Part 2 (1/2)

Yet when she came up the companionway after breakfast, she found a stout rope stretched across the deck from stanchion to stanchion to hold on by, the steamer chairs all tied fast to the rail that runs around the deckhouse, and every preparation made for rough weather.

It was not what a sailor would have called a storm, but the sea was changed enough from the smiling calm of yesterday. Not many pa.s.sengers were on deck, half a dozen, only, reclining in their chairs in the lee of the deckhouse, close reefed in their heavy wraps; while here and there a pair of indefatigable promenaders lurched and slid along the heaving deck arm in arm, or clung to any chance support in a desperate effort to keep their footing.

Blythe had to buffet her way l.u.s.tily as she turned a corner to windward. Holding her golf-cape close about her and jamming her felt hat well down on her head, she made her way to the narrow pa.s.sageway forward of the wheel-house where one looks down into the steerage. The waves were das.h.i.+ng across the deck, which was deserted excepting for one or two dark-browed men crouched under shelter of the forecastle.

There was a light, drizzling rain, and now and then the spray struck against her face. Blythe looked up at the ”crow's nest,” which was describing strange geometrical figures against the sky. The lookouts in their oil-coats did not seem in the least to mind their erratic pa.s.sage through s.p.a.ce. She wished it were eight-bells and time for them to change watch; it was always such fun to see them running up the ladder, hand over hand, their quick, monkey-like figures silhouetted against the sky.

How n.o.bly the great s.h.i.+p forged ahead against an angry sea, climbing now to the crest of a big wave, and giving a long, shuddering shake of determination before plunging down into a black, swirling hollow!

And how the wind and the waters bellowed together!

The Captain was on the bridge in his rubber coat and sou'-wester. He had said this would not last long, and he had stopped for a second cup of coffee before leaving the table. All the same, Blythe would not have ventured to accost him now, even if he had pa.s.sed her way.

Presently she returned under shelter of the awning and let Gustav tuck her up in her chair to dry off. And Mr. DeWitt came and sat down beside her and instructed her in the delectable game of ”Buried Cities,” in which she became speedily so proficient that, taking her cue from the lettering on one of the lifeboats, she discovered the city of Bremen lying ”buried” in ”the som_bre men_ace of the sea!”

After a while, Gustav appeared before them, bearing a huge tray of _bouillon_ and sandwiches, with which he was striking the most eccentric angles; and Blythe discovered that she was preposterously hungry. And while her nose was still buried in her cup, she espied over its rim a pair of legs planted well apart, in the cause of equilibrium, and the big, pleasant voice of Mr. Grey made itself heard above wind and sea, saying, ”Guess where I've been.”

”In the smoking-room,” was the prompt reply.

”Guess again.”

”On the bridge,--only you wouldn't dare!”

”Once more.”

”Oh, I know,” Blythe cried, setting her thick cup down on the deck, and tumbling off her chair in a snarl of steamer-rugs; ”You've been down in the steerage finding out about the little Signorina!”

”Who told you?”

”You did! You looked so pleased with yourself! Oh, do tell me all about her!”

”Well, I've had a long talk with the woman. Shall we walk up and down?”

And off they went, with that absence of ceremony which characterises life on s.h.i.+pboard, leaving Mr. DeWitt to bury his cities all unaided and unapplauded. Then, as the two walked up and down,--literally up and down, for the s.h.i.+p was pitching a bit, and sometimes they were labouring up-hill, and sometimes they were running down a steep incline,--as they walked up and down Mr. Grey told his story.

The woman, Giuditta, had confided to him all she knew, and he had surmised more. Giuditta had known the family only since the time, three years ago, when she had been called in to take care of the little Cecilia during the illness of the Signora. The father had been a handsome good-for-nothing, who had got shot in a street row in that quarter of New York known as ”Little Italy.” He was nothing,--_niente_, _niente_;--but the Signora! Oh, if the gentleman could but have known the Signora, so beautiful, so patient, so sad!

Giuditta had stayed with her and shared her fortunes, which were all, alas! misfortunes,--and had nursed her through a long decline. But never a word had she told of her own origin,--the beautiful Signora,--nor had her father's name ever pa.s.sed her lips.

Had she known that she was dying, perhaps then, for the child's sake, she might have forgotten her pride. But she was always thinking she should get well,--and then, one day, she died!

There was very little left,--only a few dollars; but among the squalid properties of the pitiful little stage where the poor young thing had enacted the last act of her tragedy, was one picture, a _Madonna_, with the painter's name, G. Bellini, just decipherable. It was a little picture, twelve inches by sixteen, in a dingy old frame, and not a pretty picture at that. But a kind man, a dealer in antiquities, had given Giuditta one hundred dollars for it. ”Think of that, Signore! One hundred dollars for an ugly little black picture no bigger than that!”

”I suppose,” Mr. Grey remarked, as they stood balancing themselves at an angle of many degrees,--”I suppose that the picture was genuine,--else the man would hardly have paid one hundred dollars for it.”

”And would it be worth more than that?”

”A trifle,” he replied, rather grimly. ”Somewhere among the thousands.”

”But why should they have kept such a picture when they were so poor?

Why didn't they sell it?”

”That would hardly have occurred to them. It was evidently a family heirloom that the girl had taken with her because she loved it. I doubt if she guessed its value. A Bellini! A Giovanni Bellini, in a New York tenement house! Think of it! And now I suppose some millionaire has got it. Likely enough somebody who doesn't know enough to buy his own pictures! Horrible idea! Horrible!” and Mr. Grey strode along, all but snorting with rage at the thought.