The Night-Born Read online

  UNDER THE DECK AWNINGS

  "CAN any man--a gentleman, I mean--call a woman a pig?"

  The little man flung this challenge forth to the whole group, thenleaned back in his deck chair, sipping lemonade with an air commingledof certitude and watchful belligerence. Nobody made answer. They wereused to the little man and his sudden passions and high elevations.

  "I repeat, it was in my presence that he said a certain lady, whom noneof you knows, was a pig. He did not say swine. He grossly said that shewas a pig. And I hold that no man who is a man could possibly make sucha remark about any woman."

  Dr. Dawson puffed stolidly at his black pipe. Matthews, with kneeshunched up and clasped by his arms, was absorbed in the flight of agunie. Sweet, finishing his Scotch and soda, was questing about with hiseyes for a deck steward.

  "I ask you, Mr. Treloar, can any man call any woman a pig?"

  Treloar, who happened to be sitting next to him, was startled by theabruptness of the attack, and wondered what grounds he had ever giventhe little man to believe that he could call a woman a pig.

  "I should say," he began his hesitant answer, "that it--er--depends onthe--er--the lady."

  The little man was aghast.

  "You mean...?" he quavered.

  "That I have seen female humans who were as bad as pigs--and worse."

  There was a long pained silence. The little man seemed withered by thecoarse brutality of the reply. In his face was unutterable hurt and woe.

  "You have told of a man who made a not nice remark and you haveclassified him," Treloar said in cold, even tones. "I shall now tellyou about a woman--I beg your pardon--a lady, and when I have finishedI shall ask you to classify her. Miss Caruthers I shall call her,principally for the reason that it is not her name. It was on a P. & O.boat, and it occurred neither more nor less than several years ago.

  "Miss Caruthers was charming. No; that is not the word. She was amazing.She was a young woman, and a lady. Her father was a certain highofficial whose name, if I mentioned it, would be immediately recognizedby all of you. She was with her mother and two maids at the time, goingout to join the old gentleman wherever you like to wish in the East.

  "She, and pardon me for repeating, was amazing. It is the one adequateword. Even the most minor adjectives applicable to her are bound to besheer superlatives. There was nothing she could not do better than anywoman and than most men. Sing, play--bah!--as some rhetorician oncesaid of old Nap, competition fled from her. Swim! She could have madea fortune and a name as a public performer. She was one of those rarewomen who can strip off all the frills of dress, and in simple swimmingsuit be more satisfying beautiful. Dress! She was an artist.

  "But her swimming. Physically, she was the perfect woman--you knowwhat I mean, not in the gross, muscular way of acrobats, but in all thedelicacy of line and fragility of frame and texture. And combined withthis, strength. How she could do it was the marvel. You know the wonderof a woman's arm--the fore arm, I mean; the sweet fading away fromrounded biceps and hint of muscle, down through small elbow and firmsoft swell to the wrist, small, unthinkably small and round and strong.This was hers. And yet, to see her swimming the sharp quick Englishoverhand stroke, and getting somewhere with it, too, was--well, Iunderstand anatomy and athletics and such things, and yet it was amystery to me how she could do it.

  "She could stay under water for two minutes. I have timed her. No manon board, except Dennitson, could capture as many coins as she with asingle dive. On the forward main-deck was a big canvas tank with sixfeet of sea-water. We used to toss small coins into it. I have seen herdive from the bridge deck--no mean feat in itself--into that six-feetof water, and fetch up no less than forty-seven coins, scatteredwilly-nilly over the whole bottom of the tank. Dennitson, a quiet youngEnglishman, never exceeded her in this, though he made it a point alwaysto tie her score.

  "She was a sea-woman, true. But she was a land-woman, ahorsewoman--a--she was the universal woman. To see her, all softness ofsoft dress, surrounded by half a dozen eager men, languidly careless ofthem all or flashing brightness and wit on them and at them and throughthem, one would fancy she was good for nothing else in the world.At such moments I have compelled myself to remember her score offorty-seven coins from the bottom of the swimming tank. But that wasshe, the everlasting, wonder of a woman who did all things well.

  "She fascinated every betrousered human around her. She had me--and Idon't mind confessing it--she bad me to heel along with the rest. Youngpuppies and old gray dogs who ought to have known better--oh, they allcame up and crawled around her skirts and whined and fawned when shewhistled. They were all guilty, from young Ardmore, a pink cherub ofnineteen outward bound for some clerkship in the Consular Service, toold Captain Bentley, grizzled and sea-worn, and as emotional, to lookat, as a Chinese joss. There was a nice middle-aged chap, Perkins, Ibelieve, who forgot his wife was on board until Miss Caruthers sent himto the right about and back where he belonged.

  "Men were wax in her hands. She melted them, or softly molded them, orincinerated them, as she pleased. There wasn't a steward, even, grandand remote as she was, who, at her bidding, would have hesitated tosouse the Old Man himself with a plate of soup. You have all seen suchwomen--a sort of world's desire to all men. As a man-conqueror she wassupreme. She was a whip-lash, a sting and a flame, an electric spark.Oh, believe me, at times there were flashes of will that scorchedthrough her beauty and seduction and smote a victim into blank andshivering idiocy and fear.

  "And don't fail to mark, in the light of what is to come, that she wasa prideful woman. Pride of race, pride of caste, pride of sex, pride ofpower--she had it all, a pride strange and wilful and terrible.

  "She ran the ship, she ran the voyage, she ran everything, and she ranDennitson. That he had outdistanced the pack even the least wise of usadmitted. That she liked him, and that this feeling was growing, therewas not a doubt. I am certain that she looked on him with kinder eyesthan she had ever looked with on man before. We still worshiped, andwere always hanging about waiting to be whistled up, though we knew thatDennitson was laps and laps ahead of us. What might have happened weshall never know, for we came to Colombo and something else happened.

  "You know Colombo, and how the native boys dive for coins in theshark-infested bay. Of course, it is only among the ground sharks andfish sharks that they venture. It is almost uncanny the way they knowsharks and can sense the presence of a real killer--a tiger shark, forinstance, or a gray nurse strayed up from Australian waters. Let such ashark appear, and, long before the passengers can guess, every mother'sson of them is out of the water in a wild scramble for safety.

  "It was after tiffin, and Miss Caruthers was holding her usual courtunder the deck-awnings. Old Captain Bentley had just been whistledup, and had granted her what he never granted before... norsince--permission for the boys to come up on the promenade deck. Yousee, Miss Caruthers was a swimmer, and she was interested. She took upa collection of all our small change, and herself tossed it overside,singly and in handfuls, arranging the terms of the contests, chiding amiss, giving extra rewards to clever wins, in short, managing the wholeexhibition.

  "She was especially keen on their jumping. You know, jumping feet-firstfrom a height, it is very difficult to hold the body perpendicularlywhile in the air. The center of gravity of the male body is high, andthe tendency is to overtopple. But the little beggars employed a methodwhich she declared was new to her and which she desired to learn.Leaping from the davits of the boat-deck above, they plunged downward,their faces and shoulders bowed forward, looking at the water. And onlyat the last moment did they abruptly straighten up and enter the watererect and true.

  "It was a pretty sight. Their diving was not so good, though there wasone of them who was excellent at it, as he was in all the other stunts.Some white man must have taught him, for he made the proper swan diveand did it as beautifully as I have ever seen it. You know, headfirstinto the water, from a great height, the problem is to enter the wat
erat the perfect angle. Miss the angle and it means at the least a twistedback and injury for life. Also, it has meant death for many a bungler.But this boy could do it--seventy feet I know he cleared in one divefrom the rigging--clenched hands on chest, head thrown back, sailingmore like a bird, upward and out, and out and down, body flat on the airso that if it struck the surface in that position it would be split inhalf like a herring. But the moment before the water is reached, thehead drops forward, the hands go out and lock the arms in an arch inadvance of the head, and the body curves gracefully downward and entersthe water just right.

  "This the boy did, again and again, to the delight of all of us, butparticularly of Miss Caruthers. He could not have been a moment overtwelve or thirteen, yet he was by far the cleverest of the gang. He wasthe favorite of his crowd, and its leader. Though there were a numberolder than he, they acknowledged his chieftaincy. He was a beautifulboy, a lithe young god in breathing bronze, eyes wide apart, intelligentand daring, a bubble, a mote, a beautiful flash and sparkle of life. Youhave seen wonderful glorious creatures--animals, anything, a leopard,a horse-restless, eager, too much alive ever to be still, silken ofmuscle, each slightest movement a benediction of grace, every actionwild, untrammeled, and over all spilling out that intense vitality, thatsheen and luster of living light. The boy had it. Life poured out of himalmost in an effulgence. His skin glowed with it. It burned in his eyes.I swear I could almost hear it crackle from him. Looking at him, it wasas if a whiff of ozone came to one's nostrils--so fresh and young washe, so resplendent with health, so wildly wild.

  "This was the boy. And it was he who gave the alarm in the midst of thesport. The boys made a dash of it for the gangway platform, swimming thefastest strokes they knew, pellmell, floundering and splashing, frightin their faces, clambering out with jumps and surges, any way to getout, lending one another a hand to safety, till all were strung alongthe gangway and peering down into the water.

  "'What is the matter?' asked Miss Caruthers.

  "'A shark, I fancy,' Captain Bentley answered. 'Lucky little beggarsthat he didn't get one of them.'

  "'Are they afraid of sharks?' she asked.

  "'Aren't you?' he asked back."

  She shuddered, looked overside at the water, and made a move.

  "'Not for the world would I venture where a shark might be,' she said,and shuddered again. 'They are horrible! Horrible!'

  "The boys came up on the promenade deck, clustering close to the railand worshiping Miss Caruthers who had flung them such a wealth ofbacksheesh. The performance being over, Captain Bentley motioned to themto clear out. But she stopped him.

  "'One moment, please, Captain. I have always understood that the nativesare not afraid of sharks.'

  "She beckoned the boy of the swan dive nearer to her, and signed tohim to dive over again. He shook his head, and along with all his crewbehind him laughed as if it were a good joke.

  "'Shark,' he volunteered, pointing to the water.

  "'No,' she said. 'There is no shark.'

  "But he nodded his head positively, and the boys behind him nodded withequal positiveness.

  "'No, no, no,' she cried. And then to us, 'Who'll lend me a half-crownand a sovereign!'

  "Immediately the half dozen of us were presenting her with crowns andsovereigns, and she accepted the two coins from young Ardmore.

  "She held up the half-crown for the boys to see. But there was no eagerrush to the rail preparatory to leaping. They stood there grinningsheepishly. She offered the coin to each one individually, and each,as his turn came, rubbed his foot against his calf, shook his head,and grinned. Then she tossed the half-crown overboard. With wistful,regretful faces they watched its silver flight through the air, but notone moved to follow it.

  "'Don't do it with the sovereign,' Dennitson said to her in a low voice.

  "She took no notice, but held up the gold coin before the eyes of theboy of the swan dive.

  "'Don't,' said Captain Bentley. 'I wouldn't throw a sick cat oversidewith a shark around.'

  "But she laughed, bent on her purpose, and continued to dazzle the boy.

  "'Don't tempt him,' Dennitson urged. 'It is a fortune to him, and hemight go over after it.'

  "'Wouldn't YOU?' she flared at him. 'If I threw it?'"

  This last more softly.

  Dennitson shook his head.

  "'Your price is high,' she said. 'For how many sovereigns would you go?'

  "'There are not enough coined to get me overside,' was his answer.

  "She debated a moment, the boy forgotten in her tilt with Dennitson.

  "'For me?' she said very softly.

  "'To save your life--yes. But not otherwise.'

  "She turned back to the boy. Again she held the coin before his eyes,dazzling him with the vastness of its value. Then she made as to tossit out, and, involuntarily, he made a half-movement toward the rail,but was checked by sharp cries of reproof from his companions. There wasanger in their voices as well.

  "'I know it is only fooling,' Dennitson said. 'Carry it as far as youlike, but for heaven's sake don't throw it.'

  "Whether it was that strange wilfulness of hers, or whether she doubtedthe boy could be persuaded, there is no telling. It was unexpected toall of us. Out from the shade of the awning the coin flashed goldenin the blaze of sunshine and fell toward the sea in a glittering arch.Before a hand could stay him, the boy was over the rail and curvingbeautifully downward after the coin. Both were in the air at the sametime. It was a pretty sight. The sovereign cut the water sharply, and atthe very spot, almost at the same instant, with scarcely a splash, theboy entered.

  "From the quicker-eyed black boys watching, came an exclamation. We wereall at the railing. Don't tell me it is necessary for a shark to turn onits back. That one did not. In the clear water, from the height we wereabove it, we saw everything. The shark was a big brute, and with onedrive he cut the boy squarely in half.

  "There was a murmur or something from among us--who made it I did notknow; it might have been I. And then there was silence. Miss Carutherswas the first to speak. Her face was deathly white.

  "'I never dreamed,' she said, and laughed a short, hysterical laugh.

  "All her pride was at work to give her control. She turned weakly towardDennitson, and then, on from one to another of us. In her eyes was aterrible sickness, and her lips were trembling. We were brutes--oh, Iknow it, now that I look back upon it. But we did nothing.

  "'Mr. Dennitson,' she said, 'Tom, won't you take me below!'

  "He never changed the direction of his gaze, which was the bleakest Ihave ever seen in a man's face, nor did he move an eyelid. He took acigarette from his case and lighted it. Captain Bentley made a nastysound in his throat and spat overboard. That was all; that and thesilence.

  "She turned away and started to walk firmly down the deck. Twenty feetaway, she swayed and thrust a hand against the wall to save herself. Andso she went on, supporting herself against the cabins and walking veryslowly." Treloar ceased. He turned his head and favored the little manwith a look of cold inquiry.

  "Well," he said finally. "Classify her."

  The little man gulped and swallowed.

  "I have nothing to say," he said. "I have nothing whatever to say."