Where was Denny? The question let loose in her heart and mind all that was
emotional, at the same time enchaining her to the spot where she stood.
Denny! Why, she loved Denny! And she had not known it consciously until
this moment. Because some presciential instinct warned her that Denny was
either dead or badly hurt!
The narrowness of the passage gave Cleigh one advantage--none of the men
could get behind him. Sometimes he surged forward a little, sometimes he
stepped back, but never back of the line he had set for himself. By and by
Jane forced her gaze to the deck to see what it was that held him like a
rock. What she saw was only the actual of what she had already
envisaged--Denny, either dead or badly hurt!
What had happened was this: Six of the crew, those spirits who had
succumbed to the secret domination of the man Flint--the drinkers--had
decided to celebrate the last night on the Wanderer. Their argument was
that old man Cleigh wouldn't miss a few bottles, and that it would be a
long time between drinks when they returned to the States; and never might
they again have so easy a chance to taste the juice of the champagne
grape. Where was the harm? Hadn't they behaved like little Fauntleroys for
weeks? They did not want any trouble--just half a dozen bottles, and back
to the forepeak to empty them. That wouldn't kill the old man. They
wouldn't even have to force the door of the dry-stores; they had already
learned that they could tickle the lock out of commission by the use of a
bent wire. Young, restless, and mischievous--none of them bad. A bit of
laughter and a few bars of song--that was all they wanted. No doubt the
affair would have blown itself out harmlessly but for the fact that Chance
had other ideas. She has a way with her, this Pagan Madonna, of taking off
the cheerful motley of a jest and substituting the Phrygian cap of terror,
subitaneously.
Dennison had lain down on the lounge in the main salon. Restless, unhappy,
bitter toward his father, he had lain there counting the throbs of the
engine to that point where they mysteriously cease to register and one has
to wait a minute or two to pick up the throb again.
For years he had lived more or less in the open, which attunes the human
ear to sounds that generally pass unnoticed. All at once he was sure that
he had heard the tinkle of glass, but he waited. The tinkle was repeated.
Instinct led him at once to the forward passage, and one glance down this
was sufficient. From the thought of a drunken orgy--the thing he had been
fearing since the beginning of this mad voyage--his thought leaped to
Jane. Thus his subsequent acts were indirectly in her defense.