XVI
Chanler came up briskly before we had time to speak further. His dullness had given place to animation. It was apparent that he had wasted no time while in his stateroom.
“Let’s go aft, Betty,” he said. “There’s an awning up there, and deck-chairs, and no wind. Come on.”
I watched them as they went, he, nervous, with unsteady eyes, she, calm, buoyant, strong. He leaned toward her and talked excitedly, and I saw that she drew a little away from him.
They did not sit down. I saw Chanler urging her, and she shook her head and continued to walk to and fro, Chanler following. He was talking and gesticulating excitedly. She looked at him long and steadily once, then looked away.
As I turned I found myself face to face with Captain Brack. He had come down noiselessly from the bridge and was studying me with that old superior smile on his lips.
“Ah, you idealist, Mr. Pitt!” he said softly.
“Idealist, Captain Brack? Why do you say that?”
“It is in your eyes. It is in the position of your chin; it is all over you. You are uplifted and exalted for the moment. You feel that you really are something; you feel strong, is that not so?”
“Perhaps.”
“No, not perhaps, but positively. You feel at this moment that you are a big, strong man; in reality you are—Mr. Gardner Pitt.” He chuckled carelessly at the flush that came to my cheek. “I have been watching you for some seconds, Mr. Pitt; I have seen you swell and think you were growing. In your calm reason—for you can reason somewhat, Mr. Pitt—you know that you are not growing; but for the moment you have allowed your emotions to hypnotize you. You are a victim of your own emotions. For instance—” he waved his thick hand toward the aft where Chanler and Miss Baldwin now were promenading together—“you fancy that in Mr. Chanler’s partner you have been looking at something wonderful and fine. Is that not so?”
“That is so, captain.”
“Something above the common, raw, crawling stuff of life?”
“Decidedly so.”
“Something which it is not the sphere of reason to grasp, but which the emotions alone can appreciate?”
“Go on.”
He laughed unctuously.
“Then I have diagnosed your delusion accurately.”
“Are you sure it is a delusion, captain?”
“Yes. Self-hypnosis. What you see is not there.”
Betty turned at this moment so that her face was toward us.
“What do you see back there, Brack?” I asked.
He looked at her steadily; his head was lowered a little, and again there was in his eyes the look comparable to Garvin’s when he saw the raw gold.
“I see,” said he slowly, without taking his eyes off Betty, “just what there is there; a very fine, healthy young specimen of the female of the species.”
His words were like a dull knife on my nerves, but I controlled myself.
“Nothing more?” I asked casually.
“No. For there is no more.”
I laughed, and I was conscious of a sensation of relief. The man had his limitations then, even though one glance from his eyes had left so strong an impression on Miss Baldwin.
“I feel sorry for you then,” said I. “You are to be pitied for your lack of imagination.”
He did not take his eyes off Betty.
“No,” he said, “for that is enough to see. It is more than enough. A fine young woman. Only once or twice in my life have I seen finer. Too fine to be wasted on a silly ineffectual. Yes, too fine to be won except by a man.”
He swung around on me and said with a wink:
“I have a feeling, Mr. Pitt, that an interesting voyage lies before us. And—and a short time ago I didn’t think anything could interest me much except gold—which means power.”
“Do you feel that we are going to find gold at this alleged gold-field in the alleged hidden country to which we are going?”
“Naturally. Else we would not be found there now.”
“Have you any positive reason for believing gold is to be found there? Not that story of the alleged miner,” I hastened on. “You don’t expect any reasoning being to accept that story as a reason. Have you any real reason for thinking there is gold at this so-called Kalmut Fiord?”
His eyebrows raised a trifle and he smiled as one might at a child who displays unexpected shrewdness.
“You do not have much confidence in the miner’s story, Mr. Pitt?” he asked.
“The maundering of a delirious man,” I retorted. “Surely you would not change the purpose of this expedition on such slender information as that.”
He ceased smiling for a moment.
“I know that there is gold at Kalmut Fiord,” he said. “Does that ease you?”
“If I knew how you know there is gold there, I would be more satisfied. And even granting that you know there is gold there—Captain Brack, you will pardon me—but it scarcely seems in keeping with your character to cheerfully sail a ship-load of people to this gold-field, where they will have an equal chance with you to enrich themselves.”
“No?” he said, and his smile was back in its place. “You have sounded my character then, have you, Mr. Pitt?”
“My dear captain! I am sure you hardly expect to impress even a casual observer as a man who would freely invite a crowd to share a gold find with him.”
He laughed, nodding at me approvingly.
“That isn’t bad, Pitt. The sea air sharpens wits. But have you ever been in the North, away from police officers and courts?”
“Never.”
“Have you ever been in a spot where laws do not reach?”
“No.”
“Well, it is such a place that you are going to now, Pitt. You will find yourself in a new world, in this hidden country, a world as it was in the beginning, with the laws of nature the only ones necessary to consider. In such places gold naturally is attracted to the strongest man, no matter who digs it out of the ground. Gold, do I say? Ha! All things to the strong in this place, Pitt. Nature’s law; all things to the strong, and especially—” he looked again toward the after deck— “women.”