Part 60

"When he gets to 'arbor, of course there will be tugboat visitors and customs officers arskin' for 'im, won't they?"

The other cast half an eye on Lavis. "When the clarss will look down on the tops o' their heads and remark: 'What a mob of 'em there! How many of 'em did you cart along this time, Captain?' I fancy he'll have only to cock his ear up to hear 'em."

"Bloody foreigners, most of 'em."

Lavis returned to the Polish mother. "Come," he said. "There is another way out of here."

"Please, sir, the big, jolly Irisher--what is she saying?"

Lavis listened to the big, jolly Irish girl, who, however, was not now so jolly. Lavis had seen a thousand like her gathering kelp on the west Irish coast--tall, deep-bosomed, barefooted girls with black hair to the waist, and glorious dark eyes. She was standing on the covered hatch, and pointing at the moment to one of the ship's men who had passed.

"Wet to his knees. Where is it he should be getting wet to his knees? And another one. And where is it they are going? And is it we that has to stay here till that kind"--she pointed to the two stewards on guard at the steerage gate--"are pleased to let us out? Haven't we as much right to our lives as them that lives higher up? Five hundred of us here, women and childther, and which of them above cares whether we live or die?"

She pointed to a woman with her brood clinging to her hands and skirts. "Look at that poor woman with her five childther. And that poor little thing"--she indicated the Polish woman--"that has a husband waiting for herself and her baby in New York. And that other one, and that one, and that one. God in heaven, mothers with their children to their breasts, and not to be given a chance to live at all! If 'tis a mother I was, and a child to my breast, it's not images of men in uniforms would hinder me from saving my baby this night! And myself with my baby, if my baby was in need of me, an' I could."

The two ship's men on guard were gazing, not at the steerage, but up at the higher decks, when a dozen or more of the steerage women swept across the deck. "Grand work for strong men," the Irish girl cried, "preventin' poor women and childther from looking out for themselves. It's not even shadows of men ye are!" and with that bowled the near one over; and her companions, sweeping up behind her, bowled the other one over. The two stewards had a look up and a look down, and then, with an outraged look at each other, they flew after the disappearing steerage women.

"Come, now." Lavis took the Polish mother's hand.

"Sh-h!" she warned. "He is sleeping."

Lavis, nodding that he saw, helped her carefully to her feet, and led her through the now unguarded gate, and by way of several ladders, to that high deck where the boats were.

A boat was all but ready for lowering. The last woman had been crowded into it. The Polish woman removed her shawl and wrapped it around her baby. "Baby!" Lavis could hear her saying over and over again in Polish. "Oh, my baby! my baby boy!" but softly, so as not to waken him. She stepped into the circle of light which surrounded the boat and the ship's people. "Sa-ave beb-by," she said in English, and held shawl and baby up at the end of her outstretched arms.

A rough hand gripped her by the shoulder.

"Stand back! Stand back, you! You've no right here! Saloon goes first, don't y' understand?"

She stepped back in discouragement.

The men, busy at the falls, had swung the boat clear and were about to lower away. "Now!" said Lavis sharply in her ear, and pointed to the boat.

"Ah-h," she murmured, and darted under the arms of the ship's men and thrust her baby into the bosom of the nearest woman in the life-boat. "Save beb-by!" she breathed, and darted back into the crowd.

"I meant yourself also," said Lavis reproachfully.

"No, no, no--they would take baby, but me--no." Her eyes followed the lowered boat.

III

When Cadogan went forward he wished to see something other than the loom of the low-lying, misty, white berg against the sky. He peered down over the bow. He bent low his ear to catch the purr of eddying waters.

He turned sharply on his heel, and went below--deep below.

* * * * *

When he reappeared he went straight to his stateroom. Here, in the cabin sleeping quarters below the promenade deck, nothing disturbing had happened. When such passengers as were about to turn in became aware of that slow lurch and easy stoppage, they had stepped out into the passageways, and asked each other what was the matter; which question was answered almost immediately by ship's people who came hurrying among them with reassuring words. "It's nothing, ladies and gentlemen. If you will go back to your rooms, ladies and gentlemen--it's nothing." And they had gone back to their rooms.

Cadogan turned on the light in his room, and hauled out his suit-case. He found a pad of paper, found also a fountain pen, shook the pen to make sure there was ink in it, let down the covering of the wash-basin for a desk, laid thereon a small photograph of a beautiful face and head en profile, and began to write. He set down "Dear," and paused. He smiled faintly, wrote "Helen" after it, and went unhesitatingly on:

This afternoon, over our tea, as I concluded one of my almost endless monologues, you may remember you said, "You'd better watch out or some day you will be having your last adventure." Well, I have had it. Not with this ship--no, no. My last adventure was a dream of you. I was on the dock, about to board a steamer for South America, when I saw you step out of your cab. And so I came aboard here. I am glad I came.

You brushed me in passing, as I stood beside the gangplank trying not to stare at you; but you did not know that--did you?--although for an instant I thought you did. It was the conceit of youth, that thought.