The Pagan Madonna Part 12

The first order was executed. After Dennison's arms and ankles were bound the men stood him up.

"Are you really my father?"

Cleigh returned to his cards and shuffled them for a new deal.

"Don't untie him. He might walk through the part.i.tion. He will have the freedom of the deck when we are out of the delta."

Dennison was thereupon carried to Cabin Two, and deposited upon the stationary bed. He began to laugh. There was a sardonic note in this laughter, like that which greets you when you recount some incredible tale. His old cabin!

The men shook their heads, as if confronted by something so unusual that it wasn't worth while to speculate upon it. The old man's son! They went out, locking the door. By this time Dennison's laughter had reached the level of shouting, but only he knew how near it was to tears--wrathful, murderous, miserable tears! He fought his bonds terrifically for a moment, then relaxed.

For seven years he had been hugging the hope that when he and his father met blood would tell, and that their differences would vanish in a strong handclasp; and here he lay, trussed hand and foot, in his old cabin, not a crack in that granite lump his father called a heart!

A childish thought! Some day to take that twenty thousand with accrued interest, ride up to the door, step inside, dump the silver on that old red Samarkand, and depart--forever.

Where was she? This side of the pa.s.sage or the other?

"Miss Norman?" he called.

"Yes?" came almost instantly from the cabin aft.

"This is Captain Dennison. I'm tied up and lying on the bed. Can you hear me distinctly?"

"Yes. Your father has made a prisoner of you? Of all the inhuman acts! You came in search of me?"

"Naturally. Have you those infernal beads?"

"No."

Dennison twisted about until he had his shoulders against the bra.s.s rail of the bed head.

"What happened?"

"It was a trick. It was not to talk about you--he wanted the beads, and that made me furious."

"Were you hurt in the struggle?"

"There wasn't any. I really don't know what possessed me. Perhaps I was a bit hypnotized. Perhaps I was curious. Perhaps I wanted--some excitement.

On my word, I don't know just what happened. Anyhow, here I am--in a dinner gown, bound for Hong-Kong, so he says. He offered me ten thousand for the beads, and my freedom, if I would promise not to report his high-handedness; and I haven't uttered a sound."

"Heaven on earth, why didn't you accept his offer?"

A moment of silence.

"In the first place, I haven't the beads. In the second place, I want to make him all the trouble I possibly can. Now that he has me, he doesn't know what to do with me. Hoist by his own petard. Do you want the truth?

Well, I'm not worried in the least. I feel as if I'd been invited to some splendiferous picnic."

"That's foolish," he remonstrated.

"Of course it is. But it's the sort of foolishness I've been aching for all my life. I knew something was going to happen. I broke my hand mirror night before last. Two times seven years' bad luck. Now he has me, I'll wager he's half frightened out of his wits. But what made you think of the yacht?"

"We forced the door of your room, and I found the note. Has he told you what makes those infernal beads so precious?"

"No. I can't figure that out."

"No more can I. Did he threaten you?"

"Yes. Would I enter the launch peacefully, or would he have to carry me? I didn't want my gown spoiled--it's the only decent one I have. I'm not afraid. It isn't as though he were a stranger. Being your father, he would never stoop to any indignity. But he'll find he has caught a tartar. I had an idea you'd find me."

"Well, I have. But you won't get to Hong-Kong. The minute he liberates me I'll sneak into the wireless room and bring the destroyers. I didn't notify the police from a bit of foolish sentiment. I didn't quite want you mixed up in the story. I had your things conveyed to the consulate."

"My story--which few men would believe. I've thought of that. Are you smoking?"

"Smoking, with my hands tied behind my back? Not so you'd notice it."

"I smell tobacco smoke--a good cigar, too."

"Then someone is in the pa.s.sage listening."

Silence. Anthony Cleigh eyed his perfecto rather ruefully and tiptoed back to the salon. Hoist by his own petard. He was beginning to wonder. Cleigh was a man who rarely regretted an act, but in the clear light of day he was beginning to have his doubts regarding this one. A mere feather on the wrong side of the scale, and the British destroyers would be atop of him like a flock of kites. Abduction! Cut down to bedrock, he had laid himself open to that. He ran his fingers through his cowlicks. But drat the woman!

why had she accepted the situation so docilely? Since midnight not a sound out of her, not a wail, not a sob. Now he had her, he couldn't let her go. She was right there.

There was one man in the crew Cleigh had begun to dislike intensely, and he had been manoeuvring ever since Honolulu to find a legitimate excuse to give the man his papers. Something about the fellow suggested covert insolence; he had the air of a beachcomber who had unexpectedly fallen into a soft berth, and it had gone to his head. He had been standing watch at the ladder head, and against positive orders he had permitted a visitor to pa.s.s him. To Cleigh this was the handle he had been hunting for. He summoned the man.

"Get your duffle," said Cleigh.

"What's that, sir?"

"Get your stuff. You're through. You had positive orders, and you let a man by."

"But his uniform fussed me, sir. I didn't know just how to act."

"Get your stuff! Mr. Cleve will give you your pay. My orders are absolute.

Off with you!"

The sailor sullenly obeyed. He found the first officer alone in the chart house.

"The boss has sent me for my pay, Mr. Cleve. I'm fired." Flint grinned amiably.

"Fired? Well, well," said Cleve, "that's certainly tough luck--all this way from home. I'll have to pay you in Federal Reserve bills. The old man has the gold."

"Federal Reserve it is. Forty-six dollars in Uncle Samuels."

The first officer solemnly counted out the sum and laid it on the palm of the discharged man.

"Tough world."

"Oh, I'm not worrying! I'll bet you this forty-six against ten that I've another job before midnight."