The Pagan Madonna - Page 77/141

The third day out they were well below Formosa, which had been turned on a

wide arc. The sea was blue now, quiescent, waveless; there was only the

eternal roll. Still Jane could not help comparing the sea with the

situation--the devil was slumbering. What if he waked?

Time after time she tried to force her thoughts into the reality of this

remarkable cruise, but it was impossible. Romance was always smothering

her, edging her off, when she approached the sinister. Perhaps if she had

heard ribald songs, seen evidence of drunkenness; if the crew had loitered

about and been lacking in respect, she would have been able to grasp the

actuality; but so far the idea persisted that this could not be anything

more than a pleasure cruise. Piracy? Where was it?

So she measured her actions accordingly, read, played the phonograph, went

here and there over the yacht, often taking her stand in the bow and

peering down the cutwater to watch the antics of some humorous porpoise or

to follow the smother of spray where the flying fish broke. In fact, she

conducted herself exactly as she would have done on board a passenger

ship. There were moments when she was honestly bored.

Piracy! This was an established fact. Cunningham and his men had stepped

outside the pale of law in running off with the Wanderer. But piracy

without drunken disorder, piracy that wiped its feet on the doormat and

hung its hat on the rack! There was a touch of the true farce in it.

Hadn't Cunningham himself confessed that the whole affair was a joke?

Round two o'clock on the afternoon of the third day Jane, for the moment

alone in her chair, heard the phonograph--the sextet from Lucia. She left

her chair, looked down through the open transom and discovered Dennison

cranking the machine. He must have seen her shadow, for he glanced up

quickly.

He crooked a finger which said, "Come on down!" She made a negative sign

and withdrew her head.

Here she was again on the verge of wild laughter. Donizetti! Pirates!

Glass beads for which Cleigh had voyaged sixteen thousand miles! A father

and son who ignored each other! She choked down this desire to laugh,

because she was afraid it might end suddenly in hysteria and tears. She

returned to her chair, and there was the father arranging himself

comfortably. He had a book.

"Would you like me to read a while to you?" she offered.

"Will you? You see," he confessed, "I'm troubled with insomnia. If I read

by myself I only become interested in the book, but if someone reads aloud

it makes me drowsy."