Chapter 17

It was a man in a steward's uniform. As Cadogan reached the door, the man retreated to the shadows of the deck. Cadogan followed. It was Hames, with a square envelope in his hand. "Miss Huttle, Mr. Cadogan," he whispered, "said I was to give you this. When there was nobody about, she said, sir. I've been trying ever since, sir, to find you alone."

Cadogan stepped to the light of a smoking-room air-port, held the sheet close up to the glass, and read:

It was all a mistake after dinner to-night. I will explain when next we meet--if ever we do meet. But you must see that we do meet. You must. The passengers do not know, even you may not know, but it is true--the ship is going to sink. I am frightened--dreadful thoughts--if you were only near!

You must save yourself. You can, if you will. You can do the impossible. You have done it before in play. Do it to-night for the woman who loves you.

I know you will never go into the boats, but after they are gone, when you can no longer help another, I ask you to save yourself--save yourself not for yourself, but for me.

A woman who loves--remember you said it yourself--hers is the call that no man has the choice of refusing. A woman who loves you and whose love is all for you, will be calling calling, calling, as you read this, from out on the dark sea.

Come, come, come, O Beloved, to me at the last. If you do not come, I shall believe always that you did not care. But I know you will come to me. HELEN.

Cadogan stared at the sea about him, at the sky above him. He rubbed his forehead. "'Come, come, oh, come!'" he murmured. He drove his clinched fist against the air-port. "I'll come! I'll come!"

"Mr. Cadogan?" It was the steward.

"What is it?"

"There's queer talk going about between decks, sir. There will be desp'rate work doing to-night, if what they say is true, sir. I've a family in Southampton, sir, and I always tried to do my duty, sir."

"I never knew a better steward, Hames. Listen."

"'K you, sir. Yes, sir?"

"On the boat deck for'ard, port side--get that right now."

"Port side for'ard, sir. Yes, sir. Believe me, sir, I won't forget such directions as you are pleased to give, sir."

"There's a collapsible life-boat there under a tarpaulin. Somebody is saving that for the finish--for a favored few."

"I believe you, sir."

"Stand by it, and when they launch it jump on."

"But they will have spanners and wrenches, and such weapons, sir."

"They surely will. In the steamer trunk in my room you will find a magazine pistol."

"Yes, sir. 'K you, sir."

"But you must hurt nobody, mind, except those who try to hurt you."

"I'll promise, sir. An' I'll remember also I 'ave a missus an' three kiddies in Southampton, sir."

"And don't forget you have them, either."

"No, sir. 'K you, sir. But I never 'andled a magazine one. Any complications, sir?"

"Not many. You find the trigger, curl your finger around it, put the muzzle to the man's head who means you harm, and, if he persists, pull the trigger. It's very simple."

"Quite so, sir."

"Good luck to you. And don't forget--you keep pressing the trigger as long as you want to keep shooting. And--how old are the kiddies?"

"Five, and three, and the baby, one. A grand little chap, the baby, sir."

"Is he now? Isn't that fine!" Cadogan drew from his hip-pocket the wallet with the packet of bills. "Put this in the bank--for the kiddies and missus."

"It's a hawful kindness to 'em, sir."

"All right. Good luck to you."

"Good luck to you, I s'y, sir." He vanished.

V

From his seat on the transom, Lavis had caught sight of the face of Cadogan as he read the sheet of paper held up to the air-port. His chin came down on his chest, remained there a moment, and then he stood up and slowly went out on deck, by way of the door opposite to that which Cadogan had taken.

The passengers were gathering thickly on the top deck. There was now no restriction, ship's people having ceased their supervision, and many steerage passengers were crowding up to join first and second class on the higher decks.

"In the last death plunge," mused Lavis, "steerage may go first, if so be it pleases them."

He made out a couple standing hand in hand like children. He knew them, the couple from second cabin, and of the faith of the prophets of old.

"For why should I go in der boads, Simon?" the woman was saying. "No, no, mein husband. Fifty yahres together we hafe been now. Together we shell go now also."

"Surely God will welcome thee," murmured Lavis, and touched their clasped hands in passing.

He halted. A young man was staring out on the wide sea. Lavis remembered the bride and groom who had been so rapturously gazing out on the sea together before the collision. This was the groom, and he was speaking to another young man who was treading the deck restlessly, four paces one way, four paces back. "They said there was a lantern in the boat she was put in. I think I see it--a small light."

"Do you?"--the restless one halted--"I don't. How long were you married?"

"Four months."

"Oh-h! We were only ten weeks." With short, quick steps he resumed his striding.

Lavis leaned beside the young man at the rail. "I think I see the light you were looking for--there." He pointed.

"Yes, yes--that's it. See here!" He turned to address the pacing man. "Why, he's gone!" He peered into Lavis's face. "There were ten of us, you see, with our wives, returning from our wedding trips. We were going to have a supper together when we reached New York."

"But you are not afraid?"

"I am. And I wish I could have gone in the boat too. But look there!" He pointed to the hundreds of steerage passengers who were still crowded together three decks below. "What chance did they give those women to-night? what chance do they ever get? And my old mother came over steerage. And she is still alive. And she would stand me up before her and she'd say--I know how she would say it: 'Dannie, boy, do you tell me you came away from a sinking ship, and women and children behind you?'"

"But you are not sorry?"

"God, man, no! But only the night before last my wife all at once came close to me and said: 'Dannie, we're going to have a little baby.' And nothing more for a long time, me holding her. And then she whispers: 'And I hope he'll be a boy, and grow up to be a man like you, Dannie,' she said.

"And God help me! Already I had him grown up and was taking him out to see the Giants play."

"God help us all!" said Lavis; and gripped the other's hand swiftly, and passed on to the lowest open deck, where, by way of the long gangway, he might reach the after end of the ship. Already the deck was taking on a more noticeable forward slant. He saw a man lashing together some chairs. He paused long enough to see that it was Cadogan, but, without discovering himself, he passed on to where an isolated man in dungarees leaned with folded arms across the rail.

It was Andie, with his chin resting on his arms, and his face turned toward the placid sea. Once he lifted his head to gaze up at the sky.

Lavis touched him on the arm. "How did you leave Mr. Linnell, Andie?"

Andie unfolded his arms and faced around. "Eh? Oh! How do you do, sir? He comes to me, Mr. Lavis--an' 'twas somethin' beyond the fear o' death was in his eyes--an' he says: 'Andie, your work's done. 'Twas her death-blow they give her, an' she'll not live much longer now. Go above you now, Andie,' he says, 'and I'll stay here.' 'If you don't mind, I'll stay with you, sir,' I says. 'Don't be foolish, Andie,' he says. 'There's small reputation goes with eight pounds in the month. There's none will be lookin' in the papers to see did you desert your post, but there's many will be sayin' what a grand fool you was you didn't go when you could.'

"'I know you mean that, sir, for the wharf-rats that ships an' shirks for one voyage, and stays drunk ashore for three more,' I says. 'I've no call to leave this ship while one passenger is aboard of her. An' more, Mister Linnell, many an' many's the watch I've stood under you, an', 'less you forbids it, I'll stand this last watch wi' you. Only, if you won't forbid me, sir, I'll go up on deck at the last, an' have a look at God's own sky before she goes.'"

"And what did he say to that, Andie?"

"He said naught to that, sir, excep' to shake hands wi' me. I was that embarrassed wi' the grup o' the hand he gave, I takes out my pipe an' baccy from the locker where the sea wasn't yet reached to, an' I cuts myself a pipeful an' lights up. An' he says, smilin'-like: 'Andie, is it the same old Buccaneer brand you're smokin'?' An' I says: 'The same, sir.' 'Well,' says he, 'I've always maintained it was the most outrageousest-smellin' baccy ever was brought into an engine-room. An' I won't change my opinion now, but if you will spare me a pipeful I'll risk my health to ha' a smoke wi' you now, Andie.'

"An' while we was smokin', sir, man to man like he says: 'Andie, did ever you get it into your head you'd like to be marryin'?' And I answers, 'I did, sir,' an' I told him o' the Brighton lass I'd once courted, unobtrusive-like, between voyages, goin' on two year, and I would 'a' been most pleased to marry her, till of an evenin' we was sittin' out by the end o' the long pier, wi' the little waves from the Channel cooing among the pilin's where the long skelps o' sea-grass was clingin' to 'em under the planks at our feet. She was a doctor's wife's maid. An' I axed her, an' she says: 'The marster, an' my missus, too, says when ye're gettin' your twelve pound in the month, Andie, I'm to marry you.'

"'Wherever will I be findin' twelve pound in the month?' I says. 'Your danged old doctor himsel' is collectin' but little more nor that of his bills in the month, him wi' his red herrin' an' oatmeal porridge for breakfast every mornin' of his life!' I says. She'd told me herself o' the red herrin'. An' I left her clickin' her fancy high heels together under her penny chair, an' I'd paid tuppence each for the two of us at the gate comin' in. 'But you wasn't ever thinkin' o' gettin' marrit yourself, Mr. Linnell?' I says.

"'Maybe you noticed a large photograph, Andie, above my desk whenever you come to my room?' he asks. I said as how I did. 'And you had no suspicions?' he says. 'Well, sir,' I says, 'I did make suspicion it wasn't altogether by way of exercisin' o' your muscles you dusted the gold frame of it so frequent.'

"'I was only waitin',' he says, 'till I'd made a bit more reputation, and only to-night it was, me makin' my rounds, that I was thinkin' at last I had made it.' And he stop there, an' lets his pipe go out the while he looks down at his beautiful engines, an' then he has the loan of another match of me, an' he says: 'Andie, but it does seem hard that your life an' mine must be smashed through the misbehavior of others.' An' I thought myself it was, without meanin' to cast blame, sir, on others.

"An' we finished our pipeful together, an' he stands up an' says, 'Good luck to you, Andie, lad,' and I knew he was wishful to be alone. An' so, 'Good luck to you, Mister Linnell,' I says, an' we gave each other another long grup o' the hand. I was wantin' to tell him he was the best chief ever I worked under, but he wasn't ever the kind, you see, sir, to be praisin' to his face. An' at the top of the ladder I looks down, an' there he was wi' his arms folded across the shiny brass railin', an' he lookin' down, aweary-like, at his engines."

Lavis took Andie's hand. "A good man, Andie. And a good man yourself, Andie. Good-by, and God bless you!"

"Thank you, sir. Good-by, sir. And the same to you." Andie turned to the rail and with folded arms set his face to the impassive sea.

Lavis passed on to where from a tarpaulined hatch a Catholic priest was saying a litany, while around him a body of kneeling men and women were responding. He had donned his cassock, and a shining silver crucifix was on his breast, and his biretta at his feet. His voice was even and unhurried, his features composed.

"Lamb of God, Who takest away the sins of the world----"

"_Spare us, O Lord!_" came the response.

"Lamb of God, Who takest away the sins of the world----"

"_Graciously hear us, O Lord!_"

"Lamb of God, Who takest away the sins of the world----"

"_Have mercy on us!_"

"Pray for us, O Holy Mother of God----"

"_That we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ!_"

The priest rose from his knees. "And bear in mind, my children, that no matter what sin you may have committed, God will forgive you. No one born into this world of sin but has sinned at some time, so do not despair. Offer up your prayers, your heart, to God. He will hear you. He could save us, any one of us, or every one of us even now, if he so willed. If he does not, it is because it is better so. But merely to be saved in the body--what is that? A passing moment here, but the next world--for eternity. It is your soul, not your body, which is to live in eternity. Prepare your soul for that. And now our time is growing short, compose your minds and your hearts, and all kneel and say with me an act of contrition: O my God----"

"_O my God_--" came from them like a chanted hymn.

"I am most heartily sorry for all my sins----"

"_I am most heartily sorry for all my sins_----"

Lavis knelt and prayed also. When he rose from his knees it was to go to the side of the Polish woman, who was also kneeling at the edge of the crowd. He found her weeping.

"Why do you weep? Do you fear death so very much?"

"I weep for my baby."

"But your baby is safe--out there in the boat. They will bring him to his father, who will be there waiting on the dock in New York."

"Yes, yes; but who will be there to give him the breast when he wakes?"

"Who will give--Father in heaven! Come--come with me." Lavis helped her to her feet.

VI

Cadogan looked into the smoking-room. Lavis was gone. He hesitated, wheeled quickly, returned to the deck, sought the nearest gangway, and rapidly descended four decks. He traversed one passageway, another, and entered what looked like a carpenter's shop, where, he knew, was a thick-topped wooden table with its legs held by small angle-irons to the wooden planking over the steel-deck floor.

Cadogan crawled under the table, hunched his shoulders, straightened his legs, and had the table up by the roots. He stepped out from under it, grasped it across the beam, raised it high, brought two of the legs down against the deck, once, twice; reversed the ends and brought the other two legs down to the deck, once, twice. The legs were gone.

He set the table top on his head. A man stood in the doorway. Cadogan motioned him out of the way. "Where yuh goin' with that?" snarled the man. Cadogan set the end of his plank against the man's chest, walked straight ahead, and stepped over the man's body. In the passageway some one seized his table from behind. Cadogan let go entirely, wheeled sharply, caught the man by the collar and trousers, smashed him against the bulkhead, and, as the other dropped his hold of the table top, threw him a dozen feet down the passage. The man, rising to his feet, ran the other way. Cadogan picked up his plank and resumed his way.

At a place where a boat-falls dropped past the ship's rail Cadogan laid down his burden. This was on the lowest open deck, where not many people would be coming to bother him; but, to reduce the chance of loss, he set his table top up on edge in the shadow of the rail, while he went off for an armful of steamer chairs.

He needed lashings for his chairs. A transverse passageway opened on to the deck near by. Staterooms opened off either side of the passage. The door of the nearest room was locked. "Bright people," he muttered, "who didn't intend anybody should steal anything while they were gone!" He set one foot under the door-knob, rested his back against the bulkhead across the narrow aisle, and straightened his leg. The lock gave way; the door swung open. "When they return I hope you won't miss the fine bed sheets," he murmured, and swished them--one, two--from the berths, with the blankets and one pillow. He slit the hemmed edges of the sheets and tore them into strips lengthwise. With these strips he lashed his chairs compactly together. The chairs in turn he lashed to the heavy plank.

Cadogan had taken off dinner coat, waistcoat, collar, tie, and linen shirt to work more freely. Now he looked about for the coat. All the while he had been working he was not unaware that forms of men had flitted by him, and that more than one had stopped as if curious to know what he was at. He knew that more than one of these were now prowling within leaping distance and that from them were coming muffled words of comment. Also he was not unaware that the ship was nearing her end. He could detect the first pitching of her hull, the settling of the deck under his feet, even as he could hear the half-tones of the menacing voices from out of the shadows. He was aware, too, that a despairing multitude were massing on the decks above him.

Up there, he knew, they were preparing to meet the end in a hundred different fashions. Up there would be those who smiled and those who cried, those who joked or moaned, who prayed or blasphemed, those who were going with pity in their hearts and consumed with bitterness others; forgiving whoever it was that had brought it on, or wishing, the others, that they had the negligent ones to coldly and calmly wring their necks before they went themselves.

Cadogan, having found his coat, laid it on a bitt near by while he should launch his little raft. He balanced it on the rail, inserted a hook under one of his lashings at each end, folded his blankets on top, and, a boat-falls in each hand, paid out carefully, slowly. He could not have lowered a human body more tenderly. Easily, gently, he felt it settle on the bosom of the sea. He took a turn of his falls around the bitt, and, always with one eye peeping sidewise into the shadows, reached for his coat. In the pocket of that coat was the photograph of his beloved.

"You've everything fixed nicely, have you, matie?"

Cadogan had had his eye out for him, and was expecting some such salutation; and the revolver within two feet of his head was also not unexpected. A man could not attend to everything at once.

"Everything nice, yes," responded Cadogan, now with his coat in his hand.

"I'm glad o' that, matie, because, you see, I'm needing it."

"Would you take that from a man after all the work he put in on it?" He was kneading the coat into a ball in his right hand. With his left hand he was taking in a hole or two in his belt.

"You _are_ a soft un! And a swell toff, too. You'll 'ave to st'y aboard, matie. I'm needing that tidy little floatin' thing you've moored below, and I'm plannin' to take it."

"Well, why don't you take it?"

"No larkin'. I'm fightin' for my life."

"I've been fighting for more than my life, or yours, and----"

His right arm had been hanging loosely down by his side. He snapped his right wrist against his hip. The coat, in a tight ball, was jolted into the man's face, just as Cadogan's left arm shot up and caught the man's pistol wrist. His open right hand followed the coat and gripped the man's throat. He had no mind for a scuffle which would attract attention, nor did he wish the man when he dropped overboard to fall too near his raft; so, with his finger to the man's windpipe, he bore him along the passageway toward the stern of the ship. The tide was setting that way. The man was kicking out with both legs, striking out with his free hand. Cadogan held the man's arm over the rail the while he twisted the pistol wrist. The revolver dropped overboard. Cadogan took a fresh hold of him, spun around with him, and let him fly. He went where the revolver went.

Cadogan, arrived back at his raft, found a man standing by the falls and calling down to somebody below: "How is it now?"

There was no answer. The man by the falls repeated his question. Only silence from below.

Cadogan was looking for his coat, when the man grasped the falls and swiftly lowered himself over the side. Cadogan let be his coat and slid down the falls after him. His feet fetched up against the man's fingers. He pressed with all his weight. The man cursed softly, let go his hold, and fell into the sea. Cadogan dropped after him. When the man came up Cadogan gripped him by the throat and held him under water.

The dim outline of another fellow was standing erect on the end of the little raft. "Norrie, me lad," he was saying in a cold voice, "it's a tidy little floater with nice warm blankets, but it will never hold up two." Cadogan could see a long spanner, or bar, held ready on the shoulder of the man on the raft. The man in the water was now twining his legs about him, whereupon, still clinging to his man, Cadogan dived, porpoise-like, head down into the sea. When he felt his feet under he kicked once, twice, three times powerfully. Deep down he went.

He came up alone.

He clung to one of the hooks of the falls to get his breath. A cap floated up to him. Smiling grimly, he set it on his head. The man on the end of the raft poised himself above him and aimed the long spanner at the cap. Cadogan diverted the blow with his free forearm, and before the other could recover wrenched the spanner from him and dropped it into the sea.

"Oh, ho! that's how it is, is it, Norrie, me lad?" He swung one foot viciously at Cadogan's hand where it was gripped around the hook. Cadogan swooped again with his free hand, caught the man by the swinging ankle, and hauled him off the raft. He released his grip of the man's ankle, only to shift it to his throat. The man seized Cadogan's free wrist with both hands. Cadogan, hanging to the hook with one hand and gripping the man's throat with the other, continued to squeeze the man's throat. The man's legs kicked convulsively. Cadogan continued to squeeze. When the legs stopped kicking, Cadogan forced the head under water and eased up on his grip. Bubbles rose up and burst on the surface. Cadogan placed his ear close to the water to hear. When he could no longer hear the bubbles he loosed his grip.

With hands to the falls and feet against the ship's side, Cadogan climbed to the deck where he had left his coat. He found it kicked to one side and trampled upon. But the little photograph was still there--in the inside pocket.

He took off his cap, the cap of the drowned man, while he kissed the little photograph. "Coming, coming, oh, coming!" he murmured.

"Have you room for a passenger?" came in a man's voice from the dark.

Cadogan whirled. "Passenger? Passenger! I've fought and schemed and--Oh!"

It was Lavis, and, clinging to his hand, was somebody in a man's long ulster.

"It's the woman--you remember her?--who passed her baby boy into the boat so that he would be saved."

Cadogan said nothing.

"A few minutes ago I found her. She was weeping for her baby. I asked her why she should be weeping now that her baby was safe, and she answered me: 'But who will be there to give him the breast when he wakes?'"

Cadogan rested his left hand, with the fingers clinched around the cap, on the ship's rail.

"If Christ on earth were to be with us once more," went on Lavis softly, "would he not say again: 'Greater love hath no man than this'? 'Who will be there to give him the breast when he wakes?'--and she about to die. Have you room for her as a passenger on your raft?"

"It will bear only one."

Lavis waited.

Cadogan unloosed the fingers of the hand on the rail. The cap dropped into the sea.

"She shall be the one," he said presently.

In the rosy flush of a beautiful dawn a lone woman on a tiny raft drifted down to her crying baby and gave him suck.