Part 4

I caught one glance of her eyes; outside their beauty was fun, kindness, and a desire to be friends; from that minute one red-headed puppy-dog found something to live for.

My devotion had nothing to do with the ordinary love-affair. As for marrying her, no such idea entered my loft. I had no jealousies. All I wanted was for her to be near me, to be a friend of mine, and that she might be on hand to approve if I did something surprising. I wanted the privilege of her hearing me talk about myself; and, for the rest of it, I could sit and look at her beauty, the same as you or me could sit and listen to the greatest music. It meant more than just good looks; I wouldn't go too far if I said it was a kind of religion. And the devil take my soul if I forget the horse-sense and kindness that girl used in teaching a foot-loose boy what a different place this world is, from what he'd been like to think it, without her. A young feller's first outpourings toward a woman has more effect on him than even his mother's years of care. He kind of takes mother for granted. The other woman represents his own endeavors. I played in luck.

We were introduced, bang! When about ten feet away from me she took her hand from the rail to gather in one end of a shawl. At that minute the _Matilda_ saw a whale, or something, and shied. We struck the mainmast together, me trying to hold her up. She said, "Why, how do you do?" I said I did very well, and was she hurt? She said, not in the least, thank you, except in her feelings, at being so clumsy. I said, if _she_ was clumsy, why, then, why, then--Now I was a little bashful. Nobody could be a clodhopper who lived with my mother, and ordinarily I acted quite like a man when necessary, but this was a little sudden. I couldn't reach the word I looked for. With one hand braced against the mainmast, her hair standing in a black cloud about her head, the color whipped to her cheeks, she gave me a flash from the corner of her eye: "I'm afraid I lose my compliment," said she.

Afterward I learned she had liked me from the first, too, and was afraid I mightn't turn out well. Lucky for me I didn't try to show off!

"I wouldn't think it a compliment to compare you to anything on earth!" says I, meaning every word of it.

She laughed out, hearty as a boy. "Royal!" she said, and held out her hand.

"And the hand is the hand of--?" she asked.

"Bill Saunders," said I, thinking to take off my hat.

"I sound almost as honest as you," said she. "I'm Mary Smith."

It was almost a shock to think she was Mary Smith. Since then it would be a shock to think of her as Eulalie Rosalinde De Montmorency. She didn't need it. Plain Mary Smith told of what was beneath her loveliness,--and, I'm forced to admit, her side-stepping and buck-jumping, once in a while. Oh, she could cut loose for fair, if stirred, but you could always remember with perfect faith Mary Smith.

It wasn't five minutes after we started talking that Arthur Saxton came along. The girl knew him, and said good morning in that civil, hold-off fashion a good woman uses to a man she thinks may come to liking her too well, or that she may come to like too well, when the facts are against any happy result. So there was three of us, that took our little share of what followed, gathered together early in the game.

I liked Saxton from the jump. He had more faults than any other man I ever seen. He was the queerest, contrariest cuss, and yet such a gentleman; he had such a way, and such talents, that when you were mad enough to kill him, you couldn't help but feel glad you knew him to get mad at. Somehow, he steered clear of meanness. There was a sort of nobility in his capers, even when his best friends would have to admit they didn't seem to be of a size for a full-grown man. I don't know how to express myself. He often played a poor part; but darned if he didn't carry it off well, because it was him; I think that's the nearest I can come to it; good or bad, large or small, he was always Saxton, never attempting to put on anything different. And vain! Well, Heaven preserve us! And, on the other hand, not vain, neither. 'Twas like this. Among the things he did well enough to be high-class was playing the violin. He had a style and a go in it all his own, but he hadn't spent the time to learn some of the stunts that go with the trade. All the same, his natural gifts got him a job to play in concerts. The boss of the affair was a German, the kind of a man who had a soul to realize that Saxton made music, but had a head to go crazy over his slam-dashery. Now, Saxton grew excited whilst playing, and cut loose on his own hook, letting the poor perspiring Dutchman and the rest of the orchestra keep up to his trail the best they could. At these opportunities the Dutchman went home in a cab, frothing at the mouth. You see, he understood it was great stuff, as far as Saxton was concerned, so he cussed the cab-driver and the cab-horse, and the people on the street, being an honest sort of Dutchman, if limited; but, also, he had a pride in his gang, and he felt entitled to a show, here and there.

At last there come a big occasion. Saxton was half sick and loaded up on champagne and coffee to pull through the evening. I have his own word for it, the mixture done wonders. Right in the middle of a piece by a gentleman whose name I don't recall, as it's spelt with all the tail-end of the alphabet, and sounds like rip-sawing a board, Saxton throws dull care away and wanders into regions of beautiful sounds hitherto unexplored. Now and then the tall and melancholy gent with the bull-fiddle would scratch out a note or two, and the drummer got in a lick here and there, while the flute man toodle-oodled around to head off Saxy; but, on the whole, that orchestra was worse lost than so many West Pointers trying to catch an Apache who ain't longing for home. They sat and let old Saxton ramp by himself, laying low to hit her up strong on the last note. And they did,--but they misguessed the note. Saxton ground his teeth yet, recalling the finish. "It was my best," said he. "I was inspired that night,--and then, for that assortment of garlic and sausage to smash me!"

Well, he heaved his fiddle at the poor leader, and called him a barrel of sauerkraut afloat on a sea of beer, right before the whole audience. It is perhaps unnecessary to state that he and the orchestra parted company. Now he was off for Panama,--quit fiddling forever. Done with it. Going to take up a _man's_ work, he said. He didn't mention the variety, but rolled out the statement as if it was a joy. In the meantime, he was painting pictures and writing a novel. The pictures never got finished, and the novel hasn't come out, but those things didn't make him any less entertaining; and, as usual, what did get done of them was almighty well done, and done in a way only Arthur Saxton could do. I never see such a man to stamp himself on anything he put his hand to. And when he was working, if you said the least thing against the job, he wanted trouble with you; but the next day he'd smoke his pipe and tear it apart worse than you possibly could. That was Saxy: first crack, spoiled kid; second thought, clear-headed man.

The three of us, Mary and him and me, walked the deck day after day, talking of everything, from what fine weather it was to religion. Once Saxton called our attention to the wind in the rigging. Afterward I knew it sounded like Injun chants and coyotes howling, but Saxton asked if we didn't notice how much it was like the songs the children sing in play. He said those songs must have been handed down from far-off days--when we whites were savages, hopping around hollering hye-ee yah, hye-ee yah, and calling on the ladies, dressed in a streak of red paint. I don't know about that, though. No child in this world can be as mournful enjoying himself as a cow-puncher with all night before him and seven hundred verses to get through; there's puncher songs would make a strong man curl up and die.

Now, says Saxton, what makes children and savages, who have a clear field to amuse themselves as they see fit, pick, with deliberate choice, such melancholy tunes? And he said it was because nature always hit on that; wind in rigging, wind in trees, waterfalls, the far-off hum of the city, all sad, sad.

I asked him, if it was natural, where did we get the idea it was sad? It struck me that if a thing was natural, it was natural, not sad, nor nothin' else.

He said, because nature was sad. Mary said, no such a thing; nature wasn't sad--there were the flowers and green fields, also natural, and pleasant and cheerful to the eye; there was more blue sky than gray, and as for the savage being sad, why, that might be, but it wasn't sad to think that men were working out of savagery into civilization.

So then Saxton gave civilization one for its Ma, and talk brisked up. Civilization stood for Dutchmen that ran orchestras to Saxton, and he didn't spare her feelings none. I was glad Civvy, old girl, was no friend of mine. According to him, of all the mistakes so foolish that to think of bettering it was like building a hole with no rim around it, civilization stood first and foremost.

Mary got red in the face and her eyes shone. They had it up one side and down the other, forgetting me entirely. Finally Saxton told her she wasn't talking honestly, that she hated civilization worse than he did, and it was plumb hypocrisy for her to set up in its defense; whereupon she replied that _she_ hadn't wasted her time and talents, anyhow; that she wasn't throwing things up the first little obstacle that came in the way. Which didn't seem to be just the answer one might expect to the charge, but finished Saxton plenty.

He drew himself up proud. "If every topic had to turn to personalities--" said he.

"I didn't begin the personalities," said Mary. "You called me a fraud."

"I never did!" cries Saxton. "I said you were defending a cause you didn't believe in!"

"And that isn't a fraud? I admire your distinctions."

Saxton chewed his mustache and swallowed. He made her a low bow and said, in a tone of voice to flatten her out: "I am glad Miss Smith finds something admirable in me!"

Mary's lip curled hard and contemptuous. It _was_ kiddish.

"There'd be plenty in you to admire if you let it have liberty," she said. "The trouble is that your follies seem worth it, to you."

"Follies! You let me off lightly. Why not absurdities, idiocies?"

"Pick your name," she said, throwing away her interest with a sweep of her hand.

"There is one folly you give me great cause to regret," he answered her, his manhood coming back to him, "but yet I never do."

"Oh!" she jeered at him. "You should renounce them all. If I understand your meaning, that is the least excusable--you have some reason for the others."

Later I understood the cruelty of that speech. It was cruel to be kind, but it was mighty cruel and a doubtful kindness. It woke old Saxton up. He took a breath and shook. He put a hand on her shoulder, standing straight and tall--a handsome, slim critter, if ever there lived one.

"Listen!" he said, quiet, but all of him in it. "You shall care for me, just as I am--you understand? A fool, and a this, and a that--but you shall care."

A look in her eyes--the kind of defy that grows of being scart--showed his talk wasn't all air.

But it went in a second, and she whirled on him. "Why don't you advertise your intentions?" she demanded. "If I had an idea I should be so persecuted--"

"Don't say persecuted, little girl," he answered her softly. "Let's be friends the rest of the trip. I'll trouble you no more,--by sea," he finished, smiling.

She gripped the rail and looked out over the waters. Again her eyes turned to him for a second. He was worth it. That dark, long face of his, set off with his red neckerchief, made something for any woman to look at. And we're not always so darned fond of reasonable people as we make out.

"If only--" she began, then bit back whatever it was. "Well, as you say," she wound up, "let us be friends. Isn't it foolish for us to quarrel so, Will?" she asked, turning to me. "I think you must feel we're both ridiculous."

"I don't care whether you are or not," I said. "I like you both."

Saxton looked pleased 'way back in his dark eyes. "That's the boy for my money!" he said. And then we three began to laugh.

"It's all too beautiful to quarrel in," he said, waving an arm around. "To feel sorrowful on such a day, savage or civilized, really is ridiculous."

She couldn't help giving him one last jab,--I make a guess he turned happy too soon to please her. If she didn't like him, she liked somebody who so much resembled him that she wanted to have him around to remind her.

"Mr. Saxton's sorrows are soon healed," she said. "That's a valuable disposition."

"I take _that_ as friendly, because I must," said he, smiling in a way, as with the other things he did, that was beautiful in a fashion of its own. She tried to buck against it, to keep sneering; but something so young and joyful was in his face, she couldn't help smiling back at him. So we walked the deck and talked about everything in the best of humors.

VII

"SAVE ME, ARTHUR!"

The first part of the _Matilda's_ trip slid by, day after day, like a happy dream. We had weather that couldn't be bettered; days of sunlight and pretty sailing breezes; nights picked out of heaven. The moon was in her glory. I like high land better than I do the ocean, but few sights can beat a full moon swelling over the glitter of water. There's also a snugness, a cozy, contented feeling, aboard a small boat, that you can't get elsewhere, except in a prairie camp. I suppose it's the contrast between so much space of sky and land or water, where people are not, and the little spot where they are, that makes your partners rise in value.

Of course, the fact that it was my first cutaway puts a gilt edge on all that time, yet one other thing, a new thing, that made all my life different for me, must get its credit. That was music,--good music. Back home they weren't much in the musical line. I think I can remember when mother used to play the piano some, but her life soon jarred all that out of her. Bar here and there a man with a mouth-organ or a concertina, and a fiddler to do dance-tunes, the only thing that stood for music to me was the singing in father's church. I have since thought that anybody who could stand that once a week was certainly a good Christian. I remember one Sunday the preacher told us about heaven, and how it was a steady line of harps and hymn-tunes. I put in the rest of that Sunday bewildered. I didn't want to go to hell, and after that description of heaven I wasn't anxious to go there, neither. Looked like the hereafter was dark and uncertain.

But when I first heard Saxton, with his fiddle; Barbado Joe, the nigger cook, with the guitar; and Mary singing, my soul just laid on its back and purred. I was standing at the rail, thinking, kind of misty kid-fashion, one moonlit night, when there came a ripple of little notes from the guitar, with three wind-up chords like spring water in the desert. Then old Sax's fiddle 'way, 'way up; so light, so delicate, so sweet and pretty that shivers ran down my back. I stiffened like a pointer-pup first smelling game. "Here's something," I thought, "something that's me, all right, but I don't understand yet." And then, Mary's voice rose gorgeous out of the bigness of sky and moonlight and water; it filled the whole empty world, without an effort. Me and the moon and the waves stopped dead and listened. Even the _Matilda_ trod the water gently.

I turned and looked at Mary. There's no way for me to tell you what a picture she made. If I say she was beautiful, you'll think of some woman you know, and that's wrong, for there never was another like Mary. She was always beautiful, but never else had quite the touch as when lost in her singing. Man, she was Paradise itself, and when she opened her lips and sang, you entered the gates thereof.

Of course, everybody's heard good singing, the same as everybody's seen handsome faces, but once in a while you strike a face or a voice that's beyond all guessing. You'd never believed it, if you hadn't seen or heard it.

She sang as easily as you think,--opened her lips and it rolled out. And, in spite of power that could ring the air for miles and never seem loud, a deep something trembled underneath that was the very soul of pity and womankindness, and another little something floated high and joyful above it like the laugh of a child. Yes, sir. That voice was food, drink, and clean blankets. When she stopped, I thought I never wanted to hear a sound again. But I didn't know the limit of old Sax. With her voice quivering in his heart, he grabbed up his wooden box and made a miracle. Sure, it was different; but just as sure he tore a hole in you. His eyes were on Mary, backing the story the violin was telling. She was giving way, too. Her eyes would meet his, as if she couldn't help herself. He'd promised not to speak, but that didn't stop the old fiddle from making out the prettiest kind of case.

She sat with her chin in her hand, breathing deep. The violin would give a tug at her, and, as I say, her eyes would turn to Sax, and then she'd force them away again, over the water, slowly down to the deck once more. She was frightened. I don't blame her, for Sax was out of himself. He towered there in the moonlight making those inhumanly beautiful sounds, his face burning white and his eyes burning black, fire clean through, fire in every soople muscle, fire pulsing out of every heave of his shoulders, one handsome and scary figure. There was something so out-and-out wild in him, I swear he looked as if he could call up devils from the sea.

Well, when a man does get beyond the ordinary he scares the rest of the tribe. If two fellows start to fight, the bystanders will try to separate them. It's kind of instinct--I've done it many a time myself, when it would have been better to let the boys whack 'emselves good-natured instead of keeping the grudge sour on their stomachs. Anyway, I can't blame Mary for feeling leery of Sax when I confess that he put creeps in my spine. He seemed to grow till he filled the bow of the boat; the fiddle sung in my ears till I couldn't think straight; heavy medicine in it, you bet. Mary got whiter and whiter. I saw her constantly wetting her lips, and her hand went to her heart. The whole night was changed. The air was full of war and uneasiness. I wish to Heaven I knew how it might have ended, if nothing interrupted, because Saxton was doing magic. It was the queerest feeling I ever had. What Mary's feelings were I'd give something to know, but just when things were the tightest old Jesse come up and pulled my sleeve.

"Get the girl below quiet," he says. "Hell will be loose in a minute."

I stared at him. Coming on top of my queer sensations, it gummed my works. Jesse pointed to the sou'east.

A cloud was flying north, the center of it black, but wisps and streamers flew out white in the moonlight like steam from an explosion. To the north of it lay another storm, huge and heavy, black as death, except where lightning sprayed through it.

"Wind, Jesse?" I says.

"The last time I see a thing like that, boy," he says, "I made land three days later, aboard a hencoop--the only one of a hull ship's company. Get that girl below."

I thought quick, as he walked away. The fiddle had stopped. A wicked silence lay on everything. Old man Fear put his cold feet on me. I looked again at the mass to s'utherd. It boiled and turned and twisted. Big gusts of black and white shot crazily out to nowhere--she was climbing! Then I looked at the group. Mary sat white and still. Sax stood behind her, his fiddle by his side, holding the bow like a sword. He was white and still, too, and looking up to where the moon was going out. Their backs were turned to the devilry that threatened us.

I stepped forward,--easy as possible, and spoke to her.

"You're not looking well, Mary," I said. "Hadn't you better go down?"

That was before my poker days. Playing a four-flush gives a man control of his face and voice. She heard what I wanted to hide at once, being naturally sharp as a needle and tuned high that night.

"What's the matter?" says she.

"Matter?" says I, laughing gaily. "Why, I don't want to see you sick--come along like a good girl."

"Tell me why I should, and I will," she says. Well, what was the use? Hadn't she the right to know? When old Jesse said trouble was turning the corner, you could expect the knock on the door. He had the reputation of being the most fearless as well as the most careful skipper in the coast trade. He never took a chance, if there was nothing in it, and he'd take 'em all, if there was.

Sax bent to us. "What's up?" says he. I didn't say a word--pointed behind him. He looked for a full five seconds.

"Tornado, by God!" he says in a sort of savage whisper.

He took the violin and bow in those thin strong hands of his and crumpled 'em up, and threw the pieces overboard. I'll swear he felt what I did--that he _had_ called up a devil from the sea.

Then he put a hand on Mary's shoulder. "Go below, sweetheart," he said.

"But you'll call me--you'll let me--" she says, an agony in her eyes.

"You ought to know that I will be with you, if there's no need of me here," he said. We stood stock-still for a minute. It had come with such a stunning bang.

"There is great danger, Mary," said Saxton. "But you'll be brave, my dear?"

"I will, Arthur," she answered. Then her eyes filled with panic and she caught him around the neck. "Save me, Arthur! Save me!" she cried. "Oh, I don't want to die!"

Never in his life had Arthur Saxton stood up more of a man and gentleman. He put his hand on her head and looked courage into her. "Nor do I want to die while there's a chance of you," he said. "Now you'll believe and trust me, and go with Will?"

I think he kissed her--I don't remember. That hell aloft was sudsing fast to us, and I was dancing inside to do something beside wait for a drowning. Anyhow, old Jesse's voice ripped out ferocious; there was a rattle of blocks, and I put Mary below at the bottom of the step, picked up a lantern for her, told her we'd watch out more for her than we would for ourselves, and seeing how utterly God-forsaken the poor girl looked, I kissed her, too.

"Don't leave me, Will! Oh, don't!" she cried; "I can't stand it!"

"I must," I pleaded. "Mary, think! I may be some use."

She gripped herself. "That is so. Go, Will."

It hurt to go. The lantern made a dim light in which her face half showed. The shadows shifted black, here and there. From above came a grinding, shattering sort of roar, like a train crossing a bridge. It was horrible to leave a woman alone to face it. But then came a scurry and trampling of feet on deck; yells and orders. That was my place.

"Good-by! God save you!" I said, caught her hand for a good-by, and jumped up the stair.

I was just in time. They slammed the hatch down almost on my heels.

"Mary's there!" I screamed in Jesse's ear.

"It's her only chance!" he roared back.

On deck that machinery roar drowned everything. It rattled the bones in your body. The deck sung to it. You felt the humming on your feet. It dumbed and tortured you at the same time, like a fever-dream. You couldn't think for it, and your temper was spoiled entirely.