CHAPTER XXIII
Throughout these late trying experiences Dan had been further distressed to discover that during the hours he was unavoidably separated from Tamea, he thought more about her than he did of his business. He had missed her bright presence far too keenly during her brief sojourn at the convent—so much so, in fact, that when one day he asked himself if it were really possible that he, sober, steady, dependable, sane Dan Pritchard, had fallen in love with this lovely half-caste girl, his common sense assured him that it was even so.
He told himself that this was silly, stupid, unintelligent, that he could not afford to yield to this tremendous temptation, that it would be a terrible mistake, bitterly to be repented. Nevertheless, he lacked the courage or the steadfastness of purpose to take the offensive immediately; he told himself hewouldtake the offensive, but not immediately. . . and following his brief spat with Maisie over the telephone he found Tamea’s society so comforting and stimulating that he shuddered at the thought of hurting her—himself—with the promulgation of a sophisticated argument she could not possibly understand and which she would have rejected even had she possessed the gift of understanding a white man’s reason for discarding her love, even while he yearned for it.
From time to time Sooey Wan, growing impatient at his adored employer’s shilly-shallying, urged definite action. Again and again he reminded Dan that the sooner he married the lady queen the sooner would his adventure in fatherhood commence. Sooey Wan confided that he had consulted with the most eminent magicians in Dupont Street, with a priest who was a very wise man and an oracle; he had sought signs of approbation from his numerous Chinese gods and had propitiated them with much burning of punk in the Joss houses; he had burned devil papers in every room of the house and had strung fire crackers completely around the house and set them off, to the signal terror of the neighbors.
The magician had predicted for Dan five brawny sons—a hard hand to beat. The oracle had advised quick action since procrastination has ever been the thief of time and the girl was young and comely. Why, then, dally until she should become a hag? In his own mind Sooey Wan was fully convinced, from certain signs, that his Mongolian gods looked with favor upon the match, and since practically all of the fire crackers had exploded, the old heathen was certain that the devils of bad luck, which might or might not have interfered, had been thoroughly exorcised.
To all of this harangue Dan gave a stereotyped reply: “Sooey Wan, you are an interfering and impudent old Chinaman. Keep your nose out of my private affairs.”
Whereupon Sooey Wan would fairly screech: “Missa Dan, wh’ for you play damn fool? Boy, you klazy. Sure you klazy.”
When Dan discovered that he would have to mark time until the convent in Sacramento should be released from quarantine, he pleaded the urgent necessity for an unavoidable absence from the city and sought to start his offensive campaign against Tamea’s steadily mounting influence over him by going away for a two weeks’ fishing and painting excursion in Southern California. Tamea was somewhat piqued because he did not invite her to accompany him, but he ignored her little pout, kissed her tenderly and fled. And he had no sooner settled himself comfortably in a hotel at Santa Catalina Island than Maisie Morrison rang up Julia.
“Julia,” she said, “where is Mr. Pritchard?”
“The dear Lord only knows, Miss Morrison.”
“Imustknow where a telegram can reach him, Julia. Mr. Pritchard did not tell his secretary where he was going, so it could not have been a business trip. Put Graves on the line, Julia.”
Graves, summoned from the garage, informed Maisie that he had driven Mr. Pritchard to the Southern Pacific depot. There he had heard his employer direct a porter to stow his baggage in a compartment. Included in this impedimenta had been a case of fishing rods and a sketching outfit. Graves had noted that his employer had not taken a creel with him, hence he opined that if any fishing was to be done it would be sea fishing—and the boss had always had a weakness for Santa Catalina.
When Dan Pritchard came in from fishing that first day he found a telegram in his box at the hotel. It was from Maisie and read:
Something has jarred Uncle John dreadfully. He is at home ill, but mentally, not physically. Better assure yourself that everything is quite right at the office. Would return immediately if I were you, although when you do you need not bother to call on me unless you feel you really ought to.Maisie.
Something has jarred Uncle John dreadfully. He is at home ill, but mentally, not physically. Better assure yourself that everything is quite right at the office. Would return immediately if I were you, although when you do you need not bother to call on me unless you feel you really ought to.
Maisie.
Within the hour Dan Pritchard had chartered a seaplane and was flying north. About ten o’clock that night the plane swooped down in the moonlight and landed him at Harbor View; within half an hour he was ringing the doorbell of John Casson’s home.
“Take me immediately to Mr. Casson’s room,” he ordered the butler who admitted him. “It will not be necessary to announce me.”
The man eyed him sympathetically and silently led the way upstairs. John Casson was not in bed, however. He was seated on a divan in his wife’s upstairs sitting room, staring dully into a small grate fire. From her seat across the room his wife watched him furtively.
“Good evening, Mrs. Casson. Good evening, Mr. Casson,” Dan greeted them. “What’s gone wrong, Mr. Casson?”
The old dandy looked up, frightened. Dan could have sworn he shuddered. “I’d rather not discuss the matter tonight, Pritchard,” he parried. “I’m not well.”
“I’m sorry for that, sir. What appears to be the matter with you? Where do you feel ill? Have you eaten something that didn’t agree with you or——”
“He has,” Mrs. Casson interrupted bitterly. “He’s been on a diet of high-priced rice for the past several weeks and it has made him ill. John, do not evade Dan’s query. He is equally interested with you in this matter. Tell him what happened the day he left town.”
“Well, Pritchard, my boy,” old Casson quavered, “the rice market has gone to glory. It’s down to five cents and every rice dealer in this city is a bankrupt.”
“Do you include Casson and Pritchard in the cataclysm?”
Casson nodded slowly and suddenly commenced to weep.
“But we sold our rice——”
“I know we did—on ninety days. Now the people we have sold it to are wiped out and cannot pay for it. The damned Cubans are responsible. They deliberately wrecked the market. Overnight they made up their minds they had rice enough. The cargadores went on strike and refused to handle any more rice. The port of Havana is glutted with rice. It’s on every dock and on every barge. They jammed the docks with it and loaded all the barges and then quit. Now the rice is being rained on; the ships that brought it are lying under heavy demurrage because they cannot get discharged; the rice brokers and wholesalers have treacherously refused to accept delivery on bona fide orders because the Havana market broke immediately when some frightened owners of cargoes cut their prices in order to unload at any price. Panic, I tell you—worst rice panic imaginable. Rice was up to twenty-one cents and overnight it broke to five cents.”
Dan sat down. This was exactly what he had feared might happen. The war was ended, but profiteers, still hungry for exorbitant gains, had put the screws on rice, the staple food of Cuba. They had cornered the crop there, such as it was, and the crop that year had been meager. Then they had filled Havana harbor with ships loaded with Oriental rice and had steadily jacked the price up to the point of saturation. And then the Cubans, maddened at this brutal and perfectly legal form of brigandage, had sprung their coup and, overnight, had smashed their oppressors by the very simple method of refusing to handle longer the commodity which was so necessary to their existence. They knew they could get rice when they needed it, and get it at their price. These ships had brought rice to Havana; now that Havana would not accept it or handle it, where could another ready and highly profitable market be found? And would these ships, chafing at the delay, agree to go elsewhere with their cargoes, save at a prohibitive freight rate? Rice freights from the Orient would collapse now, and that collapse would be followed by a debacle in other lines.
In a flash Dan saw that the post-war slump had started—an economic avalanche, traveling swiftly toward bankruptcy and ruin. “I see,” he said quietly. “Beautiful work, beautiful. Three cheers for the Cubans. I didn’t think they were up to a brilliant stroke like that. And now you’re cussing them out, Mr. Casson, because they refused to let the rice bandits take the food out of their mouths. Well, you deserve this, Mr. Casson, but I’ll be hanged if I do. You dragged me into this, without my knowledge or consent—you damned, silly, egotistical, brainless idiot—Mrs. Casson, I forgot you were present. I crave your pardon for my rudeness and I shall not again offend. I—I—think—I—shall—sit down.”
He did, looking quite white and strained. His eyes burned like live coals. “Well, Mr. Casson,” he said presently, “suppose we start in at the beginning. To begin with, we had half a million bags of California rice stored in warehouses here and there, and you hypothecated the warehouse receipts and bought Philippine and Chinese rice. Well, we sold our rice in warehouse at a huge profit, half cash, balance in ninety days. How about Banning and Company, who bought it?”
“The chief clerk telephoned me today that they had filed a petition of voluntary bankruptcy. They must be cleaned out because Banning blew his brains out an hour after filing the petition. He had half a million dollars’ worth of life insurance, without an anti-suicide clause in it. His family will doubtless get that. I suppose he wanted to do the decent thing.”
“Well,” said Dan, “Banning and Company jarred us but they didn’t put us down. Lucky for us I sold that Shanghai rice, ex. steamer Chinook, for cash. You raved at my idiocy when I made an eight thousand dollars’ profit on that deal and accused me of throwing away a potential profit of a quarter of a million dollars. As a matter of fact, I threw away a potential loss of about a million dollars. We’ll take a loss of more than a dollar a bag on that million bags of California rice, however. I’ll tell ’em you’re a smart business man, Mr. Casson. Well, how about that eight thousand tons at Manila—the lot we sold to Katsuma and Company at the market, against sight draft with bill of lading attached, payable at the Philippine National Bank?”
“Our Manila agent cabled that the bank had refused to honor the documents. I called up Katsuma and tried to get him to do something about providing funds or a credit to meet that draft, but he wouldn’t or couldn’t——”
“Katsuma didn’t want to. He was up to the usual Jap trick—running out from a losing game. They never stand for their beating. You made him a price, f.o.b. Havana, that included cost, insurance and freight, did you not?”
Old Casson nodded miserably.
“Well, Katsuma got a notion that shipping rice to Havana was apt to lead to great grief, so he just didn’t meet the draft. That keeps the owners of the Malayan out of their freight money and the chances are they will not permit the vessel to sail until the freight is paid. Did they come back on us for the freight?”
“They did. I paid it, and the Malayan is at sea with a cargo of eight thousand tons of rice fully insured but not paid for. It is going to cost us eighteen cents a pound to deliver that rice in Havana, and when it gets there we cannot deliver it. If we do it will be worth what we can get for it—say three to five cents—and the demurrage on the Malayan will be two thousand dollars a day. Of course we have a suit against Katsuma and Company for breach of contract, but in the meantime we have to pay for the rice and I’ve given a ninety-day draft on London for that——”
“When it comes due we will not be able to meet it,” Dan said dully. “The Katsuma assets are already nicely sequestrated. You monumental jackass! Why didn’t you sue and attach their bank account, everything they have, quietly and without notice, the instant you learned they had repudiated their contract?”
“That would be a great deal like locking the stable door after the horse had been stolen, wouldn’t it, Pritchard?”
Dan nodded. This was the first bright thing he could remember Casson having said in years. Yes, the wily Orientals had seen the storm gathering and had fled to their cyclone cellar, caring not a whit what happened to others, to their own business honor, to their business, provided their capital remained intact. They could always organize again under a new name.
“Well, we’ve been sent to the cleaners, Mr. Casson. You have succeeded magnificently, despite all I could do to thwart you. You have made a hiatus of your own life and mine. You’ve smashed your wife and Maisie. You were drowning; I tried to save you and you pulled me under with you. Well, I don’t know what you intend doing with your private fortune—if you have any, which I doubt—but I have assets close to two million dollars and our creditors can have them. As your partner I am jointly and severally responsible. If you cannot pay, I must. I shall. When the squall hits us we will call a meeting of our creditors, tell them how it happened, have a receiver appointed, turn over everything we have to him and quit business with whatever dignity we can muster.”
He turned to Mrs. Casson. “If you will excuse me, Mrs. Casson, I will go now. Good night.”
He went out into the hall and his head hung low on his heaving breast, his shoulders sagged, his arms dangled loosely from his long, raw-boned frame. He shook his head a little and mumbled something—curses, doubtless. At the bottom of the stairs he ran into Maisie. Her face was very white and she had been weeping.
“Thanks for your telegram, Maisie. I came as fast as I could. It’s too late. Cleaned—cleaned—smashed by that madman—crooked as a can of worms—lucky thing I didn’t ask you to marry me that day—lucky for you you weren’t interested in my proposition. I couldn’t afford that luxury now, my dear. It’s terrible to have made two million dollars doing work one loathes, then lose the two million filthy dollars and have to start in doing the loathsome job all over again.
“Well, I’m young—I suppose I can stand it. Good night, Maisie, good night. Sorry for you and Mrs. Casson—mighty sorry.”
He fended away the imploring, uplifted arms that sought to enfold him, for Maisie, like all women who trifle with a man’s heart when he is prosperous and happy, desired to claim that heart now that it was bruised and broken.
“Don’t—please—I can’t stand it—don’t want to be coddled,” he muttered, and strode past her to the door. It opened and closed after him swiftly, and Maisie, standing on the steps, watched through her tears his tall, ungainly form stumbling down the street. She yearned with a great yearning to run after him, to take that white face to her heart, to whisper to him a torrent of love words, to cherish and comfort him. Yet she knew that Dan, like all men, when cruelly hurt, preferred to be alone, resenting sympathy and desiring silence.
“Poor dear,” she murmured, “when you have recovered a little from the shock of this failure I shall go to you and nothing shall keep you from me.”
CHAPTER XXIV
Dan walked home. He had to have physical action. It was close to midnight when he let himself into his house, but there was a dim light burning in the living room and Dan turned in here, cast his hat and coat on top of the piano and rang savagely for Sooey Wan, who, having just returned from his nightly pilgrimage to Chinatown, answered on the jump. At sight of Dan’s pale, tortured face the old Chinaman turned and fled to the kitchen. He returned presently bearing a siphon bottle, some ice, a bottle of Scotch whisky and—two glasses. Silently he mixed two highballs, handed one to Dan, took the other himself, sat down and said in a voice of compelling gentleness:
“Missa Dan, you tellum ol’ Sooey Wan. Wha’s mallah, boy?”
Dan cooled his parched throat with the highball. Indeed, he had rung for the Chinaman for the very purpose of ordering one. Strange, he thought, how Sooey Wan could understand him without a blueprint and directions for using!
“Sooey Wan, I’m all through. I have gone broke.”
“All the way?” Sooey Wan’s voice cooed like a flute.
“All the way and back, Sooey Wan. I’m done. You’ll have to leave me now and go back to China. I cannot afford to pay your wages any more.”
“To hell with wages!” Sooey Wan, for the first time in his life, was genuinely angry, disgusted and humiliated. His eyes showed it, his wrinkled lower lip twisted and revealed his yellow fangs, his voice reeked with the very soul of profanity as he rasped out a few words in Chinese. Then: “Big fool, wha’ for you talkum money to Sooey Wan?”
“You know very well I didn’t mean to offend you, you old idol,” Dan protested. “I spoke the truth. I am broke, utterly smashed.”
“Shut up!” screeched Sooey Wan. “Wha’ for you all time tellum lie?” He set down untasted the highball he had planned to drink in profound sympathy with his adored boss and left the room.
“Sooey Wan, come back here!” Dan ordered.
Sooey Wan’s voice rose in a shriek like the bull fiddle of his native land. “Shut up! Shut up! You klazy fool, wha’s mallah you? You no bloke. You bet. No can do.”
Dan sighed and sipped his highball. At the same moment Tamea slid out from under a dark afghan on a divan in the far corner of the room. She had fallen asleep there and, unknown to Sooey Wan and Dan, had been listening to their conversation. Swiftly she crossed the room to him now; as he rose to greet her she put her arms around his neck and drew his head down until his cheek caressed hers. Thus she held him a long time, in silence, save for the plainly discernible, regular beat of her heart. Then:
“Poor boy! You are hurt? But yes, I know it.”
He nodded. “Smashed,” he murmured. “All my money gone. Ruined.”
Tamea’s glance went past his ear and rested on Sooey Wan standing in the doorway, a large red lacquered box in his arms. She shook her head at him ever so slightly and like a yellow wraith he faded back into the hall.
“Ruined?” Tamea queried. “Has my lord, then, parted with his honor?”
“No, no, not that,” he cried brokenly. “Nobody will think that of me. I will pay, but it will take all I have to do it, and when they have finished with me I shall have nothing left wherewith to make a new start. But never mind, Tamea. I’m not whipped. Just dazed, not down for the count. I’ll come back.”
He could feel the little chuckle of mirth that rippled through the lithe body pressed so close against him. “So?” she declared with her golden little laugh, “it is only a matter of money. And yet my lord is shaken like a coco-palm in the monsoon. Silly, silly white man. He does not know that I have money and that all of it is his.” She drew his head around and kissed him on the lips; he trembled with the knowledge of her tremendous sweetness. “You will take my money and let me see you smile again, Dan Pritchard,” she commanded.
“No, no, darling. I couldn’t do that—ever. Please do not ask me to.”
“But why, dear one?”
“Then indeed would I be parting with my honor.”
“What madness! Is it because I am not your wife? Well, we will be married quickly and then——”
“No,” he protested. “I tell you it is impossible. I’ll never be able to repay the debt of your asking me to take your money, but—I shall never, never take one penny of it. I couldn’t.”
“But after we are married——”
“Never. I am your guardian. Your father gave you to me because he had faith in my manhood, he believed me to be a gentleman. You will not understand because your love blinds you, Tamea, but the white men of my world have a code and we must never break it.”
“Oh,” said Tamea softly, and her eyes filled with tears. “Of what use is money save to buy happiness? When a man takes a woman to wife does he not take all she has—all of her love, all of her wealth, all of her faith? Is she not to be the mother of his children? You are right, dear one. I could never understand your white man’s code.”
“Some day you will, honey. Kiss me good night and run along to your room, child. I am unhappy tonight and when I am unhappy I have a desire to be alone. I wish to think.”
She kissed him and went upstairs obediently; as she paused on the first landing and gazed down into the hall she saw Sooey Wan slide noiselessly into the living room, his red lacquered box still clasped under his arm. Tamea stood there, wondering—and then to her ears came distinctly the sound of money clinking merrily.
Tamea came back downstairs and peered around the jamb of the door into the living room. Sooey Wan was on his knees beside the red lacquered box, with both hands tossing out on the carpet hundreds of gold pieces, bales of yellow-backed bills and large, fat, heavy Manila envelopes.
“You count ’em, Missa Dan,” he begged when the box was empty. And Dan Pritchard, wondering, knelt beside Sooey Wan and counted long and in silence, making many notations on a piece of paper. And Tamea, watching, presently was aware that Sooey Wan, who trusted not in banks, had, in his forty-odd years in the United States, accumulated in that red lacquered box a fortune of two hundred and nineteen thousand, four hundred and nine dollars and eighty cents in cash and bonds.
“Sooey Wan,” said Dan Pritchard, “do you cook for me by day and rob people by night?”
Sooey Wan cackled merrily. “Oh, your papa always pay me big money—hund’ed, hund’ed fifty dolla month and Sooey Wan no spend velly much. But Sooey Wan play poker velly nice, velly lucky fan tan and pi gow, and bimeby I ketchum one cousin. Cousin no money hab got, but him know all about raisee vegetable. You know, Missa Dan, ketchum farm up on Saclamento Liver. So Sooey Wan makee partner with cousin and raisee early spud, ketchum more land. Velly easy. Boss, you likee Sooey Wan sellee lanch on Saclamento Liver, can do. Sure. Sellee that land plenty quick, ketchum thousand dollar for one acre, have got thlee hund’ed acre. You likee, Missa Dan, I sell for you. Sooey Wan no ketchum son, no ketchum wifee, no ketchum papa, no ketchum mama, no ketchum nobody but Missa Dan. Missa Dan allee same Sooey Wan’s boy. Eh? My boy losee money, Sooey Wan no loosum. Long time ago Sooey Wan talkee your father. Your father say: ‘Sooey, my partner, Missa Casson, no good. Heap damn fool.’ All light, I watchum.” He came close to Dan and rested his yellow old claw of a hand on the beloved shoulder. “Boy,” he said, “Sooey Wan savum all for you. You takee, you look out for Sooey Wan, givee little money for play China lottery, givee room, givee job, that’s all light. Sooey Wan likee this house. Likee live here, likee die here, then you send Sooey Wan back to China, keepee land on Saclamento Liver, keepee money, mally lady queen and have many son. I think that plenty good for my boy. Sooey Wan velly old man,” he continued pleadingly. “No can live all time. Sure you takee, boy. Then you play lone hand in office. Old man Casson no damn good.” He shrugged optimistically. “Bimeby you ketchum all your money back.”
Dan Pritchard thrust out his long arms and his fingers closed around Sooey Wan’s neck. “No,” he said, “I’m not broke. I never was broke, and I never will be broke while you and Tamea live. Thank God for you both! I couldn’t take her money, Sooey Wan, but I will take yours—later, when I need it. I’ll make you a partner in my reorganized business.” His fingers tightened around the old servant’s throat. “You old yellow devil!” he said and shook Sooey Wan vigorously. “We understand each other, I think. God bless you and bring you to some sort of Oriental heaven, you golden-hearted old heathen.”
Sooey Wan took up his untasted highball. “Hullah for hell!” he cackled, tossed off the drink, gathered up his fortune and departed for his room, chuckling like a malevolent old gnome.
Dan Pritchard sat down, alone in the living room, and wept. He was a bit of a sentimentalist. About one o’clock in the morning he went up to bed.
At two o’clock Sooey Wan was awakened by a rapping at his door. He crawled out of bed, opened the door an inch and found Tamea outside.
“Wha’s mallah?” he growled.
“Sooey Wan, please lend me five hundred dollars—now,” Tamea pleaded. “Dan Pritchard will pay you back.”
“Wha’ for you want money now?” Sooey Wan demanded suspiciously.
“You are a servant,” Tamea reminded him. “You should not ask questions. If you do not desire to oblige me I will make Dan Pritchard send you away from this house.”
Sooey Wan wilted, dug around in his red lacquered box and handed Tamea five hundred dollars. Then he went back to bed to think it over. As for Tamea, ten minutes later she let herself out the front door very quietly. She carried her accordion and a small suitcase which she had appropriated from Julia.
A taxicab cruised down Pacific Avenue after having deposited a bibulous gentleman in the arms of a sleepy butler. With an eye single to business the driver pulled over to the curb and hailed Tamea.
“Ride, Miss?”
“Take me to the place where the ships may be found,” she ordered and climbed in. At Clay Street wharf, just north of the ferry building, she got out and walked along the waterside, north. At that hour the Embarcadero was deserted, save for an occasional watchman at a dock head, and to their curious glances Tamea paid no heed. She stumbled blindly on, questing like a homecoming lost dog, and presently she found that which she sought. It was the unmistakable odor of copra and it brought Tamea to a little hundred and thirty foot trading schooner that lay chafing her blistered sides against the bulkhead at the foot of Pacific Street. Uninvited, Tamea stepped aboard, sat down on the hatch coaming and waited for dawn. With the dawn came a gasoline tug and bumped alongside the schooner. Then men came on deck and to them Tamea spoke in a language they could understand. The master came, stood before her and gazed upon her curiously.
“Who are you, young lady?” he said presently, “and what do you want?”
“I am the daughter of Gaston Larrieau, master of the schooner Moorea. My father is dead. My name is Tamea and I am weary of this white man’s land. My heart aches for my own people and I would go back to them. I have money to pay for my passage. I would go to Riva.”
“I have no passenger license, child, but your father was my friend. If you can stand us, we can stand you. There will be no charge for the passage. We are towing out this morning with the tide and our first port of call is Tahiti. Go below, girl, and the cook will give you breakfast.”
As the sun was rising back of Mount Diablo the launch cast the little schooner adrift off the Golden Gate and the Kanaka sailors, chanting a hymn, ran up her headsails. As they filled, Tamea came out of the cabin and looked again upon that ocher-tinted coastline, watched again the bizarre painted gasoline trawlers of the Mediterranean fishermen put out for the Cordelia banks. Then the mainsail went up and the schooner heeled gently over, took a bone in her teeth and headed south.
“It is best to leave him thus,” the girl murmured. “He does not love me and he never will. I would not stay to afflict him. What he would not accept from me he accepted from a servant. Then I knew!”
She lifted her golden voice and sang “Aloha,” the Hawaiian song of farewell. . . .
For Tamea, Queen of Riva, was of royal blood, and when the gods rained blows upon her she could take them smiling!
CHAPTER XXV
At seven o’clock the following morning Dan Pritchard was awakened from a light and fitful slumber by forceful hammering at his bedroom door. To his query, “Yes, yes, who is it?” a voice freighted with tears and fright answered:
“ ’Tis Julia, sor. Miss Tammy’s gone, God help us.”
“Gone? Gone? Gone where?”
“Sorra wan o’ me knows, but she’s not in the house and her bed has not been shlept in. I found a letther for you, sor, on her bureau.” And Julia opened his door an inch and slid an envelope in to him. He read:
Beloved:I was very foolish to think you truly loved me, to think that I, a half-caste Polynesian girl, could make you love me as I desire to be loved. Therefore, I leave you, though I love you. Because I love you, last night I offered you all that I have. You needed it, but—you could not accept it from me because that would have made you feel that you must accept me also. I have been shamed. I am not a woman of common blood, yet you refused from me what you gladly accepted from your Chinese servant. So I have learned my lesson. I am not angry, dear one, but I am beginning to understand Mellenger was right. Your world is not for me. Please tell Mellenger that I forgive him and that I am sorry I spoke certain words to him, for he is both wise and brave and a loyal friend. Tell him I know he will forgive me, and why.I have begged of Sooey Wan five hundred dollars. Please repay him. As for the money my father gave me, I leave it to you, for I love you. You need it and I would have you happy, even though I may not know happiness myself. Where I go I shall never require money.Good-by, Dan Pritchard. Good-by to our love. Perhaps some day we shall meet in Paliuli, for the missionaries say that there even a half-caste girl shall be washed whiter than snow. But alas, I have never seen snow. I know not what it is.And now I depart from this house, with naught in my heart for you but love.YourTamea.
Beloved:
I was very foolish to think you truly loved me, to think that I, a half-caste Polynesian girl, could make you love me as I desire to be loved. Therefore, I leave you, though I love you. Because I love you, last night I offered you all that I have. You needed it, but—you could not accept it from me because that would have made you feel that you must accept me also. I have been shamed. I am not a woman of common blood, yet you refused from me what you gladly accepted from your Chinese servant. So I have learned my lesson. I am not angry, dear one, but I am beginning to understand Mellenger was right. Your world is not for me. Please tell Mellenger that I forgive him and that I am sorry I spoke certain words to him, for he is both wise and brave and a loyal friend. Tell him I know he will forgive me, and why.
I have begged of Sooey Wan five hundred dollars. Please repay him. As for the money my father gave me, I leave it to you, for I love you. You need it and I would have you happy, even though I may not know happiness myself. Where I go I shall never require money.
Good-by, Dan Pritchard. Good-by to our love. Perhaps some day we shall meet in Paliuli, for the missionaries say that there even a half-caste girl shall be washed whiter than snow. But alas, I have never seen snow. I know not what it is.
And now I depart from this house, with naught in my heart for you but love.
Your
Tamea.
Dan’s heart was constricted. For several minutes he sat dumbly on the side of the bed, reading and rereading the letter, striving to realize that for the second time within twelve hours his world had come tumbling about his ears. Julia’s sniffling came to him through the slightly opened door. The sound irritated him.
“Send Sooey Wan up to me, Julia, please,” he ordered.
“He’s here now, sor.”
“Come in, you yellow idiot,” Dan roared, and the old Chinaman shuffled into the room and stood before him dejectedly, but with eyes that met his master’s glance unflinchingly. “When Miss Larrieau asked you to lend her five hundred dollars, why did you not come up and tell me immediately?” he demanded.
“Sometime, Missa Dan,” Sooey Wan answered humbly, “evlybody klazy. Las’ night I think Sooey Wan klazy, too. After Missa Dan go bed, lady queen knock my door. She say: ‘Sooey Wan, I likee fi’ hund’ed dolla’.’ I think velly funny, so I say ‘Wha’ for?’ and lady queen get velly mad, so Sooey Wan think maybe lady queen wanchee buy plesent Missa Dan, maybe likee make suplise party. Wha’ for Sooey Wan ketchum light for ask question to lady queen? Sooey Wan allee same cook, lady queen allee same lady boss. No can do, Missa Dan.”
“That confounded single-track Oriental mind of yours has broken my heart,” Dan groaned. “Sooey Wan, last night the lady queen offered to give me a quarter of a million dollars, but I would not accept it. It was a trust and I couldn’t take advantage of her generous nature. I dared not risk losing her money. Her father trusted me, and I couldn’t accept money from a woman anyhow. She knows that you offered me money, however, and that I accepted it from you, only she doesn’t know why. She doesn’t understand that you’re a man, Sooey Wan, that you can take a gambler’s chance, that I’ll throw old Casson out of the business and put you in as a silent partner; she doesn’t understand that as a baby I acquired the habit of accepting money from you. You remember how you would give me spending money when my father wouldn’t? You old fool, you’ve spoiled me, but you love me like a son and—well, Sooey Wan, you’re not a Chinaman to me—a servant. You’re my friend—the whitest white man and the truest friend I’ve ever known, God bless you—but oh, I could kill you this morning! You’re such a lovable, loyal old booby, and because of you the girl has gone. She thinks now that I do not want her.”
“Women,” said Sooey Wan, “all klazy.”
“I haven’t the slightest idea where the girl could have gone.”
“I think maybe go back same place lady queen come from,” the crafty Chinaman suggested. “Maybe ketchum steamer today. I think velly good job talkee policeeman, policeeman ketchum velly quick. If lady queen no come back Sooey Wan shootum blains”—and he struck fiercely his bony, yellow temple.
“I have an idea, Sooey Wan. Last Sunday morning we walked along the waterfront together. I had a schooner in from the south and I wanted to talk to the captain. At Pacific Street bulkhead there was a trading schooner, the Pelorus, unloading copra, and Tamea spoke to the Kanaka mate in his own language.”
He reached for the telephone and called up the Meiggs wharf lookout of the Merchants’ Exchange.
“Has the schooner Pelorus sailed?” he queried, after introducing himself as a member of the Exchange.
“Towed out with the tide about five o’clock this morning, Mr. Pritchard.”
“What towed her out?”
“A Crowley gasoline tug, sir. Wait a minute until I get the glass on her. She’s just coming back after dropping the Pelorus off the Gate.” A silence. Then, “Crowley Number Thirty-four.”
“Thank you.” Dan hung up and turned to Sooey Wan. “Bring me a cup of coffee and a piece of toast. Get Graves out and tell him to have the car waiting in front in fifteen minutes,” he ordered, and leaped for his shower bath. By the time he was dressed Sooey Wan appeared with the coffee and just as Crowley tug Number Thirty-four slid into her berth to await another towing job, Dan Pritchard appeared on the dock and hailed her skipper in the pilot house.
“You towed the Pelorus out a couple of hours ago. Did you happen to observe whether she carried any passengers?”
“I did. One, sir. A young lady.”
“Describe her.”
“A handsome young lady, sir, dark complected in a way, and yet not dark. Struck me she might have just a drop of Island blood in her, sir. She was wearin’ a blue suit but no hat, and when I saw her first as I bumped alongside she was settin’ on the main hatch coamin’ and she’d been cryin’.”
“Any baggage?”
“A suitcase and an accordion. The skipper of the Pelorus found her settin’ there and she introduced herself. I gathered that he knew her people and was glad to meet her. She must have shipped as a passenger, because she was standin’ aft lookin’ back at the city the last I saw of the Pelorus.”
“How fast is the fastest tug or launch in the Crowley fleet?” Dan next inquired.
“Fifteen miles an hour.”
“Great! I’ll charter her. I want to overhaul the Pelorus and take that girl off.”
The man in the pilot house shook his head. “No use, sir. The Pelorus has lines like a yacht and she’s a witch in a breeze of wind. There’s a thirty mile nor’west breeze on her quarter and she’s logging fifteen knots if she’s logging an inch this minute. I cast her off at six fifteen—two hours ago. She’d be hull down on the horizon in an hour. You couldn’t hope to overhaul her, sir.”
“Thank you, friend. I dare say you’re right.” He wadded a bill into a ball and tossed it in the pilot house window, smiled wanly and returned to his car. On the way up to the office of Casson and Pritchard he formulated a plan of action, which he proceeded to place in operation the moment he found himself alone in his private office.
First he looked up the Pelorus in Lloyd’s Register and satisfied himself that she was staunch and seaworthy, or rather that she had been a year previous. She was owned in Honolulu. Well, Tamea would doubtless be safe aboard her—that is, safe from the elements, although a cold feeling swept over him as he thought of that glorious creature alone on a trading schooner, at the mercy of her captain. He hoped the man was different from the majority of his kind.
At nine o’clock he telephoned the Customs House and learned that the Pelorus had cleared for general cruising in the South Pacific, with her first port of call Tahiti. With a sinking heart Dan recalled that there was neither wireless station nor cable station at Tahiti, and a close scrutiny of the Shipping Guide disclosed the fact that the next steamer for Sidney, via Tahiti, Pago Pago and Raratonga would not sail for two weeks. Well, he would write Casson and Pritchard’s agent at Tahiti to board the Pelorus when she dropped hook in the harbor and deliver to the girl a letter and a draft on the French bank in Tahiti, to enable her to purchase a first class steamer passage back to San Francisco, where they would be married immediately. Undoubtedly the steamer would beat the Pelorus to Tahiti, even though the latter vessel should have a two weeks’ start. Even should the Pelorus beat her in, the schooner would probably lie in Tahiti harbor for a week and Tamea would go ashore and visit friends of her father’s while awaiting passage on a schooner that could drop her off at Riva. The chances for overhauling the heart-broken fugitive were excellent; the letter which would reach her, via the steamer and later by hand of Casson and Pritchard’s agent, would bring her back to him. Of that he felt assured.
However, in the event the steamer should never reach Tahiti, he essayed two other means of communicating with her, via his agent. There was a wireless station at Fanning Island and another at Noumea, so he sent a message to each, with a request that it be relayed to Tamea by the first vessels touching there and bound for Tahiti.
He had done all he could to retrieve the situation now, so he spread his long arms out on his desk, laid his face in them and suffered. He yearned for the blessed relief of tears, for at last Dan Pritchard was realizing that he did indeed love Tamea with all of the wild and passionate love of which he had dreamed. He had not believed that it would be possible for him to love any woman so. His heart ached for her. He was thoroughly wretched.
What matter if her mother had been a Polynesian princess, her father a carefree, wandering love-pirate, a very Centaur? Tamea was—Tamea—and in all this world there would never, by God’s grace, exist another like her.
He got out her letter and read it again, and a lump gathered in his throat as he realized how sweet it was, how benignant, how overflowing with love and the gladness of love’s sacrifice. How prideful she was and how childish! What a tremendous indication was her act, of a tremendously regal character! Poor, bruised, misunderstanding and misunderstood heart. His tears came at last. . . .
By noon he had regained control of himself, and resolutely driving from his mind all thoughts of Tamea, he concentrated upon his business affairs. His first move was to order the firm’s books closed as of that date and a schedule of assets and liabilities drawn up, after which he wrote a form letter to the firm’s customers explaining the predicament in which Casson and Pritchard found themselves and the reason for it, pledged his own private fortune to retrieve the situation in part and invited the creditors to meet with him and his attorneys in the assembly room of the Merchants’ Exchange a week hence, when a thorough and comprehensive review of the situation would be possible and at which time he hoped to have worked out a scheme for the rehabilitation of the business and the payment of one hundred cents on every dollar of the firm’s obligations.
As yet no one, not even the chief clerk, knew that Casson and Pritchard were listed among the casualties in the post-war collapse of values which Dan had feared so long. Dan and his partner were the sole custodians of that cheerless information, but in their minds existed no illusions regarding their situation. That eight thousand tons of rice aboard the Malayan alone spelled a loss of at least a million and a half. Already the market on coffee, sugar, Oriental oils, copra and a hundred other commodities had commenced to slump, and, in the wild scramble to throw trades overboard before too heavy a loss should accrue, Dan knew that every importing and exporting house in the country would be hard put to weather the storm. Casson and Pritchard would have to face other losses in the natural order of business, and Dan was shrewd enough to realize that these, coupled with the tremendous loss on old Casson’s rice gamble, would force him to cry for quarter. Therefore he faced the issue resolutely and calmly made his preparations for the assault of the firm’s creditors by assuming the initiative.
For a week he worked all day and part of each night at the office. Old Casson, cruelly stung with remorse and fright, remained at home and did not communicate with him, a condition for which Dan was grateful. He heard nothing from Maisie, nor did his thoughts dwell long or frequently upon her. He had room in his harassed mind for thoughts of but one woman—Tamea.
All during that terrible week gossip linked irremediable disaster with some of the oldest and soundest firms on the Street. Apparently Katsuma and Company had been smashed beyond all hope of rehabilitation, for Katsuma, Jap-like, had solved his problem by hanging himself and was as dead as Julius Cæsar. There was a panic in Wall Street and already local banks had grown timid and were refusing the loans so necessary to the successful operation of the commerce upon which banks must, perforce, predicate their existence. Demand loans were being called, and when not met the collateral back of them was levied upon.
At the conclusion of that week’s business Dan had before him a written record of Casson and Pritchard’s affairs; the letters to creditors lay on his desk, awaiting his signature, and his plan of rehabilitation, even his address to the firm’s creditors, had been rehearsed until he knew it by heart. At eleven o’clock on Saturday his bank called a large loan. Over the telephone the banker informed Dan crisply but courteously that they expected the note to be paid on Monday; whereupon Dan Pritchard sent out his letters to Casson and Pritchard’s creditors and then sent for Mark Mellenger, whom he had not seen since the latter’s sudden retreat from the Italian restaurant in the Latin quarter.
“I’ve sent for you, Mel,” Dan informed his friend, “to give you two exclusive stories, one of which is for publication. In the first place, Tamea has returned to Riva, or at least she is now en route there. I am endeavoring, however, to turn her back at Tahiti in order that I may marry her.”
“Why did she leave? Did you send her away?”
Dan briefly explained and Mellenger listened in silence; at the conclusion of Dan’s recital he merely nodded and said: “I suppose any man would be a very great fool not to marry a woman like Tamea. She is the only one of her kind I ever heard of. What’s the other story?”
“It’s contained in this letter to the creditors of our firm. I’m busted, Mel. However, I shall rise, like the phenix, from my ashes, thanks to Sooey Wan. I’ll reorganize the firm, eliminating Casson, who is in no position to dictate terms or claim an interest for alleged good-will. I hope he has means to enable him to take care of Mrs. Casson and Maisie, and if he hasn’t I dare say Maisie can do something to support herself.”
“I’ll write you a nice, kindly story regarding the embarrassment of your firm. I’ve been writing such stories for two weeks. I dislike to air your difficulty, Dan, but if I do not the other papers will, so I might as well scoop them in the Sunday edition. Poor Tamea! I shall probably not see her again, but I am glad to have her friendship at least. Her friendship is worth something.”
He accepted one of Dan’s cigars and commenced to talk of other things; at parting he remarked, casually, that he would be up to the house for dinner the following Thursday night—now that Tamea was no longer there to be oppressed by his presence.