CHAPTER VI

It came to Peter as he climbed up the iron-fretted steps to the lonely

promenade-deck that life had begun to take on its old golden glow, the

luster of the uncertain, the charm of women who found in him something

not undesirable.

At this he smiled a little bit. He had never known, as far back as the

span of his adventures extended, a woman who deemed his companionship

as quite so valuable a thing as the mysterious and alluring Romola

Borria, the husband-beaten, incredible, and altogether dangerous young

woman who passionately besought him to accompany her on a pilgrimage of

forgetfulness into the flowery heart of dear old Japan.

Ascending the ladder to the unoccupied deck, he was conscious of the

sweet drone of the monsoon, which blew off the shores of Annam over the

restless bosom of the China Sea, setting up a tuneful chant in the

_Persian Gulf's_ sober rigging, and kissing his cheeks with the ardor

of a despairing maiden.

Peter the Brazen decided to take a turn or two round deck before going

to his bunk, to drink in a potion of this intoxicating, winelike night.

The wheel of fortune might whirl many times before he was again sailing

this most seductive of oceans.

And he was a little intoxicated, too, with the wine of his youth. His

lips, immersed in the fountain, found very little bitterness there.

Life was earnest and grave, as the wiseacres said; but life was, on the

whole, sublime and poignantly sweet. A little bitterness, a little

dreary sadness, a pang at the heart now and again, served only to

interrupt the smooth regularity, the monotony, to add zest to the

nectar.

When he had finished the cigarette, he flung the butt over the rail

into the gushing water, which swam south in its phosphorescent welter,

descended between decks to the stateroom that had been assigned to him,

and fitted the key to the lock.

He felt decidedly young and foolishly exalted as he closed the door

after him and heard the lock click, for to few men is it given to have

two lovely young women in distress seek aid, all in the span of a few

hours. Perhaps these rosy events had served merely to feed oil to the

fires of his conceit; but Peter's was not a conceit that rankled

anybody. And there were always volunteers, hardened by the buffets of

this life, to cast water upon that same fire.

So, humming a gay little tune, Peter snapped on the light, bathing the

milk-white room in a liquid mellowness, opened the port-hole, wound his

watch, hung it on the curtain-bar which ran lengthwise with his berth,

pushed the flowered curtains at either end as far back as they would

go, in order to have all the fresh air possible, and----

Peter gasped. He declared it was absolutely impossible. Such things

did not happen, even in this world of strange happenings and of

stranger stirrings below the surface of actual happenings. His

self-complacencies came shattering down about his ears like mountains

of senseless glitter, and he stooped to recover the object which was

lying upon, almost ready to tumble from, the rounded, neat edge of the

white berth.

A rose of cameo! The hot breath from his lips, which drooped in

astonishment and chagrin, seemed to stir the delicate petals of the

exquisitely carved red rose which reposed in its mountain of soft gold

in the palm of his trembling hand. The fine gold chain, like a rope of

gold sand, trickled between his fingers and dangled, swinging from side

to side.

The impossible thought pounded at the door of his brain and demanded

recognition. Romola Borria had been a visitor to his room. But why?

He had no secrets to conceal from the prying ears of any one, not now,

at all events, for he had destroyed all evidences depending upon the

excursion he had made from Shanghai to Len Yang, and from Len Yang to

Mandalay, to Rangoon, to Penang, Singapore, and Batavia.

Naturally, his first impulsive thought was that Romola Borria was

somehow entangled with those who ruled the destinies of the hideous

mountain city, which crouched amidst the frosty emerald peaks on the

fringe of Tibet. He had felt the weight of that ominous hand on other

occasions, and its movements were ever the same. Night stealth,

warnings chalked on doors, the deliberate and cunning penetration of

his secrets; all of these were typical machinations of the Gray Dragon,

and of those who reported back to the Gray Dragon.

No one would break into his stateroom who was not the tool of Len

Yang's unknown king. Thus the finger of accusation was brought to bear

tentatively upon Romola Borria.

Yes, it was incredible that this girl, with those scarlet stripes

across her breast, could in any way be complicated with the wanton

designs of the beast in Len Yang. Yet here was evidence, damning her,

if not as a wilful tool of the cinnabar king, then at least as a

room-breaker. Why had she come into his room? And how?

He searched the room, then dragged his suit-case from under the bunk to

the middle of the blue carpet, and spilled its contents angrily upon

the floor. It took him less than ten seconds to discover what was

missing; not his money, nor the few jewels he had collected in his

peregrinations, for they were untouched in the small leather bag.

Peter looked again, carefully shaking each garment, hoping, and

refusing to hope, that the revolver would make its appearance. It was

an American revolver, an automatic, a gift from Bobbie MacLaurin. And

now this excellent weapon was missing.

He felt that eyes were upon him, that ears were listening slyly to his

breathing, that lips were rustling in bated whispered comments upon the

fury with which he took this important loss.

Snapping off the light, he plunged down the murky corridor, with the

guilty rose cameo clutched in his sweating hand, and came at length to

the purser's office. This dignitary was absent, at midnight lunch

probably; so Peter rifled the upper drawer in the desk, and brought out

the passenger-register, finding the name and room number he sought

after an instant of search.

Carefully he replaced the ledger in its original position, closed the

drawer, and darted back up the corridor.

In front of a room not far from his own he paused and rapped. His

knock, sharp and insistent, was one of practice, a summons which would

not be mistaken by the occupants of adjoining staterooms, nor was it

likely to disturb them.

After a moment, light showed at the opened transom. Some one rustled

about within, and in another instant the door opened far enough to

admit a head from which dark masses of hair floated, framing a face

that was white and inquisitive.

At sight of her midnight visitor Romola Borria opened her door wide and

smiled a little sleepily. She had paused long enough in arising to

slip into a negligee, a kimono of blackest satin, revealing at the

baglike sleeves and the fold which fell back from her throat a lining

of blood-red silk.

One hand was caught up to her throat in a gesture of surprise, and the

other was concealed behind her, catching, as Peter surmised, nothing if

not his own automatic revolver, which had been loaded, ready for

instant use, immediately the safety-catch was released.

She stared at him softly, with eyes still mirroring the depths of the

sleep from which he had so rudely aroused her, her delicate red lips

forming a curious smile. And she continued to smile more gently, more

tenderly, as she became quite conscious of his presence.

"You have come to tell me that you will go to Japan with me," she

stated.

Peter shook his head slowly, and with equal deliberateness lifted up

the small object in his hand until the light from the ceiling-lamp fell

directly upon it.

"My cameo!" she exclaimed with a start of surprise. "Where did you

find it?" She reached impulsively for the ornament, but Peter closed

his fingers upon it firmly.

"You have something to give me in return, I think," he said sternly.

She was staring at the closed hand with something of despair and

fright, as if reluctant to believe this truth, while her fingers groped

at her throat to verify a loss apparently not before detected.

She stepped back into the room and said:

"Close the door. Come inside."

He thought: If she had wanted to shoot me, she had plenty of chance

before. A shot in this room, a murder would fasten evidence upon her,

and besides, it would instantly arouse the occupants of the adjoining

staterooms, if not one of the deck crew on watch.

So he entered and closed the door, presenting a full view of his broad,

white-uniformed back, and the gaudy-blue sarong about his waist. He

took more time than was necessary in closing the door and sliding the

bolt, to give her every opportunity to arrange this scene she desired.

But the girl was only drawing the curtains over the port-hole, to keep

out prying eyes, when he turned about.

She sat down on the edge of her berth, with her small white feet almost

touching the floor, and the huge blue automatic resting upon her knees.

It was unlikely that she did not appreciate fully the seductive charm

of the red and black gown which adapted itself in whatever pose to the

youthful curves of her body; and she permitted Peter to sit down on the

narrow couch opposite and to examine her and perhaps to speculate for a

number of seconds before she seemed to find her speech.

Meekly her dark eyes encountered his.

"I was afraid," she explained in a voice, low but free in her

remarkable self-possession. "I knew you would not care, and I hoped

that you would have a revolver in your room. So I went there. How did

I get in? I borrowed a pass-key from the purser on the plea that I had

left mine in my room. I hoped you would not miss it until we reached

Hong Kong, and I intended to return it then and explain to you.

"My life," she added deprecatingly, "is in some slight danger, and,

like the small fool that I am--even though I am fully aware that no one

in the whole world cares whether I am living or dead--well, Mr. Moore,

for some reason I still persist in clinging to the small hope."

She smiled wanly and earnestly, so Peter thought. A dozen impulses

militated against his believing a word of this glib explanation; his

common sense told him that he should seek further, that the explanation

was only half made; and yet it cannot be denied that she had gone

unerringly to his greatest weakness, perhaps his worst fault, his

belief in the sincerity of a woman in trouble.

"Why didn't you ask me?" he demanded in his most apologetic voice, as

though he had wronged her beyond repair. "Why didn't you tell me you

were in danger? I'd have loaned you the revolver willingly--willingly!"

"I did try to find you," she replied; "but the wireless room was dark.

You were nowhere on deck."

Peter was aware that for some reason Romola Borria did not prefer to

share the secret of her real or fancied danger with him. He felt a

little dissatisfied, cheated, as though the straightforward answer for

which he had come had been turned into the counterfeit of evasion.

The situation as it now had shaped itself demanded some sort of

decision. Without the whole truth he was reluctant to leave, and it

was imprudent to remain any longer.

Romola, in this constrained pause in their conversation, feeling

perhaps the reason for his silence, lowered her dark lashes and drew up

her feet until they were concealed by the red folds of the kimono, and

she drew the satin more closely about her soft, white throat.

"You have decided nothing, then?" she parried.

"What decision I might have formed," he said, a trifle coolly, "has

been put off by--this. You see, I must admit it, this--this rather

complicates things for me. I'm in the dark altogether now, you see. I

wanted to help you, however I could. And then--then I find this cameo."

She nodded absently, fingering the groove in the automatic's handle.

"I'm afraid I took too much for granted," she said in a low voice.

"Don't you suppose my curiosity was aroused when you threw the coolie

overboard? I said nothing; rather, I asked you no questions; and I

thought that a man who was self-poised enough to meet his enemies in

that way would be--what shall I say?--charitable enough to overlook

such a----" She paused. "When I confessed that you and I are facing a

common enemy, that the same hands are eager to do away with both of us,

I thought that bond was sufficient, was strong enough, to justify what

might shock an ordinary man. I mean----"

"I think I understand," Peter took her up in contrite tones. "I'll ask

nothing more. In the morning we will talk the other matter over. I

must have a little time. For the present, I want you to keep the

revolver, and--here is the cameo. Forgive me for being so

unreasonable, so--so selfish."

He leaned over. She seemed uncertain a moment, then caught the gold

chain lightly from his hand.

"And--your revolver," she said. "Those are the terms of the agreement,

I believe."

"No, no," he protested. "I have no use for it; none whatever. You

keep it."

But quite as resolutely Romola Borria shook her head and extended the

automatic, butt foremost, to him. "I insist," she said.

"But you say you're in danger," he argued.

"No. Not now. I have something else that will do quite as well. If

it is written that I am to die, why give Death cause to be angry? I am

a fatalist, you see. And I want you to take back your revolver, with

my apologies, and quite without any more explanation than I have given

you, please."

"But----" began Peter.

"Look," she said.

In the small space of the stateroom he could not avoid bending so low

as to sense the warmth of her skin, in order to study the object toward

which she was directing his gaze. A sense of hot confusion permeated

him as her fingers lightly caressed his hand; her physical nearness

obsessed him.

She had drawn back the fluffy pillow, and on the white sheet he

glimpsed a long, bright, and exceedingly dangerous-looking dagger, with

a jewel-incrusted hilt.

The singular thing about this knife was the shape of the blade, which

was thin and with three sides, like a machinist's file. It would be a

good dagger to throw away after a killing because of the triangular

hole it would leave as a wound, a bit of evidence decidedly

incriminating.

Peter straightened up, round-eyed, accepted the automatic, and slipped

it into his pocket, smoothing his coat and the sarong over the lump,

and approached the door.

For a moment his heart beat in a wild desire, a desire to take her in

his arms as she stood so close and so quiet beside him, smiling

wistfully and a little sadly; and unaccountably she seemed to droop and

become small and limp and pitifully helpless in the face of him and of

all mankind.

"Good night, Mr. Moore, and thank you so--much," she murmured. "And I

do hope you will forgive me for being a--a thief."

He thought that she was on the point of kissing him, and his eyes swam

and became of a slightly deeper and more silky blue than a moment

before. But she faltered back, while the faintest suggestion of a sigh

came from her lips.

In the next instant, as the door closed quietly behind him, Peter was

mighty glad that neither he nor she had yielded to impulse. He was

not, in the light of the literal version, the owner of a wholly

untarnished record, for he had given in to weakness, as most men do

give into weakness.

But he was above temptation now, not because temptation was put behind

him, but because he had had the strength to resist; and it was his

full, deep desire to hold himself until that girl, far across the

Pacific, who inspired the finest and best in him, should bear the name

he bore.

It was a splendid thing, that feeling. It gave him courage and

confidence, and took him quite light-heartedly, with head erect and

shoulders back, out of the dreariest of his moments.

So, quick in a new and buoyant mood, Peter joggled the key in the lock

of his stateroom door, slipped in, and was before long dreaming of a

cottage built for two, of springtime in California, albeit snoring

almost loud enough to drown out the throb of the _Persian Gulf's_ old

but still useful engines.