The Sailor Part 15

At last, s.h.i.+vering and supperless, although his pockets were heavy with silver untold, he made up his mind to turn in. It was a counsel of desperation. He was sick to nausea with the business of thinking about nothing, a process which began in nothing and ended in nothing; and at last with a groan of misery, he pulled off his boots and leggings, but without removing his clothes stretched himself on the bed.

If he could have had his wish he would have gone to sleep, never to awake again. But he could only lie s.h.i.+vering in the darkness without any hope of rest. Presently a clock struck two. And then he thought he heard a creak on the stairs and shortly afterwards a stealthy footfall outside his door.

He had never been anything but broad awake. But these creeping noises of the night seemed to string up every sense he had to a point that was uncanny. He held his breath in order to listen--to listen like a frightened animal in a primeval forest that has begun to sense the approach of a secret and deadly foe.

The door of the room came very softly open. It was at the side of the bed, and he could not see it; but he felt an almost imperceptible vibration in the airless stuffiness in which he lay. Moreover, a breathing, catlike thing had entered the room; a thing he could neither hear nor see. It was a presence of which he was made aware by the incandescent forces of a living imagination.

It was too dark to see, there was not a sound to hear, but he knew there was a breathing shape within reach of his left hand.

Suddenly his hand shot out and closed upon it.

He caught something electric, quivering, alive. But whatever it was, a deadly silence contained it. There was not a sound, except a gasp, as of one who has made a sudden plunge into icy water. The Sailor lay inert, but now that live thing was in his hand he was not afraid.

He expected a knife. Realizing that he must defend his face or his ribs or whatever part might be open to attack, he knew he must be ready for the blow.

But a queer thing happened. The attack was not made by a knife. It was made by a human will. As he lay grappling in the darkness with his visitor, slowly but surely he felt himself enfolded by an unknown power. Such a force was beyond his experience. His own will was in a vice; there was a deadly struggle, yet neither moved. Not a sound was uttered, but in the end the Sailor nearly screamed with the overmastering tension which seemed to be pressing out his life. And then he realized that his hand was no longer holding the thing upon which it had closed.

The room was empty again. The darkness was too great for his eyes to tell him, but every sense he had, and at this moment he had more than five, seemed to say that whatever his peril, it had now pa.s.sed.

He sat up and listened tensely through the still open door. He thought he could hear the creak of a foot on the stairs. Then he began to search his pockets for a box of matches, and suddenly remembered that he hadn't one. But the sense of physical danger had given him a new power over his mind. He was now terribly alert.

His instinct was to get out of that house at once. But a very little reflection showed that such a course was not necessary. It was only an old woman after all.

III

Reinforced with the idea that an old woman with wolf's eyes should have no terrors for a sailor, Henry Harper decided to stay where he was, until daylight at least. In the absence of matches and local knowledge it would not be easy to find a way out of the house in the middle of the night. Moreover if he drew the chest of drawers from under the skylight, which was too thickly plastered with generations of grime to dispense light from the sky or anywhere else, and barricaded the door, he could not be taken by surprise and need have fear of none.

He decided to do this. With arms as tough as steel, he lifted up the chest of drawers bodily and dumped it with a crash against the door.

Let Grandma get through that if she could. If she did, G.o.d help her.

Yes, G.o.d help her. The Sailor suddenly took from his pocket a large, bone-hafted clasp knife. There came the friendly click of the opening blade, he felt the well ground edge lightly with the ball of his thumb.

He would lie quietly for Grandma in comfort and in simple faith.

What a fool to let her go! ... the trusty friend in his hand was speaking to him.... Had you forgotten me? I'd have done Grandma's business in a brace of shakes, you know.

The Sailor, aware of that, felt rather sorry.

But in a little while there was another voice in the room. In climbing back on the bed, one hand touched the fur cap which lay at the foot of it. Instantly, a second voice spoke through the darkness.

"No, Sailor, my boy." What a voice it was! "It ain't quite white.

Put your knife in your pocket, old friend. And if Grandma calls again and you feel you _must_ set your mark on her, what's wrong with your ten commandments, anyway?"

The tones of Klond.y.k.e filled the darkness with their music.

Sailor obeyed instinctively, in the way he had always done. He put the knife back in his pocket with a gentle sigh.

The dirty dawn of a wet October day stole on the young man's eyes as he was attempting a doze on the patched counterpane with his sea-going gear around him. The arrival of an honest Wednesday morning, chill and dismal as it was, dispelled with a magic that seemed ironical any lingering trace he might have of his night fear of Grandma. Was he not a sailor who six long years had sailed the seas? Had he not seen, done and suffered things which held him forever from any human thrall?

But Henry Harper knew better than to ask Grandma what she had got for breakfast.

He chose instead to sling his hook. Gathering his truck back into its bundle, and cramming the magic cap over his eyes, he pulled the chest of drawers away from the bedroom door. Then as soon as there was light enough to see the way he crept down the creaking stairs, unlocked, unbolted and unchained the door below, and slipped out into Wednesday morning.

Wednesday morning received him with a chill spatter of rain. He stood a minute on the cobbles of the squalid yard in front of Grandma's abode--wondering where he was, what he should do, which turn he should take. As a fact, there was only one turn he could take, and that lay straight ahead across the yard, through a short arched pa.s.sageway leading to a maze of courts and alleys which led heaven knew where.

He proceeded to find out. Bundle under arm, fur cap over eyes, a roll in his gait, the Sailor emerged at last upon a main street, at present only half awake. But it contained a thing of vast importance: a policeman.

The Law in its majesty looked at the Sailor. The Sailor in his simplicity looked at the majesty of the Law. There was a time, six long, long years ago, when he would not have ventured such a liberty with the most august of human inst.i.tutions. But he was through that phase of his career. By comparison with all the stripes that had since been laid upon him even the police were gentle and humane.

There was not a soul in sight except this solemn London bobby, who stood four square in the Sailor's path.

"Mornin', mister." The Sailor lifted his cap, partly from a sense of fraternity, partly from a proud feeling of being no longer afraid to do so.

The bobby surveyed the strange nondescript that had been washed up by the tide of Wapping. He looked gravely at the bundle and at the fur cap, and then decided in quite an impersonal way not to return their owner's salutation.

The Sailor was not hurt by the aloofness of the Law. He had not expected anything else. After all, the police were the police. He knew that a gulf of several hemispheres was fixed between a real three-stripe rozzer of the Metropolitan Force and a thing it had pleased fate to call by the name of Henry Harper.

"A wrong un, I expect," was the reflection of Constable H23, who always expected a wrong un at that hour of the morning. Upon the spur of this thought, the bobby suddenly turned on his heel, and saw the wrong un, bundle, fur cap and all, crossing the road like an early morning fox at the lure of a favorite hencoop. Moreover, he was crossing it for the reason that he was frantically hungry.

Across the road, at a junction it formed with three others as mean and dismal as itself, was a sight supremely blessed in the eyes of the Sailor. It was nothing less than a coffee stall in the panoply of matutinal splendor. Steaming fluids, with flames glowing under them, flanked one half of its counter; rock cakes, ham sandwiches, beef sandwiches, rolls and b.u.t.ter, and pork pies, splendidly honest and genuine pork pies, flanked the other half of it.

The proprietor of the stall, an optimist in white ap.r.o.n and s.h.i.+rt sleeves, being unmistakably of the male s.e.x had no terrors for the Sailor. Besides, he was flushed with the knowledge that he had just said good morning to the police.

"Cup o' coffee, mister, and one o' them."

Nothing less than a pork pie could meet the need of the Sailor.

Moreover, he dived in his pocket, took the first coin that came, which happened to be half a crown, and laid it with true Klond.y.k.e magnificence on the counter.

The proprietor of the stall, who added a power of clear thinking to his many qualities, appeared to see in the action as well as in the coin itself, a declaration of financial status on the part of the young seaman in the remarkable gear. Also this view was shared by the only one of his early morning customers who happened to be at the stall: to wit, an almost aggressively capable looking and slightly bow-legged young man with flaming red hair and ears set at right angles to his head, who was devouring a pork pie with quiet ferocity.

A single glance pa.s.sed between Ike, who owned the stall, and the most influential of his patrons, who answered to the name of Ginger; a single glance and that was all.

"Nothing smaller, sonny?" said Ike, smiling and pleasant. "Not used to big money at seven g.m. Penny the corfee and two pence the pie. Three d." The proprietor raised three fingers and beamed like a seraph.

Ginger suspended operations on the pork pie to see what Dr. Nansen would do next.

The Sailor, with memories of Grandma still in his mind, put back the half-crown carefully before he brought out anything else. He was not going to give himself away this time. Thus he went warily in search of the smallest coin he could disentangle from the welter of all shapes and sizes, of all values and countries, which had been disposed in every pocket of his person. At last he produced one and laid it on the oilcloth modestly, as though he merely valued it at threepence. But in that part of the world it was valued at half a sovereign.

"Rich aunt," said the proprietor of the stall, with respectful humor.

The young man with the flaming hair turned half about, pork pie in hand, to get a better view of Dr. Nansen. This close observer proceeded to chew steadily without venturing any remark.

There was nothing left for the Sailor but to give away his wealth in handfuls now. He had to keep diving into his secret h.o.a.rd, which out of deference to the thought of Grandma he was still determined not to disclose in bulk and sum. Now came up a Spanish fourpenny, now a Yankee nickel, now a Frenchman, now a Dutchman, now a Mexican half-dollar, now a n.o.ble British quid. For several crowded and glorious minutes, Ike and the most influential of his patrons had the time of their lives.

"Thank you, Count," said the proprietor of the stall urbanely, when at last the owner of the fur cap had managed to discharge his liability in coin current in the realm of Great Britain. Then, in common with the entranced Ginger, he watched the young man recruit exhausted nature.