CHAPTER XII.

THE MOTOR CRUISER

The governor’s car, a Cadillac--tribute to the far-flung efficiency of American salesmanship--was driven by the chauffeur over what I took to be the edge of a sheer precipice. I inhaled noisily. Then we were gliding down a cobbled road that, serpentine, embraced a fairy port.

Nestling in a cleft, a volcanic chasm, its terraced roofs silvered by the crescent moon, lay a town asleep. Patches of colour, as though a Titan artist had thrown uncleaned palettes into the hollow, crowded upon and overlay the white walls. Green fronds peeped above pools of shadow. A beautiful auditorium, this town looked down upon the eternal drama of the sea.

O’Shea spoke to the chauffeur in Portuguese. His command of unpronounceable languages was not the least of his acquirements. The powerful brakes were applied and our switchback descent ceased.

We proceeded on foot.

Where a low stone wall prevented the traveller from falling through the roof of a villa some twenty feet below, O’Shea pulled up, grasped my arm, and pointed.

Displaying her graceful, creamy shape like a courtesan stretched upon blue velvet, a fine-lined motor boat rode in the tiny harbour. Lights shone out from her cabin ports. O’Shea unbuttoned the coat that he wore over dinner kit and began to twirl his monocle to and fro upon its black ribbon about an extended finger.

“There is Da Cunha’s boat,” said he; “and there, no doubt, is what we are after. But it looks----”

“As though Nanette had failed to keep Macalister?”

O’Shea turned to me, and his eyes gleamed very coldly in the moonlight.

“Decies,” he said, “you remind me of an unpleasant truth: that if I succeed in this matter I shall be indebted to a girl.”

“She will have done a big thing for England.”

“I don’t begrudge her that. It would hurt me to think she had done it for me.”

For a moment I hesitated; then:

“I think she knows it,” I ventured, “and wants to hurt you.”

“Why?”

“Because you hurt _her_.”

He stared very fixedly out over the harbour for some moments, but he did not seem to have taken offence. At last:

“If I had married very young, Decies,” he said, “and God had been good to me, I might have had a daughter like Nanette. Even if there were no other reason, shouldn’t I be a blackguard to think of her except as a wilful child?”

But I could find no answer. This man’s codes were beyond me. Young though he was in the days of the Big Push, he had won a name that had outlasted those of a score of general officers and more than one field marshal. The fact came home to me and brought with it a great humility, that I was not of the stuff that histories are made of.

“Suppose we go and look for a boat,” I said.

O’Shea aroused himself--for he had his dreams even as you and I.

“A boat it is,” said he. “As I have no official status whatever, there’s nothing for it but frank piracy. Are you game?”

“Every time.”

We went on down the sloping cobbled street. Presently it led us through the heart of the little town, where shuttered windows told of citizens asleep and only a zealous dog broke the silence. This until, as we were about to come out on the water front, from a high balcony stole the strains of a guitar.

O’Shea paused, looking up. A dim light might be discerned. He glanced at me, smiled, and we passed on. Love is an art with the Southerners.

I have wondered since, reviewing that journey, during which both our minds, I think, were busied with plans for boarding the motor boat and securing the incriminating photographs, that no premonition touched me. “Nanette had failed to keep Macalister,” I had said, noting the lighted cabin. Yet Nanette had dared to slip away from the _Arundel Castle_ and to remain alone in Funchal. I should have known my Nanette.

Drawn up beside a quay, a red blotch in the moonlight, was a long-nosed French car.

“Da Cunha’s Farman,” I exclaimed. “Macalister _is_ on board.”

But O’Shea did not reply. He was starting out in the direction of the lighted craft, a thirty-eight-foot motor cruiser, very handy in smooth water but a dirty brute, I thought, in a choppy sea. Then:

“I am wondering,” he murmured.

“What?”

“Why he is lying out there and not alongside? There is no boat at the stair.”

At first, the full significance of his remark missed me. My concern was with the problem of how we were to find transport. Then, something in the quality of that fixed stare with which my companion watched the lighted ports, his poise, as if listening, prepared me for what was to come.

The tones of a coarse voice, raised hilariously, reached my ears, coming from the cruiser’s cabin. A trill of laughter followed, youthful, musical. My heart missed a beat. I clutched O’Shea’s arm.

“My God!” I said, “he has Nanette with him!”

Involuntarily, my gaze went upward, to where in cold serenity the Moon of Madness raised her crescent lamp.

O’Shea from the pocket of his light coat took a revolver. He placed it in his soft hat and crammed the hat tightly on his head. He began to peel his dinner jacket.

“I’m going for a swim,” said he. “Coming?”

But he was not alone in the idea. Before I could frame any reply came sounds of loud laughter, a scuffling of feet--and I saw Nanette run out on to the after-deck. She wore a blue-and-silver dance frock. I heard Macalister call to her and I heard her laughing answer; but I could not distinguish a word.

I saw her raise her arms as though to unfasten the string of beads about her neck. She stooped swiftly, stood upright again--and Macalister was beside her.

There was a shrill cry--half laughter, half hysteria. Nanette disappeared in the shadow of the awning. I heard the man’s voice, his heavy tread.…

Nanette reappeared at the bow of the boat.

Heroism is always beautiful, whether it spring from love of country or love of man. The dance frock had vanished, shed like the sheath of a chrysalis when the moth is born. A silver moon-goddess stood at the prow. She stooped, once, twice--I thought to discard her shoes. Then, as Macalister came stumbling forward, Nanette dived almost soundlessly into the still blue sea.

And Nanette could swim like a seal.

Macalister craned over the side. For one moment I think he contemplated following. Then the bobbed head came up two lengths away. Behind the swimmer, on a tow-line of beads, floated a flat, square portfolio.

I glanced once at O’Shea--and that man of action was stricken to stone. Fists clenched, he stood, watching a girl of eighteen doing the work he had come to do--and doing it for _him_.

Macalister was hauling in his anchor. The motor started with a roar. Then Nanette saw us. She was halfway to the shore.

“Please throw one of the rugs on the steps,” came gaspingly. “And go away! Start the car up!”

When, a few minutes later, a very wet Nanette, wrapped in a light top coat, confronted O’Shea, I don’t know quite what happened.

“There are your photographs,” I heard her say. “If I never see you again, at least think I was not such a fool as you supposed.”

With all her dear bravado, she could not still the trembling of her voice. I saw O’Shea’s pale face, and turned aside. That meeting was one I can never forget. Yet the details will always be hazy.

Macalister was in the picture somewhere. I think I knocked him down. I don’t remember why. But I fancy it was not because of any attempt to recover the portfolio but because he grossly misunderstood the situation.

Then, I recall, O’Shea stooped, lifted Nanette, and walked up the sloping cobbled street under a smiling moon. He had suffered as only the few can suffer, to make her forget him. His sacrifice had been rejected by the Great Goddess.

Once, Nanette peeped up at him swiftly. I saw her eyes. Then she hid her face against his shoulder. I think Nanette was crying. But I know Nanette was happy.