XII. NEW CONDITIONS
The winter season at the Hotel del Coronado had been unusually gay thatyear, and the young lady who wrote the society news in diary form forone of the San Francisco weekly papers had held forth at much lengthupon the hotel's "unbroken succession of festivities." She had alsonoted that "prominent among the newest arrivals" had been Mr. NatRidgeway, of San Francisco, who had brought down from the city, aboardhis elegant and sumptuously fitted yacht "Petrel," a jolly party,composed largely of the season's debutantes. To be mentioned in thelatter category was Miss Josie Herrick, whose lavender coming-out teaat the beginning of the season was still a subject of comment among thegossips--and all the rest of it.
The "Petrel" had been in the harbor but a few days, and on this eveninga dance was given at the hotel in honor of her arrival. It was to be acotillon, and Nat Ridgeway was going to lead with Josie Herrick. Therehad been a coaching party to Tia Juana that day, and Miss Herrick hadreturned to the hotel only in time to dress. By 9:30 she emerged fromthe process--which had involved her mother, her younger sister, hermaid, and one of the hotel chambermaids--a dainty, firm-corseted littlebody, all tulle, white satin, and high-piled hair. She carried MarechalNiel roses, ordered by wire from Monterey; and about an hour later, whenRidgeway gave the nod to the waiting musicians, and swung her off to thebeat of a two-step, there was not a more graceful little figure upon thefloor of the incomparable round ballroom of the Coronado Hotel.
The cotillon was a great success. The ensigns and younger officers ofthe monitor--at that time anchored off the hotel--attended in uniform;and enough of the members of what was known in San Francisco as the"dancing set" were present to give the affair the necessary entrain.Even Jerry Haight, who belonged more distinctly to the "country-clubset," and who had spent the early part of that winter shooting elk inOregon, was among the ranks of the "rovers," who grouped themselvesabout the draughty doorways, and endeavored to appear unconscious eachtime Ridgeway gave the signal for a "break."
The figures had gone round the hall once. The "first set" was out again,and as Ridgeway guided Miss Herrick by the "rovers" she looked over thearray of shirt-fronts, searching for Jerry Haight.
"Do you see Mr. Haight?" she asked of Ridgeway. "I wanted to favorhim this break. I owe him two already, and he'll never forgive me if Ioverlook him now."
Jerry Haight had gone to the hotel office for a few moments' rest anda cigarette, and was nowhere in sight. But when the set broke, andMiss Herrick, despairing of Jerry, had started out to favor one ofthe younger ensigns, she suddenly jostled against him, pushing his wayeagerly across the floor in the direction of the musicians' platform.
"Oh!" she cried, "Mr. Haight, you've missed your chance--I've beenlooking for you."
But Jerry did not hear--he seemed very excited. He crossed the floor,almost running, and went up on the platform where the musicians weremeandering softly through the mazes of "La Paloma," and brought them toan abrupt silence.
"Here, I say, Haight!" exclaimed Ridgeway, who was near by, "you can'tbreak up my figure like that."
"Gi' me a call there on the bugle," said Haight rapidly to thecornetist. "Anything to make 'em keep quiet a moment."
The cornetist sounded a couple of notes, and the cotillon paused inthe very act of the break. The shuffling of feet grew still, and theconversation ceased. A diamond brooch had been found, no doubt, or somesupper announcement was to be made. But Jerry Haight, with a great sweepof his arm, the forgotten cigarette between his fingers, shouted outbreathlessly:
"Ross Wilbur is out in the office of the hotel!"
There was an instant's silence, and then a great shout. Wilbur found!Ross Wilbur come back from the dead! Ross Wilbur, hunted for andbootlessly traced from Buenos Ayres in the south to the Aleutian Islandsin the north. Ross Wilbur, the puzzle of every detective bureau on thecoast; the subject of a thousand theories; whose name had figured in thescareheads of every newspaper west of the Mississippi. Ross Wilbur, seenat a fashionable tea and his club of an afternoon, then suddenly blottedout from the world of men; swallowed up and engulfed by the unknown,with not so much as a button left behind. Ross Wilbur the suicide; RossWilbur, the murdered; Ross Wilbur, victim of a band of kidnappers, thehero of some dreadful story that was never to be told, the mystery, thelegend--behold he was there! Back from the unknown, dropped from theclouds, spewed up again from the bowels of the earth--a veritable godfrom the machine who in a single instant was to disentangle all theunexplained complications of those past winter months.
"Here he comes!" shouted Jerry, his eyes caught by a group of menin full dress and gold lace who came tramping down the hall to theballroom, bearing a nondescript figure on their shoulders. "Here hecomes--the boys are bringing him in here! Oh!" he cried, turning tothe musicians, "can't you play something?--any-thing! Hit it up for allyou're worth! Ridgeway--Nat, look here! Ross was Yale, y' know--Yale'95; ain't we enough Yale men here to give him the yell?"
Out of all time and tune, but with a vigor that made up for both, themusicians banged into a patriotic air. Jerry, standing on a chair thatitself was standing on the platform, led half a dozen frantic men in thelong thunder of the "Brek-kek-kek-kek, co-ex, co-ex."
Around the edges of the hall excited girls, and chaperons themselves noless agitated, were standing up on chairs and benches, splitting theirgloves and breaking their fans in their enthusiasm; while every maledancer on the floor--ensigns in their gold-faced uniforms and "rovers"in starched and immaculate shirt-bosoms--cheered and cheered andstruggled with one another to shake hands with a man whom two of theirnumber old Yale grads, with memories of athletic triumphs yet in theirminds--carried into that ball-room, borne high upon their shoulders.
And the hero of the occasion, the centre of all this enthusiasm--thuscarried as if in triumph into this assembly in evening dress, in whitetulle and whiter kid, odorous of delicate sachets and scarce-perceptibleperfumes--was a figure unhandsome and unkempt beyond description. Hishair was long, and hanging over his eyes. A thick, uncared-for beardconcealed the mouth and chin. He was dressed in a Chinaman's blouse andjeans--the latter thrust into slashed and tattered boots. The tan andweatherbeatings of nearly half a year of the tropics were spread overhis face; a partly healed scar disfigured one temple and cheek-bone;the hands, to the very finger-nails, were gray with grime; the jeans andblouse and boots were fouled with grease, with oil, with pitch, and allmanner of the dirt of an uncared-for ship. And as the dancers of thecotillon pressed about, and a hundred kid-gloved hands stretched towardhis own palms, there fell from Wilbur's belt upon the waxed floor of theballroom the knife he had so grimly used in the fight upon the beach,the ugly stains still blackening on the haft.
There was no more cotillon that night. They put him down at last; andin half a dozen sentences Wilbur told them of how he had beenshanghaied--told them of Magdalena Bay, his fortune in the ambergris,and the fight with the beach-combers.
"You people are going down there for target-practice, aren't you?" hesaid, turning to one of the "Monterey's" officers in the crowd abouthim. "Yes? Well, you'll find the coolies there, on the beach, waitingfor you. All but one," he added, grimly.
"We marooned six of them, but the seventh didn't need to be marooned.They tried to plunder us of our boat, but, by -----, we made itinteresting for 'em!"
"I say, steady, old man!" exclaimed Nat Ridgeway, glancing nervouslytoward the girls in the surrounding group. "This isn't Magdalena Bay,you know."
And for the first time Wilbur felt a genuine pang of disappointment andregret as he realized that it was not.
Half an hour later, Ridgeway drew him aside. "I say, Ross, let's getout of here. You can't stand here talking all night. Jerry and you andI will go up to my rooms, and we can talk there in peace. I'll order upthree quarts of fizz, and--"
"Oh, rot your fizz!" declared Wilbur. "If you love me, give me Christiantobacco."
As they were going out of the ballroom, Wilbur caught sight of JosieHerrick, and, breaking a
way from the others, ran over to her.
"Oh!" she cried, breathless. "To think and to think of your comingback after all! No, I don't realize it--I can't. It will take me untilmorning to find out that you've really come back. I just know now thatI'm happier than I ever was in my life before. Oh!" she cried, "do Ineed to tell you how glad I am? It's just too splendid for words. Do youknow, I was thought to be the last person you had ever spoken to whilealive, and the reporters and all--oh, but we must have such a talk whenall is quiet again! And our dance--we've never had our dance. I've gotyour card yet. Remember the one you wrote for me at the tea--a facsimileof it was published in all the papers. You are going to be a hero whenyou get back to San Francisco. Oh, Ross! Ross!" she cried, the tearsstarting to her eyes, "you've really come back, and you are just as gladas I am, aren't you--glad that you've come back--come back to me?"
Later on, in Ridgeway's room, Wilbur told his story again more in detailto Ridgeway and Jerry. All but one portion of it. He could not makeup his mind to speak to them--these society fellows, clubmen and citybred--of Moran. How he was going to order his life henceforward--hislife, that he felt to be void of interest without her--he did not know.That was a question for later consideration.
"We'll give another cotillon!" exclaimed Ridgeway, "up in the city--giveit for you, Ross, and you'll lead. It'll be the event of the season!"
Wilbur uttered an exclamation of contempt. "I've done with that sort offoolery," he answered.
"Nonsense; why, think, we'll have it in your honor. Every smart girl intown will come, and you'll be the lion of--"
"You don't seem to understand!" cried Wilbur impatiently. "Do you thinkthere's any fun in that for me now? Why, man, I've fought--fought with anaked dirk, fought with a coolie who snapped at me like an ape--and youtalk to me of dancing and functions and german favors! It wouldn't dosome of you people a bit of harm if you were shanghaied yourselves.That sort of life, if it don't do anything else, knocks a big bit ofseriousness into you. You fellows make me sick," he went on vehemently."As though there wasn't anything else to do but lead cotillons and getup new figures!"
"Well, what do you propose to do?" asked Nat Ridgeway. "Where are yougoing now--back to Magdalena Bay?"
"No."
"Where, then?"
Wilbur smote the table with his fist.
"Cuba!" he cried. "I've got a crack little schooner out in the bay here,and I've got a hundred thousand dollars' worth of loot aboard of her.I've tried beach-combing for a while, and now I'll try filibustering.It may be a crazy idea, but it's better than dancing. I'd rather lead anexpedition than a german, and you can chew on that, Nathaniel Ridgeway."
Jerry looked at him as he stood there before them in the filthy, reekingblouse and jeans, the ragged boots, and the mane of hair and tangledbeard, and remembered the Wilbur he used to know--the Wilbur of thecarefully creased trousers, the satin scarfs and fancy waistcoats.
"You're a different sort than when you went away, Ross," said Jerry.
"Right you are," answered Wilbur.
"But I will venture a prophecy," continued Jerry, looking keenly at him.
"Ross, you are a born-and-bred city man. It's in the blood of you andthe bones of you. I'll give you three years for this new notion of yoursto wear itself out. You think just now you're going to spend the restof your life as an amateur buccaneer. In three years, at the outside,you'll be using your 'loot,' as you call it, or the interest of it, topay your taxes and your tailor, your pew rent and your club dues,and you'll be what the biographers call 'a respectable member of thecommunity.'"
"Did you ever kill a man, Jerry?" asked Wilbur. "No? Well, you kill onesome day--kill him in a fair give-and-take fight--and see how it makesyou feel, and what influence it has on you, and then come back and talkto me."
It was long after midnight. Wilbur rose.
"We'll ring for a boy," said Ridgeway, "and get you a room. I can fixyou out with clothes enough in the morning."
Wilbur stared in some surprise, and then said:
"Why, I've got the schooner to look after. I can't leave those cooliesalone all night."
"You don't mean to say you're going on board at this time in themorning?"
"Of course!"
"Why--but--but you'll catch your death of cold."
Wilbur stared at Ridgeway, then nodded helplessly, and, scratching hishead, said, half aloud:
"No, what's the use; I can't make 'em understand. Good-night I'll seeyou in the morning."
"We'll all come out and visit you on your yacht," Ridgeway called afterhim; but Wilbur did not hear.
In answer to Wilbur's whistle, Jim came in with the dory and took himoff to the schooner. Moran met him as he came over the side.
"I took the watch myself to-night and let the boy turn in," she said."How is it ashore, mate?"
"We've come back to the world of little things, Moran," said Wilbur."But we'll pull out of here in the morning and get back to the placeswhere things are real."
"And that's a good hearing, mate."
"Let's get up here on the quarterdeck," added Wilbur. "I've something topropose to you."
Moran laid an arm across his shoulder, and the two walked aft. Forhalf an hour Wilbur talked to her earnestly about his new idea offilibustering; and as he told her of the war he warmed to the subject,his face glowing, his eyes sparkling. Suddenly, however, he broke off.
"But no!" he exclaimed. "You don't understand, Moran. How canyou--you're foreign-born. It's no affair of yours!"
"Mate! mate!" cried Moran, her hands upon his shoulders. "It's you whodon't understand--don't understand me. Don't you know--can't you see?Your people are mine now. I'm happy only in your happiness. You wereright--the best happiness is the happiness one shares. And your sorrowsbelong to me, just as I belong to you, dear. Your enemies are mine, andyour quarrels are my quarrels." She drew his head quickly toward her andkissed him.
In the morning the two had made up their minds to a certain vague courseof action. To get away--anywhere--was their one aim. Moran was by naturea creature unfit for civilization, and the love of adventure and thedesire for action had suddenly leaped to life in Wilbur's blood and wasnot to be resisted. They would get up to San Francisco, dispose of their"loot," outfit the "Bertha Millner" as a filibuster, and put to seaagain. They had discussed the advisability of rounding the Horn in sosmall a ship as the "Bertha Millner," but Moran had settled that atonce.
"I've got to know her pretty well," she told Wilbur. "She's sound as anut. Only let's get away from this place."
But toward ten o'clock on the morning after their arrival off Coronado,and just as they were preparing to get under way, Hoang touched Wilbur'selbow.
"Seeum lil one-piece smoke-boat; him come chop-chop."
In fact, a little steam-launch was rapidly approaching the schooner. Inanother instant she was alongside. Jerry, Nat Ridgeway, Josie Herrick,and an elderly woman, whom Wilbur barely knew as Miss Herrick's marriedsister, were aboard.
"We've come off to see your yacht!" cried Miss Herrick to Wilbur as thelaunch bumped along the schooner's counter. "Can we come aboard?" Shelooked very pretty in her crisp pink shirt-waist her white duck skirt,and white kid shoes, her sailor hat tilted at a barely perceptibleangle. The men were in white flannels and smart yachting suits. "Can wecome aboard?" she repeated.
Wilbur gasped and stared. "Good Lord!" he muttered. "Oh, come along," headded, desperately.
The party came over the side.
"Oh, my!" said Miss Herrick blankly, stopping short.
The decks, masts, and rails of the schooner were shiny with a blackcoating of dirt and grease; the sails were gray with grime; a stranglingodor of oil and tar, of cooking and of opium, of Chinese punk and dryingfish, pervaded all the air. In the waist, Hoang and Jim, bare to thebelt, their queues looped around their necks to be out of the way,were stowing the dory and exchanging high-pitched monosyllables.Miss Herrick's sister had not come aboard. The three visitors--Jerry,Ridgeway, and Jos
ie--stood nervously huddled together, their elbowsclose in, as if to avoid contact with the prevailing filth, theirimmaculate white outing-clothes detaching themselves violently againstthe squalor and sordid grime of the schooner's background.
"Oh, my!" repeated Miss Herrick in dismay, half closing her eyes. "Tothink of what you must have been through! I thought you had some kind ofa yacht. I had no idea it would be like this." And as she spoke, Morancame suddenly upon the group from behind the foresail, and paused inabrupt surprise, her thumbs in her belt.
She still wore men's clothes and was booted to the knee. The heavy bluewoolen shirt was open at the throat, the sleeves rolled half-way upher large white arms. In her belt she carried her haftless Scandinaviandirk. She was hatless as ever, and her heavy, fragrant cables ofrye-hued hair fell over her shoulders and breast to far below her belt.
Miss Herrick started sharply, and Moran turned an inquiring glance uponWilbur. Wilbur took his resolution in both hands.
"Miss Herrick," he said, "this is Moran--Moran Sternersen."
Moran took a step forward, holding out her hand. Josie, all bewildered,put her tight-gloved fingers into the calloused palm, looking upnervously into Moran's face.
"I'm sure," she said feebly, almost breathlessly, "I--I'm sure I'm verypleased to meet Miss Sternersen."
It was long before the picture left Wilbur's imagination. Josie Herrick,petite, gowned in white, crisp from her maid's grooming; and Moran,sea-rover and daughter of a hundred Vikings, towering above her, bootedand belted, gravely clasping Josie's hand in her own huge fist.