"Go ahead, sir," he answered. "I must be last."
I clambered down the side, and joined Grace in the sternsheets.
"Where is George?" she asked. "I thought he was coming, and the captain, too."
"Both in the starboard boat," I answered. "You're in here with me, where I can take care of you. Shove off!" I commanded. "Both boats shove off, and get away from here."
The second mate had charge of the other boat, and together we shot away from the ship, putting a hundred yards between us before pausing to wait for the captain's boat from the other side. But it did not appear at once. Instead, we heard loud shouts, and the name "Grace" in Morton's tremulous voice.
"Miss Morton is here," I sang out, but, if heard, I was not answered.
Then the shouts ceased, and Morton's figure appeared on the opposite rail.
"Grace!" he called. "Grace, where are you?"
"I'm here, George," she answered. "I'm safe. Save yourself."
"Here!" I bellowed. "Here with me! Get back into your boat."
But instead he jumped down on deck, out of our sight. We pulled back toward the ship, and waited, a fair swimming distance away. Then, as a box of matches bursts into fame, so did that huge ship. The main-hatch covers flew into air, tangible and visible; and as they fell, the black pillar of smoke increased in size and solidity, while each oaken rail became a line of fire, and even the masts, dried by the heat of weeks, turned to fiery red columns in a few minutes.
But the top of the cabin was still immune from the flames. And up the after steps by the side of the companion climbed Morton. He ran to the skylight, turned around, went part way back, and then retraced his steps, calling again for his sister.
"Jump overboard!" I shouted. "Jump, for your life!"
He did not jump. With his hands to his nostrils he shuffled forward toward the monkey-rail that overlooked the main deck, halting at moments, only to shuffle again. He turned around once and took a few steps backward, then wheeled suddenly and resumed his shuffling advance. I called again and again for him to jump, and Grace joined me in pleading screams, while I heard the captain calling from the other side. But to no avail; the god that he worshiped was calling the louder. He staggered now, reached the rail, and with arms extended as though in supplication, plunged into the inferno beneath.
Only once since then has anyone spoken of him to me. It was the gray old skipper, who, after our rescue, wanted to set me right.
"You thought he fired the ship," he said, "for he told me of your suspicions, and felt badly. But he did not. It was all my fault, for I should have calked the ship at Hongkong. That three-day gale that we met let the water down on the jute. It was spontaneous combustion."
But, in mercy to each other, Grace and I never mention his name.
It was Dartmoor who saw the chance. He was the son of a wealthy father, and perhaps the one man of that medical class to feel equal to the experiments given up by the old professor.
Physically, Dartmoor was exceptionally favored by nature, possessing one of the most winning personalities I have ever met, and the face and figure of a Greek god. And to this was added a mental development that was almost abnormal in its completeness. I had gone through school with him, and never saw him studying. He seemed to learn his lessons by a few glances at the page of a book.
He had courage of a high order, but never had a fight in his life, for he could make an adversary surrender without a fight. He could win any girl for sweetheart, or any boy for friend. He had his enemies, carefully chosen by himself, but when he so decided he would make these enemies his friends. I had been one.
Shortly after our diplomas were given us, Dartmoor secured legal possession of the freak, with a history of the case. The history was simple; its mother, a poor immigrant, had died at its birth, and its father was unknown.
The professor, a visiting physician of the hospital at the time, had taken it into his sanitarium and cared for it; but beyond keeping it alive had not helped it. It was a man that had never been conscious—a human being born without the five senses.
Dartmoor erected a pavilion on his grounds, installed in it the freak, together with the apparatus for massage and exercise, and gave himself up to the study of his charge. He had me around once to witness the experiments, but I was not enthusiastic.
The creature, who was about as old as Dartmoor and myself, lay in a reclining posture on the exercising frame, staring vacantly with wide-open, blue eyes. He was full grown, but with the features of an infant—pudgy nose and pursed-up lips.
Two hinged levers worked by a crank caught his wrists as they lay extended over his head, lifted him to a sitting position, and pulled him forward until his fingers touched his feet. Then back he went, to be again swung forward. When there had been enough of this, two other levers lifted him by the ankles and brought his feet over his head, then dropped them back.
Then there were massaging and vibrating apparatus and a portable shower-bath to finish him off. All this had been going on since his infancy, and now he was fairly well developed—about six feet tall, with the muscles of an athlete.
"Dartmoor," I said, when the job was over, "this is a problem for a college of physicians and surgeons, not for one man."
"But think of the credit," he answered enthusiastically. "Think of the world's applause if I succeed in giving consciousness to this poor, animated clay."
"It may be an idiot."
"Not necessarily—an infant, perhaps."
"Where do you think the trouble lies?"
"I do not know; neither does the professor. It is something that affects the sensory, motor, and sympathetic nerves as a whole. I shall try the different absorption treatments, and various forms of radio-activity and ultra-violet rays. Mental suggestion may do it."
"Well, good luck to you. I've a living to make curing live people."
But I did not make a living by my profession. A girl who had said "yes" at the beginning of my studies now said "no," and it needed no deep investigation to discover the reason for the change. She had come under the sway of Dartmoor's personality, and my cause was hopeless.
What made it harder was that he seemed unaware of it. He evidently cared nothing for her, busying himself with his experiments and never seeking her. Otherwise I might have had it out with him.
However, the girl's "no" carried with it a denial of all else that I valued. I was young, unproven, much wrought up, and utterly irresponsible. For the next five years my life had better be glossed over. I went to sea, and found in the wandering life of a sailor the only relief for the aching drag at my breast.
At last, being more sane than insane, I turned over a new leaf and began to save money. A few years later I found myself owner and master of a fine little schooner, and, after a few exploring and trading trips around the South Sea Islands, came upon a pearl fishery which laid the foundations of a fortune.
This done, I took in a ballast load of guano, and, ten years from the time of my departure, sailed for the Golden Gate and home. I wanted to see that girl again, married or single.
It must have been intuition, for I arrived at San Francisco just before the date fixed for her marriage to Dartmoor. I saw him first, and it was he who told me. He was worn out with his unsolved problem, and about to abandon it.
There had been something lacking in his life, he said—something that lessened his powers, but now he had found it—the love of woman. He had awakened to the fact that he loved Miss Ewing, had always loved her, and was rejoiced to know that she had always loved him.
They were to be married in a week. His living dead man would then take second place in his thoughts, and perhaps new thoughts would come.
It was sad news for me, but I gritted my teeth and congratulated him.
"You're right," I said grimly. "A few years more of this business and no woman would have you. You look hunted. Your hair is turning."
"Yes," he sighed, "I'm getting gray and old. Perhaps, as you once said, it is too much of a task for one man. I have tried every scientific appliance, but I have not stirred a single sense perception.
"And I am being interfered with. A local society for the prevention of cruelty to children is getting active. I am charged with inhumanity, and in danger of arrest at any time. Why, he could not live a week without the care I am giving him."
"Why not let the society have him? Get him off your mind. Do you expect your wife to be happy with that monstrosity between you? Give it up, Dartmoor."
"I cannot. It is my life's work."
"Then you'd better take him down to my island, where I am the law and the lawmaker. Otherwise your life will be short and your wife a young widow."
I had made the suggestion at haphazard, but he became interested at once, asked me all about my pearl fishery, and the gang of coolies who obeyed me as a king, and said he would think it over. I left him then; and believing that even as a rejected lover I had a right to see my old sweetheart once in ten years, I called upon her.
It is hard for a man roughened as I have become to describe that girl; so I shall not try, except to say that all sense of fair play left me, and that I had not been in her presence five minutes before I was down on my knees, begging to be taken back.
I almost gained my point. There were tears in her eyes, and her hand trembled as I held it. She admitted that Dartmoor's long neglect had lessened his value in her eyes, now that she had won him. But he had done nothing culpable; her promise was given, and he seemed fond of her, and in need of her.
"Confound Dartmoor and his need of you!" I growled. "I need you more. He has his man-baby and his science. You will be second. You would be first with me, Ella. Give him up—for me."
She shook her head slowly, and more slowly, while I held tightly to her little hand. Then the doorbell rang, and we heard Dartmoor's voice.
"Curse him!" I cried hotly. "Ella, I won't have it. I won't give you up to him. I'm a man now, not a bewildered boy."
He came in before she could reply. He must have seen something out of the way in our faces, for he said jocularly:
"Talking about me, I'll wager. I wondered what made my ears burn. Do you know," he said, "that there is a scientific basis for that old fancy?"
As he took it scientifically and good-humoredly, I let it go; besides, as I remembered later, my anger had left me.
"Captain," he said seriously, "I have a proposition for you—that you take me and my phenomenon, with my attendants and apparatus, down to your island, where, I presume, we will be undisturbed. When I am alone with him I wish to try some experiments that I have long contemplated, but which have been interfered with by the people of this city. I will assume all expenses."
"Come along," I answered graciously. "I won't come within a mile of you, and the coolies will avoid you both."
"And, Ella," he said, turning to the girl he thought he loved, "it will necessitate a postponement of our wedding for a while. I cannot take you down into the South Pacific on an uncertainty. You will not mind, I know; we have waited long, and can wait a little longer. You agree with me, do you not, captain?"
"Of course, I do," I answered with a leaping heart, but trying to appear unconcerned. "It's no place for a woman."
She merely bowed her head and said nothing. What she thought I could not know. Nor can I remember much of what I thought myself. Mingled with my joy over the delay, there seemed to be vague imaginings of my holding Dartmoor by the heels over the taffrail and dropping him into the water. But I am not sure that these visions did not come later.
Wrong, of course; but I was an angry and jealous man.
I saw her once more before we sailed, but could not move her. She was kind, gentle with me, and sorrowful, but obedient to the influence of Dartmoor, with no will but his. So I gave it up for the time, trusting not to a watery grave to break his influence but to his absence from her.
We transferred the freak by night and lodged it in the hold, where I had built a sort of enclosure under the cabin trunk for the apparatus. Dartmoor brought a couple of his servants along to carry on the daily exercising, and my Kanaka crew expressed no curiosity concerning the strange weights they hoisted over the side at midnight. So, we got away without trouble.
Whether or not Dartmoor exercised any mental influence over me I do not know. I felt a healthy hatred for him as the man who had taken the woman I loved, but I could not bring myself to quarrel with him. He could not force me to like him, but possibly he disarmed my resentment by his kindly feeling for me.
My island was a small affair, as islands go—merely the top of a submerged mountain—surrounded by a barrier reef with only one passage through it; and this entrance was known to no one but myself. Well up from the beach I had erected huts for my coolie divers and a comfortable house for myself on the high ground near a spring of water.
Here I purposed to install Dartmoor and the freak; but I wondered, grimly and ungenerously, as I steered through the dangerous passage and glanced at a dismantled hulk wrecked on the reef during my absence, as to the chances of anybody getting off that island without my consent.
As we let go the anchor, a man pulled out in a small dingey I kept for exploring the lagoon and climbed aboard. He was tall, elderly, and mild of face and manner.
"Glad to see a white face again," he said as he offered me his hand. "You are the captain, I believe—the white chief of these poor heathen. I am Mr. Pfeffer, a seagoing missionary, and my little craft was wrecked here last week while trying to make the passage in a storm. I am the only one saved, and I owe my life to your divers. They have been very kind to me, a shipwrecked wayfarer, and I would like to remain among them a while, if it is possible for me to do so."
"Stay as long as you like, Mr. Pfeffer," I answered. "Convert us all, if you like; but there's a critter down below that's proof, I'll warrant."
He asked questions, and Dartmoor explained. Then the missionary inspected the monstrosity.
"I consider my shipwreck as an act of God," he said, as he came on deck. "You will succeed, Mr. Dartmoor, I know you will. And I will be here, to aid you with prayer and spiritual help. For this new-born intelligence must be trained to know and believe in the goodness of God, who creates nothing without a purpose. It is all clear, now, captain. I have been brought here to assist."
I did not dispute him. Fish, yams, and cocoanuts were plentiful on that island, and I had other things to think of. An overhauling of the work done in my absence and a trip to Honolulu for supplies would keep me busy for some time.
As I was about to start, Dartmoor's two servants asked to be taken with me. I consulted Dartmoor, and he sadly advised it. They did not like the quiet life on the island and, though he had offered more pay, they were not content. I landed them at Honolulu and saw no more of them.
Their going left the manual work of exercising the freak to Dartmoor, and I grinned shamelessly. At this juncture I had half a mind to run over to San Francisco and make another appeal to Ella, but gave it up. She might not have grown away from him yet; and at any rate I could keep Dartmoor on the island as long as I pleased. To such dark depths of knavery does jealousy bring a man.
I ran back to the island, and no sooner was the anchor down than Dartmoor and the dominie appeared on the beach, shouting and gesticulating like lunatics. Then, over the noise they made, there came from the house up the hill a sound like the braying of a burro mixed with the wail of a fog siren. Then I heard Dartmoor.
"It's alive," he called, "and conscious. It can sit up."
"Great Scott," I said. "Then that's its baby wail."
I went ashore and received the particulars from the excited Dartmoor.
The whole life treatment had been wrong because of its mechanical nature. He had found himself without the strength to manipulate the machine, and had consequently resorted to hand massage. When tired he would sit for hours, concentrating his mind upon the desire that the freak would awaken—would see, hear, taste, smell, or feel. Then he would resume the massage.
It worked. The creature opened its eyes one day about a week back and moved its limbs. With the wakening of the motor nerves came a correlative wakening of the sensory and optic nerves. He could see and feel.
But the sensations were too much for him and, like a new-born infant, he set up the loud, discordant wailing I had heard. A little further treatment brought to life the sense of hearing, and after a few simple experiments it was proved that he could taste and smell.
I went up and inspected the baby. He lay on his cot, dressed in dungaree jumper and overalls, twiddling his toes and fingers, and sticking out his tongue at the ceiling; but at the sight of me he set up a roar that drove us out into the open. He could certainly "take notice."
"His lungs are all right," I said. "He'll make a good bo'sun's mate when he grows up. Think he'll start growing now?"
"Oh, no," said Dartmoor seriously. "He's got his growth. But we are teaching him to walk, and we must teach him to talk. His intelligence and memory will come with the accumulation of perceptions."
"He will talk soon," said the old missionary hopefully. "He is very imitative. This morning he repeated 'Now I lay,' but could go no farther. His first speech must be prayer, to give thanks for his rescue from darkness."
"He'll learn to swear," I said unsympathetically, "if I catch him around my pearls. Think he'll be an idiot, Dartmoor? Has he a soul after all these years of unconsciousness?"
"He has always possessed a subconscious mind," said Dartmoor didactically, "and now has the beginning of consciousness. But if he has a soul, depend upon it, it is my soul. I brought him to life, and he will feel what I feel and do what I do to the extent of his power.
"Why, that is proved now. I can quiet him by a word, or even a fixed thought of disapproval. He smiles or laughs when I do. I was frightened by a shark yesterday—just a momentary shock—but his wailings were pitiable. Yet he was out of sight of me."
"Well, all this is beyond me," I said. "But now that you've got him alive what will you do with him? Take him back to the coast and exhibit him? He'd make a fine dime-museum star."
"Nothing so cheap. I do not care to take him back until I have fully demonstrated my theory. But, in his development he will need more than my care and Mr. Pfeffer's. He needs the tender ministrations of a mother. A woman's instinct alone can tell when to punish and when to reward.
"I want you to go back home, captain, and bring Ella to me, with her mother. Mr. Pfeffer can marry us, and then you can take the mother back."
"Dartmoor, you inhuman devil," I answered with what restraint I could, "would you condemn a civilized young woman to companionship with that brute?"
"In the interest of science, yes. My wife will work with me."
"She won't come," I answered explosively. "In justice and fairness I shall warn her of what is ahead. She won't come, depend upon it."
"She will. I will write her a letter which you can deliver to her."
I acceded—I do not know why. I had sworn to drown him in the lagoon before I would lend a hand toward his marrying that girl. I only came back to myself when three days out, homeward bound.
I was obeying his orders; yet, as the days went on, I found my will power and determination growing. If I took that girl out, I vowed she would go as my wife.
Nothing of the sort happened. When she read his letter she insisted upon going, and her weak old mother fell in line. In vain did I beg and storm. Nothing I could say availed against that letter.
I could not recognize Dartmoor's right to that girl over my own, though I was compelled to yield to his greater power. On that run out to sea I did all I could to sway her. I prayed to her and argued with her, representing as strongly as I could her life with a heartless, bloodless scientist and a man-baby—a repulsive, incongruous parody on the human race; but I finally had to give up in despair.
As we sailed into the lagoon I observed through the glass the whole colony, Dartmoor, the missionary, and the gang of coolies mustered on the beach. And with them was the baby. They had taught him to walk. Clumsy and huge, he lumbered around among them, and occasionally dropped to all-fours. Even at the distance I could hear his thundering "Da, da da!"
"Nice prospect for Ella," I thought gloomily. "Heaven help the poor girl!"
I lowered the quarter-boat and sent mother and daughter ashore, for I was determined not to witness Dartmoor's meeting with the girl I loved. Yet the jealous devils in my soul were too strong for my determination. I looked through the glass at Dartmoor assisting Ella ashore, and swore dismally as he took her in his arms, kissed her on the cheek, and turned away from her to the mother.
A scream, either from Ella or her mother, interrupted the second greeting, and I shifted my glass. There was the brute baby, with his huge arms around Ella, attempting to follow the example of Dartmoor. The missionary shouted, and the coolies danced around at a safe distance.
Dartmoor acted. With a bound he had the brute by the throat and pulled him clear. Then I saw them clench, and at this I dropped the glass and sprang into the dingey.
I took only one look behind as I pulled furiously on the oars. They were on the ground in a mad struggle, the brute uppermost. Ella had fainted and her mother was bending over her, while the missionary and the coolies were well up the hill.
As I grounded and sprang out with an oar, the brute slowly rose erect, looking at Dartmoor.
"Get out of here!" I yelled. "Clear out!" and brandished the oar.
He stumbled away a short distance, dropped and crawled a little farther, then lay down on the sand. I made toward Ella.
"Is she hurt?" I asked anxiously.
"Only fainted away," answered the mother. "That creature frightened her so. He is simply terrible."
I went to Dartmoor, prone upon his back, and stooped over him.
"Hurt, Dartmoor?" I asked.
"My back," he whispered. "He has broken my back. I cannot move and there is no sensation below the waist. Where is he now?"
"Lying down over yonder," I answered. "What can I do?"
"Nothing. Protect Ella from him."
"I will. I'll murder him if need be."
"You will not need," he went on in that weakening whisper. "I did too well. He had only my soul to inspire his impulses, without my governing mind. He took my love for Ella only as his mind could interpret it, as mere impulse. He took my anger and vented it upon me. He will die with me. It is but the passing of one soul."
Dartmoor was right. He breathed his last in a minute, and I went over to the beast. He, too, lay quiet and still.
Now, be it understood at the first word that I have never believed in astrology as an exact science, or even a working hypothesis to explain the curious happenings of life which we ascribe to luck, fate, Providence, the law of cause and effect, or, latterly, to mortal mind. Nor do I offer this story with any intent to help the astrologers in their difficult efforts to prove their science correct; for it proves nothing beyond the scope of coincidence—unless, possibly, that the laws, mathematical and other, beyond human soul life, are past our present comprehension. This is merely the contribution of an experienced old man, grown gray and tired in the effort to understand his fellowman, and who has at last given up the problem, trusting that it may aid some younger investigator.
My acquaintance with them began early, very early—in fact I was present at, and assisted at, their birth, which occurred at the same moment, their mothers lying side by side on the same narrow cot in the crowded hospital. There had been a railroad accident, and these two injured women had been carried to the nearby institution where I was serving my apprenticeship in medicine. They recovered in time, went to their separate homes unacquainted, and resumed their lives, one the wife of a wealthy man, the other a scrubwoman. They never met again, nor did their lives conflict; but their children, born at the same moment, and at the same spot, lived out careers that were strangely parallel, strangely consistent with what the astrologers teach.
In my later capacity of visiting physician to that hospital I often met young Dunbar, the scrub-woman's boy, as he progressed through the ailments and accidents of childhood; and as family physician to the wealthy Lance family I as often met their pampered youngster. After a few years I noticed that if anything was wrong with one, something—not necessarily the same thing—happened to the other. For instance, young Dunbar broke his arm at the time young Lance had the measles. The latter sprained his wrist, and the former came to the free clinic the same day with a black eye, acquired in a fight. I called this coincidence for a while, until both mothers died at the same hour, of the same disease. Then I recalled that I, who had been present at that other momentous event in their widely divergent lives, was now the useless physician to each. I began to take notes, but never investigated the lives of the mothers; my studies and speculations were concerned with the lives of the sons. And I first learned that since birth they had never met.
Each in his own environment, these two boys grew up, as different in physique, mentality, and morals as can be imagined. At sixteen their characters were shaped, and at this age I invoiced their attributes. Each was what the other was not. Dunbar was a tough, Lance a gentleman; but Dunbar possessed physical courage of the highest order, while Lance, up to this period in his life, had never voluntarily placed himself in the way of pain or punishment. He would run from an angry goose or girl playmate. On the other hand, he possessed moral courage, while Dunbar was a moral coward. Lance proudly bore himself through a storm of boyish ridicule when caught playing with dolls and toy-houses, while Dunbar hid himself in shame because of defeat at the hands of a larger, heavier boy. Lance was truthful, polite, and with a high sense of honor and justice; Dunbar a liar, a bully, and a bad example. His associates were the worst in the town, and when there came the time that my safe was robbed, and the loot was found upon Dunbar, I could not have saved him, even though I had believed him innocent. It was simply a case of the People against Dunbar, and I was prosecuting witness.
Others had robbed me, and Dunbar, unthinkingly, had held the goods until arrested. I could not prove this at the time, and so Dunbar was convicted. But, as an incident in this story, on the day that he entered prison to begin a four-years' sentence, Lance, the most effeminate boy I had known in my experience, entered the Naval Academy at Annapolis, there to begin a four-year tutelage in a profession where the most masculine attributes are required.
I saw him on his four vacations at home, each time more mature, more certain of himself, more effeminate in speech and mannerisms, yet graceful in bearing and possessed of what might be called masculine beauty. He was tall, erect, with curly hair and a pink complexion, untouched by the tan of sun and sea and wind; for he had not yet begun his two years' sea cruise.
I visited Dunbar in prison as often as I saw Lance, for my own vacations took me into his vicinity. On the first three occasions he was sulky and resentful, but on the fourth and last was utterly changed. He begged my forgiveness, was earnest and hopeful of the future. He asked for books to read, and advice on his plans. I met him more than half-way, and soon learned the cause of the change in him—the warden's daughter. She had lent him her small store of books, had sympathized with him as she dared or cared, and had become his Goddess of Light and Hope. I talked with her before I left; she was a tall, willowy sort of girl with a very sweet, spiritual face—not so beautiful as compelling. She could exercise a strong influence on any man of Dunbar's rugged type. Dunbar was tall, broad, and intensely masculine. He was dark of complexion and dark of mood, for his limitations bore heavily upon him; he knew that he must start life and ambition handicapped by a term in prison. But the dogged, courageous spirit of the man triumphed over this, and he had planned for a seafaring career, in which not too much would be asked of a man's past, and not too much would be required in the way of refinement to insure success.
"For I know I'm a bad investment, Doc," he said, "because I didn't go to school when I could, and I traveled with the worst playmates I could find. But I think I can make it up. I'll have that girl ahead of me, to reach for and work for if I get her. She understands about my kind of men. There are a lot of us here."
I wished him good luck, and when his time had expired—he served the full term with no commutation—I secured him a berth with a relative of mine who commanded a ship, and he went to sea. The ship sailed on the day that Lance's leave expired, and, on that day, Lance, too, went to sea on his practice cruise.
Astrologers say that, given the date, place, and exact minute of a person's birth, a calculation can be made that will prophesy the happenings for good or evil in that person's life, and fix the dates or the periods of time; and, conversely, if given the dates of the happenings and departures, the exact minute and place of birth can be determined. If this is true, it would equally apply to the case of two persons born side by side, giving them similar experiences varying only by the pressure of environment and the initial distance apart when born. And Lance and Dunbar seemed to be proving it true.
Shortly after they left, the jail warden was elected sheriff, and moved his goods and family to the county seat, the small town where we lived. The daughter, now about seventeen, was welcomed in the best society of the place. I saw her often; and the more I learned of her beautiful mind, the more I deplored Dunbar's unfortunate infatuation, and felt that a lesser girl would have answered the purpose. But now I know that a lesser girl could not have reached him. He needed a star of the first magnitude.
In two years Lance was back, a passed midshipman, waiting for his commission as ensign and an assignment to a ship. Dunbar did not appear, and I wondered if the connection was broken; but was relieved on this point by a letter from my relative, which apprised me that Dunbar had quit him to ship second mate with another skipper; and on comparing dates I found that this was simultaneous with the return of Lance, though Dunbar was in San Francisco at the time. But there seemed to be other influences entering into the environment of Lance. He met Miss Ella Madison, the daughter of the Sheriff. Now, while the best society of the small town had welcomed this splendid girl, Lance, invested with wealth and the aroma of a commission, was not affected by the general estimate. To him she was a find, a pretty girl to flirt with. I saw them together very often, but never arrived at a conception of his attitude until he expounded his philosophy of life in answer to a query of mine—a quest born of my interest in Dunbar.
"Are you to be married?" I asked.
"Married? No. I don't believe in marriage. I consider marriage, the linking of two human beings together, to be a crime worse than the tying of a dog and cat together by a rope and turning them adrift to fight it out. Marriage, Doctor? Why, marriage is an institution of human society worse than slavery—responsible for more crime, sin, sorrow, suffering, and murder than anything that ever afflicted the human race."
"Well," I answered, somewhat amazed, "what will you substitute for marriage, admitting that what you say may be true?"
"Association of two who love, until each is tired of the association, then separation."
"And do you apply such a code to your interest in Miss Madison?"
"Of course; but she's old-fashioned in her notions. Likes to be loved, but wants to be married. She resists my philosophy."
"She's right, you young scoundrel," I said. "Get out of my office."
My anger, of course, has no place in this story, and I soon forgot it, trusting in the girl's nobility of soul; and a letter from Dunbar, the first he had written, roused my hopes that there might soon be an antidote for Lance. It was a long communication, written from Liverpool, which apprised me that he had obtained a first mate's license and was in a fair way soon to obtain command; but the diction and style of that letter surprised me. With all my acquirements, coming of a university education and a daily correspondence with educated people, I could not have edited that letter. It was a masterpiece of English, and I answered it, giving him the news of Miss Madison that he asked for, and advising him to appear.
But he did not appear; and four years went on—years of fruitless suit on the part of Lance, and fruitful pursuit on the part of Dunbar, as evidenced by his letters. Miss Madison remained invulnerable; Lance steadily disintegrated, becoming more masculine, more dissipated, more fixed in his reactionary philosophy of life. He resigned from the navy two months after his return and remained in the small town, except for occasional visits to New York. His father died, and with all the property in his control, he bought a schooner yacht, and invited me to a trip—which invitation I declined. Dunbar had become a first mate, and later a captain of a small bark which, in a letter, he said would sail from Honolulu for New York. I hoped he would come home, for in every letter he had written was the request for news of Ella Madison, and his assurance of a soul-born worship of her. I knew something of feminine psychology. I felt that here was the need of a strong man; for in my few talks with the girl I had not impressed her with Lance's unworthiness.
Lance continued in his reversion to type. His dissipated habits brought him into contact with men who expounded only the physical. He had a fight, in the small town, with a bartender, and actually thrashed the man—a feat I would not have accredited to him. Again he stopped a runaway horse and saved from certain death the occupants of the carriage. He bore these honors modestly, but I could not help speculating upon the question as to whether or not he was drawing upon his affinity, Dunbar, a sailor who risked his life daily in the earning of his daily bread. Dunbar's increasing refinement, as evidenced by his letters, bore out such a speculation, and it seemed that each, without knowing the other, was benefiting by the psychic association. But Miss Madison the link between the two, who was lifting Dunbar up and dragging Lance down, remained normal, uninfluenced by Lance and unremembering of Dunbar; for, in a short talk with her, I found that she had forgotten him.
Now Sheriff Madison died, and as the girl was without friends or relatives, I took her into my home as a member of the family, satisfied to have such a rare and beauteous creature under my care, and glad of my vested power to keep Lance at a distance. But it came too late; I noticed her abstraction, then saw tears in her eyes, and, long before my professional knowledge told me, I guessed that Lance had won.
There was a stormy scene when I met him, upbraided him, and appealed to his manhood, and was met by flippant philosophy, ridicule, and defiance. In that talk I caught him by the throat and only relinquished my grip as I realized that his death would not avail. He must marry her, I thought, and that thought saved his miserable life. He went out, angry at me and insistent that his position was justified by human experience.
He went on a yachting trip soon after, and before he came back I read in the New York papers of a rescue at sea. The yachtSylph, cruising, with owner on board, had come upon the dismantled wreck of the barkHolyoke, Captain John Dunbar, and rescued all hands at the moment of sinking. A feature of the rescue was the plunging into the sea of Mr. George Lance, owner of the yacht, and his saving the life of Captain Dunbar, who had remained until the last, and who, hampered by his oilskins would have drowned in the turmoil caused by the sinking hull, but for the heroic action of Mr. Lance.
I read this to Miss Madison. She was pleased at Lance's heroism, but expressed no interest in Captain Dunbar, the last to leave his sinking ship.
Shortly after, Dunbar came home and his first visit was to me. With all my predilection to think well of him I was more than surprised, and agreeably so. I had last seen him in a cell, a convict, a jail-bird, with the prison pallor on his face and the prison flavor in his soul. He stood before me now a big, broad-shouldered, handsome fellow of twenty-eight, with dark, curly hair, a dark, sunburned face, a cheery, optimistic smile, and a voice that rang with suppressed laughter. His diction was faultless; he had read and studied deeply. He used words and phrases only at the command of educated men. Had I not known his antecedents I would have pronounced him a university graduate; yet I knew that he was John Dunbar, a self-made man, and I approved of his handiwork. I introduced him to Miss Madison. His attitude toward her was that of a religious devotee in the presence of an idol. Hers was that of a woman wearied of life and life's ideals. She did not know him—did not realize that this big, splendid man was a product of her own creation—a failure, inspired by her beautiful face and a few kind words toward effort, struggle, and victory. Dunbar was a success; he had made it so, and nothing could take it from him. But she did not know, and I could not tell her now.
In his talk with me he outlined his plans. "I'll get another ship, soon," he said, "for the owners don't count it against me that a leaky old tub started a butt in a Hatteras gale and went down. Besides, she was well insured. But, meanwhile, I've accepted command of Mr. Lance's yacht. I'll have to study up a little on yacht etiquette, and I'm all right. Say, isn't he a fine fellow?"
I did not contradict him, though I withheld enthusiastic concurrence.
"He'd made three trips in his gig," went on Dunbar, "and handled it finely in that tremendous sea, taking off my men as they jumped overboard. I stayed to the last and he made a separate trip for me, but arrived too late. She took her final plunge before I expected it, and there I was, thirty feet under before I knew it, with long rubber boots on and a long oilskin coat that I couldn't unbutton. But I did get to the surface, full of water and nearly unconscious, when I felt his clutch on my hair. Oh, he's a man—the real thing, and whatever I can do for him while I live, I'll do, and don't you forget it, doctor. I'm that man's friend for life."
I inwardly groaned and changed the subject.
"And what are your intentions with regard to Miss Madison?" I asked.
"To win her love, if I can, and make her my wife," he said, determinedly. "You say she does not remember me—the fellow in jail? Well, don't tell her, doctor. I'll tell her myself when the time comes, but not now. It might hurt me."
I promised, but could not see the future clear of trouble, for Dunbar, for Lance, and for Miss Madison.
Dunbar went back to New York, to assume charge of Lance's yacht, and I spent the next few months in fruitless argument, denunciation, and threat; but I could not move Lance, and I think I drove him to harder drinking. Then there came the time when Ella Madison, the girl I loved as my own child, asked me to accompany her on a trip to sea in Lance's yacht.
"I must disappear for a time," she said, sadly, "and I want you with me. I know I will die if you are not with me, for he is inflexible."
"I'll go, my girl," I said, grimly, "and stand by you. But, God help the scoundrel if things come to the worst."
I thought of Dunbar as I said this, wondering what he would do, when he learned that his goddess was the victim of his savior.
But we packed up—my wife, the poor, weakened, and helpless girl, and myself. We went to New York, boarded the black, shiny schooner at Twenty-sixth Street, and put to sea, Dunbar delighted at the trip with the woman he adored, and Lance drunk and disagreeable. It was an unpleasant experience in his life, rendered necessary by his very slight adherence to the conventions.
The yacht was a fine schooner of about a hundred and twenty feet length, carrying, besides her skipper, a mate and twenty men, with a cook, steward, and cabin-boy. She was well found, in stores and the liquid refreshments dear to the soul of Lance, and well able to keep the sea until this unfortunate happening was over.
I have not said anything so far of my wife, and she has small part in this story. Let it suffice that she was with me heart and soul in my interest for and love for Ella Madison, and our only desire was to help her as we could, I as a medical man, she as a woman full of human sympathy. The event came at the beginning of a gale off Cape Hatteras, when Lance was half drunk, and Dunbar excited and interested in the work of snugging down. He was on deck, and I heard his roaring orders to his men while I, with my wife, attended the poor girl below in her stateroom.
I had seen in Dunbar's eyes the suspicion that he entertained, but had not yet brought myself to the point of informing him. Yet it came unexpectedly, when, clad in oilskins, he caught me at the companionway, and said:
"What's the matter? Is anything wrong with Miss Madison?"
"Dunbar," I answered, "she will be delivered of a child in less than an hour; and its father is George Lance, who saved your life. Be careful what you do or what you say."
The man reeled as though I had struck him, then went forward, and I heard his voice, directing his mate and men. I hoped that his strength of soul would stand by him.
I went below, meeting Lance in the forward cabin. He was half-intoxicated, and I had small interest in his conversation, but he said something that I remembered.
"No need, Doctor, to preserve any evidence of this. I'll see to that all right. Just leave it to me, and she can go on and live her life, and I'll go on and live my life, just the same. It's all a matter of common sense. Understand."
I did not understand—until later, when, having left Ella Madison with a small, crying creature in her arms, I went to my berth utterly exhausted, and was aroused by my wife, who said: "The baby is missing. Where can it be?"
I turned out and peeped into Ella's stateroom. She was sleeping peacefully, but there was no sign of the babe.
"I only left her a few minutes ago," said my wife, "and the little one was beside her. It had stopped crying."
"Go to your room, dear," I said, "and leave this to me."
She obeyed me and I went on deck. The yacht was hove to, under a close-reefed mainsail, a double-reefed foresail, and the jib, with the bonnet off. Forward, the watch on deck walked back and forth in twos and threes, clad in snug oilskins and unmindful of the bombardment of spume and spindrift. The mate was amidships, looking aloft and to windward, and aft near the wheel was Dunbar, staring moodily into the storm. I waited until he stepped forward to speak to the mate, then approached the man at the wheel.
"Has Mr. Lance been on deck?" I said, nonchalantly.
"Yes, sir. He came up a short time back."
"Throw anything overboard?"
"Yes, sir. He had a bundle, and dropped it over the lee quarter."
"That's all right. Keep your mouth shut until I talk with you."
I went below, shocked and horrified beyond my powers of self-analysis. Lance had murdered the child born to the woman he had won and despised. And here on the scene was Dunbar, who had worshiped this woman as an abstract ideal, whose life had been saved by this murderer, and who was under such heavy obligations of gratitude that his course of conduct was problematical. I could not foresee the solution. I did not know what Dunbar would do.
I sought my wife and told her. She could not advise me nor help me. I hunted for Lance, and found him, locked in his stateroom.
"Let me in," I said. "I want to talk with you."
He opened the door, and I entered. He was ghastly pale, wild-eyed—drunk.
"Have a drink, Doc," he stuttered. "Of course, you know that I've queered the case—that things are all right, now, and that when we get back she can live her life and I can live mine."
"You will live your life," I said, "as a convict, sentenced to life imprisonment, unless a more merciful decree of the court shall send you to the electric chair."
"Oh, have a drink. It's all right. The evidence is out of the way. Now, I'm willing to cut her out—to have nothing more to do with her, and she can do what she likes, get married, or remain an old maid. I'm through. I've made good. Her reputation hasn't suffered, because nobody knows, except you, and I, and your wife. Well, what's the use of talking? Just keep still, and we'll go back to New York. She can go home, and the whole thing will end."
"Don't flatter yourself," I answered grimly. "There is a man on deck that you will have to deal with—a man who has loved this girl for years, who knows your position, and who will know of the crime you have committed. You are a murderer, and you will have to deal with John Dunbar."
"What have I got to do with him? He's my skipper, to do as I tell him."
"I'll see about that."
I left him and sought Dunbar, who stood on the weather quarter, alone. The same man was at the wheel, and I raised my hand warningly as I caught his eye. He nodded, as though he comprehended.
"Dunbar," I said, as I reached his side, "has the captain of a ship, or yacht, the power to put the owner of the craft in irons?"
"Yes," he answered, slowly, the words seeming to struggle through his set teeth, "if the owner violates the law in any way, or threatens by his acts the destruction of property or life."
"Then put George Lance in irons for the murder of his own child."
He started, and looked intently into my face.
"He threw the child overboard within half an hour of its birth."
"Then, Doctor," he answered, slowly, "it seems that he does not mean to marry her."
"Most certainly not. I gave up that hope long ago."
"He will cast her adrift to live this thing down as she can, I suppose."
"Yes, as he says, to live her life as she likes while he lives his."
"I will not iron him, doctor; for that would mean arrest, a trial, and publicity. Where is he now?"
"In his room, drunk and defiant."
Dunbar threw off his long oilskin coat, doffed his sou'wester, and descended the cabin stairs; I followed, and my wife, standing in the open doorway of Ella's room, beckoned to me.
"I have just told her," she whispered, "but she seems too dazed to realize it."
Dunbar, who had halted in the middle of the cabin, approached.
"May I speak to her?" he asked, quietly. We assented, and he stepped into the stateroom. The poor girl, white and wasted, looked at him as I have seen a kitten look at a huge dog, but she made no protest.
"Miss Madison," said Dunbar, gently, "do you remember the boy in the jail about ten years ago, to whom you were kind when others—excepting the doctor here—were not? Do you remember John Dunbar, who served a four-year sentence?"
She nodded, slowly and weakly, with the light of recognition stealing over her face.
"I am that boy, Miss Madison. Your kindness made a man of me. I studied and worked and saved, looking forward to the time when I might reach your level and ask you to be my wife. In all these years of absence I have not spent ten seconds of my waking life without thinking of you, your face and figure, trying to recall your voice, your gestures, and expression. I want that you should know this—that you should know how I loved you and what that love has done for me, so that you will not think that your life is a complete failure, even though your present trouble ends things for me. I am going to die. Good-by."
He leaned over, put his arms around her neck and gently lifted her; then he pressed his lips to hers, long and passionately, and, laying her down, brushed past us at the door.
"Where is he?" he asked, grimly.
"In his room," I answered. "But, Dunbar, what are you thinking of? You're not thinking of dying, are you?"
"That, and other things."
He opened the door of Lance's room.
"Mr. Lance," he said. "Come out of that."
"What do you mean by this intrusion, Captain Dunbar? This is the after cabin, and my private room, where you have no business to be. You are my sailing-master. Go on deck where you belong." Lance's voice was thick, and he spoke brokenly. But this ended it; Dunbar's face, voice, and manner sobered him.
"Come out of that room!" thundered Dunbar, "or I'll drag you out by the hair. COME!" The last word was like a trumpet-blast, and Lance followed him out into the cabin.
"Mr. Lance," said Dunbar, his face as white as a sailor's may become, and his voice low, tense, and thoroughly under command, "you saved my life, and by so doing debarred me from any action antagonistic to you while I retained that life. But you have forfeited yours. You could go back to New York, stand trial for the murder of a helpless infant, and die in the chair—which death would not atone for the suffering you would inflict upon this girl that I loved, and upon me. For she would be flouted by the world. And so, to save her from this flouting, and because you have got to die, I appoint myself your executioner, out here at sea where there are no reporters to give the facts to the world. But in killing you I give you back the life that you gave me; for that life is nothing to me compared with the happiness of Ella Madison. Come! Come on deck, and go overboard with me."
"What—what?" stuttered Lance, his eyes wide open in terror. "What are you thinking of? If you love this girl, marry her. I will stand the expense and start you in life. You can command this yacht at double your present pay, or I will secure you an interest in and the command of a ship. This seems a pleasant solution of this very unpleasant business. Come, now, what do you say?"
"Damn you!" roared Dunbar, and his fist shot out. Lance was fairly hurled by the impact on his jaw against the bulkhead, where he fell to the floor. Before he was well on his feet Dunbar had him by the throat.
"On deck with you," he said, as Lance struggled in his grasp. "Come, and we'll follow the baby."
"Dunbar," I shouted. "Stop this. Are you going to be a murderer, too? Leave this to the law. The law is adequate."
"The law will publish her shame to the world," he replied, as calmly as a man may speak while struggling with one under mortal fear of death. For Lance had roused himself to the necessity of action. He was, a tall, strong man, nearly the match for Dunbar. They fought and struggled round that cabin floor, while my wife screamed and finally fainted. But I could give her no attention; I was trying, though a man getting on to old age, to separate these two men, one bent upon death, the other fighting for life. Through the open stateroom door Ella must have heard it all.
Even as I tried, with my small strength, and the words at my command, to stop this suicide and murder, there came to me the memory of the similarity of happenings to these two men—that they were born in the same spot and at the same moment, that the dates of their departures coincided, and that they had both been strongly influenced by the same woman, one to be uplifted, the other to be dragged down. Was it to happen that both should die at the same time? I felt, rather than believed, that the laws of astrology were as nothing when opposed to the human will, and I resolved to stop that struggle. I rushed on deck, and called the mate. He came, the inquiry in his face apprising me that he had heard the sounds from below, and was wondering.
"Call all hands," I commanded. "The captain is half insane and is bent upon jumping overboard with the owner. Separate them."
"Not much," he said. "I've nothing to do with their troubles, but I've got my living to make. Both have power to fire me, and no matter who wins, I'd get it in the neck."
"Men, come aft here," I shouted to the sailors. The men forward came toward me, but were stopped by the mate.
"Go back," he said. "This is none of your funeral nor mine. Let the owner settle his own affairs."
They obeyed him, and drew away. Of course, they did not know. I ran aft to the companion. Dunbar and Lance were just at the upper step. Dunbar was speaking, quietly, softly, yet intensely upon the matter in hand—the absolute necessity of their both dying. He had one hand on Lance's throat, the other upon his hair, and he was dragging him bodily out of the companion.
"Dunbar!" I shouted, "stop this. You are insane. Put him in irons and take time to think. Then you will not want to do this. Think, Dunbar."
He did not answer. His grim, determined face did not change nor soften. He was the master of the other and was using his power. Slowly, while Lance struggled and shrieked for help, he dragged him over toward the rail.
"Drop your wheel," I said to the helmsman, "and help me to stop this murder and suicide."
"Can't leave the wheel, sir," the man answered. "Get some of the other fellows."
The other fellows were under control of the mate, careful of his job. I was in despair, and in my despair I threw myself upon Dunbar, demanding that he desist. He struck me down with a blow, and while I was in a half-comatose condition, I saw a white-clad figure emerge from the companion, and approach the contestants. It was Ella, in her night robe, pale and weak, but determined.
"John," she said, as she laid her hand on the shoulder of Dunbar, "John Dunbar. Stop. If you do this I will die, too. Do you want to kill me? Stop, or youwillkill me. Stop, John Dunbar, and think of me, the woman you say you loved."
Dunbar released his hold on Lance, and while the terror-stricken scoundrel rushed to the companion, he turned toward the girl, his face twisting with the conflicting emotions of his brain. I staggered to my feet, reached her side and supported her.
"John Dunbar," she continued, "you are too big, and strong, and brave, to do this thing—to kill yourself so that you may kill another. Live, so that I may live, too. God will care for him."
Dunbar shook like a man with the ague, and it was some time before he could control his voice in answer.
"Icanlive," he stammered, "for you. But, is it possible? You love him."
"I do not. He killed my child—his child."
Dunbar stiffened up and looked around.
"Mr. Wright," he called to the first mate. "Put the owner in irons and lock him in his room."
"Aye, aye, sir," answered the officer.
And so, with the help of four husky, able seamen, Mr. George Lance, owner of the yachtSylph, was ironed and confined by order of his sailing-master, charged with the crime of murder.
We returned to New York. Ella, collapsing in my arms after her declaration to Dunbar, was put to bed by my wife, and slowly recovered her strength. Dunbar, somewhat changed by what she had said, grew tranquil, but non-committal. My wife recovered her equanimity, and expressed hope for the future, in which hope I joined her; but Lance, with his wrists linked by handcuffs, and his soul tortured by deadly fear, reviled us all whenever his opened stateroom door gave him opportunity.
There is little more to this story. We anchored, handed Lance over to the harbor police, and went home to await the trial. Dunbar, whose testimony was not needed, secured command of a ship and went to sea. Ella remained in seclusion and was not dragged into the trial when it came off; for Lance, on the evidence furnished by the man at the wheel, my wife and myself, was easily convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment. But there were the usual appeals and retrials, and, pending the final disposal of the case, and with regard to Ella's future, I moved my goods and chattels to a far-away city, there to build up a new practice in a community that knew nothing of the trial.
But John Dunbar followed us, and, considering the preliminary reference to astrology that appeared in this story, it is but fitting to close with the statement that on the day Dunbar married Ella Madison, Lance entered the penitentiary, there to remain for the rest of his life.
Captain Bill Flanders walked down East Twenty-third Street toward the Yacht Club dock, tired, mentally and physically. Back and forth from the big steam yacht which he commanded, to ship chandler, boss carpenter, boss painter and boss rigger, he had traveled, night and day, for four weeks; but at last the work was done, and the yacht, shining like a piece of cabinet work, waited at anchor off the landing for the owner and his daughter, who, with other guests, were to make the Mediterranean cruise.
Bill had not slept for the last two nights, nor bathed nor shaved for the last four. He was irritable, cranky, and when he came upon a crowd of half-grown hoodlums egging a mongrel dog on to a small black kitten in the clutches of one, Bill gave way. He spared the dog, for the dog was palpably not in sympathy with the project, but he mercilessly punished the rest. First, he grabbed the kitten, and stowed the wee creature in his pocket, then he went for the gang, and, with fists and boots, so afflicted them that they fled, howling and swearing, from his vicinity. He sped them with stronger profanity, and when the last rowdy had disappeared around the corners or into saloons, Bill went his way with the kitten purring gratefully under his big but soft hand.
Bill felt better for the experience. Bill was a bachelor, whose life's experiences had been sadly devoid of sentiment. He was, or had been, a "bilge midshipman," as they say in the navy—that is, a student at Annapolis who had failed to pass the final examination, and had then gone to sea as he could, simply for the love of the sea. He had put in one voyage before the mast in a Yankee ship, and learned self-control; had sailed in English ships, and learned to eat anything edible not named in the Board of Trade allowance; had tried Norwegian, German, Italian, Scotch, and Russian craft, and learned the fundamentals of the Brotherhood of Man; and then, waking up, he had taken to American yachts, and soon risen to command. He was a blond giant, smooth-shaven and gentle of speech, except when aroused; then his face grew dark, and his voice took on the accents of a fireman's trumpet.
It was late in the evening; he hailed the anchor watch, and the dingey put off and took him aboard. He saw that all was well, and turned in, first feeding the kitten and stowing it in his berth. In the morning the little black mite was still with him, and he fed it again, then shut it in his room while he attended to business. And it may be mentioned here that, as the days went on, the kitten grew plump and playful and lovable, while Big Bill Flanders' big heart grew bigger as it infolded the pet.
But the business of that morning was the cleaning up of the yacht, and the taking aboard of the owner and guests. They came, at ten o'clock, and Captain Bill and the steward received them at the gangway. The owner was the conventional wealthy man, dignified and severe, who spoke sternly to his sailing-master, politely to his guests, and smiled only upon his daughter, a person who invited and demanded smiles. The abashed steward smiled, as he took her bundle of shawls from her; Big Bill smiled, as he sent forward a thundering order for men to lift the baggage out of the boat; and the cabin-boy smiled, as he opened the companion door for her. She was about twenty-one, with dark hair and eyes, and of medium height and build, beautiful, as men value beauty, but with the additional charm of presence that we cannot name except as personality. The friends of such people smile with them, laugh with them, frown with them, and suffer with them, and each thinks it emotion of his own. She had smiled upon Bill, and he went forward, smiling himself, and happier than he had been for years—for all the years since he had hoped for his commission, and failed to pass the test. He spared a few moments to the kitten, fondling, stroking, and caressing it, then tucking it snugly beneath his blanket against the time when he would come again.
In bringing this kitten aboard, Bill was guilty of disobedience; the owner had told him explicitly that the big yacht was to be kept clear of cats. But as the owner had given no reason for this embargo, he had considered it merely the whim of the moment, expressed by an irritable old man, and forgot it quickly.
Bill conned the big steam yacht down the river, through the Narrows, and out to sea by the Ambrose Channel; then, just a little tired, and able to enjoy a smoke, he was about to call the mate to the bridge, when Miss Mayhew appeared. She climbed the steps, rigged out in a hooded mackintosh—for there was a Scotch mist in the air—and with her was one of the guests—a tall, well-built, intellectual-looking fellow named Pearson, a lawyer, as Bill knew by the steward's gossip, and a devoted attendant on Miss Mayhew.
"You are the captain, aren't you?" ventured the girl. "Do you know, Captain Flanders, that I've never met a real captain in my life, until now, though I've read of so many? Have you ever led a cavalry charge?"
"What?" gasped Bill. "Why, Miss Mayhew! No, I'm a seafaring man, not a soldier."
"There are several kinds of captain, Miss Mayhew," interposed the lawyer, smiling. "There is the captain of a battleship, we'll say, or of a cruiser, a destroyer, or the captain of a merchant ship, a North River sloop, a mud scow, a tug, or a canal boat; then we have captains in the army, who might lead cavalry charges and we have captains of militia—tin soldiers, some call them—and captains of industry, captains in the Salvation Army, captains of police, and captains of boy soldiers in the parochial and industrial schools."
"And where, and how, do you classify me?" said Bill, his eyes opened wide, and his voice tense and restrained.
"You?" said the lawyer. "Why, under the rules of the New York Yacht Club, you are not a 'captain,' but a 'mister.' You are Mister Flanders, not Captain Flanders."
"I am?" stuttered Bill, in a suppressed fury of rage. "Yes, you're right. Under the rules of the club I am mister, while the owner is captain, but in the minds of my crew I am called captain of this ship, and away from soundings, under the law, Iamcaptain, with power, backed by the law, to put a recalcitrant guest in irons if he gets too fresh. Get off this bridge instantly, or I'll call my men; and if you resist, I'll have you in irons."
"You will?" asked the smiling Pearson. "Well, all right; put me in irons, and I will deprive you of your license."
"You will not!" stormed Bill. "We're off the three-mile limit, and on the high seas. Get off this bridge, or I will confine you for mutinous insubordination. Go, and go quickly, or I'll call the boatswain."
"Gentlemen, Captain Flanders, Mr. Pearson," interposed the girl, anxiety and apprehension in her face. "Please do not quarrel. Why should you?"
She looked appealingly at Bill, and his rage left him. Yet it took a moment or two before he could speak sanely, then he said:
"Of course not. Mr. Pearson, I apologize for my share in this."
"And I apologize for mine," responded the lawyer; "but I think it best, Miss Mayhew, that we go down now. Good afternoon, Mister Flanders."
He smiled sweetly as he spoke, and turned his back; the girl smiled, too, but from a different motive, as Bill could readily perceive. There was trouble in her face—embarrassment, shame, and sympathy—and something else which Bill could not analyze.
"Don't mind," she whispered, then followed her escort down the steps.
Bill called his first mate, gave him the course, and went to his room abaft the pilot house. Here he lit his pipe, and lay down—all standing—in his berth; but not to sleep, only to think of the bright face peeping out of the mackintosh hood, and the troubled smile, and the whispered admonition. He thought, too, of the blackness of lawyers, and dozed off profanely reviling them to be wakened by the purring and caresses of the kitten. Bill petted the small thing, and forgot Mr. Pearson, but remembered the troubled smile and the whispered words.
After that the girl came many times to the bridge, and always without escort of father or admirer. There were plenty of these, and Bill took the measure of all, as he glanced aft occasionally, and saw them dancing attendance upon her. There was a little slim fellow, named Arsdale, whom the steward described as an artist; a big, portly gentleman, named Muggins, who was a famed short-story writer—and Bill, as he looked at him, wondered why he himself could not write short stories and be famous—and a magazine editor on his vacation, a fine fellow, as men go, one who had especially commended himself to Bill by his tact, his appreciation of the big fellow's inborn qualities, and by his deprecation of his own. "I'm only an editor," he had said, "a critic of other men's work. I'd give my job if I could do something original, if I could write something, or do something, or paint something, or kill something. I have tried the last, but never succeeded; the authors I tried to kill got new life from other editors, so—what's the use?" This man's name was Elkins, and Bill liked him, until he saw Miss Mayhew smiling on him; then he classed him in with the rest. A man in love is not reasonable, and this was Big Bill's condition, as he was forced to remind himself when the gossipy steward informed him that, to the best of his understanding, Miss Mayhew was an adopted daughter, and in no way likely to inherit the vast wealth of the father—stocks and bonds, steamship lines, railroads, and such things. As a rich man's daughter, she was out of his reach, and, as an honorable man with a full supply of self-respect, he could not make an advance. But as a ward, a poor dependent, she was on his level, and the big soul of the big boy rejoiced. He loved her, and he would have her. So he told himself, joyously and courageously.
Another man among the guests worried Bill, until he learned that he was the family doctor; he worried him by his assiduous attentions to the girl, even against the presence of his own wife in the party, and it was the owner himself who set the matter right. Doctor Calkins, it transpired, had been a member of the family, practically, since the girl was born. So, with his rivals all placed and classified, Big Boy Bill grew tranquil. But he still kept his eye on Pearson.
And so the big yacht charged across the Atlantic, with Bill on the bridge or in his room with the kitten, the male contingent of the guests attending upon Miss Mayhew, and Miss Mayhew herself seemingly indifferent to their attentions, manifesting a strong desire for Bill's society on the bridge. She came, as often as she could, to talk with him, to scold him for imagined masculine peccadilloes, and to smile upon him. And Bill went under.
He knew, as all men know under such conditions, that the small, sweet girl loved him as the little kitten loved him, just because he was big, and strong, and protective. And while he could not, under the circumstances, manifest his response to the girl, he took it out of the kitten when off duty; he would grab the little thing, bring it up to his lips, kiss it, and fondle it, and hug it—all of which brought response from the cat in the shape of scratch marks on Bill's face; for cats are not psychologists; they know nothing of the workings of the male human mind.
But still the cat was fond of Bill, as manifested by purrings and kittenish advances, and Bill was no less fond of the cat, in spite of the scratches on his face. He gave the small creature the caresses that he would have given the girl that he loved, had he have been allowed to. Yet there came a moment when he was perilously near to being allowed to.
She joined him on the bridge, when his first mate was asleep, the guests aft in deck chairs, and the father and owner below in his room; she had brought her fancywork—mysterious to Bill, for he saw nothing but scissors, needles, and an expanse of white cloth, all of which he knew nothing about.
There was a half gale of wind blowing; the awning was furled, the weather cloths stretched along the bridge railing, and the deck chairs of the guests placed in snug positions under the lee of the houses; there was a lively sea rolling, which prevented any great activity of mind or body in the guests, and no one seemed to care that the owner's daughter came to the bridge. Bill brought her a chair from his room, and incidentally aroused the kitten from sleep; the kitten purred, and, receiving only one pat and stroke, followed her big master to the door of the room. There she stood, looking out on the stormy sea, and, no doubt, jealous of the other kittenish creature in the mackintosh, whom Bill was seating in the chair.