Diamond Tolls/Chapter 16
CHAPTER XVI
MURDONG drifted out, pulling his oars, little understanding the adventure of the night. He was glad that he did not know why Delia had visited him, kissed him, and sent him packing, because the uncertainty and womanliness of it fed his imagination, which took fire and filled him with conflagration. Surely Old Mississip' loves a romance.
With the kisses warm upon his lips, the tart statement Delia had made, for the benefit of Mrs. Mahna, left no wound in his heart. Far from it. It showed that G. Alexander Murdong was possessed of a secret in common with Delia, and Delia was one with whom it was joy and delight and extravagance to have a confidence.
"She'll meet me down at Salem Landing, or in Spanish Moss Bend, in middle January," he whispered to himself. "That'll be some meeting. Gee! If only I could write sonnets and do good poetry. Little weak stuff like mine'd sound silly down here on Old Mississip'."
Thus he mused, and leaning on the sweeps of his boat, he looked unafraid into the dark bend. His eyes turned up to the heights of Fort Pillow, and he wondered if the souls of the dead do not walk upon the waters in the murk of night? If he knew no fear, at least he thrilled to the strange music which the river plays, which one cannot hear but of which one sometimes feels as though he is a part.
Murdong could see only the dark masses of the bluffs, the equally dark wooded point opposite, and the paleness of the river surface, catching and reflecting glows out of the sky. He saw a sandbar down stream, which had a strange gleam that marked the silhouettes of the wind-heaped, water-moulded hills and valleys of the little desert, where the myriads of grains of sand turned their polished facets and reflected the sky lights like precious stones.
Here was inspiration for his muse, which he now realized had been starved for these strange lower river things. He had come below the jumping-off place, murderous in his feelings and desperate—only to find that his star had guided him aright, and brought him into the very heart of the land of his dreams.
He knew how his mind had strived and struggled with the things it had to eat; he looked back wonderingly. What had saved his mind? Why hadn't it starved to death? Why hadn't his very soul died within him for lack of proper nourishment?
Here he was satisfying an appetite long ahungered. Any sleep was too much—any rest of the eyes was too much—anything that for a moment interrupted his gaily intoxicated senses was a murderer of opportunity! The river swept him down bend and reach, and he knew that it was taking him far and away and beyond any of those poor devils who were struggling and plugging and stumbling through the prosiness of back yonder.
One touch had awakened his soul, one kiss had elevated him to heights of which he had dreamed, toward which he had struggled in vain through jungle fastnesses—now he breathed deep with satisfaction. His mind dwelt upon the sheer beauty of mighty torrent, and a skyline that did not imprison the soul struggling against the bars of limitation and crowds and haste and efficiency.
Just so Murdong found himself a part of the atmosphere of Old Mississip'. He felt as much a river man as any old-timer ever felt. He had been away; he had wandered in far places; but now he had returned to his true home.
He was still leaning on the sweeps when dawn darted like a flash of lightning out of the east. He saw the magnificent sunrise up-pouring of light. He caught the chirrups of migrant birds, and he saw wild geese planing down out of the high sky, having travelled a thousand miles since sunset the night before. By that spectacle he knew that away to the northward there were grim, cold storms—his instinct told him so.
He went about his day's work calmly enough. He prepared a very good breakfast, and ate it in the comfort of a, chair at a table. He looked about him with awe and reverence. Here had dwelt a fairy lady of the river. This had been her home; this had been her chamber of secrets; this had been the housing of a rare and beautiful soul; he dared not let his imagination run free in this place.
He walked up and down in that little boat, looking to right and left, and everywhere he saw the touch of her hand, everywhere he felt her presence, and the aroma of that fair place smote his nostrils like incense—a faint, delicious perfume sweeter than any he had ever known before.
He floated on down till noon, and then he swung into an eddy, where he anchored in order that he might sleep and make up for his lost rest. He went into Nodland, dreaming fair dreams as a poet will when in the proper mood, untrammeled by noxious environment. His soul had expanded, his vision had welled up in proportion, and his heart rejoiced as never before.
This is what Old Mississip' does to an appreciative poet.
But Old Mississip' was not yet through with G. Alexander Murdong. Instead, the river had only just begun. That afternoon, about 6 o'clock, when darkness of autumn was very near at hand, Murdong awakened and arose greatly refreshed by his sleep. He looked forth into the evening, and decided that he would not float down that night. Instead, he would give free rein to his imagination and curiosity.
His curiosity got the upper hand, and he began to take an inventory of the things which were in and of the houseboat which he had purchased. He turned to the bookcase and inspected the books, papers, magazines, and writing material there. He wondered if she had meant to leave so many things, or had they been overlooked? He comforted himself by the thought that she would meet him down in Spanish Moss Bend—he would rather meet her there than at some prosaically named landing.
There were a number of old newspapers—Chicago, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, and so on. He read their headlines impatiently. One newspaper featured a president's note, a Wall Street flurry, a fevered magnate, and a diamond mystery. Another paper featured an actress's divorce, a murder, a captive smuggler, and lost rubies and diamonds. A third paper featured a meeting of a common council, a sermon on municipal lack of reform, a street car strike, and one question persisted, "Where is this gem salesman?"
Murdong found that every one of the papers featured many things, but every one agreed in featuring that diamond story. It exasperated him, that diamond mystery refrain. He threw the newspapers down impatiently. He resumed his inspection of his craft, and the more he examined it, the better he liked it.
He liked, particularly, one evidence of shantyboat efficiency. In each of the four corners of the cabin were little manholes, and in one of these stood a hand pump. If the boat should spring a leak anywhere, the hull could be pumped out from the cabin without going outside.
However, when he looked into each of these holes in the floor he saw that the bottom was perfectly dry—not a drop of water leaked in anywhere. In fact, the bottom was so dry that Delia had used the little openings as storage places. In one were several cans of corn, tomatoes, and the like—this was the port side in the galley or kitchen. On the other side she had stowed sealed gallon cans of kerosene. In the bow she had stowed other things.
In one of them Murdong discovered a leather case with the name of "Ofsten & Groner" printed on it in gold letters. He hesitated, trying to remember where he had seen that name. Then he opened the case, and found in it a large number of folded sheets of linen paper with tissue paper inside. And when he looked in most of all he discovered a little cut stone.
"Gee Christmas!" he gasped. "What's this? Those diamonds!"
He shook out the folded papers, and examined the brilliant pebbles which Delia had taken out of their papers and neglected to fold in again. There were hundreds of the brilliants, including a number of rubies. There was no denying their genuineness. The papers were all marked, with the weights, with their price, and with symbols to indicate their quality.
Murdong stared at them in dismay. There was something uncanny in their flashing there in the bright lamplight. First he had learned about them from the headlines in the newspapers, and now he saw vividly that those newspapers were there because they told about the diamonds.
His imagination had been a blessing, as he viewed the river in its broad, beautiful moods. Now the lonesomeness taunted him, and he seemed to feel, if he did not hear, the demoniacal laughter of the river spirits, rejoicing in his predicament.
"She said she'd meet me down in Spanish Moss Bend," he sobbed. "And these are stolen—she didn't do it. Who did it, if she didn't do it? That's why she ordered me to go away, and that's why she kissed me, and wants to meet me again. She was afraid—and I'm scared."
He pulled the window curtains down closer, and locked the bow and stern doors. He brought out and examined his automatic pistol, with which he had played upon the feelings and nerves of the river rat, Storit. He recalled the ghastly scar on Storit's head revealed by the flash's white light.
In a moment the free, open, beautiful river had become a place of menace and tragedy and horror. He recalled White Collar Dan, alias Rubert Gost, something of whose career he had written on one of his police station story assignments—and he had come across that crook's name here on the river. Worst of all, now that he thought of it in connection with the diamonds, Gost and the girl were in some way connected. The girl had some of Gost's books—cheap detective fiction. He was a penny-weighter who substituted phony or paste for gold or gems. In some way they had come into possession of all these precious stones.
He packed the gems in the case, hastily, and hid them behind the cans of corn in the kitchen manhole. Then he returned to the writing desk and seized upon the newspapers. He read the accounts of the famous diamond mystery wherein a diamond salesman had sallied forth with more than one hundred thousand dollars' worth of gems, and disappeared from under the eyes of detectives and the world that knew him.
Murdong shivered when he thought what happened to men who pack around a fortune in gems. His poetic instinct prevented him from knowing which way to turn. These might be the gems—they might not be. On the other hand, what was she doing with them? Or did she know about them? And there was Gost. Could it be possible that the beautiful girl was his victim? Was she trusting to the chivalry of G. Alexander Murdong?
Where lies the duty of a poet, who had been mauled sore by civilization and who has fled past the jumping-off place, down Old Mississip'?
Murdong decided that his duty was first to discover the honesty and prove the innocence of the fair Delia. Fair Delia was too lovely not to be helped by a poetic river roamer who cared not for the wealth and baubles of a world that despised his genius.
In a short time the romantic spirit took the place of the panic that the discovery of the gems had given Murdong. He had no thought of the ethical questions which he might or even should have asked himself. Questions of ethics do not trouble beyond the jumping-off place.
He rejoiced in the sweetness of the trust reposed in him by the river lady fair, whose spiritual presence overwhelmed his muse and prevented him from putting even into prose the galloping wonder of the adventure which was now his, although he did not label the varying incidents adventure, and would not know till long afterward that the Mississippi commonplaces were wonderful. The river was like a fairy-kingdom where one in enchantment regards the most extraordinary events as the most commonplace and merely interesting.
He did not know where Spanish Moss Bend was. He had never heard of it before she had whispered in his ear the magic name. He had sealed his agreement to meet her there with a kiss so precious that he felt that he would breast the ramparts of countless hordes of foes to reach her side.
And the river smiled and turned the bends, piling up against the long curve, and sloping down like the rim of a vast, shallow half-saucer. He floated down and down till he was carried into the bank at Mendova one bright day. He landed and in a ship chandler's on the waterfront he found a book of river maps and a list of the post lights on Western rivers, which he carried on board his boat and examined with eager haste.
Sure enough! There was Spanish Moss Bend, a twenty-five-mile semicircle, where the first Spanish moss is seen growing on the trees. He had four died miles to go from Mendova—lots of time before mid-January. He would dream down those great curves shown by the map. He would recover his poise, and he would by that time be an old river man, careless and free in that vast plenty of atmosphere which was the charm and the life of the huge torrent.
Murdong purchased a carbine rifle and four hundred 30-30 calibre cartridges, hard and soft nose both. He bought another automatic pistol and picked up two sheets of boiler iron, half rounded. His idea was that in case of an attack anywhere down the river he could stand one of these sheets in front of him and use it as a breastwork. He had never heard of shantyboaters who line their cabin along their bunk with boiler metal to protect them against being shot up at a landing. Thus was the instinct of self-preservation vindicated. Murdong knew what to do.
He floated out of the Mendova landing and down the river. Something of the sweetness seemed to have vanished from the atmosphere of the Mississippi, but it had gained in romantic interest.
"Where else in the world would a man find five hundred diamonds in a shantyboat?" Murdong asked himself.
From now on, like a diamond salesman, he lurked along, keeping at a distance from other shantyboaters, and having nothing to do with other river people. He kept away from towns; he landed in lonesome bends where no other shantyboat was in sight. He swung heavy curtains over the ordinary shades of his windows so that at night not a glimmer of light could go through. He lingered in his eddies till late in the morning, and when he landed it was after dark, so that no one could see him.
He had the feeling of a fugitive, or a guardian of great treasure; of a poet in the throes of inspiration—and night or day he packed his two automatics in their holsters out of sight but always in mind. Perhaps the river spirit laughed, perhaps it merely smiled—when a man runs away down the Mississippi to dodge responsibility and to go to the dogs, he is very apt to find himself loaded up with unheard-of burdens of soul and body.
Then he made a discovery which startled and exasperated him, while it gave him cause for worry and dread. He began to think that he was being watched, being followed, being scrutinized.
This was with reason, too, for sometimes he would see a flicker of a boat far up the river astern; sometimes he would see it ahead of him down a long reach; once or twice in the night he spied it floating down the current a few rods out from where he had found a little port against a steep bank under the shelter of a wooded bend.
The craft was a little scow, covered at the stern with an A-tent of canvas—a hog-pen on a raft. Not once did he get a fair look at it—if he ran into the bank in mid-afternoon, the pursuer would run in and wait. When he pulled out it, too, would soon appear, a mile astern.
Murdong redoubled his vigilance, growing angrier and angrier, the chase wearing on his nerves more and more.
"I've got to stop that," he whispered to himself. "I can't stand it. I'll try to sneak away in the night. Then—then if he keeps after me, I'll find out."