The Pagan Madonna

A moral coward, and until this hour he had never sensed the truth! That was it! He had been a moral coward; he had tried to run away from fate; and here he was at last, in the blind alley the coward always found at the end of the run. He had never thought of anything but what he was – never of what he might have been. For having thrust him unfinished upon a thoughtless rather than a heartless world he had been trying to punish fate, and had punished only himself. A wastrel, a roisterer by night, a spendthrift, and a thief!

What had she said? – reknead his soul so that it would fit his face? Too late!

One staff to lean on, one only – he never broke his word. Why had he laid down for himself this law? What had inspired him to hold always to that? Was there a bit of gold somewhere in his grotesque make-up? A straw on the water, and he clutched it! Why? Cunningham laughed again, and the steersman turned his head slightly.

“Williams, do you believe in God?” asked Cunningham.

“Well, sir, when I’m holding down the wheel – perhaps. The screw is always edging a ship off, and the lighter the ballast the wider the yaw. So you have to keep hitching her over a point to starboard. You trust to me to keep that point, and I trust to God that the north stays where it is.”

“And yet legally you’re a pirate.”

“Oh, that? Well, a fellow ain’t much of a pirate that plays the game we play. And yet – ”

“Ah! And yet?”

“Well, sir, some of the boys are getting restless. And I’ll be mighty glad when we raise that old Dutch bucket of yours. They ain’t bad, understand; just young and heady and wanting a little fun. They growl a lot because they can’t sleep on deck. They growl because there’s nothing to drink. Of course it might hurt Cleigh’s feelings, but I’d like to see all his grog go by the board. You see, sir, it ain’t as if we’d just dropped down from Shanghai. It’s been tarnation dull ever since we left San Francisco.”

“Once on the other boat, they can make a night of it if they want to. But I’ve given my word on the Wanderer.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And it’s final.”

Cunningham returned to his chart. All these cogitations because a woman had entered his life uninvited! Ten days ago he had not been aware of her existence; and from now on she would be always recurring in his thoughts.

She was not conscious of it, but she was as a wild thing that had been born in captivity, and she was tasting the freedom of space again without knowing what the matter was. But it is the law that all wild things born in captivity lose everything but the echo; a little freedom, a flash of what might have been, and they are ready to return to the cage. So it would be with her.

Supposing – no, he would let her return to her cage. He wondered – had he made his word a law simply to meet and conquer a situation such as this? Or was his hesitance due to the fear of her hate? That would be immediate and unabating. She was not the sort that would bend – she would break. No, he wasn’t monster enough to play that sort of game. She should take back her little adventure to her cage, and in her old age it would become a pleasant souvenir.

He rose and leaned on his arms against a port sill and stared at the stars until they began to fade, until the sea and the sky became like the pearls he would soon be seeking. A string of glass beads, bringing about all these events!

At dawn he went down to the deck for a bit of exercise before he turned in. When he beheld Dennison sound asleep in the chair, his mouth slightly open, his bare feet standing out conspicuously on the foot rest, a bantering, mocking smile twisted the corners of Cunningham’s lips. Noiselessly he settled himself in the adjacent chair, and cynically hoping that Dennison would be first to wake he fell asleep.

The Wanderer’s deck toilet was begun and consummated between six and six-thirty, except in rainy weather. Hose, mops, and holystone, until the teak looked as if it had just left the Rangoon sawmills; then the brass, every knob and piping, every latch and hinge and port loop. The care given the yacht since leaving the Yang-tse might be well called ingratiating. Never was a crew more eager to enact each duty to the utmost – with mighty good reason.

But when they came upon Dennison and Cunningham, asleep side by side, they drew round the spot, dumfounded. But their befuddlement was only a tithe of that which struck Cleigh an hour later. It was his habit to take a short constitutional before breakfast; and when he beheld the two, asleep in adjoining chairs, the fact suggesting that they had come to some friendly understanding, he stopped in his tracks, as they say, never more astonished in all his days.

For as long as five minutes he remained motionless, the fine, rugged face of his son on one side and the amazing beauty of Cunningham’s on the other. But in the morning light, in repose, Cunningham’s face was tinged with age and sadness. There was, however, no grain of pity in Cleigh’s heart. Cunningham had made his bed of horsehair; let him twist and writhe upon it.

But the two of them together, sleeping as peacefully as babes! Dennison had one arm flung behind his head. It gave Cleigh a shock, for he recognized the posture. As a lad Dennison had slept that way. Cunningham’s withered leg was folded under his sound one.

What had happened? Cleigh shook his head; he could not make it out. Moreover, he could not wake either and demand the solution to the puzzle. He could not put his hand on his son’s shoulder, and he would not put it on Cunningham’s. Pride on one side and distaste on the other. But the two of them together!

He got round the impasse by kicking out the foot rest of the third chair. Immediately Cunningham opened his eyes. First he turned to see if Dennison was still in his chair. Finding this to be the case, he grinned amiably at the father. Exactly the situation he would have prayed for had he believed in the efficacy of prayer.

“Surprises you, eh? Looks as if he had signed on with the Great Adventure Company.”

His voice woke Dennison, who blinked in the sunshine for a moment, then looked about. He comprehended at once.

With easy dignity he swung his bare feet to the deck and made for the companion; never a second glance at either his father or Cunningham.

“Chip of the old block!” observed Cunningham. “You two! On my word, I never saw two bigger fools in all my time! What’s it about? What the devil did he do – murder someone, rob the office safe, or marry Tottie Lightfoot? And Lord, how you both love me! And how much more you’ll love me when I become the dear departed!”

Cleigh, understanding that the situation was a creation of pure malice on Cunningham’s part – Cleigh wheeled and resumed his tramp round the deck.

Cunningham plowed his fingers through his hair, gripped and pulled it in a kind of ecstasy. Cleigh’s phiz. The memory of it would keep him in good humour all day. After all, there was a lot of good sport in the world. The days were all right. It was only in the quiet vigils of the night that the uninvited thought intruded. On board the old Dutch tramp he would sleep o’nights, and the past would present only a dull edge.

If the atoll had cocoanut palms, hang it, he would build a shack and make it his winter home! Dolce far niente! Maybe he might take up the brush again and do a little amateur painting. Yes, in the daytime the old top wasn’t so bad. He hoped he would have no more nonsense from Flint. A surly beggar, but a necessary pawn in the game.

Pearls! Some to sell and some to play with. Lovely, tenderly beautiful pearls – a rope of them round Jane Norman’s throat. He slid off the chair. As a fool, he hung in the same gallery as the Cleighs.

Cleigh ate his breakfast alone. Upon inquiry he learned that Jane was indisposed and that Dennison had gone into the pantry and picked up his breakfast there. Cleigh found the day unspeakably dull. He read, played the phonograph, and tried all the solitaires he knew; but a hundred times he sensed the want of the pleasant voice of the girl in his ears.

What would she be demanding of him as a reparation? He was always sifting this query about, now on this side, now on that, without getting anywhere. Not money. What then?

That night both Jane and Dennison came in to dinner. Cleigh saw instantly that something was amiss. The boy’s face was gloomy and his lips locked, and the girl’s mouth was set and cheerless. Cleigh was fired by curiosity to ascertain the trouble, but here again was an impasse.

“I’m sorry I spoke so roughly last night,” said Dennison, unexpectedly.

“And I am sorry that I answered you so sharply. But all this worry and fuss over me is getting on my nerves. You’ve written down Cunningham as a despicable rogue, when he is only an interesting one. If only you would give banter for banter, you might take some of the wind out of his sails. But instead you go about as if the next hour was to be our last!”

“Who knows?”

“There you go! In a minute we’ll be digging up the hatchet again.”

But she softened the reproach by smiling. At this moment Cunningham came in briskly and cheerfully. He sat down, threw the napkin across his knees, and sent an ingratiating smile round the table.

“Cleigh” – he was always talking to Cleigh, and apparently not minding in the least that he was totally ignored – “Cleigh, they are doing a good job in the Santa Maria delle Grazie, so I am told. Milan, of course. They are restoring Da Vinci’s Cenacolo. What called it to mind is the fact that this is also the last supper. To-morrow at this hour you will be in possession and I’ll be off for my pearls.”

The recipients of this remarkable news appeared petrified for a space. Cunningham enjoyed the astonishment.

“Sounds almost too good to be true, doesn’t it? Still, it’s a fact.”

“That’s tiptop news, Cunningham,” said Dennison. “I hope when you go down the ladder you break your infernal neck. But the luck is on your side.”

“Let us hope that it stays there,” replied Cunningham, unruffled. He turned to Cleigh again: “I say, we’ve always been bewailing that job of Da Vinci’s. But the old boy was a seer. He knew that some day there would be American millionaires and that I’d become a force in art. So he put his subject on a plaster wall so I couldn’t lug it off. A canvas the same size, I don’t say; but the side of a church!”

“A ship is going to pick you up to-morrow?” asked Jane.

“Yes. The crew of the Wanderer goes to the Haarlem and the Haarlem crew transships to the Wanderer. You see, Cleigh, I’m one of those efficiency sharks. In this game I have left nothing to chance. Nothing except an act of God – as they say on the back of your steamer ticket – can derange my plans. Not the least bit of inconvenience to you beyond going out of your course for a few days. The new crew was signed on in Singapore – able seamen wanting to return to the States. Hired them in your name. Clever idea of me, eh?”

“Very,” said Cleigh, speaking directly to Cunningham for the first time since the act of piracy.

“And this will give you enough coal to turn and make Manila, where you can rob the bunkers of one of your freighters. Now, then, early last winter in New York a company was formed, the most original company in all this rocky old world – the Great Adventure Company, of which I am president and general adviser. Pearls! Each member of the crew is a shareholder, undersigned at fifteen hundred shares, par value one dollar. These shares are redeemable October first in New York City if the company fails, or are convertible into pearls of equal value if we succeed. No widows and orphans need apply. Fair enough.”

“Fair enough, indeed,” admitted Cleigh.

Dennison stared at his father. He did not quite understand this willingness to hold converse with the rogue after all this rigorously maintained silence.

“Of course the Great Adventure Company had to be financed,” went on Cunningham with a deprecating gesture.

“Naturally,” assented Cleigh. “And that, I suppose, will be my job?”

“Indirectly. You see, Eisenfeldt told me he had a client ready to pay eighty thousand for the rug, and that put the whole idea into my noodle.”

“Ah! Well, you will find the crates and frames and casings in the forward hold,” said Cleigh in a tone which conveyed nothing of his thoughts. “It would be a pity to spoil the rug and the oils for the want of a little careful packing.”

Cunningham rose and bowed.

“Cleigh, you are a thoroughbred!”

Cleigh shook his head.

“I’ll have your hide, Cunningham, if it takes all I have and all I am!”