IT WAS ALL THEY COULD DO TO DRAG HIM ON BOARD.IT WAS ALL THEY COULD DO TO DRAG HIM ON BOARD.
Armitage knew he was beaten. His strength and determination had availed him nothing, yet he was still full of fight. It was all they could do to drag him on board inch by inch. As they reached the deck, and he realized that once more the ship had enslaved him, a hoarse cry of despair escaped his lips. With a last superhuman effort, he shook himself free. One of his captors was hurled to the left, the other sent flying to the right. His fists shotout, and a third officer fell like a log. For a moment he was free, and, surprised at his success, he stood triumphant over their prostrate forms, just as a gladiator, doomed to die, might tower for a few brief seconds above his worsted foes. His fists clenched, his shapely head thrown back, every muscle taut, his eyes flashing, chest heaving, he resembled a classic hero battling with pigmies.
"Isn't he handsome!" exclaimed Grace.
"Aye, miss," grinned the voluble sailor. "That's wot we call 'im—Handsome Jack. Sometimes it's Gentleman Jack, cause of 'is fine manners; but 'ee's only a stoker, just the same."
The officers regained their feet and again sprang at their prisoner. The passengers fell back alarmed.
"Come here, Grace!" cried Mr. Harmon uneasily. "You'll get hurt."
But there was no danger. More officers and sailors ran quickly up, and confronted by such re-enforcements, the fireman stood no chance. Before he had time to take advantage of his temporary victory, he was again overpowered and dragged without further ado in the direction of the forecastle. Graceshrank back as he was taken past, but she could not help seeing his wild, staring eyes and white face with its expression of despair. As he disappeared, the last gong sounded, every visitor hurried ashore, the siren started its deep-toned blasts as warning that the leviathan was getting under weigh.
"I wish it hadn't happened," said Grace, as she kissed her hand in adieu to her father, who stood on the dock watching the vessel go out.
"It's made me positively ill," complained Mrs. Stuart, busy with her smelling-salts.
Long after New York's sky-scrapers had faded from view and the land was only a dim line on the horizon, Grace was still haunted by that white, set face, with its expression of utter despair.
The Indian Ocean, a vast expanse of tossing blue water, its heaving bosom still agitated by the expiring gale, glorious in the outburst of sunshine that followed the storm, stretched away to every point of the compass. As far as the eye could carry, away to where the breaking clouds touched the fast-disappearing land line of mysterious Asia, the boisterous white-capped seas scattered showers of prisms and spray. Rolling and tumbling, their lofty crests flecked with fleecy foam, the endless waves advanced majestically, with rhythmical motion and the stateliness and precision of trained battalions, all scurrying in one direction, urged on by the whip of the southwesterly gale. The tempest had abated, the lowering clouds were rapidly dispersing, once more Nature was smiling and serene, diffusing the beauty and gladness of life through water and sky. Graceful, white-winged sea-birds uttered shrill cries of delight as they circled in the air, gorgeously colored flying fish leaped joyouslyfrom the dancing waters, which flashed like jewels in the blinding sunlight. The world was at its brightest and fairest, full of movement and color. The breeze was caressing and balmy, and as theAtlanta, now three weeks from home, plunged her way resistlessly Eastward, the great liner was sonorous with the music of wind and sea.
Thus far the voyage had hardly been all that could be desired as regards weather. January is seldom a good month for the Atlantic, and this year the crossing was nastier than usual. TheAtlantahad no sooner cleared the Banks than it began to blow great guns. Gale followed gale with tropical downpours of rain, the wind blowing from every quarter at once, piling up mountainous combers that every now and again broke over the bridge, forty feet above the water. The tremendous seas crashed aboard with a thunderous roar, frightening the more timid among the passengers, smashing life-boats and ventilators, sweeping the decks from bow to stem with avalanches of green water. Skylights were shattered, bridge stanchions bent and twisted, but otherwise there was no damage. The big shipsteamed true on her course, haughtily indifferent to the capricious ocean's moods, staunch as a rock, and quite as steady as any railroad-train moving at full speed.
The rough weather had the natural effect of confining most of the women folk to their staterooms, and as the men also kept to themselves, preferring bridge and poker in the smoking-room to the wet decks, there was not much opportunity for social amenities.
Owing to the high seas, no attempt was made to land at Madeira, and there was no little grumbling because the vagaries of the elements made it impossible to visit Funchal, the Pico Ruivo, Ponta Delgada, and other picturesque places of perennial verdure and flowers. The storm gradually abated, but it was not until the steamer entered the smoother waters of the Mediterranean that there was the slightest pretense at dress or any attempt made to put in regular appearances at dinner. However, the improvement in the weather and the close proximity of land, with the cheering prospect of going ashore, brought about a quick change in everybody's humor.The passengers' spirits rose with the barometer. Fine toilettes made their appearance on deck, the usual little steamer-chair cliques were speedily formed, and every one now started in to enjoy themselves as if the voyage had only just begun.
They landed gleefully in tenders, some to inspect the wonders of England's impregnable fortress, others to visit Spanishtown; they crowded to the rail as the ship steamed slowly past the enchanted island of Capri, so dear to the archeologist, and in the Bay of Naples they gazed in awe upon frowning Vesuvius, still smoking and rumbling after a disastrous eruption that had cost hundreds of lives. Sheep-like, after the manner of tourists, they hurried breathlessly through the attractions Naples had to offer, and then, skirting classic Scylla and Charybdis, they steamed on to the land of the Pharaohs, where a complete change of scene awaited them.
So far, Grace had kept much to herself. She was not particularly interested in anybody on board, and she found it a welcome novelty, after her recent strenuous social activities, to be able to enjoy a few hours of absolute rest. What with unpacking, writingletters home, and looking after Mrs. Stuart, who, almost from the start, had been completely prostrated with seasickness, she had found the time slip by rapidly and agreeably enough without having to seek diversion outside her immediate little circle. Her chaperon's indisposition furnished her with an admirable excuse for remaining in seclusion, and if another were needed, she had it in the inclemency of the weather. While she herself was not distressed by the rolling and pitching, the unusual motion did not add to her comfort. She preferred to stay in the privacy of her luxurious quarters, which were the object of the envy and curiosity of every other woman on board.
Mr. Harmon had spared no expense to secure for his daughter the best on the ship that money could buy. Grace occupied the "royal" suite, a series of sumptuously furnished and richly decorated rooms, entirely shut off from the rest of the ship, thus ensuring complete privacy, comprising bedroom, parlor, dining-room, with piano, telephone, library, etc. With her own maids to wait on her and all meals served privately, there was no necessity to leave herrooms unless she wished to, and if she chose to breathe the invigorating sea air there was no one to see her walk on the deserted lower promenade-deck on which her suite directly opened.
She had not gone ashore with the other passengers when the steamer stopped at Gibraltar and Naples. Mrs. Stuart was still indisposed, and she refused to leave her, but when theAtlantareached Cairo, her chaperon was feeling better, and they both landed to see the sights. Mrs. Stuart had visited Egypt before, but to Grace it was like a glimpse of grand-opera land, a scene from "Aida." The waving palm-trees, the queer Oriental dwellings, the wonderful blue sky blazing on the peaceful desert, with its endless miles of burning sands, its beautiful oases, its camels and picturesquely costumed natives—all this made up a picture of delightful novelty for the young girl fresh from prosaic New York. She gazed wondering at the blue-turbaned Copts, they laughed merrily at the Fellahin in their blue skirts and stared at the yellow-turbaned Jews, fierce-looking Bedouins and black Nubians. At the cost of a few piastres but much muscular exertion, theywere dragged up the face of the mighty pyramids, and with varying emotions they contemplated the time-eaten features of the inscrutable Sphinx.
The two women derived much enjoyment from their little jaunts. Sometimes they were escorted by Mr. Fitzhugh, who, despairing of making any headway with Mrs. Phelps now that his detested German rival, Count von Hatzfeld, had contrived to monopolize the widow, had begun to dance attendance upon Grace. He knew she had money in her own right, and his mouth watered at the magnitude of her expectations. There seemed no reason why the Harmon millions should not be as usefully employed in regilding the dilapidated Fitzhugh coat-of-arms as those of the late Mr. Phelps. But he did not make much progress, and he had a vague premonition that he was not the kind of chap to appeal to this cold, proud beauty. Discreet conversations on the subject with Mrs. Stuart went far to discourage him altogether.
"Grace does not expect to love the man she will marry, so her utter indifference does not reflect her feelings to you in the least," said that perspicaciousstudent of modern femininity. This statement was not exactly true, but it served the purpose of the moment. "Even if she considered you a desirable match," she went on, "she would not be any more unbending. That indifferent, independent manner is her chief charm. It is the stateliness of the lily. Grace might marry you, but she would not love you. She is too much up to date to believe there is any such thing as love. Self-interest governs the world to-day—not love, which, after all, is only a primitive, vulgar emotion. Girls who want to marry well understand this thoroughly. Love and lovers are very delightful in fiction, but no sensible girl to-day takes them into account when planning her future welfare. When Grace does change her name, it will be to take that of one of the proudest families in Europe. Surely you know that she's already as good as engaged to Prince Sergius of Eurasia! As far as titles are concerned, that's going some!"
"But I may be a peer one day," protested Mr. Fitzhugh.
"You may be, but you're not," retorted Mrs. Stuart. "Your father, the earl, is still alive, andyour elder brother is aggressively healthy. American girls do not deal in futures."
The Englishman took the hint, and, profiting by a temporary indisposition of Count von Hatzfeld, returned to the siege of the fascinating Mrs. Phelps, whose millions were nearly as many and aspirations not quite as high as those of Miss Grace Harmon.
The steamer stayed in port over a week, much to the delight of the passengers, who enjoyed the holiday ashore hugely after having been cooped up so long aboard. The weather continued ideal, and every one took advantage of it to see everything that was worth seeing.
The more enterprising passengers undertook little side excursions up the historic Nile; others roamed through the native bazaars, buying at exorbitant prices a vast quantity of things for which they had no possible use; others drove to the tomb of Mehemet Ali, or to the viceroys' palace, keeping up the sightseeing day and night, until all were so weary that they were glad when theAtlantaonce more weighed anchor and proceeded down the Red Sea and so into the Indian Ocean,en route, for Bombay.
As she sat on the deck, reclining indolently in her steamer-chair, propped up with soft cushions, gazing dreamily on the splendid panorama that unfolded slowly before her—the endless procession of majestic, foam-tipped waves, fleecy clouds drifting lazily in a sky of turquoise blue, the sails of a distant vessel whitened by the sun—Grace felt exuberant with the joy of life.
The latest novel was on her lap, yet she made no attempt to read. Mrs. Stuart, stretched out on a chair alongside, had vainly endeavored to engage her in conversation. But she did not care to talk, and she found it impossible to center her attention on a book, preferring to just lay still, her eyes semi-closed, rocked gently by the steamer's gradual motion, her senses gently thrilled by the sensuous sounds of ship and sea.
The promenade-deck presented the picture of comfort and peace usually to be seen, any fine morningon a liner in mid-ocean—the passengers of both sexes laid out in rows, mummylike, on steamer-chairs, each covered with a rug different from his neighbor's and of bizarre design and color, some reading, some sleeping, some conversing in subdued tones, some sipping cups of bouillon brought on trays by nimble stewards; the decks scrubbed an immaculate white, the brasses highly polished; a neatly uniformed quartermaster standing at a gangway, patiently splicing a rope; two officers on the bridge sweeping the horizon with their glasses or pacing up and down with monotonous precision. With no noises to irritate the ear, a sea voyage has no equal as a rest cure. One heard nothing but the purring of the wind, the gentle flapping of canvas, the splash of the waves, the regular throb of the ship's propeller. Conditions were ideal for day-dreams, and Grace was thinking.
As she idly watched the foaming water rush past the rail she thought how pleasantly fate had planned her life. She might have been born poor and compelled to work in a store for miserable wages, standing on her feet behind a counter ten long and wearyhours a day, forbidden to sit down on pain of dismissal, bullied by arrogant employers, insulted by inconsiderate customers. This she knew was the lot of thousands of girls whose pale, tired faces had frequently aroused her sympathy when shopping. She belonged to the small, lucky minority—the ruling class—which by the power of its great wealth is able to enslave nine-tenths of the human race. The world, she ruminated, was full of unfortunates whose only fault was that they were born poor. Her mind reverted to the handsome stoker whom they had dragged on board with such little ceremony the day the ship sailed from New York. She wondered what his life had been to force him to take to such an occupation, and what had become of him. Perhaps at that very moment, while she sat there surrounded by every luxury, he was suffering the agonies of the damned. She reproached herself for not making inquiries after him. When she next saw the captain she would certainly do so.
How different was her own life! Sailing along on this splendid ship, with perfect weather and ideal surroundings, the world seemed to exist only toafford her pleasure. If the sun shone brightly, it was only to give her joy; if the soft winds blew, it was only to caress her cheek. It seemed unjust. Things were not equal. At times she was sorry that her father was so rich. Had he been poor, she would have had an incentive to work hard and do something. Although she had everything she desired, she was not really happy. She felt there was something wanting, and she thought it was because her life lacked a definite aim. Other girls did things—they painted pictures, wrote books, went on the stage. If her father became bankrupt to-morrow, where would she be? A perfectly useless member of society, ornamental, possibly, but quite useless. Only two alternatives would be open to her—either to seek some humble employment or throw herself in the arms of a rich man. She would not be the first victim of the plutocracy which closes the doors of the liberal professions to its daughters, only to throw them, in the hour of adversity, into the palsied arms of the roué and the voluptuary.
Like most American girls, Grace had little to learn in regard to life's fundamentals. She hadread all the decadent novelists, from D'Aununzio to Eleanor Glyn, and the daily newspapers, coupled with whispered conversations over five-o'clock teas, had speedily shattered what other illusions had been left over from her school-days. The low moral standard of the set in which she moved had made her cynical in her attitude toward the men who courted her. She had a horror of fortune-hunters, and most of the men who had paid her attention, Prince Sergius and the rest, she suspected of being after her money. Yet she must marry some day. She must find a husband, even if she were not to love him. A married woman is able to take a place in society that is denied the single woman. Marry she must, but whom? The men she knew either bored her or disgusted her. He need not be a rich man, for she had enough for both, yet if a poor man presented himself, she would certainly put him in the fortune-hunting class. As she had told her friend, Mrs. Stuart, a man with a proud title would suit her best. There would be no question of love, of course, only self-interest on both sides. He would furnish the coronet, she the dollars. It would bethemariage de convenance, with its hypocrisies, its lies, its miseries.
She wondered if her attitude toward life were wrong, if really there were not a man somewhere whom a woman could respect and admire for his strength, his bravery, his nobility of character. The old-fashioned authors—the Dumas, the Scotts, the Bulwer Lyttons, the Elliots—presented such men as their heroes. Were there no such men left in the world to-day? Or were the writers of modern fiction right when they depicted the men of to-day as fortune-hunters, egotistical coxcombs, conscienceless libertines, deliberate destroyers of women's virtue? Cynical as the reading of unwholesome books and witnessing salacious plays had made her, Grace had still a little of the romantic left in her. She was still healthy-minded enough to find romance more satisfying than the vulgar realism of the modern risqué novel. And as she lay there in her chair, basking in the warm sunshine, her eyes half closed, she abandoned herself momentarily to the sensuousness of the moment.
In her imagination gradually took form the idealhero her heart craved for. She was resting on a country road, and a man was approaching. He was tall, with dark, wavy hair and smooth face, and the clean-cut features of a Greek god. He knew she was rich, but he cared not, for he despised mere wealth, and he was about to pass by unheeding, when he chanced to notice her face, which pleased his sense of beauty. He stopped wondering, and, chatting with her, marveled at the liquid splendor of her eyes. This was the woman he had sought, the woman for whom he would toil and fight. He took her hand, and at his touch her heart leaped ecstatically. A strange thrill stirred her as he gazed hungrily into her eyes and gently drew her to him. Timidly she yielded to his ardent embrace, and as he clasped her soft form roughly to his strong breast and his warm lips met hers in a deep, lingering kiss that seemed to aspire her very soul, a sensation she had never known before invaded her entire being. She felt as though she would swoon.
"Aren't you getting hungry, Grace? Whatever are you so engrossed about?" said Mrs. Stuart petulantly.
The interruption was so sudden and abrupt that Grace was startled, and it was with some confusion that she replied:
"Just thinking—that's all! This weather actually makes one foolish."
"Good morning, ladies!"
A shadow suddenly shut out the glare of the sun. Grace and Mrs. Stuart looked up. It was Captain Summers, who was walking the deck with Professor Hanson. TheAtlanta's commander was a typical sea-dog, big, broad-shouldered, with a deep bass voice and a face tanned by exposure to all sorts of weather. Contrasted with Professor Hanson, a nervous little man, with a bald, domelike cranium, he looked like a giant. Like most Englishmen, he was frigid in manner and not too amiable in his intercourse with the passengers. But Grace, Mrs. Stuart, and the professor happened to sit at his table, which made a difference. For them he condescended to unbend. He was not blind to the fact that Grace was an uncommonly good-looking girl, and Mrs. Stuart amused him. Touching his cap, he sank into the empty seat on the other side of Grace,while Professor Hanson drew up another chair.
"How long can we expect this glorious weather to last, captain?" asked Mrs. Stuart, greeting the commander's salute with a gracious smile.
"It's hard to say," he replied pleasantly, after a quick glance at the sky. "The barometer's steady enough now, but in these latitudes one may expect anything at any time. The Indian Ocean is as capricious in its moods as a woman. I've seen it as quiet as this at noon, yet by nightfall we'd run into such a storm that you'd think the ship would be blown out of the water."
"Oh, dear!" exclaimed Mrs. Stuart, with a little nervous laugh. "I hope we shan't have any such experience. I'd die of fright."
"Don't worry, m'm," replied the captain reassuringly. "There's no sign of a change." Gallantly he added: "I wouldn't hear of you ladies being put to the slightest inconvenience. I'll see that this weather continues until we arrive at Bombay."
"When do we get in, captain?" demanded Grace languidly.
"You're not getting tired of us, I hope," replied the commander, with a laugh.
"Oh, no. I only want to know when I must begin to pack my trunks. You know, we're going on a motor tour inland."
"Next Saturday we shall have the captain's dinner, with the dance afterward," interrupted Mrs. Stuart. "So I suppose they expect to land us Monday."
"How about that, captain?" demanded the professor.
Captain Summers looked at all three in an amused sort of way, and for a moment made no answer. Then gruffly he said:
"A sailor of experience never ventures to make predictions. We are due at Bombay next Monday. If all goes well, I expect to land my passengers on that day. As Mrs. Stuart says, we shall entertain you at dinner and give you a dance on deck next Saturday, in honor of our arrival. But if anything delays us, don't be disappointed. We might run on a rock and go to the bottom. Or we might break our propellers. If that happened, we should be completelyhelpless. We might drift out of our course for weeks before help could reach us."
"Oh, wouldn't that be awful!" cried Mrs. Stuart.
"How could we summon assistance?" asked Grace eagerly.
"By wireless, of course," broke in the professor, who assumed the air of superior knowledge on every subject broached. "The invention of wireless telegraphy has practically reduced the perils of seagoing to a negligible minimum."
"Thank Heaven, we've got the wireless!" gasped Mrs. Stuart. "I could hug the man who invented it—Macaroni—what's his name?"
"You mean Marconi, my dear madam," interposed the professor solemnly.
"The wireless is all right as far as it goes," said the captain grimly. "Certainly its invention is a great step forward, but two things are essential for its success in a critical situation. Firstly, it must be in working order. In bad weather the aerial wires are apt to be put out of commission. Secondly, there must be a Marconi station or receiver within a few hundred miles of where you happen to be.If these conditions are not present, you might as well whistle!"
Mrs. Stuart looked so depressed at this discouraging opinion that Grace could not repress a smile. Professor Hanson, never sorry of an opportunity to air his fund of information, went on pompously:
"Captain, you spoke just now of running on a rock. Is it not a fact that in this ocean there are rocks and small islands not shown on the nautical charts, and that for this reason navigation in these waters is more dangerous than elsewhere?"
For all reply, the commander gave vent to a loud guffaw and, with a side glance at Mrs. Stuart, winked slyly at Grace.
"If we keep up this kind of talk, Mrs. Stuart will think we're doomed to come to grief of some kind. Let's be more cheerful."
"Am I right or wrong, captain?" persisted the professor. "My information came from a naval man."
The commander's face became set and stern, as it usually did when he was serious. Removing his cigar, he said slowly:
"Your informant was right. For some reason or other, there is no such thing as an absolutely accurate chart of the Indian Ocean. They have talked for years of making a new chart, but, so far, nothing has been done. Yet we sailors who regularly navigate these waters know from experience that there are hereabouts currents strong enough to divert a vessel from her true course, and a number of small islands no mention of which is made on the existing charts. The Admiralty and Lloyds are well aware of the existence Of these dangers to navigation, but you all know what red tape is."
"How delightfully romantic!" cried Grace, with enthusiasm. "Unexplored islands inhabited by savages who never saw white people, and who trade in beads and go naked!"
"Cannibals, no doubt," suggested Mrs. Stuart, with an affected shudder.
"Where are these islands?" inquired Grace.
"A long way out of our course, I hope," laughed the captain. "Yet I've passed quite close to some of them. They seem quite deserted. So far as we could make out, there is not even animal life onthem. But, being in the direct steamer lane to India, they constitute a menace to shipping that should be removed."
"Most decidedly—most decidedly!" said the professor emphatically.
Captain Summers arose to go.
"It's very delightful chatting here," he said, with a smile; "but I must go up on the bridge and attend to my duties. Otherwise, we may bump right on to one of those islands."
"By the way, captain," said Grace. "What has become of that poor fireman who made such a disturbance the day we sailed from New York?"
The captain frowned.
"Oh, he's down where he belongs—shoveling coal." Then he added: "Don't waste any sympathy on him. He's about as hard a character as you could find. Stokers are all troublesome as a class, but this Armitage fellow is quite unmanageable. I shall be glad to get rid of him. We had to put him on bread and water the first ten days out. It wasn't until he was nearly dead from starvation that he consented to go to work."
"Stoking down in that pit in that terrific heat must be fearful!" exclaimed the professor.
"Yes," growled the captain. "It is pretty bad. Most of them don't mind it, though. They aren't good for anything else. They're tough, coarse-fibered creatures, scarcely superior in instincts to the savage. They'd think nothing of running a knife into you, and that Armitage chap is worse than the worst of them. We've had trouble with him all along."
"Still, after all," mused the professor, "we mustn't forget that it is they who make the ship go. We couldn't do without them. Every man has his place in the world's economy."
"It must be very interesting to see them at work," remarked Grace. "I'd like to see what the stoke-hold looks like. Mr. Fitzhugh said he would take me down." Looking down the deck, she added: "Here he comes now. I'll ask him."
"There's no time like the present," said the captain. "See Mr. Wetherbee, the chief engineer. He'll take you down."
"Yes," said the professor pedantically. "Thespectacle will be a good object lesson for you—a pampered daughter of the plutocracy. With a little imagination, you can see in the stoke-hold social conditions as they actually are in the world to-day. In the stokers you have the laborers, the mill-hands, the sweat-shop workers, the common people who toil painfully for pitiful wages, for their daily bread. We others up here, lolling in our luxurious steamer-chairs, living on the fat of the land—or, rather, sea, to be more correct—are the masters, the capitalists. It is the slave system of ancient Rome under another name, that's all. It's all wrong. Man's injustice to man is the great crime of the centuries. Why should I be here enjoying every comfort and those unfortunate men down there condemned to tortures as cruel as those devised by the merciless Inquisition."
Captain Summers shrugged his massive shoulders, and, as he turned to go, said laughingly:
"Mind you don't talk that way in the stoke-hold, or they might take you at your word and keep you down there."
"No danger of that, captain," laughed Mrs.Stuart. "The professor's only theorizing, you know. It costs nothing to expound theory. He has no idea of exchanging places with the stokers."
The commander guffawed loudly, and, with a parting salute to the ladies, turned on his heel and disappeared up the companionway. At that moment the Hon. Percy Fitzhugh came up, the inevitable monocle in his eye.
"Oh, I say, Miss Harmon," he began, with his affected English drawl. "Be my partner at shuffleboard, eh, what?"
Mrs. Stuart, irritated at an invitation which ignored her, answered for her ward:
"Miss Harmon has more serious things to attend to. Don't come disturbing us with your idiotic games. We are intellectual here—talking socialism, cannibals, wireless, stoke-holds, and such things. If you can't be intellectual, keep away."
"Mr. Fitzhugh," said Grace, laughing, "you promised to take me down to the stoke-hold. Suppose we all go now?"
Mr. Fitzhugh beamed. The beautiful one hadactually deigned to ask him a favor. Overcome with emotion, he stuttered his reply:
"Delighted, of course. It'll be jolly good sport to see the beggars hard at work down there. I'll let the shuffleboard go hang. Come, we'll go and see the chief engineer, eh, what?"
He assisted Grace and Mrs. Stuart to their feet, and, followed by the professor, they all made their way to Mr. Wetherbee's cabin.
The chief engineer, a blunt-spoken Englishman, with bushy side-whiskers, was amiability itself, and readily consented to escort his visitors down to the region where he was king.
"There's nothing very attractive down there!" he said, by way of warning.
"Oh, I'm very anxious to see the poor fellows at the furnaces. It must be a most interesting sight," exclaimed Grace, with a flush of pleasurable anticipation.
"Won't it spoil our frocks?" demanded Mrs. Stuart, apprehensive of damage to her white chiffon gown.
The engineer took the question as almost a personal insult.
"Bless you, no, m'm. It's as clean as Delmonico's kitchen. We're proud to show it for that reason. Of course, there's plenty of coal-dust flying down in the stoking-pit, where the firemen are, but you'll not go near enough to hurt. Follow me!"
He led the way through a narrow door amid-ships, on the port side, and they found themselves in a steel-lined gallery, well lighted and fitted on all sides with steel ladders, pipes, and valves. The hissing of escaping steam and the roar of powerful machinery in motion made any attempt at speaking impossible.
"This is the engine-room," shouted Mr. Wetherbee.
Looking down, they saw mighty arms of polished, well-greased steel rise, swing slowly and descend rapidly on the other side. The huge rods of metal ascended and fell again with great rapidity, with a rhythmical, irresistible sweep that was fascinating to watch, making at each thrust and uplift a rushing, roaring noise like the simultaneous blows of a hundred sledge-hammers.
"A man was caught in there once," shouted the engineer, so as to make himself heard above the din. "It was just before the ship sailed. The poor fellow noticed that the crank needed oil, and thought he had time to do it before we started. Just as he was finishing, the signal 'Go ahead' came from thebridge. We didn't know he was in the pit, and we pulled the steam-chest lever. The massive arm rose. He shrieked. Before we could stop the machinery, it dropped again, and he was ground to pieces before our eyes."
Grace shuddered while the engineer calmly went on to explain the particular use of each part of the wonderful mechanism over which he had supreme control, speaking of each with as much affection as if it were his own offspring.
"Those cranks turn the shaft which gives the propellers their thousand revolutions a minute. The vibration you notice is caused by the enormous steam pressure. Two hundred pounds of steam pressing against every square inch of boiler surface represents power equal to the strength of 10,000 horses." Patting the head of the great beam as it rose to him, he added: "This is the best friend we've got—never tired, always true. But for this we should not be cutting through the water at the speed of twenty knots an hour."
Turning to an iron staircase on the left, he said:
"We'll go now to the boiler-room and see howwe make the steam that gives life to the cylinders."
Beckoning them to follow, he disappeared down a steep stairway, spiral in form, which reached from the promenade-deck down to the very bottom of the vessel. The engineer gallantly extended his hand to assist Grace, and Professor Hanson, not quite sure himself of his footing, made a pretense of rendering similar service to Mrs. Stuart. Mr. Fitzhugh brought up the rear, stepping gingerly. Down they went, round and round, threading their way along an amazing labyrinth of valves, levers, gauges, eccentrics, tubes, and steam-pipes. They were now deep down in the bowels of the ship, a region with a sickening smell of machine-oil and steam. Down, down they went, past the coal-bunkers, following the engineer. The stairway being only imperfectly lighted by electric bulbs, they had to tread carefully. It grew perceptibly hotter. Presently they saw double rows of boilers set sideways. They were in the stoke-hold.
"Look out!"
The warning cry came from Mr. Wetherbee, who stopped short and held out his arms to prevent thevisitors proceeding any farther. Then he shouted: "There are the furnaces! You'd better shade your eyes!"
There was a sudden glare which was almost blinding, a roar of flames under forced draught, and a wave of sickening heat. The air all at once became so thick with flying particles of coal that it was difficult to breathe. Choking, coughing, Grace and her companions clutched nervously at the slender guard-rail which alone interposed between the steel gallery where they stood and the inferno of smell, noise, and heat below.
An extraordinary spectacle presented itself to their eyes. In the blackness underneath, between the rows of boilers, were the stoking-pits, in which fourteen fires, each raging at a fierce white heat, glowed angrily like the red cavernous maws of legendary monsters. Through the open furnace doors issued a blinding light that only intensified the surrounding gloom. Standing about, recoiling from the withering heat, could be seen a dozen stalwart forms. Every now and then they advanced quickly to the furnace, to throw on fresh fuel or torake the glowing coal, and in the vivid light they were seen to be human beings, but so begrimed and terrible of aspect as to be well-nigh unrecognizable as men. They were entirely naked from the waist up, and so covered with coal-dust from head to heel that they looked like negroes. Only the white circles around the bloodshot eyes and their straight hair betrayed the true color of their skins. They worked silently and resignedly, like men accursed, and doomed for some sin committed to everlasting toil and torment. Mere machines of flesh and sinew, they executed with the rapidity and expertness of long practise certain mechanical movements, their toughened muscles and iron frame standing the strain and heat with amazing endurance, sweat literally pouring off their faces and bodies in streams. At moments the heat became intolerable—the stoker himself caught fire. His skin began to blister, his hair started to smoke. He gave a shout, and a comrade quickly emptied a bucket of water over him, throwing off a cloud of steam. Thus temporarily relieved, he set to his devilish task again. It was the hardest kind of labor known to man, but, likethe ancient stoics, the stokers gave no sign of their suffering. They toiled uncomplainingly in grim silence, as if resigned to accept this degraded, painful occupation as their proper lot in life. They worked on and on until gradually even their great strength gave out. Overcome by the appalling heat, suffocating from lack of fresh air, one by one they were forced to fall back and give place to fresher men.
The daintily gowned, carefully groomed passengers from the first cabin watched them, fascinated. It was difficult for Grace, who had seen nothing but plenty around her since she came into the world, to understand that there were human beings so miserably poor, so low down in the social scale that they had to earn their bread in this way. The literalness of the saying "making a living by the sweat of one's brow" dawned upon her for the first time. She was shocked, and then she felt sorry—sorry that any human being should be so degraded. A sense of guilt came over her, as if she realized that the luxuries her class loved and exacted were responsible for this degradation, this suffering.
She wondered where the refractory fireman was, and presently she perceived him, emerging from the gloom, approaching the roaring furnace, steel rod in hand, to rake the fiery coal, covering his face with his unemployed hand to ward off the blistering heat. He was easily recognizable in spite of his forbidding, ghoulish aspect, towering as he did several inches above his comrades. Built like a Hercules, he had a torso that would have given joy to the great Praxiteles himself. His lines were academic, the muscles on his massive yet admirably molded shoulders and arms stood out like whip-cords, and as he stood before the open fire, working the steel rod in and out, one leg thrust forward, the rest of the body thrown backward to avoid the heat, his pose recalled one of David's Latin warriors about to let fly a javelin at the enemy.
"By Jove!" exclaimed Mr. Fitzhugh. "There's the chap who made such a fuss when we sailed."
"Yes, that's the fellow!" said the chief engineer. "He's going his 'shift' readily enough now, but we've had a hard time with him. He had to be driven to work like a dog. He's a surly brute andalways ready for a fight. You'd better not attract his attention."
So far, the stokers had not noticed the visitors' presence, but Mr. Fitzhugh's exclamation made them look up. One of the firemen laughed, and said something in an undertone to a comrade, whereupon the man grinned, and, turning to the others, pointed to the Hon. Percy, who, with his monocle, his green Tyrolian hat and white spats, looked comical enough to excite derision. The jeers attracted the attention of Armitage, who dropped back from the furnace he was cleaning out and glared up at the intruders. He clenched his fist and ground his teeth as he saw these perfumed, pampered passengers watching them as they might view wild animals in a cage. It made his blood boil to see their clean skins, their fine clothes. No doubt, they had not done a day's honest work in their lives. That animated monkey with the monocle and white spats, and those dainty dolls in laces and jewels, came simply from idle curiosity, to gibe at their dirty, miserable appearance, to mock at their sufferings. The thought maddened him. In a frenzy of rage, heshook his fist in the direction of the little gallery where Grace and her party stood.
"Get out of here!" he shouted furiously. "We don't want you! This isn't a circus! Get out—do you hear?"
He stooped quickly, and, picking up a heavy piece of coal, lifted his arm as if about to hurl it in their direction. Grace, frightened, recoiled, and her companions also shrank back. Mr. Fitzhugh and the professor had already bolted up the spiral stairway. The chief engineer said quietly to Grace:
"You'd better go. There's no telling how he might excite the other men. I regret very much that you should have been subjected to his insults. He's half-crazy. Leave me to deal with him!"
Shaking his fist at the fireman, he shouted:
"You'll pay for this, Armitage. This means another dose of the 'hospital' for you!"
"Go to hell!" cried the stoker's hoarse voice.
Grace and Mrs Stuart were breathless when they reached the deck, and they gave a sigh of relief when they were able once more to fill their lungs with fresh air.
"What a shocking place!" exclaimed Mrs. Stuart, examining her gown to see if she had sustained any damage.
"What a terrible man!" echoed Grace.
All day it had been uncomfortably hot and oppressive. The blazing sun looked like a molten disk in a copper-colored sky. The horizon was veiled in a sort of milky haze. The sea had quieted down to a dead calm. There was not so much as a ripple on the ocean's smooth, oil-like surface.
The big liner was still pounding her way toward Bombay. Another two days and the passengers would go ashore. Saturday afternoon had already arrived. Sailors were busy rigging canvas and putting up decorations for the dance which was to take place that evening. In a cozy corner of the promenade-deck an animated group, which included Grace, Mrs. Stuart, Mrs. Phelps, Count von Hatzfeld, and Professor Hanson, were taking tea.
"I don't see how we can dance in this heat! I think we'd better put off the ball, don't you, count?" exclaimed Grace, appealing to Mrs. Phelps' aristocratic admirer.
Count Herbert von Hatzfeld was the typical Teuton, tall and blond, with soldierly bearing. His mustache had the uptwist dear to the Kaiser. He had good teeth, polished ways, and an engaging smile. Like most Germans, his speech was stiff and slow, and he sat bolt upright, as if he had accidentally swallowed a poker, which made it impossible for him to unbend.
Grace's suggestion did not seem to appeal to him, for, with a hasty glance at Mrs. Phelps, who appeared engrossed in something Professor Hanson was saying, he replied:
"Ach—that is nothing. I like dancing with you in the heat better than not dancing at all."
Grace purposely ignored the compliment. She had no desire to make Mrs. Phelps jealous; so, hastening to draw the widow into the conversation, she leaned over to her.
"What do you think about it, Mrs. Phelps? I just told the count that I thought it too hot to dance to-night. What's your opinion?"
"Oh, dear, no," laughed the widow, fanning herself. "Let's enjoy ourselves as long as we can.This weather's nothing to what we shall get in the interior of India. I wouldn't miss the dance for anything."
"Mrs. Stuart, may I trouble you for some more tea?" asked Professor Hanson, with his customary exaggerated politeness.
"You, professor, may have anything," replied Mrs. Stuart, with a smile meant to be fascinating. Archly she added: "You know, I call you my walking encyclopedia. Just think what you've taught me on this voyage—all about ocean currents, the stars, wireless telegraphy. You are a wonderful man."
The professor bowed and preened himself as he sugared his tea.
"You flatter me, my dear madam. Really, you flatter me. It has been an honor and delight to talk with so charming and intelligent a woman."
"Do you hear that, Grace?" laughed Mrs. Stuart. "The professor says I'm charming and intelligent."
"Ja wohl, it is true—it is true," exclaimed the count gallantly. "You are very charming. The herr professor vouches for your intelligence also.He is more competent than I to pass on that question. But I can certainly vouch for your being irresistibly charming."
Mrs. Phelps frowned. For some reason she seemed to regard Mrs. Stuart as more dangerous than Grace. Fanning herself vigorously, she exclaimed:
"It is hotter than I thought it was. I think we're in a warm corner. Count, suppose we take a turn on deck."
"Ja wohl—if you wish it," responded the German, rising with native politeness.
Somewhat reluctantly, Mrs. Stuart thought, he joined Mrs. Phelps, and they walked off briskly together down the deck.
"Now they're gone, you'll have to amuse us, professor," laughed Mrs. Stuart.
"I wish I had some one to fan me," complained Grace languidly.
"Allow me," exclaimed the professor eagerly.
Dapper and enthusiastic, he danced around, and, drawing up a chair, took the fan which Grace willingly surrendered. The professor was not exactlythe man of her day-dreams, but he was as good as any one else to arrange the rugs around her chair or to pick up the things she was continually dropping. No one had seen the Hon. Percy Fitzhugh for the last two days. He had not dared to show his face on deck since his ignominious flight from the stoke-hold.
"Why is it so sultry, professor?" asked Grace wearily.
The professor fanned her gently, taking mental inventory as the gentle breeze he made stirred his companion's veil. Her aristocratic features, her transparent, satinlike skin, her long silky lashes drooping on a velvety cheek, half concealing her dark, soul-disturbing eyes, the slender white neck and full bosom covered with dainty open laces partially concealing hidden charms, and an upturned, wistful mouth, with full red lips that suggested unholy delights—all this the professor noted, and he turned away his head and sighed. For all his science, he was, after all, only a man. And, alas, he had a wife at home. Besides, who knew better than he—the man of science—the futility of lifting one's eyes tothe stars. He fanned on in philosophic silence.
"Tell me why is it so hot?" repeated Grace, quite unconscious of the emotions she was stirring in her bespectacledvis-à-vis.
"Really, I don't know," said the professor, startled out of his reveries. Looking around at the sky, he added: "I think we're going to have a change in the weather."
"Oh, I hope not!" exclaimed Mrs. Stuart anxiously. "What makes you think that?"
"Well," replied the professor, scanning with the expert air of a weather prophet the distant horizon, where the fiery sun was sinking behind a great mass of purple cloud, "I don't much like the formation of those clouds over there. In these latitudes they usually portend a storm of considerable violence. The sultriness, the unnatural calm, are all storm warnings to the sailor, and if another proof were wanted, the barometer has been falling rapidly all day. We're sure to get something before long."
"Anything's better than this heat," yawned Grace. "I'd love to see a big storm, with tremendous waves washing all over the ship."
"Really, Grace, I think it's horrid of you to talk that way," protested Mrs. Stuart, half in jest, half in earnest. "If we were wrecked or something, it would serve you right."
"I wouldn't mind being wrecked," laughed Grace. "It would be awfully romantic—so different from our conventional, humdrum life. Just fancy, professor, if the ship were wrecked and you and I were cast away on a desert island, with only monkeys, snakes, and possibly savages for neighbors!"
"You jest, Miss Harmon," replied the professor seriously. "But such things have occurred. Don't you remember what happened to the passengers of theAeon, when that steamer was wrecked on Christmas Island? The survivors were ten weeks on a barren rock in the South Pacific. One woman's hair, which was brown, without a trace of gray, when she sailed on theAeon, turned almost white, as a result of the privations and nerve strain endured on the island."
"Yes, I remember reading about it in the papers," said Mrs. Stuart. "Possibly she lost her hair dye in the panic."
"I'd look pretty with white hair," laughed Grace. "It's the fashion now to wear tufts of white hair among your own."
"If a cannibal cooked youà la fricassee, it wouldn't matter how you looked!" growled Mrs. Stuart.
"Talking of desert islands," said the professor thoughtfully, "a very interesting sociological problem might be solved if one had the time to be shipwrecked and the courage to put my theory to the test."
"What theory is that?" demanded Grace, with languid curiosity.
The professor peered dubiously at both women over his gold-rimmed spectacles, as if questioning their ability to grasp intellectual problems of any nature. Then pedantically, pompously, as if addressing a college class, he went on:
"Ethnology and sociology, as you are perhaps aware, are pet sciences with me. I have always taken keen interest in studying man in his relations to his fellow man, particularly in his relations with women."
He paused, as if afraid he had said something indelicate. Mrs. Stuart sat up, made her pillows more comfortable, and said, with a laugh:
"This sounds interesting. Go on, professor!"
Thus encouraged, the professor continued:
"We must not lose sight of the fact that man as we see him to-day—clean-shaven, manicured, trouser-creased—is only a step removed from the naked savage ancestor who in the palæolithic age emerged from his cave, club in hand, to defend his family or provide it with food. The man of the stone age tore flesh from the skeletons of wild animals he slew, and made of his wife a beast of burden. To-day, our city dweller employs a Frenchchef, and buys for his wife a box at the opera. Conditions have altered radically since the dawn of history, thousands of years of education and refining influences have tamed the primeval man and woman and taught them how to keep their instincts, their passions, under control. Yet the change is far more apparent than real. Civilization is purely artificial. It is only a compromise, a convention. Our boasted refinement at best is littlemore than skin deep. There's an old saying: 'Scratch a Russian and you'll find a Tartar.' We might also say: 'Scratch civilized man and you'll find a primeval brute.' Fundamentally, men and women of to-day are the same as their savage ancestors, they are moved by the same impulses and desires as when in the dark quaternary epoch they roamed naked through the virgin forests, ferocious-looking and bestial in appetite, their matted hair falling over their brutal faces, their prominent teeth sharp and pointed like wolves' fangs. By nature we are thieves, murderers, liars, cheats."
"You have a fine opinion of your fellow men, I must say," interrupted Grace, with a mischievous smile at Mrs. Stuart.
"I am stating a cold, scientific fact, and one that is unqualifiedly endorsed by every self-respecting ethnologist," replied the professor firmly. "Civilization," he went on, "teaches us that it is wrong to kill, to steal, to lie, and society has amended Nature's law by decreeing that the murderer shall be executed, the thief imprisoned, the liar and cheat ostracized. That, frankly, is the chief reason why themajority of us behave ourselves. But some men are so constituted that they are unable to control their brutal instincts, their evil passions. Morally and mentally, sometimes physically, even, they resemble in striking fashion their savage prototypes of six thousand years ago. For instance, take that fireman Armitage—a colossus in physical strength, obeying only brutal impulses, to all intents and purposes an untutored barbarian. Civilization, you see, has done nothing for him. He is the primeval man. To me he is interesting, for he proves the truth of my atavistic theory."
Grace yawned. The professor was too deep for her. In fact, she found him rather tiresome, particularly as she could not guess what he was driving at. Mrs. Stuart, however, was a more attentive, if somewhat puzzled, listener.
"But what has all this to do with being wrecked on a desert island?" she demanded.
The professor smiled in a superior kind of way.
"Allow me to come to my point," he said, with a lordly wave of his hand. "Suppose a ship like theAtlanta, for instance, were wrecked, and the onlytwo persons who survived the disaster—a man and a woman—found themselves on a desert island, far from the regular track of steamers and with the remotest chance of any vessel seeing their signal of distress. Suppose the man was one of the crew, a common sailor, a brute, say, of the type of that Armitage fellow, and the woman one of the first-cabin passengers, a beautiful, highly cultured girl, rich, luxury-loving, fastidious, such, for instance, as Miss Harmon——"
"Please do me the favor to leave me out of your comparisons," interrupted Grace coldly. She did not exactly relish the coupling of her name with that of a disreputable stoker.
"Oh—I only wanted to make my meaning as plain as possible," stuttered the professor, in profuse apology.
"Your meaning isn't plain at all!" retorted Grace, not knowing whether to laugh or to be angry.
"It's about as dense as an Irish Channel fog. But I grasp enough to see that it's interesting," exclaimed Mrs. Stuart. "Please don't talk in parablesany longer, professor. Come quickly to the point. I'm getting interested."
"This is the point," smiled the professor. "What would be this man's and woman's attitude to each other? Separated under normal social conditions by the widest gulf imaginable, on the desert island they would be thrown together in the closest intimacy. The highly educated woman, the refined product of centuries of high breeding, would suddenly find herself the associate and helpmate of an uncouth, brutal fellow barely redeemed from barbarism. Necessity would compel her to look to him for food. Instinct would prompt him to build her a shelter from the elements, and to protect her from attack. As their enforced sojourn on the island grew longer, the common sailor would begin to cast covetous, lustful eyes on his involuntary companion, and as each day the hope of rescue became more remote, he might insist on ties the very suggestion of which would overwhelm her with horror. Yet with no one but God above to call upon for help, she would be completely at the man's mercy. She would be powerless to resist or to deny herself. Her refinement,her culture, her high intelligence, would go for nothing. The primeval man, the beast, would assert his rights and only death could save her honor from the exercise of his brutal force."
"What a horrid nightmare to conjure up," interrupted Grace, with a shudder. "If such a thing happened to me, I'd jump into the sea."
"I'd pick up a carving-knife and stick him in the ribs," exclaimed Mrs. Stuart, laughing.
"I don't think either of you would do anything of the sort," rejoined the professor. "The sailor would quickly pull Miss Harmon out of the water, and there wouldn't be carving-knives lying around with which to do any rib-sticking. No, you would let Nature work out the problem."
"What!" cried both women simultaneously. "You mean to say that we should——"
"No—not at all," smiled the professor. "You go too quickly. I have merely stated the sailor's desires. Now, the interesting question arises: Will he exercise his rights as the stronger, will he drag this delicate, highly nurtured girl down to his own animal level, or will she by sheer force of character,by her fine mentality and spiritual force, be able to tame the beast and lift him up to her level? That is the problem—a most interesting one from the sociological standpoint; but it could be solved only by being put to an actual test."
"I hope you don't expect either of us to make the experiment," laughed Mrs. Stuart.
"If you did, I should certainly aspire to be the sailor," retorted, gallantly, the man of science.
"The hypothesis is an interesting one," said Grace thoughtfully. "After all, the situation is not impossible."
The professor rubbed his hands with satisfaction.
"Quite so—quite so!" he replied. "What, in your opinion, would be the outcome?"
For a moment Grace left the question unanswered. Then, decisively, she said:
"Such a girl would never yield. Her training, her pride, her self-respect, would protect her. She would die before she degraded herself."
"The idea is preposterous!" exclaimed Mrs. Stuart impatiently.
The professor shook his head.
"My dear ladies, you are both mistaken. I once knew a New York girl, highly educated, wealthy, popular with her friends, who gave up everything, a luxurious home, her position in society, to follow the man she loved—a full-blooded Indian—back to the tents of his people. To-day that girl is living Indian fashion on a Western reservation. In place of her one-time elegance she wears her hair down over her shoulders, an old blanket keeps her warm, her proud carriage has given place to the uncertain, shambling gait, on her back is strapped her Indian papoose. Her old life is practically blotted out."
"Ah," interrupted Grace, "but that is a different case. She loved the Indian. If the girl on the island loved the sailor, she might fall, too, but love should never degrade. On the contrary, it should redeem and uplift the man."
The professor nodded approvingly.
"Bravo! bravo!" he cried.
"Really, Grace, I had no idea you were so sentimental!" exclaimed Mrs. Stuart.
"In other words," went on the professor, addressing the younger woman, "you think——"
"I think," replied Grace slowly and deliberately, "that if they found they loved each other, she would not quite descend to his level nor would he quite ascend to hers. There would be a compromise. In other words, she would stoop; he would reach up. That is my view."
"A most sensible view—most sensible!" said the professor, with enthusiasm.
Mrs. Stuart sprang up from her chair. Collecting her wraps, she said:
"This debate is highly interesting and instructive, but if I stop to listen to any more I shall never be dressed for dinner. Come, Grace, don't forget we dine earlier to-night, because of the dance."
The professor assisted Grace to her feet.
"Thanks," she said. "I've enjoyed our talk so much. You've set me thinking. It's so seldom one is encouraged to think of anything worth while."
The ladies disappeared below, and the professor, tipping his cap, turned on his heel and continued his walk. On the promenade-deck, where a dozen sailors were busy preparing for the evening's comingfestivities, he met Captain Summers, who was enjoying a smoke before dinner.
"Well, captain, pretty warm for dancing, eh? Is it going to get any cooler?"
The captain stopped short and squinted around at the sky. As he took in the weather signs, an anxious look came into his face, and he replied gruffly:
"We'll get something to-night, that's sure. The glass is falling rapidly. But I wouldn't say anything about it to the ladies, if I were you."