Читать книгу The Dust of Conflict - Harold Bindloss - Страница 7

Table of Contents

IT was blowing a moderate gale, and the “Aurania,” steaming at full speed into it, rolled viciously. A half-moon shone out low down beneath wisps of whirling cloud, and the big black seas shook their frothing crests high aloft against the silvery light as they swept in long succession out of the night. The steamer met them with dipping forecastle from which the spray blew aft in clouds, lurched and hove her streaming bows high above the froth, rolled until one rail seemed level with the sea, and slid down into the hollow, out of which her head swung slowly up to meet the onslaught of the next. Bitter spray was flying everywhere, her decks ran water; but it was only between foremast and forecastle head she shipped it in cascades, and little groups of passengers stood where they could find shelter. They had finished their dinner with some difficulty, and because the vessel rolled so that it was not an easy task to keep one’s seat or footing had found their attempts to amuse themselves below a waste of effort.

Bernard Appleby stood a little apart from one group of them under the lee of a deck-house. Tony had lent him fifty pounds, and he had taken the cheapest berth obtainable which would permit him to travel saloon. This was apparently a reckless extravagance, but Appleby had inherited a certain shrewdness from his father, who had risen from the ranks, and decided that the risk was warranted. He would, he told himself, certainly make acquaintances, and possibly a friend, during the passage, while he knew that the majority of those who travelled by those vessels were Americans who had acquired a competence by commerce, and could therefore direct him how to find an opening for his energies if they felt inclined. He had already made the acquaintance of five or six of them, and acquired a good deal of information about the great Republic, which did not, however, promise to be of much use to him.

Still, he was by no means dejected. Bernard Appleby had a good courage, and there was in him a longing for adventure which he had hitherto held in check. He knew that the gates of the old life were closed against him, but this caused him no regret, for he had not the least desire to go back to it. Indeed, he wondered how he had borne the monotonous drudgery he detested, and practised an almost Spartan self-denial so long, and it was with a curious content he looked forward into the night over the plunging bows. The throb of hard-driven engines, roar of wind, and crash of shattered seas that fell back seething from the forecastle, stirred the blood in him. It all spoke of stress and effort, but there was a suggestion of triumph in it, for while the white-crested phalanxes arrayed themselves against her the great ship that man had made went on, battered and streaming, but irresistible. Appleby felt that there were in him capacities for effort and endurance equal to those of other men who had fought their way to fortune, if he could find a field for them.

Then he became interested in his companions. There were two women among them, and he could see the figure of one silhouetted against the blue and silver of the night when the steamer rolled. It was a dainty figure in spite of the big cape that fluttered about it; while the loose wisps of hair that blew out from under the little cap in no way detracted from the piquancy of the half-seen face and head. Appleby recognized the girl as Miss Nettie Harding, whom he sat opposite to at the saloon table.

“Keep a good hold, Miss Harding!” said one of the men beside her. “This boat is trying to roll her funnels out of her, and it seems to me quite possible for one to pitch right over the rail.”

The girl’s laugh reached Appleby through the roar of the gale, as she stood, poised lightly, with one hand on the guardrail that ran along the deck-house, and the deck slanting like a roof beneath her, while the white chaos of a shattered sea swirled by, as it seemed, directly beneath her. Then she fell against the deck-house as the steamer rolled back again until her streaming plates on that side were high above the brine, and a woman said, “Can’t you be careful, Nettie?”

There was a crash beneath the dipping bows, a great cloud of spray whirled up, and a man’s voice said: “Hold on, everybody! She has gone slap into an extra big one.”

There was a few seconds interval while the wet deck rose up before the roll began, and then the “Aurania” swung back with a vicious jerk. Appleby heard a faint cry, and saw Miss Harding reel away from the deck-house. The sea lay apparently straight beneath her, with the steamer’s slanted rail a foot or two above it. Almost simultaneously he sprang, and felt the girl’s shoulder under his hand. How he span her round and thrust himself behind her he did not know, but next moment he struck the rail a heavy blow, and the girl crushed him against it. He afterwards decided that they could scarcely have fallen over it; but that fact was not apparent just then, and flinging himself on hands and knees he dragged the girl down with him. As he did so two of her companions came sliding down to their assistance, and the four glissaded back to the deck-house amidst several inches of very cold water as the following roll began. Appleby helped Miss Harding to her feet, and into the lighted companion, where she turned to him, flushed, gasping, and dripping, with a grateful smile.

“That was awfully good of you,” she said. “I should have been hurt against the rail, anyway, if you hadn’t got in front of me. But your face is bleeding. I hope I didn’t hurt you.”

Appleby said he was not hurt in the least, though his shoulder felt unpleasantly sore; and leaving her with an elder lady who came in with the rest he hastened to his state-room, where he struggled into dry clothing, an operation which is not altogether simple on board a rolling steamer. There was also a lacerated bruise on his forehead which required some little attention, and while he was occupied with it a man who tapped upon the door came in. He was apparently of middle age, and had a shrewd, lean face, with blue eyes that had a twinkle in them. He sat down and waited until Appleby turned to him. Then he held out a card.

“I guess you will know my name, but there’s my address. Put it in your wallet,” he said.

“Mr. Cyrus P. Harding,” said Appleby. “What can I do for you?”

The man laughed pleasantly. “That is rather what I should ask you. Anyway, I want to thank you for the help you rendered my daughter.”

Appleby made a little whimsical gesture. “The conventional answer fits the case. It was nothing, sir.”

“Well,” said Harding dryly, “it would have been a good deal to me if my girl had gone out over the rail.”

“I don’t think that could have happened.”

Harding nodded, but the twinkle snowed more plainly in his eyes. “I don’t either, but I guess you were not quite sure of it then, and there are men who would have made the most of the thing. I understand you got between her and the rail, anyway, and that is what gave you the bruise on the head.”

“I’m glad I had so much sense. I have, however, had more serious bruises, and may get them again. I hope Miss Harding is none the worse.”

“No,” said Harding. “She seems quite pleased with herself. It’s an adventure, and she likes them. She will thank you to-morrow, and I don’t want to intrude on you. Still, you haven’t told me what to call you, and I hope to see more of you.”

Appleby was a young man, and the fall against the rail had shaken him, or his answer would have been more prompt and decided.

“Walthew Broughton,” he said.

Harding, he fancied, looked at him curiously, and then smiled as he went out; but there was a trifle more color than usual in Appleby’s face when he took up the card. It bore a business address in New York, but there was written across it, apparently in haste, “Sonoma, Glenwood, Hudson River.”

“I wonder if that has any special significance,” he said. “I will not force myself upon the man, but it’s quite evident I can’t afford to stand off if he means to be friendly.”

He met Miss Harding on deck next morning, and she graciously allowed him to find her a chair, pack her wraps about her, and then sit close by talking to her for half an hour, which he had cause for surmising excited the indignation of other passengers. He found her vivacious, witty, and almost astonishingly well-informed, for Nettie Harding had enjoyed all the advantages the great Republic offers its daughters, and these are many. Still, he knew that it is a mistake to overdo anything, and, though Miss Harding still appeared contented with his company, took himself away when two or three of her feminine companions appeared. They had questions to ask and Nettie Harding laughed.

“Then the Englishman can talk?” said one.

“Yes,” said Nettie Harding reflectively, “he can. Still, he’s sensible, and doesn’t say too much. I’m rather fond of those quiet men. There was another point that pleased me. He didn’t hang about where he would be sure to meet me, and then appear astonished when what he expected happened, as some men would have done, but waited until I walked up to him.”

“After all, he only picked you up off the deck. There was really no danger; and I would like to have kodaked you holding on to each other. In daylight it would have made quite an amusing picture.”

“Anyway, I must have hurt him, because he put himself between the rail and me,” said Nettie Harding. “You see, I do weigh something, though I’m a good deal lighter than you are, Miriam.”

Miriam, whose proportions were not exactly sylph-like, appeared slightly nettled, but the others laughed.

“He is quite good-looking,” said one of them. “Now, such a send-off would make a good beginning for a romance. Quite sure you don’t mean to fall in love with him, Nettie? No doubt he’s poor but distinguished, or he wouldn’t be coming out to us.”

Miss Harding smiled, but there was a trace of softness in her eyes, which were of a fine deep tint of blue. “I don’t think so, and there is a difficulty. I’m in love already—with the man I’m going to marry.”

A girl who had not spoken nodded sympathetically, for she knew the story of Nettie Harding’s engagement to an officer of the United States navy who was far from rich.

“This year—next year, Nettie?” she said.

Miss Harding smiled a little. “This one’s nearly through, and I’m going to Cuba early in the next.”

“Cuba can’t be a nice place just now, with the patriots and filibusters running loose all over it,” said the girl called Miriam. “What do you want to go there for?”

“My father’s going. He has a good many dollars planted out there, and I fancy he is getting anxious about them. I quite often go round with him; and Julian will be away in the Bering Sea.”

She rose, for a cold wind still swept the sun-flecked Atlantic; but she spoke to Appleby at lunch, and also at dinner that evening, after which her father carried him off to the smoking-room. There was a considerable difference between their ages and views of life, but a friendship that was free alike from patronage or presumption sprang up between them in spite of it. Cyrus Harding was an American, and what is usually termed a self-made man, but he did not attempt to force his belief in himself and his country upon everybody else, though it was sincere enough. He was typically lean in face and frame, but his dress was as unostentatious as his speech, and he wore no diamonds, which are, indeed, not usually displayed by men of substance in his country. The little glint in his keen blue eyes, together with the formation of his mouth and chin, however, hinted that he possessed a good deal of character.

Being a man who noticed everything, he was quite aware that Appleby spent at least an hour in the aggregate in his daughter’s company every day, and said nothing. Nettie was, he knew, a very capable young woman, and Appleby, he fancied, a gentleman, which was, in the meanwhile, sufficient for him. A friendship may also be made rapidly at sea, and on the seventh day out he asked Appleby a question. They were leaning on the rail together cigar in hand while the ship rolling her mastheads athwart the blue swung with an easy lurch over the long smooth heave of shining sea.

“What is bringing you out to our country?” he said.

Appleby laughed. “What I expect is quite the usual thing. The difficulty of getting a living in the old one.”

Harding looked him over. “Army too expensive?”

Appleby flushed a little. “I have never been in it, though I think I was meant for a soldier.”

“One can’t always be what he was meant for,” said Harding, with a little dry smile. “It’s a general belief among young men in my country that they were specially designed for millionaires, but only a few of them get there. Got any dollars?”

Appleby made a calculation. “Taking the rate at 4.80, I have about one hundred and twenty.”

He had expected his companion to show signs of astonishment at his rashness, but Harding nodded. “I began with five but I was younger than you are,” he said. “Business pays best yonder. What are you strongest at?”

“I can ride and shoot a little, which is what seems most likely to further my intentions, and speak Spanish reasonably well. These, I surmise, are very doubtful advantages, but I have no liking for business whatever. Is there anything to be made out of horses or cattle?”

“Oh yes,” said Harding dryly. “There are men who make a good deal, but you want ten or fifteen thousand dollars to begin with, anyway. It’s only a big ranch that pays. Quite sure you wouldn’t like to try your hand at business? I could introduce you to one or two men if you came out to Glenwood and stayed a week with me.”

Appleby felt that the keen blue eyes were quietly scrutinizing him. “No,” he said. “There is a fact I must mention which I also think would prevent you wishing to entertain me. A business man hiring anybody would have questions to ask, and I left the old country suddenly. I am not sure that a charge of manslaughter has not been brought against me by this time.”

Harding did not seem in the least astonished; in fact, his very impassiveness had its humorous aspect, as Appleby recognized.

“Did you kill the man?” he asked.

“No,” said Appleby, “I did not even attempt it; though in the face of circumstances I think nobody would believe me. Still, that’s a story I can’t go into, though it seemed the correct thing to mention it to you.”

Harding nodded gravely. “The straight road is the shortest one, though it’s quite often steep,” he said. “Now, I had a notion you had some difficulty of that kind.”

“I don’t know that there is anything in my appearance which especially suggests the criminal.”

“Well,” said Harding, with a little laugh, “you didn’t seem quite sure of your own name when you told it me; but I’ve handled a good many men in my time, and found out how to grade them before I began. I wasn’t very often wrong. Now, it seemed to me there was no particular meanness about you, and homicide isn’t thought such a serious thing in my country, when it’s necessary. Before I was your age I had to hold on to all I had in the world with the pistol one night down in New Mexico—and I held on.”

His face grew a trifle grim, but Appleby was glancing out towards the saffron glare of sunset on the ocean’s rim. “I want to live in the open, and see what the life men lead outside your cities is like,” he said. “There is nobody to worry about me, and I don’t mind the risks. Can you suggest anything with a chance of dollars in it a little outside the beaten track?”

“You speak Spanish?”

“I was born at Gibraltar, and lived in Spain until I was ten years old.”

“Well,” said Harding, “as it happens, I can suggest something that might suit you, though I would rather, in spite of what you told me, have found you a business opportunity. The men who play the game will want good nerves, but there are dollars in it for the right ones. It’s running arms to Cuba.”

A little gleam crept into Appleby’s eyes, and he flung up his head. “I think,” he said quietly, “that is the very thing I would have wished for.”

“Then,” said Harding, “I’ll give you a letter to some friends of mine in Texas.”

He went away by and by, and Appleby decided that the cost of his saloon passage had been a good investment. Still, he wondered what Harding could have to do with such a risky business as he surmised the smuggling of arms into Cuba must be, until he strolled round the deck with his daughter in the moonlight that evening.

“I think you have made a useful friend to-day,” she said.

Appleby looked at her with a little astonishment, and the girl smiled when he said, “I don’t understand.”

“I mean Cyrus P. Harding. There are quite a number of men with dollars anxious to be on good terms with him.”

“What have I done to please him?”

“You wouldn’t come to Glenwood,” and the girl laughed again. “No, I don’t mean that exactly, but I need not explain. Cyrus P. Harding never did a mean thing in his life, you see.”

Appleby smiled at her. “So one would surmise. In my country we rather believe in heredity.”

“Pshaw!” said the girl. “There really isn’t much in compliments when they’re served out all round. But if you are going to Cuba I may see you there.”

“Will you be in Cuba?”

Nettie Harding nodded. “My father has no end of dollars there—in tobacco and sugar.”

“I wonder if one could ask what induced Mr. Harding to invest money in such an unsettled country as Cuba is just now?”

Nettie Harding looked up at him confidentially. “It’s a thing I wouldn’t tell everybody, and if I did I shouldn’t be believed,” she said. “Well, Cyrus Harding can see ever so far ahead, and I never knew him mistaken yet. Some day something will happen in Cuba that will give us an excuse for turning the Spaniards out and straightening things up. They need it.”

“But if the thing doesn’t happen?”

Nettie Harding laughed. “Then I shouldn’t wonder if he and a few other men made it.”

Some of her companions joined them, and she said nothing more to Appleby; but they met again that evening, and she induced him to promise that he would spend at least one day at Glenwood, while when they disembarked in New York Harding walked down the gangway with his hand on Appleby’s shoulder as though on excellent terms with him. He also kept him in conversation during the Customs searching, and when a little unobtrusive man sauntered by said to the officer, “Can’t you go through this gentleman’s baggage next? He is coming to Glenwood with me.”

The unobtrusive man drew a little nearer, glancing at Appleby, and then touched Harding’s shoulder.

“Is that gentleman a friend of yours, Mr. Harding?” he asked.

“Of course,” said Harding. “He is staying with me. We have business on hand we couldn’t fix up at sea.”

Appleby caught his warning glance, and stood very still with his heart thumping, apparently gazing at something across the shed, go that the man could only see the back of his head.

“In that case, I guess I’m wasting time,” said the man, who laughed. “Still, you understand we have to take precautions, Mr. Harding.”

He went away, and Appleby turned to Harding with a little flush in his face as he asked, “Who is that man?”

“That,” said Harding, with a dry smile, “is one of the smartest of our New York detectives.”

They reached his house at Glenwood that afternoon, and Appleby spent two pleasant days there. On the third he left for New York, and Nettie Harding smiled as she shook hands with him.

“I wonder whether we shall see you in Cuba?” she said.

“It will not be my fault if you do not,” said Appleby. “I am heavily indebted to you and your father.”

As it happened, he afterwards saw Nettie Harding in Cuba, and paid his debt; for Appleby, who had gone out under a cloud that Tony’s sweetheart might retain her faith in him, was one of the men who do not take the kindness that is offered them and immediately forget.