THE DANCER

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1737, 14 June 1905, Page 9

THE DANCER

(By Morgan .Robertson, in “Harper’s Weekly.”) PART 11. It had taken six months to reduce him to vagrancy ; it took ten mors—and the details of his upbuilding we e as harrowing as those of his descent—to develop in him sufficient mental power to save him from any but the very mildest friction with environment, by whien time the ship had returned to B.verpooi, where the whole crew was “worked out,” as the process of getting rid of men in foreign ports is termed. And in this big city he walked the streets, as he had done in San Francisco, ior just one day, and then sought the captain at his hotel, asking that he save him irom the land. The captain had line-d the nervous, but intelligent and wilir.g, young sailor, and, as the oincers had quit after -working out the crew, he placed him on bo aid as shipkeeper, and later tuck, him to sea as- third mate. Hardy now considered his career determined. He had secured a good sea chest, and on the inside of the lid pasted the picture he had torn from the magazine, and which he had preserved It was still potent for good, and under its influence lie mastered tlie study of navigation. Then his captain made him second mate, and tutored him still more, until he had reached the critical age ol 27, when he signed him on as chief officer a complete man, strong in mind as he was in body, quick-witted and confident, with the eye of a mastiff, a voice like a trumpet blast-, and the arias’ ic part of his soul reduced to a fetish worship of a dream goddess whose faded likeness ornamented his cliest lid. There was also a devil in this creed of his— an image oft called to his mind as he watched men drinking—a red and wrinkled, elflike creature, dancing furiously to a weird tune, every note of which held a plaint of mental agony, for it had jangled in his ears while he sank in the malestrom of city life. But that the gcnl.deshould bless him J urfiner, or the devil afflicr rrii? again, rfe**-*-r entered his thoughts. Both happened, however —the affliction first.

He was again, at Liverpool, vvliene his ship had taken in ballast for New Yoxk. On the evening before sailing day he went ashore for a stroll, and m front of a brightly lit theatre entrance was touched on the shoulder. Turning, he beheld McClure, in the same immaculate evening dress, older, shrewder of faoe than ever, hut without that quizzical, exasperating smile. “Well,, Hardy,” he said, with a little of hesitancy m his voice, “how ore you?” He reached forth his hand, and Hardy took it. There wa9 reason for McClure’s embarrassment. It had been a wild-eyed

enthusiast whom lie had met three years before, and ho was-no-w looking into tne eyes Gf a masterful man —one who knew his strength, and whose firmly set mouth was taking on the quizzing expression missing on that of the other. “Pretty well, thank you, McClure,” he answered. “And how is the battle of life—if the question is appropriate?’

“First rate. Over with the snow. In charge now. You look sunburned. Going to sea again?” : “Mate o-f a ship.”

There was a moment’s painful silence, then McClure said 1 , haltingly: “liver drink any thing? Bet’s have a drink. I want to talk with you. ’ “McClure,” said Hardy, gravely, “I took my last in the gutter. Talk with me rigi.it here.” “Well, that’s bad,” said McClure, brightening a little at Hardy’s admi .sion. “But, of course, if a man can’t stand it. why —” “McClure, it wasn't the drink that sent me down. It was tire loss of what o. in,, aid ill-. —the picture. And I can drink now, safely, but I do not care to.” “The picture. Yes, that’s what I meant to speak of. I don’t blame you now for sailing into me; but at the same time I thought I was acting right.”

“You were. It was not my property. I found another in the mud at my gasp, and have it yet. It fills the bill.”

“Did you? Good enough, Hardy—but —you see —well, she seemed to understand tins thing better than I, and she wanted you to 7-ave that picture, if . t J-Jd <irry guo-d : and I have it for you now. Want it?” “No, nor any sight nor sound of the lady in the flesh. I regard her dancing as an incentive to all that is weak and evil in me; but young she wore my ideal of a beautiful face—that is all.”

McClure’s eyes opened wide, and lie said, “But wo-uldu t you like to meet her —the original of that face?” “No,” answered Hardy, emphatically. “No. I saw enough of her. I ruined myself watching her dance in the dark.” “Well,” said McClure, laughing, as he consulted hits watch, “I must travel on now. I’ll see you again. Suppose you go inside. That red dance is just going on the stage. If you want to see it show my card at the door ancT pass in. I’ll be back and join you before long. I want you to meet her.” Fingering the card which McClure handed him, he watched as he hurried away, and as he turned his head to glance across the street saw that he was still laughing. The inherent sensitiveness to ridicule, though not played upon for years, was, nevertheless, a potent force within him; and prompted by it, lie did what lie would not have done for a better friend than McClure —he boldly dared the devil of his creed. He entered the theatre, to look again at the aged siren that had once bewitched and unmanned him. The card passed him in, but did not secure him a seat, and he lounged over the rear chairs as he had done a lifetime before. The number had just bo-

gun ; the theatre and audience were different, of course, but there was the same darkened stage reddened by the hidden glow, the same costumes on the performers, the same weird, jangling music from the orchestra, the same “o-irl to the right.” And in her dancing were the same poetry of motion, the

same 'innocent grace and abandon ol happy chiidiioodj and to Joim Hardy, chief maie and master of men, c.aue the old mental and moral intoxication.

With glistening eyes he applauded furiously, and when the dance was ended went out into the street, as lie had been wont to do before —to save to himself his illusions. Then, from association of ideas, perhaps, or irom snock and a restless abandon to tlie artistic and irresponsible elements of iiis character, lie of liquor, and began drinking—drinking as men mav_ unaer strong excitement after long abstinence. He had a later fleeting remembrance that he met McClure at some time dining the evening, and that McClure avoided him; but lie cared little for that. Strong in his mind, however, through all this drift disintegration was the protective instinct, and he knew he must go aboard his ship in his present condition; so, at three :n the morning, when barely able to sign his name, he registered at a hotel, and went to sleep with a sylphlike image dancing in his brain, and his life s ambition crystallised into an intent to see her dance, ship or no ship, on the following evening. Hiad he wakened in time to go aboard, however, he might have resigned the intent ; but when he reached the dock at- midday lie found the ship gone, and learned from the dock master that a new mate had taken his place at the last moment, and that the angry skipper had sent, his chest, his discharge, and his balance of pay to the ship’s agent. And now he realised liis danger ; and so realising, drew upon the reserve strength required through his years of self-discipline, and forbade himself further indulgence in liquor ; but this did not preclude his nightly attendance at the theatre to witness the part of the performance that had enthralled him. It was only when he found the theatre occupied by another company, and spent an evening of serious reflection consequent {upon this, that; jhe )took thought of his prospects of advancement at sea —if not irrevocably ruined, at least put back for a great many years. Then he relegated the dancer to her legitimate place as his evil genius, and being now a jjian out of work, took cheap passage to New York, where lie might hope to- get. a second mate’s, or at least a boatswains, berth. He sailed in a mammoth liner, whose rules forbade him, as steerage passenger, to walk abaft a certain imaginary line athwart the deck. He was content with this ruling, and hoped that it also applied to- the saloon passengers, keeping them aft; for when he drew near it, he saw, far down the long promenade deck, the mysterious McClure, pacing up and down in a warm ulster. And sounds of music and siuging from the saloon —with an occasional fragment of a weird, jangling dance tune—apprised him that with him on the steamer must be the whole theatrical company, and necessarily among them the aged, agile and fascinating Mrs Berry McClure. He carefully avoided being seen by- McClure, but haunted the dividing line on the,deck when n'ght had fallen, straining his ears, as saloon doors opened, for snatches of the sounds from within ; and one evening, while the big steel ship was charging over the Georges Bank through a moonlit fog, he climbed

a stanchion to- the boat-deck and mad© his way aft toward the saloon sky light, screened by the fog from the oincers on the bridge, yet able to see clear in the moonlight from above. He could not have told what he wanted, except to hear tnat tantalising music.

As he passed a small companion door opening from a flight of stairs there stepped out before him a figure in a long cloak and hood. The hood but partly confined a mass of wavy hair-, under which was a fair young face, with Large dark eyes, upturned to the moonlight. They settled on Hardy and pierced him to the soul, for they were the eyes he had imagined into the picture, and the wavy hair was of the golden tint he had chosen from his subconscious knowledge. And the girl was the living, breathing original of the whole—his angel of good. With his tongue thick against the dry roof of his mouth he watched Her with staring eyes, and she stepped, back a pace, then waited, as though expecting him to speak. After a moment he did so, hardly knowing what he said. -“lt’s you,” he stammered. “I didn’t know—-didn’t think to see you here.” “Nor I you,” he answered pleasantly, as though addressing an acquaintance, and in a musical voice that seemed familiar. “But I knew that you were in Liverpool. Oh, I know all about yop’'—her big eyes smiled on him. “You are the boy who became an 'artist—l (saw you in San Francisco through a cab window—and then you went to sea again, and are now an officer. I’m so glad you’ve succeeded.”

“In God’s name,” he blurted out, hoarsely, “are you living or dead ? —I mean, are you old or young ? Who are you? WTio are you?” She drew herself up, and the smile left her face. “I’m afraid, Mr Hardy,” she said, coldly, “that you have been drinking again. I am sorry, for I had felt— 1 had— Oh, I am sorry.” With his mouth partly open and his fingers stretching and closing at arm’s length by his side, he stared stupidly at the beautiful face, unable to frame an intelligent response. She turned away, as though to leave him there; but her eyes fixed unon a point over his shoulder —at something distant. As she looked the large eyes grew still larger, the pretty lips parted, and, coincident with a yell from the lookout in the crows nest, she uttered a little scream. Then came an explosive order from the bridge: “Starboard the wheel! Starboard, for your life!” As Hardy turned to look she sprang to his side, and there was nothing elderly, or feeble, or ghostly in the clutch which she laid on his arm.

A black shape was looming out of the fog, nearly dead ahead, and in three seconds it had taken form —the sharp bow of a steamer heeling slightly to the wind; then, topping the black hull, came the white bridge into view from the blanket of fog; then there was a quiver and a grinding, tearing, crashing sound of riven steel. Shouts came from forward and screams from below, soon drowned in the louder, still louder, and louder, sounds of grinding and tearing and crashing. Some projection in the bow, an eye-bolt, a dead light, possibly a port hi"ge, had caught the sharp, knifelike bow of the stranger and directed in inward. She was still coming, splittmg then- ship, and she only stopped when the larger momentum of

her heavier victim overcame her own. Then her stern swung off to starboard, the sounds began, in a now key, and her ■nose twisted off in the wound it had made. I>own by the head she drifted into the fog, while the ship she had rammed, with part of her side sliced off and-fxve compartments, flooded, lurched heavily to starboard and settled. In tho scenes of horror played upon the reeling deck that night Hardy played many parts, hut retained a clear recollection of none- One idea predominated to the exclusion of rational thought—a creature lent from heaven was in his care, and for her safety ho, and he alone, was to be held accountable. , . . , Boats and life ratts were to bo cleared away and lowered by frenzied wretches that knew not how. . With the crirl clinging to his arm he directed by voice and example. Women and children were to be placed first, he said, and though knives flashed and pistols spoke among the crazed and struggling mob, not a woman or child, who reached the heat deck was left behind. He saw to it; and in the last boat to leave the davits was the girl in his. care. And over her, as she crouched in the stern sheets, he stood with half an oar, guarding her from those who would crowd But the fates were still unsatisfied, and demanded more of him. A hail came from above, before the tackles were unhooked', and in the darkness Hardy made out a man leaning over the rail of the promenade deck. “That you, Hardy? 55 he called. “Cot her, have you? That’s good. Stand by and I’ll come down. 55 It was McClure. He mounted the rail,, and sprang for the after tackle with the confidence of a sailor, hut missed his grip by a mere inch, and came floundering down, in a heap, striking heavily on the gunwale and tumbling overboard.' Tire, girl screamed. “Unhook forward, there 1” roared Hardy, as’he released-the after tackle. “Out oars and stand by.” They obeyed him eagerly. McClure came up twenty feet astern, and gurgled, “Help! I’m crippled, Hardy. I can’t swim.” “Save him —oh, save him !” wailed the girl, and Hardy shed his coat, peering into the back water beneath. There was a movement not five feet away—just a momentary appearance of a head and a gurgling gasp, and silence. . “Hold the boat where it is,” said he, laying down the oar ; then he dived, and reached the drowning man before beginning the upward swim. Seizing him by the hair and keeping behind him, he reached the surface ; then, swimming on his back with the quiescent McClure above him, he regained the boat. McClure was pulled' in, but. when Hardy attempted to follow lie met an obstacle. The stroke oarsman was on his feet with the broken oar poised. “Stay where ye are, d— ye !” he bellowed. “Ye’ll hit me on the head, will ye ? Didn’t we say the boat’s full ? Go ahead on the oars, ye fools. D’ye want this bucko to swamp us? Get back, cl—• ye!” He brought the oar down, once on Hardy’s head, again on his hands. Hardy released his hold and sank, half-stunned, with the screams of the girl ringing in his ears. But ho came to; the surface, conscious, and clutched the oar which the murderous fireman had flung at him.

He swam, when he could, away from the sinking, hull, until it, too-, was hidden in the fog; and when he heard a rushing of air and. hissing of steam, followed by deep, muffled reports of bursting compartments, he swam back, knowing that the ship had sunk and that there would he wreckage better than his oar to support him. He found a grating, climbed upon it, and floated until the fog lifted at daylight, showing a sea dotted with fishing craft and, here and there, a steamer, but no sign of other wreckage, nor of the ship’s boats. A fishing schooner picked him up about noon, transferred him to an inbound liner, and on the next day he was in New York, half mad, with the problem still unsolved. Was the elderly Mrs McClure gifted with power to renew her youth? Or was she still young, but able to assume the grey hair and wrinkled face he had seen on tlie street of liis native-village, which he had identified, so often in the dim red glow of the darkened stage, and which had appeared to him framed by t-lie window of the cab ? He promised himself that McClure would explain —when he got his hands upon him again.

Clad in another man’s hat and jacket, with liis damp roll of bills secure in the fob pocket of his shrunken trousers, an object of suspicion to any metropolitan policeman, he visited the office of the steamship company, where an anxious crowd prevented liinr from getting any immediate information;' but in this crowd, vociferating loudly for his pay, he found a large Hibernian fisherman, and him he knocked on liis back, demanding, as he struck, news of the woman and disabled man he had run away with. Before the fireman was conscious enough to answer, however, Hardy was pinioned by two policemen, each as broad shouldered and muscular as himself, and would assuredly have been marched off to gaol had not an elegantly attired elderly woman stepped out of the crowd and spoken for him. Again his thickened tongue went to the roof of liis mouth and his eyes bulged painfully while he listened to her vehement defence of him, which defence included a condensed description of his heroic mastery of the crazed mob, his rescue of Mr Thomas McClure, and his desertion by the crew while Mr McClure was unconscious in the boat. As she spoke her stern old face became glorified with enthusiasm, and the policeman slackened his hold on Hardy.

“But what’cl you slug him for?” asked one of them of Hardy.

“He was the one who clubbed me away from the boat,” he answered, as connectedly as was possible. “It served him right to knock him down,” declared the old lady. “He struck him twice with the oar —twice — once on the head and again on the hands. It was horrible, murderous'. You shall not arrest Mr Hardy. Arrest that murderer. I will furnish the evidence.” “Bun him over to the house, Bill,” said the officer who had spoken. “He’s too noisy, anyhow, over his dam pay.” Then, while the dazed stoker was led to gaol, the equally dazed Hardy was led to the street by his defendant, whose stern and wrinkled face sweetened to a smile as she halted before a hansom at the kerb.

“I feel that I have always known you, Mr Hardy,” she said. “You were pointed out to me one evening when I was in a cab ; and my business down, town to-day was to get word of you, if possible. You can understand, I hope, how deeply wo feel' our debt to you, and how happy I shall be to carry home the news of your safety. Tom is more than grateful; lie declares that he surely would have drowned that night —he had sprained his knee and ankle in the fall, and is a poor swimmer—hut for you. More than this, Mr Hardy. Knowing your story, and the curious and wonderful effect upon your life of that photograph, knowing, too* the strenuous

effort you put forth, I have taken the liberty of investigating your standing in artistic oircles. Your work was well liked by New York editors, most of whom I know very well; and we mean to use every endeavour to induce you to give up that hard life at sea and resume your rightful occupation.” “Wiry—how—” lie stammered. But she interrupted:

“Oh, we'll tell you all we’ve learned when you come. We want you up to the house. lam in a. hurry now, and must leave you. This is Monday. Can you call a week from this evening?” “Y-yes,” he said, taking the card she handed him.

“Very well; we’ll expect you.” She entered the cab and smiled a good-by as it drove away. On the card was an address —strange to him, of course —but the name was the name he expected to • see—“ Mrs Berry McClure.”

“I can’t make it out,” he half groaned, as he walked away. “That’s my evil genius, surely; and I ought to avoid her. And what’ll she he next time — my good or my evil angel ?” Oil the evening named he called, and on pushing the button of the McClure apartments was admitted by a vision in silk—his angel of good.

“You’re expected,” she said, gaily, as she drew him in and closed the door. “Give me your hat, Mr Hardy.” She took it from him, hung it on a rack, and then, sliding her arms around his neck, reached up on tiptoe and kissed him. She seized his big hand with her two little ones and led him into a lighted room —the parlour of a “railroad ’ flat, where McClure was limping to meet them. “I don’t care if you did,” she said, with a'pout. “He saved our lives.” She was blushing furiously, but not more so than Hardy, and McClure, noticing, laughed uproariously. “No use kicking against kismet,” he said, as he shook Hardy’s hand. “I’ve tried hard to keep you two apart, hut I give it up.” “McClure,” said Hardy, gravely, “you must bring this to an end. You told me that the picture was that of your stepmother, Mrs Berry McClure, taken in youth, and that it was still on sale.” McClure’s face stiffened.

“Oh, Tom,” said the girl, in a tone of protest.

“And I saw your stepmother many times on the stage and recognised her,” went on Hardy, his voice growing in strength and earnestness. “And I saw her under a strong light at the stage entrance, and heard her called Berry McClure by the onlookers. Slie was entering a cab with you.” McClure’s features relaxed again. “And as you pointed me out to’ her, it is only natural that you should tell her what you know of me, and that she would remember; but”—and Hardys voice became tense —“out on the Banks, this young lady, the living image of a picture taken forty years ago—according to your account, McClure —informed me that I was pointed out to her from a cab window.” McClure’s face showed the keenest interest. “And down town ■the other day,” went on Hardy, “I met the lady I know as your stepmother — whom 1 know as the dancer —and she told the same story ; that she was Jibe one to whom I was pointed out. _ She also displayed knowledge of that night s happening which I had forgotten myself—which could be possessed by no one but myself or an eye-witness of my acts. She claimed to be such she promised to testify against the man who drove me away from the boat. »hc invited me here to meet you and herself, and I find, not her, but her younger self.” He hewed deferentially to the girl, his face still white and strained and his voice hoarse. She bad listened, open eyed; but McClure’s oM, exasperating, quizzical smile had co.ni back to him. The girl left the room. # “And I just heard you call this young lady by the nade Berry,” continued Hardy, vehemently, advancing with

clenched hands, almost threateningly, toward McClure. “In the name of God, who is Berry McClure, and what ? Is she two persons or one; and if one, which ? Is she the young girl whose.picture made me a man, or is she the old woman whose dancing sent me to hell'?. Can you tell me why a picture made a man of a weakling, and why a poem of motion made a wreck of.a man?” A chirrup sounded from another room. McClure seated himself at the piano. . “Here,” said McClure, somewhat sternly, as he reached for and handed Hardy an opera glass ..that had lain on the piano top—“look through the big end—down through the rooms. See the size of the poem that wrecked you.” Then he began the jangling dance tune that Hardy knew so well. “Book through the big end,” commanded McClure. “Down through the rooms.”

Hardy put the glass to his eyes anti looked—down through the series of rooms in the “railroad” flat to where, in the last room of all, there was a glow of red from a hidden source. In this red glow, projected to a distance by the reversed opera glass, a costumed woman was dancing with the step, the rhythmical grace and ail the happy abandon of his evil genius. When the music stopped she came on through the rooms and faced- him. But it was not the elderly Mrs McClure; it was the girl, blushing in her worn and faded costume, and with a pained and anxious expression on her face.

Hardy’s was the colour of a steel engraving.

“This may seem strange to you, Mr Hardy,” she said, with the saddest of smiles, “and perhaps cruel after—now that we know—after what my brother told me —that my dancing was indirectly your undoing. I had only heard about the picture, and I was so pleased and complimented. I wanted you to have it. But how could you possibly take me for my mother, even at a distanceT Yes, we "were both in the cab that evening. Tom told us both, and we both saw you on the kerb looking at us. It is so strange.” “Not at all,” said McClure, dryly, from the piano stool. “Only funny — awfully funny, to idolise a picture and hate the original. Hello! here’s mother.” Mrs McClure, gloved and bonneted, entered the room, and though his world was chaos for the present, Hardy was able to take her extended hand and respond coherently do her greeting.

(Concl iided.)