CHAPTER II
The coolie plunged into the water with a weltering splash which sent asmall spiral of spray almost to the deck. For a moment the man in thewater pedaled and flailed, vastly frightened, and gasping, above theclang of the engine-room telegraph, for a rope. The black side of the_Persian Gulf_ started to slide away from him.
"You better make for shore!" shouted Peter between megaphonic hands.
Several boatmen were poling in the coolie's direction, but all of themrefrained from slipping within reach of the thrashing hands. AJavanese boatman can find more amusing and enjoyable scenes than anangry Chinese coolie flailing about in the water; but he must travelmany miles to find them.
"Swim to the _ma-fou_," Peter encouraged him. He knew there weresharks in that emerald pond.
His attention then was diverted by a flutter of white at his elbow. Heturned his head. The lonely passenger, a girl, was smilingmischievously into his face. But in her very dark eyes there was ablunt question.
"Why did you do that?" she asked in a voice that rang with a lowmusical quality. Her voice and her beauty were of the tropics, as werethe features which, molded together, gave form to that beauty; becauseher hair and eyes were of a color, dark like walnut, and her olive skinwas like silk under silk, with the rosy color of her youth and fireshowing underneath.
She was rather startling, especially her deep, dark and restless eyes.It was by sense rather than by anything his eyes could base conclusionsupon that Peter realized her spirited personality, knew instinctivelythat radiant and destructive fires burned behind the sombre,questioning eyes. The full, red lips might have told him this much.
And now these lips were forming a smile in which was a little humor anda great deal of tenderness.
Why there should be any element of tenderness in the stranger's smilewas a point that Peter was not prepared to analyze. He had beensubjected to the tender smiles of women, alas! on more than oneoccasion; and it was part of Peter's nature to take these giftsunquestioningly. He was not one to look a gift smile in the mouth!Yet, if Peter had looked back upon his experience, he would haveadmitted that such a smile was slightly premature, that it smacked ofsweet mystery.
And it is whispered that richly clad young women do not ordinarilysmile with tenderness upon young ruffians who throw apparently peacefulcitizens from the decks of steamers into waters guarded by sharks.
To carry this argument a step farther, it has always seemed an unfairdispensation of nature that women should fall in love so desperately,so suddenly, so unapologetically and in such numbers with Peter theBrazen.
The phenomenon cannot be explained in a breath, or in a paragraph, ifat all. While he was good to look upon, neither was Peter a god.While he was at all times chivalrous, yet he was not painstakinglythoughtful in the small matters which are supposed to advance the causeof love at a high pace. Nor was he guided by a set of fixed rules suchas men are wont to employ at roulette and upon women.
Peter did not understand women, yet he had a perfectly good workingbasis, for he took all of them seriously, with gravity, and he gavetheir opinions a willing ear and considerable deference.
The rest is a mystery. Peter was neither particularly glib nor witty.Instinctively he knew the values of the full moon, the stars, and hehad the look of a young man who has drunk at the fountain of life onmore than one occasion, finding the waters thereof bitter, with a traceof sweetness and a decided tinge of novelty.
Life was simply a great big adventure to Peter the Brazen; and he hadbeen shot, stabbed, and beaten into insensibility on many occasions,and he was not unwilling for more. He dearly loved a dark mystery, andhe had a certain reluctant fondness for a woman's bright, deceptiveeyes.
As from a great distance he heard the jeers of the Javanese boatmen andthe flounderings of the coolie as he looked now into the dark, deepeyes of this pretty, smiling stranger.
"Why did you do that?" she repeated softly.
"Because I wanted to," returned Peter with his winning smile.
"But there are sharks in there." This in a voice of gentle reproof.
"I hope they eat him alive," said Peter, unabashed.
"You threw him overboard just because you wanted to. And if you wantto, I'll go next, I suppose."
"You might," laughed Peter. "When I have these spells I simply grabthe nearest person and over he goes. It is a terrible habit, isn't it?"
"Perhaps he insulted you."
"Or threatened me."
"Ah!" Her sigh expressed that she understood everything. "May I ask:Who are you?"
"I? Peter Moore."
"I mean, your uniform. You are one of the ship's officers, are younot?"
"The wireless operator. Shall we consider ourselves properlyintroduced?"
"My name is Romola Borria. I presume you are an American--or British."
"American," informed Peter. "And you? Spanish _senorita_?"
"I have no nationality," she replied easily. "I am what we call inChina, a 'B. I. C.'"
"Born in China!"
"Born in Canton, China. Father: Portuguese; mother: Australian.Answer: What am I?" She laughed deliciously, and Peter was moved.
They lingered long enough to see the coolie drag himself up on theshore unassisted, and then separated, the girl to make ready for lunchand to request the steward to assign them to adjoining seats at thesame table, and Peter to take a look at the register, the crew, andwhat passengers might be on deck.
The passengers, lounging in steamer-chairs awaiting the call to tiffin,and the deck crew, strapping down the forward cargo booms and batteningthe forward hatch, Peter gave a careful inspection, retaining theirimages in an eye that was rapidly being trained along photographiclines.
It was a comparatively simple matter, Peter found, to remember peoples'faces; the important point being to select some striking feature of thecountenance, and then persistently drive this feature home in hismemory. He knew that the human memory is a perverse organ, muchpreferring to forget and lose than to retain.
So he looked over the crew and found them to be quite Dutch and quiteself-satisfied, with no more than a slight but polite interest in himand his presence. Wireless operators, as a rule, are self-effacingindividuals who inhabit dark cabins and have very little to say.
He called at the purser's office and helped himself to the register,finding the name of Romola Borria in full, impulsive handwriting,giving her address as Hong Kong, Victoria; and a long list of Dutchnames, representing quite likely nothing more harmful than sugar andcoffee men, with perhaps a sprinkling of copra and pearl buyers.
Peter then investigated the wireless cabin, which was situated aft onthe turn of the promenade deck, and commanding a not entirely inspiringview of the cargo well and the steerage.
Assuring himself that the wireless machine was in good working order,Peter hooked back the door, turned on the electric fan to air the placeout, and with his elbows on the rail gave the steerage passengers alooking over.
He did not look far before his gaze stopped its traveling.
Directly below him, sitting cross-legged on a hatch-cover, was aChinese or Eurasian girl whose face was colorless, whose lips were red,and whose eyes, half-lidded, because of the dazzling sunlight, were ofan unusual blue-green shade.
Had Peter wished to make inquiries regarding this maiden, he would havefound that she was from the Chinese settlement in Macassar, and on herway to Canton, to pay a visit to a grandmother she had never seen. Butit was Peter's nature to spin little dreams of his own whenever hecontemplated exotic young women, to place them in settings of his ownmanufacture.
Her blue-black hair was parted in a white line that might have beencentered by the tip of her tiny nose and an unseen point on the nape ofher pretty neck.
Peter could not know, as he studied her, how this innocent maid fromMacassar was destined to play an important and significant part in hislife, entering and leaving it like a gentle and caressing afternoonmonsoon
. His guess, as he looked away, was that she was a woman of nocaste, from her garb; probably a river girl; more than likely, worse.Yet there was an undeniable air of innocence and youth in her narrowshoulders as she slowly rocked. Peter could see the tips of bright-redsandals peeping from under each knee, and he guessed her to be abouteighteen.
She caught sight of Peter, who had folded his arms and was restingtheir elbows idly upon the teak rail, and their eyes met and lingered.A light, indescribably sad and appealing, shone in the blue-green eyes,which seemed to open larger and larger, until they became round poolsof darting, mysterious reflection. It was a moment in which Peter wassuspended in space.
"I am afraid that wireless operators are not always discreet," purred alow, sweet voice at his side.
Peter smiled his grave smile, and vouchsafed nothing. The girl in thesteerage had returned to her sewing and was apparently quite obliviousof his presence. And still that look of demure, wistful appeal stoodout in his memory.
Romola Borria was murmuring something, the context of which was notquite clear to him.
"Eh? I beg pardon?"
"It is quite dreadful, this traveling all alone," she remarked.
"Yes," he admitted. "Sometimes I bore myself into a state of agony."
"And it breeds such strange, such unexplainable desires and caprices,"the girl went on in her cultivated, honeyed tones. "Strangerssometimes are so--so cold. For instance, yourself."
"I?" exclaimed Peter, supporting himself on the stanchion. "Why, I'mthe friendliest man in the world!"
Romola Borria pursed her lips and studied him analytically.
"I wonder----" she began, and stopped, fretting her lip. "I shouldlike to ask you a very blunt and a very bold question." Her expressionwas darkly puzzled.
"Go right ahead," urged Peter amiably, "don't mind me."
"Why I speak in this way," she explained, "is that since I ran awayfrom Hong Kong----"
"Oh, you ran away from Hong Kong!"
"Of course!" She said it in a way that indicated a certain lack ofunderstanding on his part. "Since I ran away from Hong Kong I havebeen looking, looking for such--for such a man as you appear to be,to--to confide in."
"Don't you suppose a woman would do almost as well?" spoke Peter, who,through experience, had grown to dislike the father-confessor role.
"If you don't _care_ to listen----" she began, as though he had hurther.
"I am all ears," stated Peter, with his most convincing smile.
"And I have changed my mind," said Romola Borria with a disdainful tossof her pretty head. "Besides, I think the Herr Captain would have aword with you."
The fat and happy captain of the _Persian Gulf_ occupied the breadth ifnot the height of the doorway, wearing his boyish grin, and Peterhastened to his side with a murmured apology to the girl as he left her.
He merely desired to have transmitted an unimportant clearance messageto the Batavia office, to state that all was well and that thethrust-bearing, repaired, was now performing "smoot'ly."
Dropping the hard rubber head-phones over his ears, Peter listened tothe air, and in a moment the silver crash of the white spark came fromthe doorway.
Romola Borria stared long and venomously at the little Chinese maiden,who was sewing away industriously as she rocked to and fro on thehatch. Immersed in her own thoughts the girl, removing her quick eyesfrom the flying needle, glanced up at the deep-blue sky, and, smiling,shivered in a sort of ecstasy.
Peter the Brazen: A Mystery Story of Modern China Page 20