Chapter XXXI: Light Relief

"May I come in?" said Capper.

Maud started. She had been sitting huddled over the fire for what seemed like countless ages, listening with straining nerves to every sound overhead and sometimes shrinking and trembling at what she heard. Jake had gone out long since to the stables, and she had been thankful to see him go. His very presence was intolerable to her just then.

At the sound of Capper's voice she turned an ashen face. "Say, now," he said, in a tone of kindly chiding, "you've been scaring yourself, Mrs. Bolton; and if that's not the silliest game under the sun, you may call me a nigger."

She rose to receive him, trying to force her quivering lips to practical speech. But she could only articulate, "I heard him cry out several times. Does he want me?"

"Not yet," said Capper. He laid a very steady hand upon her shoulder. "Leave him alone for a little! He'll pull himself together best alone. He's got the spunk all right."

She stood still under his hand, piteously awaiting the information for which she could not bring herself to ask. He was looking at her keenly, she knew; but she could not face his look. She could have been strong had strength been essential, but the need for it seemed to have gone.

Bunny no longer leaned upon her sustaining love.

"Come, now, I want a straight talk with you," the great doctor said. "I want to understand your point of view if you will be gracious enough to expound it to me."

She made a pathetic attempt to laugh. "Do you think you can cure him, Doctor?" she said.

Capper laughed too with a species of grim exultation. "Is that what troubles you? If that's all, I guess I can soon set your mind at rest. I can cure him absolutely--within three months. But I shall want your co-operation. Can I count on that?"

His hand pressed upon her with something of insistence. His yellow face looked searchingly, with an odd elation into hers. She met his look reluctantly, and became dominated by it.

"Of course you can count upon it," she said.

He nodded, pulling restlessly at his beard with his free hand. "To what extent, I wonder? Are you keen?"

"Of course I am keen," she said, almost with indignation. He stood silent a moment, his hand still upon her shoulder. Then, "Mrs. Bolton," he said, "do you know your young brother has got a curious notion into his head that you don't want him to be made sound?"

"Ah, but that is a mistake!" she said quickly.

"Is it a mistake?" said Capper. "No, don't answer! Why should you? But it's curious that I should have sensed the same myself the moment I saw you. However, if you tell me it is not so, I shall take your word for it. But at the same time I think I begin to see your point of view. Without the care of him you would feel lost for a bit. Life might be rather difficult. Isn't that so?"

She laughed somewhat tremulously. "I think I have always found life difficult. But lately--just lately--" She paused in uncertainty.

"Ah!" said Capper. "Maybe you're up against it. But you've got solid ground to stand on. You may take my word for that, because I happen to know."

He spoke with a kindness that went straight to her heart. Almost involuntarily she put her hand into his, feeling the long, active fingers close upon it with a sense of security that was infinitely comforting.

"Did Jake ever tell you the foundation of our friendship?" he asked her suddenly.

She shook her head.

"It's an interesting story," Capper said. "P'raps you'd like to hear it."

Maud was silent.

He proceeded as if she had answered in the affirmative. "It was on a dark night in the Atlantic ten years ago. Do you remember the wreck of the _Hyperion_? No, maybe you wouldn't. She ran into a submerged iceberg and was nearly torn in two. I was knocked down by the shock and got jammed against a locker in the saloon. It was a case of every man for himself, and I was soon left to my fate. But Jake--he was working his way across as ship's carpenter--came back on his own to see if there were anyone left below, and found me, wedged there in the wreckage. We were settling down fast, the water was over our knees, and I told him to look out for himself; but he wouldn't. I cursed him for a fool, I remember." Capper's yellow face was strangely alight; his fingers gripped hers tensely. "But that didn't make any difference. He had no time to go and get any implements to work with, so he just set to with his hands and ripped and tore at the wood till at last it splintered and he got me free. He worked like a Titan. I've never forgotten. He got me out just in time, Heaven knows how. The water was above his waist before he'd done, and I was on the verge of drowning. But he did it, and more also. He grabbed me up out of that death-trap, as if I had been a priceless possession of his own. He dragged me upon deck and roped me to him because I was too damaged to help myself. And when we went down, as we very soon did, we sank together and we came up together, and he managed at last to get me to a boat. Now you'll never get him to speak of that episode, but it's about the finest piece of work I've ever come across. The man was utterly unknown to me and I to him. Yet he never thought of passing me by, but just kept on till he'd saved my life. Not a thought to his own safety, mark you. He wasn't out for that. And he wasn't out for reward either. When I offered him money later he just laughed in a purring sort of fashion and told me to keep it for some chap who had failed. 'We don't all of us win out on the hundredth chance,' he said. 'Thank the high gods, not me!' I saw he meant it, so of course I let him have his way. But it's been a sort of bond between us ever since--a bond that stretches but never breaks."

He ceased to speak, ceased also to hold her hand. Maud's face was turned towards him, her blue eyes were intently fixed upon his. She said nothing whatever, and there fell a silence that was curiously intimate between them.

Capper broke it at length. "He's been a bit of a rover, but I've never quite lost sight of him since that night. When I make a friend like that, I can't afford to lose him again. But I've never had a chance of doing him a service till now. He's a married man and considerably more civilized than he was in those days. But I have a notion that there's a leaven of the wild ass still in his composition. That's why I'm afraid you may not realize that he's gold all through--all through." He paused a moment, looking at her quizzically; then: "By way of light relief," he said, "I guess you know the fascinating story of the princess and the frog. She had to take the beast as he was, and even give him her pillow o' nights. But only when she struck at last and threw him against the wall did she find out that she'd caught a prince after all. I guess the man who wrote that story was a student of human nature. It's a comic story anyway."

Maud was laughing. Somehow, inexplicably, the man had eased her burden. "I don't think you are presumptuous, Doctor," she said. "I think you are very kind."

"It's mighty fine of you to take that view," said Capper, with a tug at his yellow beard. "I shall do my best to deserve it."