The Pagan Madonna

Where was Denny? The question let loose in her heart and mind all that was

emotional, at the same time enchaining her to the spot where she stood.

Denny! Why, she loved Denny! And she had not known it consciously until

this moment. Because some presciential instinct warned her that Denny was

either dead or badly hurt!

The narrowness of the passage gave Cleigh one advantage--none of the men

could get behind him. Sometimes he surged forward a little, sometimes he

stepped back, but never back of the line he had set for himself. By and by

Jane forced her gaze to the deck to see what it was that held him like a

rock. What she saw was only the actual of what she had already

envisaged--Denny, either dead or badly hurt!

What had happened was this: Six of the crew, those spirits who had

succumbed to the secret domination of the man Flint--the drinkers--had

decided to celebrate the last night on the Wanderer. Their argument was

that old man Cleigh wouldn't miss a few bottles, and that it would be a

long time between drinks when they returned to the States; and never might

they again have so easy a chance to taste the juice of the champagne

grape. Where was the harm? Hadn't they behaved like little Fauntleroys for

weeks? They did not want any trouble--just half a dozen bottles, and back

to the forepeak to empty them. That wouldn't kill the old man. They

wouldn't even have to force the door of the dry-stores; they had already

learned that they could tickle the lock out of commission by the use of a

bent wire. Young, restless, and mischievous--none of them bad. A bit of

laughter and a few bars of song--that was all they wanted. No doubt the

affair would have blown itself out harmlessly but for the fact that Chance

had other ideas. She has a way with her, this Pagan Madonna, of taking off

the cheerful motley of a jest and substituting the Phrygian cap of terror,

subitaneously.

Dennison had lain down on the lounge in the main salon. Restless, unhappy,

bitter toward his father, he had lain there counting the throbs of the

engine to that point where they mysteriously cease to register and one has

to wait a minute or two to pick up the throb again.

For years he had lived more or less in the open, which attunes the human

ear to sounds that generally pass unnoticed. All at once he was sure that

he had heard the tinkle of glass, but he waited. The tinkle was repeated.

Instinct led him at once to the forward passage, and one glance down this

was sufficient. From the thought of a drunken orgy--the thing he had been

fearing since the beginning of this mad voyage--his thought leaped to

Jane. Thus his subsequent acts were indirectly in her defense.