CHAPTER XVI
Ah cum began to worry. Each morning his inquiry was properly answered: the patient was steadily improving, but none could say when he would be strong enough to proceed upon his journey. The tourist season would soon be at ebb, and it would be late in September before the tide returned. So, then, fifty gold was considerable; it would carry Ah Cum across four comparatively idle months. And because of this hanging gold Ah Cum left many doors open to doubt.
Perhaps the doctor, the manager and the girl were in collusion: perhaps they had heard indirectly of the visit paid by Mr. O'Higgins, the American detective, and were waiting against the hour when they could assist the young man in a sudden dash for liberty. Why not? Were not his own sentiments inclined in favour of the patient? But fifty gold was fifty gold.
One morning, as he took his stand on the Hong-Kong packet dock to ambush the possible tourist, he witnessed the arrival of a tubby schooner, dirty gray and blotched as though she had run through fire. Her two sticks were bare and brown, her snugged canvas drab, her brasses dull, her anchor mottled with rust. There was only one clean spot in the picture—the ship's wash (all white) that fluttered on a line stretched between the two masts. The half-nude brown bodies of the crew informed Ah Cum that the schooner had come up from the South Seas. The boiling under her stern, however, told him nothing. He was not a sailor. It would not have interested him in the least to learn that the tub ran on two powers—wind and oil.
Sampans with fish and fruit and vegetables swarmed about, while overhead gulls wheeled and swooped and circled. One of the sampans was hailed, and a rope-ladder was lowered. Shortly a man descended laboriously. He was dressed immaculately in a suit of heavy Shantung silk. His face was half hidden under a freshly pipeclayed sola topee—sun-helmet. He turned and shouted some orders to the Kanaka crew, then nodded to the sampan's coolies, who bore upon the sweeps and headed for the Sha-mien.
Ah Cum turned to his own affairs, blissfully ignorant that this tub was, within forty-eight hours, to cost him fifty gold. What had shifted his casual interest was the visible prospect of a party of three who were coming down the packet gang-plank. The trio exhibited that indecisive air with which Ah Cum was tolerably familiar. They were looking for a guide. Forthwith he presented his card.
The Reverend Henry Dolby had come to see China; for that purpose he had, with his wife and daughter, traversed land and sea to the extent of ten thousand miles. Actually, he had come all this distance simply to fulfil a certain clause in his contract with Fate, to be in Canton on this particular day.
Meantime, as the doctor was splitting his breakfast orange, he heard a commotion in his office, two rooms removed: volleys of pidgin English, one voice in protest, the other dominant. This was followed by heavy footsteps, and in another moment the dining-room door was flung open.
The doctor jumped to his feet. "Mac, you old son-of-a-gun!"
"Got a man's breakfast?" McClintock demanded to know.
"Tom! Hey, Tom!" The Chinese cook thrust his head into the dining room. "Those chops, fried potatoes, and buttered toast."
"Aw light!"
The two old friends held each other off at arms' length for inspection; this proving satisfactory, they began to prod and pummel one another affectionately. No hair to fall awry, no powder to displace, no ruffles to crush; men are lucky. Women never throw themselves into each other's arms; they calculate the distance and the damage perfectly.
They sat down, McClintock reaching for a lump of sugar which he began munching.
"Come up by the packet?"
"No; came up with The Tigress."
"The Tigress!" The doctor laughed. "You'd have hit it off better if you'd called her The Sow. I'll bet you haven't given her a bucket of paint in three years. Oh, I know. You give her a daub here and there where the rust shows. A man as rich as you are ought to have a thousand-ton yacht."
"Good enough for me. She's plenty clean below."
"I'll bet she still smells to heaven with sour coconut. Bring your liveralong?"
"I sometimes wonder if I have any—if it isn't the hole where it was that aches."
"You look pretty fit."
"Oh, a shave and a clean suit will do a lot. It's a pity you wouldn't give me the prescription instead of the medicine, so I could have it filled nearer home."
"I'd never set eyes on you again. You'd be coming up to Hong-Kong, but you'd be cutting out Canton. I'll bet you've been in Hong-Kong these two weeks already, and never a line to me."
"Didn't want any lectures spoiling a good time."
"How long will you be here?"
"To-morrow night. It's sixteen days down, with The Tigress. The South China will be dropping to a dead calm, and I want to use canvas as much as I can. You simply can't get good oil down there, so I must husband the few drams I carry."
"What a life!"
"No worse than yours."
"But I'm a poor man. I'm always shy the price of the ticket home. You're rich. You could return to civilization and have a good time all the rest of your days."
"Two weeks in Hong-Kong," replied McClintock, "is more than enough."
"But, Lord, man!—don't you ever get lonesome?"
"Don't you?"
"I'm too busy."
"So am I. I am carrying back a hundred new books and forty new records for the piano-player. Whenever I feel particularly gregarious, I take the launch and run over to Copeley's and play poker for a couple of days. Lonesomeness isn't my worry. I can't keep a good man beyond three pay-days. They want some fun, and there isn't any. No other white people within twenty miles. I've combed Hong-Kong. They all balk because there aren't any petticoats. I won't have a beachcomber on the island. The job is easy. The big pay strikes them; but when they find there's no place to spend it, good-bye!"
Tom the cook came in with the chops and the potatoes—the doctor's dinner—and McClintock fell to with a gusto which suggested that there was still some liver under his ribs. The doctor smoked his pipe thoughtfully.
"Mac, did you ever run across a missioner by the name of Enschede?"
"Enschede?" McClintock stared at the ceiling. "Sounds as if I had heard it, but I can't place it this minute. Certainly I never met him. Why?"
"I was just wondering. You say you need a man. Just how particular are you? Will he have to bring recommendations?"
"He will not. His face will be all I need. Have you got someone in mind for me?"
"Finish your breakfast and I'll tell you the story." Ten minutes later, the doctor, having marshalled all his facts chronologically, began his tale. He made it brief. "Of course, I haven't the least evidence that the boy has done anything wrong; it's what I'd call a hunch; piecing this and that together."
"Are you friendly toward him?" asked McClintock, passing a fine cigar across the table.
"Yes. The boy doesn't know it, but I dug into his trunk for something to identify him and stumbled upon some manuscripts. Pretty good stuff, some of it. The subject matter was generally worthless, but the handling was well done. You're always complaining that you can't keep anybody more than three months. If my conjectures are right, this boy would stay there indefinitely."
"I don't know," said McClintock.
"But you said you weren't particular. Moreover, he's a Yale
University man, and he'd be good company."
"What's he know about copra and native talk?"
"Nothing, probably; but I'll wager he'll pick it all up fast enough."
"A fugitive."
"But that's the point—I don't know. But supposing he is? Supposing he made but one misstep? Your island would be a haven of security. I know something about men."
"I agree to that. But it strikes me there's a nigger in the woodpile somewhere, as you Yankees say. Why are you so anxious?"
"Oh, if you can't see your way…."
"I'll have a look-see before I make any decision. It's your eagerness that bothers me. You seem to want this chap out of Canton."
The doctor hesitated, puffing his tobacco hastily. "There's a young woman."
"I remember now!" interrupted McClintock. "This Enschede—the missioner. One of his converted Kanakas dropped in one day. He called Enschede the Bellower. Seems Enschede's daughter ran away and left him, and he's combing the islands in search of her. He's a hundred miles sou'-east of me."
"Well, this young lady I was about to describe," said the doctor, "is Enschede's daughter."
McClintock whistled. "Oho!" he said. "So she got away as far as this, eh? But where does she come in?"
The doctor recounted that side of the tale. "And so I want the boy out of the way," he concluded. "She in intensely impressionable and romantic, and probably she is giving the chap qualities he doesn't possess. All the talk in the world would not describe Ruth. You have to see her to understand."
"And what are you going to do with her, supposing I'm fool enough to take this boy with me?"
"Send her to my people, in case she cannot find her aunt."
"I see. Afraid there'll be a love-affair. Well, I'll have a look-see at this young De Maupassant. I know faces. Down in my part of the world it's all a man has to go by. But if he's in bed, how the devil is he going with me, supposing I decide to hire him? The mudhook comes up to-morrow night."
"I can get him aboard all right. A sea voyage under sail will be the making of him."
"Let's toddle over to the Victoria at once. I'll do anything in reason for you, old top; but no pig in a poke. Enschede's daughter. Things happen out this way. That's a queer yarn."
"It's a queer girl."
"With a face as square and flat as a bottle of gin. I know the
Dutch." He sent the doctor a sly glance.
"She's the most beautiful creature you ever set eyes on," said the doctor, warmly. "That's the whole difficulty. I want her to get forward, to set her among people who'll understand what to do with her."
"Ship her back to her father"—sagely.
"No. I tell you, that girl would jump into the sea, rather. Something happened down there, and probably I'll never know what. Every time you mention the father, she turns into marble. No; she'd never go back. Mac, she's the honestest human being I ever saw or heard of; and at the same time she is velvet over steel. And yet, she would be easy prey in her present state of mind to any plausible, attractive scoundrel. That's why I'm so anxious to get her to a haven."
"Come along, then. You've got me interested and curious. If you were ten years younger, you'd have me wondering."
The doctor did not reply to this rather ambiguous statement, but pushed back his chair and signed to McClintock to follow. They found Ruth reading to Spurlock, whose shoulders and head were propped by pillows.
McClintock did not exaggerate his ability to read faces. It was his particular hobby, and the leisure he had to apply to it had given him a remarkable appraising eye. Within ten minutes he had read much more than had greeted his eye. A wave of pity went over him—pity for the patient, the girl, and his friend. The poor old imbecile! Why, this child was a firebrand, a wrecker, if ever he had seen one; and the worst kind because she was unconscious of her gifts.
As for the patient, his decision was immediate. Here was no crooked soul; a little weak perhaps, impulsive beyond common, but fundamentally honest. Given time and the right environment, and he would outgrow these defects. Confidence in himself would strengthen him. If the boy had done anything wrong back there in the States, his would be the brand of conscience to pay him out in full. With a little more meat on him, he would be handsome.
"My friend here," said McClintock, "tells me you are looking for a job."
"Yes."
"Well, I've a job open; but I don't want you to get the wrong idea of it. In the first place, it will be damnably dull. You won't often see white folks. There will be long stretches of idleness, heat, and enervation; and always the odour of drying coconut. A good deal of the food will be in tins. You'll live to hate chicken; and the man in you will rise up and demand strong drink. But nobody drinks on my island unless I offer it, which is seldom. If there is any drinking, I'll do it."
Spurlock smiled at the doctor.
"He'll not trouble you on the liquor side, Mac."
[Illustration: Distinctive Pictures Corporation. The Ragged Edge.
A SCENE FROM THE PHOTOPLAY.]
"So much the better. You will have a bungalow to yourself," continued McClintock, "and your morning meal will be your own affair. But luncheon and dinners you will sit at my table. I'm a stickler about clothes and clean chins. How you dress when you're loafing will be no concern of mine; but fresh twill or Shantung, when you dine with me, collar and tie. If you like books and music, we'll get along."
"Then you are taking me on?" Spurlock's eyes grew soft like those of a dog that, expecting the whip, saw only the kindly hand.
"I am going to give you a try."
"When will you want me?"—with pitiful eagerness. "How shall I get to you?"
"My yacht is in the river. The doctor here says he can get you aboard to-morrow night. But understand me thoroughly: I am offering you this job because my friend wants to help you. I don't know anything about you. I am gambling on his intuition." McClintock preferred to put it thus.
"To-morrow night!" said Spurlock, in a wondering whisper. Out of the beaten track, far from the trails of men! He relaxed.
The doctor reached over and laid his hand upon Spurlock's heart.
"Thumping; but that's only excitement. You'll do."
Then he looked at Ruth. Her face expressed nothing. That was one of the mysterious qualities of this child of the lagoon: she had always at instant service that Oriental mask of impenetrable calm that no Occidental trick could dislodge. He could not tell by the look of her whether she was glad or sorry that presently she would be free.
"I have good news for you. If you do not find your aunt, my people will take you under wing until you can stand on your own."
"That is very kind of you," she acknowledged. The lips of the mask twisted upward into a smile.
The doctor missed the expression of terror and dismay that flitted across Spurlock's face.
Once they were below, McClintock turned upon the doctor. "I can readily see," he said, "why you'll always be as poor as a church mouse."
"What?" said the doctor, whose thoughts were in something of a turmoil. "What's that?"
"The old human cry of something for nothing; but with you it is in reverse. You are always doing something for nothing, and that is why I love you. If I offered you half of my possessions, you'd doubtless wallop me on the jaw. To be with you is the best moral tonic I know. You tonic my liver and you tonic my soul. It is good sometimes to walk with a man who can look God squarely in the face, as you can."
"But wasn't I right? That pair?"
"I'll take the boy; he'll be a novelty. Amiable and good-looking. That's the kind, my friend, that always fall soft. No matter what they do, always someone to bolster them up, to lend them money, and to coddle them."
"But, man, this chap hasn't fallen soft."
"Ay, but he will. And here's the proof. You and the girl have made it soft for him, and I'm going to make it soft for him. But what I do is based upon the fact that he is one of those individuals who are conscience-driven. Conscience drove him to this side of the world, to this bed. It drives him to my island, where I can study him to my heart's content. He believes that he is leaving this conscience behind; and I want to watch his disillusion on this particular point. Oh, don't worry. I shall always be kind to him; I sha'n't bait him. Only, he'll be an interesting specimen for me to observe. But ship that girl east as soon as you can."
"Why?"
McClintock put a hand on the doctor's shoulder. "Because she's a fire-opal, and to the world at large they bring bad luck."
"Rot! Mac, what do you suppose the natives used to call her? The
Dawn Pearl!"
McClintock wagged his Scotch head negatively. He knew what he knew.
* * * * *
Spurlock possessed that extraordinary condition of the mind which is called New England conscience. Buried under various ancestral sixteenths, smothered under modern thought, liberty of action and bewildering variety of flesh-pots, it was still alive to the extent that it needed only his present state to resuscitate it in all its peculiar force. The Protestant Flagellant, who whipped his soul rather than his body, who made self-denial the rack and the boot, who believed that on Sunday it was sacrilegious to smile, blasphemous to laugh! Spurlock had gone back spiritually three hundred years. In the matter of his conscience he was primitive; and for an educated man to become primitive is to become something of a child.
From midnight until morning he was now left alone. He had sufficient strength to wait upon himself. During the previous night he had been restless; and in the lonely dragging hours his thoughts had raced in an endless circle—action without progress. He was reaching wearily for some kind of buffer to his harrying conscience. He thought rationally; that is to say, he thought clearly, as a child thinks clearly. The primitive superstition of his Puritan forbears was his; and before this the buckler of his education disintegrated. The idea of Ruth as a talisman against misfortune—which he now recognized as a sick man's idea—faded as his appreciation of the absurd reasserted itself. But in its stead—toward morning—there appeared another idea which appealed to him as sublime, appealed to the primitive conscience, to his artistic sense of the drama, to the poet and the novelist in him. He was and always would be dramatizing his emotions; perpetually he would be confounding his actual with his imaginary self.
To surrender himself to the law, to face trial and imprisonment, was out of the question. Let the law put its hand on his shoulder—if it could! But at present he was at liberty, and he purposed to remain in that state. His conscience never told him to go back and take his punishment; it tortured him only in regard to the deed itself. He had tossed an honoured name into the mire; he required no prison bars to accentuate this misery.
Something, then, to appease the wrath of God; something to blunt this persistent agony. It was not necessary to appease the wrath of human society; it was necessary only to appease that of God for the broken Commandment. To divide the agony into two spheres so that one would mitigate the other. In fine, to marry Ruth (if she would consent) as a punishment for what he had done! To whip his soul so long as he lived, but to let his body go free! To provide for her, to work and dream for her, to be tender and thoughtful and loyal, to shelter and guard her, to become accountable to God for her future.
It was the sing-song girl idea, magnified many diameters. In this hour its colossal selfishness never occurred to him.
So, then, when McClintock offered the coveted haven, Spurlock became afire to dramatize the idea.
"Ruth!"
She had gone to the door, aimlessly, without purpose. All the sombre visions she had been pressing back, fighting out of her thoughts, swarmed over the barrier and crushed her. She did not want to go to the doctor's people; however kindly that might be, they would be only curious strangers. She would never return to her father; that resolution was final. What she actually wanted was the present state of affairs to continue indefinitely.
That is what terrified her: the consciousness that nothing in her life would be continuous, that she would no sooner form friendships (like the present) than relentless fate would thrust her into a new circle. All the initial confidence in herself was gone; her courage was merely a shell to hide the lack. To have the present lengthen into years! But in a few hours she would be upon her way, far lonelier than she had ever been. As Spurlock called her name, she paused and turned.
"Dawn Pearl!… come here!"
She moved to the side of the bed. "What is it?"
"Can't you see? Together, down there; you and I!… As my wife!
Both of us, never to be lonely again!… Will you marry me, Ruth?"
As many a wiser woman had done, Ruth mistook thrilling eagerness for love. Love and companionship. A fire enveloped her, a fire which was strangely healing, filling her heart with warmth, blotting out the menace of the world. She forgot her vital hatred of the South Seas; she forgot that McClintock's would not differ a jot from the old island she had for ever left behind her; she forgot all the doctor's lessons and warnings.
She would marry him. Because of the thought of love and companionship? No. Because here was the haven for which she had been blindly groping: the positive abolition of all her father's rights in her—the right to drag her back. The annihilation of the Terror which fascinated her and troubled her dreams o' nights.
"You want me, then?" she said.
"Oh, yes!—for always!"
He took her hands and pressed them upon his thrumming heart; and in this attitude they remained for some time.
Something forbade him to draw her toward him and seal the compact with a kiss. Down under the incalculable selfishness of the penitent child there was the man's uneasy recollection of Judas. He could not kiss Ruth.