“Cross—no. Good-night. God bless you!” he said, hoarsely gulping down a lump that rose in his throat. Then grasping her hand he hurried away.
Completely mystified, Shirley and her companion turned to the office to get the key of their room. As the man handed it to Shirley he passed her also a cablegram which had just come. She changed colour. She did not like telegrams. She always had a dread of them, for with her sudden news was usually bad news. Could this, she thought, explain Jefferson's strange behaviour? Trembling, she tore open the envelope and read:
Come home at once,
Mother.
CHAPTER V
Rolling, tumbling, splashing, foaming water as far as the eye could reach in every direction. A desolate waste, full of life, movement and colour, extending to the bleak horizon and like a vast ploughed field cut up into long and high liquid ridges, all scurrying in one direction in serried ranks and with incredible speed as if pursued by a fearful and unseen enemy. Serenely yet boisterously, gracefully yet resistlessly, the endless waves passed on—some small, others monstrous, with fleecy white combs rushing down their green sides like toy Niagaras and with a seething, boiling sound as when flame touches water. They went by in a stately, never ending procession, going nowhere, coming from nowhere, but full of dignity and importance, their breasts heaving with suppressed rage because there was nothing in their path that they might destroy. The dancing, leaping water reflected every shade and tint—now a rich green, then a deep blue and again a dirty gray as the sun hid for a moment behind a cloud, and as a gust of wind caught the top of the combers decapitating them at one mad rush, the spray was dashed high in the air, flashing out all the prismatic colours. Here and yonder, the white caps rose, disappeared and came again, and the waves grew and then diminished in size. Then others rose, towering, became larger, majestic, terrible; the milk-like comb rose proudly, soared a brief moment, then fell ignominiously, and the wave diminished passed on humiliated. Over head, a few scattered cirrus clouds flitted lazily across the blue dome of heaven, while a dozen Mother Carey chickens screamed hoarsely as they circled in the air. The strong and steady western breeze bore on its powerful pinions the sweet and eternal music of the wind and sea.
Shirley stood at the rail under the bridge of the ocean greyhound that was carrying her back to America with all the speed of which her mighty engines were capable. All day and all night, half naked stokers, so grimed with oil and coal dust as to lose the slightest semblance to human beings, feverishly shovelled coal, throwing it rapidly and evenly over roaring furnaces kept at a fierce white heat. The vast boilers, shaken by the titanic forces generating in their cavern-like depths, sent streams of scalding, hissing steam through a thousand valves, cylinders and pistons, turning wheels and cranks as it distributed the tremendous power which was driving the steel monster through the seas at the prodigious speed of four hundred miles in the twenty-four hours. Like a pulsating heart in some living thing, the mammoth engines throbbed and panted, and the great vessel groaned and creaked as she rose and fell to the heavy swell, and again lurched forward in obedience to each fresh propulsion from her fast spinning screws. Out on deck, volumes of dense black smoke were pouring from four gigantic smoke stacks and spread out in the sky like some endless cinder path leading back over the course the ship had taken.
They were four days out from port. Two days more and they would sight Sandy Hook, and Shirley would know the worst. She had caught the North German Lloyd boat at Cherbourg two days after receiving the cablegram from New York. Mrs. Blake had insisted on coming along in spite of her niece's protests. Shirley argued that she had crossed alone when coming; she could go back the same way. Besides, was not Mr. Ryder returning home on the same ship? He would be company and protection both. But Mrs. Blake was bent on making the voyage. She had not seen her sister for many years and, moreover, this sudden return to America had upset her own plans. She was a poor sailor, yet she loved the ocean and this was a good excuse for a long trip. Shirley was too exhausted with worry to offer further resistance and by great good luck the two women had been able to secure at the last moment a cabin to themselves amidships. Jefferson, less fortunate, was compelled, to his disgust, to share a stateroom with another passenger, a fat German brewer who was returning to Cincinnati, and who snored so loud at night that even the thumping of the engines was completely drowned by his eccentric nasal sounds.