CHAPTER XLVIII
ENTER CAPTAIN HORN
It was less than a week after the tumbling match in the street betweenBanker and Mok, and about eleven o'clock in the morning, when a briefnote, written on a slip of paper and accompanied by a card, was broughtto Edna from Mrs. Cliff. On the card was written the name of CaptainPhilip Horn, and the note read thus:
"He is here. He sent his card to me. Of course, youwill see him. Oh, Edna! don't do anything foolish whenyou see him! Don't go and throw away everythingworth living for in this world! Heaven help you!"
This note was hurriedly written, but Edna read it at a glance.
"Bring the gentleman here," she said to the man.
Now, with all her heart, Edna blessed herself and thanked herself that,at last, she had been strong enough and brave enough to determine whatshe ought to do when she met the captain. That very morning, lying awakein her bed, she had determined that she would meet him in the same spiritas that in which he had written to her. She would be very strong. Shewould not assume anything. She would not accept the responsibility ofdeciding the situation, which responsibility she believed he thought itright she should assume. She would not have it. If he appeared before heras the Captain Horn of his letters, he should go away as the man who hadwritten those letters. If he had come here on business, she would showhim that she was a woman of business.
As she stood waiting, with her eyes upon his card, which lay upon thetable, and Mrs. Cliffs note crumpled up in one hand, she saw the captainfor some minutes before it was possible for him to reach her. She saw himon board the _Castor_, a tall, broad-shouldered sailor, with his hands inthe pockets of his pea-jacket. She saw him by the caves in Peru, hisflannel shirt and his belted trousers faded by the sun and water, tornand worn, and stained by the soil on which they so often sat, with hislong hair and beard, and the battered felt hat, which was the last thingshe saw as his boat faded away in the distance, when she stood watchingit from the sandy beach. She saw him as she had imagined him after shehad received his letter, toiling barefooted along the sands, carryingheavy loads upon his shoulders, living alone night and day on a drearydesert coast, weary, perhaps haggard, but still indomitable. She saw himin storm, in shipwreck, in battle, and as she looked upon him thus withthe eyes of her brain, there were footsteps outside her door.
As Captain Horn came through the long corridors and up the stairs,following the attendant, he saw the woman he was about to meet, and sawher before he met her. He saw her only in one aspect--that of a tall, toothin, young woman, clad in a dark-blue flannel suit, unshapely,streaked, and stained, her hair bound tightly round her head and coveredby an old straw hat with a faded ribbon. This picture of her as he hadleft her standing on the beach, at the close of that afternoon when hislittle boat pulled out into the Pacific, was as clear and distinct aswhen he had last seen it.
A door was opened before him, and he entered Edna's salon. For a momenthe stopped in the doorway. He did not see the woman he had come to meet.He saw before him a lady handsomely and richly dressed in a Parisianmorning costume--a lady with waving masses of dark hair above a lovelyface, a lady with a beautiful white hand, which was half raised as heappeared in the doorway.
She stood with her hand half raised. She had never seen the man beforeher. He was a tall, imposing gentleman, in a dark suit, over which hewore a light-colored overcoat. One hand was gloved, and in the other heheld a hat. His slightly curling brown beard and hair were trimmed afterthe fashion of the day, and his face, though darkened by the sun, showedno trace of toil, or storm, or anxious danger. He was a tall,broad-shouldered gentleman, with an air of courtesy, an air of dignity,an air of forbearance, which were as utterly unknown to her as everythingelse about him, except his eyes--those were the same eyes she had seen onboard the _Castor_ and on the desert sands.
Had it not been for the dark eyes which looked so steadfastly at him,Captain Horn, would have thought that he had been shown into the wrongroom. But he now knew there was no mistake, and he entered. Edna raisedher hand and advanced to meet him.
He shook hands with her exactly as he had written to her, and she shookhands with him just as she had telegraphed to him. Much of her naturalcolor had left her face. As he had never seen this natural color, underthe sun-brown of the Pacific voyage, he did not miss it.
Instantly she began to speak. How glad she was that she had preparedherself to speak as she would have spoken to any other good friend! Soshe expressed her joy at seeing him again, well and successful afterall these months of peril, toil, and anxiety, and they sat down neareach other.
He looked at her steadfastly, and asked her many things about Ralph, Mrs.Cliff, and the negroes, and what had happened since he left SanFrancisco. He listened with a questioning intentness as she spoke. Shespoke rapidly and concisely as she answered his questions and asked himabout himself. She said little about the gold. One might have supposedthat he had arrived at Marseilles with a cargo of coffee. At the sametime, there seemed to be, on Edna's part, a desire to lengthen out herrecital of unimportant matters. She now saw that the captain knew she didnot care to talk of these things. She knew that he was waiting for anopportunity to turn the conversation into another channel,--waiting withan earnestness that was growing more and more apparent,--and as sheperceived this, and as she steadily talked to him, she assured herself,with all the vehemence of which her nature was capable, that she and thisman were two people connected by business interests, and that she wasready to discuss that business in a business way as soon as he couldspeak. But still she did not yet give him the chance to speak.
The captain sat there, with his blue eyes fixed upon her, and, as shelooked at him, she knew him to be the personification of honor andmagnanimity, waiting until he could see that she was ready for him tospeak, ready to listen if she should speak, ready to meet her on anyground--a gentleman, she thought, above all the gentlemen in the world.And still she went on talking about Mrs. Cliff and Ralph.
Suddenly the captain rose. Whether or not he interrupted her in themiddle of a sentence, he did not know, nor did she know. He put his hatupon a table and came toward her. He stood in front of her and lookeddown at her. She looked up at him, but he did not immediately speak. Shecould not help standing silently and looking up at him when he stood andlooked down upon her in that way. Then he spoke.
"Are you my wife?" said he.
"By all that is good and blessed in heaven or earth, I am," she answered.
Standing there, and looking up into his eyes, there was no other answerfor her to make.
* * * * *
Seldom has a poor, worn, tired, agitated woman kept what was to her alonger or more anxious watch upon a closed door than Mrs. Cliff kept thatday. If even Ralph had appeared, she would have decoyed him into her ownroom, and locked him up there, if necessary.
In about an hour after Mrs. Cliff began her watch, a tall man walkedrapidly out of the salon and went down the stairs, and then a woman camerunning across the hall and into Mrs. Cliff's room, closing the doorbehind her. Mrs. Cliff scarcely recognized this woman. She had Edna'shair and face, but there was a glow and a glory on her countenance suchas Mrs. Cliff had never seen, or expected to see until, in the hereafter,she should see it on the face of an angel.
"He has loved me," said Edna, with her arms around her old friend's neck,"ever since we had been a week on the _Castor_."
Mrs. Cliff shivered and quivered with joy. She could not say anything,but over and over again she kissed the burning cheeks of her friend.At last they stood apart, and, when Mrs. Cliff was calm enough tospeak, she said:
"Ever since we were on the _Castor!_ Well, Edna, you must admit thatCaptain Horn is uncommonly good at keeping things to himself."
"Yes," said the other, "and he always kept it to himself. He never let itgo away from him. He had intended to speak to me, but he wanted to waituntil I knew him better, and until we were in a position where hewouldn't seem to be taking advantage of me
by speaking. And when youproposed that marriage by Cheditafa, he was very much troubled andannoyed. It was something so rough and jarring, and so discordant withwhat he had hoped, that at first he could not bear to think of it. But heafterwards saw the sense of your reasoning, and agreed simply because itwould be to my advantage in case he should lose his life in hisundertaking. And we will be married to-morrow at the embassy."
"To-morrow!" cried Mrs. Cliff. "So soon?"
"Yes," replied Edna. "The captain has to go away, and I am goingwith him."
"That is all right," said Mrs. Cliff. "Of course I was a little surprisedat first. But how about the gold? How much was there of it? And what ishe going to do with it?"
"He scarcely mentioned the gold," replied Edna. "We had more preciousthings to talk about. When he sees us all together, you and I and Ralph,he will tell us what he has done, and what he is going to do, and--"
"And we can say what we please?" cried Mrs. Cliff.
"Yes," said Edna,--"to whomever we please."
"Thank the Lord!" exclaimed Mrs. Cliff. "That is almost as good asbeing married."
* * * * *
On his arrival in Paris the night before, Captain Horn had takenlodgings at a hotel not far from the Hotel Grenade, and the first thinghe did the next morning was to visit Edna. He had supposed, of course,that she was at the same hotel in which Mrs. Cliff resided, whichaddress he had got from Wraxton, in Marseilles, and he had expected tosee the elderly lady first, and to get some idea of how matters stoodbefore meeting Edna. He was in Paris alone. He had left Shirley andBurke, with the negroes, in Marseilles. He had wished to do nothing, tomake no arrangements for any one, until he had seen Edna, and had foundout what his future life was to be.
Now, as he walked back to his hotel, that future life lay before himradiant and resplendent. No avenue in Paris, or in any part of the world,blazing with the lights of some grand festival, ever shone with suchglowing splendor as the future life of Captain Horn now shone andsparkled before him, as he walked and walked, on and on, and crossed theriver into the Latin Quarter, before he perceived that his hotel was amile or more behind him.
From the moment that the _Arato_ had left the Straits of Magellan, andCaptain Horn had had reason to believe that he had left his dangersbehind him, the prow of his vessel had been set toward the Strait ofGibraltar, and every thought of his heart toward Edna. Burke and Shirleyboth noticed a change in him. After he left the Rackbirds' cove, until hehad sailed into the South Atlantic, his manner had been quiet, alert,generally anxious, and sometimes stern. But now, day by day, he appearedto be growing into a different man. He was not nervous, nor apparentlyimpatient, but it was easy to see that within him there burned a steadypurpose to get on as fast as the wind would blow them northward.
Day by day, as he walked the deck of his little vessel, one might havethought him undergoing a transformation from the skipper of a schoonerinto the master of a great ship, into the captain of a swift Atlanticliner, into the commander of a man-of-war, into the commodore on board aline-of-battle ship. It was not an air of pride or assumed superioritythat he wore, it was nothing assumed, it was nothing of which he was notentirely aware. It was the gradual growth within him, as health growsinto a man recovering from a sickness, of the consciousness of power.The source of that consciousness lay beneath him, as he trod the deck ofthe _Arato_.
This consciousness, involuntary, and impossible to resist, had nothingdefinite about it. It had nothing which could wholly satisfy the soul ofthis man, who kept his eyes and his thoughts so steadfastly toward thenorth. He knew that there were but few things in the world that his powercould not give him, but there was one thing upon which it might have noinfluence whatever, and that one thing was far more to him than all otherthings in this world.
Sometimes, as he sat smoking beneath the stars, he tried to picture tohimself the person who might be waiting and watching for him in Paris,and to try to look upon her as she must really be; for, after her life inSan Francisco and Paris, she could not remain the woman she had been atthe caves on the coast of Peru. But, do what he would, he could make notransformation in the picture which was imprinted on the retina of hissoul. There he saw a woman still young, tall, and too thin, in a suit ofblue flannel faded and worn, with her hair bound tightly around her headand covered by a straw hat with a faded ribbon. But it was toward thisfigure that he was sailing, sailing, sailing, as fast as the winds ofheaven would blow his vessel onward.