Louis Tracy - His Unknown Wife

And now the heartless creature was actually laughing!

“One cannot take a South American revolution quite seriously – it always has something comical about it,” she cried, and it was astounding how closely the one sister’s voice resembled the other’s. “I understand that some poor people were shot the night before last, but I saw a man who keeps a restaurant opposite Mr. Steinbaum’s house produce a device with flags and a scroll. On the scroll was painted ‘Long Live Valdez.’ He drew some fresh letters over the first part of the name, dabbed on plenty of black and white paint, and the new legend ran ‘Long Live Suarez.’ The whole thing was done, and the flags were out, in less than five minutes.”

Sturgess evidently asked for and obtained permission to smoke. He came to the rail. Both girls faced forward again, and Maseden was free to compare them.

Madge, or Madeleine, as he preferred to style her, seemed to be a trifle paler than Nina. Otherwise, her likeness to her sister was almost uncanny, if that ill-omened word might be applied to two remarkably pretty girls. Neither of the girls wore gloves, but Maseden looked in vain for the heavy gold wedding-ring which Steinbaum’s thoroughness had supplied when wanted.

At that moment an officer appeared on the main deck. The fore hold had to be opened, it seemed. A quartermaster, summoned from the forecastle, hoisted a block and tackle to a derrick. The noise effectually drowned the talk of the trio on the upper deck until the tackle was rigged, and a couple of hatches were removed. The half-caste sailor was about to descend into the hold just as Sturgess’s somewhat staccato accents reached Maseden clearly again.

“Say, did you ladies hear of the American who was to be shot early yesterday morning? A most thrilling yarn was spun by a friend of mine who knows Cartagena from A to Z. He said – ”

Maseden was on the alert to detect the slightest variation of expression on Madeleine’s face. She bent forward, her hands tightly clutching the rail, and darted a piteous under look at her sister. Thus it happened that Maseden alone was gazing upward, and he saw, out of the tail of his eye, the heavy block detaching itself from the derrick and falling straight on top of the sailor, who had a leg over the coaming of the hatch and a foot on the first rung of the iron ladder leading down into the hold.

With a quickness born of many a tussle with a bucking broncho, Maseden leaped, caught the rope held by the quartermaster, and jerked it violently. The block missed the half-caste by a few inches, and clanged in the hold far beneath.

The tenth part of a second decided whether the sailor should be dashed headlong into the depths or left wholly unscathed. As it was, he and every onlooker realized that the rakish-looking vaquero had saved his life.

In the impulsive way of his race, the man darted forward, threw his arms around Maseden’s neck, and kissed him. To his very great surprise, his rescuer thrust him off, and said angrily:

“Don’t be such a damn fool!”

An exclamation, almost a slight scream, came from the upper deck. Maseden knew in an instant that this time he had blundered beyond repair. Madeleine had heard his voice, and had recognized him. Moreover, the officer, the quartermaster, even the grateful Spaniard, were eyeing him with unmixed amazement.

The fat was in the fire this time! In another moment would come denunciation and arrest, and then – back to the firing squad! What should he do?

But none of these thoughts showed in Maseden’s face. He laughed easily and explained in voluble Spanish that he swore in English occasionally, having picked up the correct formula from an American señor with whom he once took a hunting trip into the interior.

The sailor, hearing this flow of a language he understood, and not able to measure the idiomatic fluency of Maseden’s English, accepted the story without demur, but the fourth officer and quartermaster, both Americans, were evidently puzzled.

He soon got rid of the too-effusive half-caste, and retired to his berth. Thank goodness, since the one person on board mainly concerned was perforce aware of his identity, he was free to wash his face and take a bath! To oblige a lady he would have remained unwashed all the way to Buenos Ayres; now, every other consideration might go hang.

Finding a steward, he gave further cause for bewilderment by asking to be allowed to use a bath-room.

Greatly to Maseden’s relief, his lapse into the vernacular seemed to evoke little or no comment subsequently. The captain heard of it, but was far too irritated by the faulty behavior of a ring-bolt (examination showed a bad flaw in the metal) to pay any special heed. As for the half-caste sailor, his gratitude to Maseden took the form of describing him admiringly as “the vaquero who could swear like an Americano ,” an equivocal compliment which actually fostered the belief that Maseden was what he represented himself to be – a vagabond cowboy migrating from one coast of the great South American continent to the other.

His peculiar habits, therefore, shown in such trivial details as a desire for personal cleanliness and a certain fastidiousness at table, were attributed to the same exotic tutelage. Of course, when he spoke any intelligent Spaniard could have detected faults in phrase or pronunciation, but he had a ready resource in the patois of San Juan, and no man on board was competent to assess him accurately by both standards.

He settled down quickly to the exigencies of life at sea. Five days after leaving Cartagena he was an expert in the matter of keeping his feet when the vessel was rolling or pitching, or performing a corkscrew movement which combined the worst features of each.

When the Southern Cross entered more southerly latitudes her passengers were given ample opportunity to test their skill in this respect. The weather grew colder each day, and with the drop in the thermometer came gray skies and rough seas.

There are two tracks for ocean-going steamers bound down the west coast. The open Pacific offers no hindrance to safe navigation, except an occasional heavy gale. The inner course, through Smyth’s Channel, is sheltered but tortuous, and the commander of the Southern Cross elected to save time by heading direct for the Straits of Tierra del Fuego. The ship was speedy and well-found. A stiff nor’wester tended rather to help her along, and she should reach Buenos Ayres within fifteen days.

Maseden contrived to buy a heavy poncho, or cloak, from one of the crew. Wrapped in this useful garment, he patrolled the small space of deck at his disposal, and kept an unfailing eye for the reappearance at the for’ard rail of one or other of the Misses Gray; yet day after day slipped by and they remained obstinately hidden.

Once or twice, when the weather permitted, he climbed to the fore deck, whence he could scan a large part of the promenade deck on both the port and starboard sides. On the port side, however, a wind-screen intervened.

Twice he thought he saw Madeleine Gray leaning on the port rail, talking to Sturgess – and wearing the very dress in which she was married! Either by accident or design she vanished almost instantly on each occasion.

It was nonsensical, of course, but he began to harbor a sentiment of annoyance with Sturgess, who, by some queer contriving of fortune, seemed to be drawn rather to the company of Madeleine than of sister Nina. Any real feeling of jealousy would have been absurd, almost ludicrous, under the circumstances.

For all that, Maseden couldn’t understand why the fellow apparently devoted himself to the company of one sister to the neglect, or intentional exclusion, of the other; while the lady’s behavior, assuming that she knew of the presence of her “husband” within a few yards, was, to say the least, reprehensible if not provocative.