Part 3

"'I 'm sorry,' I tell her. 'I 'm awfully, awfully sorry, but I 've got to bring you in.'

"'You 're a hard man, McCarthy.'

"'I 'm not a hard man. I 'm just a man sworn in to do my job. I 'm just a man a big trust's been put in, and I can't fall down. Sis, you missed your chance,' I told her. 'You ought to have let me go down, when you saw me going. Then you 'd have been free. You ought to have stood clear and let me drown.'

"'Oh, I could n't do that!' she says.

"'Neither could I let you go!'

"In the afternoon I go around the island to see where we are. But from no point can I see land or a sail or anything. We are just on one of those Pacific atolls, as they call them, away from the line of everything but sailing-ships trading from isle to isle. I look everywhere--north, east, south, and west--and there is nothing but boiling sea, white, muddy, with birds fluttering, or floating in the air.

"The island itself is not more than ten miles square and there are rocks everywhere about it except around the cove where we landed, and that has a coral breakwater. The sand is bright and yellow like new gold, and on the island itself there is greenness that is nearly black. And you can see cocoanut-trees and banana-trees and oranges. And while I 'm standing there a little pig breaks through the underbrush and looks at me, and then flies off with a squeal. And for a moment my heart goes pit-a-pat because I think there are people on this island. A pig is a human thing. It's always been so near humans, it's nearly human itself. But a moment later something in me tells me there 's no one here. It's been put ashore, it and others, by some of the old whaling-ships that are gone now.

"I look around and I see the island, the sand like gold, the clean wind, the water in the cove as transparent as water in a glass; the fish in the water and the animals on the island, and the fruit on the trees. And the sun is bright and warm and full of life, and in the distance I can see Janssen. She has let her hair down and it covers her to the knees in a great shining cloak, like some wonderful fur cloak.

"And I think: There's many 's the old cop in New York--there 's many 's the millionaire, even--would like to finish his life alone in this paradise island, away from all trouble and worry and having everything he needs in sunshine that's more like wine than light, and with Janssen with him, when she has let down her hair.

"But I says to myself: You needn't think that way. You 're not old, nor disappointed. You 've got no reason to idle your life away. You 've got a job on hand. You 're a detective officer, and you 've got a prisoner, and you 're going to bring her home!

"I return to where Janssen is by the cove and I look for my knife and watch and gun. But my gun is n't there.

"'Do you know where my gun is?'

"She wheels around on me suddenly and points it at my head.

"'McCarthy,' she says, 'your word's good with me. Either tell me now you 'll let me go when we 're rescued or I 'll kill you.'

"'I can't,' I said. 'I won't. Now give me my gun and be sensible.'

"'I mean it,' she said. 'Let me off or I 'll kill you.'

"'I would n't be the first.'

"'Will you?'

"'No!' I says.

"I 'm watching the gun, to grab it if I can. Then I see a spat of fire like a match lighting. Then something burns my ear like red-hot iron. I hear the shot. I 'm sprung halfway round.

"I face up again.

"'You made a better job with De Vries,' I says, stupid-like.

"I 'm expecting the finisher, but she walks up to me and hands me the gun. She just looks at me, and her throat works, and then suddenly from her eyes run two big tears down to the corners of her mouth and I turn away.

"'I 'm going to fix you a bed of banana-leaves, and then I 'm going to light a fire. Forget your troubles for a while. Think of this as a picnic.'

"But the tears still run down her face and she says nothing. I go off and get busy because I can't stand the sight of It. I 'm not feeling any too like a comedy, myself.

"'We 're sitting that night at a fire on the beach, and the thin new moon is up. A light breeze is in shore. Suddenly she turns to me.

"'You 're religious, McCarthy,' she says to me.

"'I 'm not exactly religious,' I say. 'I 'm like every one, I guess.'

"'You believe in God, McCarthy?'

"Nobody likes to talk much about things of that kind. You think about them, but you don't say them. And particularly you don't talk about them to a prisoner who 's up for murder, unless you 're one of those Holy Willie boys.

"'Who does n't?' I spars.

"'You believe--' her voice is serious--'that God takes care of you on this island?'

"That's what they say.'

"'Do you believe, McCarthy, that He knows me, takes care of me, cares for me?'

"I say nothing--because I can't see it. She 's too far out of the pale. I 'd like to tell her 'yes.' But I can't.

"'You don't believe, then, McCarthy--' her voice is just a husky whisper--'that there is any caring for me, anywhere.'

"'Oh, what's the use of bothering about that?'

"'You don't, then,' she said. 'You think I 'm too bad for--even--that.'

"I get up and shake myself. 'Maybe there's nothing to it, after all,' I tell her. But all of a sudden she is crying, her face down to the sand, as though her heart would break.

"I move away, because I 'm no good to her, and go down the strand a bit. The water laps the strand, and whispers in the trees, but I can hear Janssen crying still.

"I walk on and on. I hear the sea rumble on the rocks, and the whisper of the trees is louder. A turtle pluds into the water, and a cocoanut falls with a thud, but over it all I still can hear the voice of Janssen crying, little tearing cries, as though pieces of silk were being ripped from the main fabric with shrill protesting tragedy. It struck me that she herself was flaying her heart with brutal knout-like strokes, and that every red shred was moaning in protest: 'Don't, don't, don't!'...

"The new moon became the full moon, and waned and died," McCarthy went on. "But no help came.

"There was nothing to do but wait, and a policeman does n't mind waiting. All his life is waiting, except for a hint of action now and then. But I worried about Janssen.

"Janssen gave me no trouble. We talked just as friendly strangers might talk, waiting on a railroad platform. She got the bananas and the cocoanuts and the breadfruit, gathering them as they fell. I managed to kill a suckling pig now and then, and I rigged up a fishing-line from a piece of rope I unraveled that had come ashore from the wreck of the boat, and a pin Janssen gave me.

"There 's nothing I like to do better than fish, and I sit there and fish and think all the time. And little things come to me of the life in New York, and I worry over them. I never was a grafter. I never took a penny from any one when I was on the vice squad, in the way of protection, but there 's little things that worry me. As, for instance, when I go into a saloon for a drink, they never take my money. When an arrest is made, sometimes I find a bailsman for the prisoner, and they give me something as a favor. Or I sell tickets for this benefit or another, and nobody wants them, but nobody dares refuse. And I sit there in a few acres of coral in the Pacific Ocean and the sun rises in the east way over New York, and the moon sets in the west down China way. And the winds blow south from Japan or north from the edge of the world. And I think: It's very small. It's not worth a man's while.

"And while I 'm thinking Janssen is thinking, too. But what she 's thinking about, I can't figure. She 's very silent. And at times her mouth is n't hard at all, nor her eyes, either. And when she speaks her eyes are on the ground and she 's very serious.

"'What are you thinking about, Janssen?' I ask.

"'McCarthy,' she says, 'did you ever, after a hard day's work, disappointed, clogged with dirt, come in and turn on a cold shower and suddenly feel better and cleaner--and be happy again?'

"'That's the only thing to do, on a day like that.'

"'Well, I feel,' she said, 'as if this island were that bath after the awful day of my life,' she said.

"At times I think, myself, that it must be getting on her nerves, this place. She 'll want the lights, the gaiety, the people, if only for a little space, before she faces her trial. Even the chair must be better for her than this waiting, I think.

"'Are n't you getting lonely, Janssen?' I ask. 'Does n't this get on your nerves--having nobody to talk to?' We never speak any more about the murder or the trial.

"'Why, no, McCarthy!'

"'I should have thought,' I say, 'that after the gaiety you knew you 'd find this a terrible trial.'

"'McCarthy,' she said suddenly, 'were you ever at Saranac?'

"'I 've passed through it.'

"'Did you ever see the poor people there, quiet, waiting, glad to be alive, just being healed? Well, I 'm like those.'

"I don't notice for a while the change that is coming over Janssen. I see things on the outside of people. I don't see them on the inside. I 'm a detective. I just think maybe she 's got the blues, Maybe she's worried. But one afternoon she comes to me and springs a new one.

"'McCarthy,' she says, 'would you mind every afternoon keeping away for an hour or so from the cove?'

"'What's the idea?' I says.

"'Well, I used to be a good swimmer,' she says, 'and I 'm going to practise, and I have n't got any bathing-suit,' she says, 'not even tights. So you 'd better keep away.'

"I think to myself: 'This is a queer thing for any one as tough as they tell me Janssen is, to come out with.' And I wonder if she means exactly the opposite of what she says. She wants me, I half figure, to hang around. And maybe she thinks I 'll fall for her. And if I do, she has me, I say to myself.

"And then I look up at her, and I see her eyes, and I never was so ashamed before or since.

"'All right, Janssen,' I say.

"'Thanks, McCarthy!'

"A week later she borrows my knife.

"'My clothes are in rags, McCarthy,' she says, 'so it's back to the Garden of Eden for me. I got to dress up like these wahinies down here. Don't laugh at me, McCarthy; promise me you won't.'

"'Not too much Garden of Eden, now,' I warn her.

"'Don't worry!' she laughs. And next morning you could have knocked me down with a straw, as they say. She has strung together big green banana-leaves with fiber, and made a knee-length skirt of them. And under her arms and about her is a little closed jacket of leaves, and that great golden cloak of her hair falls around, rippling and shimmering.

"'How do I look, McCarthy?'

"'You look fine,' I tell her. 'You look like a picture, you sure do. You might be in a stage play,' I tell her, 'only you 're so fine and modest.' She blushes pretty as a girl of sixteen, until it was a shock to me to remember that she was my prisoner for the crime of murder. And I look at myself, feel my chin, see how my suit is going. 'You make me feel like a bum.'

"The months pass and two sails go by.

"One I see in the early evening. A few very fleecy clouds shuttle in and out before the sun, and the great sea is purple, and the sand takes on a deep hue like the color of a gold coin that's been in circulation for years, mellow and reddish-like. And the green of the trees is so green you can feel it. And on the horizon is a native boat with a lateen sail that is orange-colored.

"I see it. I make no effort. I can do nothing. But it seems to me that it is unreal. It is not there. It is just a dream. It is unreal as the island is to me, unreal as my old life is to me, unreal as everything is--except Janssen.

"But a week later another boat comes, and this time it is n't unreal. Squat and bulky, it is a tramp steamer headed down New Zealand way. It passes not more than three miles off, and very ugly it is upon the sea, its funnel belching out black smoke that is like an insult to the shining seas. I have a bonfire ready-made and go to it with my burning-glass. And Janssen stands by and looks at me.

"'Do I have to go back, McCarthy?' she asks.

"'You got to go back and face the music, Janssen.' And I lights the fire.

"I get everything ready to board, but the steamer pays no attention. They go straight ahead. Maybe they think it's just natives, but at any rate they don't put about or anything. I go to the edge of the water and shout to them. I go into it up to my waist and whistle and snap my fingers and call to it, as I would to a dog, but they pay no attention. And then I give up.

"'I 'm sorry, McCarthy,' Janssen says.

"'What are you sorry for?' I asks her. 'You ought to be glad.'

"'I am glad,' she says. 'I 'm glad for myself, but I 'm sorry for your sake, McCarthy. I 'm really sorry.'

"One night we 're setting by the fire in the moonlight, and I 'm trying to figure out how the natives build their huts, because I want to build one for Janssen. There 's a queer sort of rain in these islands. Sometimes in a bright sky a cloud will pass, very high, very quick, and the rain comes down like bullets. You can hear it thunder in the leaves, and rattle over the sea like pistol shots. And it's not so pleasant after a while. It's over in a minute or so, but Janssen ought to have some place when it comes.

"And Janssen is sitting there as quiet as anything, making figures in the sand and saying nothing. She turns to me.

"'McCarthy,' she says, 'did I really kill Alec de Vries?'

"'You killed him dead.'

"'It seems like a dream to me, a bad dream in the night.'

"'If you had waited and looked at that corpse, you 'd have known it was no dream.'

"'And because I killed a man that was no use to any one I 've got to go back.'

"'You 've got to go back, all right,' I tell her.

"'Well, do you know, it's only fair,' she says. 'You 've called the tune, and danced it, and you 've got to pay the fiddler. But I 'm scared, McCarthy. I 'm terribly scared. It would be very easy for me to jump in the water or borrow your gun some night. Think of it. They put metal on your legs and strap you into a chair, and they put a cap over your head. And, then a man, as human as yourself, pushes a switch, and just as if he were putting out a light, he puts out the light of your life, the same light that's in himself.... And all in the cold gray morning....'

"'Tell you something, kid--' I had this on my mind for a while. 'I don't think they 'll burn you. We 'll get you a good lawyer when we go back and you 'll get off with a long stretch up the river.'

"'But don't you see, McCarthy,' she laughs nervously, 'that that's worse still? A person does something, as I 've done, because his mind and his--his self--are full of nooks and crannies, dust and cobwebs, bad feelings, passions. And he flies away. And maybe in the desert or the mountains a great wind comes and cleanses him. And he mends the shattered self together.

"'But the silly judge and the silly police go after him, and they send him to prison, and he sits there in the darkness and the wheels of his head go around. And the cobwebs collect again, and the grime from the other people comes off on him. And in the end he is worse than he was in the beginning.

"'I 'd rather die, McCarthy--die, all in the cold gray morning.'

"A month after this Janssen falls ill. Perhaps it's a gust of rain that's made her ill. Perhaps it's some of the berries or the fish or something. But at any rate, there she lies, white and near dead, all the life gone from her. There 's nothing I can do for her much but try to cheer her up and move her when she 's tired of lying in one position.

"'You 've got to get well, Janssen,' I say to her. 'You 've got to make an effort.'

"'But why?' she asks. 'Why shouldn't I die?'

"'That's no way to talk.'

"'What has life got for me?' she asks bitterly. 'The electric chair?'

"'You 've got nothing to worry about,' I say. 'It 'll be only a few years up the river and then out again, and the good old days.'

"'I won't live for that,' she says.

"'Well, listen,' I joke with her. 'You 're not going to make me come all the way across the world for you, and then not bring you home. You 're not going to throw me down, kid; be game.'

"'I 'd like to oblige you, McCarthy,' she smiles; 'but even for that I won't stay alive. Can't you think of any other reason?'

"'It would be awful lonely, if you were to go,' I say; and I mean it. 'Awful, awful lonely. I 'm getting very fond of you, Janssen.'

"'That's better,' she says, and pats my hand. And she turns her head. 'Don't worry, McCarthy. I 'll--I 'll live.'"

III

Without, the gray January dusk had crept into the cañons of New York and given the narrow streets, the crenelated buildings, the moving trucks, the pedestrians a semblance of unreality, as though they were being seen through a mist raised by some necromancer at the call of a wretched man. Through the windows of the court-room the Tombs were still evident, but the building had become unreal. It was like some ogre's castle in a fairy-tale for children, very terrible, but not really there.

The judge, the jury, the attendants, all the court had somehow lost entity as a court. It was no more a court than a house in a play is a house. It was just a formula embracing a hundred or so human beings. And one felt also that this was not in New York. There was no atmosphere of New York. New York might be a cloak and a disguise, but the minds and personalities of all were on a golden island on shining seas.

And they didn't see McCarthy in the witness-box, nor Janssen in the dock, but by the cove where the water was so translucent that one could see, fathom on fathom deep, the rainbow fish below....

"She gets better day by day, and I 'm so glad I could sing," continued the officer, speaking more easily as practice came after his seven years of silence. "She sits on the beach and health comes to her with the wind, and little by little the flush comes in her cheek, and life ferments, and her hair that has become dank ripples and flows, as a still sea stirs up with a breeze. And soon she 's swimming again. But there 's little of the old Janssen left. All her movements are grave. At times she sits thinking, and her brow is working with thought. At other times she smiles. Just a dignified little smile.

"And soon after she gets well, she saves my life a second time.

"This is how it happens. I 'm fishing one day and my line and hook get caught down in the coral. And I don't want to lose that hook. Hooks are n't easy to make. So I says: 'I 'll go down after that hook.'

"I shoot in and go swimming down through the water, and I hang on to the coral with one hand, and unloose the hook with the other. I 'm about ready to come up when in the water between me and the sun I can see a shadow like a boat. For a moment I think it's a boat, and come up with a rush. But half-way up I know it's no boat. And in the warm water I go cold as ice.

"I 'm more than half-way up, and I have no chance of shouting, splashing, making a noise, the way you frighten them off. And suddenly I know the big fellow sees me. I can feel the vibration of his swirl in the water as he turns off to a point where he can come rushing at me.

"'It's good-by, McCarthy!' I say to myself, and turn to face him. And then I hear a _plung-h_ into the water the moment he's ready to turn over and come at me. And Janssen comes shooting down.

"She has a stone or something in her hand drawn back and lets him have it just on the soft point of the nose, the only place you can hurt those fellows. One crack! And the big coward turns and slinks off just like a dog that's been kicked.

"When we get ashore I 'm just as mad as I can be. The idea of her taking a chance like that!

"'Haven't you got any sense at all?' I bawl her out. 'What do you mean, taking a chance like that? What do you think a shark is? A mackerel? Maybe you think he wouldn't touch you? Maybe you think he's a gentleman? He's not. If brains were money,' I say, 'I don't think you could buy a subway ticket. Never do that, or anything like that again. Mind your own business!'

"But she 's crying and laughing together. She walks off, now sobbing, now laughing. I run after her.

"'Not that from the bottom of my heart I 'm not grateful to you, but you must never again--'

"But she laughs and she sobs:

"'Go away, McCarthy. Go away. Please go away!'

"All this time I know I 'm very fond of Janssen, and something tells me Janssen is of me, though God knows why. But we say nothing. At times it's hard to talk. And I look at her and think. If things were only different, how I could love that girl! But here she is, a prisoner, and I 'm her keeper. It's a pity. It's a pity, even, she's changed. It makes it awful hard for me.

"But I can't keep my eyes off her. She stands on the beach, the wind rustling her green garment, and rippling her hair. Very beautiful. And a little butterfly, from God knows where, is fluttering about her. Now it's in her hair, now about her throat. And curiously it comes to light on her lips.

"'You look awfully pretty, Janssen,' I say, 'with that butterfly.'

"She smiles at me, kind of queerly.

"'You 're a brave man, McCarthy,' she says, 'the bravest man I ever knew. You 're strong. You 're tremendous. Yes, you 're brave. But this little butterfly, that in all its body has n't the strength of one single hair of your head, whose brief life is but a single day, is braver than you, McCarthy, braver far than you.'

"'I don't understand you, Janssen.'

"But I understand her all right.

"And the days roll by, roll by, and nothing changes, nothing comes to us. Once or twice we see sails. Once a full-rigged ship under bare poles runs before a gale. And once in the distance we see a schooner heeling to the breeze.

"We are not speaking much to each other. There is a feeling of strangeness in the air. And at night I 'm worried-like. The trees rustle. The waves lap. There is great darkness. And for all we are the only two people in that island, yet I feel at night somehow we are not alone. Unseen, shadowy people are about us, in the sea, in the air. Once there were millions on these islands and now there are few. Once they were a great strong race, and now they are a timid handful. And I imagine that in the dark of the moon the brown tribes reassemble and put to sea in their war-canoes, and walk on the beaches that are so like Paradise.

"And there are great temples on these islands, but their gods are no more. And may they not too walk in the night-time with terrible, silent stride?

"The Cross of Christ is between me and all harm. I believe that, and I know it, and I am not afraid. But I am unquiet, nevertheless.

"And if I am unquiet, what of Janssen, wide-eyed through the night?

"At last one night I take my courage in both hands. Janssen is sitting in the moonlight by the cove, and for the first time I ever heard her she is singing a little something. Her voice is somehow like a boy's.

"'Janssen!' I stand and look at her.

"'Yes, McCarthy.' She turns and looks at me.

"'Janssen, when we go back,' I say, 'and when what has to be will be done, and when all is over, the morning you are free, I 'll be waiting at the gate for you. I 'll want you to marry me and come to me.'

"'You love me, McCarthy?'

"'Yes,' I said, 'I love you, Janssen.'

"'I love you, too, McCarthy. I suppose you know.'

"All this time she never looks at me, but out on the moonlit cove.

"'But if we never get off this island,' she says after a little while, 'we never get married.'

"'How can we?' I say. 'There is none to marry us.'

"She is speaking slowly, seriously, in the moonlight, and every word she says has the weight of sincerity.