Chapter 5

"An' you mean to tell me," she cried, "that you took that money an' spent it for a coffin, a white one with shiny handles, an' a satin bolster that'll done be wore out, an' et up by moths, 'fore you ever git a chancet to use it?"

"Couldn't you fix hit up in terbaccy er mothballs ag'in' de time I need hit?" Gordon Lee asked helplessly.

But Amanda was too exasperated this time to argue the matter. Fifty dollars' worth of coffin in the coal-shed and fifty cents' worth of coal in the bin constituted a situation that demanded her entire attention.

For six months now Gordon Lee had remained in bed, firm in the belief that he could not walk on account of the spell that had been laid upon him. During that time he had come to take a luxurious satisfaction in the interest his case was exciting in the neighborhood. Being in excellent physical condition, he could afford the melancholy joy of playing with the idea of death. He spent hours discussing the details of his funeral, which had assumed in his mind the proportions of a pageant.

Amanda, on the other hand, overworked and anxious, and compelled to forego her lodges and societies, became more and more irascible and depressed. In some subtle way she was aware that the sympathy of the colored community was solidly with Gordon Lee. Nobody now asked her how he was. Nobody came to the cabin when she was there, though it was apparent that visitors were frequent during her absence. Aunt Kizzy had evidently been busy in the neighborhood.

One night Amanda sat very long over the stove rolling her hair into little wads about the length and thickness of her finger, then tightly wrapping each with a stout bit of cord to take out the kink. When Gordon Lee roused himself now and then to inquire suspiciously what she was doing, she answered with ominous calm.

"Jes steddyin', that's all."

Her meditations evidently resulted in a plan of action, for the next night she came home from her work in a most mysterious and unusual mood. Gordon Lee heard her moving some heavy and cumbersome article across the kitchen floor, then he saw her surreptitiously put something into a tin can before she presented herself at the foot of his bed.

"'Mandy," he said, anxious to break the silence, and distrusting that subdued look of excitement in her eyes, "did you bring me dat possum, lak you 'lowed you was gwine to?"

Her lips tightened.

"Yes, I got the possum, an' also some apples fer a dumplin'; but before I lays a stick to the fire I'm goin' to say my say."

Gordon Lee looked at her with consternation. She stood at the foot of his bed as if it wore a rostrum, and with an air of detached dignity addressed him as if he had been the whole Order of the Sisters of the Star.

"I done arrive' at a decision," she declared. "I arrive' at it in the watches of the night. I'm goin' to cure you 'cordin' to yer lights an' knowledge. I'm goin' to lif' that spell ef I has to purge my immortal soul to do it."

"'Mandy," cried Gordon Lee, eagerly, "you mean to say you gwine to remove the hoodoo?"

"I am," she said solemnly. "I'm goin' to draw out all yer miseries fer the rest of yer life, _includin' of the cricket in yer leg_."

"'Mandy," he cried again fearfully, "you ain't gwine ter hurt me in no way, is you?"

"Not effen you do as I tell you. But fust of all you got to take the pledge of silence. Whatsomever takes place heah in this cabin to-night ain't never to be revealed till the jedgment-day. Do you swear?"

The big negro, fascinated with the mystery, and deeply impressed with his wife's manner, laid his hand on the Bible and solemnly took the oath.

"Now," she continued impressively, "while I go in the kitchen an' git the supper started, I want you to ease yerse'f outen the bed on to the floor, an' lay with yer head to the north an' your han's outspread, an' yer mind on the heabenly kingdom."

"Air you shore hit ain't gwine hurt me?" again he queried.

"Not if you do 'zactly like I say. Besides," she added dryly, "if it comes to the worst, ain't you ready an' waitin' to go!"

"Yas," agreed Gordon Lee; "but I ain't fixin' to go till I's sent fer."

It took not only time, but courage, for him to follow the prescribed directions. He had for a long time cherished the belief that any exertion would prove fatal; but the prospect of having the hoodoo removed, together with a lively curiosity as to what means Amanda would employ to remove it, spurred him to persist despite groans, wheezes, and ejaculations.

Once stretched upon the floor, with his head to the north and his arms extended, he encountered a new difficulty: his mind refused to dwell upon the heavenly kingdom. Anxiety as to the treatment he was about to be subjected to alternated with satisfaction at the savory odors that floated in from the kitchen. If the ordeal was uncertain, the reward at least was sure.

After what seemed to him an endless vigil, Amanda appeared in the doorway. With measured steps and great solemnity of mien, she approached, holding in her right hand a piece of white chalk.

"De hour has come," she chanted. "With this chalk, an' around this man, I make the mark of his image." Stooping, she began to trace his outline on the dull rag-carpet, speaking monotonously as she worked: "Gordon Lee Surrender Jones, I command all the aches an' the pains, all the miseries an' fool notions, includin' the cricket in yer leg, to pass outen yer real body into this heah image on the floor. Keep yer head still, nigger! I pass 'em through you into yer symbol, an' from thence I draws 'em out to satisfy yer mind now and forever more, amen. Now roll over to the right an' watch what's about to happen."

The patient by this time was so interested that he followed instructions mechanically. He saw Amanda dart into the kitchen and emerge with an object totally unfamiliar to him. It was a heavy, box-shaped object, attached to a long handle. This she placed on the chalked outline of his right leg. Then she stood with her eyes fixed on the floor and solemnly chanted:

"Draw, draw, 'cordin' to the law, Lif' the hoodoo, now I beg, An' draw the cricket F'om this heah leg!"

And Gordon Lee, raised on his elbow, watching with protruding eyes, _heard_ it draw! He heard the heavy, panting breathing as Amanda ran the vacuum cleaner over every inch of the chalked outline, and when she stopped and, kneeling beside the box, removed a small bag of dust and lint, he was not in the least surprised to see a cricket jump from the débris.

"Praise be!" he cried in sudden ecstasy. "De pain's done lef me, do spell's done lifted!"

"An' the cricket's done removed," urged Amanda, skilfully getting the machine out of sight. "You seen it removed with yer own eyes."

"Wid my own eyes," echoed Gordon Lee, still in a state of self-hypnosis.

"An' now," she said, "I'm goin' to git that supper ready jes as quick ez I kin."

"Ain't you gwine help me back in bed fust?" he asked from where he still lay on the floor.

"What fer?" she exclaimed. "Ain't the spell lifted? I'm goin' to set the table in the kitchen, an' ef you wants any of that possum an' sweet pertater an' that apple-dumplin' an' hard sass, you got to walk in there to git em."

For ten minutes Gordon Lee Surrender Jones lay flat on his back on the floor, trying to trace the course of human events during the last half-hour. Against the dim suspicion that Amanda had in some way outwitted him rose the staggering evidence of that very live cricket that still hopped about the room, chirping contentedly.

Twice Amanda spoke to him, but he refused to answer. His silence did not seem to affect her good spirits, for she continued her work, singing softly to herself.

Despite himself, he became aware of the refrain, and before he knew it he was going over the familiar words with her:

"Oh, chicken-pie an 'pepper, oh! Chicken-pie is good, I know; So is wattehmillion, too; So is rabbit in a stew; So is dumplin's, b'iled with squab; So is cawn, b'iled on de cob; So is chine an' turkey breast; So is aigs des f'om de nest."

Gordon Lee rose unsteadily. Holding to a chair, he reached the table, then the door, through which he shambled, and sheepishly took his old place at the foot of the table. Amanda outdid herself in serving him, emptying the larder in honor of the occasion; but neither of them spoke until the apple-dumpling was reached. Then Gordon Lee turned toward her and said confidentially:

"I wished we knowed some corpse we could sell dat coffin to."

A MATTER OF FRIENDSHIP

When a jovial young person in irreproachable pongee, and a wholly reproachable brown topi, scrambled up the lifting gang-plank of the big Pacific liner, setting sail from Yokohama, he was welcomed with acclaim. The Captain stopped swearing long enough to megaphone a greeting from the bridge, the First Officer slapped him on the back, while the half dozen sailors, tugging at the ropes, grinned as one man.

Three months before this good ship _East India_ had carried Frederick Reynolds out to the Orient and deposited him on the alien soil, an untried youth of unimpeachable morals with a fatal facility for making friends.

The temporary transplanting had had a strange and exotic effect. The East has a way of developing crops of wild oats that have been neglected in the West, and by the end of his sojourn Mr. Frederick Reynolds had seen more, felt more, and lived more than in all of his previous twenty-four years put together. He had learned the difference between a "straight flush" and a "full house" under the palms at Raffles Hotel in Singapore; he had been instructed in the ways of the wise in Shanghai by a sophisticated attaché of the French Legation, who imparted his knowledge between sips of absinthe, as he looked down on the passing show from a teahouse on the Bubbling Well Road; he had rapturously listened to every sweet secret that Japan had to tell, and had left a wake of smiles from Nagasaki to Yokohama.

In fact, in three short months he was fully qualified to pass a connoisseur's judgment on a high-ball, to hold his own in a game of poker, and to carry on a fairly coherent flirtation in four different languages.

With this newly acquired wisdom he was now setting sail for home, having accomplished his downward career with such alacrity that he did not at all realize what had happened to him.

Nor did the return voyage promise much in the way of silent meditation and timely repentance. The Captain placed Reynolds next to him at table, declaring that he was like an electric fan on a sultry day; the Purser, with the elasticity of conscience peculiar to pursers, moved him from the inexpensive inside room which he had engaged, to a spacious state-room on the promenade deck, where sufficient corks were drawn nightly to make a small life preserver.

The one person who watched these proceedings with disfavor was a short, attenuated, bow-legged Chinaman, with a face like a grotesque brass knocker, and a taciturnity that enveloped him like a fog.

On the voyage out, Tsang Foo, the assistant deck steward, had gotten into a fight with a brother Chinaman, and had been saved from dismissal by Reynolds's timely intercession at headquarters. In dumb gratitude for this service, he had laid his celestial soul at the feet of the young American and sworn eternal allegiance.

From the day Reynolds reëmbarked, Tsang's silken, slippered feet silently followed him from smoking-room to bar, from bar back to smoking-room. Whatever emotion troubled the depths of his being, no sign of it rose to his ageless, youthless face. But whether he was silently performing his duties on deck, or sitting on the hatchway smoking his opium, his vigilant eyes from their long, narrow slits kept watch.

For thirteen days the sun sparkled on the blue waters of the Pacific, and favoring breezes gave every promise of landing the _East India_ in port with the fastest record of the season. Bets went higher and higher on each day's running, and the excitement was intense each evening in the smoking-room when the numbers most likely to win the next day's pool were auctioned off to the highest bidder.

It was the afternoon of the fourteenth day, thirty-six hours out from San Francisco, that Mr. Frederick Reynolds, who had bet more, drunk more, talked more, and laughed more than any man on board, suddenly came to his full senses. Then it was that he went quietly to his luxurious state-room with its brass bed and crimson hangings, and took a forty-two caliber revolver from his steamer trunk. Slipping a cartridge into the cylinder, he sat breathing heavily and staring impatiently before him.

From outside above the roar of the ocean, came the tramp of the passengers on deck, and the trivial scraps of conversation that floated in kept side-tracking his thoughts, preventing their reaching the desired destination.

The world, which he had sternly resolved to leave, seemed determined to stay with him as long as possible. He heard Glass, the actor, inquiring for him, and in spite of himself he felt flattered; he heard the pretty girl whose steamer chair was next his, make a conditional engagement with the high-voiced army-officer, and he knew why she left the matter open; even a plaintive old voice inquiring how long it would be before tea, caused him to wait for the answer.

At last, as if to present his misery in embodied form, he produced a note-book and tried to concentrate his attention upon the items therein recorded. Line after line of wavering figures danced in impish glee before him, defying inspection. But at the foot of the column, like soldiers waiting to shoot a prisoner, stood four formidable units unquestionably pointing his way to doom.

As be looked at them Reynolds's thoughts got back on the main track and rushed to a conclusion. Tearing the leaf from the book, and crushing it in his hand, he jumped to his feet. Seized with a fury of self-disgust, he pulled off his coat and collar, and with the reckless courage of a boy put the mouth of the revolver to his temple.

As he did so the room darkened. He involuntarily looked up. Framed in the circle of the port-hole were the head and shoulders of Tsang Foo. Not a muscle of the yellow face moved, not a tremor of the slanting eyelids showed surprise. The right hand, holding a bit of tow, mechanically continued polishing the brass around the port-hole, but the left--long, thin, and with claw-like nails, shot stealthily forward and snatched the pistol.

For a full minute the polishing continued, then face and figure vanished, and Reynolds was left staring in impotent rage at the empty port-hole.

When the room steward appeared in answer to an imperative summons, he was directed to send Tsang Foo to room No. 7 at once.

Tsang came almost immediately, bearing tea and anchovy sandwiches, which he urbanely placed on a camp-stool.

"Where's my pistol?" demanded Reynolds hotly, holding to the door to steady himself.

Tsang's eyes, earnest as a dog's, were lifted to his:

"He fall overboard," he explained suavely, "me velly solly."

Reynolds impulsively lifted his arm to strike, but a second impulse, engulfing the first, made him turn and fling himself upon his berth, struggling to master the heavy sobs that shook him from head to foot.

The Chinaman softly closed the door and slipped the bolt, then he dropped to a sitting posture on the floor and waited.

When the squall had passed, Reynolds addressed his companion from the depths of the pillows in language suited to his comprehension.

"Me belong large fool, Tsang!" he said savagely. "Have drink too much. No good. You go 'long, I'm all right now."

Tsang's eye swept the disordered room and returned to the figure on the bed. "Suppose me go," he said, "you makee one hole in head?"

"That's my business," said Reynolds, his wrath rekindling. "You go 'long, and get my pistol; there's a good chap."

Tsang did not stir; he sat with his hands clasped about his knees, and contemplated space with the abstract look of a Buddha gazing into Nirvana.

Reynolds passed from persuasion to profanity with no satisfactory result. His language, whether eloquent or fiery, beat upon an unresponsive ear. But being in that condition that demands sympathy, he found the mere talking a relief, and presently drifted into a recital of his woes.

"I'm up against it, in the hole, you know, much largee trouble," he amplified with many gestures, sitting on the side of his berth, and pounding out excited, incoherent phrases to the impassive figure opposite. "Company sent me out to collect money. My have spent all. No can go back home. Suppose my lose face, more better die!"

Tsang shifted his position and nodded gravely. Out of much that was unintelligible, the last statement loomed clear and incontrovertible.

"I'm a thief!" burst out Reynolds passionately, not to Tsang now, but to the world at large, "a plain, common thief. And the worst of it is there isn't a man in that San Francisco office that doesn't trust me down to the ground. Then there's the Governor. O God! I can't face the Governor!"

Tsang sat immovable, lost in thought. Stray words and phrases helped, but it was by some subtle working of his own complex brain that he was arriving at the truth.

"Father, him no can lend money?" he suggested presently.

"The Governor? Good heavens, no. There's not enough money in our whole family to wad a gun! They put up all they had to give me a start, and look where I have landed! Do you suppose I'd go back and ask them to put up a thousand more for my rotten foolishness?" He knotted his hands together until the nails grew white then, seeing the unenlightened face below, he added emphatically: "No, no, Tsang, no can askee!"

"How fashion you losee money!" asked Tsang.

"The money? Oh, belong gamble. Bet on ship's run. First day--win. Second day--win. Then lose, lose, keep on losing. Didn't know half the time what I was doing. To-day my settle up; no can pay office. A thousand dollars out! Lord! All same two thousand Mex', Tsang!"

An invisible calculation was made on the end of the steamer trunk by a long, pointed, fingernail, but no change of expression crossed the yellow face. For an incalculable time Tsang sat, lost in thought. All his conserved energy went to aid him in solving the problem. At last he reached a decision: this was clearly a case to be laid before the only god be knew, the god of Chance.

"Me gamble too," he said; "me no lose."

"But s'pose you _had_ lost? S'pose you lose what no belong you? What thing you do?"

"You do all same my talkee you?" asked Tsang, for the first time lifting his eyes.

It was a slender straw, to be sure, but Reynolds grasped at it.

"What thing you mean, Tsang? What can I do?"

"Two more night' to San Flancisco," said Tsang softly; "one more bet, maybe!"

"Oh, I've thought of that. What's the good of throwing good money after bad? No use, I no got chance."

"_My_ have got chance," announced Tsang emphatically, "you bet how fashion my talkee you, your money come back."

Reynolds studied the brass knocker of a face, but found no clue to the riddle. "What you mean, Tsang?" he asked. "What do you know? For the Lord's sake don't fool with me about it!"

"Me no fool," declared Tsang. "You le' me talkee number, him win big heap money."

"But how do you know?"

"Me savey," said Tsang enigmatically.

Again Reynolds studied the impassive face. "It's on the square, Tsang? You don't stand in with anybody below decks? The thing is on the level?" Then finding further elucidation necessary, he added, "No belong cheat!"

Tsang Foo shook his head positively. "No belong cheat, all belong ploper. No man savey, only me savey, this side," and he tapped his head significantly.

Reynolds gave a short, unpleasant laugh. "All right," he said, thrusting his hand in his pocket. "I'll give myself one more chance. There'll be time to-morrow to finish my job. I'll make a bargain with you, Tsang! Bet this, and this, and this, on the next run for me. You win, I no makee shoot; you lose, you promise bring back pistol, then go way. My can do what thing my wantchee, see?"

Tsang Foo looked at him cunningly: "I win, you belong good boy? Stop whisky-soda, maybe?"

Reynolds laughed in spite of himself: "Going to reform me, oh? All right, it's a bargain."

Tsang allowed his hand to be shaken, then he carefully counted over the express checks that had been given to him.

"My go now," he announced as eight bells sounded from the bridge.

As the door closed Reynolds sighed, then his eyes brightened as they fell upon the sandwiches. Even a desperate young man on the verge of suicide if he is hungry must needs cheer up temporarily at the sight of food. Reynolds had taken an early breakfast after being up all night, and had eaten nothing since. After devouring the sandwiches and tea with relish, he ordered a hot bath, and in less than an hour was wrapped in his berth sleeping the sleep that is not confined to the righteous.

It was high noon the next day when he awoke. His first feeling was one of exhilaration: the long sleep, the fresh sea air pouring in at the port-hole, and a sense of perfect physical well-being had made him forget, for a moment, the serious business the day might have in store for him.

As he lay, half dozing, he became dimly aware that something was wrong. The throb of the engines had ceased, and an ominous stillness prevailed. He sat up in bed and listened, then he thrust his head out of the port-hole, only to see a deserted deck. The passage was likewise deserted save for a hurried stewardess, who called back, over her shoulder, "It's a man overboard, sir, on the starboard side--"

Reynolds flung on his clothes. The boy in him was keen for excitement, and in five minutes he was on deck, and had joined the crowd of passengers that thronged the railing.

The life-boat was being lowered, groaning and protesting as it cleared the davits and swung away from the ship's side. Far behind, in the still shining wake of the steamer, a small black object bobbed helplessly in the gray expanse of waters.

"What's the matter?" "Did he fall overboard!" "Did he jump in?" "Was it suicide?" The air buzzed with questions. The sentimental contingent clung to the theory that it was some poor stoker who could no longer stand the heat, or a foreign refugee afraid to come into port. The more practical argued that it was probably one of the seamen who, while doing outside painting, had lost his balance and fallen into the sea.

A smug, well-dressed man, with close-cropped gray beard, and a detached gaze that seemed to go no further than his rimless glasses, turned and spoke to Reynolds:

"It has gotten to be quite the fashion for somebody in the steerage to create this sort of sensation. It happened as I went over. If a man sees fit to jump overboard, all well and good; in nine cases out of ten it's a good riddance to the community. But why in Heaven's name should the steamer put back? Why should several hundred people be delayed an hour or so for the sake of an inconsiderate, useless fool?"

Reynolds turned away sickened. From a point, apart from the rest, he strained his eyes to keep in sight the small black object now hidden, now revealed, by the waves. A fierce sense of kinship for that man in the water seized him. He, too, perhaps had grappled with some unendurable situation and been overcome. What if he was an utterly worthless asset on the great human ledger? He was a fellow-being, suffering, tempted, vanquished. Was it kind to bring him back, to go through with it all again?