The Pagan Madonna - Page 54/141

"Better not talk any more," she advised. "You'll be getting thirsty."

"I'm already that."

"You're a brave man, captain," she said, her tone altering from gayety to

seriousness. "Don't worry about me. I've always been able to take care of

myself, though I've never been confronted with this kind of a situation

before. Frankly, I don't like it. But I suspect that your father will have

more respect for us if we laugh at him. Has he a sense of humour?"

"My word for it, he has! What could be more humorous than tying me up in

this fashion and putting me in the cabin that used to be mine? Ten

thousand for a string of glass beads! I say, Jane!"

"What?"

"When he comes back tell him you might consider twenty thousand, just to

get an idea what the thing is worth."

"I'll promise that."

"All right. Then I'll try to snooze a bit. Getting stuffy lying on my

back."

"The brute! If I could only help you!"

"You have--you are--you will!"

He turned on his side, his face toward the door. His arms and legs began

to sting with the sensation known as sleep. He was glad his father had

overheard the initial conversation. A wave of terror ran over him at the

thought of being set ashore while Jane went on. Still he could have sent a

British water terrier in hot pursuit.

Jane sat down and took inventory. She knew but little about antiques--rugs

and furniture--but she was full of inherent love of the beautiful. The

little secretary upon which she had written the order on the consulate was

an exquisite lowboy of old mahogany of dull finish. On the floor were

camel saddle-bays, Persian in pattern. On the panel over the lowboy was a

small painting, a foot broad and a foot and a half long. It was old--she

could tell that much. It was a portrait, tender and quaint. She would have

gasped had she known that it was worth a cover of solid gold. It was a

Holbein, The Younger, for which Cleigh some years gone had paid Cunningham

sixteen thousand dollars. Where and how Cunningham had acquired it was not

open history.

An hour passed. By and by she rose and tiptoed to the partition. She held

her ear against the panel, and as she heard nothing she concluded that

Denny--why not?--was asleep. Next she gazed out of the port. It was

growing dark outside, overcast. It would rain again probably. A drab sky,

a drab shore. She saw a boat filled with those luscious vegetables which

wrote typhus for any white person who ate them. A barge went by piled high

with paddy bags--rice in the husk--with Chinamen at the forward and stern

sweeps. She wondered if these poor yellow people had ever known what it

was to play?