Chapter 4

In yielding to the impulse which had prompted him to change places with the broken-down deck-hand, Griswold had assumed that there was little risk and at least an even chance that the substitution would never be discovered. He knew that the river steamboats were manned by picked-up crews, usually assembled at the last moment, and that it was more than probable that the _Belle Julie's_ officers had not yet had time to individualize the units of the main-deck squad. Therefore, he might take the name and place of the disabled Gavitt with measurable safety.

But apart from this, he was not unwilling to add another chapter to his experience among the toilers. He had been told that the life of a roustabout on the Western rivers was the most dismal of all the gropings in the social underworld, and he was the more eager to endure its hardships as a participant. Being an enthusiast, he had early laid down the foundation principle that one must see and feel and suffer if one would write convincingly.

As to the experience, he immediately found himself in a fair way to acquire it in great abundance. From the moment of his enlistment in the _Belle Julie's_ crew it was heaped upon him unstintingly; good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over. Without having specialized himself in any way to M'Grath, the bullying chief mate, he fancied he was singled out as the vessel into which the man might empty the vials of his wrath without fear of reprisals. Curses, not loud--since a generation of travellers has arisen to whom profanity, however picturesque, is objectionable--but deep and corrosive; contumely and abuse; tongue-lashings that stung like the flick of a whip; and now and then, at a night landing when there were no upper-deck people looking on to be shocked, blows. All these slave-drivings, or at least his share of them, Griswold endured as became a man who had voluntarily put himself in the way of them. But they were hardening. Griswold fought manfully against the brutalizing effect of them, but with only partial success. Because of them, he was sure that his theories in the compassionate warp and woof of them must always afterward be shot through with flame-colored threads of fiery resentment reaching back through M'Grath to every master who wielded the whip of power; the power of the man who has, over the man who has not.

In such a lurid light it was only natural that the ethical perspective should be still further distorted; that any lingering doubt of the justice of his late rebellion against the accepted order of things should be banished by the persecutions of the bullying mate. It is easy to postulate a storm-driven world when the personal horizon is dark and lowering; easy, also, to justify the past by the present. From theorizing never so resolutely upon the rights of man in the abstract to robbing a bank is a broad step, and given an opportunity to reflect upon it calmly after the fact, even such an imaginative enthusiast as Griswold might have reconsidered. But the hasty plunge into the underdepth of roustabout life was like the brine bath of the blacksmith to heated steel; it served to temper him afresh.

Fortunately he was not altogether unequal to the physical test, severe as it was. With all of his later privations, he had lived a clean life; and his college training in athletics stood him in good stead. Physically, as intellectually, the material in him was of the fine-grained fibre in which quality counts for more than quantity. Lacking something in mass, the lack was more than compensated by the alertness and endurance which had made him at once the best man with the foils and the safest oar in the boat in his college days. None the less, the first night out of New Orleans, with its uncounted plantation landings, had tried him keenly, and he was thankful when the second day brought fewer stopping places and longer rest intervals.

It was in one of the resting intervals that he had been sent aft to resecure the loosened tackle of the suspended small boat. He had come upon Miss Farnham and her aunt unexpectedly, and so was off his guard. But in any event, he argued, he should have obeyed the instinctive impulse to excuse himself. He knew that the apology was a confession that he was a masquerader in some sort, and he had felt the steady gaze of the young woman's eyes while he was at work on the loosened tackle. Later, when he passed her on his way forward he had seen the swift change in her face betokening some sudden emotion, and the recollection of it troubled him.

What if this clear-eyed young person had recognized him? He knew that the New Orleans papers had come aboard; he had seen the folded copy of the _Louisianian_ in the invalid's lap. Consequently, Miss Farnham knew of the robbery, and the incidents were fresh in her mind. What would she do if she had penetrated his disguise?

The query had its answer when he recalled his written estimate of her character scribbled a few hours earlier by the light of the engine-room incandescent. If her face were not merely a fair mask of the conscientious probity it stood for, she would denounce him without hesitation.

He tried to make himself doubt it, but the effort recoiled upon him. Already, in his imaginings, she was beginning to assume the characteristics of an ideal; and the ideal character with which he had endowed her would be true to itself at any cost; it would be quite sexless and just before it would be womanly and merciful. At least he hoped it would. Ideals are much too precious to be shattered recklessly by mere personal considerations; and he told himself, in a fine glow of artistic self-effacement, that he should be sorry to purchase even so great a boon as his liberty at the price of the broken ideal.

But the burning of sweet incense in the temple of the ideals is not necessarily incompatible with a just regard for the commonplace realities. In the aftermath of the fine artistic glow, Griswold found himself straightway wrestling with the problem of present safety. If Miss Farnham had recognized him, his chances of escape had suddenly narrowed down to flight, immediate and speedy. He must leave the _Belle Julie_ at the next landing and endeavor to make his way north by wagon-road or rail, or by some later boat.

The emergency called for swift action, and his determination to leave the steamer was taken at once. While he was weighing the manifest dangers of a daylight desertion against the equally manifest hazard of waiting for darkness, the whistle was blown for a landing and he concluded not to wait. If Miss Farnham had identified him she would doubtless lose no time in giving the alarm. She might even now be in conference with the captain, he thought.

Griswold had a shock of genuine terror at this point in his reflections and his skin prickled as at the touch of something loathsome. Up to that moment he had suffered none of the pains of the hunted fugitive; but he knew now that he had fairly entered the gates of the outlaw's inferno; that however cunningly he might cast about to throw his pursuers off the track, he would never again know what it was to be wholly free from the terror of the arrow that flieth by day.

The force of the Scriptural simile came to him with startling emphasis, bringing on a return of the prickling dismay. The stopping of the paddle-wheels and the rattling clangor of the gang-plank winch aroused him to action and he shook off the creeping numbness and ran aft to rummage under the cargo on the engine-room guards for his precious bundle. When his hand reached the place where it should have been, the blood surged to his brain and set up a clamorous dinning in his ears like the roaring of a cataract. The niche between the coffee sacks was empty.

VIII

THE CHAIN-GANG

While Griswold was grappling afresh with the problem of escape, and planning to desert the _Belle Julie_ at the next landing, Charlotte Farnham was sitting behind the locked door of her state-room with a writing pad on her knee over which for many minutes the suspended pen merely hovered. She had fancied that her resolve, once fairly taken, would not stumble over a simple matter of detail. But when she had tried a dozen times to begin the letter to Mr. Galbraith, the simplicities vanished and complexity stood in their room.

Try as she might to put the sham deck-hand into his proper place as an impersonal unit of a class with which society is at war, he perversely refused to surrender his individuality. At the end of every fresh effort she was confronted by the inexorable summing-up: in a world of phantoms there were only two real persons; a man who had sinned, and a woman who was about to make him pay the penalty.

It was all very well to reason about it, and to say that he ought to be made to pay the penalty; but that did not make it any less shocking that she, Charlotte Farnham, should be the one to set the retributive machinery in motion. Yet she knew she had the thing to do, and so, after many ineffectual attempts, the letter was written and sealed and addressed, and she went out to mail it at the clerk's office.

As it chanced, the engines of the steamer were slowing for a landing when she latched her state-room door, and by the time she had walked the length of the saloon the office was closed and the clerk had gone below with his way-bills. It was an added hardship to have to wait, and she knew well enough that delay would speedily reopen the entire vexed question of responsibility. But there was nothing else to be done. She told herself that she could not begin to breathe freely again until the letter was out of her hands and safely beyond recall.

The doors giving upon the forward saloon-deck were open, and she heard the harsh voice of the mate exploding in sharp commands as the steamer lost way and edged slowly up to the river bank. A moment later she was outside, leaning on the rail and looking down upon the crew grouped about the inboard end of the uptilted landing-stage. He was there; the man for whose destiny accident and the conventional sense of duty had made her responsible; and as she looked she had a fleeting glimpse of his face.

It was curiously haggard and woe-begone; so sorrowfully changed that for an instant she almost doubted his identity. The sudden transformation added fresh questionings, and she began to ask herself thoughtfully what had brought it about. Had he recognized her and divined her intention? But if that were the explanation, why had he not made his escape? Why was he waiting for her to point him out to the officers of the steamer?

The queries swept her out into a deeper sea of perplexity. What if he were already repentant? In that event, the result of her dutiful service to society would doubtless be to drive him back into impenitence and despair. For a little time she clung desperately to her purpose, hardening her heart and shutting her ears to the clamant appeal of the reawakened sentiment of commiseration. Then the man turned slowly and looked up at her as if the finger of her thought had touched him. There was no sign of recognition in his eyes; and she constrained herself to gaze down upon him coldly. But when the _Belle Julie's_ bow touched the bank, and the waiting crew melted suddenly into a tenuous line of burden-bearers, she fled through the deserted saloon to her state-room and hid the fatal letter under the pillows in her berth.

Another hour had elapsed. It was nearly noon, and the stewards had bridged the spaces in the row of square saloon-tables and were laying the cloth for the mid-day meal. Charlotte opened her door guardedly, as one fearing to face prying eyes, and finding the coast clear, slipped out to rejoin her aunt under the awning abaft the paddle-box. Miss Gilman shut her finger into the magazine to keep her place and looked up in mild surprise.

"Where have you been?" she asked. "Has it taken you all this time to write to the bank people?"

Charlotte's answer satisfied the strict letter of the inquiry, though it slew the spirit.

"I wrote the letter quite awhile ago. I have been lying down, since."

The invalid reopened the magazine, and Charlotte was left to make peace as best she might with her conscience for having told the half-truth. It was characteristic of the inward monitor that even in such a trivial matter it refused to be coerced. Accordingly, a little while afterward, when Charlotte took her aunt's arm to lead her to the table, she said:

"I told you I had written to Mr. Galbraith, and so I have. But the letter is not yet mailed." And, since the natural inference was that there had been no opportunity to mail it, the conscientious little confession went as wide of the mark as if it had never been made.

At the captain's end of the long table the talk rippled pointlessly around the New Orleans bank robbery, and Miss Farnham took no part in it until Captain Mayfield spoke of the reward of ten thousand dollars which had been offered for the apprehension of the robber. The fact touched her upon the ethical side, and she said:

"That is something that always seems so dreadfully barbarous; to set a money price on the head of a human being."

The captain laughed.

"'Tis sort o' Middle-Aged, when you come to think of it. But it does the police business oftener than anything else, I guess. A detective will work mighty hard nowadays for ten thousand dollars."

"Yes, I suppose so; but it is barbarous," Charlotte persisted. "It is an open appeal to the lowest motive in human nature--cupidity."

The bluff riverman nodded a qualified approval, but a loquacious little gentleman across the table felt called upon to protest.

"But, my dear Miss Farnham, would you have us all turn thief-catchers for the mere honor of the thing?"

"For the love of justice, or not at all, I should say," was the straightforward return blow. "If I should see somebody picking your pocket, ought I to weigh the chances of your offering a reward before telling you of it?"

"Oh, no; of course not. But this is entirely different. A rich corporation has been robbed, and it says to the thief-catchers--and to everybody, for that matter--Here are ten thousand dollars if you will find us the robber. For myself, I confess that the reward would be the determining factor. If I knew where Mr. Galbraith's 'hold-up' is to be found, I should certainly go out of my way to earn the money."

Miss Farnham's sense of the fitness of things was plainly affronted.

"Do you mean to say that you would accept the reward, Mr. Latrobe?"

"Most certainly I should; any one would."

The frank avowal stood for public opinion. Charlotte knew it and went dumb in the presence of a new and more terrible phase of her entanglement. She might call the reward blood money, and refuse absolutely to touch it, but who, outside of her own little circle, would know or believe that she had refused? And if all the remainder of the world knew and should exonerate her, would not the wretched man himself always believe that she had sold him for a price?

The benumbing thought left her tongue-tied and miserable; and after the table-dispersal she sought out the captain to ask a question.

"Do you know the law in Louisiana, Captain Mayfield?" she began, with more embarrassment than the simple inquiry would account for. "This man who robbed the Bayou State Security yesterday; what is the penalty for his crime?"

The captain shook his head. "I don't know: being only a riverman, I'm not even a sea-lawyer. But maybe Mr. Latrobe could tell you. _Oh_, Mr. Latrobe!"

The loquacious one was on his way forward to smoke, but he turned and came back at the captain's call.

"The penalty?" he said, when the query had been repeated to him; "that would depend upon a good many things that could only be brought out at the trial. But under the circumstances--threatening to shoot the president, and all that, you know--I should say it would go pretty hard with him. He'll probably get the full limit of the law."

"And that is?" persisted Charlotte, determined to know the worst.

"In Louisiana, twenty years, I believe."

"Thank you; that is what I wished to find out."

The little man bowed and went his way; and Captain Mayfield, who was an observant man in the field of river stages and other natural phenomena, but not otherwise, did not remark Miss Farnham's sigh which was more than half a sob.

"Twenty years!" she shuddered; "it might as well be for life. He would be nearly fifty years old, if he lived through it."

It did not occur to the captain to wonder how Miss Farnham came to know anything about the bank robber's age, but he spoke to the conditional phrase in her comment.

"Yes; if he lives through it: that's a mighty big 'if' down here in the levee country. Twenty years of the chain-gang would be about the same as a life sentence to most white men, I judge."

Charlotte turned away quickly; and when she could trust herself in the presence of her aunt, she led the way back to the shade of the after-deck awning and tried, for her own sake, to talk about some of the many things that had gone to make up the sum of their daily life before this black cloud of perplexity had settled down. It was a dismaying failure; and when the invalid said she would go and lie down for awhile, Charlotte was thankful and went once more to lock herself and her trouble in her state-room.

That evening, after dinner, she went forward with some of the other passengers to the railed promenade which was the common evening rendezvous. The _Belle Julie_ had tied up at a small town on the western bank of the great river, and the ant procession of roustabouts was in motion, going laden up the swing-stage and returning empty by the foot-plank. Left to herself for a moment, Charlotte faced the rail and again sought to single out the man whose fate she must decide.

She distinguished him presently; a grimy, perspiring unit in the crew, tramping back and forth mechanically, staggering under the heaviest loads, and staring stonily at the back of his file leader in the endless round; a picture of misery and despair, Charlotte thought, and she was turning away with the dangerous rebellion against the conventions swelling again in her heart when Captain Mayfield joined her.

"I just wanted to show you," he said; and he pointed out a gang of men repairing a slip in the levee embankment below the town landing. It was a squad of prisoners in chains. The figures of the convicts were struck out sharply against the dark background of undergrowth, and the reflection of the sunset glow on the river lighted up their sullen faces and burnished the use-worn links in their leg-fetters.

"The chain-gang;" said the captain, briefly. "That's about where the fellow that robbed the Bayou State Security will bring up, if they catch him. He'll have to be mighty tough and well-seasoned if he lives to worry through twenty years of that, don't you think?"

But Miss Farnham could not answer; and even the unobservant captain of river boats saw that she was moved and was sorry he had spoken.

IX

THE MIDDLE WATCH

In any path of performance there is but one step which is irrevocable, namely, the final one, and in Charlotte Farnham's besetment this step was the mailing of the letter to Mr. Galbraith. Many times during the evening she wrought herself up to the plunging point, only to recoil on the very brink; and when at length she gave up the struggle and went to bed, the sealed letter was still under her pillow.

Now it is a well-accepted truism that an exasperated sense of duty, like remorse and grief, fights best in the night-watches. It was of no avail to protest that her intention was still unshaken. Conscience urged that delay was little less culpable than refusal, since every hour gave the criminal an added chance of escape. The logic was unanswerable, and trembling lest the implacable inward monitor should presently insist upon the immediate revealment of the fugitive's identity to Captain Mayfield, she got up and dressed hurriedly, meaning to end the agony once for all by giving the letter to the night clerk.

But once again the chapter of accidents intervened. While she was unbolting her door, the mellow roar of the whistle and the jangling of the engine-room bells warned her that the _Belle Julie_ was approaching a landing. Remembering the cause of her earliest failure, she ran quickly to the office, only to find it deserted and the door locked.

This time, however, she determined not to be diverted. Going back to the state-room for a wrap she returned to wait for the clerk's reappearance. This final pause soon proved to be the severest trial of all. The minutes dragged leaden-winged; and to sit quietly in the silence and solitude of the great saloon became a nerve-racking impossibility. When it went past endurance, she rose and stepped out upon the promenade-deck.

The electric search-light eye on the hurricane-deck was just over her head, and its great white cone seemed to hiss as it poured its dazzling flood of fictitious noonday upon the shelving river bank and the sleeping hamlet beyond. The furnace doors were open, and the red glare of the fires quickened the darkness under the beam of the electric into lurid life. Out of the dusky underglow came the freight-carriers, giving birth to a file of grotesque shadow monsters as they swung up the plank into the field of the search-light.

The stopping-place was an unimportant one, and a few minutes sufficed for the unloading of the small consignment of freight. The mate had left his outlook upon the hurricane-deck and was down among the men, hastening them with harsh commands and epithets which owed their mildness to the presence of the silent onlooker beneath the electric.

The foot-plank had been drawn in, the steam winch was clattering, and the landing-stage had begun to come aboard, when the two men whose duty it was to cast off ran out on the tilting stage and dropped from its shore end. One of them fell clumsily, tried to rise, and sank back into the shadow; but the other scrambled up the steep bank and loosened the half-hitches in the wet hawser. With the slackening of the line the steamer began to move out into the stream, and the man at the mooring-post looked around to see what had become of his companion.

"Get a move on youse!" bellowed the mate; but instead of obeying, the man ran back and went on his knees beside the huddled figure in the shadow.

At this point the watcher on the promenade-deck began vaguely to understand that the first man was disabled in some way, and that the other was trying to lift him. While she looked, the engine-room bells jangled and the wheels began to turn. The mate forgot her and swore out of a full heart.

She put her fingers in her ears to shut out the clamor of abusive profanity; but the man on the bank paid no attention to the richly emphasized command to come aboard. Instead, he ran swiftly to the mooring-post, took a double turn of the trailing hawser around it and stood by until the straining line snubbed the steamer's bow to the shore. Then, deftly casting off again, he darted back to the disabled man, hoisted him bodily to the high guard, and clambered aboard himself, all this while M'Grath was brushing the impeding crew aside to get at him.

Charlotte saw every move of the quick-witted salvage in the doing, and wanted to cry out in sheer enthusiasm when it was done. Then, in the light from the furnace doors, she saw the face of the chief actor: it was the face of the man with the stubble beard.