"But your father?"

"Cunningham will have to dig a pretty deep hole somewhere if he expects to hide successfully. It's a hundred-to-one shot that father will never see his rug again. He probably realizes that, and he will be relentless. He'll coal at Manila and turn back. He'll double or triple the new crew's wages. Money will mean nothing if he starts after Cunningham. Of course I'll be out of the picture at Manila."

"Do you know why your father kidnaped me so easily? I thought maybe I could find a chink in his armour and bring you two together."

"And you've found the job hopeless!" Dennison shrugged.

"Won't you tell me what the cause was?"

"Ask him. He'll tell it better than I can. So you hid the beads in that hand-warmer! Not half bad. But why don't you take the sixty thousand?"

"I've an old-fashioned conscience."

"I don't mean Father's gold, but the French Government's. Comfort as long as you lived."

"No, I could not touch even that money. The beads were stolen."

"Lord, Lord! Then there are three of us—Cunningham, myself, and you!"

"Are you calling me a tomfool?"

"Not exactly. What's the feminine?"

She laughed and rose.

"You are almost human to-night."

"Where are you going?"

"I'm going to have a little talk with your father."

"Good luck. I'm going to have a fresh pot of coffee. I shall want to keep awake to-night."

"Why?"

"Oh, just an idea. You'd better turn in when the interview is over. Good luck."

Jane stood framed in the doorway for a moment. Under the reading lamp in the main salon she saw Cleigh. He was running the beads from hand to hand and staring into space. Behind her she heard Dennison's spoon clatter in the cup as he stirred the coffee.

Wild horses! She felt as though she were being pulled two ways by wild horses! For she was about to demand of Anthony Cleigh the promised reparation. And which of two things should she demand? All this time, since Cleigh had uttered the promise, she had had but one thought—to bring father and son together, to do away with this foolish estrangement. For there did not seem to be on earth any crime that merited such a condition. If he humanly could—he had modified the promise with that. What was more human than to forgive—a father to forgive a son?

And now Cunningham had to wedge in compellingly! She could hesitate between Denny and Cunningham! The rank disloyalty of it shocked her. To give Cunningham his eight months! Pity, urgent pity for the broken body and tortured soul of the man—mothering pity! Denny was whole and sound, mentally and physically; he would never know any real mental torture, anything that compared with Cunningham's, which was enduring, now waxing, now waning, but always sensible. To secure for him his eight months, without let or hindrance from the full enmity of Cleigh; to give him his boyhood dream, whether he found his pearls or not. Her throat became stuffed with the presage of tears. The poor thing!

But Denny, parting from his father at Manila, the cleavage wider than ever, beyond hope! Oh, she could not tolerate the thought of that! These two, so full of strong and bitter pride—they would never meet again if they separated now. Perhaps fate had assigned the role of peacemaker to her, and she had this weapon in her hand to enforce it or bring it about—the father's solemn promise to grant whatever she might ask. And she could dodder between Denny and Cunningham!

To demand both conditions would probably appeal to Cleigh as not humanly possible. One or the other, but not the two together.

An interval of several minutes of which she had no clear recollection, and then she was conscious that she was reclining in her chair on deck, staring at the stars which appeared jerkily and queerly shaped—through tears. She hadn't had the courage to make a decision. As if it became any easier to solve by putting it over until to-morrow!

Chance—the Blind Madonna of the Pagan—was preparing to solve the riddle for her—with a thunderbolt!

The mental struggle had exhausted Jane somewhat, and she fell into a doze. When she woke she was startled to see by her wrist watch that it was after eleven. The yacht was plowing along through the velvet blackness of the night. The inclination to sleep gone, Jane decided to walk the deck until she was as bodily tired as she was mentally. All the hidden terror was gone. To-morrow these absurd pirates would be on their way.

Study the situation as she might, she could discover no flaw in this whimsical madman's plans. He held the crew in his palm, even as he held Cleigh—by covetousness. Cleigh would never dare send the British after Cunningham; and the crew would obey him to the letter because that meant safety and recompense. The Great Adventure Company! Only by an act of God! And what could possibly happen between now and the arrival of the Haarlem?

Cleigh had evidently turned in, for through the transoms she saw that the salon lights were out. She circled the deck house six times, then went up to the bow and stared down the cutwater at the phosphorescence. Blue fire! The eternal marvel of the sea!

A hand fell upon her shoulder. She thought it would be Denny's. It was Flint's!

"Be a good sport, an' give us a kiss!"

She drew back, but he caught her arm. His breath was foul with tobacco and whisky.

"All right, I'll take it!"

With her free hand she struck him in the face. It was a sound blow, for Jane was no weakling. That should have warned Flint that a struggle would not be worth while. But where's the drunken man with caution? The blow stung Flint equally in flesh and spirit. He would kiss this woman if it was the last thing he ever did!

Jane fought him savagely, never thinking to call to the bridge. Twice she escaped, but each time the fool managed to grasp either her waist or her skirt. Then out of nowhere came the voice of Cunningham:

"Flint!"

Dishevelled and breathless, Jane found herself free. She stumbled to the rail and rested there for a moment. Dimly she could see the two men enacting a weird shadow dance. Then it came to her that Cunningham would not be strong enough to vanquish Flint, so she ran aft to rouse Denny.

As she went down the companionway, her knees threatening to give way, she heard voices, blows, crashings against the partitions. Instinct told her to seek her cabin and barricade the door; curiosity drove her through the two darkened salons to the forward passage. Only a single lamp was on, but that was enough. Anthony Cleigh's iron-gray head towering above a whirlwind of fists and forearms!

What had happened? This couldn't be real! She was still in her chair on deck, and what she saw was nightmare! Out of the calm, all in a moment, this! Where was Denny, if this picture wasn't nightmare? Cunningham above, struggling with the whisky-maddened Flint—Cleigh fighting in the passage! Dear God, what had happened?

Where was Denny? The question let loose in her heart and mind all that was emotional, at the same time enchaining her to the spot where she stood. Denny! Why, she loved Denny! And she had not known it consciously until this moment. Because some presciential instinct warned her that Denny was either dead or badly hurt!

The narrowness of the passage gave Cleigh one advantage—none of the men could get behind him. Sometimes he surged forward a little, sometimes he stepped back, but never back of the line he had set for himself. By and by Jane forced her gaze to the deck to see what it was that held him like a rock. What she saw was only the actual of what she had already envisaged—Denny, either dead or badly hurt!

What had happened was this: Six of the crew, those spirits who had succumbed to the secret domination of the man Flint—the drinkers—had decided to celebrate the last night on the Wanderer. Their argument was that old man Cleigh wouldn't miss a few bottles, and that it would be a long time between drinks when they returned to the States; and never might they again have so easy a chance to taste the juice of the champagne grape. Where was the harm? Hadn't they behaved like little Fauntleroys for weeks? They did not want any trouble—just half a dozen bottles, and back to the forepeak to empty them. That wouldn't kill the old man. They wouldn't even have to force the door of the dry-stores; they had already learned that they could tickle the lock out of commission by the use of a bent wire. Young, restless, and mischievous—none of them bad. A bit of laughter and a few bars of song—that was all they wanted. No doubt the affair would have blown itself out harmlessly but for the fact that Chance had other ideas. She has a way with her, this Pagan Madonna, of taking off the cheerful motley of a jest and substituting the Phrygian cap of terror, subitaneously.

Dennison had lain down on the lounge in the main salon. Restless, unhappy, bitter toward his father, he had lain there counting the throbs of the engine to that point where they mysteriously cease to register and one has to wait a minute or two to pick up the throb again.

For years he had lived more or less in the open, which attunes the human ear to sounds that generally pass unnoticed. All at once he was sure that he had heard the tinkle of glass, but he waited. The tinkle was repeated. Instinct led him at once to the forward passage, and one glance down this was sufficient. From the thought of a drunken orgy—the thing he had been fearing since the beginning of this mad voyage—his thought leaped to Jane. Thus his subsequent acts were indirectly in her defense.

"What the devil are you up to there?" he called.

The unexpectedness of the challenge disconcerted the men. They had enough loot. A quick retreat, and Dennison would have had nothing to do but close the dry-stores door. But middle twenties are belligerent rather than discreet.

"What you got to say about it?" jeered one of the men, shifting his brace of bottles to the arms of another and squaring off.

Dennison rushed them, and the melee began. It was a strenuous affair while it lasted. When a strong man is full of anger and bitter disappointment, when six young fellows are bored to distraction, nothing is quite so satisfying as an exchange of fisticuffs. Dennison had the advantage of being able to hit right and left, at random, while his opponents were not always sure that a blow landed where it was directed.

Naturally the racket drew Cleigh to the scene, and he arrived in time to see a champagne bottle descend upon the head of his son. Dennison went down.

Cleigh, boiling with impotent fury, had gone to bed, not to sleep but to plan; some way round the rogue, to trip him and regain the treasures that meant so much to him. Like father, like son. When he saw what was going on in the passage he saw also that here was something that linked up with his mood. Of course it was to defend the son; but without the bitter rage and the need of physical expression he would have gone for the hidden revolver and settled the affair with that. Instead he flew at the men with the savageness of a gray wolf. He was a tower of a man, for all his sixty years; and he had mauled three of the crew severely before Cunningham arrived.

Why had the mutinous six offered battle? Why hadn't they retreated with good sense at the start? Originally all they had wanted was the wine. Why stop to fight when the wine was theirs? In the morning none of them could answer these questions. Was there ever a rough-and-tumble that anybody could explain lucidly the morning after? Perhaps it was the false pride of youth; the bitter distaste at the thought of six turning tail for one.

Cunningham fired a shot at the ceiling, and a dozen of the crew came piling in from the forward end of the passage. The fighting stopped magically.

"You fools!" cried Cunningham in a high, cracked voice. "To put our heads into hemp at the last moment. If anything happens to young Cleigh, back to Manila you go with the yacht! Clear out! At the last moment!" It was like a sob.

Jane, still entranced, saw Cleigh stoop and put his arms under the body of his son, heave, and stand up under the dead weight. He staggered past her toward the main salon. She heard him mutter.

"God help me if I'm too late—if I've waited too long! Denny?"

That galvanized her into action, and she flew to the light buttons, flooding both the dining and the main salons. She helped Cleigh to place Dennison on the lounge. After that it was her affair. Dennison was alive, but how much alive could be told only by the hours. She bathed and bandaged his head. Beyond that she could do nothing but watch and wait.

"I wouldn't mind—a little of that—water," said Cunningham, weakly.

Cleigh, with menacing fists, wheeled upon him; but he did not strike the man who was basically the cause of Denny's injuries. At the same time Jane, looking up across Dennison's body, uttered a gasp of horror. The entire left side of Cunningham was drenched in blood, and the arm dangled.

"Flint had a knife—and—was quite handy with it."

"For me!" she cried. "For defending me! Mr. Cleigh, Flint caught me on deck—and Mr. Cunningham—oh, this is horrible!"

"You were right, Cleigh. The best-laid plans of mice and men! What an ass I am! I honestly thought I could play a game like this without hurt to anybody. It was to be a whale of a joke. Flint——"

Cunningham reached blindly for the nearest chair and collapsed in it.

* * * * *

An hour later. The four of them were still in the main salon. Jane sat at the head of the lounge, and from time to time she took Dennison's pulse and temperature. She had finally deduced that there had been no serious concussion. Cleigh sat at the foot of the lounge, his head on his hands. Cunningham occupied the chair into which he had collapsed. Three ugly flesh wounds, but nothing a little time would not heal. True, he had had a narrow squeak. He sat with his eyes closed.

"Why?" asked Jane suddenly, breaking the silence.

"What?" said Cleigh, looking up.

"Why these seven years—if you cared? I heard you say something about being too late. Why?"

"I'm a queer old fool. An idea, when it enters my head, sticks. I can't shift my plans easily; I have to go through. What you have witnessed these several days gives you the impression that I have no heart. That isn't true. But we Cleighs are pigheaded. Until he was sent to Russia he was never from under the shadow of my hand. My agents kept me informed of all his moves, his adventures. The mistake was originally mine. I put him in charge of an old scholar who taught him art, music, languages, but little or nothing about human beings. I gave him a liberal allowance; but he was a queer lad, and Broadway never heard of him. Now I hold that youth must have its fling in some manner or other; after thirty there is no cure for folly. So when he ran away I let him go; but he never got so far away that I did not know what he was doing. I liked the way he rejected the cash I gave him; the way he scorned to trade upon the name. He went clean. Why? I don't know. Oh, yes, he got hilariously drunk once in a while, but he had his fling in clean places. I had agents watching him."

"Why did he run away?" asked Jane.

"No man can tell another man; a man has to find it out for himself—the difference between a good woman and a bad one."

"I play that statement to win," interposed Cunningham without opening his eyes.

"There was a woman?" said Jane.

"A bad one. Pretty and clever as sin. My fault. I should have sent him to college where he'd have got at least a glimmer of life. But I kept him under the tutor until the thing happened. He thought he was in love, when it was only his first woman. She wanted his money—or, more properly speaking, mine. I had her investigated and found that she was bad all through. When I told him boldly what she was he called me a liar. I struck him across the mouth, and he promptly knocked me down."

"Pretty good punch for a youngster," was Cunningham's comment.

"It was," replied Cleigh, grimly. "He went directly to his room, packed, and cleared out. In that he acted wisely, for at that moment I would have cast him out had he come with an apology. But the following day I could not find him; nor did I get track of him until weeks later. He had married the woman and then found her out. That's all cleared off the slate, though. She's been married and divorced three times since then."

"Did you expect to see him over here?"

"In Shanghai? No. The sight of him rather knocked me about. You understand? It was his place to make the first sign. He was in the wrong, and he has known it all these seven years."

"No," said Jane, "it was your place to make the first advance. If you had been a comrade to him in his boyhood he would never have been in the wrong."

"But I gave him everything!"

"Everything but love. Did you ever tell him a fairy story?"

"A fairy story!" Cleigh's face was the essence of bewilderment.

"You put him in the care of a lovable old dreamer, and then expected him to accept life as you knew it."

Cleigh rumpled his cowlicks. A fairy story? But that was nonsense! Fairy stories had long since gone out of fashion.

"When I saw you two together an idea popped into my head. But do you care for the boy?"

"I care everything for him—or I shouldn't be here!"

Cunningham relaxed a little more in his chair, his eyes still closed.

"What do you mean by that?" demanded Cleigh.

"I let you abduct me. I thought, maybe, if I were near you for a little I might bring you two together."

"Well, now!" said Cleigh, falling into the old New England vernacular which was his birthright. "I brought you on board merely to lure him after you. I wanted you both on board so I could observe you. I intended to carry you both off on a cruise. I watched you from the door that night while you two were dining. I saw by his face and his gestures that he would follow you anywhere."

"But I—I am only a professional nurse. I'm nobody! I haven't anything!"

"Good Lord, will you listen to that?" cried the pirate, with a touch of his old banter. "Nobody and nothing?"

Neither Jane nor Cleigh apparently heard this interpolation.

"Why did you maltreat him?"

"Otherwise he would have thought I was offering my hand, that I had weakened."

"And you expected him to fall on your shoulder and ask your pardon after that? Mr. Cleigh, for a man of your intellectual attainments, your stand is the biggest piece of stupidity I ever heard of! How in the world was he to know what your thoughts were?"

"I was giving him his chance," declared Cleigh, stubbornly.

"A yacht? It's a madhouse," gibed Cunningham. "And this is a convention of fools!"

"How do you want me to act?" asked Cleigh, surrendering absolutely.

"When he comes to, take his hand. You don't have to say anything else."

"All right."

From Dennison's lips came a deep, long sigh. Jane leaned over.

"Denny?" she whispered.

The lids of Dennison's eyes rolled back heavily.

"Jane—all right?" he asked, quickly.

"Yes. How do you feel?"

He reached out a hand whence her voice came. She met the hand with hers, and that seemed to be all he wanted just then.

"You'd better get your bathrobe, Mr. Cleigh," she suggested.

Cleigh became conscious for the first time of the condition of his pyjama jacket. It hung upon his torso in mere ribbons. He became conscious also of the fact that his body ached variously and substantially.

"Thirty-odd years since I was in a racket like this. I'm getting along."

"And on the way," put in Cunningham, "you might call Cleve. I'd feel better—stretched out."

"Oh, I had forgotten!" cried Jane, reproaching herself. Weakened as he was, and sitting in a chair!

"And don't forget, Cleigh, that I'm master of the Wanderer until I leave it. I sympathize deeply," Cunningham went on, ironically, "but I have some active troubles of my own."

"And God send they abide with you always!" was Cleigh's retort.

"They will—if that will give you any comfort. Do you know what? You will always have me to thank for this. That will be my comforting thought. The god in the car!"

Later, when Cleve helped Cunningham into his bunk, the latter asked about the crew.

"Scared stiff. They realize that it was a close shave. I've put the fools in irons. They're best there until we leave. But we can't do anything but forget the racket when we board the Dutchman. Where's that man Flint? We can't find him anywhere. He's at the bottom of it. I knew that sooner or later there'd be the devil to pay with a woman on board. Probably the fool's hiding in the bunkers. I'll give every rat hole a look-see. Pretty nearly got you."

"Flint was out of luck—and so was I! I thought in pistols, and forgot that there might be a knife or two. I'll be on my feet in the morning. Little weak, that's all. Nobody and nothing!" said Cunningham, addressing the remark to the crossbeam above his head.

"What's that?" asked Cleve.

"I was thinking out loud. Get back to the chart house. Old Newton may play us some trick if he isn't watched. And don't bother to search for Flint. I know where he is."

Something in Cunningham's tone coldly touched Cleve's spine. He went out, closing the door quietly; and there was reason for the sudden sweat in his palms.

Chance! A wry smile stirred one corner of Cunningham's mouth. He had boasted that he had left nothing to chance, with this result! Burning up! Inward and outward fires! Love beads! Well, what were they if not that? But that she would trust him when everything about him should have repelled her! Was there a nugget of forgotten gold in his cosmos, and had she discovered it? She still trusted him, for he had sensed it in the quick but tender touch of her hands upon his throbbing wounds.

To learn, after all these years, that he had been a coward! To have run away from misfortune instead of facing it and beating it down!

Pearls! All he had left! And when he found them, what then? Turn them into money he no longer cared to spend? Or was this an interlude—a mocking interlude, and would to-morrow see his conscience relegated to the dustbin out of which it had so oddly emerged?

* * * * *

When Dennison opened his eyes again Jane was still holding his hand. Upon beholding his father Dennison held out his free hand.

"Will you take it, Father? I'm sorry."

"Of course I'll take it, Denny. I was an old fool."

"And I was a young one."

"Would you like a cup of coffee?" Cleigh asked, eagerly.

"If it won't be too much trouble."

"No trouble at all."

A hand pressure, a few inconsequent phrases, that is always enough for two strong characters in the hour of reconciliation.

Cleigh out of the way, Jane tried to disengage her hand, but Dennison only tightened his grip.

"No"—a pause—"it's different now. The old boy will find some kind of a job for me. Will you marry me, Jane? I did not speak before, because I hadn't anything to offer."

"No?"

"I couldn't offer marriage until I had a job."

"But supposing your father doesn't give you one?"

"Why——"

"You poor boy! I'm only fishing."

"For what?"

"Well, why do you want to marry me?"

"Hang it, because I love you!"

"Why didn't you tell me that in the first place? How was I to know unless you told me? But oh, Denny, I want to go home!" She laid her cheek against his hand. "I want a garden with a picket fence round it and all the simple flowers. I never want another adventure in all my days!"

"Same here!"

A stretch of silence.

"What happened to me?"

"Someone hit you with a wine bottle."

"A vintage—and I never got a swallow!"

"And then your father went to your defense."

"The old boy? Honestly?"

"He stood astride your body until Mr. Cunningham came in and stopped the melee."

"Cunningham! They quit?"

"Yes—Flint. I didn't dream it wouldn't be safe to go on deck, and Flint caught me. He was drunk. But for Cunningham, I don't know what would have happened. I ran and left them fighting, and Flint wounded Cunningham with a knife. It was for me, Denny. I feel so sorry for him! So alone, hating himself and hating the world, tortured with misunderstanding—good in him that he keeps smothering and trampling down. His unbroken word—to hang to that!"

"All right. So far as I'm concerned, that cleans the slate."

"I loved you, Denny, but I didn't know how much until I saw you on the floor. Do you know what I was going to demand of your father as a reparation for bringing me on board? His hand in yours. That was all I wanted."

"Always thinking of someone else!"

"That's all the happiness I've ever had, Denny—until now!"



CHAPTER XXI

A good deal of orderly commotion took place the following morning. Cunningham's crew, under the temporary leadership of Cleve, proceeded to make everything shipshape. There was no exuberance; they went at the business quietly and grimly. They sensed a shadow overhead. The revolt of the six discovered to the others what a rickety bridge they were crossing, how easily and swiftly a jest may become a tragedy.

They had accepted the game as a kind of huge joke. Everything had been prepared against failure; it was all cut and dried; all they had to do was to believe themselves. For days they had gone about their various duties thinking only of the gay time that would fall to their lot when they left the Wanderer. The possibility that Cleigh would not proceed in the manner advanced by Cunningham's psychology never bothered them until now. Supposing the old man's desire for vengeance was stronger than his love for his art objects? He was a fighter; he had proved it last night. Supposing he put up a fight and called in the British to help him?

Not one of them but knew what the penalty would be if pursued and caught. But Cunningham had persuaded them up to this hour that they would not even be pursued; that it would not be humanly possible for Cleigh to surrender the hope of eventually recovering his unlawful possessions. And now they began to wonder, to fret secretly, to reconsider the ancient saying that the way of the transgressor is hard.

On land they could have separated and hidden successfully. Here at sea the wireless was an inescapable net. Their only hope was to carry on. Cunningham might pull them through. For, having his own hide to consider, he would bring to bear upon the adventure all his formidable ingenuity.

At eleven the commotion subsided magically and the men vanished below, but at four-thirty they swarmed the port bow, silently if interestedly. If they talked at all it was in a whispering undertone.

The mutinous revellers formed a group of their own. They appeared to have been roughly handled by the Cleighs. The attitude was humble, the expression worriedly sorrowful. Why hadn't they beat a retreat? The psychology of their madness escaped them utterly. There was one grain of luck—they hadn't killed young Cleigh. What fool had swung that bottle? Not one of them could recall.

The engines of the Wanderer stopped, and she rolled lazily in the billowing brass, waiting.

Out of the blinding topaz of the sou'west nosed a black object, illusory. It appeared to ride neither wind nor water.

From the bridge Cleigh eyed this object dourly, and with a swollen heart he glanced from time to time at the crates and casings stacked below. He knew that he would never set eyes upon any of these treasures again. When they were lowered over the side that would be the end of them. Cunningham might be telling the truth as to his intentions; but he was promising something that was not conceivably possible, any more than it was possible to play at piracy and not get hurt.

At Cleigh's side stood the son, his head swathed in bandages. All day long he had been subjected to splitting headaches, and his face looked tired and drawn. He had stayed in bed until he had heard "Ship ahoy!"

"Are you going to start something?" he asked.

Cleigh did not answer, but peered through the glass again.

"I don't see how you're going to land him without the British. On the other hand, you can't tell. Cunningham might bring the stuff back."

Cleigh laughed, but still held the glass to his eye.

"When and where are you going to get married?"

"Manila. Jane wants to go home, and I want a job."

Cleigh touched his split lips and his bruised cheekbone, for he had had to pay for his gallantry; and there was a spot in his small ribs that racked him whenever he breathed deeply.

"What the devil do you want of a job?"

"You're not thinking that I'm going back on an allowance? I've had independence for seven years, and I'm going to keep it, Father."

"I've money enough"—brusquely.

"That isn't it. I want to begin somewhere and build something for myself. You know as well as I do that if I went home on an allowance you'd begin right off to dominate me as you used to, and no man is going to do that again."

"What can you do?"

"That's the point—I don't know. I've got to find out."

Cleigh lowered the glass.

"Let's see; didn't you work on a sugar plantation somewhere?"

"Yes. How'd you find that out?"

"Never mind about that. I can give you a job, and it won't be soft, either. I've a sugar plantation in Hawaii that isn't paying the dividends it ought to. I'll turn the management over to you. You make good the second year, or back you come to me, domination and all."

"I agree to that—if the plantation can be developed."

"The stuff is there; all it needs is some pep."

"All right, I'll take the job."

"You and your wife shall spend the fall and winter with me. In February you can start to work."

"Are you out for Cunningham's hide?"

"What would you do in my place?"

"Sit tight and wait."

Cleigh laughed sardonically.

"Because," went on Dennison, "he's played the game too shrewdly not to have other cards up his sleeve. He may find his pearls and return the loot."

"Do you believe that? Don't talk like a fool! I tell you, his pearls are in those casings there! But, son, I'm glad to have you back. And you've found a proper mate."

"Isn't she glorious?"

"Better than that. She's the kind that'll always be fussing over you, and that's the kind a man needs. But mind your eye! Don't take it for granted! Make her want to fuss over you."

When the oncoming tramp reached a point four hundred yards to the southwest of the yacht she slued round broadside. For a moment or two the reversed propeller—to keep the old tub from drifting—threw up a fountain; and before the sudsy eddies had subsided the longboat began a jerky descent. No time was going to be wasted evidently.

The Haarlem—or whatever name was written on her ticket—was a picture. Even her shadows tried to desert her as she lifted and wallowed in the long, burnished rollers. There was something astonishingly impudent about her. She reminded Dennison of an old gin-sodden female derelict of the streets. There were red patches all over her, from stem to stern, where the last coat of waterproof black had blistered off. The brass of her ports were green. Her name should have been Neglect. She was probably full of smells; and Dennison was ready to wager that in a moderate sea her rivets and bedplates whined, and that the pump never rested.

But it occurred to him that there must be some basis of fact in Cunningham's pearl atoll, and yonder owner was game enough to take a sporting chance; that, or he had been handsomely paid for his charter.

An atoll in the Sulu Archipelago that had been overlooked—that was really the incredible part of it. Dennison had first-hand knowledge that there wasn't a rock in the whole archipelago that had not been looked over and under by the pearl hunters.

He saw the tramp's longboat come staggering across the intervening water. Rag-tag and bob-tail of the Singapore docks, crimp fodder—that was what Dennison believed he had the right to expect. And behold! Except that they were older, the newcomers lined up about average with the departing—able seamen.

The transshipping of the crews occupied about an hour. As the longboat's boat hook caught the Wanderer's ladder for the third time the crates and casings were carried down and carefully deposited in the stern sheets.

About this time Cunningham appeared. He paused by the rail for a minute and looked up at the Cleighs, father and son. He was pale, and his attitude suggested pain and weakness, but he was not too weak to send up his bantering smile. Cleigh, senior, gazed stonily forward, but Dennison answered the smile by soberly shaking his head. Dennison could not hear Cunningham's laugh, but he saw the expression of it.

Cunningham put his hand on the rail in preparation for the first step, when Jane appeared with bandages, castile soap, the last of her stearate of zinc, absorbent cotton and a basin of water.

"What's this—a clinic?" he asked.

"You can't go aboard that awful-looking ship without letting me give you a fresh dressing," she declared.

"Lord love you, angel of mercy, I'm all right!"

"It was for me. Even now you are in pain. Please!"

"Pain?" he repeated.

For one more touch of her tender hands! To carry the thought of that through the long, hot night! Perhaps it was his ever-bubbling sense of malice that decided him—to let her minister to him, with the Cleighs on the bridge to watch and boil with indignation. He nodded, and she followed him to the hatch, where he sat down.

Dennison saw his father's hands strain on the bridge rail, the presage of a gathering storm. He intervened by a rough seizure of Cleigh's arm.

"Listen to me, Father! Not a word of reproach out of you when she comes up—God bless her! Anything in pain! It's her way, and I'll not have her reproached. God alone knows what the beggar saved her from last night! If you utter a word I'll cash that twenty thousand—it's mine now—and you'll never see either of us after Manila!"

Cleigh gently disengaged his arm.

"Sonny, you've got a man's voice under your shirt these days. All right. Run down and give the new crew the once-over, and see if they have a wireless man among them."

* * * * *

Sunset—a scarlet horizon and an old-rose sea. For a little while longer the trio on the bridge could discern a diminishing black speck off to the southeast. The Wanderer was boring along a point north of east, Manila way. The speck soon lost its blackness and became violet, and then magically the streaked horizon rose up behind the speck and obliterated it.

"The poor benighted thing!" said Jane. "God didn't mean that he should be this kind of a man."

"Does any of us know what God wants of us?" asked Cleigh, bitterly.

"He wants men like you who pretend to the world that they're granite-hearted when they're not. Ever since we started, Denny, I've been trying to recall where I'd seen your father before; and it came a little while ago. I saw him only once—a broken child he'd brought to the hospital to be mended. I happened to be passing through the children's ward for some reason. He called himself Jones or Brown or Smith—I forget. But they told me afterward that he brought on an average of four children a month, and paid all expenses until they were ready to go forth, if not cured at least greatly bettered. He told the chief that if anybody ever followed him he would never come back. Your father's a hypocrite, Denny."

"So that's where I saw you?" said Cleigh, ruminatively. He expanded a little. He wanted the respect and admiration of this young woman—his son's wife-to-be. "Don't weave any golden halo for me," he added, dryly. "After Denny packed up and hiked it came back rather hard that I hadn't paid much attention to his childhood. It was a kind of penance."

"But you liked it!"

"Maybe I only got used to it. Say, Denny, was there a wireless man in the crew?"

"No. I knew there wouldn't be. But I can handle the key."

"Fine! Come along then."

"What are you going to do?"

"Do? Why, I'm going to have the Asiatic fleets on his heels inside of twenty-four hours! That's what I'm going to do! He's an unprincipled rogue!"

"No," interposed Jane, "only a poor broken thing."

"That's no fault of mine. But no man can play this sort of game with me, and show a clean pair of heels. The rug and the paintings are gone for good. I swore to him that I would have his hide, and have it I will! I never break my word."

"Denny," said Jane, "for my sake you will not touch the wireless."

"I'm giving the orders!" roared Cleigh.

"Wait a moment!" said Jane. "You spoke of your word. That first night you promised me any reparation I should demand."

"I made that promise. Well?"

"Give him his eight months."

She gestured toward the sea, toward the spot where they had last seen the Haarlem.

"You demand that?"

"No, I only ask it. I understand the workings of that twisted soul, and you don't. Let him have his queer dream—his boyhood adventure. Are you any better than he? Were those treasures honourably yours? Fie! No, I won't demand that you let him go; I'll only ask it. Because you will not deny to me what you gave to those little children—generosity."

Cleigh did not speak.

"I want to love you," she continued, "but I couldn't if there was no mercy in your sense of justice. Be merciful to that unhappy outcast, who probably never had any childhood, or if he had, a miserable one. Children are heartless; they don't know any better. They pointed the finger of ridicule and contempt at him—his playmates. Imagine starting life like that! And he told me that the first woman he loved—laughed in his face! I feel—I don't know why—that he was always without care, from his childhood up. He looked so forlorn! Eight months! We need never tell him. I'd rather he shouldn't know that I tried to intercede for him. But for him we three would not be here together, with understanding. I only ask it."

Cleigh turned and went down the ladder. Twenty times he circled the deck; then he paused under the bridge and sent up a hail.

"Dinner is ready!"

The moment Jane reached the deck Cleigh put an arm round her.

"No other human being could have done it. It is a cup of gall and wormwood, but I'll take it. Why? Because I am old and lonely and want a little love. I have no faith in Cunningham's word, but he shall go free."

"How long since you kissed any one?" she asked.

"Many years." And he stooped to her cheek. To press back the old brooding thought he said with cheerful brusqueness: "Suppose we celebrate? I'll have Togo ice a bottle of that vintage those infernal ruffians broke over your head last night."

Dennison laughed.

* * * * *

October.

The Cleigh library was long and wide. There was a fine old blue Ispahan on the floor. The chairs were neither historical nor uncomfortable. One came in here to read. The library was on the second floor. When you reached this room you left the affairs of state and world behind.

A wood fire crackled and shifted in the fireplace, the marble hood of which had been taken from a famous Italian palace. The irons stood ready as of yore for the cups of mulled wine. Before this fire sat a little old woman knitting. Her feet were on a hassock. From time to time her bird-like glance swept the thinker in the adjacent chair. She wondered what he could see in the fire there to hold his gaze so steadily. The little old lady had something of the attitude of a bird that had been given its liberty suddenly, and having always lived in a cage knew not what to make of all these vast spaces.

She was Jane's mother, and sitting in the chair beside her was Anthony Cleigh.

"There are said to be only five portable authentic paintings by Leonardo da Vinci," said Cleigh, "and I had one of them, Mother. Illegally, perhaps, but still I had it. It is a copy that hangs in the European gallery. There's a point. Gallery officials announce a theft only when some expert had discovered the substitution. There are a number of so-called Da Vincis, but those are the works of Boltraffio, Da Vinci's pupil. I'll always be wondering, even in my grave, where that crook, Eisenfeldt, had disposed of it."

Mrs. Norman went on with her knitting. What she heard was as instructive and illuminating to her as Chinese would have been.

From the far end of the room came piano music; gentle, dreamy, broken occasionally by some fine, thrilling chord. Dennison played well, but he had the habit of all amateurs of idling, of starting something, and running away into improvisations. Seated beside him on the bench was Jane, her head inclined against his shoulder. Perhaps that was a good reason why he began a composition and did not carry it through to its conclusion.

"That was a trick of his mother's," said Cleigh, still addressing the fire. "All the fine things in him he got from her. I gave him his shoulders, but I guess that's about all."

Mrs. Norman did not turn her head. She had already learned that she wasn't expected to reply unless Cleigh looked at her directly.

"There's a high wind outside. More rain, probably. But that's October in these parts. You'll like it in Hawaii. Never any of this brand of weather. I may be able to put the yacht into commission."

"The sea!" she said in a little frightened whisper.

* * * * *

"Doorbells!" said Dennison with gentle mockery. "Jane, you're always starting up when you hear one. Still hanging on? It isn't Cunningham's willingness to fulfill his promise; it's his ability I doubt. A thousand and one things may upset his plans."

"I know. But, win or lose, he was to let me know."

"The poor devil! I never dared say so to Father, but when I learned that Cunningham meant no harm to you I began to boost for him. I like to see a man win against huge odds, and that's what he has been up against."

"Denny, I've never asked before; I've been a little afraid to, but did you see Flint when the crew left?"

"I honestly didn't notice; I was so interested in the disreputable old hooker that was to take them off."

She sighed. Fragments of that night were always recurring in her dreams.

The door opened and the ancient butler entered. His glance roved until it caught the little tuft of iron-gray hair that protruded above the rim of the chair by the fire. Noiselessly he crossed the room.

"Beg pardon, sir," he said, "but a van arrived a few minutes ago with a number of packing cases. The men said they were for you, sir. The cases are in the lower hall. Any orders, sir?"

Cleigh rose.

"Cases? Benson, did you say—cases?"

"Yes, sir. I fancy some paintings you've ordered, sir."

Cleigh stood perfectly still. The butler eyed him with mild perturbation. Rarely he saw bewilderment on his master's countenance.

"Cases?"

"Yes, sir. Fourteen or fifteen of them, sir."

Cleigh felt oddly numb. For days now he had denied to himself the reason for his agitation whenever the telephone or doorbell rang. Hope! It had not served to crush it down, to buffet it aside by ironical commentaries on the weakness of human nature; the thing was uncrushable, insistent. Packing cases!

"Denny! Jane!" he cried, and bolted for the door.

The call needed no interpretation. The two understood, and followed him downstairs precipitately, with the startled Benson the tail to the kite.

"No, no!" shouted Cleigh. "The big one first!" as Dennison laid one of the smaller cases on the floor. "Benson, where the devil is the claw hammer?"

The butler foraged in the coat closet and presently emerged with a prier. Cleigh literally snatched it from the astonished butler's grasp, pried and tore off a board. He dug away at the excelsior until he felt the cool glass under his fingers. He peered through this glass.

"Denny, it's the rug!"

Cleigh's voice cracked and broke into a queer treble note.

Jane shook her head. Here was an incurable passion, based upon the specious argument that galleries and museums had neither consciences nor stomachs. You could not hurt a wall by robbing it of a painting—a passion that would abide with him until death. Not one of these treasures in the casings was honourably his, but they were more to him than all his legitimate possessions. To ask him to return the objects to the galleries and museums to which they belonged would be asking Cleigh to tear out his heart. Though the passion was incomprehensible, Jane readily observed its effects. She had sensed the misery, the anxiety, the stinging curiosity of all these months. Not to know exactly what had become of the rug and the paintings! Not to know if he would ever see them again! There was only one comparison she could bring to bear as an illustration: Cleigh was like a man whose mistress had forsaken him without explanations.

She was at once happy and sad: happy that her faith in Cunningham had not been built upon sand, sad that she could not rouse Cleigh's conscience. Secretly a charitable man, honest in his financial dealings, he could keep—in hiding, mind you!—that which did not belong to him. It was beyond her understanding.

An idea, which had been nebulous until this moment, sprang into being.

"Father," she said, "you will do me a favour?"

"What do you want—a million? Run and get my check book!" he cried, gayly.

"The other day you spoke of making a new will."

Cleigh stared at her.

"Will you leave these objects to the legal owners?"

Cleigh got up, brushing his knees.

"After I am dead? I never thought of that. After I'm dead," he repeated. "Child, a conscience like yours is top-heavy. Still, I'll mull it over. I can't take 'em to the grave with me, that's a fact. But my ghost is bound to get leg-weary doing the rounds to view them again. What do you say, Denny?"

"If you don't, I will!"

Cleigh chuckled.

"That makes it unanimous. I'll put it in the codicil. But while I live! Benson, what did these men look like? One of them limp?"

"No, sir. Ordinary trucking men, I should say, sir."

"The infernal scoundrel! No message?"

"No, sir. The man who rang the bell said he had some cases for you, and asked where he should put them. I thought the hall the best place, sir, temporarily."

"The infernal scoundrel!"

"What the dickens is the matter with you, Father!" demanded Dennison. "You've got back the loot."

"But how? The story, Denny! The rogue leaves me 'twixt wind and water as to how he got out of this hole."

"Maybe he was afraid you still wanted his hide," suggested Jane, now immeasurably happy.

"He did it!" said Cleigh, his sense of amazement awakening. "One chance in a thousand, and he caught that chance! But never to know how he did it!"

"Aren't you glad now," said Jane, "that you let him go?"

Cleigh chuckled.

"There!" she exclaimed, clapping her hands. "Just as he said! He prophesied that some day you would chuckle over it. He found his pearls. He knew he would find them! The bell!" she broke off, startled.

Never had Benson, the butler, witnessed such an exhibition of undignified haste. Cleigh, Jane, and Dennison, all three of them started for the door at once, jostling. What they found was only a bedraggled messenger boy, for it was now raining.

"Mr. Cleigh," said the boy, grumpily, as he presented a letter and a small box. "No answer."

"Where is the man who sent you?" asked Jane, tremendously excited.

"De office pushed me on dis job, miss. Dey said maybe I'd git a good tip if I hustled."

Dennison thrust a bill into the boy's hand and shunted him forth into the night again.

The letter was marked Number One and addressed to Cleigh; the box was marked Number Two and addressed to Jane.

Mad, thought Benson, as he began to gather up the loose excelsior; quite mad, the three of them.

With Jane at one shoulder and Dennison at the other, Cleigh opened his letter. The first extraction was a chart. An atoll; here were groups of cocoanut palm, there of plantain; a rudely drawn hut. In the lagoon at a point east of north was a red star, and written alongside was a single word. But to the three it was an Odyssey—"Shell." In the lower left-hand corner of the chart were the exact degrees and minutes of longitude and latitude. With this chart a landlubber could have gone straight to the atoll.

Next came the letter, which Cleigh did not read aloud—it was not necessary. With what variant emotions the three pairs of eyes leaped from word to word!

Friend Buccaneer: Of course I found the shell. That was the one issue which offered no odds. The shell lay in its bed peculiarly under a running ledge. The ordinary pearler would have discovered it only by the greatest good luck. Atherton—my friend—discovered it, because he was a sea naturalist, and was hunting for something altogether different. Atherton was wealthy, and a coral reef was more to him than a pearl. But he knew me and what such a game would mean. He was in ill health and had to leave the South Pacific and fare north. This atoll was his. It is now mine, pearls and all, legally mine. For a trifling sum I could have chartered a schooner and sought the atoll.

But all my life I've hunted odds—big, tremendous odds—to crush down and swarm over. The only interest I had in life. And so I planted the crew and stole the Wanderer because it presented whopping odds. I selected a young and dare-devil crew to keep me on edge. From one day to another I was always wondering when they would break over. I refused to throw overboard the wines and liquors to make a good measure.

And there was you. Would you sit tight under such an outrage, or would your want of revenge ride you? Would you send the British piling on top of me, or would you make it a private war? Suspense! Dick Cunningham would not be hard to trace. Old Slue Foot. The biggest odds I'd ever encountered. Nominally, I had about one chance in a thousand of pulling through.

The presence of Mrs. Cleigh—of course she's Mrs. Cleigh by this time!—added to the zest. To bring her through with nothing more than a scare! Odds, odds! Cleigh, on my word, the pearls would have been of no value without the game I built to go with them. Over the danger route! Mad? Of course I'm mad!

Four-year-old shell, the pearls of the finest orient! The shell alone—in buttons—would have recouped Eisenfeldt. He was ugly when he saw that I had escaped him. Threatened to expose you. But knowing Eisenfeldt for what he is, I had a little sword of Damocles suspended over his thick neck. The thought of having lost eight months' interest will follow him to Hades.

The crew gave me no more trouble. They've been paid their dividends in the Great Adventure Company, and have gone seeking others. But I'll warrant they'll take only regular berths in the future.

And now those beads. I'm sorry, but I'm also innocent. I have learned that Morrissy really double-crossed us all. He had had a copy made in Venice. The beads you have are forgeries. So the sixty thousand offered by the French Government remains uncalled for. Who has the originals I can't say. I'm sorry. Morrissy's game was risky. His idea was to make a sudden breakaway with the beads—lose them in the gutter—and trust to luck that we would just miss killing him, which was the case.

Leaving to-night. Bought a sloop down there, and I'm going back there to live. Tired of human beings. Tired of myself. Still, there's the chart. Mull it over. Maybe it's an invitation. The lagoon is like turquoise and the land like emerald and the sky a benediction.

* * * * *

A spell of silence and immobility. Not a word about his battle with Flint, thought Jane. A little shiver ran over her. But what a queer, whimsical madman! To have planned it all so that he could experience a thrill! The tragic beauty of his face and the pitiable, sluing, lurching stride! She sighed audibly, so did the two men.

"Denny, I don't know," said Cleigh.

"I do!" said Dennison, anticipating his father's thought. "He's a man, and some day I'd like to clasp his hand."

"Maybe we all shall," said Cleigh. "But open the box, Jane, and let's see."

Between the layers of cotton wool she found a single pearl as large as a hazelnut, pink as the Oriental dawn. One side was slightly depressed, as though some mischievous, inquisitive mermaid had touched it in passing.

"Oh, the lovely thing!" she gasped. "The lovely thing! But, Denny, I can't accept it!"

"And how are you going to refuse it? Keep it. It is an emblem of what you are, honey. The poor devil!"

And he put his arm round her. He understood. Why not? There are certain attractions which are irresistible, and Jane was unconscious of her possessions.

Jane raised the bottom layer of cotton wool. What impulse led her to do this she could not say, but she found a slip of paper across which was written:

"An' I learned about women from 'er."

All this while, across the street, in the shadow of an areaway, stood a man in a mackintosh and a felt hat drawn well down. He had watched the van disgorge and roll away, the arrival and the departure of the messenger boy.

He began to intone softly: "'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.'"

With a sluing lurch to his stride he started off down the street, into the lashing rain. A great joke; and now there was nothing at all to disturb his dreams—but the dim white face of Jabez Flint spinning in the dark of the sea.

THE END



THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS GARDEN CITY, N. Y.