The Pagan Madonna Part 40

Cleigh lowered the gla.s.s.

"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 astonis.h.i.+ngly 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 bra.s.s 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 transs.h.i.+pping 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 att.i.tude 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 s.h.i.+p 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--G.o.d bless her! Anything in pain! It's her way, and I'll not have her reproached. G.o.d 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 s.h.i.+rt 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 diminis.h.i.+ng 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. "G.o.d didn't mean that he should be this kind of a man."

"Does any of us know what G.o.d 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 pa.s.sing 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."