The Golden Age of Pulp Fiction Megapack 01

by George Allan England

  Abashed and angry, he sought some way to break its bonds. Another poem rose to memory, a poem that he hoped might make her understand. He had read it the day before in a little book called “The Divine Image,” and it had instantly burned itself into his brain. Now said he:

  “Listen, dear. I’ve got another verse for you. It’s called: ‘His Woman.’”

  “And I’m really yours, forever?”

  “Of course you are, dear! Listen, now:

  “‘In the pale, murmuring dawn she lay

  Alone, with nothing more to lose.

  Her eyes one warm, soft arm espied,

  And lips too tired to voice her pride

  Caressed and kissed a bruise.’”

  The girl looked up at him a moment, circled with his arm, as she lay there content. For a little she seemed not to understand. Then, slowly, a puzzled look and then a look of hurt rose to her eyes.

  “Hal, you—you mustn’t—”

  “Why mustn’t I, dear?”

  She tried to answer, but his lips upon her mouth stifled her speech.

  Swift fear leaped through her as she fought away from him.

  “Oh, Hal!” she cried. “What—what are you looking at me that way for? Your eyes, Hal—your eyes—”

  In vain he tried to kiss her. Her face was turned away, her hands repulsing him.

  “Kiss me, Laura! Kiss me!”

  “No, no—not now! Oh, Hal, you have only yourself to resist. I have you to resist, and myself, too!”

  The thought gave him a minute’s pause. Did some instinct of chivalry, deep-buried, try for a second to struggle up through his evil heritage, or was it but surprise that loosed his grip upon her so that she escaped his hands, his arms?

  “God forgive you, Hal, for having killed the most wonderful treasure I had—my faith in you!” she cried from where she stood now, looking down at him with tragic eyes of disillusion. “Oh, God forgive you!”

  He would have spoken, but she turned and fled toward the tangled thicket through which the path led downward.

  “Laura! Wait!” He sprang to his feet, peering after her with hateful eyes. No answer as she vanished through the greenery.

  For all his rage and passion, Hal realized how absurd a figure he would make, pursuing her. Swift anger swept over him, broke all down, rushed in uncontrolled floods.

  A moment he stood there, brutal, venomous. Then with a laugh, the echo of that which had sounded when Alpheus Briggs had flung the Malay girl to death, he clutched at his thick hair, tugging at it with excess of madness. He broke into wild curses that rose against the sky with barbarous blasphemy.

  Foam slavered upon his lips. His face grew black; the veins stood out upon his neck and temples. A madman, he trampled through the bushes, stamping, striking, lusting to kill.

  So for a time he raged in blind, stark passion; while Laura, shaken and afraid, bleeding at her heart of hearts, made her way all alone back to the safety of the seashore road.

  At last, his rage burned out, Hal flung himself down in the grass. Face buried in hands, teeth set in bleeding lip, he lay there.

  And over him the heavens, like an eyeless face, smiled down with calm, untroubled purpose.

  CHAPTER XXIX

  THE GARDEN OF GETHSEMANE

  Sadly returning home, Laura stopped for a moment at her garden gate to make quite sure her father was not in the side yard. With all her girlish dreams broken and draggled, the heartbroken girl stood looking at the flowers that only an hour before had seemed so wondrous gay. And all at once she heard the sound of wheels upon the road. Turning, she saw old Captain Briggs and Dr. Filhiol slowly driving toward Snug Haven.

  Half-minded to retreat inside the garden, still she stood there, for already Captain Briggs had raised a hand in greeting. Every feature of the old captain’s face was limned with grief. His shoulders seemed to sag, bowed down with heavier weight than his almost eighty years could pile upon them.

  So the girl remained at the gate, greatly sorrowing; and peered after the two old men. Though she could not guess the captain’s trouble, her woman’s instinct told her this trouble bore on Hal. And over her own grief settled still another cloud that darkened it still more.

  Puzzled, disillusioned, she swung the gate and entered the prim paths bordered with low box-hedges. No one saw her. Quietly she entered the house and crept up-stairs to her own room. There, in that virginal place, she dropped down on her old-fashioned, four-posted bed of black walnut, and buried her face in the same pillows to which, girl-like, she had often confided so many innocent and tender dreams.

  As the girl lay there, crying for the broken bauble, love, crushed in the brutal hand of Hal, old Captain Briggs and Dr. Filhiol—once more back on the quarterdeck of Snug Haven—settled themselves for dejected consultation.

  “I never did expect ’twould be as much as that,” the captain said, mechanically stuffing his pipe. “I reckoned maybe fifty dollars would pay demurrage and repairs on Mac. McLaughlin isn’t worth more, rig and all. But, Judas priest, two hundred and a half! That’s running into money. Money I can ill afford to pay, sir!”

  “I know,” the doctor answered. “It’s cruel extortion. But what can you do, captain? McLaughlin holds the tiller now. He can steer any course he chooses. The fact that he started at five hundred, plus the apology that he demands from Hal on the deck of the Sylvia in front of the whole crew, and that we’ve pared him down to two hundred and fifty, plus the apology—that’s a very great gain. It’s bad, I know, but not so bad as having had the boy locked up, charged with felonious assault. It’s not so bad as that, sir!”

  “No, no, of course not,” Briggs agreed. “I suppose I’ve got to pay, though Lord knows, sir, the money’s needed terribly for other things, now that the college bill has got to be settled all over again!”

  “I know it’s hard,” sympathized the doctor, “but there’s no help for it. Wipe the slate clean, and give Hal another start. That’s all you can do.”

  The old captain remained smoking and brooding a while, with sunshine on his head. At last his eyes sought the far, deep line of blue that stretched against the horizon—the sea-line, lacking which the old man always sensed a vacancy, a loss.

  “Close on to six bells,” judged he, “by the way the sun’s shining on the water. Wonder where the boy can be? I’ve got to have a proper gam with him.”

  “Why? Where ought he to be?” the doctor asked.

  “He must have put back into port, after his little cruise with Laura, this morning. We sighted her, moored at her front gate, you remember?”

  “H-m! You don’t suppose there’s trouble brewing there too, do you? I thought the girl looked upset, didn’t you?”

  “I didn’t notice anything. What seemed to be the matter?”

  “I thought she’d been crying a bit.”

  The captain clenched his fist.

  “By the Judas priest!” he exclaimed fervently. “If I thought Hal had been abusing that girl, I’d make it hot for him! That’s one thing I won’t stand!” He peered down the road with narrowing eyes, then got up and went to the front door. “Hal, oh, Hal!” he cried.

  No answer. The captain’s voice echoed emptily in the old-fashioned hallway.

  “Not here, anyhow,” said he, returning to his rocker. “Well, we won’t accuse him of anything else till we know. I only hope he hasn’t written any more black pages on the log by mishandling Laura.”

  Wearily his eyes sought Croft Hill. Of a sudden unbidden tears blurred his sight.

  “There’s a peaceful harbor for old, battered craft, anyhow,” he murmured, pointing. “I sometimes envy all the tired folk that’s found sleep and rest up there in their snug berths, while we still stand watch in all weathers. If, after all I’ve worked and hoped for, there’s nothing ahead but breakers, I’ll envy them more than ever.”

  “Come now, captain!” Filhiol tried to cheer him. “Maybe it was only a little lovers’ quarrel that sent Laura home. There’s ne
ver all smooth sailing, with maid and man for a crew. Let’s wait a while and see.”

  “Yes, wait and think it over,” said the captain. “There’s only one place for me, doctor, when things look squally, and that’s with my folks on the hill. Guess I’ll take a walk up there now and talk it over with them. Come with me, will you?”

  Filhiol shook his head.

  “Too much for me, that hill is,” he answered. “If you don’t mind, I’ll sit right here and watch the sea.”

  “Suit yourself, doctor.” And Captain Briggs arose. “When Ezra comes down the lane tell him not to bother with dinner. A little snack will do. Let’s each of us think this thing out, and maybe we can chart the proper course between us.”

  He stood a moment in the sunshine, then, bare-headed, went down the steps and turned into the path that would lead him up Croft Hill. He stopped, gathering a handful of bright flowers—zinnias, hollyhocks, sweet peas—for his ever-remembered dead. Then he went on again.

  “Poor old chap!” said Dr. Filhiol. “The curse is biting pretty deep. That’s all poppycock, that Malay cursing; but the curses of heredity are stern reality. There’s a specific for every poison in the world. Even the dread curaré has one. But for the poison of heredity, what remedy is there? Poor old captain!”

  Alpheus Briggs, with bowed head, climbed up the winding way among the blackberry bushes, the sumacs and wild roses dainty-sweet; and so at last came to the wall pierced with the whitewashed gate that he himself kept always in repair.

  Into the cemetery, his Garden of Gethsemane, he penetrated, by paths flanked with simple and pious stones, many of hard slate carved with death’s-heads, urns, cherubs and weeping-willows, according to the custom of the ancient, godly days. Thus to his family burial lot he came, and there laid his offering upon the graves he loved; and then sat down upon the bench there, for meditation in this hour of sorrow and perplexity.

  And as sun and sky and sea, fresh breeze and drifting cloud, and the mild influences of his lifelong friend, tobacco, all worked their soothings on him, he presently plucked up a little heart once more. The nearness of his dead bade him have hope and courage. He felt, in that quiet and solemn place, the tightening of his family bonds; he felt that duty called him to lift even these new and heavy burdens, to bear them valiantly and like a man.

  With the graves about him and the sea before, and over all the heavens, calm returned. And sorrow—which, like anger, cannot long be keen—faded into another thought: the thought of how he should make of Hal the man that he would have him be.

  How restful was this sunlit hilltop, where he knew that soon he, too, must sleep! The faint, far cries of gulls drifted in to him with the bell-buoy’s slow tolling; and up from the village rose the music of the smitten anvil. That music minded him of a Hindustani poem Hal once had read to him—a poem about the blacksmith, Destiny, beating out showers of sparks upon the cosmic anvil in the night of eternity, each spark a human soul; and each, swiftly extinguished, worth just as much to Destiny as earthly anvil sparks are to the human toiler at the forge—as much and no more.

  The poem had thus ended:

  “All is Maya, all is illusion! Why struggle, then?

  To walk is better than to run; to stand is better than to walk.

  To sit is better than to stand; to lie is better than to sit.

  To sleep is better than to wake; to dream is better than to live.

  Better still is a sleep that is dreamless,

  And death is best of all!”

  “I wonder if that’s true?” the captain mused. “I wonder if life is all illusion and death alone is real?”

  Thus meditating, he felt very near the wife and son who lay there beneath the flowers he had just laid on the close-cut sod. The cloud-shadows, drifting over the hilltop, seemed symbols of the transitory passage of man’s life, unstable, ever drifting on, and leaving on the universe no greater imprint than shadows on the grass. He yearned toward those who had gone to rest before him; and though not a praying man, a supplication voiced itself in him:

  “Oh, God, let me finish out my work, and let me rest! Let me put the boy on the right course through life, and let me know he’ll follow it—then, let me steer for the calm harbor where Thou, my Pilot, wilt give me quiet from the storm!”

  Thus the old captain sat there for a long time, pondering many and sad things; and all at once he saw the figure of a man in white coming along the road. The captain knew him afar.

  “There’s Hal now,” said he. “I wonder where he’s been and what this all means?”

  A new anxiety trembled through his wounded heart, that longed for nothing now but love and trust. Up rose the old captain, and with slow steps walked to the eastern wall of the cemetery. There he waited patiently.

  Presently Hal came into sight, round the shoulder of Croft Hill.

  “Ahoy, there! Hal! Come here—I want to see you!”

  The old man’s cry dropped with disagreeable surprise into Hal’s sinister reflections. Hal looked up, and swore to himself. He sensed the meaning of that summons.

  “There’s another damned scene coming,” thought Hal. “Why the hell can’t he let me alone now? Why can’t everybody let me alone?”

  Nothing could now have been more inopportune than an interview with his grandfather. Hal—his rage burned out to ashes—had come down from Geyser Rock, and had turned homeward in evil humor. And as he had gone he had already begun to lay out tentative plans for what he meant to do.

  “It’s all bull, what Laura handed me!” he had been thinking when the captain’s summons had intruded. “Am I going to let her throw me that way? I guess not! I’ll land her yet; but not here, not here! I can’t stick here. The way I’m in wrong with the college, and now this new rough-house with Laura, will certainly put the crimp in me. What I’ve got to do is clear out. And I won’t go alone, at that. If I only had a twenty-five footer! I could get her aboard of it some way. The main thing’s a boat. The rest is easy. I could let them whistle, all of them. The open sea—that’s the thing! That’s a man’s way to do things—not go sniveling ’round here in white flannels all summer, letting a girl hand it to me that way!

  “God, if I could only raise five hundred bucks! I could get Jim Gordon’s Kittiwink for that, and provision it, too. Make a break for Cuba, or Honduras; why, damn it, I could go round the world—go East—get away from all this preaching and rough-house—live like a man, by God!”

  The captain’s hail shattered Hal’s dreams.

  “Devil take the old man!” snarled Hal to himself as he scowled up at the figure on the hilltop. “What’s he want now? And devil take all women! They’re like dogs. Beat a dog and a woman, and you can’t go wrong. I’ll play this game to win yet, and make good! Hello, up there?” he shouted in reply to the captain. “What d’you want of me?”

  “I want to talk with you, Hal,” the old man’s voice came echoing down. “Come here, sir!”

  Another moment Hal hesitated. Then, realizing that he could not yet raise the banner of open rebellion, he turned and lagged toward the road that led up the south side of the hill.

  As he climbed, he put into the background of his brain the plans he had been formulating, and for the more pressing need of the future began framing plausible lies.

  He lighted a Turkish cigarette as he entered the graveyard, to give himself a certain nonchalance; and so, smoking this thing which the old captain particularly abominated, swinging his shoulders, he came along the graveled walk toward the family burying lot, where once more Captain Briggs had sat down upon the bench to wait for him.

  CHAPTER XXX

  HIS WORD OF HONOR

  The old man said nothing at all, as Hal drew near, but only peered at him from under those white-thatched brows of his, with eyes of stern reproach. This still further quickened Hal’s apprehension and blew to a kindling fire the glowing embers of venomous ill-humor.

  For all his swagger, Hal could not bring himself to look the captain in
the eye. Hands in pockets, cigarette in lips, he came close and stood there; and with defiant surliness on his tanned face managed to say:

  “Well, gramp, what now? Getting ready to pan me properly, are you? If so, when ready, Gridley, you can fire!”

  “Hal,” answered the old man, “that’s the last impertinence you’re ever going to utter to me! So remember. Sit down and answer my questions.”

  “I can take it standing, all right!” said Hal, defiant still.

  “I said, sit down, sir!”

  Making no answer this time, the boy hulked his surly way toward the ancient, flat-topped tomb, the granite slab of which—supported on six stone pillars—bore the name “Amalfi Briggs.”

  “Not there, sir!” exclaimed the captain sternly. “Have you no respect for either dead or living? Here on this bench beside me! Sit down, I tell you!”

  Hal slouched down beside his grandfather, his huge shoulders sagging. A strange resemblance grew visible between these two—young man and old; black-haired and white.

  “Well, now what is it?” demanded Hal with an oblique glance.

  “The first thing, sir, is that I’m going to be obeyed, without question and without any back talk. I never took it aboard my ships, and I’m not going to stand any impertinence. I’m an old man, but I’m still captain of Snug Harbor. As long as there’s a breath of air in my lungs or a drop of blood in my veins, I’m going to give orders there; and those that don’t like them will have to sail with some other skipper. Do you understand that?”

  “Yes, sir,” answered the boy, more subdued in tone. This new note of his grandfather’s told him real business was up-wind.

  “Very well, then. That’s understood,” continued Alpheus, grimly. “You are subordinate to me. That point ought never to have been raised at all, and with a right-minded grandson it never would have been. But since you’ve shown yourself rebellious, it’s got to be. I’m master, and you’re man. Don’t ever forget that, sir. If you do, into the small boat you go, and away; and, once you’ve gone, there’s no Jacob’s-ladder down the side for you ever again!”