't! Come on!" - -Emily exhibited but a momentary apprehension of danger. The joy of -working with Paul in a freely admitted equality swept it away. The only -recognition of her femininity was his insistence upon her wearing a pair -of gloves which he had brought from McGavock's room. - -Together they got the pumps rigged to the donkey engine and started them -sucking two black streams out of the hold. - -"Two hours will tell us whether the enemy's in force or not--maybe -sooner," Paul said as he left Emily to go about the ship with a lantern -to discover if possible if the _Daphne_ had sprung a leak in her -topsides. When he came to the fore hatch his hopes lifted at the thought -that the sea might have entered here through the uncalked and -untarpaulined covers. It was a dreary tangle of hamper which met his -gaze in this part of the vessel. For an instant he was puzzled to -observe that everything he touched left a black, oily smear. He crawled -up under the forecastle head and there found what he considered an -explanation of the _Daphne's_ survival. Two barrels of engine oil were -lashed to the heel of the bowsprit. One of these had been sprung by the -storm and was still weeping its contents upon the deck. It was this oil -running out of the hawse pipes and the scuppers which had calmed the -bark's tempestuous way. - -This discovery relieved Paul's mind. He had felt compelled to believe -that at times during the storm either he or the vessel had been -bewitched. In all his long experience he had never seen a vessel make -such good weather of things as the _Daphne_. If he had been in command -with a full crew under him he would have poured out oil just as accident -had done it. Going aft he paused to tell Emily about the oil and to -report everything apparently tight forward. - -"A barrel of oil didn't stand for more than thirty hours' steering, did -it?" she asked, with pride flashing from her eyes. - -In silence Paul went on aft to complete his examination of the ship. It -felt strange to have a champion. He found the cabins practically free of -water. Everything seemed tight. He stopped for a second in the -derelict's door. - -"Poor old fellow was out of his head," he muttered. There came to him a -picture of the stranger's departure. The loss of this man, with only a -flicker of life and mind in him, was but a small thing compared with the -destruction of the four-master and all hands in the fullness of -strength. But the thought of the derelict moved Paul with a great -tenderness. This man had known his father. - -"He believed I was 'The Prince,'" he mused. "Well, father, if there's -any way of knowing--and I'm sure there must be--you know I've tried to -play the game squarely." - -An unsettling thought broke in upon this. What had made him think that -the derelict was Driscoll, a quartermaster of the _Yakutat_? He shut his -mind against what he believed was a vagary. There was no doubt that he -must have been out of his senses many times during the storm. - -Making his way through the lounge to the poop he paused to examine the -sextant. It was undamaged. It made him think of the chronometer. He -hurried below to the chart room and wound it and then went forward. - -The pumps were still bringing forth their two black streams. Emily stood -beside them oiling their bearings with the touch of an engineer. - -"I can't make out where this water is coming from. Either she's strained -or it pounded in through the fore hatch," he told her. "Everything about -deck seems all right. I've looked overside, too. Everything seems all -right there. Her masts went clear of her. How did you manage to close -that bulkhead door all alone?" - -"I don't know, Paul," she answered frankly. She winced. "I don't know -where I found the strength to do it. The whole sea was coming in, it -seemed. I remember I was very angry. But I have been thinking about the -stranger----" Her eyes filled with tears. "Could it be that I--I shut -him out in the night--in that----" - -"No, no, dear, put that thought away from you forever. He was gone -beyond human aid or recall before you got below. I remember your going -away from the wheel to do something. You had hardly closed the lounge -door when----Let us not think of it." - -"He was----" Emily interrupted. - -"Let us shut out every thought of those two nights, dear, as long as we -can. Shut it out with the past. Soon enough black nights like that will -come between us. Won't you try?" - -As Paul spoke he took one of her gloved hands and patted it. There was -an appeal in his gaze: a flash of the old pain which she had been -praying she might never see in those gray eyes again. - -"We will not think of it, my 'prince,'" she answered. - -With a quick smile he turned away and went forward. She watched him -until he disappeared through the door of the sail room in the port side -of the forward house. - -In less than two hours there was a sudden cessation of the black streams -from below and a weird moaning of the pumps where their plungers pounded -emptily. - -"Paul! Paul!" - -The gold woman sent this cry forward, and as she did so she cut off the -steam as she had seen Paul do. She thrilled at the sight of the engine -stopping at the touch of her small hand. She was laughing as he came to -the engine room door and saw what she had done. - -"The pumps----There is no more water!" she cried eagerly. - -"Give her another turn and let me hear," he said, and he went to the -mainmast. - -Now the engine turned over at a twist of her wrist. - -"Avast!" called Paul at the sound of the dry plungers. - -The engine stopped instantly at the word of command. "We're all right, -Emily. That water must have pounded through the fore hatch." - -She met him with a laugh of sheer joy which made her even white teeth -gleam. It was joy at the lifting of the cloud which had fallen upon both -of them at the discovery that the _Daphne_ might have sprung a leak. It -was joy, too, that comprehended an ability to do things with her hands. - -"I think I should rather be engineer than mate, Paul. It is a lot of fun -making this engine go and stop." - -"You will have an opportunity to be mate, engineer, and midshipmite in -another couple of hours. We are going to have a bit of a moon to-night -and I am going to get as much sail bent as possible." - -Under the stimulation of some strong coffee they began immediately -afterward to bend sail. With the donkey engine's aid it seemed -ridiculously easy to snake the heavy rolls of canvas out of the sail -room and hoist them aloft. Emily, with a woman's natural quickness, had -the trick of using the hoisting drums in perfect control five minutes -after Paul explained it to her. It did not surprise him nor was this so -because of any personal reason. She thought when he told her that she -was as good a working force as any two sailors and better than as many -men landlubbers, that it was but an impulse of his natural kindness -cheering her. - -"Not a bit taffy, dear," said he, noting her doubt. "Every word true. -Only thing a woman lacks is bull strength and perhaps judgment in -personal matters." - -The gold woman laughed. - -"Are you arraigning my judgment?" she asked. - -"No, but what I said is quite true," he continued seriously. "You can -take a woman or girl or boy and in one trick at a wheel teach them to -steer better than men who have spent a lifetime at sea." - -Emily got that pleasure out of the tasks in which she helped which comes -to one working under the direction of another who knows what he is -about. Nothing seemed too hard; nothing seemed hard enough. The will of -the man was inspiring. As she watched him climbing aloft or dropping -below along a shroud or backstay it seemed impossible to believe that he -had been down and helpless but a few hours before. - -The moon came to light their work. By about 10 o'clock they had bent a -new foresail, a new spanker, and new boom jib. - -"That much will give us another little lease on this world," Paul said -as he called quits for the night. "To-morrow morning we'll get a couple -more rags on her, after some fashion." - -But his work was not done. The while Emily prepared a snack of supper he -went aft and took two stellar observations. The reckoning that they gave -him was, indeed, startling. The _Daphne_ was five hundred and -eighty-five miles northeast of her last position! The navigator could -hardly believe his eyes. He took a third set of observations. The result -was the same. There had been times during the storm when he had realized -that the _Daphne_ was driving with terrific speed. But he had -anticipated nothing like this. Yet in this moment the sight of her clean -clipper underbody came to him as he had seen it the morning he and the -gold woman swam out from the Isle of Hope. Allowances for the distance -made from the first noon until the time the storm had struck the -_Daphne_ and of her drift all that day gave him the wonderful speed -average of more than sixteen knots an hour while the storm lasted. Still -doubt lingered until he drew out of his memory a day's work of the -famous clipper _Flying Cloud_--433¼ statute miles from noon to noon. - -The _Daphne_, by this reckoning, was lying in the great circle sailing -track of vessels bound from the Japan coast toward San Francisco and -Puget Sound. All thought of trying to make the Hawaiian Islands left -him. The California coast lay less than three thousand miles to the -eastward. The prevailing winds in this track from then on would be from -the west and northwest. The _Daphne_, with fair weather, should be able -to make this distance in a month. If no vessel should rescue them they -could win home in that time. - -"Oh, you _Daphne_ packet!" he cried in glee as he hurried forward to -tell Emily the good news. He went with a snatch of "The Dreadnaught" -bursting from him. - - "'With everything drawing aloft and alow - She's a Liverpool packet! Lord God see her go!'" - -Emily was on the point of going to the galley door to call him when she -caught that bit of heart-lifting song. A wild, compelling note of the -sea was in it. - -"We're homeward bound in a clipper ship, lassie!" he called as he -discovered her. Nor would he eat or drink until he had told her where -the storm had carried the _Daphne_ and what it meant to them. He was -like a big, wholesome boy and she told him so. His enthusiasm stirred -her with a desire to be under way immediately. The _Daphne_ became -personal in the gold woman's thoughts as Paul described her -capabilities, and therewith she understood the love of a man for a ship -which women rarely do. - -"Unless we're picked up by some other vessel we'll be up with the Golden -Gate in less than a month!" - -Emily's face clouded at the suggestion of another vessel rescuing them. -Paul laughed. - -"You may not understand, but I wish we might sail the _Daphne_ into our -own home port. Think what a prize it would mean to you." - -A hope lived in his heart for an instant that this might come true. It -was gone when he answered her. - -"The first vessel that comes along we go in her, lassie; and leave the -_Daphne_ to the sea." - -Yet as Emily lay down in the lounge a little while later and saw Paul -hang a light of distress in the mizzen rigging, the strange wish that it -would go unseen was uppermost in her heart. She wanted the _Daphne_ to -remain his, but she would not admit to herself the reason upon which -that hope was predicated. - - - - -CHAPTER XXX - - -With the first streak of day Paul was on deck. The blow-off of the -donkey, which he had set at a low pressure a couple of hours before, -roused him from the berth he had stretched along the carpenter's bench. -Custom trains seafarers as it does soldiers on campaign to live by a -broken sleep which the average workaday citizen thinks would kill him. -Although Paul had been up at intervals during the night, with an eye for -the weather and any chance lights, he was filled with an eager -freshness. A stirring was coming out of the northwest. There was a tang -in it which promised a whole sail breeze. It put a song in his heart, -and a little while later Emily was awakened by his clear voice ringing -through the morning air, "The Chanty of the Rio Grande." - - "'Where are you going to, my pretty maid? - _O away Rio!_ - Where are you going to, my pretty maid? - _We are bound to the Rio Grande._ - _O away Rio,_ - _O away Rio,_ - _O fare you well, my bonny young girl,_ - _We are bound to the Rio Grande._'" - -When Emily got forward to the galley she found breakfast waiting. - -"Why didn't you call me, Paul?" she asked in a tone of protest, and she -waited archly in expectancy of a kiss, but he did not seem to notice -this. "Partners must play fair." - -"Never mind, Emily. I can do so little for you. From now on it will be -watch and watch and there will not be much that I can do for you." - -The bending of a new fore upper topsail and straightening out the tangle -of running gear about decks occupied most of the forenoon. It was not -until after luncheon that the _Daphne_, with Emily at the wheel, lifted -away to the eastward before a fresh northwesterly breeze. - -Paul ran aft as the bark entered upon her task and stood for a moment -beside Emily. The intoxication which she had first experienced alone at -the wheel was again upon her. The breeze was dusting loose wisps of her -hair into a halo which the sun burnished with fire. Bosom heaving, eyes -alight, her whole virgin being alive, a-thrill with love and the -sensation of the _Daphne's_ motion, she presented a figure which would -have given fame to any brush that could have limned it. She might have -been Daphne herself, not fleeing from, but hastening with her fresh -treasures to meet Apollo. - -Paul felt that he dare not speak. He put his hand on the wheel to haul -the bark half a point closer to the wind. As he drew it away Emily -touched it impulsively. - -"Good strong, honest man's hand," she murmured. - -Their eyes met in a flash in which her soul called to his and trembled -when echo only seemed to answer it. - -Paul turned abruptly away to stray the patent log over the taffrail. -Then he went forward in silence. When he found himself a few minutes -later staring out over the weather bow he wondered how he had gotten -there. And the gold woman, watching him until he disappeared, kissed the -wheel spoke his hand had touched and even again in the sweet agony of -her love when she saw that it was flecked with the blood of his storm -travail. - -That evening Paul established the rule by which he thought it best to -work the ship. Emily would stand a watch and trick at the wheel of two -hours and have three hours below. His watch would be three on deck and -two below. - -"It isn't fair, Paul," the gold woman protested when he explained it to -her. - -"It is fair, Emily. I wish I might spare you every bit of the coarse -hard things you have to do." - -"That's just it. You are always thinking of sparing me." - -"Take your orders or go to your room," he said with a pretended -seriousness. Emily started with a gasp. Her thoughts leaped to -McGovern's story of what had happened on the bridge of the _Yakutat_. -This was what Graham had said to Paul that fateful night. - -"I--I will take my orders," she answered in a low voice. - -"Why, dear, what is the matter? I didn't mean to frighten you. I'm a -ruffian. Do forgive me." - -"No, you should forgive me. I had no right to question what you said. -You know best." - -She drew in beside him on the lee side of the wheel. - -"I've been away from civilization so long that I imagine that I've -forgotten how to speak decently to white folk." - -"Then I should like to send ever so many men that I know at home where -you have been." - -"Bravo! But 'ever so many men'?" - -"Well, they wear trousers." - -"You are cynical." - -"No, observant." - -"I'm afraid you are a new woman." - -"I am. I have just been reborn. Oh, Paul, I have never lived until now. -I have never known what life meant. I have lived as one blind, -incompetent, thoughtless. Like most of those I knew before you came into -my life I had just a vague notion that the earth was round. You know the -kind." - -"Yes. Take the fiction of civilization away from them and every nine -hundred and ninety-nine would perish overnight." - -"I saw them in extremity aboard the _Cambodia_. How many knew one end of -a boat from the other? They were all thinking of living, crying to live, -and hardly one out of ten knew what to do to save their most precious -possession--life." - -"There is a big thought behind what you say." - -"You started it in me." - -Paul looked over his shoulder at the sea. After a considerable silence -he said: - -"I wonder how many came through?" - -The question was addressed to the sea as much as it was to Emily. She -shuddered. - -"Here!" he exclaimed brusquely. "What are we doing? There is Polaris up -there smiling at you, my lady." - -His face was lit with a wonderful smile as he spoke. It drove the gloom -from her mind which their reference to the _Cambodia_ had produced. Soon -they were off on an expedition to the stars, each in turn naming one and -identifying its bearings. Paul had introduced Emily to this "game" the -second night on the island, and then as now they lost themselves in it -in a childish delight. His mental equipment was forever startling the -gold woman. Where he had found the time to garner the store of knowledge -that was his and to keep abreast of the times, leading such a life as he -had for ten years, was a marvel to her. - -"Ha! Ha!" Paul laughed suddenly as the cabin clock, which he had moved -into the lounge, struck two bells. The laugh broke the spell of the -stars which held Emily, only to weave her immediately in another. - - "'I have shot back to Paris!'" - -Paul laughed and made a pretense of dusting himself. - - "'Come--pardon me--by the last waterspout, - Covered with ether,--accident of travel! - My eyes still full of star-dust, and my spurs - Encumbered by the planets' filaments! - Ha! on my doublet! A comet's hair!'" - -As he finished this snatch from Cyrano de Bergerac's sky-traveling tale, -Paul pretended to pick a comet's hair from his sleeve. - -"Oh, my beloved 'Cyrano'!" exclaimed Emily, identifying the lines. "Do -go on," and in answer Paul went through the entire scene between Cyrano -and De Guiche. - -"And I will applaud--I will pay you thus," and the gold woman reached up -and kissed the helmsman on brow and lip. - -Thus they both came back from across the world and the four centuries -whither the magic of the romantic lines had transported them. - -"Come, Emily, didn't you hear two bells strike? You have let me waste -nearly an hour of your watch below. Turn in." - -"It has been an hour of magic." - -She held her mouth up to be kissed. His lips barely touched hers and -flashed away, and as she went through the lounge door, he murmured, -still in the words of his Gascon hero, "'I soon shall reach the moon.'" - - * * * * * - -Fifteen days later the gold woman was at the wheel again, having -relieved Paul to permit him to make his noon observations. It was a -Sunday. She watched him tremulously, and strangely troubled, where he -worked at the chart table in the lounge. - -The days that had passed had been those of which sea-singers make their -happiest, bravest songs--by sunlight azure, cloudless sky, and -wind-flecked, gem-shot, purple sea; by night an ermine-tipped deep, -mirroring the star jewels and planet studdings of mystic, violet -heavens. Through these halcyon days the _Daphne_ had been winging her -way ever eastward; flinging long sea leagues behind under the impulse of -a driving, northwesterly wind. It had been as constant as a mother's -love; with never a pause the bark had sped as she was speeding now, not -as a hand-made fabric of steel and iron and wood and canvas and brass, -but like a living, sensate thing into which her maker had breathed a -soul. The crispness of Spring was in the air--air which whipped the -blood like young wine. - -"Only a thousand miles more!" called Paul suddenly. - -As he spoke Emily saw him rise quickly from the table and come toward -her. The mask of joyousness which he wore was but a mask to her. It -might have deceived anybody else, but this girl had come to understand -him and read him as not even the woman who had borne him could have -done. There was a constraint upon him. With each noon's tale of a -shortening journey a relentless tide had seemed to carry him further and -further away from her. After the first flush of the homeward flight he -had sung no more of his sea songs unless she asked him. He had a guard -up. A secret fear seemed to be gnawing at his heart. By instinct alone -she read that he loved her; not by external signs. - -"This is a smart little packet," Paul went on. "Just think of it--one -thousand nine hundred and eighty miles in fifteen days! That's moving -with nothing above a crippled mainto'-galluns'l on her! We did eleven -knots for a stretch when that puff struck us at dawn this morning." - - "'She's a saucy wild packet; she's a packet of fame, - She belongs in New York and the _Dreadnaught's_ her name.'" - -With this couplet, singing it in her rich voice, as she had learned it -from Paul, Emily made her answer. She did it with a bravery and pretense -of light-heartedness which she was far from feeling. - -"At this rate we'll not be spending another Sunday aboard the _Daphne_, -partner. Eh?" - -"No," she said and she kept her eyes averted as he took the wheel from -her. She looked out over the lee rail and across the sea. Just over the -end of the spanker boom, where it wheeled low down on the southwestern -horizon, a white glint fixed her gaze. For a second she thought it was a -large bird. Guiltily she held her breath as she discovered it to be a -sail. She closed her eyes and afterwards she believed that in that -moment she had prayed that Paul might not see it. But he had followed -her gaze. Her heart went cold as she heard him cry: "Sail ho!" - -A second later the _Daphne_ was shaking in the wind. - -"Here, Emily, take the wheel! Keep her shaking just as she is!" - -Paul drew Emily to the wheel as he spoke and ran to the rail. - -"It's a ship! Those are her skys'ls or royals we can see! She's bound -this way!" - -Emily's hands faltered. The wheel rolled through them. The _Daphne_ -clawed up in the wind until she was nearly aback forward. - -"Hard up! Hard up!" cried Paul in alarm. - -Blindly Emily recovered herself and put the helm up. The _Daphne_ fell -off before the wind and her skipper turned again to the strange sail. - -"No," he said. "She's outward bound--going the other way. We could never -overtake her." He took the wheel again. "Better look at her, partner. -It's a full-rigged ship. Not many of 'em left. Pretty soon the sea will -know them no more. They'll be gone--like--like the dreams of yesterday." - -In a few minutes the outward-bounder dipped out of sight, but even -before she went a mist had shut her from Emily's vision. "Dreams of -yesterday," her thoughts kept repeating. - -Although the _Daphne_ had been lying along in a beaten track of vessels -for more than two weeks, this was the first sail to be sighted from her -decks--the first vessel to come within her ken since the four-master -with the painted ports had "arrived out." - -"Don't feel badly, Emily," Paul said as the gold woman faced him. "Any -hour may bring us up with a homeward-bounder." - -"I do not feel badly," she answered, and her pride helped her mask her -feelings. "But if we are going to be home by next Sunday we are going to -have one more 'picnic.'" - -With that she went forward to the galley. The preceding Sunday she had -prepared a luncheon for both of them and they had eaten it at the wheel -together. They had prepared for it a day ahead, talking childish -make-believes of what they would wear and of the good things they would -have to eat. Paul had stolen the time to shave. Emily had found a bit of -pink ribbon and put it in her hair. This had been their change of -apparel. Such a meal as the cheap, sea-sour provisions of the _Daphne_ -afforded had been the "picnic" luncheon of their fiction. - -But Saturday of this week had slipped by and neither had spoken of a -repetition. Emily had waited for Paul to say something. He had waited -for her. Yet now he noted as she went forward that there was a bit of -ribbon in her hair. And she had observed that morning when he had come -on deck to relieve her at 10 o'clock that he was freshly shaven. - -Of a sudden Emily paused in the midst of her "picnic" preparations, her -mind stumbling upon the strangest thought that had yet come to her of -Paul's inexplicable mood. - -"Can there be another woman in his life?" whispered this thought. - -Instantly there came to her mind the night on the Isle of Hope when she -had heard him murmur in unconsciousness of a woman to whom he would soon -come home. - -She remembered that she had even prayed for this woman. - -"_Cherchez la femme._" Nothing was truer than that. Always the woman. -Her thoughts went wild. They began picturing the sort of woman who might -have come into his life and who might be coming back into it. No; she -would never come back into it, for if she had let him go when the blow -fell, he was not the kind to let her back. Still love moved men in -strange ways. - -It was a sorry picnic that was spread on the _Daphne's_ deck. It came to -an end at 2 o'clock when Paul turned the wheel over to Emily and started -forward with the dishes they had used. - -"I think I shall break out some coal for the donkey," he announced. - -"But it's Sunday, you know," said Emily, making a brave effort to smile. -There was an invitation in her glance for him to remain, but he would -not see it. - -"And you've forgotten your sailor's litany," he answered: - -"'Six days shalt thou work, doing all that thou art able; and on the -seventh, holystone the decks and stow away the cable.'" - -He smiled as he quoted the sea-grimed lines which the first shell back -on the Ark must have turned. Then slowly he put down the dishes and -irresistibly--a powerful magnet might have been controlling him--he was -drawn aft to the gold woman. He took her face between his hands and -kissed her as he had kissed her that day in the lounge. She dropped the -wheel and staggered. - -"My lover," she murmured. - -"Darling," he whispered. - -Just as the _Daphne_ was striking aback the madness which was upon -Lavelle passed from him and he seized the wheel. As he sent her off -before the wind again the back draught of the shaking sails wafted to -him a sulphurous odor which chilled the last drop of blood in his veins. - -"Emily, take the wheel. Keep her full--as she is." - -"Paul, dear, what----" - -The pallor of death was in his face. Another scent of gaseous warning -struck him. - -"My God, we're afire!" he cried and sprang forward. - - - - -CHAPTER XXXI - - -Paul ran straight from the poop into the eyes of the _Daphne_. There the -trail of gas led him. It was the coal in the fore hatch that had been -exposed and wet. He went below through the chain locker, but only to -remain a second. A sulphurous wave of heat drove him on deck, choking -for breath. A furnace was back of it. There was no fire to be seen, but -this man did not have to see it to know what the blast that repulsed him -meant. He knew these Australian coal cargoes too well. This was not the -result of the mutineers' abortive effort to destroy the _Daphne_. This -was a fire of spontaneous combustion. It was deeply seated. These coals -had been in the bark more than one hundred and sixteen days to his own -knowledge, which was drawn from the log and the time since he had -boarded her. How long she had lain in Sydney after being loaded there -was no way of telling. - -Coals of this kind, laden in hulls like the _Daphne's_, which were never -built for such cargoes, generate gas after a certain period, and unless -watched incessantly and ventilated properly fire is the certain result. -The Pacific deeps hold the secret of many a ship brought to her doom -through such a lading. - -That night the constant northwesterly summoned a new freshness to its -drive as if it sensed the _Daphne's_ peril. When Paul relieved Emily at -the wheel at seven o'clock she was crying with the pain in her arms. She -had been standing there a full five hours. Not since they had been -sailing to the eastward had Paul permitted her to take a trick beyond -two hours. She had to walk up and down the deck swinging her arms and -flexing her fingers to get the numbness out of them. - -"Emily, I'd suffer any pain to take yours away," Paul said. "I feel like -a whipped cur to see you going through all this terror and hardship--and -to think I can't do anything to put any of it away from you." - -His tenderness flooded her eyes with tears. Strife always brought him -close to her. - -"Don't, Paul, please," she said bravely, attempting to control her -voice. "You will--you will have me breaking--going to pieces in a -moment." - -She put her hands to her face and leaned against the casing over the -steering gear. - -"Emily, I want you to get for'ard and get a bite to eat and then turn -in," he said. "I'm going to try to let you sleep for three hours--maybe -until midnight. I've everything battened down forward. The fire's all -there. Not a sign aft--no temperature. It's this wind and our strength -against the beast that's under decks." - -He did not tell her what a beast he knew it to be. - -The morning of the fifth day after the discovery of the fire Paul fixed -the _Daphne's_ position one hundred and fifty miles to the south and -west of San Francisco. - -"Only another day, partner! Maybe an hour may bring a vessel to us!" She -had just relieved him at the wheel. Through these five days the _Daphne_ -had come driving without sighting a sail: unspoken save by the voice of -the northwest wind. Once they had seen the black smoke plume of an -outward-bound steamer, but it was too far away for the _Daphne's_ signal -of distress to be seen. - -Paul seemed to be living by will alone: to be endowed of a force that -only death could stay. When he slept the gold woman had no idea. He had -relieved her at the wheel every two hours, night and day, but when she -was steering she frequently heard him at work in the engine room. From -the very first night he had slept beside that engine, kept its fires -alive and a stream of steam flowing into the forehold through a pipe led -down through the chain locker. He had explained to her that water on a -fire like this would have been of as little use as oil: that gases had -to be smothered. - -Emily sensed that a greater danger menaced them than Paul had revealed. -This had been suggested to her when on the second day she had seen him -finish a raft built of doors and forecastle bunkboards. But she had -learned of the storm not to ask questions. What this man chose to tell -he would tell. - -Never had he seemed more splendid than as he stood before her this -morning telling the _Daphne's_ position, and in the same breath -whispering again the belief that had come to him the night before that -the steam was choking the beast in the hold. Bare-armed, bareheaded, -lithe with a thoroughbred's suppleness, he was, in her sight, an urn of -the divine fire from which mankind draws its noblest impulses. - -"We'll win through yet, Paul! In justice we must!" she called to him as -he went forward. - -She saw him come to the galley door a few minutes later with a cup of -steaming coffee and, as he ate of a biscuit and drank, he waved to her. -He darted inside and a moment later came running aft with a cup for her. - -"I've had my coffee, dearheart," she said. - -"Half a dozen cups won't hurt you. I put two spoons of sugar in -this--sand, save the mark." - -With that he was gone from her again. Emily watched him breaking coal -out of a corner of the main hatch for use in the donkey. She smiled as -she remembered his commentary on the grimness of stealing coal from one -end of the ship to make fire to put out coal already afire in the other -end. It was the old, old principle of fighting fire with fire in a new, -weird form. - -Watching her partner drew Emily's attention from the _Daphne_. A warning -slat of the weather leech of the to'galluns'l brought her eyes back to -the bark and the compass. She had just succeeded in getting the vessel -on her course of northeast again, when a roar with a shriek whistling -through it came bursting aft. A cloud of steam poured from the engine -room door. - -Shrieking Paul's name, Emily paused but a second when no answer came. -She became a flame of action. With the quickness of thought and the -instinct of his training guiding her hands, she snapped the wheel into -its beckets, let the spanker sheet go by the run and, leaping forward, -cast the halyards off their pin. - -Only belching steam answered her cry of Paul. Into it she hurled -herself. It flung her back. She became as a tigress at the repulse. She -was not to be denied. Instinct brought her to her hands and knees. It -told her to go in under the scalding vapor. Just inside the door she -found her own and snatched him into the life-giving air. - -When Paul awoke to consciousness fifteen minutes later it was to find -the face of the gold woman bending over him. He put up his arms and drew -her face down against his hot lips and held it there. - -"You, you," he murmured, and he found the precious lips which had kissed -him again and again in his unconsciousness. They answered him as if they -would breathe the strength of immortal life into his form. - -"Not even death can take you from me!" she cried, and started up -savagely. She might have expected to find the grim specter himself to -grapple at her side. - -"Not even--death----" - -Lavelle sighed and his eyes closed in a seeming weariness of pain. His -arms fell from her neck. - -"Oh, God, you mustn't take him from me! You must not!" - -It was an appeal, a command, a challenge of defiance. The cry with which -she sent it heavenward pierced above the roar of the steam and the -warring sails and hamper above. - -Although this lone woman's extremity was great, yet of her association -with Paul Lavelle she had learned to order her wits in the presence of -disaster. - -"If the next minute seems to be the last, just keep on -fighting--hammering ahead," he had said to her so many times. - -She remembered how he had given strychnine to McGovern to stimulate -heart action--the oil he had put on the poor fellow's burns. She ran aft -and in a drawer in the medicine chest which she looted of bandages and -lint she discovered by accident a bottle of brandy. When she returned to -Paul he was just opening his eyes again. He shook his head at the liquor -when he had taken but a sip of it. - -"Some starch and water," he whispered, "or glycerine. There's some -aft----" - -Emily found a bottle of glycerine. A few minutes after he had swallowed -a mouthful of it he nodded that he felt easier. - -"Steam--afraid it got inside," he whispered. "Tried--remember keep my -mouth shut. Steam's bad to swallow. Water injector--on the boiler--blew -out. Hit me somewhere in the middle. Happened all in a second." - -He fainted while Emily was drawing the boot off his left leg which he -had indicated hurt him most. The limb was scalded from the knee down. -His arms and the backs of his hands, too, were blistered. His face was -grimed with ashes and soot, but when Emily washed it she found it free -of burn or hurt. The while her loving hands swathed him and soothed his -wounds she crooned like a wild thing over its whelp. - -When he revived she was holding his head in her lap just as she had in -the _Cambodia's_ boat. His eyelids lifted to her kisses. He put up a -hand and touched her cheek and she patted it. He smiled at the -reassurance that it was not a dream. Many, many times he had awakened to -put out his hand like that--to touch that face and met only emptiness. - -The jade ring which he had put on Emily's finger drew his glance and -held it for a second. - -"'Man has many reckonings with man, but only one with God,'" he -repeated. "'Only one with God.'" - -The escaping steam by this time had spent its strongest volume. It was -now no more than a hiss. The _Daphne_ had fallen off before the wind -again and the noise aloft had practically ceased. - -"I feel this is the reckoning, partner," he whispered. - -With a sob she bent and kissed him with all the passion of her being. - -"And for the touch of those lips," Paul went on, "the reckoning--cannot -be too hard." - -"No, no, dearheart----No, no! This is not the reckoning--only the -beginning of the future." - -Paul shook his head. - -"I have thought of the future, but it can't be--for me. If things had -been different I should have found you though you had been at the ends -of the world. And I should have come for you and taken you." A flash of -the old conquering spirit lit his eyes. "I should have taken you despite -a world against me. It is part of the--the reckoning that we -should--have met; like strange ships on the sea and to have sailed -together for this little while. But it wasn't to be that we were to get -home together. And that is right. That is right." - -"Paul, Paul, this hopelessness is not like you. You will live! You must -live!" - -"But I don't want to live," he answered very calmly. "I am nothing but a -worthless, broken thing--marked among men. I haven't even a name to give -you. I am a pariah man--darling. That's----" - -"Listen, Paul--look up at me so that you will know that it is my soul -speaking to you. All that fortune has given me is as nothing to just the -glance with which you are looking up at me now. All that I have is -yours--my soul, my flesh, my blood, my every breath, my life! Had you -nowhere to lay your head I would follow you. Had you only rags to cover -me I would wear them as robes of state. Had you only a crust from the -gutter to share with me it would be a feast. Were the whole world to -revile you its scorn would make me proud. I would wear its spittle like -jewels. My love would be my crown." - -Emily Granville was burning with the divine fire of a sublime love. Her -message to this man, who to her was more than all the earth and its -treasures--more than life itself, burst from her lips with the -passionate rush of a mountain stream seeking the ocean. - -"Can you not understand that my love would be a poor weak, despicable -thing if this were not so? That I would not be worthy of my womanhood?" - -She choked back the tears as she asked these questions; she kissed the -face which she pressed against her breast. - -"That you might live--I would die with a smile and with but one regret: -That it had not been permitted to me to bear a man child like you. - -"But there is a future, Paul. The world will not drive us forth. Life--a -fine, clean, God-fearing life is waiting for us over there--just through -the Golden Gate. It is a golden gate which will close out the -past--forever and ever." - -"It cannot be locked out, dear." - -"But it can. I can lock it out. The world must listen to me. It must -believe me. Justice works in strange ways, but it brought us that poor -man out of the sea. I can tell the world his story. He was with you on -the _Yakutat_." - -Paul started and caught her hand. - -"Then, it was not a vagary," he whispered. "That was Driscoll--the -quartermaster." - -"He was in the boat with you that night. I don't know what name you knew -him by. But he told me what happened--the truth. Had he never spoken I -should have known the truth. If the world would not listen to you, it -will listen to me! It will take back its lies! If----" - -Emily's voice broke and she lowered her head in the embrace of the -wounded arms which encircled her neck. The pent-up tears of all her -travail of spirit since their paths had crossed--the tears choked back -and fought back through the dark hours of all the weeks that had -gone--would not be longer stayed. On his breast she poured them, and her -one thought was that if death must be her love's victor it would strike -them quickly in each other's arms. - - - - -CHAPTER XXXII - - - "In the Black Ball Line I served my time, - _To me hoodah. To me hoodah;_ - In the Black Ball Line I served my time, - _So hurrah for the Black Ball Line!_ - - _"Blow, my bullies, blow,_ - _For California O!_ - _There's plenty of gold,_ - _So I've been told,_ - _On the banks of the Sacramento!_" - -It was with this familiar capstan chanty, "The Banks of the Sacramento," -ringing into his senses that Paul Lavelle opened his eyes again on -conscious life. The chorus rose clear and lusty, following a baritone -leader whose tones were like chimes. A strange, sharp voice of command -near by suddenly cut into the chorus. - -"Tell that gang of bullies to cut that out and handle that capstan in -silence! Tell 'em to remember we've sick folk aboard here." - -A moment afterward the chanty ceased. - -"Emily, Emily!" Paul called. He believed he shouted, but his voice rose -hardly above a whisper. A shadow cut off the morning sunlight which was -streaming through a door at his feet. A film seemed to be over his -vision, but he sensed that he was in the _Daphne's_ lounge. Somebody sat -down beside him and two strong hands took one of his between them. - -"You God blessed, old pirate, you----" - -Emotion choked the speaker, but Paul Lavelle started at the sound of -that voice. It called to him across fourteen years of silence. He looked -up dazed at a man built like himself and dressed in the uniform of a -United States naval commander. - -"Tommy--Tommy Winterton," he murmured. - -"Bet your boots it's Tommy!" came the answer with a bit of a sniffle in -it. - -"But where am I? Where----" Terror seized him. "Emily, Emily!" he -called. - -"She's below, Paul, sleeping. She's been up here, sitting where I am, -nearly all night." - -"But how----Where----" - -"Stow your questions till I get through. I've a lot to tell you." - -Paul subsided with a wondering gaze fixed on the speaker. - -"I've a lot to tell that'll make you want to live; that ought to bring -you off your back quicker than you can say Jack Robinson," Winterton -went on. "You haven't swallowed any steam--you're burned up a bit -outside and you're just as good-looking as ever." - -"But where am I? What has happened?" - -"You're aboard your own bark--the _Daphne_. She's yours by the Lord -Harry and I'd like to see anybody take her away from you. We'll be up -with the Gate in another three hours. I'm having her mudhooks shackled -up now. Along----" - -A renewing of the chanty interrupted him. - -"Mr. Yates! Mr. Yates!" called Winterton. - -A young ensign appeared in the doorway. - -"Tell 'em to cut that out!" - -Paul shook his head. - -"Let 'em go on," he asked. "Ask that fellow with the baritone voice to -find a job and give us 'The Maid of Amsterdam.'" - -"Anything his heart desires, Mr. Yates." - -Yates stepped inside with his hand extended toward Paul. - -"I just want to shake hands with you and say I'm proud to do it." - -He lifted the hand which Winterton held and gave it a gentle squeeze -through its bandages. He turned and went out quickly. Winterton picked -up the hand again and met Paul's wondering gaze. - -"That boy meant that," said Winterton. "Why----" - -The strain of "The Maid of Amsterdam"--the most beautiful of all sailor -work songs--came aft. - -"That can't stop me," Winterton went on. "We ran afoul of your old -packet about 11 o'clock yesterday morning, threshing around like a wild -ship--two ships of the cruiser squadron; mine and another. The -_Carolina_ has gone on in. I'm stretching a hawser over your bows with -my ship. Don't you remember anything about it? No? I sent Yates and a -boat's crew aboard of you. They found you and that glorious girl trying -to get aft. You wanted to get to the wheel and you not able to stand. -Don't remember it, eh? I reckon you don't. - -"Oh, my boy, that girl and you have had the whole lot of us miserable. -We reached Honolulu from Callao ten days after the _Cambodia_ went down. -Department ordered us to join the search for survivors. Whaler picked up -a hundred and forty. There was a kid of a quartermaster among 'em--he -and a chap named Evans--he's in the consular service--were the heroes of -the whole lot. It would take me a week to tell you the things they said -about you. They weren't the only ones. To me it was like a poor man -finding gold--every word they dropped was a chunk of gold. Say, don't -mind, if I snivel a little bit. But I'm glad, glad! You under--you -old----" - -"My mother----Have----" - -"Got a cable from her at Honolulu. Sent a wireless to her last night. -She's waiting for you now in town. _Cambodia_ had no wireless. 'Twas a -crime. Somebody ought to be hanged." - -Paul nodded assent. - -"Well, we combed out to the westward looking for you till it was -hopeless," Winterton resumed. "We had nothing but gale upon gale. We -combed through that chain of islands to the nor'west of the Hawaiians -and at Midway we ran on the gang out of this ship. Oh, it isn't a pretty -story: They'd made the island after being in the boats ten days. When -they set fire to this ship they thought Midway was right aboard of them. -None was a navigator. Second mate--a murdering hound named Morgan, who'd -been taken aft from the foc'sle, was the ringleader. He killed McGavock, -the skipper. The Jap cook killed the mate. Plain hellishness was at the -back of it; that's all. - -"McGavock had been logging both of them--knocked Morgan down one day for -giving him back talk. Mate did the same to the cook. The Jap was crazy -from opium smoking. After they'd done the killing they fixed the fire -and the rest of the crew followed them over the side like rats--you know -the kind. One of the outfit--sort of a third mate and bos'n--who'd put -up a fight--they turned him adrift without water or a bite to eat. Told -him to eat the oars if he got hungry; gave him the ocean to drink. Yes, -that's the fellow you picked up. Miss Granville told me about it last -night. He was with your father at Apia." - -"But what of McGavock's wife? There was a woman, Tommy." - -"She wasn't aboard. Seems poor McGavock lost his wife--died at sea with -her little baby, away out to the westward there, a couple of years ago. -He kept brooding over it--kept the wife's things aboard just as she'd -left them. I saw the little ferns down there under the skylights -yesterday evening. Seems that after crossing the line this voyage -McGavock got it into his head to make the position where he'd buried the -little woman. He had it marked on the chart with a little red cross. The -mutineers stole the chart and they thought the red cross stood for an -island. God knows why McGavock steered out there. Maybe he never -intended to come away. - -"The Jap committed suicide at Midway, but he told the whole story before -he went out and we have the rest of it from the other swine. The whole -outfit's aboard my ship. Something of the poetry of justice in that, eh? -A British cruiser's waiting to take them aboard as soon as we get in. -Had her by wireless yesterday. - -"But, Paul, it's you I want to talk about--and I'll not answer another -question till I have my say. When the news of the _Cambodia's_ loss and -what you'd done aboard of her went flashing round the world it set the -old navy gang's hearts up. But it did more than that. It reached into -the conscience of that fellow Graham. He was on his last legs in a -hospital in San Francisco. He'd never had a ship since he'd lost the -_Yakutat_--just a beachcomber and a bum. A man can't do a dirty thing -and stand up afterward. That's as sure as shooting. Well, with his last -breath, Graham tells the truth about the night the _Yakutat_ was lost; -said if he'd done what you advised him to do the ship would never have -piled up. He took back every lie he uttered on the witness -stand--admitted that he'd ordered you to the boats. He even told how he -looked down from the bridge and saw you fighting like a tiger to get -women and children into the boats. The San Francisco papers--we picked -'em up at Honolulu--are full of it. Miss Granville has a lot of them. - -"Lord, man----Why, Paul, you damned old pirate you! The fleet's been -collecting a fund--one of the newspapers that roasted you the worst is -backing it--to build you a memorial. Something in bronze. But it isn't -going to be bronze. It's going to be silver--the damnedest, finest -wedding gift a real man ever got." - -Winterton's voice was husky with emotion. His big brown eyes were -suspiciously misty. He had to stop. - -"Farallones are abeam, sir," reported Yates, who was in temporary -command of the _Daphne_, coming to the door. - -"Must be getting back to my own ship, Paul. Regulations, you know. But -I'll be aboard of you as soon as we get our mudhooks down." - -"Carpenter's mate reports, sir," interrupted the ensign, "that the fire -in the forehold is extinguished." - -"See that!" exclaimed Winterton. "You beat that, too, you old beggar, -even though you did come near blowing yourself to Kingdom Come!" - -At that moment Emily, fresh from sleep and with the wonderful light of -love transcendent in her being, came up through the companionway with -the surgeon from Winterton's ship at her heels. - -Sawbones caught Winterton's eye and followed him out on deck. The lounge -door closed softly behind them and Emily Granville and Paul Lavelle were -alone. He drew her precious face down to his and printed a kiss of life -triumphant upon her expectant lips. Neither attempted to speak for -several minutes. - -The gold woman carried a small black book and she laid it in Paul's -hands as she lifted her face from his. - -"I want you to have this now, my prince, before the world renders you -what it will in a few hours. I would have dragged from the world what it -is going to give you willingly. I want all that comes to you to come -through me. Darling, that is the woman of it. I have kept this a secret -from you because I wished to be able to swear that it was not written at -your suggestion; that you knew absolutely nothing about it. If I did -wrong in keeping it from you--you----" - -"Why, darling, what is it?" - -"Can you bear to read?" - -"Yes." - -"Then begin here," and she opened the book in the middle for him and -this is what Paul Lavelle read: - - "At sea aboard the bark _Daphne_, March 31, 191-. - - "In the presence of death and without the solicitation or the - knowledge of any person hereinafter named I, Daniel McGovern, - sometimes called Driscoll, and other names unknown to me, say: I was - quartermaster aboard the steamship _Yakutat_ which was wrecked on - the California Coast in the month of March--the 15th--190-, through - and by the carelessness of her first officer, William Graham, then - acting as captain in the place of her dead commander. I joined the - ship at Skagway. The shipping records there will show under what - name. On the day preceding the wreck and when we were within - thirty-six hours of our destination we encountered a dense fog in - which the ship remained up to the time she struck. The fog closed in - about 10 o'clock at night shortly after I took the wheel. Paul - Lavelle, second officer of the _Yakutat_ and ranking next in command - to William Graham, was on the bridge. About fifteen minutes - afterward Graham came on the bridge. I heard Mr. Lavelle tell a - steward to call Graham from the saloon. Lavelle said: 'We are - standing in too near the land. There is a bad current along here.' - Graham said: 'I've had enough of this talk from you. Hold your - course. I'm in command here.' He left the bridge. The next night - when I went on watch the course was the same that we had been - holding for the previous twenty-four hours. This was at midnight. - The third officer and the captain, Graham, were on the bridge. Mr. - Lavelle was just being relieved. He said to the captain, Graham: 'I - advise you to steer at least three points further to the southward.' - We were making a course southeast by east. Graham answered: 'Take - your orders or go to your room and stay there. Which will it be?' - Mr. Lavelle said: 'I will take my orders.' Other things were said in - both these conversations, but what they were I do not know. I give - only the parts I heard and remember. The ship struck at fifteen - minutes before two. The third officer signaled: 'Full speed astern.' - If he had signaled 'Full speed ahead' there would have been but few - lives lost. There was a ground swell running, but hardly any sea. - Lavelle came on the bridge first. Then came Graham and the fourth - officer. Graham was like a crazy man. He kept saying: 'All hands to - the boats.' And there were not boats enough aboard for half the - ship's company. Mr. Lavelle cursed Graham. Graham said: 'I order you - to your boat.' I followed Mr. Lavelle. We had to fight like wild - beasts. There were pistols and knives against us at every hand. - 'Women and children first; remember, Driscoll.' That is what Mr. - Lavelle said to me. The boats were being let go by the run, some - half filled and others with not enough in them to man them. We - gathered all the women and children we could see. The last we let - in was an old gentleman who had been sick all the passage, and his - wife. I lifted him in. Mr. Lavelle lifted the wife. One would not go - without the other. Then the lights went out. When we cleared the - side Lavelle started to climb the boat fall again to go back to the - ship. I pulled him back. He was too brave a man to let commit - suicide. He had absolutely no thought of himself. I have followed - the sea forty-five years and I know brave men. I saw Paul Lavelle's - father die at Apia. Nobody was driven from our boat but men. We gave - their places to women and children. We did not beat anybody with - oars. When we cleared the ship a negro--I had knocked him overboard - myself--grabbed the gunwale of the boat. We could not take him in. - Mr. Lavelle struck at him with an oar. Somebody stood up in the boat - and the next second we were all gone. I did not remember what - happened until one year ago. The minister at the Bethel in Hong Kong - can tell you about that. The doctors there know, too. While I was on - the _Yakutat_ I did not know who Paul Lavelle was. - - HIS - DANIEL X MCGOVERN. - MARK - - "Witness: - "EMILY GRANVILLE." - -"Oh, you wonderful, wonderful woman!" cried Paul as he finished this -amazing document and crushed Emily to him. - -Contrition filled him as he remembered the picture of her standing -beside the derelict's berth swearing him to the truth of his statement. -He started to speak, but a hand over his mouth stopped him. The gold -woman could read his thoughts. - -"I should have answered you when you called me that night, Paul," she -said, "but if I had done so I should not have been able to get the poor -old fellow to make his mark. I had fought death from taking him until I -could put in writing what he said. You----" - -She did not finish, for he drew her cheek down against his. - -Two hours later Paul Lavelle and Emily Granville sailed through the -Golden Gate--the golden gate of the future which she had promised him. - -The noble sea way was shimmering in the sunlight of a flawless Spring -day. As the _Daphne_ came under the lee of the green-clad Marin hills -the northwest wind, which had been her constant champion, withdrew like -a courtier who has seen his lady to the threshold of her home. - -"To live and to love!" exclaimed Paul, inhaling a deep breath of the -crisp, sparkling air where he had been carried from the lounge to a -chair against the taffrail. - -"To love and to live," whispered Emily, pressing the hand which she held -in hers against her heart. "Isn't life beautiful?" - -"We are but coming through its gate, darling," he answered. - - -THE END - - - - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Girl of the Golden Gate, by -William Brown Meloney - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GIRL OF THE GOLDEN GATE *** - -***** This file should be named 60124-0.txt or 60124-0.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/6/0/1/2/60124/ - -Produced by David T. 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You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of -the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - -Title: The Girl of the Golden Gate - -Author: William Brown Meloney - -Release Date: August 18, 2019 [EBook #60124] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GIRL OF THE GOLDEN GATE *** - - - - -Produced by David T. Jones, Mary Meehan, Al Haines & the -online Distributed Proofreaders Canada team at -http://www.pgdpcanada.net - - - - - - -</pre> - - -<p><br /><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<h1>THE GIRL OF THE GOLDEN GATE</h1> - -<h2>BY WILLIAM BROWN MELONEY</h2> - -<p class="center">NEW YORK<br /> -GROSSET & DUNLAP<br /> -PUBLISHERS</p> - -<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Copyright</span>, 1913, <span class="smcap">by</span><br /> -WILLIAM BROWN MELONEY</p> - -<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Copyright</span>, 1913, <span class="smcap">by</span><br /> -EDWARD J. CLODE</p> - -<hr style="width: 65%;" /> - -<div class="figcenter"> -<img src="images/front.jpg" alt=""/> -</div> - -<hr style="width: 65%;" /> -<h2>THE GIRL OF THE GOLDEN GATE</h2> - - - -<hr style="width: 65%;" /> -<h2>CHAPTER I</h2> - - -<p>The general steamship agency on The Bund was a hive of bustling -travelers, their faces alight with the eagerness with which they desired -to be gone their many ways up and down the world. A stranger might have -imagined that most of Yokohama's European or "white" population had been -possessed of a sudden desire to flee beyond the seas.</p> - -<p>It was a scene common enough, however, for that season in the gateways -of the Far East. Spring, with its heart call to distant homelands, had -come again to break the spell of the Orient for many and to stir an -unutterable longing in the breasts of others—the men and women who -dream always of the day they will "go back," but who never do.</p> - -<p>The crowd was a conglomerate, as crowds go, and not lacking in -picturesque touches—here where a Chinese of mandarin rank went with a -silky retinue; there where a pair of turbaned Sikhs stood near two -begoggled Korean priests, muttering in gutturals over their tickets for -the South. The placidity and impenetrable calm of these few Oriental -faces served but to accentuate the mobile expressiveness of the dominant -Caucasian countenance.</p> - -<p>Still there was one white man whose features betrayed no expression of -interest in the scene. He stood head and shoulders over those around him -in a line of applicants at a booking desk toward the rear. There was an -air of detachment about him. Apparently he was untouched of the spirit -of mystic restlessness and excitement which pervaded the place—that -resistless, undeniable spirit which takes hold of even the most -unimaginative and lackadaisical in railway depots or wherever else men -in numbers set out upon journeys. There was no gleam of the -homeward-bounder in his eye—that gleam which is more like the light of -love than anything else; there was no expectancy; no sign of eagerness.</p> - -<p>At a first glance this man's face seemed no more than a mask. At a -second one realized that the features were those of one who must have -won unto the priceless possession of self-control. The nose was large -and yet as sensitively formed as the freshly shaven lips and chin. The -ears were perfectly lobed—the ears of a thoroughbred. The jaw was that -of the natural fighter, not heavy and jowly, but cut in a sharp, -straight line from the hinge to the point. Tiny wrinkles in the outer -corners of the eyelids, which come from facing long distances on sea or -land, kept forming and reforming as his gray eyes wandered idly over the -heads of the crowd. It is thus that the tribes of the earth's big spaces -are marked.</p> - -<p>Several times he pushed his small gray felt hat back from his brow and -then as absently pulled it down again. When he did this one saw the seam -of a jagged scar, still pink from recent healing, which traversed the -left temple and disappeared in the dark-brown hair over the ear. -Although the forelock and the temples were quite gray, he was not more -than thirty-five years old.</p> - -<p>His blue serge suit fitted well and the trimness of his setting-up—his -whole hearing, in fact—spoke of one of military training. Perhaps it -was this suggestion of the soldier that made the Sikhs turn and look -back at him as they passed out on The Bund. Yet it was not as a soldier -that the port of Yokohama knew him, but by the name of Whitridge and as -the captain of the sorriest-looking piece of sea grist that had ever -made Tokyo Bay. A brute of a Chinese tramp she was, and men who knew -deep waters were still marveling how he had brought her through the -vitals of a typhoon—the worst in their memory—which had swept the -coast in a fury of destruction.</p> - -<p>Chinese tramps and those who go in them are of little moment, but on the -morning two months before that the port had awakened to find in its -fairway a salt-crusted thing called the <i>Kau Lung</i>, minus funnels and -masts and suggesting only vaguely a steamship, it knew that it looked on -one of the deep's wonders. The sea must have swallowed her and spat her -up again, and those who said this had in mind that tramps which fly the -dragon cloth are the unsweetest things upon big waters.</p> - -<p>Yet not only through stress of storm had he weathered her, but through a -mutiny whose blood rusted her decks. Without mates and alone save for a -big Cantonese serang he had done this thing and then come silently -ashore to nurse his wounds.</p> - -<p>Presently Whitridge stood at the head of the line. A man who looked ill -and who told the booking clerk with a nervous laugh that he hadn't seen -"the home country" in twenty years gave way to him.</p> - -<p>"Now, sir, your pleasure," said the clerk.</p> - -<p>"Oh," answered Whitridge as if bringing his thoughts from a great -distance. "I wish to—to book on the <i>Cambodia</i>, please."</p> - -<p>"She's pretty full, sir," said the clerk, with a doubtful shake of the -head and turning away to get a stateroom diagram.</p> - -<p>A momentary hush fell on the crowd.</p> - -<p>"Gad!" exclaimed a young Englishman standing beside Whitridge.</p> - -<p>Turning, Whitridge followed the man's glance toward the agency entrance.</p> - -<p>A woman with hair of the color of gold that has been washed in sea water -was coming in out of the sunshine of the radiant March morning. A -picture hat of rough bronze straw accentuated the wealth and beauty of -her wonderful crown. A long, loose tan coat with full sleeves, made her -appear a shade taller than she really was, but her erect, healthy -carriage threw the garment about her in clinging folds which softened -its fashionable modernness.</p> - -<p>She paused for a second, a tilt of inquiry to her vivid head. Then she -moved swiftly to the desk where Whitridge was standing.</p> - -<p>"I have a letter—I wish to see the director—the manager, please," she -said to the clerk in a low, well-bred voice.</p> - -<p>Looking up, the clerk gave a start of surprise, recovered himself -quickly, and indicated a door to the left. She opened it and passed -inside followed by a woman in black, evidently a maid. The clerk's eyes -trailed after her with something of awe in them. There was hardly a -glance in the room which was not turned in the same direction.</p> - -<p>"Out East here we—we see nothing but little, dark women," the clerk -began apologetically, facing Whitridge again.</p> - -<p>"Ever see Burne-Jones' 'Springtime'?" interrupted the Englishman -eagerly. Whitridge nodded. "Gad! Isn't she like it?" Another nod -answered him.</p> - -<p>"Now, sir," interrupted the clerk, spreading out a diagram. "The -<i>Cambodia</i> calls at Honolulu, you——"</p> - -<p>"I wish to book through to San Francisco—an outside room, if possible."</p> - -<p>"Luck's with you, sir. The last one," and he indicated with a pencil -point a small space aft on the port side. Whitridge nodded his -acceptance and at that moment the office door at the left opened -quickly.</p> - -<p>A middle-aged man, evidently the agency manager, emerged, preceding the -"Springtime" woman.</p> - -<p>"Burr! Reserve an outside room on the <i>Cambodia</i> at once," he called to -the clerk booking Whitridge.</p> - -<p>"Too late, sir. I've just sold the last one to this gentleman."</p> - -<p>Whitridge turned. A shadow of keen disappointment passed over the face -of the golden-haired woman.</p> - -<p>"Oh, is there nothing you can do?" she asked, looking at the manager -appealingly. He glanced at Whitridge. "You don't know the terror I -feel—the horror I have of being put inside," she went on. There was a -note of genuine distress in her voice.</p> - -<p>"There is another ship in eight days," answered the manager.</p> - -<p>"But it is imperative that I sail on this one."</p> - -<p>"If you will permit me," interrupted Whitridge, baring his head, "I will -resign my room to you."</p> - -<p>"Oh, but that would not be fair. You are very kind, but I—I must pay -for my lateness." She met his gaze with an honest, uncompromising -directness in her blue eyes. "You——"</p> - -<p>"Really it doesn't much matter where I am put," and a note of sadness in -his voice brought an expression of interest into her brow. For a part of -a second their glances held and then Whitridge turned to the clerk: -"This lady will take my room."</p> - -<p>He spoke with a finality which evidently was strange to her. She frowned -slightly and started as if to protest again.</p> - -<p>"You should accept, Miss Granville," said the manager anxiously and in a -way that indicated his desire to please a person of some importance. She -paused uncertainly as her lips framed a "No," but meeting Whitridge's -gaze again she gave a nod of decision.</p> - -<p>"I will accept. You are rendering me a service greater than you know," -she said gratefully and there was a brilliance as of tears in her eyes. -"I thank you—very much."</p> - -<p>The manager, beaming with delight, thanked Whitridge and led her back to -his private office. At the threshold she paused and turned to surprise -Whitridge's gaze fixed hungrily upon her. A smile with which she -intended to thank him died on her lips. A startled look came into her -eyes. She did not move until he turned toward the clerk, who was asking -him for a record for the customs' clearance.</p> - -<p>"Paul Whitridge, thirty-four, master mariner—British subject," he said, -and the clerk recalled afterward the strange hesitancy with which he -gave his name and nationality.</p> - -<p>The manager reappeared at this moment and began reading a memorandum to -the clerk: "Miss Emily Granville, twenty-four—American." Whitridge gave -a barely perceptible start of surprise as the name fell from the -manager's lips. He compressed his eyes as if to shut out some unpleasant -thought or memory. The manager threw the slip of paper on the desk. "You -can make it out, Burr. It's all there. Book her and the maid that way," -he said. Then, turning to Whitridge, he went on: "I'm mightily obliged -to you, sir. I'll send a note to the ship asking to have special care -taken of you. She is one of the big stockholders in the Western Line. -Cables came last night for her—she's just down from Tokyo. Some -business trouble at home—trustee of her estate dead. Something like -that. Must get home immediately. Can't bear to travel in inside rooms. -She—her——"</p> - -<p>"It's all right," Whitridge said, cutting him off. "I'm glad to have -been able to do it."</p> - -<p>He spoke with an indication of impatience in tone and manner. Without -another word he gathered up his tickets and went out of the agency. The -manager and clerk wished him a pleasant voyage, but if he heard them he -made no sign.</p> - -<p>"Devilish strange sort," said the manager in surprise.</p> - -<p>"I should say so. I think he's the captain that brought that wreck of a -Chink tramp in here a couple of months ago," answered the clerk.</p> - -<p>"Indeed!" With this exclamation of surprise the manager hurried back to -his office where Emily Granville was waiting and thinking of the -inexpressible sadness she had seen in the face of the stranger who had -resigned his stateroom to her. It troubled her. In the instant that she -had turned to find his gaze fixed on her she saw a pain in his eyes so -poignant that it hurt her. A soul sounding the deeps of anguish seemed -to have been crying out just behind them.</p> - -<p>Whitridge, going swiftly along The Bund, was torn by the thoughts which -the name of Granville had started. It had been these thoughts which had -driven him out of the agency so strangely. He argued and argued with -himself that he must be wrong; that there were undoubtedly others of -that name in San Francisco. He tried hard to think of other things, but -ever the vision of this woman with the golden hair remained dominant. It -excluded even the thought of his mother whose message to come home to -her before it was too late had decided him in an hour to cross the -ocean. His remembrance of the woman was so vivid that she might have -waited at his side. The fragrance of her remained in his nostrils. The -atmosphere of her girlish freshness clung to him. There was an -indefiniteness about her like the mystery of the Spring. The Englishman -had been right in thinking she suggested Burne-Jones' "Springtime." She -was a veritable gold woman.</p> - -<p>As he came to the little hotel hidden away in the fringe of The Bluff's -European respectability a Chinaman, waiting as a dog waits, greeted him. -It was the Cantonese serang called Chang, who had come out of the maw of -death with him in the <i>Kau Lung</i>. Yokohama knew him as Whitridge's -shadow.</p> - -<p>"Tlunk all pack, master. Him gone ship. What time you sail?" the -Chinaman asked in a breath.</p> - -<p>"Two o'clock," he answered and looked at his watch. It was past noon. He -told Chang to call Suki, the flat-faced woman who ran the hotel servants -and who had been so good to him in his first few weeks ashore when the -doctors were shrugging their shoulders doubtfully; and her daughter, -Oki, and the boy he had nicknamed "Sweeney." He had a little present -and a gold piece for each of them—two for Suki.</p> - -<p>There were big tears in "Sweeney's" black eyes when "the honorable -captain gentleman" said good-by to him. He would never forget him.</p> - -<p>"Yes; you will forget, 'Sweeney,'" Whitridge said in Japanese, with a -little laugh.</p> - -<p>"Oh, yes," agreed Suki, "he will forget. Men forget, but women always -remember."</p> - -<p>"You know a lot about life, Suki," he answered and turned and went into -the hotel office.</p> - -<p>At Whitridge's appearance the boyish-looking clerk behind the desk -flushed guiltily and hid something under a book. Whitridge handed him an -odd silver cigarette case which the young fellow had often admired.</p> - -<p>"Just a token for your kindness, my boy," he said.</p> - -<p>"Gee, I—I'm sorry you're going away, Captain—Whitr—Whitridge," -stammered the clerk and faltering peculiarly at the name. "I'll always -keep this. What you've said has braced me up and—as soon as I get a -little more money together I'm going home. Good-by and—and the best of -luck to you."</p> - -<p>"Good-by and good luck to you," said the departing guest, shaking the -young fellow's hand heartily. "You'll come through all right."</p> - -<p>The clerk's gaze followed Whitridge and Chang through the door and until -they were clear of the grounds. Then he pulled out an old newspaper. It -was what he had hidden at Whitridge's unexpected appearance. Chang had -dropped it in packing Whitridge's things. For several minutes he studied -the face which looked up at him from a mass of black headlines. It was a -portrait of Whitridge beyond a doubt.</p> - -<p>"He's Lavelle all right—but nobody'll ever get it out of me. He's -square," he muttered to himself, and as he did so he tore the paper into -small bits.</p> - - - -<hr style="width: 65%;" /> -<h2>CHAPTER II</h2> - - -<p>"You marther get him better you kom-men back?" asked Chang, breaking a -long silence as Whitridge and he came to the <i>Cambodia's</i> gangway.</p> - -<p>Just then Miss Granville and her maid went by, but Whitridge did not -catch her glance of recognition.</p> - -<p>"You not—<i>you</i> never kom-men back," said the Chinaman, shaking his head -disconsolately and bringing Whitridge's gaze away from the splendid -figure of womanhood moving up the gangway. The devotion that shone in -the yellow giant's eyes pierced his heart.</p> - -<p>"Maybe, Chang—maybe. I don't know," answered Whitridge. "Good-by, old -man—good-by." He caught Chang's yellow hand and wrung it and coolies -idling round wondered at the sight. "You're white all——" He wanted to -tell him that he was white all through, but something closed his throat -and he dared not trust himself further. He fled up the gangway.</p> - -<p>When he reached the deck he looked back, intending to give Chang a -farewell hand wave, but the Chinaman had disappeared. He searched the -pier from end to end, but there was a dimness in his eyes and they made -no discovery. He turned to go forward and collided with two men, one in -the uniform of a United States naval lieutenant and the other in -civilian garb.</p> - -<p>"I beg your pardon," he said quickly and then his gaze met the -officer's.</p> - -<p>A challenging tenseness straightened Whitridge. The man in uniform -started back a step as if he had been struck. Then, his good-looking, -but weak face went pale, his lips parted loosely, and his features -became as expressionless as so much putty, under the glance which -Whitridge shot at him. It was a glance of but a second. It began in -hostility and ended with a lash of contempt as he swung on forward.</p> - -<p>The naval officer watched Whitridge until he disappeared through the -saloon gangway.</p> - -<p>"You look as you might—if you had seen a ghost, Campbell," said the -civilian.</p> - -<p>"I—I thought I did, Evans," stammered the officer and making an effort -to recover control of himself. "I believed—I thought—that man was -dead." His voice went to a whisper. "That—that's Lavelle of the -<i>Yakutat</i>."</p> - -<p>"No! Impossible!"</p> - -<p>"It's he. I couldn't be mistaken. He was in the class at Annapolis with -me."</p> - -<p>"He's a rotter, if there ever was one," interrupted Evans bitterly. The -other nodded dumbly. "Good thing he didn't land in the navy."</p> - -<p>"Until he was shown up I was blamed for—for his being 'bilged,' you -know. But really I wasn't to blame. Some of the fellows planted some -beer and booze in our room; he stood mute, but I had to testify. They -expelled him."</p> - -<p>The officer spoke as if conscience-smitten, but his companion did not -seem to be listening to him. He interrupted him.</p> - -<p>"It's a mighty unpleasant thing to think of being in the same ship with -a man like that," he said very solemnly. As he spoke a shudder passed -over him.</p> - -<p>The banging of a gong and a cry of "All ashore, who're going ashore!" -cut short the conversation and hurried the officer over the side.</p> - - - -<hr style="width: 65%;" /> -<h2>CHAPTER III</h2> - - -<p>It was with his soul swept by the pain of all the bitterness of his life -that Whitridge had turned away from the two men on deck. His memory of -bitterness began with Porter Campbell. He had feared from the day, a -week before, when the American cruiser squadron had put in to Yokohama -that somebody would recognize him. Now at the last moment his -apprehension had been fulfilled. He knew the nature of Campbell too well -to dare to hope that he would conceal his identity from the civilian to -whom he had been speaking.</p> - -<p>Then, in a flash, he identified Campbell's companion. It was Evans, of -the consulate at Hong Kong. He had read in a paper that morning that -Evans was en route home by the <i>Cambodia</i>.</p> - -<p>Just as he reached the window of the purser's office Whitridge -recognized Emily Granville's maid standing there. The thought seized him -that when this ship's company came to put him on the wheel of scorn that -she, too, must be there to aid in the torture. He turned quickly as if -to retreat. It was not too late; he could escape the agony and the -humiliation that he was certain was in store for him.</p> - -<p>Even as he turned he paused with a new sadness. The call in his mother's -letter which yesterday's mail had brought to him, came to his mind. The -words were burned in his brain:</p> - -<p>"Just to hold you in these withered old arms again and press you to my -breast as I used to do when you were a bonny baby boy—that is all I -ask. I would go through The Gate happy—and with a smile."</p> - -<p>He turned back toward the window and as he did so he felt the throb of -the engines starting the <i>Cambodia</i> down to the sea.</p> - -<p>A slight woman in black, dark of skin and with her raven hair groomed -slickly after the fashion of Oriental women, looked up at him with a -surprised but happy gleam of recognition. Whitridge did not see her, -although he appeared to be looking straight at her. She paused, where -she followed a Chinese steward aft, and looked over her shoulder at him -as he went forward.</p> - -<p>"Who is that, Moore—the one in black?" asked Evans stepping up to the -window. "Something familiar about her."</p> - -<p>"Elsie of Shanghai," said the purser in an undertone. "Sold out and -going home."</p> - -<p>"Ah," murmured Evans with a lifting of his brows. "Knew her from her -pictures. They're in every conceivable place."</p> - -<p>"She has played 'the game' for all there was in it," answered the -purser.</p> - -<p>"Say, Moore," and Evans' voice was serious, "we've picked up a rotter -here all right." The purser glanced up inquisitively. "Lavelle of the -<i>Yakutat's</i> aboard."</p> - -<p>"Wrong, sir. Can't be. Why—that fellow's dead, Mr. Evans. Died out East -here somewhere. Saw it in the home papers only a little while ago."</p> - -<p>"He's not dead by a long shot. He's aboard here."</p> - -<p>"There's no Lavelle on the passenger list."</p> - -<p>"That means nothing," and Evans described Whitridge.</p> - -<p>"Why, that man's name's Whitridge—an Englishman."</p> - -<p>"Well, he's Lavelle."</p> - -<p>"He was here——"</p> - -<p>The purser stopped suddenly, a startled look came into his eyes; his -face flushed.</p> - -<p>Evans, following his gaze in wonderment, turned and stepped quickly -aside. Emily Granville was standing there, her maid beside her carrying -a jewel case.</p> - -<p>"I wish to deposit this with you, purser," she said.</p> - -<p>There was a tremor in her voice. Every bit of color was gone from her -face. It might have been a piece of Wedgwood. She paused only long -enough to indicate that the maid would take the purser's receipt.</p> - -<p>"Lord, but that woman's a dream," whispered Evans after the maid had -passed out of hearing. The purser looked up at him strangely. "But say, -old man, what's the matter with you?"</p> - -<p>"I wonder if she heard you say that—that Lavelle is aboard here?"</p> - -<p>"Why? What if she did?"</p> - -<p>"That's Emily Granville, of San Francisco—old John Granville's -daughter. Granville and his wife were lost with the <i>Yakutat</i>, you know. -Lavelle beat them away from the side of his boat with an oar—drowned -them."</p> - -<p>"My God!" exclaimed Evans, and he looked at the purser blankly.</p> - - - -<hr style="width: 65%;" /> -<h2>CHAPTER IV</h2> - - -<p>Emily Granville could not have helped hearing what was said at the -purser's window. The shock of the revelation stunned her. It seemed -impossible that fate could have placed her in the same ship with the man -whose fiendishness had gloomed her whole life.</p> - -<p>With her nerves overwrought and her senses reeling, she sought her -berth. There she argued with herself that the man who had spoken to the -purser must be mistaken. It was not true, she persisted in thinking. The -man whom the steamship agency manager had told her was Captain -Whitridge—the man who had given up his room to her—could not be -Lavelle. His was not a face that could mask such a fiend. It was too -fine and yet the sadness of it—the pain she had seen in his -eyes—returned to startle her.</p> - -<p>"I can't! I won't believe it!" she said to herself over and over again, -fighting the sense of foreboding that grew in her heart.</p> - -<p>But dinner time brought a brutal confirmation. A passenger at the -captain's table where Emily Granville sat blurted out, before the -skipper could stop him, how the <i>Cambodia's</i> first officer had seen the -man called Whitridge come aboard and had recognized him as Lavelle. He -pointed him out, sitting with bent head, at a table across the saloon.</p> - -<p>With white face and scared, staring eyes Emily Granville left her place. -Somehow she got to her room. A little while later her maid found her -senseless in her berth and revived her only to hear her cry and moan -that furies—black furies—were tearing at her pillow. And she breathed -heavily as one spent from swimming.</p> - -<p>Before the <i>Cambodia</i> had dropped Mera Head behind the horizon the loss -of the Alaskan liner <i>Yakutat</i> had been dragged out of its ten-year past -and gossiped from one end of the ship to the other. What details proved -elusive were blithely manufactured into the fabric of a sea disaster -which had shocked the world and made a nation ashamed. Men shook their -heads ominously and women shuddered as the fact passed from mouth to -mouth that Lavelle, the <i>Yakutat's</i> second officer, who had beaten -drowning passengers with an oar, was among them. When it became known -that Emily Granville, whose parents had been driven away from Lavelle's -boat, was also in the <i>Cambodia</i> and lying ill in her room from the -shock of knowing that Lavelle was a fellow-passenger, a tenseness came -upon things that made the nerves of the liner's officers raw.</p> - -<p>Paul Lavelle did not enter the dining saloon after that first night. It -became known that he took his meals in his room and left it only after -darkness fell. Watch officers saw him from the bridge now and then—a -shadow in the night.</p> - -<p>"Wandering around like a pariah dog," one of them told a passenger. -Often they saw "The Shadow" as late as dawn.</p> - -<p>But this night—it was the fifth out of Yokohama—the deck saw "The -Shadow" earlier than it was his wont to appear. The saloon was bright -and gay with an entertainment and Lavelle was taking advantage of this. -He met only one or two straying couples in the darkness and they soon -went inside. It was not a night that invited one with moon or star. He -could remember few nights like it. It was a dead black—shocking in its -intensity. The <i>Cambodia</i> might have been a ship without funnels or -masts. Everything was cut off sheer by the blackness. There was a light -breeze which seemed to dart out from every point of the compass at once. -It whimpered as it went by his ears.</p> - -<p>After a long, steady, hard walk "The Shadow" sought out his favorite -vigil post against the pipe rail under the weather wing of the bridge. -It was to port to-night, although it was hard to tell the weather side -from the lee. He gleaned some comfort from the thought that the liner -was rapidly slipping down to "the corner"—the intersection of the 180th -meridian and the 30th parallel—through which ships great circle between -Yokohama and the Hawaiian Islands. She was due to turn it the following -afternoon and that meant half his passage in her done. He had determined -to quit the ship at Honolulu.</p> - -<p>Just after the lights went out in the saloon at one bell—a half-hour -after midnight—and the silence of the dark hours had settled upon the -ship, he sensed somebody stealing along the side of the deck house. He -fixed a shape finally, but no sooner had he done so than it disappeared. -He could not tell whether it was the form of a man or woman. Then, he -heard a heavy breath at his feet and jumped back defensively. A hand -touched him and he grabbed it.</p> - -<p>"Master!" whispered a voice in Chinese. Chang rose beside him.</p> - -<p>"Chang," was all he could say. He was overwhelmed by the loyalty of -this yellow heart which could give and give and ask no return.</p> - -<p>"I stow way. Make him work—shubbel coal like hell. No can kom-men here -bee-fore. I go 'Flisco." Lavelle heard the sound of a heavy footfall -approaching. Chang's ears caught it, too. "Good-by. To-mollah night I -kom-men gain."</p> - -<p>A lantern light cut the darkness and the ship's night watchman dashed -round from the lee side of the deck house, with a club raised to strike. -He lowered his arm as he discovered Lavelle.</p> - -<p>"Seen anything of a big coolie stoker round here, sir?"</p> - -<p>"No," answered Lavelle.</p> - -<p>"Been tryin' to get aroun' up here the past three nights," and the -watchman muttered off into the blackness.</p> - -<p>"The Shadow" pondered a long time as to what he could do for Chang, but -he could come to no decision. The thought that he was in the ship -cheered him though as he went to his room. That hand in the darkness and -the hand-clasp of a frail woman in black—one with her cage in the zoo -of life like himself—were the only friendly touches which had come to -him. Elsie of Shanghai was grateful, and had sought him out the night -of sailing to tell him so, because he had kept her alive. She would -never forget that he had sheltered her from death in the Shanghai riots. -Chang would lay down his life to pay the debt he considered he owed him -for saving his yellow carcass from the knives of a drunken mob of -sailors. Everybody wanted to cling to life and he smiled grimly to -himself in the darkness at the thought. He had removed his overcoat and -coat and as he put out his hand to grope for the electric flash he -muttered, "What a comedy! What a comedy!"</p> - -<p>The next instant he was pitched headlong against the side of the vessel -by a shock which rattled her like an empty basket. A sea slapped through -the open port of the room and choked him with its brine.</p> - - - -<hr style="width: 65%;" /> -<h2>CHAPTER V</h2> - - -<p>Lavelle dragged himself to his feet with his breath gone from him. For a -moment he thought he was paralyzed—limbs, heart, nor brain seemed to -respond. The night was filled with a multisonous orgy of sound.</p> - -<p>Then, his strength returned to him as quickly as it had gone. He leaped -to the door and plunged into the alleyway outside. He knew full well -what had happened as he ran aft and up through the gangway which led -from the main to the promenade deck. Another vessel had piled into the -<i>Cambodia</i>. There was no land—there were no rocks in the liner's track; -nothing but two, three, and four mile deeps on every hand. Lights sprang -up in the staterooms as he passed. Somebody flashed them on in the -reception hall as he went through there. Thence he took the social hall -gangway and came to the boat deck in a bound.</p> - -<p>A quartermaster—barely more than a boy—catapulted into his arms. Fear -was driving him.</p> - -<p>"Let me go!" he cried like a thing in a trap.</p> - -<p>"Let me go!" and he cursed. Lavelle held him firmly.</p> - -<p>"Stand fast, son! You're all right!"</p> - -<p>Lavelle spoke in almost a normal tone. Whether it was what he said or -what he saw in Lavelle's face that stilled the panic in the youngster's -heart no one will ever know. But when Lavelle let him go and beckoned to -him to follow him the quartermaster went at his side.</p> - -<p>"Everything's gone for'ard!" he yelled at Lavelle above the noise. -"Windjammer—big lumberman—no lights—piled into us! Foremast came -over—by the board! Bridge—Old Man—chart house—everybody—everything -gone!"</p> - -<p>Lavelle snatched these things visually out of the blackness even as the -boy shouted.</p> - -<p>The <i>Cambodia</i> rolled back slowly to starboard, but one who knew what -Lavelle knew could feel the life going out of her. Her engines had -stopped.</p> - -<p>The shape of a sailing vessel—a bark—drew away over on the starboard -side and the grinding of metal against metal ceased only to have its -place taken by the thunder of the <i>Cambodia</i> beginning to exhaust. -Lavelle could hear and feel the stranger ripping at the steamer as she -went by. The <i>Cambodia</i> gave a lurch like a drunken man getting out of a -gutter.</p> - -<p>"She's going!" he shouted in the boy's ear, snatching his head to his -lips. "Engineers—all officers report here! Me! Find out what water's in -her! Find out how long lights'll last! Tell 'em give us plenty of light. -Be a man!"</p> - -<p>The boy fled and Lavelle ran up to starboard and bawled against the -night:</p> - -<p>"Stand by if you're able! Stand by!" There was an answering cry, but all -he caught was—"Hell!"</p> - -<p>Groping he found an electric cluster on each side of the social hall -house and flashed it on. He ran aft and flashed on similar clusters on -the sides of the smoke-room house. These lights embraced the eight small -boats davited along the <i>Cambodia's</i> sides.</p> - -<p>From below men began to come by twos and threes, some supporting women -on their arms, some carrying them, some carrying children, some alone -with fear tangling their feet and some half curiously. One came lighting -a cigarette—a fair-faced young chap—and Lavelle grabbed him in the -social hall gangway and told him to let only women and children pass.</p> - -<p>"Right O!" was his answer and he took off his coat and threw it away, -accepting his task.</p> - -<p>The glow of a man who would be obeyed was on Lavelle's brow. Men knew he -spoke with the voice of authority and heeded it. They saw the purser -refuse to hold the gangway in the social hall beside the fair-faced man -and they saw Lavelle smash him to the deck with a blow of his fist.</p> - -<p>Looking up from the deck below Emily Granville saw this, too, and, -terrified, fled from succoring hands. She saw only a fiend at work.</p> - -<p>"Twenty minutes! No longer! Lights—ten minutes!" shouted the -quartermaster struggling to his side.</p> - -<p>"What about the steerage?"</p> - -<p>"Gone like rats! Whole bow's gone!"</p> - -<p>He pantomimed him to take charge of a boat forward on the starboard -side. A grimy engineer came through the crowd and reported. Others came -and accepted his mastership—men who needed but to be told what to do to -find their bearings and run in them.</p> - -<p>Like a flame he moved upon that deck. Who he might be few knew, but -wheresoever he went disorder became order and the spirits of brave men -grew stronger and smiled at death as upon a friend. Like another -self—the shadow of the flame—there moved Chang whither he went, -striking as he struck and lifting up as he lifted up.</p> - -<p>Of a sudden Lavelle saw Emily Granville standing in the port gangway of -the smoke-room house, alone, hesitant, terror-stricken. She saw him and -as he ran to her with open arms she drew back and then, remembering that -he had but turned away from a boat in which she had seen him put a -little girl, who cried that God must be upon the sea, she paused in her -flight.</p> - -<p>In that instant the guards whom Lavelle had stationed there were swept -away by a yellow horde from below. It burst out of the gangway and -engulfed him in its tide.</p> - -<p>There was an explosion as of a cannon fired in the distance where -another bulkhead gave way. The ship lurched with a downward twisting -motion. The lights flickered and went out and the pregnant darkness -burst in disorder and panic.</p> - - - -<hr style="width: 65%;" /> -<h2>CHAPTER VI</h2> - - -<p>Dawn suddenly broke upon a sea snarling under the lash of a heavy -northeasterly. Emily Granville, her eyes pressed against the blackness, -saw it as from a mountain peak. The next instant she was hurtling, -twisting downward through space, sightless; her breath stopped.</p> - -<p>The sensation of falling ceased. There was a hardly perceptible pause -amid a stinging smother of spray and then came the sensation of being -lifted—of rising swiftly. She caught a breath and opened her eyes; and -again from a seeming great height she beheld in awe the youth of the day -striding across an angry waste of waters.</p> - -<p>The terrific buffeting of the boat, under the gunwale of which she -crouched, had been going on for hours. Until this moment she had been -only dimly conscious of it because the darkness gives one no background; -no line of contrast by which the mind may measure its impressions. One -thought only had lived persistently: that her reason might leave her. It -still endured. But the human mind installed in a normal, healthy body -like hers does not break so easily. No one becomes insane quickly any -more than one becomes a thief quickly. A long process of decay must -precede.</p> - -<p>As Emily's body readjusted itself to the cockleshell's wild movements -her senses began to recover their power of apprehension. She realized -that she was clutching a hand—a hand she remembered snatching out of -the night as the vortex of the sinking <i>Cambodia</i> seemed about to suck -the boat down to the deeps. Through the eternity of blackness which had -passed its touch had been her link to sentient life. She held it up now -and saw that it was the hand of a strong man, with a strange ring of -green jade upon it. The hand closed upon hers gently and trustfully.</p> - -<p>Then, she became aware that a weight was upon her limbs and she looked -down. A man's head lay in her lap just free of the foaming wash in the -boat's bottom. It was the hand of this man that she clasped and that was -clasping hers tightly. She bent closer, with a new fear starting in her -heart for the face was very white. A stronger volume of light shot into -the heavens. It was the man Whitridge—Lavelle!</p> - -<p>The boat plunged from the crest of a gray-backed comber and ended its -descent with a racking jerk. Emily Granville was thrown across Lavelle, -her face pressed against his spray-wet lips. She struggled to draw away, -but the sea, as if in mockery, held her close to this man and weltered -them in its spume.</p> - -<p>When the boat rose again she straightened with a shudder. A wave of -horror mixed with hateful revulsion swept over her. She tried to pull -herself away from him, but the weight of his head and shoulders and a -woman cowering at her side pinned her down. She freed one of her hands, -but Lavelle's held the other in a grip which her strength could not -break.</p> - -<p>Then, gradually, her natural spirit of justice and humanity assumed -rule, overcoming even what had been almost an obsession since -childhood—her repugnance of physical contact. The water in the boat was -so deep that she realized that if she put this man's head away from her -lap it must sink. Perhaps he was dying—perhaps death had already -claimed him and as this thought came to her she saw the open wound in -his brow just back of another jagged scar.</p> - -<p>The humility of shame bowed her head and her eyes filled with tears. -This man had suffered this wound for her sake; he had come to her in the -night when all hope had gone; he had snatched her from the clutches of -wild beasts, who had shot him down even as he laid her in this boat. It -was because of him that she lived.</p> - -<p>She felt a tremor pass from Lavelle's body into hers. His lips parted -with a sigh and he murmured something wearily. Then, his eyes opened for -a second. He looked up into her face with the glance of a tired child, -yet without recognition, and her heart gave a sudden fearful throb. She -thought it was pity and knew it not for the stirring of the eternal -motherhood that is in all women.</p> - -<p>A gust of wind swept Emily's thick plaits of golden hair across his face -and his eyes closed again, the while a faint smile flickered across his -lips like one returning to a pleasant dream. He snuggled his head closer -against the thigh which was numb from pillowing it and the woman did not -move.</p> - -<p>Chang, looking down from where he stood over them in the stern, like a -giant in bronze, nursing the boat up to a sea anchor, alone had glimpsed -what had happened. He shouted something which Emily could not -understand. Stooping quickly he slipped a hand through Lavelle's -tattered shirt.</p> - -<p>"More better," he said. "Him heart move. Him live—you live. Sab-bee?"</p> - -<p>The Chinaman's glance and the forceful nod of his head conveyed a -meaning greater than his words. They implied a task for her -performance—the doing of what was in her power to do for this man.</p> - -<p>A horrifying cry from forward straightened the giant in a flash. One -glance ahead and he gave the big steering oar a mighty sweep. He seemed -to lift the boat bodily out of the water. A stream of orders poured from -his lips and electrified every bit of life in the cockleshell, save that -in Lavelle.</p> - -<p>It took but a glimpse overside to transport these sea waifs from their -horror of the night into a terror of the day. Elsie of Shanghai started -from Emily's side into a sitting posture only to hide her head again. A -man with a pointed black beard rose to his knees between the second and -third thwarts and gazed round him in terror. Two of the three Chinese in -the bows seized oars and stood like warders at a gate.</p> - -<p>The boat was riding in a mass of planks and railroad ties—the deckload -of the stranger which had sent the <i>Cambodia</i> to the bottom. Every sea -was armed and eager with death. Some carried their bludgeons and clubs -openly; others hid them under their white-crested capes, flashing them -out treacherously and suddenly as the boat rode wildly to the assault. -The sides and bottom of the boat would have been no more than paper -under the slightest blow from a piece of this wreckage: a touch and -every life in it would have been flotsam. Hunger, thirst, and the -terrors of the night were forgotten in the menace of the battle which -the yellow giant at the steering oar captained with a master hand.</p> - -<p>The white man, kneeling between the thwarts, began shouting orders and -warnings. Chang, his thick cue streaming in the wind, his jaw set, his -face as expressionless as a piece of parchment, seemed oblivious of what -this white man did until he saw him start to heave his big form to a -standing position. Then he hurled a curse at him that was like a blow—a -curse learned of the sea and white men's lips.</p> - -<p>But to the women the giant kept calling, "Bimeby him all go way!" and -there was faith in his voice and it passed into their hearts. As often -as the boat shuddered from an assault cheated of its death strength he -abjured them to be unafraid. No white man could have been more gentle or -thoughtful.</p> - -<p>Through it all Emily Granville clung to Lavelle's hand as she had in the -night. What the Chinaman had said kept forcing itself uppermost in her -mind—if the man who lay across her lived, all would live.</p> - -<p>Even as Chang had promised the boat passed out of the wreckage. The wind -dropped suddenly and peace began its entrance into the sea's worried -blue bosom. The sun, leaping to its day's work overhead, touched the -boat with its warmth. Emily, following Chang's glance round the horizon, -saw a speck away to leeward. It might be another boat he told her.</p> - -<p>"Hi!" cried one of the coolies forward, pointing up to windward where -the broken half of a boat went by.</p> - -<p>"No good look him that way!" shouted Chang, but too late. Emily and -Shanghai Elsie saw the grim sea grist and the body of a little boy in -pajamas tangled in it. Their eyes met—the Magdalen's and hers of the -sheltered life—and they wept together, cheek against cheek, in an -understanding of woman's heritage of potential motherhood.</p> - -<p>In the midst of Chang's tongue-lashing of the coolie who had discovered -the wrecked boat, Lavelle stirred into consciousness. Elsie was the -first to see his eyes open and stare upward blankly.</p> - -<p>"Thank God he is living," she murmured. "Thank God!" and as she spoke -he sat up with a start, tearing his hand from Emily's. He gazed round -him wildly for a moment, his eyes finally settling on Emily with a gleam -of recognition.</p> - -<p>"You," he murmured in a tone of awe. Chang's chattering went unheeded. -He passed a hand across his brow and at the touch the bullet wound over -his temple began to bleed afresh. His head rocked with pain and he -pressed it in both hands until it seemed that he must crush the skull.</p> - -<p>"Don't, don't," Emily protested, but he did not hear her. "You would -better——You are ill. Lie down again, please."</p> - -<p>"Somebody struck me——Oh, yes—they shot me. I don't know—I don't know -why," and a low moan escaped from him.</p> - -<p>The Shanghai woman begged him to lie down again, but he shook his head. -He looked at his hands. They were wet with blood. Then he began to -examine his shirt for something with which to bind his brow. It was -sleeveless; the arms had been ripped out of the pits; the body of it was -in ribbands.</p> - -<p>"If I had something—to tie——" Lavelle began, and then called Chang.</p> - -<p>"I have nothing" said Elsie, conscious for the first time that she had -escaped from the <i>Cambodia</i> in only a black satin kimono and the flimsy -silken nightdress which it covered. Even as she spoke Emily struggled up -from the bottom of the boat to the fore-and-aft seat against which her -head had been resting. With a splendid unconsciousness of self she -opened the long tan coat—the one in which Lavelle had first beheld -her—raised an outer black skirt and with a swift movement ripped off -the deep hem of the night robe which it hid.</p> - -<p>Lavelle was facing away from her, but he opened his eyes at that moment -to see the strange man seated in front of him start up, with a smile of -strange curiousness in his dark face. Emily saw this smile, too, with -disgust, and hesitated in her purpose. Then she leaned toward Lavelle -and said quickly:</p> - -<p>"If you will bend back your head—a little."</p> - -<p>He leaned toward her obediently and she bandaged the wound with an -efficiency that brought nods of approval from Elsie and Chang, both -ignorant of this woman's latent powers of hardy usefulness and physical -capacity—the heritage of a pioneer stock that had torn a world out of a -wilderness.</p> - -<p>"I thank you," said Lavelle simply and he faced her. "Just as soon as I -get this blood pressure out of my head I will—things will be all -right." She saw his jaw muscles flex with the pain which tore at him, -and his thoughts were of the kindness and the bigness of heart that -would let this woman touch him. She felt his eyes sweep over her from -her slippered bare feet to the crown of her head, but there was -something impersonal in his glance which cooled the resentment which -flushed to her cheeks. It was not like the glance of the bearded man -down between the thwarts.</p> - -<p>It was this man speaking loudly and in a strange foreign accent, which -she had unmarked before, that turned Lavelle away from her.</p> - -<p>"We cannot be lying here idly like this," he was saying to Lavelle. He -stood up as he spoke and threw a leg over the after thwart.</p> - -<p>"Who are you?" asked Lavelle quietly.</p> - -<p>"If you had been about the ship you would know, Mr. Lavelle," he -sneered. "For your information I am Orloff Rowgowskii. I am a seaman—an -officer—and I will take charge here. These ladies are intrusted in my -charge."</p> - -<p>Not a muscle of Lavelle's face moved. He spoke over his shoulder to -Chang. He asked Chang something in Chinese only to have the giant blaze -over his head angrily at the man who called himself Rowgowskii:</p> - -<p>"Whachamalla you? What for! You clay-zee?"</p> - -<p>The coolie drew the steering oar inboard, for it was now nearly a dead -calm. A shake of Lavelle's head silenced his angry chatter instantly.</p> - -<p>"My serang—Chang there tells me this is his boat; that he has been in -command since we abandoned the ship."</p> - -<p>"Yes," interrupted Elsie, pausing in wringing the water from her -streaming black hair. "We wouldn't have been here now if it hadn't been -for that Canton coolie." She broke off quickly in Chinese and spoke to -Chang.</p> - -<p>"He is a very good sailor—a very good sailor," said Rowgowskii. "He -will be of use—and I will use you, too, Lavelle—properly, if you -behave. If not——" He shrugged his shoulders. "I have the means to -enforce obedience." He glanced from Lavelle toward Emily and Elsie. "We -shall have order here, ladies, and——You may trust me." From them he -turned to Chang. "Tell those men to get that sea anchor aboard and set -that sail."</p> - -<p>"My flen, you more better sit down. Huh! You may get kill," said Chang.</p> - -<p>"Mutiny already!" exclaimed Rowgowskii, straightening and with his hand -going toward his hip.</p> - -<p>"My God! aren't we miserable enough!" shrieked the Shanghai woman.</p> - -<p>Terror locked Emily's lips.</p> - -<p>"Don't," said Lavelle quietly, but in a tone fraught with menace.</p> - -<p>"Get up out of that and go to your work!" snarled Rowgowskii, and he -whipped out a revolver.</p> - -<p>In that instant Lavelle rose like a rattler from a coil. There was a -crunching of bone against bone as his fist landed full in Rowgowskii's -face and sent him spinning overboard. The weapon spun in the air and -fell at Emily's feet.</p> - -<p>Lavelle staggered from the force of his blow. His eyes closed and he put -his hands to his brow. He would have fallen if it had not been for -Chang, who caught him and stretched him along the seat opposite Emily. -There he swooned.</p> - -<p>Emily shrank forward and away from him in terror. This was the Lavelle -of the <i>Yakutat</i> who filled her dreams; this the brute who had shadowed -her childhood and filled her nights with fearful shapes.</p> - -<p>"What a fiend, what a fiend," she whispered to the Shanghai woman.</p> - -<p>"He's a white man—you don't know—you don't understand," Elsie answered -and raised a barrier between them with the words.</p> - -<p>Both women, looking over the side, saw Rowgowskii swimming desperately -toward the sea anchor. His cries for aid went unheeded by either Chang -or the three coolies who were cowering in the bows. Chang picked up the -revolver from the bottom of the boat. The act was portentous.</p> - -<p>"For God's love!" cried Elsie, beginning an appeal which trailed off -into an outburst in the Chinese tongue.</p> - -<p>Chang shook his head obdurately. He nodded toward Lavelle.</p> - -<p>"They're going to let him drown," she told Emily hysterically. "Weren't -enough drowned last night? This Chinaman will not do anything unless -Captain Whitridge tells him."</p> - -<p>"Him bad man. More better die," said Chang to Emily.</p> - -<p>Again there was a cry from Rowgowskii and the boat moved with a quick -jerk as he caught hold of the anchor drogue.</p> - -<p>These cries brought to Emily Granville a memory so poignant and vivid -that action was born of the shock. She moved swiftly from the Shanghai -woman's side and shook Lavelle by the shoulder.</p> - -<p>"Tell these Chinamen—tell them not to let this man drown!" she cried at -him.</p> - -<p>Lavelle sat up with a moan. His head dropped forward.</p> - -<p>"Don't you hear? Haven't you murdered enough already? Are you altogether -a fiend? Hear him crying now!"</p> - -<p>Lavelle straightened. She shrank from the glance he leveled upon her. It -was defiant, fearless, burning with challenge.</p> - -<p>"I never——" His lips, forming in a tense straight line, cut the speech -off sharply at the breath of another word. The old look of pain came -into his eyes—the pain she had seen there when he stood at the desk in -the steamship agency—and he turned away.</p> - -<p>Rowgowskii had crawled along the drogue and was hanging now to the bow. -Lavelle hurled an angry order in Chinese at the coolies forward and they -sprang to their feet. They dragged Rowgowskii aboard and dropped him in -an exhausted, shivering heap.</p> - -<p>Chang moved aft to where Lavelle sank wearily on the seat built against -the air-tank casing and handed him the revolver. He began an apology.</p> - -<p>"More better him dead," he said, and Lavelle silenced him with one word -that made the giant cower beside him like a dog under a lash.</p> - -<p>Emily, seeing this, wondered, for she recalled, with a shudder, the -fierceness of this big yellow man in the night.</p> - - - -<hr style="width: 65%;" /> -<h2>CHAPTER VII</h2> - - -<p>As the dawn had come quickly, so order sprang out of chaos under -Lavelle's quiet voice of command. There was no shouting; no bluster—a -certain proof always that it has been given to a man to speak with -authority. A word—more often it was but a nod or a wave of the -hand—and as if by magic these yellow men translated it into some needed -action.</p> - -<p>One of the first things Lavelle caused to be done was the moving of the -boat's two water breakers aft. He gave each one a drink, apportioning to -the coolies what he gave to the others and even rousing the Russian for -his share. When it came to his turn to drink he paused and, with one -scarred arm resting across his knee, looked out across the sea -mystically. He turned quickly toward the women, after several minutes.</p> - -<p>"I wish to say a word to you, Miss Granville," he said in the quiet low -tone which seemed to be invariably his manner of speaking. His glance -rested on her but for a moment, and then passed to Elsie. "And to you, -too, Mrs. Moore: I want you both to know that I am very sorry that this -terrible thing has happened to you. Yet women can be brave. I have met -brave men, but never any braver than you two women at this moment. -Because you are brave I have chosen to speak to you as I am doing. I -want you to feel—to know that I appreciate your trying position. I will -endeavor to make things as easy as I can for you—so you may not be -ashamed—as I should wish my mother and my sister to go unashamed. We -may be together only a short time—maybe a very long while. Long or -short, every one of us is going to be called upon to show the utmost -patience and forbearance—fortitude. God willing, we will pull through -and I will give my life willingly to that end at any moment. If I should -be taken from you——" A sob from the Shanghai woman interrupted him. -"No; one never knows what may happen. There is Chang, and you may trust -him as I expect you to trust me—implicitly. A moment ago you saw -something——" His glance went to the Russian, and Emily understood. -"That was necessary, but I don't wish you to understand this to be an -apology—or an explanation. I think I did wrong in not letting that man -drown—in not killing him." Emily turned her face away with a shudder. -"You may think of me as you please. It is immaterial, but obedience I -will have and must have from every soul here." A harshness as of a steel -blade meeting a steel blade displaced the gentleness in his voice. "The -sea is very treacherous—very treacherous. One must be in order to fight -it. That is all."</p> - -<p>Glancing up, Emily saw Lavelle gazing out over the water again, -seemingly oblivious of the boat. The bearded man forward groaned. He sat -up and the sight of his bruised and broken nose—his face swollen beyond -resemblance to what it had been only a little while before—renewed in -all its strength her feeling of revulsion against Lavelle. She grew sick -at the thought of the brutish force of him who could maul a man like -that with one blow.</p> - - - -<hr style="width: 65%;" /> -<h2>CHAPTER VIII</h2> - - -<p>That night at midnight, when Lavelle relieved Chang at the steering oar, -the Chinaman told him that it was hopeless to go as they were going.</p> - -<p>"This boat no can do. Go loo'ard all time. All same like crab—go -sideways."</p> - -<p>Lavelle had observed this early in the afternoon when the wind had -sprung up from the northeast and he had laid a course to the eastward. -Such boats as this, lapstreaked and air-tanked, practically keelless and -without centerboard or leeboard, were never built for sailing and least -of all on the wind.</p> - -<p>"See," said Chang, flashing an electric pocket torch which had been -found among the boat's outfit. "Look him now, master." The light was on -the boat compass. "Make him now eas' by sou'. One time turn all loun'. -'Nother time eas'sou'eas'—sou'eas' by eas'—fi' slix ploint off wind. -No good! All same dam sklare lig ship."</p> - -<p>Lavelle ordered Chang to turn in and the serang handed him the Shanghai -woman's tiny emerald-studded watch—the one thing of value that -remained of all her years of trafficking. She had turned it over to -Lavelle to keep the boat's time. The Chinaman curled up obediently under -the lee gunwale, pausing as he sank into the darkness to inquire if the -"caplun's topside" still hurt. Lavelle told him that the pain had gone -out of his head completely and Chang grunted in satisfaction.</p> - -<p>In the first fifteen minutes of his watch Lavelle realized the truth of -all that Chang had told him. It was impossible to keep the boat on an -easterly course. The leeway she made in only the light breeze that was -blowing was appalling. She was not making more than three knots an hour. -The breeze which had persisted out of the north since the afternoon he -knew for the first breath of the trades—although it was a degree or two -above their northern limit. With provisions for twenty days and only a -week's supply of water he had to admit to himself that he was courting -destruction to try to make the chain of islands—Midway, Oceana, -Gardner, and Laysan—stretching away to the northwest of the Hawaiian -group.</p> - -<p>Of a sudden something which he had struggled all day to visualize came -to his mind's eye. He saw a pilot chart of the region as vividly as if -it were spread before him on a lighted table. It was here that an -offshoot of the Japan Current set to the westward at from twelve to -thirty knots a day!</p> - -<p>The thought straightened him with a start. To the westward lay two -thousand miles of empty, unfrequented sea until one nearly fetched the -coast. To the northwest twelve hundred miles at the least, lay the lanes -of the liners—a bare chance there of salvation, if a ship sighted one. -But with the trades and current against such a helpless craft, there was -but one thing to do: take no chances. To the southwest, twelve or -thirteen hundred miles away, lay the Ratack Chain of the Marshall group, -with the Marianas impinging on its western axis. Under the drive of the -trades, sailing before the wind, the boat, with driving, should make -between one hundred and one hundred and twenty miles a day; and twelve -days of such sailing meant land underfoot and—life! His heart throbbed -at the thought. It meant life for her—his gold woman—and suddenly he -realized that all his thoughts were of Emily Granville.</p> - -<p>With a skillful sweep of the oar he brought the boat round and put her -before the wind. By the flash of the electric torch he laid the course -southwest. The craft instantly did better and surprised him into -speaking aloud, as boats do surprise men:</p> - -<p>"This is your best sailing point, old girl."</p> - -<p>In the silence that followed he became conscious of somebody moving in -the boat. There was a low murmur of voices. It made him uneasy until he -located it finally in the space between the second and third thwarts -which he had assigned to the women. He had partitioned it off with a -steamer rug which Chang had taken away from Rowgowskii. A hand pushed -back a flap of the rug and Emily Granville crawled out and stood up -timidly.</p> - -<p>Lavelle flashed the torch in the bottom of the boat and she came toward -him uncertainly. He became conscious for the first time of the poverty -of her dress as he saw her ankles gleaming in the light. She was not -wearing the long tan coat now. A golfing jacket and a short black skirt, -which it had covered during the day, composed her attire as she revealed -herself in the torch's gleam.</p> - -<p>"Do you mind if—if I come out here with you?" she whispered timidly.</p> - -<p>"Certainly not," he whispered back, moving further aft to make room for -her and sure that she must be able to hear the pounding throb of his -pulse.</p> - -<p>"I have been awake for hours."</p> - -<p>"You should make an effort—try to get all the sleep possible. It brings -strength and—forgetfulness, too."</p> - -<p>"Not always, but—I came—I thought you should know that Mrs. Moore -seems very ill."</p> - -<p>"There is something I can do for her?"</p> - -<p>"I think—think not." There was a note of hesitancy in her voice and -Lavelle caught it.</p> - -<p>"Is there nothing you can do, Miss Granville?"</p> - -<p>"She is burning with a terrible fever."</p> - -<p>"Water? Is that it?" he whispered very low.</p> - -<p>"Yes, but she told me I was not to ask. She is very—plucky."</p> - -<p>"And you were afraid to come to me? Afraid I would refuse?"</p> - -<p>"Yes," she answered slowly. "But I am here and—and I did not ask. I -don't know why I came."</p> - -<p>Without another word Lavelle flashed the torch on a breaker at his feet. -At a nod of his head she slipped down from the seat to the bottom of the -boat. He handed her a tin cup from the air-tank locker. Somebody stirred -forward and he snapped out the light until they were still. The spirit -of conspiracy made her crouch lower. She hardly breathed until he -turned on the light again.</p> - -<p>The torch made her glorious head glow vividly. It transformed the thick -braids falling over her shoulders and across her bosom into bands of -filagreed gold. A mist of pity swept his vision.</p> - -<p>"You take a drink; you are thirsty, too," he said, bending so low that -his lips nearly touched her head. She turned her face up to him quickly -and shook her head.</p> - -<p>"It wouldn't—be fair."</p> - -<p>"I will make it fair," he answered.</p> - -<p>Impulsively, with a thirst which burned her throat—a thirst such as she -never dreamed she would know—she drank. It was only a sup that she -took, but in the instant she wet her lips she was ashamed of what this -man might think of her. She started up quickly, taking the hand he held -out to her.</p> - -<p>"You have not done wrong," he whispered. She shuddered that he had -sensed her thought. "I will straighten this out. Say to Mrs. Moore that -I sent the water."</p> - -<p>Turning to go forward, Emily paused with a start.</p> - -<p>"See!" she exclaimed. "What is that?"</p> - -<p>She pointed to where a light moved low along the dip of the southern -horizon. Lavelle recognized a steamer's masthead light at a glance. In -that instant it passed out of sight.</p> - -<p>"Only a shooting star," he answered, for he would not add to her misery, -and she left him alone in the night, undreaming of the bitter thought -that was smiting him.</p> - -<p>If he had put the boat on her present course an hour sooner he -undoubtedly would have crossed that vessel's track.</p> - - - -<hr style="width: 65%;" /> -<h2>CHAPTER IX</h2> - - -<p>It was not to sleep that Emily returned when she carried the water to -Elsie of Shanghai and, crouching in the cramped space, took the woman's -scorching head in her lap. Elsie was murmuring in a semi-coma, sometimes -in English, but more often in Chinese. Occidental though she was, this -woman's long, hard years in the gateways of the Far East had breathed in -her the Orient's spirit of fatalism. The stoicism of the children of the -sunset lands was hers; the immobility of feature which marks them was -sealed in her striking, irregular features. Her manner of speech and -expression were theirs.</p> - -<p>"I wonder if they will burn me in hell this way," she gasped as Emily -put the cup to her avid lips.</p> - -<p>"No, no, you mustn't have such thoughts," Emily whispered.</p> - -<p>Elsie was in pain. The difficulty with which she breathed told that. Yet -only now and then did a hardly audible moan escape her lips.</p> - -<p>"He said I must be brave—that I was brave—that I must be patient," and -Emily Granville knew that this strange woman was thinking of what -Lavelle had said to them in the morning. "Did you ask him—the -captain—for this water?" she asked after a seemingly very long time.</p> - -<p>"No," Emily told her with a feeling of guilt. "He made me bring it to -you. He said it would be all right."</p> - -<p>"God, what a white man—what a white man! Oh, I know men, my dear -child," and Emily imagined that a sneer was upon her lips. "I know them -as the Canton money lenders know their gold." She spoke with a fierce -tenseness. "I've trafficked in them—traded in them—as they trade in -guns—and opium at Macao." Her breath stopped in a quick gasp. Emily -pressed another sup of water between her lips.</p> - -<p>"Are you afraid of death, my dear?" Elsie whispered.</p> - -<p>"I—I don't know——But you mustn't think these terrible thoughts," and -yet as she spoke Emily Granville wondered at the calmness which -possessed her. A different person than the Emily Granville she had known -for twenty-four years seemed to be speaking and thinking in these wild -and strange surroundings.</p> - -<p>"I will not get better—I know," said the Shanghai woman presently. "It -is pneumonia again—the women of the lighted houses cannot stand the -open." She sat up quickly, clutching at her breasts. "I am like -fire—and lead—in here. Oh, God, it is so hard to breathe!"</p> - -<p>"Can't I think of something to do for you?"</p> - -<p>"Only hold me—just this way," and she sank in Emily's lap again. "I saw -the way you held him. You are—very kind. You were made for—for the -mother of men—strong men—like my—my captain out there. No; do not -draw away from me. You would trust him if you could have seen him—him -and that Chang—that night in Shanghai. There was a place for -everybody—everybody—but the women—the toys from behind the green -jalousies. Ask Chang—he—he will tell you. They picked us out—of the -dark river. It's very dark now, isn't it? Very dark——" Her whisper -trailed away in a low moan. Emily tried to make her take a drink of -water, but she refused it. "Will you say, 'Our—Our Father'"—and Emily -repeated the Lord's Prayer very slowly and sensed that the other woman's -lips were following the words dumbly. "Ask him—my captain—please if -he—will not speak to me," Elsie murmured after a long silence.</p> - -<p>Emily heard a movement aft and, pushing back the flap of the rug, saw -Chang relieving Lavelle at the helm. The dawn was just pinking the -eastern sky.</p> - -<p>Lavelle saw Emily's hand beckoning and he crept forward. Elsie held out -a hand to him and he took it. Her pulse flashed to him a history of what -she was suffering. A glance at her face revealed to him the touch of -death upon it.</p> - -<p>"I'm going away—going home," Elsie whispered. "Will you hold——The -dawn!"</p> - -<p>Lavelle understood her glance upward and pushed away the rug. He got -behind her and lifted her into a sitting posture. She still clung to his -hand.</p> - -<p>"Isn't it wonderful?" she asked, looking toward Emily and then up into -Lavelle's face. He nodded. "I am not afraid, captain. I've learned—last -night I learned—from you—to die unafraid."</p> - -<p>A marvelous smile lighted her face. The marks of her hard years sped -from it forever in the glow of the new day which suffused the sea and -the sky with a spirit of the infinite mystery this waif of life was on -the threshold of solving.</p> - -<p>"Our Father, who——" she whispered. Then, starting suddenly from -Lavelle's clasp she put out her hands to the dawn. "Mother—mother o' -mine," she called ecstatically. "Moth——"</p> - -<p>Elsie of Shanghai fell back into Lavelle's arms, with a sigh of peace -parting her lips in a smile.</p> - -<p>Emily looked up at Lavelle and, as he turned away quickly, the pent-up -misery and loneliness in her gave vent in a flood of tears. The sobs -which she could not choke back aroused the sleepers forward. Death had -come and a soul had sped so quietly that it had not disturbed their -slumbers.</p> - -<p>Starting to his knees, Rowgowskii beheld Lavelle just laying the burden -out of his arms along the fore-and-aft seat near Chang. The helmsman -might have been an image. The Chinese sailors arising from the bottom of -the boat were seized immediately by the awe of the mystery that had so -swiftly come among them. They huddled together on their haunches, -muttering over some talisman held in common.</p> - -<p>Emily followed Lavelle and sat at the feet of the shell of clay, -smoothing down the bedraggled dress over the delicate ankles and feet.</p> - -<p>"I—you understand—sometimes we can't find words——" he said to her -gently, and she nodded in understanding. Nothing he could have said -would have conveyed more to her. The gentleness, the kindness, the -comprehension of this man were battering a breach in the barriers of her -terror and hatred of him. Falling on her knees beside Elsie's body she -prayed for strength and fortitude and forbearance.</p> - -<p>Emily started up amid a silence broken only by the breeze and the boat -snoring away before it. Lavelle was sitting opposite, his gaze upon her. -She sensed in the faces of Chang and the others a new mystery of -expectancy. Lavelle stood up and handed her into his seat.</p> - -<p>One of the Chinamen crawled aft and passed Lavelle a piece of rope and -an iron block which had been left in the bow of the boat when Chang cut -the fall away. Lavelle turned so that what he did with these things was -hidden from Emily's sight, but she understood. As he faced her again she -saw that the block was fastened to Shanghai Elsie's ankles, although he -had endeavored to hide it beneath the silken gown.</p> - -<p>"Do you know—would you wish to say a prayer, Miss Granville?" he asked.</p> - -<p>Emily stood up and met his gaze. He was asking her to do something; he -expected something of her and she was helpless.</p> - -<p>"I know only the simple prayers of the sea," Lavelle added. With that -Emily found her voice.</p> - -<p>"She—she would want you to say those—and so would I—if——" Her eyes -closed, and as from a great distance she heard him intoning the Lord's -prayer. She realized that never before had she known its full meaning. -There came a pause and she looked up. The boat was fluttering into the -wind. The Chinamen, save Chang, who had to stand to the helm, and -Rowgowskii, were on their knees.</p> - -<p>Lavelle stood with Elsie in his outstretched arms, facing an arc in the -sky where a blush of the dawn still lingered. The breeze seemed to -pause. As Chang checked the boat's way Lavelle bent over and laid the -burden in his arms upon the sea. So might a mother have put down a child -to rest.</p> - -<p>"'We therefore commit her body to the deep,'" he said very distinctly, -"'to be turned into corruption, looking for the resurrection of this -body, when the sea shall give up her dead.'"</p> - -<p>His gaze lingered overside for a moment and then he added:</p> - -<p>"It's a clean grave, little woman."</p> - -<p>Turning quickly away from the sea he seemed another man.</p> - -<p>"Sail on!" he snapped at the helmsman.</p> - - - -<hr style="width: 65%;" /> -<h2>CHAPTER X</h2> - - -<p>Emily would not eat until at noon that day Lavelle commanded her to do -so. Watching him, she saw that he ate hardly as much as the little that -passed her lips. She did not see him drink at all. Neither had he drunk -at the morning meal. As she recalled this his words as he had given her -the water in the night came back: "I will straighten it out." This was -the way he was "straightening it out." The thought brought tears to her -eyes and made her ashamed.</p> - -<p>The sense of loneliness that was borne of Elsie's passing had grown upon -her with the hours. She was yearning for sympathy and she would have -turned to Lavelle, but she sensed that somehow a new barrier had arisen -between them—a wall not of her building, but of his. When he spoke to -her his voice was very gentle, but neither his manner nor his speech -invited her to say anything.</p> - -<p>As Lavelle lay down at Chang's feet, shortly after luncheon, to take the -sleep which he must have to meet the night, Emily remarked in a tone of -anxiety that he had removed the bandage from his head.</p> - -<p>"Yes," he answered simply. "It is all right. The clean salt air is a -good physician. The sea hurts, but it also heals—if one will only let -it."</p> - -<p>His face might have been a mask. The gray eyes closed wearily as he -spoke and he buried his face in his arm and away from the sun's glare.</p> - -<p>The years had taught Paul Lavelle how to suffer alone. He was suffering -now. When he looked up from Elsie's dead face that morning into the gold -woman's he thought he saw something in her eyes to make him pause. He -had surprised the glance again, he imagined, as he turned round from the -burial. He knew life too well not to understand whither a woman's -sympathy might carry her.</p> - -<p>Emily, looking down at the long, lithe body stretched in the bottom of -the boat, kept repeating to herself: "The sea hurts, but it also heals." -She sought a meaning in the words which she felt she had missed.</p> - -<p>Rowgowskii, drawing near, interrupted her thoughts with a pleasant -salutation in French. This big dark man had a finish and poise familiar -to her world and he could talk with a brilliance which made it possible -for her to forget momentarily the unpleasant familiarity of his black -eyes, and the pendulous underlip which signaled the sensuous animal in -him. During the morning he had made an effort to be sincerely comforting -and reassuring and she was thankful to him. After a few idle words -Rowgowskii's gaze wandered down to Lavelle.</p> - -<p>"He feels badly over the death of that woman?" he asked, looking up at -her with a strange directness. Emily answered with a nod of -acquiescence. A smile passed over his face. With a significant shrug, he -added: "I understood aboard the ship—the <i>Cambodia</i>—that they -were—<i>très intimes</i>." He searched the face of the golden-haired woman -to see if his dart had found a mark. But he mistook Emily Granville. She -was not one who could be read as one ran. She was silent.</p> - -<p>"Men of his kind—well, they are a strange, strange lot," he went on.</p> - -<p>"I have no desire to discuss Mr. Lavelle," said Emily.</p> - -<p>"Of course not. Pardon me, Miss Granville. I was told the painful story -aboard the ship. I understand your feelings. You will pardon me, I hope. -It is because of what this man is that I fear for you. These Chinamen -would do murder at his word. He is armed; I am helpless, but I will find -a way."</p> - -<p>Rowgowskii leaned nearer and whispered:</p> - -<p>"We should be sailing in the opposite direction. Did you know that, Miss -Granville? Over to the east we should be going."</p> - -<p>Emily met his gaze now, with a pallor beginning to overspread her face.</p> - -<p>"But do you think he does not know?" she asked, and her voice trembled.</p> - -<p>"If you will remember it was he—this man—who changed the course of the -<i>Yakutat</i>," answered Rowgowskii. "I have been thinking that you might -induce him to change—to do right."</p> - -<p>Consternation seized her at the mention of the <i>Yakutat</i>. It bore quick -doubt in her heart; then fear. Her new faith was torn from its moorings. -Her mind lost all sense of its bearings.</p> - -<p>"Why have you not spoken to him?" she asked.</p> - -<p>"I mentioned it this morning. He ignored me. That Chinaman there"—he -indicated Chang with a glance—"that beast there—told me that I could -walk ashore if I did not like the way things were done here."</p> - -<p>Neither had observed Chang for some time, but now Emily looked up at him -and was startled by the steadiness with which his gaze was fixed dead -ahead. He stood tense like a hunting dog at a point, his nostrils -twitching nervously. Rowgowskii followed the direction of the giant's -gaze, but could see nothing. Emily started to speak to Chang, but her -lips opened only to gasp.</p> - -<p>"Land ho!" cried Chang.</p> - -<p>"Where away?" answered Lavelle, leaping to his feet.</p> - -<p>"Two points—starboard bow, master," and Chang pointed one of his -powerful and sinewy arms straight ahead.</p> - -<p>Emily, Rowgowskii, and the coolie sailors looked eagerly in the -direction in which he pointed, but could see nothing. They turned toward -Lavelle, who, with his hands shading his eyes, was driving his gaze -toward the southwest. The tensity of the moment was terrific. It -impinged upon him in every glance. He was the commander; his was the -task to bring this boat to land; his was the responsibility. They saw -his lips move as if he counted something. As he finished he dropped his -hands.</p> - -<p>"It is land," he said, speaking directly to Emily, and his voice -trembled. "We should be up with it before sunset, Miss Granville. God -grant it means your succor—your deliverance."</p> - -<p>"What land is it?" she asked eagerly.</p> - -<p>"I don't know. It puzzles me."</p> - -<p>"I saw you counting—what was that?"</p> - -<p>"Trees—I was able to make out three." Turning to Chang he said: "Haul -her up until you bring the land two points off the lee bow and then let -her go."</p> - -<p>Emily noted that Lavelle's voice rang with genuine happiness.</p> - -<p>With the enthusiasm of a boy Lavelle next ordered a drink of water for -all hands in celebration of Chang's discovery. Never was a health in -rare wine drunk with finer appreciation than the simple tepid draught -which these waifs quaffed from a tin cup.</p> - -<p>Lavelle took the helm himself and a half-hour before sundown fetched a -low-lying island which appeared to be between three-quarters of a mile -and a mile long from north to south and about half a mile broad. It had -a rise in its center like a camel's hump. The northern side of this and -the lower land abutting upon it were sprinkled sparsely with cocoanut -palms. There was not a visible sign of life.</p> - -<p>Emily, standing alongside of Lavelle as they came within sound of the -sea breaking against the island's weather shore, saw the happiness which -had come into the commander's eyes suddenly depart. It was replaced by -an intense seriousness. She could not help asking what was the matter.</p> - -<p>"Nothing," said he simply, but the felt that he was withholding -something from her.</p> - -<p>Lavelle was reading signs which made him pause. First he had noticed the -absence of any reefs—an invariable and natural formation of islands in -that region of the world. The shore rose abruptly and sheer from the -sea. The land was brown and raw-looking.</p> - -<p>The wind was heightening, and this fact, in combination with the swift -approach of darkness and the unweatherly qualities of the boat, -determined him to abandon a momentary impulse to seek the lee side of -the island.</p> - -<p>Just to the southward of the hump or camel's back Chang sighted what -seemed to be a beach. With the coolies and Rowgowskii at the oars -Lavelle laid the boat toward this point, bow on, taking the precaution -to drag the sea anchor astern so as to prevent her from broaching to in -the heavy sea that was making.</p> - -<p>Chang, with the painter in his hand, leaped ashore as the boat grounded. -One of the coolies followed him. He heaved on the painter with Chang and -then ran hack toward the boat to keep her from slewing round. Lavelle -saw him reach the side of the boat. The next instant he had -disappeared—straight down in the twinkling of an eye.</p> - -<p>Everybody in the boat, looked on with dumbness. Not even Emily cried -out. They sat in their places appalled.</p> - -<p>Lavelle took a running leap from the bow of the boat and landed beside -the laboring Chang. With their combined strength they pulled the craft -safely clear of the water. Then, he ran back and, before he would permit -the others to leave the boat, handed Emily ashore.</p> - -<p>As Lavelle released the precious weight he felt the ground under him -wobble. Emily staggered where she stood and reeled against him.</p> - -<p>"I have forgotten how to walk on land," she said in innocent -embarrassment and with an attempt at a smile.</p> - -<p>Lavelle made no answer. His worst fears were true. They had landed on a -floating island. Any moment might see it engulfed.</p> - - - -<hr style="width: 65%;" /> -<h2>CHAPTER XI</h2> - - -<p>Lavelle caught Emily by the arm as the island's heaving reeled her -against him and held her. The tense, startled expression which she saw -in his face drove the faint smile of embarrassment from hers. It -frightened her.</p> - -<p>She followed his glance, which was sweeping their surroundings. They -were standing in what had evidently been the bed or course of a creek or -large brook. It gullied its way clear across the island from east to -west, following the base line of the hill.</p> - -<p>"What is it?" Emily asked in dismay. "Something is wrong, captain."</p> - -<p>Before Lavelle could form an answer the island gave another heave. The -shell of earth rippled as if it had been so much water.</p> - -<p>With a cry of terror and warning Rowgowskii sprang away from the boat's -side and went scrambling up the hill. The two coolies, still a-tremble -with the fear which the sudden and mysterious death of their mate a -moment before had put in them, followed him shrieking.</p> - -<p>Chang leaped to Lavelle's side, the spot where he had been standing -filling with water as his feet left it.</p> - -<p>"Lun, master! Lun, lady!" shouted the giant.</p> - -<p>"Come!" said Emily to Lavelle, starting toward the hill. She took but a -step. A sharp cry of anguish, which she tried hard to suppress, escaped -from her. Her limbs refused to carry her. They seemed to be breaking -with the pain born of the cramped life in the boat.</p> - -<p>With a murmured word of understanding Lavelle snatched her into his arms -and carried her halfway up the hillside. Chang pushed him as he went. -When he put her down in a mat of grass and taro plant tops she still -clung to his hand as a child might have done.</p> - -<p>On this higher ground the movement of the island was not less -terrifying.</p> - -<p>"Was—is it an earthquake?" Emily whispered in awe.</p> - -<p>Lavelle shook his head. His gaze went searching up to windward and then -darted across the island to leeward where the sun was tobogganing down a -bright yellow sky—such a sky as invariably presages wind. He turned to -windward again.</p> - -<p>For an instant despair overwhelmed him. This islet was but a bit of waif -land—the bait of a cruel trap which the sea had set for him. Even as -he watched it the surf piled higher and higher against the sheer weather -shore. This was the fanged jaw of the trap; and it was closing. The -swiftly rising wind which whipped his face seemed to chuckle in glee.</p> - -<p>To drive the heavy boat through that surf and back to sea was a task -which seemed to him to be beyond the force at his command. Nor could -that crew get it across the island to make a launching from the lee -side.</p> - -<p>Despair enters the breasts of strong men only to refuel their fires of -determination. So it was with Paul Lavelle. Emily saw the gloom pass -from his face. A conquering light of resolution succeeded it. His jaw -set again in its familiar line of purpose. Thus she had beheld him on -the deck of the doomed <i>Cambodia</i>. Thus he had looked as he had come to -her that night.</p> - -<p>"We must put to sea again," said he, facing her quickly and in his -tenseness pressing the hand with which she was clinging to him. He read -her apprehension. "Morning may see this bit of earth mixed with the -ocean. It is but a piece of waif land—a thing without an -anchorage—something torn from its mother mass by the ocean in anger. -For us it is a trap—one of the sea's countless treacheries." He -glanced over his shoulder at the surf. "There is no time to lose," he -added.</p> - -<p>Emily met this revelation of new peril so calmly that Lavelle paused in -wonderment as he swung away from her.</p> - -<p>"Can't I—do something to—help you?" she asked. She might have been -craving a boon.</p> - -<p>"Just hold to your faith. We'll win through if you keep that, won——"</p> - -<p>The wind snapped his words off there. She did not know that he had -hailed her as "wonder woman." Yet she glowed at the glance of frank -admiration which had accompanied his words.</p> - -<p>Lavelle called Chang. The giant started up from his haunches a few feet -away, where he had been crouching and listening with eager ear to every -word which had fallen from his master's lips.</p> - -<p>"Him clay-zee islan', master! No good!" avowed Chang.</p> - -<p>"To sea!" was Lavelle's answer. He drove his purpose into the serang -with those two words and a gesture. The giant hesitated so long as it -took to look from Lavelle to the surf and back again. There was doubt in -his eyes.</p> - -<p>"Jump! Night soon!" cried Lavelle. The command electrified the serang.</p> - -<p>Chang faced up the hill, beckoning and calling Rowgowskii and the -coolies to descend. They were perched on its crest like banderlog -hypnotized by fear. They did not move.</p> - -<p>"Come down out of that!" yelled Lavelle in anger at the white man and -instantly repeating the command to the coolies in their own tongue.</p> - -<p>"It is unsafe! I will stay here!" Rowgowskii cried back.</p> - -<p>The coolies, chattering to each other, settled again on their haunches -from which they had half started. They were taking their cue from the -black-bearded white man beside them. They would not trust themselves to -the earth below which trembled and swallowed things like the sea.</p> - -<p>"Bring 'em down, Chang!" snapped Lavelle.</p> - -<p>The giant sprang up the hill at the order, hurling at the coolies a -curse which consigned forty generations of their ancestors to an -additional century of grilling in the fires of eternity. It started -them, but Rowgowskii did not move. Then, out of Chang's belt flashed a -long knife. He raised it to hurl at the white man.</p> - -<p>With uplifted hands and crying that he would obey, Rowgowskii stood up. -Chang lowered the knife and paused in his ascent. The leader of the -mutineers motioned to the coolies to precede him. They clambered along -the rocks, darting glances over their shoulders as if measuring to -descend as far from the reach of Chang as possible.</p> - -<p>Whether it was Rowgowskii or one of the coolies who did it neither -Emily, Chang, nor Lavelle, watching from below, could tell, but a large -round boulder was dislodged by the feet of one of the three. It crashed -down the hillside with the ricochet of a spending shell, missed Emily by -a hair's-breadth, and plunged through the side of the boat.</p> - - - -<hr style="width: 65%;" /> -<h2>CHAPTER XII</h2> - - -<p>A moment of awful silence followed the destructive work of the boulder. -Even the wind seemed to pause in its flight and the sea in its surging -to behold what man would do in the face of this disaster.</p> - -<p>Rowgowskii and the two coolies lay in a heap on a mass of loosened earth -on which they had been swept down the hill in the wake of the rock. -Emily had risen to her feet where Lavelle had left her seated. Her gaze -was fixed on him. He stood with his back to her and facing the boat. -Chang stood to the eastward of her, motionless. His gaze, too, was fixed -on the master.</p> - -<p>Lavelle was the first to move. A stride carried him to the boat. A -glance revealed to him a hole in the starboard bilge through which he -might have crawled without difficulty, big man though he was. Four of -the ribs were smashed. The keel was shattered for half its length. Any -but the stoutest heart must have admitted the craft to be an -irreparable, hopeless wreck.</p> - -<p>With a weird cry of insensate rage Chang, who had run to Lavelle's side, -turned away toward Rowgowskii and the coolies. No one who saw him and -the manner in which he carried his long knife could have doubted but -that the serang meant to visit instant death upon the mutineers. His -gigantic form trembled with the passionate intention of the slayer. -Rowgowskii and the coolies stood in a paralysis of fear.</p> - -<p>A word from Lavelle stopped the serang.</p> - -<p>"More better kill! Now!" cried the giant to his master and with a -characterization of the mutineers that was blood-chilling in its -anathema.</p> - -<p>"Give me that knife," ordered Lavelle quietly. Meeting his gaze and -holding it for a moment Chang thrust the blade into Lavelle's hand. He -was conquered, but the glow of an heroic splendor was upon him.</p> - -<p>"Kill me—kill Chang, your servant, master."</p> - -<p>There was a bare note of defiance in the Chinaman's voice. He dropped -his hands at his sides in token of submission and bent his head for the -blow he invited.</p> - -<p>"I will kill when I choose to kill. Go. Clear out this boat," said -Lavelle.</p> - -<p>"You are master," answered the serang, and he turned to summon the -mutineers.</p> - -<p>Rowgowskii and the coolies under Chang's driving began a rapid -transportation of all of the boat's provisions and equipment to a point -halfway up the hillside indicated by Lavelle. The master knew that this -was no time for punishment. He must have every ounce of strength he -could command.</p> - -<p>Straightening up from a contemplation of the hole in the boat, his brain -busy with plans of repair, he looked toward the sea.</p> - -<p>"I'm not beaten unless you drown me in the next three hours," he flung -in a mutter at the growling deep.</p> - -<p>Turning away, he found Emily Granville beside him. She was looking up at -him through a mist of tears. Her own misery of body and soul had been -swept away in the instant she had heard the boulder go crunching through -the boat's thin skin. She could think only of what this cruel stab of -fate must mean to the man captaining the handful of life which he had -been chosen to save. Her capacity to think of another and not of herself -in this common crisis was a sign of growth which would have pleased her -if it had been possible to pause in self-analysis.</p> - -<p>And this man, meeting her pitying eyes, smiled at her quizzically! If he -had confronted her with a hopeless curse she would not have been -surprised. Now she could but gasp in amazement. The comforting words -which she had planned to speak would not lend themselves to utterance. -In this second she realized that thus would he meet death—undaunted; -smiling.</p> - -<p>"Fate is treating you—very unkindly, Miss Granville," said he. He spoke -in his usual low tone.</p> - -<p>"Us," she corrected him, resenting, as she had come to do all that day, -his insistence upon classifying her apart.</p> - -<p>"Us, then," he answered with a nod.</p> - -<p>"Does this mean——Is this the end?" she asked calmly, and she drew his -eyes to the hole in the boat. His answer was a question.</p> - -<p>"Do you feel that it is the end?"</p> - -<p>"No," the woman answered, searching his face and reading there a message -of infinite faith.</p> - -<p>Yet even as she spoke the island was a-quiver under the increasing force -of the sea's assaults. Nor had it been still at any time since they had -put foot on it.</p> - -<p>"No man may tell the life of a floating island," Lavelle explained. "In -weather like this it is very—very short——"</p> - -<p>"Can you repair this boat? Do you intend to mend this hole?"</p> - -<p>Her eyes opened in wonderment, for he nodded affirmatively.</p> - -<p>"Remember what Browning said: 'To dry one's eyes and laugh at a fall. -And, baffled, get up and begin again——'"</p> - -<p>"All clear, master!" called Chang, interrupting Lavelle and leaping out -of the boat with the mast and oars in his arms.</p> - -<p>Lavelle summoned all hands. They heaved the boat over on its undamaged -side. With a strength which peril had trebled, they dragged it out of -the miry, jelly-like ground on which it lay and brought it to a ledge on -the hill. Man's work though it was, Emily Granville gave her hands to -it, with a strange new will, heaving and pulling beside Lavelle until he -called that the task was done. And the while she kept repeating to -herself, "'To dry one's eyes and laugh at a fall. And, baffled, get up -and begin again.'"</p> - -<p>Just as the boat was laid on the ledge the sun dropped behind the -horizon.</p> - -<p>Rowgowskii had seen some wood while he and the coolies had been on the -hilltop. Of his own volition he climbed after it and brought down -sufficient to make a fire. There was driftwood also in the bed of the -creek or gully and Chang sent the coolies to gather it.</p> - -<p>As the fire sprang up Lavelle worked the faster where he ripped out the -boat's after air tank. With its metal he planned to cover the hole.</p> - -<p>No thought of food nor drink had he, though he ordered Chang to serve -rations to the rest. Emily carried a cracker and a cup of water to him, -but he would not pause.</p> - -<p>"Give me plenty of light; that's all," he answered her urging. "Light to -work by——"</p> - -<p>A racking shudder passed through the island. It flung Emily headlong. -The earth on which Lavelle knelt slid from under him. The island's -middle, following the base line of the hill, rose like a monster cat -arching its spine and hurled him backward, stunned, breathless, -helpless.</p> - -<p>There was a breath-long silence. It ended with a chorus of wild cries. -Then, the great earth mass fell with a thunderous crash, rending the -island in twain. The triumphant sea leaped out of the breach it had made -and swept the crumbling shore with a mighty wave.</p> - - - -<hr style="width: 65%;" /> -<h2>CHAPTER XIII</h2> - - -<p>Awakening to a bewildered consciousness Emily Granville opened her eyes -in a glare of light which stung her vision so sharply that the lids shut -instantly in intuitive defense. She could feel the soothing warmth of a -fire near by. She was prone on her back. An attempt to move her limbs -produced a sensation of being bound. Turning her head slightly from the -direction of the fire she opened her eyes again timorously upon a sky -burgeoning in a new crescent moon and a myriad of stars. The moon and -stars seemed so close that she fancied that all she had to do was lift a -hand to touch them. Lowering her gaze she saw the sea and heard its wild -white horses neighing.</p> - -<p>With a cry of fright the castaway started into full consciousness, every -part of her racked and a-throb with pain. By a great effort of will she -struggled into a sitting posture and then to her knees. The firelight -blinded her. All was still within its radius. An apprehension that she -alone had survived the riving of the island overwhelmed her.</p> - -<p>She remembered the cataclysmic upheaval which had flung her headlong as -she stood beside Lavelle where he worked at the boat. She had gone to -him to ask him to pause but a minute to take a little food and drink. He -had answered her harshly, she had been thinking; and then a mountainous -wave had hurled him against her; into her arms, in fact. She had held -him with all her strength, but the sea must have been stronger. It must -have taken him. Her memory stopped there.</p> - -<p>"Captain! My friend!" she called in anguish to the night. It returned no -answer. The wind lashed her face and throat as if determined she should -be still. She breasted it with the fierceness of abandonment, lifting -her aching arms and sobbing to the heavens:</p> - -<p>"My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Why did you take him and -leave me?"</p> - -<p>Even, as this supplication burst from her Chang entered the circle of -light, carrying an armful of wood. Rowgowskii followed at his heels, -similarly burdened.</p> - -<p>"All lite, lady! No be flaid!" called the Chinaman. He dropped the wood -as he spoke and ran to her side. Her gaze went expectantly beyond him -into the darkness. But the one for whom she looked did not appear.</p> - -<p>"The captain—where——"</p> - -<p>Emily could not utter another word. She sank back, supporting herself by -one arm. She was afraid to listen to the giant's answer.</p> - -<p>"Him all lite—bimeby, lady," said Chang.</p> - -<p>Her heart surged in joy.</p> - -<p>"He is alive?" she gasped. "Where is he?"</p> - -<p>She straightened again on her knees.</p> - -<p>Chang drew back the edge of the boat sail, a part of which had also -covered her. There lay "The Shadow" of the lost <i>Cambodia</i> with the -bullet wound in his brow reopened where the sea had mauled him.</p> - -<p>"Thank God," Emily murmured, seeing Lavelle stir.</p> - -<p>She crawled on her knees to his side and felt the pulse of the hand -which Chang drew out of the canvas. Its faintness killed the gladness -which had come so swiftly into her heart.</p> - -<p>"He—he—is dying, Chang!" she cried.</p> - -<p>"No can be; no can be," answered the Chinaman with fiery emphasis. "Him -more stlong. Go-an get better more klick. No can kill master so leasy."</p> - -<p>"How long has he been this way, Chang?"</p> - -<p>"Not more one hour. How you feet, lady?"</p> - -<p>For the first time Emily was conscious of a tearing pain in her ankles -and insteps. It was more intense than the stab-like thrusts which were -piercing the rest of her body. Wondering what could have happened to her -she turned so that she could see her feet. The trim, delicate ankles -were swollen and the insteps were bruised and bleeding.</p> - -<p>"Velly solly, lady," said Chang soothingly and in the manner of a father -comforting a little child. "You velly blave. You velly stlong."</p> - -<p>As he spoke the Chinaman gently lifted one injured foot. She shrank from -his touch and put out a hand to thrust him away.</p> - -<p>"You be 'flaid flor Chang?" asked the giant wistfully. The glance with -which he looked up at her made the woman ashamed that she had obeyed the -impulse of littleness. She caught Rowgowskii staring at her from across -the fire. His glance was a challenge to all the fineness of her being.</p> - -<p>"I beg your pardon, Chang. I am not afraid of you," she said. She -withdrew her protesting hand.</p> - -<p>"You my master flen. He say by me when I tell him you hol' him han' in -boat: 'Chang, maybe I go-an die. All hell kom-men you go-an save she.' -Bimeby to-night when big sea kom-men you save my master. You save -Chang. You like me die—I go-an die flor you. You must no be flaid."</p> - -<p>The while Chang talked his long yellow fingers were going swiftly over -Emily's feet. A surgeon's skill was in their touch. His head was bent, -hearkening, where he manipulated the ankle and toe joints, for a sound -which would betoken a fracture.</p> - -<p>"No bone bloke," he announced with finality.</p> - -<p>"Thank you, Chang," Emily said gratefully, and presently she drew from -him an account of what had happened following the upheaval.</p> - -<p>Chang had been standing near the fire on the hillside. He had been -thrown down even as she and Lavelle were. The island had broken apart -and a great sea had come and gone quickly. The earth went out from under -him. It flaked away, carrying him down to the sea with it. He could not -stop himself. Just as he was rolling over the edge of the cliff he felt -an arm and caught hold of it. It checked his descent. It was Lavelle's -arm that he caught and, drawing himself up, he found her clutching -Lavelle with both hands around his other wrist. Her feet were twisted in -the root of a tree which the sea had washed out of the earth. It was -this root which had saved all of them.</p> - -<p>Emily could understand now how she came to feel like one who had been -broken on a wheel. She could not imagine where she had found the -strength to withstand the terrific forces which, according to the -giant's description, had beset her. She believed she had acted -unconsciously, but at least, she thought, she had proved herself not -useless. She found comfort in this momentary reflection, nor did she -suspect that a great, new power—a power like unto which there is no -other—had dawned in her life.</p> - -<p>"I catch him master," added Chang, "but you hol' flor him like a marther -hol' him litty bit chile when him big bear kom-men in winter. Chang -bring you here flor topside. You eye close. Him master eye close. Him -head must flor stlike 'gainst boat: maybe lock hit him. Him boat all go -way."</p> - -<p>A weary faintness made Emily's eyelids droop for a second. Chang leaped -to his feet and crossed to the other side of the fire. She watched him -where he lifted one of the boat's breakers and poured a cup full of -water. He was back in a moment offering it to her. She drank sparingly. -She refused to eat anything. She asked how long it had been since the -sundering of the island and when Chang told her that not more than an -hour had passed she found it hard to believe him. It seemed to Emily -that it must have happened many nights before.</p> - -<p>The giant's answer was hardly away from his lips when a shudder went -through the hill on the crest of which he, driving Rowgowskii to help -him, had fixed the encampment and rebuilt the fire.</p> - -<p>"What flor? Whachamalla you?" snarled Chang at the menacing earth. The -next breath brought a scolding tone into his quaint voice. "Him go-an be -night velly long time, Mr. Islan'. More better you go-an sleep, eh?"</p> - -<p>The whimsicality of this speech and the half-quizzical expression in -Chang's face brought a faint smile to the lips of the white woman.</p> - -<p>"You're a rare soul, Chang," she whispered.</p> - -<p>"Him all same clay-zee, dlunken sailor man, this Mr. Islan'," the giant -chattered on. He saw that he amused Emily. And always he spoke of the -future certainly. So far as his speech and manner were concerned he -might have been safe in port with a pleasant city in view instead of on -the border line of the world beyond. Like Lavelle, he possessed the -marvelous power of renewing one's faith.</p> - -<p>Of his master the Chinaman spoke as the children of the Orient speak -only of their strange good gods. He told how Lavelle nine years before -in Rangoon had saved his life from the murderous hands of a drunken, -mutinous crew and how his way thereafter had been the captain's way and -would be to the end. He recalled, too, the night in Shanghai of which -Elsie had told her. He wrung tears from her in recounting the fearful -winning of the <i>Kau Lung</i> to Yokohama. She saw the knife scars on the -arm lying outside the sail and the scars on Chang's. The wounds of these -men assumed a sacredness in her eyes.</p> - -<p>"My master all same Chang joss," was the way the giant summed up his -hero. "No 'flaid flor enny-sling! Nobody! Him say, 'Chang, die.' Must -flor me die."</p> - -<p>Emily recalled the strange scene between them at the boat and she -understood the truth of this.</p> - -<p>Lavelle, stirring with a moan, interrupted the serang, who bent his head -and listened, ear close to the unconscious man's lips.</p> - -<p>"Him sleep now—more better. No sleep las' night. No sleep to-day. Him -velly tli-ed."</p> - -<p>Emily leaned over at the giant's whisper and caught the measured, easy -breathing of a tired sleeper. Yet she heard something else also.</p> - -<p>"—home soon—dearheart. Gold girl—wonder——" he murmured, and Emily -wondered what manner of woman it was who was waiting across seas for -this man's home-coming. It was not thus he would speak of the mother to -whom he had set out to return. It could not be such a woman as Shanghai -Elsie. The remembrance of what Rowgowskii had said to her in the boat -flashed into her mind. She put it away instantly. She resented it. She -knew, as only it is given to a woman to know, that it was not to a mate -like Elsie that this man would go.</p> - -<p>"God bring him safely to her," she prayed in her pity for the woman of -whom "The Shadow" dreamed, and she knew not that she prayed for -herself.</p> - - - -<hr style="width: 65%;" /> -<h2>CHAPTER XIV</h2> - - -<p>Day was breaking as Lavelle awoke to a realization that he still lived. -He found himself in a silence so awful in its intensity and mystery that -it made him catch his breath sharply like one does at a sudden immersion -in cold water. The peace of eternity seemed to have breathed a spell -upon the pitiless deep. It slept.</p> - -<p>His long sleep had refreshed him and his mind instantly leaped back to -the events of the night before. A glance round him discovered Chang, a -hundred feet away, searching the horizon. Rowgowskii lay stretched on -the opposite side of the fire.</p> - -<p>Just as Emily had imagined him lost so Lavelle for a moment believed her -gone. His senses went crashing, but they reordered themselves instantly -at the touch of a warm body at his side.</p> - -<p>Putting his left hand out to raise himself it fell on Emily not half an -arm's length away. There exhausted nature had bent her head in slumber -at midnight when the wind hushed. There Chang had covered her again with -the boat sail. She lay with her right arm under her vivid head and her -face toward the new day. One long golden braid curled across the -hilltop's wet grass where it had been flung unconsciously in her sleep. -The other hung across her exquisite bosom, rising and falling gently -with her breathing, and its end trailing the ground. Such an expression -as Lavelle had so often seen in the faces of play-weary children was in -hers.</p> - -<p>"Wonder woman," he murmured. "Wonder woman."</p> - -<p>Slipping out from under the sail, not daring to breathe, Lavelle gently -drew the canvas back over the sleeper's shoulders and stole toward the -Chinaman. A slight giddiness assailed him for a moment and with it there -came a reminder of the old pain which he had felt upon awakening first -in the boat.</p> - -<p>"Master, master," called the giant worshipfully, springing toward him.</p> - -<p>Chang's first glance was directed at Lavelle's forehead and what he saw -there pleased him.</p> - -<p>"Him all lite, master; all lite," he said. "Him stop bleed."</p> - -<p>But it was of the night that Lavelle would hear, and the Chinaman -rapidly unfolded the wondrous tale of how their lives had been saved by -Emily. The wrecked boat was gone. Emily, Lavelle, Rowgowskii, and Chang -alone remained of those who had escaped in their party from the -<i>Cambodia</i>. The two coolie sailors had been gathering wood at the foot -of the hill when the upheaval came. They were gone. At the end he -whispered: "You lose him plistol out you plocket. Nobody know—only -Chang, master."</p> - -<p>The ocean bore no trace of the half of the island which had been torn -away. In the heavy wind and sea which Chang reported of the first part -of the night it was Lavelle's opinion that the derelict mass, bound -together only by a mattress of interlaced roots and vegetation, must -have resolved its parts with the waters.</p> - -<p>Owing to Chang's having placed the water, provisions, and the boat's -equipment high on the hill when the craft had been emptied in the -evening, the sea had been able to steal but little. The treacherous bit -of earth which remained offered, too, an important contribution to the -food supply in a wealth of taro plants, the tuberous substitute of the -potato in the islands of the Pacific. It is of this that the Hawaiians -make their poi.</p> - -<p>By the bearing of the rising sun Lavelle noted that the island had swung -round completely during the night. The side of the camel's back-like -hill, which had been toward the south the preceding evening, was turned -to the northward. The crest of this hill was at least two hundred feet -above sea level. As the island lay now its northern side sloped easily -for perhaps fifty yards and then broke off abruptly in a sharp cleavage -fifty feet sheer to the sea.</p> - -<p>The hill's base was slightly less than the island's half-mile width. A -gentle slope marked what had become the eastern shore; a straight -palisade rise of two hundred feet, the western side. A gradual slope on -the hill's southern side blended at the foot with an undulating meadow, -green with grass and taro, and about three-quarters of a mile in length. -A lone palm tree rose in the center of this patch.</p> - -<p>The top of the hill presented a flat surface of a city half-block -square. At no distant time a thatched hut had stood there. It was of the -remains of this that Chang and Rowgowskii had built the fire.</p> - -<p>While he sipped a cup of water which Chang brought to him, Lavelle took -stock of all these things. Not one thought of solace could he draw from -the bitter, hopeless scheme which unfolded itself to his gaze. By the -time the non-arrival of the <i>Cambodia</i> was read into disaster and a -searching ship sent into these seas the end would have long since come -to this island. Well he realized the emptiness of this stretch of ocean -and the one chance in ten thousand which might bring a stray merchantman -or trader stumbling upon them. Well he realized the slight tenure of the -crust of earth which held him. Judging from its assumed position it had -drifted a phenomenal distance for that latitude. He believed it must -have been ripped away from one of the islands of the Hawaiian group. -That it had survived so long seemed to him miraculous and but emphasized -the imminence of its early dissolution. What had already happened since -the landing confirmed in his mind that the next storm would be the -mother of the island's oblivion and all it held.</p> - -<p>Floating islands are uncommon in any but the most placid waters. Yet in -the phenomena of the sea's scheme of things they are common occurrences. -The charts of all big waters are dotted with their records. Shipmasters -come to port reporting an island where one was never before and where it -would seem against all reason that one should be. Still man imbued with -the unconquerable mystery of the sea writes this report on his charts -for all times. First he writes it as a fact, justifying its assumption -as such. According to its reported size, ships go searching for -it—men-o'-war, leisurely merchantmen, vagrant traders. No island is -found. Only sea is there. But man does not trust the deep; he never -will. He does not erase his record. He marks it "P.D."—position -doubtful. Years pass without further report of an island in this -locality. Then he goes as far as he dares. He writes on his charts -"E.D."—meaning "Existence doubtful."</p> - -<p>How many a well-found ship, sailing in a sea charted clear and deep, has -blundered into islands like the one which held the <i>Cambodia</i> castaways -and suddenly come unto her last port? No man may tell. Seldom, however, -do ocean traffickers meet with these waif lands north or south of the -twentieth parallels.</p> - -<p>With never a dream that this could be one—here in the thirties—though -the absence of reefs and the raw and broken aspect of the island shore -had given him pause, Lavelle had trapped himself. He had captained her, -for whose salvation he would gladly lay down his life, into a prison to -which death held the key.</p> - -<p>It was with this bitter, self-blaming thought, and tortured by it, that -he turned away from the sea to behold the gold woman coming toward him -with a wistful smile. He ran to meet her and his soul cried out at the -denial of its impulse to fold her to his heart and soothe her hurts.</p> - - - -<hr style="width: 65%;" /> -<h2>CHAPTER XV</h2> - - -<p>Three days of life-renewing, hope-burgeoning weather had followed that -silent dawn—days of placid seas and gentle breezes; and nights alight -with stars and a growing moon. The island had been motionless. It might -have been one of the Blessed Isles in a world where life was -everlasting.</p> - -<p>Isle of Hope Emily had christened the bit of floating earth, nor could -she have told why optimism reigned in her heart and soul. She was -unaware that she was reflecting only what the manner of Paul Lavelle -gave forth. His every act and word was a reassurance of faith and the -<i>motif</i> of her ever-increasing wonder of him.</p> - -<p>Yet it was but a mask of service which Lavelle had determined to wear -for this woman's sake. He had put it on in that daybreak when he had met -her coming toward him and heard her calling:</p> - -<p>"We still live, captain."</p> - -<p>There had welled in his heart at that moment the gentle Stevenson's -prayer for grace—a prayer which had sustained Lavelle often in peril -and sorrow—and it poured from his lips to find an echo in the woman's, -for she, too, knew it:</p> - -<p>"'Grant that we here before Thee may be set free from the fear of -vicissitude and the fear of death, may finish what remains before us of -our course without dishonor to ourselves or hurt to others, and, when -the day comes, may die in peace. Deliver us from fear and favor; from -mean hopes and cheap pleasures. Have mercy on each in his deficiency: -let him not be cast down; support the stumbling on the way, and give at -last rest to the weary.'"</p> - -<p>To help this woman's spirit to be unafraid was all that was left for him -to do for her. It was the most he would ever be able to do for her. Of -this Lavelle felt certain. He knew the sea too well to deceive himself -with a false hope that its kind mood would continue long. But while life -lasted it was his purpose to live it fearlessly and as if years still -measured the span and not swift minutes.</p> - -<p>Under his hand the discipline of shipboard prevailed. There was not a -moment, by day or night, when a lookout for sign of succoring sail or -light went unkept. With Chang, his right hand, Lavelle divided the night -watches, not trusting Rowgowskii. Even Emily, according to her wish, -helped in the tasks of preparing the food and tending the fire by day. -An out-of-doors woman by tradition and inclination, a powerful rider and -swimmer, the pride which she had always taken in her physical well-being -was standing her in good stead now.</p> - -<p>Rowgowskii, in the first realization of the extremity which had come to -pass, had abandoned himself to despair. It was incredible that he had -ever been, as he claimed, an officer in the Russian navy, or otherwise a -commander of men. He was absolutely spiritless; an exemplification of -the truth that cowards die many times before their deaths.</p> - -<p>But with the coming of the second day of fair weather his funk lifted -and he went to his appointed tasks with a willingness which was -emphasized by his previous sullenness.</p> - -<p>Having observed at the outset that the island's wood supply was limited, -Lavelle had been husbanding it by burning sod. He used the wood solely -for the signal fires of the night.</p> - -<p>Now on this morning of the fourth day he again put the Russian to -cutting turf from the hillside, the while he and Chang, armed with the -boat axe, set forth to cut down the palm tree in the meadow. Rowgowskii, -the preceding evening, had suggested its addition to the signal fuel.</p> - -<p>"You will not be long, captain?" asked Emily as Lavelle paused to look -back at her in leaving the crest of the hill.</p> - -<p>"No longer than is absolutely necessary."</p> - -<p>"And you—you will be careful," she warned, and unashamed of the -tremulous note of anxiety which crept into her voice. He nodded. This -man's presence had become very necessary—very precious to her.</p> - -<p>"It's your watch on deck, you know," Lavelle called cheerfully. Then, -with a quizzical lowering of his brows and in a tone of pretended -sternness, he added: "Hold your course. Steady as you go—and keep a -sharp lookout."</p> - -<p>"Aye, aye, sir," she answered, simulating the speech and manner of a -sailor to an officer.</p> - -<p>"You make him velly good sailor man," Chang chuckled in delight.</p> - -<p>"We'll be back in a jiffy," said Lavelle. With that he and Chang swung -away down the hill.</p> - -<p>Emily went to the edge of the slope and watched them descend, the yellow -man always leaping ahead to test and examine the ground. At the foot -Lavelle looked back. He paused upon discovering the watcher and waved to -her. An impulse to follow him seized her, but remembering that he had -intrusted her with the lookout she overcame it. With a wave of the hand -she answered his signal of cheer, and as through a mist saw him go away -from her across the meadow toward the lone tree.</p> - - - -<hr style="width: 65%;" /> -<h2>CHAPTER XVI</h2> - - -<p>Just as Lavelle paused at the foot of the hill and waved his hand, -Rowgowskii looked up from where he was cutting turf on the eastern -slope. Unconsciously his hand went to his flattened nose. It was an -action which invariably had come to accompany any glance which had -Lavelle for its objective.</p> - -<p>Emily was hidden from his view, but the Russian could imagine her -standing up there on the crest answering Lavelle's signal. He knew well, -too, the light there must be in her eyes. He had surprised it there many -times in the preceding three or four days, even as she had startled the -animal lust in his.</p> - -<p>Rowgowskii dropped the piece of metal which he was using for a cutting -tool. It was part of the boat's air tank with which Lavelle had planned -to repair the damage done by the boulder. His gaze followed the two men -crossing the meadow until he saw Chang stop suddenly and look back. He -started as if the Chinaman had the power of reading his thoughts. A -guilty conscience is ever the quick prey of an honest eye. With much -show of industry he picked up his cutter and resumed the stripping of -turf. This activity lasted but a minute. Then, his gaze wandered around -the empty sea, only to return to the two men below.</p> - -<p>In the second that the Russian's eyes picked them up again a menacing -oscillation passed through the earth and brought him in terror off his -knees. He saw the Chinaman pitch headlong out of sight. The next second -whipped Lavelle from his view. The palm tree remained the single object -in the meadow.</p> - -<p>Rowgowskii hesitated a moment, hearkening for a sound from above him or -from the meadow. The silence was unbroken save by the purr of the -morning breeze.</p> - -<p>With the sneak of a stalking panther in his tread he darted around to -the southern slope. A second's pause, a flashing glance behind to -reassure himself that "The Shadow" and the yellow man were, indeed, -gone, and he sprang up the hill.</p> - - - -<hr style="width: 65%;" /> -<h2>CHAPTER XVII</h2> - - -<p>Emily held Lavelle and Chang in view until they were halfway to the tree -and the Chinaman halted and looked back. It was as if the giant had -flashed a message to her. Her heart gave a throb of apprehension. Her -breath caught in her throat. Her limbs trembled. She realized that she -was alone on the hill with Rowgowskii. Only her own soul knew her -repugnance of this man which had grown with the hours since they had -come to the island.</p> - -<p>Even as her mind bore the thought Emily became ashamed of her -trepidation and self-consciousness. It was unworthy of the kind of woman -that Lavelle's fearlessness of soul and fortitude made her desire to be.</p> - -<p>Mortified, and with a flush mounting her cheeks at what she considered -her mean selfishness, she turned from the meadow and the stretch of -ocean southward. She walked across the hilltop. North, east, and west -her gaze met an empty blue expanse of water. The hill oscillated and she -swayed with it unconscious of the motion. Her attention was held by the -glint of a white wing high against the cloudless azure sky to the -northward where a frigate bird went seeking a mate.</p> - -<p>"Oh, if we but had your wings!" she exclaimed.</p> - -<p>"But we haven't," whispered a voice close to her ear. With the words an -evil, burning breath struck her cheek and Rowgowskii's two powerful arms -encircled her.</p> - -<p>At the touch there leaped to life in Emily that furious strength which -has been given to women to defend themselves or their offspring from -besoiling or destroying hands.</p> - -<p>With a shriek she twisted herself in the brute's clasp and hurled him -from her, but not before he had succeeded in crushing his hot, sensuous -lips against her throat. She struck him in the face with both hands -clenched. Landing where Lavelle had smashed him in the boat the morning -after the wreck of the <i>Cambodia</i>, the blows drew blood and swept him -from his feet. He went over backward and, falling, carried with him the -boat mast which was stepped in the center of the hilltop for a signal -staff.</p> - -<p>Sending a piercing shriek toward the meadow, Emily ran toward the -southern slope. Rowgowskii staggered up in her path with outstretched -arms as if to stop her. He hesitated and stepped aside. The -unaccountable action arrested Emily.</p> - -<p>"Go on yelling!" he said wrathfully. "There is nobody to hear. We are -alone—you and I."</p> - -<p>A sight of the meadow confirmed his words. Lavelle and Chang were not -there.</p> - -<p>The Russian laughed as she faced him helplessly and incredulously, her -strength, for the moment, gone from her. She had no distinct thought. -The capacity of thinking and feeling seemed to have never been.</p> - -<p>"They went like that," the brute went on with a snap of his fingers. -"Just as we are going to go—in a—in a very little while." A lingering -quaver went through the hill. He started cravenly. "Feel that, eh? The -end is very near."</p> - -<p>Emily was silent. Her gaze darted away from her torturer and around the -sea. It came to rest for the smallest part of a second on the western -edge of the hill. Determination was born of the thought which the glance -suggested. Here was a means of escape.</p> - -<p>The cliff was perhaps an hundred feet from where she stood. If she could -only get over there a step would carry her into the presence of her God -unashamed. Her purpose was formed. There was nothing left for which she -cared to live. The camp fire was between her and her goal, but she -heeded it not.</p> - -<p>Rowgowskii's gaze, following every movement of the glorious figure of -womanhood before him, set the fires of his fiendishness flaming in new -desire. He advanced a step in front of her. She retreated a step.</p> - -<p>"I wonder if you would have treated Lavelle this way if he had come to -love you? Eh?"</p> - -<p>There was no answer for him, but Emily's lips moved in murmuring what -her numbed senses could recall of Lavelle's prayer for grace.</p> - -<p>"Would you have treated him this way? Tell me, <i>ma beauté</i>," he leered. -He took another step toward her. Again she retreated. Still advancing, -the passion of the brute in his eyes scorching her, he said:</p> - -<p>"Death will not be so unpleasant. You are very beautiful. You——"</p> - -<p>His voice broke in a stammer. A piece of burning sod rolled out of the -fire behind his prey.</p> - -<p>"Look out!" he cried.</p> - -<p>Emily gave no heed. She put one foot on the sod and smoke curled up -where it burned through the sole of the canvas sandal which Chang had -made for her. Then she lifted the other foot beside it.</p> - -<p>Nor did this woman cry out in pain nor a feature so much as wince. An -immortal glory was in her countenance. The look she bent on the man -before her sent him back, cowering in fear and awe.</p> - - - -<hr style="width: 65%;" /> -<h2>CHAPTER XVIII</h2> - - -<p>In the instant that the sublime spirit of the gold woman conquered the -beast who baited her Lavelle burst over the crest of the hill from the -southern slope.</p> - -<p>Like the captain of an avenging host marching with banners of flame he -came into Emily Granville's vision. A pallor as of death was in his -face; a fire of irrevocable decision in the glance with which he swept -the scene before him into his comprehension.</p> - -<p>As that glance touched Emily she started toward her deliverer only to -stop.</p> - -<p>Lavelle's hand fell on Rowgowskii's shoulder and hurled him round before -him. The craven crumpled to his knees. The beginning of a cry of terror -died in his throat in a mute gasp. To him this man who stood over him -was come back from the dead.</p> - -<p>"Pray—if you can," said Lavelle in a grim voice of fate. He stepped -back a pace as he spoke.</p> - -<p>It was a pronouncement of doom that he had uttered. Rowgowskii's gaze -went from Lavelle to Emily. His hands went out to her in supplication. -His lips moved but made no sound.</p> - -<p>"Captain," she called pityingly.</p> - -<p>She took a step toward him. Without turning "The Shadow" raised a -staying hand.</p> - -<p>Rowgowskii turned from Emily at her call to meet again the merciless -gaze of Lavelle.</p> - -<p>"Pray," said Lavelle, moving toward him.</p> - -<p>The light of all reason went out of the doomed man's face. A maniacal -cry burst from him. He leaped to his feet. Lavelle sprang at him. With a -speed of a hawk's swoop the Russian turned and fled to the cliff. A -second he hesitated on the brink and then plunged over it headlong.</p> - -<p>A moment of silence, then a splash and a lingering cry echoed up the -face of the cliff. The gold woman's tortured nerves relaxed. Senseless -she dropped where she stood.</p> - - - -<hr style="width: 65%;" /> -<h2>CHAPTER XIX</h2> - - -<p>With the Russian's wild death cry still echoing in her senses Emily -awoke a half-hour later to a vivid consciousness. She found herself -lying in the protecting shade of the boat sail tent which Lavelle had -erected for her habitation near the eastern side of the hill on the day -after the landing. The scene upon which her eyes had closed flashed -again across her vision and she sat up with a shudder.</p> - -<p>The movement brought to her senses for the first time a realization of -physical pain. Remembering the strength of spirit which had been given -to her to stand upon fire she throttled the cry which sprang to her -lips. Her suffering became precious to her even as the agony of travail -is dear to a woman. Her eyes welled with hot tears.</p> - -<p>Putting out a hand blindly she found the little canvas sandals. She -picked them up and pressed them to her bosom. The charred heels and -soles crumbled away at her touch. She kissed them with the impulse which -would carry a warrior's lips to his colors. To her these pieces of -canvas were the symbols of a faith which had sustained her in a trial -which passed her understanding.</p> - -<p>Looking downward at her feet, she found both of them bandaged. She had -been dimly conscious of Lavelle doing this service for her. She -recognized the bindings as pieces of the hem of her night robe with -which she had bound his brow in the boat. A mysterious thrill went -through her; her eyes overflowed.</p> - -<p>The breeze lifted the edge of the tent and disclosed Lavelle to her -view. She caught the canvas and held it back. He was just finishing the -restepping of the signal mast. His back was toward her.</p> - -<p>Straightening from his task to his full height and with one of his -strong bare arms extended to the mast and the other hanging loosely at -his side, he looked out over the sea to the southward. His tattered -shirt and trousers still wet with sea water clung tightly to his lithe, -powerful form. There was a challenge in the set of his head and in the -grim line of his jaw. His attitude breathed of a man indomitable—one -who, indeed, was master of his fate; the intrepid captain of his soul. -His destiny would find him thus.</p> - -<p>The woman in the tent watched this man in wondrous awe, nor could she -know that his thoughts were alone of her at that moment—of a woman -sanctified in his sight not alone by living fire, but also by the -passion of a love unutterable. She saw the breeze toss the forelock of -his dark brown hair. He started. She dropped the edge of the tent, -realizing, without any amazement, that they two were alone in an empty, -far-flung waste of the world. She laid her head down on her long coat -which he had rolled into a pillow. She dared not speak.</p> - -<p>During what seemed an interminable time, the woman in the tent heard -Lavelle moving about outside, and, of a sudden, the singleness of his -footfall brought Chang surging into her thoughts. A moment later Lavelle -stood in the tent entrance, carrying food and drink. She sat up to -behold in his face an expression which stabbed her with its pain.</p> - -<p>"You are suffering, little woman," he said tenderly.</p> - -<p>All she could do was shake her head that she was not. Discovering what -it was she was holding tightly to her bosom he turned away. He -understood.</p> - -<p>Presently he pressed her to eat the meal he had prepared. Although it -nearly choked her to swallow she ate and drank because he wished her to -do so.</p> - -<p>"What of Chang? Has he gone—gone away?" she dared to ask finally.</p> - -<p>The man sitting in the tent entrance had his gaze fixed far away upon -the relentless ocean's breast. He nodded his head sadly.</p> - -<p>"God's benison be with him—the truest, the best friend it has ever been -given to any man to know," Lavelle said, facing Emily. After a second's -pause he went on in a tense voice:</p> - -<p>"This treacherous earth—treacherous with the sea's treachery—opened at -our feet down there like the snapping jaws of a monster. Chang went -first. I put out a hand to save him. The jaws got me.</p> - -<p>"It seemed very hard that the end should come like that—without even a -moment to say good-by." Lavelle paused again. "You can have no idea," he -resumed, "what a torment of waters is down there—waters filled with -reeds and roots which catch at one's limbs and cling to them—like -serpents.</p> - -<p>"As we came up to—to snatch at the crust of shore—it crumbled at our -touch. I could see the hill. You—you had just turned away. As I looked -your head passed out of my sight. Then, we saw that—that fiend climb up -here. We saw him stop and—and look back. I shouted—that is, I tried to -shout, but I had no breath. I never was so weak in all—all my days. -But whether he heard me or didn't he must have seen what had happened to -us. He would never have dared come near you—if he hadn't.</p> - -<p>"The earth broke under our hands again and again. The sea tore at us. -There is a tremendous current under this island. I heard you cry -for—for us to come to you. Chang heard you. But we were -caught—struggling like two foolish animals in a trap. When the signal -staff went down——Why, I think—I could not think. We saw you come to -the edge of the hill there—heard you cry again, but the sea——"</p> - -<p>Lavelle became silent. His eyes sought the great blue deeps below. Emily -could not speak. Her soul was crying to comfort this man. The yearning -of an unknown motherhood was in her heart.</p> - -<p>"Like most sailor men—deep-water men——" he went on, "Chang could not -swim. I imagine he must have found a foothold in one of the roots in the -water. He caught me—suddenly—lifted me bodily, it seemed, up out of -the sea—on to the shore. He was very powerful. I turned to help him. -All was quiet up here. He shook his head and—and let go.</p> - -<p>"'Go, master. Quick—go! Good-by, flen'. Good-by flor you!'</p> - -<p>"A second only he floated. Then the sea sucked him—down. He went with a -smile—unafraid. And I came to—to you—on the hill. You don't——"</p> - -<p>His voice broke. He leaped to his feet and walked away. It is not a good -thing that a man's tears shall be seen by a strange woman.</p> - - - -<hr style="width: 65%;" /> -<h2>CHAPTER XX</h2> - - -<p>With the going down of that day's sun a long, heavy swell, accompanied -by the lightest of breezes, set in from the southwest. It was an ominous -sign to Lavelle, nor could he conceal this thought when he carried -Emily's evening meal to her. She asked him to bring his food and eat it -in the tent entrance.</p> - -<p>The castaways ate their pitiable rations in silence, but before this -short time passed the island was moving in concert with the heave of the -sea.</p> - -<p>A shocking, sense-stunning crash where a part of the western cliff -slithered down into the deep sounded the end of the meal. While the roar -was dying away the eyes of the man and woman met and held in a glance of -understanding.</p> - -<p>"This is—is the end?" Emily asked in a low voice.</p> - -<p>"I think—it is not very far off, little woman," he answered. He told -her this truth because he knew hers was a spirit unafraid. By it she -knew that he knew and understood many things which words might not -encompass.</p> - -<p>"I thank you—so much," was her answer. She spoke with a frank gladness. -But the slightest quaver was in her voice.</p> - -<p>Lavelle left her to build up the signal fire. He felt certain that it -was for the last time. It was to him the funeral pyre of a hope which -died by the minute, and he laid on the fuel with unsparing hand. Some -night-borne craft might by miracle see its gleam, yet the light of a -moon in all the splendor of fullness lessened this remotest of -possibilities to the barest minimum.</p> - -<p>Although Lavelle was gone from the tent but a little while, it seemed an -eternal time to the woman, who waited for his return. And when he came -her eyes were dry; and she held out a hand for him to help her to her -feet.</p> - -<p>"I have no pain," she said, answering his protest. "I speak the truth. I -wish to be out in the night—with you."</p> - -<p>After the first step or two Emily walked freely and, indeed, the pain of -her burns had passed away. The while Lavelle knelt to make a seat for -her she stood sweeping the heavens with her luminous eyes. Across the -northern sky a large star, falling, burst upon her vision.</p> - -<p>"See!" she exclaimed, and then, turning toward him, she repeated -Calpurnia's words to Cæsar:</p> - -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">"'When beggars die there are no comets seen;<br /></span> -<span class="i0"> The heavens themselves blaze forth the death of princes!'"<br /></span> -</div></div> - -<p>It was a night made for life and love and the joys of living—not death; -a night to set the soul singing in gladness of being. It seemed to have -garnered the uttermost spaces of their brightest jewels to bedeck its -violet cope and make it the harder for this man and woman to say -farewell to mortality.</p> - -<p>Save in the intervals when Paul went to replenish the fire he sat at -Emily's side, and together they watched and listened to the majestic -travailing of the weariless, pitiless deep.</p> - -<p>It was not far from midnight when the sea tore away half of the meadow -and the palm tree. This bit of earth floated in their sight for but a -breath. It was; then it was not. Where it had been was a patch of -leaping, roiling waters, white-fanged like wolves at a kill.</p> - -<p>Emily put out a hand and took one of Paul's.</p> - -<p>"The end—it will come—like that—quickly," she whispered. "I -will—will not be afraid—I am sure—if you will let me hold your hand."</p> - -<p>Paul Lavelle could make no answer save pressing the gentle hand in both -of his. It was sufficient to comfort her. After a long silence she -asked:</p> - -<p>"Why are you not afraid?"</p> - -<p>"I don't know," he answered simply, "unless it is because I can't -believe—that a marvelous creation like mankind stops—with what we call -death. I can't believe that wondrous beings—like you—and Chang, -capable of the sublimest thoughts and impulses—come and go and are no -more. Rather I think that what we are facing is 'Yet a little sleep, a -little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep.'"</p> - -<p>Nor was Emily conscious of her hand clasping Paul Lavelle's with love's -tightness in its pressure.</p> - -<p>"My father believed as you," she began, only to stop short as she felt -him start. She had ever been on her guard against speaking of her people -to this man, for she knew his sensitiveness as to the past. But once had -she made reference to the tragedy which embraced her life and his. That -was in the boat when she had assailed him to save Rowgowskii from -drowning. Now she knew not what else to say.</p> - -<p>"Miss Granville," he said presently.</p> - -<p>"No, no, please don't!" she protested. "Not that tone; not that -distance. Call me friend, comrade—just as you have been doing these -past few days. Call me Emily. It would please me; it would sound—like -home to—to hear somebody call me by the old name once more."</p> - -<p>"Emily," Lavelle went on, "I should like you to know what happened that -night on the <i>Yakutat</i>—the truth. If you——"</p> - -<p>"No," she interrupted him. "If I say to you that—that I do not wish you -to tell me, you will not misunderstand?"</p> - -<p>"As you wish," he answered, but there was a chill in his voice.</p> - -<p>"No, no!" she cried. "You do not have to tell me what happened. Don't -you understand? I know. I know you to be brave—and true and upstanding. -I know you acted as only one unafraid—fearless as you are, could have -acted. And I thank God that he has given it to me to know you and—to -understand!"</p> - -<p>Her voice broke. Her eyes, swimming with tears, saw him turn toward the -fire. A weight seemed lifted from him. She sensed the coming of a great -peace to his soul.</p> - - - -<hr style="width: 65%;" /> -<h2>CHAPTER XXI</h2> - - -<p>A high dawn—one presaging storm—found the castaways standing beside -the signal fire which swiftly smoldered into the ashes of hopelessness. -The swell had increased during the morning hours. The hill now afforded -a footing unsteadier than a laboring ship's deck. The breeze of the -night continued light and steady.</p> - -<p>With the first glimmer of day Lavelle went searching the sea. His gaze -swung the horizon again and again, following the withdrawing mantle of -night only to confront the old bitter emptiness of all the days that had -gone before.</p> - -<p>Lavelle's eyes kept seeking the distance, but Emily's, untrained, sought -the sea at hand. So it was that her sight was the first to discover a -sail barely two miles away to the south and west.</p> - -<p>At the discovery her throat closed. She could not speak. She stood -breathless, half in trance. Lavelle, turned to the eastward, felt her -clutch his arm. He sent a glance whither she dumbly pointed.</p> - -<p>"A sail!" he cried. "Saved! This means life, you brave, brave soul!"</p> - -<p>He seized her by the arms and shook her as a boy meeting a boy playmate -might have done. Her whole being thrilled at his touch. A glorious light -of love came into her countenance, but he saw it not.</p> - -<p>As he spoke to her he dropped her arms and his glance sprang away to -find the sail again. Fixing it, Lavelle could not control his amazement. -Emily saw a great seriousness succeed the expression of delight in his -face and manner. A chill touched her new-born hope.</p> - -<p>"What do you see, captain? What is it?"</p> - -<p>"I don't know what to tell you. I am not sure yet. Still there is -something strange——"</p> - -<p>"Why, that ship——It is moving sideways!" she cried. "It is not -sailing!"</p> - -<p>Lavelle, indeed, was puzzled. The strange sail was an iron or steel bark -of perhaps twelve hundred tons, hove to on the port tack. Her forecourse -and foretopsails were set. The foretopgallantsail hung in its clewlines -and buntlines. The maintopgallantsail and topsails were set and laid -full aback against the mast. The main course was clewed up. The peak of -the spanker had been let go and the gaff was flailing from side to side. -She carried two skysails. These and the royals were furled. All of the -headsails, with the exception of the foretopmast-staysail, were down -and trailing away from the bowsprit and jibboom. None of the other -staysails was set. She was laden and laboring hard. It seemed that the -swell must roll the sticks out of her.</p> - -<p>From the height at which they stood Lavelle and Emily could see her lie -down with every heave of the sea and put her lee rail under.</p> - -<p>Now, for a second, rolling deeper than she had before, Lavelle, from a -new angle, confirmed what he had suspected from the beginning. Her wheel -was deserted! Her decks were lifeless! She was in charge of herself!</p> - -<p>The bark was rapidly drifting closer. Another fifteen minutes, Lavelle -figured, would carry her by the island half a mile to the southward. It -was a moment for quick decision. Emily read his purpose to swim to the -bark.</p> - -<p>"God alone knows, Emily, what mystery confronts us. But our only chance -of life lies out there. It may be another trap, comrade, but we must -hope. I feel that, for your sake, I must——"</p> - -<p>"For our sakes," she interrupted him, but he did not seem to hear her. -He was bending over, removing his shoes.</p> - -<p>"I'll win back to you—I'll come for you if it be in——"</p> - -<p>"It will not be in death, but in life."</p> - -<p>Startled, eagerly he beheld the love-light in her eyes, only to turn -quickly away. His heart throbbed as if it must burst. His tortured soul -moaned in its yearning and passion to crush her to his breast. In the -face of death he would have claimed her at this sign; gone out with his -lips pressed to hers. In the face of life—the promise of living which -the bark held forth—he, the pariah, said no to his desire.</p> - -<p>His face was masked and cold as he turned toward her again, and the gold -woman bent her head for shame. He broke out the boat mast and, carrying -it over his shoulder, he held out his hand and led her swiftly down the -hill. His hand was very cold. He set her a lookout point at the foot of -the hill.</p> - -<p>"Wait here," he said in a voice which sounded unlike him. "At no second -lose sight of the bark. Be on your guard. If anything should happen to -the island cling to this mast. It will keep you up. I'll come for -you—I'll pick you up."</p> - -<p>His gray eyes were glistening with suppressed emotion.</p> - -<p>"And if—if," she said, "this should be good-by—and we should not meet -again——"</p> - -<p>She drew his head down and kissed him full upon the lips.</p> - -<p>Without a word he ran across the meadow to the sea.</p> - -<p>Emily watched him as he dropped off the swaying land and struck out -powerfully toward the bark now head on to the southern shore. For a -moment her heart grew still with misgiving. Then, it thrilled with a -joyous impulse. She hurried across the meadow. As she went she removed -her long cloak and the golfing jacket. At the shore she stopped and tore -the bandages from her feet. Looking seaward she saw where Lavelle swam. -Dropping her skirt quickly she stood for a second in the long white -night robe in which she had escaped the <i>Cambodia</i>. Inhaling a long, -deep breath she plunged overboard fearlessly.</p> - -<p>Lavelle, looking backward, missed Emily. His spirit slumped. He paused -his stroke, fearful for her safety.</p> - -<p>The sun at that moment burnished the crest of a wave behind him. A white -arm clove its mane of foam and his heart leaped to behold the gold woman -following in his wake.</p> - - - -<hr style="width: 65%;" /> -<h2>CHAPTER XXII</h2> - - -<p>The sight of this woman following after him held Paul Lavelle bound for -the moment in the inertia of awe. All sense of their common and great -peril left him. Wonder robbed him of the power of thinking just as it -had on the island when she had drawn his head to her and pressed her -lips upon his. He comprehended the thing by instinct alone.</p> - -<p>With the powerful, sweeping overhead stroke of a practiced swimmer Emily -overtook him on the crest of a foaming surge. The plaits of her hair had -been washed by the sea into a free golden mane. The grace of a Nereid, -of the ocean itself, was in her. She might have been borne of the deep. -The myth of Thetis must have had such a conception.</p> - -<p>As she swung up to him, shoulder to shoulder, Lavelle turned on his -side. With a toss of her head she brought it clear of the water. The -light of her countenance said to him as plainly as words could have -done: "I am here! I am thine!" He caught her and drew her face to his. -His lips went to hers and clung in a wild, fleeting second of union. -Then, side by side, they struck out to meet their destiny.</p> - -<p>Taking the weather berth, Paul set the pace toward the strange vessel. -It was already to leeward of the island's median line. The send of the -swell, however, more than balanced the craft's swift drift in the -swimmers' favor. Yet the half-mile of their turbulent course was a test -for the strongest and bravest. The willful, tenacious power of love -sustained Emily until they came within hail of their goal. Here flesh -and blood struck. Her spirit remained undaunted, but the body refused -the spirit's demands upon it.</p> - -<p>Sensing that Emily was failing, Lavelle put out a hand and turned her on -her back. In that moment he realized, too, that he was near exhaustion. -The ridge of a gigantic surge lifted them higher than the rail of the -bark. Paul could distinguish every fixture of her deserted decks. The -sea dropped away with them. The next instant the vessel's leaden-colored -side and half of her copper-painted bottom were reeling over them. They -might have been looking up at her from the bottom of the ocean. Her -masts appeared to pierce the blue, sun-shot sky.</p> - -<p>Although convinced there was no ear aboard the vessel to hear Paul drew -on his rapidly waning strength to send a yell down to her. The sails -flung back a faint, mocking echo. All the while his eyes were searching -for some means of boarding. Being an iron vessel the bark's sides -presented no chain plates or channels for a hand hold. Deeply laden -though she was the bights in which her braces trailed were far beyond -his reach even when she rolled.</p> - -<p>The belief that he might be able to climb aboard with the aid of a lee -brace had been with him when he took to the water. From the island it -had seemed that this gear swept the sea with every surge. Not so much as -an eyebolt offered a ray of hope. The boomkins were as possible of -touching as the tops. He turned toward the bows. There might be a chance -forward, but he felt certain that Emily's strength would never withstand -the mauling of the sea that must follow catching hold of the bobstay.</p> - -<p>Lost for a moment in the eagerness of his search, the bark had drifted -down upon them until a stroke would have brought them together. The -sensation of being drawn down made him aware of it. It shocked him into -action. Dragging Emily with him, Paul plunged away just in time to -escape a terrific suction produced by the vessel's laboring.</p> - -<p>Hardly were they clear of this new peril, which he instantly realized -must be taken into account, when something wound itself around Paul's -legs with a jerk. It clung like the tentacle of a monster. It snatched -him toward the vessel. The bark was lifting at the moment. He and Emily -were falling away in a valley of beryl. Instinctively he threw himself -on his back, kicking as best he could to free his prisoned limbs. A -glance, as his feet came clear of the water, transported him from the -depths of fear and hopelessness to the heights of hope. He was entangled -in a rope's end which was attached to the bark. He caught it just as it -was slipping away from him. Overhauling it with one hand he found it to -be a gauntline which trailed away from a block at the end of the lee -main yardarm. To his sailor mind it told how the vessel's small boats -had been hoisted out of her.</p> - -<p>It was with misgiving that he drew the line toward him. It came so -freely that he was certain that it was but another mockery. At each pull -he expected to see its length come darting through the block. Presently -it held; it sustained his weight. It was fast aboard the vessel. His -heart bounded at the discovery. He passed a bight round Emily's waist -and darted from her side forward. Hurling himself into the smothering -suction under the bows, he clutched the bobstay as it buried itself. -Down he went with it, dragged further and further until it seemed that -he must let the sea have him. A monster with an hundred beaks tore at -his lungs. Another clawed at his eyes. Still another gnashed at his -heart. A bare glimmer of consciousness marked the end of the downward -pitch. As the bark rose he continued to climb. At the end of the rise he -was clear of the sea and halfway to the cap of the bowsprit. The fangs -which reached for him did not get him again.</p> - -<p>Half an hour afterward Paul Lavelle found himself lying on a deck with -water hissing over him and round him. It gurgled in his ears and foamed -across his throat. It was being spat at him out of three or four -scuppers and a bulwark port on his right. He was in the waist of a -vessel. This was a hatch coaming against which his left side was -pressed—the coaming of the vessel's main hatch. He sat up and saw Emily -lying across the hatch unconscious. The bight of the gauntline was still -around her. As he struggled to arise, only to fall back again, his cheek -swept one of her feet which dangled over the edge of the coaming. Yes, -he had torn that woman out of the sea's arms. There she was in evidence -of that, but where he had found the strength, how he had done it or when -he had done it, he had no idea.</p> - -<p>The names Emily and Daphne were mixed in his thoughts. It took a severe -mental struggle to identify his own name. He repeated it two or three -times before he recognized it. Emily was the name of the woman on the -hatch. But Daphne? This name puzzled him until his wandering gaze found -a row of deck buckets in a rack on the edge of the forward house. -<i>Daphne</i> was painted on each bucket. Then slowly it came to him that he -had seen it on the bows of a vessel aboard which he had climbed a long -time before.</p> - -<p>His senses were bogged in the reaction of the despair of -exhaustion—that hopeless dejection which follows a supreme mental or -physical exertion and whose poignancy is the greater according to the -successful degree of the effort. He slipped back to his full length in -the water and lay staring up at the sky.</p> - -<p>"Paul! Paul!"</p> - -<p>His name called in a plaintive tone over his head was what finally -aroused him to a realization of his situation. The voice touched a chord -in his being that impelled him to action. It sent a wave of emotion -through him. He rose to a sitting posture. Again his cheek brushed the -gold woman's feet, and at the touch he bent his head quickly and kissed -them. It was not the first time he had done this, but it startled him -now, for he sensed that she was conscious of what he did. Yet thus on -the island he had kissed her reverently and sacredly when he had bound -her burns.</p> - -<p>As he struggled to his feet Emily sat up. Her hair fell across her -shoulders and bosom and across her limbs in a golden shower.</p> - -<p>"Oh, woman of all the world," he murmured, "we still live!"</p> - -<p>This woman was his. She had challenged him against the sea—matched him -against all its brute force—and he had won her.</p> - -<p>For a second only Emily met and held Paul's glance. Then, lowering her -head and throwing herself in abandon across the hatch, she burst into -tears. So did the reaction of all she had passed through come upon her.</p> - -<p>Paul turned away, chastened by those tears. He realized that no word he -might utter then would assuage one drop of them. Action called to him, -but he seemed to be unable to put a hand on the situation. A long -weather roll caught him unawares. It flung him across the deck and he -brought up against the fife rail around the mainmast. His limbs -quivered under him; his knees knocked together in weakness. Every muscle -of him throbbed and twitched from the effects of the battle he had waged -with the sea. A momentary dread that he would never recover his strength -seized him.</p> - -<p>It was in that instant that his gaze snapped a glimpse of the island far -up to windward. It appeared very small. He marveled that the bark could -have drifted so far. A lee roll cut the bit of land from his view. He -started to call Emily, but forbore at the sound of her sobbing. As if -fascinated he waited until the bark lifted on the shoulder of the next -swell. Like sugar melting in a teacup the island dissolved in his sight. -It stirred him mightily. It aroused in him the spirit of combativeness. -It made him realize that the sea would stand not on his dalliance. It -ordered him to action and to confront the mystery of the ocean's traffic -with the abandoned <i>Daphne</i>.</p> - -<p>It required but a glance for him to confirm his estimate of the vessel's -size which he had formed in his first view of her from the island and -while he swam beside her. She was not less than 1,200 tons burden—about -200 feet long and less than forty feet beam—and heavily sparred. Her -lower masts and topmasts were of iron or steel. They were pole masts; -that is to say, in one continuous piece. The lower and double -topsail-yards also were built of iron or steel. Everything bespoke the -fact that she had been built for driving.</p> - -<p>Calling to Emily that he would be gone but a minute, Paul drew an iron -belaying pin from the fife rail and started aft. He armed himself -against surprise, although he felt instinctively that he and Emily were -alone. Still, all to be seen about decks indicated that the bark had not -been long abandoned.</p> - -<p>A teakwood door was open and hooked back against the cabin's forward -bulkhead. A similar door on the starboard side was shut. Through the -open door he entered the after-living quarters. A slamming of doors and -the familiar sound of the hard woods in the cabin's trim, working in -their joinings, answered the invader's hail flung from the threshold. -Once inside, he found himself in a white-painted alleyway at the end of -which a banging door gave him a glimpse of the forward cabin or saloon. -His nostrils first caught a stench of lamps which had flickered out in -oil dregs.</p> - -<p>All ships are so ordered in their appointments that a seaman is never at -a loss to find his way in any. Lavelle could have gone about the -<i>Daphne</i> blindfolded. He did not have to look at the brass plate over -the first door off the alleyway on his right to tell it was the room of -the chief mate. The door was open, but something behind it kept it from -swinging more than a couple of inches as the vessel labored. He gave it -a quick shove and stepped inside the room, only to pause with a gasp of -horror.</p> - -<p>At the invader's feet, bathed in the morning sunlight which poured -through two ports, lay the stark body of a young, lithe-limbed son of -the sea. Barely more than a boy he had been. There was a gaping bullet -wound between his eyes. It was a wound of exit—where the lead which had -killed him had sped away from its work. It cried out a story of -assassination to Lavelle; it shrieked to him that the young fellow had -been shot from behind, possibly as he slept in his berth with his back -toward the door. The rolling of the ship had brought the body to the -deck where it lay.</p> - -<p>The lockers of the room were wrenched open. Everywhere were signs of -disorder; the marks of hurrying, marauding hands. Yet the room had been -the castle of a man of order and cleanliness. Lavelle looked -particularly for the bark's log book which ordinarily should have been -on the small desk at the foot of the berth. It was missing.</p> - -<p>With a thought of how sweet life must have been to this young fellow and -with his wrath hot against his slayers, Lavelle stepped across the -alleyway to the second and third mates' room. Its door opened at a -touch. Here, strangely, the sour, unmistakable odor of the forecastle -met him. Instantly the searcher visualized the coarse type of men who -had occupied these quarters—the rule-of-thumb sort, who may spend a -lifetime at sea without ever winning to a rank above second mate. Here -disorder was not apparent because disorder was a natural thing.</p> - -<p>There was a stateroom abaft the mate's. It was empty. A door immediately -opposite had been forced. It was another stateroom filled with stores. -It was plain that a quick draft had been made upon these supplies.</p> - -<p>Darting into the forward cabin, only the echo of his own hail answered -him. A red tablecloth lay on the deck where it had been swept by some -person hurrying by or else in a struggle. A white metal castor rolled -under the dining table and made a tinkling noise among its broken -cruets. The pantry and three more staterooms opened upon this cabin. The -staterooms reported only emptiness. They had not been recently -occupied. The pantry's cleanliness and order might have been produced by -a careful housewife's hands.</p> - -<p>The doors leading into the after cabin were open and hooked back. Like -the forward compartment, it was done in Indian teak, bird's-eye maple, -and mahogany. It was furnished with two comfortable easy chairs, a small -center table, and a divan built into the bulkhead against the starboard -side. A tiny piano stood between the forward entrances. Through the -after end a companionway led up on to the poop.</p> - -<p>There were two more staterooms here. They were empty and gave no signs -of recent occupancy. They were on the port side. To starboard was the -chart room. A litter of books, charts, and chart pipes covered its -floor. The chronometer case stood open. A glance told Paul that it had -been wound within forty-eight hours. He bent his head and quickly caught -a tick of even, smooth escapement.</p> - -<p>Hurrying aft from the chart room, the castaway came to what he knew to -be the skipper's room. The door to it was shut. Its middle panel was -splintered. Something made him turn the knob with gentleness.</p> - -<p>Just inside the door to the left a man in pajamas sat at a small -writing desk, his head cast upon his arms as if sleep had suddenly -overtaken him. His head swayed as Paul looked down at him. It was -lending itself to the swing of the vessel, but the motion was so natural -that, for the moment, Lavelle was deceived. A strange hope sprang into -his heart.</p> - -<p>"Wake up, old man! Wake up!" he called. He even shook him by the -shoulder, but the man at the desk was sleeping a sleep that knows no -mortal awakening.</p> - -<p>Under the stiff arms Paul spied the log book which he had missed from -the mate's room. He pulled it out and the dead man's head rolled back -and compelled his disturber to meet the gaze of his wide-open, staring -blue eyes. A pen rolled out from under his right hand and dropped from -the desk.</p> - -<p>This undoubtedly was the <i>Daphne's</i> skipper. He had been a man of -powerful build, standing in life as tall as Lavelle himself. Even in the -laxness of death his jaw bespoke indomitable determination. The nose was -of a splendid aggressive type. Death had taken him in the beginning of -his best years. He could not have been more than forty years of age.</p> - -<p>A crimson splotch just below the chest line told where the man's life -blood had gone out. Measuring its location by sight with the height of -the door's splintered panel, Lavelle ventured a deduction of how the -<i>Daphne's</i> master and mate had been assassinated. The master had been -asleep or, at any rate, he had retired. His apparel, his disturbed berth -told that. He had heard the shot which did for the mate, or, perhaps, he -might have gone to the door unsuspectingly to answer a knock or summons. -His hand turning the knob had been the signal to the assassin on the -other side of the door to send a bullet crashing through it into his -midriff.</p> - -<p>But how the skipper had come to have the log book in his room it was not -possible to surmise unless, after being shot, he had had the strength to -make his way to the mate's room and back again. Again he might have -taken the keeping of the log into his own charge. Could he and the mate -have quarreled? Asking himself this question, the searcher's eyes ran -down the pages at which the book had lain open and stopped with a shock -at three words:</p> - -<p>"The second mate——"</p> - -<p>That was the final entry.</p> - -<p>It was written in a hand which had begun the formation of the letters in -a tight style and ended in the scrawling of a schoolboy, a blot and a -splattered dash. Where this dash finished there had death touched the -fingers which held the writer's pen.</p> - -<p>Whatever had happened aboard the <i>Daphne</i> it was the second mate who was -responsible for it. Paul was convinced there was no escape from the -indictment in those three words.</p> - -<p>It was a <span class="smcap">P.M.</span> entry under date of March 29. According to Paul Lavelle's -account of time it was now March 31. Some time during the night of two -days before—on the 29th—mutiny had lifted its red hands on the -<i>Daphne</i>.</p> - -<p>The log was written up to eight o'clock on the evening of the 29th. It -must have been the last thing the fair-haired boy now lying cold forward -had done before turning his lamp down for his eternal "watch below."</p> - -<p>But as startling as was the tragedy which loomed so boldly out of the -three simple words which have been quoted was the <i>Daphne's</i> position -given as of noon of that day: "Latitude 32:30 north; Longitude 176:28 -east."</p> - -<p>This instantly destroyed Paul's idea of the island's position. The bark -had drifted up on the island out of the southwest. Then, according to -the most reasonable assumption, she had been to the southward of it when -she was abandoned. That put the island between three and four hundred -miles to the northward of where the castaways had believed it to be all -the time. Its drift must have been to the north and east instead of the -southwest. This explained the absence of the trades; the variable -quality of the winds which had prevailed. The island had drifted across -the spot, or within a short distance thereto, of where the <i>Cambodia</i> -had found her grave.</p> - -<p>Paul decided to let the observation which he planned to make at noon -settle the puzzle of position. The moment demanded that he should give -his thoughts to it and the living, and not to the past and its dead. -Still as he laid the log down on the desk again he turned to the page -which began it and read, in the style of the ancient sea formula:</p> - -<p>"Log of the bark <i>Daphne</i>, 1,252 tons burthen, of Liverpool, England, -John McGavock, master, on her voyage from Sydney, N. S. W., toward San -Francisco, U. S. A."</p> - -<p>And with something of boyish pride the keeper of the log—it was not in -the skipper's writing—had posted his name with boldness at the head of -the list of the ship's company: "William Elston, chief officer." It was -the imagination of youth gilding the rank. It seemed to speak that the -<i>Daphne</i> had given the boy his first berth as mate.</p> - -<p>"And they murdered you, William Elston, and you, too, John McGavock," -said Paul with a sad bitterness, turning away from the desk.</p> - -<p>A frightened cry from Emily, a smothered sob and the patter of her bare -feet carried Paul through the open door, but not quickly enough to cut -off her view of the still occupant of the skipper's room. She shrank -into his arms shuddering, and as he pressed her to him she tried to -crush her sobs against his breast.</p> - -<p>"Don't be frightened—don't be frightened, dearheart," he crooned to -her. His lips found her brow, her eyes, her mouth.</p> - -<p>"I—I——Oh, Paul, I thought you had gone—away," she sobbed. "You -were—were so long."</p> - -<p>Paul had not been away from the deck more than five minutes, but the -time had seemed to her thrice and thrice again as long.</p> - -<p>Brokenly she told him how, as she had entered the door through which she -had seen him disappear, her eyes had found the figure of the mate -stretched in his room.</p> - -<p>"Then—there is another—one—in there!" she went on. "Oh, Paul, never -leave me again! Will you, dear! Will you? Not until death comes to take -us both?"</p> - -<p>Her teeth were chattering from cold and nervous exhaustion.</p> - -<p>"No, dear; not until death," he answered her pleading, but the kiss -which he pressed on her mouth spoke in greater reassurance to her heart -than his words. "Much has happened here—much that I don't understand; -much that we may never understand. But just now we must think of -ourselves. We must think of living; of fighting on. You're going to -fight on with me, aren't you? You're going to be brave and never lose -hope? You don't know how brave you've been. You have been the -inspiration of the battle all along. Look up at me."</p> - -<p>His powerful arms held her away as he spoke and she glanced up at him -timidly.</p> - -<p>"It is not hard to be brave with you," she said, and he drew her to him -so fiercely that she could not help crying out.</p> - -<p>He released her in alarm. His arms dropped to his sides.</p> - -<p>"I'm a brute; I've hurt you, dear."</p> - -<p>"No, no," she protested with a smile of love, but her eyes sought a red -mark on her round, gleaming shoulder, and for the first time each of -them became conscious of the meagerness of her attire.</p> - -<p>"Did I bruise you that way?"</p> - -<p>"No, no, Paul. It happened when you were dragging me over the side. The -rope did it."</p> - -<p>As she spoke she drew the yoke of her long white gown higher on her -shoulders. Her cheeks mantled red with shame and he turned away from -her. Yet in the next instant her cheeks crimsoned a deeper hue in shame -of that shame, for it came to her as a truth that in the sight of this -man there could be no abasement.</p> - -<p>Paul reëntered the skipper's room, remembering that he had seen an -ulster and a mackintosh hanging in a corner to the right of the desk. He -swept them on to his arm in his bewilderment. It was one thing to outfit -a man; another to garb a woman. His eye caught a pair of socks hanging -over the edge of a half-open drawer under McGavock's berth. He snatched -these. He added a pair of straw sandals, whose toes protruded from under -the settee across the rear bulkhead, to his collection and also a -blanket—a fine white California blanket which lay in a roll at the foot -of the berth. It was the best he could think of doing at the moment.</p> - -<p>Emily was shivering on the divan when he returned to her.</p> - -<p>"Lie down there, dear," he said, "and I'll tuck you in and bring you -some coffee—something warm, anyway—and some food."</p> - -<p>"No, no, no," she said, starting up. "Don't leave me here—alone. Not -now. I know the dead can't hurt one, but—I must go with you. When all's -said and done, Paul—I'm only—only a woman——"</p> - -<p>She took the ulster from him and slipped it on. It was large enough to -have wrapped her round twice. She plunged her feet into the warm woollen -socks and gave a little sigh of pleasure.</p> - -<p>"I—I feel better already."</p> - -<p>"Now put these on."</p> - -<p>Paul handed her the sandals, and as she took them she studied them for a -second, only to glance up at him with a startled expression.</p> - -<p>"These are a woman's, Paul," she whispered. "And that——"</p> - -<p>She indicated the mackintosh, and he held it out before him.</p> - -<p>"This is a woman's, too," he said in the same breath with her.</p> - -<p>"A woman? A woman?" he repeated, and he wondered if here was the key of -the mystery of the <i>Daphne</i>.</p> - - - -<hr style="width: 65%;" /> -<h2>CHAPTER XXIII</h2> - - -<p>Together the castaways went forward to the galley, passing out of the -cabin through the starboard alleyway so that Emily might not see again -what was in the mate's room. As Paul stepped out on deck he mentally -marked the time by the sun's ascension. It was not later than 8:30 -o'clock.</p> - -<p>Signs of hurried departure met the eye on every hand in the galley. -Chief among them was a batch of bread which had been put to rising -beside the range. But Paul did not pause to make any examination until -he had rattled up a fire. He had picked up a box of matches in -McGavock's room. There was a bin of kindling and plenty of coal in the -scuttles, and it took only a few minutes to get a meal together. It was -the warmest and best breakfast they had enjoyed since they had been cast -away, albeit the mainstay was a porridge of canned corn which Paul had -hit upon as the most promising thing in a quick search of the stores -aft. For the rest there was hard tack and marmalade and coffee. This -coffee, a strong brew, was really the crown of the breakfast. Its very -odor was life-giving; strength-restoring.</p> - -<p>Over the breakfast Paul related with all the gentleness at his command -the facts which had been revealed by his search through the cabins. -There was little to add to what Emily had seen herself.</p> - -<p>"We are alone, Emily," he said, "except for those who will never wake -again."</p> - -<p>Fearful that similar heart-harrowing sights might be held by the forward -part of the vessel as those which the sore-beset girl had discovered aft -he induced her to remain in the warmth of the galley while he pressed -his search in the forecastle.</p> - -<p>"Don't—please don't stay long," she pleaded. "I feel—that—that I will -never be able to bear it—to have you go out of my sight again." A -shudder shook her. "When I saw you—a little while ago——Oh, the ship -fell on you! The bows came down and—buried you in the water——"</p> - -<p>"There, there, dear. Let us never think of it again. I have only a -glimmer of an idea—of what happened. I don't know what happened; in -fact, I don't want to know. All I do know and all I care about is—that -somehow I had the sand—the brute strength to save you. Just you of all -the world!"</p> - -<p>He seized her passionately as he spoke and kissed her. The pressure of -her firm, lithe body against his sent his blood clamoring. The natural -perfume of her hair made his brain hammer drunkenly. Still above the -tumult which beset his senses rang a mocking laugh—a devil's laugh. As -he caught it a chill went over him. He put Emily away from him as -fiercely as he had taken her and, crying, without a word, she sank on -the bench in front of the fire and hid her face in her hands. As he -turned away his brow was clouded with anger; his eyes filled with -bitterness.</p> - -<p>A second Lavelle stood motionless, his trembling breath an unuttered -curse of himself. Then he turned to the door at his side and banged it -open. It was the entrance to the cook's cubby-hole of a room. A piece of -matting and a wooden pillow in the bunk told that its late occupant had -been either a Chinese or Japanese. There was an odor, too, that bespoke -the recent presence of an opium smoker. He had departed in a hurry.</p> - -<p>There was another door leading aft from the galley. This was the -entrance to the carpenter shop and donkey engine room. A cubby-hole with -a bunk in it to port had been the carpenter's abode. Lavelle noted with -satisfaction the equipment of glistening, well-kept tools on the engine -room bulkheads.</p> - -<p>Hurrying forward, Paul entered the forecastle. It was an exceptionally -large one for a vessel of the <i>Daphne's</i> size. Echo answered his hail. -Mattresses—the straw pallets which sailors call "donkeys' -breakfasts"—clothes' bags, ditty bags, oilskins, sea boots, -sou'westers, an assortment of greasy pots, pannikins, and spoons, and -two filthy kids littered the black deck. Half a dozen chests gaped open, -their contents falling over their sides. The hands that had gone through -them had sought only the bottoms where money, trinkets, and supposed -valuables had been hidden by their owners. So had he found the chests in -the rooms of the second and third mates, the carpenter, and the cook. In -their extremity they had all acted alike—thought only of useless -baubles and left useful, necessary things behind.</p> - -<p>A sailor before the mast, used and inured to hardship, living by the -hour hand in hand with death, trained in the expectancy of sudden -danger, ever aware of the constant attendance of peril, might be -expected to act with more intelligence in an emergency which may cost -him his life than the humdrum-going citizen ashore. Left to himself, he -will go out of a ship in mid-ocean with a few shillings he has stored -in the bottom of his bag or chest, a model upon which he has been -spending most of his watches below, a derby hat or flash necktie for -which he paid four times too much at his last port. Rarely has he a -thought of necessary things—the countless useful articles of clothing -such as Paul Lavelle saw on every hand—overcoats, jackets, -underclothing—which a day or an hour in an open boat can make worth a -king's ransom.</p> - -<p>The forecastle had been emptied in a hurry, but it told no other tale -than that. There is no lair of mankind, no habitation of man's -devisement more cheerless than a ship's forecastle. There is no sight -more depressing, more dismal than one deserted.</p> - -<p>Paul, with a shudder, crossed from the starboard side, through which he -had entered, to port. The breath of fresh air which he caught as he -threw back the door and stepped out on deck was like a draught of wine. -His spirits lifted as it dissipated the sea-sour stench which his -nostrils were carrying. He turned forward immediately to at last come -upon an explanation of the exodus from the <i>Daphne</i>.</p> - -<p>The fore hatch was open. The covers were strewn about the deck. Up out -of the glistening cargo of coals came an odor of fire. There was no -smoke, but fire had been or was down there.</p> - -<p>He recognized the dangerous quality of the coals at once. It was fear of -it that had emptied the crew overside in panic. His mind, in the stress -which had been upon it while he was aft, had not grasped the probable -character of the cargo when he read in the log book with what the -<i>Daphne</i> was laden.</p> - -<p>Dropping down through the hatchway his bare feet felt no heat. None of -the signs of "trouble" which he knew so well was present. He had fought -cargoes like this one.</p> - -<p>All was cool below; not the faintest indication of gas. But still there -was an odor of fire. He crawled out into the wings, and as he did so his -eyes became accustomed to the semi-darkness. Thus by sight he located -the source of the baffling fire smell. It was under the deck just -forward of the hatch—a heap of ashes burned from all sorts of old junk. -Mattresses had made part of the fire.</p> - -<p>Not two feet away from where the fire had burned most briskly lay a -five-gallon tin of kerosene on its side. The arsonist who had carried it -there either had lost his nerve at the end and been afraid to open its -cock, or else he had depended upon it to explode.</p> - -<p>Still this fire which had been set with the intention of destroying the -<i>Daphne</i> had made much smoke and burned out impotently. The deck above -it was only slightly charred.</p> - -<p>Paul raked through the ashes feverishly. The coal underneath was as cool -to the touch as it was elsewhere. Not more than a handful of it was -blistered.</p> - -<p>When he drew himself up on deck again he hauled a couple of buckets of -water from over the side and threw it on the spot where the fire had -burned as a matter of extraordinary precaution. Nor did he forget to -bring the kerosene out of the hold.</p> - -<p>Emily met him with a smile of gladness, which immediately turned into a -laugh of humor as Paul stepped into the galley again.</p> - -<p>"Where have you been—what have you been doing?" she asked.</p> - -<p>"Why—what is the matter?"</p> - -<p>"You should see yourself in a glass. You're as black as a moor."</p> - -<p>He paused a second to survey himself. He indeed was a sorry sight. The -thin tattered shirt and the trousers which he had slashed off at the -knees when he struck out from the island still clung to him damply. His -limbs were black with coal dust.</p> - -<p>"I can imagine the color of my face," said he, and he rubbed the stubble -of beard on his cheeks. "But never mind my appearance—only pour me a -cup of that strong coffee."</p> - -<p>While he drank the black brew he summed up for Emily their exact -situation:</p> - -<p>"We're all alone, partner—just us. A fire panic emptied the vessel—a -fire which the murderers of the skipper and chief mate believed would -destroy the ship and the evidence of their crimes. The ship's laden with -Australian coals—a treacherous cargo. Knowing its dangerous character, -it is easy for me to understand what the first flash of smoke meant to -the minds of the sort of gang for'ard. They believed the cargo was -afire. With those in authority plying them with fear and not a voice to -steady them, they must have gone over the side like rats. The more haste -that marked their going the better were the plans of the ringleaders -suited. I cannot help believing that what happened aft was known to only -a few—the second mate and perhaps the third. Yet how was it explained -to those outside of the secret of the assassinations—the absence of the -skipper and chief mate? The ringleaders could have reported them as dead -without explaining what had killed them. They could have reported them -to have killed each other. They could have reported them as having -fallen overboard. They could have told the others even that the men had -been murdered, without giving any proof against themselves. But I must -have done with this conjecturing. It is idle."</p> - -<p>Paul put down his empty cup with impatience.</p> - -<p>"But where could they have gone?" Emily asked.</p> - -<p>"<i>Chi risponde presto, sa poco.</i> That is as the Italians have it: Who -answers suddenly knows little. The fact that they took provisions and -the three boats which the empty chocks show to have been in the bark -seems convincing that they did not flee to another ship. Perhaps they -believed they were near some land."</p> - -<p>"Maybe another island—a trap like ours? I looked for our island—out -there——It is gone."</p> - -<p>Paul nodded.</p> - -<p>"But these things—these sandals. There was a woman——"</p> - -<p>"I am thinking of a woman's presence in the mystery. The French say -there is always a woman."</p> - -<p>He spoke with an attempt at lightness which he was far from feeling. A -wince of unpleasantness indicated his true thoughts.</p> - -<p>"Do you agree with the French adage?" Emily asked. An enigmatical smile -played across her face as she put the question.</p> - -<p>"There is always one woman—one woman out of all the world," he -answered. His tone thrilled her. He studied her for a second -mysteriously. "You are very wonderful to me," he added, but his voice -was so low that it seemed that the thought back of it forced itself to -unconscious utterance. She met his gaze frankly; the unconcealed light -of love was in her eyes.</p> - -<p>Paul turned away from her abruptly and a chill came into her heart. She -saw the old expression of pain in his face—the expression she had -beheld there the day she had seen him first in the steamship agency in -Yokohama. It always came so unexpectedly.</p> - -<p>Looking out of the galley door to windward, Paul saw a clear sky. The -breeze from the southwest held steady at about six or seven knots. All -overhead signs promised fine weather, but the swell was ominous. Still -all the indications were that it was the aftermath of a storm which had -passed far to the westward.</p> - -<p>"You're the chief mate of the <i>Daphne</i> now," he said, facing her again, -"and it's your watch below. You slept but little last night, you know."</p> - -<p>"Last night," she said, repeating the words with a shiver. "Nor did you -sleep."</p> - -<p>"I will sleep when you have had yours."</p> - -<p>"But I want to be with you—to help—all I can."</p> - -<p>She felt that even sleep must not be permitted to take him from her -sight.</p> - -<p>"You will help best by obeying orders, little woman. The first rule of -the sea is obedience. Come."</p> - -<p>Paul started aft and Emily followed him in silence. She who had never -known mastership in her life went whither this man led and with no -thought of doing otherwise. He handed her up on the poop over the -weather gangway.</p> - -<p>It was an exceptionally long quarter deck for a vessel of the <i>Daphne's</i> -size. Abaft the mizzenmast and the saloon skylights stood a small -teakwood deck house comfortably furnished as a sort of lounge. It was -lighted by four large ports. Through the center of this house the after -companionway led below. On each fore and aft side was a leather -cushioned bench or divan, both long and wide enough to afford good -berths on which to steal a sleep and at the same time remain within -quick access of the deck. Against the forward bulkhead was a collapsible -chart table. The deck entrance opened on the steering compass and the -wheel. Running forward on each side of the vessel from the break of the -poop to the forward house were two pipe-railed bridges. Similar bridges -connected the forward house with the forecastle head. One might cover -the length of the ship from the mizzenmast to the eyes of her without -putting a foot on the main deck. Halfway between the mizzen and -mainmasts the bridges were connected by a platform on which stood the -standard compass.</p> - -<p>It was in the companionway deck house or lounge, as the castaways came -to call it, that Paul spread a berth for Emily with some blankets which -he took from one of the staterooms. Although she protested that she -would find it easy to remain awake if she could drink as much coffee as -he had—that she really wasn't sleepy—her head had hardly touched its -clean white pillow when her eyelids closed fast in a deep slumber. Sheer -will power had been keeping her up.</p> - -<p>There was grim work ahead of Paul Lavelle and he hurried to do it. It -must be finished when Emily awoke. Before entering the cabin, however, -he went forward and put a fire under the donkey boiler. Here was an -auxiliary crew—this engine—a good thirty horsepower at least. Hope -mounted in his breast as he examined it and found it in first-class -condition. For that matter, everything about the <i>Daphne</i> was strong and -good. She had been "kept up" is the way Lavelle would have described her -to another seaman.</p> - -<p>A plan of action which he had been formulating he now confirmed. He -would let the <i>Daphne</i> lie along hove to as she was until he could fix -her position and then, from that point attempt to work her, with Emily's -aid and the engine's, into a frequented track of vessels. Having made -such a track, he would hold on there the while he did his best to make -the nearest land. If what the bark's log said were true it would not be -long, the gods of the winds being kind, before they were in the track in -which the <i>Cambodia</i> had been lost.</p> - -<p>Thoroughly this man realized the seriousness of the situation which -confronted him. Before him was a task to give any man pause—a -twelve-hundred-ton bark at the mercy of the sea to be handled by -himself, a woman, and a donkey engine. There was no alternative to the -plan his mind had outlined. While he tested it from every angle, -instinct led him to many necessary small tasks. He sounded the ship's -well. There was no telling how much water might have entered her -through the open fore hatch. The rod came back as dry as a bleached -bone. It had not even rained since she had been abandoned. This -suggested examining her fresh-water supply. He sounded these tanks. They -held a supply for fifty days even if the bark had been manned by her -full complement. Besides, the donkey engine had a condenser attachment -for its own purposes and also for ship use in the event of a shortage.</p> - -<p>Paul Lavelle had never been aboard a handier vessel than the <i>Daphne</i>. -John McGavock and her young chief mate must have been very proud of her. -She was molded on clipper lines. In her heyday undoubtedly, judging from -the size of her mizzenmast, she had been rigged as a ship. That day had -been when the taunt, white-winged tea clippers were the mail carriers -and passenger greyhounds of the seas; and the men who mastered them -veritable nabobs of the deep. The lounge on the <i>Daphne's</i> poop, the -rich India teak and mahogany and bird's-eye maple of her commodious -saloons, the many staterooms, the appointments of her large galley -bespoke her as having been not among the least of these fliers. -Certainly she must have been a flash packet in the days of her youth -when she could have mustered twenty-five men in a watch to fist a -topsail. Paul knew that vessels like this had carried tremendous -crews—sometimes fifty, sixty, and seventy-five, idlers and all—in the -days of their pride when an hour cut from a passage meant gold for -owners and masters. His mother's father had been master and afterward -owner of such ships as the <i>Daphne</i>. But he had sailed them under a -different flag than hers—a flag which had driven him, the grandson, -away from it and to be a marked wanderer.</p> - -<p>This unpleasant personal thought turned Lavelle aft. He entered the -cabin through the door on the starboard side. Here he found three more -staterooms, which opened off an alleyway similar to the one on the -opposite side. These rooms had been long given up to storage purposes. -One was filled with barrels of flour and biscuits; the others held -cordage and bolts of untouched canvas. He carried away a bolt of the -newest, whitest duck and a coil of marlin.</p> - -<p>No tenderer hands could have given the <i>Daphne's</i> master and mate to the -sea; no voice could have bespoken their souls a kinder journey than the -stranger who shrouded and weighted them. He sent them away with a prayer -and a heartfelt farewell that a friend who had known them and loved them -a lifetime might have breathed.</p> - -<p>Paul was near breaking down when it came to the parting with William -Elston. Among the papers scattered around the lad he found the first -page of a letter which the boy had started to his mother on the day -after the <i>Daphne</i> had put out from Sydney. That was the day after -Christmas.</p> - -<p>"I'll be home in England—merry England—with you next Christmas, mother -mine——"</p> - -<p>That was as much as he could read. He put the crumpled sheet in the dead -boy's hands where he had already folded a photograph which had hung over -the berth. It was a picture of a simple vine-covered cottage such as are -to be met in the byways of villages and towns throughout England. -Clusters of roses peeped and seemed to nod over a hawthorn hedge in the -foreground. A collie stood at the gate, head lifted, ears cocked, and -muzzle searching the distance as at a master's coming. On the back of -the photograph was written in the hand which had kept the log: "My -Sussex Home.</p> - -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">"'In a fair ground—in a fair ground—<br /></span> -<span class="i0"> Yea, Sussex by the sea!'"<br /></span> -</div></div> - -<p>While the mystery which Paul met at every turn beckoned him on in -pursuit of it, he was careful to guard against giving any time except to -necessary things. He was compelled to give his attention to the donkey -boiler and galley fires forward as well as keep an eye on the sun's -ascension toward noon. The <i>Daphne's</i> position was the most important -thing to be ascertained. To this end he searched high and low for a -sextant. The mate's was missing; the skipper's, too. He found McGavock's -empty case in a corner of the chart room, where it had been thrown and -smashed. A mercurial barometer lay crushed beside it. Nor could he -discover the sailing chart of the bark's present voyage nor any other -chart of the Pacific.</p> - -<p>Abaft the companionway staircase he came upon a room which had escaped -his attention before. It opened upon a short alleyway into the -lazarette. Here were stowed the ship's slop stores. A door on the left -hand, as one went aft, led into the skipper's room. He had noticed it -when he had returned to get the ulster for Emily. Immediately opposite -was the entrance to a snug bathroom.</p> - -<p>Paul took advantage immediately of his discovery of the slop stores to -levy upon them for an outfit of clothing and shoes. When he had found -how plentiful was the vessel's supply of water he had vanquished the -dust and grime of his venture into the fore hold. The touch of the fresh -clothing, rough though it was, was pleasant. It was a link with the -world again.</p> - -<p>The while he dressed in the bathroom he observed many things which told -of a woman's presence—articles of the toilet too fine and dainty for a -man's use. A leather traveling dressing case lay on a small stand. It -contained a silver-mounted assortment of brushes and screw-top bottles. -He paused to examine them for a marking. There was none but the English -Sterling impression. Another thing which indicated to him that this room -had known a woman's presence was a tiny fern basket which swung over the -bath. Similar baskets hung in the skylight of each saloon and from the -ceiling in the skipper's room. These meant a woman's watchfulness and -tender care. Men who live and die by the sea know no green-growing -things; no flowers. The sea gives no flowers to its children; no sweet -odors for memory. It has gardens, but they are scentless and one may -enter them only when life is done. So perhaps it is just as well that -its flora is without fragrance.</p> - -<p>At one moment Paul was convinced that a woman had been in the <i>Daphne</i> -but recently: the next he doubted it. He did not wish to think that she -had been carried off in those small boats. The thought sickened him.</p> - -<p>He crossed from the bath into the skipper's room again, hoping that he -might have overlooked there some place where a sextant or quadrant might -be stored. Alongside the desk he spied a silver frame. It contained the -photograph of a laughing, blonde-headed girl of not more than two and -twenty—an wholesome English type of face; just such a woman as he -imagined a man like McGavock would go a-wooing and take to wife. He -regretted that he had not found it sooner. John McGavock might have -wished to take it with him. Paul set it on top of the desk again, from -which it had evidently been knocked, and turned away cudgeling his brain -to suggest where he might carry his search. His glance picked up a -knobless door in the bulkhead to the right of the desk. He dimly -remembered noticing it when he had taken the mackintosh and of fixing it -in his mind at the time as the vessel's medicine chest. It was fastened -with a spring lock. He stepped back from it, hesitated a second, and -with a heave of his shoulder burst it in.</p> - -<p>An odorous wave of English lavender rolled out upon him. The man closed -his eyes and inhaled the sweet freshness with a lingering breath. It -conjured memories of mother, sister, home, boyhood—all the tender -recollections of the days which had known no clouds; no bitternesses.</p> - -<p>The room which the door revealed was half filled with a woman's skirts -and gowns and coats hanging in order from the beams overhead. Along a -shelf against the forward side stood a neat row of six or seven pairs of -shoes and slippers. The drooping tops of some of them suggested little -soldiers grown tired of marching. The invader felt as if he had broken -into a holy place. A cedar-wood chest stood open on his left. On top of -a filmy heap of woman's things lay a Leghorn straw, trimmed with a -wreath of faded red silk roses. Across the hat was a baby's dainty -underslip.</p> - -<p>Turning away from the chest with a pang in his heart and a tightening at -the throat latch his eyes found the object of his search. A sextant lay -on top of the medicine chest which was built into the vessel's side. As -he picked it up eagerly and examined it, he discovered two new chart -pipes standing in the corner. In one of these was a new Admiralty chart -of the North and South Pacific Oceans.</p> - -<p>Carrying the pipes and the sextant, Paul Lavelle backed out of the -little room, and as he went he could not help feeling that he had -violated a shrine.</p> - - - -<hr style="width: 65%;" /> -<h2>CHAPTER XXIV</h2> - - -<p>Warned of a sudden that the sun was near the zenith, Paul hastened from -the engine room aft. Although he tried to go softly when he reached the -poop for fear of waking Emily he could not control the heels nor the -squeaking of his new slop chest shoes. He heard her calling him before -he was halfway to the wheel.</p> - -<p>As he appeared in the lounge door she sat up in dumb fear. For the -moment she did not recognize him in the rough blue shirt and corduroys -and strange cap into which he had changed.</p> - -<p>"It's I," he said, removing his cap with a smile.</p> - -<p>"Oh, Paul—Paul," she sobbed hysterically and covering her face as if to -shut something unpleasant away from her. "I—I have had such—such a -horrible dream. I——"</p> - -<p>"There, there," he said comfortingly and going in to her. She caught -hold of his hand. "Everything's going to come out all right. You know -you've been through an awful drive. If——I'm sorry I woke you. Try to -go back to sleep for another hour."</p> - -<p>"I couldn't—I couldn't. I was dreaming that—that you were out there -in the sea and that the ship was falling on you—pressing you down, -down, down! It isn't true! It isn't true!"</p> - -<p>Her voice rose nearly to a shriek in her effort to reassure herself. He -had won to his old control of himself.</p> - -<p>"No, no, it isn't true. Now listen: We're playing a big, big game here. -You're my partner. The only one I can depend on——"</p> - -<p>"Forgive me—I don't mean to be selfish or thoughtless or whimpery—or -the clinging-vine sort."</p> - -<p>"It's all right. All right, partner. It's a wonder you've a nerve left. -There are mighty few men who could have come through what you have and -not be folded up now. But I want you to think of this game. It's so big, -so big, that it's worth winning!" His tone, his expression, brought a -smile of interest into her face. "If you think you can't sleep I want -you to go down below and get into a heavy shirt like mine—the -strongest, heaviest clothes you can find. I've pulled a lot out of the -slop chest—socks and things. Then, there's a little room—you'll find -it in a corner of the skipper's. It's filled with a lot of woman's -things. There's a cedar-wood chest——You will know what to take."</p> - -<p>"A woman's things? There was a——"</p> - -<p>"All I can say is that the <i>Daphne</i> has known a woman's presence. When -she was here—what has become of her—God knows."</p> - -<p>"Before I slept I said a prayer for her. And every time I lie down to -rest I will pray for her safety."</p> - -<p>Emily stood up, but she hesitated as she started to descend the -companionway.</p> - -<p>"It's all right. There is nobody down there now. We're absolutely -alone," Paul said, noting her trepidation. "'Home is the sailor, home -from the sea, And the hunter home from the hill.'"</p> - -<p>Peace came to her spirit at the gentleness of his words and she went -below unafraid.</p> - -<p>By the noon sights which the <i>Daphne's</i> new master got he fixed her -position as Latitude 33:18 north; Longitude, 177:20 east. It astounded -him. He worked his calculations over and over again according to a -half-dozen different formulæ. The result was the same, except for an -unappreciable difference in longitude. So he made it 12 o'clock, setting -the local time by an old-fashioned silver watch which he had discovered -under the pillow in Elston's berth.</p> - -<p>Assuming the correctness of his reckoning, the <i>Daphne</i> was -approximately two hundred miles north and west of where the <i>Cambodia</i> -had gone down. In the light of this he had to accept it as a fact that -the island had drifted across the steamship lane. On the 29th the -<i>Daphne</i> had been in Latitude 32:30 and Longitude 176:28. He visualized -that day on the island. There had been a light breeze from sunrise to -sunset out of the northeast. With the going down of the sun it had begun -to veer through the north until it brought out of the southwest. Hove to -on the port tack, the bark most have followed the hauling breeze until -she had circled the island and then drifted up on it with the swell. It -was the only satisfactory solution of which Paul could think.</p> - -<p>There came to him now, with redoubled force, a thought which had formed -in the instant he had read in the log the port of the vessel's departure -and her destination: "What can have caused a ship bound from Sydney, New -South Wales, toward San Francisco, to be steered so far to the -westward?"</p> - -<p>He was compelled to turn from the puzzle and admit that he was baffled.</p> - -<p>During the half-hour preceding noon the swell had gone down -considerably. The breeze still continued steady from the southwest. An -aneroid barometer which he had discovered in the lounge, when he had -spread Emily's berth there, stood at an ordinary normal height. So he -decided to hold on as the bark lay until after luncheon, then get under -way, run before the wind for two hours, and take another altitude.</p> - -<p>As Paul turned away from the barometer hanging over the chart table, -Emily came up through the companionway. She wore a heavy blue flannel -shirt such as he had told her to put on and a blue walking skirt which -came to the tops of a pair of tan tennis shoes. She had plaited her hair -again and wound it round her head like a crown. The shirt was unbuttoned -at the throat, the cuffs rolled back. She presented a figure of -beautiful, efficient womanhood where she paused at the head of the -companionway, her arms half raised as if seeking Paul's approbation. -Never since the first day he had seen her had she seemed so strongly -feminine.</p> - -<p>"You are the——" There he broke an exclamation. He halted in the step -which he had taken toward her. Emily waited, her eyes half lowered. When -his voice broke she looked up in surprise. She was pale, despite the -soft tan with which exposure had dusted her face and throat. With an -embarrassed laugh Paul went on: "You would make gunny cloth seem like -the finest silk. Never ship sailed the seas with such a chief mate."</p> - -<p>It was a disingenuous, awkward speech. Ill at ease he hurried on to tell -her of the <i>Daphne's</i> position by the observations he had just made; of -the plans he had formed. All the while he talked, a thought, which had -been with him ever since the moment of madness in the galley and which -had lashed him all through the morning, sprinkled salt on the wounds in -his conscience.</p> - -<p>"I felt as if I were committing a sacrilege when I went into the little -room where the cedar chest is," Emily told him as they went forward to -prepare luncheon. "The chest is filled with a girl's wedding things. The -hat—the baby slip—I laid them away carefully and shut the lid on -them."</p> - -<p>She looked at the sea with a shudder. Paul noticed this and realized -that he must fight, too, to keep his companion's mind on pleasant -things. He quickly directed her thoughts to the future, explaining the -division of labor that must be theirs and the vigilance they must keep -to win a triumph of the sea. Her interest was enlisted more easily than -he imagined it would be, for her thoughts were busy with a future which -was calling her in all the beauty of life.</p> - -<p>Emily insisted upon preparing the luncheon, permitting Paul only to -shake up the fire. She did it well and, the while she was about it, he -took the opportunity to reëxamine the <i>Daphne's</i> log. He hoped to glean -from it some things which might aid him in the navigation of the bark. -It served, however, only to deepen the mystery.</p> - -<p>It was a clean record of routine for two weeks after the departure from -Sydney. The crew had been received aboard on Christmas night. It was not -hard to visualize the condition of the lot on such a day—the sorriest -day in the year for an outward-bound. The following morning she had -sailed—three months and eight days gone, or, as Elston had written at -noon of the 29th: "Our 96th day at sea from Sydney." This was the 98th -day.</p> - -<p>The first thing to seize Paul's professional eye importantly was the -absence of any designation of second or third mate. If the <i>Daphne</i> had -sailed without these officers then they must have been recruited -afterward from the forecastle gang. There was no telling from the names -of the sixteen members of the crew who these might have been. The list -comprehended every nationality under the sun.</p> - -<p>At the end of the first two weeks three pages had been torn from the -book. A week later another page was missing. There was not a week of the -entire ninety-six days up to the hour of abandonment which was complete. -Of course, it was plain to Lavelle that the man or men who had defaced -the book had done so to destroy something that had been written against -him or them.</p> - -<p>"But why not have hove the book overboard and been done with it?" Paul -asked himself. He could not answer the question.</p> - -<p>The <i>Daphne</i> had spoken no other vessels; sighted no sail so far as the -log disclosed. Fair weather had attended her to the equator, which she -had crossed on the fiftieth day out with a proper casting—Longitude 119 -west. This was in the track made by sailing vessels bound from Australia -to the west coast of the United States. Then had followed calms until -she had fallen in with the northeast trades in Latitude 8 north, but -there was no word to explain why she thereafterward had been steered -into this western sea more than two thousand miles off the course she -should have held!</p> - -<p>Emily's summons to luncheon made Paul lay aside the log. It was a -surprisingly good and substantial meal that she had whipped together. -While they ate Paul undertook the gold woman's drilling in the details -of working a ship. On the island he and Chang had filled in many a -dreary minute with talk of ships. Chang had taught her how to box the -compass, and she was proud now, indeed, to exhibit this knowledge—eager -to put it to use. Her experience in the boat had taught her much, too. -She surprised Paul and made him proud of the intelligence with which she -was able to comprehend his explanations.</p> - -<p>"You're bully!" he exclaimed finally in admiration. "You're a woman with -an efficient brain."</p> - -<p>This little speech made Emily glow with happiness. She had had many a -pretty compliment addressed to her by artists at that game, but never -one which gave her this pleasure. Somehow she felt that thus he would -have spoken to another man whose work he wished to praise. She -understood that Paul Lavelle held order and efficiency above everything -else. She was efficient in his sight. She fairly ran when he gave her -the word to go aft and stand by the wheel.</p> - -<p>The donkey boiler had made a full head of steam half an hour before. Now -Paul started the engine which was connected with two hoisting drums -protruding from each side of the forward house. He hoisted and hauled -with these drums—set an additional headsail, and hauled his main yards -round. Within ten minutes he had the <i>Daphne</i> bearing away to the -northward with the wind over her port quarter. He ran aft and by hand -swayed up the peak of the spanker as best he could. Next he set the -patent log which was trailing over the stern.</p> - -<p>Pausing to note the effect of the spanker he there and then stored in -his memory the fact that with the peak down and a slight lee helm the -<i>Daphne</i>, with the canvas she was now carrying, would practically take -care of herself hove to in a light breeze.</p> - -<p>When he looked over Emily's shoulder at the compass he could hear her -heart beating wildly.</p> - -<p>"How are you heading?" he asked with a slight brusqueness.</p> - -<p>"Northeast by north, half north," she answered accurately and with a -sharp intake of the breath.</p> - -<p>"Keep her so."</p> - -<p>All the gold woman could do was nod that she heard. The power of speech -seemed to have gone from her. Awe of the big fabric of iron and canvas -and web upon web of ropes and gear obeying the impulse of her small -hands was upon her. It was a big game. It was a terrific, intoxicating, -joyous sensation. She had but one distinct thought: That was to go -sailing on in the <i>Daphne</i>—just she and this man alone—forever and -ever. All the years of her past faded away—the moment obliterated their -insignificance. Her eyes, alight with love, went seeking the man's face -and found him turned away from her, entering the lounge.</p> - -<p>"Rouse me at the slightest weather change—in two hours anyway," he -called from within.</p> - -<p>"I will," she managed to answer in a voice that seemed to belong to -somebody else. She was trembling from head to foot with wonder—wonder -of new strange forces clamoring through her being. The one thought which -her comprehension dragged out of the riot and held was that this man -through whom and by whom she lived trusted her so that he was lying down -to sleep in her keeping; that he was depending upon her. Her woman's -soul cried out in the pride of possession.</p> - - - -<hr style="width: 65%;" /> -<h2>CHAPTER XXV</h2> - - -<p>A violent ringing of the ship's bell and Emily calling him in a voice -fraught with excitement aroused Paul. For a second he imagined he was -still dreaming.</p> - -<p>"Paul! Paul! Quick!"</p> - -<p>He sprang out on deck.</p> - -<p>"Oh!" Emily gasped in relief. "I thought you would never wake. But -look!" She pointed forward. "A boat's there! Right ahead! A -man——There!"</p> - -<p>Rubbing his sleep-bewildered eyelids, Paul made out a small white boat a -point off the <i>Daphne's</i> weather bow and not more than five ship's -lengths away. Yes, a man was standing up in it. He was beckoning wildly -to the bark and to the sky in turn.</p> - -<p>The boat was too far off to make out if the man were alone in it. Paul -had to depend on his sight. The bark had been robbed of her glasses.</p> - -<p>The <i>Daphne</i> was making about three knots an hour. While he had slept -the breeze had lessened. The swell was practically gone.</p> - -<p>"Haul her up three points," said Paul, facing the wheel. "Keep an eye -on me. Every time I raise my right hand let her go off half a point. -When I hold up my left: Haul up half a point—luff!"</p> - -<p>With this instruction snapped at Emily, Paul ran forward, leaving her -alone, bewildered, fearful of making a mistake. But he was satisfied she -would understand. He held responsibility to be as much the mother of -capacity as necessity is of invention.</p> - -<p>By instinct alone Emily interpreted Paul's orders. She brought the -<i>Daphne</i> to windward and until she could see the boat and its -passenger's head just over the lee bow. She saw Paul spring into the -fore shrouds with a coil of rope. As he did so he raised his left hand. -The boat disappeared. She was sure the <i>Daphne</i> would run it down. Paul -raised his right hand. The helmswoman let the bark go off half a point.</p> - -<p>Paul, leaning over the rail at his last signal, tried to read a name on -the stern of the little boat which came bobbing toward him. He failed.</p> - -<p>An old man was standing up between the cockleshell's alter and second -thwarts. He was babbling in delirium. His swollen tongue was protruding -from his lips. He was bareheaded and his hairless crown seemed ready to -burst open in fire. Now the boat was close enough to see that the -derelict was alone. His clothing consisted of a shirt and -trousers—dungarees. He answered Paul's hails with a leer of idiocy.</p> - -<p>Emily steered so finely that the <i>Daphne</i> brought the boat alongside -just abreast of the fore-rigging. As their sides touched, Paul dropped a -running bowline over the old man's head and shoulders and a minute later -hauled him over the side. The boat overturned as its occupant was jerked -out of it and Paul regretfully saw it drift away.</p> - -<p>The derelict crumpled in a heap at his rescuer's feet as he touched the -deck. His face and neck and arms and feet were horribly sunburned. He -was literally parboiled. It would have taken the woman who mothered him -to recognize his pitiably swollen countenance. He was short and -thick-set and between fifty-five and sixty years old. His horny nails -and blunt work-worn fingers bespoke him a sailor.</p> - -<p>Paul carried him up on the poop as the best place to work over him and -laid him down in the lee of the lounge house.</p> - -<p>"Oh, you poor, poor man!" Emily cried in sympathy at sight of him.</p> - -<p>"This is terrible, little woman. I'm afraid we can do little for him."</p> - -<p>Paul looked away from the stranger with a shudder. While he had been -forward at the rescue and carrying the stranger aft the breeze had died -away. All aloft was now idle.</p> - -<p>"Can't I leave here and help you?" asked Emily. "We must try to save his -life."</p> - -<p>"It's a mighty unpleasant task for you."</p> - -<p>"Don't think of me as being helpless, Paul. Please. I know I can do so -many things. I'm not the same woman you met back there."</p> - -<p>She looked away to the westward as she spoke.</p> - -<p>"Come, then." He put the wheel in beckets. "Forward——Get some water -out of the galley."</p> - -<p>Emily ran to do as she was bidden and Paul went below to the medicine -chest. The medical supplies provided some strychnine tablets and, -tincturing a glass of water with this heart stimulant, the castaways -took turn about forcing drops of the fluid between the cracked lips. -Emily discovered a jar of beef extract among the stores and made up a -little of this for the sufferer.</p> - -<p>After two hours of careful and unceasing attention the derelict opened -his rheumy eyes and stared at the sky for a second.</p> - -<p>"Hello, stranger," said Paul. "Feeling better?"</p> - -<p>The eyes closed again and the cracked lips muttered an inaudible blur of -words. It was plainly an unconscious answer.</p> - -<p>A little while later, as Paul was taking another observation of the sun, -Emily thought she saw a gleam of consciousness in the faded gaze which -found her face and held it.</p> - -<p>"Are you from the bark <i>Daphne</i>—the <i>Daphne</i>?" she asked.</p> - -<p>Both she and Paul had discussed the possibility of this being so.</p> - -<p>"He—walked—'tween—gyves——"</p> - -<p>This was the strange whispered utterance that came from the cracked -lips.</p> - -<p>"Paul, he is speaking."</p> - -<p>Lavelle laid down his sextant and knelt beside the stranger.</p> - -<p>"I asked him," the gold woman explained, "if he belonged to the -<i>Daphne</i>. He——Listen——"</p> - -<p>The cracked lips were speaking again.</p> - -<p>"He—walked—'tween—'tween with—with gyves——"</p> - -<p>The stranger was repeating what he had said to Emily.</p> - -<p>Paul ran the words over under his breath. They sounded familiar. They -had a rhythm that touched some cell of memory. Suddenly his mind groped -upon discovery. Emily uttered an exclamation in the same instant. Both -of them knew what the stranger was attempting to say.</p> - -<p>"Don't you remember Hood's 'The Dream of Eugene Aram,' Paul?"</p> - -<p>"Yes," he said with a nod. "'And Eugene Aram walked between, with gyves -upon his wrists.'"</p> - -<p>The line, as he repeated it, had a startling weirdness.</p> - -<p>"What can the poor brain be thinking? What is hidden back of this -strange thought?" Emily asked in a whisper.</p> - -<p>"It may be as we have thought—that he belongs to the <i>Daphne's</i> crew. -Perhaps in its disorder his brain is reflecting the crime committed -aboard here in the words of Hood's poem. Yet one would imagine that if -there is anything in the theory of crime suggesting crime that it would -be something of the sea of which he would be thinking. Eugene Aram was a -schoolmaster and he killed in the woods. This man is a sailor. There is -no doubt about that."</p> - -<p>"Could he have been the one——"</p> - -<p>Emily shrank from the stranger at the thought which leaped into her -mind.</p> - -<p>"Don't think that, Emily. If he had a hand in what happened here——But -let as not think of what's past."</p> - -<p>Paul carried the derelict below and put him in the room next to the -mate's. He swathed his burns in carron oil and tied him in the bunk so -that the rolling of the vessel would not turn him out. The man had -become unconscious again immediately after mumbling the bit of "Eugene -Aram" which Emily had called Paul to hear. Lavelle left the derelict -sleeping in apparent peace, but with a heart action that was extremely -weak.</p> - -<p>"If he lives he will be a Godsend toward helping us work ship," Paul -told Emily as they went aft together to the lounge.</p> - -<p>"May be that is why it was given to us to pick him up."</p> - -<p>Paul smiled doubtfully.</p> - -<p>"What time is it, Emily?" he asked.</p> - -<p>"Only quarter past three," she said, looking at the silver watch which -he had given her to carry when he put her at the wheel.</p> - -<p>"Didn't have much of a sleep, did I?"</p> - -<p>"No, you didn't. Please lie down again."</p> - -<p>"Will in a little while. Got to. But first I must work out this -observation—see where in this world or Kingdom Come we are."</p> - -<p>He sat down at the chart table and in a few minutes, weary though he -was, finished his calculations. The result checked and confirmed his -noon reckoning.</p> - -<p>Emily stood beside him holding down the edges of the chart while he -pricked off the <i>Daphne's</i> position and ran a line to the southeastward. -It ended at Ocean Island. He ran a second to Midway; a third to -Honolulu. The woman watched his long fine fingers—wondrously fine for -the rough, hard things of which she knew them to be capable—handling -pencil and ruler and dividers with a fascinating deftness and certainty. -He seemed oblivious of everything else. An eager stimulation seemed to -be driving him. The mystery of the student was about him. A feeling of -woful incompetence possessed her. She realized how narrow and little her -life had always been until now; how little she actually knew of all the -things there were to be known. Her heart stirred of a sudden with a -marvelous thrill at the thought of what a woman's triumph must be to -suffer the giving of such a man as this to the world. Her breath paused -tremulously. What Shanghai Elsie had said to her in the boat flashed -into her mind: "You were made for the mother of men—strong men—like -him."</p> - -<p>The navigator, glancing up from his work, beheld an expression in her -beautiful face which was beyond his understanding. Her glance dropped as -it met his and a glow suffused her cheeks and thin, delicate ears that -the dawn might have envied. A second later her eyes lifted to his again -and in their expression and her smile he read elation. In his blindness -he believed that she had been able to follow his work and that it was -the prospect of an early deliverance which enlightened her countenance.</p> - -<p>"There you are!" he exclaimed in a note of lively and natural pleasure. -"Look! Only five hundred miles to the southeast——See that speck? -That's Ocean Island. If we can't fetch that we'll try for Midway. A -cable station's there. If we can't make any of these islands we'll keep -right on to Honolulu. All the while we'll be lying along in the -steamship track. Isn't it wonderful, eh?"</p> - -<p>"Too wonderful to be true, Paul."</p> - -<p>The answer came in a whisper. Tears glinted in her eyes. She was glad -for his sake; glad that the stress which was upon him was so near an -end. His escape, of course, meant hers and——Intuitively she sensed -that he was very far away from her; that he was slipping further and -further away and she started to put out a hand to touch him; to hold -him. Her arm dropped as she raised it. This was not the man who had held -her in his arms that morning. She heard his words dimly.</p> - -<p>"If we can work to the south'ard and the eastward, by to-morrow noon we -may begin to keep our eyes open for ships. With any kind of fair weather -and a breeze from the westward land should be rising over the bows in -three or four days. Think of it! Another twelve hours and you may be -going over the <i>Daphne's</i> side into a homeward bounder!"</p> - -<p>Emily's eyes overflowed. He winced at the tears.</p> - -<p>"Why——You mustn't be crying now. You must laugh! Sing! The chief mate -of the bark <i>Daphne</i> would better be thinking of her shore-going togs! -This is what we'll be singing in a very short time:</p> - -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">"I <i>thought</i> I heard the captain say,<br /></span> -<span class="i1"><i>Leave her, Johnny, leave her;</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"> You may go ashore and touch your pay,<br /></span> -<span class="i1"><i>It's time for us to leave her.</i><br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">"We'll sing. Oh, may we never be,<br /></span> -<span class="i1"><i>Leave her, Johnny, leave her;</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"> On a hungry ship the like of she,<br /></span> -<span class="i1"><i>It's time for us to leave her.</i>"<br /></span> -</div></div> - -<p>With a laugh and those snatches of the old chanty of "Leave Her, Johnny" -ringing from his lips in a clear, deep voice Paul led the way out on -deck.</p> - -<p>"Great old song that. Ought to hear a gang of bullies at it."</p> - -<p>"It must be fine," she managed to say with a pretense of enjoyment.</p> - -<p>He turned from her and went forward to the standard compass. Going and -returning, he looked aloft and around at the silent plain of brine. The -sails still drooped in idleness. There was the barest heave in the -ocean. The bark was without steerage way.</p> - -<p>"Better lie down and take a nap," Paul said as he came back and stood at -the wheel for a second. "Can't tell how long this calm will last. I'm -going to try to steal a little sleep."</p> - -<p>"Please do. I will lie down presently."</p> - -<p>He did not meet her gaze, and she turned toward the sea as if she hoped -its purple heart would give her throbbing one an answer. She heard Paul -leave the poop and then a clang from the engine room told her he was -there. It sounded like a door closing between them—a door that would -never open again—and she went into the lounge to weep bitter tears -which would not be stayed.</p> - -<p>If she could have seen Paul Lavelle's face when he turned away from her -and at the moment when she was giving way to her loneliness she would -have understood that he was suffering, too.</p> - -<p>After overhauling the fires under the donkey boiler, Paul threw himself -at full length across the main hatch. He was mind weary; body weary; at -war with himself. Staring up at the sky he brought his whole life in -contemplation. Another day, as he had told the gold woman, might see -them delivered from their peril in the <i>Daphne</i>. Anyway he felt that the -world—the world in which she belonged and must have her being—was not -very far off. And she would be going out of his life forever. She must. -A pariah like him could not say to her, "Stay." The man who stood marked -as he was could say to no woman, "Stay." All day the past had lashed -him. All day the fineness of him had arraigned the weakness which had -permitted him to forget that he could never claim her love. All day the -memory of his madness in daring to kiss her as he had had tortured him. -He groaned in his agony of spirit.</p> - -<p>"God," he prayed aloud with lips strange to prayer, "grant that I may -finish 'what remains before us of the course without dishonor to -ourselves or hurt to others.' For my soul's sake I ask this."</p> - -<p>With this thought his mother's dear face smiled into his vision.</p> - -<p>"Mother mine, mother mine," he murmured, and his eyes closed in -exhaustion.</p> - -<p>It was dusk when Emily awoke in the lounge. By the silver watch she saw -that it was a quarter past six o'clock. All was quiet as when she lay -down. The bark was in the same dead calm. The creaking of the gear -overhead and the slatting of the idle sails were the only sounds in the -stillness. She stole below, and on her way forward paused at the door of -the derelict's room. He still slept. She tiptoed inside and wet his lips -with a sip of water. He murmured in unconscious thankfulness. She -hurried on then toward the engine room. Paul must be there or in the -galley. She came upon him lying across the main hatch. He was asleep, -his head pillowed on his right arm. The light of a love that would never -die came into her eyes as she stood for a second listening to his deep -breathing of honest weariness.</p> - -<p>The chill of the coming night was in the air. Emily stole aft again on -tiptoe and returned with a blanket. She spread it over the sleeper with -a mother's gentleness. He did not move. Sighing, she turned away and -with the silence of a thief went to the galley to prepare the evening -meal.</p> - - - -<hr style="width: 65%;" /> -<h2>CHAPTER XXVI</h2> - - -<p>Coming down from aloft, where he had gone immediately after dinner to -reef and furl the topgallant sails as best he could, Emily met Paul with -the news that the derelict seemed to be recovering a glimmer of -consciousness.</p> - -<p>"When I carried a cup of beef extract to him just now he was awake," she -told Paul. "He seemed not at all surprised to find a woman attending -him. He thinks he is in a hospital somewhere—that I am a nurse. When I -asked him his name he answered: 'Number 19—cot 19, nurse.'"</p> - -<p>"Did you ask him anything about the <i>Daphne</i>?"</p> - -<p>"Yes; but neither the vessel's name nor Captain McGavock's nor any of -those you told me were in the log book meant anything to him. His only -answer to all my questions was, 'Nurse, if the captain comes in before -"lights out" tell him I'd like to see him.' He's an Irishman, I should -say—a kind sort of an old soul, with a rare, musical brogue."</p> - -<p>"A very broth of a bhoy, eh?" laughed Paul.</p> - -<p>"If he is one of the <i>Daphne's</i> crew, I am sure—I am certain that he -had nothing to do with the mutiny."</p> - -<p>"And that is the woman of it. Come. I'll go in to see him. Let me get a -lantern out of the engine room."</p> - -<p>"There is a lamp in his room. I filled it the way I saw you filling the -sidelights."</p> - -<p>"You'd make a great pioneer, Emily. Come."</p> - -<p>Thus praise always came from him quickly for the doing of a helpful -thing. She could imagine men working their fingers to the bone under his -mastership.</p> - -<p>Together they went aft, Emily preceding Paul through the alleyway to the -derelict's door. The light in the lamp, which hung in gimbals against -the forward bulkhead of the room, was low. Emily went in and turned it -up.</p> - -<p>"Are you feeling better?" she asked cheerily.</p> - -<p>"Yes, nurse, easier—much easier," came his answer rather thickly. His -face was toward the inside of the berth. He turned over painfully, his -eyelids fluttering. "Has the cap—the Ould Man——"</p> - -<p>His lips froze as he discovered Paul Lavelle in the doorway. He started -up on his right elbow. His eyes bulged wildly. His jaw went loose. He -made a vain effort to lift his left hand to his brow in a salute. He -tried to speak, but his tongue clicked in his throat like a twig -crackling. With a weird, eery cry he fell back in the berth senseless.</p> - -<p>The time of a breath embraced the strange scene.</p> - -<p>"Oh, Paul, Paul, he knows you!" exclaimed Emily in a tense whisper.</p> - -<p>"I never saw him to my knowledge until we pulled him aboard this -afternoon," said Paul, recovering from his surprise. "He has mistaken me -for somebody else. Poor devil is out of his head."</p> - -<p>"Are you sure you have never seen him?"</p> - -<p>"I'm quite sure. But it's uncanny. Please bring the lamp over here so -that I can take a good look at him."</p> - -<p>Emily carried the light to the side of the berth and Paul bent over the -stranger. He searched every feature of the weather-beaten face and his -own memory at the same time. He was positive he had never seen the -derelict before.</p> - -<p>"Just out of his head, little woman—that's all. I never saw him—I -don't know him, although his own mother wouldn't recognize him now."</p> - -<p>As he spoke Paul timed the unconscious man's pulse and laid an ear to -his breast. Emily caught an uncertain shake in Paul's head as he -straightened.</p> - -<p>"Is—is he going to get better?" she whispered.</p> - -<p>Paul answered her with a shrug of doubt.</p> - -<p>"We can't do any more for him than we are doing now."</p> - -<p>He added this as he saw her wince and the glint of pitying tears come -into her eyes.</p> - -<p>"His heart is very weak," he went on, after a slight pause. "He seems to -be in a bad mooring ground. He's burnt up as if he had been through a -fiery furnace. It may sound strange to hear one speak of the sea as a -fiery furnace, but it is. It can burn a man's soul out of him just as it -can freeze it out. And—mock him with bitter waters he cannot drink."</p> - -<p>There was a world of bitterness in his tone as he finished speaking and -left the room to go aft to the medicine chest. He returned with some -spirits of nitre to find Emily placing a wet pack across the derelict's -forehead. He mixed a dose of the tincture in a tumbler of water and -dropped some of the fluid between the cracked lips.</p> - -<p>"This will help to pull the fever down," he explained. "It's all I -could find back there—this nitre. He will need watching and attention -to-night. If this calm holds I will slip in here now and again."</p> - -<p>A low moan escaped from the stranger.</p> - -<p>"Come, little woman. Let us leave him now."</p> - -<p>Paul put up a hand to turn down the light.</p> - -<p>"No, I am going to stay and do what I can for him, Paul."</p> - -<p>"But, Emily, this—this is no work for you. You——"</p> - -<p>"Paul Lavelle, it is my work," the gold woman said firmly. "I've been a -loafer—an idling nothing—a leaner all my life. I've never helped until -now. You've taught me how. You can't unteach me. If my hands can aid -this poor old man to keep a hold upon life they are going to do it. If -they can make his going out any easier they are going to do it. My God, -the thought—that it might be you—and a woman would turn away -from—from you——"</p> - -<p>Her voice broke. Tears choked her. She put an arm against the bulkhead -and buried her face in it, away from Paul's sight. Her nobility of soul -chastened his spirit. It exalted him. In silence he went out into the -night. Strangely there lingered in his brain as he went about the ship -two sentences Emily had uttered with unwonted fire: "You've taught me -how. You can't unteach me."</p> - -<p>There was much for the <i>Daphne's</i> new skipper to do. While the calm gave -no sign of breaking and the lounge barometer held steady for fair -weather, still the longer he contemplated the task of handling the -<i>Daphne</i> the bigger it grew in his sight. He could not afford to let any -precaution which suggested itself pass unembraced. So he turned to work -on the theory that it is easier to let out a reef in a breeze than it is -to furl a sail in a gale. He cut his coat according to the cloth he had. -He double-reefed the foresail and the topsails and, with the donkey -engine's aid, found it not such a hard task as he had imagined it might -be. Steam hauled the blocks of the reef tackles closer together than -sailor hands could ever have brought them. The best he could do with the -mainsail was stopper it with gaskets. It would have been vain and futile -to have tried to roll the heavy canvas up on its yard. He knew if it -should come on to blow that the wind would take care of it as he left -it, but he could not help it.</p> - -<p>The last thing he did forward was to put the hatch covers on and bar -them down. The tarpaulin had been burned or thrown overboard by the -mutineers, but Paul felt certain that little water could enter the -<i>Daphne</i> there.</p> - -<p>As he went aft he was surprised to see a light in Elston's room. Peering -through the port under the gangway ladder leading to the poop he saw -Emily writing at the dead boy's desk. She stirred slightly as his eyes -rested on her and as if conscious of another presence. A sense of guilt -startled Paul and he hastened aft to reef down the spanker.</p> - -<p>With the finishing of that task the skipper leaned wearily against the -wheel and surveyed the things he had done alow and aloft. The moon, -which, twenty-four hours gone, he had never expected to see rise again, -presently caught him in its spell. It was now nearly two hours high over -the bark's starboard quarter. In its beams the <i>Daphne</i> seemed but the -delicate tracery of a ship o' dreams. It powdered the vessel with a -silvery dust; enveloped her in a mystic, spiritual splendor. The gilded -trucks gleamed like true gold. Masts and spars, shrouds and stays and -running gear were invested with a fairy grace. The coarse, heavy sails -had become gossamer in their fineness—butterfly wings at rest. The -night, as if for the very beauty of the scene, wept upon the fabric in -dewy tears of pearl and opal and sparkling diamond.</p> - -<p>Emerging from the lounge Emily was caught in the moonlight's -enhancement. For a second it swept from her mind what had brought her -seeking Lavelle. Paul, staring aloft, did not see her nor did he hear -her footfall. A hiss of steam from the donkey boiler's safety escape, -which had been set at a very low pressure, broke the spell.</p> - -<p>"It seems helpless—weak to say that words fail one in expressing a -thought—an impression," said the gold woman. "But all I can say—I must -say the trite thing: How wondrously beautiful!"</p> - -<p>Her words but expressed the thought that had leaped into Paul's mind at -discovering her and which he had bravely denied utterance.</p> - -<p>"The sea has no fairer sight to give men than this—unless it is a -square-rigged vessel like the <i>Daphne</i>, 'a towering cloud of canvas,' -driving along over the deep in such a light. But how is the stranger?"</p> - -<p>The question brought a serious eagerness into Emily's face.</p> - -<p>"Are you positive, Paul, that you have never seen this man before?"</p> - -<p>"I have searched my memory to place him. He is not in it. Why?"</p> - -<p>"He was quiet for perhaps an half-hour after you left. I went into the -room next door—the mate's—to—to write something. Suddenly I heard him -call your name, 'Lavelle.'"</p> - -<p>"Impossible!"</p> - -<p>"No; I heard the name, 'Lavelle'; just as distinctly as that. I was -shocked. I stole in very softly and stood beside him. His eyes were -closed, but he kept mumbling, 'That night at Apia——'"</p> - -<p>"Apia? Apia?" Paul repeated with interest. "Yes, go on. What else did he -say?"</p> - -<p>"That was as far as he seemed able to get. I thought he was trying to go -over some oft-told story. At last he sank back in exhaustion. I did not -dare to speak to him. He has slept ever since and his fever is down. -What is Apia? Where is it? What do you think he meant?"</p> - -<p>"Apia—in the Samoan Islands. My father was lost there twenty-five years -ago in a hurricane which trapped three naval squadrons. He was about my -age at the time. Only a little while ago mother wrote me that a -photograph I sent her might have been father's. This old fellow must -have served under him. He mistook me for him when he saw me so -unexpectedly in the doorway. This explains it. The way he attempted to -salute when he saw me made me think he was a man-o'-war's man."</p> - -<p>A strange, unreasonable hope which had sprung into Emily's heart died.</p> - -<p>"The sea plays strange pranks, doesn't it, my friend?" Paul asked after -a pause. The question drew Emily's gaze back from the satiny blue deep. -His manner of address chilled her. "'My friend! My friend'?" her brain -echoed. He averted his gaze sadly.</p> - -<p>"Yes," she assented. "It does play strange pranks."</p> - -<p>In the words a meaning was veiled that did not reach him. She was -thinking of the barrier that had been building itself between them all -day. No sooner did one wall go down than another rose in its place. -Strangely, as she watched him staring over the deep to the southward, a -feeling of contrition filled her. With the truest sympathy she said:</p> - -<p>"I am sorry. Perhaps I shouldn't have told you what this man said. It -has stirred unpleasant memories—sad ones."</p> - -<p>"No. The finest memory I have is my father—the finest memory any son -ever had."</p> - -<p>As he spoke he seemed to go still further away from her. In silence she -watched him enter the lounge and return to the deck with his sextant. He -took an observation of Polaris and then went in to the chart table to -work it out. With a feeling akin to shame Emily sensed that he did not -wish her near him and she started below.</p> - -<p>"We should try to get as much sleep as possible while this calm lasts."</p> - -<p>He said this coldly and without looking up from the book from which he -was taking a set of logarithms.</p> - -<p>"I know—I understand," she answered, fighting for control of herself.</p> - -<p>"A breeze may come at any time and we'll need every bit of strength we -can muster to work the ship."</p> - -<p>The gold woman could stand the uncertainty no longer.</p> - -<p>"Paul, tell me frankly—have I done or said anything to hurt you? What -is it? What I said down there in the stranger's room—is it that?"</p> - -<p>The words were no sooner away from her lips than anger at herself swept -her. Where was her pride?</p> - -<p>"No, no. Of course you have not said anything. Of course not. All's -well, little woman." His answer came quickly, but not without an -embarrassment that she failed to understand. He bent his head over his -work again. "Don't forget you are to call me at the first sign of a -breeze; anyway not later than 11:30."</p> - -<p>They had planned at dinner that she was to keep the watch for the first -part of the night.</p> - -<p>"No; I shan't forget," she answered bravely and groped down the -companionway from his sight. Nor could she dream what pain it cost the -lonely man at the chart table to let her go from him.</p> - - - -<hr style="width: 65%;" /> -<h2>CHAPTER XXVII</h2> - - -<p>"Up with ye, yez foretop bullies! Up an' give her a cheer! -Hip!—--Hear her! A bloody Englishman playin' av 'Th' Star Spangled -Banner!' That's for us, ye bullies! Hip, hip!—--Damn ye, cheer! Now! -Hip!—Again!—She's struck! No! She's by the reef!—By God she's clear! -She's in the open sea! Clear! Hip!"</p> - -<p>This monologue, shouted as if through the teeth of a gale, suddenly -broke upon the gold woman's troubled consciousness where she stood -writing at William Elston's desk. It was the derelict raving. The -dramatic spirit of his speech thrilled her. It conveyed to her mind a -picture of a ship fighting to sea against all odds and she could see the -stranger in the next room somewhere in the foreground of a ragged shore -urging others—men under him—to cheer her on.</p> - -<p>A silence followed the outburst and Emily tiptoed into the alleyway. She -listened for Paul, but no sound came from him aft. She had been below -about an half-hour. He must be asleep.</p> - -<p>The gold woman entered the derelict's door softly and discovered him -sitting upright in his berth, peering from under his two hands as if at -something a long distance away. There was an heroic suggestion in the -posture of him and in the set of his scraggly white-bearded jaw.</p> - -<p>"She's clear—clear," came from him in a tired whisper as Emily crossed -the threshold. He dropped his hands. "Hello, nurse," he said, -discovering the girl. She turned up the light.</p> - -<p>"You're feeling much better, aren't you?" she asked very tenderly.</p> - -<p>She held a glass of water to his lips and he drained it.</p> - -<p>"Thankee, nurse, thankee. Another long drink, please. That's—Ah! That's -good. My coppers is hot. Thankee. I'll be comin' out o' drydock soon. -All I needs is t' get my head gear overhauled an' these ribs spliced. -Nurse, sailormen orter have good hackmatack knees for ribs." A faint -smile of humor rippled across his face. "It's a mighty long way from a -fore-uppertawps'l yard t' th' foc'sle head—a mighty long way."</p> - -<p>The listener gathered that the old man believed he was suffering from -the effects of a fall. He lay back obediently at her suggestion. His -eyes appeared quite rational. Although his hands were still scorching -to the touch there had been an abatement of the fever. Yet his pulse was -extremely weak. When Emily felt it she was surprised at the strength of -his voice.</p> - -<p>"Nurse," he said, after a short pause, "when that 'ere sky pilot comes -roun' in th' mornin' I wants you t' stand by." A twinkle danced in his -sea-bleached blue eyes. "He says th' sea gives up its dead. I'll be -after askin' th' gentleman how he knows. Ye'll hear him shputter at -that. It'll be a fair joke. A fair——"</p> - -<p>He stopped seriously. His gaze sought the doorway. In a whisper fraught -with a note of bitter fatalism he said:</p> - -<p>"Th' sea gives nothin' back, nurse. When it takes annythin' it kapes it. -Th' sky pilots are but pretindin'."</p> - -<p>Emily sensed that the sailor's mind was groping around the appearance of -Paul earlier in the evening. She feared that it would do him harm to let -his mind rest on this and that it would be better if she could induce -him to sleep.</p> - -<p>"Don't you think if I turned down the light you might be able to sleep -again?"</p> - -<p>The suggestion startled him.</p> - -<p>"No, no, nurse. Plaze lave th' light. I'll be afther stayin' awake for -th' Ould Man—that's me own skipper."</p> - -<p>"But he has been here. He——"</p> - -<p>"Mother av God!" he cried. He seized her hand and held it in great -stress. "Thin yez saw him, too! Yez saw Lavelle." His eyes, filled with -awe, leaped from Emily's face to the open doorway and back again. "'Tis -me warnin', colleen, t' be snuggin down—t' make everythin' tight!"</p> - -<p>The thing she had wished not to do she had done unwittingly. She had -turned his poor brain back to its memory of Paul's father.</p> - -<p>"Did yez hear him shpake t' me? Did he shpake t' annybody else?"</p> - -<p>"It was not the Captain Lavelle you think. It was his son."</p> - -<p>"His son? Not 'Prince' Lavelle?"</p> - -<p>The derelict shook his head in doubt, and as he did so he looked round -the stateroom. His eyes picked up each article in it in a bewildered, -half-familiar way.</p> - -<p>"Yes, his son. You must have no fears. Can't you think where you are? Do -try. You're aboard the bark <i>Daphne</i>—the <i>Daphne</i>."</p> - -<p>"<i>Daphne?</i> <i>Daphne?</i>" he repeated. "No, th' <i>Daphne</i> wasn't there. There -was th' <i>Trenton</i>, th' <i>Nipsic</i>, th' <i>Vandalia</i>, a Dutchmin called th' -<i>Sadler</i>, th' <i>Cally-ope</i>—not <i>Daphne</i>." It was plain that the past was -ruling his memory. "'Twas only yestiddy th' home mails come in an' -brought th' 'Prince' a loikeness av his littul bhoy—littul Paul. Says -th' 'Prince' t' me, 'Dan, an' 'tis home with th' littul feller I'd loike -t' be.' He says that t' me, an' him th' 'first luff' an' me a common -sailorman an' capt'n av th' foretop be grace av three enlistments an' -sthayin' sthraight three months on ind. Now he's lyin' out there in thim -God-forsaken wathers an' all because av a bloody lot av Dutchmin an' -naygurs."—"Come along t' th' mass with me an' pray for God's kindness -t' th' 'Prince's' sowl. Yez'll niver sail agin, my bullies, under an -officher man loike 'The Prince.'"</p> - -<p>The last was not spoken to Emily, but to men who were not in the room.</p> - -<p>The sweet tender praise of the father of the man she loved with all the -soul of her wrung tears from the listener. She could see "The Prince" -showing this sailor the picture of Paul. She could hear him speaking.</p> - -<p>"And he called you Dan—'The Prince'?" Emily managed to say and with the -hope that possibly it might suggest the derelict's identity.</p> - -<p>"Dan? T' be sure he called me Dan. 'Rid-headed bunch av sin' he called -me whin I wint on th' bind. I had a thatch in thim days as rid as th' -British merchant flag." A gnarled hand wandered to his bald crown and as -it touched it the sailor started up. Reason seemed to have made a breach -in his poor brain. He looked round the room quickly. A light of -recognition dawned in his gaze. "Dan—Dan," he kept repeating. -"Daniel—Daniel Mc—Mc—Mc—Daniel McGovern!"</p> - -<p>Emily hearkened in breathlessness. She felt herself in the presence of a -mystery. Paul had read her the names of the <i>Daphne's</i> crew from the -log. "Daniel McGovern" was not one of them.</p> - -<p>Tears coursed down the old man's cheeks. His hands trembled. His voice -quavered in a childish treble. He kept on repeating the name over and -over again as if he had found it after many years and was making sure -that it would not escape him again.</p> - -<p>Suddenly he caught Emily's hand and became still. He was listening.</p> - -<p>"Mother av God where am I?" he asked in a few seconds. In the next -breath he exclaimed: "'Tis a ship I'm on! I c'n fale th' sea!"</p> - -<p>"You're in the bark <i>Daphne</i>—the <i>Daphne</i>. Don't you understand? Can't -you remember anything?"</p> - -<p>It was evident that a great struggle was going on within him.</p> - -<p>"That's her door; that's her door," he whispered. He pointed at the -stateroom door. "Takewood an' mahogany an' maple. So were th' cabins -thrimmed."</p> - -<p>Emily's heart leapt at this. He was from the <i>Daphne</i>. She gave him a -drink of water. She started to call Paul. But when she thought of what -had happened before she drew back.</p> - -<p>"Yez are not a spirut—th' spirut av McGavock's woife, eh?" the derelict -asked doubtfully.</p> - -<p>"No, no; but what has happened here? What became of McGavock's wife?"</p> - -<p>"Murder an' hell. That's what happened here. Where's Morgan—an' th' -Jap? Th' sicond mote an' th' cook?"</p> - -<p>"Only you and Captain Lavelle and——"</p> - -<p>A cunning expression came into the derelict's face at Paul's name. His -mind was breaking again.</p> - -<p>"What d'yez know of Lavelle?" Without pausing for an answer, he went on: -"'The Prince' is drown-ded these twinty odd year. An' his poor -bhoy—he's gone this past twilve-month. A man—a prince av min loike -his father, he was. I was along av th' bhoy in th' <i>Yakutat</i>."</p> - -<p>Emily's senses went reeling.</p> - -<p>"The <i>Yakutat</i>?" she gasped.</p> - -<p>"Aye, th' <i>Yakutat</i>—th' big Alaskan brute. She did for th' bhoy, but -'Th' Prince' would have loiked t' have been with us that night." A -boastfulness of pride came into his voice. His eyes closed for a second -as if he saw a vision. "'Twas loike mush whin she piled up. Misther -Lavelle kept a-tellin' Graham he was sthandin' in too close, but 'twas -no use. I heard him meself toll him twict. I was at th' wheel th' lasht -toime. I can see th' two av thim just outside th' wheel-house now. -'You're wrong,' says 'Th' Prince's' son. 'I'm masther here,' says -Graham. Dhrunk he was wid th' lust av pride an' power loike whin fools -command. An' maybe he was dhrunk, too, wid somethin' else. 'Take yure -orders or go t' yure room.' An' 'Th' Prince's' son says he: 'I'll take -me orders.' I was at th' wheel agin in th' mid-watch. God help me 'twas -meself that stheered her up on th' rocks, obeying orders. She climbed -thim loike a woild horse. Th' scut av a third officher had th' bridge. -'Full spade asthern' he give her as' I knew thin she was broke in two. -'Full spade ahead,' an' she'd a-hung on th' rocks till mornin' whin th' -shore folk could have saw us."</p> - -<p>The old man paused.</p> - -<p>"Yes, yes, go on," whispered Emily.</p> - -<p>"A sup av water. That's it. Thankee, nurse. Where was I? Oh——Misther -Lavelle comes a-tumblin' up an' Graham an' th' foorth officher. 'All -hands t' th' boats,' says Graham. A mad, crazy coward he was. Says I t' -meself, 'I want none av ye,' an' I followed 'The Prince's' son. 'T' th' -boats.' Huh! An' not enough boats for th' half av thim aboord. I lep' -from th' wheel an' shtuck t' Misther Lavelle. We had a din av woild -animals t' foight. But we got our boat away—th' childer an' th' women -an' th' ould folk. Lavelle he was for goin' back aboord. 'Twas suicide. -I shoved off. We cleared th' side an' just thin a big naygur I had -lopped av' th' ear an' overboord from th' deck reaches up an' catches -our gunnle. 'Th' Prince's' son cracks at him with an oar. A fule shtood -up i' th' boat, sayin', 'Take him aboord.' An' we full thin as a tick. -Th' next minynte an' over we wint.</p> - -<p>"Loike an hour ago I see it. Says a littul lady forninst me—we'd taken -her husband aboord 'cause we'd seen him sick about th' deck—says she, -'If we must die, we'll die thegither, Jawn.' An' all round was Bedlam."</p> - -<p>With a shudder he lay back. Emily Granville knew that it was of her -mother and father that the derelict had just spoken. But even in the -stress of feeling which possessed her there formed in her mind an high, -practical purpose. She knew that if this man could but reach the ears of -the world with this tale it meant the vindication of Paul Lavelle. It -meant all that was dear to him—his good name, his honor restored. The -sailor must not die. He must live. She would fight death for him and in -justice she must conquer. If she could do this thing for her love she -would have nothing else to ask of life.</p> - -<p>But of a sudden dread seized her. Perhaps it was only the tale of a -disordered brain that she had heard. Why had not this man come forward -at the inquiry which had sent Paul forth branded a coward? Why had he -not told this story then? If he had been on the <i>Yakutat</i> that night, -how was it that Paul did not remember him? Could it be that this man's -weakened mind had found suggestion for the tale from the force of her -own mental desire?</p> - -<p>"But what became of you after that night—after the <i>Yakutat</i> was lost?" -she asked.</p> - -<p>"I don't know, nurse. I don't know. It was just a year ago that I woke -up."</p> - -<p>The last anchorage of her hope went with that. It was but a maundering -tale, after all. Or else her senses were tricking her and she had -imagined that he had said these things about Paul and her mother and -father and the <i>Yakutat</i>!</p> - -<p>"It all came back to me," the derelict went on wearily—"twelve years of -my loife. I was in th' seamen's Bethel in Hong Kong—just a year gone. -An' out av a 'Frisco paper I spelled that th' Lavelle av th' -<i>Yakutat</i>—'Th' Prince's' bhoy—was gone—lost in a tramp off Rangoon. -Like th' loightnin' sthrikes th' twilve lost year come back. Says I, -'I'm Daniel McGovern.' Whin I was afther tellin' th' sky pilot he wint -an' tol' th' docthors all about it. Th' newspapers printed it. Whin th' -<i>Yakutat's</i> boat wint over somethin' struck me head. A whale ship picked -me up. 'Th' Prince's' boy niver knew I'd served with his father. All th' -thrubble in me head shtarted before I j'ined th' <i>Yakutat</i>. I was afther -fallin' from th' tawps'l yard av some ship. Her name—I can't raymimber -where 'twas or what ship 'twas. I tould Elston about it—fine lad he -was—an he laughed at me till I give him th' piece out av th' Hong Kong -newspaper. He laughed——I'll be afther shlapin', shlapin', nurse. I'll -be——"</p> - -<p>Daniel McGovern's eyes closed. He seemed very weak. For a second Emily -feared that he was dying. Then, her abiding faith in the justice of -things renewed her.</p> - -<p>"He mustn't die, God—not yet, not yet," she pleaded in a whisper.</p> - -<p>She ran from the derelict's room into the mate's. Earlier in the evening -she had found on Elston's desk a book—a half-filled diary—from which -she had torn a page upon which to write. She carried this book and pen -and inkwell back to McGovern's room. She would reduce McGovern's story -to writing and make him swear to it. As she spread the book open upon a -chair and knelt beside it to write a newspaper clipping fluttered out -from its pages. A glance confirmed the truth of all the derelict had -said about his strange lapse of memory:</p> - -<blockquote><p class="center"><span class="smcap">Lost His Identity for Thirteen Years.</span></p> - -<p class="center"><i>Word in a Newspaper Restores the Memory of a Man Who Had Forgotten -Who He Was.</i></p></blockquote> - -<p>Thus ran the headlines. To Emily Granville they were written in fire.</p> - -<p>The cabin clock struck seven bells—11:30—but she did not hear it. -Oblivious to all else save her task and the flickering life in the berth -at her side she began to write a statement of all McGovern had said. She -felt that it was in her to stay death until the derelict had signed it.</p> - - - -<hr style="width: 65%;" /> -<h2>CHAPTER XXVIII</h2> - - -<p>A crash which shook him bodily brought Paul Lavelle upstanding from the -berth in the lounge. The daze of a heavy sleep clung to him. For an -instant he could not imagine where he was. He was in utter darkness.</p> - -<p>There was another crash where the spanker boom slammed back from -starboard to port again. Then, the <i>Daphne</i> lay over under the impact of -a vicious gust of wind.</p> - -<p>It was the boom which had awakened the sleeper. He leaped out on deck to -find himself in a shapeless blackness. There was barely a breeze, but -the air was filled with eery noises. Overhead, overside, wherever he -turned, he heard them—snarls, whines, whimperings, and the creaking as -of huge pinions wheeling. A wolf pack might have been disputing a kill -with a horde of vultures.</p> - -<p>The contrast of this with the exquisite moonlight night upon which -Lavelle had closed his eyes was appalling. He groped his way to the -wheel, which was in beckets to keep it from rolling, and peered into the -compass. An unconscious sigh of thankfulness for the forethought which -had made him light the binnacle lamp escaped from him. The <i>Daphne</i> was -heading north by east. The gust of wind which had slammed the spanker -boom must have come out of the southeast. He faced that point. Another -gust confirmed the assumption. He ran into the lounge and struck a -match. The silver watch lay on the chart table. It said 1 o'clock. He -had not returned for this, but to see the barometer. It stood at 30:00; -just where it had hung all day.</p> - -<p>But what he had not discovered by daylight he now saw in the flickering -match light. The barometer hand and the indicator were caught together. -His heart went cold, he lit another match and struck the bulkhead with -his clenched fist. The blow jarred the hand and indicator apart. The -delicate wisp of blue steel quivered at 30:00 for a breath. Then, it -began to fall. It reached 29:10 and clung. Even as the match went out it -recorded 29:00 and was still falling.</p> - -<p>He had seen a mercurial barometer go from 29:30 to 26:03 in the <i>Kau -Lung</i>. That was a world's record!</p> - -<p>Despair seized him. What could he and a lone woman do in a brute of a -vessel like this—undermanned even with twenty men before the mast?</p> - -<p>"God Almighty, what have I done?" he cried aloud in agony of spirit.</p> - -<p>A smash of wind from the south'ard was the answer he got.</p> - -<p>He gritted his teeth and flung a curse at the sea:</p> - -<p>"I'll beat you—you and all your foulness! You sneak!" he yelled at the -blackness.</p> - -<p>He dropped down through the companionway, calling "Emily! Emily!"</p> - -<p>There was no answer. She was asleep, poor girl, he thought. That was why -she had let him oversleep; why she had not called him when it turned -black.</p> - -<p>"Emily! Emily! Where are you?"</p> - -<p>Echoes answered him. Running forward, he saw the light beaming from the -derelict's room. As he reached the doorway he beheld the girl standing -beside the old man's berth, a book in her left hand and her right -uplifted.</p> - -<p>"So help me God," the derelict was solemnly repeating after her.</p> - -<p>As the last word came from his lips he discovered Lavelle.</p> - -<p>"'Th' Prince'!" he cried and fell back, a hand at his brow in salute.</p> - -<p>The book dropped from Emily's hand. She swayed where she stood. She had -fought and won a battle as brave as any field of war ever knew. Yet an -angry glance, which struck her and cut like a whiplash, was her reward.</p> - -<p>"Why didn't you answer me when I called?" Lavelle demanded, but paused -not on an answer. "Get aft to that wheel! Go! Run! Keep her nor'east -until I can get back to you!"</p> - -<p>With that he was gone from her. Like a soldier, without questioning, -without a word, she went aft to do what this man had bidden.</p> - -<p>The fire under the donkey was dead when Lavelle got to the engine room. -It would take an hour to make steam. The barometer and his sea wisdom -told him that he had only minutes to prepare.</p> - -<p>Whatever the battle was to be it was with his own hands that Paul -Lavelle must fight it. With this realization a terrific rage filled him. -It was fed with each breath that he snatched out of the blackness. The -sea was a personal enemy. Thus men who deal with it in long intimacy -come to visualize it. The sea was a sneak—a coward; always striking -below the belt.</p> - -<p>Lavelle had squared the yards before he had gone aft in the evening, -leaving the braces slack so as to cast the <i>Daphne</i> on the most -advantageous tack at the first coming of a breeze. He had expected a -wind from the north and west. Here it was out of the southeast. The -gusts which had roused him had struck the bark on the starboard quarter. -It had brought her to on that side. She was now forging ahead on the -starboard tack. As she rode she was under a double-reefed foresail, -reefed upper and lower fore and main topsails, foretopmast-staysail, and -inner or boom jib. The growing breeze lifted the slack out of the -starboard or weather braces. The lone worker in the darkness led the -falls of the lee braces to the main deck capstan and hove them in. And -wherever he went he belayed rope and line with a double hitch. There was -a finality about everything he did.</p> - -<p>He set the maintopmast-staysail, hoisting it with the capstan. He would -ride her with that if it should be possible to heave her to after he had -located the bearing of the storm's center.</p> - -<p>He ran aft only to stop at the entrance to the alleyway. He remembered -the boom jib.</p> - -<p>"Too much headsail with a reefed spanker," he muttered.</p> - -<p>He sped forward again, found the jib halyards, and let them go. As a -last touch of precaution he bent the jib downhaul to the -foretopmast-staysail clew as a preventer sheet.</p> - -<p>Aft he sped again and through the cabin. A faint murmur came to him as -he ran by the derelict's room.</p> - -<p>Out of the pile of slop-chest staff in the after cabin he snatched an -oilskin coat and sou'wester. He struggled into them as he climbed -through the companion way into this lounge.</p> - -<p>A flash of a match brought the barometer's dial out of the blackness. -28:03!</p> - -<p>An impulse to smash it for its trickery seized him. He forbore and -plunged outside. He thrust Emily away from the wheel. As he bent to peer -into the binnacle she shuddered at the rage which distorted his face. -Thus men, she thought, must look in battle with the blood lust upon -them. There was something primordial, relentless, about him. He was the -elemental man, sensate that a kill was at hand.</p> - -<p>The <i>Daphne</i> was heeling over, further and further, under the onslaught -of the rising wind.</p> - -<p>The roughness with which Lavelle had pushed Emily away from the wheel -started a demon of resentment to life in her. Her arms were aching. It -had seemed that the wheel must draw them from their sockets while she -was alone. Steering the <i>Daphne</i> while Lavelle had been forward had not -been the tame task of the afternoon.</p> - -<p>She stood trembling where this man had shoved her. She could have struck -him.</p> - -<p>"Get below! Close every port—every door! Jump! Then, come back and -light that lamp in the lounge!"</p> - -<p>Anger swept her at his brutal tone. Tears blinded her. They were the -tears of a rage of which she had never believed herself capable, oho -could not move.</p> - -<p>"Go—on!" he yelled.</p> - -<p>A furious squall twisted the two words into a shriek.</p> - -<p>A sea slopped over the weather quarter and ran hissing across the deck -to leeward. It sucked hungrily at the gold woman's feet and ankles. At -its touch her rage grew, but passed from the man at the wheel to the -sea. It was the sea that he hated, not her. It was the sea that she -hated. It was the sea that had spoken through him. The sea was his -enemy. It became in that moment personal to her—her enemy.</p> - -<p>Thus the spirit of Lavelle reacted upon Emily Granville's. Could she -have seen her face at that instant she would have discovered in it the -same elemental, the same primitive passion, which had shocked her in -his.</p> - -<p>The girl ran from the deck and below.</p> - -<p>Lavelle saw her when she returned and lit the lamp in the lounge. She -wore a long oilskin. A sou'wester covered her head. Out of the tail of -his eye he caught her staring at the barometer. He noted it with a -thought that she had "some sense."</p> - -<p>She came out to him and had to press her lips against his ear to make -him hear her message.</p> - -<p>"Everything—closed—be—low! Barom—28:00!"</p> - -<p>That was a fall of three-hundredths of an inch in less than ten minutes!</p> - -<p>The <i>Daphne</i> was in a trap. Somewhere near her—somewhere in the -southern quadrants of the compass between the east and the west—the -center of a storm was bearing down upon her. Whether the barometer was -lying or telling the truth was of little moment now. Lavelle knew he -could not be mistaken in the signs of a revolving storm. He knew the -meaning of the wolf-like noises and the wing creakings in the air; the -oily, sooty, sight-killing blackness. But one sign was absent and, even -as he noted this, it appeared—a sickening, brick-red coloring which -cuts the eyes acridly like hay smoke. It diffused itself through the -blackness without lessening the night's impenetrability. With its -coming the wind veered quickly from the S.S.E. into the south. By the -law of storms this change told the lone man arrayed against the sea that -the center was bearing upon the <i>Daphne</i> eight points to the right, or -out of the S.S.W. The bark was trapped in the storm's advancing or -dangerous semicircle. He could not heave her to now. There was but one -thing to do: Run. Let the storm overtake the bark and catch her in its -vortex and—the sea must win. It depended alone on the <i>Daphne's</i> -worthiness and the hands and brain of the man at her helm to beat it.</p> - -<p>With a full-manned ship the thing to do now was heave to. The enraged -man laughed to himself at the thought of his trying to do this alone.</p> - -<p>By half-past two the wind had veered into the S.S.W. and was blowing a -whole gale. Taking it broad over the starboard quarter the <i>Daphne</i> was -fleeing northeast. At times her helmsman was sure she was lifting free -of the mauling waters and hurtling through space. Again he felt that she -was bound headlong toward the quiet ooze; that no vessel could withstand -the onslaughts of wind and brine which were being rained upon her. But -never his rage at the sea grew less. It burned in him like a living -fire; it robbed him of all sense of fatigue.</p> - -<p>Emily, sitting in the lounge and watching the barometer for any change, -saw the silver watch mark the hour when the day should have been -breaking. But no light rifted the blackness outside. The barometer hand -clung quivering at 28:00! The <i>Daphne's</i> master—yes, her master, -too—had told her she must rest as much as she could. Not for her own -sake, but the battle's; that was his reason. "Because I may want to use -you!" was what he had yelled when she had put her ear up to his lips.</p> - -<p>When the watch said six o'clock and there came no day, Emily suddenly -realized what a time had passed since Paul had taken the wheel from her -hands—four hours and a half. Not a bite had crossed lips in eleven -hours. It was impossible to get forward to the galley. As she admitted -this she remembered the canned provisions in the alleyway stateroom -opposite the derelict's. She recalled also the flour and biscuit barrels -in the starboard alleyway stateroom.</p> - -<p>The gold woman went caroming down the companionway and through the -reeling saloons. The din of an hundred forges filled them. The -derelict's light was giving a last flicker. Daniel McGovern slept. As -the lamp went out Emily discovered her book on the floor and picked it -up. She put it on a shelf in the storeroom and fled with three cans -which she felt out of the darkness. She carried these up into the -lounge. One of the cans held corn—the others tomatoes. She dropped -below again and groped to the pantry. She was seeking water. There -wasn't a drop in the tank. The discovery staggered her. The man at the -wheel must drink. An idea of a substitute flashed into her mind. The -tomatoes would serve for food and drink. She located a hook under the -china racks and found a can opener she remembered having seen there.</p> - -<p>As a glimmer of day asserted itself in the blackness, it found Emily -standing at the wheel beside Paul, holding a can of tomatoes up to his -lips so that he could drink when he dared. He managed to snatch two -mouthfuls. Then, the can was blasted out of the girl's hands. It -flattened itself against the mizzonmast. The tin cylinder might have -been a bit of cardboard. It held where it struck for a second, as if the -gale had imbedded it in the steel mast.</p> - -<p>With this sudden growth in the fury of the gale came the slightest -increase of daylight. This light seemed to spring from the sea; not -from overhead. It was sufficient to trace what lay forward of the break -of the poop. Two tall, reeling masts with whalebone tips, the edges of -the rails, an outline of the top of the forward house, and the -forecastle head rising out of a roil of waters composed the suggestion -to Emily's mind that that part of the <i>Daphne</i> was still there. And all -round were ragged peaks of water like the ice-crusted crests of mighty -mountains. They were Alps gone drunk. The <i>Daphne</i> was hurtling from one -peak to another—smashing through them.</p> - -<p>The light restored Lavelle's vision to enable him to read in one glance -the tally of the battle. But a ribband remained of the big mainsail -which he had been unable to furl. The fore-upper topsail had left only -its leech ropes behind. There was not a head sail left except the -foretopmast-staysail. This, the maintopmast-staysail, the reefed -foresail, the fore lower topsail, and the upper and lower main topsails -and the spanker still held. The fore and aft bridges were gone. A -twisted stanchion told where the standard compass had stood. The donkey -funnel, the galley stovepipe, and the empty boat-chocks were -missing—the top of the forward house was swept clean.</p> - -<p>Scarcely had Lavelle's eyes made this assessment when the main upper -topsail went. It split with a shot-like crackling. A second later only a -wisp of canvas was left to tell that a sail had ever been bent to the -yard.</p> - -<p>Anger burned in Emily at the sight. It was personal—the ravaging of -that sail. The gale flung a cry of protest back in her throat. The slope -of Paul's sou'wester hid his face from her. The point of a grim jaw was -all that she could see. Only his arms moved with the wheel in steadying -the bark's drive. Otherwise he might have been a fixture of the ship. It -was not enough to be near him. A yearning to hear his voice came upon -her; to look in his eyes; to read his thoughts. She caught him, jerking -his head to bring her nearer. She struggled up in the lee of him and -pressed her ear to his lips.</p> - -<p>"—piece—bacco!"</p> - -<p>That was all she heard. She did not understand for the moment what he -meant. Then, it dawned upon her wondering consciousness that he wanted a -piece of tobacco. A piece of tobacco! Her brain pounded on this as if it -would never let the thought go. She fought her way into the lounge, and -as she went she remembered a box of oaky, black slabs which she had seen -in the slop-chest litter. She had reached the bottom of the companion -way when the <i>Daphne</i> gave a shuddering leap. It hurled the girl across -the saloon to leeward. She caught the knob of a stateroom door and -dragged herself from her knees to her feet. Looking forward, through the -port alleyway, she saw a flood of water pouring in through the door -opening out on the main deck.</p> - -<p>Instinct carried Emily to this breach in the wall of the bark's defense. -She got her back to the door, like a woman of the Zuyder Zee warding a -broken dyke gate, and she closed it. The strength of the primitive -fighting man's woman was hers in the struggle which accomplished this. -She cried in anger as she bolted the teakwood slab against the ravaging -waters. Yet with this thing done, her first thought was that she must -get back to the wheel with a piece of tobacco. Going aft, she did not -notice that the derelict's berth was empty, but the man at the wheel -knew that the stranger was not there.</p> - -<p>Hardly had Emily left the deck when the fore lower topsail went -tattering out of its bolt ropes. The <i>Daphne</i> shook herself as if freed -from a leash. The man who watched nodded in approval. Had it been -possible for him to have cut this sail away when the main upper topsail -had gone he would have done it. In the moment that he nodded he saw the -flash of a man's face going over the rail in the welter to leeward. The -face was calm. Death seemed already to have masked it. It was the -derelict going away.</p> - -<p>"Why, that—that's Driscoll—the quartermaster who was with me—stood by -me—the night the <i>Yakutat</i> was lost!"</p> - -<p>It was thus in the instant that the sea gulped Daniel McGovern that -recognition flashed into Paul Lavelle's mind. But as the thought formed -he put it away from him. His eyes were tricking him. A man can't stand -for six, seven, or eight hours—he had lost count of time—staring at a -compass card which whirls and dips like a crazy roulette wheel at Macao -and trust his sight. After Chang had spent a twelve-hour trick at the -<i>Kau Lung's</i> wheel he had imagined many strange things. The -quartermaster, Driscoll, had been lost these ten years past—ten years -this very month of March. And the sea was trying to make him believe -that the derelict was he: endeavoring to trick his brain because it -couldn't beat him any other way. This thought refueled his rage.</p> - -<p>The belly of the spanker split from head to foot with the sharp -staccato-rattling of a Gatling. The helmsman's senses apprehended it as -it happened. Before the <i>Daphne's</i> head had fallen off half a point at -this sudden release of pressure on her after part Lavelle had met it.</p> - -<p>Emily, struggling to force the lounge door open against the gale, saw -and heard the spanker go. It dazed her to note that Lavelle did not -glance up. She had to throw herself flat on the deck to get to the -wheel. Crawling up under Paul's lee she held the tobacco up in front of -him, keenly wondering what he meant to do with it. She had been able to -imagine only that he intended to use it in some mysterious way in -connection with the compass; perhaps to keep the card from rolling and -whirling. Paul settled the mystery quickly by wolfing a corner of the -black plug. He nodded with satisfaction as his jaws closed on it. It -seemed fantastic to the girl. She could have screamed in delight—she -who had loathed tobacco chewers as long as she could remember. The -incident was fraught with a message of hope that words could not have -conveyed.</p> - -<p>By signs Paul made Emily understand that she was to fill and trim the -binnacle lamp. This task took her below to levy on the oil in the -derelict's lamp and the lamp in the medicine chest. Then it was she -discovered that Daniel McGovern had left the <i>Daphne</i>. She realized how -the alleyway door had come to be open, but at the time her senses were -beyond apprehending that a stranger had come out of the sea and gone -back to it. She levied upon the storerooms again and crawled up into the -lounge. The silver watch said noon. The barometer stood at 28:01! When -she tried to open the door and get back to Paul with food and this news, -she could not budge it more than an inch. The gale held it. She looked -out of the after weather port. Through the flying spume she saw Paul -glance up. His eyes rested on her for a second. He shook his head for -her to stay where she was.</p> - -<p>There came a lull at three o'clock. Emily's recruited strength enabled -her to fight her way to the wheel with another can of tomatoes and some -crackers. She replaced the lighted binnacle lamp. It went out. Four -times she had to return to the lounge and relight it before she -succeeded in spiting the gale. As she straightened up finally in -success, she saw Paul's gaze shoot up to windward.</p> - -<p>Not three hundred yards away and abreast of the <i>Daphne</i> drove a big -four-masted, painted-port bark—a bulk of twenty-five hundred -tons—under a reefed foresail and a reefed main lower topsail. For a -breath her midship section hung poised on a peak of water, the rest of -her red underbody, fore and aft, clear of the welter. Her poles pierced -the lowering sky. The peak dropped from under her like the jet of a -fountain ceasing. She fell away into a cañon, wave-walled higher than -her tops. The wind went out of her foresail. The topsail drooped. She -paused in her flight like a wounded bird, reeled helplessly; and then -the wall of water over her stem fell, pooping her. A huddle of men -started from around the foot of her jiggermast. One of them in bright -yellow oilskins reached the doomed thing's port rail and waved to the -<i>Daphne</i> high over him as if cheering her on. Another wall of water and -still a third crashed upon her. Her bows rose. Stern first she went down -to the port of missing ships, a hurricane shrieking her requiem.</p> - -<p>In the twinkling of an eye, even as a trout snatches a fly, this proud -venture of man was; and then it was no more.</p> - -<p>Brain-stunned, incapable of comprehension, Emily crawled round the -binnacle and got behind the lee side of the wheel. In a lull she heard -Paul yelling.</p> - -<p>"—be—low! Eat—rest! Need—help—by and——"</p> - -<p>She obeyed as one in a trance. As the lounge door banged behind her the -comparative quiet within, though it was a veritable orgy of sound, -enveloped her senses like a drug.</p> - -<p>It was seven o'clock when she awoke. Through the weather port she saw -the yellow-colored head at the wheel touched by a gleam of the binnacle -light. Seventeen hours now he had been standing there like that. She -lighted the lounge lamp. The barometer stood at 28:00.</p> - -<p>When she fought her way out to him with this word and shrieked it at him -he simply nodded that he heard.</p> - -<p>"When—are—you—going to—let—me—help?"</p> - -<p>She succeeded in crying this question into his ear in segments.</p> - -<p>"Damn it! Shut—up!"</p> - -<p>He cried this at her savagely.</p> - -<p>In that instant the <i>Daphne</i>, paused slightly. A shiver went through -her. There was a crash which sounded even above the roar of the storm. -It was as if a masked battery had ambushed the bark from overhead. The -foretop-gallant mast and all its hamper and everything above the -crosstrees on the main were going by the board. A streak of lightning -illuminated the gale's work.</p> - -<p>Emily found the end of the gasket with which Paul was lashed to the -wheel shaft. She tied it around her waist and took hold of the lee -wheel. It was her answer to his savagery. He saw what she did and he did -not send her away.</p> - -<p>Thus, with never a word, they stood together for two hours during the -height of the storm, hurtling along the coast of eternity.</p> - -<p>Of a sudden there came a rift in the clouds overhead. A shaft of -moonlight shot through the blackness and Paul's hand covered the gold -woman's in a gentle pressure where it clutched a spoke.</p> - -<p>"—think—beaten—it!" he shouted at her presently, "—thirsty!"</p> - -<p>Emily unlashed herself and brought him another can of tomatoes. She took -her post beside him again without a word. By midnight the gale's back -was broken. The sea kept dropping with the lessening of the wind. It was -long after dawn, however, when Paul unlashed himself from the wheel and -put Emily in his place.</p> - -<p>"You take her now for a few minutes," he said in a broken husky voice. -"Going heave her to."</p> - -<p>He started forward. His legs went out from under him. He struggled to -his feet only to drop again. He got up moaning and with a curse on his -lips. Clutching the rail he reeled down to the main deck.</p> - -<p>Emily heard the palls of the capstan and then Paul's voice came to her -in a pathetic wail.</p> - -<p>"Hard down! Hard down!" he cried, but it was a sweep of his arm which -carried his meaning to her. In obeyance she rolled the wheel over. The -<i>Daphne</i> came round on her heel, until the maintopsail, flying aback, -hove her to.</p> - -<p>Paul staggered aft again, balanced the wheel and put it in beckets.</p> - -<p>"I'm pretty tired—tired," he said in a whisper. He crumpled in -exhaustion where he had fought for thirty hours. Blood oozed from the -ends of his swollen fingers. His eyes lay far back in his head. His -breath came in moans and sobs.</p> - - - -<hr style="width: 65%;" /> -<h2>CHAPTER XXIX</h2> - - -<p>Pain which stabbed with daggers of fire and ground and twisted like the -working of cogs stirred Paul about noon into consciousness. He lay -across the wheel grating where he had dropped, nor had the gold woman's -strength been equal to moving him inside. A pillow was under his head; a -blanket covered him. At his feet wrapped likewise in a blanket and her -head on one of the lounge cushions slept his "partner." As the hard deck -was his pallet, so she had chosen to make it hers. He realized the -wonderful meaning of this with a thrill which lifted the daze from his -aching brain and eyes.</p> - -<p>With the instinct which has been given to women alone to serve and watch -by sense Emily awoke in the instant that Paul moved to a sitting -posture. Their glances met in a smile of trustful, mutual understanding.</p> - -<p>"Well, partner," Paul said drily and looking round the <i>Daphne</i>, "we are -a bit battered, but I think we may say—we are still in the ring."</p> - -<p>The humanness of the little speech lifted the cloud of the night from -her spirit. She laughed. This man could fight as she had never dreamed -it possible that human brain and flesh could, and when it was all over -he could smile. She brushed away a mist which gathered on her lashes and -struggled to her feet.</p> - -<p>"And it is worth everything to be—be here in the ring—all the -battering—all the strife—with you—a partner like you."</p> - -<p>"Thank you. That pays for everything."</p> - -<p>As Paul spoke he struggled halfway to his feet only to sink back again -with his breath catching in pain. His left hand, with which he had tried -to pull himself up, fell from the wheel. He compared it with his right. -Both were swollen and purple. The cuffs of the oilskin coat dropped back -and showed his shirt wristbands choking the flesh. But it was not his -hands that hurt so much as it was his feet. They seemed ready to burst -the shoes.</p> - -<p>A sob broke from Emily at his helplessness. She dropped on her knees at -his side and picked up his right hand. All the tenderness of her woman -nature was alive in the instant.</p> - -<p>"What is it, Paul? Your feet—your hands!"</p> - -<p>Tears choked further utterance. Alarm for his safety seized her. A -terrible apprehension touched her heart.</p> - -<p>"There never was a battle fought without somebody getting hurt." He -tried to smile despite his pain. "Remember I was at the wheel a pretty -long time."</p> - -<p>"More than thirty hours."</p> - -<p>"That long?" He nodded. "Please get me a knife—there ought to be one in -the pantry."</p> - -<p>"A knife?" she repeated with misgiving. He nodded.</p> - -<p>Emily hastened below and returned with a small sharp carver. Paul held -out both hands to her.</p> - -<p>"Cut——"</p> - -<p>She shrank from him with a cry. His smile at the thought which he read -in her eyes made her study him with a strange, frightened glance.</p> - -<p>"Not my hands—the wristbands, partner."</p> - -<p>She severed the wristbands and the tears which fell on the bruised hands -seemed for the moment to salve their hurt. He offered to take the knife -then, but she knelt quickly at his feet and slashed the wet, binding -leather from them. The while she did it he kept abjuring her to be -careful not to cut off a foot by mistake. He would have been silent -could he have known how sacred to this woman was the doing of this -personal service for him. But it was just as well that he was not -silent, for as she saw what the sea had done to him it took the last -element of her will to keep from breaking down.</p> - -<p>"Now you must go and lie down," she urged when she had helped him to get -up to a standing position.</p> - -<p>"No, I must keep going. I——"</p> - -<p>He swayed and sank to his knees. His will nor her strength could keep -him up. He gritted his teeth in rebellion.</p> - -<p>"I must get up! I will—and go on!"</p> - -<p>This came from him in a savage cry. He tried to rise again. He got one -foot under him and then fell inertly with his back against the side of -the lounge house. Abused Nature would have her due.</p> - -<p>The sight of this strong man down, helpless, tore the heart of the gold -woman from its moorings. She knelt beside him, agony blinding her with -tears.</p> - -<p>"Paul, you must listen to me," she pleaded passionately. "You must let -me help you inside—where you can rest—where I can do something for -you—something to bring back your strength—bathe your hands and feet."</p> - -<p>"No, no; not that," he protested faintly.</p> - -<p>A gentle relaxation of mind and body was stealing over him under the -pressure of the arm with which she supported his head.</p> - -<p>"But you must," Emily went on. "It is my part—my duty, my privilege! I -will do it! You must do as I say until you are well and strong. It will -not be long."</p> - -<p>The rebellion of his spirit grew quiet under the influence of her -surpassing tenderness. He thought it pleasant to have somebody say must -to him.</p> - -<p>"Look, Paul, the ocean grows calmer with the minutes. The skies are -clearing. There is nothing we could do——"</p> - -<p>"But there's so much to do——" His senses began slipping away. He was -able to murmur only, "Water," before a long blank came.</p> - -<p>The gold woman looked round for the water canister which she had filled -and brought aft when Paul had collapsed and fallen asleep. It lay -overturned down to leeward. Laying his head on a pillow she ran forward -and refilled the canister. At the first sup which she was able to force -into his month he opened his eyes.</p> - -<p>"More, more," he pleaded when she would have taken the canister from his -lips, thinking he could drink no more. "Oh, that is so good," he sighed, -finishing the draught. "I feel much better already."</p> - -<p>Although Paul smiled bravely, his eyes betrayed him. Emily saw that he -was fighting to conceal a great pain.</p> - -<p>"Come, Paul." She lifted his head again. "You must try to get inside. -You must do this for me."</p> - -<p>He looked up into her face, and there was that in it which filled him -with meekness.</p> - -<p>"I'll do what you say," he answered in a whisper, and he summoned his -last reserve of strength.</p> - -<p>On hands and knees he crawled into the lounge, Emily taking as much -weight from his swollen wrists as she could. She cut the oilskin coat -from his shoulders so that he should not suffer the pain of having the -sleeves drawn over his hands. She spread a berth deftly, hurried below, -and returned with dry comfortable clothing which she found in the -lockers under the skipper's bed. The slop-chest supplies were soaking in -the water which had come in before she had succeeded in shutting the -alleyway door. She went below again and brought lint and bandages from -the medicine chest. All of these things she did without suggestion. It -was part of the new efficiency unto which she had won. Had she been -trained to do what she did she could not have done it more thoroughly. -This man whom she served might have been her own child.</p> - -<p>Watching her quick movements from where he sat on the floor of the -lounge, Paul wondered whence she was drawing the strength that was -denied him. Nor was it given to either of them to understand this -strength which love can bring to its service. It is something not to be -understood.</p> - -<p>"Why are you able to do this and why am I——"</p> - -<p>"Because you have rendered your service," she interrupted. "You made me -rest. You stood alone through all the fight. At times I rebelled at it, -but now I am glad. I slept this morning and——" She paused with a -shudder. "I know I must have slept—or gone out of my senses—during the -storm. There are blanks—so many——We are all alone again, you know. -The derelict——"</p> - -<p>"I know. Please don't think of it now. Please——"</p> - -<p>"No—we will not think of it," she said with an effort. "Come."</p> - -<p>She bent over him to help him to the waiting berth. A plait of her hair -swept his lips. He kissed it as she drew it back and tossed it over her -shoulder. Her bosom touched his head. She did not know that she was but -adding torture to his pain.</p> - -<p>"No, partner," he protested quickly. "I have let you do too much -already. Let me try alone."</p> - -<p>By elbow and knee he crawled up on the berth and sat down.</p> - -<p>"There," he said with a small note of triumph, and he was fearful of -meeting her gaze, for he sensed that she stood waiting. "I -think—if——See how she's heading, please."</p> - -<p>He looked out through the door at the wheel jerking in its beckets like -a horse champing a bit.</p> - -<p>Emily went swiftly to the binnacle.</p> - -<p>"West nor'west," she called.</p> - -<p>"Then this breeze ought to be about nor'nor'west." He paused, and then -added quickly as he saw her, in all her innocence, coming back:</p> - -<p>"If I could get something warm to drink—some coffee—or tea. Do you -think——"</p> - -<p>"But you——"</p> - -<p>"I'm sure I can do a lot for myself now. See."</p> - -<p>He lifted his arms over his head. By a levy on all his will he concealed -the pain which tore him at the effort. It satisfied her.</p> - -<p>"You shall have something warm to drink as soon as these hands can make -it," she said, and as he heard her going forward he threw himself on the -berth and buried his face in the pillow to smother the cry of anguish -which his lips refused to stay.</p> - -<p>Swiftly as Emily moved to her task, it took her longer than she had -imagined it would to prepare something. The galley was in a litter of -wreckage and the range was water-soaked where the sea had poured through -the unprotected vent left by the swept-away stovepipe. When she returned -aft again it was to awaken Paul from a doze. In the meantime he had -succeeded in changing into the dry clothing she had laid out for him. He -had also bandaged his ankles and wrists.</p> - -<p>The gold woman brought tea and hardtack biscuits and a jar of marmalade.</p> - -<p>"It was the best I could do quickly," she explained, raising the chart -table and placing the things on it. The table had fallen some time -during the night and the silver watch lay dashed in pieces on the door, -its parts mingling with the internals of the barometer which had been -torn from its fastenings. The sextant, undamaged, lay where it had been -hurled on the starboard bench or berth opposite Paul.</p> - -<p>"It's all right, partner," Paul said as Emily discovered the broken -things. "Don't worry."</p> - -<p>When it came to drinking his tea his hands could not hold the mug in -which she was compelled to serve it. She gave it to him mouthful by -mouthful. The hot drink was stimulating. There was satisfaction of -hunger, too, in the biscuits and marmalade. She stopped feeding him and -drank and ate something only when he closed his lips firmly and turned -his face from her.</p> - -<p>And all the while there was raging within him a battle against the -impulse of his consuming love to take this wonderful innocent woman to -his breast. Had he not won the right to tell her that he loved her? a -voice within kept repeating, and always the specter of the past, armed -with the resolution of silence he had formed two days before, cried: -"No; unless you are a coward."</p> - -<p>"I think I will sleep," Paul said presently, when Emily offered to rub -and rebandage his ankles.</p> - -<p>"Is it because you do not wish me to do it?"</p> - -<p>"Why, no. Of course not."</p> - -<p>"You thought nothing of doing it for me. You have done everything for me -and with a tenderness that I can remember only as part of my mother. -You are so tender and again you are so harsh—as hard and cold as -steel."</p> - -<p>"The sea makes one harsh——" He could not control his voice and he -stopped short in fear of whither he might be led. He noticed then for -the first time that Emily's skirt was clinging to her damply. "Do please -go below and get into some fresh, dry clothing. The thought that you are -looking out for yourself will help me to sleep. Do try to lie down, -too."</p> - -<p>"If there is nothing more I can do here I will go," she said obediently. -"But it is a strange thing: With all the wetting I have undergone I have -not the sign of a cold."</p> - -<p>"Salt water ought to have at least one virtue," he answered. As he spoke -he nodded for her to go below.</p> - -<p>Paul Lavelle slept only for a few minutes at a time, if he really slept -at all during the next couple of hours. He heard the gold woman descend -the companionway and he followed her footsteps through the cabin. Even -when all was quiet below and he knew that Emily must be lying down -wakefulness rode his brain. He could see the future stretching away in -loneliness without this woman in his life, and for the first time in all -the suffering he had known he thought of a way out. In his blackest -hours of the past ten years this had never occurred to him. To fight on -to the end without cease, with never a let-up in the drive, had been the -ruling impulse of his spirit. To fight on now in silence and give life -to this precious woman; to stand up manfully no matter what the odds, -with his whole soul in the battle, until he should bring her to -safety—this was the one course. After that there would be a way if it -were denied him that he should not suffer death in the giving of life to -her. A gnawing pain in his left hand finally drew his attention to it. -He saw that the green jade ring which he had worn constantly since -leaving Yokohama was choking the finger which it encircled. He sat up to -take it off, and as he did so he was startled to hear a strange heavy -footfall in the cabin. He was on the point of trying to rise when Emily -came up through the companionway. It was her footfall that had alarmed -him. As her head and shoulders rose above the teakwood rail around the -staircase, the sun, now far down in the west, shot a golden beam through -the port over Paul's berth. It touched her head with the fire of a -divine beauty.</p> - -<p>"Oh, I woke you," she whispered tremulously, and at the same time she -sensed his depression of spirit.</p> - -<p>"No, I was awake," was all he could say for the moment. It came from his -lips in a barely audible voice.</p> - -<p>To be loved by and by love to possess a woman like this—the world, aye -a thousand worlds—were well lost! That was the thought which excluded -everything else from his mind.</p> - -<p>The glow of a sleep which had refreshed and restored lingered in the -cheeks of the gold woman and in the tips of her shelly ears. Her mouth -was retouched with its natural delicate scarlet. Her sensitive nostrils -quivered at the sunlight's touch. Her blue-shirted bosom, heaving ever -so slightly from the exertion of climbing the companionway, moved the -loose plaits of her hair hanging over her shoulders like ropes of molten -gold. Hardship had drawn her features only slightly. Youth's capacity of -quick recovery was hers. Physically she was little changed, but there -was a subtle difference in her. Her whole being now seemed to breathe: -"I have no doubt of life."</p> - -<p>"I've changed and slept," she said as Paul's glance swept her. "I feel -as if there had never been a storm."</p> - -<p>She stepped backward with a smile.</p> - -<p>"Are you laughing at them?" she asked. She drew back her skirt slightly -and exhibited a pair of rubber sea boots which were inches too large -for her. There was something boyish in the action that did draw a smile -from Lavelle. "You are laughing," she went on, and pouted prettily. "But -do so as much as you wish. They're sensible."</p> - -<p>"Right you are. They're the very thing for decks like this. We should -have thought of them before."</p> - -<p>"They're much too large, but I've put on socks and socks and stuffed the -toes with things."</p> - -<p>This statement of a most obvious fact brought a genuine laugh from Paul. -It passed quickly as the pain caused by the ring reasserted itself.</p> - -<p>"Oh, let me do that for you," Emily said, crossing to his side. Before -he could object she had knelt by him and taken his hand. "Why did I not -think of this hours ago? Poor, poor fingers. Am I hurting you? There?"</p> - -<p>The perfume of her hair, of her breath, of her whole being was about -him. As the ring came off his hand closed on hers and he slipped the -jade, with its strange seal in Chinese hieroglyphics, over her third -finger. It was her left hand that he had chosen.</p> - -<p>"I want you to take this, Emily—to wear it." He was fighting hard to -control his voice. "Chang gave it to me the day I left Yokohama—when -the old chap thought he would never see me again: the day you and I -met."</p> - -<p>"But, Paul, I——Poor old Chang would——"</p> - -<p>"You must keep it. Have I never told you what it says—that seal?" She -shook her head. "In Canton there is a very old temple. It is doubtful -who built it. It stands near—not far from the Hall of the Five Hundred -Wise Men. This seal is copied from its altars: 'Man has many reckonings -with man, but only one with God.'"</p> - -<p>The gold woman looked up, starting to repeat the line as Paul finished -it. What was on her lips died there, unutterable in the light of his -gaze, and what it awakened in her. Her eyes flashed back to his an -answer of fire. The barriers of his determination crashed.</p> - -<p>"Oh, my darling!" he cried in anguish, and he drew her head to his -breast.</p> - -<p>The gold woman's mouth met his and clung, rendering with flame its first -kiss of love.</p> - -<p>"Oh, I love you, woman of all the world, love you, love you! I am living -alone by the power of this love. It has been mine for ages. It has -been—it is my strength! It is my soul! It is the breath of my soul! -Its single impulse, its desire, its law, its life!"</p> - -<p>He held her from him and searched her face.</p> - -<p>"And I love you. I have always loved you, my——"</p> - -<p>A burning kiss blurred the words on her lips.</p> - -<p>In silence they held each other's gaze in adoration until suddenly a -shadow of dread darkened the man's face.</p> - -<p>"Another storm such as we have just passed through——We could not live -through it, darling. There was hardly a minute of last night or the day -before which did not come armed with a summons to judgment. And, oh, the -bitterness that was mine when I thought that you could not know; that I -could not tell you what was in the soul of me!"</p> - -<p>"But, Paul, even had death come to us then, I should have known -it—afterward. I should have known it and you would have known that I -loved you."</p> - -<p>The firm conviction of this speech filled Paul with a new kind of awe of -her.</p> - -<p>"Darling," he murmured, and yet, as he kissed her eyes, the specter of -the past laid its cold finger upon his lips. He drew back. "Some day you -may hate me."</p> - -<p>"Paul, Paul! Stop!"</p> - -<p>Her voice was fraught with fear.</p> - -<p>"If we live the days will come when—I come to you a broken, spurned -thing. I have no place among the men of my people. I am wild! Crazy! My -tongue should be torn from me for telling you what I have. I have no -right to tell—I have no right to love! And you of all women——Emily, -there is something—that night on the <i>Yakutat</i>, I must tell you—we -cannot——"</p> - -<p>Her hand closed his lips.</p> - -<p>"No, no, no, Paul. You mustn't. I know. There is nothing to tell me. -There is no past to come between us. From the moment that I knew on the -<i>Cambodia</i> that you were Paul Lavelle I knew the truth. There is no -past. But there is a future, my darling—our future." She drew his head -to her and kissed his eyes. "My fearless stars. For my faith's reward I -ask only this: Your silence until I say you may speak. Promise."</p> - -<p>"I promise," he answered, with a strange, indefinable hope burgeoning in -his heart.</p> - -<p>As he spoke the sun passed from the ports of the lounge and brought Paul -Lavelle from his dreaming to the reality of a peril which he had too -long forgotten. Emily read his thought.</p> - -<p>"I will go forward and prepare our evening meal," she said. She kissed -him and went out of the lounge, and at her going torment ruled his -heart.</p> - -<p>"My God, what have I been doing! What have I been thinking? Where is my -manhood that I should be lying here sacrificing her? What a weak, -shameless love mine must be!"</p> - -<p>A feeling of abasement scourged him as each thought clamored for an -answer. Although his body rebelled, he arose and kept his feet. Groping -below, he found a pair of boots which would admit his ankles and went -forward.</p> - -<p>Emily, with a cry of amazement, discovered him suddenly, standing in the -engine room door.</p> - -<p>"Paul, you must go back. You must rest," she commanded. "It's clear. Go -back. How can you stand?"</p> - -<p>"There's too much Irish in me, dear," he answered, forcing a smile. "You -must never let an Irishman stop to nurse his hurts. He can't keep his -mind on pain and the fight at the same time."</p> - -<p>"But the fight is over."</p> - -<p>"It's never over—when the sea's on the other side."</p> - -<p>He was determined and she wisely forbore to say anything else about his -physical condition. The meal that she prepared—the hot coffee, the -warmth of the galley fire—brought life in them to a glow. Tomatoes -formed one of the dishes she cooked. Paul shuddered at the sight of it.</p> - -<p>"Not unless I am starving," he said solemnly.</p> - -<p>As they rose from the meal Emily sensed that something was lacking.</p> - -<p>"Isn't there something else, dearheart? What is it you wish you had?"</p> - -<p>"A good cigar—a big, fat, black fellow!" he laughed. "Then, the world -would be complete." His glance interpreted his meaning.</p> - -<p>"But there is tobacco aboard to chew," she suggested with a smile.</p> - -<p>"I never attempted to chew tobacco but once in my life. I was only a -little fellow visiting my grandmother's. The gardener provided it, or -rather I took it from his workbench. Just as I settled down to prove to -myself that I was a man grandmother called me into the house. I was -caught. In my fear I swallowed the cud." He made a wry face and then -went on in a dreamy way: "During the storm—whether it was last night or -the night before, I can't remember—I thought if I could only get a -piece of tobacco to chew there was no storm that blew that could put me -down. Funny, wasn't it?"</p> - -<p>Emily was silent, nor did Paul seem to notice it. She could think only -of what his stress of mind must have been during those long black hours.</p> - -<p>It was his last personal reference that evening to what had happened -during the two nights and a day of the <i>Daphne's</i> war with the sea. She -felt that he did not wish to speak of it. Nor did she.</p> - -<p>"As soon as the stars come out I am going to find out where we are——" -Emily interrupted him with a laugh. "Where the <i>Daphne</i> is," he added, -catching her thought, and joining her laugh.</p> - -<p>"I am with the stars, Paul. I feel as if we were alone in space -together."</p> - -<p>She was standing beside him, looking out through the galley door at the -setting sun. He stooped and kissed the crown of her head reverently.</p> - -<p>He told her presently that it was more important to put the bark in a -condition to get away from where she was than to find out where she was. -One thing was certain: the <i>Daphne</i> had plenty of sea room. The weather -promised fair and therewith he summoned all his strength to take -advantage of it.</p> - -<p>While Emily busied herself about the galley, Paul renewed the fire under -the donkey boiler.</p> - -<p>"Bully old crew," he said to the engine and patting its piston in the -familiar way men come to treat inanimate things which serve them. "Only -you can't go aloft. You can set sail, but you can't furl it. But you're -not going to fail us. You won't, will you?"</p> - -<p>He was starting aft to fill the lamps there when Emily came to the -engine room door. The impulse of action that was driving him was in her, -too.</p> - -<p>"Only give me something to do, Paul, and I'll do it just like a real -sailorman."</p> - -<p>"Keep your eye on this steam gauge. When it goes to sixty, open the fire -door. It mightn't be a bad idea if you learned to sound the ship. -There's the sounding rod on that hook. You will find the well between -the pumps. Come. I'll show you."</p> - -<p>"I know where it is," she said eagerly.</p> - -<p>A half-foot of water was sloshing in the port alleyway and in and out of -the rooms opening upon it as Paul entered the cabin. He found the plug -of a scupper just inside the door and pulled it out. Glancing out on -deck, he saw the vent of another scupper. He located this in the mate's -room. As he pulled the plug free and withdrew his hand a sheet of paper -stuck to it. Half curiously he carried it into the after saloon where he -filled the lamps which would be most useful. It was some writing of the -poor Sussex lad's, was his thought. As he lighted the first lamp the -paper caught his eye again. He picked it up. The first line startled him -and led his eyes leaping through the rest of the water-blurred text in a -breathless comprehension.</p> - -<blockquote><p>"In the name of God, Amen: Being of sound and disposing mind, I, -Emily Granville, spinster, of San Francisco, California, do declare -this my last will and testament: After the payment of all just -debts the rest, residue and remainder of my estate, real and -personal, wherever it may be, of which I die possessed, is -bequeathed to Paul Lavelle, sometimes called Whitridge. I hereby -revoke all wills heretofore made by me. In the event of the said -Paul Lavelle, sometimes called Whitridge, not surviving, I direct -that one-fourth of my entire estate be divided, share and share -alike, among those named in said former wills and that the -three-fourths remainder be converted by the State into a fund to be -used and administered by the State for the succor and assistance of -all persons, regardless of race or creed, who may suffer by -disaster upon any of the seas. I further direct that this fund -shall be known as the Lavelle-Granville fund. If any heir under the -said former wills shall contest this will, Paul Lavelle surviving -or not surviving, they shall forfeit to him or the said fund any -interest they may have had or may claim in the said estate and -receive $1. I do this in the realization of the imminent peril of -death and as a testimony to the genuine manhood of Paul Lavelle; -and also in memory of my father. My faith is that Paul Lavelle in -justice must survive and that this will shall come to the eyes of -men properly and without suspicion. The language I have used is -remembered from my father's will with the hope that it will be -binding legally.</p> - -<p>"Aboard the bark <i>Daphne</i> at sea, March 31, 191-.</p> - -<p class="right">"<span class="smcap">Emily Granville.</span>"</p></blockquote> - -<p>Paul Lavelle read this wonderful document a second and even a third -time. It was epic in his sight. He really had no distinct thought. His -mind was whelmed by awe of the character of the gold woman which the wet -sheet of paper revealed. There came to him a picture of her writing at -the desk in Elston's room on the evening of the day they had come aboard -the <i>Daphne</i>. It was then that she had written this will. He kissed the -paper because it seemed part of her and then tore it into little bits.</p> - -<p>Emily was withdrawing the sounding rod from the well when Paul returned -to the deck. Plainly she was in distress.</p> - -<p>"I'm afraid, Paul, I'm a poor sailor," she said as he came to her side. -"I can't tell anything from this."</p> - -<p>Paul took the rod from her and dried it.</p> - -<p>"You sounded as the ship rolled. The way to do is to wait until she -comes on an even keel. Like this. Now."</p> - -<p>"That is just the way I did."</p> - -<p>A moment later he hauled the rod out and gasped in dread. It showed four -and one-half feet of water in the <i>Daphne's</i> hold!</p> - -<p>There surged through him a second later the rage with which he had met -and fought the storm. Here was a new and unexpected gage of battle. It -swept from him the last vestige of pain and fatigue. Instantly the -suggestion of flame, characteristic of the man in action, marked his -every movement.</p> - -<p>"She's an iron vessel with a coal cargo," he hurriedly told Emily. "If -the storm has strained her——" A mist came into his eyes and he glanced -overside. "That cursed sea isn't going to get you! It isn't! Come on!"</p> - -<p>Emily exhibited but a momentary apprehension of danger. The joy of -working with Paul in a freely admitted equality swept it away. The only -recognition of her femininity was his insistence upon her wearing a pair -of gloves which he had brought from McGavock's room.</p> - -<p>Together they got the pumps rigged to the donkey engine and started them -sucking two black streams out of the hold.</p> - -<p>"Two hours will tell us whether the enemy's in force or not—maybe -sooner," Paul said as he left Emily to go about the ship with a lantern -to discover if possible if the <i>Daphne</i> had sprung a leak in her -topsides. When he came to the fore hatch his hopes lifted at the thought -that the sea might have entered here through the uncalked and -untarpaulined covers. It was a dreary tangle of hamper which met his -gaze in this part of the vessel. For an instant he was puzzled to -observe that everything he touched left a black, oily smear. He crawled -up under the forecastle head and there found what he considered an -explanation of the <i>Daphne's</i> survival. Two barrels of engine oil were -lashed to the heel of the bowsprit. One of these had been sprung by the -storm and was still weeping its contents upon the deck. It was this oil -running out of the hawse pipes and the scuppers which had calmed the -bark's tempestuous way.</p> - -<p>This discovery relieved Paul's mind. He had felt compelled to believe -that at times during the storm either he or the vessel had been -bewitched. In all his long experience he had never seen a vessel make -such good weather of things as the <i>Daphne</i>. If he had been in command -with a full crew under him he would have poured out oil just as accident -had done it. Going aft he paused to tell Emily about the oil and to -report everything apparently tight forward.</p> - -<p>"A barrel of oil didn't stand for more than thirty hours' steering, did -it?" she asked, with pride flashing from her eyes.</p> - -<p>In silence Paul went on aft to complete his examination of the ship. It -felt strange to have a champion. He found the cabins practically free of -water. Everything seemed tight. He stopped for a second in the -derelict's door.</p> - -<p>"Poor old fellow was out of his head," he muttered. There came to him a -picture of the stranger's departure. The loss of this man, with only a -flicker of life and mind in him, was but a small thing compared with the -destruction of the four-master and all hands in the fullness of -strength. But the thought of the derelict moved Paul with a great -tenderness. This man had known his father.</p> - -<p>"He believed I was 'The Prince,'" he mused. "Well, father, if there's -any way of knowing—and I'm sure there must be—you know I've tried to -play the game squarely."</p> - -<p>An unsettling thought broke in upon this. What had made him think that -the derelict was Driscoll, a quartermaster of the <i>Yakutat</i>? He shut his -mind against what he believed was a vagary. There was no doubt that he -must have been out of his senses many times during the storm.</p> - -<p>Making his way through the lounge to the poop he paused to examine the -sextant. It was undamaged. It made him think of the chronometer. He -hurried below to the chart room and wound it and then went forward.</p> - -<p>The pumps were still bringing forth their two black streams. Emily stood -beside them oiling their bearings with the touch of an engineer.</p> - -<p>"I can't make out where this water is coming from. Either she's strained -or it pounded in through the fore hatch," he told her. "Everything about -deck seems all right. I've looked overside, too. Everything seems all -right there. Her masts went clear of her. How did you manage to close -that bulkhead door all alone?"</p> - -<p>"I don't know, Paul," she answered frankly. She winced. "I don't know -where I found the strength to do it. The whole sea was coming in, it -seemed. I remember I was very angry. But I have been thinking about the -stranger——" Her eyes filled with tears. "Could it be that I—I shut -him out in the night—in that——"</p> - -<p>"No, no, dear, put that thought away from you forever. He was gone -beyond human aid or recall before you got below. I remember your going -away from the wheel to do something. You had hardly closed the lounge -door when——Let us not think of it."</p> - -<p>"He was——" Emily interrupted.</p> - -<p>"Let us shut out every thought of those two nights, dear, as long as we -can. Shut it out with the past. Soon enough black nights like that will -come between us. Won't you try?"</p> - -<p>As Paul spoke he took one of her gloved hands and patted it. There was -an appeal in his gaze: a flash of the old pain which she had been -praying she might never see in those gray eyes again.</p> - -<p>"We will not think of it, my 'prince,'" she answered.</p> - -<p>With a quick smile he turned away and went forward. She watched him -until he disappeared through the door of the sail room in the port side -of the forward house.</p> - -<p>In less than two hours there was a sudden cessation of the black streams -from below and a weird moaning of the pumps where their plungers pounded -emptily.</p> - -<p>"Paul! Paul!"</p> - -<p>The gold woman sent this cry forward, and as she did so she cut off the -steam as she had seen Paul do. She thrilled at the sight of the engine -stopping at the touch of her small hand. She was laughing as he came to -the engine room door and saw what she had done.</p> - -<p>"The pumps——There is no more water!" she cried eagerly.</p> - -<p>"Give her another turn and let me hear," he said, and he went to the -mainmast.</p> - -<p>Now the engine turned over at a twist of her wrist.</p> - -<p>"Avast!" called Paul at the sound of the dry plungers.</p> - -<p>The engine stopped instantly at the word of command. "We're all right, -Emily. That water must have pounded through the fore hatch."</p> - -<p>She met him with a laugh of sheer joy which made her even white teeth -gleam. It was joy at the lifting of the cloud which had fallen upon both -of them at the discovery that the <i>Daphne</i> might have sprung a leak. It -was joy, too, that comprehended an ability to do things with her hands.</p> - -<p>"I think I should rather be engineer than mate, Paul. It is a lot of fun -making this engine go and stop."</p> - -<p>"You will have an opportunity to be mate, engineer, and midshipmite in -another couple of hours. We are going to have a bit of a moon to-night -and I am going to get as much sail bent as possible."</p> - -<p>Under the stimulation of some strong coffee they began immediately -afterward to bend sail. With the donkey engine's aid it seemed -ridiculously easy to snake the heavy rolls of canvas out of the sail -room and hoist them aloft. Emily, with a woman's natural quickness, had -the trick of using the hoisting drums in perfect control five minutes -after Paul explained it to her. It did not surprise him nor was this so -because of any personal reason. She thought when he told her that she -was as good a working force as any two sailors and better than as many -men landlubbers, that it was but an impulse of his natural kindness -cheering her.</p> - -<p>"Not a bit taffy, dear," said he, noting her doubt. "Every word true. -Only thing a woman lacks is bull strength and perhaps judgment in -personal matters."</p> - -<p>The gold woman laughed.</p> - -<p>"Are you arraigning my judgment?" she asked.</p> - -<p>"No, but what I said is quite true," he continued seriously. "You can -take a woman or girl or boy and in one trick at a wheel teach them to -steer better than men who have spent a lifetime at sea."</p> - -<p>Emily got that pleasure out of the tasks in which she helped which comes -to one working under the direction of another who knows what he is -about. Nothing seemed too hard; nothing seemed hard enough. The will of -the man was inspiring. As she watched him climbing aloft or dropping -below along a shroud or backstay it seemed impossible to believe that he -had been down and helpless but a few hours before.</p> - -<p>The moon came to light their work. By about 10 o'clock they had bent a -new foresail, a new spanker, and new boom jib.</p> - -<p>"That much will give us another little lease on this world," Paul said -as he called quits for the night. "To-morrow morning we'll get a couple -more rags on her, after some fashion."</p> - -<p>But his work was not done. The while Emily prepared a snack of supper he -went aft and took two stellar observations. The reckoning that they gave -him was, indeed, startling. The <i>Daphne</i> was five hundred and -eighty-five miles northeast of her last position! The navigator could -hardly believe his eyes. He took a third set of observations. The result -was the same. There had been times during the storm when he had realized -that the <i>Daphne</i> was driving with terrific speed. But he had -anticipated nothing like this. Yet in this moment the sight of her clean -clipper underbody came to him as he had seen it the morning he and the -gold woman swam out from the Isle of Hope. Allowances for the distance -made from the first noon until the time the storm had struck the -<i>Daphne</i> and of her drift all that day gave him the wonderful speed -average of more than sixteen knots an hour while the storm lasted. Still -doubt lingered until he drew out of his memory a day's work of the -famous clipper <i>Flying Cloud</i>—433¼ statute miles from noon to noon.</p> - -<p>The <i>Daphne</i>, by this reckoning, was lying in the great circle sailing -track of vessels bound from the Japan coast toward San Francisco and -Puget Sound. All thought of trying to make the Hawaiian Islands left -him. The California coast lay less than three thousand miles to the -eastward. The prevailing winds in this track from then on would be from -the west and northwest. The <i>Daphne</i>, with fair weather, should be able -to make this distance in a month. If no vessel should rescue them they -could win home in that time.</p> - -<p>"Oh, you <i>Daphne</i> packet!" he cried in glee as he hurried forward to -tell Emily the good news. He went with a snatch of "The Dreadnaught" -bursting from him.</p> - -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">"'With everything drawing aloft and alow<br /></span> -<span class="i0"> She's a Liverpool packet! Lord God see her go!'"<br /></span> -</div></div> - -<p>Emily was on the point of going to the galley door to call him when she -caught that bit of heart-lifting song. A wild, compelling note of the -sea was in it.</p> - -<p>"We're homeward bound in a clipper ship, lassie!" he called as he -discovered her. Nor would he eat or drink until he had told her where -the storm had carried the <i>Daphne</i> and what it meant to them. He was -like a big, wholesome boy and she told him so. His enthusiasm stirred -her with a desire to be under way immediately. The <i>Daphne</i> became -personal in the gold woman's thoughts as Paul described her -capabilities, and therewith she understood the love of a man for a ship -which women rarely do.</p> - -<p>"Unless we're picked up by some other vessel we'll be up with the Golden -Gate in less than a month!"</p> - -<p>Emily's face clouded at the suggestion of another vessel rescuing them. -Paul laughed.</p> - -<p>"You may not understand, but I wish we might sail the <i>Daphne</i> into our -own home port. Think what a prize it would mean to you."</p> - -<p>A hope lived in his heart for an instant that this might come true. It -was gone when he answered her.</p> - -<p>"The first vessel that comes along we go in her, lassie; and leave the -<i>Daphne</i> to the sea."</p> - -<p>Yet as Emily lay down in the lounge a little while later and saw Paul -hang a light of distress in the mizzen rigging, the strange wish that it -would go unseen was uppermost in her heart. She wanted the <i>Daphne</i> to -remain his, but she would not admit to herself the reason upon which -that hope was predicated.</p> - - - -<hr style="width: 65%;" /> -<h2>CHAPTER XXX</h2> - - -<p>With the first streak of day Paul was on deck. The blow-off of the -donkey, which he had set at a low pressure a couple of hours before, -roused him from the berth he had stretched along the carpenter's bench. -Custom trains seafarers as it does soldiers on campaign to live by a -broken sleep which the average workaday citizen thinks would kill him. -Although Paul had been up at intervals during the night, with an eye for -the weather and any chance lights, he was filled with an eager -freshness. A stirring was coming out of the northwest. There was a tang -in it which promised a whole sail breeze. It put a song in his heart, -and a little while later Emily was awakened by his clear voice ringing -through the morning air, "The Chanty of the Rio Grande."</p> - -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">"'Where are you going to, my pretty maid?<br /></span> -<span class="i3"><i>O away Rio!</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"> Where are you going to, my pretty maid?<br /></span> -<span class="i2"><i>We are bound to the Rio Grande.</i><br /></span> -<span class="i3"><i>O away Rio,</i><br /></span> -<span class="i3"><i>O away Rio,</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"> <i>O fare you well, my bonny young girl,</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"> <i>We are bound to the Rio Grande.</i>'"<br /></span> -</div></div> - -<p>When Emily got forward to the galley she found breakfast waiting.</p> - -<p>"Why didn't you call me, Paul?" she asked in a tone of protest, and she -waited archly in expectancy of a kiss, but he did not seem to notice -this. "Partners must play fair."</p> - -<p>"Never mind, Emily. I can do so little for you. From now on it will be -watch and watch and there will not be much that I can do for you."</p> - -<p>The bending of a new fore upper topsail and straightening out the tangle -of running gear about decks occupied most of the forenoon. It was not -until after luncheon that the <i>Daphne</i>, with Emily at the wheel, lifted -away to the eastward before a fresh northwesterly breeze.</p> - -<p>Paul ran aft as the bark entered upon her task and stood for a moment -beside Emily. The intoxication which she had first experienced alone at -the wheel was again upon her. The breeze was dusting loose wisps of her -hair into a halo which the sun burnished with fire. Bosom heaving, eyes -alight, her whole virgin being alive, a-thrill with love and the -sensation of the <i>Daphne's</i> motion, she presented a figure which would -have given fame to any brush that could have limned it. She might have -been Daphne herself, not fleeing from, but hastening with her fresh -treasures to meet Apollo.</p> - -<p>Paul felt that he dare not speak. He put his hand on the wheel to haul -the bark half a point closer to the wind. As he drew it away Emily -touched it impulsively.</p> - -<p>"Good strong, honest man's hand," she murmured.</p> - -<p>Their eyes met in a flash in which her soul called to his and trembled -when echo only seemed to answer it.</p> - -<p>Paul turned abruptly away to stray the patent log over the taffrail. -Then he went forward in silence. When he found himself a few minutes -later staring out over the weather bow he wondered how he had gotten -there. And the gold woman, watching him until he disappeared, kissed the -wheel spoke his hand had touched and even again in the sweet agony of -her love when she saw that it was flecked with the blood of his storm -travail.</p> - -<p>That evening Paul established the rule by which he thought it best to -work the ship. Emily would stand a watch and trick at the wheel of two -hours and have three hours below. His watch would be three on deck and -two below.</p> - -<p>"It isn't fair, Paul," the gold woman protested when he explained it to -her.</p> - -<p>"It is fair, Emily. I wish I might spare you every bit of the coarse -hard things you have to do."</p> - -<p>"That's just it. You are always thinking of sparing me."</p> - -<p>"Take your orders or go to your room," he said with a pretended -seriousness. Emily started with a gasp. Her thoughts leaped to -McGovern's story of what had happened on the bridge of the <i>Yakutat</i>. -This was what Graham had said to Paul that fateful night.</p> - -<p>"I—I will take my orders," she answered in a low voice.</p> - -<p>"Why, dear, what is the matter? I didn't mean to frighten you. I'm a -ruffian. Do forgive me."</p> - -<p>"No, you should forgive me. I had no right to question what you said. -You know best."</p> - -<p>She drew in beside him on the lee side of the wheel.</p> - -<p>"I've been away from civilization so long that I imagine that I've -forgotten how to speak decently to white folk."</p> - -<p>"Then I should like to send ever so many men that I know at home where -you have been."</p> - -<p>"Bravo! But 'ever so many men'?"</p> - -<p>"Well, they wear trousers."</p> - -<p>"You are cynical."</p> - -<p>"No, observant."</p> - -<p>"I'm afraid you are a new woman."</p> - -<p>"I am. I have just been reborn. Oh, Paul, I have never lived until now. -I have never known what life meant. I have lived as one blind, -incompetent, thoughtless. Like most of those I knew before you came into -my life I had just a vague notion that the earth was round. You know the -kind."</p> - -<p>"Yes. Take the fiction of civilization away from them and every nine -hundred and ninety-nine would perish overnight."</p> - -<p>"I saw them in extremity aboard the <i>Cambodia</i>. How many knew one end of -a boat from the other? They were all thinking of living, crying to live, -and hardly one out of ten knew what to do to save their most precious -possession—life."</p> - -<p>"There is a big thought behind what you say."</p> - -<p>"You started it in me."</p> - -<p>Paul looked over his shoulder at the sea. After a considerable silence -he said:</p> - -<p>"I wonder how many came through?"</p> - -<p>The question was addressed to the sea as much as it was to Emily. She -shuddered.</p> - -<p>"Here!" he exclaimed brusquely. "What are we doing? There is Polaris up -there smiling at you, my lady."</p> - -<p>His face was lit with a wonderful smile as he spoke. It drove the gloom -from her mind which their reference to the <i>Cambodia</i> had produced. Soon -they were off on an expedition to the stars, each in turn naming one and -identifying its bearings. Paul had introduced Emily to this "game" the -second night on the island, and then as now they lost themselves in it -in a childish delight. His mental equipment was forever startling the -gold woman. Where he had found the time to garner the store of knowledge -that was his and to keep abreast of the times, leading such a life as he -had for ten years, was a marvel to her.</p> - -<p>"Ha! Ha!" Paul laughed suddenly as the cabin clock, which he had moved -into the lounge, struck two bells. The laugh broke the spell of the -stars which held Emily, only to weave her immediately in another.</p> - -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">"'I have shot back to Paris!'"<br /></span> -</div></div> - -<p>Paul laughed and made a pretense of dusting himself.</p> - -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">"'Come—pardon me—by the last waterspout,<br /></span> -<span class="i0"> Covered with ether,—accident of travel!<br /></span> -<span class="i0"> My eyes still full of star-dust, and my spurs<br /></span> -<span class="i0"> Encumbered by the planets' filaments!<br /></span> -<span class="i0"> Ha! on my doublet! A comet's hair!'"<br /></span> -</div></div> - -<p>As he finished this snatch from Cyrano de Bergerac's sky-traveling tale, -Paul pretended to pick a comet's hair from his sleeve.</p> - -<p>"Oh, my beloved 'Cyrano'!" exclaimed Emily, identifying the lines. "Do -go on," and in answer Paul went through the entire scene between Cyrano -and De Guiche.</p> - -<p>"And I will applaud—I will pay you thus," and the gold woman reached up -and kissed the helmsman on brow and lip.</p> - -<p>Thus they both came back from across the world and the four centuries -whither the magic of the romantic lines had transported them.</p> - -<p>"Come, Emily, didn't you hear two bells strike? You have let me waste -nearly an hour of your watch below. Turn in."</p> - -<p>"It has been an hour of magic."</p> - -<p>She held her mouth up to be kissed. His lips barely touched hers and -flashed away, and as she went through the lounge door, he murmured, -still in the words of his Gascon hero, "'I soon shall reach the moon.'"</p> - -<hr style="width: 45%;" /> - -<p>Fifteen days later the gold woman was at the wheel again, having -relieved Paul to permit him to make his noon observations. It was a -Sunday. She watched him tremulously, and strangely troubled, where he -worked at the chart table in the lounge.</p> - -<p>The days that had passed had been those of which sea-singers make their -happiest, bravest songs—by sunlight azure, cloudless sky, and -wind-flecked, gem-shot, purple sea; by night an ermine-tipped deep, -mirroring the star jewels and planet studdings of mystic, violet -heavens. Through these halcyon days the <i>Daphne</i> had been winging her -way ever eastward; flinging long sea leagues behind under the impulse of -a driving, northwesterly wind. It had been as constant as a mother's -love; with never a pause the bark had sped as she was speeding now, not -as a hand-made fabric of steel and iron and wood and canvas and brass, -but like a living, sensate thing into which her maker had breathed a -soul. The crispness of Spring was in the air—air which whipped the -blood like young wine.</p> - -<p>"Only a thousand miles more!" called Paul suddenly.</p> - -<p>As he spoke Emily saw him rise quickly from the table and come toward -her. The mask of joyousness which he wore was but a mask to her. It -might have deceived anybody else, but this girl had come to understand -him and read him as not even the woman who had borne him could have -done. There was a constraint upon him. With each noon's tale of a -shortening journey a relentless tide had seemed to carry him further and -further away from her. After the first flush of the homeward flight he -had sung no more of his sea songs unless she asked him. He had a guard -up. A secret fear seemed to be gnawing at his heart. By instinct alone -she read that he loved her; not by external signs.</p> - -<p>"This is a smart little packet," Paul went on. "Just think of it—one -thousand nine hundred and eighty miles in fifteen days! That's moving -with nothing above a crippled mainto'-galluns'l on her! We did eleven -knots for a stretch when that puff struck us at dawn this morning."</p> - -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">"'She's a saucy wild packet; she's a packet of fame,<br /></span> -<span class="i0"> She belongs in New York and the <i>Dreadnaught's</i> her name.'"<br /></span> -</div></div> - -<p>With this couplet, singing it in her rich voice, as she had learned it -from Paul, Emily made her answer. She did it with a bravery and pretense -of light-heartedness which she was far from feeling.</p> - -<p>"At this rate we'll not be spending another Sunday aboard the <i>Daphne</i>, -partner. Eh?"</p> - -<p>"No," she said and she kept her eyes averted as he took the wheel from -her. She looked out over the lee rail and across the sea. Just over the -end of the spanker boom, where it wheeled low down on the southwestern -horizon, a white glint fixed her gaze. For a second she thought it was a -large bird. Guiltily she held her breath as she discovered it to be a -sail. She closed her eyes and afterwards she believed that in that -moment she had prayed that Paul might not see it. But he had followed -her gaze. Her heart went cold as she heard him cry: "Sail ho!"</p> - -<p>A second later the <i>Daphne</i> was shaking in the wind.</p> - -<p>"Here, Emily, take the wheel! Keep her shaking just as she is!"</p> - -<p>Paul drew Emily to the wheel as he spoke and ran to the rail.</p> - -<p>"It's a ship! Those are her skys'ls or royals we can see! She's bound -this way!"</p> - -<p>Emily's hands faltered. The wheel rolled through them. The <i>Daphne</i> -clawed up in the wind until she was nearly aback forward.</p> - -<p>"Hard up! Hard up!" cried Paul in alarm.</p> - -<p>Blindly Emily recovered herself and put the helm up. The <i>Daphne</i> fell -off before the wind and her skipper turned again to the strange sail.</p> - -<p>"No," he said. "She's outward bound—going the other way. We could never -overtake her." He took the wheel again. "Better look at her, partner. -It's a full-rigged ship. Not many of 'em left. Pretty soon the sea will -know them no more. They'll be gone—like—like the dreams of yesterday."</p> - -<p>In a few minutes the outward-bounder dipped out of sight, but even -before she went a mist had shut her from Emily's vision. "Dreams of -yesterday," her thoughts kept repeating.</p> - -<p>Although the <i>Daphne</i> had been lying along in a beaten track of vessels -for more than two weeks, this was the first sail to be sighted from her -decks—the first vessel to come within her ken since the four-master -with the painted ports had "arrived out."</p> - -<p>"Don't feel badly, Emily," Paul said as the gold woman faced him. "Any -hour may bring us up with a homeward-bounder."</p> - -<p>"I do not feel badly," she answered, and her pride helped her mask her -feelings. "But if we are going to be home by next Sunday we are going to -have one more 'picnic.'"</p> - -<p>With that she went forward to the galley. The preceding Sunday she had -prepared a luncheon for both of them and they had eaten it at the wheel -together. They had prepared for it a day ahead, talking childish -make-believes of what they would wear and of the good things they would -have to eat. Paul had stolen the time to shave. Emily had found a bit of -pink ribbon and put it in her hair. This had been their change of -apparel. Such a meal as the cheap, sea-sour provisions of the <i>Daphne</i> -afforded had been the "picnic" luncheon of their fiction.</p> - -<p>But Saturday of this week had slipped by and neither had spoken of a -repetition. Emily had waited for Paul to say something. He had waited -for her. Yet now he noted as she went forward that there was a bit of -ribbon in her hair. And she had observed that morning when he had come -on deck to relieve her at 10 o'clock that he was freshly shaven.</p> - -<p>Of a sudden Emily paused in the midst of her "picnic" preparations, her -mind stumbling upon the strangest thought that had yet come to her of -Paul's inexplicable mood.</p> - -<p>"Can there be another woman in his life?" whispered this thought.</p> - -<p>Instantly there came to her mind the night on the Isle of Hope when she -had heard him murmur in unconsciousness of a woman to whom he would soon -come home.</p> - -<p>She remembered that she had even prayed for this woman.</p> - -<p>"<i>Cherchez la femme.</i>" Nothing was truer than that. Always the woman. -Her thoughts went wild. They began picturing the sort of woman who might -have come into his life and who might be coming back into it. No; she -would never come back into it, for if she had let him go when the blow -fell, he was not the kind to let her back. Still love moved men in -strange ways.</p> - -<p>It was a sorry picnic that was spread on the <i>Daphne's</i> deck. It came to -an end at 2 o'clock when Paul turned the wheel over to Emily and started -forward with the dishes they had used.</p> - -<p>"I think I shall break out some coal for the donkey," he announced.</p> - -<p>"But it's Sunday, you know," said Emily, making a brave effort to smile. -There was an invitation in her glance for him to remain, but he would -not see it.</p> - -<p>"And you've forgotten your sailor's litany," he answered:</p> - -<p>"'Six days shalt thou work, doing all that thou art able; and on the -seventh, holystone the decks and stow away the cable.'"</p> - -<p>He smiled as he quoted the sea-grimed lines which the first shell back -on the Ark must have turned. Then slowly he put down the dishes and -irresistibly—a powerful magnet might have been controlling him—he was -drawn aft to the gold woman. He took her face between his hands and -kissed her as he had kissed her that day in the lounge. She dropped the -wheel and staggered.</p> - -<p>"My lover," she murmured.</p> - -<p>"Darling," he whispered.</p> - -<p>Just as the <i>Daphne</i> was striking aback the madness which was upon -Lavelle passed from him and he seized the wheel. As he sent her off -before the wind again the back draught of the shaking sails wafted to -him a sulphurous odor which chilled the last drop of blood in his veins.</p> - -<p>"Emily, take the wheel. Keep her full—as she is."</p> - -<p>"Paul, dear, what——"</p> - -<p>The pallor of death was in his face. Another scent of gaseous warning -struck him.</p> - -<p>"My God, we're afire!" he cried and sprang forward.</p> - - - -<hr style="width: 65%;" /> -<h2>CHAPTER XXXI</h2> - - -<p>Paul ran straight from the poop into the eyes of the <i>Daphne</i>. There the -trail of gas led him. It was the coal in the fore hatch that had been -exposed and wet. He went below through the chain locker, but only to -remain a second. A sulphurous wave of heat drove him on deck, choking -for breath. A furnace was back of it. There was no fire to be seen, but -this man did not have to see it to know what the blast that repulsed him -meant. He knew these Australian coal cargoes too well. This was not the -result of the mutineers' abortive effort to destroy the <i>Daphne</i>. This -was a fire of spontaneous combustion. It was deeply seated. These coals -had been in the bark more than one hundred and sixteen days to his own -knowledge, which was drawn from the log and the time since he had -boarded her. How long she had lain in Sydney after being loaded there -was no way of telling.</p> - -<p>Coals of this kind, laden in hulls like the <i>Daphne's</i>, which were never -built for such cargoes, generate gas after a certain period, and unless -watched incessantly and ventilated properly fire is the certain result. -The Pacific deeps hold the secret of many a ship brought to her doom -through such a lading.</p> - -<p>That night the constant northwesterly summoned a new freshness to its -drive as if it sensed the <i>Daphne's</i> peril. When Paul relieved Emily at -the wheel at seven o'clock she was crying with the pain in her arms. She -had been standing there a full five hours. Not since they had been -sailing to the eastward had Paul permitted her to take a trick beyond -two hours. She had to walk up and down the deck swinging her arms and -flexing her fingers to get the numbness out of them.</p> - -<p>"Emily, I'd suffer any pain to take yours away," Paul said. "I feel like -a whipped cur to see you going through all this terror and hardship—and -to think I can't do anything to put any of it away from you."</p> - -<p>His tenderness flooded her eyes with tears. Strife always brought him -close to her.</p> - -<p>"Don't, Paul, please," she said bravely, attempting to control her -voice. "You will—you will have me breaking—going to pieces in a -moment."</p> - -<p>She put her hands to her face and leaned against the casing over the -steering gear.</p> - -<p>"Emily, I want you to get for'ard and get a bite to eat and then turn -in," he said. "I'm going to try to let you sleep for three hours—maybe -until midnight. I've everything battened down forward. The fire's all -there. Not a sign aft—no temperature. It's this wind and our strength -against the beast that's under decks."</p> - -<p>He did not tell her what a beast he knew it to be.</p> - -<p>The morning of the fifth day after the discovery of the fire Paul fixed -the <i>Daphne's</i> position one hundred and fifty miles to the south and -west of San Francisco.</p> - -<p>"Only another day, partner! Maybe an hour may bring a vessel to us!" She -had just relieved him at the wheel. Through these five days the <i>Daphne</i> -had come driving without sighting a sail: unspoken save by the voice of -the northwest wind. Once they had seen the black smoke plume of an -outward-bound steamer, but it was too far away for the <i>Daphne's</i> signal -of distress to be seen.</p> - -<p>Paul seemed to be living by will alone: to be endowed of a force that -only death could stay. When he slept the gold woman had no idea. He had -relieved her at the wheel every two hours, night and day, but when she -was steering she frequently heard him at work in the engine room. From -the very first night he had slept beside that engine, kept its fires -alive and a stream of steam flowing into the forehold through a pipe led -down through the chain locker. He had explained to her that water on a -fire like this would have been of as little use as oil: that gases had -to be smothered.</p> - -<p>Emily sensed that a greater danger menaced them than Paul had revealed. -This had been suggested to her when on the second day she had seen him -finish a raft built of doors and forecastle bunkboards. But she had -learned of the storm not to ask questions. What this man chose to tell -he would tell.</p> - -<p>Never had he seemed more splendid than as he stood before her this -morning telling the <i>Daphne's</i> position, and in the same breath -whispering again the belief that had come to him the night before that -the steam was choking the beast in the hold. Bare-armed, bareheaded, -lithe with a thoroughbred's suppleness, he was, in her sight, an urn of -the divine fire from which mankind draws its noblest impulses.</p> - -<p>"We'll win through yet, Paul! In justice we must!" she called to him as -he went forward.</p> - -<p>She saw him come to the galley door a few minutes later with a cup of -steaming coffee and, as he ate of a biscuit and drank, he waved to her. -He darted inside and a moment later came running aft with a cup for her.</p> - -<p>"I've had my coffee, dearheart," she said.</p> - -<p>"Half a dozen cups won't hurt you. I put two spoons of sugar in -this—sand, save the mark."</p> - -<p>With that he was gone from her again. Emily watched him breaking coal -out of a corner of the main hatch for use in the donkey. She smiled as -she remembered his commentary on the grimness of stealing coal from one -end of the ship to make fire to put out coal already afire in the other -end. It was the old, old principle of fighting fire with fire in a new, -weird form.</p> - -<p>Watching her partner drew Emily's attention from the <i>Daphne</i>. A warning -slat of the weather leech of the to'galluns'l brought her eyes back to -the bark and the compass. She had just succeeded in getting the vessel -on her course of northeast again, when a roar with a shriek whistling -through it came bursting aft. A cloud of steam poured from the engine -room door.</p> - -<p>Shrieking Paul's name, Emily paused but a second when no answer came. -She became a flame of action. With the quickness of thought and the -instinct of his training guiding her hands, she snapped the wheel into -its beckets, let the spanker sheet go by the run and, leaping forward, -cast the halyards off their pin.</p> - -<p>Only belching steam answered her cry of Paul. Into it she hurled -herself. It flung her back. She became as a tigress at the repulse. She -was not to be denied. Instinct brought her to her hands and knees. It -told her to go in under the scalding vapor. Just inside the door she -found her own and snatched him into the life-giving air.</p> - -<p>When Paul awoke to consciousness fifteen minutes later it was to find -the face of the gold woman bending over him. He put up his arms and drew -her face down against his hot lips and held it there.</p> - -<p>"You, you," he murmured, and he found the precious lips which had kissed -him again and again in his unconsciousness. They answered him as if they -would breathe the strength of immortal life into his form.</p> - -<p>"Not even death can take you from me!" she cried, and started up -savagely. She might have expected to find the grim specter himself to -grapple at her side.</p> - -<p>"Not even—death——"</p> - -<p>Lavelle sighed and his eyes closed in a seeming weariness of pain. His -arms fell from her neck.</p> - -<p>"Oh, God, you mustn't take him from me! You must not!"</p> - -<p>It was an appeal, a command, a challenge of defiance. The cry with which -she sent it heavenward pierced above the roar of the steam and the -warring sails and hamper above.</p> - -<p>Although this lone woman's extremity was great, yet of her association -with Paul Lavelle she had learned to order her wits in the presence of -disaster.</p> - -<p>"If the next minute seems to be the last, just keep on -fighting—hammering ahead," he had said to her so many times.</p> - -<p>She remembered how he had given strychnine to McGovern to stimulate -heart action—the oil he had put on the poor fellow's burns. She ran aft -and in a drawer in the medicine chest which she looted of bandages and -lint she discovered by accident a bottle of brandy. When she returned to -Paul he was just opening his eyes again. He shook his head at the liquor -when he had taken but a sip of it.</p> - -<p>"Some starch and water," he whispered, "or glycerine. There's some -aft——"</p> - -<p>Emily found a bottle of glycerine. A few minutes after he had swallowed -a mouthful of it he nodded that he felt easier.</p> - -<p>"Steam—afraid it got inside," he whispered. "Tried—remember keep my -mouth shut. Steam's bad to swallow. Water injector—on the boiler—blew -out. Hit me somewhere in the middle. Happened all in a second."</p> - -<p>He fainted while Emily was drawing the boot off his left leg which he -had indicated hurt him most. The limb was scalded from the knee down. -His arms and the backs of his hands, too, were blistered. His face was -grimed with ashes and soot, but when Emily washed it she found it free -of burn or hurt. The while her loving hands swathed him and soothed his -wounds she crooned like a wild thing over its whelp.</p> - -<p>When he revived she was holding his head in her lap just as she had in -the <i>Cambodia's</i> boat. His eyelids lifted to her kisses. He put up a -hand and touched her cheek and she patted it. He smiled at the -reassurance that it was not a dream. Many, many times he had awakened to -put out his hand like that—to touch that face and met only emptiness.</p> - -<p>The jade ring which he had put on Emily's finger drew his glance and -held it for a second.</p> - -<p>"'Man has many reckonings with man, but only one with God,'" he -repeated. "'Only one with God.'"</p> - -<p>The escaping steam by this time had spent its strongest volume. It was -now no more than a hiss. The <i>Daphne</i> had fallen off before the wind -again and the noise aloft had practically ceased.</p> - -<p>"I feel this is the reckoning, partner," he whispered.</p> - -<p>With a sob she bent and kissed him with all the passion of her being.</p> - -<p>"And for the touch of those lips," Paul went on, "the reckoning—cannot -be too hard."</p> - -<p>"No, no, dearheart——No, no! This is not the reckoning—only the -beginning of the future."</p> - -<p>Paul shook his head.</p> - -<p>"I have thought of the future, but it can't be—for me. If things had -been different I should have found you though you had been at the ends -of the world. And I should have come for you and taken you." A flash of -the old conquering spirit lit his eyes. "I should have taken you despite -a world against me. It is part of the—the reckoning that we -should—have met; like strange ships on the sea and to have sailed -together for this little while. But it wasn't to be that we were to get -home together. And that is right. That is right."</p> - -<p>"Paul, Paul, this hopelessness is not like you. You will live! You must -live!"</p> - -<p>"But I don't want to live," he answered very calmly. "I am nothing but a -worthless, broken thing—marked among men. I haven't even a name to give -you. I am a pariah man—darling. That's——"</p> - -<p>"Listen, Paul—look up at me so that you will know that it is my soul -speaking to you. All that fortune has given me is as nothing to just the -glance with which you are looking up at me now. All that I have is -yours—my soul, my flesh, my blood, my every breath, my life! Had you -nowhere to lay your head I would follow you. Had you only rags to cover -me I would wear them as robes of state. Had you only a crust from the -gutter to share with me it would be a feast. Were the whole world to -revile you its scorn would make me proud. I would wear its spittle like -jewels. My love would be my crown."</p> - -<p>Emily Granville was burning with the divine fire of a sublime love. Her -message to this man, who to her was more than all the earth and its -treasures—more than life itself, burst from her lips with the -passionate rush of a mountain stream seeking the ocean.</p> - -<p>"Can you not understand that my love would be a poor weak, despicable -thing if this were not so? That I would not be worthy of my womanhood?"</p> - -<p>She choked back the tears as she asked these questions; she kissed the -face which she pressed against her breast.</p> - -<p>"That you might live—I would die with a smile and with but one regret: -That it had not been permitted to me to bear a man child like you.</p> - -<p>"But there is a future, Paul. The world will not drive us forth. Life—a -fine, clean, God-fearing life is waiting for us over there—just through -the Golden Gate. It is a golden gate which will close out the -past—forever and ever."</p> - -<p>"It cannot be locked out, dear."</p> - -<p>"But it can. I can lock it out. The world must listen to me. It must -believe me. Justice works in strange ways, but it brought us that poor -man out of the sea. I can tell the world his story. He was with you on -the <i>Yakutat</i>."</p> - -<p>Paul started and caught her hand.</p> - -<p>"Then, it was not a vagary," he whispered. "That was Driscoll—the -quartermaster."</p> - -<p>"He was in the boat with you that night. I don't know what name you knew -him by. But he told me what happened—the truth. Had he never spoken I -should have known the truth. If the world would not listen to you, it -will listen to me! It will take back its lies! If——"</p> - -<p>Emily's voice broke and she lowered her head in the embrace of the -wounded arms which encircled her neck. The pent-up tears of all her -travail of spirit since their paths had crossed—the tears choked back -and fought back through the dark hours of all the weeks that had -gone—would not be longer stayed. On his breast she poured them, and her -one thought was that if death must be her love's victor it would strike -them quickly in each other's arms.</p> - - - -<hr style="width: 65%;" /> -<h2>CHAPTER XXXII</h2> - - -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">"In the Black Ball Line I served my time,<br /></span> -<span class="i1"><i>To me hoodah. To me hoodah;</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"> In the Black Ball Line I served my time,<br /></span> -<span class="i1"><i>So hurrah for the Black Ball Line!</i><br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2"><i>"Blow, my bullies, blow,</i><br /></span> -<span class="i2"> <i>For California O!</i><br /></span> -<span class="i2"> <i>There's plenty of gold,</i><br /></span> -<span class="i2"> <i>So I've been told,</i><br /></span> -<span class="i1"><i>On the banks of the Sacramento!</i>"<br /></span> -</div></div> - -<p>It was with this familiar capstan chanty, "The Banks of the Sacramento," -ringing into his senses that Paul Lavelle opened his eyes again on -conscious life. The chorus rose clear and lusty, following a baritone -leader whose tones were like chimes. A strange, sharp voice of command -near by suddenly cut into the chorus.</p> - -<p>"Tell that gang of bullies to cut that out and handle that capstan in -silence! Tell 'em to remember we've sick folk aboard here."</p> - -<p>A moment afterward the chanty ceased.</p> - -<p>"Emily, Emily!" Paul called. He believed he shouted, but his voice rose -hardly above a whisper. A shadow cut off the morning sunlight which was -streaming through a door at his feet. A film seemed to be over his -vision, but he sensed that he was in the <i>Daphne's</i> lounge. Somebody sat -down beside him and two strong hands took one of his between them.</p> - -<p>"You God blessed, old pirate, you——"</p> - -<p>Emotion choked the speaker, but Paul Lavelle started at the sound of -that voice. It called to him across fourteen years of silence. He looked -up dazed at a man built like himself and dressed in the uniform of a -United States naval commander.</p> - -<p>"Tommy—Tommy Winterton," he murmured.</p> - -<p>"Bet your boots it's Tommy!" came the answer with a bit of a sniffle in -it.</p> - -<p>"But where am I? Where——" Terror seized him. "Emily, Emily!" he -called.</p> - -<p>"She's below, Paul, sleeping. She's been up here, sitting where I am, -nearly all night."</p> - -<p>"But how——Where——"</p> - -<p>"Stow your questions till I get through. I've a lot to tell you."</p> - -<p>Paul subsided with a wondering gaze fixed on the speaker.</p> - -<p>"I've a lot to tell that'll make you want to live; that ought to bring -you off your back quicker than you can say Jack Robinson," Winterton -went on. "You haven't swallowed any steam—you're burned up a bit -outside and you're just as good-looking as ever."</p> - -<p>"But where am I? What has happened?"</p> - -<p>"You're aboard your own bark—the <i>Daphne</i>. She's yours by the Lord -Harry and I'd like to see anybody take her away from you. We'll be up -with the Gate in another three hours. I'm having her mudhooks shackled -up now. Along——"</p> - -<p>A renewing of the chanty interrupted him.</p> - -<p>"Mr. Yates! Mr. Yates!" called Winterton.</p> - -<p>A young ensign appeared in the doorway.</p> - -<p>"Tell 'em to cut that out!"</p> - -<p>Paul shook his head.</p> - -<p>"Let 'em go on," he asked. "Ask that fellow with the baritone voice to -find a job and give us 'The Maid of Amsterdam.'"</p> - -<p>"Anything his heart desires, Mr. Yates."</p> - -<p>Yates stepped inside with his hand extended toward Paul.</p> - -<p>"I just want to shake hands with you and say I'm proud to do it."</p> - -<p>He lifted the hand which Winterton held and gave it a gentle squeeze -through its bandages. He turned and went out quickly. Winterton picked -up the hand again and met Paul's wondering gaze.</p> - -<p>"That boy meant that," said Winterton. "Why——"</p> - -<p>The strain of "The Maid of Amsterdam"—the most beautiful of all sailor -work songs—came aft.</p> - -<p>"That can't stop me," Winterton went on. "We ran afoul of your old -packet about 11 o'clock yesterday morning, threshing around like a wild -ship—two ships of the cruiser squadron; mine and another. The -<i>Carolina</i> has gone on in. I'm stretching a hawser over your bows with -my ship. Don't you remember anything about it? No? I sent Yates and a -boat's crew aboard of you. They found you and that glorious girl trying -to get aft. You wanted to get to the wheel and you not able to stand. -Don't remember it, eh? I reckon you don't.</p> - -<p>"Oh, my boy, that girl and you have had the whole lot of us miserable. -We reached Honolulu from Callao ten days after the <i>Cambodia</i> went down. -Department ordered us to join the search for survivors. Whaler picked up -a hundred and forty. There was a kid of a quartermaster among 'em—he -and a chap named Evans—he's in the consular service—were the heroes of -the whole lot. It would take me a week to tell you the things they said -about you. They weren't the only ones. To me it was like a poor man -finding gold—every word they dropped was a chunk of gold. Say, don't -mind, if I snivel a little bit. But I'm glad, glad! You under—you -old——"</p> - -<p>"My mother——Have——"</p> - -<p>"Got a cable from her at Honolulu. Sent a wireless to her last night. -She's waiting for you now in town. <i>Cambodia</i> had no wireless. 'Twas a -crime. Somebody ought to be hanged."</p> - -<p>Paul nodded assent.</p> - -<p>"Well, we combed out to the westward looking for you till it was -hopeless," Winterton resumed. "We had nothing but gale upon gale. We -combed through that chain of islands to the nor'west of the Hawaiians -and at Midway we ran on the gang out of this ship. Oh, it isn't a pretty -story: They'd made the island after being in the boats ten days. When -they set fire to this ship they thought Midway was right aboard of them. -None was a navigator. Second mate—a murdering hound named Morgan, who'd -been taken aft from the foc'sle, was the ringleader. He killed McGavock, -the skipper. The Jap cook killed the mate. Plain hellishness was at the -back of it; that's all.</p> - -<p>"McGavock had been logging both of them—knocked Morgan down one day for -giving him back talk. Mate did the same to the cook. The Jap was crazy -from opium smoking. After they'd done the killing they fixed the fire -and the rest of the crew followed them over the side like rats—you know -the kind. One of the outfit—sort of a third mate and bos'n—who'd put -up a fight—they turned him adrift without water or a bite to eat. Told -him to eat the oars if he got hungry; gave him the ocean to drink. Yes, -that's the fellow you picked up. Miss Granville told me about it last -night. He was with your father at Apia."</p> - -<p>"But what of McGavock's wife? There was a woman, Tommy."</p> - -<p>"She wasn't aboard. Seems poor McGavock lost his wife—died at sea with -her little baby, away out to the westward there, a couple of years ago. -He kept brooding over it—kept the wife's things aboard just as she'd -left them. I saw the little ferns down there under the skylights -yesterday evening. Seems that after crossing the line this voyage -McGavock got it into his head to make the position where he'd buried the -little woman. He had it marked on the chart with a little red cross. The -mutineers stole the chart and they thought the red cross stood for an -island. God knows why McGavock steered out there. Maybe he never -intended to come away.</p> - -<p>"The Jap committed suicide at Midway, but he told the whole story before -he went out and we have the rest of it from the other swine. The whole -outfit's aboard my ship. Something of the poetry of justice in that, eh? -A British cruiser's waiting to take them aboard as soon as we get in. -Had her by wireless yesterday.</p> - -<p>"But, Paul, it's you I want to talk about—and I'll not answer another -question till I have my say. When the news of the <i>Cambodia's</i> loss and -what you'd done aboard of her went flashing round the world it set the -old navy gang's hearts up. But it did more than that. It reached into -the conscience of that fellow Graham. He was on his last legs in a -hospital in San Francisco. He'd never had a ship since he'd lost the -<i>Yakutat</i>—just a beachcomber and a bum. A man can't do a dirty thing -and stand up afterward. That's as sure as shooting. Well, with his last -breath, Graham tells the truth about the night the <i>Yakutat</i> was lost; -said if he'd done what you advised him to do the ship would never have -piled up. He took back every lie he uttered on the witness -stand—admitted that he'd ordered you to the boats. He even told how he -looked down from the bridge and saw you fighting like a tiger to get -women and children into the boats. The San Francisco papers—we picked -'em up at Honolulu—are full of it. Miss Granville has a lot of them.</p> - -<p>"Lord, man——Why, Paul, you damned old pirate you! The fleet's been -collecting a fund—one of the newspapers that roasted you the worst is -backing it—to build you a memorial. Something in bronze. But it isn't -going to be bronze. It's going to be silver—the damnedest, finest -wedding gift a real man ever got."</p> - -<p>Winterton's voice was husky with emotion. His big brown eyes were -suspiciously misty. He had to stop.</p> - -<p>"Farallones are abeam, sir," reported Yates, who was in temporary -command of the <i>Daphne</i>, coming to the door.</p> - -<p>"Must be getting back to my own ship, Paul. Regulations, you know. But -I'll be aboard of you as soon as we get our mudhooks down."</p> - -<p>"Carpenter's mate reports, sir," interrupted the ensign, "that the fire -in the forehold is extinguished."</p> - -<p>"See that!" exclaimed Winterton. "You beat that, too, you old beggar, -even though you did come near blowing yourself to Kingdom Come!"</p> - -<p>At that moment Emily, fresh from sleep and with the wonderful light of -love transcendent in her being, came up through the companionway with -the surgeon from Winterton's ship at her heels.</p> - -<p>Sawbones caught Winterton's eye and followed him out on deck. The lounge -door closed softly behind them and Emily Granville and Paul Lavelle were -alone. He drew her precious face down to his and printed a kiss of life -triumphant upon her expectant lips. Neither attempted to speak for -several minutes.</p> - -<p>The gold woman carried a small black book and she laid it in Paul's -hands as she lifted her face from his.</p> - -<p>"I want you to have this now, my prince, before the world renders you -what it will in a few hours. I would have dragged from the world what it -is going to give you willingly. I want all that comes to you to come -through me. Darling, that is the woman of it. I have kept this a secret -from you because I wished to be able to swear that it was not written at -your suggestion; that you knew absolutely nothing about it. If I did -wrong in keeping it from you—you——"</p> - -<p>"Why, darling, what is it?"</p> - -<p>"Can you bear to read?"</p> - -<p>"Yes."</p> - -<p>"Then begin here," and she opened the book in the middle for him and -this is what Paul Lavelle read:</p> - -<blockquote> -<p>"At sea aboard the bark <i>Daphne</i>, March 31, 191-.</p> - -<p>"In the presence of death and without the solicitation or the knowledge -of any person hereinafter named I, Daniel McGovern, sometimes called -Driscoll, and other names unknown to me, say: I was quartermaster aboard -the steamship <i>Yakutat</i> which was wrecked on the California Coast in the -month of March—the 15th—190-, through and by the carelessness of her -first officer, William Graham, then acting as captain in the place of -her dead commander. I joined the ship at Skagway. The shipping records -there will show under what name. On the day preceding the wreck and when -we were within thirty-six hours of our destination we encountered a -dense fog in which the ship remained up to the time she struck. The fog -closed in about 10 o'clock at night shortly after I took the wheel. Paul -Lavelle, second officer of the <i>Yakutat</i> and ranking next in command to -William Graham, was on the bridge. About fifteen minutes afterward -Graham came on the bridge. I heard Mr. Lavelle tell a steward to call -Graham from the saloon. Lavelle said: 'We are standing in too near the -land. There is a bad current along here.' Graham said: 'I've had enough -of this talk from you. Hold your course. I'm in command here.' He left -the bridge. The next night when I went on watch the course was the same -that we had been holding for the previous twenty-four hours. This was at -midnight. The third officer and the captain, Graham, were on the bridge. -Mr. Lavelle was just being relieved. He said to the captain, Graham: 'I -advise you to steer at least three points further to the southward.' We -were making a course southeast by east. Graham answered: 'Take your -orders or go to your room and stay there. Which will it be?' Mr. Lavelle -said: 'I will take my orders.' Other things were said in both these -conversations, but what they were I do not know. I give only the parts I -heard and remember. The ship struck at fifteen minutes before two. The -third officer signaled: 'Full speed astern.' If he had signaled 'Full -speed ahead' there would have been but few lives lost. There was a -ground swell running, but hardly any sea. Lavelle came on the bridge -first. Then came Graham and the fourth officer. Graham was like a crazy -man. He kept saying: 'All hands to the boats.' And there were not boats -enough aboard for half the ship's company. Mr. Lavelle cursed Graham. -Graham said: 'I order you to your boat.' I followed Mr. Lavelle. We had -to fight like wild beasts. There were pistols and knives against us at -every hand. 'Women and children first; remember, Driscoll.' That is what -Mr. Lavelle said to me. The boats were being let go by the run, some -half filled and others with not enough in them to man them. We gathered -all the women and children we could see. The last we let in was an old -gentleman who had been sick all the passage, and his wife. I lifted him -in. Mr. Lavelle lifted the wife. One would not go without the other. -Then the lights went out. When we cleared the side Lavelle started to -climb the boat fall again to go back to the ship. I pulled him back. He -was too brave a man to let commit suicide. He had absolutely no thought -of himself. I have followed the sea forty-five years and I know brave -men. I saw Paul Lavelle's father die at Apia. Nobody was driven from our -boat but men. We gave their places to women and children. We did not -beat anybody with oars. When we cleared the ship a negro—I had knocked -him overboard myself—grabbed the gunwale of the boat. We could not take -him in. Mr. Lavelle struck at him with an oar. Somebody stood up in the -boat and the next second we were all gone. I did not remember what -happened until one year ago. The minister at the Bethel in Hong Kong can -tell you about that. The doctors there know, too. While I was on the -<i>Yakutat</i> I did not know who Paul Lavelle was.</p> - -<p class="center">HIS<br /> -<span class="smcap">Daniel X McGovern.</span><br /> -MARK</p> - -<p>"Witness:<br /> - "<span class="smcap">Emily Granville.</span>"</p> - -</blockquote> - -<p>"Oh, you wonderful, wonderful woman!" cried Paul as he finished this -amazing document and crushed Emily to him.</p> - -<p>Contrition filled him as he remembered the picture of her standing -beside the derelict's berth swearing him to the truth of his statement. -He started to speak, but a hand over his mouth stopped him. The gold -woman could read his thoughts.</p> - -<p>"I should have answered you when you called me that night, Paul," she -said, "but if I had done so I should not have been able to get the poor -old fellow to make his mark. I had fought death from taking him until I -could put in writing what he said. You——"</p> - -<p>She did not finish, for he drew her cheek down against his.</p> - -<p>Two hours later Paul Lavelle and Emily Granville sailed through the -Golden Gate—the golden gate of the future which she had promised him.</p> - -<p>The noble sea way was shimmering in the sunlight of a flawless Spring -day. As the <i>Daphne</i> came under the lee of the green-clad Marin hills -the northwest wind, which had been her constant champion, withdrew like -a courtier who has seen his lady to the threshold of her home.</p> - -<p>"To live and to love!" exclaimed Paul, inhaling a deep breath of the -crisp, sparkling air where he had been carried from the lounge to a -chair against the taffrail.</p> - -<p>"To love and to live," whispered Emily, pressing the hand which she held -in hers against her heart. "Isn't life beautiful?"</p> - -<p>"We are but coming through its gate, darling," he answered.</p> - - -<h3>THE END</h3> - -<p>[The end of <i>The Girl of the Golden Gate</i> by William Brown Meloney]</p> - - - - - - - - -<pre> - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Girl of the Golden Gate, by -William Brown Meloney - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GIRL OF THE GOLDEN GATE *** - -***** This file should be named 60124-h.htm or 60124-h.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/6/0/1/2/60124/ - -Produced by David T. 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