Harold Bindloss - The Dust of Conflict

“Well,” said Tony, “I don’t quite know. I don’t worry over those questions, but it seems to me there is something to be said for the man who does what he shouldn’t when he can’t help it.”

“Can’t help it?”

“Yes,” said Tony. “I mean when it would only cause trouble to everybody if he did the correct thing.”

The girl looked at him curiously. “I think we had better abandon that subject, Tony,” she said. “We will go back to the other. Your friend could have had no hand in Davidson’s death – because he is your friend, and because I know what kind of man he is. Is there nothing you could do to clear him?”

Tony shook his head. “No; I wish I could,” he said.

“Still, you see, it doesn’t matter quite so much in his case. He leaves nobody to worry about it behind him, and had no prospects. He told me he was going out to try his fortune in another land, anyway.”

“It doesn’t matter! Is it nothing that he should go out with a brand of that kind upon him?”

“Well,” said Tony reflectively, “I really don’t think it counts for very much where he is going to. You see, they are not remarkably particular in America.”

Violet Wayne rose. “You are not in a pleasant mood tonight, Tony, and I am tired. We will not stay here and vex each other.”

Tony endeavored to slip his arm about her. “I know I’m a bad-tempered beast now and then. I can only tell you that you are ever so much too good for me again.”

The girl did very little to repulse him, in fact scarcely more than lift her eyes, but Tony’s arm fell to his side. Then she smiled somewhat curiously. “Don’t make too determined an effort to convince me,” she said. “I should not like to believe you.”

She went out, leaving Tony alone with a horror of himself. He realized that there could be no turning back now. He must go on by the path he had taken, and standing with hand clenched on the mantle he groaned a little.

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.