by Jack London
CHAPTER XXI
Harry Del Mar found only a few white feathers on the floor of DagDaughtry's room in the Bowhead Lodging House, and from the landladylearned what had happened to Michael. The first thing Harry Del Mar did,still retaining his taxi, was to locate the residence of Doctor Emory andmake sure that Michael was confined in an outhouse in the back yard. Nexthe engaged passage on the steamship _Umatilla_, sailing for Seattle andPuget Sound ports at daylight. And next he packed his luggage and paidhis bills.
In the meantime, a wordy war was occurring in Walter Merritt Emory'soffice.
"The man's yelling his head off," Doctor Masters was contending. "Thepolice had to rap him with their clubs in the ambulance. He was violent.He wanted his dog. It can't be done. It's too raw. You can't steal hisdog this way. He'll make a howl in the papers."
"Huh!" quoth Walter Merritt Emory. "I'd like to see a reporter withbackbone enough to go within talking distance of a leper in thepest-house. And I'd like to see the editor who wouldn't send apest-house letter (granting it'd been smuggled past the guards) out to beburned the very second he became aware of its source. Don't you worry,Doc. There won't be any noise in the papers."
"But leprosy! Public health! The dog has been exposed to his master.The dog itself is a peripatetic source of infection."
"Contagion is the better and more technical word, Doc.," Walter MerrittEmory soothed with the sting of superior knowledge.
"Contagion, then," Doctor Masters took him up. "The public must beconsidered. It must not run the risk of being infected--"
"Of contracting the contagion," the other corrected smoothly.
"Call it what you will. The public--"
"Poppycock," said Walter Merritt Emory. "What you don't know aboutleprosy, and what the rest of the board of health doesn't know aboutleprosy, would fill more books than have been compiled by the men whohave expertly studied the disease. The one thing they have eternallytried, and are eternally trying, is to inoculate one animal outside manwith the leprosy that is peculiar to man. Horses, rabbits, rats,donkeys, monkeys, mice, and dogs--heavens, they have tried it on themall, tens of thousands of times and a hundred thousand times ten thousandtimes, and never a successful inoculation! They have never succeeded ininoculating it on one man from another. Here--let me show you."
And from his shelves Waiter Merritt Emory began pulling down hisauthorities.
"Amazing . . . most interesting . . . " Doctor Masters continued to emitfrom time to time as he followed the expert guidance of the other throughthe books. "I never dreamed . . . the amount of work they have done isastounding . . . "
"But," he said in conclusion, "there is no convincing a layman of thematter contained on your shelves. Nor can I so convince my public. Norwill I try to. Besides, the man is consigned to the living death of life-long imprisonment in the pest-house. You know the beastly hole it is. Heloves the dog. He's mad over it. Let him have it. I tell you it'srotten unfair and cruel, and I won't stand for it."
"Yes, you will," Walter Merritt Emory assured him coolly. "And I'll tellyou why."
He told him. He said things that no doctor should say to another, butwhich a politician may well say, and has often said, to anotherpolitician--things which cannot bear repeating, if, for no other reason,because they are too humiliating and too little conducive to pride forthe average American citizen to know; things of the inside, secretgovernments of imperial municipalities which the average Americancitizen, voting free as a king at the polls, fondly thinks he manages;things which are, on rare occasion, partly unburied and promptly reburiedin the tomes of reports of Lexow Committees and Federal Commissions.
* * * * *
And Walter Merritt Emory won his desire of Michael against DoctorMasters; had his wife dine with him at Jules' that evening and took herto see Margaret Anglin in celebration of the victory; returned home atone in the morning, in his pyjamas went out to take a last look atMichael, and found no Michael.
* * * * *
The pest-house of San Francisco, as is naturally the case withpest-houses in all American cities, was situated on the bleakest,remotest, forlornest, cheapest space of land owned by the city. Poorlyprotected from the Pacific Ocean, chill winds and dense fog-bankswhistled and swirled sadly across the sand-dunes. Picnicking partiesnever came there, nor did small boys hunting birds' nests or playing atbeing wild Indians. The only class of frequenters was the suicides, who,sad of life, sought the saddest landscape as a fitting scene in which toend. And, because they so ended, they never repeated their visits.
The outlook from the windows was not inspiriting. A quarter of a mile ineither direction, looking out along the shallow canyon of the sand-hills,Dag Daughtry could see the sentry-boxes of the guards, themselves armedand more prone to kill than to lay hands on any escaping pest-man, muchless persuavively discuss with him the advisability of his return to theprison house.
On the opposing sides of the prospect from the windows of the four wallsof the pest-house were trees. Eucalyptus they were, but not the royalmonarchs that their brothers are in native habitats. Poorly planted, bypolitics, illy attended, by politics, decimated and many times repeatedlydecimated by the hostile forces of their environment, a stragglingcorporal's guard of survivors, they thrust their branches, twisted anddistorted, as if writhing in agony, into the air. Scrub of growth theywere, expending the major portion of their meagre nourishment in theirroots that crawled seaward through the insufficient sand for anchorageagainst the prevailing gales.
Not even so far as the sentry-boxes were Daughtry and Kwaque permitted tostroll. A hundred yards inside was the dead-line. Here, the guards camehastily to deposit food-supplies, medicines, and written doctors'instructions, retreating as hastily as they came. Here, also, was ablackboard upon which Daughtry was instructed to chalk up his needs andrequests in letters of such size that they could be read from a distance.And on this board, for many days, he wrote, not demands for beer,although the six-quart daily custom had been broken sharply off, butdemands like:
WHERE IS MY DOG?
HE IS AN IRISH TERRIER.
HE IS ROUGH-COATED.
HIS NAME IS KILLENY BOY.
I WANT MY DOG.
I WANT TO TALK TO DOC. EMORY.
TELL DOC. EMORY TO WRITE TO ME ABOUT MY DOG.
One day, Dag Daughtry wrote:
IF I DON'T GET MY DOG I WILL KILL DOC. EMORY.
Whereupon the newspapers informed the public that the sad case of the twolepers at the pest-house had become tragic, because the white one hadgone insane. Public-spirited citizens wrote to the papers, declaimingagainst the maintenance of such a danger to the community, and demandingthat the United States government build a national leprosarium on someremote island or isolated mountain peak. But this tiny ripple ofinterest faded out in seventy-two hours, and the reporter-cubs proceededvariously to interest the public in the Alaskan husky dog that was half abear, in the question whether or not Crispi Angelotti was guilty ofhaving cut the carcass of Giuseppe Bartholdi into small portions andthrown it into the bay in a grain-sack off Fisherman's Wharf, and in theovert designs of Japan upon Hawaii, the Philippines, and the PacificCoast of North America.
And, outside of imprisonment, nothing happened of interest to DagDaughtry and Kwaque at the pest-house until one night in the late fall. Agale was not merely brewing. It was coming on to blow. Because, in abasket of fruit, stated to have been sent by the young ladies of MissFoote's Seminary, Daughtry had read a note artfully concealed in theheart of an apple, telling him on the forthcoming Friday night to keep alight burning in his window. Daughtry received a visitor at five in themorning.
It was Charles Stough Greenleaf, the Ancient Mariner himself. Havingwallowed for two hours through the deep sand of the eucalyptus forest, hefell exhausted against the penthouse door. When Daughtry opened it, theancient one blew in upon him along with a gusty wet splatter of thefreshening gale. Daughtry caught him firs
t and supported him toward achair. But, remembering his own affliction, he released the old man soabruptly as to drop him violently into the chair.
"My word, sir," said Daughtry. "You must 'a' ben havin' a time ofit.--Here, you fella Kwaque, this fella wringin' wet. You fella take 'moff shoe stop along him."
But before Kwaque, immediately kneeling, could touch hand to theshoelaces, Daughtry, remembering that Kwaque was likewise unclean, hadthrust him away.
"My word, I don't know what to do," Daughtry murmured, staring abouthelplessly as he realised that it was a leper-house, that the very chairin which the old man sat was a leper-chair, that the very floor on whichhis exhausted feet rested was a leper-floor.
"I'm glad to see you, most exceeding glad," the Ancient Mariner panted,extending his hand in greeting.
Dag Daughtry avoided it.
"How goes the treasure-hunting?" he queried lightly. "Any prospects insight?"
The Ancient Mariner nodded, and with returning breath, at firstwhispering, gasped out:
"We're all cleared to sail on the first of the ebb at seven this morning.She's out in the stream now, a tidy bit of a schooner, the _Bethlehem_,with good lines and hull and large cabin accommodations. She used to bein the Tahiti trade, before the steamers ran her out. Provisions aregood. Everything is most excellent. I saw to that. I cannot say I likethe captain. I've seen his type before. A splendid seaman, I amcertain, but a Bully Hayes grown old. A natural born pirate, a verywicked old man indeed. Nor is the backer any better. He is middle-aged,has a bad record, and is not in any sense of the word a gentleman, but hehas plenty of money--made it first in California oil, then grub-staked aprospector in British Columbia, cheated him out of his share of the biglode he discovered and doubled his own wealth half a dozen times over. Avery undesirable, unlikeable sort of a man. But he believes in luck, andis confident that he'll make at least fifty millions out of our adventureand cheat me out of my share. He's as much a pirate as is the captainhe's engaged."
"Mr. Greenleaf, I congratulate you, sir," Daughtry said. "And you havetouched me, sir, touched me to the heart, coming all the way out here onsuch a night, and running such risks, just to say good-bye to poor DagDaughtry, who always meant somewhat well but had bad luck."
But while he talked so heartily, Daughtry saw, in a resplendentvisioning, all the freedom of a schooner in the great South Seas, andfelt his heart sink in realisation that remained for him only the pest-house, the sand-dunes, and the sad eucalyptus trees.
The Ancient Mariner sat stiffly upright.
"Sir, you have hurt me. You have hurt me to the heart."
"No offence, sir, no offence," Daughtry stammered in apology, although hewondered in what way he could have hurt the old gentleman's feelings.
"You are my friend, sir," the other went on, gravely censorious. "I amyour friend, sir. And you give me to understand that you think I havecome out here to this hell-hole to say good-bye. I came out here to getyou, sir, and your nigger, sir. The schooner is waiting for you. All isarranged. You are signed on the articles before the shippingcommissioner. Both of you. Signed on yesterday by proxies I arrangedfor myself. One was a Barbadoes nigger. I got him and the white man outof a sailors' boarding-house on Commercial Street and paid them fivedollars each to appear before the Commissioner and sign on."
"But, my God, Mr. Greenleaf, you don't seem to grasp it that he and I arelepers."
Almost with a galvanic spring, the Ancient Mariner was out of the chairand on his feet, the anger of age and of a generous soul in his face ashe cried:
"My God, sir, what you don't seem to grasp is that you are my friend, andthat I am your friend."
Abruptly, still under the pressure of his wrath, he thrust out his hand.
"Steward, Daughtry. Mr. Daughtry, friend, sir, or whatever I may nameyou, this is no fairy-story of the open boat, the cross-bearingsunnamable, and the treasure a fathom under the sand. This is real. Ihave a heart. That, sir"--here he waved his extended hand underDaughtry's nose--"is my hand. There is only one thing you may do, mustdo, right now. You must take that hand in your hand, and shake it, withyour heart in your hand as mine is in my hand."
"But . . . but. . . " Daughtry faltered.
"If you don't, then I shall not depart from this place. I shall remainhere, die here. I know you are a leper. You can't tell me anythingabout that. There's my hand. Are you going to take it? My heart isthere in the palm of it, in the pulse in every finger-end of it. If youdon't take it, I warn you I'll sit right down here in this chair and die.I want you to understand I am a man, sir, a gentleman. I am a friend, acomrade. I am no poltroon of the flesh. I live in my heart and in myhead, sir--not in this feeble carcass I cursorily inhabit. Take thathand. I want to talk with you afterward."
Dag Daughtry extended his hand hesitantly, but the Ancient Mariner seizedit and pressed it so fiercely with his age-lean fingers as to hurt.
"Now we can talk," he said. "I have thought the whole matter over. Wesail on the _Bethlehem_. When the wicked man discovers that he can neverget a penny of my fabulous treasure, we will leave him. He will be gladto be quit of us. We, you and I and your nigger, will go ashore in theMarquesas. Lepers roam about free there. There are no regulations. Ihave seen them. We will be free. The land is a paradise. And you and Iwill set up housekeeping. A thatched hut--no more is needed. The workis trifling. The freedom of beach and sea and mountain will be ours. Foryou there will be sailing, swimming, fishing, hunting. There aremountain goats, wild chickens and wild cattle. Bananas and plantainswill ripen over our heads--avocados and custard apples, also. The redpeppers grow by the door, and there will be fowls, and the eggs of fowls.Kwaque shall do the cooking. And there will be beer. I have long notedyour thirst unquenchable. There will be beer, six quarts of it a day,and more, more.
"Quick. We must start now. I am sorry to tell you that I have vainlysought your dog. I have even paid detectives who were robbers. DoctorEmory stole Killeny Boy from you, but within a dozen hours he was stolenfrom Doctor Emory. I have left no stone unturned. Killeny Boy is gone,as we shall be gone from this detestable hole of a city.
"I have a machine waiting. The driver is paid well. Also, I havepromised to kill him if he defaults on me. It bears just a bit north ofeast over the sandhill on the road that runs along the other side of thefunny forest . . . That is right. We will start now. We can discussafterward. Look! Daylight is beginning to break. The guards must notsee us . . . "
Out into the storm they passed, Kwaque, with a heart wild with gladness,bringing up the rear. At the beginning Daughtry strove to walk aloof,but in a trice, in the first heavy gust that threatened to whisk thefrail old man away, Dag Daughtry's hand was grasping the other's arm, hisown weight behind and under, supporting and impelling forward and up thehill through the heavy sand.
"Thank you, steward, thank you, my friend," the Ancient Mariner murmuredin the first lull between the gusts.