Changeling, and Other Stories
filled with junk for trading, but I made a deal with the captain and he
cleans one out and fixes it up for Janssen. And then I takes Janssen
down to the docks.
"Judge, you'd 'a' thought she'd saved the country instead of killing De
Vries, the way they acted about that woman. They lined up on the docks
of Papeete, all the men and a good many women, too. And they sang and
they danced and they said good-by. 'When you get off, come back,' they
says to her. They got on my nerves so much, I had all I could do not
to laugh dirty, when they says that about getting off.
"Janssen looks at the boat, and looks at the people. And she goes
crazy-mad. 'Damn you, damn you!' She turns on me. 'Only for you, I
'd not be going back!'
"'Yeh, only for me,' I says, 'you would n't have killed De Vries. It's
all my fault, hey? Now, listen to me, Janssen. You 're my prisoner,
and my prisoner you 'll remain. You had the game; now pay up, and stop
hollering. You and I are from the same town, and I know you. You
ought to know me a little better. I would n't have been sent for you
if I had n't been able to take care of myself. All your French friends
won't save you from a New York cop, once he 's out to get you. You 're
beat, Janssen,' I tells her; 'you might as well give in.'
"She looks at me a long time.
"'I 'm not beat yet,' she says.
"The captain tells us he's going to stop at Nukahivo and a few other
islands to take cargo aboard. He 's an old guy and sensible, and
Janssen plays up to him to beat the band, so I takes no risks and keeps
close. Even if he is an old guy and has n't any ambition, still and
all, nobody likes a copper, and every one hates to see a prisoner taken
home, especially if it's a woman. So I give Janssen and him no chance
for private conversation. Once clear of the islands, I think, and all
will be well. Janssen sees my game.
"'You don't give me much chance with the old fellow.'
"'No, ma'am,' I laughs. 'That's your business. I give you no chance.
You 're beat, Janssen. What's the use of fooling yourself?'
"'Oh, I 've still got an ace in the hole. I 'm not beat yet!'
"She turns in early. 'I suppose you 're going to lock the door?' she
asks me.
"'What's the use? They's other keys. The islands are near at hand,
and they could put you off in a boat. I 'm not going to lock the
door,' I tells her, 'but I 'm going to sleep outside it, up against it.
It opens out, and the smallest movement will wake me up. You 're beat.'
"'All right! I 'm beat,' she says, and she turns in.
"I puts myself against the door, and falls asleep on the deck. It
might have been ten minutes after it, but it was really hours, the door
opens. It's the middle of the night, for the stars are high, and there
's nothing to be seen, and the waves keep lapping the bow of the
schooner and she dips pretty like a cantering horse. And suddenly I 'm
awake and lonely and wet with dew. I looks up and there 's Janssen
above me, big and handsome and her eyes like the stars.
"'You 're not comfortable there, McCarthy,' she whispers.
"'I can't say as I 'm on a bed of roses,' I tells her.
"'Why don't you come inside?'
"'I don't know what you mean,' I says.
"'Never mind what I mean,' she laughs. 'Come on in.'
"'I think I 'll stay where I am,' I says kind of short.
"'I 'm not accustomed to having invitations like this refused.' There
was a kind of jar in her voice.
"'They 's lots of things you 're not accustomed to, you better get
accustomed to right away,' I says. 'You 're accustomed to fine hotels.
Now you got to get used to the Tombs. You 're accustomed to lying down
on couches. Now you got to get accustomed to sitting up, very
straight, in a chair at Sing Sing.' I did n't want to be brutal toward
her, Judge, but I did n't want her to be making passes like that at me.
"What she says to me then I could n't tell, Judge. But she closes the
door with a slam and leaves me be.
"I notices the wind is getting kind o' high, and that when the schooner
pitches she sort of jars, and that under the green light on the
starboard sight of the boat the water is rushing past very quick. The
boat is lying over and the sailors pass me quick as lightning and in
the cordage the air is whining like a broken fiddle-string, but over it
all I can hear Janssen cursing in her cabin, cursing just like the
girls cursed in the old days when a pinch was made in the Tenderloin,
cursing me because I would n't fall for her."
II
As Officer McCarthy paused for an instant in his story the eyes of the
court-room seemed by common consent to turn to Anna Janssen in the
dock. The jury looked at her with knitted brows; the spectators with
puzzled glances. It seemed impossible that this calm, majestic figure
could once have acted the siren of the streets to the officer bringing
her from her Tahitian sanctuary. Immobile, somehow immaculate, with
strange superhuman dignity, she did not blush, she did not smile. Only
a genre shadow of pain was about her eyes, such as creeps about the
eyes of some one who remembers old, all-but-forgotten painful things of
phases of life long by.
Out of those firm lips like a rose in bloom could blasphemy have flowed
in a sluggish lecherous stream? Out of that glorious bronze throat,
fit for Magnificats? It seemed impossible, was impossible.
The judge looked at her with moved, understanding eyes. The district
attorney cast at her puzzled glances. Donegan looked neither at her,
nor at anything. He just drowsed like a dog....
"All next day," McCarthy went on, "the blow grew worse. They reefed
down sail until we were flying along under top and foresails. The
funny thing was that here and there the sky was blue. You 'd have
thought all was going to get fair in an hour or two, but it did n't.
And the captain stood by the man at the wheel and looked worried.
"You had to shout to make yourself heard. 'Ain't it going to calm
down, Captain?' I says.
"'I don't know,' he says. 'I wish to God I was out of these islands,'
he says. 'If I was all alone in the middle of the Pacific, I would n't
give a damn, but these here coral insects,' he says, 'they 're always
building, and they sure do bother me. And these charts of the
Marquesas,' he says, 'they ain't worth a damn. I wish I was out of
these islands,' he says; 'I sure do.'
"'Oh, you 'll be all right, Cap,' I says.
"'You get for'a'd out o' here,' he barks at me.
"'I 'll talk to you later about that,' I says, but I goes off, because
I see he 's worried.
"All we get to eat that day is a cup of coffee and a sandwich. And
night comes and we 're still plunging on.
"And then we hear thunder.
"Janssen won't turn in. She 's scared, she says, and she sticks by me.
And the thunder keeps up, and comes closer, and it gets very dark.
"'What's that?' Janssen says.
"'It strikes me it is n't thunder at all. It's some boat in distress
firing a gun,' I tells her. 'It's too bad we can't do anything for
them. But I don't think we can.'
"'I 'm afraid, McCarthy,' Janssen says. 'That's no gun.'
"'Maybe it's a lot of guns,' I says. 'Maybe it's the French navy
practising. They take a funny night for it,' I says.
"'I 'm scared, McCarthy,' she whimpers, and comes close.
"'We 'll be all right,' I tells her.
"'I 'm scared,' she cries. 'Put your arms around me, McCarthy, please.'
"'Oh, come off!' I tells her. That game don't go, Janssen. What's the
use?'
"'I 'm scared, honest. They's something going to happen.' The boat
does a little jazz step, and the guns is right in our ears. And
overhead, Judge, the stars were out. 'Please take me in your arms,
McCarthy--just like I was your sister.'
"'Well, you ain't just like you was my sister. And they 's been too
many arms around you for me to put mine. But you can hold on to me,' I
says.
"And then my teeth come together with a jar and my spine is near driven
through my skull, and something hits me on the head. And all the water
in the world comes over me. And I know nothing."
The witness, it seemed, here underwent a strange dramatic
transformation. Until now in his recital, his story had been a story
all could understand, a policeman's story, told in a policeman's voice,
in a policeman's words. To the court-room he was a figure within their
ken, a person to warm the hearts of burgesses. Honest, homely,
speaking in dialect, he stood in their eyes for the typical and honored
defender of city families and city homes. Great figures, those men!
They make heroism casual. We may call the New York police grafters; we
may call them brutes and tyrants; we may call them the scum of Ireland.
We can never call them cowards.
There is on record the case of--shall I say O'Kelly? A homicidal
maniac, armed to the teeth, took refuge in a cellar. "And then what?"
"I goes down into the cellar and I gets him out." "Good God! You went
down alone into that dark hole after--" "Oh, that was not'in'; he was
easy!"
You can have your great regiments--your Old Guard at Waterloo; your
Rough Riders of San Juan Hill, your Black Watch, your Bashi-Bazouks;
your Bersaglieri. Give me the New York police!
Up to now McCarthy had been only a New York policeman, telling in a dry
way the facts of a case. But a new dignity arose in him of a sudden.
He was no longer dealing with the processes of his profession but with
big human phenomena. Until now he had been deferential to court and
officers, a cog in the legal machine. Suddenly he assumed
individuality, poise, dignity. He became bigger than the personnel of
the case, as big as the woman in the dock. And curiously his language
changed to fit the newer individuality, turning from the idioms of the
sidewalks of New York to what we term, in that archaic phrase which has
so much of dignity, the King's English.
"I came to," he resumed. "At first it was blackness and a terrible
headache, and the thought in my brain: 'Where is Janssen? I've lost
Janssen.' And then my head cleared, and my eyes opened. And I was
lying on the sand in the dawn, and Janssen was bathing my head.
"'So there you are!' I said.
"And then it struck me. Where 's the ship?
"I got up on my elbow and looked around. We were on a strand, with
trees behind us and a bay in front and the sun just coming up, bright
as a golden eagle. In front of us was a sort of bay where the water
was still and sparkling, like wine sparkles. And then I look out
further. And there 's a sort of wall of crags between the bay and the
sea, and on the other side of it the sea is pounding, pounding,
pounding, like a man crazy with anger. _Swish! Crash! Boom!_ And
then I notice pieces of timber, a bale, a piece of cloth in the lagoon.
"The schooner 's gone, I understand. There 's been a wreck.
"'Where are the rest?' I ask Janssen.
"'There are no rest.' She throws her arms out. 'Just you and I!'
"Then after a while I said: 'We 're in a pretty bad way
here--shipwrecked; without anything to eat; with a very small chance of
rescue. We 're up against it. There is n't even water.'
"But she only laughed.
"'We 're not so bad as you 'd think,' she says. 'There 's water. I
found it when I looked for something to bathe that cut on your head.
And as for food, I 'd been in these islands a while before they put me
in the--place--at Papeete. There 's bananas, and there 's cocoanuts,
and there 's breadfruit. And that cove is full of fish.'
"'You can't eat fish raw,' I tell her.
"I 'm turning out my pockets then, leaving things in the sun to dry--my
gun, with the shells out in a row; my watch; my knife; my pocketbook.
She points at the watch.
"'You can make a fire with the crystal of that,' she says. 'Your