CHAPTER XIII
The third day out they were well below Formosa, which had been turned on a wide arc. The sea was blue now, quiescent, waveless; there was only the eternal roll. Still Jane could not help comparing the sea with the situation—the devil was slumbering. What if he waked?
Time after time she tried to force her thoughts into the reality of this remarkable cruise, but it was impossible. Romance was always smothering her, edging her off, when she approached the sinister. Perhaps if she had heard ribald songs, seen evidence of drunkenness; if the crew had loitered about and been lacking in respect, she would have been able to grasp the actuality; but so far the idea persisted that this could not be anything more than a pleasure cruise. Piracy? Where was it?
So she measured her actions accordingly, read, played the phonograph, went here and there over the yacht, often taking her stand in the bow and peering down the cutwater to watch the antics of some humorous porpoise or to follow the smother of spray where the flying fish broke. In fact, she 159 conducted herself exactly as she would have done on board a passenger ship. There were moments when she was honestly bored.
Piracy! This was an established fact. Cunningham and his men had stepped outside the pale of law in running off with the Wanderer. But piracy without drunken disorder, piracy that wiped its feet on the doormat and hung its hat on the rack! There was a touch of the true farce in it. Hadn’t Cunningham himself confessed that the whole affair was a joke?
Round two o’clock on the afternoon of the third day Jane, for the moment alone in her chair, heard the phonograph—the sextet from Lucia. She left her chair, looked down through the open transom and discovered Dennison cranking the machine. He must have seen her shadow, for he glanced up quickly.
He crooked a finger which said, “Come on down!” She made a negative sign and withdrew her head.
Here she was again on the verge of wild laughter. Donizetti! Pirates! Glass beads for which Cleigh had voyaged sixteen thousand miles! A father and son who ignored each other! She choked down this desire to laugh, because she was afraid it might end suddenly in hysteria and tears. She returned to her chair, and there was the 160 father arranging himself comfortably. He had a book.
“Would you like me to read a while to you?” she offered.