The Pagan Madonna - Page 133/141

Cunningham put his hand on the rail in preparation for the first step,

when Jane appeared with bandages, castile soap, the last of her stearate

of zinc, absorbent cotton and a basin of water.

"What's this--a clinic?" he asked.

"You can't go aboard that awful-looking ship without letting me give you a

fresh dressing," she declared.

"Lord love you, angel of mercy, I'm all right!"

"It was for me. Even now you are in pain. Please!"

"Pain?" he repeated.

For one more touch of her tender hands! To carry the thought of that

through the long, hot night! Perhaps it was his ever-bubbling sense of

malice that decided him--to let her minister to him, with the Cleighs on

the bridge to watch and boil with indignation. He nodded, and she followed

him to the hatch, where he sat down.

Dennison saw his father's hands strain on the bridge rail, the presage of

a gathering storm. He intervened by a rough seizure of Cleigh's arm.

"Listen to me, Father! Not a word of reproach out of you when she comes

up--God bless her! Anything in pain! It's her way, and I'll not have her

reproached. God alone knows what the beggar saved her from last night! If

you utter a word I'll cash that twenty thousand--it's mine now--and you'll

never see either of us after Manila!"

Cleigh gently disengaged his arm.

"Sonny, you've got a man's voice under your shirt these days. All right.

Run down and give the new crew the once-over, and see if they have a

wireless man among them."

* * * * *

Sunset--a scarlet horizon and an old-rose sea. For a little while longer

the trio on the bridge could discern a diminishing black speck off to the

southeast. The Wanderer was boring along a point north of east, Manila

way. The speck soon lost its blackness and became violet, and then

magically the streaked horizon rose up behind the speck and obliterated

it.

"The poor benighted thing!" said Jane. "God didn't mean that he should be

this kind of a man."

"Does any of us know what God wants of us?" asked Cleigh, bitterly.

"He wants men like you who pretend to the world that they're

granite-hearted when they're not. Ever since we started, Denny, I've been

trying to recall where I'd seen your father before; and it came a little

while ago. I saw him only once--a broken child he'd brought to the

hospital to be mended. I happened to be passing through the children's

ward for some reason. He called himself Jones or Brown or Smith--I forget.

But they told me afterward that he brought on an average of four children

a month, and paid all expenses until they were ready to go forth, if not

cured at least greatly bettered. He told the chief that if anybody ever

followed him he would never come back. Your father's a hypocrite, Denny."