Part 8

I wished him good luck, and when his time had expired--he served the full term with no commutation--I secured him a berth with a relative of mine who commanded a ship, and he went to sea. The ship sailed on the day that Lance's leave expired, and, on that day, Lance, too, went to sea on his practice cruise.

Astrologers say that, given the date, place, and exact minute of a person's birth, a calculation can be made that will prophesy the happenings for good or evil in that person's life, and fix the dates or the periods of time; and, conversely, if given the dates of the happenings and departures, the exact minute and place of birth can be determined. If this is true, it would equally apply to the case of two persons born side by side, giving them similar experiences varying only by the pressure of environment and the initial distance apart when born. And Lance and Dunbar seemed to be proving it true.

Shortly after they left, the jail warden was elected sheriff, and moved his goods and family to the county seat, the small town where we lived. The daughter, now about seventeen, was welcomed in the best society of the place. I saw her often; and the more I learned of her beautiful mind, the more I deplored Dunbar's unfortunate infatuation, and felt that a lesser girl would have answered the purpose. But now I know that a lesser girl could not have reached him. He needed a star of the first magnitude.

In two years Lance was back, a passed midshipman, waiting for his commission as ensign and an assignment to a ship. Dunbar did not appear, and I wondered if the connection was broken; but was relieved on this point by a letter from my relative, which apprised me that Dunbar had quit him to ship second mate with another skipper; and on comparing dates I found that this was simultaneous with the return of Lance, though Dunbar was in San Francisco at the time. But there seemed to be other influences entering into the environment of Lance. He met Miss Ella Madison, the daughter of the Sheriff. Now, while the best society of the small town had welcomed this splendid girl, Lance, invested with wealth and the aroma of a commission, was not affected by the general estimate. To him she was a find, a pretty girl to flirt with. I saw them together very often, but never arrived at a conception of his attitude until he expounded his philosophy of life in answer to a query of mine--a quest born of my interest in Dunbar.

"Are you to be married?" I asked.

"Married? No. I don't believe in marriage. I consider marriage, the linking of two human beings together, to be a crime worse than the tying of a dog and cat together by a rope and turning them adrift to fight it out. Marriage, Doctor? Why, marriage is an institution of human society worse than slavery--responsible for more crime, sin, sorrow, suffering, and murder than anything that ever afflicted the human race."

"Well," I answered, somewhat amazed, "what will you substitute for marriage, admitting that what you say may be true?"

"Association of two who love, until each is tired of the association, then separation."

"And do you apply such a code to your interest in Miss Madison?"

"Of course; but she's old-fashioned in her notions. Likes to be loved, but wants to be married. She resists my philosophy."

"She's right, you young scoundrel," I said. "Get out of my office."

My anger, of course, has no place in this story, and I soon forgot it, trusting in the girl's nobility of soul; and a letter from Dunbar, the first he had written, roused my hopes that there might soon be an antidote for Lance. It was a long communication, written from Liverpool, which apprised me that he had obtained a first mate's license and was in a fair way soon to obtain command; but the diction and style of that letter surprised me. With all my acquirements, coming of a university education and a daily correspondence with educated people, I could not have edited that letter. It was a masterpiece of English, and I answered it, giving him the news of Miss Madison that he asked for, and advising him to appear.

But he did not appear; and four years went on--years of fruitless suit on the part of Lance, and fruitful pursuit on the part of Dunbar, as evidenced by his letters. Miss Madison remained invulnerable; Lance steadily disintegrated, becoming more masculine, more dissipated, more fixed in his reactionary philosophy of life. He resigned from the navy two months after his return and remained in the small town, except for occasional visits to New York. His father died, and with all the property in his control, he bought a schooner yacht, and invited me to a trip--which invitation I declined. Dunbar had become a first mate, and later a captain of a small bark which, in a letter, he said would sail from Honolulu for New York. I hoped he would come home, for in every letter he had written was the request for news of Ella Madison, and his assurance of a soul-born worship of her. I knew something of feminine psychology. I felt that here was the need of a strong man; for in my few talks with the girl I had not impressed her with Lance's unworthiness.

Lance continued in his reversion to type. His dissipated habits brought him into contact with men who expounded only the physical. He had a fight, in the small town, with a bartender, and actually thrashed the man--a feat I would not have accredited to him. Again he stopped a runaway horse and saved from certain death the occupants of the carriage. He bore these honors modestly, but I could not help speculating upon the question as to whether or not he was drawing upon his affinity, Dunbar, a sailor who risked his life daily in the earning of his daily bread. Dunbar's increasing refinement, as evidenced by his letters, bore out such a speculation, and it seemed that each, without knowing the other, was benefiting by the psychic association. But Miss Madison the link between the two, who was lifting Dunbar up and dragging Lance down, remained normal, uninfluenced by Lance and unremembering of Dunbar; for, in a short talk with her, I found that she had forgotten him.

Now Sheriff Madison died, and as the girl was without friends or relatives, I took her into my home as a member of the family, satisfied to have such a rare and beauteous creature under my care, and glad of my vested power to keep Lance at a distance. But it came too late; I noticed her abstraction, then saw tears in her eyes, and, long before my professional knowledge told me, I guessed that Lance had won.

There was a stormy scene when I met him, upbraided him, and appealed to his manhood, and was met by flippant philosophy, ridicule, and defiance. In that talk I caught him by the throat and only relinquished my grip as I realized that his death would not avail. He must marry her, I thought, and that thought saved his miserable life. He went out, angry at me and insistent that his position was justified by human experience.

He went on a yachting trip soon after, and before he came back I read in the New York papers of a rescue at sea. The yacht _Sylph_, cruising, with owner on board, had come upon the dismantled wreck of the bark _Holyoke_, Captain John Dunbar, and rescued all hands at the moment of sinking. A feature of the rescue was the plunging into the sea of Mr. George Lance, owner of the yacht, and his saving the life of Captain Dunbar, who had remained until the last, and who, hampered by his oilskins would have drowned in the turmoil caused by the sinking hull, but for the heroic action of Mr. Lance.

I read this to Miss Madison. She was pleased at Lance's heroism, but expressed no interest in Captain Dunbar, the last to leave his sinking ship.

Shortly after, Dunbar came home and his first visit was to me. With all my predilection to think well of him I was more than surprised, and agreeably so. I had last seen him in a cell, a convict, a jail-bird, with the prison pallor on his face and the prison flavor in his soul. He stood before me now a big, broad-shouldered, handsome fellow of twenty-eight, with dark, curly hair, a dark, sunburned face, a cheery, optimistic smile, and a voice that rang with suppressed laughter. His diction was faultless; he had read and studied deeply. He used words and phrases only at the command of educated men. Had I not known his antecedents I would have pronounced him a university graduate; yet I knew that he was John Dunbar, a self-made man, and I approved of his handiwork. I introduced him to Miss Madison. His attitude toward her was that of a religious devotee in the presence of an idol. Hers was that of a woman wearied of life and life's ideals. She did not know him--did not realize that this big, splendid man was a product of her own creation--a failure, inspired by her beautiful face and a few kind words toward effort, struggle, and victory. Dunbar was a success; he had made it so, and nothing could take it from him. But she did not know, and I could not tell her now.

In his talk with me he outlined his plans. "I'll get another ship, soon," he said, "for the owners don't count it against me that a leaky old tub started a butt in a Hatteras gale and went down. Besides, she was well insured. But, meanwhile, I've accepted command of Mr. Lance's yacht. I'll have to study up a little on yacht etiquette, and I'm all right. Say, isn't he a fine fellow?"

I did not contradict him, though I withheld enthusiastic concurrence.

"He'd made three trips in his gig," went on Dunbar, "and handled it finely in that tremendous sea, taking off my men as they jumped overboard. I stayed to the last and he made a separate trip for me, but arrived too late. She took her final plunge before I expected it, and there I was, thirty feet under before I knew it, with long rubber boots on and a long oilskin coat that I couldn't unbutton. But I did get to the surface, full of water and nearly unconscious, when I felt his clutch on my hair. Oh, he's a man--the real thing, and whatever I can do for him while I live, I'll do, and don't you forget it, doctor. I'm that man's friend for life."

I inwardly groaned and changed the subject.

"And what are your intentions with regard to Miss Madison?" I asked.

"To win her love, if I can, and make her my wife," he said, determinedly. "You say she does not remember me--the fellow in jail? Well, don't tell her, doctor. I'll tell her myself when the time comes, but not now. It might hurt me."

I promised, but could not see the future clear of trouble, for Dunbar, for Lance, and for Miss Madison.

Dunbar went back to New York, to assume charge of Lance's yacht, and I spent the next few months in fruitless argument, denunciation, and threat; but I could not move Lance, and I think I drove him to harder drinking. Then there came the time when Ella Madison, the girl I loved as my own child, asked me to accompany her on a trip to sea in Lance's yacht.

"I must disappear for a time," she said, sadly, "and I want you with me. I know I will die if you are not with me, for he is inflexible."

"I'll go, my girl," I said, grimly, "and stand by you. But, God help the scoundrel if things come to the worst."

I thought of Dunbar as I said this, wondering what he would do, when he learned that his goddess was the victim of his savior.

But we packed up--my wife, the poor, weakened, and helpless girl, and myself. We went to New York, boarded the black, shiny schooner at Twenty-sixth Street, and put to sea, Dunbar delighted at the trip with the woman he adored, and Lance drunk and disagreeable. It was an unpleasant experience in his life, rendered necessary by his very slight adherence to the conventions.

The yacht was a fine schooner of about a hundred and twenty feet length, carrying, besides her skipper, a mate and twenty men, with a cook, steward, and cabin-boy. She was well found, in stores and the liquid refreshments dear to the soul of Lance, and well able to keep the sea until this unfortunate happening was over.

I have not said anything so far of my wife, and she has small part in this story. Let it suffice that she was with me heart and soul in my interest for and love for Ella Madison, and our only desire was to help her as we could, I as a medical man, she as a woman full of human sympathy. The event came at the beginning of a gale off Cape Hatteras, when Lance was half drunk, and Dunbar excited and interested in the work of snugging down. He was on deck, and I heard his roaring orders to his men while I, with my wife, attended the poor girl below in her stateroom.

I had seen in Dunbar's eyes the suspicion that he entertained, but had not yet brought myself to the point of informing him. Yet it came unexpectedly, when, clad in oilskins, he caught me at the companionway, and said:

"What's the matter? Is anything wrong with Miss Madison?"

"Dunbar," I answered, "she will be delivered of a child in less than an hour; and its father is George Lance, who saved your life. Be careful what you do or what you say."

The man reeled as though I had struck him, then went forward, and I heard his voice, directing his mate and men. I hoped that his strength of soul would stand by him.

I went below, meeting Lance in the forward cabin. He was half-intoxicated, and I had small interest in his conversation, but he said something that I remembered.

"No need, Doctor, to preserve any evidence of this. I'll see to that all right. Just leave it to me, and she can go on and live her life, and I'll go on and live my life, just the same. It's all a matter of common sense. Understand."

I did not understand--until later, when, having left Ella Madison with a small, crying creature in her arms, I went to my berth utterly exhausted, and was aroused by my wife, who said: "The baby is missing. Where can it be?"

I turned out and peeped into Ella's stateroom. She was sleeping peacefully, but there was no sign of the babe.

"I only left her a few minutes ago," said my wife, "and the little one was beside her. It had stopped crying."

"Go to your room, dear," I said, "and leave this to me."

She obeyed me and I went on deck. The yacht was hove to, under a close-reefed mainsail, a double-reefed foresail, and the jib, with the bonnet off. Forward, the watch on deck walked back and forth in twos and threes, clad in snug oilskins and unmindful of the bombardment of spume and spindrift. The mate was amidships, looking aloft and to windward, and aft near the wheel was Dunbar, staring moodily into the storm. I waited until he stepped forward to speak to the mate, then approached the man at the wheel.

"Has Mr. Lance been on deck?" I said, nonchalantly.

"Yes, sir. He came up a short time back."

"Throw anything overboard?"

"Yes, sir. He had a bundle, and dropped it over the lee quarter."

"That's all right. Keep your mouth shut until I talk with you."

I went below, shocked and horrified beyond my powers of self-analysis. Lance had murdered the child born to the woman he had won and despised. And here on the scene was Dunbar, who had worshiped this woman as an abstract ideal, whose life had been saved by this murderer, and who was under such heavy obligations of gratitude that his course of conduct was problematical. I could not foresee the solution. I did not know what Dunbar would do.

I sought my wife and told her. She could not advise me nor help me. I hunted for Lance, and found him, locked in his stateroom.

"Let me in," I said. "I want to talk with you."

He opened the door, and I entered. He was ghastly pale, wild-eyed--drunk.

"Have a drink, Doc," he stuttered. "Of course, you know that I've queered the case--that things are all right, now, and that when we get back she can live her life and I can live mine."

"You will live your life," I said, "as a convict, sentenced to life imprisonment, unless a more merciful decree of the court shall send you to the electric chair."

"Oh, have a drink. It's all right. The evidence is out of the way. Now, I'm willing to cut her out--to have nothing more to do with her, and she can do what she likes, get married, or remain an old maid. I'm through. I've made good. Her reputation hasn't suffered, because nobody knows, except you, and I, and your wife. Well, what's the use of talking? Just keep still, and we'll go back to New York. She can go home, and the whole thing will end."

"Don't flatter yourself," I answered grimly. "There is a man on deck that you will have to deal with--a man who has loved this girl for years, who knows your position, and who will know of the crime you have committed. You are a murderer, and you will have to deal with John Dunbar."

"What have I got to do with him? He's my skipper, to do as I tell him."

"I'll see about that."

I left him and sought Dunbar, who stood on the weather quarter, alone. The same man was at the wheel, and I raised my hand warningly as I caught his eye. He nodded, as though he comprehended.

"Dunbar," I said, as I reached his side, "has the captain of a ship, or yacht, the power to put the owner of the craft in irons?"

"Yes," he answered, slowly, the words seeming to struggle through his set teeth, "if the owner violates the law in any way, or threatens by his acts the destruction of property or life."

"Then put George Lance in irons for the murder of his own child."

He started, and looked intently into my face.

"He threw the child overboard within half an hour of its birth."

"Then, Doctor," he answered, slowly, "it seems that he does not mean to marry her."

"Most certainly not. I gave up that hope long ago."

"He will cast her adrift to live this thing down as she can, I suppose."

"Yes, as he says, to live her life as she likes while he lives his."

"I will not iron him, doctor; for that would mean arrest, a trial, and publicity. Where is he now?"

"In his room, drunk and defiant."

Dunbar threw off his long oilskin coat, doffed his sou'wester, and descended the cabin stairs; I followed, and my wife, standing in the open doorway of Ella's room, beckoned to me.

"I have just told her," she whispered, "but she seems too dazed to realize it."

Dunbar, who had halted in the middle of the cabin, approached.

"May I speak to her?" he asked, quietly. We assented, and he stepped into the stateroom. The poor girl, white and wasted, looked at him as I have seen a kitten look at a huge dog, but she made no protest.

"Miss Madison," said Dunbar, gently, "do you remember the boy in the jail about ten years ago, to whom you were kind when others--excepting the doctor here--were not? Do you remember John Dunbar, who served a four-year sentence?"

She nodded, slowly and weakly, with the light of recognition stealing over her face.

"I am that boy, Miss Madison. Your kindness made a man of me. I studied and worked and saved, looking forward to the time when I might reach your level and ask you to be my wife. In all these years of absence I have not spent ten seconds of my waking life without thinking of you, your face and figure, trying to recall your voice, your gestures, and expression. I want that you should know this--that you should know how I loved you and what that love has done for me, so that you will not think that your life is a complete failure, even though your present trouble ends things for me. I am going to die. Good-by."

He leaned over, put his arms around her neck and gently lifted her; then he pressed his lips to hers, long and passionately, and, laying her down, brushed past us at the door.

"Where is he?" he asked, grimly.

"In his room," I answered. "But, Dunbar, what are you thinking of? You're not thinking of dying, are you?"

"That, and other things."

He opened the door of Lance's room.

"Mr. Lance," he said. "Come out of that."

"What do you mean by this intrusion, Captain Dunbar? This is the after cabin, and my private room, where you have no business to be. You are my sailing-master. Go on deck where you belong." Lance's voice was thick, and he spoke brokenly. But this ended it; Dunbar's face, voice, and manner sobered him.

"Come out of that room!" thundered Dunbar, "or I'll drag you out by the hair. COME!" The last word was like a trumpet-blast, and Lance followed him out into the cabin.

"Mr. Lance," said Dunbar, his face as white as a sailor's may become, and his voice low, tense, and thoroughly under command, "you saved my life, and by so doing debarred me from any action antagonistic to you while I retained that life. But you have forfeited yours. You could go back to New York, stand trial for the murder of a helpless infant, and die in the chair--which death would not atone for the suffering you would inflict upon this girl that I loved, and upon me. For she would be flouted by the world. And so, to save her from this flouting, and because you have got to die, I appoint myself your executioner, out here at sea where there are no reporters to give the facts to the world. But in killing you I give you back the life that you gave me; for that life is nothing to me compared with the happiness of Ella Madison. Come! Come on deck, and go overboard with me."

"What--what?" stuttered Lance, his eyes wide open in terror. "What are you thinking of? If you love this girl, marry her. I will stand the expense and start you in life. You can command this yacht at double your present pay, or I will secure you an interest in and the command of a ship. This seems a pleasant solution of this very unpleasant business. Come, now, what do you say?"

"Damn you!" roared Dunbar, and his fist shot out. Lance was fairly hurled by the impact on his jaw against the bulkhead, where he fell to the floor. Before he was well on his feet Dunbar had him by the throat.

"On deck with you," he said, as Lance struggled in his grasp. "Come, and we'll follow the baby."

"Dunbar," I shouted. "Stop this. Are you going to be a murderer, too? Leave this to the law. The law is adequate."

"The law will publish her shame to the world," he replied, as calmly as a man may speak while struggling with one under mortal fear of death. For Lance had roused himself to the necessity of action. He was, a tall, strong man, nearly the match for Dunbar. They fought and struggled round that cabin floor, while my wife screamed and finally fainted. But I could give her no attention; I was trying, though a man getting on to old age, to separate these two men, one bent upon death, the other fighting for life. Through the open stateroom door Ella must have heard it all.

Even as I tried, with my small strength, and the words at my command, to stop this suicide and murder, there came to me the memory of the similarity of happenings to these two men--that they were born in the same spot and at the same moment, that the dates of their departures coincided, and that they had both been strongly influenced by the same woman, one to be uplifted, the other to be dragged down. Was it to happen that both should die at the same time? I felt, rather than believed, that the laws of astrology were as nothing when opposed to the human will, and I resolved to stop that struggle. I rushed on deck, and called the mate. He came, the inquiry in his face apprising me that he had heard the sounds from below, and was wondering.

"Call all hands," I commanded. "The captain is half insane and is bent upon jumping overboard with the owner. Separate them."

"Not much," he said. "I've nothing to do with their troubles, but I've got my living to make. Both have power to fire me, and no matter who wins, I'd get it in the neck."

"Men, come aft here," I shouted to the sailors. The men forward came toward me, but were stopped by the mate.

"Go back," he said. "This is none of your funeral nor mine. Let the owner settle his own affairs."