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Stolen Singer

<h3> CHAPTER XXIV </h3> <h3> AFTER YOU, MONSIEUR? </h3> Jim had no desire to create a sensation among his friends at the old red house; but as he left the pine grove all his instincts led him to flee in another direction. He did not fully realize just what had happened to him, but he was conscious of having received a very hard jolt, indeed. The house, full of happy associations as it was, was just now too tantalizing a place. Aleck had won out, and he and Mélanie were radiating that peculiar kind of lover's joy which shines on the eve of matrimony. Jim wished them well—none better—but he also wished they wouldn't make such a fuss over these things. Get it done and out of the way, and the less said about it the better. In fact, Jim's buoyant and sunny spirit went into eclipse; he lost his holiday ardor, and trudged over the hill and into the shore road in a state of extreme dejection. But he lingered on the way, diverted almost against his will by the sight of fishing smacks putting into harbor, an island steamer rounding a distant cliff, and the Sea Gull lying motionless just within the breakwater. Women may be unkind, but a ship is a ship, after all. One can not nurse the pain even of a shattered heart when running before a stiff wind with the spinnaker set and an open sea ahead. The thought decided him. The sea should be his bride. Jim did not stop to arrange, at the moment, just how this should be brought about, but his determination was none the less firm. He became sentimental to the extent of reflecting, vaguely, that this was but philosophic justice. The sea had not conquered him—far from it; neither should She conquer him. He would follow the sea, the path of glamour, the home of the winged foot and the vanishing sail, the road to alien and mysterious lands— Thus Jimmy, in reaction from the Arctic douche to which his emotional self had been subjected. He was, figuratively speaking, blue with the cold, but trying valiantly to warm himself. As he gazed at the Sea Gull, asleep on the flood tide, cutting a gallant figure in the glowing sunset, he felt an overmastering longing to be aboard. He would stay on the yacht until Chamberlain came, at least; possibly all night. Having made up his mind on this point, James persuaded himself that he felt better. Philosophy is a friend in need, after all. Why should one failure in getting one's desires crush the spirit? He would make a right-about-face, travel for a year on a sailing vessel, see the world. That was it. Hang the shoe business! Immersed in mental chaos such as these fragments of thought suggest, Jim did not perceive that he was being overtaken, until a slow greeting came to his ears. "Good evening, friend." It was the deliberate, wide-eyed youth of the Reading-room. "Ah, good evening." "If you are on your way to the Sailors' Reading-room, I wish to inform you that I have been obliged to lock up for to-night, on account of an urgent errand at the village." Jimmy stared vacantly for a moment at the pale, washed-out countenance of his interlocutor. "I thought I'd tell you," the youth went on in his copy-book style, "so as to save your taking the long walk. I am the librarian of the Reading-room." "Ah, thank you. But I wasn't going to the Reading-room to-night. I am on my way to the village." "Well, there's a large majority of people do go to the Reading-room, first and last," the youth explained with pride. "And some of them are not worthy of its privileges. I am on my way now to prevent what may be a frightful accident to one who has enjoyed the benefits of our work." Jim gazed at the youth. "A frightful accident! Then why in Heaven's name don't you hurry?" The youth exhibited a slightly injured air, but did not hasten. "I was just about to continue on my way," he said, "when it occurred to me that you might be interested to know." "That's good of you. But what is it all about?" "Some time ago, a very profane and impatient gentleman, waiting for money to be telegraphed to him from New York—" "Well, man, go on! Where is he?" "I know nothing about the movements of this ungodly person, but it appears that to-day, for the first time in its history, the quarry up yonder has been robbed. Circumstances lead the manager to suspect that this same gentleman was the perpetrator of the theft, and I am on my way to further the ends of justice." "No need to be so particular about calling him a gentleman. But what is the 'accident' likely to be?" "It is feared that the thief may not be aware of the nature of the article he has stolen, and it is very dangerous." "What on earth is it?" "It is a fairly large-sized stick of dynamite." The youth might have been discussing a fancy dance, so suave and polite was he. Jim interrupted rudely. "Dynamite, is it? Good. If it's old Chatelard, he ought to blow up. Serve him right." "I'm surprised and pained at your words, my dear friend. No soul is utterly—" "Yes, it is. Which way did he go? Where is he?" "I don't know. The manager sent me to inform the sheriff." "It won't do any good. But you'd better go, all the same." The judge in chancery went on his dignified way. He would not have hurried if he had heard Angel Gabriel's trump. The news he had brought was in the class to be considered important if true, but there was nothing in it to alter Jimmy's plans. He took the shortest cut to the shore, found a fiat-bottomed punt that was regarded by the village as general property, and pushed off. The Sea Gull was a tidy craft, and looked very gay with even the half of her festival flags on view. But the gaiety did not beguile Jim's dampened spirits. He went aboard feeling that he'd like to rip the idiotic things down; but the yacht, at least, offered a place where he could think. The sunset light on the water blazed vermilion—just the color that Jim all at once discovered he hated. He looked down the companionway, but finally he decided to stretch out on deck for a few minutes' rest. He was very tired. Off in the stern was a vague mass which proved to be a few yards of canvas carefully tented on the floor. Some gimcrack belonging to the ship's ornamentation had been freshly gilded and left to dry, protected by an old sail-cloth. This, weighted down by a rusty marlinespike, spread couchwise along the taffrail, and offered to Jim just the bed he longed for. He lay down, face to the sky, and gave himself up to thoughts that were very dark indeed. He had been thrown down, unexpectedly and quite hard, and that was all there was to it. Agatha, lovely but inexplicable maid, was not for him. She had been deceptive—yes, that was the word; and he had been a fool—that was the plain truth. He might as well face it at once. He had been idiot enough to think he might win the girl. Just because they had been tossed together in mid-ocean and she had clung to him. The world wasn't an ocean; it was a spiritual stock-exchange, where he who would win must bid very high indeed for the prizes of life. And he had so little to bid! Communing thus with his unhappiness, Jim utterly lost the sense of time. The shameless vermilion sunset went into second mourning and thence to nun's gray, before the figure on the sail-cloth moved. Then, through senses only half awake, Jim heard a light sound, like a scratch-scratch on the hull of the yacht. Chamberlain, no doubt, just rubbing the nose of his tender against the Sea Gull. Jim was in no hurry to see Chamberlain, and remained where he was. The Englishman would heave in sight soon enough. But though Jim waited several minutes, with half an eye cocked on the stairway, nobody appeared. The wind was still, the sea like glass; not a sound anywhere. Struck by something of strangeness in the uncanny silence, Jim sat up and called "Ahoy, Chamberlain!" There was no answer. But in the tense stillness there was a sound, and it came from below—the sound of a man's stealthy tread. Jim sprang to his feet and made the companionway at a bound. He listened an instant to make sure that he heard true, cleared the steps, and landed in the darkness of the ship's saloon. As he groped along, reaching for the door of the principal cabin, the blackness suddenly lighted a little, and a dim shadow shot out and up the stairway. Jim's physical senses were scarcely cognizant of the soft, quick passing, but his thumbs pricked. He dashed after the shadow, up the stairs, out on deck, and aft. There he was—Chatelard, armed, facing his enemy once more, cool but not smiling, desperately at bay. Below him, riding just under the stern of the yacht, was the tender whose scratch-scratch had awakened Jim. A man, oars in hand, was holding the boat close to the Sea Gull. Jim saw all this during the seconds between his turning at the stair-top and his throwing himself plump against the figure by the railing. He was quick enough to pass the range of the weapon, whose shot rang out in the clear air, but he was not quick enough to get under the man's guard. Chatelard was ready for him, holding his weapon high. As he pressed forward, Jim felt something under his foot. He ducked quickly, as if to dodge Chatelard's hand, and on the downward swing he picked up the rusty marlinespike. It was a weapon of might, indeed. Jim's blow caused Chatelard's arm to drop, limp and nerveless. But in gaining his enemy's weapon, Jim was forced to drop his own. He put a firm foot upon the spike, however, while he held Chatelard at arm's length and looked into his face. "So we meet once more, after all!" he cried. "And once more I have the pistol." Even as Jim spoke, his adversary made a spring that almost enabled him to seize the weapon again. Jim eluded his clutch, and quick as thought threw the gun overboard. It struck far out on the smooth water. It was a sorry thing to do, as it proved, for Chatelard, watching his chance, stooped, wrenched the spike from under Jim's foot, and once more stood defiantly at bay. And at this point, he opened his thin lips for one remark. "You'll go to hell now, you pig of an American!" "But after you, Monsieur!" Jim cried, and with the words, his arms were about the other in a paralyzing grip. Had Jim been as strong as when the two men measured forces weeks before, in the fo'cas'le of the Jeanne D'Arc, the result might have been different. But the struggle was too long, and Jim's strength insufficient. Chatelard freed himself from his antagonist sufficiently to wield the spike somewhere about Jim's head, and there came over him a sickening consciousness that he was going down. He dropped, hanging like a bulldog to Chatelard's knees, but he knew he had lost the game. He gathered himself momentarily, determined to get on his feet once more, and had almost done it, when sounds of approaching voices mingled with the scuffle of their feet and their quick breathing. Before Jim could see what new thing was happening, Chatelard had turned for one alert instant toward the port side, whence the invading voices came. He was cut off from the stairway, caught in the stern of the yacht, his weapon gone. He gave a quick call in a low voice to the boat below, stepped over the taffrail and then leaped overboard. Propped up on an elbow, dazed and half blinded, blood flowing down his cheek, Jim stretched forward dizzily, as if to follow his disappearing enemy. He heard the splash of the water, and saw the rowboat move out from under the stern, but he saw no more. He thought it must have grown very dark. "Blest if he didn't jump overboard hanging on to that marlinespike!" said Jim stupidly to himself. And then it became quite dark. When Jimsy regained sight and consciousness, which happened not more than three minutes after he lost them, he found himself supported affectionately against somebody's shoulder, and a voice—the Voice of all voices he most loved—was in his ears. "Here I am, dear. Do not die! I have come—come to stay, if you want me, James, dearest!" And bending over him was a face—the very Vision of his dream. "Look at me, speak to me, James, dear!" The voice was a bit hysterical, but the face was eloquent, loving, adoring. It was too good to be true, though Jim was disposed to let the illusion prolong itself as far as possible. He put up his hand and smoothed her face gently, in gratitude at seeing it kind once more. Then he smiled foolishly. "It's great, isn't it!" he remarked inanely, before thinking it necessary to remove his head. Her face was still the face of tenderness, full of yearning. It did not change. She took a handkerchief from her pocket and carefully pressed it to his cheek and chin. When she took it away, he saw that it was red. "Lord, what a mess I'm making!" he exclaimed, trying at last to sit up. As he did so, it all came back to him—the flying shadow, the gun, the struggle. He leaned over to peer again through the crossed wires of the deck railing, down into the water. He turned back with an amazed expression. "Did he jump overboard, honest-true, hanging on to that spike?" Neither Aleck nor Agatha could say, nor yet Mr. Chamberlain, who had been searching the yacht. Wherever it was, the rusty marlinespike had disappeared. The rowboat, too, had gone into the darkness. Jim got up, dazedly thinking for a moment that it was necessary for him to give chase, but he quickly sat down on the sail-cloth again, overcome with faintness and a dark pall before his eyes. "You are not hurt badly?" The voice was still tender, and it was all for him! As Jim heard it, the pall lifted, and his buoyant spirit came back to its own. He laughed ringingly. "Lord, no, not hurt. But—" "But what? What did you wish to say?" "Is it true? Are you here, by me, to stay?" For answer she pressed his hand to her lips. Aleck and Chamberlain, once assured that Jim was safe, went below to make a search, and Jim and Agatha were left together on the sail-cloth. As they sat there, a young moon shone out delicately in the west, and dropped quickly down after the lost sun. "It's the first moon we've seen together!" said Jim. "But we've watched the dawn." "Ah, yes; and such a dawn!" Little by little, as they sat together, the story of the fight came out. Jim told it bit by bit, not eager. When it was done, Agatha was still puzzled. "Why should he come here? What could he do here?" "I don't know, though we shall probably find out soon enough. But I don't care, now that you are here." "James, dear, will you forgive me for this afternoon?" "I'll forgive you if you'll take it all back, hide, hoofs and horns, for ever 'n ever, amen." "I take it back. I never meant it." "Then may one ask why—" "Oh, James, I don't know why." Anybody could have told them that it was only a phase of feminine panic in the face of the unknown, necessary as sneezing. But, as Jim said, it didn't matter. "Never mind. Only I don't want you to marry me because you found me here all bluggy and pitied me." "James! To talk like that! You know it wasn't—" "Then, what was it?" Jim, suddenly grown serpent-like in craft, turned his well-known ingenuous and innocent expression upon her. "The moment you left me, up there in the pine grove, I knew I couldn't do without you." "How did you know?" "Because—" "Yes, because—" Jim prompted her. "Oh, Jimsy, you know." "No, I don't." Agatha, loving his teasing, but too deeply moved, too generous and sincere to play the coquette, turned to him again a face shining with tenderness. Her eyes, like stars; her lips, all sweetness. "Only love, James, dear—" Something rose again in Jimmy's soft heart, choking him. As he had thrilled to the unknown ecstasy in Agatha's song, many days before, so now he thrilled to her voice and face, eloquent for him alone. Love and its power, life and its meaning, the long, long thoughts of youth and hope and desire—these held him in thrall. Agatha was in his arms. Time was lost to him, and earth. <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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