As he swung jauntily down the road in the direction of his “office,” all the world might have seen that it was a beautiful place for him. He passed children hurrying to school, and shouted envious “hurry-ups” to them. Men and women, going about the morning's business, felt better for the cheery greetings he gave them. Even Manuel Crust, pushing a crude barrow laden with fire-wood, paused to look after the strutting figure, resuming his progress with an annoyed scowl on his brow, for he had been guilty of a pleasant response to Percival's genial “good-morning.” Manuel went his way wondering what the devil had got into both of them.
Olga Obosky was peering from a window as he passed her hut. He waved his hand at her,—and then shook his head. He had passed her three dancing-girls some distance down the road, romping like children in the snow.
Buck Chizler was waiting for him outside the “office.” The little jockey had something on his mind,—something that caused him to grin sheepishly and at the same time look furtively over his shoulder.
“Can I see you for a coupla minutes, A. A.?” he inquired, following the other to the door.
“Certainly, Buck,—as many minutes as you like.”
Buck discovered Randolph Fitts and Michael Malone seated before the fire. He drew back.
“I'd like to see you outside,” he said nervously.
“Well, what is it?” asked Percival, stepping outside and closing the door.
Buck led him around the corner of the hut.
“It ain't so windy here,” he explained. “Awful weather, ain't it?”
“What's troubling you, Buck? Put on your cap, you idiot. You'll take cold.”
“Plumb nervousness,” said Buck. “Same as if I was pulling up to the start with fifty thousand on the nag. I want to ask your advice, A. A. Just a little private matter. Oh, nothing serious. Nothing like that, you know. I just thought maybe you'd—Gosh, I never saw it snow like this up home, did you? Funny, too, when you think how tropical we ought to be. There was a bad blizzard a coupla years ago in Buenos Aires, but—”
“Come to the point, Buck. What's up?”
Buck lowered his voice. “Well, you see it's this way. I'm thinking of getting married. Tomorrow, if possible. Don't laugh! I don't see anything to laugh at in—”
“I beg your pardon, old chap. I couldn't help laughing. It's because I'm happy. Don't mind me. Go ahead. You're thinking of getting married, eh? Well, what's to prevent?”
“Do you approve of it? That's what I want to know.”
“Sure. Of course, I approve of it.”
“I just thought I'd make sure. You see, nobody's ever got married here before, and I didn't know what you'd think of me—er—sort of breaking the ice, don't you see.”
“She's finally said 'yes,' has she? Good girl! Congratulations, old chap,—thousands of 'em'—millions.”
“Well, that takes some of the load off my mind,” said Buck, as they shook hands. “Now, there's one or two things more. First, she says she won't come and live in a hut where five men besides myself are bunking. I don't blame her, do you? Second, she says if we ever get rescued from this island, she won't let me go to the war,—not a step, she swears. I put up a holler right away. I says to her I was on my way to the war before I ever met her, and then she says I ain't got anything on her. She was going over to nurse. But she says if she gets married she's going to claim exemption, or whatever they call it, and she says I got to do the same,—'cause we'll both have dependents then. Then I says the chances are the war's over by this time anyhow, and she says a feller in the Argentine told her on his word of honour it wouldn't be over for five years or more. But that's a minor point. What's rusting me is this: how am I going to get rid of them five guys in my cabin?”
“Have you told them you're going to be married?”
“Oh, hell, they're the ones that told me.”
“It's pretty rough weather to turn men out into the cold, unfeeling world, Buck.”
Buck scratched his ear in deep perplexity. “Well, it's got me guessing.” He slumped into an attitude of profound dejection. “What we'd ought to have done, A. A., was to build a hotel or something like that. If we had a hotel here, there'd be so blamed many weddings you couldn't keep track of 'em. That's the only thing that's holding people back. Why, half the unmarried fellers here are thinking about getting married. They're thinking, and thinking, and thinking, morning, noon and night. And they've got the girls thinking, too,—and most of the widders and old maids besides. I don't see how a smart feller like you, A. A., happened to overlook the possibility of just this kind of thing happening.”
“Good Lord, what have I got to do with it?”
“Why, darn it all, you'd ought to have put up a few huts with 'For Rent' signs on 'em, or else—”
“By George, Buck! I've got it,” cried Percival excitedly. “Have you thought of a wedding journey?”
“A what?”
“Wedding trip,—honeymoon.”
“Well, we might walk up and down the main street here a coupla times,” said Buck sarcastically. “Or take a stroll along the beach or something like that.”
“What's the matter with a nice long sea voyage?”
“Say, I'm not kidding about this thing,” exclaimed Mr. Chizler, bristling. “I'm in dead earnest.”
“Has it occured to you that the Doraine is lying out there in the harbour—Here! Look out! I don't like being hugged by—”
“My gosh, A. A! Oh, my gosh!” barked the ecstatic bridegroom-apparent. “How did you happen to think of such a beautiful, wonderful—”
“How did I happen to think of it?” shouted Percival, just as ecstatically. “Why, darn your eyes, why shouldn't I think of it? Why did old Noah think of the Ark? Why, I ask you?”
“He didn't,” said Buck succinctly. “The feller that wrote the Bible thought of it.”
“What time is it? Oh, Lord, nearly three hours yet before school is out.”
“Say, are you off your base,—lemme smell your breath. You act like—Wait a second! There's something else I want to speak to you about. Is it—is it all right for me to get married? She says I'll have to get your O. K. before she'll move an inch. She says nobody can do anything around here without you say so. So I—”
“You tell her I give my consent gladly, Buck, my boy. Give her a good kiss for me, and say I'll speak to Captain Trigger this afternoon about passage on the Doraine. By George, I—I think I'll go and speak to him about it now.”
“Much obliged, boss. By gosh, you are a brick. There ain't anything you won't do for a friend, is there?”
Percival blushed and stammered. “I—I've got to see him anyhow, Buck,—so don't thank me. By the way, while I'm about it, I suppose I might as well speak to Parson Mackenzie, eh? Or is it to be Father Francisco? And that reminds me, I'll have to see Malone and find out about the legality,—got to have the law on our side, you see, Buck. Something in the form of a license,—United States of America and all that,—and also see about fixing up desirable quarters on board the Doraine. I may have to transfer quite a lot of—er—furniture and so forth from my hut to the ship, and—”
“Gee whiz, A. A., you mustn't go to so blamed much trouble for me,” gasped the delighted Buck.
“Eh? What? Oh, the devil take you! Beat it now. I'm going to be mighty busy this morning.”
“I'll do as much for you, A. A., if you ever get married,” cried Buck, once more wringing the other's hand. Then he was off up the road like a schoolboy.
Shortly before the noon recess, Percival returned from the Doraine. By this time, the news had spread through the camp that there was to be a wedding. Every one he met hailed him with the excited question:
“Say, have you heard the news?”
“What news?”
“There's going to be a wedding.”
“Good Lord!” said Percival to himself. “They must have been peeping through those windows after all.”
Finding that he had ten minutes to spare before school was out, he decided to call upon Mrs. Spofford. That lady received him with icy politeness.
“I have been expecting you,” she said. “Your friend Mr. Shay honoured us with a visit yesterday. My niece is at the school. Will you sit down and wait for her, or—”
“I beg your pardon. What was that you said about Shay?”
“I said he came to see us.”
Percival stared, “He did?”
“Please sit down, Mr. Percival. Do not ask me to tell you anything more about Mr. Shay,” she went on hurriedly, and in some confusion. “I don't believe he would like it,—and as he is a dangerous character, I beg of you not to—”
“If Soapy Shay dared to intrude—”
“I implore you, do not think anything more about it. He was most courteous and polite and all that.”
He remained standing, his gaze fixed upon her face. Somehow, he guessed the nature of Soapy's visit.
“I suppose he came as a tale-bearer.”
“I must decline to discuss the matter, Mr. Percival.”
“Mrs. Spofford,” he began, with all the dignity of a courtier, “I have come to request the hand of your niece in marriage. I have loved her from the very—”
“Oh, God!” groaned the trembling lady. “It has come at last! It has come,—just as I feared. For pity's sake, Mr. Percival, spare her! She is—”
“I beg your pardon,” he broke in, flushing. “I think you misunderstand me. I am asking your consent to marry her. I believe it is still customary among gentlemen to consult the—”
“Permit me to interrupt you, Mr. Percival,” said she, regaining her composure and her austerity. “What you ask is quite impossible. My niece is,—ah,—I may say tentatively engaged. I am sorry for you. Perhaps it would be just as well if you did not wait for her to come in. She will be—”
“Mrs. Spofford, I am obliged to confess to you that I have already spoken to Miss Clinton, and I may add that she is not tentatively engaged. She has promised to be my wife.”
She drew back as if struck. She was silent for many seconds.
“It would appear that my consent is not necessary, Mr. Percival,” she said at last, “Why do you come to me?”
“Because, while you may not suspect it, I was born a gentleman,” said he stiffly.
She received this with a slight nod of the head and no more.
“My niece, no doubt in her excitement, has neglected to ask you one or two very important questions,” she said levelly. “First of all, have you any means of convincing us that you do not already possess a wife?”
He started. “You are right,” he said. “That is an important question, and she has not asked it. I have no means of convincing you that I have never been married, Mrs. Spofford. My word of honour is the only thing I can offer.”
She regarded him narrowly. “Do you consider that sufficient, Mr. Percival?”
“I do,” said he simply. She waited for him to go on, and was distinctly impressed by his failure to do so. So far as he was concerned, there was nothing more to be added.
“How are we to know what your past life contains? You may have left your homeland in disgrace, you may even have been a fugitive from justice. We have no means of knowing. You were a stowaway on board the Doraine. That much, at least, we do know. We know nothing more. You are smart, you are clever. Surely you must see yourself that under other circumstances, under normal conditions, my niece would not have condescended to notice you, Mr. Percival. We are on an undiscovered island, remote from the environment, the society, the—”
“Permit me to remind you, Mrs. Spofford,” he interrupted, a trifle coldly, “that you just remarked that you know nothing whatever about me. Isn't it barely possible that my life may contain something desirable in the shape of family, position and environment?”
“I recall that Mr. Gray did speak of knowing the Percival family. My niece never allows me to forget it.”
“Mr. Gray did not know my family. He knew of my family, Mrs. Spofford, if that conveys anything to you. Not that they would not have been proud to have known him, for he was a gentleman. As for my own case, I can only say that I am not a fugitive from justice, nor have I done anything more disgraceful than the average young man who has been through college and who, ignoring the counsel of his father, proceeds to find out for himself the same things that his father had found out a great many years before,—and his father before him, and so on back to the beginning of man. My great-great-grandfather on my mother's side was a comparatively recent settler in America. He didn't come over from Scotland until about 1750. My father's people came over in the days of Lord Baltimore. Most of my remote ancestors were very wicked men. You will find that one of them was executed in the Tower of London the same week that Lady Jane Grey went to her death, and another was openly in love with Mistress Nell Gwyn, thereby falling into disgrace with a monarch named Charles. I admit that I come of very bad stock.”
A fleeting twinkle lurked in her eyes.
“You are very adroit, Mr. Percival.”
“Which is as much as to say that I have an agreeable and interesting way of lying. Is that what you wish to imply, Mrs. Spofford?”
“Not at all. I say you are adroit because you place me in an embarrassing position. If I believe your confession that you come of bad stock, I must also believe that you come of an exceedingly good old Maryland family.” He bowed very low. “My niece, Mr. Percival, is an orphan. I am and have been her protector since she was fourteen years of age. She is the possessor of a large fortune in her own right. Her father,—who was my brother,—gave her into my care when he was on his death-bed. I leave you to surmise just what were his dying words to me. She was his idol. I have not failed him in any respect. You ask me to give my consent to your marriage. I cannot do so. No doubt you will be married, just as you have planned. She loves you. I have known it for months. I have seen this day and hour coming,—yes, I have seen it even more clearly than she, for while she struggled desperately to deceive herself she has never been able to deceive me. You are a strong, attractive man. The glamour of mystery rests upon you. You have done prodigious deeds here, Mr. Percival. All of this I recognize, and I should be unfair to my own sense of honour were I to deny you my respect and gratitude. I must be fair. Fear has been the cause of my attitude toward you,—not fear of you, sir, but fear for my niece. Now I am confronted by the inevitable. The thing I have tried so hard to avoid has come to pass. In these circumstances, I am forced to confess that I have not been without a real, true admiration for you. I admit that I have felt a great security with you in command of our camp. But, even so, you are not the man I would have chosen to be Ruth's husband. The time is surely coming when we will be delivered from this island prison, when we will return to the life and the people and the conditions we knew before catastrophe made a new world for us. I am thinking of that time, Mr. Percival, and not of the present. I fear my niece is thinking only of the present and not of the future.”
He had listened with grave deference. “Forgive me if I appear impertinent, Mrs. Spofford, but is it not, after all, the past you are thinking about?”
She did not answer at once. His question had startled her.
“Youth does not live in the past,” he went on quietly. “It deals only with the present. I love Ruth Clinton,—I love her with the cleanest love a man can feel for a woman. It will not alter when we leave this island. If we are fated to spend the rest of our lives here, it will endure to the end.”
“You are speaking for yourself,” she said. “Can you speak for Ruth?”
“No, I cannot,” he admitted. “Nor can you,” he added boldly. “That is what I meant when I asked if you were not thinking chiefly of the past. I cannot say that Ruth will love me always, but I can say this: she loves me now, as I love her, and in her heart she has said just what I said to you a moment ago,—that her love will endure.”
“I daresay I do think more of the past than of the present, Mr. Percival. You are right about the future. It is a blank page, to be glorified or soiled by what is set down upon it. Fate has thrown you two together. Perhaps it was so written in the past that you despise. A single turn of the mysterious wheel of fortune brought you into her life. Half a turn,—the matter of minutes,—and you would never have seen each other, and you would have gone your separate ways to the end of time without even knowing that the other existed. No doubt you both contend that you cannot live without each other. It is the usual wail of lovers. But are you quite as certain in your minds that you would have perished if you had never seen each other?”
The note of irony did not escape him. He smiled. “In that case, Mrs. Spofford, we should not have existed at all.”
She shook her head despairingly. “You are too clever for me,” she said. “I warn you, however, that I shall do everything in my power to persuade Ruth to reconsider her promise to you.”
“Nothing could be fairer than that,” said he, without rancor. “If she comes to me this afternoon and says she has changed her mind and cannot marry me, I shall not ask her again. Will you be kind enough, Mrs. Spofford, to include that in your argument? It may spare her a lot of worry and anxiety.”
He bowed ceremoniously and took his departure. She went to the window and, drawing aside the curtain, watched him until he disappeared down the road. Then, as the curtain fell into place, she said to herself:
“Their children will be strong and beautiful.”
A fortnight later, Ruth and Percival were married. He was now governor of Trigger Island.
The ceremony took place at noon on the Green in front of the Government Building,—(an imposing name added to the already extensive list by which the “meeting-house” was known),—and was attended by the whole population of the island. His desire for a simple wedding had been vigorously, almost violently opposed by the people. Led by Randolph Fitts and the eloquent Malone, they demanded the pomp and ceremony of a state wedding. As governor of Trigger Island, they clamoured, it was his duty to be married in the presence of a multitude! A general holiday was declared, a great “barbecue” was arranged—(minus the roasted ox),—and when it was all over, the joyous throng escorted the governor and his lady to the gaily decorated “barge” that was to transport them from the landing to the Doraine.
Olga Obosky made the bride's bonnet and veil, and draped the latter on the morning of the wedding day. Like the fabled merchants of the Arabian Nights she appeared to the bride-elect and displayed her wares. From the depths of her theatre trunks she produced a bewildering assortment of laces, chiffon, silks, and the filmiest of gauzes.
“You must not be afraid zat they will contaminate you,” she explained, noting the look of dismay in Ruth's eyes. “Zey have never adorned my body, zey have never been expose to the speculating eye of the public, zey have not hid from view these charms of mine. No, these are fair and virtuous fabrics. It is you who will be the first to wear them, my friend. Take your choice. See! Zis piece, is it not wonderful? It comes from Buda Pesth. One day it would perhaps have caressed my flesh in the Dance of the Sultan's Dream,—but, alas,—zat is not to be. Feel, my friend,—take it in your hand. See? You could hide it in the palm of one of them,—and presto! Throw it outspread,—and it is like a blanket of mist filling the room. It is priceless. It is unobtainable. None except Obosky can afford to dance in such imperial stuff as this. Take it,—it is yours. It is my pleasure that you should have it. Better far it should be your bridal veil than to drape these abandoned legs of mine.”
And so it was that the scant costume of the Sultan's Dream became the bridal veil of the governor's lady.
If Olga Obosky was sore at heart, she gave no sign. On the contrary, she revealed the sprightliest interest in the coming nuptials. Percival himself had told her the news within the hour after his interview with Mrs. Spofford. In his blind happiness, he had failed to notice the momentary stiffening of her body as if resisting a shock; he did not see the hurt, baffled look that darkened her eyes for a few seconds, and the swiftly passing pallor that stole into her face and vanished almost instantly. He saw only the challenging smile that followed close upon these fleeting signs, and the mocking gleam in her eyes.
“So?” she had said. “So the citadel is yours, my friend. Hail to the chief! I salute you. But consider, O conqueror, what it is you are about to do. You are setting a woeful example. There will be a stampede, a panic. People will trample each other under foot in ze mad rush for captivity. The wedding bell will crack under ze strain of so much ringing. Everybody will be getting married, now zat they find it is so easy and so simple. I congratulate you, my friend. You have been very slow,—I have said she was yours for the asking, you will remember. She is good, she is beautiful, she is pure gold, my friend. I am her friend. Do not ever forget, my Percivail, I am her friend.”
He flushed warmly. He could not misinterpret her meaning. She spoke slowly, deliberately. It was renunciation on her part.
“I understand, Olga,” he said.
She smiled, and shrugged her shoulders.
“Oh, but you do not understand!” she cried. “You are so very much perplexed. It is enough for me that you are perplexed. I am content. I am the puzzle you will never solve. So! La la! You will never cease to wonder. Look!”
She pointed her finger at a man who was crossing the Green below them.
“I am a puzzle to zat man also. He thought that he understood.”
“Landover? What do you mean?”
A spasm of fury transformed her features. She hissed out the words:
“I did spit in his face last night,—zat is all.”
The thirteenth of April, 1918, came on Saturday. Defying superstition, Ruth selected it as her wedding day. It was a bright, warm autumn day, bestowed by a gallant sun, and there was great rejoicing over this evidence of God's approval. It came as a winter's whim, for that night the skies were black and thunderous; the winds roared savagely between the lofty walls of Split Mountain and whined across the decks of the slanting Doraine, snug in the little basin, while out on the boundless deep the turmoil of hell was raging.
And so began the honeymoon of the stowaway and the lady fair, even as the “voyage” of the jockey and his bride had begun a fortnight before. They sat at the Captain's table in the ghostly, dismantled saloon. Above them hung two brightly burnished lanterns, shedding a mellow light upon the festal board. Outside, the whistling wind, the swish of the darkened waters, the rattle of davits and the creak of the straining timbers.
Up from his place at the head of the table rose the gray and gallant skipper.
“Up, gentlemen,” said he, his face aglow. “I give you the health, the happiness and the never diminishing glory of the governor's lady.”
“May she never be less,” added the gaunt First Officer, who spent his days ashore watching the growth of a new Doraine and his nights on board with the failing master of the older one.
And in the rare old port from the Captain's locker they pledged the radiant bride.
“A long voyage and a merry one!” cried Mr. Codge, the purser, as he drained his goblet dry.
Mr. Furman Nicholas Chizler bowed very gravely to the lady on the Captain's right, and then to the one at his left.
“What care we which way we sail so long as the wind's behind us?” quoth he.
In the far-off Northland it is winter again,—the winter of 1919-20. Trigger Island is bright and clean with the furbishings of summer. It is January,—January without its coat of white,—January as green as the tender gourd.
There are a dozen graves or more on Cape Sunrise; Betty Cruise no longer lies alone out on the windswept point. Crudely chiseled on the rough headstones are names that have not been mentioned in this chronicle, still not the less enduring. One name is there, however, chipped in a great black slab from the face of Split Mountain, that will never be forgotten as long as Trigger Island exists: it is that of Captain Weatherby Trigger.
The master of the Doraine died aboard-ship in the second winter. After his death the ship was abandoned. Mr. Codge and the half-dozen old mariners who had made their home in the dismal hulk came ashore.
Grim and ugly and as silent as the grave, save for the winds that moan through her portholes and corridors, she lies rusting in sun and storm, a gloomy presence that fills the soul with awe. Even the birds of the air shun her barren decks; less fastidious bats have taken up their abode in the heart of her, and spiders great and small are at work on a sickly shroud.
Twenty months have passed. Christmas and New Year's day have twice been celebrated and another Easter Sunday has found its way into the faithful journal of Peter Snipe, and with them two amazing Fourths of July when there was coasting on the long slopes and winter sports on the plains. There has been one bountiful harvest and seed has been sown for yet another. The full length of the sunny plain is under cultivation. The bins in the granaries are well-filled with the treasures of the soil; the gardens have increased and flourished; the warehouse is stacked with fresh and dried fruits, vegetables, honey, and row upon row of preserves! Great earthen jars, modeled with all the severity of the primitive cave-dweller, serve as receptacles. The grist-mill on Leap Frog River is busy from dawn till dusk; the forge rings with the music of hammer and anvil; a saw-mill in the heart of Dismal Forest hums its whining tune all day long. A noisy, determined engine, fashioned by mechanics out of material taken from the engine and boiler room of the Doraine provides the motive power for the saws and the means to produce ponderous, far-reaching blasts on the transferred “fog-horn.”
New and more commodious huts have gone up, roads have been blazed through the forests, a logging ferry plies between the opposite shores of Mott Haven, and a ship is on the ways above the landing “stage.”
At the top of Split Mountain stands a lofty wireless tower. For months it has been spitting vain messages to the four winds. Out of the great silences at rare intervals come faint flickers of radio calls, jumbled, indistinct, undecipherable,—but, for all that, definite pulse beats of a far-off life.
Trigger Island went mad with joy when the first of these aerial mutterings was reported down from the mountain-top. “Only a question of time now,” they cried in their delirium. But weeks went by before another sound was heard. Now the report of feeble, long-separated manifestations, like vague spirit-rappings, no longer caused excitement or enthusiasm,—only a rueful shaking of heads.
Lieutenant Platt's station at the top of the mountain is a rude, elementary affair, notwithstanding the many weary, puzzling, disheartening months spent in its construction. The damaged, almost useless dynamo from the Doraine had to be repaired and conveyed to the crest of the eminence; what seemed to be fruitless ages were consumed in devising an engine with power sufficient to produce even the feeble results that followed. And when the task of installing the plant was completed, the effective radius was far short of a hundred miles. Constant efforts were being made to develop greater sending power, but the means at hand were inadequate, the material unobtainable.
The firing of the Doraine's gun had long since been discontinued. The supply of shells being greatly reduced, Lieutenant Platt decided to waste no more of them, but to wait for some visible evidence that a vessel was within signalling distance: a shadowy plume of smoke on the far horizon or the white tip of a sail peeping over the rim of the world.
Frugality is the watchword. The days of plenty are sternly guarded so that their substance may not be squandered; always there is the thought of the lean year that may come, the year when the harvests fail and famine stalks naked through the land.
The first law, therefore, is thrift. Not thrift in its common, accepted sense, based on the self-denial of the individual, but a systematic shoulder-to-shoulder stand for the general welfare of the community. There is no such thing as waste on Trigger Island. The grim spectre of want and privation treads softly behind every mortal there, and there is none who treats its invisible presence with disdain. Even the wood-ashes from stoves and fireplaces are carefully hoarded in hoppers, for the alkaline solution obtained by treating them with water is lye. This lye is being used chiefly in the production of a soap not unlike that made by thrifty farmers' wives in the Argentine, experimentation with the pulpy fruit of a tree belonging to the variety known as Sapindus marginatus bringing about rather astonishing results.
For many months of the year the people wear sandals on their bare feet. Only those who toil in the forests don the uncouth boots turned out by the firm of cobblers known as Block & Nicklestick. Shoes, boots and slippers of another day are zealously guarded by their owners, in anticipation of still another day,—the day of deliverance. “Waste not, want not,” is the motto of Trigger Island.
The second winter brought a double catastrophe, and for days thereafter deepest gloom prevailed. Even the stout-hearted Percival drooped under the weight of it.
Fire wiped out the work of months in the space of a few bleak, bitter hours. The sturdy little ship that was so well along toward completion was destroyed.
Months of faithful, patient, dogged toil had resulted in the construction of a stout hull which stood proudly on the ways to be admired and glorified by the eager, confident supporters of the determined little band of builders. Six weeks more would have seen the vessel off the ways and floating gaily on the surface of the snug little basin, ready for the final touches, the provisioning and the ultimate departure of the hardy company that was to take her out into the open stretches in quest of the helping hand. For weeks a devoted, one-minded community had been preparing food, raiment and comforts for the men who were to go forth in the new Doraine. The masts and spars were in place, the forecastle and cabin were almost ready for occupancy, the galley was nearing completion,—and then came swift, relentless disaster.
The night was cold and windy. Down at the water's edge, almost under the bulging side of the ship, two men had their quarters at one end of the low, rambling carpenter shop. At the other end was located the forge. The very thing they were there to guard against happened on this miserable night. Fire broke out in the forge.
The man on watch had fallen asleep. His name was Smiley. It is mentioned here for the only time in this narrative.
Shortly before midnight, his companion was awakened by the smell of smoke. He scrambled out of his blankets on the floor,—and cursed the man who still slept in his chair beside the smoke-befogged lantern on the end of a carpenter's bench. Flames were creeping along the wooden partition separating the forge from the shop. Half a mile away three hundred men were sleeping,—but half a mile is half a mile. Before the watchmen could sound the alarm, after their first courageous efforts to subdue the blaze, the building was a roaring mass of flames and a gleeful wind had carried tongues of fire to the side of the vessel where they licked shapeless black patterns at first and then swiftly turned them to red.
Stark-eyed, shivering people stood far back among the trees throughout the rest of the night and watched the work of months go up in flame and smoke. Nothing could be done to save the ship. Hewn from the hardiest trees in the forest, caulked and fortified to defy the most violent assaults of water, she was like paper in the clutch of flames. In the grey of early morn the stricken people slunk back to their cabins and gave up hope. For not only was their ship destroyed but the priceless tools and implements with which she had been built were gone as well. It was the double catastrophe that took the life, the spirit, out of them.
And while the day was still breaking, the man who had slept at his post, stole off into the forest and cut his throat from ear to ear.
But now, months afterward, another ship is on the ways. Indomitable, undaunted, the builders rose above disaster and set to work again. New tools were fashioned from steel and iron and wood,—saws, chisels, sledges, planes and hammers—in fact, everything except the baffling augurs. Resolute, unbeaten hands toiled anew, and this time the humble craft was not to be given a luckless name.
Superstition was rife. All save Andrew Mott saw ill-omen in the name “Doraine.” Steadfastly he maintained that as the Doraine had brought them safely to the island, guided by a divine Providence, a Doraine could be trusted to take them as miraculously away. And as for changing the name of his prattling ward, he fairly roared his objection; though an uncommonly mild man for a sailor, he uttered such blasphemous things to a group of well-meaning women that even Sheriff Soapy Shay was aghast.
After the dreary period that followed the disaster, there came a sharp awakening as from a dream filled with horrors. Something lying dormant in the com-mon breast had stirred. It was the unbeaten spirit that would not die. These men and women lifted up their heads and beheld the star of hope undimmed. In a flash, the aspect changed.
“We must start all over again,” was the cry that awoke them, and from that time on there was no such word as fail in the lexicon of Trigger Island.
Slowly, laboriously out of the ashes rose a new hull, a stauncher one than its ill-fated predecessor. The year wasted in the building of the first ship was lamented but not mourned. Cheerfulness, even optimism, prevailed throughout the village. No man, no woman lifted the voice of complaint. Resignation took the form of stoicism. A sort of dogged taciturnity was measurably relieved by the never-failing spirit of camaraderie. There was even a touch of bravado in the attitude of these people toward each other,—as of courage kept up by scoffing. Even Death, on his sombre visits, was regarded with a strange derision by those who continued to spin. They had cheated him not once but many times, and they mocked him in their souls.
“I'm not afraid of Death,” was Buck Chizler's contribution. “I've just discovered that Death is the rottenest coward in the world. He either waits till you get too blamed old to fight, or else he jumps on you when you ain't looking, or when you're so weak from sickness you don't care what happens. I used to be afraid of Death. And why? Because I wasn't onto the old bum; Why, look at what he does. He jumps onto weeny little babies and feeble old women and—and horses. Now, I'm onto him, and I ain't got any use for a cheap sport,—not me.”
The little community had taken to religion. As is invariably the case, adversity seeks surcease in some form of piety. Men who had not entered a church since the days of their childhood, men who had scoffed at the sentimentality of religion, now found consolation in the thing they had once despised. They were abashed and bewildered at first, as one after another they fell into the habit of attending services. They were surprised to find something that they needed, something that made life simpler and gentler for them, something uplifting.
“We're a queer mess of Puritans,” reflected Randolph Fitts. “You know that parrot of old Bob Carr's? Well, he took it out and wrung its neck last night,—after all the time, and trouble, and patience he spent in giving her a swell private education. There never was a bird that could swear so copiously as that bird of Bob's. He taught her every thing she knew. He worked day and night to provide her with an up-to-date vocabulary. He used to lie awake nights thinking up new words for old Polly to conquer. Now he says the blamed old rip was deceiving him all the time. She began springing expletives on him that he'd never heard of before in all his forty years before the mast. She first began using them a couple of months ago when he undertook to reform her. He started in to teach her to say 'good gracious' and 'goodness me' and 'hoity-toity' and all such stuff, and she cursed so loud and so long that he had to throw a bucket of water on her.
“Every time he came home from church, that redheaded harridan would open up on him with such a string of vituperation that he had to hold his ears so's not to forget himself and backslide. Well, it got so that Bob couldn't live with her any longer. She simply wouldn't puritanize. The nearest he ever got her to saying 'good' was when she said it with only one 'o,' and then as prefix to 'dammit.' So he decided the only way to reform her was to murder her. She managed to nip a piece out of his hand while he was doing it, however, and he's had the hump all day because he fell from grace and said something he'd oughtn't to. Yes, sir; we're a queer mess of Puritans. Look at us. Catholics, Presbyterians, Baptists, Methodists, Jews, infidels, Theosophists,—even Christian Scientists,—all rolled up into one big bundle labeled: 'Handle with Prayer.' We know nearly all the Ten Commandments by heart, and the Beatitudes flow from us in torrents. My wife was saying only the other night that if Sheriff Shay didn't arrest that bird for using profane language, she'd start a petition to have—Hello, Soapy! I didn't know you were present.”
“What was she going to do?” demanded the Sheriff of Trigger Island.
“There's no use telling you now. It's too late. Polly has gone to a place I don't dare mention, so what's the use talking about it?”
“I can't go 'round pinchin' fallen parrots,” growled Soapy. “Besides, I'm the feller that learned her most of the cuss-words old Bob never heard before. I never saw a bird that was so anxious to improve. She used to set there with her ear cocked, just simply crazy to learn something new. Every time she'd see me coming she'd begin to hop up and down on her perch and call me names, figurin' I'd lose my temper and give her a tongue lashin'. Gosh, I'm glad she's dead. It was gettin' to be an awful nuisance chasing parrots out of the trees back of Bob's house. They got so's they'd come down there and set around all day pickin' up things she said. Somebody told me the other day he heard a parrot 'way up in the woods swearin' like a sailor. He fired a club at it, and what do you think it said to him?”
“If you weren't such an ungodly liar, Soapy, I'd ask you,” said Chief Justice Malone.
Soapy regarded him sorrowfully.
“If you keep on sayin' things like that, Judge, I'll have to tell your wife you ain't true to her,” said he.
“And that would be the most prodigious lie you ever told,” exclaimed Mr. Malone.
“Sure. You and me know it's a lie, but you'd ketch hell, just the same.”