Part 6

In one way my imprisonment had refined me, or rather, worn off the rough spots acquired at sea. Good behavior had brought no commutation of my five years' sentence, but it had brought me light tasks instead of hard ones, and one of these was the care of the prison library, which gave me communion with many good books.

So I emerged at last with none of the working sailor about me except in my mind, and none of the prisoner except the cropped hair and cell pallor. These last I got rid of in a short coasting voyage before the mast, and then, with my chest, money, and discharges replevined from the Philadelphia boarding master who had faithfully cared for them, I visited my old home. Here I learned that my imprisonment was not known and that George Morton and his sister were traveling in Europe for the shattered health of the former. Then, with the unregenerate hope that soon it would be given me to shatter that health still further, I went back to my battle of life, for in love, war, or work a man must live.

Luck was with me from the start. I signed before the mast and filled a sick second mate's place before the ship had reached the line. And at Hongkong found my old captain, who had a first mate's berth vacant, and was glad to get me back without asking questions. A few questions to him, however, brought out the reason of this delicacy.

"If you young fellows knew," he remarked dryly, "all that you surely learn later, you'd let the stuff alone. I'm part owner here, and when you went on that drunk and quit me I had made up my mind to put you in command. 'Tend to business, now, and you can take her out next voyage."

"I'll make good, sir," I answered, pleased with the prospect, and willing to be thought an ex-drunkard rather than an ex-convict.

"But keep still about it," he said. "The principal owner is on board for the trip home. Your job is to impress him before the proposition is put up to him. He's somewhat crotchety and queer."

I joined the ship--a big, black, skysail yarder, filled to the hatches with sugar and jute--as she was lifting her anchor. We went to sea in a gale, and for two days and two nights I had not time to unpack my chest, much less to take note of my surroundings and the impression I was creating as a first mate fitted to command. I saw the owner occasionally in the brief lulls of shortening down--a tall, spare figure, muffled to the nose in a hooded mackintosh--but I did not meet him until the morning of the third day out, when, after an hour or two of sleep, I turned out for a look around before going to breakfast, and there, in the forward companion, ran plump into him. The next moment I had him by the throat, position, prospects, honor, love, and liberty going down before the uprush of rage and hatred.

There flashed into my mind at that moment a memory from boyhood, forgotten through the years, of his father being largely interested in shipping, but it was futile, irrelevant, and left me as it came; then, while he sagged under my grip, there came to me the picture of Grace Morton's frightened face as she had turned it up to me in the lamplight. But I forced it from me. That love is dead, I thought, and I hissed the thought through my teeth with my curses. Then, thinking of the long, bitter years in prison, the suffering and the shame, the thwarted hopes and plans, the struggle to maintain my integrity for the sake of a girl that had forgotten me, and knowing only that the cause of it all was right here, in my hands, I felt what I had not felt before--the impulse, the desire, and the self-justification to kill.

But I did not kill him. I relaxed my hold and looked into the same frightened face that had appealed to me once before. Older now, with lines of care and trouble in it, but more womanly and commanding. She stood in the dining-room door, and had commanded me to stop; and I obeyed her. Her brother slunk past her into the dining-room. The second mate was on deck, the steward had not come aft with the breakfast. The captain had not come through from the after cabin. None but the girl had seen the assault.

"Go to your room, George," she called to him through the door. "Wait for me, and say nothing to the captain."

Then she turned, and calmly regarded me. On my part, I stood before her like a culprit, trembling, and with my tongue dry against the roof of my mouth.

"Jack," she said, "I have watched you through this window since we sailed, watched you in your strength and mastery of your calling. And I have listened to your voice, that roused me from sleep on the first night, and which I recognized as yours. And I said to myself that you were a man, that you must be a man, and that I may have misjudged you. But here, you assault an invalid for a quarrel over five years old, that began in my behalf, I admit, but which ended in your own."

"An invalid," I managed to say. "A quarrel--in my behalf? Go on, please, Miss Morton."

"In your own," she repeated. "Of course, I do not know how men feel, and what the best may say at times about--about a woman. But could you not let it drop, instead of resuming it here, on this ship, where I am a passenger?"

"Please explain. You let _me_ drop, Miss Morton, when I needed you; but I have not complained. It seems that the slightest inquiry must have apprised you of my extremity. It seems that something might have been done that would not compromise you."

It was her turn to be mystified. "What do you mean?" she asked. "Do you deny me dignity, self-respect, pride, or confidence in myself? Could I _inquire_ about a man who had taken advantage of my momentary weakness and boasted of it? Not only boasted, but threatened to a member of my family that he would follow up his advantage for revenge at a beating?"

"Boasted! Revenge at a beating! Grace, explain yourself. You are accusing me of something. What is it? Boasting that I kissed you?"

"That," she said, looking defiantly into my face, while two red spots came to her cheeks. "That, and threatening my brother, after your defeat at his hands, with making your mastery complete."

"The damnable scoundrel!" I said explosively. "Did he tell you that lie? Did he say that he defeated me?"

"I saw him getting the best of you," she said, with a little doubt in her face.

"Because I did not want to hurt your brother. Did you turn in an alarm?"

"Yes."

"Before the firemen came your brother had got away from me and ran. Then I, remaining to extinguish the fire, was arrested for causing it."

"Arrested?" Her eyes opened in wonder and alarm.

"And the best proof, Miss Morton," I said grimly, "that I am too much of a man to boast about a woman, is that I served five years in Trenton prison rather than call upon you to clear me."

"You did? Jack!"

Tears started to her eyes, but I went on relentlessly:

"The case was well outlined to me by your brother on the morning after my arrest. He had sent the policeman into the house after me, and having succeeded so far, called upon me in jail to carry it further. I was to plead guilty so as not to attract attention to him. The evidence was against me. I was caught adding fuel to the fire, and with my face and clothing smeared with oil. My only chance was that the girl that I loved would come forward. She did not, and I could not ask her. No doubt, your brother told you that lie to kill any interest or curiosity you may have felt concerning me."

For a moment I thought she was going to faint. She paled to the tips of her small ears, staggered back, and leaned against the bulkhead, her lips parted and her eyes staring at me in wonder and horror.

"Why--why," she gasped, "why did you not tell me?"

"To ask that you save me at your brother's expense?" I answered. "To place you on the stand, where the lawyers could bait you? To compromise you? To shield myself behind a woman's good name? No, Miss Morton, whatever I may have become under the influence of stripes and confinement, I was, at that time, a graduate of Annapolis--an officer and a gentleman."

She shrank away from me and seemed about to fall. Then, having spoken my mind, the bitterness left me, and I would have gone back to prison could I have unsaid my words. The old love replaced the hate, and I reached forward, just to touch her hand, if I might; but she drew it away.

"Don't," she whispered weakly. "Don't. I didn't know; I didn't know." She was not speaking to me, and for a moment I hesitated. Then I forcibly turned her face to mine and looked into her eyes, swimming with tears. "It's all right, Grace," I said huskily. "Never mind."

"I would have come," she said, in a firmer voice, "but I did not--"

I had my arms around her now, and for a moment she lay unresisting, her face close to mine; but the next moment she struggled free.

"The girl that you loved," she said softly, accenting the last word.

"And love now," I rejoined, seizing her again. Then I flung her from me and bolted into my room, on the port side of the passage.

The captain had appeared in the dining-room, and seven bells--breakfast time--rang on deck. When she reached the deck I went in to my breakfast.

That evening, in the last dog-watch, Grace came to me at the weather-mizzen rigging.

"I have questioned him, Jack, and at last he admitted it," she said. "He is a nervous wreck, has been so for a year, and now I know why. Your term was coming to an end and for fear of you he has dragged me all over Europe and the Orient. He had you watched and knew by cable that you had shipped for Hongkong, but did not imagine that you would join this ship, which he found here on our arrival. He did not expect you here for a month."

"We made a fast passage out," I answered. "But what about him? What is to be done with him? Is he still a pyromaniac?"

"I do not know. It is congenital, and may break out at any time. But at any rate, I am through with him. He has forfeited all my regard. When we get home I shall remain there."

"And I suppose you do not want the captain informed of his weakness for fire?"

"Not unless you think it necessary, Jack."

"I think not," I said. "He is very properly scared and subdued, and knows that I will be watching him."

There was little further intercourse between George Morton and myself. He appeared on deck occasionally, but usually in my watch below, and when we met he would turn his head away, much to the chagrin of the captain, who had no knowledge of conditions. He was pale, emaciated, and fidgety in his manner, evidently a very sick man, and beyond all thought of punishment; but I felt no regret at the loss of my vengeance--I had won something better, and was content.

His attitude toward his sister, however, was one of doglike devotion and apology, while hers was one of toleration and contempt. He would hasten to meet her at the companion, to help her to a seat, to bring rugs or books, satisfied if she murmured a mere word of thanks. Then he would banish himself and look at her hungrily, waiting to be called. There is no doubt that, up to the limits of his narrow soul, he loved his sister; but it was a love based upon possession--the property instinct, the love of a dog for a cached bone, a bird for its perch, a cat for those who have housed and fed her. He had lost something, and wanted it back; and as it was lost forever I feared for that other love that was part of his being--his love of fire.

I could not watch him when asleep, nor depute the task to others--all I could do was to overhaul the deck and force pumps, make up an extra supply of draw-buckets, and examine all approaches to the inflammable jute in the hold. In that last I found nothing to alarm me. It could not be reached except through the hatches, which were all battened down. And it was all in the lower hold; on top of the ballast tiers of sugar, and above it, stowed in the 'tween deck, was the rest of the sugar. He could not set fire to the sugar, even if he reached it.

Yet in the hot, blistering heat of the Indian Ocean, when we had lain for days in a calm that was harder on our nerves than a hurricane, smoke filtered up through the seams in the cabin flooring--smoke with the pungent odor of burning jute; and the first man to notice it was George Morton.

"Done it, by heavens!" I growled, as I turned out in answer to the captain's quiet call.

There was a consultation in the cabin of the after-guard, to which were called the cook and steward, carpenter and sailmaker, and the two boatswains from the forecastles. All of these reported the smell of smoke in the compartments of the forward house, and the boatswain said that it was plainly noticeable at the fore and main hatches. Grace and her brother were listening; in Grace's face were uncertainty and apprehension, in her brother's, as he darted furtive glances at me, the deadly fear of immediate denunciation; but whether there was guilt or not I could not determine.

No one could guess how the fire had started, and only two points were elucidated from the discussion, both bearing upon the captain's opinion that nothing could be done at present but to keep the hatches on and smother it. The carpenter ventured the opinion that the fire could not be smothered. "For the ship is a sieve, captain," he said. "You know I told you so in Hongkong, and wanted you to calk her, topsides, deck, and all. There's millions of little holes to let the air in."

"And even so," added Morton, "the interstices between the barrels of sugar hold air that can be drawn upon."

"Right," said the captain impatiently, and a little sadly. "But it's too late to calk every seam in this ship, and if it don't smother out, and we can't make port, this ship is gone. All we can do is wait, for if we open hatches and jettison sugar to get at it, we'll only give it more draft."

So, we waited, but while waiting, headed the ship toward Calcutta, if not to save our lives, at least to meet with some craft that could deluge our jute with water--a large steamer, with power pumps and hose. But nothing came our way, and the days and weeks went on, with the deadening calm still engulfing us, and the deck growing hotter each hour. Soon the smoke became visible, curling up in countless little spirals, where the minute holes gave it egress.

Morton faced me one day, his eyes wide open and his face twitching. "I know what you think," he stammered. "You think I set fire to the cargo. But I swear by all I reverence that I did not. My sister believes in me."

"Mr. Morton," I answered, steadily as I could, for I never was my real self in his presence, "perhaps you did not. But all that makes me think so is my utter inability to comprehend how you could do it. A man who will fire a seminary will fire a ship at sea."

He slunk away from me, so pitiable and wretched an object that immediately I was sorry for my words. After that I spoke kindly to him whenever it was necessary to speak at all.

Work went on as usual; not that, in this doomed ship, painting and scrubbing were necessary, but to keep the crew's minds off the danger and the formulating of futile plans and suggestions--which always comes of idleness. But in spite of this, mutterings of discontent were heard, and in the interests of peace, I abolished all work except the continuous washing down of the hot deck, night and day. And at this monotonous work men would go to sleep in their tracks, waking when they fell over.

I had long noticed the peculiar mental effect of the jute smoke on myself, at first a tendency to day-dreams and a lazy, sleepy indifference to our danger; later a trancelike condition in which voices were not heard, or if heard not noticed, and the whole inner consciousness busy with serene contemplation of the past, the present, and the future, mingled with visions of green trees and flowers, sounds of tinkling water, and music that seemed not of earth.

All this brought no misgiving to my mind until I wakened, prone upon the blistering deck one night, with no recollection of my falling. Then I regarded it as serious, and in the morning spoke to the captain.

"Yes, we must quit," he said mournfully, "while we have our senses. It is the soporific principle of the jute, akin to that of hasheesh, which is made from Indian hemp. No one could sleep below without that continuous narcotic, and such sleep is dangerous. I had trouble waking you yesterday. Capsize the boats and provision them. The ship may burst into flames at any moment, and when she does, she'll go quickly. She's dry as a chip."

We numbered about thirty, all told, and to accommodate this many we had three good boats, upside down on the forward house. These I soon had over the side, floating light upon the smooth sea at the ends of their painters, and we provisioned them as heavily as was safe with our added weight. When all was ready I reported.

"And none too soon," answered the captain. "Look there!" He pointed forward, where the tarpaulin of the main hatch had lifted like a great bubble from the pressure of hot air and gases beneath. "There is dunnage under the hatch and it is afire, Mr. Morton," he said, turning to our passenger, "you and your sister will go in the boat with me. I will bring her up when I bring my papers."

I had no mind for this. I turned away, and while directing the manning of the boats, did some deep and desperate thinking. Put her in an open boat with a lunatic brother and a doddering old skipper, I fumed? Not much.

As the men swarmed down, Grace appeared in the forward companion. I beckoned to her, and she came. We had already rigged a whip from the fore yardarm, and in a "bosun's chair" at the end of this I quickly hoisted her over the side and into my boat. George, leaving his sister to the captain's care, had descended to his boat on the other side. When all were over but the captain and myself, the former appeared on deck.

"Where is Miss Morton?" he called. "I cannot find her."

"In the boat, captain," I truthfully yelled. "Hurry up, sir. There's no time to lose."

I pointed, as he had done, to the main hatch. The bubble had burst, and up from the rent rose a column of smoke.

"Go ahead, sir," he answered. "I must be last."

I clambered down the side, and joined Grace in the sternsheets.

"Where is George?" she asked. "I thought he was coming, and the captain, too."

"Both in the starboard boat," I answered. "You're in here with me, where I can take care of you. Shove off!" I commanded. "Both boats shove off, and get away from here."

The second mate had charge of the other boat, and together we shot away from the ship, putting a hundred yards between us before pausing to wait for the captain's boat from the other side. But it did not appear at once. Instead, we heard loud shouts, and the name "Grace" in Morton's tremulous voice.

"Miss Morton is here," I sang out, but, if heard, I was not answered.

Then the shouts ceased, and Morton's figure appeared on the opposite rail.

"Grace!" he called. "Grace, where are you?"

"I'm here, George," she answered. "I'm safe. Save yourself."

"Here!" I bellowed. "Here with me! Get back into your boat."

But instead he jumped down on deck, out of our sight. We pulled back toward the ship, and waited, a fair swimming distance away. Then, as a box of matches bursts into fame, so did that huge ship. The main-hatch covers flew into air, tangible and visible; and as they fell, the black pillar of smoke increased in size and solidity, while each oaken rail became a line of fire, and even the masts, dried by the heat of weeks, turned to fiery red columns in a few minutes.

But the top of the cabin was still immune from the flames. And up the after steps by the side of the companion climbed Morton. He ran to the skylight, turned around, went part way back, and then retraced his steps, calling again for his sister.

"Jump overboard!" I shouted. "Jump, for your life!"

He did not jump. With his hands to his nostrils he shuffled forward toward the monkey-rail that overlooked the main deck, halting at moments, only to shuffle again. He turned around once and took a few steps backward, then wheeled suddenly and resumed his shuffling advance. I called again and again for him to jump, and Grace joined me in pleading screams, while I heard the captain calling from the other side. But to no avail; the god that he worshiped was calling the louder. He staggered now, reached the rail, and with arms extended as though in supplication, plunged into the inferno beneath.

Only once since then has anyone spoken of him to me. It was the gray old skipper, who, after our rescue, wanted to set me right.

"You thought he fired the ship," he said, "for he told me of your suspicions, and felt badly. But he did not. It was all my fault, for I should have calked the ship at Hongkong. That three-day gale that we met let the water down on the jute. It was spontaneous combustion."

But, in mercy to each other, Grace and I never mention his name.

THE BABY

It was Dartmoor who saw the chance. He was the son of a wealthy father, and perhaps the one man of that medical class to feel equal to the experiments given up by the old professor.

Physically, Dartmoor was exceptionally favored by nature, possessing one of the most winning personalities I have ever met, and the face and figure of a Greek god. And to this was added a mental development that was almost abnormal in its completeness. I had gone through school with him, and never saw him studying. He seemed to learn his lessons by a few glances at the page of a book.

He had courage of a high order, but never had a fight in his life, for he could make an adversary surrender without a fight. He could win any girl for sweetheart, or any boy for friend. He had his enemies, carefully chosen by himself, but when he so decided he would make these enemies his friends. I had been one.

Shortly after our diplomas were given us, Dartmoor secured legal possession of the freak, with a history of the case. The history was simple; its mother, a poor immigrant, had died at its birth, and its father was unknown.

The professor, a visiting physician of the hospital at the time, had taken it into his sanitarium and cared for it; but beyond keeping it alive had not helped it. It was a man that had never been conscious--a human being born without the five senses.

Dartmoor erected a pavilion on his grounds, installed in it the freak, together with the apparatus for massage and exercise, and gave himself up to the study of his charge. He had me around once to witness the experiments, but I was not enthusiastic.

The creature, who was about as old as Dartmoor and myself, lay in a reclining posture on the exercising frame, staring vacantly with wide-open, blue eyes. He was full grown, but with the features of an infant--pudgy nose and pursed-up lips.

Two hinged levers worked by a crank caught his wrists as they lay extended over his head, lifted him to a sitting position, and pulled him forward until his fingers touched his feet. Then back he went, to be again swung forward. When there had been enough of this, two other levers lifted him by the ankles and brought his feet over his head, then dropped them back.

Then there were massaging and vibrating apparatus and a portable shower-bath to finish him off. All this had been going on since his infancy, and now he was fairly well developed--about six feet tall, with the muscles of an athlete.

"Dartmoor," I said, when the job was over, "this is a problem for a college of physicians and surgeons, not for one man."

"But think of the credit," he answered enthusiastically. "Think of the world's applause if I succeed in giving consciousness to this poor, animated clay."

"It may be an idiot."

"Not necessarily--an infant, perhaps."

"Where do you think the trouble lies?"