The Ragged Edge, Harold MacGrath [great books of all time txt] 📗

fro among the coco palms in the moonshine: he saw her breasting the hurricane, her body as full of grace and beauty as the Winged Victory of the Louvre. The queer phase of the dream was this, she was at no time a woman; she was symbolical of something, and he followed to learn what this something was. There was a lapse of time, an interval of blackness; then he found his hand in hers and she was leading him at a run up the side of the mountain.

His heart beat wildly and he was afraid lest the strain be too much; but the girl shook her head and smiled and pointed to the top of the mountain. All at once they came to the top, the faded blue sky overhead, and whichever way he looked, the horizon, the great rocking circle which hemmed them in. She pointed hither and yon, smiled and shook her head. Then he understood. Nowhere could he see that reaching, menacing Hand. So long as she stood beside him, he was safe. That was what she was trying to make him understand.

He awoke, strangely content. As it happens sometimes, the idea stepped down from the dream into the reality; and he saw it more clearly now than he had seen it in the dream. It filled his thoughts for the rest of the day, and became an obsession. How to hold her, how to keep her at his side; this was the problem with which he struggled.

When she came in after dinner that night, Ruth was no longer an interesting phenomenon, something figuratively to tear apart and investigate: she was talismanic. So long as she stood beside him, the Hand would not prevail.


CHAPTER XVI


Ah cum began to worry. Each morning his inquiry was properly answered: the patient was steadily improving, but none could say when he would be strong enough to proceed upon his journey. The tourist season would soon be at ebb, and it would be late in September before the tide returned. So, then, fifty gold was considerable; it would carry Ah Cum across four comparatively idle months. And because of this hanging gold Ah Cum left many doors open to doubt.

Perhaps the doctor, the manager and the girl were in collusion: perhaps they had heard indirectly of the visit paid by Mr. O'Higgins, the American detective, and were waiting against the hour when they could assist the young man in a sudden dash for liberty. Why not? Were not his own sentiments inclined in favour of the patient? But fifty gold was fifty gold.

One morning, as he took his stand on the Hong-Kong packet dock to ambush the possible tourist, he witnessed the arrival of a tubby schooner, dirty gray and blotched as though she had run through fire. Her two sticks were bare and brown, her snugged canvas drab, her brasses dull, her anchor mottled with rust. There was only one clean spot in the picture-the ship's wash (all white) that fluttered on a line stretched between the two masts. The half-nude brown bodies of the crew informed Ah Cum that the schooner had come up from the South Seas. The boiling under her stern, however, told him nothing. He was not a sailor. It would not have interested him in the least to learn that the tub ran on two powers-wind and oil.

Sampans with fish and fruit and vegetables swarmed about, while overhead gulls wheeled and swooped and circled. One of the sampans was hailed, and a rope-ladder was lowered. Shortly a man descended laboriously. He was dressed immaculately in a suit of heavy Shantung silk. His face was half hidden under a freshly pipeclayed
sola topee -sun-helmet. He turned and shouted some orders to the Kanaka crew, then nodded to the sampan's coolies, who bore upon the sweeps and headed for the Sha-mien.

Ah Cum turned to his own affairs, blissfully ignorant that this tub was, within forty-eight hours, to cost him fifty gold. What had shifted his casual interest was the visible prospect of a party of three who were coming down the packet gang-plank. The trio exhibited that indecisive air with which Ah Cum was tolerably familiar. They were looking for a guide. Forthwith he presented his card.

The Reverend Henry Dolby had come to see China; for that purpose he had, with his wife and daughter, traversed land and sea to the extent of ten thousand miles. Actually, he had come all this distance simply to fulfil a certain clause in his contract with Fate, to be in Canton on this particular day.

Meantime, as the doctor was splitting his breakfast orange, he heard a commotion in his office, two rooms removed: volleys of pidgin English, one voice in protest, the other dominant. This was followed by heavy footsteps, and in another moment the dining-room door was flung open.

The doctor jumped to his feet. "Mac, you old son-of-a-gun!"

"Got a man's breakfast?" McClintock demanded to know.

"Tom! Hey, Tom!" The Chinese cook thrust his head into the dining room. "Those chops, fried potatoes, and buttered toast."

"Aw light!"

The two old friends held each other off at arms' length for inspection; this proving satisfactory, they began to prod and pummel one another affectionately. No hair to fall awry, no powder to displace, no ruffles to crush; men are lucky. Women never throw themselves into each other's arms; they calculate the distance and the damage perfectly.

They sat down, McClintock reaching for a lump of sugar which he began munching.

"Come up by the packet?"

"No; came up with The Tigress ."

" The Tigress! " The doctor laughed. "You'd have hit it off better if you'd called her The Sow . I'll bet you haven't given her a bucket of paint in three years. Oh, I know. You give her a daub here and there where the rust shows. A man as rich as you are ought to have a thousand-ton yacht."

"Good enough for me. She's plenty clean below."

"I'll bet she still smells to heaven with sour coconut. Bring your liveralong?"

"I sometimes wonder if I have any-if it isn't the hole where it was that aches."

"You look pretty fit."

"Oh, a shave and a clean suit will do a lot. It's a pity you wouldn't give me the prescription instead of the medicine, so I could have it filled nearer home."

"I'd never set eyes on you again. You'd be coming up to Hong-Kong, but you'd be cutting out Canton. I'll bet you've been in Hong-Kong these two weeks already, and never a line to me."

"Didn't want any lectures spoiling a good time."

"How long will you be here?"

"To-morrow night. It's sixteen days down, with The Tigress . The South China will be dropping to a dead calm, and I want to use canvas as much as I can. You simply can't get good oil down there, so I must husband the few drams I carry."

"What a life!"

"No worse than yours."

"But I'm a poor man. I'm always shy the price of the ticket home. You're rich. You could return to civilization and have a good time all the rest of your days."

"Two weeks in Hong-Kong," replied McClintock, "is more than enough."

"But, Lord, man!-don't you ever get lonesome?"

"Don't you?"

"I'm too busy."

"So am I. I am carrying back a hundred new books and forty new records for the piano-player. Whenever I feel particularly gregarious, I take the launch and run over to Copeley's and play poker for a couple of days. Lonesomeness isn't my worry. I can't keep a good man beyond three pay-days. They want some fun, and there isn't any. No other white people within twenty miles. I've combed Hong-Kong. They all balk because there aren't any petticoats. I won't have a beachcomber on the island. The job is easy. The big pay strikes them; but when they find there's no place to spend it, good-bye!"

Tom the cook came in with the chops and the potatoes-the doctor's dinner-and McClintock fell to with a gusto which suggested that there was still some liver under his ribs. The doctor smoked his pipe thoughtfully.

"Mac, did you ever run across a missioner by the name of Enschede?"

"Enschede?" McClintock stared at the ceiling. "Sounds as if I had heard it, but I can't place it this minute. Certainly I never met him. Why?"

"I was just wondering. You say you need a man. Just how particular are you? Will he have to bring recommendations?"

"He will not. His face will be all I need. Have you got someone in mind for me?"

"Finish your breakfast and I'll tell you the story." Ten minutes later, the doctor, having marshalled all his facts chronologically, began his tale. He made it brief. "Of course, I haven't the least evidence that the boy has done anything wrong; it's what I'd call a hunch; piecing this and that together."

"Are you friendly toward him?" asked McClintock, passing a fine cigar across the table.

"Yes. The boy doesn't know it, but I dug into his trunk for something to identify him and stumbled upon some manuscripts. Pretty good stuff, some of it. The subject matter was generally worthless, but the handling was well done. You're always complaining that you can't keep anybody more than three months. If my conjectures are right, this boy would stay there indefinitely."

"I don't know," said McClintock.

"But you said you weren't particular. Moreover, he's a Yale University man, and he'd be good company."

"What's he know about copra and native talk?"

"Nothing, probably; but I'll wager he'll pick it all up fast enough."

"A fugitive."

"But that's the point-I don't know. But supposing he is? Supposing he made but one misstep? Your island would be a haven of security. I know something about men."

"I agree to that. But it strikes me there's a nigger in the woodpile somewhere, as you Yankees say. Why are you so anxious?"

"Oh, if you can't see your way...."

"I'll have a look-see before I make any decision. It's your eagerness that bothers me. You seem to want this chap out of Canton."

The doctor hesitated, puffing his tobacco hastily. "There's a young woman."

"I remember now!" interrupted McClintock. "This Enschede-the missioner. One of his converted Kanakas dropped in one day. He called Enschede the Bellower. Seems Enschede's daughter ran away and left him, and he's combing the islands in search of her. He's a hundred miles sou'-east of me."

"Well, this young lady I was about to describe," said the doctor, "is Enschede's daughter."

McClintock whistled. "Oho!" he said. "So she got away as far as this, eh? But where does she come in?"

The doctor recounted that side of the tale. "And so I want the boy out of the way," he concluded. "She in intensely impressionable and romantic, and probably she is giving the chap qualities he doesn't possess. All the talk in the world would not describe Ruth. You have to see her to understand."

"And what are you going to do with her, supposing I'm fool enough to take this boy with me?"

"Send her to my people, in case she cannot find her aunt."

"I see. Afraid there'll be a love-affair. Well, I'll have a look-see at this young De Maupassant. I know faces. Down in my part of the world it's all a man has to go by. But if he's in bed, how