The Pagan Madonna

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.