Chapter X: Part 10

“Roberts!” Deane spoke so sharply that he was shaken from his spell and sat more normally, looking at her now with quiet speculation. “What is it you wish me to do? I see no reason to protract a conversation so unpleasant.”

The adviser met her glance with restraint.

“My motives are misconstrued,” he said slowly. “You will forgive my naive desire to lend Martin my support?”

Again Deane’s eyes dimmed and faded. Catching his own reflection, Roberts’ pallor grew even more death-like. And again he gripped the table, his knuckles white under the transparent skin. In the opalescent mirror of the woman’s eyes he saw his image—saw the pale movement within himself. Deane, her face cruel, drove her thoughts in swift waves, building and clarifying the image until the naked picture of the man and his disease rose clearly in her mind. There was an odor of decay. Roberts half rose from his chair, slipped back into it, and leaning sideways on the table stared fixedly at her.

Terrified, she arose. In Roberts’ face there was no blood, no expression. His eyes were set and the cords of his throat made ridges in his white neck. Deane put her hands over her eyes. She knew now. Her thoughts raced.... “_He killed Carol. He wants to kill me!_” ... Without excusing herself she left the restaurant and hurried to a cab.

* * * * *

Roberts, his hands limp on the tablecloth, stared before him. He felt Deane’s movement as she left, but he remained as he was.

“Take your eyes, too!” he said aloud. His voice rose higher. “I say, take your eyes!”

Other diners looked curiously at him, smiling and nodding their heads. A small, dark woman exchanged glances with her escort.

“He’s had plenty,” she said. “I watched him and the woman. They had an argument. The man’s tight.”

Her escort regarded Roberts earnestly.

“I don’t know. It looks as though he has the horrors.”

Roberts gazed steadily at the translucent eyes floating across the table.

“All right, my dear. Stay there,” he said loudly.

The dark woman’s escort glanced at him worriedly and beckoned to a waiter.

“Say, waiter, there’s a chap over there with the jitters. He needs looking after.”

The waiter approached Roberts warily.

“Is there something you wish, sir?” he said, deferentially.

Roberts still watched the eyes. He stood up and spoke quietly.

“Very well, I shall go. You remain here.” Turning to the waiter, “My hat, quickly.”

Outside, the adviser hailed a taxi, climbed in unsteadily and directed the driver to his apartment.

Dropping his coat on the divan in the living room, he went hurriedly to the mirror and stared into it. The light on the glass wavered, a shadow appeared, and Deane’s eyes, large and transparent, materialized before him. Roberts cried out sharply.

“I told you to stay!”

He jerked around, went to a chair, sat on the edge of it and put his head in his hands, rocking gently on his toes.

“My God, Martin!—to think that I could have loved you! After all, Devaud, you’re nothing but a sailor. A hostile, bestial—” Roberts’ head jerked back and he jumped to his feet, breathing heavily. “Deane,” he panted, “you’re in this room! It won’t help to try and hide. I can locate you by your eyes. They’re in that glass there.” He pointed. “You think you know my secret. It’s a lie! It’s a dream, and you’re a lie!” He leaned against the chair, his cheeks darkening. “I’ll find Martin. Martin will be fair.... Martin—you always liked me. You didn’t deserve a job.... Take her away, Martin! I want to sleep. I can’t sleep while she’s hiding here.” He stopped speaking, a crafty expression changing his face. Tiptoeing into the bathroom, he pulled the mirror from the cabinet and holding it under his arm, crept back to the living room.

Approaching the larger glass which hung at the end of the room, he quickly drew the other mirror from under his arm and held it so that the two of them reflected into each other. Then, bursting into short, sobbing laughter, he shook the smaller glass furiously.

“There! Look at yourself! You’re sick, too!” His laughter became fiercer until his body rocked from its violence. Suddenly he stiffened. The mirror dropped from his hands, the glass splintering, and Roberts fell.

_CHAPTER XXVII_

Martin and Rio walked along the waterfront in silence. All activity seemed suspended. It was a lonely and a menacing panorama to both men who realized that the very heart of the city had been pierced. Imported goods and products for exportation were lying quiet, slowing up the commerce of the world. Union longshoremen and truckmen had walked out with the striking seamen; and the desperate efforts of independent groups could not compensate for the loss of regimentated teamwork and good fellowship, so vital. Policemen patrolled each pier to prevent acts of violence between organized and unorganized Labor. Between the entrances, the scattered trucks rolled about like confused ants.

“Damn the governors!” said Rio, thrusting out his jaw.

“Who?”

“_Who?_” repeated Rio, in exasperation. “Capital, you bastard! Capital! _You’ve_ eaten their sour pudding and slept on their lousy blankets!—and you ask _me_ ‘who’! It’s Capital that smashes Labor!”

“Money and work,” said Martin serenely. “Money and work.”

Rio turned on him nervously.

“Cut out that speakin’ in tongues, or whatever the hell it is, Martin. I’ve heard you damn the Companies from Shanghai to Port Said. Anyway, what about the printin’ plant?”

“It’s closed. The boys walked out. That’s all.”

“Why?”

“The same reason they’re walking out everywhere—for better hours, better conditions.”

“When do they open?”

“I don’t know. There’ll be arbitration, of course. Most of the men though, have put away enough chips to ride it. I haven’t.”

“Well,” said Rio, “what are you goin’ to do?”

“I don’t know that either. I have enough left to run me for a few weeks. Then if things haven’t opened I’ll have to ship out.”

“And leave Deane with Roberts around? You told me not to mention her, but I guess it’s O.K. now.”

“Deane will be all right,” Martin nodded. “Roberts had a stroke. He can’t move.”

“Roberts? A stroke?” Rio looked pleased, and there was a definite satisfaction in his voice as he continued. “Maybe that’s why my idea didn’t work. I went to his place that night, and the next. The second time he was home, but there was lights....” Rio shook his head wisely. “And I work in the dark,” he added, looking at Martin. “But about the plant—can’t you get another job ashore?”

“I doubt it. I don’t know another trade.”

“Then what the hell good did college do you?”

“College? That’s another one I can’t answer,” said Martin. “I was too young. The world turned backwards. I hated my young, fresh hair and the child in my face. I needed the forest and the open sea—an insane wind that held my breath. I hated pedantry, and the inquisitive eyes of girls.”

“What else?” asked Rio.

“It’s too old to hurt now,” answered Martin.

“Go on,” said Rio.

“It wasn’t much. It taught me to drink incredibly bad gin—corrosive enough that it’s a wonder I have any guts left. Why go on?”

“I know,” said Rio. “You had it your way, and I had it mine. But it was all the same.... I had the wind you longed for, and it put scissors in my throat! Let’s forget it. Look!” He pointed to a wharf near them. One group of men walking along it held signs in the air. Another, grimly silent, stood by the entrance to the warehouse pier, watching those who came out and those who entered. “We’ll forget our trouble in _that_ scramble, Martin! It looks like our boys have tied up a ship.”

“Let’s see. That’s Pier V7. What ship’s that?”

“The _Leana_. She makes Pedro, and Puget Sound, I think.”

One of the men who were carrying signs stopped when he saw them.

“Howdy, Rio.”

“Hello, Brick. What’s the jibe?”

“They paid us off an’ are tryin’ to ship a fink crew,” answered the man, hitching the sign a little higher. “We dumped the mattresses over the side last night comin’ in. The bedbugs had made ’em Snug Harbor. I slept on the hatch off the coast of Mexico. And God!—what roaches!”

“Hmm,” said Rio, and he and Martin walked on.

They had started uptown when a man came out of the warehouse. One of the union men who was watching the doorway ran after him and knocked off his cap with the flat of his hand. The other tried to fight back but was smothered with punches before a policeman broke it up.

“Like old times,” said Martin.

“Yeah. Let’s go up to the Hall,” suggested Rio.

They reached South Ferry, walked to Pearl Street and went up the stairs into an old building. The room was crowded with seamen. Some of them, in chairs tilted against the wall, were sitting quietly or exchanging stories. Others were playing cards. The air was full of tobacco smoke, stale and close. Rio and Martin went to the desk. A jumpy-eyed man behind it knew them and nodded. Martin took out his book. His dues were paid to the following month, but he laid down eight more dollars.

The nervous fellow looked at him, then took the book and examined it carefully.

“I see you ain’t got in no picket duty since you left the west coast,” he said.

“No.”

“We could use a man on the line to-night.”

“I’ll be there.”

“Put me down, too,” said Rio. “I need a good sleep.”

“Yeah!” snapped the agent. “This ain’t Frisco, nor Portland, where they bat their scabby brains out. Here, the Company takes these fink bastards from the ship by car and leaves ’em in town. The boys make a few clap joints, meet the transportation and are brought back to the ship.” The agent licked his lips, showing perfect teeth, shining and yellow. “It’s silk—till they sail under.” He bit a fingernail and turned to another man.

Rio was growling when he and Martin left the Hall.

“God damn the finks,” he said.

“That’s right,” agreed Martin. “They struck me midships once. They nearly sank me.”

“You know,” said Rio, angrily, “I like you. But for Christ’s sake, don’t give me your end of the sea! You’re about as salty as lard.”

Martin smiled.

“Yes, they nearly sank me,” he repeated. “The ship was listing fourteen degrees when the bos’n ran into the fo’c’sle in his dirty underwear. He danced the ise-odori with a bottle of Saki under one arm and an ordinary seaman under the other, on a deck that would have frozen grandmother’s mittens. Now Rio, do you figure yourself a deep water sailor? Because you’ve pulled in the log on a cold night and lashed barrels to a hatch with your butt to the wind—are you sure of the ocean?... Have you ever curled a sea egg around your elbow?—kissed a barracuda over black water?—raced a shark in a harbor full of battle-wagons dumping garbage, with your own boat forty feet away against the wind? Have you winked at a sea spider and made him shuffle backwards till his legs ruffled slow sand in your face?”

“Well,” said Rio, laughing, “I told you once you were the ‘part of.’”

They were back at Pier V7. Other men were concentrating from the Hall to relieve the day pickets.

“They brought in two cars full,” said a tall fellow who had been heading the day men. He turned to Rio. “You take care of the night gang. We’ll bring down coffee. The Company is usin’ black sedans—some of the blinds was down when they pulled in. A couple of cops is standin’ by the gate so you can’t do much there. But if you divide your gang and send half of ’em up the alley a ways, you can get a sign. Hop on the runnin’ board, an’ you know what to do. Another thing. All the deck officers walked out when we was paid off except the third mate. That’s one Company man I’d like to see you get. The finks may not get no leave to-night, but the _Leana_ don’t sail for four days. If we keep a good lookout, maybe we can get a couple of the bastards. That’s all, except don’t do no drinkin’.”

“What’s that on your breath?” asked someone. “Orange juice?”

“I can hold it,” said the tall fellow.

The pickets laughed and the day men left. The night gang joined around Rio.

“I’ll take a few of you up there.” Rio pointed to a pile of dunnage. “The rest of you watch the gate. If a Company car comes, give me a light three times and get out. We’ll take care of the rest of it. Don’t talk to the cops unless they talk to you first. Keep your distance from the gate. Have you got a torch you can signal me with, Billy?”

“No, I ain’t.”

“I got mine here,” said one of the men, pulling out a flashlight.

“Give it to Billy,” said Rio. “He’s worked with me before. Remember, Billy—burn it at me three times.”

“O.K.”

It was almost dark and Rio selected his men, including Martin. They walked up the street to an old pile of lumber by a dark pier.

“Get this, boys—no knives. A club’s best, but not a piece of pipe. Work on ’em hard, but don’t kill ’em. You, Eddy—and you, Martin—an’ me’ll hop the runnin’ board. Smash the glass an’ bring her to the side. We got to work fast before brass-buttons shows up.”

“What if they’re Company officials?” asked Martin.

“_They_ won’t be here,” said Rio, amused. “But if they are, give ’em two, instead of one.”

“What’s the matter with ye, sonny?” asked a dwarf-like man with immense shoulders. “Is yer belly soft?” He glared at Martin.

“We’ll find out soon, my muscle-bound patriot,” said Martin walking toward him swiftly.

Several seamen jumped between them.

“I’ll hear one more crack from either of you, an’ I’ll bat your thick skulls together,” said Rio quietly. “Our union is split already. We got work to do, an’ you start a parade. You ain’t fit to work.”

“I’ll work,” said Martin.

“Me, too,” said the heavy seaman.

“Shake hands,” said an older man with grizzled hair and an intense, strained face.

“It was my fault,” said Martin.

“Naw, it was mine,” objected the squat fellow sheepishly as they shook hands.

“You don’t need to kiss,” said Rio sharply. Then he held up his hand. “Get this straight,” he continued. “It ain’t no joke we’re playin’. Maybe this’ll help.” He took a bottle from his pocket and passed it around, each man taking a shot of the liquor. Rio finished it and tossed the bottle under the dunnage. “It’s about time for the rats to come out if they’re goin’ ashore,” he went on. “Keep an eye to the pier.” He turned suddenly to one of the younger seamen. “You ain’t got no club.”

“My brother was killed in Detroit that way, Rio. Lemme use my fists.”

Rio turned his face aside for a moment. When he looked at the boy again it was like metal.

“Get yourself a club, buddy.”

Hesitatingly, the seaman took up a knotty piece of wood. He held it in his hands one way and then another, his face white.

One of the men came up to Rio and took him to one side. He said something in a low voice and Rio nodded. The man returned his nod and left hurriedly.

“_This is the time, dear Mother_—” hummed a seaman.

“Shut up,” said his partner.

They waited silently, watching the pier for any light. Suddenly, a man came upon them, startling them as he shuffled in and laid down a large package.

“Here it is, Rio.” The man was panting. “It’s me—Al.”

“Beer!” The men exulted quietly, peering through the early darkness.

Al now took a short automatic from his pocket and handed it to Rio.

“Drink up,” Rio said to the men.

Each man took a bottle and waited in turn for the opener except one seaman who, impatient, knocked off the cap of his bottle against a block of wood.

“Take the rest down to the men at the pier,” said Rio to Al, who shambled away noiselessly.

Someone struck a match. In the flare Rio saw Martin regarding him steadily. He grinned. It was a painful, smashing look and he didn’t take his eyes away. The match flickered out and Martin came up to him slowly.

“Watch for the lights, Eddy,” cautioned Rio, as he and Martin walked a few yards away from the lowered sounds of the men.

“So you believe, Martin, that I’d pull this?” Rio twisted the automatic in his hand. “Al got this for me. He’d eat out of my hand. Never mind why. This—belongs to Roberts. It was used one night. I got it for you.”

“You told the story?” asked Martin.

“I told no story. Al’s a thief. He does what I say, but his heart is finer than yours.”

“I don’t doubt it,” said Martin, feeling the gun and Rio’s hands in the dark. Breaking it under Rio’s wrist, he suddenly threw back his arm and spun the automatic into the river.... Vaguely he heard Rio say there were lights....

Martin looked toward the pier and saw the headlights of an automobile coming upon them. The car was gaining speed as it passed the pile of lumber. Martin, faster than the others, leaped for the running board and swung himself against the windshield glass, holding to the door-handle. His head was turned just enough to see Eddy jump behind him. Eddy missed the board. His body spun vertically against the rear fender and crashed on the pavement. Behind him, Rio was running frantically. Martin smashed his hand through the side window, feeling slivers of glass against his arm. He caught the driver by the throat and, through the sound of the motor, could hear the dark gurgle under his fingers. There was swearing and shoving inside, but Martin hurt too much to care. He pushed steadily against the lower part of the wheel until the machine swerved and tilted toward the river. It came around in a wide arc, breaking heavily on the shoulder of the pier. Then Martin heard Rio’s voice and knew that he, himself, was falling. He turned so that the back of his head would not strike the paving, and felt the rush of hot blood as his nose and mouth hit first. Instead of putting him out, it cleared his brain. He lay quietly, watching Rio swing his fist and then his club. Abstractly, he watched the other men in the crew go into action against the finks. He didn’t care....

The gorilla-like sailor with whom he had quarreled, held a bottle as though it were a club. He was snarling as he pulled a man from the car.

“So it _is_ ye, ye finkified mate! I been lookin for ye!” Martin heard him say. “I been lookin’ for ye, an’ yer damned long finger ye’ve pointed at me like a dog! God!—I’ll git that finger now!” he added hoarsely, bringing the bottle down on the fender of the car until it was split across. Savagely he threw the mate on the ground, held him by the collar and stepped on his wrist. Then, separating the man’s forefinger from the rest of his hand, he brought down the split edge of the bottle sharply above the middle knuckle.

“Wife—Wife!” cried the mate softly.

The seaman picked up the severed finger, shook it in the man’s face and flung it on the ground beside him.

“Splice it, Jack! Splice it!” He was cursing the fallen man brokenly. Martin looked away....

Then he saw the boy whose brother had been killed in Detroit. “Automobiles,” thought Martin. The boy had no club and was on his back, fighting desperately with a large man from the car. Martin crawled to his knees, not feeling his injured arm or his split chin. He stood waveringly for a moment and got to them just as the man’s broad hand was spearing the boy’s face. Martin knew that he was falling again, not fighting, as he reached them; but he dug his teeth into a fleshy neck and held on as though he were killing a snake, while the body beneath him thrashed and cried. A hard hand pulled him off. Rio was standing above him.

“It’s over, Martin. We got a car.... Come, men!”

Martin spat out blood and climbed into the automobile along with the others.

_CHAPTER XXVIII_

Martin went slowly to Roberts’ apartment house, his head lowered. His right arm was in a sling, the lower part of his mouth was bruised and split. His nose was swollen. He went up in the elevator to Roberts’ rooms and rang once. A doctor came out into the hall. For a moment the two men regarded each other speculatively. Martin saw the blue, introspective eyes, the strong turn of the chin and the gray hairline, receding deeply at the temples. The physician saw a young man with a broken, illusive face.

“I’m Martin Devaud, Doctor. I’m Roberts’ friend. I heard he asked for me.”

“I can see you, Martin,” said the physician kindly, “for I’m Roberts’ friend, too.”

Martin rubbed his cut arm and turned his eyes away.

“You can see? How far?”

The physician shook his head, but did not answer.

“This stroke,” Martin continued. “Is it serious? Is there any time to help?”

All this while, the doctor had been watching him, noticing his bruised face and strained expression, his bandaged arm.

“You seem to have been in something of a mix-up, yourself,” the physician smiled faintly. Then, of a sudden, his face became divisible with the old, tired pains and the new, sharp ones as balance. “Do you know Roberts’ condition?” he asked seriously.

“No,” said Martin. “Roberts and I quarreled, and I haven’t seen him lately.” He ran his hand over his tender chin.

The doctor looked off down the hall, and in his eyes there was now restraint born of his intimacy with pain.

“He mentions your name continually, Martin,” observed the physician. “The thought of you seems to make him desperate in the moments of lucidity which unfortunately attend his madness. And from the strange way he talks at times, one might think you had had a part in the cause of this grave illness. But such is not the case. His illness took root years ago.”

One word cried out to Martin.

“‘Madness’?—you say?”

“Yes,” said the physician. “It’s like the putrefaction of albumen. Almost like the expansion of gasses within a closed chamber. This disintegration must go on. It’s what we have here.”

Martin felt himself turning sick.

“‘Putrefaction’? Doctor?”

“Yes. Putrefaction of the cerebral mass, that most delicate and most amazing structure—a powerful gift to man.” The doctor was grave.

“What can I do?” asked Martin, horrified.

In answer, the physician shook his head and Martin knew that all was futile.

“May I see him?”

Again the doctor regarded Martin thoughtfully. It was as though he wondered whether this man’s agitated mind could view the spectacle which was soon to be presented. And Martin, waiting quietly, understood and respected this professional skepticism. At last, the physician spoke.

“Before you go in, Martin, remember that you are looking at the demanding, expansive form of paresis. Be careful!”

As Martin entered the bedroom he saw a disorientated face—a deflective rapport of Roberts with his environment—a clouding of consciousness. And as he went closer he knew that Roberts had no comprehension of detail or of situation. Martin felt completely helpless. It seemed to him that the translucent, attenuated skeleton of the adviser had wrapped its arms around him, instead of the disease. The sick man’s lips, dry and split, opened and closed in an effort to speak. The guttural tones reached Martin’s ears as though from a great distance—the words moving gently, like a broad leaf without wind.

“Martin! Martin!” Roberts’ expression became clear and defined. The immobile muscles of his face relaxed. “Martin!” he repeated. “Are you there?”

In the room was a terrible pressure.

Again he called—“Martin! Martin! Are you there?”

“Yes, Roberts, I’m here.”

The pitiful, decayed mask upon the pillow broke like a free tide. It spilled in diluted, semi-conscious tears against the linen. Roberts tried to shake the covers; but his hands stood out perpendicularly from the sides of his waist. They remained there, insensitive, incoherent, until Martin took them gently and laid them on the sheet.

Again, momentary consciousness lighted Roberts’ face. Its brightness and shrewd study shocked Martin more than any act of tension could have done.

“Do you want a confession, dear boy?” called out the sick man. “Do you want my signature?... Ha, ha!—Ho, ho!—Hee, hee, hee!...” The ghastly cry reflected from the ceiling. It wasn’t laughter, or hysteria. It was a lachrymose and untidily folded cry of remorse, torn from the swiftly hollowing brain cell.

With his left hand Martin raised his own wounded arm to his forehead. When at last he brought it down, the gauze was wet. In the interim, bright eyes shone through the window. They were mirthful, smoldering and amused—the cancerous eyes of birds. Infuriated, Martin crossed the room and pulled down the blinds. When he turned in the direction of the bed once more, Roberts’ luminous eyes were parallel with his hand which was now hanging over the edge of the covers. The constriction of the pupils was so intense—so minute that the eyes seemed blind. But the expression was one of gravest interest.

“Come, Martin! Come, Infidelity! You’re my only one. If I don’t look grotesque enough for a death scene, give me a nightcap. One with white flaps over the ears and a blue peak—laugh for me, Martin!”

“For God’s sake, Roberts—not now. I’m dying with you.”

There was a sprawling, unintelligible sound from the adviser’s lips, and then silence. Martin waited, amazed at the clarity of Roberts’ words, amazed at this strange and powerful mind, still formidable. Again the adviser looked at him.

“Die?” he asked peevishly. Then more firmly, “No you won’t, darling. Unhappy men don’t die.... Could you give me your strong, brown arm without shuddering? It would mean a great deal to me.... I can see your strong, brown arm where there’s heat and dark, flashing clouds. It’s peeling a tangerine—cutting a fruit for lips as soft as the flesh in my spine—oh, wicked!... A dark girl’s belly—the cup for your mouth. Oh, God, Martin! Your mouth—the stomach—the stench of normalcy. Before that happens, give me your arm—your clean, brown arm....”

Martin went swiftly to the bed, his eyes flickering as he sank to his knees. With his good left arm, and hiding the one stripped with bandages, he lifted the skull-like head until it was level with his own, which had begun to throb and ache.

“Here is my arm, Roberts. It is your protection and your faith,” he said.

Vapidly Roberts smiled at him.

“My faith—my own true faith.... No one believed, but I knew that you were mine!... Not even Deane believed.”

“Not even Deane,” repeated Martin, his wounded arm shaking against the silken counterpane.

Roberts’ eyes were becoming glazed.

“They’d all feel cheap, if they could see us now. Your arms around a corpse—a corpse that strikes to prove itself!” His thin hand pushed against Martin’s broken nose, falling again and again on Martin’s face which failed to recognize the pain. “You love me, though I’m defeated, my dear boy.” He raised his hand once more, but this time it dropped limply to the coverlet. Again the torn brain lost all contact, and he wandered, hesitantly.

“I come before the leisured policies of man. I have these tears, these positive notes of cruelty. Do you want to know?... Smash the hidden casket of Carol, and you’ll find the first. He fed himself with the intolerable dreams of your isolated sanctuary. He cried out of lips as stale as mine. Our Grail was the same, each futile in its own pride. Carol, the bucket. Filled with the residue of my hatred. Murder?—Death?—That’s nothing.... I went to him on a night gray as your eyes. He desired you. His flesh, quite frantically, cried out. Could I stand _that_? Could I stand the corned stupidity of his mind after _you_, most beautiful?... I went to him. Deadly and most honestly I threw the passionate, leaden stone into the vacuum of his heart.” Roberts spoke without lips—the ventriloquy of his despair so hurtful and adolescent, so pitifully gay.

“There is a tear for Rio. I’ve seen him follow you with his eyes—that rollicking, healthy sailor! That bold adventurer with the Mongoloid eyes. His bravado is covered with a native strength to hide his shame.” Roberts chuckled hoarsely. “My sinful innocent—never to have seen the colored lechery behind his muscles!... Rio—epitome of flesh—carnality in Mother Goose’s shoes—a bundle of white snow—quite terrified.... I’ve seen his bleak face, whipped by wind and wave, and so have you. But it takes death to bring me the knowledge of his simple, frightened passion. Oh!—he will never fail you, although he doesn’t know why.... Enough of him—enough of his cautious, boastful gallantry which makes one sick when one is well, and makes one laugh when one is sick.” Again the adviser hesitated. Slowly and painfully he turned that he might look at Martin.

“The next tear is for Deane—the one you think you own. You don’t possess her. You hold an empty vase—the artificial movements, smiles and anguish of the woman—all of them as brazen as I, when I first met you. I thought you were the spindle, I the thread. I thought that you were life—an intoxicating bubble in a heavily filled glass. Deeply and amusedly I drank, too late to feel the poison.”

“I’ve saved a tear for Drew. He thought that he was strong enough to escape. But it isn’t ‘escape’ to avoid the thing one loves the most. And so, _I_ know I had the strength _not_ to escape—and I am happier than he....

“The last tear is in a vial that I give you. A tear to use when abstract sorrow’s not enough—a potion you may pour on blistered flesh to lift the crust of tender skin that each swift-moving piston and fast-spinning wheel of man can drive and curve before your fond excitement.

“On myself, you didn’t use a tear. Your hands and mind tore my integument until the bone shows. Watch this!” Roberts, weakened, but fierce, reached for Martin’s hair. There was a brief silence as Martin, his head bowed over the bed, felt the momentary spasm of twisted fingers on his scalp. He did not speak or lift his eyes. As in a dream, he felt the fingers that had clutched his hair so frightfully, become more feeble. There was a gentle, automatic patting against his forehead and he heard deep, horrible sobs....

Roberts put his hands across his eyes.

“Martin, you are like my desperate, dead mother, she being the more selfish and adored though, of the two. It’s why I’ve loved you both, though you the less. She is the most important now. She is the greater.” The adviser raised his head in a final gesture of triumph. “Speak! Why don’t you speak, Martin? Your tongue’s been loose enough before. But now that each mad syllable could match the inarticulation in my own vast lungs, you sit dumbly—like a passive Christ. Have you reformed?—or, are you a dead man waiting for my company? For I’m a King. I have great powers. Shall I have you tortured in my dungeons, or thrown from my domain?—But no! I have no rack, no bed of agony to meet your own inventions. And my domain’s a joke. You own it all, from the boiling center of the earth unto the farthest, coldest star.”

Martin held him closer. He stared at Roberts until the sick man’s eyelids lifted, showing the brief, unfocused glance. There was recognition, but complete indifference. The vacant, polite smile was only a slight movement of the lips. Had Martin not been blinded by his own fine helplessness—his deepened affection, he would have seen another thing. He would have noticed the oddly rounded chin with its slackness—its hint of cogent lechery below the hungry bones that stretched the cheek of the adviser. He would have seen the newly tapered lines, out of silhouette, and the dense eyes, gaping; or the fibrous hair, the cocked head and gently fluttering tongue. Instead, the generalities—vague outlines were predominant. This swiftly perishing mask, to Martin’s eyes, could have been a sallow apple—a melon broken from the vine—or an older moon in autumn. There was no individuality or ego. There were damp breathings, sonorous emanations from the bed and the faint, orgastic music of white flowers in a tomb. Martin held his breath, held his own head lower and asked for some release.... When he looked up again this blended, spectral motion was gone forever. This mixture of sound and color, so horrible to him, now drifted from the gently closing door.

_CHAPTER XXIX_

Martin knew that it was time to work again. He knew that there must be some expression of his own to erase the unending march of Carol and Roberts in his thoughts. The evolution of his type design had stopped, each pattern seeming worse than the preceding one.

He was disturbed and hesitant upon regarding the sun. The clouds were no longer poems and the sunset meant only darkness. Within himself alone could he feel the yearnings and the beauty, the life chord pulling, insisting. He was tormented with dreams. Sounds grew from the ground. Proud women with dragons on their white shoulders walked in a death-like mist. Behind the retreating curve of mountain he could hear Deane laughing. Brought with the wind, the laughter became monotonous—something at which to strike.

In the early morning there was peace. In the early morning when even the birds were silent and the stars white, Martin would awaken and stand by the window. During these moments he was elated and alive. But when he went to sleep again, he fought among dreams that seemed both real and unreal.

One daybreak he awoke and threw his arm across his eyes. The night’s monsters were growing larger and more demanding. Perhaps it was impossible to kill them by bending them into symbols—by throwing them on paper. The units of the living and the dead must be presented to daytime and the mind’s curiosity. He worked soberly, breeding the straight line with the afflicted. He tried the medium of words, changing every character, crossing their susceptible hands. He danced the ugly noises with the sound of roses and blew a splintering rock into a wreath of silver hair. Bravely he went to the night’s agony and blinding sweat until he felt himself confused by so meaningless a gallantry that once again he turned to Deane.

They sat beside each other in her home that night. Deane saw that he had changed—she saw his quietude, the patient line between his eyes.

He kissed her lips.

“It’s restful here, darling,” he said. “A sweet, domestic anodyne—the sweetest I have ever known. The transition has been swift. I ran with wild men, smashed machines, climbed, waded and struggled toward an impossible ideal. I was hard when Carol was murdered; and though little chips were broken from me, the planets remained in their orbits—heat meant one thing, and cold another. This is still true in one sense; but my relationship to them has changed.... Roberts died in my arms. He thought I loved him. Diseased, humiliated by our artificial sexual codes, he made his own world. Quite happily he lived and dreamed in this chimerical condition until unfortunately, I entered his last kingdom. It had to be myself—the one man whose bitter defenses remained impregnable to Roberts’ bold demands. However, as the albinic, antagonistic germ bored into his brain, this mind became detached, severed; and I felt the pent-up hatred of his frustration. I didn’t mind that—but suddenly, consciousness was established again through some strange medium, and he told me it was my world—that he belonged to me. He told me of my cruelty. And that’s how he died.... I love you, Deane, but I’ll go back to the midstrip of the world where my toes bubble, oiling the hot deck of a ship, before I’ll hurt you. That’s my country—isolation in body, but not in mind. And when I touch land it will be a dark whore.” Martin’s face had not changed expression nor had his voice gathered volume. But his self-contempt and his visualizations against the soft, purple shadows of the quiet room and the chained refractions of the woman’s beautiful face beside him pressed Heaven and Hell together and there was no breath around them.

Deane held back her tears.

“You’re bleeding yourself, Martin,” she said, “and for no reason. I’m in love with you, too, and I love your fantasies. But please don’t talk of things which are absurd—of the South Seas—of dirty ships and dirtier islands. Your sound effects about black women are not dramatic, darling—they’re just a little irrational. Oh, no!—Martin, I’m not trusting your libido or your discrimination. To be candid, it isn’t a question of trust. You must have your stage, your setting and your actors. I don’t mind that—and I’ll be part of the whole scheme although I don’t understand it. I’ve run wild, too, though in a different way. But I found out how meaningless it was, how much it hurt me without helping anyone else and I’ve stopped, just as you’ll do. There will always be violence in your dreams, and that will be some outlet. And there are gymnasiums and little fishing boats where you can break your neck in a more restrained fashion.” Deane closed her hands on his, and spoke with a desperate gravity. “And you can always swear loudly to me about the world’s tyranny—perhaps I’ll swear a little, also. But you can’t go back to bad ships and worse men, and be part of an organized brutality. I want you here with me. I want you to work on your beautiful ideas and build a solid foundation for both of us. You look different, Martin. You look more mature. I think you’re tired of that other world. Dearest,” she went on, touching her lips to his cheek, “we can’t dismiss our life together even though it has been brief.” She turned to Martin with a sudden passionate insistence. “Let’s go on from this point together, darling. Let’s dismiss philosophy, ideals that can be forgotten in a night, other people’s helplessness and drama.” She held Martin more tightly. “We must stop thinking about these terrible people,” she repeated. “What do we care about them?” Deane’s lips trembled. “Carnality!” she exclaimed. “The vile, damnable beasts! Pouncing from house to house and bedroom to bedroom like a disjointed Roman carnival. Give them any veil of understanding you possess and they still exist in the flatlands—the tilted, undernoted lowlands where not even slime comes to birth! A driveling code of introduction from one land to the other and a rotten horde of Young America comes alive! What have we to do with that?” Deane was weeping; and as though symbolical of her blazing words, her hair had spread over her shoulders—had spread, thought Martin as he touched it, “like the flame of a torch in the dark waters of a lost lagoon.”

“‘What have we to do with that?’” he repeated. “Nothing, Deane. Nothing can touch us now. But first I have to go from you. I don’t know for how long, or how far. It’s part of the scheme. And remember, I didn’t build it; but I know the undertows, the ebb tides and the breakers. There is a distant sun on our horizon, and I won’t go into happiness or unhappiness until it’s reached. Don’t you think I’ll miss those lights?” He pointed out of the window. “But I’ll have stars around that will bring this room to me. I’m a dreamer, and they have luck. So forget the dull months or the aching ones. Give my picture a bath once a day until it’s white; and I’ll stay that way.” Martin’s voice broke and he stood up. “I can’t say ‘Good-bye, Mrs. Smith—’ and bow and strain until my sharp, black coat sticks out, nor turn and smile ‘It’s been a pleasant afternoon—I’ll call you soon.’”[5] His voice became harsh. “These fools’ farewells and wet good-byes are as thick and viscous as a glue pot, Deane. Sentiment rises in me easily and I’m ashamed that my hand seems blurred against the dress that covers your knee. That’s why I curse such weakness and yearn to leave my beloved with my hat over my nose, yelling blasphemously at a wall-eyed, pot-bellied moon.”

“You sound like a drunken Irish tenor,” exclaimed Deane, covering her celibate pain at once with the same quick irony.

“By God, I _am_ drunk!” cried Martin. “Drunk on your hair and the moisture of your lips and the way you look at me. Drunk with hatred because I won’t see them or taste them again until the same dark wind that takes me away brings me back.”

A wraith-like smile hovered on Deane’s lips.

“The wind that brings you home, Martin, won’t be dark. It will be light and gentle and perhaps will carry a few white clouds on its back.”

“No.” He shook his head. “I want it dark and heavy and raging. I want it so fierce it will bring me home much faster.”

“Let me have it my way, Martin,” she urged softly. “I want it gentle so that no part of you will be hurt. I’ve never been patient about most things; but I will be—about this.” Deane spoke so tenderly that the cool night wind stopped blowing, and a moment of such stillness ensued that all outside was hidden—all sound, all waves of sound and color—everything was hidden.

“Almighty God!” whispered Martin, staring at her—staring at her coral cheeks and swollen bosom. “The Scylla Deeps—a sea no man has found—” Aloud he cried, “It will be done your way, Deane. In the end, it will always be your way.” The tears were coming into his eyes without restraint. He opened the door, saw the silhouette of the woman sitting quietly on the couch, looked for a moment through the window at the lights which seemed to be nodding to him and went into the hall.

Outside, in the street, he hesitated, then turned toward the river. For a long time he wandered about the waterfront. Wearily, at last, he sat down on one of the piers and watched the moon set. When dawn came he got up stiffly and went to the Seaman’s Institute.

_CHAPTER XXX_

Martin went into the large main room of the Institute, found a vacant chair, sat down and looked at the men. He couldn’t recognize a single face although the seamen were going through the usual formulas. Some of them were lined up before the marble bar, drinking coffee and eating doughnuts. Others stood in groups, talking to each other; while a few, like himself, sat quietly, knowing themselves on the fringe of the stream. Some of these few were regarding their history—pressing their falls and errors out of the past. Some were rubbing the small change in their pockets, wondering whether to buy “smoke” and for a brief period drift into the senseless drunkenness and blindness of the poison, or to try again—to use this precious remnant of their money for getting to a pier already lined with men as desperate to ship out as themselves.

A man walked in, brown-skinned, alert. He went, in turn, to several groups of seamen. They welcomed him and he shook their hands. “I wonder how long he’ll last,” thought Martin. “A week, I guess, if he’s paid off.” He heard the men question the newcomer about the ship—the food. Had he seen Ella in Coconut Grove?... Was Charlie’s Punch Bowl as alive as ever?... Had he paid off?... The man grinned when they mentioned Ella, nodded his head vigorously about Jamaica; but said “No!” about paying off.

“I can’t get that way again, boys.” He pointed to a few deadheads, snoring in their chairs. His finger swung to Martin. “For Christ’s sake,” he said, walking rapidly to him. For a moment he stood in front of him, shaking his head, his hands on his hips. “You look like one of them crawlers we used to swat in Morocco. Is your short-arm jammed?”

Martin managed a thin smile.

“I’ve spent a winter in New York—that’s all.”

The sailor bent over him.

“Listen—I been up at the Hall. I heard what you done the other night. There’s two ships in you can make. One is your old pal, the _Verda_. We need two men. Can you get Rio? I still got his oilskins.”

“What happened to the little ordinary, Al?” Martin asked.

The sailor looked puzzled.

“The ordinary?” Al thought a moment. “Oh—you mean that little screw that was aboard when you and Rio piled off. Damned if I know. He only made one more trip. Say,” he said, looking at Martin queerly, “we sail at five. There ain’t no time to lose. Git hold of Rio and beat it to the Hall.”

“All right,” said Martin, getting up. He went out quickly, nodding to the policeman by the entrance, then hurried to Rio’s room and knocked on the door. Rio opened it. He looked half-asleep.

“What’s up?” he asked, rolling back on the bed. “James don’t bring coffee till eleven.”

“I’m shipping on the _Verda_ this evening. Do you want to come along?”

“Nuts again, eh?” said Rio, yawning.

Martin turned to go.

“Wait a minute,” called Rio, sitting up. “How do you know we can make her?”

“We’re the fair-haired boys after the other night. Al told me about the ship. But we have to hurry.”

“Are you leavin’ Deane?” asked Rio incredulously.

“Don’t ask me that,” said Martin, his face turning white.

“But I don’t want the damned _Verda_. I’m going to Santa de Marina.”

“Rio,” Martin opened the door, “this is the last trip we can ever make together. I don’t want the _Verda_ either, but she’ll get me to Panama. From there I can make it to the East Indies. And as far as Santa de Marina is concerned, the _Verda_ goes to Puerto Colombia. You can swim from that point.”

Without a word Rio got up and began to put on his clothes. His bag was packed and Martin didn’t ask him why. When he was dressed they went to the Hall and saw the agent again. This time he greeted them more cordially.

“I was hopin’ you boys would come. That was great stuff,” he said, looking significantly at the end of his own nose. “You earned this jelly.” He made out two forms for the mate of the _Verda_ and gave them to Martin and Rio. “Get there by three P.M. drunk or sober.” One of his eyes twitched nervously.

“O.K.,” said Rio.

He and Martin put their slips in their pockets and left the Hall.

“Is your gear ready, Martin?”

“It won’t take long. But I have a note to write, so we’ll make it fast.”

Once in his room, Martin packed his clothes with Rio’s help, saw that his sneakers were rotten and threw them away. Then he sat down at his desk, folded his drawings and put them in an envelope addressed MRS. IDARA. For a few moments he sat there, staring at the name, a shameless grief upon his face. After a little, he took a piece of paper and a pen and wrote:

“Dearest....”

Rio walked up and down, smoking one cigarette after another, stopping at intervals to glance somewhat anxiously at Martin.

When Martin finally got up, his eyes were red; but he looked straight at Rio.

“That’s that, my bonny friend. We’re going to the _Verda_.”

* * * * *

On the deck of the _Verda_ they found the mate. He looked at the papers sent from the Hall and at the men’s discharges and lifeboat tickets.

“You can take the eight to twelve, Martin. And you, Rio, the four to eight. The bos’n won’t mind. He’s sleeping some of it off. We sail at five and if you go ashore, for God’s sake don’t get too drunk. Somebody has to handle those derricks. Al and Pete’s ashore, and the ordinaries came from Mr. Fizz in the office. They won’t know a block from a winch.”

“I’m not going ashore,” said Martin.

“Me neither,” said Rio.

The mate looked at them in some astonishment as they went aft. Then he shook his head.

It was like all ships at sailing time. The sailors cursed the lines and the mates cursed the sailors. The ordinaries didn’t know what to do, but they hopped gallantly from one side of the deck to the other in a cold sweat of pretense. Pete’s arm was nearly pulled from its socket when Al gave the winch too much steam. A linesman on the dock shook his fist at the ship and the captain walked up and down the bridge, saying little, but looking at his watch frequently. A longshoreman got his finger caught, working at one end of the hatch, and yelled frantically in Italian.... But finally it was done, as it is, always. And the _Verda_ backed into the current with a tugboat pushing against an impossible weight and barking angrily through her whistle. It was almost eight when the last hatch had been battened and the lines coiled. Martin went back to the fo’c’sle and washed his hands and face. Then he rubbed his back and chest, put on a clean shirt and was on the ladder to the bridge in time to hear eight bells struck.

* * * * *

Martin grew into the relativity of time. Was it a day?—a month?—a year that he had been in these warm waters?... The stars grew deeper in the night; the constellations spread their tails above the ship; the moon, more arrogant than ever, called from the sky and filled his eyes with dust. It was the same. The dark, fast knife of cloud that ran at him was welcomed as a friend. This monster might blot out, in mercy, the silhouette of Deane.... When pressure, rain and cracked, dry lightning burned his eyes, he held his hands—his arms into the wind, that it might bring him solitude from dreams.... And when the squall had passed he turned to Rio.

“That entity was beautiful and clean. It swept out all the clammy, dirty things.... You see that cloud?” He pointed to the swift, retreating sky. “It had more tears in one brief moment, Rio, than both you, and I, and all our comrades in a lifetime. And once again, when life is sticky—seminant with lies, we’ll find a ship, and find that cloud and hold it....”

Rio sighed.

FOOTNOTES

[1] _Dynamic Symmetry_, by Dr. J. Hambidge (Yale University Press).

[2] Stravinsky.

[3] Music by Charles T. Griffiths, based on the poem by William Sharp.

[4]

“How long, how long, in Infinite Pursuit
Of This and That endeavor and dispute?”

—_Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám._

[5] Allusion to mood of _Portrait of a Lady_, by T. S. Eliot.