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Pagan Madonna, The

<h2>CHAPTER XX</h2></div> Jane and Dennison were alone. “I wonder,” he said, “are we two awake, or are we having the same nightmare?” “The way he hugs his word! Imagine a man stepping boldly and mockingly outside the pale, and carrying along his word unsullied with him! He’s mad, Denny, absolutely mad! The poor thing!” That phrase seemed to liberate something in his mind. The brooding oppression lifted its siege. His heart was no longer a torture chamber. “I ought to be his partner, Jane. I’m as big a fool as he is. Who but a fool would plan and execute a game such as this? But he’s sound on one point. It’s a colossal joke.” “But your father?” “Cunningham will have to dig a pretty deep hole somewhere if he expects to hide successfully. It’s a hundred-to-one shot that father will never see his rug again. He probably realizes that, and he will be relentless. He’ll coal at Manila and turn back. He’ll double or triple the new crew’s wages. Money will mean nothing if he starts after 243 Cunningham. Of course I’ll be out of the picture at Manila.” “Do you know why your father kidnaped me so easily? I thought maybe I could find a chink in his armour and bring you two together.” “And you’ve found the job hopeless!” Dennison shrugged. “Won’t you tell me what the cause was?” “Ask him. He’ll tell it better than I can. So you hid the beads in that hand-warmer! Not half bad. But why don’t you take the sixty thousand?” “I’ve an old-fashioned conscience.” “I don’t mean Father’s gold, but the French Government’s. Comfort as long as you lived.” “No, I could not touch even that money. The beads were stolen.” “Lord, Lord! Then there are three of us—Cunningham, myself, and you!” “Are you calling me a tomfool?” “Not exactly. What’s the feminine?” She laughed and rose. “You are almost human to-night.” “Where are you going?” “I’m going to have a little talk with your father.” “Good luck. I’m going to have a fresh pot of coffee. I shall want to keep awake to-night.” “Why?” 244 “Oh, just an idea. You’d better turn in when the interview is over. Good luck.” Jane stood framed in the doorway for a moment. Under the reading lamp in the main salon she saw Cleigh. He was running the beads from hand to hand and staring into space. Behind her she heard Dennison’s spoon clatter in the cup as he stirred the coffee. Wild horses! She felt as though she were being pulled two ways by wild horses! For she was about to demand of Anthony Cleigh the promised reparation. And which of two things should she demand? All this time, since Cleigh had uttered the promise, she had had but one thought—to bring father and son together, to do away with this foolish estrangement. For there did not seem to be on earth any crime that merited such a condition. If he humanly could—he had modified the promise with that. What was more human than to forgive—a father to forgive a son? And now Cunningham had to wedge in compellingly! She could hesitate between Denny and Cunningham! The rank disloyalty of it shocked her. To give Cunningham his eight months! Pity, urgent pity for the broken body and tortured soul of the man—mothering pity! Denny was whole and sound, mentally and physically; he would never know any real mental torture, anything 245 that compared with Cunningham’s, which was enduring, now waxing, now waning, but always sensible. To secure for him his eight months, without let or hindrance from the full enmity of Cleigh; to give him his boyhood dream, whether he found his pearls or not. Her throat became stuffed with the presage of tears. The poor thing! But Denny, parting from his father at Manila, the cleavage wider than ever, beyond hope! Oh, she could not tolerate the thought of that! These two, so full of strong and bitter pride—they would never meet again if they separated now. Perhaps fate had assigned the r�le of peacemaker to her, and she had this weapon in her hand to enforce it or bring it about—the father’s solemn promise to grant whatever she might ask. And she could dodder between Denny and Cunningham! To demand both conditions would probably appeal to Cleigh as not humanly possible. One or the other, but not the two together. An interval of several minutes of which she had no clear recollection, and then she was conscious that she was reclining in her chair on deck, staring at the stars which appeared jerkily and queerly shaped—through tears. She hadn’t had the courage to make a decision. As if it became 246 any easier to solve by putting it over until to-morrow! Chance—the Blind Madonna of the Pagan—was preparing to solve the riddle for her—with a thunderbolt! The mental struggle had exhausted Jane somewhat, and she fell into a doze. When she woke she was startled to see by her wrist watch that it was after eleven. The yacht was plowing along through the velvet blackness of the night. The inclination to sleep gone, Jane decided to walk the deck until she was as bodily tired as she was mentally. All the hidden terror was gone. To-morrow these absurd pirates would be on their way. Study the situation as she might, she could discover no flaw in this whimsical madman’s plans. He held the crew in his palm, even as he held Cleigh—by covetousness. Cleigh would never dare send the British after Cunningham; and the crew would obey him to the letter because that meant safety and recompense. The Great Adventure Company! Only by an act of God! And what could possibly happen between now and the arrival of the Haarlem? Cleigh had evidently turned in, for through the transoms she saw that the salon lights were out. She circled the deck house six times, then went up 247 to the bow and stared down the cutwater at the phosphorescence. Blue fire! The eternal marvel of the sea! A hand fell upon her shoulder. She thought it would be Denny’s. It was Flint’s! “Be a good sport, an’ give us a kiss!” She drew back, but he caught her arm. His breath was foul with tobacco and whisky. “All right, I’ll take it!” With her free hand she struck him in the face. It was a sound blow, for Jane was no weakling. That should have warned Flint that a struggle would not be worth while. But where’s the drunken man with caution? The blow stung Flint equally in flesh and spirit. He would kiss this woman if it was the last thing he ever did! Jane fought him savagely, never thinking to call to the bridge. Twice she escaped, but each time the fool managed to grasp either her waist or her skirt. Then out of nowhere came the voice of Cunningham: “Flint!” Dishevelled and breathless, Jane found herself free. She stumbled to the rail and rested there for a moment. Dimly she could see the two men enacting a weird shadow dance. Then it came to her that Cunningham would not be strong enough to vanquish Flint, so she ran aft to rouse Denny. 248 As she went down the companionway, her knees threatening to give way, she heard voices, blows, crashings against the partitions. Instinct told her to seek her cabin and barricade the door; curiosity drove her through the two darkened salons to the forward passage. Only a single lamp was on, but that was enough. Anthony Cleigh’s iron-gray head towering above a whirlwind of fists and forearms! What had happened? This couldn’t be real! She was still in her chair on deck, and what she saw was nightmare! Out of the calm, all in a moment, this! Where was Denny, if this picture wasn’t nightmare? Cunningham above, struggling with the whisky-maddened Flint—Cleigh fighting in the passage! Dear God, what had happened? Where was Denny? The question let loose in her heart and mind all that was emotional, at the same time enchaining her to the spot where she stood. Denny! Why, she loved Denny! And she had not known it consciously until this moment. Because some presciential instinct warned her that Denny was either dead or badly hurt! The narrowness of the passage gave Cleigh one advantage—none of the men could get behind him. Sometimes he surged forward a little, sometimes he stepped back, but never back of the line he had set for himself. By and by Jane forced her gaze to the deck to see what it was that held 249 him like a rock. What she saw was only the actual of what she had already envisaged—Denny, either dead or badly hurt! What had happened was this: Six of the crew, those spirits who had succumbed to the secret domination of the man Flint—the drinkers—had decided to celebrate the last night on the Wanderer. Their argument was that old man Cleigh wouldn’t miss a few bottles, and that it would be a long time between drinks when they returned to the States; and never might they again have so easy a chance to taste the juice of the champagne grape. Where was the harm? Hadn’t they behaved like little Fauntleroys for weeks? They did not want any trouble—just half a dozen bottles, and back to the forepeak to empty them. That wouldn’t kill the old man. They wouldn’t even have to force the door of the dry-stores; they had already learned that they could tickle the lock out of commission by the use of a bent wire. Young, restless, and mischievous—none of them bad. A bit of laughter and a few bars of song—that was all they wanted. No doubt the affair would have blown itself out harmlessly but for the fact that Chance had other ideas. She has a way with her, this Pagan Madonna, of taking off the cheerful motley of a jest and substituting the Phrygian cap of terror, subitaneously. 250 Dennison had lain down on the lounge in the main salon. Restless, unhappy, bitter toward his father, he had lain there counting the throbs of the engine to that point where they mysteriously cease to register and one has to wait a minute or two to pick up the throb again. For years he had lived more or less in the open, which attunes the human ear to sounds that generally pass unnoticed. All at once he was sure that he had heard the tinkle of glass, but he waited. The tinkle was repeated. Instinct led him at once to the forward passage, and one glance down this was sufficient. From the thought of a drunken orgy—the thing he had been fearing since the beginning of this mad voyage—his thought leaped to Jane. Thus his subsequent acts were indirectly in her defense. “What the devil are you up to there?” he called. The unexpectedness of the challenge disconcerted the men. They had enough loot. A quick retreat, and Dennison would have had nothing to do but close the dry-stores door. But middle twenties are belligerent rather than discreet. “What you got to say about it?” jeered one of the men, shifting his brace of bottles to the arms of another and squaring off. Dennison rushed them, and the m�l�e began. 251 It was a strenuous affair while it lasted. When a strong man is full of anger and bitter disappointment, when six young fellows are bored to distraction, nothing is quite so satisfying as an exchange of fisticuffs. Dennison had the advantage of being able to hit right and left, at random, while his opponents were not always sure that a blow landed where it was directed. Naturally the racket drew Cleigh to the scene, and he arrived in time to see a champagne bottle descend upon the head of his son. Dennison went down. Cleigh, boiling with impotent fury, had gone to bed, not to sleep but to plan; some way round the rogue, to trip him and regain the treasures that meant so much to him. Like father, like son. When he saw what was going on in the passage he saw also that here was something that linked up with his mood. Of course it was to defend the son; but without the bitter rage and the need of physical expression he would have gone for the hidden revolver and settled the affair with that. Instead he flew at the men with the savageness of a gray wolf. He was a tower of a man, for all his sixty years; and he had mauled three of the crew severely before Cunningham arrived. Why had the mutinous six offered battle? Why hadn’t they retreated with good sense at the 252 start? Originally all they had wanted was the wine. Why stop to fight when the wine was theirs? In the morning none of them could answer these questions. Was there ever a rough-and-tumble that anybody could explain lucidly the morning after? Perhaps it was the false pride of youth; the bitter distaste at the thought of six turning tail for one. Cunningham fired a shot at the ceiling, and a dozen of the crew came piling in from the forward end of the passage. The fighting stopped magically. “You fools!” cried Cunningham in a high, cracked voice. “To put our heads into hemp at the last moment. If anything happens to young Cleigh, back to Manila you go with the yacht! Clear out! At the last moment!” It was like a sob. Jane, still entranced, saw Cleigh stoop and put his arms under the body of his son, heave, and stand up under the dead weight. He staggered past her toward the main salon. She heard him mutter. “God help me if I’m too late—if I’ve waited too long! Denny?” That galvanized her into action, and she flew to the light buttons, flooding both the dining and the main salons. She helped Cleigh to place 253 Dennison on the lounge. After that it was her affair. Dennison was alive, but how much alive could be told only by the hours. She bathed and bandaged his head. Beyond that she could do nothing but watch and wait. “I wouldn’t mind—a little of that—water,” said Cunningham, weakly. Cleigh, with menacing fists, wheeled upon him; but he did not strike the man who was basically the cause of Denny’s injuries. At the same time Jane, looking up across Dennison’s body, uttered a gasp of horror. The entire left side of Cunningham was drenched in blood, and the arm dangled. “Flint had a knife—and—was quite handy with it.” “For me!” she cried. “For defending me! Mr. Cleigh, Flint caught me on deck—and Mr. Cunningham—oh, this is horrible!” “You were right, Cleigh. The best-laid plans of mice and men! What an ass I am! I honestly thought I could play a game like this without hurt to anybody. It was to be a whale of a joke. Flint——” Cunningham reached blindly for the nearest chair and collapsed in it. <hr class='tb' /> An hour later. The four of them were still in the main salon. Jane sat at the head of the 254 lounge, and from time to time she took Dennison’s pulse and temperature. She had finally deduced that there had been no serious concussion. Cleigh sat at the foot of the lounge, his head on his hands. Cunningham occupied the chair into which he had collapsed. Three ugly flesh wounds, but nothing a little time would not heal. True, he had had a narrow squeak. He sat with his eyes closed. “Why?” asked Jane suddenly, breaking the silence. “What?” said Cleigh, looking up. “Why these seven years—if you cared? I heard you say something about being too late. Why?” “I’m a queer old fool. An idea, when it enters my head, sticks. I can’t shift my plans easily; I have to go through. What you have witnessed these several days gives you the impression that I have no heart. That isn’t true. But we Cleighs are pigheaded. Until he was sent to Russia he was never from under the shadow of my hand. My agents kept me informed of all his moves, his adventures. The mistake was originally mine. I put him in charge of an old scholar who taught him art, music, languages, but little or nothing about human beings. I gave him a liberal allowance; but he was a queer lad, and Broadway never heard of him. Now I hold that youth must have its fling in some manner or other; after 255 thirty there is no cure for folly. So when he ran away I let him go; but he never got so far away that I did not know what he was doing. I liked the way he rejected the cash I gave him; the way he scorned to trade upon the name. He went clean. Why? I don’t know. Oh, yes, he got hilariously drunk once in a while, but he had his fling in clean places. I had agents watching him.” “Why did he run away?” asked Jane. “No man can tell another man; a man has to find it out for himself—the difference between a good woman and a bad one.” “I play that statement to win,” interposed Cunningham without opening his eyes. “There was a woman?” said Jane. “A bad one. Pretty and clever as sin. My fault. I should have sent him to college where he’d have got at least a glimmer of life. But I kept him under the tutor until the thing happened. He thought he was in love, when it was only his first woman. She wanted his money—or, more properly speaking, mine. I had her investigated and found that she was bad all through. When I told him boldly what she was he called me a liar. I struck him across the mouth, and he promptly knocked me down.” “Pretty good punch for a youngster,” was Cunningham’s comment. 256 “It was,” replied Cleigh, grimly. “He went directly to his room, packed, and cleared out. In that he acted wisely, for at that moment I would have cast him out had he come with an apology. But the following day I could not find him; nor did I get track of him until weeks later. He had married the woman and then found her out. That’s all cleared off the slate, though. She’s been married and divorced three times since then.” “Did you expect to see him over here?” “In Shanghai? No. The sight of him rather knocked me about. You understand? It was his place to make the first sign. He was in the wrong, and he has known it all these seven years.” “No,” said Jane, “it was your place to make the first advance. If you had been a comrade to him in his boyhood he would never have been in the wrong.” “But I gave him everything!” “Everything but love. Did you ever tell him a fairy story?” “A fairy story!” Cleigh’s face was the essence of bewilderment. “You put him in the care of a lovable old dreamer, and then expected him to accept life as you knew it.” Cleigh rumpled his cowlicks. A fairy story? 257 But that was nonsense! Fairy stories had long since gone out of fashion. “When I saw you two together an idea popped into my head. But do you care for the boy?” “I care everything for him—or I shouldn’t be here!” Cunningham relaxed a little more in his chair, his eyes still closed. “What do you mean by that?” demanded Cleigh. “I let you abduct me. I thought, maybe, if I were near you for a little I might bring you two together.” “Well, now!” said Cleigh, falling into the old New England vernacular which was his birthright. “I brought you on board merely to lure him after you. I wanted you both on board so I could observe you. I intended to carry you both off on a cruise. I watched you from the door that night while you two were dining. I saw by his face and his gestures that he would follow you anywhere.” “But I—I am only a professional nurse. I’m nobody! I haven’t anything!” “Good Lord, will you listen to that?” cried the pirate, with a touch of his old banter. “Nobody and nothing?” Neither Jane nor Cleigh apparently heard this interpolation. “Why did you maltreat him?” 258 “Otherwise he would have thought I was offering my hand, that I had weakened.” “And you expected him to fall on your shoulder and ask your pardon after that? Mr. Cleigh, for a man of your intellectual attainments, your stand is the biggest piece of stupidity I ever heard of! How in the world was he to know what your thoughts were?” “I was giving him his chance,” declared Cleigh, stubbornly. “A yacht? It’s a madhouse,” gibed Cunningham. “And this is a convention of fools!” “How do you want me to act?” asked Cleigh, surrendering absolutely. “When he comes to, take his hand. You don’t have to say anything else.” “All right.” From Dennison’s lips came a deep, long sigh. Jane leaned over. “Denny?” she whispered. The lids of Dennison’s eyes rolled back heavily. “Jane—all right?” he asked, quickly. “Yes. How do you feel?” He reached out a hand whence her voice came. She met the hand with hers, and that seemed to be all he wanted just then. “You’d better get your bathrobe, Mr. Cleigh,” she suggested. 259 Cleigh became conscious for the first time of the condition of his pyjama jacket. It hung upon his torso in mere ribbons. He became conscious also of the fact that his body ached variously and substantially. “Thirty-odd years since I was in a racket like this. I’m getting along.” “And on the way,” put in Cunningham, “you might call Cleve. I’d feel better—stretched out.” “Oh, I had forgotten!” cried Jane, reproaching herself. Weakened as he was, and sitting in a chair! “And don’t forget, Cleigh, that I’m master of the Wanderer until I leave it. I sympathize deeply,” Cunningham went on, ironically, “but I have some active troubles of my own.” “And God send they abide with you always!” was Cleigh’s retort. “They will—if that will give you any comfort. Do you know what? You will always have me to thank for this. That will be my comforting thought. The god in the car!” Later, when Cleve helped Cunningham into his bunk, the latter asked about the crew. “Scared stiff. They realize that it was a close shave. I’ve put the fools in irons. They’re best there until we leave. But we can’t do anything but forget the racket when we board the 260 Dutchman. Where’s that man Flint? We can’t find him anywhere. He’s at the bottom of it. I knew that sooner or later there’d be the devil to pay with a woman on board. Probably the fool’s hiding in the bunkers. I’ll give every rat hole a look-see. Pretty nearly got you.” “Flint was out of luck—and so was I! I thought in pistols, and forgot that there might be a knife or two. I’ll be on my feet in the morning. Little weak, that’s all. Nobody and nothing!” said Cunningham, addressing the remark to the crossbeam above his head. “What’s that?” asked Cleve. “I was thinking out loud. Get back to the chart house. Old Newton may play us some trick if he isn’t watched. And don’t bother to search for Flint. I know where he is.” Something in Cunningham’s tone coldly touched Cleve’s spine. He went out, closing the door quietly; and there was reason for the sudden sweat in his palms. Chance! A wry smile stirred one corner of Cunningham’s mouth. He had boasted that he had left nothing to chance, with this result! Burning up! Inward and outward fires! Love beads! Well, what were they if not that? But that she would trust him when everything about him should have repelled her! Was there a nugget 261 of forgotten gold in his cosmos, and had she discovered it? She still trusted him, for he had sensed it in the quick but tender touch of her hands upon his throbbing wounds. To learn, after all these years, that he had been a coward! To have run away from misfortune instead of facing it and beating it down! Pearls! All he had left! And when he found them, what then? Turn them into money he no longer cared to spend? Or was this an interlude—a mocking interlude, and would to-morrow see his conscience relegated to the dustbin out of which it had so oddly emerged? <hr class='tb' /> When Dennison opened his eyes again Jane was still holding his hand. Upon beholding his father Dennison held out his free hand. “Will you take it, Father? I’m sorry.” “Of course I’ll take it, Denny. I was an old fool.” “And I was a young one.” “Would you like a cup of coffee?” Cleigh asked, eagerly. “If it won’t be too much trouble.” “No trouble at all.” A hand pressure, a few inconsequent phrases, that is always enough for two strong characters in the hour of reconciliation. 262 Cleigh out of the way, Jane tried to disengage her hand, but Dennison only tightened his grip. “No”—a pause—“it’s different now. The old boy will find some kind of a job for me. Will you marry me, Jane? I did not speak before, because I hadn’t anything to offer.” “No?” “I couldn’t offer marriage until I had a job.” “But supposing your father doesn’t give you one?” “Why——” “You poor boy! I’m only fishing.” “For what?” “Well, why do you want to marry me?” “Hang it, because I love you!” “Why didn’t you tell me that in the first place? How was I to know unless you told me? But oh, Denny, I want to go home!” She laid her cheek against his hand. “I want a garden with a picket fence round it and all the simple flowers. I never want another adventure in all my days!” “Same here!” A stretch of silence. “What happened to me?” “Someone hit you with a wine bottle.” “A vintage—and I never got a swallow!” “And then your father went to your defense.” “The old boy? Honestly?” 263 “He stood astride your body until Mr. Cunningham came in and stopped the m�l�e.” “Cunningham! They quit?” “Yes—Flint. I didn’t dream it wouldn’t be safe to go on deck, and Flint caught me. He was drunk. But for Cunningham, I don’t know what would have happened. I ran and left them fighting, and Flint wounded Cunningham with a knife. It was for me, Denny. I feel so sorry for him! So alone, hating himself and hating the world, tortured with misunderstanding—good in him that he keeps smothering and trampling down. His unbroken word—to hang to that!” “All right. So far as I’m concerned, that cleans the slate.” “I loved you, Denny, but I didn’t know how much until I saw you on the floor. Do you know what I was going to demand of your father as a reparation for bringing me on board? His hand in yours. That was all I wanted.” “Always thinking of someone else!” “That’s all the happiness I’ve ever had, Denny—until now!” <hr class='major' /> <div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'> 264 <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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