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.
By this time, Maseden was fully convinced that his wife had recognized him. Oddly enough, the somewhat bizarre costume he wore would help in betraying him to her eyes. She had seen him only when arrayed in even more startling guise. Her memory of him, therefore, would depend wholly on his features and physique, and the incongruity of an unmistakably American voice coming from a vaquero could not fail to be enhanced by the gala attire affected by that erstwhile gay spark, old Lopez’s nephew.
Moreover, Maseden had bribed the forecastle steward to find out from one of the saloon attendants what had happened to the two ladies on the promenade deck when the pulley fell. One of them, the man said, was so startled that she nearly fainted, and the American señor had carried her to a chair.
Obviously, on an American vessel, with American officers, engineers, and quartermasters, for one whose only tongue was Spanish it was difficult to extract information. The Spanish-speaking members of the crew knew little or nothing of the passengers, while Maseden’s part of the ship was as completely shut off from the saloon as are the dwellings of the poor from the palaces of the rich.
Many times was he tempted to change his quarters, and thus tacitly admit his identity; but cold prudence as often forbade any such folly. Even if the full extent of his adventures in Cartagena were unknown on board, it was a quite certain thing that the story must have reached Buenos Ayres long ago.
Bad as was the odor of the republic in the outer world, it still possessed the rights of a sovereign state, and the last thing Maseden desired was an enforced return to the Castle of San Juan, there to stand his trial anew for conspiracy, plus an undoubted attempt to murder the president! That would be a stiff price to pay merely in order to sate his curiosity as to the motive underlying a woman’s strange whim.
On the sixth night of the voyage the opportunity for which he was looking was offered as unexpectedly as it had been persistently withheld earlier.
After a very unpleasant day of wind and rain the weather improved markedly. True, the sky had not cleared, and the darkness which fell swiftly over a leaden sea was of a quality almost palpable.
Had he troubled to recall the sealore gleaned from many books of travel, Maseden would have known that such a change was by no means indicative of smoother seas and days of sunshine in the near future. The ship was merely crossing the center of a cyclonic area. Ere morning she would probably meet a fiercer gale than that through which she had just passed.
Such minor considerations as to the state of the elements carried little weight, however, when contrasted with the immediate and solid fact that Maseden, giving an upward eye to the promenade deck about nine o’clock, discerned a solitary female figure leaning on the rail.
Since there were no other women on board, this must be either Madeleine or Nina. As it happened, the forecastle was deserted, in the sense that its usual occupants were either asleep or busied with the duties of the hour. Above the girl’s head paced the officer of the watch. Up in the bows were two men on the look-out. Otherwise, the fore part of the ship was untenanted save for Maseden himself and the slim, cloaked form which seemed to be peering aimlessly into the impenetrable wall of darkness ahead.
Apparently the wind had died down. There were no sounds save the normal ones—the onward rush of the ship, the swish of an occasional swell cleft by the cut-water, the steady thud of the screw, and the equally regular creaking of planks and panels swollen by heavy rain after undergoing tropical heat.
It was a night rich with suggestion of mystery and romance. Some new ichor stirred in Maseden’s veins, firing his spirit to emprise. Come what might, he resolved to have speech with the lady, be she wife in name or merely sister-in-law!
But how contrive it? If he hailed her from the main deck, the officer on the bridge would overhear, and straightway play a domineering hand in the game. If he went aft, through a narrow gangway leading past the engine-room and various officers’ cabins, he could reach a sliding door giving access to the saloon companion, but his presence there would undoubtedly be noticed, evoking a stern order to betake himself to his own quarters.
The third method was the direct one. A series of iron rungs led vertically up the face of the superstructure, and, as sailors occasionally passed that way, the girl would not necessarily be alarmed by seeing a man coming up.
The officer on duty might detect him, of course; but even he was liable to mistake him for one of the ship’s company.
It has been seen already that Maseden was of the rare order of mankind which, having once made up its mind, acts unhesitatingly. No sooner had he elected for the iron ladder than he had crossed the deck and was mounting rapidly. It chanced that the officer did not see him.
In a few seconds he was standing on the promenade deck. Then he had an attack of stage-fright. Many an actor has strode valiantly from wings to footlights only to find his tongue glued to the roof of his mouth. This was Maseden’s “star turn,” and not a word could he utter!
By a singular coincidence, the lady was equally nervous. She gave scant attention to the commonplace occurrence that a member of the crew should walk aft from the dim interior of the forecastle and hurry up the ladder, but the situation altered dramatically when a faint gleam from a window of the smoking-room fell on the tarnished silver braid and gilt buttons of Maseden’s jacket of black cloth and velvet.
The light, such as it was, fell directly on the girl’s face as she turned towards the intruder. Her eyes, blue sapphires by day, were now strangely dark. Maseden saw that her expression was one of panic if not of actual terror. He was unpleasantly reminded of a bird fascinated by a snake; the displeasing simile stirred his wits and unlocked his tongue.
“I’m sorry if I have frightened you,” he said quietly, “but the chance of securing a few words of explanation seemed too good to be lost. You owe me something of the kind, don’t you?”
“Why?” came the truly feminine reply.
“Because, unless I am greatly mistaken, you are the lady whom I had the honor of marrying in the Castle of San Juan at Cartagena. You may be known as Miss Madge Gray on board this ship, but your name in the register was Madeleine.”
“My name is Nina, not Madge.”
Maseden was taken aback for a few seconds, yet the fact could not be gainsaid that the speaker, whether Madge or Nina, did not repudiate the general accuracy of his statement. Moreover, he was almost sure of his ground now. His “wife” was probably flirting with Sturgess. Nina, as usual, was left to her own devices, since the forecastle steward had reported that Señor Gray was ill and confined to his cabin.
“At any rate, you do not deny that either your sister or yourself is legally entitled to pose as Mrs. Philip Alexander Maseden?” he said.
“I am not aware that either of us can fairly be described as posing in that distinguished capacity.”
The retort was glib enough. It amused the man.
“Perhaps I put the bald truth rather awkwardly,” he said. “Let me, then, ask a plain question. Did I marry you, or your sister, last Tuesday morning?”
“You certainly err if you think that I shall discuss the affairs of my family with a complete stranger,” was the unhesitating answer.
“Yet you, or your sister, did not scruple to marry one.”
“Are you Mr. Maseden?”
“I am. Haven’t I said so? I implied it, at any rate.”
“Then why are you in disguise, posing—it is your own word—as a Spanish cowboy?”
“Because I’m trying to save my miserable life. Don’t think me ungrateful, madam. I owe my escape to the phenomenal circumstances brought about by the desire of a charming young lady to become Mrs. Maseden, if only for a brief half hour. I am not claiming any—privileges, shall I say?—on that account. But I can hardly credit that, having gone through the ordeal of such a ceremony, you would refuse to tell me your motive, so I reluctantly revert to my first opinion, namely, that your sister is my wife.”
“Reluctantly! Why reluctantly?”
There was more than a touch of bewilderment in the cry. Maseden interpreted it as a fencer’s trick to gain time.
“I don’t mind being absolutely candid,” he laughed. “You see, time hangs heavy on my hands here. I have nothing to do except watch for a glimpse of an unknown wife. Queer, isn’t it? Anyhow, my fate doesn’t seem to worry sister Madge, who finds consolation elsewhere; so, of the two, if I must be wed to one of you, I imagine I would prefer you.”
“I think you are intolerably rude, Mr. Maseden. Madge was right when she said—”
She checked herself with a little gasp of dismay. Maseden laughed again.
“Please don’t spare me,” he cried. “What did Madge say?”
“I decline to discuss the matter any further.”
“But why should we quarrel over a minor point? You have tacitly admitted that your sister married me. Give me some notion of her motive. That is all I ask. It may help.”
“How help?”
“When I take unto myself a wife I expect to be allowed some freedom of choice in the matter. I certainly refuse to have her picked for me by a rascal like Steinbaum. If I win clear of Buenos Ayres and reach New York I shall take the speediest steps to undo the matrimonial knot tied in Cartagena. There may be legal complications, which will be attended, I suppose, by a certain amount of publicity. It will help some, as Mr. Sturgess would say, if I know just why the lady wanted to wed in the first instance. Surely there is reason behind that simple request. Your sister begged to be allowed to marry me because I was condemned to death. At least, such was Steinbaum’s story. Was that true, to begin with?”
No answer. Maseden felt that he had cornered her.
“There must have been some such ground for an extraordinary action,” he went on. “To the best of my knowledge she had never seen me. I question if she even knew my name. I—”
A door opened, and a stream of light fell on the deck some feet away. Sturgess’s voice reached them clearly.
“Guess she’s tucked up cozy in a deck chair,” he was saying. “It’s no time to retire to roost yet, anyhow.”
“Please go now,” whispered Nina tremulously. “You mustn’t be seen talking to me. I—I’ll discuss things with Madge, and if possible, come here about the same hour to-morrow, or next day. I—I’ll do my best.”
Without another word, Maseden swung himself over the rail. When below the level of the deck he clung to the ladder and listened, not meaning to act ungenerously, but because of the other man’s rapid approach.
“Ah, there you are, Miss Nina!” cried Sturgess. “Sister Madge is bored stiff by my company, but was polite enough to pretend that she was anxious about you.”
“I’ve been star-gazing,” said the girl, hastening towards him.
“So’ve I,” grinned Sturgess. “You two girls have the finest eyes I’ve ever—”
His voice trailed away into silence. Maseden dropped to the deck.
“Hang it all!” he muttered, strangely disconsolate. “When Fate took me by the scruff of the neck and married me to one of two sisters, neither of whom I had ever seen, she might have been kind enough, the jade, to tie me to the right one!”
Yet, even to his thinking, Madge and Nina were like as a couple of pins! Being an eminently sensible sort of fellow, he realized in the next breath that Madge might be quite as nice a girl as Nina.
Then the thought struck him that she was purposely making things easier for him by cultivating a friendship with Sturgess. In any case, Sturgess was obviously destined to act as a pawn in the game. Even he, Maseden, had not scrupled to use that gentleman at sight when anxious to board the Southern Cross without attracting the attention of the news-mongering boatmen of Cartagena.
That night he lay awake for hours. For one thing, the ship was running into bad weather again, and complained nosily of the buffeting her stout frame was receiving. For another, his own course was beset with difficulties. He failed completely to understand the attitude of sister Nina.
If Madeleine—or Madge, as he had better learned to distinguish her—had sought marriage with a man about to die as a means to escape from some unbearable duress, was her plight accentuated rather than bettered by the fact that her husband still lived? If so, the announcement that he meant to obtain a legal dissolution of the bond at the earliest possible moment would relieve the tension.
But what if her need demanded that she should remain wed, a wife in name only? A development of that sort foreshadowed complexities of a rare order. Maseden knew himself as one capable of Quixotic action—even the scheming Steinbaum had paid him that tribute—but it was asking too much that he should go through life burdened with a wife who treated him as a benevolent stranger.
Common sense urged that they should meet and discuss a most trying and equivocal situation as frankly and fully as might be. Why, then, had Nina Gray been so disturbed, so anxious to keep the married pair apart? Both girls knew he was alive. What purpose could it serve that the fact should be ignored?
He puzzled his brain to recall incidents he had heard of Steinbaum’s history, but investigation along that line drew a blank. Was Suarez mixed up in the embroglio? It was unlikely. Though the man had spent some years in the United States and in Europe, he had not left San Juan since he, Maseden, came there, and, before that period, both Madge and Nina Gray must have been girls in short frocks and long tresses.
Perhaps the father’s record would provide a clew. Somehow, though he had never set eyes on Mr. Gray save as a shadowy form on a dark night, Maseden sensed him as unsympathetic. He was forced to form a judgment on the flimsiest of material, having none other; but Gray’s voice, his way of speaking to his daughters, had grated.
First impressions are treacherous guides; nevertheless the philosopher whom they cannot mislead does not exist.
The following day was the longest in Maseden’s experience. Monotony, in itself, is wearying; when, to a dull routine of meals and occasional talk with men of an inferior type is added the positive discomfort of confinement in the most exposed and cramped part of a ship during a stiff gale, monotony becomes akin to torture.
At last, however, night fell. There was no improvement in the weather, which, if anything, grew worse; but a change in the ship’s course, or a shifting of the wind—no one to whom Maseden might speak could give him any reliable data on the point—brought the Southern Cross on a more even keel.
Here, at least, was some slight compensation for the leaden-footed hours of waiting. Nina Gray might be a good sailor, but it was hardly reasonable to expect that she would keep her tryst when the big steamer was trying alternately to stand on end or roll bodily over to port.
About nine o’clock Maseden made out a shrouded figure in the position where his “sister-in-law” had stood the previous night. He hastened from the shelter of the forecastle, and was promptly drenched from head to foot by a shower of spray. He was half-way up the ladder when a voice reached him.
“Please go back,” it said. “I’ll come to the gangway on the starboard side.”
He regained the deck, made for the right-hand gangway, and soon had the satisfaction of seeing the girl walking swiftly along the dimly-lighted corridor.
He hardly knew how to greet her. To bid her “Good evening,” or murmur some platitude about her goodness in keeping the appointment in such vile weather, would have sounded banal.
The lady, however, when they came face to face, settled all doubts on the question of etiquette by saying breathlessly:
“I have had a long talk with my sister, Mr. Maseden, and she bids me tell you that she cannot meet you herself. You were so generous, so kind to her, at a moment when your thoughts might well have been centered in your own terrible fate, that she cannot bear the ordeal of asking you the last favor of forgetting her.
“Of course, every facility will be given for the dissolution of the marriage. I have written here the address of a firm of lawyers in Philadelphia who will act with your legal representatives when the matter comes before the courts. For your own purposes, I understand, you wish to remain unknown while on board this ship. We have arranged to travel to New York by the first American liner sailing from Buenos Ayres after our arrival. Perhaps you will be good enough to choose another vessel, or, if your affairs are urgent, we would wait for a later one. Can you let me know your wishes now in that matter?”
Maseden was so astonished that he literally caught the girl by the shoulder and turned her partly round so that the light of a distant lamp fell on her face. The buffeting of the gale, aided, no doubt, by a feeling of excitement, had lent her a fine color, but, if her utterance was a trifle broken at first, it had soon become calm and measured, nor did she seem to resent his cavalier treatment.
“Are you joking?” he said, smiling in sheer perplexity.
“I fail to find any humor in my words,” came the instant reply.
“Quite so. They might have been framed by a lawyer. Isn’t there a ghost of a joke in that mere fact?”
“It appeared to my sister, and I fully agree with her, that we are suggesting the best way, the only way, out of an embarrassing dilemma.”
“Yes,” agreed Maseden, drawing a long breath. “I agree to all the terms; I insist only on priority of sailing from Buenos Ayres. I don’t see why I should risk my life just to save you a trifling inconvenience.”
“Then here is the address I spoke of,” and she proffered an envelope.
“Good. We’ll leave the rest to the law, Miss Nina.”
“Thank you. Good-by.”
She would have passed him, but he was on the after side of the gangway, and his outstretched hand restrained her.
“One moment, please,” he said. “I want you to tell your sister that she has thoroughly—disillusioned me.”
“I’ll do that,” she assured him, and he could not help but regard her airy self-possession as the most surprising factor in a remarkable situation.
“And you, too,” he went on. “Something has happened to you since last night. Somehow you are—harder. Forgive me if I choose unpleasant adjectives.”
She hesitated before replying. Perhaps she felt the quiet scorn underlying the words.
“Where my unhappy family is concerned, the forgiveness must come wholly from you,” she said at last. “May I go now, Mr. Maseden? Once more, thank you for all that you have done and will do. Remember, when this miserable affair reaches the newspapers, it is not your reputation that will suffer, but the woman’s!”
She left him gazing blankly after her. There was a tense vibrato in the tone of the girl’s voice that touched some responsive chord in the man’s breast.
Then he became aware that he was soaked to the skin, and the wind was piercingly cold.
He murmured a phrase strongly reminiscent of the Americano who took hunting trips into the interior of Central America, and hurried to his cabin, where he stripped and rubbed his limbs to a glow before turning in.