"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 be in the Tahiti trade, before the steamers ran her out. Provisions are good. Everything is most excellent. I saw to that. I cannot say I like the captain. I've seen his type before. A splendid seaman, I am certain, but a Bully Hayes grown old. A natural born pirate, a very wicked 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 he has plenty of money--made it first in California oil, then grub-staked a prospector in British Columbia, cheated him out of his share of the big lode he discovered and doubled his own wealth half a dozen times over. A very undesirable, unlikeable sort of a man. But he believes in luck, and is confident that he'll make at least fifty millions out of our adventure and cheat me out of my share. He's as much a pirate as is the captain he's engaged.""Mr. Greenleaf, I congratulate you, sir," Daughtry said. "And you have touched me, sir, touched me to the heart, coming all the way out here on such a night, and running such risks, just to say good-bye to poor Dag Daughtry, who always meant somewhat well but had bad luck."But while he talked so heartily, Daughtry saw, in a resplendent visioning, all the freedom of a schooner in the great South Seas, and felt 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 he wondered in what way he could have hurt the old gentleman's feelings.
"You are my friend, sir," the other went on, gravely censorious.
"I am your friend, sir. And you give me to understand that you think I have come out here to this hell-hole to say good-bye. Icame out here to get you, sir, and your nigger, sir. The schooner is waiting for you. All is arranged. You are signed on the articles before the shipping commissioner. Both of you. Signed on yesterday by proxies I arranged for myself. One was a Barbadoes nigger. I got him and the white man out of a sailors'
boarding-house on Commercial Street and paid them five dollars 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 are lepers."Almost with a galvanic spring, the Ancient Mariner was out of the chair and on his feet, the anger of age and of a generous soul in his face as he cried:
"My God, sir, what you don't seem to grasp is that you are my friend, and that 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 name you, this is no fairy-story of the open boat, the cross-bearings unnamable, and the treasure a fathom under the sand.
This is real. I have a heart. That, sir"--here he waved his extended hand under Daughtry's nose--"is my hand. There is only one thing you may do, must do, right now. You must take that hand in your hand, and shake it, with your 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 remain here, die here. I know you are a leper. You can't tell me anything about that. There's my hand. Are you going to take it?
My heart is there in the palm of it, in the pulse in every finger-end of it. If you don'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, a comrade. I am no poltroon of the flesh. I live in my heart and in my head, sir--not in this feeble carcass I cursorily inhabit. Take that hand. I want to talk with you afterward."Dag Daughtry extended his hand hesitantly, but the Ancient Mariner seized it 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. We sail on the Bethlehem. When the wicked man discovers that he can never get a penny of my fabulous treasure, we will leave him. He will be glad to be quit of us. We, you and I and your nigger, will go ashore in the Marquesas. Lepers roam about free there. There are no regulations. I have seen them. We will be free. The land is a paradise. And you and I will set up housekeeping. A thatched hut--no more is needed. The work is trifling. The freedom of beach and sea and mountain will be ours.
For you there will be sailing, swimming, fishing, hunting. There are mountain goats, wild chickens and wild cattle. Bananas and plantains will ripen over our heads--avocados and custard apples, also. The red peppers 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 noted your 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 vainly sought your dog. I have even paid detectives who were robbers. Doctor Emory stole Killeny Boy from you, but within a dozen hours he was stolen from 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 have promised to kill him if he defaults on me. It bears just a bit north of east over the sandhill on the road that runs along the other side of the funny forest . . . That is right. We will start now. We can discuss afterward. Look! Daylight is beginning to break. The guards must not see 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 the frail old man away, Dag Daughtry's hand was grasping the other's arm, his own weight behind and under, supporting and impelling forward and up the hill through the heavy sand.
"Thank you, steward, thank you, my friend," the Ancient Mariner murmured in the first lull between the gusts.
