Part 18

They collided blindly with other men; they called out angrily. Great seas crashed over the bulwarks and smothered them; invisible torrents poured off the forecastle-head and washed aft, beating them down, stunning them. From somewhere out of the darkness came the voice of the mate, bawling orders. They felt for the clewlines, making the most of the intervals between the boarding seas. High above them they knew a man was making his way aloft in the darkness to ease up the chain sheets. They hauled and swore, arching their backs against the seas that tore at their gripping fingers and washed their feet from under them. And always the mate's voice sounded, cheerful, threatening, dauntless. Then up into the black night, ratline by ratline, panting, clutching, and climbing; out upon the invisible yard, along invisible foot-ropes, grasping invisible jack-stays; swaying in the darkness, spat upon by the storm, beating the stiff canvas with bleeding hands; unheeding the tumult of the sea, the pounding wind, the lurching yard; with no thought save for the mate's voice below, and the lashing canvas under their hands. From the foretop, as they descended, they looked far down on the narrow hull, rolling, pitching, and shivering, beneath them. Out from the darkness pale seas rushed, roaring, toward the ship; and, roaring, passed to leeward. Seething masses of water rose over the bows, smashed down on the deck, and surged aft, forward, and over the side. Hissing foam creamed about the lee chains; vicious rain-squalls drove across the flooded decks; the cold was penetrating.

In the empty forecastle the lantern swung, the shadows rose and crouched, the voice of the storm sounded deep and steady. Ends of blankets dangled from the deserted bunks and flicked at the murmuring water on the floor. The deck soared and swooped, soared and swooped, minute after minute, hour after hour, and still the lantern swung, and the shadows moved and waited.

The door slid back, the storm bellowed, and three men staggered into the forecastle, bearing another. They laid him awkwardly in one of the lower bunks, and stood for a moment looking down at him. The ship rolled, and the shadows on the wall started as if they, too, would gather around that gloomy berth. Again the deck dropped, the shadows retreated, and the three men turned and left the forecastle.

The man in the bunk lay inert, as they had left him. His body sagged lumpishly to the roll of the ship. A dark stain appeared and spread slowly on the thin pillow.

A little later another man entered. He came to the edge of the bunk and gazed for a few minutes, then deliberately removed his dripping oilskin coat and sou'wester. The man in the bunk began to moan, and the other leaned over him. The moans continued, and the watcher sat down on a chest beside the bunk. Soon the sufferer's eyes opened and he spoke.

'What time is it?' he asked.

'Lie quiet, Bill,' the other cautioned. 'It's gone six bells.'

'My head hurts,' complained Bill. He tried to raise it, and moaned a little.

The elder man placed a hand gently on his shoulder. 'Don't you worry,' he said. 'You got hurted a little when the spar carried away. That's all.'

'Spar!' repeated Bill, and pondered. 'What watch is it?'

'Middle watch.'

'I thought I been on deck,' said Bill. 'It was blowin'.' His hands were groping about. 'Who bandaged my head?'

'The steward. They carried ye down into the cabin, first. Want a drink, Bill?'

Bill assented, and the other, bracing himself against the chest, lifted the injured man's head slightly and he drank.

'I may as well go to sleep,' he said, and closed his eyes. Instantly he reopened them. 'Why ain't you on deck, Jansen?' he asked.

'The Old Man sent me in to sit by you.' Jansen fingered his long gray beard, and the bright eyes under the shaggy brows blinked uneasily. 'You see, it's this way, Bill. You was hurt, an' the Old Man thought mebbe you'd want something.' He looked at the swinging lantern as if seeking inspiration. 'Anything I can do for ye, Bill?' he asked at last.

The other stirred. 'I can't move me legs,' he complained.

'Mebbe the spar hurt your back a little,' suggested Jansen timidly. 'You remember, don't ye, Bill?'

Again the injured man pondered. 'Me back's broke?' he said finally, and Jansen nodded.

'Me back's broke, an' me head's broke,' Bill went on, 'an' there's a pain in me side like Dago knives.'

'D' ye want another drink?' asked Jansen.

'It's eight bells, an' my watch below for me,' said Bill; and again Jansen nodded.

Silence fell. The muffled roar of the storm, the plunging forecastle, the waiting man on the chest, the dim light, the swinging lantern, the pendulous clothing, and the shadows, all seemed accessory to the great event about to take place.

'The pain in me side is awful!' groaned Bill; and Jansen shivered.

'The Old Man said he'd come for'ard as soon as he could leave the poop,' he said, as if hoping there might be comfort in the thought.

'I don't need him,' gasped the sufferer. 'I'm goin', I think.'

Old Jansen folded his hands, and repeated the Lord's Prayer. Then he leaned forward. 'Is--is there anybody ashore you'd want me to write to?' he asked.

'No,' answered Bill between his moans. 'Me mother's dead, an' there's nobody else that matters. I never was no good to any of 'em.'

After a time the moans ceased. A great sea boomed on the deck outside, and washed aft. The lantern swung violently, and the ship's bell tolled. Jansen looked into the bunk; Bill's eyes were fixed on him.

'I want to ask you, Jansen,' he said in a low voice. 'D'ye think there is any chance for me?'

The other hesitated. 'I--I'm afraid not,' he stammered.

'I don't mean a chance to live,' explained Bill. 'I mean, d'ye think I've got to go to hell?'

Jansen's tone grew positive. 'No,' he said, 'I don't.'

'I wisht there was a parson here,' muttered the man in the bunk. 'There used to be a old chap that come regular to the Sailors' Home--gray whiskers, he had, an' a long coat--I wisht he was here. He'd tell me.'

The man on the chest listened, his elbows on his knees, his head on his hands.

'I shook hands with him many a time,' continued Bill. 'He'd tell me--'

Jansen started, and looked up. His bright, deep-set eyes had taken on a look intent, glowing.

'Shall I read to ye a bit?' he asked. 'I've got a book--it might strike ye--now.'

'All right,' said Bill indifferently.

The old man crossed the forecastle, opened his chest, and, delving deep into its contents, brought forth a small, thin book.

It had seen much usage; the binding was broken, the leaves were stained and torn. The old man handled it tenderly. He held it high before him that the light from the swinging lantern might fall upon the text, and read stumblingly, pausing when the light swung too far from him, and making grotesque blunders over some of the long words.

'What is that book?' asked Bill after a time. 'It ain't the Bible?'

'No,' said Jansen. 'It ain't the Bible.'

'Then who is it says them things?' demanded Bill. 'He talks like he was Everything.'

Jansen lowered the book. 'I don't exactly understand what they call him,' he answered, 'they give him so many names. But I reckon nobody but God talks like that, whatever they call him.'

'Where did you get it? the book, I mean,' persisted Bill.

'I was cleanin' out a passenger's cabin, two voyages back, an' I found it under the bunk. I've been readin' it ever since. It's all full o' strange, forrin names, worse 'n the ones in the Bible.'

'Well, neither of 'em stands to help me much,' commented Bill. 'I ain't never been good. I've been a sailor-man. That book'--he broke off to groan as the ship rolled heavily, but resumed--'that book says same as the Bible, that a man's got to be pious an' do good an' have faith, an' all that, else he don't have no show at all.'

'Listen!' said Jansen. He turned the pages, and read a few lines as impressively as he could.

'That sounds easy,' said Bill. 'But I ought to ha' knowed about that before. It's no good desirin' anything now. It's too late. He'd know I was doin' it just to save my own skin--my soul, I mean.'

'Bill,' said Jansen. 'I'm goin' to ask you something.' He closed the little book over one finger, and leaned toward the bunk. 'Do you remember how you come to be hurted this way?'

'The spare spar that was lashed to starboard fetched loose, an' I tried to stop it,' answered Bill readily. 'I see it comin'.'

'Why did you try to stop it?'

'Well, a big sea had just washed the Old Man down in the lee scuppers, an' if the spar had struck him it would ha' killed him.'

'It's killed you, Bill,' said Jansen. 'Didn't you think o' that?'

'Me!' exclaimed Bill scornfully. 'Who's me?'

'But why did you want to save his life?' insisted Jansen.

'The ship 'ud stand a likely chance in a blow like this without a skipper, wouldn't she?'

'Then you thought--'

'Thought nothin'! There was no time to think. I see the spar comin' an' I says, "Blazes! That'll kill the skipper!" an' I tried to stop it.'

'You ain't sorry you did it?'

'Sorry nothin. What's done's done.'

'See here, Bill,' said old Jansen earnestly. 'I'll tell you what you did. You did your duty! An' you laid down your life for another. You saved the captain's life, an' mebbe the ship, an' all our lives through him. An' you did it without thought o' reward. Don't you s'pose you'll get a little credit for that?'

'I'm thinkin',' said Bill. He lay silent for a minute. 'Read that again,' he requested.

Old Jansen did so, and after a pause he added, 'Now, if I was you I wouldn't worry no more about hell. Just make your mind as easy as you can. That's a better way to go.'

'I've got that,' said Bill. 'It's all right. Go on; read to me some more.'

Jansen lifted the book and resumed his reading. He turned the pages frequently, choosing passages with which he was familiar. The other moaned at intervals. With every roll of the ship, water plashed faintly underneath the bunks. The lantern swung unwearied, and sodden clothing slapped against the walls. Dark shadows rose and stooped and rose again as if longing and afraid to peer into the narrow berth. The sound of the storm outside was grave and insistent.

The reader came to the end of a passage, and laid the book on his knee. Suddenly he realized that the moans had ceased. He leaned over and looked at the man in the bunk. He was dead.

Old Jansen sat motionless, deep in thought. At length he reopened the little book, and read once more the lines which he had already repeated at the dying man's request:--

He is not lost, thou son of Pritha! No! Nor earth, nor heaven is forfeit, even for him, Because no heart that holds one right desire Treadeth the road of loss!

He closed the book and again meditated. Later, he rose, replaced the book in his chest, drew the dead man's blanket over his face, and went out on deck.

THE CLEARER SIGHT

BY ERNEST STARR

Noakes leaned over a stand in one of the Maxineff laboratories and looked intently into a crucible, while he advanced the lever of a control-switch regulating the furnace beneath it. He held a steady hand on the lever, so that he might push it back instantly if he saw in the crucible too sudden a transformation. As he watched, the dull saffron powder took on a deeper hue about the edge, the body of it remaining unchanged. For several minutes he peered with keen intentness at the evil, inert little mass. No further change appeared. He leaned closer over it, regardless of the thin choking haze that spread about his face. In his attitude there was a rigidity of controlled excitement out of keeping with the seeming harmlessness of the experiment. He was as a man attuned to a tremendous hazard, anticipation and mental endurance taut, all his force focused on one throbbing desire. He bent closer, and the hand on the lever trembled in nervous premonition. The deepened hue touched only the edge, following regularly the contour of the vessel; it made no advance toward the centre of the substance.

'It shall!' Noakes breathed; and as if conning an oft-repeated formula, he said, 'The entire mass should deepen in color, regularly and evenly. Heat! Heat!'

His glance shifted to the control-switch under his hand. Its metal knobs, marking the degrees of intensity of the current it controlled, caught the light and blinked like so many small, baleful eyes. Particularly one, that which would be capped next in the orbit of the lever, held him fascinated; the winking potentiality of it thralled him, as the troubled crystal devours the gaze of the Hindu magi.

He jerked back his head decisively; he would increase the current. The thought burned before him like a live thing; and in the light of it he saw many pictures--heliographs of happenings in and about the laboratories: flame, smoke dense and turgid, splintered wood, metal hurtling through air, bleeding hands, lacerated breasts, sightless eyes.

'That's the trouble with high explosives,' he half groaned.

He turned away from the stand and went to the single window that lit the room. Through it he saw shops, store-houses, and small buildings similar to his own, all a part of the plant of Maxineff. He thought of each small laboratory as a potential inferno, each experimenter a bondman to ecstasy, the whole frenzied, gasping scheme a furtherance of the fame and power of Henry Maxineff, already world-known, inventor of the deadliest high explosives. One of the buildings had been turned into a temporary hospital. He thought of the pitiful occupant--his face scarred, one socket eyeless--and shivered.

'It isn't that I want to hedge,' he said. 'I shall take the chance; but having risked everything, I will go to her able and whole, offering it all without an apology.'

His gaze was drawn back to the crucible. In the thin haze above it a face seemed to shine. Avidly he gave himself to the spell his tight-strung imagination had conjured--a face oval and delicately tinted; lips joyously curved; gray eyes not large, but brimming with enthusiasm, fearlessness, and truth; a white brow beneath simply arranged light hair.

'Let me bring with an avowal all that you have now, more!--for in your life there can't be anything bigger than my love. And it's that which makes the deal right. Don't judge me yet! Wait until I've finished, and grant me that it's worth while.'

He whispered to the face, and his breath made little swirls and eddies in the haze about it. The filmy curves wafted toward him, bringing it close to his lips. The lids fluttered. Then an acrid odor filled his throat and nostrils. The face vanished. He started back, distraught.

A rushing recollection of Maxineff's tragedies came to him, more vivid even than the face. Halsey, who jarred the nitro, had been annihilated. Ewell was mad from the violent termination of an experiment similar to that now in development.

'A year ago!' Noakes said, 'and still Ewell lives and raves!'

How alike the cases were! The difference lay in the crucible. If the mixture there were properly prepared, added heat would metamorphose it calmly from its present harmlessness into something new, wonderful, deadly. It would become imbued with marvelous possibility, a thing for which royal military bureaus, imperial navies, would pay a great price.

A twist of the lever would do it. Yet how alike-- And Ewell was mad, injured gruesomely, living dead.

Again the blinking switch caught him, but he shrugged away its evil suggestiveness. He sought to flee the strain of the moment, to make it seem natural and like the smaller risks of his daily occupation. He assumed a tottering bravado, and as he put his hand to the lever, he smiled crookedly.

A light, quick tread sounded on the walk outside, on the double step; as the knob turned, a voice said,' May I come, Mr. Alchemist?'

His hand left the lever as if it pricked him.

'You!'

'Am I a wraith?'

Noakes looked at her silently. In the moment's abstraction her presence seemed a manifestation of some psychic conduction which he tried lamely to understand--here, now, in a moment of danger of which she unknowingly was the moving force.

'Then exorcise me quickly, but don't sprinkle me with acid; it would be fatal to my clothes.'

Noakes warmed to the aura of light and cheer about her.

'There isn't an alkali in the shop; I won't endanger you,' he replied easily.

She moved into the room and paused a moment near the stand.

'Mrs. Max says you are confining yourself too closely. I've been with her all morning.'

While she spoke she took off her hat and smoothed her hair.

'I'm blown to pieces. I drove Cornish this morning; he got by everything on the way. He acted like a _premiere danseuse_ when I passed the cooper's shop.'

His joy at seeing her was discountenanced by his fear for her; and he was afraid of her. Her insinuated trust in him threw into murky relief the affair which occupied him. When she turned to him a flushed, joyful face, and gray eyes clear and unsullied, it flashed into his soul, as formedly as a _Mene Tekel_, that she would unhesitatingly brush out of her life-path the dust of doubt; that equivocation and willingness to balance motives were no part of her. He knew that in her were no dim angles of cross-grained purpose, no shadowy intersections of the lines of good and evil.

'I say I'm blown to wisps; couldn't you find me a mirror, please?'

'What would I do with a mirror here? But see--'

He lifted the window sash, pulled in one shutter, and with a gesture of presentation, said, 'As others see us!'

She turned her back while she arranged her hair before the makeshift mirror. Relieved from her direct gaze, he stepped quickly to the stand, and looked into the crucible. There was no change. He had expected none, but he could not be sure. Maxineff himself could not be sure of this new mixture. A run of the same temperature might bring about the change he looked for as readily as an increase. The suspense was unbearable.

'Well, Cagliostro!' she called. 'You alchemists are capable of the utterest abstraction, aren't you?'

'Why have you come?' he said quickly, frowning at her.

'To take you driving,' with an enticing smile.

'Will you not go? Please, at once?'

Her manner lost something of its verve.

'It isn't safe, you know, really,' he added.

'And won't you come?'

'I cannot; not this morning.'

'Well,' she said, with a little sigh, as she thrust in her hat-pins, 'Mrs. Max will be disappointed. On her command I came to break up this seclusion of yours. None of us have seen you for--'

'A week, seven days!'

'What are you doing?'

'Oh--I've been working out some ideas.'

'But you are so quiet about it! What are the ideas?'

Noakes hesitated, and she laughed merrily as she went toward the door.

'We laity are hopeless, aren't we? You are thinking that I couldn't possibly understand?'

'No, I wasn't, because I scarcely understand myself.'

'Of course, some secret formula Mr. Max has you on.'

'Indeed, no,' he said. 'Mr. Max knows nothing about it--that is,' he continued hurriedly, 'it's the sort of thing-- At any rate, I'll soon be through.'

She stood in the doorway, outlined against the bright incoming mid-daylight, her face turned back to him.

'And then you will come out into the world again? Mrs. Max and Cornish and I shall be honored.'

'Then I shall be free.'

He spoke the words with singular feeling.

'Truly, though, Mr. Noakes,' she said in a straightforward manner, 'you are too busy. Mrs. Max says you are to break out, break out with the measles if nothing else will interrupt you, and you are to have tea with her this afternoon.'

Noakes looked doubtful. She went down the steps and turned again.

'Oh, I almost forgot--here's a letter for you.'

'Where--'

'It came in the Maxineffs' mail this morning. Mrs. Max suggested my bringing it to you.'

Noakes took the long, foreign-stamped envelope. The typed superscription was noncommittal, but at the Berlin postmark his eyes narrowed and the knuckles of the hand by his side whitened. He drew a quick breath and looked keenly at the girl.

'Was Mr. Maxineff at home this morning?' he asked quietly.

'No; I believe he is in the city.'

'Oh!' he breathed. 'Thank you very much.'

He slipped the letter into his pocket.

'Well, I can't stay any longer.'

Noakes pressed her hand.

'And, Cagliostro, when the puzzle's solved, come to see me. I'll sing away the worries, Good-bye.'

'Good-bye, Miss Becky. Excuse my untractableness, won't you?'

With a pat to her hat and a smile to Noakes, she was gone.

He watched her a moment, then strode rapidly to the stand. Looking through the faint haze, he saw her pass down the straight path which led to the great gate of the Maxineff work-yard. When she was close to it he grasped the switch-lever with cramped fingers. His face was colorless. He moved the lever forward with a jerk, and lifting his eyes, saw her pass out of the gate.

Beyond reach of time he waited. Evenly, insistently, a dull brown suffused the mass. Still he waited, fearfully wondering at the stability of this new thing. It kept its even coloring. He pushed back the lever, watched again, and waited.

He was afire with joy. He had succeeded; he had created a thing new to the world, an explosive which would be more powerful than the deadliest in existence; he had perfected the work of a week's exquisite danger; he had won.

'I am glad, glad!' he said faintly.

As he straightened up he found himself suddenly weak. The strain had been galling, and the madness of gratification consumed his strength. He moved toward the door, stepping very gently, for he knew not how slight a vibration might shatter the delicate affinity in his discovery.

He remembered the foreign letter, and taking it from his pocket, tore open the envelope.

He looked through the open door, conscious for the first time of the perfectness of the day. It was good to be alive, he thought, free, something accomplished, with leave to tell a girl--

A tall man entered the gate and took the walk toward the laboratory. Noakes looked at him in a moment of amazement, almost of stupefaction. The necessity of instant action startled him to movement. As quickly as he thought, he pushed the door three-quarters shut, replaced the jars from which he had taken his materials, filled a second crucible with a harmless haphazard mixture, and placed it over a dead furnace in a stand in the corner behind the door. He lifted the window-sash. With all his strength he hurled his priceless crucible. By a marvel of speed he had the sash lowered, and was behind the door, when the building was shaken by an explosion.

'What is that, Mr. Noakes?' came in deep, calm tones from the door.

'Good morning, Mr. Maxineff,' said Noakes, turning slowly. 'The racket? Some half-baked fulminate I put in the ditch out there an hour ago.'

'So long since?' said the older man, advancing toward the window.

'Yes, sir. I think the jarring of the wagon you see leaving the chemical house caused it.'

A hole several feet in diameter marked the spot where the crucible fell. The stuff had delayed not an instant in working its havoc. Noakes was glad there was too little of it to cause a suspicious deal of damage.

Maxineff looked reflectively about the yard, while Noakes nervously eyed his chief's expressive profile. His eyes wandered to the fine gray head of this tall, straight man. He could not fail to be impressed afresh by the forceful exterior, significant of the inner attitude which had won for Henry Maxineff a name honored among nations.

'What of your work?' he said.

Noakes was glad those seeing eyes were not on him.

'I'm beat,' he said. 'I've gone at it every way I know, and I have been consistently and finally unsuccessful.'

In the ensuing pause Noakes realized that this was the first admission of failure he had ever made to his chief. The surprise it called forth was grateful to him.