CHAPTER VII
WILLIAM was confronted with a genuine mystery, and he wasn't sure that he liked it. He viewed the affair from all available angles, but he could not find shallow water anywhere. A man, possessed of a scientific knowledge of anatomy, had laid out William Grogan as nice as you please and taken his wallet; then he had given it back, indirectly; but that didn't matter—the act, not the method, was the important thing. It wasn't a question of belated conscience. The man hadn't gone through that series of gymnastics for the mere sport of it. It was possible, however, that the hold-up man had tackled the wrong individual. But even then, thirty dollars wouldn't grow any smaller for that. William decided that it was not the work of a professional. Fat chance for that breed on board the Ajax, where the wealth of the passengers consisted of small bills, few and slim letters of credit. People who could afford to travel on their own, without the tender solicitude of Thomas Cook, had real bank-accounts. Finally he gave up the puzzle. There was neither head nor tail to it. Anyhow, he had thirty to blow in when he landed at Gibraltar.
Having resigned himself to the loss, the recovery was like finding it; and eternally the poor never save anything they find. William had mapped out a plan for spending only five dollars in each port or town he visited; spending-money, you understand; five in Gibraltar, five in Naples, and so on until he landed in San Francisco. He had written down this budget in detail and had sworn to keep within it. By this method of economy he would arrive in America with something over a thousand dollars. But to-morrow he would spend thirty dollars in Gibraltar.
As he was leaving the purser's office the next morning, after having wisely deposited his letter of credit, he heard some one exclaim, "Spain!"
He ran out to the port rail. Blue sky and blue sea, and a thin ribbon of salmon-tinted rock in between; that was all he could see. But there was some peculiar magic in the sight; it stirred a thousand little cells in his head. Yonder was the Spain of the Armada, of the golden galleons and black-browed pirates, of mighty conquest and quick decay; and here was William Grogan, news-boy, messenger, apprentice, plumber, seeing it through his very own eyes. One was a great historical fact; the other was a plain, downright miracle.
Not until after lunch would they raise Gibraltar. Spain was all right, but its coast suggested spooks, vanished splendors, things which trembled nebulously on the far horizon of memory, therefore unsatisfactorily. What he wanted to see was something which had not only been great, but still was; and this would be the Rock; valor and war, grim battle-ships, cannon, flags, the sunshine on gun-barrels, and the lively racket of rolling drums. He was tremendously eager to see Gibraltar, and he had a reason singular among his several hundred fellow-passengers. Somewhere in the little historical military cemetery he would find the name of Grogan. Hadn't the Grogans died all over Europe and Asia and Africa, from the Napoleonic wars down to the Transvaal shindy?
As soon as the salmon-tinted coast-line became monotonous, he drew away from the rail and searched the decks for his school-teacher, but could not find her. Doubtless she was preening up for the jaunt ashore.
The daughter of a man who had died in poverty—the single rift in the fog which enveloped her. I must confess that William laid sly if innocent little traps, all of which she walked around serenely. That all was not well with her he had been assured frequently. The ruminative somberness which at times overcast her countenance—at moments when she thought she was unobserved—convinced William that she was unhappy.
There were no rings on her fingers; but William knew that married women no longer wore their wedding-rings year in and year out as in his mother's day. Was she running away from something?
Once he had tiptoed around to his chair—it was at the hour when she generally dozed—to find her staring wide-eyed at a little chamois bag such as women carried their jewels in. At the sight of him she gave a little gasp and thrust the bag into the bosom of her dress. She smiled almost at once; but William would have preferred a frown. Was there anything in that chamois bag she was afraid he might see? The haste with which she had striven to hide it was not normal.
She was only twenty-two. Youth ought to have no mysteries.
Dismissing these unpleasant cogitations, William strolled around to the starboard side. Leaning over the rail were his two ancients. For once they were not arguing. As there was space in between them, William shouldered in, smiling as usual. He was not above hectoring Greenwood, a flicker of the old-time gamin in his heart.
In his way William was growing fond of them both, for he could appreciate that these two lonely old men were heroes in their quiet, undemonstrative manner. One had gone into the very heart of China, in the days when such an exploit necessitated the taking of one's life in the hand. And for what? To verify a bit of Sanskrit, whatever that was! And the other had crossed the Himalayas into Tibet for the prayer-scroll and death-mask of a Lama! William was still in the dark as to what benefit, if any, humanity derived from such adventures; but he could readily grasp that these two played a great game where the skirts of death could always be heard rustling.
"This is the life!" he said.
"You like the sea?"
"Sure I do. But ain't she the cheerful old liar, though? Look at her now—mild as a cat with a platter of cream. But when she gets her back up, believe me!"
"Know anything about it?" asked Greenwood, the crotchety one. For, while William was not above hectoring him, he on his part was not above laying traps for William's ignorance.
"Only what I can see on top."
"Then what is down below does not interest you?"
"It wouldn't if I was anywhere near it," countered William, shrewdly scenting a trap.
The old fellow shrugged, but his companion smiled. And straightway he began to uncover the sea's floor to William. His descriptions were simple and untechnical. He liked this freckle-faced boy, with his boundless vitality, his fresh enthusiasm, his unfailing cheerfulness.
"All new stuff to me," William admitted. "But I thought that you dug up tombs and the like?"
"I do; but to all men of science there is nothing more fascinating than the floor of the sea. It is because there are a thousand mysteries down there none of us shall ever solve. What would interest you most to see in the world?"
"Why, I'd like to take a peek at all the battlefields first; and then, after that, I shouldn't mind going back to Babylon and digging for Shalmaneser's bat-bag."
"You might at least learn something," said old grumpy.
"No doubt he would, Arthur. You mustn't forget that once you were his age."
"Yes, yes, Henrik; but long before his age I was always about with my hammer."
"And, believe me, that little hammer don't seem to be among the missing," said William, mildly. "You've had it out for me ever since we came on board."
The two old fellows looked at him rather blankly. They did not understand; so William went into details, and to these details he added some other interesting items.
"I was a newsboy once. I slept in areaways, fought and scrapped for my pennies. Don't you think it's a pretty good sign that I'm taking this trip around the world? How should I know who this guy Shalmaneser was? I never went to school after I was nine. You look on me as a blamed idiot. Well, maybe I am. But did it ever occur to you that the men who built this old gondola, plate by plate, rivet by rivet, didn't know any more about Shalmaneser than Kelly's goat? My interest is in live things, yours in dead. Yet my work is of more use to human beings than yours is."
"Indeed! And what is your work?" snapped Greenwood, not particularly relishing William's directness.
"I'm a plumber."
"I judged it might be something on that order."
"Is—that—so? Ye-ah; I'm a plumber. I help keep out dirt and disease; I put in bathtubs, lay water-mains, sewers, and do the job well. Did you ever stop to think, when you turned a tap on at the top of the forty-story building, that it was a nifty bit of work to get it up there? What's the Himalayas to that?" Inwardly William added. "Now, back away from that, old stick-in-the-mud!"
Old stick-in-the-mud said never a word, but his companion spoke up.
"Young man, thanks for the rebuke. Each man has his niche, his work. And what matters so long as he does it well? Don't you say so, Arthur?"
"Well, yes, Henrik. Perhaps I'm a bit impatient at times. And maybe I judged Mr. Grogan as an idle young man. Suppose we call a truce and try to understand each other better?"
"Sure," agreed William, rather proud of having tamed the old fire-eater.
After a little silence, Clausen spoke up, a thrill in his voice.
"There's Africa, Arthur!"
"Where?" cried William. Africa, King Solomon's Mines, She, and Allan Quartermain! What was more natural than that he should conjure up these mythical tales, which was all the history of Africa he knew anything about? "Where is it?"
"See that dun-colored cloud? Well, that's the foreland."
"Say, I'd like to see Africa the way you two have. Ever read King Solomon's Mines?" William asked, shyly.
"Oh yes. A mighty readable fairy-story."
"Well, say! Next thing you'll be telling me you've read Old Sleuth."
Old stick-in-the-mud chuckled. "Well, maybe I have."
"Good Lord! Now I know you're human."
Laughter has dissolved more enmities, dissipated more gloom, welded more friendships than all your philosophies bunched together. And when this odd trio caught their breaths, they were friends.
Immediately one began to talk about Africa, about deserts and sand-buried cities, the wonders of K antiquity, adventure upon adventure, quite as remarkable as anything William had ever read.
The first bugle for luncheon took him to the port side again. He had forgotten all about Gibraltar!
"Amiable Irishman, Arthur."
"Yes, he is, Henrik. And I rather liked the way he brought about that bit relative to the water-pipes."
"Aren't they a wonderful people? Did we ever go anywhere without finding one of them building something—railroads, bridges, canals, harbors; working and fighting and letting the other man carry off the money and the glory? It's the game, Arthur; you and I know. It isn't Mr. Grogan's lack of education that irritates you; it's his youth and all the game that's before him."
"Perhaps that is it."
From the jetty tender to the old gun-galleries and back again, from this crooked street to that, past old landmarks bristling with deeds of valor, William and his school-teacher wandered. After coming down from the echoing-galleries the two had drifted away from the others and gone investigating on their own account. It was impossible for her not to catch some of his enthusiasm for everything, the motley, picturesque Africans, the Tommies in their smart jackets, the swart, stocky Spaniards, the donkeys plodding across the neutral ground into Spain, the gray monsters in the harbor, the real Rock which appeared so peaceful and yet which they knew to be so sinisterly alive.
Frequently she heard him murmur, and perhaps he was quite unconscious that he spoke aloud: "And there is Gibraltar, and here is little old Willie Grogan!" She understood. A dream, which once had been numbered among the impossible things, had come true. And when he found the grave in the military cemetery—the grave of a granduncle of his father's—he held his chin higher and carried his shoulders a bit stiffer thereafter. He had now a proprietary interest in the Rock—blood of his blood had soaked the sparse soil of it.
No pride like that which William innocently took in this discovery is ever harmful. On the contrary, it is one of those sublime emotional tonics which revivifies manhood, renews the iron in the corpuscle, and puts the conscience in order.
She had some difficulty in preventing him from squandering his money upon useless gimcracks; but in spite of her vigilance he succeeded in buying several strings of coral beads (made of some kind of gum) and a spangled shawl he intended to take back to the Widow Hanlon, his landlady. He was soon to learn that he was entering a world of shopkeepers whose knowledge of truth was based upon hearsay only.
When they returned to the ship she was tired and happy and he was only happy. He grumbled a little because he could not wander through the town at night.
Camden, whom they had both forgotten, was leaning over the rail as the tender drew alongside. He soon picked out William, quite as easily as he would have picked out a poppy in a wheat-field. He watched the two thoughtfully. He saw William catch her by the arm and swing her to the platform of the ladder. It was one of those feats of strength that are not impressive because accomplished without apparent effort.
"Gad! the man is a Hercules! I'd like to see him in a real fight, a rough-and-tumble where his life depended upon it. I'd give a year of my life to witness something like that."
When William dressed for dinner that night he had the cabin to himself. He studied his face in the little mirror. To him that face appeared utterly hopeless. Red hair which wouldn't stay put unless he plastered it down, ears like pie-plant leaves, skin like a German trout's, neck like a stevedore's. … What was the use? He would always be a plumber. What woman would think of marrying a yap with a phiz like his? Even the bellhops could see through the disguise; the dress-suit didn't hide anything.
So here we arrive at last, without further dilly-dallying. William was in love. The fact that until now his looks had never worried him deeply was sufficient proof of the state of his mind. The moment a man wants to be handsome he is riding for his fall. No man cares a rap for mere beauty among his kind; he wants nothing more than strength or cleverness. But let him think woman, and at once he desires the beauty of Antinous, the strength of Hercules, and the wisdom of Nestor. You will no doubt carefully note that Antinous is given the precedence. It is not that man wishes to shed these illustrious qualities upon woman; it is wholly selfish; he merely wants to be well supplied with bait.
I often wonder what Nature was about when she gave all the gorgeous feathers to the male birds and so few to the female. Certainly she did not follow out this idea when she modeled the human race.
William's school-teacher, however, did not think him ugly. To her he was only rugged and clean and kindly and amusing. She thought his eyes beautiful. His pug-nose, his generous mouth, even his freckles, all seemed to move with but one object, with but one purpose, to accentuate the beauty and expression of his eyes. I might go on and say that she was falling in love with him, but I should have to deny it later. She had her dreams even as he had his, but William Grogan had no place in them.
Well, toward such a reef the guileless William was steering his argosy of love.
Late that night, when the upper deck was deserted, the girl stole out of her cabin and walked for a mile or more around the deck-houses. The sea was calm; there was not the slightest roll to the ship. Far away to starboard she saw the sail of a felucca as it tacked into the moonlight. She paused at the rail and watched it until it vanished as suddenly as it had appeared.
Presently she looked up toward the brilliant moon and began to pray.
Why do prayers seem ineffectual unless uttered aloud? Is it because in silent prayer evil is still a force, strong enough to break the thread, and we need the sound of our voice to give us confidence and fervor?
"Dear God, make me strong. Take out of my heart the evil longings. Give me strength always to be good. Let me not covet that which is not mine. Clean my heart and put temptation behind me. Amen!"
She bent her head to the rail.
William Grogan, standing behind a ventilator, a perfectly innocent eavesdropper, never forgot that simple prayer. He took off his cap reverently and tiptoed away. But he carried with him the truth; the thunderclap rang in his ears. He loved this school-teacher of his with all the ardor of his Irish soul.