Part 30

"It is the wind and the sea," said Tom Horn. "There is no evil in either in this region. But evil may ride them, as one may ride an honest horse to do a wrongful deed."

Mademoiselle's eyes widened, but she said nothing.

"We are in clean seas," said Tom in his hushed voice. "God's sky is over us, and we've kept our way through many dangers. But we've taken from the Sargasso what it claimed for its own; and a curse will reach from a long way off if the spirit in it be very bitter. Everywhere in that strange sea is the stink of evil; wrong springs up like lush grass; horror takes shapes that even God had not foreseen." His voice went to a whisper. "But in the months I was there I came to know the great truth: I learned that the world, the sea, and the wind went round and round, never stopping; and the knowledge of this law helped me to make away from my captivity." He shook his head, and the mild look of a child was in his face. "But the Sargasso had claimed me, and one day it found me out; the winds carried its curse to me, and it was then that its haze came between me and the world."

In the forecastle the sailorman who stood so courageously with Anthony through the storm slept soundly. And now mademoiselle, weary beyond thought, went to her cabin and also slept. In the late afternoon light Tom Horn kept the deck like a quiet wraith; the seamen from the brig held the ship upon her course with an easy hand; gray of face, and with eyes hot with fever, Captain Weir lay without movement, the brace of pistols beside him; to the south the brig, under scant sail, bounded like a checked hound.

And Anthony slept. Fatigue had unbraced and slackened his body; he had sunk so deeply into the strange place of sleep that only the stirring of his heart kept him in the world. His mind received no impressions; his nerves were still; and he lay at a great depth for a long time. Then he arose to the lower level of dreams; he had a dull, formless sense of himself; then he realized other things and gradually came to speculate upon them. Feet raced across the vault of heaven; the corners of the world were straining; there was a thundering as of wind in many sails; great voices lifted against each other like blades.

But this passed, and he sank again; darkness held him; he did not move. But light will creep through the scum of a tarn; it will brighten dull, still water; it will plunge its shining arm deep into the muck and bring up those living things which have only heard the first faint whisperings of the world. A sound once more lifted Anthony from the pit; again he lay at the dream level, and the sound broke urgently over him. It had a dim, mournful insistance; he could not bear it; all the trouble God permitted seemed in the sound; and his heart raced in pity and desire. His spirit struggled heavily; but his body had no footing in the world; it lay like the dead. He suffered keenly. The call broke in shrill waves through the gray place of sleep. He was wanted! Somewhere--some one needed him. Bitterly he strove upward; he fought as a dark angel might have fought, under the foot of Michael; he raved and cursed and fought upward from level to level; the vagueness fell from him like rent veils. He burst through the gates of sleep. His body leaped up.

It was mademoiselle who was calling.

"Anthony! Do you hear, Anthony? Oh, do you hear me?"

"Yes," he said. "Yes, I hear." Like a dull-witted bear he pawed at the latch of his door. "What is it?"

"They are on deck," she said. "I am locked in my cabin. I have been calling you, but you would not waken."

"Who is on deck?" The door would not give, and he wrenched at it savagely. "Who locked you in?"

"Tarrant. And Blake. They came aboard in the night. They have taken charge of the ship."

Anthony's wits came to an edge; he stopped wrenching at the door, and stood, calling its possibilities to mind.

"What of Captain Weir?" he said. "Where is he?"

"I do not know," said mademoiselle.

Anthony fixed upon the spot where the door had been fastened, and laid his weight against it. The nails started, and the ironmongery gave way. Then he released mademoiselle, and she was trembling.

"I was afraid," she said. "You slept so, you seemed very far away. I was afraid."

He held her close to him.

"There is rare courage in you," he said. "Call it out; make it stand by you."

"I am not afraid now--for myself. But you'll be going on deck. I'm afraid for you."

The light was dim where they stood; but he looked into her eyes, and there seemed a fine brightness through the world.

"You fear for me because I am your man," he said to her. "Is it so?"

"Yes," she said, quietly.

He put her hair back from her brow and kissed her there.

"I am satisfied," he said. "You belong to me. And, because of that, there is nothing in life that shall harm you."

He went into his cabin, and he came out with a brace of pistols; one of them he gave to her.

"Stay here," he said, "and keep this by you, in case of need."

Then he went to the companion-ladder, and at the foot of it he paused. For there were voices on deck; one of them was Captain Weir's, and it was thick with anger.

"Let us have no more words," the captain was saying. "I have my own thoughts about any matter in my charge, as I've told you more than once before. I warned you not to come aboard this ship and that I would tolerate no interference. It is now daylight; get into your boat, go back to your vessel, and take Blake with you."

It was Tarrant who answered.

"You are injured," he said. "It will be many a day before you are up and active. And, as what is to be done should be done quickly, the need is too great for us to leave the vessel without--"

But he was stopped by a burst of bitter cursing. Softly Anthony went up the ladder, and he stopped again when his eyes were level with the combing. Weir had lifted himself to his elbow; his face was twisted with pain, and he held a pistol leveled at Tarrant, who stood, sneering and disbelieving, before him.

"Over the side," said the captain. "Over the side, and into your boat. I've warned you I'd one day split your skull with a bullet if you continued to cross me!"

"In your condition," said Tarrant, "it is best not to worry. Above all, do not worry about me. I am in a fairly settled state of mind here; and I think--"

Cold, deadly, with an ugly twist at one corner of his mouth, Captain Weir looked along the barrel of the pistol and fired; Tarrant, with his hands at his chest and death in his face, fell. As Anthony leaped upon deck there came a second shot; the pistol dropped from Weir's hand, and he stretched back upon his bed.

Blake blew the smoke from the muzzle of his weapon, and viewed the two bodies.

"Now," said he to Anthony, "here's a state of affairs. Here's a cutting down of a ship's company. Two gone to the devil as quick as you'd wink your eye."

But Anthony gave him no attention; he went to Captain Weir and saw he was beyond all aid: to him the words of Weir had been the words of an honest man, resolute in his defense of the right, and Anthony's heart tightened in his chest. But, seaman-like, he looked first at the trim of the sail and then at the compass, which told him the ship was headed far out of the course he had laid down.

"Northwest!" he growled to the helmsman. "Point her that way, and hold her so."

The man's look mocked him, and there was no move to obey; so Anthony drove a blow into his face that spun him away from the wheel. Grim and lowering, the young man set the ship on her course. And while he did this Blake stood leaning with his back to the rail and looking vastly amused.

"Now, by God!" said the pirate, "you are the most satisfactory fellow in the world. One need never cudgel his brains about you; you do precisely the thing expected of you."

With his chin out and a scowl on his brow, Anthony looked at him.

"I hope to be able to say something the same of you," said he. "For I expect you, with no loss of time, to lower a boat and take yourself and your two men out of this ship."

The sun stood red on the eastern edge of the ocean; the wind blew freshly, the ship held upon her altered course, and the sea ran crisply beside her. The brig was frolicking a league away.

Blake shouted with laughter.

"Good!" said he. "Splendid! If heaven had only sent you among a group of play-actors, what a man you'd have been! I'd have enjoyed seeing you, for, comedy deliciously played is a rare thing."

With a turn of the wheel Anthony brought the ship to, and, as she stood with her sails muttering, he called to the two sailors who stood together in the waist, one stanching the flowing blood of the other:

"Hoist out the yawl! You'll have a more peaceful time in your own vessel, so you're going back to her. Be lively now!"

He fingered the trigger-guard of his pistol; the seamen made haste to free the tackle of a small boat; and Blake laughed louder than ever.

"Never tell me this is to be the piece you played on board _Le Mousquet_!" he said. His big chest swelled with mirth, and his fists drummed upon it. "Well, God sends us good luck now and then, for all. But I'd say one word to you; I would presume no more. Play it as you did before! For," and he shoved his head forward, "do you recall the price I once put on the pleasure of hearing and seeing you? My two thumbs!" He smiled at Anthony, and beneath the good humor there was a gleam of the tiger. "My two thumbs!"

"I remember," said Anthony. "And, also, I see the boat will be launched all the swifter if you lend a hand. And it will be better for you if you spend some of your good humor in getting safe out of my sight!"

There were about two yards between the two men; Blake leaped it with a swiftness that took Anthony by surprise. The pistol roared wrathfully, but the pirate was holding its muzzle upward; then the two closed.

"Now," said Blake, "we shall see how high you'll hold you hand and head. By God, I'll dress you! I'll make you step!"

Dour, silent, Anthony drove a short, stabbing blow at the man's face; a spurt of blood followed it; and Blake was smiling through a crimson mask.

"Well struck," said he. And as he said it he beat Anthony about the body with a power that made the young man's breath catch and his ribs bend. Gasping, Anthony gave back.

"What!" jeered Blake, "so soon? Is this the man who talked so highly? Is this, indeed, our famous fighter?"

But Anthony had the two seamen in mind; and, while he avoided Blake, he looked toward the waist. The men had let go the boat's tackle and, each armed with a belaying-pin, were hurrying aft. He must beat Blake down before they got in hand's reach; if he failed, he was lost. And the pirate was pressing forward, his face a smear of blood but his laugh persisting.

"Where are the thews I've heard so much of?" he mocked. "Your body is big enough, but it has no more guts than a drum. Stand to, and I'll--"

But Anthony was on him like a wolf. A terrible blow on the side of the head stopped Blake's jeers, and he rocked on his feet; another one down below, and the life was wheezing out of his throat. Blake closed; his great arms wound about Anthony; the young man strove with all his power, but he could not escape. He heard the hurrying feet of the seamen behind him; then came the voice of mademoiselle, high-pitched, almost a scream.

"Go back!" it said. "Go back! I'll fire if you take another step."

Anthony forced Blake around, and so saw the length of the deck forward, over his shoulder. The girl, her eyes blazing, her hair loosened, stood between him and the sailors; she had the pistol he had given her, and it was lifted menacingly.

More time! What a girl! And time was what he needed then; just a little time. He dug his elbow into Blake's throat and so shut off his breath; the frightful blow on the side of the head had weakened the man; but let him fight his way through this phase and he would recover. Viciously the elbow dug deeper; with his great chest empty, the man let go; his aimless feet took him back a step, and then the whistling blows smashed into his body, and he fell.

Panting, torn, his face black and threatening, Anthony turned upon the two men.

"Hoist out the yawl," he said.

With his own weight added to the lines, the boat was swung out and lowered. Blake, broken and unconscious, was put into it, as was the body of Tarrant; then the seamen pulled away toward the brig.

And when they had gone the _Rufus Stevens_ was put into the wind once more; and Anthony, leaning against the wheel, said to mademoiselle:

"That is the last."

"Oh, I hope and pray it is so!" she said.

He took a shining strand of the dark, loosened hair in his hand and kissed it; and she clung to him and looked up at him. And the winds of the ocean stirred about them and filled the sails; and the great ship, for whose safety they had endured so much, bore them slowly homeward.

[Illustration: "AND THE WINDS OF THE OCEAN STIRRED ABOUT THEM AND FILLED THE SAILS."]

XLIV

The warehouse of Rufus Stevens' Sons stood on the waterfront, huge, square, and with many windows. There was no rutted road here, with its scum of foul, black mud; stones were set in smoothly and solidly. The row of brick arches opening into the warehouse were high enough to admit a laden dray. Anthony stood in the mouth of one and looked in. The place was like a dim vast cavern packed with riches and filled with aromatic smells; porters, draymen, and clerks moved about in the half-light like gnomes; never before had Anthony been so impressed by the complete meaning of order, routine, spaciousness, wealth.

The wharves of the firm were heaped with cargo; three square-riggers were tied there; windlasses turned; seamen chanted as they threw their weight against the bars and swung the merchandise up from the holds. Anthony looked from the ships, with their abundance and ordered labor, to the warehouse and its repletion and thought of that day one half-year before--the day the _Rufus Stevens_, under her makeshift mast and ill-fitting sail, rounded the bend in the river, amazing all who beheld her.

And that wonderful cargo! That shipful of riches! What Charles had dreamed of it came true; for there was the house of Rufus Stevens' Sons once more set squarely upon its foundations; there it stood, fixed, settled, strong, with no man to speak a word against it.

For that part of its past, foul with villainy, was canceled. And its future was bright and long. And there was peace, and there was honor, and there was prosperity.

* * * * *

Anthony went to see Charles at his house on Ninth Street on a snowy Sunday evening. And he found him wrapped comfortably in a rug before the library fire, reading a play-book. Charles smiled and shook the young man's hand.

"It is pleasant to sit here," he said, "and read and look at the fire and think how safe things are in your hands."

"How are you?" Anthony asked.

"I am better. Oh, I am a deal better. You need not be afraid," and he smiled and patted the young, strong arm. "I am back from the darkness for good and all. But here I'll sit, Anthony, in the company of my books, while the house of Stevens moves under your hand. Here I'll sit quietly and with nothing to disturb me. I'll lead a rich life in this room, by this fire; a rich, full life, with companions like this to amuse me," and he riffled the leaves of the play-book.

"Your books," said Anthony, gratefully and wistfully, "thank God for them!"

Charles smiled, and again he patted the young man's arm.

"Your grandfather never concerned himself with books; and you are a deal like him. But they would store your mind and make it rich," he said. "You would do well to encourage them. Those rakehells of the Restoration, now, would amuse you, if your taste runs to their kind. You'll find them there on the second shelf, next to the fireplace. Or, if you'd rather take a step back, the Elizabethans are just below, and they are a crew that'll shake your soul or your ribs, just as you'd have them. And those Italian tale-tellers were shrewd workmen--there, in the pigskin, right under your hand. But, if you think you'd care for romance nearer to this present day, there is Defoe's narrative of the shipwrecked sailor, and also Fielding's amusing chronicle of life as he's seen it in his own England."

There was an array of pudgy little books with stout leather backs upon a shelf quite low in the case. Anthony stooped and took one out and opened it. The eyes of Charles sparkled.

"Voyages!" said he. "That one, I'll wager, is Bartholomew Diaz. How often I've sailed with him, as a boy, to the mouth of the Great Fish River! And there is fine old Vasco da Gama! Many a summer afternoon, and I at school, he and I have doubled the cape, put the complaining pilots in irons, and thrown their quadrants into the sea. And Columbus, and Cabot, and the Merchant Adventurers' Company! There's a rank and file for you, if you want actual deeds and fine accomplishment: Hawkins and Drake, Davis and Sir Humphrey Gilbert; and that never-beaten Yorkshireman, Martin Frobisher.

"Yes, here I'll sit in this excellent company," said Charles, and he smiled and patted Anthony's arm. "I'll have nothing to disturb me. I'll lead a rich, full life in this room, Anthony, God bless you; rich and full, and with not a regret in all the world to throw either myself or my friends out of humor."

* * * * *

Christopher Dent sat in his back room, his spectacles on his nose, and a big book in Latin text upon his knee. A cheery fire crackled in the stove; two candles burned upon the table; and a number of other books, each as big as the one Christopher held, lay beside them. Outside the yellow flare lurked the retorts, the rows of bottles, and jars full of pent-up possibilities. Tom Horn sat upon a bench near the stove; he rubbed his knees in the warmth as the little apothecary looked at him over the edge of his spectacles.

"In none of the elder tongues," said Christopher, "is there much to do with the sea. As you say, the ancients were wise; they had a knowledge of many strange things, but they seldom ventured far from land, and the sea, as we know it, was a darkened thing to them. So, knowing nothing of its secrets, they could scarcely agree with what you say. Bear in mind," said Christopher earnestly, "I am not denying; I only announce a lack of authority in the ancients."

"The sea," said Tom Horn in his hushed voice, "has a meaning. It is more than a mass of water, washing around in the hollows of the world."

"I grant you that," said Christopher readily. "I grant you that much active principle is in the sea; it holds many vital elements crystallized and in solution. Soda, for example, is the cinder of sea-plants; and without this friendly alkali we'd many times be brought to a stand. The ocean gives rare and agreeable substances to materia medica, and in time, as we plumb its depth, it will give more."

But Tom Horn shook his head.

"I have watched the sea with the sun on it," he said, "and I've watched it running through the night. Hurricanes blow over it and make it leap and rave; but hurricanes die down, and the sea goes on. It is always muttering," said Tom Horn. "I've listened to it, hour after hour; it's always muttering over something it's hidden. But it never tells; it keeps its secrets well." He looked at Christopher for a long time, and then said, "Captain Weir was buried in the sea."

"Poor man," said the little apothecary. "Poor man, to rest away in the silence of the ocean's depths!"

"The sea is always muttering," said Tom Horn. "I've listened to it hour after hour; it's always muttering over something it's hidden. But it never tells; it keeps its secrets well."

* * * * *

The graveyard was beside the quaint brick church; a low wall inclosed it, and in June-time rose-vines climbed it and shook their wonders in the wind. It was a well-kept churchyard, orderly and unfrequented; in the cold months the snow covered the quiet graves gently; in summer-time the grass was very green.

In a far corner of the wall was set the stone shaft to Captain Weir. Though his body had been buried at sea, here sober thoughts of him would be kept by his fellow-citizens. Cut deep into the base of the monument were the words:

To the memory of Isaac Weir, once master in the Merchant Marine. He was a Steady Friend, and a Faithful Servant, and Died at last in Defense of Justice and the Law.

"A true word," said Anthony, as the last thing had been spoken, dedicating the stone to future generations. "A true, fair word."

"As honest a man as day ever lit a path for," said Mr. Stroude, solemn of face and beaver hat in hand. "He could ill be spared."

Mademoiselle said no word, but put a great bunch of blossoms at the foot of the stone; and there were tears in her eyes.

"His was a strong hand," said Christopher Dent. "And a brave spirit. I mind well how he insisted that I give him the facts that sent him away to sea and to his death. A friend was in peril, and he must go to him. A splendid, high resolve for any man."