He had been educated to inherit millions; he had not been educated to support himself by work in a world that specialized. He had in these seven years been a jeweller's clerk, an auctioneer in a salesroom; he had travelled from Baluchistan to Damascus with carpet caravans, but he had never forged ahead financially. Generally the end of a job had been the end of his resources. One fact the thought of which never failed to buck him up—he had never traded on his father's name.

Then had come the war. He had returned to America, trained, and they had assigned him to Russia. But that had not been without its reward—he had met Jane.

In a New York bank, to his credit, was the sum of twenty thousand dollars, at compound interest for seven years, ready to answer to the scratch of a pen, but he had sworn he would never touch a dollar of it. Never before had the thought of it risen so strongly to tempt him. His for the mere scratch of a pen!

In the lobby he found the manager pacing nervously, while Ling Foo sat patiently and inscrutably.

"Why do you wait?" inquired Dennison, irritably.

"The lady has some jade of mine," returned Ling Foo, placidly. "It was a grave mistake."

"What was?"

"That you interfered this afternoon. The lady would be in her room at this hour. The devil beads would not be casting a spell on us."

"Devil beads, eh?"

Ling Foo shrugged and ran his hands into his sleeves. Somewhere along the banks of the Whangpoo or the Yang-tse would be the body of an unknown, but Ling Foo's lips were locked quite as securely as the dead man's. Devil beads they were.

"When did the man upstairs leave the beads with you?"

"Last night."

"For what reason?"

"He will tell you. It is none of my affair now." And that was all Dennison could dig out of Ling Foo.

Jane Norman did not return at one o'clock; in fact, she never returned to the Astor House. Dennison waited until three; then he went back to the Palace, and Ling Foo to his shop and oblivion.

Dennison decided that he did not want the police in the affair. In that event there would be a lot of publicity, followed by the kind of talk that stuck. He was confident that he could handle the affair alone. So he invented a white lie, and nobody questioned it because of his uniform. Miss Norman had found friends, and shortly she would send for her effects; but until that time she desired the consulate to take charge. Under the eyes of the relieved hotel manager and an indifferent clerk from the consulate the following morning Dennison packed Jane's belongings and conveyed them to the consulate, which was hard by. Next he proceeded to the water front and engaged a motor boat. At eleven o'clock he drew up alongside the Wanderer II.

"Hey, there!" shouted a seaman. "Sheer off! Orders to receive no visitors!"

Dennison began to mount, ignoring the order. It was a confusing situation for the sailor. If he threw this officer into the yellow water—as certainly he would have thrown a civilian—Uncle Sam might jump on his back and ride him to clink. Against this was the old man, the very devil for obedience to his orders. If he pushed this lad over, the clink; if he let him by, the old man's foot. And while the worried seaman was reaching for water with one hand and wind with the other, as the saying goes, Dennison thrust him roughly aside, crossed the deck to the main companionway, and thundered down into the salon.



CHAPTER VIII

Cleigh sat before a card table; he was playing Chinese Canfield. He looked up, but he neither rose nor dropped the half-spent deck of cards he held in his hand. The bronzed face, the hard agate blue of the eyes that met his own, the utter absence of visible agitation, took the wind out of Dennison's sails and left him all a-shiver, like a sloop coming about on a fresh tack. He had made his entrance stormily enough, but now the hot words stuffed his throat to choking.

Cleigh was thirty years older than his son; he was a finished master of sentimental emotions; he could keep all his thoughts out of his countenance when he so willed. But powerful as his will was, in this instance it failed to reach down into his heart; and that thumped against his ribs rather painfully. The boy!

Dennison, aware that he stood close to the ridiculous, broke the spell and advanced.

"I have come for Miss Norman," he said.

Cleigh scrutinized the cards and shifted one.

"I found your note to her. I've a launch. I don't know what the game is, but I'm going to take Miss Norman back with me if I have to break in every door on board!"

Cleigh stood up. As he did so Dodge, the Texan appeared in the doorway to the dining salon. Dennison saw the blue barrel of a revolver.

"A gunman, eh? All right. Let's see if he'll shoot," said the son, walking deliberately toward Dodge.

"No, Dodge!" Cleigh called out as the Texan, raised the revolver. "You may go."

Dodge, a good deal astonished, backed out. Once more father and son stared at each other.

"Better call it off," advised the son. "You can't hold Miss Norman—and I can make a serious charge. Bring her at once, or I'll go for her. And the Lord help the woodwork if I start!"

But even as he uttered the threat Dennison heard a sound behind. He turned, but not soon enough. In a second he was on the floor, three husky seamen mauling him. They had their hands full for a while, but in the end they conquered.

"What next, sir?" asked one of the sailors, breathing hard.

"Tie him up and lock him in Cabin Two."

The first order was executed. After Dennison's arms and ankles were bound the men stood him up.

"Are you really my father?"

Cleigh returned to his cards and shuffled them for a new deal.

"Don't untie him. He might walk through the partition. He will have the freedom of the deck when we are out of the delta."

Dennison was thereupon carried to Cabin Two, and deposited upon the stationary bed. He began to laugh. There was a sardonic note in this laughter, like that which greets you when you recount some incredible tale. His old cabin!

The men shook their heads, as if confronted by something so unusual that it wasn't worth while to speculate upon it. The old man's son! They went out, locking the door. By this time Dennison's laughter had reached the level of shouting, but only he knew how near it was to tears—wrathful, murderous, miserable tears! He fought his bonds terrifically for a moment, then relaxed.

For seven years he had been hugging the hope that when he and his father met blood would tell, and that their differences would vanish in a strong handclasp; and here he lay, trussed hand and foot, in his old cabin, not a crack in that granite lump his father called a heart!

A childish thought! Some day to take that twenty thousand with accrued interest, ride up to the door, step inside, dump the silver on that old red Samarkand, and depart—forever.

Where was she? This side of the passage or the other?

"Miss Norman?" he called.

"Yes?" came almost instantly from the cabin aft.

"This is Captain Dennison. I'm tied up and lying on the bed. Can you hear me distinctly?"

"Yes. Your father has made a prisoner of you? Of all the inhuman acts! You came in search of me?"

"Naturally. Have you those infernal beads?"

"No."

Dennison twisted about until he had his shoulders against the brass rail of the bed head.

"What happened?"

"It was a trick. It was not to talk about you—he wanted the beads, and that made me furious."

"Were you hurt in the struggle?"

"There wasn't any. I really don't know what possessed me. Perhaps I was a bit hypnotized. Perhaps I was curious. Perhaps I wanted—some excitement. On my word, I don't know just what happened. Anyhow, here I am—in a dinner gown, bound for Hong-Kong, so he says. He offered me ten thousand for the beads, and my freedom, if I would promise not to report his high-handedness; and I haven't uttered a sound."

"Heaven on earth, why didn't you accept his offer?"

A moment of silence.

"In the first place, I haven't the beads. In the second place, I want to make him all the trouble I possibly can. Now that he has me, he doesn't know what to do with me. Hoist by his own petard. Do you want the truth? Well, I'm not worried in the least. I feel as if I'd been invited to some splendiferous picnic."

"That's foolish," he remonstrated.

"Of course it is. But it's the sort of foolishness I've been aching for all my life. I knew something was going to happen. I broke my hand mirror night before last. Two times seven years' bad luck. Now he has me, I'll wager he's half frightened out of his wits. But what made you think of the yacht?"

"We forced the door of your room, and I found the note. Has he told you what makes those infernal beads so precious?"

"No. I can't figure that out."

"No more can I. Did he threaten you?"

"Yes. Would I enter the launch peacefully, or would he have to carry me? I didn't want my gown spoiled—it's the only decent one I have. I'm not afraid. It isn't as though he were a stranger. Being your father, he would never stoop to any indignity. But he'll find he has caught a tartar. I had an idea you'd find me."

"Well, I have. But you won't get to Hong-Kong. The minute he liberates me I'll sneak into the wireless room and bring the destroyers. I didn't notify the police from a bit of foolish sentiment. I didn't quite want you mixed up in the story. I had your things conveyed to the consulate."

"My story—which few men would believe. I've thought of that. Are you smoking?"

"Smoking, with my hands tied behind my back? Not so you'd notice it."

"I smell tobacco smoke—a good cigar, too."

"Then someone is in the passage listening."

Silence. Anthony Cleigh eyed his perfecto rather ruefully and tiptoed back to the salon. Hoist by his own petard. He was beginning to wonder. Cleigh was a man who rarely regretted an act, but in the clear light of day he was beginning to have his doubts regarding this one. A mere feather on the wrong side of the scale, and the British destroyers would be atop of him like a flock of kites. Abduction! Cut down to bedrock, he had laid himself open to that. He ran his fingers through his cowlicks. But drat the woman! why had she accepted the situation so docilely? Since midnight not a sound out of her, not a wail, not a sob. Now he had her, he couldn't let her go. She was right there.

There was one man in the crew Cleigh had begun to dislike intensely, and he had been manoeuvring ever since Honolulu to find a legitimate excuse to give the man his papers. Something about the fellow suggested covert insolence; he had the air of a beachcomber who had unexpectedly fallen into a soft berth, and it had gone to his head. He had been standing watch at the ladder head, and against positive orders he had permitted a visitor to pass him. To Cleigh this was the handle he had been hunting for. He summoned the man.

"Get your duffle," said Cleigh.

"What's that, sir?"

"Get your stuff. You're through. You had positive orders, and you let a man by."

"But his uniform fussed me, sir. I didn't know just how to act."

"Get your stuff! Mr. Cleve will give you your pay. My orders are absolute. Off with you!"

The sailor sullenly obeyed. He found the first officer alone in the chart house.

"The boss has sent me for my pay, Mr. Cleve. I'm fired." Flint grinned amiably.

"Fired? Well, well," said Cleve, "that's certainly tough luck—all this way from home. I'll have to pay you in Federal Reserve bills. The old man has the gold."

"Federal Reserve it is. Forty-six dollars in Uncle Samuels."

The first officer solemnly counted out the sum and laid it on the palm of the discharged man.

"Tough world."

"Oh, I'm not worrying! I'll bet you this forty-six against ten that I've another job before midnight."

Mr. Cleve grinned.

"Always looking for sure-thing bets! Better hail that bumboat with the vegetables to row you into town. The old man'll dump you over by hand if he finds you here between now and sundown."

"I'll try the launch there. Tell the lad his fare ain't goin' back to Shanghai. Of course it makes it a bit inconvenient, packing and unpacking; but I guess I can live through it. But what about the woman?"

Cleve plucked at his chin.

"Messes up the show a bit. Pippin, though. I like 'em when they walk straight and look straight like this one. Notice her hair? You never tame that sort beyond parlour manners. But I don't like her on board here, or the young fellow, either. Don't know him, but he's likely to bust the yacht wide open if he gets loose."

"Well, so long, Mary! Know what my first move'll be?"

"A bottle somewhere. But mind your step! Don't monkey with the stuff beyond normal. You know what I mean."

"Sure! Only a peg or two, after all this psalm-singing!"

"I know, Flint. But this game is no joke. You know what happened in town? Morrissy was near croaked."

Flint's face lost some of its gayety.

"Oh, I know how to handle the stuff! See you later."

* * * * *

Cleigh decided to see what the girl's temper was, so he entered the passage on the full soles of his shoes. He knocked on her door.

"Miss Norman?"

"Well?"

That was a good sign; she was ready to talk.

"I have come to repeat that offer."

"Mr. Cleigh, I have nothing to say so long as the key is on the wrong side of the door."

Cleigh heard a chuckle from Cabin Two.

"Very well," he said. "Remember, I offered you liberty conditionally. If you suffer inconveniences after to-night you will have only yourself to thank."

"Have you calculated that some day you will have to let me go?"

"Yes, I have calculated on that."

"And that I shall go to the nearest authorities and report this action?"

"If you will think a moment," said Cleigh, his tone monotonously level, "you will dismiss that plan for two reasons: First, that no one will believe you; second, that no one will want to believe you. That's as near as I care to put it. Your imagination will grasp it."

"Instantly!" cried the girl, hotly. "I knew you to be cold and hard, but I did not believe you were a scoundrel—having known your son!"

"I have no son."

"Oh, yes, you have!"

"I disowned him. He is absolutely nothing to me."

"I do not believe that," came back through the cabin door.

"Nevertheless, it is the truth. The queer part is, I've tried to resurrect the father instinct, and can't. I've tried to go round the wall—over it. I might just as well try to climb the Upper Himalayas."

In Cabin Two the son stared at the white ceiling. It seemed to him that all his vitals had been wrenched out of him, leaving him hollow, empty. He knew his father's voice; it rang with truth.

"I offer you ten thousand."

"The key is still on the outside."

"I'm afraid to trust you."

"We understand each other perfectly," said Jane, ironically.

The son smiled. The sense of emptiness vanished, and there came into his blood a warmth as sweet as it was strong. Jane Norman, angel of mercy. He heard his father speaking again:

"Since you will have it so, you will go to Hong-Kong?"

"To Patagonia if you wish! You cannot scare me by threatening me with travel on a private yacht. I had the beads, it is true; but at this moment I haven't the slightest idea where they are; and if I had I should not tell you. I refuse to buy my liberty; you will have to give it to me without conditions."

"I'm sorry I haven't anything on board in shape of women's clothes, but I'll send for your stuff if you wish."

"That is the single consideration you have shown me. My belongings are at the American consulate, and I should be glad to have them."

"You will find paper and ink in the escritoire. Write me an order and I promise to attend to the matter personally."

"And search through everything at your leisure!"

Cleigh blushed, and he heard his son chuckle again. He had certainly caught a tartar—possibly two. With a twisted smile he recalled the old yarn of the hunter who caught the bear by the tail. Willing to let go, and daring not!

"Still I agree," continued the girl. "I want my own familiar things—if I must take this forced voyage. But mark me, Mr. Cleigh, you will pay some day! I'm not the clinging kind, and I shall fight you tooth and nail from the first hour of my freedom. I'm not without friends."

"Never in this world!" came resonantly from Cabin Two.

Cleigh longed to get away. There was a rumbling and a threatening inside of him that needed space—Gargantuan laughter. Not the clinging kind, this girl! And the boy, walking straight at Dodge's villainous revolver! Why, he would need the whole crew behind him when he liberated these two! But he knew that the laughter striving for articulation was not the kind heard in Elysian fields!



CHAPTER IX

"If you will write the order I will execute it at once. The consulate closes early."

"I'll write it, but how will I get it to you? The door closes below the sill."

"When you are ready, call, and I will open the door a little."

"It would be better if you opened it full wide. This is China—I understand that. But we are both Americans, and there's a good sound law covering an act like this."

"But it does not reach as far as China. Besides, I have an asset back in the States. It is my word. I have never broken it to any man or woman, and I expect I never shall. You have, or have had, what I consider my property. You have hedged the question; you haven't been frank."

The son listened intently.

"I bought that string of glass beads in good faith of a Chinaman—Ling Foo. I consider them mine—that is, if they are still in my possession. Between the hour I met you last night and the moment of Captain Dennison's entrance to my room considerable time had elapsed."

"Sufficient for a rogue like Cunningham to make good use of," supplemented the prisoner in Cabin Two. "There's a way of finding out the facts."

"Indeed?"

"Yes. You used to carry a planchette that once belonged to the actress Rachel. Why not give it a whirl? Everybody's doing it."

Cleigh eyed Cabin Four, then Cabin Two, and shook his head slightly, dubiously. He was not getting on well. To come into contact with a strong will was always acceptable; and a strong will in a woman was a novelty. All at once it struck him forcibly that he stood on the edge of boredom; that the lure which had brought him fully sixteen thousand miles was losing its bite. Was he growing old, drying up?

"Will you tell me what it is about these beads that makes you offer ten thousand for them? Glass—anybody could see that. What makes them as valuable as pearls?"

"They are love beads," answered Cleigh, mockingly. "They are far more potent than powdered pearls. You have worn them about your throat, Miss Norman, and the sequence is inevitable."

"Nonsense!" cried Jane.

Dennison added his mite to the confusion:

"I thought that scoundrel Cunningham was lying. He said the string was a code key belonging to the British Intelligence Office."

"Rot!" Cleigh exploded.

"So I thought."

"But hurry, Miss Norman. The sooner I have that written order on the consulate the sooner you'll have your belongings."

"Very well."

Five minutes later she announced that the order was completed, and Cleigh opened the door slightly.

"The key will be given you the moment we weigh anchor."

"I say," called the son, "you might drop into the Palace and get my truck, too. I'm particular about my toothbrushes." A pause. "I'd like a drink, too—if you've got the time."

Cleigh did not answer, but he presently entered Cabin Two, filled a glass with water, raised his son's head to a proper angle, and gave him drink.

"Thanks. This business strikes me as the funniest thing I ever heard of! You would have done that for a dog."

Cleigh replaced the water carafe in the rack above the wash bowl and went out, locking the door. In the salon he called for Dodge:

"I am going into town. I'll be back round five. Don't stir from this cabin."

"Yes, sir."

"You remember that fellow who was here night before last?"

"The good-looking chap that limped?"

"Yes."

"And I'm to crease him if he pokes his noodle down the stairs?"

"Exactly! No talk, no palaver! If he starts talking he'll talk you out of your boots. Shoot!"

"In the leg? All right."

His employer having gone, Dodge sat in a corner from which he could see the companionway and all the passages. He lit a long black cigar, laid his formidable revolver on a knee, and began his vigil. A queer job for an old cow-punch, for a fact.

To guard an old carpet that didn't have "welcome" on it anywhere—he couldn't get that, none whatever. But there was a hundred a week, the best grub pile in the world, and the old man's Havanas as often as he pleased. Pretty soft!

And he had learned a new trick—shooting target in a rolling sea. He had wasted a hundred rounds before getting the hang of it. Maybe these sailors hadn't gone pop-eyed when they saw him pumping lead into the bull's-eye six times running? Tin cans and raw potatoes in the water, too. Something to brag about if he ever got back home.

He broke the gun and inspected the cylinder. There wasn't as much grease on the cartridges as he would have liked.

* * * * *

"Miss Norman?" called Dennison.

"What is it?"

"Are you comfortable?"

"Oh, I'm all right. I'm only furious with rage, that's all. You are still tied?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"I really don't understand your father."

"I have never understood him. Yet he was very kind to me when I was little. I don't suppose there is anything in heaven or on earth that he's afraid of."

"He is afraid of me."

"Do you believe that?"

"I know it. He would give anything to be rid of me. But go on."

"With what?"

"Your past."

"Well, I'm something like him physically. We are both so strong that we generally burst through rather than take the trouble to go round. I'm honestly sorry for him. Not a human being to love or be loved by. He never had a dog. I don't recollect my mother; she died when I was three; and that death had something to do with the iron in his soul. Our old butler used to tell me that Father cursed horribly, I mean blasphemously, when they took the mother out of the house. There are some men like that, who love terribly, away and beyond the average human ability. After the mother died he plunged into the money game. He was always making it, piling it up ruthlessly but honestly. Then that craving petered out, and he took a hand in the collecting game. What will come next I don't know. As a boy I was always afraid of him. He was kind to me, but in the abstract. I was like an extra on the grocer's bill. He put me into the hands of a tutor—a lovable old dreamer—and paid no more attention to me. He never put his arms round me and told me fairy stories."

"Poor little boy! No fairy stories!"

"Nary a one until I began to have playmates."

"Do the ropes hurt?"

"They might if I were alone."

"What do you make of the beads?"

"Only that they have some strange value, or father wouldn't be after them. Love beads! Doesn't sound half so plausible as Cunningham's version."

"That handsome man who limped?"

"Yes."

"A real adventurer—the sort one reads about!"

"And the queer thing about him, he keeps his word, too, for all his business is a shady one. I don't suppose there is a painting or a jewel or a book of the priceless sort that he doesn't know about, where it is and if it can be got at. Some of his deals are aboveboard, but many of them aren't. I'll wager these beads have a story of loot."

"What he steals doesn't hurt the poor."

"So long as the tigers fight among themselves and leave the goats alone, it doesn't stir you. Is that it?"

"Possibly."

"And besides, he's a handsome beggar, if there ever was one."

"He has the face of an angel!"

"And the soul of a vandal!"—with a touch of irritability.

"Now you aren't fair. A vandal destroys things; this man only transfers——"

"For a handsome monetary consideration——"

"Only transfers a picture from one gallery to another."

"Well, we've seen the last of him for a while, anyhow."

"I wonder."

"Will you answer me a question?"

"Perhaps."

"Do you know where those beads are?"

"A little while gone I smelt tobacco smoke," she answered, dryly.

"I see. We'll talk of something else then. Have you ever been in love?"

"Have you?"

"Violently—so I believed."

"But you got over it?"

"Absolutely! And you?"

"Oh, I haven't had the time. I've been too busy earning bread and butter. What was she like?"

"A beautiful mirage—the lie in the desert, you might say. Has it ever occurred to you that the mirage is the one lie Nature utters?"

"I hadn't thought. She deceived you?"

"Yes."

A short duration of silence.

"Doesn't hurt to talk about her?"

"Lord, no! Because I wasn't given fairy stories when I was little, I took them seriously when I was twenty-three."

"Puppy love."

"It went a little deeper than that."

"But you don't hate women?"

"No. I never hated the woman who deceived me. I was terribly sorry for her."

"For having lost so nice a husband?"—with a bit of malice.

He greeted this with laughter.

"It is written," she observed, "that we must play the fool sometime or other."

"Have you ever played it?"

"Not yet, but you never can tell."

"Jane, you're a brick!"

"Jane!" she repeated. "Well, I don't suppose there's any harm in your calling me that, with partitions in between."

"They used to call me Denny."

"And you want me to call you that?"

"Will you?"

"I'll think it over—Denny!"

They laughed. Both recognized the basic fact in this running patter. Each was trying to buck up the other. Jane was honestly worried. She could not say what it was that worried her, but there was a strong leaven in her of old-wives' prescience. It wasn't due to this high-handed adventure of Cleigh, senior; it was something leaning down darkly from the future that worried her. That hand mirror!

"Better not talk any more," she advised. "You'll be getting thirsty."

"I'm already that."

"You're a brave man, captain," she said, her tone altering from gayety to seriousness. "Don't worry about me. I've always been able to take care of myself, though I've never been confronted with this kind of a situation before. Frankly, I don't like it. But I suspect that your father will have more respect for us if we laugh at him. Has he a sense of humour?"

"My word for it, he has! What could be more humorous than tying me up in this fashion and putting me in the cabin that used to be mine? Ten thousand for a string of glass beads! I say, Jane!"

"What?"

"When he comes back tell him you might consider twenty thousand, just to get an idea what the thing is worth."

"I'll promise that."

"All right. Then I'll try to snooze a bit. Getting stuffy lying on my back."

"The brute! If I could only help you!"

"You have—you are—you will!"

He turned on his side, his face toward the door. His arms and legs began to sting with the sensation known as sleep. He was glad his father had overheard the initial conversation. A wave of terror ran over him at the thought of being set ashore while Jane went on. Still he could have sent a British water terrier in hot pursuit.

Jane sat down and took inventory. She knew but little about antiques—rugs and furniture—but she was full of inherent love of the beautiful. The little secretary upon which she had written the order on the consulate was an exquisite lowboy of old mahogany of dull finish. On the floor were camel saddle-bays, Persian in pattern. On the panel over the lowboy was a small painting, a foot broad and a foot and a half long. It was old—she could tell that much. It was a portrait, tender and quaint. She would have gasped had she known that it was worth a cover of solid gold. It was a Holbein, The Younger, for which Cleigh some years gone had paid Cunningham sixteen thousand dollars. Where and how Cunningham had acquired it was not open history.

An hour passed. By and by she rose and tiptoed to the partition. She held her ear against the panel, and as she heard nothing she concluded that Denny—why not?—was asleep. Next she gazed out of the port. It was growing dark outside, overcast. It would rain again probably. A drab sky, a drab shore. She saw a boat filled with those luscious vegetables which wrote typhus for any white person who ate them. A barge went by piled high with paddy bags—rice in the husk—with Chinamen at the forward and stern sweeps. She wondered if these poor yellow people had ever known what it was to play?

Suddenly she fell back, shocked beyond measure. From the direction of the salon—a pistol shot! This was followed by the tramp of hurrying feet. Voices, now sharp, now rumbling—this grew nearer. A struggle of some dimensions was going on in the passage. The racket reached her door, but did not pause there. She sank into the chair, a-tremble.

Dennison struggled to a sitting posture.

"Jane?"

"Yes!"

"Are you all right?"

"Yes, what has happened?"

"A bit of mutiny, I take it; but it seems to be over."

"But the shot!"

"I heard no cry of pain, only a lot of scuffling and some high words. Don't worry."

"I won't. Can't you break a piece of glass and saw your way out?"

"Lord love you, that's movie stuff! If I had a razor, I couldn't manage it without hacking off my hands. You are worried!"

"I'm a woman, Denny. I'm not afraid of your father; but if there is mutiny, with all these treasures on board—and over here——"

"All right. I'll make a real effort."

She could hear him stumbling about. She heard the crash of the water carafe on the floor. Several minutes dragged by.

"Can't be done!" said Dennison. "Can't make the broken glass stay put. Can't reach my ankles, either, or I could get my feet free. There's a double latch on your door. See to it! Lord!"

"What is it?"

"Nothing. Just hunting round for some cuss words. Put the chair up against the door knob and sit tight for a while."

The hours dragged by in stifling silence.

Meanwhile, Cleigh, having attended to errands, lunched, had gone to the American consulate and presented the order. His name and reputation cleared away the official red tape. He explained that all the fuss of the night before had been without cause. Miss Norman had come aboard the yacht, and now decided to go to Hong-Kong with the family. This suggested the presence of other women on board. In the end, Jane's worldly goods were consigned to Cleigh, who signed the receipt and made off for the launch.

It was growing dark. On the way down the river Cleigh made no attempt to search for the beads.

The salon lights snapped up as the launch drew alongside. Once below, Cleigh dumped Jane's possessions into the nearest chair and turned to give Dodge an order—only to find the accustomed corner vacant!

"Dodge!" he shouted. He ran to the passage. "Dodge, where the devil are you?"

"Did you call, sir?"

Cleigh spun about. In the doorway to the dining salon stood Cunningham, on his amazingly handsome face an expression of anxious solicitude!



CHAPTER X

Cleigh was not only a big and powerful man—he was also courageous, but the absence of Dodge and the presence of Cunningham offered such sinister omen that temporarily he was bereft of his natural wit and initiative.

"Where's Dodge?" he asked, stupidly.

"Dodge is resting quietly," answered Cunningham, gravely. "He'll be on his feet in a day or two."

That seemed to wake up Cleigh a bit. He drew his automatic.

"Face to the wall, or I'll send a bullet into you!"

Cunningham shook his head.

"Did you examine the clip this morning? When you carry weapons like that for protection never put it in your pocket without a look-see. Dodge wouldn't have made your mistake. Shoot! Try it on the floor, or up through the lights—or at me if you'd like that better. The clip is empty."

Mechanically Cleigh took aim and bore against the trigger. There was no explosion. A depressing sense of unreality rolled over the Wanderer's owner.

"So you went into town for her luggage? Did you find the beads?"

Cleigh made a negative sign. It was less an answer to Cunningham than an acknowledgment that he could not understand why the bullet clip should be empty.

"It was an easy risk," explained Cunningham. "You carried the gun, but I doubt you ever looked it over. Having loaded it once upon a time, you believed that was sufficient, eh? Know what I think? The girl has hidden the beads in her hair. Did you search her?"

Again Cleigh shook his head, as much over the situation as over the question.

"What, you ran all this risk and hadn't the nerve to search her? Well, that's rich! Unless you've read her from my book. She would probably have scratched out your eyes. There's an Amazon locked up in that graceful body. I'd like to see her head against a bit of clear blue sky—a touch of Henner blues and reds. What a whale of a joke! Abduct a young woman, risk prison, and then afraid to lay hands on her! You poor old piker!" Cunningham laughed.

"Cunningham——"

"All right, I'll be merciful. To make a long story short, it means that for the present I am in command of this yacht. I warned you. Will you be sensible, or shall I have to lock you up like your two-gun man from Texas?"

"Piracy!" cried Cleigh, coming out of his maze.

"Maritime law calls it that, but it isn't really. No pannikins of rum, no fifteen men on a dead man's chest. Parlour stuff, you might call it. The whole affair—the parlour side of it—depends upon whether you purpose to act philosophically under stress or kick up a hullabaloo. In the latter event you may reasonably expect some rough stuff. Truth is, I'm only borrowing the yacht as far as latitude ten degrees and longitude one hundred and ten degrees, off Catwick Island. You carry a boson's whistle at the end of your watch chain. Blow it!" was the challenge.

"You bid me blow it?"

"Only to convince you how absolutely helpless you are," said Cunningham, amiably. "Yesterday this day's madness did prepare, as our old friend Omar used to say. Vedder did great work on that, didn't he? Toot the whistle, for shortly we shall weigh anchor."

Like a man in a dream, Cleigh got out his whistle. The first blast was feeble and windy. Cunningham grinned.

"Blow it, man, blow it!"

Cleigh set the whistle between his lips and blew a blast that must have been heard half a mile away.

"That's something like! Now we'll have results!"

Above, on deck, came the scuffle of hurrying feet, and immediately—as if they had been prepared against this moment—three fourths of the crew came tumbling down the companionway.

"Seize this man!" shouted Cleigh, thunderously, as he indicated Cunningham.

The men, however, fell into line and came to attention. Most of them were grinning.

"Do you hear me? Brown, Jessup, McCarthy—seize this man!"

No one stirred. Cleigh then lost his head. With a growl he sprang toward Cunningham. Half the crew jumped instantly into the gap between, and they were no longer grinning. Cunningham pushed aside the human wall and faced the Wanderer's owner.

"Do you begin to understand?"

"No! But whatever your game is, it will prove bad business for you in the end. And you men, too. The world has grown mighty small, and you'll find it hard to hide—unless you kill me and have done with it!"

"Tut, tut! Wouldn't harm a hair of your head. The world is small, as you say, but just at this moment infernally busy mopping up. What, bother about a little dinkum dinkus like this, with Russia mad, Germany ugly, France grumbling at England, Italy shaking her fist at Greece, and labour making a monkey of itself? Nay! I'll shift the puzzle so you can read it. When the yacht was released from auxiliary duties she was without a crew. The old crew, that of peace times, was gone utterly, with the exception of four. You had the yacht keelhauled, gave her another daub of war paint and set about to find a crew. And I had one especially picked for you! Ordinarily, you've a tolerably keen eye. Didn't it strike you odd to land a crew who talked more or less grammatically, who were clean bodily, who weren't boozers?"

Cleigh, fully alive now, coldly ran his inspecting glance over the men. He had never before given their faces any particular attention. Besides, this was the first time he had seen so many of them at once. During boat drill they had been divided into four squads. Young faces, lean and hard some of them, but reckless rather than bad. All of them at this moment appeared to be enjoying some huge joke.

"I can only repeat," said Cleigh, "that you are all playing with dynamite."

"Perhaps. Most of these boys fought in the war; they played the game; but when they returned nobody had any use for them. I caught them on the rebound, when they were a bit desperate. We formed a company—but of that more anon. Will you be my guest, or will you be my prisoner?"

The velvet fell away from Cunningham's voice.

"Have I any choice? I'll accept the condition because I must. But I've warned you. I suppose I'd better ask at once what the ransom is."

"Ransom? Not a copper cent! You can make Singapore in two days from the Catwick."

"And for helping me into Singapore I'm to agree not to hand such men as you leave me over to the British authorities?"

"All wrong! The men who will help you into Singapore or take you to Manila will be as innocent as newborn babes. Wouldn't believe it, would you, but I'm one of those efficiency sharks. Nothing left to chance; all cut and dried; pluperfect. Cleigh, I never break my word. I honestly intended turning over those beads to you, but Morrissy muddled the play."

"Next door to murder."

"Near enough, but he'll pull out."

"Are you going to take Miss Norman along?"

"What, set her ashore to sic the British Navy on us? I'm sorry. I don't want her on board; but that was your play, not mine. You tried to double-cross me. But you need have no alarm. I will kill the man who touches her. You understand that, boys?"

The crew signified that the order was understood, though one of them—the returned Flint—smiled cynically. If Cunningham noted the smile he made no verbal comment upon it.

"Weigh anchor, then! Look alive! The sooner we nose down to the delta the sooner we'll have the proper sea room."

The crew scurried off, and almost at once came familiar sounds—the rattle of the anchor chain on the windlass, the creaking of pulley blocks as the launch came aboard, the thud of feet hither and yon as portables were stowed or lashed to the deck-house rail. For several minutes Cleigh and Cunningham remained speechless and motionless.

"You get all the angles?" asked Cunningham, finally.

"Some of them," admitted Cleigh.

"At any rate, enough to make you accept a bad situation with good grace?"

"You're a foolhardy man, Cunningham. Do you expect me to lie down when this play is over? I solemnly swear to you that I'll spend the rest of my days hunting you down."

"And I solemnly swear that you shan't catch me. I'm through with the old game of playing the genie in the bottle for predatory millionaires. Henceforth I'm on my own. I'm romantic—yes, sir—I'm romantic from heel to cowlick; and now I'm going to give rein to this stifled longing."

"You will come to a halter round your neck. I have always paid your price on the nail, Cunningham."

"You had to. Hang it, passions are the very devil, aren't they? Sooner or later one jumps upon your back and rides you like the Old Man of the Sea."

Cleigh heard the rumble of steam.

"Objects of art!" went on Cunningham. "It eats into your vitals to hear that some rival has picked up a Correggio or an ancient Kirman or a bit of Persian plaque. You talk of halters. Lord lumme, how obliquely you look at facts! Take that royal Persian there—the second-best animal rug on earth—is there no murder behind the woof and warp of it? What? Talk sense, Cleigh, talk sense! You cable me: Get such and such. I get it. What the devil do you care how it was got, so long as it eventually becomes yours? It's a case of the devil biting his own tail—pot calling kettle black."

"How much do you want?"

"No, Cleigh, it's the romantic idea."

"I will give you fifty thousand for the rug."

"I'm sorry. No use now of telling you the plot; you wouldn't believe me, as the song goes. Dinner at seven. Will you dine in the salon with me, or will you dine in the solemn grandeur of your own cabin, in company with Da Vinci, Teniers, and that Carlo Dolci the Italian Government has been hunting high and low for?"

"I will risk the salon."

"To keep an eye on me as long as possible. That's fair enough. You heard what I said to those boys. Well, every mother's son of 'em will toe the mark. There will be no change at all in the routine. Simply we lay a new course that will carry us outside and round Formosa, down to the South Sea and across to the Catwick. I'll give you one clear idea. A million and immunity would not stir me, Cleigh."

"What's the game—if it's beyond ransom?"

Cunningham laughed boyishly.

"It's big, and you'll laugh, too, when I tell you."

"On which side of the mouth?"

"That's up to you."

"Is it the rug?"

"Oh, that, of course! I warned you that I'd come for the rug. It took two years out of my young life to get that for you, and it has always haunted me. I just told you about passions, didn't I? Once on your back, they ride you like the devil—down-hill."

"A crook."

"There you go again—pot calling kettle black! If you want to moralize, where's the line between the thief and the receiver? Fie on you! Dare you hang that Da Vinci, that Dolci, that Holbein in your gallery home? No! Stolen goods. What a passion! You sail across the seas alone, alone because you can't satisfy your passion and have knowing companions on board. When the yacht goes out of commission you store the loot, and tremble when you hear a fire alarm. All right. Dinner at seven. I'll go and liberate your son and the lady."

"Cunningham, I will kill you out of hand the very first chance."

"Old dear, I'll add a fact for your comfort. There will be guns on board, but half an hour gone all the ammunition was dumped into the Whangpoo. So you won't have anything but your boson's whistle. You're a bigger man than I am physically, and I've a slue-foot, a withered leg; but I've all the barroom tricks you ever heard of. So don't make any mistakes in that direction. You are free to come and go as you please; but the moment you start any rough house, into your cabin you go, and you'll stay there until we raise the Catwick. You haven't a leg to stand on."

Cunningham lurched out of the salon and into the passage. He opened the door to Cabin Two and turned on the light. Dennison blinked stupidly. Cunningham liberated him and stood back.

"Dinner at seven."

"What the devil are you doing on board?" asked Dennison, thickly.

"Well, here's gratitude for you! But in order that there will be no misunderstanding, I've turned to piracy for a change. Great sport! I've chartered the yacht for a short cruise." His banter turned into cold, precise tones. Cunningham went on: "No nonsense, captain! I put this crew on board away back in New York. Those beads, though having a merit of their own, were the lure to bring your father to these parts. Your presence and Miss Norman's are accidents for which I am genuinely sorry. But frankly, I dare not turn you loose. That's the milk in the cocoanut. I grant you the same privileges as I grant your father, which he has philosophically agreed to accept. Your word of honour to take it sensibly, and the freedom of the yacht is yours. Otherwise, I'll lock you up in a place not half so comfortable as this."

"Piracy!"

"Yes, sir. These are strangely troubled days. We've slumped morally. Humanity has been on the big kill, with the result that the tablets of Moses have been busted up something fierce. And here we are again, all kotowing to the Golden Calf! All I need is your word—the word of a Cleigh."

"I give it." Dennison gave his word so that he might be free to protect the girl in the adjoining cabin. "But conditionally."

"Well?"

"That the young lady shall at all times be treated with the utmost respect. You will have to kill me otherwise."

"These Cleighs! All right. That happens to be my own order to the crew. Any man who breaks it will pay heavily."

"What's the game?" asked Dennison, rubbing his wrists tenderly while he balanced unsteadily upon his aching legs.

"Later! I'll let Miss Norman out. That's so—her things are in the salon. I'll get them, but I'll unlock her door first."

"What in heaven's name has happened?" asked Jane as she and Dennison stood alone in the passage.

"The Lord knows!" gloomily. "But that scoundrel Cunningham has planted a crew of his own on board, and we are all prisoners."

"Cunningham?"

"The chap with the limp."

"With the handsome face? But this is piracy!"

"About the size of it."

"Oh, I knew something was going to happen! But a pirate! Surely it must be a joke?"

So it was—probably the most colossal joke that ever flowered in the mind of a man. The devil must have shouted and the gods must have held their sides, for it took either a devil or a god to understand the joke.



CHAPTER XI

That first dinner would always remain vivid and clear-cut in Jane Norman's mind. It was fantastic. To begin with, there was that picturesque stone image at the head of the table—Cleigh—who appeared utterly oblivious of his surroundings, who ate with apparent relish, and who ignored both men, his son and his captor. Once or twice Jane caught his glance—a blue eye, sharp-pupiled, agate-hard. But what was it she saw—a twinkle or a sparkle? The breadth of his shoulders! He must be very powerful, like the son. Why, the two of them could have pulverized this pretty fellow opposite!

Father and son! For seven years they had not met. Their indifference seemed so inhuman! Still, she fancied that the son dared not make any approach, however much he may have longed to. A woman! They had quarrelled over a woman! Something reached down from the invisible and pinched her heart.

All this while Cunningham had been talking—banter. The blade would flash toward the father or whirl upon the son, or it would come toward her by the handle. She could not get away from the initial idea—that his eyes were like fire opals.

"Miss Norman, you have very beautiful hair."

"You think so?"

"It looks like Judith's. You remember, Cleigh, the one that hangs in the Pitti Galleria in Florence—Allori's?"

Cleigh reached for a piece of bread, which he broke and buttered.

Cunningham turned to Jane again.

"Will you do me the favour of taking out the hairpins and loosing it?"

"No!" said Dennison.

"Why not?" said Jane, smiling bravely enough, though there ran over her spine a chill.

It wasn't Cunningham's request—it was Dennison's refusal. That syllable, though spoken moderately, was the essence of battle, murder, and sudden death. If they should clash it would mean that Denny—how easy it was to call him that!—Denny would be locked up and she would be all alone. For the father seemed as aloof and remote as the pole.

"You shall not do it!" declared Dennison. "Cunningham, if you force her I will break every bone in your body here and now!"

Cleigh selected an olive and began munching it.

"Nonsense!" cried Jane. "It's all awry anyhow." And she began to extract the hairpins. Presently she shook her head, and the ruddy mass of hair fell and rippled across and down her shoulders.

"Well?" she said, looking whimsically into Cunningham's eyes. "It wasn't there, was it?"

This tickled Cunningham.

"You're a woman in a million! You read my thought perfectly. I like ready wit in a woman. I had to find out. You see, I had promised those beads to Cleigh, and when I humanly can I keep my promises. Sit down, captain!" For Dennison had risen to his feet. "Sit down! Don't start anything you can't finish." To Jane there was in the tone a quality which made her compare it with the elder Cleigh's eyes—agate-hard. "You are younger and stronger, and no doubt you could break me. But the moment my hand is withdrawn from this business—the moment I am off the board—I could not vouch for the crew. They are more or less decent chaps, or they were before this damned war stood humanity on its head. We wear the same clothes, use the same phrases; but we've been thrust back a thousand years. And Miss Norman is a woman. You understand?"

Dennison sat down.

"You'd better kill me somewhere along this voyage."

"I may have to. Who knows? There's no real demarcation between comedy and tragedy; it's the angle of vision. It's rough medicine, this; but your father has agreed to take it sensibly, because he knows me tolerably well. Still, it will not do him any good to plan bribery. Buy the crew, Cleigh, if you believe you can. You'll waste your time. I do not pretend to hold them by loyalty. I hold them by fear. Act sensibly, all of you, and this will be a happy family. For after all, it's a joke, a whale of a joke. And some day you'll smile over it—even you, Cleigh."

Cleigh pressed the steward's button.

"The jam and the cheese, Togo," he said to the Jap.

"Yess, sair!"

A hysterical laugh welled into Jane's throat, but she did not permit it to escape her lips. She began to build up her hair clumsily, because her hands trembled.

Adventure! She thrilled! She had read somewhere that after seven thousand years of tortuous windings human beings had formed about themselves a thin shell which they called civilization. And always someone was breaking through and retracing those seven thousand years. Here was an example in Cunningham. Only a single step was necessary. It took seven thousand years to build your shell, and only a minute to destroy it. There was something fascinating in the thought. A reckless spirit pervaded Jane, a longing to burst through this shell of hers and ride the thunderbolt. Monotony—that had been her portion, and only her dreams had kept her from withering. From the house to the hospital and back home again, days, weeks, years. She had begun to hate white; her soul thirsted for colour, movement, thrill. The call that had been walled in, suppressed, broke through. Piracy on high seas, and Jane Norman in the cast!

She was not in the least afraid of the whimsical rogue opposite. He was more like an uninvited dinner guest. Perhaps this lack of fear had its origin in the oily smoothness by which the yacht had changed hands. Beyond the subjugation of Dodge, there had not been a ripple of commotion. It was too early to touch the undercurrents. All this lulled and deceived her. Piracy? Where were the cutlasses, the fierce moustaches, the red bandannas, the rattle of dice, and the drunken songs?—the piracy of tradition? If she had any fear at all it was for the man at her left—Denny—who might run amuck on her account and spoil everything. All her life she would hear the father's voice—"The jam and the cheese, Togo." What men, all three of them!

Cunningham laid his napkin on the table and stood up.

"Absolute personal liberty, if you will accept the situation sensibly."

Dennison glowered at him, but Jane reached out and touched the soldier's sleeve.

"Please!"

"For your sake, then. But it's tough medicine for me to swallow."

"To be sure it is," agreed the rogue. "Look upon me as a supercargo for the next ten days. You'll see me only at lunch and dinner. I've a lot of work to do in the chart house. By the way, the wireless man is mine, Cleigh, so don't waste any time on him. Hope you're a good sailor, Miss Norman, for we are heading into rough weather, and we haven't much beam."

"I love the sea!"

"Hang it, you and I shan't have any trouble! Good-night."

Cunningham limped to the door, where he turned and eyed the elder Cleigh, who was stirring his coffee thoughtfully. Suddenly the rogue burst into a gale of laughter, and they could hear recurrent bursts as he wended his way to the companion.

When this sound died away Cleigh turned his glance levelly upon Jane. The stone-like mask dissolved into something that was pathetically human.

"Miss Norman," he said, "I don't know what we are heading into, but if we ever get clear I will make any reparation you may demand."

"Any kind of a reparation?"—an eager note in her voice.

Dennison stared at her, puzzled, but almost instantly he was conscious of the warmth of shame in his cheeks. This girl wasn't that sort—to ask for money as a balm for the indignity offered her. What was she after?

"Any kind of reparation," repeated Cleigh.

"I'll remember that—if we get through. And somehow I believe we shall."

"You trust that scoundrel?" asked Cleigh, astonishedly.

"Inexplicably—yes."

"Because he happens to be handsome?"—with frank irony.

"No." But she looked at the son as she spoke. "He said he never broke his word. No man can be a very great villain who can say that. Did he ever break his word to you?"

"Except in this instance."

"The beads?"

"I am quite confident he knows where they are."

"Are they so precious? What makes them precious?"

"I have told you—they are love beads."

"That's rank nonsense! I'm no child!"

"Isn't love rank nonsense?" Cleigh countered. He was something of a banterer himself.

"Have you never loved anybody?" she shot back at him.

A shadow passed over the man's face, clearing the ironic expression.

"Perhaps I loved not wisely but too well."

"Oh, I'm sorry! I didn't mean——"

"You are young; all about you is sunshine; I myself have gone down among the shadows. Cunningham may keep his word; but there is always the possibility of his not being able to keep it. He has become an outlaw; he is in maritime law a pirate. The crew are aware of it; prison stares them in the face, and that may make them reckless. If you weren't on board I shouldn't care. But you are young, vital, attractive, of the type that appeals to strong men. In the dry stores there are many cases of liquor and wine. The men may break into the stuff before we reach the Catwick. That will take ten or twelve days if Cunningham lays a course outside Formosa. What's his game? I don't know. Probably he will maroon us on the Catwick, an island I know nothing about, except that it is nearer to Saigon than to Singapore. So then in the daytime stay where I am or where Captain Dennison is. Good-night."

Dennison balanced his spoon on the rim of the coffee cup—not a particularly easy job.

"Whatever shall I do with the jade?" Jane asked, irrelevantly.

"What?"

"The jade necklace. That poor Chinaman!"

"Ling Foo? I wish I had broken his infernal yellow neck! But for him neither of us would be here. But he is right," Dennison added, with a jerk of his head toward the door. "You must always be with one or the other of us—preferably me." He smiled.

"Will you promise me one thing?"

"Denny."

"Will you promise me one thing, Denny?"

"And that is not to attempt to mix it with the scoundrel?"

"Yes."

"I promise—so long as he keeps his. But if he touches you—well, God help him!"

"And me! Oh, I don't mean him. It is you that I am afraid of. You're so terribly strong—and—and so heady. I can never forget how you went into that mob of quarrelling troopers. But you were an officer there; your uniform doesn't count here. If only you and your father stood together!"

"We do so far as you are concerned. Never doubt that. Otherwise, though, it's hopeless. What are you going to demand of him—supposing we come through safely?"

"That's my secret. Let's go on deck."

"It's raining hard, and there'll be a good deal of pitching shortly. Better turn in. You've been through enough to send the average woman into hysterics."

"It won't be possible to sleep."

"I grant that, but I'd rather you would go at once to your cabin."

"I wonder if you will understand. I'm not really afraid. I know I ought to be, but I'm not. All my life has been a series of humdrum—and here is adventure, stupendous adventure!" She rose abruptly, holding out her arms dramatically toward space. "All my life I have lived in a shell, and chance has cracked it. If only you knew how wonderfully free I feel at this moment! I want to go on deck, to feel the wind and the rain in my face!"

"Go to bed," he said, prosaically.

Though never had she appeared so poignantly desirable. He wanted to seize her in his arms, smother her with kisses, bury his face in her hair. And swiftly upon this desire came the thought that if she appealed to him so strongly, might she not appeal quite as strongly to the rogue? He laid the spoon on the rim of the cup again and teetered it.

"Go to bed," he repeated.

"An order?"

"An order. I'll go along with you to the cabin. Come!" He got up.

"Can you tell me you're not excited?"

"I am honestly terrified. I'd give ten years of my life if you were safely out of this. For seven long years I have been knocking about this world, and among other things I have learned that plans like Cunningham's never get through per order. I don't know what the game is, but it's bound to fail. So I'm going to ask you, in God's name, not to let any romantical ideas get into your head. This is bad business for all of us."

There was something in his voice, aside from the genuine seriousness, that subdued her.

"I'll go to bed. Shall we have breakfast together?"

"Better that way."

To reach the port passage they had to come out into the main salon. Cleigh was in his corner reading.

"Good-night," she called. All her bitterness toward him was gone. "And don't worry about me."

"Good-night," replied Cleigh over the top of the book. "Be sure of your door. If you hear any untoward sounds in the night call to the captain whose cabin adjoins yours."

When she and Dennison arrived at the door of her cabin she turned impulsively and gave him both her hands. He held them lightly, because his emotions were at full tide, and he did not care to have her sense it in any pressure. Her confidence in him now was absolute, and he must guard himself constantly. Poor fool! Why hadn't he told her that last night on the British transport? What had held him back?

The uncertain future—he had let that rise up between. And now he could not tell her. If she did not care, if her regard did not go beyond comradeship, the knowledge would only distress her.

The yacht was beginning to roll now, for they were making the East China Sea. The yacht rolled suddenly to starboard, and Jane fell against him. He caught her, instantly turned her right about and gently but firmly forced her into the cabin.

"Good-night. Remember! Rap on the partition if you hear anything you don't like."

"I promise."

After she had locked and latched the door she set about the business of emptying her kit bags. She hung the evening gown she had worn all day in the locker, laid her toilet articles on the dresser, and set the brass hand warmer on the lowboy. Then she let down her hair and began to brush it. She swung a thick strand of it over her shoulder and ran her hand down under it. The woman in "Phra the Phoenician," Allori's Judith—and she had always hated the colour of it! She once more applied the brush, balancing herself nicely to meet the ever-increasing roll.

Nevertheless, she did feel free, freer than she had felt in all her life before. A stupendous adventure! After the braids were completed she flung them down her back, turned off the light, and peered out of the rain-blurred port. She could see nothing except an occasional flash of angry foam as it raced past. She slipped into bed, but her eyes remained open for a long time.

Dennison wondered if there would be a slicker in his old locker. He opened the door. He found an oilskin and a yellow sou'wester on the hooks. He took them down and put them on and stole out carefully, a hand extended each side to minimize the roll. He navigated the passage and came out into the salon.

Cleigh was still immersed in his book. He looked up quickly, but recognizing the intruder, dropped his gaze instantly. Dennison crossed the salon to the companionway and staggered up the steps. Had his father ever really been afraid of anything? He could not remember ever having seen the old boy in the grip of fear. What a devil of a world it was!

Dennison was an able seaman. He had been brought up on the sea—seven years on the first Wanderer and five on the second. He had, in company with his father, ridden the seven seas. But he had no trade; he hadn't the money instinct; he would have to stumble upon fortune; he knew no way of making it. And this knowledge stirred his rancor anew—the father hadn't played fair with the son.

He gripped the deck-house rail to steady himself, for the wind and rain caught him head-on.

Then he worked his way slowly along to the bridge. Twice a comber broke on the quarter and dropped a ton of water, which sloshed about the deck, drenching his feet. He climbed the ladder, rather amused at the recurrence of an old thought—that climbing ship ladders in dirty weather was a good deal like climbing in nightmares: one weighed thousands of pounds and had feet of lead.

Presently he peered into the chart room, which was dark except for the small hooded bulbs over the navigating instruments. He could see the chin and jaws of the wheelman and the beard of old Captain Newton. From time to time a wheel spoke came into the light.

On the chart table lay a pocket lamp, facing sternward, the light pouring upon what looked to be a map; and over it were bent three faces, one of which was Cunningham's. A forefinger was tracing this map.

Dennison opened the door and stepped inside.



CHAPTER XII

"How are you making out, Newton?" he asked, calmly.

"Denny? Why, God bless me, boy, I'm glad to see you! How's your dad?"

"Reading."

"That would be like him. I don't suppose if hell opened under his feet he'd do anything except look interested. And it 'pears to me's though hell had opened up right now!"

A chuckle came from the chart table.

"What's your idea of hell, Newton?" asked Cunningham.

"Anything you might have a hand in," was the return bolt.

"Why, you used to like me!"

"Yes, yes! But I didn't know you then. The barometer's dropping. If it was August I'd say we were nosing into a typhoon. I always hated this yellow muck they call a sea over here. Did you pick up that light?"

"Yes, sir," answered the wheelman. "I take it she's making south—Hong-Kong way. There's plenty of sea room. She'll be well down before we cross her wake."

Silence except for the rumble of the weather canvas standing up against the furious blasts of the wind. Dennison stepped over to the chart table.

"Cunningham, I would like to have a word with you."

"Go ahead. You can have as many as you like."

"At dinner you spoke of your word."

"So I did. What about it?"

"Do you keep it?"

"Whenever I humanly can. Well?"

"What's this Catwick Island?"

"Hanged if I know!"

"Are you going to maroon us there?"

"No. At that point the yacht will be turned back to your father, and he can cruise until the crack o' doom without further interference from yours truly."

"That's your word?"

"It is—and I will keep it. Anything else?"

"Yes. I will play the game as it lies, provided that Miss Norman is in nowise interfered with or annoyed."

"How is she taking it?"

"My reply first."

"Neither I nor the crew will bother her. She shall come and go free as the gull in the air. If at any time the men do not observe the utmost politeness toward her you will do me a favour to report to me. That's my word, and I promise to keep it, even if I have to kill a man or two. I wish to come through clean in the hands so far as your father, Miss Norman, and yourself are concerned. I'm risking my neck and my liberty, for this is piracy on the high seas. But every man is entitled to one good joke during his lifetime, and when we raise the Catwick I'll explain this joke in full. If you don't chuckle, then you haven't so much as a grain of humour in your make-up."

"Well, there's nothing for me to do but take your word as you give it."

"That's the way to talk. Now, Flint, this bay or lagoon——"

The voice dropped into a low, indistinguishable murmur. Dennison realized that the moment had come to depart; the edge of the encounter was in Cunningham's favour and to remain would only serve to sharpen this edge. So he went outside, slamming the door behind him.

The word of a rogue! There was now nothing to do but turn in. He believed he had a glimmer. Somewhere off the Catwick Cunningham and his crew were to be picked up. He would not be going to the Catwick himself, not knowing whether it was jungle or bald rock. But if a ship was to pick him up, why hadn't she made Shanghai and picked him up there? Why commit piracy—unless he was a colossal liar, which Dennison was ready enough to believe. The word of a rogue!

Some private war? Was Cunningham paying off an old grudge? But was any grudge worth this risk? The old boy wasn't to be scared; Cunningham ought to have known that. If Cleigh came through with a whole skin he'd hunt the beggar down if it carried him to the North Pole. Cunningham ought to have known that, too. A planted crew, piracy—and he, Dennison Cleigh, was eventually to chuckle over it! He had his doubts. And where did the glass beads come in? Or had Cunningham spoken the truth—a lure? A big game somewhere in the offing. And the rogue was right! The world, dizzily stewing in a caldron of monumental mistakes, would give scant attention to an off-side play such as this promised to be. Not a handhold anywhere to the puzzle. The old boy might have the key, but Dennison Cleigh could not go to him for the solution.

His own father! Just as he had become used to the idea that the separation was final, absolute, to be thrown together in this fantastic manner! The father's arm under his neck and the cup at his lips had shaken him profoundly. But Cleigh would not have denied a dog drink had the dog exhibited signs of thirst. So nothing could be drawn from that.

* * * * *

Morning. Jane opened her eyes, only to shut them quickly. The white brilliancy of the cabin hurt. Across the ceiling ran a constant flicker of silver—reflected sunshine on the water. Southward—they were heading southward. She jumped out of bed and stepped over to the port. Flashing yellow water, a blue sky, and far off the oddly ribbed sails of a Chinese junk labouring heavily in the big sea that was still running. Glorious!

She dressed hurriedly and warmly, bundling her hair under a velours hat and ramming a pin through both.

"Denny?" she called.

There was no answer. He was on deck, probably.

An odd scene awaited her in the main salon. Cleigh, senior, stood before the phonograph listening to Caruso. The roll of the yacht in nowise disturbed the mechanism of the instrument. There was no sudden sluing of the needle, due to an amateurish device which Cleigh himself had constructed. The son, stooping, was searching the titles of a row of new novels. The width of the salon stretched between the two.

"Good morning, everybody!"

There was a joyousness in her voice she made not the least attempt to conceal. She was joyous, alive, and she did not care who knew it.

Dennison acknowledged her greeting with a smile, a smile which was a mixture of wonder and admiration. How in the world was she to be made to understand that they were riding a deep-sea volcano?

"Nothing disturbed you through the night?" asked Cleigh, lifting the pin from the record.

"Nothing. I lay awake for an hour or two, but after that I slept like a log. Have I kept you waiting?"

"No. Breakfast isn't quite ready," answered Cleigh.

"What makes the sea so yellow?"

"All the big Chinese rivers are mud-banked and mud-bottomed. They pour millions of tons of yellow mud into these waters. By this afternoon, however, I imagine we'll be nosing into the blue. Ah!"

"Breakfast iss served," announced Togo the Jap.

The trio entered the dining salon in single file, and once more Jane found herself seated between the two men. One moment she was carrying on a conversation with the father, the next moment with the son. The two ignored each other perfectly. Under ordinary circumstances it would have been strange enough; but in this hour, when no one knew where or how this voyage would end! A real tragedy or some absurd trifle? Probably a trifle; trifles dug more pits than tragedies. Perhaps tragedy was mis-named. What humans called tragedy was epic, and trifles were real tragedies. And then there were certain natures to whom the trifle was epical; to whom the inconsequent was invariably magnified nine diameters; and having made a mistake, would die rather than admit it.

To bring these two together, to lure them from behind their ramparts of stubbornness, to see them eventually shake hands and grin as men will who recognize that they have been playing the fool! She became fired with the idea. Only she must not move prematurely; there must arrive some psychological moment.

During the meal, toward the end of it, one of the crew entered. He was young—in the early twenties. The manner in which he saluted convinced Dennison that the fellow had recently been in the United States Navy.

"Mr. Cunningham's compliments, sir. Canvas has been rigged on the port promenade and chairs and rugs set out."

Another salute and he was off.

"Well, that's decent enough," was Dennison's comment. "That chap has been in the Navy. It's all miles over my head, I'll confess. Cunningham spoke of a joke when I accosted him in the chart house last night."

"You went up there?" cried Jane.

"Yes. And among other things he said that every man is entitled to at least one good joke. What the devil can he mean by that?"

Had he been looking at his father Dennison would have caught a fleeting, grim, shadowy smile on the strong mouth.

"You will find a dozen new novels on the shelves, Miss Norman," said Cleigh as he rose. "I'll be on deck. I generally walk two or three miles in the morning. Let us hang together this day to test the scalawag's promise."

"Mr. Cleigh, when you spoke of reparation last night, you weren't thinking in monetary terms, were you?"

Cleigh's brows lowered a trifle, but it was the effect of puzzlement.

"Because," she proceeded, gravely, "all the money you possess would not compensate me for the position you have placed me in."

"Well, perhaps I did have money in mind. However, I hold to my word. Anything you may ask."

"Some day I will ask you for something."

"And if humanly possible I promise to give it," and with this Cleigh took leave.

Jane turned to Dennison.

"It is so strange and incomprehensible! You two sitting here and ignoring each other! Surely you don't hate your father?"

"I have the greatest respect and admiration for him. To you no doubt it seems fantastic; but we understand each other thoroughly, my father and I. I'd take his hand instantly, God knows, if he offered it! But if I offered mine it would be glass against diamond—I'd only get badly scratched. Suppose we go on deck? The air and the sunshine——"

"But this catastrophe has brought you together after all these years. Isn't there something providential in that?"

"Who can say?"

On deck they fell in behind Cleigh, and followed him round for fully an hour; then Jane signified that she was tired, and Dennison put her in the centre chair and wrapped the rug about her. He selected the chair at her right.

Jane shut her eyes, and Dennison opened a novel. It was good reading, and he became partially absorbed. The sudden creak of a chair brought his glance round. His father had seated himself in the vacant chair.

The phase that dug in and hurt was that his father made no endeavour to avoid him—simply ignored his existence. Seven years and not a crack in the granite! He laid the book on his knees and stared at the rocking horizon.

One of the crew passed. Cleigh hailed him.

"Send Mr. Cleve to me."

"Yes, sir."

The air and the tone of the man were perfectly respectful.

When Cleve, the first officer, appeared his manner was solicitous.

"Are you comfortable, sir?"

"Would ten thousand dollars interest you?" said Cleigh, directly.

"If you mean to come over to your side, no. My life wouldn't be worth a snap of the thumb. You know something about Dick Cunningham. I know him well. The truth is, Mr. Cleigh, we're off on a big gamble, and if we win out ten thousand wouldn't interest me. Life on board will be exactly as it was before you put into Shanghai. More I am not at liberty to tell you."

"How far is the Catwick?"

"Somewhere round two thousand—eight or nine days, perhaps ten. We're not piling on—short of coal. It's mighty difficult to get it for a private yacht. You may not find a bucketful in Singapore. In America you can always commandeer it, having ships and coal mines of your own. The drop down to Singapore from the Catwick is about forty hours. You have coal in Manila. You can cable for it."

"You are honestly leaving us at that island?"

"Yes, sir. You can, if you wish, take the run up to Saigon; but your chance for coal there is nil."

"Cleve," said Cleigh, solemnly, "you appreciate the risks you are running?"

"Mr. Cleigh, there are no risks. It's a dead certainty. Cunningham is one of your efficiency experts. Everything has been thought of."

"Except fate," supplemented Cleigh.

"Fate? Why, she's our chief engineer!"

Cleve turned away, chuckling; a dozen feet off this chuckle became boisterous laughter.

"What can they be after? Sunken treasure?" cried Jane, excitedly.

"Hangman's hemp—if I live long enough," was the grim declaration, and Cleigh drew the rug over his knees.

"But it can't be anything dreadful if they can laugh over it!"

"Did you ever hear Mephisto laugh in Faust? Cunningham is a queer duck. I don't suppose there's a corner on the globe he hasn't had a peek at. He has a vast knowledge of the arts. His real name nobody seems to know. He can make himself very likable to men and attractive to women. The sort of women he seeks do not mind his physical deformity. His face and his intellect draw them, and he is as cruel as a wolf. It never occurred to me until last night that men like me create his kind. But I don't understand him in this instance. A play like this, with all the future risks! After I get the wires moving he won't be able to stir a hundred miles in any direction."

"But so long as he doesn't intend to harm us—and I'm convinced he doesn't—perhaps we'd better play the game as he asks us to."

"Miss Norman," said Cleigh in a tired voice, "will you do me the favour to ask Captain Dennison why he has never touched the twenty thousand I deposited to his account?"

Astonished, Jane turned to Dennison to repeat the question, but was forestalled.

"Tell Mr. Cleigh that to touch a dollar of that money would be a tacit admission that Mr. Cleigh had the right to strike Captain Dennison across the mouth."

Dennison swung out of the chair and strode off toward the bridge, his shoulders flat and his neck stiff.

"You struck him?" demanded Jane, impulsively.

But Cleigh did not answer. His eyes were closed, his head rested against the back of the chair so Jane did not press the question. It was enough that she had seen behind a corner of this peculiar veil. And, oddly, she felt quite as much pity for the father as for the son. A wall of pride, Alpine high, and neither would force a passage!

They did not see the arch rogue during the day, but he came in to dinner. He was gay—in a story-telling mood. There was little or no banter, for he spoke only to Jane, and gave her flashes of some of his amazing activities in search of art treasures. He had once been chased up and down Japan by the Mikado's agents for having in his possession some royal-silk tapestry which it is forbidden to take out of the country. Another time he had gone into Tibet for a lama's ghost mask studded with raw emeralds and turquoise, and had suffered untold miseries in getting down into India. Again he had entered a Rajput haremlik as a woman, and eventually escaped with the fabulous rug which hung in the salon. Adventure, adventure, and death always at his elbow! There was nothing of the braggart in the man; he recounted his tales after the manner of a boy relating some college escapades, deprecatingly.

Often Jane stole a glance at one or the other of the Cleighs. She was constantly swung between—but never touched—the desire to laugh and the desire to weep over this tragedy, which seemed so futile.

"Why don't you write a book about these adventures?" she asked.

"A book? No time," said Cunningham. "Besides, the moment one of these trips is over it ends; I can recount it only sketchily."

"But even sketchily it would be tremendously interesting. It is as if you were playing a game with death for the mere sport of it."

"Maybe that hits it, though I've never stopped to analyze. I never think of death; it is a waste of gray matter. I should be no nearer death in Tibet than I should be asleep in a cradle. Why bother about the absolute, the inevitable? Humanity wears itself out building bridges for imaginary torrents. I am an exception; that is why I shall be young and handsome up to the moment the grim stalker puts his claw on my shoulder."

He smiled whimsically.

"But you, have you never caught some of the passion for possessing rare paintings, rugs, manuscripts?"

"You miss the point. What does the sense of possession amount to beside the sense of seeking and finding? Cleigh here thinks he is having a thrill when he signs a check. It is to laugh!"

"Have you ever killed a man?" It was one of those questions that leap forth irresistibly. Jane was a bit frightened at her temerity.

Cunningham drank his coffee deliberately.

"Yes."

"Oh!"

Jane shrank back a little.

"But never willfully," Cunningham added—"always in self-defence, and never a white man."

There was a peculiar phase about the man's singular beauty. Animated, it was youthful; in grim repose, it was sad and old.

"Death!" said Jane in a kind of awed whisper. "I have watched many die, and I cannot get over the terror of it. Here is a man with all the faculties, physical and mental; a human being, loving, hating, working, sleeping; and in an instant he is nothing!"

"A Chinaman once said that the thought of death is as futile as water in the hand. By the way, Cleigh—and you too, captain—give the wireless a wide berth. There's death there."

Jane saw the fire opals leap into the dark eyes.



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 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 father arranging himself comfortably. He had a book.

"Would you like me to read a while to you?" she offered.

"Will you? You see," he confessed, "I'm troubled with insomnia. If I read by myself I only become interested in the book, but if someone reads aloud it makes me drowsy."

"As a nurse I've done that hundreds of times. But frankly, I can't read poetry; I begin to sing-song it at once; it becomes rime without reason. What is the book?"

Cleigh extended it to her. The moment her hands touched the volume she saw that she was holding something immeasurably precious. The form was unlike the familiar shapes of modern books. The covers consisted of exquisitely hand-tooled calf bound by thongs; there was a subtle perfume as she opened them. Illuminated vellum. She uttered a pleasurable little gasp.

"The Song of Songs, which is Solomon's," she read.

"Fifteenth century—the vellum. The Florentine covers were probably added in the seventeenth. I have four more downstairs. They are museum pieces, as we say."

"That is to say, priceless?"

"After a fashion."

"'Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it; if a man would give all the substance of his house for love, it would utterly be contemned!'"

"Why did you select that?"

"I didn't select it; I remembered it—because it is true."

"You have a very pleasant voice. Go on—read."

Thus for an hour she read to him, and by the time she grew tired Cleigh was sound asleep. The look of granite was gone from his face, and she saw that he, too, had been handsome in his youth. Why had he struck Denny on the mouth? What had the son done so to enrage the father? Some woman! And where had she met the man? Oh, she was certain that she had encountered him before! But for the present the gate to recollection refused to swing outward. Gently she laid the beautiful book on his knees and stole over to the rail. For a while she watched the flying fish.

Then came one of those impulses which keep human beings from becoming half gods—a wrong impulse, surrendered to immediately, unweighed, unanalyzed, unchallenged. The father asleep, the son amusing himself with the phonograph, she was now unobserved by her guardians; and so she put into execution the thought that had been urging and intriguing her since the strange voyage began—a visit to the chart house. She wanted to ask Cunningham some questions. He would know something about the Cleighs.

The port door to the chart house was open, latched back against the side. She hesitated for a moment outside the high-beamed threshold—hesitated because Captain Newton was not visible. The wheelman was alone. Obliquely she saw Cunningham, Cleve, and a third man seated round a table which was littered. This third man sat facing the port door, and sensing her presence he looked up. Rather attractive until one noted the thin, hard lips, the brilliant blue eyes. At the sight of Jane something flitted over his face, and Jane knew that he was bad.

"What's the matter, Flint?" asked Cunningham, observing the other's abstraction.

"We have a visitor," answered Flint.

Cunningham spun his chair round and jumped to his feet.

"Miss Norman? Come in, come in! Anything you need?" he asked with lively interest.

"I should like to ask you some questions, Mr. Cunningham."

"Oh! Well, if I can answer them, I will."

He looked significantly at his companions, who rose and left the house by the starboard door.