Caravans By Night Part 25

"Quite," he agreed, having forgotten the purser in the eternal wonder of her eyes. "I hope you weren't ill last night?"

"Not physically. I was doing penance."

"I shouldn't think that would require all evening."

A smile. "Would you like to become father-confessor?"

"Perhaps."

She let her eyes rest upon him in a curious, contemplative look.

"How absolutely Britis.h.!.+" she remarked. "An American would have agreed instantly, but you, being British, only commit yourself half-way."

"Isn't that diplomacy?" he asked, entering into her mood. She was revealing another side of her nature. Each time he saw her she unfolded more and bared to his gaze new and stimulating mysteries of her personality.

"Perhaps. But I sha'n't confess to you now--just for that.... I understand you didn't have a very quiet night."

The only surprise he betrayed was a tightening of the muscles of the jaw.

"Really?"

Her smile grew into a laugh. "Show some surprise, Stone-man, instead of trying to impress me with the fact that you've suddenly acquired an interest down there"--her white hand flashed toward the steerage.

"You're wondering how I know it, and seething with curiosity. You wouldn't be human if you weren't."

"I'm not"--forcing a smile. "But if you wish it, then how _do_ you know it?"

"Well, it's considered excellent marine etiquette to visit the wireless-house and worry the operator when one is bored--as I happened to be this morning in the interim between my rising hour and breakfast--"

"And as feminine charm is an 'Open Sesame' to the secrets of wireless-operators," Trent finished up, "this particular one told all he knew."

"Am I to accept that as flattery?"

"Is it?" he countered; then, eager to learn just how much she knew, he remarked casually: "Thieves are thick as mosquitoes in Asiatic countries."

"I know," was her unsatisfactory response, and, proof that a woman can be quite uncommunicative when she wishes, she diverted conversation into another channel. "I'm afraid, Mr. Tavernake, I've impressed you as being--well, a foolish flippant child."

His eyes met hers--barely a second.

"Why should you think that?"

She shrugged. "Oh, my endless talk of--of travel."

He took out his pipe, asked permission to smoke; filled the bowl and lighted it before he quoted:

We are those fools who could not rest In the dull earth we left behind....

She took him up: "Doesn't it go on with--"

The world where wise men live at ease Fades from our unregretful eyes, And blind across uncharted seas We stagger on our enterprise.

He nodded. While she was speaking he thought of the _andante appa.s.sionato_ comparison. Music always--she was that to him.

"Uncharted seas!" she repeated. "They've always lured me. I felt the call, but couldn't understand it until I read a tale several years ago.

'The White Waterfall' it was called. It seemed to open magic doors.

After that, 'Treasure Island' again, and 'She.' Stevenson, Kipling, Conrad and Haggard--they are the masters that taught me the doctrine of Romance and Adventure. Oh, I've always wanted a crowded hour--excitement--the sting of winds not in books! I think after one excursion into the reality I'd be willing to settle back into my peaceful alcove of imaginings. Then I'd have food for my fancies--something to remember in the quiet that followed. Don't you think it would be alluring, in mellower years, to close your eyes and dream--of wanderings in the 'Caves of Kor'--or the time you spent on a pirate island?"

"It's youth," he philosophized to himself. "Youth craving the open s.p.a.ces; hours of breathless living!"

"It would," he said aloud.

"But perhaps"--her voice sank to a dreamy tempo--"perhaps I'm having my adventure now."

(And many days pa.s.sed before he understood what she really meant by that.)

Below them, in the steerage, a snake-charmer--a villainous-looking fellow with a scar across one cheek and a drooping eyelid--was making two cobras ripple to the sounds of a reed flageolet. The eerie, tuneless wails were reminiscent of the previous night when Trent stood on the same spot and looked below.

"What would you think, Mr. Tavernake," the girl began, her voice very solemn, "if you discovered that some one whom you trusted and believed your friend was secretly striving for the thing you were working for.

Would you call it fair compet.i.tion?"

He applied a match to his burnt-out pipe, then regarded her--quite as intently as she regarded him.

"Are you making me father-confessor, after all?"

She laughed, thus ending a very solemn moment.

"Good heavens, no!... But come, shall we take a walk?"

They tramped about the s.h.i.+p for nearly an hour; then he established her comfortably in a deck-chair and sat down at her side. They talked, mostly frivolously--conversation that only now and then carried a vein of seriousness. Not until after tiffin (he sat at her table, for she quite navely suggested that he have the steward change his seat) did they part, she for her cabin, he for the purser's office, which place he suddenly remembered as his goal when he came on deck earlier in the day.

He consulted the pa.s.senger-list, lingering over each name in search of one that might seem likely as that of the person who had directed Guru Singh's activities. There were thirty-one first-cla.s.s pa.s.sengers, the majority English, with a scattering of Americans; the only Easterns were, namely, an Indian gentleman (Dr. Dhan Gopal Singh, of Calcutta University, his signature read), a j.a.panese and Hsien Sgam. Of the group only one seemed likely, and he by virtue of his name and nationality--Dr. Dhan Gopal Singh.

Trent then sought the captain and after a short conversation (during which he made a request that seemed rather extraordinary to the master of the _Manchester_) he visited the imprisoned Guru Singh. Abuses, threats, even promises of clemency, brought forth only: "I am an honest man, Sahib!"

His next move was to visit the steerage. A naked child with a ring in its nose begged for a gift; brown bodies lay asleep on mats; the cobras were still performing for the wicked-looking juggler. Stupid, unintelligent faces....

On the fore-deck a dark-skinned gentleman in European clothing was talking with the clergyman to whom the Mongol had expressed his beliefs the previous night. The former, Trent guessed, was Dr. Dhan Gopal Singh.

One glance eliminated him as a suspect.

5

Toward dusk the captain of the s.h.i.+p approached Trent in his deck-chair.

"One of my men searched the steerage," he said, "and there wasn't a sign of the ornament you described." Then politely, if not a little curiously, "Was it of--er--particular value?"

"It had its significance," was Trent's meager reply.

"It's quite distressing, quite, to have thieves aboard. But in these waters.... Is there anything else I can do for you?"