Such thoughts! The thrill of Joyce’s lips upon his! What wonder of delight. In his highest dreams he had never felt it would be like that. Joyce’s shy slender form yielded to his arms, her soft tear-wet lashes against his cheek, her clinging arms for that minute he had held her. Oh, love! Was life like this? It seemed that all the past had only been leading up to this, and suddenly he thought he knew what there had been between his own father and mother that had made the years, some of them hard years, one long dream of bliss.
He paused in his thoughts to give tribute to such a father who could love a woman as his had loved Rowan’s mother, to reflect that it was a great background for himself to have, and one to which he must live up.
If in the days ahead he should be so fortunate as to win Joyce as his companion through life, he must remember the pattern set for him by his father.
He thought of his mother, with her tender arms, her frail lips against his cheek, her smile, her courage! Would Joyce be like that someday with him?
Joyce, whose lips against his still seemed warm upon him, whose slender weight seemed yet almost in his arms. What wonder! And she had been there on the next farm all this summer, and he had been too shy to go and tell her of his love, too prone to think he was not yet enough of a success to ask for the hand of any woman, especially such a woman as this.
Of course he had meant to do it soon. But he was trying to have a certain amount of money in the bank first before he took that step. He had been looking upon Joyce as a young queen who should have gifts great and precious if one would woo her. He had been coming slowly, pleasantly, up to the climax of his young life, and expecting all to be deliberate and orderly, like his farm work and all his other plans for life, and here love had been lurking for him in the dark and had caught him when he was not looking for it.
Love! Wonderful love! Had it caught Joyce that way, too, or hadn’t she thought of love yet?
When he thought back he knew that his arms had taken her unaware, yet she had yielded herself. Joyce was not one who yielded herself to anyone. He had known her almost all her life, though they had never been anything more than friends before. But now he had told her she was precious, and she had not put him off. She had held her lips to his. If she had disliked him she would have made it plain even though he was just about to do a favor for her. No, she had understood his word, precious. She must have understood what if portended of the love he had to offer her. He hadn’t had time to make it clearer, but she would understand, and her attitude had tacitly responded. She had let him know at least that she was not indifferent. Oh, he loved her, and her lips had told him that she loved him, too. Thrill after thrill passed over him as he rode along in the quiet of the night. There were little creatures stirring here and there, wood sounds from the trees along the way, the whisper of a breeze in the branches, the chatter of a sleepy chipmunk protesting against some outrage of a creature larger than itself. The night call of a bird, the hoot of an owl, and once the whirr of a bat flying low into the lights of the car, but they were all familiar sounds and did not take his attention. He was going on a quest for his lady, like a knight of old, and he was lifted up with joyous pride at the thought. He did not doubt that he would soon return and bring back her beloved brother with him.
Hot-headed Jason, to start off like that and leave town at the slightest implication. Rowan knew him well and had talked it over many times with him.
Jason had always maintained that he would not be misjudged and blamed another time for others’ faults. That he would go away, far away, to South America, where he would get a wonderful job and become a great success, perhaps do a little exploring and buy a mine, or discover a hidden treasure, something like that. Rowan had felt it was a very young attitude toward life but yet had often sympathized with him in many of the situations through which they had passed.
But now, when Joyce had told him what had happened, he felt instantly sure that Jason had at last carried out his threat and gone to South America. He even knew the port the lad had hankered to enter and the line of travel he meant to pursue. He had little doubt that he wouldn’t soon overtake him, even though Jason had several hours’ start, and bring him back perhaps before morning. For surely Jason had more sense than to spend his small salary, which was likely all he had along, on railroad fare. Besides, it was far more romantic to walk when he was out entirely on his own.
So Rowan drove confidently into the night and communed with his own heart under the stars, and quivered with joy over the homecoming he hoped soon to make.
But he did not find Jason as soon as he had hoped.
In passing Rowley’s he found that the place was all dark. So Jason wasn’t there. He was relieved at that. Jason had not been going there quite so much lately.
He drove on all night, thinking to find the boy trudging on the highway. He stopped at filling stations and questioned the men, but most of them were on the night shift and had not seen, or had not noticed a young man of that description footing it.
It was not until midafternoon of the next day that he stopped at a little roadside inn for something to eat, and a girl told him she had seen a good-looking young man in a dark blue suit and a panama hat. He had come in and asked for a cup of coffee and a sandwich. He had eaten a piece of apple pie and some cheese, and asked where he could find a shoemaker.
Rowan went to the shoe shop and asked questions. He found a voluble shoemaker who described Jason to perfection. Of course, there might be other young men traveling to New York who wore blue serge suits and panama hats and hadn’t any baggage, but there wouldn’t be many, surely, who wore a little green monkey as a scarf pin, a monkey of such tiny proportions and yet with such clear features that he actually seemed to smile and had “eyes that talked” as the shoemaker said. Rowan knew all about the monkey. Jason had confided to him the storm it had rained the day he came home from college wearing it in his tie. Under his father’s thundering command he had had to own up to its outrageous price and the reason for its being his: that it was the emblem of a private eating club in college, a secret order to which it was a great honor to belong.
Rowan remembered that the elder Whitney had said there was no such tomfoolery in college when he was there—young men went to college to study not to eat in his day, and he doubted the word of his son. That fool organization, whatever it was, was outside his good old university; it was some town nonsense. In his time they didn’t have to buy real jade monkeys to help them eat, either, and he ordered his son to take it off and never be seen with it again around his hometown. It was like Jason and against Rowan’s advice to go right on wearing the monkey and angering his father, and it was like Rowan to give advice only once and stop at that. So Jason had stubbornly gone on wearing the monkey to his father’s exceeding disgust. But the monkey had done him a good turn at last, for Rowan was sure he was on the right track and would soon come up with Jason.
Rowan was torn between anger at the young man and tenderness because he belonged to Joyce. Yet when he found him, he intended to mince no words but to let him know exactly what he thought of him for running off that way without letting his distressed sister know what had become of him.
He was confident as he started on again after his interview with the shoemaker that it would be only a matter of a couple of hours now before he found Jason and they started back again. Once or twice he considered the matter of telephoning to Joyce, but since he had as yet nothing definite to tell her and since the telephone was a shared line he decided to wait a little longer.
So he kept on hour after hour, finding trace of his quarry but never reaching him. The monkey was something that one could not help noticing, and though Jason probably didn’t realize it, it had made him a marked man. At last after dark on the very outskirts of New York, Rowan stopped at a filling station for gas and asked his usual question:
“Have you seen a young man with a blue serge suit, panama hat, and a little green monkey scarf pin?” The attendant answered
promptly:
“Yes sir! He stopped here for a drink of water and caught a ride into town. Said he was going to the wharf to catch a steamer to South America.”
Worn and tired and exasperated, Rowan started on, looked at his watch and stepped on the gas. It was getting on toward midnight and he knew that was the time that many ships sailed. He put his old car at its very best speed, running past lights when he dared, threading his way through increasing traffic until at last he arrived at the region of the wharfs and ships. He drove as near as he could to the docks, sometimes penetrating a spot where he was not supposed to be. Finally in desperation he asked a sailor who passed, where was the ship just leaving for South America? The sailor pointed down the dark cobbled way.
“Ship down there just leaving. Don’t know where she’s going but they need an extra hand. One of the crew is sick. That the one you mean?”
Rowan abandoned his car and plunged down the dark way indicated.
“Here, you! They won’t let you leave that car there. You’ve gotta take it around the other side an’ park it,” shouted the sailor, but Rowan was gone in the darkness. And the old car stood there puffing away just as it had been left until it ran out of gas, and then with a few gasps and gurgles like a dying frog it stopped dead and stood there silent in the dark.
Rowan plunged on wildly into the darkness hurrying along in the direction the sailor had pointed. He was aware that it was just short of midnight now and if the ship sailed on time it would be now about losing its cable, but he was not aware that shipping was usually carried on in such utter darkness! Yet he must go on. He must take no chance. If the ship sailed with Jason on it his quest would be long before he could keep his promise to Joyce and bring her brother back. Where was that ship? Had the sailor misled him? Then suddenly he rounded the corner of a large warehouse, and grimly against the sky he saw her masts. The dark bulky shape of the ship loomed against the sky. Only a few winking lights were aboard here and there and a single inadequate arc light over the pier. There on the grimy deck of that unholy ship under the light of the lantern that swung above his head stood Jason with a coil of rope in his hands, the most forlorn, lonesome-looking object Rowan had ever seen. Jason, leaving his home to carry out his childish purpose in a fit of anger and discouragement!
Rowan’s heart went out to him and even as he recognized him he saw the gangplank hauled in and the ship begin to move darkly away from the dock. He plunged forward, pushing aside a dockhand, and gave a mighty leap. He could not let Jason get away from him like that. so he hurled himself over the quickly widening dark that must be water and landed sprawling upon the deck. Almost instantly he felt the grip of a bony hand upon his collar, and a powerful man yanked him to his feet.
A gruff sailor holding a dim lantern in his other hand stood and looked him over.
“Be you de feller we was waitin’ fer?” he asked.
“I guess I must be,” Rowan panted with what little breath he had left.
“You took an awful chance.”
“I hadn’t time to consider that,” said Rowan, and it passed through his mind as doubtful if anybody would have rescued him if he had fallen into that dark water.
He was roused to the consciousness that the space between the boat and the dark spot that was the wharf was widening perceptibly. The arc light over the spot where he had leaped from was barely a pin prick in the distance now and he must do something about it at once. Where had he seen Jason? He must find him as quickly as possible and not make the ship any more trouble than was necessary to get them back to land. For the instant the leap seemed to have dazed him and he couldn’t quite get his bearings, but he stumbled forward in the darkness and almost fell over a coil of rope. The sailor righted him again.
“Don’t know yor way aroun’, do ya? He remarked with a tinge of contempt in his voice. “You wanta find the captain, don’t ya, ef yor the new man, but it won’t do ya any good, for he’s dead drunk in his bunk. The first mate’ll do, but he’s Portugee. Do ya know the lingo?”
“No,” said Rowan, a bit bewildered, “but I’m looking for a friend. I saw him over there just before I jumped. Have you seen him? Dark blue suit, panama hat—”
The sailor laughed. “Think I can tell color on a night like this? I got all I can do ta tend ta my job. Look out there! You’ll fall over that keg. Ain’t got yor sea eyes yet, have ya, nor yor sea legs neither. My advice ta you is ta set right down flat where ya are an’ set there till day dawn. Ef you got a friend on this blasted ship yor in luck. It’s more’n anyone else has. B’lieve me you’ll need him ’afore we git through this fool voyage, ef we ever do get through, which is doubtful.”
Rowan stared at the man.
“But I’m not going on the voyage, you see,” Rowan explained. “I came to get my friend and take him back home. I’ve got to find the captain or somebody and arrange about it. What is the quickest thing I can do to get us back to land?”
The man began to laugh.
“You’ll do well ef you make it in a year,” he said. “Ya can’t tell where we’ll bring up ’afore we’re through—”
“But there surely is some way to get back to land!” said Rowan, startled. “I’ll be glad to pay, of course.”
“Young man, it would take more’n you’ve got in the world ta get this old wash tub ta turn back ta land. Don’t ya know death waits back there in the dark fer any ship that carries a cargo like this? I’m tellin’ ya!”
“What’s the cargo?” asked Rowan with suddenly stern eyes.
The old man eyed him keenly by the light of the one swaying lantern for a minute, and then he spoke.
“You man, ef ya don’t know what this cargo is, it’s not fer me ta tell ya. And as far as findin’ yer friend tanight, there’s nothin’ doin’. This here lantern’s the only light that’s burnin’, an’ I’m puttin’ this on the blink now. From now on till we git out o’ this section we’re travelin’ dark an’ still, an’ ef you let a sound outta ya after the light goes out, you’ll find yerself where ya would a ben a few minutes back ef I hadn’t hauled ya in. Out there in the dark the water’s slick an’ even yor friend don’t know yor here. So sit tight an’ shut yer trap ef ya wanta keep on voyagin’. There’s a pile of bags behind ya, an’ ye can lay down an’ shut up. This here begins the danger point and here comes the first mate. Don’t let him know yer aboard yet. He’s pretty well tanked up an’ he might treat ya worse’n ya deserve.”
With that he snuffed out the light and disappeared in the darkness and the strangest thing about it was that there wasn’t a sound of a footstep!
Rowan sat down tentatively in the direction the man had indicated and found the bags beneath, an ill-smelling gritty heap. But there seemed to be no choice and one couldn’t stand indefinitely. He wished he had brought his flashlight from the car, but if he had stayed for that he would have been too late and Jason would have been lost to them forever.
He sat quite still in the darkness and tried to think it out. It was fantastic. It couldn’t be real. It simply couldn’t have happened in a modern world. But if it was true and Jason was here—and he knew he had seen him just before that upper light went out—what did it all mean? What was this? A tramp steamer? Carrying—what? Contraband goods of some kind? What? Rum? Gunpowder? Arms? What would happen in the morning? Was he foolish to lie still here in the dark and travel on and on across an unknown sea into possible danger or unforeseen circumstance? Ought he not rather to start out silently on hands and knees and perhaps search through the dark until he found Jason and rescue him? But how was he going to do that not knowing where to look? This was a terrible place. A drunken captain and a Portuguese crew who couldn’t understand him, and unknown port and perhaps an uncharted sea, who knew? Suppose he had been mistaken and it wasn’t Jason after all, just somebody who resembled him. What could he do? He couldn’t jump overboard; it was too far to swim back, and if there was a boat he wouldn’t know how to lower it nor how to navigate it. Rowan was well
versed in land sports and would have been equal to almost any emergency on land. But he had to admit to himself that he was up against an unknown quantity when it came to the sea.
But he had seen Jason. It was not possible that he could have been mistaken. And he couldn’t go back without Jason. He couldn’t think of meeting Joyce and telling her that he had failed.
It was all an unreal situation and his senses were numb. He had been traveling almost continuously, with only a few snatches of sleep, and nature was having her revenge. That fearful leap and the shock of that dark unfriendly boat, when he had expected a large bright ship with festivity and friendliness aboard and Jason to welcome him, bewildered him.
As if he had been given a drug, his senses swam, and his eyes fell shut in spite of his best efforts. He tried to rouse and think what to do. It was unspeakably awful to succumb to sleep in a place like this and let himself and Jason be carried farther and farther away from everything real and human and desirable, and yet he couldn’t hold out much longer. He opened his eyes and stared up at the metal sky where wild clouds were hurrying in throngs like an army of outlaws going to battle, grim and gray. An alien sky in league with the alien boat that carried him away from Joyce, with his quest only just begun! And where was Jason through it all?
At last he slept with the stench of the moldy bags coming up to his nostrils. But he slept and dreamed of Joyce, dreamed that he stood by the old farm fence with her in his arms and her soft lips against his, dreamed that he whispered to her softly that he would never come back until he could bring Jason with him. So he slept, and under a leaden sky and over a leaden sea the dirty old hag sailed on bearing him farther and farther.
Sunrise Page 17