THE INTERPRETER.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXIV, Issue 12, 22 March 1906, Page 23

THE INTERPRETER.

(Concluded from last week.) The third officer was a young man and he was afraid. He oegan -to explain to the young mother why she must give up the body ot her child, speaking at hrst gently, even tenderly, and then, exasperated by the total lack of comprehension in the sullen eyes, laising his voice to threaten and command. She stared irom his face to the bank of gaping faces behind him, and beyond them to the ominous sea. She saw hostility everywhere, in the strange and heavy faces, in the hunger of the black waters, and clasped her cold baby tighter, trying to warm it, singing to wake it. She understood nothing except that they wanted to take it away from her and give it to the cruel gulfs that cried out for it. The olFiccr's hands, taiung advantage of her abstraction, were already rending her shawl. She wrenched herself free fiom his lilchmg lingers, and then, defying them all, she slowly unwound the crimson shrouding and uncovered her dead for them to see. She held it out in front of her as a defence, the pinched and purpling little lace knotted, 'in a hnal contortion ofipain, the small body stifl and stark m her extended arms. Murmuring, the crowd fell back a pace. The officer turned away in instinctive repulsion. The stricken mother had entrenched herself behind a barrier of death that neither he nor any, of the others dared 'to pass. They vveie all bound by a spell of horror, and for 'a time no sound broke the sobbing of the sea. Suddenly Mrs. Whiton pushed her way through the throng. ' Lea\e her to me,' she commanded the dazed officer, ' and send these people away.' She spoke so imperiously that Ihe young man turned at once to obey her. Then she stepped forward and faced the girl over the outstietched body of the dead child. As she looked at the little form, so ghastly and so pitiful, all the agony of her own desolated motherhood surged from her Heart into her eyes. She lifted her face to meet) the hard and suspicious gaze of the other mother, and for a few seconds they legarded each other steadil) , each disco\ eiing in strange c) es a loneliness like unto hoi own. The sullen child- face gradually softened, and when the older -woman opened her aims, with an abandon that expressed all their emptiness, the other placed her dc,\d baby within them with a perfect trust. Mrs Whiton did noi shrink from the touch of the alien dead She took the little body gently from the gnl's still clasp, smoothing) down the crumpled clothing and trying to stroke the tiny face into lines of peace. She forgot that it was the corpse of an exile's child. She foigot the steerage deck and the peering faces,, and spoke aloud the lo\e words that had been stifled on her lips too soon. She foigot e\en the girl at her s-ide until slui felt awkwaid fingers caressing her clack gown and looked into eyes that ga\e her back a mute btit compassionate understanding. And she only remembered then that they were two mothers, bereft together. An hour later, when Mr. Whiton went seeking his v.ife, ha found her in a sheltered corner of the steerage deck, one arm around a ycllow-haned Slav, the other pillowing the stark ioim of a dead baby. The girl was staring out with dry eyes upon the sea, and the woman was shedding the Hist tears she had shed since her own berea\ ement. * The baby was buried next morning Despite all Mr. Whiton's arguments and his wile's entreaties, even in the sight of the mother's dumb despair, the captain had resolutely refused to carry the tiny corpse to pori . ' Why, my dear sir,' he vsaid tto Mr. Whiton,. ' 'these steerage babies die at every crossing. If I created a precedent ,in favor of this one, my ship would become a morgue for dead infants.' So the barren burial service of the sea proceeded. A number of passengers from the first and second cabin gathered to vvitness it, and a curious crowd from the steerage filled out the silent circle that su/rro'iinded the« little coffin. The mother's scarlet shawl fluttered incongruously igainst its blackness. There was no lingering over the perfunctory ceremony. The third officer said a brief prayer, a few lines of a hymn were chanted raucously by three or four sailors, and the tiny deal box was lifted in silence. It swung for a moment on its ropes, scraped against the deck railing, and splashed into the waiting sea. ' The mother seems very young,' sighed Miss Stanley to Mr. Eddington as they turned to answer the lun-

cheon gong. ' But how dull and unfeeling she looks ! ' 1 I told you these people have no capacity for feeling,' the young; man triumphantly reminded her. ' I suppose it's, a blessing.' His companion nodded with a backward look at the yomng Slav. She was standing by the railing at the spot where her baby had been lowered to the waves. Her childish eyes, hard and strained, had watched the sudden opening of the waters as the coffin touched them and had followed the rift to a ripple and the ripple until the broad trail of the ship had swallowed it. There her gaze wandered helplessly. Her baby was lost. The ship was plunging taster and faster away, leaving it behind, leaving lit. all alone, so little and so cold, in. the wide and cruel sea. Her foot was already on the second railing, her hands a pivot for the downward spring, when some one pulled her hack. She turned furiously, but her desperate eyes fell before Mrs. Whiton's compassionate reproach, and she submitted drearily to be led away from the sight of her despoiler. Dinner was ovei before Mrs. Whiton rejoined her husband. Her eyes were, still wet and pitiful. 1 Oh, John, that child ' ' she cried, with a break in her voice. ' I can't bear to leave her. She can't understand hex miseiry. She feels that no one else, in this world or another, wants her baby, and that they ha\e taken it away from her only because she is alone and helpless, because she has no weapons against them 1 know '—she caught her breath— 1 because even I felt so when my baby was taken from me.' He noted the use of the past tense, and was glad. ' You see,' she went on, 'it isn't the loss of the baby alone, though hea\en knows that is enough ! She is afraid to face her husband. From what lam able to (gftther, she was going out to him with the child. It had not come when he left, and she waited to follow when her httlp one wan born. She started too soon, befoie J>t was able to bear the journey, and now part of her dumb) misery is lemorse. 'She feels in some dim but acute way that if she had waited it might have li\cd, that its death is to be laid at the door of her haste to get to him. He told her to come with the baby.x hml now that she must meet him without it I bielilcvo she thinks she has lost her right to come at all. I know that she is mortally afraid.' Mr. Whiton fiowned his perplexity. ' But how do you know >. I thought nobody could understand her.' ' Ah, mothers don't need words,' she answered. 'They carry an liiterpieter in their hearts.' He) '.looked at her with the humility he always felt before the mjstery of her -intuitions. ' You must have been a j^reat help to her,' he commented,! receding to surer ground. ' She has been a 'great help to me ! Why, John ' — she turned to him with a quick impulse of contntian— 1 I had forgotten that there was another sorrow in the world. It seemed to me that no one could suffer as I had suffered, could lose what I Jost. And now to find this stolid child in a trouble so much greater fh'an mme — Oh, I—' She broke off with a sob. Her husband stroked her hand tcndeilyjas it lay on his arm. 'If she makes you reproach yourself I can't agree that she's helped (you,' he said. ' Well, you never reproached me ! Why didn't you, John 9 During all these months when I haven't given a. breath or a thought to anything else in the world— Why didn't you reproach me ? ' He met her question bravely. ' Why should I reproach you '' ' he asked. ' Because you had to bear all the brunt of a sorrow as much mine as yours 9 I only reproach myself thaitj I could not share it more.' She leaned over and pressed her cheek against his sleeve. ' Poor old John*' ' she murmured, and they weie both silent in the understanding that follows a long estrangement. ' That's why you mustn't let that poor girl be afraid of her husband,' he resumed, after a pause. 'It can't mean as much to him as it means to her. It is always the mother's loss.' ' I've tried to make her understand that, but she only shivers miserably and shakes her head. She flays herself with the thought of his grief. It is terrible to her that he has not even seen it, that now he can never 4 see it. Well, at any rate, he shan't abuse her,' she exclaimed,, "with sudden .energy. ' I'm going to land with her.' ' Oh, I say, Helen !' he protested. "Isn't that carrying i/t a| Jitttle tfoo far ? ' i She looked at him with eyes in which pity had taken the place of indifference. ' I think she wants me to,' she pleaded, ' alnd you must help me to manage it. I must see her through now.'

It was easier for Mr. Whiton to overcome his own unwillingness than to prevail against official reluctance, but his persistence so triumphed over precedent that on the day the first landing was made he and his wife joined the bewildered immigrants in their jostling progress down the gangplank. They were met by many curious glances and compelled to explanations at every turn during the tedious delay caused by the preliminary investigations of the immigration officers. ' I'll never say again that the United States is careless about letting the alien in,' Mr. Whiton remarked, by way of. drawing; attention to the silence of his endurance. His wife smiled absent-mindedly. She was tense with the excitement of the girl beside her, whose hot hand clasped hers convulsively until a movement in the front ranks of the new arrivals signified that they were at last to be permitted to see their friends. Then she strained forward and dropped her friend's hold with a cry as she caught sight of the blonde young giant who was making straight toward her. Her dull face was suddenly bright with joy as she ran forth to (meet him. She rubbed her cheek against his shoulder, and then drew back to look him up and down, her eyes shining with the pride of his height and bis girth and the ruddy fairness of him. He greeted her with a rough and shame-faced gladness, quickly disguised. There was no other demonstration between them, but the girl's dumbness fell away from her and she began to chatter eagerly, breathlessly, as if there were not years enough to make up for the months of silence. Mr. Whiton watched the transformation with astonishment. ' Hush ! ' whispered his wife vaguely, as he was about to speak. Don't interrupt them ! ' And in ia moment, even as she chattered in the first joy of reunion, the girl remembered. The old mask of misery closed over the brightness of her face as she drew back with a piteous shrinking, casting one aflrighted look behind her to where through an opening in the distance there was ai glimpse of the sea whose cruelty she had briefly forgotten. 'She fell silent as suddenly as she had burst into speech. The young man seemed to be questioning her, and for answer, bringing her hunted look back to his, she only opened wide her arms, as if to ask his pity on their emptiness. Still he did not understand, and she groped about for words to enlighten him. One by one she found them, bringing them forth painfully and slowly, each syllable afraid to follow the other ami each afraid to break ofi intof silence that held their judgment. Mrs. Whiton loaned forward and watched narrowly thd husband's face. She saw bewilderment gradually give way to a dull comprehension. For a moment there was the boy's disappointment when some anticipated pleasure is denied him at the moment of realisation. But almost before the shadow had time to settle it was superseded by an expression that could be interpreted only as relief. He patted his wife's shoulder kindly, concerned at the vehemence of her grief without being able to fathom it, but it was plain that her t idings somehow relieved him. _ Mr, Whiton sighed, and the young mother, c i . • • ' c inexplicably it 'seemed to Mr. "\Miiton, broke into a passion of dry and wrenching sobs. He was hurrying forward, l.ut l.is wile grasped his arm. 'Oh c<> r.e away ' ' she cried. ' Don't \'ou sec s^e'd rather he killed her than take it like that* " ? Come away.' The ruin looked down at her in bewilderment-. He opci;l 1-is li) s to speak and kept them ;>arled in s'ltei inability to frame a question, as he meekly turned to follow her impulsive movement of flight. But even as they turned the big Slav strode forward and blocked their way. He addressed the lady, so slowly that his words had the effect of sullenness. ' She — say — you — know,' pointing over his shoulder at his weeping wife-. '' Her — babe — dey 't'row — to de sea — an' you — unly you — cry.' The perspiration started to his forehead in the eflort to make himself 'understood, 'lie finished with a sentence in his own tongue that was evidently meant, from the bow that went with it, to be an expression of thanks. Mrs. Whiton's eyes were stung with a rush of salt tears. ' Oh, be good to her ! ' she cried. 'Be good to her ! Aren't you isorry, too, for your poor little 'baby lost in the sea ? ' •Me ? ' Ho looked at her tears and from her to the heaving figure in the red shawl that had crept up behind him. Then he turned to Mr. Whiton with an air of deprecating fellowship. When he spoke it was instinctively to the man. ' Work— iss— bad,' he explained.

Mrs. Whiton crossed over to the girl and led her away to where she could look out upon the wide sweep of the sea. 'I am going home "to my baby's grave,' she whispered. ' You, poor child, haven't even a grave.' When .they left the exiles to each other the wile was again rub*>ing her wet cheek against her husband's shoulder. He was trying to comfort her, repeating over and over again the English words he had evolved to account for his resignation to a Providence that had spared him another mouth to feed. ' Work— iss— bad.' His simple satisfaction in this practical comfort changed to dismay as the girl broke away from him and ran breathlessly after her friends. She clutched at Mrs. Whiton's arm, stroking her black dress with a motion of passionate tenderness >and appeal. The elder woman stooped and kissed her, tout shook her 'head in answer to the prayer in the pitiful eyes, and gently led her back to her husband. Mr. Whiton watched the little pantomime in perplexity. Ins wife smiled into his puzzled face as she rejoined him. 1 Sho knows I understand,' she explained simply. ' But he is her husband and he speaks her tongue.' She looked at him with'the large maternity in which her ov. n loss was henceforth to be merged. ' But lam a mother,' she said. — ' Donahoe's Maga•7 i n n '