The Ragged Edge Part 29

What had aroused this open-air monologue was a small tin sign in a window. Marine Insurance. Here was a hole as wide as a church-door.

What could be simpler than, with a set of inquiries relative to a South Sea tramp registered as _The Tigress_, to make a tour of all the marine insurance companies in Hong-Kong? O'Higgins proceeded to put the idea into action; and by noon he had in his possession a good working history of the owner of _The Tigress_ and the exact lat.i.tude and longitude of his island.

He cabled to New York: "Probable destination known."

"Make it positive," was the brisk reply.

O'Higgins made it positive; but it required five weeks of broken voyages: with dilapidated hotels, poor food, poor tobacco, and evil-smelling tramps. It took a deal of thought to cast a comprehensive cable, for it had to include where Spurlock was, what he was doing, and the fact that O'Higgins's letter of credit would not now carry him and Spurlock to San Francisco. The reply he received this time put him into a state of continuous bewilderment.

"Good work. Come home alone."

CHAPTER XX

To Spurlock it seemed as if a great iron door had swung in behind him, shutting out the old world. He was safe, out of the beaten track, at last really comparable to the needle in the haystack. The terrific mental tension of the past few months--that had held his bodily nourishment in a kind of strangulation--became as a dream; and now his vitals responded rapidly to food and air. On the second day out he was helped to a steamer-chair on deck; on the third day, his arm across Ruth's shoulder, he walked from his chair to the foremast and back. The will to live had returned.

For five days _The Tigress_ chugged her way across the burnished South China, grumpily, as if she resented this meddling with her destiny. She had been built for canvas and oil-lamps, and this new thingumajig that kept her nose snoring at eight knots when normally she was able to boil along at ten, and these unblinking things they called lamps (that neither smoked nor smelled), irked and threatened to ruin her temper.

On the sixth day, however, they made the strong southwest trade, and broke out the canvas, stout if dirty; and _The Tigress_ answered as a bird released. Taking the wind was her business in life. She creaked, groaned, and rattled; but that was only her way of yawning when she awoke.

The sun-canvas was stowed; and Spurlock's chair was set forward the foremast, where the bulging jib cast a sliding blue shadow over him. Rather a hazardous spot for a convalescent, and McClintock had been doubtful at first; but Spurlock declared that he was a good sailor, which was true. He loved the sea, and could give a good account of himself in any weather. And this was an adventure of which he had dreamed from boyhood: aboard a windjammer on the South Seas.

There were mysterious sounds, all of them musical. There were swift actions, too: a Kanaka crawled out upon the bowsprit to make taut a slack stay, while two others with pulley-blocks swarmed aloft.

Occasionally the canvas snapped as the wind veered slightly. The sea was no longer rolling bra.s.s; it was bluer than anything he had ever seen. Every so often a wall of water, thin and jade-coloured, would rise up over the port bow, hesitate, and fall smacking amids.h.i.+ps. Once the s.h.i.+p faltered, and the tip of this jade wall broke into a million gems and splashed him liberally. Ruth, standing by, heard his true laughter for the first time.

This laughter released something that had been striving for expression--her own natural buoyancy. She became as _The Tigress_, a free thing. She dropped beside the chair, sat cross-legged, and laughed at the futile jade-coloured wall. There was no past, no future, only this exhilarating present. Yesterday!--who cared?

To-morrow!--who knew?

"Porpoise," she said, touching his hand.

"Fox-terriers of the sea; friends with every s.h.i.+p that comes along.

Funny codgers, aren't they?" he said.

"When you are stronger we'll go up to the cut.w.a.ter and watch them from there."

"I have . . . from many s.h.i.+ps."

A shadow, which was not cast by the jib, fell upon them both. His voice had changed, the joy had gone out of it; and she understood that something from the past had rolled up to spoil this hour. But she did not know what he knew, that it would always be rolling up, enlivened by suggestion, no matter how trifling.

What had actually beaten him was not to have known if someone had picked up his trail. The acid of this incert.i.tude had disintegrated his nerve; and in Canton had come the smash. But that was all over.

n.o.body could possibly find him now. The doctor would never betray him. He might spend the rest of his days at McClintock's in perfect security.

McClintock, coming from below, saw them and went forward. "Well, how goes it?" he asked.

"Thank you, sir," said Spurlock, holding out his hand.

McClintock, without comment, accepted the hand. He rather liked the "sir"; it signified both gratefulness and the chastened spirit.

"And I want to thank you, too," supplemented Ruth.

"Tut, tut! Don't exaggerate. I needed a man the worst kind of way--a man I could keep for at least six months. What do you think of the old tub?"

"She's wonderful!" cried Ruth. "I love her already. I had no idea she could go so fast."

"Know anything about s.h.i.+ps?"

"This kind. I have seen many of them. Once a sick sailor drew three pictures for me and set down every stay and brace and sail--square-rigger, schooner, and sloop. But this is the first time I ever sailed on any one of the three. And I find I can't tell one stay from another!"

McClintock laughed. "You can't go to sea with a book of rules. _The Tigress_ is second-hand, built for coast-trade. There used to be an after deckhouse and a shallow well for the wheel; but I changed that. Wanted a clean sweep for elbow-room. Of course I ought to have some lights over the saloon; but by leaving all the cabin doors open in the daytime, there's plenty of daylight. She's not for pleasure, but for work. Some day I'm going to paint her; but that will be when I've retired."

Ruth laughed. "The doctor said something about that."

"I'll tell you really why I keep her in peeled paint. Natives are queer. I have established a fine trade. She is known everywhere within the radius of five hundred miles. But if I painted her as I'd like to, the natives would instantly distrust me; and I'd have to build up confidence all over again. I did not know you spoke Kanaka," he broke off.

"So the wheelman told you? I've always spoken it, though I can neither read nor write it."

"I never heard of anybody who could," declared McClintock. "I have had Kanakas who could read and write in Dutch, and English, though.

The Kanaka--which means man--is a Sandwich Islander, with a Malayan base. He's the only native I trust in these parts. My boys are all Sandwich Island born. I wouldn't trust a Malay, not if he were reared in the Vatican."

Spurlock, who was absorbing this talk thirstily, laughed.

"What's that?" demanded McClintock.

"The idea of a Malay, born Mahometan, being reared in the Vatican, hit me as funny."

"It would be funny--just as a trustworthy Malay would be funny. I have a hundred of them--mixed blood--on my island, and they are always rooking me. But none ever puts his foot on this boat.

To-morrow we'll raise our first island. And from then on we'll see them, port and starboard, to the end of the voyage. I've opened the case of books. They're on the forward lounge in the saloon. Take your pick, Mrs. Spurlock."

The shock of hearing this t.i.tle p.r.o.nounced was equally distributed between Ruth and her husband; but it aroused two absolutely different emotions. There came to Spurlock the recurrence of the grim resolution of what he had set out to do: that comrades.h.i.+p was all he might ever give this exquisite creature; for she was exquisite, and in a way she dominated this picture of sea and sky and sail. Ruth's emotion was a primitive joy: she was essential in this man's life, and she would always be happy because he would always be needing her.

"You will be wanting your broth, Hoddy," she said. "I'll fetch it."

She made the companion without touching stay or rail, which necessitated a fine sense of balance, for there was a growing vigour to the wind and a corresponding lift to the roll of the sea.

The old-fas.h.i.+oned dress, with its series of ruffles and printed flowers, ballooned treacherously, revealing her well-turned leg in silk stockings, as it snapped against her body as a mould.

Silk. In Singapore that had been her only dissipation: a dozen pairs of silk stockings. She did not question or a.n.a.lyze the craving; she took the plunge joyously. It was the first expression of the mother's blood. Woman's love of silk is not set by fas.h.i.+on; it is bred in the bone; and somewhere, somehow, a woman will have her bit of silk.

McClintock watched her interestedly until her golden head vanished below; then, with tolerant pity, he looked down at Spurlock, who had closed his eyes. She would always be waiting upon this boy, he mused. Proper enough now, when he could not help himself, but the habit would be formed; and when he was strong again it would become the normal role, hers to give and his to receive. He wondered if the young fool had any idea of what he had drawn in this tragic lottery called marriage. Probably hadn't. As for that, what man ever had?

"That's a remarkable young woman," he offered, merely to note what effect it would have.

Spurlock looked up. "She's glorious!" He knew that he must hoodwink this keen-eyed Scot, even as he must hoodwink everybody: publicly, the devoted husband; privately, the celibate. He was continually dramatizing the future, antic.i.p.ating the singular role he had elected to play. He saw it in book-covers, on the stage. "Did you ever see the like of her?"

"No," answered McClintock, gravely. "I wonder how she picked up Kanaka? On her island they don't talk Kanaka lingo."

Her island! How well he knew it, thought Spurlock, for all he lacked the name and whereabouts! Suddenly a new thought arose and buffeted him. How little he knew about Ruth--the background from which she had sprung! He knew that her father was a missioner, that her mother was dead, that she had been born on this island, and that, at the time of his collapse, she had been on the way to an aunt in the States. But what did he know beyond these facts?

Nothing, clearly. Oh, yes; of Ruth herself he knew much; but the more he mulled over what he knew, the deeper grew his chagrin. The real Ruth was as completely hidden as though she stood behind the walls of Agra Fort. But after all, what did it matter whether she had secrets or not? To him she was not a woman but a symbol; and one did not investigate the antecedents of symbols.