Over yonder through the murk of the dimly lighted bunker, through the swirling coal dust, another trimmer shovelled his barrow full of coal, and then the wheel clacked, clacked over the steel deck plates, and steel rang against steel as the barrow was whipped over on its side to send its load tumbling down the chute to the boiler-room below—but Jean's own barrow lay idly for a moment beside the black, mountainous heap of coal, and his shovel hung idly in his hand.
"To-day—to-day! France, and the end of strife!"—how joyously the voices trilled in his ears! "France, and life to begin anew! France—and Marie-Louise! France, and—"
"You damned loafer!" snarled a voice beside him—and quick, with the words, a stinging blow fell upon Jean's face.
It was the raw-boned, wizened engineer—the man above all others who was responsible for his, Jean's, presence there in the bunker again on this return voyage to France—the man who had made of the voyage a living hell. Marie-Louise's money, her attempt to pay his passage back and save him from this had counted for nothing—against this man. Two trimmers had deserted almost on the hour of sailing—he, Jean, was lawful prey—a stowaway being deported—and there had been a vicious smirk of satisfaction on the man's face, reminiscent of Jean's unruliness that night on the outward voyage when he had been discovered, as the engineer had claimed him for one of the vacancies.
The shovel clanged on the steel plates of the deck as it dropped from Jean's hands. He whirled like a flash, and, grasping the engineer by the shoulders, lifted the other off his feet, and held him as powerless as in the clutch of an iron vise; held the other off at arms' length in his mighty strength to wriggle impotently; held the other there—and laughed out with that wondrous surge of joy that was upon him.
"I will not hurt you!" cried Jean—and laughed in a big, glad way. "I am too happy! See, I will not hurt you! I am too happy! Do you know what it is to be happy? To love everything—to have your heart singing, singing all the time! Ah, if you could but know! But, go now—for see, I will not hurt you! I am too happy!"—and laughing again, he released the man.
The engineer stood for an instant gazing at Jean. Happy! This great giant of a man, in torn clothes, the sweat rolling furrows down the grime-smeared face—this man, a stowaway on the voyage out—this man, deported from America—this man, forced to work here on the voyage back, who was to be treated, and had been treated like a dog—this man—happy! Happy! Was the man mad? The engineer, muttering in his amazement, wondering and dazed and awed at the strength that had made of him a puny thing, edged away, and disappeared in the gloom.
Two little incandescents burned yellow from the stanchions overhead—there was no other light. There was nothing but the choking swirl of the coal dust, the rasp of the shovels, the clack of the barrow wheels, the clang as they were dumped—and the voices that told of France, and life, and love, and joy again.
"To-day—to-day!"—how the words rang in his heart and soul and mind like some silver-throated clarion call!
To-day, when the shores of France should loom in sight, the last of all barriers between Marie-Louise and himself would be swept away forever. There, on Ellis Island, they had kept him and Marie-Louise apart; and here on the ship again, the same ship that had brought them out—"guests" of the company that was forced by the government to return them to France—they had seen each other little. For, though it had not been as on the outward voyage when he was held a prisoner and closely watched even when he was off duty, and though he was now at least as free as any of the crew, it had only been at odd moments snatched here and there, usually in the early morning hours while it was still dark and he had gone off watch to the steerage deck, and she had come up from below to meet him, that he had seen Marie-Louise—that was all, the very little when their souls cried out for so much, that they had been together.