— XIII —

DAWN

Strange noises! The myriad voices of the ship talking one to another—the creak and grind of girders and stringers; the grunting, faintly from far above, of the wooden superstructure; the whine and complaint of the deck-beams as the vessel lurched to the sea; the sibilant hiss and whir of the racing screws lifting from the water; the swift infuriated response of the unfettered engines, chattering angrily, as it were, in wrath for the scurvy trick played upon them; the eternal dull, moaning throb, throb, throb from everywhere, that seemed finally to absorb these voices unto itself and stand as spokesman for them all. Strange noises—a medley of pain, of travail, of strain, human almost in its outcry, seeking relief from unendurable effort and distress.

For days and days they had talked like that, and Jean had listened—listened through the watches of the day and night, listened through the hours of his own toil and pain, and the cursings of the raw-boned, wizened apparition that came and went through the murky gloom of the bunker, and croaked continually like some ill-omened thing for coal, coal, coal, lifting a brutal fist at times to enforce the words. But, too, as he had listened, through the plaint of this strange medley had come the lilt, underlying all, of another refrain that all these voices seemed to sing—a refrain that found a deeper echo in his own soul, that seemed to make the kin between him and these inanimate things the closer, a refrain of hope, a refrain in which lay immortal happiness.

"In five days ... in three days ... in one day more we shall reach France, France, France—and the end of strife—France—and the end of strife."

And now that refrain was changed again, and it made his heart leap, and he laughed out in pure joy, as he swept the great sweat beads from his forehead.

"To-day—to-day—to-day we shall reach France—reach France—reach France!"

Over yonder through the murk of the dimly lighted bunker, through the swirling coal dust, another trimmer shovelled his barrow full of coal, and then the wheel clacked, clacked over the steel deck plates, and steel rang against steel as the barrow was whipped over on its side to send its load tumbling down the chute to the boiler-room below—but Jean's own barrow lay idly for a moment beside the black, mountainous heap of coal, and his shovel hung idly in his hand.

"To-day—to-day! France, and the end of strife!"—how joyously the voices trilled in his ears! "France, and life to begin anew! France—and Marie-Louise! France, and—"

"You damned loafer!" snarled a voice beside him—and quick, with the words, a stinging blow fell upon Jean's face.

It was the raw-boned, wizened engineer—the man above all others who was responsible for his, Jean's, presence there in the bunker again on this return voyage to France—the man who had made of the voyage a living hell. Marie-Louise's money, her attempt to pay his passage back and save him from this had counted for nothing—against this man. Two trimmers had deserted almost on the hour of sailing—he, Jean, was lawful prey—a stowaway being deported—and there had been a vicious smirk of satisfaction on the man's face, reminiscent of Jean's unruliness that night on the outward voyage when he had been discovered, as the engineer had claimed him for one of the vacancies.

The shovel clanged on the steel plates of the deck as it dropped from Jean's hands. He whirled like a flash, and, grasping the engineer by the shoulders, lifted the other off his feet, and held him as powerless as in the clutch of an iron vise; held the other off at arms' length in his mighty strength to wriggle impotently; held the other there—and laughed out with that wondrous surge of joy that was upon him.

"I will not hurt you!" cried Jean—and laughed in a big, glad way. "I am too happy! See, I will not hurt you! I am too happy! Do you know what it is to be happy? To love everything—to have your heart singing, singing all the time! Ah, if you could but know! But, go now—for see, I will not hurt you! I am too happy!"—and laughing again, he released the man.

The engineer stood for an instant gazing at Jean. Happy! This great giant of a man, in torn clothes, the sweat rolling furrows down the grime-smeared face—this man, a stowaway on the voyage out—this man, deported from America—this man, forced to work here on the voyage back, who was to be treated, and had been treated like a dog—this man—happy! Happy! Was the man mad? The engineer, muttering in his amazement, wondering and dazed and awed at the strength that had made of him a puny thing, edged away, and disappeared in the gloom.

Two little incandescents burned yellow from the stanchions overhead—there was no other light. There was nothing but the choking swirl of the coal dust, the rasp of the shovels, the clack of the barrow wheels, the clang as they were dumped—and the voices that told of France, and life, and love, and joy again.

"To-day—to-day!"—how the words rang in his heart and soul and mind like some silver-throated clarion call!

To-day, when the shores of France should loom in sight, the last of all barriers between Marie-Louise and himself would be swept away forever. There, on Ellis Island, they had kept him and Marie-Louise apart; and here on the ship again, the same ship that had brought them out—"guests" of the company that was forced by the government to return them to France—they had seen each other little. For, though it had not been as on the outward voyage when he was held a prisoner and closely watched even when he was off duty, and though he was now at least as free as any of the crew, it had only been at odd moments snatched here and there, usually in the early morning hours while it was still dark and he had gone off watch to the steerage deck, and she had come up from below to meet him, that he had seen Marie-Louise—that was all, the very little when their souls cried out for so much, that they had been together.

But what did it matter now? To-day—to-day all that was to be ended! To-day—how his heart leaped, and his being thrilled at the thought!—to-day they were to be together for always, to-day was to know the fulfilment of their love.

And then, too, there was another joy—the joy of a new and beautiful thing that had come into his life. The joy, pure, without alloy, unsmirched by sordid aims—the joy of work. How it brought a feverish excitement, how his fingers tingled for the touch of clay, how he yearned to give expression to that with which his soul was now aflame, the statue of dreams, real before him now, that mighty picture, that splendid allegory that should tell his beloved France that Jean Laparde lived again—but lived a new Laparde, and, if the good God willed it so, worthy in a humble way of the great gift that was his, worthy in a glad, tender way of the love that, so steadfast and so true, so unselfish and so pure, had saved him from himself. Yes, it had come to him—come to him at last, the base of that statue that he had never been able to see before. It had come to him here in the gloom, and struggle, and sweat, and toil of this miserable coal bunker; come to him, leaving him to stand a chastened man before the picture that was held up, perfect in every detail, before his mind's eye for him to gaze upon, leaving him to tremble with emotion at the thought that he should give it to the world to see.

It was a secret yet from Marie-Louise—a secret that was to be told to-night. There were to be just they two—and—yes, Father Anton, who would be there to bless them—to know. No one else, least of all Monsieur and Mademoiselle Bliss, who would in that case come hurrying back from America. No one else to know that he lived until the dream statue was done. There was the dream statue to make, and then all France, and all the world, if it would, should know that Jean Laparde still lived; for then the world would understand why the Jean Laparde it knew—had died.

He filled his barrow, emptied it, and filled it again—and worked on—and, strangest sound of all, strange indeed for that dark, joyless place, as he worked, he sang.

Came at last, faintly, the four double strokes of the ship's bell. Eight bells—four o'clock in the morning—the watch was ended. Jean handed his barrow and shovel to his relief, and, mounting the succession of steep, iron-runged perpendicular ladders, climbed upward from the ship's black depths, and made his way to the steerage deck.

It was dark here—with the darkness before the dawn. A fresh wind was blowing, and he put on his jacket; and, leaning over the side, watched the racing waves, and laughed at the buoyant lift of the deck beneath his feet, and threw back his head to drink into his lungs for the first time in many hours the sweet, fresh, God-given air.

"Marie-Louise! To-day—Marie-Louise! Marie-Louise!" his heart was saying.

And presently she came along the deck, and her hand stole into his. It was too dark to see her face; but her hair, truant in the wind, swept his cheek, and close to him he could feel her heart beat against his own. And as he held her there, there came upon him, softly, like some sacred presence, moving the soul of him with an holy joy, the wonder of her, and the great, immeasurable, priceless worth of the love she had given him.

"Marie-Louise," he whispered tenderly. "Your lips, ma bien-aimée!"

And in the darkness she raised her face to his, and he kissed her—and suddenly he found his eyes were wet. Glad tears they were; and yet, too, a pledge between himself and God that he would hold her always as he held her now, her life and happiness his dearest trust—a pledge that in itself asked grace and pardon in contrite penitence for that pledge of other days that he had broken.

His arms were around her. God, the sorrow and the misery he had brought to her, who had so freely laid aside her own happiness that he—that he— He drew her closer still.

"Marie-Louise, are you happy?" he cried out, and it was his soul that spoke, yearning, pleading fiercely for the assurance that meant all in life to him now, the assurance that alone could stand, radiant and thankful, where before, in keen, bitter pangs of remorse, had stood the memories of the past—of her betrayal. "Marie-Louise, are you happy?" he cried out again.

"I did not know that one could be so happy, Jean," she said softly—and her hand lifted to touch his face, and linger there, smoothing the hair back from his forehead.

They were silent for a little while in each other's arms—a deep peace, a quiet thankfulness in their hearts.

And then Jean spoke again.

"Look, Marie-Louise!" he said, and pointed out far over the waters to the horizon line ahead. "It is the dawn. Our dawn, Marie-Louise. The dawn of the day when we shall be together always."

Grey it was in the east; faint and timorous streaks of light that seemed like skirmishers flung out in tentative attack upon the massed blackness of the night.

Her hands tightened about him.

"To-day! Oh, Jean! It is like a dream—like a wonderful dream that the bon Dieu has brought to us."

He drew her head to his shoulder. Presently, when in the east that greyness should have grown pink and golden with awakening day, he would drink in the pure, glorious beauty of the sweet, chaste face, look into the dark, brave, tender eyes and read in her soul the happiness that God had restored to them; but now he could only hold her close and feel the lithe young form against his own, and feel her heart throb against his breast.

"A dream, little one, that shall always last," he said. "Ah, Marie-Louise, it is our dawn, our day, the beginning of a new life, chérie, where there shall be only love—our love, yours and mine, the love of old friends, of those we love, the love of work—ah, you shall see what that will be!" His voice thrilled suddenly. "You shall see, for now Bidelot shall have that 'touch' he asked for—for now I know! I know! It was you I modelled, Marie-Louise—your face, your form—and they were perfect, beautiful; but I was blind to what was most beautiful of all! I modelled only features—and I forgot the soul, for I had forgotten love, and I could not see the dearer things. I forgot the soul that should soften so tenderly and refine the courage and the resolution and the purity of that dear face of yours and make nobility divine. I forgot—"

"Jean!"—her fingers were laid tightly upon his lips. "Jean, you must not say such things! Jean, Jean, I am so far from that—so far from that!"

He could just see her face now in the growing light—see the eyes shine through a mist of happy tears, see those perfect lips quiver in their smile, as she shook her head.

"But you shall see!" he told her eagerly. "A little while in Paris—ah, Marie-Louise, that is a secret that I have for you!—a little while there, and then you shall see! And all France shall see—and France shall tell you that it is so! Ah, Marie-Louise, perhaps some day they will forget Jean Laparde; but France shall always remember one who is worthier far, and in that one see its hope, its inspiration and its glory, for France shall never forget—Marie-Louise!"

She had slipped from his arms. Her face was full of wonder, and upon it fell the soft glow of light that now was tinging the eastern sky. How pure, how brave, how beautiful she was! How love shone in the eyes that were like Heaven's stars; how the soft light seemed to caress her face and rejoice in the radiant happiness that was there, a happiness that even her wondering bewilderment for the moment seemed to enhance! How the strong, young form swung free and lithesome to the lifting deck, and found a wondrous joy in its own glorious virility!

"Jean, what do you mean?" she said breathlessly.

"You shall know!" he laughed, and laughed because there was only joy and gladness in all the world—in the waves that tumbled and frolicked and played, and tossed their white manes at each other and the ship; in the breeze that sang merrily its way along on its busy errand into the great everywhere; in the vibrant throb of the mighty ship, in that spokesman's voice—for it was to be to-day—to-day! "You shall know, Marie-Louise—to-night, when Father Anton is there to hear, and has blessed us, and made Marie-Louise my little wife! And then that little while in Paris that you will understand—and then—home! Ah, Marie-Louise, can you not see it now—the blue water, blue with the wonderful colour that only God can make, and the white beach where we played when we were little children, and the boats, Marie-Louise, and the brave, true, loyal friends! Home, Marie-Louise, home, home, home—to Bernay-sur-Mer! Ah, is not God good? We shall go home, ma bien-aimée—and there we shall live, and there I shall work for you, and France, and love, and there old Bidelot and those who really love the things we do shall come at times to make us proud and happy! Ah, it will be a grand monde, Marie-Louise, a grand monde of wealth and riches, and a very proud grand monde, careful of those who shall have the entree there—for it shall be a grand monde where you, my little Marie-Louise, are queen, a grand monde of love and happiness."

Purple and golden and pink and crimson was the east—and over the horizon rim rose the sun. And it mounted higher, and the dawn was gone, and the day had come.

"Look!" he said suddenly.

And a cry rose to Marie-Louise's lips; and her eyes grew dim and misty again until she could no longer see.

"It is the land! It is France!" she whispered.

It was light now, men and women were moving about the steerage deck, he could no longer hold her in his arms; but, standing there at the ship's side, her hand was tightly clasped in his.

There were glad words on Jean's lips:

"It is France, Marie-Louise—and home."