As Officer McCarthy paused for an instant in his story the eyes of the court-room seemed by common consent to turn to Anna Janssen in the dock. The jury looked at her with knitted brows; the spectators with puzzled glances. It seemed impossible that this calm, majestic figure could once have acted the siren of the streets to the officer bringing her from her Tahitian sanctuary. Immobile, somehow immaculate, with strange superhuman dignity, she did not blush, she did not smile. Only a genre shadow of pain was about her eyes, such as creeps about the eyes of some one who remembers old, all-but-forgotten painful things of phases of life long by.
Out of those firm lips like a rose in bloom could blasphemy have flowed in a sluggish lecherous stream? Out of that glorious bronze throat, fit for Magnificats? It seemed impossible, was impossible.
The judge looked at her with moved, understanding eyes. The district attorney cast at her puzzled glances. Donegan looked neither at her, nor at anything. He just drowsed like a dog....
"All next day," McCarthy went on, "the blow grew worse. They reefed down sail until we were flying along under top and foresails. The funny thing was that here and there the sky was blue. You 'd have thought all was going to get fair in an hour or two, but it did n't. And the captain stood by the man at the wheel and looked worried.
"You had to shout to make yourself heard. 'Ain't it going to calm down, Captain?' I says.
"'I don't know,' he says. 'I wish to God I was out of these islands,' he says. 'If I was all alone in the middle of the Pacific, I would n't give a damn, but these here coral insects,' he says, 'they 're always building, and they sure do bother me. And these charts of the Marquesas,' he says, 'they ain't worth a damn. I wish I was out of these islands,' he says; 'I sure do.'
"'Oh, you 'll be all right, Cap,' I says.
"'You get for'a'd out o' here,' he barks at me.
"'I 'll talk to you later about that,' I says, but I goes off, because I see he 's worried.
"All we get to eat that day is a cup of coffee and a sandwich. And night comes and we 're still plunging on.
"And then we hear thunder.
"Janssen won't turn in. She 's scared, she says, and she sticks by me. And the thunder keeps up, and comes closer, and it gets very dark.
"'What's that?' Janssen says.
"'It strikes me it is n't thunder at all. It's some boat in distress firing a gun,' I tells her. 'It's too bad we can't do anything for them. But I don't think we can.'
"'I 'm afraid, McCarthy,' Janssen says. 'That's no gun.'
"'Maybe it's a lot of guns,' I says. 'Maybe it's the French navy practising. They take a funny night for it,' I says.
"'I 'm scared, McCarthy,' she whimpers, and comes close.
"'We 'll be all right,' I tells her.
"'I 'm scared,' she cries. 'Put your arms around me, McCarthy, please.'
"'Oh, come off!' I tells her. That game don't go, Janssen. What's the use?'
"'I 'm scared, honest. They's something going to happen.' The boat does a little jazz step, and the guns is right in our ears. And overhead, Judge, the stars were out. 'Please take me in your arms, McCarthy—just like I was your sister.'
"'Well, you ain't just like you was my sister. And they 's been too many arms around you for me to put mine. But you can hold on to me,' I says.
"And then my teeth come together with a jar and my spine is near driven through my skull, and something hits me on the head. And all the water in the world comes over me. And I know nothing."
The witness, it seemed, here underwent a strange dramatic transformation. Until now in his recital, his story had been a story all could understand, a policeman's story, told in a policeman's voice, in a policeman's words. To the court-room he was a figure within their ken, a person to warm the hearts of burgesses. Honest, homely, speaking in dialect, he stood in their eyes for the typical and honored defender of city families and city homes. Great figures, those men! They make heroism casual. We may call the New York police grafters; we may call them brutes and tyrants; we may call them the scum of Ireland. We can never call them cowards.
There is on record the case of—shall I say O'Kelly? A homicidal maniac, armed to the teeth, took refuge in a cellar. "And then what?" "I goes down into the cellar and I gets him out." "Good God! You went down alone into that dark hole after—" "Oh, that was not'in'; he was easy!"
You can have your great regiments—your Old Guard at Waterloo; your Rough Riders of San Juan Hill, your Black Watch, your Bashi-Bazouks; your Bersaglieri. Give me the New York police!
Up to now McCarthy had been only a New York policeman, telling in a dry way the facts of a case. But a new dignity arose in him of a sudden. He was no longer dealing with the processes of his profession but with big human phenomena. Until now he had been deferential to court and officers, a cog in the legal machine. Suddenly he assumed individuality, poise, dignity. He became bigger than the personnel of the case, as big as the woman in the dock. And curiously his language changed to fit the newer individuality, turning from the idioms of the sidewalks of New York to what we term, in that archaic phrase which has so much of dignity, the King's English.
"I came to," he resumed. "At first it was blackness and a terrible headache, and the thought in my brain: 'Where is Janssen? I've lost Janssen.' And then my head cleared, and my eyes opened. And I was lying on the sand in the dawn, and Janssen was bathing my head.
"'So there you are!' I said.
"And then it struck me. Where 's the ship?
"I got up on my elbow and looked around. We were on a strand, with trees behind us and a bay in front and the sun just coming up, bright as a golden eagle. In front of us was a sort of bay where the water was still and sparkling, like wine sparkles. And then I look out further. And there 's a sort of wall of crags between the bay and the sea, and on the other side of it the sea is pounding, pounding, pounding, like a man crazy with anger.Swish! Crash! Boom!And then I notice pieces of timber, a bale, a piece of cloth in the lagoon.
"The schooner 's gone, I understand. There 's been a wreck.
"'Where are the rest?' I ask Janssen.
"'There are no rest.' She throws her arms out. 'Just you and I!'
"Then after a while I said: 'We 're in a pretty bad way here—shipwrecked; without anything to eat; with a very small chance of rescue. We 're up against it. There is n't even water.'
"But she only laughed.
"'We 're not so bad as you 'd think,' she says. 'There 's water. I found it when I looked for something to bathe that cut on your head. And as for food, I 'd been in these islands a while before they put me in the—place—at Papeete. There 's bananas, and there 's cocoanuts, and there 's breadfruit. And that cove is full of fish.'
"'You can't eat fish raw,' I tell her.
"I 'm turning out my pockets then, leaving things in the sun to dry—my gun, with the shells out in a row; my watch; my knife; my pocketbook. She points at the watch.
"'You can make a fire with the crystal of that,' she says. 'Your bananas 'll do for the present. I 'll go off and get some. You need n't worry,' she says as she notices me looking at her. 'I can't get off the island.'
"After a while she comes back and sits down.
"'Do you know how you got ashore, McCarthy?'
"'I don't,' I answer. 'I know nothing.'
"'When the boat struck,' she tells me, 'you and I were washed over the reef. Something hit you on the head. But I pulled you in, McCarthy. You went down. You were out cold. I had a job, too,' she laughs nervously. 'Your hair is awfully short.'
"'Well, I got to thank you,' I said.
"'Don't mind thanking me,' she said. 'Tell me this!' She 's awfully serious. 'Don't you think a life is worth a life?'
"I say nothing to that.
"'Don't you, McCarthy?' she pleads.
"'I 'm sorry,' I tell her. 'I 'm awfully, awfully sorry, but I 've got to bring you in.'
"'You 're a hard man, McCarthy.'
"'I 'm not a hard man. I 'm just a man sworn in to do my job. I 'm just a man a big trust's been put in, and I can't fall down. Sis, you missed your chance,' I told her. 'You ought to have let me go down, when you saw me going. Then you 'd have been free. You ought to have stood clear and let me drown.'
"'Oh, I could n't do that!' she says.
"'Neither could I let you go!'
"In the afternoon I go around the island to see where we are. But from no point can I see land or a sail or anything. We are just on one of those Pacific atolls, as they call them, away from the line of everything but sailing-ships trading from isle to isle. I look everywhere—north, east, south, and west—and there is nothing but boiling sea, white, muddy, with birds fluttering, or floating in the air.
"The island itself is not more than ten miles square and there are rocks everywhere about it except around the cove where we landed, and that has a coral breakwater. The sand is bright and yellow like new gold, and on the island itself there is greenness that is nearly black. And you can see cocoanut-trees and banana-trees and oranges. And while I 'm standing there a little pig breaks through the underbrush and looks at me, and then flies off with a squeal. And for a moment my heart goes pit-a-pat because I think there are people on this island. A pig is a human thing. It's always been so near humans, it's nearly human itself. But a moment later something in me tells me there 's no one here. It's been put ashore, it and others, by some of the old whaling-ships that are gone now.
"I look around and I see the island, the sand like gold, the clean wind, the water in the cove as transparent as water in a glass; the fish in the water and the animals on the island, and the fruit on the trees. And the sun is bright and warm and full of life, and in the distance I can see Janssen. She has let her hair down and it covers her to the knees in a great shining cloak, like some wonderful fur cloak.
"And I think: There's many 's the old cop in New York—there 's many 's the millionaire, even—would like to finish his life alone in this paradise island, away from all trouble and worry and having everything he needs in sunshine that's more like wine than light, and with Janssen with him, when she has let down her hair.
"But I says to myself: You needn't think that way. You 're not old, nor disappointed. You 've got no reason to idle your life away. You 've got a job on hand. You 're a detective officer, and you 've got a prisoner, and you 're going to bring her home!
"I return to where Janssen is by the cove and I look for my knife and watch and gun. But my gun is n't there.
"'Do you know where my gun is?'
"She wheels around on me suddenly and points it at my head.
"'McCarthy,' she says, 'your word's good with me. Either tell me now you 'll let me go when we 're rescued or I 'll kill you.'
"'I can't,' I said. 'I won't. Now give me my gun and be sensible.'
"'I mean it,' she said. 'Let me off or I 'll kill you.'
"'I would n't be the first.'
"'Will you?'
"'No!' I says.
"I 'm watching the gun, to grab it if I can. Then I see a spat of fire like a match lighting. Then something burns my ear like red-hot iron. I hear the shot. I 'm sprung halfway round.
"I face up again.
"'You made a better job with De Vries,' I says, stupid-like.
"I 'm expecting the finisher, but she walks up to me and hands me the gun. She just looks at me, and her throat works, and then suddenly from her eyes run two big tears down to the corners of her mouth and I turn away.
"'I 'm going to fix you a bed of banana-leaves, and then I 'm going to light a fire. Forget your troubles for a while. Think of this as a picnic.'
"But the tears still run down her face and she says nothing. I go off and get busy because I can't stand the sight of It. I 'm not feeling any too like a comedy, myself.
"'We 're sitting that night at a fire on the beach, and the thin new moon is up. A light breeze is in shore. Suddenly she turns to me.
"'You 're religious, McCarthy,' she says to me.
"'I 'm not exactly religious,' I say. 'I 'm like every one, I guess.'
"'You believe in God, McCarthy?'
"Nobody likes to talk much about things of that kind. You think about them, but you don't say them. And particularly you don't talk about them to a prisoner who 's up for murder, unless you 're one of those Holy Willie boys.
"'Who does n't?' I spars.
"'You believe—' her voice is serious—'that God takes care of you on this island?'
"That's what they say.'
"'Do you believe, McCarthy, that He knows me, takes care of me, cares for me?'
"I say nothing—because I can't see it. She 's too far out of the pale. I 'd like to tell her 'yes.' But I can't.
"'You don't believe, then, McCarthy—' her voice is just a husky whisper—'that there is any caring for me, anywhere.'
"'Oh, what's the use of bothering about that?'
"'You don't, then,' she said. 'You think I 'm too bad for—even—that.'
"I get up and shake myself. 'Maybe there's nothing to it, after all,' I tell her. But all of a sudden she is crying, her face down to the sand, as though her heart would break.
"I move away, because I 'm no good to her, and go down the strand a bit. The water laps the strand, and whispers in the trees, but I can hear Janssen crying still.
"I walk on and on. I hear the sea rumble on the rocks, and the whisper of the trees is louder. A turtle pluds into the water, and a cocoanut falls with a thud, but over it all I still can hear the voice of Janssen crying, little tearing cries, as though pieces of silk were being ripped from the main fabric with shrill protesting tragedy. It struck me that she herself was flaying her heart with brutal knout-like strokes, and that every red shred was moaning in protest: 'Don't, don't, don't!'...
"The new moon became the full moon, and waned and died," McCarthy went on. "But no help came.
"There was nothing to do but wait, and a policeman does n't mind waiting. All his life is waiting, except for a hint of action now and then. But I worried about Janssen.
"Janssen gave me no trouble. We talked just as friendly strangers might talk, waiting on a railroad platform. She got the bananas and the cocoanuts and the breadfruit, gathering them as they fell. I managed to kill a suckling pig now and then, and I rigged up a fishing-line from a piece of rope I unraveled that had come ashore from the wreck of the boat, and a pin Janssen gave me.
"There 's nothing I like to do better than fish, and I sit there and fish and think all the time. And little things come to me of the life in New York, and I worry over them. I never was a grafter. I never took a penny from any one when I was on the vice squad, in the way of protection, but there 's little things that worry me. As, for instance, when I go into a saloon for a drink, they never take my money. When an arrest is made, sometimes I find a bailsman for the prisoner, and they give me something as a favor. Or I sell tickets for this benefit or another, and nobody wants them, but nobody dares refuse. And I sit there in a few acres of coral in the Pacific Ocean and the sun rises in the east way over New York, and the moon sets in the west down China way. And the winds blow south from Japan or north from the edge of the world. And I think: It's very small. It's not worth a man's while.
"And while I 'm thinking Janssen is thinking, too. But what she 's thinking about, I can't figure. She 's very silent. And at times her mouth is n't hard at all, nor her eyes, either. And when she speaks her eyes are on the ground and she 's very serious.
"'What are you thinking about, Janssen?' I ask.
"'McCarthy,' she says, 'did you ever, after a hard day's work, disappointed, clogged with dirt, come in and turn on a cold shower and suddenly feel better and cleaner—and be happy again?'
"'That's the only thing to do, on a day like that.'
"'Well, I feel,' she said, 'as if this island were that bath after the awful day of my life,' she said.
"At times I think, myself, that it must be getting on her nerves, this place. She 'll want the lights, the gaiety, the people, if only for a little space, before she faces her trial. Even the chair must be better for her than this waiting, I think.
"'Are n't you getting lonely, Janssen?' I ask. 'Does n't this get on your nerves—having nobody to talk to?' We never speak any more about the murder or the trial.
"'Why, no, McCarthy!'
"'I should have thought,' I say, 'that after the gaiety you knew you 'd find this a terrible trial.'
"'McCarthy,' she said suddenly, 'were you ever at Saranac?'
"'I 've passed through it.'
"'Did you ever see the poor people there, quiet, waiting, glad to be alive, just being healed? Well, I 'm like those.'
"I don't notice for a while the change that is coming over Janssen. I see things on the outside of people. I don't see them on the inside. I 'm a detective. I just think maybe she 's got the blues, Maybe she's worried. But one afternoon she comes to me and springs a new one.
"'McCarthy,' she says, 'would you mind every afternoon keeping away for an hour or so from the cove?'
"'What's the idea?' I says.
"'Well, I used to be a good swimmer,' she says, 'and I 'm going to practise, and I have n't got any bathing-suit,' she says, 'not even tights. So you 'd better keep away.'
"I think to myself: 'This is a queer thing for any one as tough as they tell me Janssen is, to come out with.' And I wonder if she means exactly the opposite of what she says. She wants me, I half figure, to hang around. And maybe she thinks I 'll fall for her. And if I do, she has me, I say to myself.
"And then I look up at her, and I see her eyes, and I never was so ashamed before or since.
"'All right, Janssen,' I say.
"'Thanks, McCarthy!'
"A week later she borrows my knife.
"'My clothes are in rags, McCarthy,' she says, 'so it's back to the Garden of Eden for me. I got to dress up like these wahinies down here. Don't laugh at me, McCarthy; promise me you won't.'
"'Not too much Garden of Eden, now,' I warn her.
"'Don't worry!' she laughs. And next morning you could have knocked me down with a straw, as they say. She has strung together big green banana-leaves with fiber, and made a knee-length skirt of them. And under her arms and about her is a little closed jacket of leaves, and that great golden cloak of her hair falls around, rippling and shimmering.
"'How do I look, McCarthy?'
"'You look fine,' I tell her. 'You look like a picture, you sure do. You might be in a stage play,' I tell her, 'only you 're so fine and modest.' She blushes pretty as a girl of sixteen, until it was a shock to me to remember that she was my prisoner for the crime of murder. And I look at myself, feel my chin, see how my suit is going. 'You make me feel like a bum.'
"The months pass and two sails go by.
"One I see in the early evening. A few very fleecy clouds shuttle in and out before the sun, and the great sea is purple, and the sand takes on a deep hue like the color of a gold coin that's been in circulation for years, mellow and reddish-like. And the green of the trees is so green you can feel it. And on the horizon is a native boat with a lateen sail that is orange-colored.
"I see it. I make no effort. I can do nothing. But it seems to me that it is unreal. It is not there. It is just a dream. It is unreal as the island is to me, unreal as my old life is to me, unreal as everything is—except Janssen.
"But a week later another boat comes, and this time it is n't unreal. Squat and bulky, it is a tramp steamer headed down New Zealand way. It passes not more than three miles off, and very ugly it is upon the sea, its funnel belching out black smoke that is like an insult to the shining seas. I have a bonfire ready-made and go to it with my burning-glass. And Janssen stands by and looks at me.
"'Do I have to go back, McCarthy?' she asks.
"'You got to go back and face the music, Janssen.' And I lights the fire.
"I get everything ready to board, but the steamer pays no attention. They go straight ahead. Maybe they think it's just natives, but at any rate they don't put about or anything. I go to the edge of the water and shout to them. I go into it up to my waist and whistle and snap my fingers and call to it, as I would to a dog, but they pay no attention. And then I give up.
"'I 'm sorry, McCarthy,' Janssen says.
"'What are you sorry for?' I asks her. 'You ought to be glad.'
"'I am glad,' she says. 'I 'm glad for myself, but I 'm sorry for your sake, McCarthy. I 'm really sorry.'
"One night we 're setting by the fire in the moonlight, and I 'm trying to figure out how the natives build their huts, because I want to build one for Janssen. There 's a queer sort of rain in these islands. Sometimes in a bright sky a cloud will pass, very high, very quick, and the rain comes down like bullets. You can hear it thunder in the leaves, and rattle over the sea like pistol shots. And it's not so pleasant after a while. It's over in a minute or so, but Janssen ought to have some place when it comes.
"And Janssen is sitting there as quiet as anything, making figures in the sand and saying nothing. She turns to me.
"'McCarthy,' she says, 'did I really kill Alec de Vries?'
"'You killed him dead.'
"'It seems like a dream to me, a bad dream in the night.'
"'If you had waited and looked at that corpse, you 'd have known it was no dream.'
"'And because I killed a man that was no use to any one I 've got to go back.'
"'You 've got to go back, all right,' I tell her.
"'Well, do you know, it's only fair,' she says. 'You 've called the tune, and danced it, and you 've got to pay the fiddler. But I 'm scared, McCarthy. I 'm terribly scared. It would be very easy for me to jump in the water or borrow your gun some night. Think of it. They put metal on your legs and strap you into a chair, and they put a cap over your head. And, then a man, as human as yourself, pushes a switch, and just as if he were putting out a light, he puts out the light of your life, the same light that's in himself.... And all in the cold gray morning....'
"'Tell you something, kid—' I had this on my mind for a while. 'I don't think they 'll burn you. We 'll get you a good lawyer when we go back and you 'll get off with a long stretch up the river.'
"'But don't you see, McCarthy,' she laughs nervously, 'that that's worse still? A person does something, as I 've done, because his mind and his—his self—are full of nooks and crannies, dust and cobwebs, bad feelings, passions. And he flies away. And maybe in the desert or the mountains a great wind comes and cleanses him. And he mends the shattered self together.
"'But the silly judge and the silly police go after him, and they send him to prison, and he sits there in the darkness and the wheels of his head go around. And the cobwebs collect again, and the grime from the other people comes off on him. And in the end he is worse than he was in the beginning.
"'I 'd rather die, McCarthy—die, all in the cold gray morning.'
"A month after this Janssen falls ill. Perhaps it's a gust of rain that's made her ill. Perhaps it's some of the berries or the fish or something. But at any rate, there she lies, white and near dead, all the life gone from her. There 's nothing I can do for her much but try to cheer her up and move her when she 's tired of lying in one position.
"'You 've got to get well, Janssen,' I say to her. 'You 've got to make an effort.'
"'But why?' she asks. 'Why shouldn't I die?'
"'That's no way to talk.'
"'What has life got for me?' she asks bitterly. 'The electric chair?'
"'You 've got nothing to worry about,' I say. 'It 'll be only a few years up the river and then out again, and the good old days.'
"'I won't live for that,' she says.
"'Well, listen,' I joke with her. 'You 're not going to make me come all the way across the world for you, and then not bring you home. You 're not going to throw me down, kid; be game.'
"'I 'd like to oblige you, McCarthy,' she smiles; 'but even for that I won't stay alive. Can't you think of any other reason?'
"'It would be awful lonely, if you were to go,' I say; and I mean it. 'Awful, awful lonely. I 'm getting very fond of you, Janssen.'
"'That's better,' she says, and pats my hand.
Without, the gray January dusk had crept into the cañons of New York and given the narrow streets, the crenelated buildings, the moving trucks, the pedestrians a semblance of unreality, as though they were being seen through a mist raised by some necromancer at the call of a wretched man. Through the windows of the court-room the Tombs were still evident, but the building had become unreal. It was like some ogre's castle in a fairy-tale for children, very terrible, but not really there.
The judge, the jury, the attendants, all the court had somehow lost entity as a court. It was no more a court than a house in a play is a house. It was just a formula embracing a hundred or so human beings. And one felt also that this was not in New York. There was no atmosphere of New York. New York might be a cloak and a disguise, but the minds and personalities of all were on a golden island on shining seas.
And they didn't see McCarthy in the witness-box, nor Janssen in the dock, but by the cove where the water was so translucent that one could see, fathom on fathom deep, the rainbow fish below....
"She gets better day by day, and I 'm so glad I could sing," continued the officer, speaking more easily as practice came after his seven years of silence. "She sits on the beach and health comes to her with the wind, and little by little the flush comes in her cheek, and life ferments, and her hair that has become dank ripples and flows, as a still sea stirs up with a breeze. And soon she 's swimming again. But there 's little of the old Janssen left. All her movements are grave. At times she sits thinking, and her brow is working with thought. At other times she smiles. Just a dignified little smile.
"And soon after she gets well, she saves my life a second time.
"This is how it happens. I 'm fishing one day and my line and hook get caught down in the coral. And I don't want to lose that hook. Hooks are n't easy to make. So I says: 'I 'll go down after that hook.'
"I shoot in and go swimming down through the water, and I hang on to the coral with one hand, and unloose the hook with the other. I 'm about ready to come up when in the water between me and the sun I can see a shadow like a boat. For a moment I think it's a boat, and come up with a rush. But half-way up I know it's no boat. And in the warm water I go cold as ice.
"I 'm more than half-way up, and I have no chance of shouting, splashing, making a noise, the way you frighten them off. And suddenly I know the big fellow sees me. I can feel the vibration of his swirl in the water as he turns off to a point where he can come rushing at me.
"'It's good-by, McCarthy!' I say to myself, and turn to face him. And then I hear aplung-hinto the water the moment he's ready to turn over and come at me. And Janssen comes shooting down.
"She has a stone or something in her hand drawn back and lets him have it just on the soft point of the nose, the only place you can hurt those fellows. One crack! And the big coward turns and slinks off just like a dog that's been kicked.
"When we get ashore I 'm just as mad as I can be. The idea of her taking a chance like that!
"'Haven't you got any sense at all?' I bawl her out. 'What do you mean, taking a chance like that? What do you think a shark is? A mackerel? Maybe you think he wouldn't touch you? Maybe you think he's a gentleman? He's not. If brains were money,' I say, 'I don't think you could buy a subway ticket. Never do that, or anything like that again. Mind your own business!'
"But she 's crying and laughing together. She walks off, now sobbing, now laughing. I run after her.
"'Not that from the bottom of my heart I 'm not grateful to you, but you must never again—'
"But she laughs and she sobs:
"'Go away, McCarthy. Go away. Please go away!'
"All this time I know I 'm very fond of Janssen, and something tells me Janssen is of me, though God knows why. But we say nothing. At times it's hard to talk. And I look at her and think. If things were only different, how I could love that girl! But here she is, a prisoner, and I 'm her keeper. It's a pity. It's a pity, even, she's changed. It makes it awful hard for me.
"But I can't keep my eyes off her. She stands on the beach, the wind rustling her green garment, and rippling her hair. Very beautiful. And a little butterfly, from God knows where, is fluttering about her. Now it's in her hair, now about her throat. And curiously it comes to light on her lips.
"'You look awfully pretty, Janssen,' I say, 'with that butterfly.'
"She smiles at me, kind of queerly.
"'You 're a brave man, McCarthy,' she says, 'the bravest man I ever knew. You 're strong. You 're tremendous. Yes, you 're brave. But this little butterfly, that in all its body has n't the strength of one single hair of your head, whose brief life is but a single day, is braver than you, McCarthy, braver far than you.'
"'I don't understand you, Janssen.'
"But I understand her all right.
"And the days roll by, roll by, and nothing changes, nothing comes to us. Once or twice we see sails. Once a full-rigged ship under bare poles runs before a gale. And once in the distance we see a schooner heeling to the breeze.
"We are not speaking much to each other. There is a feeling of strangeness in the air. And at night I 'm worried-like. The trees rustle. The waves lap. There is great darkness. And for all we are the only two people in that island, yet I feel at night somehow we are not alone. Unseen, shadowy people are about us, in the sea, in the air. Once there were millions on these islands and now there are few. Once they were a great strong race, and now they are a timid handful. And I imagine that in the dark of the moon the brown tribes reassemble and put to sea in their war-canoes, and walk on the beaches that are so like Paradise.
"And there are great temples on these islands, but their gods are no more. And may they not too walk in the night-time with terrible, silent stride?
"The Cross of Christ is between me and all harm. I believe that, and I know it, and I am not afraid. But I am unquiet, nevertheless.
"And if I am unquiet, what of Janssen, wide-eyed through the night?
"At last one night I take my courage in both hands. Janssen is sitting in the moonlight by the cove, and for the first time I ever heard her she is singing a little something. Her voice is somehow like a boy's.
"'Janssen!' I stand and look at her.
"'Yes, McCarthy.' She turns and looks at me.
"'Janssen, when we go back,' I say, 'and when what has to be will be done, and when all is over, the morning you are free, I 'll be waiting at the gate for you. I 'll want you to marry me and come to me.'
"'You love me, McCarthy?'
"'Yes,' I said, 'I love you, Janssen.'
"'I love you, too, McCarthy. I suppose you know.'
"All this time she never looks at me, but out on the moonlit cove.
"'But if we never get off this island,' she says after a little while, 'we never get married.'
"'How can we?' I say. 'There is none to marry us.'
"She is speaking slowly, seriously, in the moonlight, and every word she says has the weight of sincerity.
"'Do you believe, McCarthy, that the church and all the people there and the organ and the rice make a marriage? Are all these necessary, McCarthy? Tell me, please.'
"'No.' I think it out. 'The only one necessary is the clergyman.'
"'Because he is the representative of—God?'
"'Yes,' I say in a minute or so, 'because he is there for—God.'
"'And yet God is everywhere? Knows all? Sees everything? Reads the inside of our hearts as easily as the clergyman reads our faces?'
"'That is what they say, Janssen. That is—what—we believe—'
"There is silence. Then she sinks to her knees in the sand in the moonlight.
"'Kneel down, McCarthy, and give me your hands.' I kneel and give her my hands without protest—her voice is so commanding, so sincere. And there is a strange thing between us now. All the time before if I touch her I feel strength flowing from me to her, but to-night when I hold her hands there is an even level.
"'If God wishes to hear us to-night, then we are married.'
"'But,' I say, 'Janssen, how do we know if He hears us, gives His consent?'
"Her eyes wander over the island, over the sea. She points suddenly to the lagoon.
"'See, McCarthy. See, under the moon there, that big turtle. He is uncertain where to go.' I look and I see the little black head like a dot on the water and the widening ripple as he swims around. 'See the boatswain bird's rock.' I saw the flat square surface in the cove. 'If he swims to and mounts that rock, then it will be a sign we have been heard and—He has given His consent.'
"'But he will never come to the rock, dear Janssen,' I say. 'He is going out with the tide.'
"'McCarthy,' she says a little scornfully, 'you are the good man, the untarnished one, the one who was brought up to believe, and you do not. And I, the bad woman, the murderess, the worse than Magdalen because I never loved until now, I believe. I believe and know.'
"And then her belief came to me and I turned to see the great turtle. He swam around and around and the moon shot the little ripples in gleaming silk. And at last I could bear it no longer, and I lowered my head; but Janssen still watched with her head high. And I could feel her hands tremble, and then crisp, and then tremble, and suddenly grow firm and fine and powerful.
"'Look, McCarthy, look!' Her voice rang like a bell. 'He is come to—he is on the rock.'"
"And I raised my head, too, and I saw the Miracle of the Turtle....
"And so we were married, and dwelt as happy as we could be, until the brigAngela Scofieldput in for water and rescued us, and I brought Janssen back to the bar of justice, as I was bound under oath to do."
Here McCarthy stopped, and all knew he would say no more. Indeed, it seemed as if he could physically say no more, for the man seemed overcome. All the tenseness of him was gone and the prisoner and he looked at each other in a strange, pathetic, and trusting way, smiling with dry mouths and wet eyes. All in the court-room felt suddenly abashed, as a cynic might feel before the eyes of a child.
And suddenly in every one's mind there were translated his simple words, "And so we were married, and dwelt as happy as we could be," into pictures that were not pictures but chords, harmony and counterpoint, not for the mind's eye but for the heart's feeling. There they had been by a cove on Paradise Island, loving each other not joyously but simply and sincerely and with great strength.
They could see them, strong and fine, by the translucent water of the cove, under the golden sun on the golden sands, in a place as beautiful as the garden the Lord God planted in Eden. And as over that first garden, so over this one did a storm brood like an owl.
What terror she must have gone through, with the prison gate continually before her! What temptations must he have undergone with his wife by him, and the thought in his head that one day he must bring her back to stand trial for the killing of a man!
In God's name, what was the use to them of shining seas and golden sands, trees green as green banners, moons of Paradise and scented tropic winds, while tragedy was in the air, electric as a storm?
"You can step down, McCarthy," the district attorney said. And turning to the court he spread out his hands.
"The case of the people rests."
"The case for Anna Janssen rests," countered Howard Donegan.
For a long time there was a pause, that was accentuated into uncomfortable drama by the ticking of the court clock. It was as though an angel of silence were passing. The jury looked uncomfortable. The district attorney bit his nails. The spectators looked at one another in mental disorientation. It might have been the first bar of justice with no precedent to follow, no set of rules, so suddenly had all the machinery stalled. Only Howard Donegan drowsed an....
The judge was the first to come to himself. He rustled papers. He rapped for order. He turned to the jury.
"Gentlemen," he began, "the case for the people rests and the counsel for the prisoner rests his case also. It has now arrived to make a decision.
"You jurymen have only one duty to perform, and a bounden duty it is. You have got to decide one fact. Did Anna Janssen kill Alastair de Vries?
"Were Anna Janssen before you, the lowest of the low, gutter-soiled, evil, a menace to the community, and did not kill De Vries, then you would have to bring in a verdict of 'not guilty,' no matter how much enmity you felt to her. No matter what she is before you now, no matter what sympathy you feel for her, you must bring in a verdict of 'guilty' if you are certain she killed De Vries.
"Now, gentlemen, there can be no reasonable doubt of this. Even the prisoner herself admits it. So I must instruct you to bring in a verdict of guilty."
The jury looked at one another, amazed, a little scared. They turned to the foreman, a fine, florid personage, with a fan-shaped red beard, a man who ought to be equal to every occasion, so it seemed. They turned to him as a sheep turns to a bellwether. He rose to his feet.
"But this woman is changed," he objected. "She is not the same—"
"That is not germane to your offices," the judge answered severely. "You weigh facts. I weigh justice, Your affair is between Alastair de Vries and Anna Janssen. De Vries is now in the hands of his God. Janssen is in mine. Though I am the arbiter of legal form, yet also I am the personation of Equity. God has judged De Vries; I, with the voice of God, shall judge Anna Janssen. Consider your verdict."
"If we bring in a verdict of 'not guilty—'" the foreman suggested.
"If you do—" the judge was cold as steel—"you have done an unpardonable thing. You have betrayed the people of New York, whose representatives you are. You have brought into disrepute the law of your city. And women will kill men with the hope of obtaining lax verdicts. Moreover, on legal grounds, I shall declare this no trial. And the prisoner will go through the ordeal again."
"Well, if that's the way—" The foreman looked around embarrassedly at the jury. The jury seemed to put implicit faith in him. "We will not have to leave the box!"
"Clerk of the Court," called the judge....
"Prisoner, look on the jury. Jury, look on the prisoner. What say ye, have ye arrived at a verdict?"
"We have."
"What say ye: is the prisoner guilty or not guilty?"
"Well, this woman killed De Vries, but—"
"Guilty or not guilty?" judge demanded.
"Guilty!"
"Prisoner—" the judge turned to Janssen—"you have committed a murder. You have been adjudged guilty of it by a jury of your peers.
"It is now my duty to sentence you to a punishment not fitting the crime of murder but fitting such circumstances before and after as come within the scope of the foresight of Equity. You have taken a life and your life is hostage to the law.
"It now rests with me to decide what I shall do with this life that is in my hands and forfeit to the justice of the community; not only what is the best thing for the community, but what is the best thing for you. Shall I extinguish it, that it shall be no longer a danger to living men, a danger to your own immortal soul? Or shall I dispose of it otherwise, as my inspiration directs?
"Prisoner, I give you back that life, but I sentence you to imprisonment for its natural term."
There was a moment's pregnant silence in the court. Then a quick bourdon hum of anger. Suddenly came riot. The prisoner wilted. The jury stood up in protest. The spectators rose on threatening feet.
The judge raised his hand. He was suddenly clothed in the majesty of Solomon.
"Prisoner, I have made inquiries and there is owing to your husband his salary for ten years, which he will collect. He will then take you and have this marriage made legal. He will then take you from the place where you now are to the place whence you came, to your island down the Pacific, and you will live there, happy ever after, is the wish of this court of justice."
There came suddenly from the throats of all a mighty cheering. For an instant the attendants sought to keep order, but they soon desisted, themselves to join the joyous clamor. The sound bellied from the court-room and into the street. Pedestrians stopped and horses started. All looked at one another in amazement. Out of the court-room of tragedy had issued springtime carnival. One expected at any moment to hear chiming bells.