Cursed

CHAPTER XXIV
DARKENING SHADOWS

Breakfast – served on a regulation ship’s table, with swivel-chairs screwed to the floor and with a rack above for tumblers and plates – made up by its overflowing happiness for all the heartache of the night before. Hal radiated life and high spirits. The captain’s forebodings of evil had vanished in his newly-revivified hopes. Dr. Filhiol became downright cheerful, and so far forgot his nerves as to drink a cup of weak coffee. As for Ezra, he seemed in his best form.

“Judgin’ by your togs, Master Hal,” said he, as Hal – breakfast done – lighted his pipe and blew smoke up into the sunlit air, “I cal’late Laura Maynard’s got jest the same chances of not takin’ a walk with you, this mornin’, that Ruddy, here, has got of learnin’ them heathen Chinee books o’ yourn. It says in the Bible to love y’r neighbor as y’rself, so you got Scripture backin’ fer Laura.”

“Plus the evidence of my own senses, Ezra,” laughed the boy, as he drew at his pipe. His fresh-shaven, tanned face with those now placid blue eyes seemed to have no possible relation with the mask of vicious hate and rage of the night before.

As he sat there, observing Ezra with a smile, he appeared no other than an extraordinary well-grown, powerfully developed young man.

“Must have been the rum that did it,” the captain tried to convince himself. “Works that way with some people. They lose all anchors, canvas, sticks and everything – go on the rocks when they’ve only shipped a drink or two. There’ll be no more rum for Hal. He’s passed his word he’s through. That means he is through, because whatever else he may or may not be, he’s a Briggs. So then, that’s settled!”

“Now that you’ve put me in mind of Laura, I think I will take a walk down-street,” said Hal. “I might just possibly happen to meet her. Glad you reminded me, Ezra.”

“I guess you don’t need much remindin’,” replied the old cook solemnly. “But sail a steady course an’ don’t carry too much canvas. You’re too young a cap’n to be lookin’ for a mate, on the sea o’ life. Go slow. You can’t never tell what a woman or a jury’ll do, an’ most women jump at a chanst quicker ’n what they do at a mouse. Go easy!”

“For an old pair of scissors with only one blade, you seem to understand the cut of the feminine gender pretty well,” smiled the boy.

“Understand females?” replied Ezra, drawing out a corn-cob and a pouch of shag. “Not me! Some men think they do, but then, some men is dum fools. They’re dangerous, women is. No charted coast, no lights but love-light, an’ that most always turns out to be a will-o’-the-wisp, that piles ye up on the rocks. When a man gits stuck on a gal, seems like he’s like a fly stuck on fly-paper – sure to git his leg pulled.”

Hal laughed again, and departed with that kind of casual celerity which any wise old head can easily interpret. Ezra, striking into a ditty with a monotonous chorus of “Blow the man down,” began gathering up the breakfast-dishes. The captain and his guest made their way to the quarterdeck and settled themselves in rockers.

Briggs had hardly more than lighted his pipe, when his attention was caught by a white-canvas-covered wagon, bearing on its side the letters: “R. F. D.”

“Hello,” said he, a shade of anxiety crossing his face. “Hello, there’s the mail.”

He tried to speak with unconcern, but into his voice crept foreboding that matched his look. As he strode down the walk, Filhiol squinted after him.

“It’s a sin and shame, the way he’s worried now,” the doctor murmured. “That boy’s got the devil in him. He’ll kill the captain, yet. A swim, a shave and a suit of white flannels don’t change a man’s heart. What’s bred in the bone – ”

Captain Briggs came to a stand at the gate. His nervousness betrayed itself by the thick cloud of tobacco-smoke that rose from his lips. Leisurely the mail-wagon zigzagged from side to side of the street as the postman slid papers and letters into the boxes and hoisted the red flags, always taking good care that no card escaped him, unread.

“Mornin’, cap’n,” said the postman. “Here’s your weather report, an’ here’s your ‘Shippin’ News.’ An’ here’s a letter from Boston, from the college. You don’t s’pose Hal’s in any kind o’ rookus down there, huh? An’ here’s a letter from Squire Bean, down to the Center. Don’t cal’late there’s any law-doin’s, do you?”

“What do you mean?” demanded the captain, trying to keep a brave front. “What could there be?”

“Oh, you know, ’bout how Hal rimracked McLaughlin. I heered tell, down-along, he’s goin’ to sue for swingein’ damages. Hal durn nigh killed the critter.”

“Who told you?” demanded the captain.

“Oh, they’re all talkin’. An’ I see Mac, myself, goin’ inta the squire’s house on a crutch an’ with one arm in a sling, early this mornin’. This here letter must of been wrote right away after that. Course I hope it ain’t nuthin’, but looks to me like ’tis. Well – ”

He eyed the captain expectantly, hoping the old man might open the letter and give the news which he could bear to all and sundry. But, no; the captain merely nodded, thrust the letters into the capacious breast-pocket of his square-rigged coat and with a non-committal “Thank you,” made his way back to the piazza.

His shoulders drooped not, neither did his step betray any weakness. The disgruntled postman muttered something surly, clucked to his horse, and in disappointment pursued his business – the leisurely handling of Uncle Sam’s mail and everybody’s private affairs.

The same robin – or perhaps, after all, it was a different one – was singing in the elm, as Alpheus Briggs returned to the house. Down the shaded street the metallic rhythm of the anvil was breaking through the contrabass of the surf. But now this melody fell on deaf ears, for Captain Briggs. Heavily he came up the steps, and with weariness sank down in the big rocker. Sadly he shook his head.

“It’s come, I’m afraid,” said he dejectedly. “I was hoping it wouldn’t. Hoping McLaughlin would let it go. But that was hoping too much. He’s no man to swallow a beating. See here now, will you?”

The captain pulled out his letter from Squire Bean, and extended it to Filhiol.

“Local attorney?” asked the doctor, with a look of anxiety.

“Yes,” answered the captain. “This letter means only one thing. Barometer’s falling again. We’ll have to take in more canvas, sir.”

He tore the envelope with fingers now trembling. The letter revealed a crabbed hand-writing, thus:

Endicutt, Massachusetts,

June 19, 1918.

Captain Alpheus Briggs,

South Endicutt.

Dear Sir: Captain Fergus McLaughlin has placed in my hands the matter of the assault and battery committed upon him by your grandson, Hal Briggs. Captain McLaughlin is in bad shape, is minus a front tooth, has his right arm broke, and cannot walk without a crutch. You are legally liable for these injuries, and would be immediately summoned into court except Capt. McLaughlin has regard for your age and position in the community. There is, however, no doubt, legal damages coming to the Capt. If you call, we can discuss amt. of same, otherwise let the law take its course.

Resp’ly,

Johab Bean, J. P.,

Ex-Candidate for Judge of Dis’t Court.

Captain Briggs read this carefully, then, tugging at his beard, passed it over to Dr. Filhiol.

“It’s all as I was afraid it would be,” said the captain. “McLaughlin’s not going to take the medicine he’s really deserved for long years of buckoing poor devils. No, doctor. First time he meets a man that can stand up to him and pay him back with interest, he steers a course for the law. That’s your bully and your coward! Thank God, for all my doings, I never fought my fights before a judge or jury! It was the best man win, fist to fist, or knife to knife if it came to that – but the law, sir, never!”

“Well, that doesn’t matter now,” said Filhiol. “I’m afraid you’re in for whacking damages. Hal’s lucky that he wasn’t a signed-on member of the crew. There’d have been mutiny for you to get him out of, and iron bars. Lucky again, he didn’t hit just a trifle harder. If he had, it might have been murder, and in this State they send men to the chair for that. Yes, captain, you’re lucky it’s no worse. If you have only a hundred or two dollars to pay for doctor’s bills and damages, you’ll be most fortunate.”

“A hundred or two dollars!” ejaculated the captain. “Judas priest! You don’t think there’ll be any such bill as that for repairs and demurrage on McLaughlin’s hulk, do you?”

“I think that would be a very moderate sum,” answered Filhiol. “I’m willing to stand back of you, captain, all the way. I’ll go into court and examine McLaughlin, myself, as an expert witness. It’s more than possible Squire Bean is exaggerating, to shake you down.”

“You’ll stand back of me, doctor?” exclaimed the captain, his face lighting up. “You’ll go into court, and steer me straight?”

“By all means, sir!”

Briggs nearly crushed the doctor’s hand in a powerful grip.

“Well spoken, sir!” said he. “It’s like you, doctor. Well, all I can do is to thank you, and accept your offer. That puts a better slant to our sails, right away. Good, sir – very, very good!”

His expression was quite different as he tore open the letter from the college. Perhaps, after all, this was only some routine communication. But as he read the neat, typewritten lines, a look of astonishment developed; and this in turn gave way to a most pitiful dismay.

The captain’s hands were shaking, now, so that he could hardly hold the letter. His face had gone quite bloodless. All the voice he could muster was a kind of whispering gasp, as he stretched out the sheet of paper to the wondering Filhiol:

“Read – read that, doctor! The curse – the curse! Oh, God is being very hard on me, in my old age! Read that!”

CHAPTER XXV
TROUBLED SOULS

Dr. Filhiol trembled as he took the letter and read:

Cambridge, Massachusetts,

June 18, 1918.

Dear Sir:

I regret that I must write you again in regard to your grandson, Haldane Briggs, but necessity leaves no choice. This communication does not deal with an unimportant breach of discipline, such as we overlooked last year, but involves matters impossible to condone.

During the final week of the college year Mr. Briggs’s conduct cannot be too harshly stigmatized. Complaint has been entered against him for gambling and for having appeared on the college grounds intoxicated. On the evening of Thursday last Mr. Briggs attempted to bring liquor into a college dormitory, and when the proctor made a protest, Mr. Briggs assaulted him.

In addition, we find your grandson has not applied the money sent by you to the settlement of his term bill, but has diverted it for his own uses. The bill is herewith enclosed, and I trust that you will give it your immediate attention.

Mr. Briggs, because of his undesirable habits, has not recently been properly attending to his courses, with the exception of his Oriental language work, in which he has continued to take a real interest. His examination marks in other studies have been so high as to lead to an inquiry, and we find that Mr. Briggs has been hiring some person unknown to take his place in three examinations and to pass them for him – a form of cheating which the large size of some of our courses unfortunately renders possible.

Any one of Mr. Briggs’s infractions of the rules would result in his dismissal. Taken as a total, they render that dismissal peremptory and final. I regret to inform you that your grandson’s connection with the university is definitely terminated.

Regretting that my duty compels me to communicate news of such an unpleasant nature, I am,

Very sincerely yours,

Hawley D. Travers, A.B., A.M., LL.B.

To Captain Alpheus Briggs,

South Endicutt, Massachusetts.

Down sank the head of Captain Briggs. The old man’s beard flowed over the smart bravery of his blue coat, and down his weather-hardened cheeks trickled slow tears of old age, scanty but freighted with a bitterness the tears of youth can never feel.

For a moment the captain sat annihilated under life’s most grievous blow – futility and failure after years of patient labor, years of saving and of self-denial, of hopes, of dreams. One touch of the harsh finger of Fate and all the gleaming iridescence of the bubble had vanished. From somewhere dark and far a voice seemed echoing in his ears:

“Even though you flee to the ends of the earth, my curse will reach you. You shall pray to die, but still you cannot die! What is written in the Book must be fulfilled!”

Suddenly the captain got up and made his way into the house. Like a wounded animal seeking its lair he retreated into his cabin.

The doctor peered after him, letter in hand. From the galley Ezra’s voice drifted in nasal song, with words strangely trivial for so tragic a situation:

 
“Blow, boys, blow, for Californ-io!
There’s plenty of gold, so I’ve been told,
On the banks of Sacramento!”
 

“H-m!” grunted the doctor. “Poor old captain! God, but this will finish him! That Hal – damn that Hal! If something would only happen to him now, so I could have him for a patient! I’m a law-abiding man, but still – ”

In the cabin Briggs sank down in the big rocking-chair before the fireplace. He was trembling. Something cold seemed clutching at his heart like tentacles. He looked about, as if he half-thought something were watching him from the far corner. Then his eye fell on the Malay kris suspended against the chimney. He peered at the lotus-bud handle, the wavy blade of steel, the dark groove where still lay the poison, the curaré.

“Merciful God!” whispered Captain Briggs, and covered his eyes with a shaking hand. He suddenly stretched out hands that shook. “Oh, haven’t I suffered enough and repented enough? Haven’t I labored enough and paid enough?” He pressed a hand to his forehead, moist and cold. “He’s all I’ve got, Lord – the boy is all I’ve got! Take me, me– but don’t let vengeance come through him! The sin was mine! Let me pay! Don’t drag him down to hell! Take me – but let him live and be a man!”

No answer save that Briggs seemed to hear the words of the old witch-woman ringing with all the force of long-repressed memories:

“Your blood, your blood I will have! Even though you flee from me forever, your blood will I have!”

“Yes, yes! My blood, not his!” cried the old captain, standing up. Haggard, he peered at the kris, horrible reminder of a past he would have given life itself to obliterate so that it might not go on forever poisoning his race. There the kris hung like a sword of Damocles forever ready to fall upon his heart and pierce it. And all at once a burning rage and hate against the kris flared up in him. That thing accursed should be destroyed. No longer should it hang there on his fireplace to goad him into madness.

Up toward the kris he extended his hand. For a moment he dared not lay hold on it; but all at once he forced himself to lift it from its hooks. At touch of it again, after so long a time, he began to tremble. But he constrained himself to study it, striving to fathom what power lay in it. Peering with curiosity and revulsion he noted the lotus-bud, symbol of sleep; the keen edge spotted with dark stains of blood and rust; the groove with its dried poison, one scratch thereof a solvent for all earthly problems whatsoever.

And suddenly a new thought came to him. His hand tightened on the grip. His head came up, his eye cleared, and with a look half of amazement, half triumph, he cried:

“I’ve got the answer here! The answer, so help me God! Before that boy of mine goes down into the gutter – before he defiles his family and all the memories of his race, here’s the answer. Lord knows I hope he will come about on a new tack yet and be something he ought to be; but if he don’t, he’ll never live to drag our family name down through the sewer!”

Savage pride thrilled the old man. All his hope yearned toward the saving of the boy; but, should that be impossible, he knew Hal would not sink to the dregs of life.

The kris now seemed beneficent to Captain Briggs. Closely he studied the blade, and even drew his thumb along the edge, testing its keenness. Just how, he wondered, did the poison work? Was it painless? Quick it was; that much he knew. Quick and sure. Not in anger, but with a calm resolve he stood there, thinking. And like the after-swells of a tempest, other echoes now bore in upon him – echoes of words spoken half a hundred years ago by Mahmud Baba:

“Even though I wash coal with rosewater a whole year long, shall I ever make it white? Even though the rain fall a whole year, will it make the sea less salt? One drop of indigo – and lo! the jar of milk is ruined! Seed sown upon a lake will never grow!”

Again the captain weighed the kris in hand.

“Maybe the singer was right, after all,” thought he. “I’ve done my best. I’ve given all I had to give. He’ll have his chance, the boy shall, but if, after that – ”

CHAPTER XXVI
PLANS FOR RESCUE

“For Heaven’s sake, captain, what are you up to there?”

The voice of Filhiol startled Briggs. In the door of the cabin he saw the old man standing with a look of puzzled anxiety. Through the window Filhiol had seen him take down the kris; and, worried, he had painfully arisen and had hobbled into the house. “Better put that knife up, captain. It’s not a healthy article to be fooling with.”

“Not, eh?” asked the captain. “Pretty bad poison, is it?”

“Extremely fatal.”

“Even dried, this way?”

“Certainly! Put it up, captain, I beg you!” The doctor, more and more alarmed, came into the cabin. “Put it up!”

“What does it do to you, this curaré stuff?” insisted the captain.

“Various things. And then – ”

“Then you die? You surely die?”

“You do, unless one very special antidote is applied.”

“Nobody in this country has that, though!”

“Nobody but myself, so far as I know.”

“You’ve got it?” demanded the captain, amazed. “Where the devil would you get it?”

“Out East, where you got that devilish kris! You haven’t forgotten that Parsee in Bombay, who gave me the secret cure, after I’d saved him from cholera? But that’s neither here nor there, captain! That kris is no thing to be experimenting with. Put it up now, I tell you! We aren’t going to have any foolishness, captain. Not at our age, mind you! Put it up, now.”

Unwillingly the captain obeyed. He hung the weapon up once more, while Filhiol eyed him with suspicious displeasure.

“It would be more to the point to see how we’re going to get the boy out of his trouble again,” the doctor reproved. “If you can’t meet this problem without doing something very foolish, captain, you’re not the man I think you!”

Briggs made no answer, but hailed:

“Ezra! Oh, Ezra!”

The old man’s chantey – it now had to do with one “Old Stormy,” alleged to be “dead and gone” – promptly ceased. Footfalls sounded, and Ezra appeared. The cut on his cheek showed livid in the tough, leathery skin.

“Cap’n Briggs, sir?” asked he.

“The doctor and I are going to take a little morning cruise down to Endicutt in the tender – the buggy, I mean.”

“An’ you want me to h’ist sail on Bucephalus, sir? All right! That ain’t much to want, cap’n. Man wants but little here below, an that’s jin’ly all he gits, as the feller says. Right! The Sea Lawyer’ll be anchored out front, fer you, in less time than it takes to box the compass!”

Ezra saluted and disappeared.

“I don’t know what I’d do without Ezra,” said the captain. “There’s a love and loyalty in that old heart of his that a million dollars wouldn’t buy. Ezra’s been through some mighty heavy blows with me. If either of us was in danger, he’d give his life freely, to save us. No doubt of that!”

“None whatever,” assented the doctor, as they once more made their way out to the porch. He blinked at the shimmering vagrancy of light that sparkled from the harbor through the fringe of birches and tall pines along the shore. “Going down to see Squire Bean? Is that it?”

“Yes. The quicker we settle that claim the better. You’ll go with me, eh?”

“If I’m needed – yes.”

“Well, you are needed!”

“All right. But, after that, I ought to be getting back to Salem.”

“You’ll get back to nowhere!” ejaculated Briggs. “They can spare you at the home a few days. You’re needed here on the bridge while this typhoon is blowing. Here you are and here you stay till the barometer begins to rise!”

“All right, captain, as you wish,” he conceded, his will overborne by the captain’s stronger one. “But what’s the program?”

“The program is to pay off everything and straighten that boy out and make him walk the chalk-line. Between the four of us – you and I and Laura and Ezra – if we can’t do it, we’re not much good, are we?”

“Laura? Who is this Laura, anyhow? What kind of a girl is she?”

“The very best,” answered Briggs proudly. “Hal wouldn’t go with any other kind. She’s the daughter of Nathaniel Maynard, owner of a dozen schooners. A prettier girl you never laid eyes to, sir!”

“Educated woman?”

“Two years through college. Then her mother had a stroke, and Laura’s home again. She’s taken the village school, just to fill up her time. A good girl, if there ever was one. Good as gold, every way. I needn’t say more. I love her like a daughter. I suppose if I could have my dearest wish – ”

“You’d have Hal marry her?”

“Just that; and I’d see the life of my family carried on stronger, better and more vigorous. I’d see a child or two picking the flowers here, and feel little hands tugging at my old gray beard and – but, Judas priest! I’m getting sentimental now. No more of that, sir!”

“I think I understand,” the doctor said in another tone. “We’ve got more than just Hal to save. We’ve got a woman’s happiness to think of. She cares for him, you think?”

Briggs nodded silently.

“It’s quite to be expected,” commented the doctor. “He certainly can be charming when he tries. There’s only one fly in the honey-pot. Just one – his unbridled temper and his seemingly utter irresponsibility.

“You know yourself, captain, his actions this morning have been quite amazing. He starts out to see this girl of his, right away, without giving his bad conduct a second thought. The average boy, expelled from college, would have come home in sackcloth and ashes and would have told you all about it. Hal never even mentioned it. That’s almost incredible.”

“Hal’s not an average kind of boy, any more than I was!” put in the captain proudly.

“No, he doesn’t seem to be,” retorted the physician, peppery with infirmity and shaken nerves. “However, I’m your guest and I won’t indulge in any personalities. Whatever comes I’m with you!”

The captain took his withered hand in a grip that hurt, and for a moment there was silence. This silence was broken by the voice of Ezra, driving down the lane:

“All ready, cap’n! All canvas up, aloft an’ alow, an’ this here craft ready to make two knots an hour ef she don’t founder afore you leave port! Fact is, I think Sea Lawyer’s foundered already!”

Together captain and doctor descended the path to the front gate. In a few minutes Ezra, bony hands on hips, watched the two men slowly drive from sight round the turn by the smithy. Grimly the old fellow shook his head and gripped his pipe in some remnants of teeth.

“I don’t like Pills,” grumbled he. “He’s a tightwad; never even slipped me a cigar. He’s one o’ them fellers that stop the clock, nights, to save the works. S’pose I’d oughta respect old age, but old age ain’t always to be looked up to, as, fer instance, in the case of eggs. He’s been ratin’ Master Hal down, I reckon. An’ that wun’t do!”

Resentfully Ezra came back to the house and entered the hall. Into the front room Ezra walked, approached the fireplace and for a moment stood there, carefully observing the weapons. Then he reached up and straightened the position of the “Penang lawyer” club, on its supporting hooks.

“I got to git that jest right,” said he. “Jest exactly right. Ef the cap’n should see ’twas a mite out o’ place he might suspicion that was what Master Hal hit me with. So? Is that right, that way?”

With keen judgment he squinted at the club and gave it a final touch. The kris, also, he adjusted.

“I didn’t know Hal touched the toad-stabber, too,” he remarked. “But I guess he must of. It’s been moved some, that’s sure.

“I guess things’ll do now,” judged he, satisfied. “There’s many a slip ’twixt the cup an’ the lip, but there’s a damn sight more after the cup has been at the lip. That’s all that made Master Hal slip. He didn’t know, rightly, what he was up to. Forgive the boy? God bless him, you bet! A million times over!

“But that doctor, now, what’s been ratin’ Master Hal down – no, no, he’ll never be no friend o’ mine! Well, this ain’t gittin’ dinner ready fer Master Hal. A boy what can dive off Geyser Rock, an’ lick McLaughlin, an’ read heathen Chinee, an’ capture the purtiest gal in this town, is goin’ to be rationed proper, or I’m no cook aboard the snuggest craft that ever sailed a lawn, with lilacs on the port bow an’ geraniums to starb’d!”

Ezra gave a final, self-assuring glance at the Malay club that had so nearly ended his life, and turned back to his galley with a song upon his lips:

 
“A Yankee ship’s gone down the river,
Her masts an’ yard they shine like silver.
 
 
Blow, ye winds, I long to hear ye!
Blow, boys, blow!
Blow to-day an’ blow to-morrer,
Blow, boys, bully boys, blow!
 
 
How d’ye know she’s a Yankee clipper?
By the Stars and Stripes that fly above her!
 
 
Blow, boys, blow!
 
 
An’ who d’ye think is captain of her?
One-Eyed Kelly, the Bowery runner!
 
 
Blow, boys, bully boys, blow!
 
 
An’ what d’ye think they had fer dinner?
Belayin’-pin soup an’ monkey’s liver!
 
 
Blow, ye winds, I long to hear ye!
Blow, boys, blow!
Blow to-day an’ blow to-morrer,
Blow, boys, bully boys, blow!”