The Pagan Madonna Read online

  CHAPTER XIII

  The third day out they were well below Formosa, which had been turned on awide arc. The sea was blue now, quiescent, waveless; there was only theeternal roll. Still Jane could not help comparing the sea with thesituation--the devil was slumbering. What if he waked?

  Time after time she tried to force her thoughts into the reality of thisremarkable cruise, but it was impossible. Romance was always smotheringher, edging her off, when she approached the sinister. Perhaps if she hadheard ribald songs, seen evidence of drunkenness; if the crew had loiteredabout and been lacking in respect, she would have been able to grasp theactuality; but so far the idea persisted that this could not be anythingmore than a pleasure cruise. Piracy? Where was it?

  So she measured her actions accordingly, read, played the phonograph, wenthere and there over the yacht, often taking her stand in the bow andpeering down the cutwater to watch the antics of some humorous porpoise orto follow the smother of spray where the flying fish broke. In fact, sheconducted herself exactly as she would have done on board a passengership. There were moments when she was honestly bored.

  Piracy! This was an established fact. Cunningham and his men had steppedoutside the pale of law in running off with the _Wanderer_. But piracywithout drunken disorder, piracy that wiped its feet on the doormat andhung its hat on the rack! There was a touch of the true farce in it.Hadn't Cunningham himself confessed that the whole affair was a joke?

  Round two o'clock on the afternoon of the third day Jane, for the momentalone in her chair, heard the phonograph--the sextet from Lucia. She lefther chair, looked down through the open transom and discovered Dennisoncranking the machine. He must have seen her shadow, for he glanced upquickly.

  He crooked a finger which said, "Come on down!" She made a negative signand withdrew her head.

  Here she was again on the verge of wild laughter. Donizetti! Pirates!Glass beads for which Cleigh had voyaged sixteen thousand miles! A fatherand son who ignored each other! She choked down this desire to laugh,because she was afraid it might end suddenly in hysteria and tears. Shereturned to her chair, and there was the father arranging himselfcomfortably. He had a book.

  "Would you like me to read a while to you?" she offered.

  "Will you? You see," he confessed, "I'm troubled with insomnia. If I readby myself I only become interested in the book, but if someone reads aloudit makes me drowsy."

  "As a nurse I've done that hundreds of times. But frankly, I can't readpoetry; I begin to sing-song it at once; it becomes rime without reason.What is the book?"

  Cleigh extended it to her. The moment her hands touched the volume she sawthat she was holding something immeasurably precious. The form was unlikethe familiar shapes of modern books. The covers consisted of exquisitelyhand-tooled calf bound by thongs; there was a subtle perfume as she openedthem. Illuminated vellum. She uttered a pleasurable little gasp.

  "The Song of Songs, which is Solomon's," she read.

  "Fifteenth century--the vellum. The Florentine covers were probably addedin the seventeenth. I have four more downstairs. They are museum pieces,as we say."

  "That is to say, priceless?"

  "After a fashion."

  "'Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it; if aman would give all the substance of his house for love, it would utterlybe contemned!'"

  "Why did you select that?"

  "I didn't select it; I remembered it--because it is true."

  "You have a very pleasant voice. Go on--read."

  Thus for an hour she read to him, and by the time she grew tired Cleighwas sound asleep. The look of granite was gone from his face, and she sawthat he, too, had been handsome in his youth. Why had he struck Denny onthe mouth? What had the son done so to enrage the father? Some woman! Andwhere had she met the man? Oh, she was certain that she had encounteredhim before! But for the present the gate to recollection refused to swingoutward. Gently she laid the beautiful book on his knees and stole over tothe rail. For a while she watched the flying fish.

  Then came one of those impulses which keep human beings from becoming halfgods--a wrong impulse, surrendered to immediately, unweighed, unanalyzed,unchallenged. The father asleep, the son amusing himself with thephonograph, she was now unobserved by her guardians; and so she put intoexecution the thought that had been urging and intriguing her since thestrange voyage began--a visit to the chart house. She wanted to askCunningham some questions. He would know something about the Cleighs.

  The port door to the chart house was open, latched back against the side.She hesitated for a moment outside the high-beamed threshold--hesitatedbecause Captain Newton was not visible. The wheelman was alone. Obliquelyshe saw Cunningham, Cleve, and a third man seated round a table which waslittered. This third man sat facing the port door, and sensing herpresence he looked up. Rather attractive until one noted the thin, hardlips, the brilliant blue eyes. At the sight of Jane something flitted overhis face, and Jane knew that he was bad.

  "What's the matter, Flint?" asked Cunningham, observing the other'sabstraction.

  "We have a visitor," answered Flint.

  Cunningham spun his chair round and jumped to his feet.

  "Miss Norman? Come in, come in! Anything you need?" he asked with livelyinterest.

  "I should like to ask you some questions, Mr. Cunningham."

  "Oh! Well, if I can answer them, I will."

  He looked significantly at his companions, who rose and left the house bythe starboard door.

  "They can't keep away from him, can they?" said Flint, cynically."Slue-Foot has the come-hither, sure enough. I had an idea she'd be hikingthis way the first chance she got."

  "You haven't the right dope this trip," replied Cleve. "The contractreads: Hands off women and booze."

  "Psalm-singing pirates! We'll be having prayers Sunday. But that woman ismy style."

  "Better begin digging up a prayer if you've got that bug in your head. Ifyou make any fool play in that direction Cunningham will break you. I sawyou last night staring through the transom. Watch your step, Flint. I'mtelling you."

  "But if she should happen to take a fancy to me, who shall say no?"

  "Hate yourself, eh? There was liquor on your breath last night. Did youbring some aboard?"

  "What's that to you?"

  "It's a whole lot to me, my bucko--to me and to the rest of the boys.Cleigh will not prosecute us for piracy if we play a decent game until weraise the Catwick. On old Van Dorn's tub we can drink and sing if we wantto. If Cunningham gets a whiff of your breath, when you've had it, you'llget yours. Most of the boys have never done anything worse than applestealing. It was the adventure. All keyed up for war and no place to go,and this was a kind of safety valve. Already half of them are beginning toknock in the knees. Game, understand, but now worried about the future."

  "A peg or two before turning in won't hurt anybody. I'm not touching it inthe daytime."

  "Keep away from him when you do--that's all. We're depending on you andCunningham to pull through. If you two get to scrapping the whole businesswill go blooey. If we play the game according to contract there's a bigchance of getting back to the States without having the sheriff on thedock to meet us. But if you mess it up because an unexpected stroke put awoman on board, you'll end up as shark bait."

  "Maybe I will and maybe I won't," was the truculent rejoinder.

  "Lord!" said Cleve, a vast discouragement in his tone. "You lay a courseas true and fine as a hair, and run afoul a rotting derelict in thenight!"

  Flint laughed.

  "Oh, I shan't make any trouble. I'll say my prayers regular until we makeshore finally. The agreement was to lay off the Cleigh booze. I brought onboard only a couple of quarts, and they'll be gone before we raise theCatwick. But if I feel like talking to the woman I'll do it."

  "It's your funeral, not mine," was the ominous comment. "You've been onthe beach once too often, Flint, to play a game like this straight. ButCunningham had to have you, bec
ause you know the Malay lingo. Remember, heisn't afraid of anything that walks on two feet or four."

  "Neither am I--when I want anything. But glass beads!"

  "That was only a lure for Cleigh, who'd go round the world for any curiohe was interested in."

  "That's what I mean. If it were diamonds or pearls or rubies, all well andgood. But a string of glass beads! The old duffer is a nut!"

  "Maybe he is. But if you had ten or twelve millions, what would you do?"

  "Jump for Prome and foot it to the silk bazaar, where there are three orfour of the prettiest Burmese girls you ever laid your eyes on. Then I'dbuy the Galle Face Hotel in Colombo and close it to the public."

  "And in five years--the old beach again!"

  Flint scowled at the oily, heaving rolls, brassy and dazzling. He wasbored. For twelve weeks he had circled the dull round of ship routine,with never shore leave that was long enough for an ordinary drinking bout.He was bored stiff. Suddenly his thin lips broke into a smile. Cleve,noting the smile, divined something of the impellent thought behind thatsmile, and he grew uneasy. He recalled his own expression of a few momentsgone--the unreckoned derelict.

  * * * * *

  "Thank you for coming up," said Cunningham. "It makes me feel that youtrust me."

  "I want to," admitted Jane.

  A disturbing phenomenon. Always there was a quickening of her heart-beatsat the beginning of each encounter with this unusual gentleman rover. Itwas no longer fear. What was it? Was it the face of him, too strong andvital for a woman's, too handsome for a man's? Was it his dark, fiery eyewhich was always reversing what his glib tongue said? Some hiddenmagnetism? Alone, the thought of him was recurrent, no matter howresolutely she cast it forth. Even now she could not honestly say whethershe was here to ask questions of Cunningham or of herself. Perhaps it wasbecause he was the unknown, whereas Denny was for the most part asreadable as an open book. The one like the forest stream, sometimesturbulent but always clear; the other like the sea through which theyplowed, smooth, secret, ominous.

  "Do your guardians know where you are?"--raillery in his voice.

  "No. I came to ask some questions."

  "Curiosity. Sit down. What is it you wish to know?"

  "All this--and what will be the end?"

  "Well, doubtless there will be an end, but I'm not seer enough to foretellit."

  "Then you have some doubts?"

  "Only those that beset all of us."

  "But somehow--well, you don't seem to belong to this sort of game."

  "Why not?"

  Unexpectedly he had set a wall between. She had no answer, and herembarrassment was visible on her cheeks.

  "Here and there across the world rough men call me Slue-Foot. Perhaps mydeformity has reacted upon my soul and twisted that. Perhaps if mycountenance had been homely and rugged I would have walked the beatenpaths of respectability. But the two together!"

  "I'm sorry!"

  "A woman such as you are would be. You are a true daughter of the greatmother--Pity. But I have never asked pity of any. I have asked only that aman shall keep his word to me as I will keep mine to him."

  "But you are risking your liberty, perhaps your life!"

  "I've been risking that for more than twenty years. The habit has becomenormal. All my life I've wanted a real adventure."

  She gazed at him in utter astonishment.

  "An adventure? Why, you yourself told me that you had risked your life ahundred times!"

  "That?"--with a smile and a shrug. "That was business, the day's work. Imean an adventure in which I am accountable to no man."

  "Only to God?"

  "Well, of course, if you want it that way. For myself, I'm something of apagan. I have dreamed of this day. When you were a little girl didn't youdream of a wonderful doll that could walk and make almost human noises?Well, I'm realizing my doll. I am going pearl hunting in the SouthSeas--the thing I dreamed of when I was a boy."

  "But why commit piracy? Why didn't you hire a steamer?"

  "Oh, I must have my joke, too. But I hadn't counted on you. In everycampaign there is the hollow road of Ohain. Napoleon lost Waterloo becauseof it. Your presence here has forced me to use a hand without velvet.These men expected a little fun--cards and drink; and some of them aregrumbling with discontent. But don't worry. In five days we'll be off onour own."

  "What is the joke?"

  "That will have to wait. For a few minutes I heard you reading to-day.Your voice is like a bell at sea in the evening. 'Many waters cannotquench love,'" he quoted, the flash of opals in his eyes, though his lipswere smiling gently. "The Bible is a wonderful book. Its authors werepoets who were not spoiled by the curse of rime. Does it amuse you to hearme talk of the Bible?--an unregenerate scalawag? Well, it is like this: Iam something of an authority on illuminated manuscripts. I've had to wadethrough hundreds of them. That is the method by which I became acquaintedwith the Scriptures. The Song of Songs! Lord love you, if that isn't purepagan, what is? I prefer the Proverbs. Ask Cleigh if he has thatmanuscript with him. It's in a remarkable state of preservation. Remember?'There be three things which are too wonderful for me, yea, four which Iknow not: The way of an eagle in the air; the way of a serpent upon arock; the way of a ship in the midst of the sea; and the way of a man witha maid.' Ask Cleigh to show you that."

  Cleigh! The name swung her back to the original purpose of this visit.

  "Do you know the Cleighs well?"

  "I know the father. He has the gift of strong men--unforgetting andunforgiving. I know little or nothing about the son, except that he is achip of the old block. Queer twist in events, eh?"

  "Have you any idea what estranged them?"

  "Didn't know they were at outs until the night before we sailed. Theydon't speak?"

  "No. And it seems so utterly foolish!"

  "_Cherchez la femme!_"

  "You believe that was it?"

  "It is always so, always and eternally the woman. I don't mean that she isalways to blame; I mean that she is always there--in the background. Butyou! I say, now, here's the job for you! Bring them together. That's yourstyle. For weeks now you three will be together. Within that time you'llbe able to twist both of them round your finger. I wonder if you realizeit? You're not beautiful, but you are something better--splendid. Strongmen will always be gravitating toward you, wanting comfort, peace. You'renot the kind that sets men's hearts on fire, that makes absconders, fillsthe divorce courts, and all that. You're like a cool hand on a hotforehead. And you have a voice as sweet as a bell."

  Instinct--the female fear of the trap--warned Jane to be off, butcuriosity held her to the chair. She was human; and this flattery, free ofany suggestion of love-making, gave her a warming, pleasurable thrill.Still there was a fly in the amber. Every woman wishes to be credited withhidden fires, to possess equally the power to damn men as well as to savethem.

  "Has there never been----"

  "A woman? Have I not just said there is always a woman?" He was sardonicnow. "Mine, seeing me walk, laughed."

  "She wasn't worth it!"

  "No, she wasn't. But when we are twenty the heart is blind. So Cleigh andthe boy don't speak?"

  "Cleigh hasn't injured you in any way, has he?"

  "Injured me? Of course not! I am only forced by circumstance--and anoblique sense of the comic--to make a convenience of him. And by the LordHarry, it's up to you to help me out!"

  "I?"--bewildered.